by K. K. Beck
“I’m going nuts,” said Melanie to Nick. “My lawyer says the stuff is back in copyright, Glen’s told me Valerian Ricardo didn’t have a will, and Maurice Fender’s own lawyer says he doesn’t have a legitimate claim. I want to find out as much as I can about who owns the rights to these damn things so I can turn all the information over to the lawyers at the start of business tomorrow morning. I’m starting with you. Come into the office with me and draw me a family tree.”
CHAPER XXXII
A BAFFLING LINEAGE
“But I don’t know that much about it,” said Nick as Melanie sat him down at her desk and handed him a pencil and paper. “I mean I never met Aunt Lila until yesterday.”
“Here’s what we know about her,” said Melanie, slapping down Tom Thorndyke’s report in front of him. “I’m afraid it doesn’t paint a very attractive picture of your uncle Sid.”
“Then it’s probably pretty accurate,” said Nick, beginning to read. “The family back in Minnesota always figured him for a real lowlife. At first I thought they were just jealous, but I’m beginning to think they were right.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” said Melanie. “I have some filing to do.”
When Nick had finished reading, he glanced up at her bending over a file cabinet drawer, a frown of concentration on her face. She looked so competent and conscientious. Suddenly, he asked her, “How on earth did you end up in this job?”
“A lot of people wonder that,” she said, straightening up and turning to face him. “I don’t usually tell them, but you don’t know anyone in show business, so I’ll tell you. Nadia is my cousin. We grew up together in this small town in Washington state, and went to the same school and everything.
“When she first came to Hollywood a lot of people jerked her around and she trusted me, so she asked me to come and take care of her. I used to take care of her when we were kids, even though she’s a few months older. You see, Beanie was the pretty one, but I was the smart one. I helped her get through remedial math and wrote her speech when she ran for Apple Blossom Queen.”
Nick wondered how he could get across to Melanie that she was very pretty herself without sounding patronizing. “Why do you keep it secret?” he asked.
“Because people wouldn’t take me seriously. I mean Elvis had a bunch of cousins on the payroll, for heaven’s sake. I understand there was one guy whose job it was to hand him a glass of water every now and then.” She resumed her filing, and he stared at her for a second. He didn’t like the idea of this smart, sweet-faced girl devoting her life to high-strung, selfish Cousin Beanie.
She seemed to sense he was looking at her and she returned his stare. “You’re feeling sorry for me, aren’t you?” she said with a touch of hostility. “That’s another reason I keep it secret. But you don’t have to feel sorry for me. I know what I’m doing. She’s paying me a lot and I’m saving and investing, and after her career peaks and she starts playing moms, which will be soon enough in her line of work, I’ll be able to go back to graduate school. I already own an apartment building back home in Wenatchee that’s a nice little earner, and some mutual funds that just keep growing. It helps that I live rent free.”
“Wow,” said Nick. “That’s great. I’d like to go back to graduate school myself. All I really want to do is be in school forever, as a student or a teacher or whatever. That’s all you can do in philosophy anyway.”
“The same thing with classics,” said Melanie. “I figure I’m good enough to get a doctorate but there’s no guarantee I can get a university job or tenure. I can always teach high school Latin, though. There are signs it’s coming back in fashion.”
“Really? That’s great, especially if it means more people start studying philosophy,” said Nick. “I didn’t stick with Latin after high school, but for me it was a gateway to classical philosophy. The trouble with schools today is there’s so much undisciplined thinking.” He thought about the grim selection of books at Callie’s mother’s house, and her mushy worldview.
Melanie’s eyes took on a happy gleam. “What I’d really like is to do research. Did you know there are three hundred thousand known Latin inscriptions throughout the ancient Roman Empire, and a thousand more are discovered every year? We’re learning more all the time. It’s so exciting.”
They smiled at each other like a couple of kids who had just made friends at camp, and then Melanie said self-consciously, “So how are you related to Valerian Ricardo exactly?”
Nick drew a quick family tree, and explained that his grandfather had left him everything, and that as far as he knew, his grandfather would have been Valerian Ricardo’s heir if Lila hadn’t been in the picture. “But maybe they weren’t married,” he added.
“Even if they weren’t, and if that meant she couldn’t legally inherit his copyright,” said Melanie, “she could muddy the waters for years. One thing I’ve learned in this job is that you can keep things tied up with lawyers even when you don’t have a case, and hope people buy you off. We just don’t have that much time.”
“And then there’s Callie and her mom,” said Nick, drawing a dotted line on his chart from Valerian Ricardo to Gail to Callie. “Can illegitimate kids inherit?”
“I don’t know, but the same thing applies. They could keep the whole thing going for years, and in the end the lawyers would get rich and the picture wouldn’t get made. Both Callie and Lila are stubborn and avaricious as far as I can tell,” said Melanie, then looked nervously at Nick as if she’d insulted his girlfriend.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Nick. He picked up the report Tom Thorndyke had written. “Although interestingly, Lila did one generous thing, according to Callie’s mother. Gail was one of the hippies doing drugs with Uncle Sid in the boiler room. They were about to cart him off to some commune in the hills the day he died. Gail went over to pick him up and Lila broke it to her that he’d had a heart attack and gave her something that belonged to him. Something valuable too.” Nick described the diamond-studded monogrammed box and quoted Lila as saying, “He wanted you to have this.”
Melanie looked thoughtful. “Sounds like something he would have kept his stash in. Apparently, he was a coke-head.”
“That’s exactly what it looked like,” said Nick. “In fact, there were some traces of whitish powder inside. Gail’s mom said they did hash and opium, but she wouldn’t have admitted to Callie they were doing coke too. Now that she’s a middle-age parent she’s on this clean and sober kick. Anyway, Lila’s gesture gives some credence to the idea that Gail was his daughter.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Melanie. “Do you think Lila would have liked the idea of her dear Valerian knocking up some teenage neighbor? The last thing she would have wanted was to admit it was true or condone it.”
“You’re right,” said Nick. “Remember how she turned on Callie? Apparently she looks just like her grandmother Betty Lou, who charged Valerian Ricardo with rape. Lila seemed pretty hostile.”
“I find it especially interesting that the box was actually valuable,” said Melanie. “That makes it even weirder. As far as I can tell, Lila’s a greedy woman.
“Anyway, a DNA test can probably tell us if your uncle Sid fathered Gail. We could match her against Betty Lou’s husband if he’s alive. Or you, probably, because you’re some kind of a cousin. But they might not cooperate. This is all pretty complicated.”
Suddenly, Nadia came into the office. “Wonderful news,” she said. “I just called the hospital, and Lila’s in such great shape they’re releasing her! We have to hire a private nurse, though. Get one over here right away, will you? Glen is driving me down to get her. It was be wonderful to have her back. I talked to her and everything! She says she’s strong enough to start work on the script right away. Isn’t it wonderful? And oh, Melanie, isn’t it exciting about my engagement! I haven’t even had a chance to talk to you about it. He’s perfect, absolutely perfect!”
The two women embraced and Nadia danced out of the
room.
Melanie smiled, and said, “I know it’s sudden, but he seems sweet and solid.” A second later, she was back in businesslike mode. “Listen, I have an idea. Do you think you can get Callie’s mother up here? I’d like to hear what she has to say about all this. The more I know and can tell the lawyers, the faster we can sort this out.”
“I’m pretty sure I can,” said Nick. “I know I can get Callie to try to convince her to come.”
“Ask her to come in a couple of hours, and tell her to bring that box,” said Melanie, who had picked up Tom Thorndyke’s report and was rereading the last page.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A SHOCKING SECRET REVEALED
Tom Thorndyke drove Glen and Nadia slowly through the jostling flock of photographers clustered outside the gates. There were shouts of “Nadia, Nadia.” Glen blinked furiously, and felt slightly jangled, but he also felt a great welling-up of excitement, and a strange sensation of familiarity. He had seen this scene in so many films.
Nadia put her hand on his. “Get used to it, honey,” she said. “Stop the car for a sec,” she said to Tom, touching the button that rolled down the window.
“Talk to us, Nadia,” said a man with a big smile leaning into the car. A brace of microphones was thrust through the open window around his face. “Were you harmed? Did you know the guy they arrested? What’s up with this dagger thing?”
“I’ve been majorly stressed by recent events, but in a way, they all tie in to the power of the themes of my next film, The Revenge of Kali-Ra,” she replied. Glen felt claustrophobic as hands pressed against the glass and more faces peered inside the car.
“I’m putting it all behind me,” Nadia continued, “and I hope the alleged individual responsible for the criminal acts that have gone down will receive humane and caring treatment. It’s like, there but for the grace of God goes us.”
Glen recognized a reporter from Entertainment Tonight, one of his favorite shows, and a great source of material for his academic work. “We understand you were terrorized by the suspect,” he said with a grim look of concern.
“My fiancé, Dr. Glen Pendergast, was very supportive,” said Nadia, placing her hand on Glen’s shoulder and smiling at him, holding the pose for a second as more shutters clicked and the press produced a chorus of “Wows” and “Aw rights.”
Glen tried to look worthy of Nadia’s hand, and gave her a dignified yet affectionate smile as they took the pictures. Then, Nadia turned away, looked pensive, and said, “In a way, it was a learning experience. It really made me understand at gut level what Salman Rushdie must have gone through, you know? But now we’re going out to celebrate our engagement.” She looked demure and said, “If it wasn’t Sunday, we’d be going down to City Hall to pick up the license. Life goes on.”
Glen leaned over and said to the reporter, “Nadia and I are totally committed to artistic freedom, and we are opposed to any form of censorship of the arts, especially when it is based on delusional interpretation of texts, valid as they may seem to those operating under the delusion.”
Nadia flicked the window button again and gestured to Tom to drive on. “Oh, baby, great sound bite,” she said, squeezing Glen’s thigh affectionately.
* * *
Lila had seemed a little miffed when the starry-eyed Nadia and Glen had wheeled her into the living room in her wheelchair, introduced the nurse who would tend to the maintenance of the dressing of her superficial chest wound, and dashed off. Melanie had warned Duncan Blaine of Lila’s impending arrival, and he had scuttled back up to his room, announcing that he would put the final tweaks on his latest draft, and Callie, after phoning her mother, had gone upstairs to change out of her sheet, so there was no one with her except Melanie and Nick.
“I thought there’d at least be a press conference,” Lila said.
“We don’t want to put you under any strain,” Melanie replied. “Although I hope you won’t mind meeting Gail again. The woman who says Valerian Ricardo is her father?”
“What? Gail? That hippie?”
“Yes,” said Melanie smoothly. “There’s some confusion about competing claims on the rights to the Kali-Ra books. I take it you have heard there’s a possibility they’re no longer in the public domain.”
“You better believe I have,” said Lila with spirit. “First thing tomorrow morning, I’m calling a lawyer. I’m sure Nadia and I can come to a swift agreement. Of course, I can’t sell the rights without script approval.”
“I kind of thought you’d say that,” said Melanie.
“I’m afraid there is much Duncan does not understand. He is a young entity, and will need many more lifetimes to develop a higher level of sensitivity. By weaving the strands of fate so that I am in complete control, the Enlightened Ones have worked behind the scenes to ensure that Valerian will be able to direct the project from a plane beyond earth.” Her blue-veined hands fluttered at either side of her face and she tilted her head to one side and gave Melanie a sappy smile, meant, apparently, to convey spirituality. Instead, Nick thought, Lila just looked smug.
Nick didn’t know what Lila’s views on the script were, but he felt sorry for Melanie. Letting this crazy woman have creative control over a project costing millions was a pretty scary thought. If Callie and her mother managed to get their hands on the rights, Nick was pretty sure they’d squeeze every last dollar out of Nadia, but they wouldn’t care about the content of the movie.
Callie, dressed once again in her khaki shorts and T-shirt, came into the living room with her mother.
“You remember Gail, don’t you, Lila?” asked Melanie pleasantly.
“I’m afraid I do.”
“I don’t know if you knew that Caroline here, whom you met yesterday, is actually Gail’s daughter,” she went on.
Lila glared at both women. “I never thought I’d see you again,” she said to Gail. “You have a lot of nerve coming here. You tried to corrupt Valerian and ruin his last days. It was disgusting. You kids were down there having orgies and stuff in the boiler room. The tenants complained.”
Gail blushed. “Maybe a few of the things we did were kind of inappropriate, but it was an experimental time.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “Drugs, naked girls, God knows what all. The excitement killed him. And it was a blessing, because he was just about to completely go off the deep end.”
None of this had been covered in Lila’s autobiography. The last days of Valerian Ricardo had been described as a time of spiritual preparation for life beyond the veil, with Valerian becoming more and more saintly in aspect and an inspiration to all those who met him.
Lila turned to Melanie and Nick. “What kind of young girls would fool around with a man in his eighties? They were depraved.”
“The little mind-expanding rituals we did didn’t involve actual, you know, sex,” Gail said earnestly, glancing nervously over at her daughter. “I mean there was some nudity and he liked us to dance around in these veils he had, and we did kind of trust exercises involving, um, restraints and, um, being vulnerable. He was really into that.”
“God, Mom,” said Callie. “And you gave me a hard time when I pierced my navel.”
Gail was blushing now. “Really, you have it all wrong, darling. Lila is making it sound much worse than it actually was. I’ve done similar things in the team-building exercises they make us do on the phone company middle-management retreats.”
Lila turned to Callie. “You look just like your grandmother, that little tramp Betty Lou. I thought you were a reincarnation of her.”
“Don’t you dare call my grandmother a tramp! She was a sweet little teenager and your perverted husband tried to lure her into his evil web.” Callie turned to her mother. “No offense, Mom, but I think your real dad was a phony loser, who seemed incredibly cool to a bunch of white-bread kids from the valley. But that’s not the point. The point is, you’re his heir. And we could use the money.”
Lila paid no attention to Callie’s outbur
st and turned to Melanie. “Betty Lou was a little tramp who lived with her parents on the fifth floor at the Scheherazade. He’d shown a kindly interest in the girl. When she got knocked up by her pimply boyfriend, she tried to saddle Valerian with a statutory rape charge. She backed off when the boyfriend agreed to marry her. Even if, God forbid, Valerian had actually done the deed, legally, Betty Lou’s husband is the father.”
“The man who pretended to be my dad married her after I was born,” said Gail.
“Your family has been a curse on me for three generations,” said Lila to Gail. “First Betty Lou, that sly little bobby-soxer with her scuffed saddle shoes and her tight sweaters and false accusations and scandal! Then, twenty years later, you and your friends moved in and polluted his soul.” She pointed to Callie. “And now her!”
“I hear your anger,” said Gail with a solemn nod.
Lila ignored her and went on. “Anyway, even if he was your father—which is highly unlikely considering Valerian’s pure and spiritual approach to the sensual side of life, different than other men’s in some very basic ways—as his widow I’m the heir.”
“Ah,” said Callie with a smile Nick found a little chilling. “That’s the interesting part. I don’t believe you are his widow.”
“That shows how much you know,” snapped Lila.
“Glen Pendergast said he couldn’t find a record of a marriage between Lila Lamb and Valerian Ricardo for when and where your book said you got married,” said Nick.
“Of course he couldn’t,” said Lila scornfully. “Neither of us ever changed our names legally. The names on the certificate are Sidney Olav Gundersen and Ethel Mae Lasenby. Ours was a sacred union of souls that never required the seal of earthly authority. It was a marriage on a much higher plane than normal people have. But we got legally married in 1963, because of some legal problems we had having to do with the damned IRS. I have the certificate in my safe-deposit box at Golden West Savings on La Brea.”