by John Kaye
On Monday morning when Burk came downstairs to check out of the hotel, he saw Eddie Bascom and Gus Tolos standing in an alcove off the main lobby. They were conferring with Burt Driscoll and two uniformed policemen. Other members of the hotel’s staff, including Doris, the waitress in the downstairs coffee shop, were grouped near the elevators, chatting nervously, waiting to be interrogated.
“What’s the story with the cops?” Burk asked the hotel’s cashier, a woman with a pulled-down mouth and a no-nonsense manner.
“Accident.”
“Where?”
“In the pool.”
“What happened?”
“Someone drowned.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was.”
“Who was it?”
The cashier looked away from Burk. Her face was blank. “Don’t know. They haven’t told us. Sign here,” she said, her eyes still avoiding Burk’s face as she pushed his bill across the counter. “Any late charges will be forwarded to the studio.”
After Burk signed the bill, he looked up and was startled to see Jack Rose standing on the other side of the lobby. He was talking with Van Wood, the lifeguard, and a burly man dressed in a wrinkled white short-sleeved shirt and gray slacks. He was a cop, one of the three Jerome Sanford bribed after Tom Crumpler was arrested.
“Mr. Burk?” Burk felt a hand on his arm and turned his head. It was Colleen, the hotel’s pretty assistant manager. “I saw that you were checking out and I wanted to say good-bye. I hope you had a pleasant stay.”
“It was fine.”
“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
“Everything was great. My life just got a little weird, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Colleen’s hand was still on his arm; she was staring up at him with an expression of sympathy. He couldn’t tell if her concern was sincere but he didn’t really care. “Well, I hope we see you again.”
Burk shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Good luck,” Colleen said, squeezing his wrist.
“Thanks.”
As he walked away, Burk noticed that Eddie Bascom had returned to his station behind the bell desk. He saw Burk pass and greeted him with a vague nod and a forced smile. But just before Burk could step outside, Burt Driscoll moved into his path, cutting him off. “Mr. Burk, I wonder if I could see you in my office for a few minutes.”
“Why?”
“It’s a private matter,” Driscoll said, making his face unreadable. “Five minutes,” he said. “No more. I promise.”
Burk followed Driscoll up the stairway to the mezzanine. The general manager’s office was at the end of a long hallway—between the gift shop and the jewelry store—and when they stepped inside, Burk saw that Jack Rose and Van Wood were already seated at opposite ends of the large leather couch.
Driscoll moved quickly behind his desk and cleared his throat. “We all know each other so there’s no need for introductions. Please sit down,” he said to Burk, nodding toward the two plush armchairs that faced his desk.
“Max Rheingold drowned last night,” Jack Rose said to Burk as he sat. “The police assume it was an accident—he was probably drunk or doped up on pills—but we won’t be sure until the lab reports come back tomorrow from the coroner.”
“Suicide is a possibility,” Driscoll said. “But intentional drowning is extremely rare. They haven’t ruled out homicide, either,” he said with a flip of his hand, “although there is nothing to point in that direction.”
Jack Rose laughed sarcastically. “That’s not to say he didn’t have enemies. At one time he may have been the single most disliked man in the entertainment industry.”
Burk’s heart was beating uncomfortably. “I don’t get it,” he said. “What does this have to do with me?”
“You knew who he was,” Jack Rose said. “Right? He read your script. He said you were a helluva writer, like I didn’t already know that.” Jack Rose shot a look at Burt Driscoll, who stared at him vaguely. “Burt, you ever see the movie Gun Crazy?”
Driscoll thought for a moment. “John Dall and Peggy Cummins?”
“That’s the one. You see that movie, Van?”
Van Wood shifted his position on the couch. “Not that I recall.”
“Came out in ’forty-nine. United Artists. Eighty-seven minutes. Moved like a freight train. Don’t know why that film popped into my mind,” Jack Rose said. He reached for the cigar in his breast pocket. “Okay! Yes, I do. Writers. We were speaking about writers. You know who wrote that picture?” Jack Rose was looking at Van Wood, but Burk knew the question was directed at him. “Not MacKinlay Kantor or Millard Kaufman, the guys on the credits. Forget those names. Fronts. Trumbo wrote it. Dalton Trumbo. You know how I know that?” he said, turning now to look directly at Burk. “Because I went down to San Diego and picked up the script when Trumbo came in from Ixtapa. I brokered the deal for Joe Lewis, the director, and the studio. I was just a schmuck agent but they trusted me.” Burt Driscoll raised his chin, as if he were getting ready to speak. “Burt, don’t cut me off. I’m just getting to my point.”
“I was—”
“I know what you were gonna say. Mr. Burk here is in a rush. I can read his face. I see the anxiety. He’s got a set of revisions in his shoulder bag that he’s on his way to deliver to Jon Warren. Am I right?”
“I’ve got a plane to catch too,” Burk said, remembering that he had to pick up Louie at his grandfather’s house, which was on the way to the aiport.
Jack Rose stuck out his hand. “Gimme the pages. I’ll take them out this afternoon.”
“No,” Burk said, shaking his head emphatically. “I want to deliver the script in person.”
Jack Rose smiled a quick smile. “If the picture’s a hit it’s because of the script. This kid here’s got a gift,” he said to Driscoll. “He’s not a schticktician like most of these clowns. He’s the genuine article.” Jack Rose glanced at Van Wood. “You had a gift, Van. Yours was swimming. You were a goddamn dolphin in the water. That’s where you belonged.”
Jack Rose found a gold lighter in the side pocket of his jacket. He stuck the cigar in his mouth and slowly rotated the tip underneath the flame until it was glowing brightly.
“He took a shot at acting, but it didn’t go anywhere,” he said to Burk. “The man belongs in the pool. This pool, right here. Max wouldn’t have drowned if Van was on duty. There’s never even been a close call when Van’s in his chair. Am I right, Burt?”
Driscoll nodded. “We have a clean slate.”
“Me?” Jack Rose said. “I can’t swim for shit. In fact, I’m gonna tell you a secret: I can’t swim at all. Not a stroke. Is that hard to believe or what? A goddamn pool in Bel Air behind my house, a pool right here in front of my cabana, and I gotta hang onto the sides like a three-year-old.”
“I could teach you,” Van Wood said under Jack Rose’s voice.
“Teach me?” Van Wood nodded his head. “Too late.”
“Why is it too late?”
“I’m seventy-four. I don’t need to swim.”
“It’s good for you,” Burt Driscoll said. “It’s good exercise.”
“I get my exercise on the golf course.”
“Van could teach you in a couple of lessons,” Burt Driscoll insisted. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. “He taught all three of my kids.”
Burk spoke. “Didn’t you ever want to learn?” he said.
Jack Rose looked at Burk thoughtfully, turning this question over in his mind. “Only one time. I was down in Coronado. This was back in ’forty-three or ’forty-four. I was staying at the old Coronado Hotel. Big fancy place. Max was previewing a picture in San Diego,
and one of my clients had a small role. Mexican broad, you never heard of her. But since I was screwing her, we had adjoining suites.
“After the preview we came back to the hotel and took a walk down by the shoreline. We couldn’t see them but we could hear a boy
and a girl splashing in the waves. By the sound of their voices I could tell they were young, in their twenties. For some reason the girl kept saying, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute.’ She kept saying it over and over and then she said, ‘Tell me you love me, Danny.’ And the boy said, ‘I do.’ She said, ‘No. Say it right. Use all the words.’ And he said, ‘I love you, Regina. I love you more than anything in the world.’
“The woman I was with, Lucy, the actress, she said, ‘Let’s go in. Let’s take off our clothes and swim naked.’ Jesus, did I want to go in, but I couldn’t tell her the truth, so I gave her some dumb excuse. I think I said I was dizzy from too much champagne.
“Of course she was disappointed. She broke away from me and walked out to the end of this long pier. When I caught up to her, I told her I wanted her to come back to the room. I said I wanted to fuck her. She said no, she wanted to swim in the ocean. Then she took off her clothes and piled them up on the dock. That’s when I lost control and slapped her across the face. She said I just ruined her weekend. I slapped her again, and a little blood spilled from her nose. Then she turned and dove off the pier.
“I came back to the hotel and sat in the bar and waited for her. When she didn’t show up by two A.M., I went back to my room. In the morning one of the towel boys found her curled up in a chaise by the snack bar. He said she ended up hitching a ride back to LA with Max.
“Of course I had to dump her as a client. She was starting to booze too much anyway, and her looks were starting to go. Once or twice she called and left messages on my service, but I never called her back. Eventually she committed suicide.”
Van Wood smiled wanly. “Did you love her, Mr. Rose?”
“Did I love her?” Jack Rose glanced at Burk. “What do you think, Burk? Did I love her?”
“Sounds like you did.”
“She was a Mexican slut and a lush. But you’re right. I loved her,” Jack Rose said. “And sometimes I wonder if things would have turned out different for everyone if I’d learned how to swim.”
Burt Driscoll shook his head. His hands were clasped on the desk in front of him. “I don’t think so, Jack.”
“I gotta get goin’,” Burk said. “I’m late.”
“We’re not done,” Jack Rose said. His voice was matter-of-fact, but there was something hard behind it.
Burt Driscoll said, “Van, tell Mr. Burk why he’s here.”
Van Wood hesitated. He seemed uneasy. “Go on,” Jack Rose said. “Tell him.”
There was no movement in Van’s face as he began to speak. His voice was a monotone. “Yesterday I noticed these two guys sitting at a table up on the pool terrace. I’d never seen them before, but I took them as guests. Either that or they were visiting someone. But they looked odd enough to capture my attention,” he said. “Both were pale as ghosts. One wore a cap and was kind of loose-jointed; the other had sort of a moon face. They looked like the types you see behind the ropes at premieres. Stargazers. The hotel’s policy is to let them sit and watch the action, as long as they don’t pester anyone, which they didn’t.”
Jack Rose leaned forward and tapped Burk on the knee. “They were queer, which is not important here. But what is important is that they left and came back later that night.”
“I was cleaning the pool and I saw them standing inside the side gate. They were standing still, almost like statues,” Van Wood said, his face becoming animated for the first time that morning. “I told them the pool was closed, which it wasn’t really. For swimming it was, but you could still order drinks and sit around under the umbrellas. The one with the cap said they were meeting a friend in the lobby. They were early so they came out by the pool.”
“He said they were waiting for you,” Jack Rose said to Burk. “Isn’t that correct, Van?”
“I think so. I think that’s what they said.”
“Did they or didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
Jack Rose turned to Burk. “Well?”
“Your name was mentioned,” Burt Driscoll said with a shrug. “We’re just trying to clear it up. That’s all.”
Jack Rose said, “So you weren’t waiting for anyone that night?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“This is total craziness,” Burk said. He started to stand.
“Listen to me,” Jack Rose said, and his expression turned unfriendly. “A man drowned last night. A man who was living in my cabana. This is bad publicity for me and for the hotel, especially if it was not an accident. Hollywood’s a strange town. Scandals come out of nowhere and ruin people’s lives. We already got bad press on our picture. I don’t need any more grief in my life.”
Burt Driscoll said, “There were no bones broken or signs that he was beaten. No choke marks. We’re assuming an accident. But these fans—fags, whatever—they mentioned your name and they were the last people to come by the pool before Van locked up. Your name came up. A coincidence?”
“They probably heard him paged over the intercom,” Van Wood said.
“That’s a possible explanation,” Burt Driscoll said. He looked at Jack Rose. “I could see how that could happen. That work for you, Jack?”
“The prick was on his way out anyway,” Jack Rose said. “Cancer. Six months, a year; either way he’s gone. And we’re better off. Right, Van?”
“Everyone by the pool laughed behind his back,” Van Wood said.
“Of course you laughed,” said Jack Rose, nodding. “The way he ended up, Max was a joke. He never commanded much respect, but there was a time he could get a good table at Ciro’s or a ringside seat at the Olympic. Ask your dad,” Jack Rose said, pointing his cigar at Burk. “Ask him about Max Rheingold.”
Burt Driscoll said, “In 1957, when I was waiter at Chasen’s, Max came in all the time. And he was treated very well, as well as anyone.”
“Of course he was. In the fifties that teenage-bikini-monster shit was huge in the drive-ins. ‘Max Rheingold Presents’ meant money in the bank. He was the king of the schlockolas.”
“I was a sucker for musicals,” Van Wood said, with a girlish laugh. “I still am.”
“Burt was a dancer,” Jack Rose said, smiling. “He auditioned with Rita Hayworth for You’ll Never Get Rich.”
Burt Driscoll was gazing nostalgically out the window. “I was too short,” he said. “Of course, I couldn’t dance like Astaire, either. Who could?”
“No one,” Jack Rose said, and stretched his arm across the back of the couch. “Still, I bet you had some moves. Come on, let’s see something.” Burt Driscoll started to protest but Jack Rose pivoted his head back to Van Wood. “Burt was a real smoothie. A pussy hound par excellence.”
The phone rang on Burt Driscoll’s desk. He stared at it gratefully before he picked it up. “Hello. . . . Yes . . . that’s correct. This morning, sometime before eight. . . . No. . . . Yes. I’ll call you then.” Driscoll hung up the receiver and nervously pulled at his mustache. “LA Times. They want details. I told them I would call them after the police report was released.”
Jack Rose turned toward Driscoll and crossed his legs. Several seconds passed. Burk felt he should say something, that it was his turn, but this impulse to speak was overwhelmed by an unwanted memory that forced its way into his mind.
He is ten years old and Gene is twelve. They are playing baseball in the street in front of their house. Gene is pitching and Ricky Furlong is at bat, standing over a shirt cardboard that serves as home plate. When the pitch comes, Ricky hits a line drive, and the tennis ball they are using caroms off a lamppost and bounces into a flower bed beneath the shiny windows that look out over Burk’s front lawn. While he searches for the ball, Burk glances up and sees his father standing by the sink in the kitchen. He’s slicing a large red onion. Next to his elbow is a platter of hamburgers massaged into thick patties. Ada Furlong is sitting in the kitchen nook, flicking the ashes of her cigarette into the palm of her hand.
From outside this window Burk can
see through the kitchen into their small backyard, where bees and dragonflies circle the bowls of potato chips and the open bottles of mustard and relish that are placed in the center of the patio table. He cannot see the barbecue from this angle—it’s below the windowsill and too close to the house—but the flames that leap up are reflected in the panes of glass.
Burk hears Ricky’s voice. He says, “Let’s go, Ray. Hustle it up.”
Gene’s voice follows quickly. “To your right. It’s over to your right.”
Inside the house Ada Furlong stands up; she is wobbly but smiling a stupid smile. On a side counter is an open bottle of bourbon. She reaches out but Burk’s father slaps her arm away.
“Come on, it’s starting to get dark,” Ricky shouts, and Burk hears him jog across the lawn. In the kitchen Ada Furlong’s hands are striking out blindly, the smile no longer on her rage-twisted face.
“Your mother drinks too much,” Burk says, when he feels Ricky standing behind his shoulder. Burk’s father has Ada Furlong backed up against the icebox, holding her wrists.
Gene reaches inside a low hedge that runs along the driveway. His fingers come out grasping the tennis ball. He holds it in the air. “Let’s go. Play ball.”
“Wait!” Burk now has his hand up.
“I hate it when they touch,” Ricky says.
Burk speaks into Ricky’s eyes, which are mirrored in the window. “I hate it too.”
Gene bounces the ball twice in the driveway. Ada Furlong squirms away from Nathan Burk and pounds her tiny fists into his chest; then she turns her back and sobs into her hands. “She’s always crying,” Ricky says. “All the time. I hate it.”
“My dad cries sometimes,” Burk says, as his older brother joins him by the window. In a moment he feels Gene’s fingers close around his upper arm, squeezing him hard.
“Stop spying,” Gene says, and Burk allows himself to be pulled away. “Come on, let’s finish the game.”
Ricky turns and starts across the lawn.
Gene says, “It’s gonna be all right, Ricky. Don’t worry. They won’t stay mad.”
Ricky says, “I wish she would go back to our house.”