by Parnell Hall
“Not at all,” Clark said. “After all, this is not a case where the body was unrecognizable. The face was unmarked. We have a perfectly good photograph which is being circulated. It’s only a matter of time before someone recognizes him.”
Richard cocked his head, grinned. “And you believe when you do it’s going to shed some light on the man who was killed yesterday?”
“I think so, yes.”
“For how much?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Put your money where your mouth is, Sergeant. How much you wanna bet if you identify the body it has anything to do with yesterday’s murder?”
Sergeant Clark took a breath. “I’m not a gambler, I’m an officer of the law.”
Richard put up his hands. “I quite agree, Sergeant. I wouldn’t bet on that, either.” He smiled and took a step toward me, turning his back on Sergeant Clark.
“Define your terms.”
Richard stopped, turned back. MacAullif and I also turned to look.
Though still outwardly calm, Sergeant Clark’s chin was set.
“I beg your pardon?” Richard said. “What did you say?”
“I said define your terms,” Clark said. “You made some vague reference to a wager. But there were way too many variables in it. Were you betting whether the man would be identified? Or whether he would be identified as someone relating to the case? Was there only a bet in the event he was identified, or in other instances all bets were off?”
Richard cocked his head. “I hope you are more accurate in your investigation than you are in casual banter. What I said was quite specific. In the event the man is identified, I was willing to bet you it has absolutely nothing to do with the present case.”
“I beg your pardon,” Clark said. “But what I thought I heard you say was, in the event he was identified, that fact would shed no light on the present case.”
“I don’t want to get hung up on semantics on the one hand or technicalities on the other,” Richard said. “But shed light is unacceptable. So clarify. If the cases were totally unrelated, just establishing that fact would shed light or clarify the situation. See what I mean?”
“Of course I do,” Clark said. “And while I don’t expect you to believe it, I happen to be a reasonable man. I would consider it unsporting to take advantage of such a technicality. I said shed light, because those were your words. There are many ways to define them. Just as there are many ways to define the word related. You are an attorney-at-law. I have no doubt that whoever the man turns out to be, you would be able to argue your side of the case. I trust you as a gentleman not to do that and, in the event I am right, give in with good grace. Are you willing to extend me the same courtesy?”
“Absolutely,” Richard said. “How much do you wish to bet?”
The mind boggled. I’m standing there watching this, and I can’t imagine what Sergeant Clark is going to say. My mind started racing: How much does a policeman make? A cop, a homicide sergeant? Specifically, Sergeant Clark—-did he have an outside source of income? How much would he be willing to risk just to make a point?
Sergeant Clark turned, looked out across the river. At the end of the dock, two electricians were setting up a huge reflector, angling it to catch the morning sun, aim it onto one of the yachts.
Clark turned back, looked at Richard. “Dinner,” he said.
Richard blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll bet you dinner.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, dinner?”
“At the restaurant of your choice.”
Richard blinked again. “You mean dinner with you?”
“Exactly.”
Richard took a breath, exhaled slowly. “Sergeant,” he said. “No offense meant, but I don’t want to have dinner with you.”
“Of course not,” Sergeant Clark said. “That’s the whole point.”
“What?”
“The winner names the restaurant. Any restaurant in Manhattan. The loser takes him there, pays for everything, and sits there during however many courses dinner takes, and listens to the winner explain his theory of the case and how he happened to be right.”
“Son of a bitch,” Richard said.
“Oh?” Clark said. “I thought it was a very gentlemanly bet.”
“It’s fine except for one thing,” Richard said. “I’m not involved, and I have no theory of the case.”
“Your theory is merely that the murder of the John Doe isn’t related. So I can understand your being hard pressed to pontificate about that for any length of time. So, more to the point, if I win you shall hear my theory of the case and how it proved to be right. If you win, I’ll be forced to give you my theory of the case and explain how it happened to be wrong.”
Richard blinked. A smile spread over his face. “Done,” he said.
He extended his hand. Sergeant Clark extended his, and the two men shook hands.
“Now that’s out of the way, Sergeant,” I said, “you might want to tell us why you’re here today.”
“Good point, Stanley,” Richard said. “I suppose I should have ascertained that first.”
“Do you wish to retract your bet?” Clark said.
“Do you have anything to say that might make me want to?”
“I don’t think so,” Clark said. “I’ve come here following up routine inquiries in the death of the boom man, Charles Masterson.”
“Any progress that you can tell us?” I asked.
“Just routine,” Clark said. “Masterson had a wife and two children.”
“Shit.
“That’s not news,” Clark said. “We knew that much from his W-4 form. But they have been confirmed and notified. He had a wife, Ellen, thirty-two, a daughter, Betty, six, and a son, Alan, age four.”
Damn. How fast life hits you. I’d been standing there, getting off on the idea of Sergeant Clark and Richard Rosenberg making a bet, and there it was, a kick right in the face. The death of the boom man wasn’t fun and games. A wife had been deprived of a husband. A little girl and boy had been deprived of a father.
Son of a bitch.
“There you have it,” Sergeant Clark said. “A perfectly ordinary, simple family man. No apparent problems at home. No trouble with the union. Didn’t work too much or too little. Didn’t make waves. Just a sort of ordinary, nebbishy guy. Not particularly liked, but not particularly disliked either. Not the sort of guy anyone would be apt to have a grudge against. In short, hard to believe anyone killing him for any reason.”
“From which you conclude?” I said.
Clark cocked his head at me. “I conclude nothing. I present the facts for what they’re worth. I would say they tend to indicate that Charles Masterson was not the intended victim.”
“Do they indicate who was?” Richard said.
“I’m not prepared to go into that at the present time,” Clark said.
The door to one of the Winnebagos opened and Jason Clairemont came out. I could see him size up our little group and categorize it instantly as nonessential personnel—just cops and the screenwriter. With the barest obligatory nod in our direction, Jason Clairemont walked right by and out onto the dock.
“Now, why is that face familiar?” Richard said.
“That’s the star,” MacAullif said. “Jason Clairemont.”
“Oh?” Richard said. “To Shoot the Tiger?”
Jesus Christ.
Even Richard.
“That’s right,” I said. “Our star, Jason Clairemont. Who happens to be the intended potential victim Sergeant Clark doesn’t feel like discussing at the moment.”
“Oh?” Richard said. “Now that’s very interesting. Particularly when you tie it to the murder of a John Doe in a warehouse. I can’t wait to hear how you made the connection.”
“I repeat,” Clark said. “There is not sufficient data to warrant discussing that at the present time.”
“But why is it a possibility?” Richard wanted to k
now.
When Sergeant Clark didn’t answer, I said, “If the original shooting schedule had been adhered to, the first shot would have involved Jason Clairemont leaning on that rail.”
“Is that so?” Richard said. “That wasn’t on the evening news.”
“And I don’t want it to be,” Sergeant Clark said. “Which is why I didn’t want to discuss it to begin with. I would appreciate your cooperation in this matter.”
“Or all bets are off?” Richard said. “Have no fear. My lips are sealed.”
Before Sergeant Clark could respond to that, the door to the other trailer opened and our newest cast member stepped out. It was the actress playing Cassie, or Hot Babe Number Two.
I had not seen her before. That I can swear to. I would have remembered. As hot babes go, she went. She made the actress playing Blaire look positively tame. This woman was amazing. She had curves in places most women didn’t even have places.
And all were on display. She was wearing a string bikini. I’m not sure whether it’s a fact or merely my perception, but it seems the older I get the skimpier bikinis get. Hers would have proved my theory. String wasn’t the word for it. I’m talking dental floss.
Anyway, she came bouncing down the steps from her trailer, flashed a dazzling smile in our general direction, and sashayed right by, goodies flopping in all directions.
We gaped like morons. Two homicide sergeants, an attorney-at-law, and a private eye, all rendered speechless by a natural phenomenon.
Richard recovered first. There were a lot of things he could have said, such as, “Wow,” “Get a load of that,” “Check it out,” or any number of typical sexist remarks. But no, he chose to say, “Where did she come from?”
It was to date my proudest moment on this draggy flick. I smiled, shrugged, said modestly, “I created her.”
24.
“WHAT’S THE STORY?”
“You already heard.”
“No, no, that’s bullshit,” Richard said. “I mean the real story. How are you involved?”
Richard and I were sitting on a bench near the dock, waiting for the crew to get set up. Sergeant Clark had dragged MacAullif off to confer about something or other. I hoped it wasn’t me.
“I’m not involved. Not really.”
“There no reason to think you did it?”
“Well ...”
“What do you mean, well?”
“It appears I’ve been named by some of the crew members.”
“Named?”
“As a possible suspect.”
“What?”
“I know it’s ridiculous, but—”
“They suspect you of killing the boom man?”
“No. No one had a motive for killing him. But if the intended victim was Jason Clairemont, they give me a motive there.”
“Oh? And what is that?”
I told him about Jason Clairemont rewriting my scenes.
Richard shook his head. “As a motive, that’s thin as hell.”
“Oh yeah? Just wait till you see some of the dialogue this kid comes up with.”
“I know you feel that way, but it’s nothing you’d kill for, and no one seriously thinks you did. Clark’s an asshole, but he’s not stupid. There’s nothing else tends to indicate you, is there?”
“Well, I scouted the location.”
“Oh?”
“And I was the last one down because I wanted to work out a sequence I was writing.”
“Oh? Didn’t happen to have a saw in your pants, did you?”
“No.”
“Was this before or after rehearsals started?”
“Before.”
“And at the time you got no motive, right? You don’t know the kid’s rewriting your script.”
“True. But I had scouted the location, and I could have gone back later.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. In fact, I would have had to. Because that’s an active construction site, and the eighth-floor scaffolding—that’s where the guy fell—hadn’t even been built when we scouted it the first time.”
“When was it built?”
“I don’t know. But I imagine Sergeant Clark’s found out.”
“Yeah, I imagine he has. Anything else implicate you?”
“Not in that murder.”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Yup. In the previous one, the bum in the warehouse—the one the schmuck won’t let go of, and I can’t wait till you win that bet, I wish I could go along and watch the guy eat crow—in that one, unfortunately, I got to the warehouse ahead of everybody else. The murder didn’t happen that day, but still.”
“And the day the murder did happen?”
“I was in the production office that day and would have had access to the keys.”
Richard looked at me. “That’s it?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“You don’t have any obscure reason for wanting to kill a bum in a warehouse?”
“How could I? Nobody even knows who the bum in the warehouse is.”
“You don’t have to know who someone is to want to kill ’em.”
“Richard—”
“I’m not saying you did. I’m just making a point.”
“Well, the fact is, no. I didn’t know him and, no, I didn’t want to kill him.”
“What about the warehouse?”
“What about it?”
“You have any stake in that? In whether the movie company used it or not?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You sure?”
“I’d never seen it before and I couldn’t have cared less.”
“You don’t have someone in real estate who owns a piece of the building? Your wife’s uncle, or something?”
I stared at him. “Richard. Why the hell do you say that?”
“Do you?”
“Hell, no.”
“You’re not connected at all?”
“No. Not at all.”
“It doesn’t matter to you one way or the other where this movie’s filmed?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“All right. But you couldn’t care one way or another whether it got filmed in that warehouse?”
“Well ...”
“You hesitate?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
“You did hesitate, didn’t you?”
I exhaled. “Richard. I hesitated, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Everything means something.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Hey, this is what cross-examination is. It’s what I do.”
“Yeah, I know, Richard. But it’s not like you tripped me up or anything. You just brought up something totally irrelevant which I now have to explain. I hesitated because you said shooting in the warehouse didn’t matter to me one way or another. As it happens, it does.”
“Why?”
“Because when we got into the warehouse, Sidney Fuckface Producer-Director spotted a whole pile of packing cases upstairs and thought wouldn’t they be nice for the warehouse fight scene. Well, there was no warehouse fight scene, and there wouldn’t be one now if he hadn’t seen those fucking cases. When you asked me if it mattered to me one, way or the other if we filmed in that building, it sure as hell did. But it had nothing to do with the guy in the elevator. Who was already dead long before Sidney Garfellow got his bright idea from lookin’ at the stack of boxes.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Huh?”
“Tell me about Sidney looking at the boxes.”
“Why?”
“Humor me.”
I took a breath. “What do you want to know?”
“When did it happen? Was it before or after you found the body?”
“Before, of course.”
“There’s no of course about it. It’s of course to you because you were there when it happened. But to me, from what you told me, he could have rented this building and then got the idea for the sce
ne two days later.”
“Well, that’s not what happened. He saw them on the location scout. Before we found the body. He had already asked me to write the scene. I was already preoccupied with that when the elevator came down.”
“With the body in it?”
“Right.”
“Where were these packing cases?”
“On the second floor of the warehouse.”
“That’s the same floor where you found the body in the elevator?”
“Right.”
“So you went to the warehouse, checked out the ground floor. Went up to the second floor. Sidney spotted the boxes. Then the elevator came down with the body in it. Is that right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“How long was it from the time you got to the second floor to the time you found the body?”
“I don’t know. First we had to fumble around, find the lights. Then looked around some. Sidney had his great idea. Everyone was discussing whether the place would do for a sound stage. Then how we’d get the equipment in. Jake mentioned the elevator. He found it, pressed the button, and the corpse appeared.”
“Which took how long?”
“I don’t know. Five, ten minutes.”
“No more than that?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“When did Sidney ask you to write the scene? Was that closer to the beginning of that time or the end?”
“I would say the beginning.”
“Why?”
“Because it wasn’t just before the elevator came down. Because that’s when they were discussing getting power and equipment upstairs.”
“So it must have been fairly soon after the lights were turned on?”
“I suppose it was. So?”
“So that’s interesting.”
“Why? What are you getting at?”
“I like a challenge. You tell me about the murder of this bum, tell me there’s absolutely nothing to go on. Well, I don’t know anything about it. I haven’t seen the crime scene. I haven’t questioned any of the witnesses except you, and already I know something.”
“What’s that?”
“The producer-director who was kind enough to let me on his set walks into a warehouse and within minutes of the lights being turned on is pointing to a stack of packing crates and asking you to write a scene. It certainly could have happened that way, and if the guy is one of those flighty genius types, maybe it did. But with some of these, quote, genius types, unquote, it’s all an act. They plan and rehearse these flashes of inspiration.”