by Stuart Woods
He sat her down at the kitchen table. “Shut up, Bridget,” he said. “I’m no deader than you are.”
“Then I must be dead, too,” she said, tears starting down her cheeks. “Am I in heaven or hell?”
“That’s a good question, but I’m not in a position to give you an answer. Believe me, no matter what you’ve read in the papers, I’m not dead. Mrs. Willett is, though, and the first thing I want you to do is to get that dressing gown back into her closet, along with anything else you might have taken from there.”
“I only borrowed it,” she whimpered.
“And Bridget, I don’t want you to leave this house for the next week, do you understand me?” He had learned long ago not to cajole the woman; she responded best to direct orders.
“Yessir, Mr. Willett,” she said.
“Good. Now get yourself dressed and go about your work. If the telephone rings, you answer it and deal with whoever it is. Nobody, but nobody, in L.A. knows I’m still on this earth, and I want to keep it that way for a while, do you understand?”
“Yessir, I do,” Bridget said. The woman was bright; she could handle the callers.
He had a thought. “If somebody asks for Mr. Amadeus, I’ll take the call.”
“Yessir,” she said, then hurried herself from the kitchen.
He fixed himself a bowl of cereal and took it into his study. Everything here was much the same as in the Santa Fe house. Wolf had discovered long ago that he was incapable of owning a second home; what he had was two first homes. He sank into the Eames lounge chair, put his feet up on the ottoman, ate his cereal, and thought. When he had finished eating, he glanced at his watch—a quarter to seven—then made a telephone call.
Hal Berger, his business manager, answered the phone himself; he was a bachelor and had no servants. Wolf had always wondered if he was gay. “Hello,” Hal said grumpily.
“You ought to get up earlier and get the worm, Hal.”
There was a long silence, then: “I don’t know who you are, putz, but if you call me again, I’ll have the cops on you.”
“I’m who I sound like,” Wolf said, “and reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“Why should I believe that?” Hal asked suspiciously.
“Gee, I don’t know, Hal, am I supposed to tell you you’ve got a wart on your ass that nobody but me knows about?”
Finally, astonishment. “Wolf, it’s really you, isn’t it?”
“Why don’t you get over to Stone Canyon and find out? I might even tell you what’s going on.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Hal said. He lived up in Coldwater Canyon, not far away.
“Wait a minute,” Wolf said, “I want you to call some people first.” He needed his editor and composer. “Get hold of Jerry Sachs and Dave Martinelli and ask them to meet you here right away. Tell them it’s something about my estate. Urgent.”
“Jerry left for Rome yesterday; a job.”
“The sonofabitch didn’t waste any time, did he?” Wolf hadn’t worked with another editor for years.
“You know Jerry; he’s always short of money. He didn’t have the guts to call me until he was at the airport.”
Wolf thought for a minute. “What’s that kid’s name who used to be his assistant, then went out on her own?”
“The little looker? Whats-her-name?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Jesus, uh…Darling, or something; no, it’s Dear.”
“Deering, Jane Deering. Have you got her number?”
“I’ll find her.”
“Don’t break your ass getting over here, Hal. Shave and shower, have some breakfast. I’ll leave the gate open; you park around back and come in through the kitchen. Tell the others to do that, too.”
Hal Berger was there in half an hour, shaved and showered. He hugged Wolf. “Man, am I glad to see you!”
“You just didn’t want to lose a client,” Wolf said, hugging him back.
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Hal held him at arm’s length. “Is Jack alive, too? And Julia?” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Wolf shook his head. “No, just me. I’ll explain when the others arrive; I don’t want to go through it twice.”
“Sure, I understand. Jane and Dave should be here shortly.”
There was the sound of a car pulling up out back, then another.
“Go meet them,” Wolf said. “Tell them I’m alive; I don’t want anybody else fainting on me. Bridget keeled right over.”
Hal left, then came back a moment later with the editor and composer.
Wolf shook hands with them both, then waved them to a sofa. “I owe you both an explanation,” he said. “Let’s get that out of the way, then I’ll tell you why I asked you here.”
“What about Jack?” Dave Martinelli asked.
“Jack and Julia and another man—I don’t know who—are dead. They were murdered in the Santa Fe house while I was stuck in a hotel at the Grand Canyon, waiting for my airplane to be repaired,” he lied. That would be good enough for now.
“I’m awfully sorry, Wolf,” Jane Deering said.
Wolf had forgotten how attractive she was—small, dark, a terrific figure in tight jeans and a T-shirt; she never seemed to wear anything else the few times he had met her. “Thank you, Jane.”
Dave Martinelli spoke up. “It’s bad enough losing your wife, but your partner at the same time—that’s terrible. Why did they think the other guy was you?”
“They were in my house. A friend who knows us all well made the identification. The guy was apparently my size.”
“There’s no mistake about Julia and Jack?”
“None. One mistake is understandable; he wouldn’t make three.”
“When’s the funeral?” Jane asked.
That gave Wolf pause. It astonished him that he hadn’t thought about it. “Not for a while,” he said. “There’s something I haven’t told you. Only five people, besides my housekeeper, know I’m alive. You’re three of them.”
There was a short silence.
“Why?” Jane asked finally.
“My lawyer and the Santa Fe police think it’s better that way for a while. They want the killer to think I’m dead.” He didn’t have a lawyer yet, and the police thought he was dead, but what else could he tell these people—that when it became known he was alive, he would be the chief suspect?
“I see,” Jane said gravely.
“How can we help?” Dave asked.
“I’ve got to finish L.A. Days, and I’ve got to do it fast,” Wolf said. “Dave, where are you on the score?”
“I’ve laid down a piano track to the rough cut,” the composer said, “and I’ve had most of the scoring done. I’ll have to trim to the final cut, of course.”
“Once we get a final cut, how long before you can record?”
“How pushed for time are you?”
“As pushed as I can get. I want to get an answer print to Centurion as soon as humanly possible. If I don’t, they’re liable to take it away from our company and cut it themselves.”
“Ouch,” Dave said. “They’d love to get their fat, sticky fingers on it, wouldn’t they?”
“They’ve already been on the phone,” Hal Berger said. “I told them I didn’t even know where the rough cut was, maybe in Santa Fe.”
“That’s good,” Wolf said. “Tell them it’s in the Santa Fe house, where Jack and I were working on it, and the police have sealed it for at least two weeks. Tell them you’ve already tried to get in there and couldn’t.”
“Okay.”
“How much time do you need to trim to my cut and record, Dave?”
Martinelli thought for a moment. “If the final is close to your present cut, and you don’t mind paying a hell of a lot of overtime to musicians, I can do it in three days.”
“I think the final cut will be close, and you can have as much overtime as you want,” Wolf said.
“I don’t know about the overt
ime, Wolf,” Hal piped up. “We’re over budget as it is.”
“Thanks for being a businessman, Hal, but I’ve got no choice.”
Jane Deering spoke up. “What about me?” she asked. “How can I help?”
“I’d like you to cut the picture with me,” Wolf replied.
“Jerry went to Rome, I heard,” she said.
“Jane, if Jerry were here, he’d be cutting it; we both know that. But he’s not here, and if you can work night and day for the next few days, I’ll back you with the union for an equal screen credit. I’ll also pay you what Jerry was getting. Hal will show you his contract.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Jane said. “If I can get my sister to stay with my little girl.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were married.”
“I’m not married; I just have a little girl. She’s eight.” She got up. “I’ll call my sister; can I use the kitchen phone?”
“Sure. And Jane, I’d appreciate it if you’d move in here. You can have the guest house.”
“Okay, but I’m going to need an hour or two a day with Sara—that’s my daughter.”
“Sure, whenever you like. The other twenty-two hours are mine, though.”
“Deal,” she said. “I’ll call my sister.”
“Jane, I know you’ve got an agent, and I know he’ll be pissed off if you do this without your talking to him first, but I’d appreciate it very much if you’d wait until we have the cut before calling him. You can trust me about the money.”
She nodded and disappeared toward the kitchen.
Wolf turned back to the composer. “Dave, I’ll call you the minute we have a final cut. Why don’t you go ahead and book studio time and musicians for…” He looked at the day on his wristwatch: Saturday. “Wednesday of next week?”
“Okay,” Martinelli said. “If you need more time and have to reschedule, give me as much notice as you can. It’ll save money.” He got up, shook hands with Wolf and Hal, and left.
“A good man,” Hal said.
“Damn right.”
“You think you and Jane can pull this picture together by Wednesday?”
“We’ll have to.”
Hal looked at the carpet. “Wolf, there’s something more at stake here than keeping Centurion from cutting the picture, isn’t there?”
Wolf nodded. “There’s the final payment, due on answer print. I’m going to need it.”
Hal looked as if he wanted to ask why, but Jane returned to the room.
“Okay, we’re on,” she said. “I’ll go home every night about six, make dinner for Sara, and put her to bed.”
“That’s fine,” Wolf said, relieved.
“Where are we going to work?”
“I’ve got a moviola downstairs. How long since you worked on one?”
She smiled, revealing even, white teeth. “Not as long as you think,” she said. “A girl can’t afford all the latest stuff when she’s just starting out on her own. Where’s the rough cut?”
“In my film vault at the office,” Wolf replied. “Hal, can you run over there and get it? You have the combination.”
“Sure,” Hal said.
“While he’s getting the stock, I’ll run home and pack a bag,” Jane said.
“Good.”
She left, and Hal spoke up.
“Wolf, you didn’t say why you needed the money. You’re in pretty good shape financially right now.”
“Speaking of money, cut Jane a check for a third of her fee up front,” Wolf said, ignoring the question.
“Okay,” Hal replied.
“And when Jane goes home at six to feed her kid, let’s you and I play some tennis, okay? You look like you could use the exercise.”
Hal looked at him long and hard.
“Don’t ask me too many questions right now, Hal. I don’t have any answers.”
“I just have one question, Wolf,” Hal replied. “Am I—or Jane or Dave—going to have any problems with the law?”
Wolf mustered all his credibility for the lie. “No, Hal,” he said. “I promise you.”
He hoped to hell he could keep that promise.
CHAPTER
8
How do you want to do this?” Jane asked. “I mean, how do you like to work?”
“I’m a beginning-to-end man,” Wolf replied. “The only way I can keep the whole thing in my head is to do it in sequence. Jack wanted to start the titles after the first setup of the first scene, then intersperse between each of the other setups.” The first scene was already on the moviola, an editing machine with two reels—one for the picture and one for the sound track—and a small viewing screen. He handed her another reel labeled TITLES.
They both sat on stools, Wolf behind Jane and to her right, so they could both see the screen. There was a light scent from her—not perfume, but something, maybe shampoo. He liked it. They began work.
Promptly at six, they stopped. They had about four minutes of film done, Wolf thought, and that wasn’t much. Still, they were getting used to each other. He and Jerry Sachs had worked together for so long that they had communicated in a kind of verbal shorthand of grunts, sighs, and monosyllables. Jane liked more detailed instructions, and Wolf was having trouble expressing himself in complete sentences. Still, he was getting used to her ways, and he found that articulating what he wanted helped to define it more sharply for himself.
Jane stretched and rubbed her neck. “You know what you’re doing, Wolf.”
“Thanks,” Wolf replied, warming to the praise. He switched on the overhead lights in the small room.
“You ever think of directing?” she asked, pulling on a cotton sweater.
He caught a glimpse of flat, bare midriff as she lifted her arms. “You know that T-shirt around town—‘What I really want to do is direct’?”
She laughed a deeper laugh than he would have expected from such a small woman. “You and everybody else, huh?”
“I’ve always been happy producing,” Wolf said. “I guess I sort of made a career out of keeping Jack in line.”
“Folks ought to make careers out of themselves,” Jane said.
Something in her voice reminded Wolf of something. “You a southerner?” he asked.
“Magnolia Springs, Alabama,” she said.
“Where’s that?”
“Up a little river off Mobile Bay; almost in the Gulf. You’re from someplace in Georgia, I’ve heard.”
“Little town called Delano; in Meriwether County, about eighty miles south of Atlanta.”
“Not as little as Magnolia Springs,” she said.
“What’s the nearest bigger town?”
“Fairhope, but that’s probably not as big as Delano, either. Mobile was the big city to us.”
He walked her upstairs and to her car. “You’ve been out here long enough to lose most of your accent. I didn’t catch it at first.”
She stretched again. “’Bout nine years, now. It comes back when I’m tired, or drunk, or when I’m talking to my mother on the phone. Your accent is gone, too.”
“I’ve been out here a lot longer than you. L.A. has a way of making Californians out of everybody.”
“Not me,” she said. “If I didn’t love this work so much, I’d be somewhere else. Not much work for film editors in Magnolia Springs, Alabama, or Butte, Montana.”
“Not much work for producers in Delano, Georgia, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, either.” He opened the car door for her.
“I’ll be back at eight,” she said. “Don’t wear yourself out on the tennis court.” She drove away.
Wolf walked down the path and through a hedge to the court. Hal was waiting for him, stretched out on a bench. “Be right with you,” Wolf called out. He went into the little dressing house and changed.
“The bank’s been on the phone today,” Hal said when Wolf joined him. “They’ve frozen your and Julia’s accounts, of course; that’s usual in a death. They want to talk with your lawyer or your e
xecutor about disposition.”
Wolf had been his own lawyer for his whole adult life, and Julia was his executor. “Stall them for a week or two,” he said. “Now, no more business; let’s play.”
It took them an hour to finish a set. Hal was a rangy, powerful player, about Wolf’s age, and in good shape. Wolf always relied on cunning with Hal’s sort of player—chop shots and occasional hard second serves; passing shots, when he could manage them. Wolf won, 7-5.
“I don’t think we’ve got time for another set,” Wolf called over the net.
“Coward!” Hal yelled back. “Afraid I’ll get even?”
“Come on, Bridget’s fixing us some supper.”
They dined on cold roast lamb in the small dining room. Hal seemed unusually quiet.
“I called the Santa Fe police this afternoon,” he said finally.
“Why?” Wolf asked, concealing his alarm.
“I wanted to get to them before Centurion did.” He sliced a piece of lamb. “They think you’re dead, you know.”
“I know,” Wolf admitted.
“Why’d you lie to me?” he asked calmly.
“I’m sorry about that, Hal,” Wolf said, contrite. “I’m trying to protect everybody else as well as myself.”
“I know enough about the law to be scared about this,” Hal said.
“I’m scared, too,” Wolf replied. Starting at the beginning, he told Hal everything.
When he had finished, Hal was contemplative for a minute or two, then he said, “You’ve got to finish this film before they arrest you, isn’t that it?”
“That’s it, buddy.”
“So, I’m sitting here in Bel Air, eating leg of lamb with a possible triple murderer,” Hal mused.
“That’s about the shape of it,” Wolf said.
“I’ve known you how long?”
“Twelve, fifteen years?”
“Closer to fifteen,” Hal said. “You’re an honorable man, Wolf. I don’t deal with many of those out here. I don’t believe you did it. There’s got to be another explanation.”
“Thanks for that, Hal,” Wolf said. “I wish I had the truth in my pocket, so you could release it to the trades.”
“The downside, of course, is that you did it—whacked Jack and Julia and this other poor schmuck, whoever he is.”