A Savage Place (16 page)

“As long as you can nail Brewster to the floor,” I said.

Candy put her fork down and looked at me. “Don’t use that tone with me,” she said. “Peter Brewster is a completely corrupt man, and I’m going to catch him. If there’s risk to him in that, so be it. Life’s sometimes risky.”

“What exactly are we going to catch him at?”

“I don’t know the legal mumbo jumbo. Consorting with a known criminal. Abetting an escaped felon. Conspiracy. You should know better than I do.”

“Brewster won’t go alone to see Franco,” I said.

“Franco said he had to, or he’d go straight to the cops.”

I shook my head. “Franco won’t go to the cops and Brewster knows it. Brewster will bring somebody, probably Simms, and if he’s as bad as you say he is, he’ll try to hut Franco away.”

“Why doesn’t Franco go to the police?”

“Because he’s desperate. Because he needs money bad enough to risk blackmailing Brewster, and he’s not going to throw it away. If Franco goes to the cops, he’s lost his blackmail. And Brewster will kill him if he can-or if he and his helpers can-because as long as Franco is out there, he’s like a loaded gun pointing at Brewster.”

The waiter brought us a pear tart and coffee. “Franco needs money to get out of town,” Candy said. It was a half question.

“I’d guess,” I said. “Or maybe just to live. When you’re hiding, it’s hard to earn a salary.”

“But if Simms helps him kill Franco, then won’t Simms know that Brewster’s”-she spread her hands-“a criminal?”

“Sure, but he probably knows it now. If Brewster’s Mob-connected, then I’d guess Simms is probably a Mob watchdog anyway.”

“You mean the Mob owns Peter?”

“It’s rarely the other way around,” I said.

Candy paid the checks and we left Ma Maison. A kid brought Candy’s car around and we got in. Candy drove. We went out Melrose, across Santa Monica to Doheny, and up Doheny to Candy’s place. Neither one of us said anything as we drove.

In her apartment Candy said, “Shall we have a little brandy and soda?”

I said, “Sure.”

She made two drinks. We took them out and sat by the pool and drank.

“You’ve been on the couch for some time now,” Candy said.

“Yes.

“Is it uncomfortable?”

“Sort of,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Candy said.

The pool filter made a small slurping sound as water trickled into the skimmer.

“Not your fault,” I said. “Furniture makers have no pride of craftmanship anymore.”

“I mean that I’ve been away with Peter, not with you.”

“A job’s a job,” I said.

“Would you care to move into the bedroom to night?” she said.

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Thanks, but I’ll stick with the couch.”

Her face went tight again, with lines around her mouth. “Why?”

“It’s something I’d be ashamed to tell Susan.”

“You weren’t ashamed last time. Is it Peter Brewster?”

“Partly.”

“It’s not Susan, is it? You’re just jealous.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “See, once, on a warm night in a strange city with music drifting downthat’s fun. Or it was for me. But a live-in arrangement-`house privileges,‘ I think you called it-when you apologize for being”-I made a word-groping gesture with my hands-“inattentive-that’s unfaithfulness.”

“I think it’s nothing that noble,” Candy said. “You’re no different that all the others. You’re jealous. You can’t stand sharing me with Peter.”

“If that were true,” I said, “what better reason to sleep on the couch. If we’ve gone to a point where I’m jealous of you, then I am cheating. I don’t want to be jealous of anyone but Suze. I shouldn’t be.”

Candy shook her head. “That’s crap,” she said. “You insist on making everything sound fancy. Always guff about honor and being faithful and not being ashamed. Everything you do becomes some kind of goddamn quest for the Holy Grail. It’s just selfdramatization. Self-dramatization so you don’t have to face up to how shabby your life is, and pointless.”

“Well, there’s that,” I said.

“And goddammit, don’t patronize me. When I score a point, you ought to be man enough to admit it.”

“Person enough,” I said. “Don’t be sexist.”

“So you’ve decided just to joke about it. You know you can’t win the argument, so you make fun.”

“Candy, I am a long way past the point where I see the world in terms of debating points. I don’t care if I win or lose arguments. Sleeping with you again would be cheating on Susan, at least by my definition, and by hers. That’s sufficient. You’re just as desirable as you ever were. And I’m just as randy. But I am stern of will. So lemme sleep on the couch and stop being offended.”

“You self-sufficient bastard,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you’ll help me tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I said.

I WENT WITH Candy to the studio in the morning. She drove. I looked around.

“I am going to stay as close as I can,” I said. “Even if I’m spotted, it’s better than you getting burned.”

“You really think there’s that kind of danger?”

“You betcha,” I said. “Brewster may remember what he told you and if he does, you’re a real threat to him.”

“But he thinks I’m in love with him.”

“After five days?” I said.

“He thinks everyone is in love with him anyway. He assumes conquest.”

“I’ll accept that,” I said. “And I’m willing to concede that Brewster’s not very smart. Tycoons often aren’t, I’ve found. But they are also rarely sentimental. Even if he thinks you are permanently smitten with his wonderful self, what’s he lose by having you shot?”

“Thanks a lot.”

“It’s not denigrating you. It’s denigrating him. He doesn’t cherish you. He doesn’t cherish anything. He can replace you with some worshipful starlet later this evening if he needs to. He wouldn’t differentiate.” Candy was quiet.

“Think about it. What does he want from you?”

“Sex.”

“Yeah, and what else?”

“Admiration. He wants me to tell him how masterful he is. He wants me to go ooh at how much money and clout and perception he has.”

“And if he didn’t have you to do that, what?”

“He’d get someone else.”

“Is it your brains and wit and strength he needs?”

“No.”

We pulled into the parking lot behind the station. “So what is it you give him?”

“I look good in public,” Candy said. “I do good in bed. And I hang on his every word.”

“How many other women in Hollywood could fill that role?”

“A trillion,” Candy said.

“So be careful,” I said. “And don’t get into places I can’t follow.”

Candy nodded and we went into the studio.

There was a staff meeting scheduled for much of the morning, and I left Candy to deal with that. It was probably as deadly in its way as Brewster, but it wasn’t the kind of deadliness I could ameliorate.

I took a cab from the station to a Hertz agency and rented a Ford Fairlane that looked like every third car on the road. The MG was too conspicuous now. It had been following Brewster too long. Driving back to KNBS, I stopped at a Taco Burro stand and had a bean and cheese burrito for lunch. With coffee. Authenticity is not always possible.

During the afternoon I drove down to Marineland with Candy. We met a camerawoman there, and Candy did a piece on a killer whale that had been born there during the week.

“Glamor,” I said to Candy on the long ride back. “You show-biz folks lead lives of such glamor and sophistication.”

She was driving. She said, “Do you really think Peter Brewster might try to kill me?”

“Yes.”

We were going north on the Harbor Freeway. The road was made of large asphalt squares, and the wheels as they hit the intervaled seams made a kind of rhythmic thump.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“Then why continue? Why not go to Samuelson with what you’ve got and let him take the weight for a while?”

“What have I got exactly?” Candy said.

“You know he’s Mob-connected,” I said. “You may have stumbled in by accident. Franco and Felton may have had nothing to do with it. But you’re in. He’s spilled that he’s on the dirty side, and if he remembers that, you’re already a danger to him.”

The tires made their thump. With the top down the hot wind was a steady push on my face.

“I can’t,” Candy said. “I’ve invested too much. It means too much.”

“You’d still break the story,” I said. “ ‘Acting on a tip from newsperson Candy Sloan, police today…’ It would read good,” I said.

She was quiet. She passed a sign that said TORRANCE. Traffic was heavy going the other way, coming out of L.A., going home for a beer and maybe water the lawn. Barbecue some ribs maybe. See what was on the tube later. Might be a ball game. Get the kids to bed. Turn up the air conditioning. Settle in and watch the Angels. Maybe another beer. Maybe before bed a sandwich, maybe a hug from the wife.

“I can’t,” Candy said. “I can’t do it that way. It would be too girlie-girl. Would you turn it over to the police?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“So you understand, perhaps, why I won’t.”

“Understand, yes. Approve, no.”

“Even though you’d be the same way?”

“Just because I’m peculiar doesn’t mean you should be. This is what cops draw their pay for. The smart way is to let them earn it.”

“Stand on the sidelines and look pretty while the men play ball?”

“Sex is not at issue here,” I said. “Danger is.”

“If I don’t follow this through, I add credence to what practically everyone thinks. You don’t know what it’s like in television. It’s a male domain. All the decision-makers are male. And every goddamn one of them assumes I’m good for interviewing baby whales. Every goddamn one of them that I’ve ever met assumes, when the going gets rough, I’ll tuck my skirts up and run.”

“And you’re going to prove them wrong.”

“Absolutely,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

We left the Harbor Freeway and headed north on the San Diego Freeway. It was nearly seven when we got to Candy’s place. She parked and set the brake and looked at me.

“You’ll stick, won’t you?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Even though I’m not paying you?”

“Yes.”

“I could pay you a little bit each month for a year or so, maybe.”

“I could give you one of those little payment books like the banks do,” I said. “No money down, thirty-six easy payments. Budget Rent-a-Sleuth.”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t need the money,” I said. “The station paid me fine.”

We were still sitting in the car in front of her house. She was looking at me. “And you’ll stay until it’s finished?” she said.

“Yes.”

“For no pay.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m not sleeping with you?”

“Despite that,” I said.

“Why?”

“I like you. You need help. It’s help I can supply.”

She looked at her watch. “My God,” she said. “It’s seven o’clock. Peter will be here in fifteen minutes.” She was out of the car and heading for the house in that peculiar female run that high heels produce.

I went and sat in my rented Fairlane down the street on the other side and waited. I was thinking wistfully of the burrito I’d had for lunch, when Brewster arrived. He wasn’t in the Caddy. He was driving himself in a dark green Mercedes 450 SL.

No one was with him. Why not? Why had he changed his pattern? Was he going to do something that he did not want witnessed? I was not pleased. Brewster didn’t seem to mind. He went up to the door at a brisk pace as if he didn’t care whether I was ever pleased by anything. In five minutes he came out with Candy on his arm. They got in the Mercedes and drove off.

OFF SEPULVEDA BOULEVARD, out toward the airport, visible from the street, there are some vestigial oil rigs-still pumping-reminders that all the money in L.A. didn’t come from movies.

I tailed Brewster and Candy out there and onto a side road. The side road forked one hundred yards in from Sepulveda. Brewster took the left fork. Far down the road I saw his taillights stop and then darken. I took the right fork, went around a bend, parked, and headed back on foot.

The oil pumps were all around now in the dim evening, making very little sound, unattended, rocking without apparent cause, slightly saurian. I went in among them, cutting across the small field toward the other fork where Brewster had parked. I could feel the tension skitter along my backbone and bunch in the muscles around my shoulders. This was no place to bring a date. Brewster was too old to go parking. I hadn’t seen a picnic basket.

I moved carefully in the dark, trying to make no sound. I was in business clothes-a dark blue sweat shirt with the sleeves cut off, blue jeans, and dark blue jogging shoes. No bright colors. I’d left my Wind.. breaker in the car. I didn’t care if people saw my gun. In fact I rather hoped they would, and be impressed.

The sounds of planes coming and going from LAX made a near, steady noise above us. So steady, it faded into background, and you only noticed it when it paused. I saw Brewster’s car. The lights were out. The doors were closed. I moved up very carefully behind it and looked in the window. It was empty. I stood stock-still and listened. The sound of airplanes. The sound of the wells pumping. The sound, faintly, of traffic on the San Diego Freeway beyond Sepulveda. No other sound.

I crouched behind the car and tried to see in among the pumps. The stars were out, but there was no moon, and there wasn’t much light. There were no streetlights on this road, and no houses anywhere in sight. The steadily moving apparatus of the wells was alien and hostile in the darkness.

I moved in among the oil rigs, placing each foot very carefully as I went. I listened after every step, but all I heard was an increasing wind. It made odd noises among the. oil pumps as it came, hot and steady and affectionless, a bit eerie as it moved through the anachronistic machinery. The ground in the oil field was soft dirt, and as the wind stiffened, it picked up dust and moved it around. I began to move faster and less carefully. I was getting scared. Candy had been in there alone with Brewster too long. The wind was coming harder now, as if reinforcements had caught up with the advance breeze. It rattled loose cabling on the oil rigs. I began to run, dodging equipment as I did, trying to cut diagonally across the oil field so that I’d cover as much in one sweep as I could. Except I didn’t know the size or shape of the field and therefore didn’t know what a diagonal was. I was squinting against the blowing dirt. I had my gun in my hand. And I was trying to fight down the sense of urgency that was pushing up my throat. Clouds that must have ridden in with the wind began to gather over the stars, and the oil yard became even darker. I had to slow down. I could barely see the length of my footfall in front of me and I wouldn’t help Candy much if I ran head-on into one of the pumps. In places the footing was mucky and slippery, and there was a fetid smell that the wind was not able to drive away.