Undead L.A. 1

by Sagliani, Devan

  The waitress flirted hard with Gary while she took his order, almost treating Sandra like she wasn't there at all. Gary got a kick out of how indignant Wong sounded when she ordered her bowl of oatmeal with fruit after he'd finished ordering a cheeseburger and fries. This place was known for their burgers as much as they were known for their hot waitresses in skimpy outfits.

  The food came up quickly. Gary was happy to dig in; glad he didn't have to talk much more with his partner. For whatever reason, she seemed to be sulking over something. He didn't bother to ask why. The truth was he didn't really want to know. He'd never understood women and he didn't plan on figuring them out now. To him they were a subtle mystery not meant to be unraveled or understood. The deeper you went into their world, the less sense it all made. He preferred things to be simple and straightforward. In his experience this was never how it was with women.

  They never really say what they mean, he thought. And they are always looking for a hidden meaning in what you say to them. Why is that? Maybe it has something to do with the hormones.

  Someone put the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the jukebox first, followed by Rob Zombie. It was another one of the things that Gary enjoyed about the eatery – the music made the atmosphere. It reminded him of the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas where Motley Crue and Godsmack played in the elevators twenty-four hours a day.

  When the bill came, he took it before she could reach for it. He flipped it over and on the back was the waitress’s phone number along with the name CINDY. Sandra's mouth hung open when she saw it, but she quickly covered up her surprise. He paid and she didn't thank him.

  “Call me anytime you are free, Detective,” Cindy said as he paid.

  “I work long hours,” he said noncommittally.

  “That's okay, I stay up very late.” Sandra turned and walked out of the restaurant quickly, letting the door slam in her wake.

  *** *** ***

  The house on Mulholland was located on a stretch of winding road that gave them a nice view of the San Fernando Valley. On a clear day you could see the intention behind the city: a visible grid of streets that ran uniformly from one side of the mountains to the other in both directions. There was a gate with a pass code they had to get through. Leo Gold's personal assistant, Miriam Green, had given them the code, but by the time they got up to the place the gate was already wide open. They drove the long stretch of road and parked in front of the main house. There were cameras all over the grounds so it was no surprise to Gary that the minute they got out of his Town Car the gate shut behind them automatically. The house itself was set into the side of a hill, with huge solar panels running down the roof.

  Up until last week the house had belonged to Leonard Ethan Goldman, or Leo Gold as he had come to be known by his fans. Leo was a Hollywood screenwriter famous for writing impossibly dumb big budget action movies filled with car cashes, mind blowing stunts, explosions, and tons of CGI. It was ironic that the writer had grown so rich considering how thin the actual plots of the movies were. Gary was fairly certain the guy had scribbled them out in crayon on a napkin as the ideas came to him. They were the kind of forgettable garbage Hollywood thrived on in the end, summer blockbuster sequels with big name stars and high-octane action. Idiots would pile in to consume overpriced popcorn in huge greasy tubs and slurp on buckets of high fructose corn syrup-laced fizzy water in the dark, while an endless array of loud noises and flashing lights melted what little was left of their useless brains.

  Miriam looked like she had been crying when she let them in. Her eyes were puffy and red. She had a tissue in her hand that she used to dab at the drips from her reddened nose. She didn't offer to shake their hands as they introduced themselves, but he was glad for that.

  She's cute, Gary thought, but the last thing I need right now is a handful of snot.

  “I'm Detective Wendell and this is Detective Wong,” he said. “May we come in?”

  “Yes,” she said, dabbing her runny nose one last time. “Follow me.”

  Gary was used to it, but he was still glad that Sandra was there with him. Maybe she could lend a woman's touch of sensitivity to the days’ tragic events and help soften the blow.

  Miriam led them in past the large windows toward an air-conditioned office in the back. The walls of the hallways heading back were lined with framed movie posters. Gary recognized some of them. They were all about cars and cops gone bad and foiling terrorists’ plots and saving the world. Gary had seen one on cable a few nights back for several minutes, but then switched over to Sports Center after a car jumped over a semi-truck to land on a moving train. He didn't have much patience for that kind of child's fantasy. He preferred reading books to movies most of the time anyway, and then always crime thrillers about serial killers. He'd take a Thomas Harris book any day of the week over whatever summer blockbuster was topping the charts.

  There couldn't be more than a thousand words of dialogue in all this guy's movies combined, thought Gary. How the hell can this guy call himself a writer?

  He stopped and stared at the last poster on the wall. It showed a zombie horde advancing on a half-naked woman who'd fallen down in her attempt to flee the undead. She had cuts on her arms and legs and a look of pure terror on her makeup-smeared face. She held her manicured hand up to ward off the demons hungrily closing in on her. The macabre font in the middle read UNDEAD L.A.

  “I was unaware that Leo made horror movies,” Gary mused. “I thought he just did loud movies with explosions and car tricks.”

  “He usually didn't,” Miriam said, sitting behind his desk and inviting them to join her. “He tried making a zombie movie, but it didn't get good reviews. Critics hated it and zombie fans called it derivative garbage. The box office sales were pathetic. He blamed it on the director, but the truth is that he just didn't understand the genre. Zombie fans are an intensely devoted group of people who don't appreciate it when Hollywood tries to make a quick buck off of them. He'd always wanted to do horror, but he never got around to it. He kept saying he wanted to do something like Twilight, but with Fairies and Witches. Now he'll never get the chance.”

  Thank God for that, Gary thought to himself.

  “When was the last time you saw Leo?”

  “Yesterday afternoon,” she said. “I worked with him here at the house until about four. He let me off early so I could visit my mom in the hospital. She's been having chest pains and they wanted to keep her overnight. I was there with her until around nine, and then my fiancé and I went to dinner. I came back this morning at 8 a.m. and was waiting for Leo to turn up when you called. In fact, I thought it was he who had arrived. I was excited to tell him I got him reservations tonight for dinner at the Water Grill downtown. He was planning on going to the Emmy's with a group of friends from CBS and he wanted last minute reservations.”

  Gary had heard of the place but never eaten there. From what he knew the food was as amazing as it was expensive, with celebrities clamoring to be served exotic fish at over two hundred dollars a plate.

  “Did you think it was strange that he wasn't here?”

  “Not at all,” Miriam explained. “Leo is a free spirit. One time I came in and worked nearly four hours before he called to tell me that he had gone to Santa Barbara for the weekend.”

  “And you didn't think to call him?”

  “I had called to ask him about some of the changes on the double blue pages I'd gotten that didn't seem right, but it had gone to voice mail.”

  “I don't understand,” Gary admitted. “Can you explain that for me?”

  “Oh,” Miriam laughed. “I'm so used to dealing with Hollywood types. I didn't realize you wouldn't get the reference. When they make changes to a script they use different colored pages to keep from having to reprint the entire thing over and over. With Leo's movies, there were always lots of revisions. He usually started out on white, and then moved to pink, blue, yellow, and so on. This is for actual shoot scripts mind you, but by the time we were a mont
h into production we were generally already doubling back over the colors. One time when he was working with McG, he actually hit triples. Can you believe that?”

  Miriam looked up into Gary's eyes and touched his hand slightly as she spoke.

  “So where was he?” Sandra jumped in, moving the story along as Gary broke eye contact and took down notes.

  “Excuse me?”

  Gary saw a flash of annoyance in Miriam's eyes at having been interrupted. He smirked at the thought that other women found Wong as off-putting as he and his colleagues did.

  “You said you lost track of him,” Sandra said, brushing off the dirty look Miriam gave her and pretending she didn't notice. “Where was he that time?”

  “I found out he'd been on a yacht with Roman Coppola and didn't have service,” Miriam explained, turning her attention and charm back to Gary. “It's not uncommon is what I am trying to tell you. He's even gone missing for days before, then turned up. I used to tease him that I wouldn't know who to call if something happened to him and that he ought to do a better job of keeping me informed. It's ironic that when something actually did happen, you called me.”

  “I'm not sure I would use the word ironic to define my boss being murdered in a gay sex club,” Sandra said, the words dripping with biting sarcasm. Miriam just glared at her. It was Gary's turn to jump in now before a catfight broke out. He'd never seen his partner act this way before, but he again chalked it up to something hormonal.

  Maybe it's that time of the month, he thought. He had shacked up with a woman once who went nuts every time she had her period. Later, after she'd started bleeding, they'd laugh about how erratic her mood swings were and how she liked to take hostages. Shark Week. That's what she'd called it.

  “Can you describe a typical work day for us? What would you do while he was gone?”

  “There's plenty to keep me busy, Detective. Trust me. Between scheduling appointments and filing and transcribing script notes, I could keep working with him gone for months and months.”

  “How did you get hired to work for him? How did you meet?”

  “It's so stupid,” she laughed. “He put an ad on Craigslist for a personal assistant. I was desperate for a job so I was looking everywhere. I even brought my fiancé with me, like Leo was going to hit on me. I nearly blew the interview over it. I couldn't help but laugh at how obvious it was that I didn't need protection. If anything, my fiancé, Greg, did!”

  “So Leo made no secret of his sexual preferences?”

  “Not since I've known him,” Miriam said. “All of his friends knew about it as well. He wasn't ashamed, if that's what you mean.”

  “Forgive me if this seems insensitive,” Gary began, taking notes as he spoke, “but why do you think he would be in a gay movie theater if he was so open about his sexuality?”

  “Because he's a slut,” she shrugged. “Leo had a bawdy sense of humor. He was very kind, very funny, and very perverted. He never hid any of it. Leo loved sex and drugs and people. He had a wild streak in him. Everyone knew that about him.”

  “So why would he need a dark theater full of strangers to get off if he was so open and everyone loved him? Why not a gay bar or a private party?”

  “That was just Leo,” she shrugged. “He didn't try to hide it in the least. He loved doing kinky things and then telling people about it to get a reaction. I'd heard him mention going to a gay theater before but I never realized it was an actual movie theater. I thought maybe it was one of those back areas of an adult bookstore, like a peep show booth.”

  “Okay then,” Gary said, jotting down some more notes. “I appreciate your candor. I know this is difficult. Just a few more questions and we'll be out of your hair.”

  “I'm happy to answer any questions you have,” she said stoically. “Leonard was an amazing person and a great boss. He treated everyone with kindness and respect. He didn't act like he was better than others just because he had money and access to big players in Hollywood. He remembered growing up broke. He didn't deserve this and I really hope you find out who did it to him.”

  “We're going to do our best,” Gary said, trying to make sympathetic eyes for her. He started to reach his hand out to put it on hers as a gesture of comfort, but then saw the disturbed look his partner was giving him and thought better of it. “Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt Leo? Did he owe anyone money?”

  “Not that I'm aware of,” she shrugged, bringing the tissue back up to dab her eyes and nose dry. “Are you suggesting this was more than a hate crime?”

  “Just going down the list of possibilities. Any debts in Vegas? Loan sharks?”

  “Leo didn't gamble,” Miriam explained. “He said he didn't like losing money. I used to tease him that you had to spend money to make money, but he didn't agree with that either. And he hated Las Vegas itself, the city I mean. He said it brought out the worst in people. He also said that he could never sleep well there, that they pumped oxygen into the hotel rooms to keep you up and gambling – but I think his sleeping problem was because of his allergies.”

  “Leo was a celebrity,” Sandra said. “He must have had admirers and detractors. Did any of them stand out?”

  Miriam thought for a moment with her tissue held up to her lips. Then her eyes came to life, as if a sudden recognition had taken place.

  “Oh my God…Javier,” she said at last, pronouncing the name like she was Orson Welles in Citizen Kane saying Rosebud.

  “Who is Javier?”

  “He came up to work a party as a bartender one night last year,” Miriam said, her hands now shaking at the memory. “I don't remember his last name but I've got it here somewhere in the paperwork. Leo threw a big event trying to impress Balthazar.”

  “Balthazar?”

  “Getty,” Miriam said, looking annoyed again at Sandra. “It was around the end of August. He'd become obsessed with being seen as more than just an action movie guy. He began trying to cultivate a circle of friends interested in film and literature and art. Roman brought Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman, but they didn't stay long. He invited Jerry Stahl as well, but I'm not sure if he ever put in an appearance. Courtney Love showed up at one point; I remember that. I didn't recognize her at first. I was so embarrassed when I realized who she was. I must have listened to her first album a billion times when it came out. But all in all, the party was a flop and Leo was disappointed. He'd had me hire a full event staff and by the end of the night it was just he and his regular friends partying by the pool doing blow.”

  “Tell us more about Javier.”

  “Javier came from the event planning company – I think their name was Easy Party Staffing. Like I said, I have it written down and can find it for you. He kept referring to it as “sleazy” instead of easy. I remember that. He seemed to think it was pretty clever. As the evening wore on, and Leo's disappointment grew that it wasn't turning out how he thought it would, he began getting more out of control. Javier didn't just tend the bar. He brought a bunch of coke with him. I think he only took the job as a means to get into Hollywood events and peddle his wares. Leo liked him. He was cocky, and had his shirt open. By the end of the night he was hanging out alone with Leo, doing blow in the house. Leo told me later that he thought for sure he was going to score with him, but Javier turned out not to be gay. He said it was the first time his gaydar hadn't worked. The way he described it, Javier was very surprised when Leo made a move. He left shortly afterward, but he came by the house several times after that over the next few weeks.”

  “Are you saying he was providing illegal drugs to your boss?”

  “He never told me that,” Miriam said, raising her hands defensively at Sandra's direct line of questioning. “But I assume that's exactly what was going on. Leo never did drugs in front of me because he knew how uncomfortable it made me. I can tell you this though; he didn't think doing blow was a big deal, and neither did most of his friends. The higher up you go in Hollywood, the more drugs you see
. It's just a fact of life. They close business deals and sign contracts, then celebrate by doing rails of white powder right off the conference table. I was definitely in the minority.”

  “We're not interested in making this about his personal drug habits,” Gary offered, hoping to set her at ease again. “Did Leo owe Javier money? Is that what they fought about?”

  “What would he owe him money for? I don't understand.”

  “For the drugs? It might be part of the reason he targeted him.”

  “Oh I see,” Miriam said, smiling as she shook her head. “That wasn't it. Javier gave Leo the drugs for free, as far as I know. He came by to be close to Leo, and he used the free party favors to get access to him.”

  “So if they were getting along so well why would Javier want to hurt Leo?”

  “Javier had a script he wanted to show Leo,” Miriam explained. “He was using the blow to butter him up in an attempt to get him to pitch the movie idea to one of the studios on his behalf. He needed access.”

  “So Leo told him no and Javier was mad?”

  “Leo didn't tell him no. That would have ruined the game for him. He just kept stringing him along, telling him he would get to it when he had more time. That way Javier would keep coming around.”

  “I don't understand. What game?”

  “Leo thought he could get Javier to sleep with him,” Miriam laughed. “He was convinced that eventually it would happen. For two weeks he was obsessed with screwing the straight guy. It was all he talked about.”

  “If Leo knew Javier was straight, why would he think he could talk him into having sex with him?”

  “They spent a lot of time alone in his bedroom doing drugs. I think he thought if Javier got comfortable he would finally give in, but as far as I know it never happened. I am pretty sure Leo would have told me. He would have wanted to brag. He got off on talking straight guys into fooling around. A lot of gay guys do. It's not uncommon.”