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And expanded. Gale/Parker began growing at a break-neck pace, hiring top-notch creative and account manage-ment people from the best agencies in the country. With Roger Gale and Gale/Parker becoming synonymous with cutting-edge campaigns, many of the people who joined the agency came knocking without solicitation.

The agency got huge and, as the years passed, opened offices all over the world. But the flagship office, where Roger Gale had been found murdered, was right down the road from Tremaine, in Playa del Rey, California.

In various articles, Roger Gale was referred to as a “vi-sionary,” a “genius,” a “workaholic,” and a “brilliant advertising mind.” The
New York Times
, in the obituary that Tremaine had read more than a year earlier, said, “Roger Gale was the West Coast’s single most influential advertising person and, in fact, ranks right up there with the all-time giants, David Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, and Bill Bern-bach.”

A lot of the campaigns Roger Gale had created Tremaine remembered. They were famous. Stuff for Old Spice and Panasonic and Puma and, of course, Rogaine, the campaign he had discussed with Nina.
Just admit it. You want
your hair
.

18

B O D Y C O P Y

But the main focus in nearly every piece Tremaine found wasn’t the specific campaigns Roger Gale had created. It was Roger Gale himself. The maverick, the inno-vator, the leader. This wasn’t just a guy who created some memorable commercials. This was a guy who changed the way the industry operated. Under Roger Gale, there was no such thing as proper work attire, you could wear what you wanted. Out were the suits and loafers; in were the T-shirts, ripped-up jeans, and flip-flops. And you didn’t have to sit at your desk. You could work outside in a tree if you felt like it.

Just as long as you were willing to die for your ads.

Roger Gale’s employees, as a result of this new attitude, saw him almost as a god. Even though they were made to work long days, nights, and weekends, they deeply respected him and were fiercely loyal to him. They respected his passion, his commitment, and the fact that even as a living legend, he walked around the office carrying a red pen and would stop mid-stride to excitedly jot down an idea, sometimes on his hand or arm.

The Gale/Parker agency—the physical appearance of it—got almost as much attention as Roger Gale and the work his agency produced. The agency’s headquarters was a massive old airplane hangar that had been turned into a state-of-the-art ad agency. No traditional offices, just a gargantuan, wide-open space with clusters of work centers everywhere, bright orange walls, and a full-size basketball court
inside
.

Tremaine looked at the agency on the Gale/Parker Web site, where they offered a virtual tour. On the outside, the building looked like nothing more than a massive orange 19

Michael Craven

warehouse. But inside, it was an irreverent, modern office space to say the least. It was the physical manifestation that Roger Gale’s agency did things differently. In Gale’s words, it was “built to fuel creativity and show prospective clients that contemporary thinking is literally the founda-tion of the place.” And, Tremaine thought, if prospective clients wanted to play a little five-on-five, they could do that, too.

On a personal front, there wasn’t much interesting stuff about Roger Gale. At least not on the Net. Tremaine did find out a little, though. Roger Gale’s first wife died in an automobile accident, he had no kids, and he was survived by his second wife, Evelyn Gale, his sister, Rita, must be Nina’s Mom, and a stepson, Peter, who lives in Los Angeles.

Tremaine took a break from the computer and sat thinking for a moment, processing his cursory investigation of the great ad man who had been struck down by murder.

Tremaine thinking, all this praise, all these achievements, all the respect from the people who worked for him, yet someone wanted him dead. And someone made him dead.

He was getting excited about examining the specifics of the actual crime, the killing. Who found him, who did the police detectives talk to, what was the evidence? Tremaine’s brain was starting to send him questions, send him signals that it was cranking up, getting ready to start looking around. He sat there realizing if the day had gone as planned, he’d be getting on a plane in a little while. But it hadn’t gone as planned, so he was investigating a murder instead.

20

C H A P T E R 5

Tremaine walked over to his neighbor’s trailer. The guy who lived there was a twenty-five-year-old struggling actor named Marvin Kearns. Tremaine needed to tell Marvin, before the day got away from him, that he no longer needed a dog-sitter for Lyle.

Tremaine had come to know quite a bit about Marvin Kearns. For one reason, mainly: Marvin told him. Marvin had a staggering number of things to say. He was a walking diatribe. And his language, it was crazy, almost formal at times, full of dramatic phrasing and unusual word choice.

Contrived, maybe, but Tremaine didn’t care. He liked him, liked his company, admired his dedication to pursuing something he wanted to do.

Tremaine knocked on Marvin’s door.

Michael Craven

Marvin almost immediately opened the door and said,

“Donald Tremaine!”

Before Tremaine got to the matter at hand, he had to acknowledge two things. The first was Marvin’s new haircut, a totally shaved head. Marvin always wore his hair short—he was balding and liked to keep it tight—but now there wasn’t a speck of hair on his head. His large head.

Not particularly out of proportion, though. Even though he was only five-three, Marvin was a pretty big guy. All of his parts were big and bulky. Big arms, big legs, big chest, and a big bald head.

Marvin Kearns was a stump. And now, a bald stump.

Tremaine said, “So you went ahead and just took it all off, huh?”

“This morning. I got shaving cream. I got a razor. And I shaved it off. It’s a superior look. HAIR GETS IN MY

WAY! And I don’t have time to be in-between anymore. If you’re going to do it, do it. You don’t stick your toe in the pond, you jump in.”

“Okay,” Tremaine said.

“Okay!” Marvin repeated with glee. “That is such a large response.”

Marvin rated almost everything he came in contact with. If he liked something, it was either “superior” or

“large.” If he disliked it, it was “soft” or “insufficient.”

Most of the stuff that Tremaine did received high ratings from Marvin simply because Marvin had a very high opin-ion of Tremaine. Although Marvin was relatively young, he had a full knowledge and appreciation of Tremaine’s surfing career. He was one of those twenty-five-year-olds with a real appreciation for what came before. In fact, he liked 22

B O D Y C O P Y

what came before more than he liked what was around right now. He was like an old man in that way.

The second thing that Tremaine had to acknowledge was that Marvin was wearing fatigues.

“What’s your audition for?” Tremaine said.

“Extra in a war movie.”

“You’re showing up fully in character for a part as an extra? That’s not sticking your toe in, that’s jumping in.”

“Headfirst, Mr. Tremaine. Headfirst.”

“Marvin, I came by to tell you that I’m not going on my trip. I postponed it because I got a case.”

“Is that why the beautiful woman was at your place this morning?”

“What, are you spying on me?”

“Not you, her.”

“I can’t say I blame you.”

“I’m sorry I won’t be looking after Lyle. He is, as you know, a superior animal.”

“I’ll tell him you said that. He might not hear me, but I’ll tell him.”

“If you need any help on the case, just let me know.”

“I will.”

Marvin always asked Tremaine if he could help him on his cases. Tremaine didn’t mind his asking, but he’d never taken him up on it, not yet, despite many, many requests.

Tremaine said good-bye and started heading back to his trailer.

Then Marvin said, “Happy Birthday, Mr. Tremaine.”

“Thanks, Marvin,” Tremaine said, looking over his shoulder at the bald stump clad in camouflage.

23

Michael Craven

Eight hours later, Tremaine got in his car, a sky blue 1971

Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme two door, and drove to Venice. He was going to wait until he’d read the police reports before he talked to Nina, but he had a question that was ready to be asked now, just not to her face. It was seven, dusk, almost dark, and still quite a bit of traffic as he took the Pacific Coast Highway south, through Santa Monica into Venice, the great, the one and only, Venice, California. Expensive these days, really expensive, but man, still the best. Still had that bohemian feel, bright-colored California beach bungalows right next to the more modern architecture of the too-big-for-their-lots houses that the rich people had built. It made for an odd combo, the inva-sion of money into Venice. You’d see a brand-new Beemer parked right next to an old-school VW Thing with a bunch of surfboards on its roof. Tremaine wondering, will the dough eventually strip it of all its charm? Strip it of every last bright blue shack with some guy with a three-foot beard living in it, sitting on his porch playing the flute in a housedress and cleats, yelling at passersby about hidden messages in Blue Oyster Cult lyrics?

Impossible. Some of that would never go away, Tremaine hoped. You could certainly still feel the history, see the real locals crawling the streets, feel them looking at you all wild-eyed as you entered their turf. Tremaine thinking, they especially didn’t like it when you surfed their waves.

He smiled thinking about that, knowing he got welcomed into their breaks because of his history.

He called information and said, “Venice, California.

Nina Aldeen please. And I just need the address.”

Got it. 424 Rialto. A great street, one of the most charm-24

B O D Y C O P Y

ing, very close to where he had lived with his ex-wife. It still made him a little sick to think about it, to examine even just a moment of their cohabitation.

Still.

He drove right past Nina’s house. Looked at it, though, as he went by, tried to glean with a quick—real quick—look whether anyone was home.

Tremaine parked two blocks away, behind a caramel-colored ’89 Chevy Chevette and in front of a sparkling silver Lexus. He got out and began heading back toward Nina Aldeen’s house.

Tremaine thinking, why did Nina say there was more than one reason to look into this, then pretend that she didn’t? Is there something there, something she isn’t telling me?

True story. Tremaine had a client once, in his early days, Jeff Creswell. Real early days, right after Tremaine had gotten his P.I. license and his license to carry a firearm.

Jeff came to Tremaine, hired him to follow his wife, said she was cheating on him. From the beginning, Tremaine sensed something off in Jeff, something troubled, something dishonest. But he took Jeff at his word and took the case. Mistake. Here’s what happened. Tremaine followed Jeff’s wife, Trudy, to a hotel. Trudy went in the hotel with a man. Through the lens of his camera, in the window of the hotel room, Tremaine could see violence. Trudy’s body being slammed up against the window, the blinds being pulled and torn. In an instant, Tremaine was in the room.

Instead of finding the man beating up Trudy, he found the man, Trudy, Jeff, and briefcase full of cocaine. Jeff’s plan was to shoot Tremaine, take the blow, then tell his suppli-25

Michael Craven

ers that
two
men had come to the hotel to steal the coke, and that he had gotten one of them, but the other one had gotten away with the blow. Then Jeff and Trudy and the guy posing as her lover would take the coke, sell it, get rich, and retire. Jeff wasn’t very smart. Tremaine shot him in the shoulder, took his gun, and called the cops.

As a result, when Tremaine thought a client was bullshitting him, was hiding something, he was careful. Very careful. Because not listening to himself in the past had almost gotten him killed by a half-wit criminal named Jeff.

Was Nina looking into this for some other reason?

When she said “one of the reasons,” was that a slip-up? A window into something darker? Had her rich, successful uncle promised her a bunch of money then gotten killed before changing his will, and now Nina wanted some answers? Or was there something else, something he couldn’t even fathom with the information he had at this point?

Who knows? Point is, she told him something then tried to pretend she hadn’t, then tried to scramble an answer together while possibly holding back tears.

Or maybe she was just talking normally, saying things like
one of the reasons
just off the cuff. And maybe that faraway look in her eye was just because she was upset, made to think about her dead uncle, right in that moment, in a way she hadn’t in a while. And now Tremaine was overthinking things.

Tremaine thinking, overthinking things? That’s what I
didn’t
do with Jeff . . .

Was Nina lying?

Maybe not. But maybe.

He wanted to try and find out, needed to try and find out.

26

B O D Y C O P Y

These days, a little older, a little wiser, still alive, his motto was
Sometimes the best person to look into is the person who
hired you
. Not particularly clever; Roger Gale wouldn’t have written it. But it was true, and that’s all that mattered.

Tremaine laughed at this as he slid through the shadows, down the quiet streets, past houses with evening activity and lights on inside, with dogs barking occasionally but not obnoxiously. Nobody noticed him.

He walked right in front of 424 Rialto looking right at the front door. Great little house. Not really ranch style, but maybe California-ranch with a beach flair. Brown wood with bright blue shutters. The contrast looked good.

There was a little yard in front with a little fence that bordered the sidewalk. Once inside the fence, you walked up three steps to a great little porch with a swing.

Tremaine wanted to move in. Despite his suspicion, he liked Nina, wanted to trust her, could feel there was something real about her. He could picture himself sitting there on the swing with her having a beer, listening to some tunes, maybe rubbing Lyle’s back with his foot.