“What do you want?” he asked, making it a challenge.
“I want to know what you’re trying to pull, Sal. This letter I got from your attorney is a real treat. Who is he, anyway, your brother-in-law?”
“Nah.” The ugly cigar twitched in lieu of a smile as he rinsed his mop in a bucket and slapped it back onto the floor. “The shyster’s my cousin.”
“What did he tell you? TV studios have all that money, and he was going to get you some?”
“It was worth a shot.” He did not seem at all embarrassed. “I was expecting F. Lee Bailey to come by, not you.”
“I’m all that’s coming. The legal department got a good laugh out of your caper. For that, they thank you.”
“Entertainment’s my game.”
“Hope you’re as happy when your cousin sends you his bill.”
At that, he did not smile. Sal squeezed out his mop and propped it against the back wall. Then he rolled the bucket out the back door and dumped out the dirty water on the lot.
I followed him out, shielding my eyes against the brightness after the dimly lit kitchen.
He wiped his hands on his towel apron and leveled his gaze on my chest. “You came all the way down here to tell me what?”
“Just want to make sure your feelings aren’t hurt, Sal. Maybe you thought you were going to be a star, and now the dream’s gone.”
“Uh-huh.” He turned the bucket upside down next to the door. “That smart mouth can get you in trouble, sweetheart. I got work to do. What do you want?”
“I want to talk about Michelle.”
“What’s to say? It’s too bad, but the surprise is it didn’t happen to her a long time ago. Michelle’s the type, she’s never satisfied. Know what I mean? She’s always pushing the envelope. She starts dancing, next thing, she thinks she needs to own a club. Turns a trick, wants to run a call-girl service. Gets hooked on H, and she’s looking at fucking real estate in Colombia. She can’t hardly feed herself, but she thinks someday she’s gonna run the whole damn farm. People like that? I stay away.”
“Why?”
“There are rules.” He sat down on the overturned bucket. “The things Michelle was nosing in to, it don’t make sense not to follow the rules.”
“You’re talking about rules set by pimps and pushers and mob-connected club owners?”
He stabbed a finger up toward me. “Don’t say mob to me. I got nothing to do with no mob. Every guy with a wop last name ain’t into the mob.”
“Every guy who owns a club isn’t you, either. Michelle said something to me about wanting to open a club. How far did she get with it?”
“Nowhere. She hooked up with this cop—he’d put up the money and she’d front for him. That was the deal. But they wasn’t going nowhere. He was a class-A drunk, but his real problem was the ponies. Gambling locks into a guy worse than booze—I won’t never place a bet on nothing. The two of them put together some earnest money, but he couldn’t keep it in his pocket long enough to sign a deal.”
“Are you talking about Barry Ridgeway?” I asked.
“Yeah. Ridgeway. I hear he’s around again. You want to talk about the mob? Talk to Barry. Word I get is he borrowed from some Vegas connection to make his down payment on a place up by the airport, and lost it on a long shot at Hollywood Park.”
“When?”
He shrugged elaborately as he struggled back to his feet. “I don’t know dates. Barry got sent up for DUI. It was before that. Ask him.”
“I will.”
He pushed the bucket against the wall. “Look, I’ll see you around, okay? I got work to do.”
“Thanks for talking to me.”
“I figured you had your money’s worth coming.” He unplugged the cigar stump and flicked it into water running toward the gutter. “Just don’t tell my cousin I said so.”
“No problem,” I said. I almost liked the little troll. “One more thing. Was Michelle still working for you when she partnered with Ridgeway?”
“Yeah.” He looked as if he’d sucked on something bitter. “I bounced her ass when the Vegas boys came into my club looking for their first payment from her. I don’t want the mob nowhere near my place. It ain’t good for business.”
That was Sal’s parting bit of wisdom.
My mother called just as I walked into my studio office. She sounded more cheerful than she had for a very long time.
“Emily has attracted a lovely demonstration this time, Mar-got.” Mother is the only person who ever uses my given name. “The usual fringe element of right-to-lifers called the press and is out there praying. But no one is paying the least bit of attention to them. It’s the others who have turned this into an event. I’ve decided to go into business. I’ll buy an hour on public-access cable and sell segments of it to people who have a message to deliver. My first guest will be the man who’s out front right now carrying a placard proclaiming that Emily was stolen by aliens years ago. When I spoke with him, he told me all the fuss was merely preparing the public for her reentry.”
“You spoke with him?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Mother laughed. She asked, “Are you staying over Friday night, and is Mike coming?”
“If I stay over, I’ll stay with Lyle at my house. I need to see how much damage the tenants did. And I don’t know about Mike.”
We said good-bye.
Guido came in, put a single rose in my hand, and kissed my cheek.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
“I love you. You’re my best friend in the world, and yesterday I acted like a jerk to you not once, but twice. I shouldn’t have let you hang up. I should have called you back. I should have come over.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” I said. “You were occupied. Besides, I haven’t been much fun to be around lately.”
“Did Mike get home okay?” he asked.
“He got home.”
“Maggie, honey, things aren’t going so great for you guys, are they?”
“When we’re together, we’re perfect.” I didn’t want to talk about it with Guido. I put the rose into my empty coffee cup and smiled at him. “What did you do to Fergie? I need her.”
He grinned. “You want a play-by-play?”
“No. I want Fergie.”
“We overslept. She’s on her way.” If a man can purr like a cat, Guido was purring.
I said, “We have a full schedule of in-studio interviews booked today. Are you with me?”
He bowed. “I’m yours.”
We went downstairs to our assigned soundstage. The vast area had been divided into three sets: a living room complete with silk flowers and a paint-and-canvas garden outside the false window, a stark police interrogation room, and a graffiti-covered wall. Interviewees were to be placed in the set that most closely defined their background. I had fought long and hard with Lana for a plain blue backdrop, and I had lost.
Long ago, I slipped away from the bonds of just-the-facts-ma’am journalism. Documentaries have a point of view about a subject; that’s their reason for being. But offering opinion is still a long, long way from the gross story manipulation that occurs when actors interpret scenes and pretend they are showing real events. My first glance at the sets Lana had ordered made me feel I was headed on a downhill slope toward scripts and actors.
Jack arrived, poured himself coffee, and walked over to me.
“How’s it going, Jack?” I said.
“Great.”
“Great? I don’t see much of you and you don’t ask a lot of questions. Are you getting what you need for your article?”
“Oh, sure.”
I asked him, “What is the focus of your article?”
“Haven’t found it yet. But I will. I usually just hang out, and it comes to me.”
“How long have you been a journalist?”
Again he shrugged. “I covered a couple of your sister’s peace marches.”
“A long time,” I said. I took him into the control
booth and introduced him to the staff and hoped they would keep him busy.
The first interview was with Otis Furlong, the cousin of the man who rented the SLA the shack on Eighty-fourth Street. The landlord wanted nothing to do with me, but Otis had been more than willing.
Otis had put some thought into his attire. He had even called to find out what the requirements were. I told him, “Stay away from bright white and diagonal weaves or prints. I recommend solid primary colors.”
He wore denim overalls over a black T-shirt, a basball cap over his jheri curls. I asked Otis which of the sets he preferred, and he chose the graffiti wall. We sat side by side on tall stools.
I asked him, “Did you meet the six people who moved into your cousin’s house in May of 1974?”
“Oh, sure,” he said, assertive about it. “I see them that very next day after they move in. My cousin say, ‘Hey, Otis, let’s go over there and talk to those crazy people move into my place. You never see so many guns. Let’s get some weed from them.’”
MAGGIE: Did you see guns?
OTIS: Yes I did. At first, I thought they was toys guns, they was so many. But this crazy white dude, he tells me, “Go on and pick it up. It’s the finest money can buy.” Later I see the dude’s picture in the newspaper. By then, he wasn’t nothin’ but ashes and a belt buckle.
MAGGIE: Was that Willy Wolfe?
OTIS (only shrugs): We go inside there that first time, and the big dude, the one call hisself Cinque, he pushes up this scrawny white chick to us and he say, “You know who this is? This is Tania.” Now, we see the girl’s pictures all over the TV from some bank robbery or other. That little thing he was pushing on us didn’t look nothin’ like the real girl, and my cousin? He say so. He say, “Her hair’s too short.” So Cinque, he tells the girl, “Go put on your wig.” Then we see right off, it’s the same one. The one was kidnapped.
MAGGIE: Patricia Hearst?
OTIS: That’s the one.
MAGGIE: Did you see what went on in that house?
OTIS: I hear more than I see. It wasn’t but a real small little place. They was inside there all day, running around with their guns up, like boot camp or something.
MAGGIE: Did they have visitors?
OTIS: Some, mostly at night. No one stay very long because those people talk so crazy all the time, naggin’ all the time like some cemetery plot salesman on commission. Only what they sellin’ is the revolution that’s comin’ and how they’re only part of this great big army and we better join up. But I say, so if you’re so big-time, how come you livin’ in a house ain’t even got no lights, got no telephone?
MAGGIE: What did they say?
OTIS: Nothin’ but nonsense.
MAGGIE: Death to the Fascist insect?
OTIS:ons (laughing): Like that.
MAGGIE: Did anyone ever mention Officer Roy Frady?
OTIS: I know the gentleman. I know when he die, and all. His people come askin’ me questions, but I don’t have nothin’ much to tell them. Except what Cinque tell me one night I go over there to get me some weed.
MAGGIE: What did he tell you?
OTIS: He arguin’ with a couple of them. They all been drinkin’ all day long, smokin’ weed. Look like they been dukin’ it out some. He come over to me—he’s a big dude, too—gets in my face, and he say, “It ain’t no crime to kill the pig.”
Otis was happy with his performance. Jack had been hanging around behind the cameramen during the interview. When the lights went down and Otis had his mike unclipped, the two of them went off toward the soda machine together.
I had time to powder the glow off my face and get some water before Mary Helen Frady was brought to me.
Mary Helen came dressed in a bright pink flowered skirt and jacket. I thought that filming her in her Japanese garden in Lakewood would be more interesting, but she wanted to see the studio. The garden would probably have been cut, anyway.
Mary Helen was seated in the living room set and a mike was clipped to her collar. We spoke for over an hour on camera, no new information, but new insights into the life Roy Frady had turned his back on.
Toward the middle of the second hour, I found myself watching the clock. Fergie, who should have known better, had scheduled Frady’s last girlfriend, JoAnn Chin, right after Mary Helen.
People frequently show up early and hang around late out of curiosity because they are intrigued by the Hollywood trappings and are so happy about getting their allotted fifteen minutes of fame—even if it turns out to be fifteen seconds in the finished film. Most of them have never been around a studio or a filming site. Their excitement is fun to have around, so I don’t mind quiet spectators. My concern was that Mary Helen’s presence would inhibit JoAnn.
Twenty minutes before JoAnn was expected, I wrapped up Mary Helen’s interview and collared an intern to take her on a tour.
Twenty minutes after JoAnn was expected, I began to worry. I was on the telephone, hoping she would answer, when Mike walked in.
He caught me off guard. I felt a hot rush I couldn’t sort out—dread, anger, relief in equal parts.
Mike had dressed carefully in a crisp dress shirt and a red silk tie with a perfect knot, and pressed slacks; his suit coat was slung over his shoulder. All the nice clothes, even his fresh shave, couldn’t cover the ravages of what had to be a bodacious hangover.
I waited for JoAnn’s machine to kick on, and left a message to call. A long message, while Mike waited, leaning against a far wall.
I walked over to Fergie and went through a checklist with her, viewed a bit of the Mary Helen tape with Guido, talked to Holly, the new gaffer—none of it was necessary, all of it was stalling the inevitable encounter.
Mike shifted his coat to his other hand as if it weighed tons, and wiped his brow. I decided he had suffered nearly enough and walked over to him.
“Good morning,” I said. “You survive.”
He looked absolutely miserable. “Can we go somewhere?”
“Bad time. You can see we’re in the middle of shooting. You just missed Mary Helen. If you stay around, you’ll catch both JoAnn Chin and Barry Ridgeway.”
“I’ll pass.” He tossed his coat over the back of a canvas chair. “Guido bawled me out this morning. You’re really mad, aren’t you?”
“Should I be?”
“The Olga thing was just good old boys fooling around. You know how we are.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You could have stayed with me at the academy last night.” He was still defensive, but getting over it. “I asked you to.”
“Are you suggesting that the mischief you got into is my fault because I declined to chaperon you?”
“No.” He winced. “I don’t want to argue. My head hurts.”
“I don’t want to argue, either.”
“But?”
“No buts. Did I ever tell you how I left my husband when he cheated on me?”
“You think I cheated on you?” He was aghast. “It was a stupid joke.”
“Stupid and cruel. I don’t understand the kick you and your good old boys get out of trying to make me feel jealous.”
“I don’t do that.” Righteously indignant.
I walked out of the soundstage and down the hall to the elevator because I didn’t want to cry. Not in front of Mike, and not in front of my crew.
He followed me, looking as miserable as I felt. “Maybe I do that,” he said. I heard this as an apology. But I wasn’t ready to accept it.
I went down to the security office on the first floor and asked Tommy for the grocery bag I had checked with the night man.
Mike, being Mike, took the bag to carry for me. And Mike, being Mike, peeked inside. His pallor colored. “What the hell?”
“Hector’s guns.”
“How’d you get them?”
“I went over to Hector’s yesterday after the funeral to retrieve the Frady project tapes Guido had given him,” I said. “What’s the manager’s name, Sarah or Sandr
a?”
“Brooke. And you didn’t go over there for your tapes. You went over there to snoop.”
“Mike, someone looted Hector’s apartment during the funeral. Cleaned out his good clothes, took his new furniture and his computer.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Yesterday afternoon?” I opened my office door and held it for him. “What would you have done?”
“Did you at least call the police?”
“That’s Brooke’s job. I took the guns because I thought they shouldn’t be left lying around. Anyone could have taken them.”
“Obviously.” He pulled out the gun cases and laid them on my cluttered desk. “The cases are locked. Did you think to take the keys?”
“I drove over there because something about Hector’s murder bothers me.”
“Yeah?” He scowled. “Something bothers me, too. It’s this: Hector’s dead.”
“But the picture is all wrong, Mike. Gloria and some other people were with Hector Sunday afternoon. You’re a cop. If someone came and asked your friend to go talk her son out of killing himself, would you say, go ahead, I’ll wait here, keep your beer chilled till you get back? Any cop would go up right behind him. So would any nosy friend.”
“I didn’t know Gloria was there.”
“I don’t know if she was there at that exact time. But Brooke said Hector had friends over. You told me the Santa Monica PD report said he had just come up from the beach with some friends. And he was unarmed. The mother said there was no gun in her apartment.”
Mike groaned. “I need caffeine.” He dropped down onto the sofa and covered his eyes with his hand. I went down the hall and fetched two Cokes from the machine. During the two minutes I was gone, Mike didn’t move. I thought he might have gone to sleep. I opened the hand he had resting on his lap and put the cold can into it.
“Thanks,” he said, still unmoving. “Have any aspirin?”
He opened his eyes when he heard the aspirin rattling out of the bottle, swallowed four with soda, then held the cold can to his forehead. “I haven’t been thinking clearly the last few days. I didn’t like the investigation, but I held back because I thought … I don’t know what I thought.”
77th Street Requiem Page 16