“Then Mr. Khoury made a picture that lost a lot of money,” said Columbo. “Was that Mr. Heck’s fault?”
“No. Of course, Steve was up to his tricks on Lingering Melody, but that’s not why the picture lost so much. To know the reason, you have to understand Joe Khoury. You know the store. You’ve seen his home. In Los Angeles, Khoury is another name for good taste, style, flair. Maybe it wouldn’t be on Fifth Avenue, but in L.A. it is. Joe takes great pride in that. He didn’t think his pictures reflected well on the Khoury name and reputation. When some people called Galactic Revolt a spaghetti sci-fi, he refused to make the sequel in Italy, even though he could have brought it in a lot cheaper over there. But Return to the Galaxy was the same kind of thing, even though he made it in Hollywood. The town didn’t like either of the sci-fi’s much. They didn’t get good notices. And Joe hated that. He had a notion that the industry was laughing at him. He wasn’t entirely wrong.”
“Miss Dana lent me video tapes of the two sci-fi’s and Lingering Melody,” said Columbo. “I’m planning on watching them this evening, if I can.”
“I agree, you should,” said Brinsley. “Not because it has anything to do with the murders, just because Lingering Melody is a damned fine motion picture. Joe’s proud of it—and has every right to be. Of course, he paid Diana Cushing six bloody fortunes to star in it; and her shit—meaning having to hire her makeup artist, her hairdresser, even her cameraman, and so on—cost two fortunes more. It seems like a simple little film, but it cost more to make than either of the big, splashy sci-fi’s. The Times loved it. Vanity Fair loved it. The New Yorker loved it. It got two Academy Award nominations. But distributors—” Brinsley turned down the corners of his mouth and shook his head. “It was ‘too arty,’ they said. ‘Too gloomy.’ ‘Too preachy.’ ‘Too long.’ It ran in only about a third as many theaters as ran the sci-fi’s. And, frankly, I have to admit that audiences weren’t exactly crazy about it. Joe lost a lot of money on it.”
“Then is he out of the movie business?”
“He is until he recoups his fortune. Right now he can’t afford to sink money in another picture.” Columbo took a final puff on his cigar, then laid it in the big glass ashtray on Brinsley’s desk, to go out. “Mr. Brinsley… It’s not my business to dig up gossip. I always hate to have to bring up somethin’ like I’m going to bring up, but I suppose you know that Mrs. Khoury and Mr. Heck were in bed together at the time of the murders.”
“So? What’s your question, Lieutenant?” asked Brinsley coldly.
“I guess my question is, does that surprise you? I hope you don’t mind my askin’.”
“The answer,” said Brinsley, shaking his head, “is that it doesn’t surprise me.” He crushed his cigarette beside Columbo’s cigar. “What does that tell you? Anything?”
“It tells me the matter was no secret,” said Columbo. “Which means that Mr. Khoury knew about it. Right?”
“And Arlene knew about Kim,” said Brinsley. “There was no love lost in that foursome, Lieutenant, but there was no great hostility, either. They simply faced the facts of life. It goes on all the time in this town.”
Columbo nodded. “Other towns, too, from what I read.”
Brinsley smiled. “Other towns just don’t get the publicity,” he said.
“You suppose Mrs. Khoury knew Mr. Heck was getting kickbacks on contracts and that way taking money out of her husband’s pockets?” Columbo asked.
“Arlene wasn’t stupid. She didn’t miss much.”
“Well… tell me. When Mr. Heck made Mr. Khoury poorer, he was making Mrs. Khoury poorer, too, wasn’t he? Community property. In California. She owned half of what he owned. Right?”
“Simplifying, yes.”
“Which made her an… intimate friend of a man who was stealing from her. Am I missing something here? I have trouble picking up on subtle things. What is it I don’t understand?”
“You said you didn’t want to get into gossip, Lieutenant.”
“Right. But it’s an inconsistency, sir. That’s a big part of my job, resolving inconsistencies.”
Brinsley shook another cigarette from a pack of Marlboros, looked at it a moment, apparently thought better of it, and returned it to the pack. “It’s a large part of mine, too,” he said while still staring at the cigarette. “I’ve got no explanation for you. I can confirm that Steve Heck skimmed money off Joe’s productions, but I didn’t know Arlene very well. You should talk to Tony Vado.”
Thirteen
1
Happily for Columbo, Antonio Vado was in his office. He sent out word that he would talk to the lieutenant this afternoon, if he was willing to wait a few minutes.
Columbo sat down to wait. He picked up a copy of People magazine and glanced idly through. He saw an article about Diana Cushing, the star of Lingering Melody. The story was about how she and her three children lived happily in an old farmhouse in Connecticut, absent the husbands she had divorced, the fathers of the children. She would make no more than one film a year from now on, the article said.
Photographed in blue jeans and sweatshirt, she “looks like anything but the star-crossed lover of Lingering Melody or the glamorous but tragic New York fashion model of Fifty-Third and Park.”
Columbo liked the pictures of her on her farm better than the publicity stills from the two pictures. She was a beautiful woman, though, whatever she wore: a blonde with long hair, with a flawless face and figure.
Antonio Vado came out. “Lieutenant Columbo!” he said in a hearty, booming voice. “We’ve never met, but I know your name.”
“And I know yours too, sir,” said Columbo, shaking hands with Vado.
“Ah. But you may wonder why I know yours. Not that you aren’t famous. I mean, you have quite a name and a reputation for success. But do you remember the murder of Anna Piccolini? She was a second cousin of mine, by marriage.”
“I’m glad I was able to clear that up,” said Columbo.
“Probably just a routine case for you,” Vado suggested.
“No, sir. There’s no such thing as a routine case, when somebody’s dead.”
“Ah. Well… Of course. That’s true. Come in. What can I do for you?”
Vado was a big handsome man with a strong face and curly graying hair. Voluble, with deceptively ingenuous enthusiasm, he spoke English with a distinct Italian accent. His gray suit was of a shiny fabric Columbo didn’t know the name of. His shoes were identical to the ones Yussef Khoury wore: Gucci loafers.
His office was totally unlike Brinsley’s. Movie posters hung on the walls—including the space-picture ones Columbo had seen in Khoury’s office. Spotlights shining from track fixtures on the ceiling highlighted some of them. Their bright colors gave the office a gaudy ambience—gaudy but also exuberant. Vado also maintained on the walls a gallery of autographed star photos.
“At this time of afternoon,” said Vado, “it’s not too early to offer a drink. Not too early to have one. What would you like, Lieutenant?”
“Technically, I shouldn’t drink on duty,” said Columbo. “But I suppose a light Scotch and soda at this time of day wouldn’t hurt anything.”
Vado lifted the top of one end of his credenza, exposing a bar. He poured Scotch and soda for Columbo, a gin and tonic for himself, then closed the bar. Columbo noticed that the Scotch was Johnnie Walker Black, fine whisky but not the outstanding Scotch Yussef Khoury served. It didn’t offend this Scotch to put a little seltzer in it.
Vado sat down, facing Columbo across his desk. “Well… I bet you’d like to ask me some questions,” he said.
“Yes, sir. I guess you knew Mrs. Khoury and Mr. Heck pretty well.”
Vado shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“Mr. Heck had a reputation for skimming money off contracts,” said Columbo. “He did that to Mr. Khoury, I’m told.”
“Did it to me, too. I was co-producer on two films with Joe Khoury. If you want the bare truth, Lieutenant, there was no love lost betwee
n me and Steve Heck. I won’t deny his talent, but I resented his dishonesty.”
“Tell me something, Mr. Vado,” said Columbo. “Just what is a production designer?”
“Industry bullshit,” said Vado. “The conventional wisdom these days is that pictures are ‘created’ by directors. In fact, actors, producers, special- effects men, writers, and composers create them. And production designers. The production designer has many of the same responsibilities as the director. He gives the film its special… flavor. He gives it its look, and if he does it well, credit goes to the director.”
“Thank you. Mr. Heck stole from others, not just from you and Mr. Khoury, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then a lot of people might have thought they had reason to kill him,” said Columbo.
“You don’t buy the idea he was killed by a gang of… a gang of two-legged animals?” asked Vado.
“Maybe he was,” said Columbo. “But I’ve got to eliminate other possibilities. Everybody I talk to says Mr. Heck was very good at what he did. But everybody also says he was a thief.”
Vado sipped from his gin and tonic, frowned, and then asked, “How much time do you have, Lieutenant?”
“My time is your time, sir. I’ll take whatever time it takes to clear up some of the inconsistencies.”
“I will show you some bits of video tape,” said Vado.
He pulled a cord that exposed on the wall to the right of his desk a large video projection screen. Columbo noticed now that a cube-shaped coffee table was in fact a video projector, when it was opened. Vado pulled from a drawer four video tapes.
“I show you,” he said, “only snippets. Just to demonstrate.”
He shoved a cartridge into the projector. Sound filled the room, and an image appeared on the screen—of a young woman in Khoury lingerie, modeling—the same kind of thing Columbo had seen at Hammond’s Restaurant at noon yesterday. She swept back and forth before the camera, pulling off a negligee and showing herself in sheer panties and a sheer bra, a little bolder than what the models had shown in the restaurant.
“You see?” said Vado. “Joe’s start in the business. There was money in this.”
He stopped the tape, removed it, and inserted another cartridge. This one he rolled forward for a half minute before he stopped it and began to project it. It was the same thing, except that the young woman in the Khoury bra, panties, garter belt, and stockings walked across a luxurious room to a bar and said, “You’ll have a drink, surely.” Vado let the tape run a minute or so while the young woman poured two drinks and walked back across the room to where a somewhat greasy-looking man sat on a couch.
“Willa Wood,” said Vado. “You recognized her, of course. The film was called Joelle. ”
“Yes, sir,” said Columbo. “I’ve seen one or two of her other pictures. On television. Cut a lot, I imagine.”
“All right,” said Vado. He stopped this tape, too, and replaced it with another one. "Galactic Revolt,” he said as he shoved another cartridge in and set it on fast-forward to roll to the scene he wanted to show.
The difference between this picture and the others was striking. It did not take a connoisseur of motion pictures to see the difference. The scene was dark and brooding. It was of a swamp, with alien foliage not to be found anywhere on earth. Bubbles popped to the surface in pools of turbid water, emitting wisps of smoke. A young woman ran as if in terror through the swamp. She was stark naked and only partly obscured either by foliage or mist. Though she was running, the sound of her breath, indeed even the sound of her splashing through the water, was not heard on the screen. She ran in eerie silence, until a blast of music overwhelmed any sound she might have made.
Vado let it run but turned off the sound. “Anna Maria Tavernelle,” said Vado. “In the screen credits, Fairleigh Richmond.”
She ran and ran, until a grotesque monster overtook her and leaped to crush her to the ground. But as the monster leaped, a red laserlike beam stopped it in midair and blew it to bits. The hero, in spotless white leotards, stepped calmly forward and lifted the frightened girl from the ground.
Light filled the screen. Like sunrise. The appearance of the rescuing hero had inspired a complete change of mood. What had been murky gray-green now turned gradually yellow and white, though the scene was the same swamp.
Vado stopped the tape. “Steve Heck,” he said. “A little crude, but effective. Now look. Lingering Melody—”
The final tape rolled forward to the scene Vado wanted to show. It seemed at first to be of an Edwardian dining room, a scene from a gaslight movie. The dim, yellowish light suggested as much. Looking closer, Columbo saw that the men and women on the screen were not in Edwardian dress but very modem dress: the men in business suits, not tuxedos or tails, the women in short cocktail dresses. Music overcame most conversation, though a few words here and there could be heard: conversation about money, also gossip. The scene was not of an Edwardian dining room but of a contemporary urban dinner club. Waitresses appeared!: young women in satin corselets and net stockings, carrying trays and serving drinks.
“Now watch,” said Vado. “Diana Cushing.”
The actress Columbo had seen in blue jeans and a sweatshirt in the magazine a few minutes ago came toward the camera carrying a tray of drinks. She passed by the camera, which turned and followed her as she approached a table.
The waitress served the drinks, placing each one before one of the men and women at the table. The camera switched back and forth between the waitress and a woman her own age, sitting at the table with cigarette in hand and gossiping with the man beside her. At first she hardly noticed the waitress, but when she took a sip from her glass she raised her head and snapped, “Oh, dear! I emphatcally said Tanqueray.” Again the camera switched back and forth, as the woman shook her head over her drink and the waitress at first panicked, then mumbled an apology, saying she would bring a Tanqueray martini immediately. “Before everyone else’s ice melts, if you can manage it,” said the customer.
“You see?” said Vado as he switched off the projector. “Steve Heck? He did the set, the lights, the costumes, the music. The director… Well, the director of Lingering Melody was Ben Willsberger. He controlled the acting, the camera work, and so on. But you see the mood, the emotions? If I had shown you a few minutes more, you would have seen that the woman did not order Tanqueray. Diana Cushing’s reaction, her fear at first, her humiliation, is brilliant acting. The director called for that and caught it on film. But Steve Heck designed it all. He gave Diana a setting… a box in which to act. Diana couldn’t have achieved the power of that scene in the Joelle set. The club, incidentally, was his idea; it was a very different place in the script. That was Steve Heck. He was a genius.”
“Then why did he have to skim off money?” Columbo asked.
Vado shrugged. “The industry,” he said. “It has its own peculiar way of placing value on things. A script writer, for example, may get $80,000 for making a far bigger contribution to the success of a film than its $400,000 director. Why? I don’t know why. The reviewers always give endless ‘scholarly analysis’ to what directors do—ignoring the fact that most of what they get credit for doing was done by others. I don’t know why.”
Columbo turned down the comers of his mouth and nodded.
“Mr. Vado, I guess you know Mrs. Khoury and Mr. Heck were in bed together when they died. That doesn’t seem to surprise anybody, including Mr. Khoury. Just what contribution did she make to Mr. Khoury’s films?”
“I’d say she made no contribution whatever,” said Vado bluntly. “Maybe I’m not the one to ask. She was a meddling bitch.”
“I haven’t yet found anybody who liked her much,” said Columbo.
“You haven’t even found anybody who’s sorry she’s dead.”
“But I don’t think I’ve found anybody with motive to murder her,” said Columbo. He accepted his second drink from Vado. “Also, I’ve got another question. You’ll h
ave to excuse me. Asking questions is my business. Meddling, prying into other people’s business. That’s my business. It’s what I have to do.’’
“Understood, Lieutenant. No problem.”
“Well, y’ see, people talk about Mrs. Khoury different ways—as a meddler, as a drunk, as aggressive, as unkind… What do you suppose Mr. Heck saw in her? I mean, they must have been pretty close. He was ten years younger than she was, kind of a good-lookin’ guy. It’s an awful personal question…”
Vado looked thoughtful for a moment. “For years and years,” he began, “before I knew the Khourys, Arlene was a quiet, dutiful housewife. She brought up their kids. That’s what she wanted in life, what she thought was natural, maybe inevitable. Then the kids grew up and went out on their own, and there wasn’t anything left for her. She hung around the country club. She tried golf, but mostly she played cards, and she was bored out of her skull. She got to drinking too much. She knew Joe saw younger women, so she decided to see younger men. Problem was, what did she have that would attract them? Well, she attracted the tennis pro at the club. What she had that attracted him was a lot of money and a sex drive bigger than all outdoors. So I heard. I figure that is what attracted Steve Heck.”
“Did she really meddle in Mr. Khoury’s business?”
“In the picture business, yes. She was around this office more than I wanted to see her—and she would come around the soundstage when we were shooting. She was full of ideas. Finally, even Steve Heck joined the rest of us in telling her to get lost.”
“When do you suppose Mr. Khoury will make another picture?” Columbo asked.
Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders Page 11