Kill the Mother!

by Michael Mallory

  Knowing what I now know, I couldn’t really argue.

  “She’s now looking at an assault charge on top of everything else,” Colfax finished.

  And Detective Mendoza was looking at a solid week of standing in the shallow end of a swimming pool, learning to walk again. I only wish I could have been there to see the fight.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Officially the murders of Nora Frost, Elena Cates, and Eric and Ryan Frost were solved, with Marcella DeBanzi being charged directly for the latter two, and as an accomplice for the first two. There was much more information about the case to come out, and Detective Colfax was good enough to keep me in the loop. After fingerprinting Marcy, against which she fought so violently that she had to be restrained, the secret she had been guarding quickly came to light. Marcella DeBanzi was really Beverly Lynn Marshall, who in 2001 had been arrested for driving a car over her ex-husband in Las Vegas and killing him. She escaped that rap by eluding the police, disappearing, and changing her identity. When Nora’s private bloodhound rediscovered her, Marcy/Beverly panicked at first, but Nora was able to lull her into a false sense of security, even telling her that she admired her style for offing her ex. She assured her that the investigator who found her was “part of the team” and his continued silence had been bought and paid for with money and sex, but that was only as long as Marcy stayed in line.

  The most unexpected result of the case was that it shined a light on the operations of Pacific Investigations, which sent nervous ripples all through the Hollywood Hills. Alexander McCarthar found himself facing charges of obstruction of justice for not reporting to the authorities that his operatives had found Beverly Marshall. In addition, the DA was publicly threatening to launch an investigation into the firm itself. The word on the street was that all of Beverly Hills, Bel Air, and Mulholland Drive were alive with the sound of celebrities shredding their contracts with PI.

  Because of the sheer bizarreness of the circumstances, the case was working itself into yet another trial-of-the-century, due in no small part to how photogenic the woman I knew as Marcella DeBanzi was on television. Eventually the courts would find out how good an actress she was, too, which was only one of the reasons I was dreading being called in the eventual trial as the lead witness for the prosecution. Marcy had managed to lure the services of a high-powered celebrity feminist attorney, who specialized in taking headline-generating cases, so I assumed that she was already planning on how to try and rend me into little tiny Y-chromosome fragments. It was not impossible that Marcy would get off lightly, if not scot-free. This was after all Los Angeles, where more murderers freely walked the streets than streetwalkers. But even if they didn’t hang her pretty neck, I wouldn’t be there waiting for her.

  Another mini-scandal connected to the case arose when it was revealed that Terrence Holving, the talent coordinator for Max Gelfan Productions, had been moonlighting as a casting director for the porn industry, sometimes using the people he found in contestant auditions in the skin flicks. Holving, it turned out, was the one who had gotten the Frost twins into No Cuntry for Old Men, and a couple other triple-X epics that I had the good fortune not to see. Having discovered that the boys were legal adults, Holving knew he would not be breaking the law by putting them in sex scenes. The twins were all for it, at least in spirit, since the medical condition that hindered their development also affected their sexual capabilities. But when Janelle Wynn—another of Holving’s porn discoveries—kept bringing the twins for legit auditions because Nora was paying her to do so, it irritated Holving, who wanted to develop the boys exclusively as porn stars. Poor Elena Cates had nothing to do with the twins’ involvement in porn; in fact, all available evidence confirmed that she really did believe the boys were adolescents. She truly was collateral damage.

  Even though Holving had broken no actual laws by putting two young-looking twenty-four-year-olds in porno, the head of Max Gelfan Productions took a very dim view of the negative publicity the revelation generated, and fired him. It did not take a private investigator to figure out that Janelle was the one who ratted Holving out to both the production company and the press.

  The hardest thing I had to encounter in the aftermath of the case was accompanying Alan Kleinbach to the San Gabriel Valley Private Hospital. He had managed to get himself as clean, neat and trimmed as possible, but as I watched him look at his emaciated, vegetative sons, who were hooked up to a variety of machines, I saw him die right in front of me. After a brief consultation with a doctor, Alan signed a paper to remove the feeding tubes, and then went out into the lobby of the hospital and broke down so completely that he had to be rushed back inside and sedated. I waited several hours for him, and once he had been released, took him back to his apartment, promising to stay in touch.

  Robert and Richard Kleinbach died four agonizing days later, prompting a new burst of publicity for the trial. If there really is an afterlife, I hope those boys are getting the best of everything, because they sure got raw deals down here.

  On the positive side, the publicity regarding my participation in the Frost case resulted in an increased workload for me, to the point where I was actually turning down cases and thinking of bringing in a partner. The thought had crossed my mind that Jack Daniels might be a good candidate. All he had to do was take some classes, and he could get his own license, or operate under mine. Maybe I’d call him about it sometime.

  The other byproduct was that, for whatever reason, the Hollywood Golden Age Chorus had started to ebb away. They weren’t gone entirely, but Bogie, Mitch, Bill Powell, W.C. and the gang were not chiming in anywhere’s near as frequently. Could it be that my confidence in myself as an investigator had grown to the point where I didn’t need the help?

  You should be so lucky, Mitchum’s voice said; but then, I had asked for that one.

  On this particular day I was finishing up with a missing person case—the person in question turned out to have two families, and had decided to spend some quality time with the other one—when the phone rang. It was Mac from Edendale Video and Poster.

  “Hey, Dave, according to the papers you’re coming up in the world,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Mac. What’s up?”

  “Well, I’ve been following the accounts of this case you were on, the one with the twins, and I read that they were really in their twenties.”

  “That right.”

  “So those films they were in, the Triex things, those aren’t illegal anymore.”

  “Right again.”

  “So because I destroyed my copy of No Cuntry for Old Men on your instruction, and gave the other to you, I figure you owe me $75.10 in replacement costs. If you still have yours, return it and I’ll drop the amount down to $37.55.”

  Did I still have it? I’d have to check the fridge later. “Just put it on my tab, Mac,” I said. “I’ll settle up next time I’m in.” I hung up, actually somewhat relieved that there were some aspects of my life that had not changed. Maybe I’d even stop by on the way home today and see what he and Bonn were up to.

  I was contemplating closing up the office a little bit early so as to allow more time to swing by Edendale, when the tomato walked into my office. She was some tomato, too: red, round, and ripe. And underneath was a young woman: tall and dark-haired, with sultry Latin looks and great, shapely gams encased in dark green hose, which she wore under the huge, red tomato costume. I don’t know how she squeezed through the door.

  “Are you Dave Beauchamp?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. I like getting the easy questions out of the way quickly.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  She stepped closer and I could see that the tomato outfit was made of shiny fabric stretched over a wire frame. Up close it looked a little cheesy, but from even a short distance, like from my desk to the door, it was pretty effective. “Can you sit down in that thing, Miss…?”

  “Luisa Sandoval, and no, I can’t sit
down. I barely made it up the stairs. I’m on my lunch break and have to get back soon, so I don’t have time to take it off, either.”

  “Would you think me rude if I asked why you’re dressed like a tomato?”

  “I’m helping to promote the grand opening of a new Burger Heaven down the street.”

  “Oh, right, I remember seeing the signs.”

  “There are several of us working out on the street, waving to people and handing out coupons,” she said. “One guy’s dressed like a patty, another is a bun, another one an onion, you get the idea. But this tomato suit is really just a cover.”

  You mean you’re really a pickle? Lou Costello’s voice said in my head. I ignored it. “Cover for what?”

  “I’m a reporter with the L.A. Independent Journal,” she said. “I’ve been working undercover investigating the Burger Heaven chain, but I’m afraid they’re on to me. I think I’m going to need professional help, or at least advice.”

  “I see. Why exactly are you investigating them?”

  She came close enough that her round, red sides scrunched into the edge of my desk. “Mr. Beauchamp, you’re not going to believe what they’re putting in their so-called beef.”

  This wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to hear, given my devotion to Burger Heaven. But how could I refuse a hot tomato when she asks for help. “All right, Ms. Sandoval—”

  “You can call me Luisa,” she said. “Or Louie, which is what my friends call me.” Then she smiled.

  She had dimples. And a perfect smile.

  I felt my pulse throbbing in my temples.

  Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Bogart said inside my head.

  I hoped he was right.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Michael Mallory is a short story writer, novelist, journalist, and occasional actor. He lives in the Greater Los Angeles area. You can visit him at:

  www.michaelmallory.com