The Twenty-Year Death

by Ariel S. Winter

  He laughed then, an open laugh that showed all of his teeth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Foster, it’s just that it doesn’t take a lot to make Chloë Rose nervous.”

  “Does she have reason to be?”

  “Do any of us have reason to be? Certainly. We all do. You do too. Everyone. But that doesn’t mean I am nervous. Are you?”

  “I’d appreciate an answer to my question still.”

  Greg tsked and uncrossed and recrossed his arms.

  Stark’s eyes went up, and he said, “No, I haven’t noticed anyone around the set that I would say didn’t belong there. I know that Chloë thinks there is someone, but she’s never pointed him out to me.”

  “So you think she’s making it up?”

  “She might be mistaken,” he said diplomatically. He took a deep breath and then said, “I have been threatened and I have been followed. The price of fame. But it doesn’t happen nearly as often as you’d think it might and it’s never as sinister as you fear. Chloë’s just skittish.”

  “You mean crazy.”

  “Actresses are their own animal,” he said. “May I ask why the studio has hired a private detective to protect Chloë instead of making use of someone already on staff?”

  “You’ll have to ask someone at the studio that, and if you get an answer, feel free to tell me.”

  “See, Greg,” Stark said, shooting out his hand toward the other man, “we’re all good friends.”

  Greg tried to bolster his gloomy disposition, but it didn’t look genuine.

  “Was there anything else, Mr. Foster? You just wanted to know if I had seen any shady characters? I feel like we’re in a movie.”

  “That’s it,” I said. “No one’s given me any more to go on.”

  “Why don’t you go ahead and meet Chloë, and then do what everyone in S.A. with brains does, take the studio’s money.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” I leaned forward and floated my card onto the table beside his drink. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again. I can show myself out.” I didn’t wait for either of them to move, just headed back into the house. Behind me, I could hear Greg’s higher-pitched voice begin to whine. Part of me wanted to frisk the house just on principle, but in a place that size no more than two or three of the rooms are personal, and it would take too long to find them. I went out to the car, and rolled down the drive without having to touch the gas.

  SIX

  At seven o’clock I was back at the Rosenkrantz place. The house at night looked much like the house during the day, only with enough lamps blazing to light the Queen Elizabeth. There were lights upstairs and lights downstairs. There were mushroom-shaped guide lights along the front walk and two high-powered spots for the front lawn. There was another spotlight shining from the roof onto the drive. If you intended to sneak up on the Rosenkrantzes, you didn’t want to do it dressed in burglar black.

  I took the front stairs this time. I had on my good suit, a navy blue so deep it looked black, with a pressed white shirt, a red-and-blue-striped tie, a red handkerchief, and freshly polished loafers. I’d had a shower and a shave. It was five minutes after seven. The front door opened before I rang. It was my friend from the afternoon, without the gun this time.

  “They let you in here too?” I said. “I didn’t know it was that kind of place.”

  He stepped back to let me pass. “Mr. Foster.”

  I went in and took off my hat. “I guess they only allow artillery at the servant’s entrance. It’s certainly more welcoming this way.”

  He closed the door. “This time Miss Rose let me know you were expected.” He hesitated a moment. “I’m sorry about...”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I like to have people point guns at me every once in a while. Reminds me I’m still alive.”

  He gave a slight nod, and vanished through the archway on the left without a word.

  The front hall was open to the second floor ceiling, where a tarnished bronze chandelier cast just enough light to make the space gloomy. The front door was set between twin staircases that led up to a catwalk hallway. There were three doors on the catwalk along with the French doors directly overhead that opened to the upstairs patio. The floor was largely covered with overlapping Persian rugs that bore the marks of foot traffic from each of the stairwells to the squared arches off to the left and right. Here and there rich maroon tiles could be seen where the floor was exposed. Two large breakfronts at the back of the hall were stuffed with books and porcelain dolls.

  The sound of men laughing burst forth from one of the upstairs rooms. It was a frantic sound that suggested alcohol.

  The Mexican came back. “Miss Rose, she’s not feeling very well tonight.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “She won’t see you tonight.” He smiled. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Of course,” I said. “We all serve at her pleasure.” I started to fit my hat back on my head when a telephone rang with extensions in several of the rooms. The Mexican and I stared at each other in the silence only a ringing telephone can create. Then he said, “Excuse me,” and went back through the archway from which he had come.

  The noise stopped, and then Shem Rosenkrantz stumbled out of one of the upstairs rooms calling “Clotilde....” He was in his shirtsleeves with black suspenders holding up pants that sagged in the middle. His face was red from drinking too much and his nose was covered with broken blood vessels from drinking too often. His straw hair was parted down the center. He looked like a stereotype of the great American author, which is what he was. “Clotilde...It’s that man again about your damn horse!” He saw me then and stopped. “Who the hell are you?”

  I tipped my hat. “Just one of the hired help.”

  “Well tell my wife to answer the damn phone,” and he headed back into the room.

  I thought about that for a moment and decided Rosenkrantz’s order overrode the Mexican’s plea of Chloë Rose’s frailty. I followed where the servant had gone and was in the dining room when I heard him say in some further-off room, “The telephone, miss.” I stopped, and her voice said something I couldn’t make out. I looked around the room. There was a phone extension on the sideboard. I went to the phone and picked it up, covering the mouthpiece with my hand.

  “I’ve told you before,” Chloë Rose said, “Constant Comfort is not for sale.”

  I grabbed a pencil by the phone and scrawled “Constant Comfort” on the top sheet of the notepad lying beneath it.

  “He’ll give you three horses in trade, good horses, and he said that you can renegotiate your contract.”

  “I don’t care what he said, he should have the decency to call me himself. And the answer is no, you little,” she hesitated to think and then spat, “pissant.”

  “Hold on, Miss Rose, we’re all working for the same guy.”

  “That’s right, working for him, not owned by him. Good evening.”

  The phone rang off, although I could still hear the man breathing. He could probably hear me. I gently replaced the receiver on the base, tore the top sheet off the pad and pocketed it, and then walked casually out of the room into the front hall. A minute later, the Mexican emerged as well from where he had no doubt had to hold the phone for the ailing Chloë Rose so the weight wouldn’t strain her. “Nice place,” I said, looking up with my hands in my pockets as though I were admiring the moldings. “Some real nice pieces in there,” indicating the other archway with my head, cool and convincing as a long-nosed dummy. “Well, I’ll be in my car down the street if I’m needed,” and I took the main entrance before he could respond.

  I walked the mushroom-lighted path to the street, and then down the middle of the street to my car. It was almost as hot outside as it had been at noon. A perfect night for car sitting, if you were cold-blooded. I got in behind the steering wheel and rolled down the windows on both sides. I thought about breaking the first rule of a nighttime stakeout and lighting a cigarette and decided that it didn’t matter if I got
spotted. The whole job was cockeyed already. A stakeout and follow job required two people for it to be done properly. And I hadn’t even been granted access to my client, Knox’s assurances notwithstanding. The only way those two facts added up to something that made sense was if I really was just here for show, a piece of set decoration, and not a very necessary one either. This case already had a mystery man on the set, a mystery man on the phone, the mystery man that the man on the phone was bargaining for, the mystery man who was drinking and laughing with Shem Rosenkrantz upstairs. I was one too many. I felt like I had come to the party late and got seated at the wrong table.

  I took out a match and lit it on my thumbnail the first time. I took a drag of my cigarette and watched the tip glow orange. I thought about the phone call. I didn’t know what to make of it or even if there was anything to make of it. It was your regular strong-arm phone call. All of the up-to-date movie stars got them. They found it invigorating.

  I smoked and watched as one by one the inside lights went out in each of the houses on the block. The outdoor lighting gave the neighborhood an ominous look. At nine, the Mexican came out and walked towards Montgomery. He would catch the Number 3 bus on Sommerset to go home. At 11:30, a police cruiser came around, right on time. It pulled up alongside me and I had to get out my license and laugh at a few corny jokes before they went away. I must have lit at least three more cigarettes, but I wasn’t counting. My mouth felt like cotton. I wouldn’t have turned down a drink.

  Eventually the lights downstairs went out. The front hallway chandelier went next. I waited for the upstairs rooms. If there had been two people laughing when I first came in, and I thought there had been, then someone should be ready to come out just about now, or they had a houseguest that I should have known about. That was if there had been two voices. It could have been the radio.

  A car started at the back of the house. I could make out the taillights through the next-door neighbors’ hedge as it backed out down the drive. It wasn’t the LaSalle I had seen earlier; this was a tan Buick sedan. It pulled out into the street facing me, which gave me a clear view of the driver: Shem Rosenkrantz, his face bloated and sour with drink. Someone was sitting in the passenger seat next to him and when the car passed under a streetlight, I caught the passenger full in the face: Hub Gilplaine. That was Hub Gilplaine the nightclub owner, casino operator, and publisher of pornographic books—the sort with more words than pictures, if that made any difference. I knew him by sight on account of how often he got his picture in the paper for donating to one charity or another. He sat tense and upright, his face pinched, clearly worried for his safety with Rosenkrantz at the wheel, and with good reason.

  The glare of the Buick’s headlights brightened my windows as the sound of their motor went by and then darkness and the engine draining away. I looked behind me in time to see them turn left at the next block. It would take them out of the development to one of the major arteries, Woodsheer or Sommerset. I looked at the house, and saw each of the upstairs windows go dark. Chloë Rose was in for the night. But Shem Rosenkrantz was out with a known pornographer. And he was in no condition to drive. Some concerned citizen had to make sure they were safe. I started my car and swung around in a wide U-turn.

  SEVEN

  I caught up with them just as they turned east on Woodsheer. The boulevard was busy enough, even at that hour, for me to keep a car between us at all times. They took Woodsheer out of the quiet prestige of the Hills and into the glut of traffic that was the Mile. As the traffic lights coyly winked, Rosenkrantz drove in fits and jerks, enough to make the most stoic traffic cop swallow his whistle. The retail stores were closed, but people weren’t out in the middle of the night to do any shopping. At least not the sort of shopping done in a store. Women in sheer satin blouses and once sensible skirts now covered with spangles strolled alongside men with loud patterned suits and wide-brimmed hats on their way from the fights or to the club or just on their way. These pedestrians had no regard for the traffic, which provided Rosenkrantz several opportunities to turn my knuckles white on the steering wheel.

  We managed to reach the comparative safety of Los Bolcanes without incident, and from there we drove all the way out to Aceveda-Route 6. Route 6 took us north, out of San Angelo, into the San Gabriel Mountains. I knew then we were on our way to Arcucia, but I let them lead the way. Hub Gilplaine had a club in Hollywood for all of the movie people to be seen in called The Tip. There were waiters in tuxedoes and a fountain in the middle of the dance floor, and five-course meals, and a mixed jazz band to add a little spice. It made a nice background for when you had your picture taken. But if you wanted a real good time you went to his other operation, The Carrot-Top Club, a casino out in Arcucia, not far from the Santa Theresa racetrack. Players could lose some money at one and then go lose some more at the other.

  Rosenkrantz drove on and so did I. It was cooler in the mountains. The road was cut through or dangled over the peaks and rises of the landscape. As the suburbs petered out, larger houses appeared, perched on large parcels of land to either side of the road. We passed a field of cows huddling together in a tight group that shifted in trips of unsteady hooves. There was an orchard that must have been apple trees since this wasn’t good land for oranges, and then some more animals roaming free behind a wooden fence. It was impossible to hide in country like that. I tried to leave half a mile between us, but that was just for show, I knew they knew I was there. But it was a public road. I had a right to ride on it. I was just another customer.

  After several empty miles, the road curved around an outgrowth of rock and suddenly a smattering of lights could be seen in the valley below. These were the homes of the respectable citizens of Arcucia who had lobbied against the legalization of horse racing but who rolled over for Gilplaine once the track was built. Once you’ve let a little sin into your life, what’s the problem with a little more? The signs warned us to slow down and a moment later, evenly spaced bungalows with pebbled drives and postage stamp lawns lined the road. We sped through the ghost town that was the downtown district, then on to more residential spreads. These homes were a bit larger and set back from the road with woodland around them. There was an uninterrupted spate of trees, and then the Buick turned onto an unmarked back road whose entrance was no more than a gap in the forest, a black cavern out of Grimm.

  I followed. There was nothing but dark all around. The headlights of my car lit the road just far enough for me to see something before I hit it. I kept my eyes on the other car’s red taillights. Pockets of fog sat in the road’s depressions giving the feeling that the woods were closing in. There was a flash, and then a car coming the other direction squeaked by without slowing down. There might have been lights in the distance behind me. Why not? The Carrot-Top did good business.

  The Buick slowed and turned off at an angle onto another uneven dirt road. The impression of seclusion was damaged somewhat by the lights from the town now just visible through the woods. As remote as it felt, we were still in civilization. Of course, it had the trappings of exclusivity necessary to make the paying customers feel special. There was probably a secret password at the door. And men in funny hats. And every other word spoken would mean something other than what the word really meant—words like ‘tea’ and ‘horse.’ The cops would want it that way too. I had a feeling they weren’t going to like me.

  A clearing opened up where gravel had been put down and about thirty cars were parked in neat lines. I pulled into the first empty spot I saw, while the Buick drove up to the front door and Rosenkrantz and Gilplaine turned the car over to the valet. I waited for them to disappear through the front door before I got out of my car.

  The Carrot-Top Club had originally been built as the guest house of a mountain retreat for some new-money oil millionaire who lost the property when his money ran out. Gilplaine had gotten it cheap at auction. It was a two-story frontier home with unpainted cedar shingles and a slate roof. A canopied porch of wooden planks r
an the entire length of the front of the house with two rocking chairs still off to the side waiting for ma and pa. There were two windows to either side of the door and three more upstairs, all blocked by blackout curtains, which left the parking lot shrouded in night, except where the open front door cast a yellow carpet of light leading into the club.

  I arrived at the door just as the valet returned from parking the Buick. A dark-haired sharp in a tuxedo stopped me in the doorway and tapped my shoulder clip. “No guns.”

  “This? I just wear it out of habit. It’s like my wallet.”

  The tuxedo gave me a smile and held out his hand. “I’ll take good care of it for you.”

  “Like hell you will,” I said and walked away from the door. I peeled off my coat, unbuckled my shoulder holster, and tucked the whole thing under the passenger seat of my car. When I got back to the front door, neither the tuxedo nor the valet so much as looked at me as I entered.

  Inside, the whole first floor was one large open room about the size of a small ballroom, with exposed support beams and a stairway in the middle going up to the second floor. A mahogany bar lined one wall, its mirror doubling the four rows of liquor bottles. That part was all strictly legal now, although the bar was scuffed enough to suggest that it had been dependable through Prohibition too. The bar’s brass edges could have used a shine. That didn’t prevent half of the barstools from being filled with dark-suited men and women in cocktail dresses shouting over one another to be heard.

  The other side of the room was where the real action was. There were three blackjack stations, two craps tables, and a roulette wheel. The dealers wore red vests with brass buttons and black bowties. Small crowds of boisterous onlookers partially hid the gaming tables. The sound of the ball skittering around the roulette wheel could be heard over the noise of excited conversaton. There was no band. No one would have listened to them if there had been one, so Gilplaine probably figured he might just as well save the cost.