Angel’s Gate Read online

  • • •

  Behind the Desmond’s building, chest heaving, Nevil Jonson stood with hands on hips, perspiring. That Dick Henry son-of-a-bitch had ruined his ficus. His office had smelled like the men’s room in the park after the illegal aliens played soccer and drank beer all afternoon. Now, yellow pot and all, forlorn, the ficus stood crookedly by the Dumpster. Henry would get his. Wait and see.

  THREE

  Motivation

  Howard Hogue had loved once and that had proved sufficient. Angela, coincident with his first million, had taken the first exit. Brokenhearted, eager to prove her apprehension of his character in error, he had given her everything in a spasm of generosity.

  His lawyer had called him an ass. In his weaker moments he had agreed with his lawyer. But the wording of his generosity clause, an ultimatum of sorts, precluded her from ever coming back for more. It didn’t mean much back then. But now, a billion dollars later, the Hogue clause was the stuff of legal legend.

  However, with his acquisition of fortune came the realization he could never trust again. Was he the object of affection or was it his wallet? He knew he would never be wise enough to be certain.

  His solution was to buy people, wholly and completely. Then there were no misunderstandings. He never went cheap and the purchased persons clearly knew he or she had been purchased. When he tired of their services, sexual, psychological, monetary, or even automotive, he tossed them aside without guilt.

  He had women all over Hollywood. Twenty-eight, he believed, but he had to count. From the rear of Soundstage 13, where he stood with his assistant, the fully purchased Melvin Shea, he watched Heather Hill and wondered if she might be number twenty-nine. Or was it thirty?

  On the set, under the lights, was a detective’s drastically untidy office. Papers haphazard on every horizontal surface, and on the desk, on top of more paper, a revolver and bullets.

  Night. Rain beat against the window, view occluded by damaged Venetian blinds hanging at angle.

  Behind the desk Smokin’ Jack Wilton, heartthrob of the moment, played his biggest part yet, Johnny Marion, hard-boiled private dick up to his ass in trouble. Across his desk was the traditional damsel in distress, Angela. Known to her parents as Ann-Heather Ballogler, to her agent and Howard Hogue she was Heather Hill.

  Sidestage, director Eli Nazarian leaned forward. “And . . . action.”

  “Speed,” said the cameraman’s runner, letting everyone know the camera was working properly.

  Angela, blond and very busty, sat up straight, thrusting her bosom forward. “How can I ever repay you, Johnny?”

  Johnny ran his eyes over her frame. “I think you know how, doll.”

  “That’s all you want from me? I have a lot more to give.”

  “Sorry, babe. My heart ain’t workin’ right.”

  Angela rose from her chair, looked down at Johnny. “Well, if that’s what Johnny wants, that’s what Johnny gets.”

  Lightning flickered, thunder crashed.

  Angela walked around the desk, Johnny spun his chair around to face the window. Angela trailed her fingers on his knee, then knelt down, disappearing from the camera’s view.

  ZZZip.

  Johnny rested a hand on her head. “That’s it, darling.” From below desk level came a deep moan. “Mmmmm.”

  Johnny closed his eyes in rapture—one, one thousand, two, one thousand, three—but suddenly hands were waved widely from behind the desk and Heather stood up. “Wait! Wait! Hold on a minute. What’s my motivation at this point?”

  Nazarian the director, famous for his vile temper, leapt to his feet, threw his script to the floor. “Cut! Cut!” He pulled on his long black wavy hair in furious incredulity. “Heather. You fucking moron. Your motivation? What are you talking about, motivation? You’re giving Johnny a blow job. That’s your motivation. Blow job.”

  Melvin Shea eyed his boss.

  “I like this girl,” said Hogue.

  Melvin nodded. The dumber the better. “Yes, sir, Mr. Hogue.” Number thirty. Actually, number twenty-nine. After he dispatched Bambi back to the minor leagues.

  • • •

  You couldn’t eat a Pink’s hot dog everyday, it just couldn’t be done. Like Mark Twain’s report about eating quail thirty days in a row. An implacable revulsion set in. But every once in while a Pink’s chili dog was the only thing that could satisfy.

  Pink’s was an LA institution, architecturally unique as add-ons accreted over the years. Ancient, greasy, B- and C-list framed celebrity headshots lined the walls of the dining salon.

  Keep cookin’, Pinks! Pitt Wheadon

  Dog me, Dude! Shep Archer

  I preferred the tables out back.

  It was there I waited for a new client, referred by Jack Hathaway. Mrs. Clendenon was from Tacoma. Paper mills came to mind. The aroma of Tacoma. Probably all those jobs were gone now. Exported way south, where no one complained about odor.

  I looked up to see a nice-looking strawberry blonde staring at me. She wasn’t Hollywood thin, she looked like a mom. Which reminded me that Georgette, my ex, had been calling. Couldn’t figure out why. I was up to date on all payments and the washing machine was working. Maybe the tank was leaking again in the upstairs bathroom. Or, worse yet, bowl seepage.

  I stood up, visored my eyes. “Mrs. Clendenon?”

  She came forward. “Mr. Henry?”

  She had a strong, unpretentious handshake. I pulled out one of the white plastic chairs for her.

  “Thank you, Mr. Henry.”

  No one called me Mr. Henry for very long. Pretty soon we were both two dogs down.

  “That was a good dick, dog.”

  She couldn’t have meant that. “What did you say?”

  Mrs. Clendenon was horribly embarrassed. “Please forgive me, Mr. Henry.”

  “Of course.”

  “What I meant to say was, that was a good dog, Dick.” She waved her hands, shook her head. “That doesn’t sound all that much better.” Her face was crimson.

  I came swiftly to the rescue. “You’re right. These are the best dogs in L.A.” I studied her. “Now what’s on your mind?”

  Mrs. Clendenon breathed deep, looked at me. “It’s my sister.”

  She reached into her big purse, pulled out an envelope, took out a picture. She slid it across the table.

  It was an old photo. A high school yearbook shot. “How old is this?”

  “Ten years ago,” she said.

  “That’s quite a while.”

  “For a long time I thought I didn’t care.”

  “I take it she came here.”

  Mrs. Clendenon nodded.

  “To Hollywood or L.A.?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Big difference.”

  “She wanted to be in show business.”

  “Hollywood, then.”

  “I guess so.”

  I looked at the picture again. She was pretty. But not Ava Gardner pretty, not Jennifer Connolly pretty. “She get any work?”

  “Little things, you know. Here and there. But I don’t know any titles.” Then she remembered something. “I do remember something. Ivanhoe.”

  “The movie Ivanhoe? Or the production company, Ivanhoe?”

  She thought a moment. “Maybe it was Ivanhoe Productions.”

  “Ivanhoe Productions, Howard Hogue.”

  “Hogue. I’ve heard that name. He invented the paper clip.”

  “Then he must be about a hundred and fifty years old.”

  “Someone invented the paper clip.”

  “Maybe it was Hogue. Right after he finished up the wheel.”

  We had a good laugh. I liked Mrs. Clendenon. “When was the last time you spoke with your sister?”

  “Six years ago.”

  “That’s quite a while. Why now?”

  She hesitated for just a second. “Dad is sick.”

  “Did she have a stage name?”

  “She liked her own name. Ellen Ar
den.”

  FOUR

  Little Melvin Prevails

  I took care of few smaller matters, then headed up into Hollywood proper. I parked on Cahuenga, crossed the street to World Book & News. Jack Hathaway worked the afternoon shift.

  He looked up at me with his crooked grin and pirate squint. “Hey, Dick.”

  I peeled a honeybee off my moneyclip, put it into his shirt pocket.

  Aside from his morbid interest in matrimony, Jack was a decent, optimistic human being. He studied the picture of Benjamin Franklin with honest gratitude. “What’s this for?”

  “That’s for referring Mrs. Clendenon.”

  He nodded. “Glad that worked out.”

  “It sure did.” Mrs. Clendenon had left me a thousand-dollar retainer. “And . . . I got some news for you.”

  “News? You’re getting married, too?”

  I snorted. As if. “Been there, done that. Lost sixty percent of my worldly goods.” I smiled. “I’ve been to see Mr. Jonson.”

  “My lawyer?”

  “The very man.”

  Jack shook his head. “Look. Maybe I was a little hard on him. Maybe he just works a little slow.”

  “Actually, he felt pretty bad after I talked to him. He wanted to give you a full refund.”

  “He did?”

  “He did. Said he was sorry for all the trouble.”

  Jack shook his head. “Wow. And I thought he was a prick.”

  I handed Jack a substantial envelope. Thirty-three Benjamins. He didn’t count them.

  I had other matters to attend to, had to push on. “Don’t get married, Jack.”

  “Why not, Dick? Why not?”

  What a sweet soul he was. “Because you’re already married.”

  Jack reflected. Sadly. “You’re right, Dick. I am. Delia.” As I drove for Laurel Canyon I couldn’t help wondering. What feat had Delia performed?

  • • •

  Melvin Shea remembered listening to a late-night, sci-fi radio show. The genial but credulous host entertained all scenarios as possible. Aliens, astral projection, possession by evil spirit, death by cosmic ray, sludgification of all rivers, failure of genetically engineered vegetables to maintain human sustenance.

  This particular evening was devoted to the horrors of overpopulation. What if there were fifty billion people on earth? Why, we’d run out of room! We’d be standing in the sea!

  No, you ass, thought Melvin. There is only a finite amount of water on earth. It could be in the seas and glaciers, or it could be contained, fifty kilograms at a time, in a human body. That’s where the water would be. Fifty billion people meant that the Big Apple would be inland. People were just big bags of water.

  And sometimes no more intelligent than a big bag of water. Heather Hill. What did Hogue see in them all? Aside from the obvious.

  Heather Hill. Full of ridiculous ambition. Unattached to the real world. Hadn’t understood the concepts they’d discussed after she was thrown off the set of Gumshoe. The Ivanhoe talent program. Use of her talents. Gratitude. You could lead a horse to water but you couldn’t make it see it would have to fuck the boss.

  Well, if she got with the program, he knew where’d he’d put her. The vacancy on Harper Avenue. Which was slightly in the future.

  He parked his Beemer on De Longpre, a thirty-second walk from Bambi Benton’s Harper Avenue, West Hollywood apartment. He could see her windows, spread wide for the sunshine and the breeze.

  Bambi Benton was a bag of water, too. But at least she knew it. In fact, she was a little too smart for her own good.

  Her digs were top class, for her station in life. Nice flagstone courtyard, flowers, trellises, a fountain. She buzzed him in. He walked up to the third floor, knocked.

  He was tapping his foot by the time she opened up. Bambi was casual, black capris, blue chambray shirt, sandals. She was close to six feet tall, with the de rigueur blond hair and big chest. Big wasn’t quite the word. Heroic.

  She also would know by now that her free ride had likely come to an end.

  She looked at Melvin with sad baby-doll eyes. “Hi, Melvin,” she said in a tiny voice, “come on in.”

  He looked around. He always had liked this particular apartment, big windows facing west, wide-planked wooden floors, nice comfortable leather furniture.

  “You don’t have great news,” said Bambi.

  Good. She’d read the tea leaves. “No, I don’t. Sorry.”

  “I’ve been writing,” she volunteered. “I just need a little more time. I’m on to a really good thing. Real money. Then I’ll move out.”

  “Don’t bullshit me about real money. The only kind that counts is cash money.”

  “I need thirty days, Melvin.”

  “I think we had that discussion last month. What can I do? You know what’s up.”

  “I tried really hard.”

  “Trying doesn’t count. You never established a good thing with Howard.”

  “After a while, Howard just didn’t like me.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? You wanted Howard to read your screenplay.”

  “I spoke my mind.”

  “You don’t have a mind. And Howard didn’t hire you to speak it.”

  “You . . . I liked.” Bambi undid a button on her chambray shirt.

  Melvin absorbed a lengthening jot of adrenaline. “What do you have in mind?”

  Bambi loosed another button. “I don’t have a mind.”

  Not much of one, he had to agree. But those tits. “Maybe you’re of two minds,” he reasoned.

  Bambi allowed her tongue to visit the corners of her mouth.

  “Why don’t I talk . . . to Little Melvin. Maybe he could help me.”

  “Maybe he could. Little Melvin always appreciates a consult.”

  She sat down on the arm of the big black leather recliner.

  He walked toward her. Seven steps to heaven. Well, five steps.

  • • •

  Now he was hurrying to his car. A lamp had just crashed behind him on the steps. Then an ashtray.

  “You lowdown son-of-a-bitch,” shrieked Bambi. She’d been used like a Kleenex.

  Melvin reached the sidewalk. Bambi threw like a girl. He was probably safe. He looked up. “Like I said. You’ve got twenty-four hours to vacate your ass outa there. Get me?”

  “Fuck you, you weasel.”

  Ha! A weasel who just plastered your tonsils. Her rage filled him with a golden ebullience. He was Melvin Shea! Melvin Shea, Hollywood producer! Melvin Shea drove a BMW, knew everyone in town. And he had just whitewashed the epiglottis of a beautiful potted plant! Which reminded him . . . what about a remake of Tom Sawyer?

  Or was he thinking of her uvula? Whatever that thing was. In her throat.

  He pointed at her. “Twenty-four hours, outa there, or I send in Gennady to help you.”

  Gennady, the drunken, dentally deprived potbellied unshaven Muscovite handyman, God’s gift to the women of the world.

  The Beemer started right up with a powerful growl. Life in the fast lane, baby.

  Surely make you lose your mind. Ha!

  FIVE

  The Horizontal Mambo

  I got home just in time to think of Myron Ealing and head back to Hollywood.

  I loved Hollywood. The lights, the sounds, the dreams, the schemes, the schemers. You could win the world, you could lose your soul. And I guess you could do both at the same time.

  Myron had an office in the Hollywood Professional Building at Hollywood and Cahuenga. He’d been a very heavy mathematician but had blown his mind on string theory.

  String theory said that everything in the universe was composed entirely of tiny strings—vibrating like guitar strings—that different pitches produced different phenomena—neutrons, electrons, quarks, and—and the rest of them. More every year. The only problem with the theory, said Myron, was that bullshit also vibrated.

  Now Myron was compiling the definitive encyclopedia of pornography. In the p
rocess, he had learned everything about everybody in Hollywood. They didn’t call Chuck Connors the Rifleman for nothing.

  I entered off Hollywood and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. Somewhere someone was singing opera on the second floor. Loud and not English.

  Myron met me at the door. “Hello, Brother Dick. Come on in.” He extended one of his huge hands.

  Myron weighed four hundred twenty pounds. The weight had come years earlier, on the heels of an excruciating personal tragedy. He had since abjured the company of women. I had never known him during the days of his movie-star looks and unshadowed laughter.

  We went back to the inner sanctum and Myron sought the refuge of his desk and the ever-present barrel of stale Christmas popcorn.

  Again I heard cut-rate Pavarotti yodeling in the distance. “What’s up with that? The Three Tenors move into the building?”

  Myron laughed. A big, low hoot. To hear it was to like him. “The One Tenor. He gives singing lessons, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Well, none of his student’s seem to be able to sing.” Myron spread his hands, grinned. “But he gets paid. So Phil doesn’t mind.”

  “Maybe Phil hasn’t heard him.”

  The low hoot again.

  Phil was a drummer who’d inherited the Hollywood Professional Building from his father. He ran a tight ship, business-wise. Legend had it he’d played drums for Blue Cheer. Albeit for ten minutes. Then he’d quit. But too late. The damage had been done. His hearing had never recovered.

  Myron slid the popcorn across the desk to me. “So what’s up?”

  “I’ve come to question the sage. Ever heard of an actress named Ellen Arden?”

  Myron leaned back, studied the ceiling, put his prodigious mind to work. “Heard the name. Five or six years ago, maybe. I think she did a few little things.”

  “She may have been associated with Ivanhoe.”

  Myron gave him a squint. “Not good. Ivanhoe had a two-track system.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Myron searched for words of the proper piquancy, found them. “Lemme put it this way. One track was on screen, the other track was on your back.”