A Savage Place Part 4

"For what?"

"For Roger Hammond, for getting you a real meal, for going out and getting back to work. Not necessarily in that order."

"No," I said. "Definitely not in that order. First the decent meal."

She smiled, sort of. "Okay," she said. "It's late enough to make it brunch, maybe. Do you always sleep that way?"

"Sit-ups," I said. "Isolates the stomach and saves the back."

"I thought you were supposed to keep your legs straight."

"You were wrong."

She smiled again, sort of, favoring the side where the st.i.tches still pulled. I got up.

"How many do you do?"

"A hundred." I put the gun and holster back on my belt, got my blazer off the back of a chair, and slipped into it. My yellow s.h.i.+rt was in trouble, and my pants were baggy. "How about we go to my hotel while I get a change of clothes and a brush of tooth and then off to some elegant Hollywood bistro for an early lunch."

She nodded. "I'll call a cab. I left my car in Griffith Park."

The cab took us to the Hillcrest, where I showered and shaved and brushed my teeth and put on clean clothes and left the others to be cleaned. I had switched to a light gray blazer, charcoal slacks, white s.h.i.+rt, black and red paisley pocket handkerchief.

"Tie?" I said to Candy Sloan.

She looked as scornful as she could without pulling her st.i.tches.

"I'll try to find a place that requires one before you leave, so you won't have brought one out here in vain."

"I brought several," I said. "Keeps me in touch with my roots. Where shall we eat?"

"I can't eat much. Is there any place you've heard of you'd like to try?"

"Actually I'd like to go back up to the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset."

"Near my apartment?"

"Yeah."

"After I saw you make that pasta the other night, I thought you were a fancy eater."

"I am. And a plain one. And a big one. I like Hamburger Hamlets."

"All right, but you must let me take you to Scandia when I can eat too."

"I've been to Scandia. But I'll go again."

At Hamburger Hamlet I had a frappeed margarita and a large hamburger and a big beer. Candy managed a dish of something called Custard Lulu. Then we took a cab out to Griffith Park and found Candy's car where she had parked it, near the zoo entrance. It was a brown MGB with a chrome luggage rack. She put the top down, and we drove back to Hollywood on the Golden State Freeway then along Los Feliz to Western and then onto Hollywood Boulevard. The sun was Lright. The smog was in remission. I was struck, as I always was, with the shabbiness of Hollywood Boulevard. It was a small-town shabbiness: low stucco with paint peeling, burrito stands with plastic Mexicans and plastic cactuses and plastic burros. There were places that sold Hollywood memorabilia and places that sold papaya juice; there were office buildings about the size of those in Pittsfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, there were gas stations and record stores, and pink-and-yellow motels, and a steady mingle of street kids and tourists.

"Gee," I said, "if things really started booming out here, this could become another Forty-second Street."

"Oh, come on," Candy said. "It's not that bad."

We stopped at a light at Cahuenga Boulevard. A young black man with a haircut like Dorothy Hamill's crossed in front of us. He wore lipstick and mascara. He wore tight pink pants and spike heels, and his fingernails were long and painted silver. With him was a thin blond boy with a tank top and short shorts and translucent shoes with four-inch spikes. He, too, was wearing makeup and jewelry. He carried a small beaded clutch purse. The black kid blew me a kiss. The blond boy yanked at his hand and whispered something, and they hurried across the street.

The light changed, Candy slipped into gear, and we moved on. Behind the thin gray line of buildings and sidewalks the Hollywood Hills rose to the north, green with trees, dotted with color, and beyond them, looking sere, the San Gabriel Mountains. The old Pacific wilderness, barely at bay. We turned left onto Fairfax and headed south past CBS and the Farmers Market, across Wils.h.i.+re, with the May Company on the corner. Had Mary Livingstone really worked there?

We crossed Olympic and turned right onto Pico. Along Pico there were a lot of kosher markets. Then we slipped up over a hill and down past a Big Boy burger stand and turned into the gate at Summit Studios. Candy showed her press card to the guard at the gate and asked for Roger Hammond. The guard went into his shack to call and came out in a minute and waved us through. To the right of the gate as we drove in was a Victorian street full of false fronts and, beyond that, the superstructure of an old elevated train. Candy turned left past a sound stage and parked in a slot marked VISITORS in front of a two-story building with a balcony across the front.

Summit Studios looked sort of like one of those permanent fairgrounds with a large number of small nondescript buildings scattered about inside a fence. None of the buildings were very new and most of them needed a paint touch-up.

We went up the stairs at one end of the balcony and walked halfway down the length of the building to a door with a plaque that said ROGER HAMMOND in simulated-oak Formica. We went in. A rather elderly secretary told us to sit on the couch, Mr. Hammond was on the phone long-distance.

I looked at Candy. "Long-distance," I said soundlessly. She nodded and smiled. "I've never met anyone, when I came to interview them, who was on the phone making a local call," she said softly.

The secretary went back to work. Some phones rang. She answered them. After about ten minutes Roger Hammond appeared at the office door to the left of the secretary and said, "Candy Sloan. I love you on the news."

We stood up.

"Come on inside," Hammond said. "I'm sorry as h.e.l.l to make you wait. But I was talking long-distance." I smiled. Candy introduced us. Hammond shook my hand firmly and about half a second longer than he should have. He was a slim, sandy-haired, Irish-looking guy, with a fine lacework of broken veins on his cheeks that looked like a healthy color if you weren't observant. He had a widow's peak with the hair receding substantially on either side of the peak, and the hair was cut short without sideburns. He was dressed Designer Western with boots, dark blue jeans, and a plaid s.h.i.+rt, half unb.u.t.toned. His belt was a wide one of hand-tooled leather with silver mountings. It matched his boots.

"You in TV, Spenser?" he said.

"No."

"Oh?"

"Spenser's helping me on a special a.s.signment, Mr. Hammond. We're looking into the charges of labor racketeering in the film industry."

"I'd heard you were doing a series on that, Candy. Or at least that it was on the boards. Have you got anything yet?"

"I got beaten up several days ago."

"My G.o.d, you didn't. h.e.l.l, you did, didn't you. I can see the marks, now that you mention it and I'm really looking. G.o.d, Candy, that's terrible."

"I'll recover."

"And Spenser," Hammond said. "That's where you come in, isn't it? You are her bodyguard."

I shrugged.

"Sure you are. You've got the build for it. You look like a guy can handle himself. You stay close to this big guy, Candy."

Candy smiled and nodded. "What can you tell me about labor racketeering in the industry, Mr. Hammond?"

"Roger," he said. "Call me Roger."

Candy smiled again and nodded. "What can you tell me?"

Hammond shrugged widely, bringing his hands, palms up, to shoulder level, elbows in. "I wish I could, Candy, but I can't. I don't know a d.a.m.n thing. I've never encountered any. I've heard rumors, you know, in the industry, but nothing firsthand."

"I've got an eyewitness that said a producer on one of your movies handed an envelope of cash to a thug on the set."

Roger looked at Candy Sloan for a moment. Then he pressed his hands together beneath his chin and touched the underside of his chin with his fingertips. He rocked back in his high-backed executive swivelchair and gazed at the ceiling. Then he let the chair come forward until his elbows rested on the desk. He dropped his eyes level again at Candy, and with his fingertips still touching his chin, he said, "Candy, that's bulls.h.i.+t."

Then he pointed the still-pressed fingertips at her for emphasis.

Candy shook her head. "No, Roger. It's not bulls.h.i.+t. I have the eyewitness. The producer was Sam Felton. The movie was Savage Cycles. Are you telling me you know nothing of this?"

Roger was shaking his head. "Candy, Candy, Candy," he said. "This is bad." He was shaking his head and moving his hands in time with the shake. "This is no good, Candy. This is lousy yellow journalism. Are your ratings that bad?"

"Roger, I've got the eyewitness. Now, I certainly wanted to give you a chance to comment before we go on the air with this."

"Candy, you haven't got anything," Roger said. "You got a new director who's third in the market and he's scared for his job, that's what you got. n.o.body in my organization is paying anybody anything. That's my statement. You have an eyewitness, bring him out. Who is it?"

Candy shook her head.

Roger nodded. "Yeah. I thought that's the way it would be, Candy. You have an eyewitness, but he has no name. You and Joe McCarthy." He unpressed his hands and made a repelling gesture, as if to brush away a swarm of gnats.

Candy smiled brightly at him and was silent. He was silent. I was silent. Roger stared at Candy and then glanced at me and then stared at Candy some more. He pressed the hands back together again and rested his chin on them, the fingertips against his mouth. Candy's legs were crossed and her knees were very handsome. So was the line of her thigh beneath the white skirt. s.e.xism.

"If you have a witness, Candy," Roger said, "I'd like to confront him, or her. If you have real evidence of wrongdoing in my organization, you owe it to me to level with me."

"I think there's danger to the witness," Candy said.

Roger was aghast. He pointed both thumbs at his own chest. "From me? Danger from me? Who the h.e.l.l do you think I am?"

"So you deny any knowledge of labor racketeering, payoffs, kickbacks, whatever, in Summit Studios," Candy said.

"Absolutely," Roger said. "Categorically. And let me say this, Candy. I resent very much the implication that I might be guilty of complicity. There are libel laws, and I'm going to be talking with our legal people."

"Sam Felton had to get the money frorn somewhere," Candy said. "I a.s.sume he wasn't paying out of pocket. Could you put me in touch with your financial officer, Roger? Treasurer, comptroller, whatever you call him here."

"For G.o.d's sake, I will not. Candy, this has gone far enough. I've tried to cooperate, but you are not willing to be reasonable. You come in here and make wild charges and ask for the name of our treasurer." He looked at me, leaning forward a little. "Spender, what the h.e.l.l am I going to do with her?"

"It's not just that you got my name screwed up," I said, "it's how you enlisted me in your cause. What are we sensible guys going to do with this silly broad. That's where you lost me."

"Geez, I'm bad with names," Hammond said. "I must have misunderstood, what is your name again?"

"Spenser," I said. "Like in Edmund."

"I'm sorry, Spenser. Of course. I don't mean to get s.e.xist here. I'm just asking you for an opinion. You look like a guy's been around, Spense. Can't you talk some sense to her?"

"Not my job," I said. "If I were you though, I'd take her seriously."

"I'll take her seriously," Hammond said. "I'll take you both seriously when you give me some evidence besides a G.o.dd.a.m.n ghost witness. Do you have any?"

"I have enough to make me look for more," Candy said.

"To go fis.h.i.+ng, you mean. If you had anything, you wouldn't be here."

"But there is some," Candy said. "I just haven't dug it up yet, is that what you're saying?"

"Don't put words in my mouth, you b.i.t.c.h," Hammond said.

"Roger," I said. "I signed the standard bodyguard's contract, you know, to protect her against sticks and stones and broken bones. I'm not sure names are covered. My inclination, however, is to interpret the contract loosely."

"Spense, are you threatening me?"

"I guess so, Rog. I guess I'm saying you shouldn't call her names, or I will tie a knot in your Ralph Lauren jeans."

Hammond half rose with his hands flat on the desktop. He leaned forward, carrying his weight on his stiff arms, and said, "That's it. This interview is at an end. And I fully intend to let the station manager and ICNBS know just what kind of totally unprofessional job was done here today."

"His name is Wendall B. Tracey," Candy said.

"I know his name," Hammond said.

We were all on our feet now. Candy opened the aoor. We went out.

Chapter6.

AS WE WALKED back toward the car, Candy said, "Want a drink at the commissary?"

"Is there a chance I'll see Vera Hruba Ralston?"

"No."

"Well, I'll go anyway. Maybe we'll see a clue there." We walked across an open area, past a sound stage and two buildings that looked like barracks, and there was the commissary. It was a pale low stucco building with a small flagstone veranda across the front, facint; inward onto a small lawn among the buildings. Inside was a high ceiling, and around the walls, in living Technicolor, were painted a bunch of mythologicallooking women with harps and such.

"The nine Muses?" I said to Candy.

"Could be," Candy said. "I didn't know there were nine."

"Same as a baseball team," I said.

"I could use a drink," Candy said. "What would be good. How about a margarita?"

"Salt may hurt."

"You're right. I'll have a martini." I had a beer.

"What do you think?" Candy said after she'd sipped at the martini. At the table next to us people I vaguely recognized were having drinks and sandwiches and laughing often. The cast of a television show, but I couldn't remember which.