Reckless Disregard (10 page)

He reaches back and massages his neck. “I found Boardwalk Freddy very credible. So, I’d have to say yes, Bishop was involved somehow. He should have been the prime suspect based on the eyewitness identification. But . . .” He gestures to the pictures on the wall. “I’ve made my living representing actors and singers, mostly. Protecting them against stalkers, deranged fans, vengeful ex-spouses. C- and D-List celebrities, sure, but they’re targets of the crazies, too. Bishop controls Hollywood. If he wanted to put me out of business, he could have. One word from him, and no one walks through this door. I don’t understand why he let me survive.”

“Maybe it was a reward for your not talking,” Brenda says.

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” he says. “But there’s something else—I could never think of a motive.”

“Cheating on his wife?” Brenda says. “Felicity was going to expose their affair?”

He shrugs. “Bishop has the reputation of being a faithful husband. Remarkable in Hollywood if it’s true. I never had evidence otherwise.”

“Will you testify to what you know?” I ask.

He’s silent.

“It’s time to reveal the truth, Mr. Kreiss,” Brenda says softly.

He glances at the office door as if checking on whether his wife is eavesdropping. “OK, yeah. It’s past time. If you subpoena me and get me under oath, I’ll tell the truth.”

We thank Kreiss and leave his office. As we pass the front desk, I nod at Isla, whose eyes emit high-voltage anger.

Once outside, I swing the patio gate open. The corroded hinges squeal, and the sagging gate scrapes on the concrete, the dissonant sounds mimicking the proverbial fingernails on slate. But that’s not what sends the arpeggio of needle pricks up my spine.

Banquo, Courtney, and the other Poniard cosplayers are gathered on the sidewalk, standing like some sort of church choir. Banquo bows and says, “We stand ready, willing, and able to serve the cause, Mr. Stern, Esquire. Please just let us know how we can help.”

Philip Paulsen’s third possible witness is Nathan Ettinger, a professor in the Film and Theater Arts Department at Topanga College, a liberal arts college tucked in the hills above Malibu. Ettinger’s scholarly book on 1980s cinema reveals some new details about Felicity McGrath. She was born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1959 and came to Hollywood in 1975 as a fifteen-year-old runaway, fleeing an alcoholic, impoverished mother and the mother’s abusive boyfriends. She apparently used a fake ID to land some small roles in failed sitcoms and marginal direct-to-video movie productions. Though she never appeared in true pornography, her early roles were so sexual that when her true age was discovered after
The Fragile Palace
made her famous, authorities investigated the makers of her early films for putting an underage actress in sexual situations. He concludes with, “At the time of McGrath’s disappearance, it was rumored that she’d been having an affair with an unidentified Hollywood studio executive.”

William Bishop, of course, was a studio executive. He’s been married to the same woman for decades, a fact he’s long used as a PR talking point. Was Felicity going to ruin Bishop by exposing an affair?

I navigate to the end of the book, the
About the Author
section. Before becoming an educator, Ettinger was a film producer. Most of his credits are on movies I’ve never heard of. One credit catches my attention, though—“Nate” Ettinger was an associate producer on a movie called
Climbing Panda Hill
. As a nine-year-old, I starred in that movie, and if memory served, Ettinger was the same Nate who’d slept with my mother, a fact that might appear fortuitous except that, for males with production credits on my movies, sleeping with my mother was the rule rather than the exception.

Brenda can’t seem to schedule a meeting with Ettinger, so one afternoon, about a week after our interview with Bud Kreiss, I tell her to grab her purse and come with me. The moment we get into the car, I crack my window a bit, discreetly I hope, because without air circulation Brenda’s perfume will have my car smelling like a turn-of-the-last-century bordello. As we drive west to the coast, we’re separated by that off-kilter silence that happens when two strangers who work together find themselves alone in close quarters. In an attempt to regain some equilibrium, I ask, “Are you from LA?”

“I’m kind of from nowhere. And everywhere. How would you say it, like a Navy brat? But not.”

She doesn’t want to talk about her past, and who am I to argue with that? As far as most people know, my life started when I was eighteen years old.

We take the 10 Freeway to PCH and drive up the coast to chaparral-covered Topanga Canyon, which lies in the hills above the Malibu coast. The Canyon has long served as the epicenter of LA’s hippie, Bohemian, and New Age cultures. And six-year-old Topanga College, where Nate Ettinger taught cinema, gladly embraces that culture, lining the halls with photographs of former Topanga residents like Woody Guthrie, Humphrey Bogart, Carole Lombard, Shirley Temple, Will Geer, Jim Morrison, Neil Young, and Etta James. Brenda checked out the course catalog. Along with the usual liberal arts courses, the college curriculum includes classes on the Philosophy and Ethics of Veganism, and Religions of the New Age.

Ettinger’s office is in the Humanities Building, a sparkling octagonal structure with three cantilevered stories, glass exterior walls, and a spacious common area on each floor. The college has some wealthy benefactors interested in promoting alternative higher education, whatever that means.

We go up to the second floor. We learned from his website that he holds office hours between two and four every Tuesday and Thursday. I just hope he’s not with a student.

We find him at his desk, reading what looks like a movie script. His office is large compared to most university offices I’ve seen and boasts a view of the northern hills, lush because they’re so close to the ocean. I knock on the open door.

“May I help . . . ?” He sits back in his chair and removes his reading glasses.

“I’m Parker Stern and this is Brenda Sica,” I say. “We’re representing someone named Poniard in—”

“I know who you are, Mr. Stern.” He looks around, as if searching for an escape route.

“Apologies for dropping in unannounced, but it’s very important that we speak with you,” I say. “And we did try to make an appointment.”

“You did. I’ve been . . . please come in.” He has keen blue eyes, a long nose, salt-and-pepper hair, and a gray goatee. He is, indeed, the kind of man whom my mother would’ve fallen for. Whatever his Hollywood past, he’s certainly embraced the stereotype of an academic. He’s dressed in a herringbone tweed jacket with suede elbow patches, a white turtleneck, prewashed blue jeans, and brown Docksiders.

We sit. The bookcase behind his chair is filled with tomes on film production, screenwriting, and critical theory. Two of the shelves are overstuffed with movie scripts. “Let’s cut to the chase,” he says. “I have to prepare for a class I’m teaching in a half hour. You’re here because of what I wrote in my book, about Felicity McGrath having an affair with a movie producer.”

“I think your exact words are
studio executive
.”

“Let me be candid. I’m certainly not going to tell you that it’s William Bishop. I don’t want to be the next person he sues for defamation.”

“But it is Bishop?” Brenda says in a hopeful voice.

Ettinger gives her a sidelong glance and speaks to me. “Felicity McGrath reputedly had affairs with many men in Hollywood. As I say, I don’t want to—”

“I could subpoena you,” I say. “Maybe that’ll work for you. There’s something called the litigation privilege. It gives you absolute immunity from a defamation lawsuit no matter what you say.”

“It’s not only being
sued
by Bishop that concerns me.” He tries so hard to maintain eye contact that his head quivers slightly.

Part of me is disgusted by Ettinger’s fear, but I understand. Bud Kreiss, a former cop and someone who made a living facing physical danger, kept his information secret for decades.

“I assume you learned about Felicity’s affair from your time in the movie business,” I say.

“I was a producer,” he says. “I started from the bottom, as a grip, a gaffer, a script reader, a camera operator and worked my way up until I got sick of the phoniness. And yes, Felicity’s affairs were well known. But no one had the guts to name names. In nineteen eighty-one, eighty-two, Bishop’s corporate raiders took over the studio where I had a housekeeping deal and killed everything that had any artistry to it, including a movie I had in development. In writing my book, I let my disgust for his hypocrisy get the better of me. In hindsight it was bad judgment on my part to mention the affair at all. And I’m not going to expand on what I wrote one iota.”

I ask a series of questions about his work history, which he’s happy to talk about. I stay away from one movie, of course—the one he and I worked on together. So far, he hasn’t recognized me as Parky Gerald. But why draw a connection? Each time I try to turn the conversation back to a possible Bishop-McGrath relationship, he shuts down. Even Brenda’s bashful attempts at drawing him out are fruitless.

I’m about to give up when I ask a question I hope will save the interview from being a total waste of time. “You’re a film historian, Dr. Ettinger. Have you ever heard of a movie called
The Boatman
? William Bishop supposedly acted in it.”

“Bishop an actor?” he says. “I can’t even imagine it.”

“My colleague Ms. Sica found evidence that he acted in at least one film.”

He gets up and goes over to the far bookshelf. “
The Boatman
, it’s called? What year?”

“Nineteen seventy-something,” Brenda says.

He reaches for a thick book with a tattered cover. “Everyone thinks the Internet has all the information you need. It’s not true. For old movies, there’s nothing like the hardcover version of Magill’s.” As he thumbs through the volume, I let myself believe that maybe he’ll find something. After reading for a few minutes, he shakes his head. “There’s a nineteen eighty-five film from the Philippines called
Boatman
. Another with that exact title from Turkey dated nineteen ninety-three. But I doubt Bishop had anything to do with those. And anyway, they’re too late.”

Brenda exhales audibly.

“You really think Ettinger was talking about Bishop in his book?” Brenda says after we’ve left his office. “He seems kind of . . . how would you say it, pompous? Maybe he just wants us to think it was Bishop.”

“I’m sure he was referring to Bishop,” I say. “Because he’s scared shitless.”

Brenda simultaneously nods her head in agreement with my observation and frowns in disapproval at my profanity.

Lawsuits are just two stories vying for legitimacy as truth, especially lawsuits like
Bishop v. Poniard
, which rely on stale facts and fragments of history that don’t fit together. In the next few weeks, Philip, Brenda, and I scour the Internet looking for scraps of information. We try to locate witnesses who disappeared long ago, leaving no forwarding address. We search sleazy websites for dirt on William Bishop that he can’t brush off. There’s nothing.

Meanwhile, JADS’s Chief Executive Officer, the Honorable Walker K. Mitchell (Retired) starts a harassment campaign—a barrage of e-mails and daily visits reminding me that my revenues for the firm are virtually nonexistent, that what accounts receivable I do have are aging, that I shouldn’t have taken on such a big case, that Poniard’s cosplayers continue to loiter outside the JADS office and that he’s holding me responsible. I repeatedly ask them to leave, but they ignore me, getting as close to the JADS entrance as building security will allow.

I wait to receive the original letters between Felicity and Scotty, firing off increasingly threatening e-mails to Poniard but getting no response. Each morning I vow to resign if I don’t receive the documents by the end of the day, and each evening I give Poniard an extension.

On this morning, I arrive at the office at seven o’clock to do some research on
Bishop v. Poniard
. This early, there shouldn’t be many JADS people around to look over my shoulder. As I’m sipping my bitter cup of JADS hot-plate coffee, a large shadow invades my peripheral vision. I look up to see Judge Mitchell. I should’ve known he’d be here already. He’s tireless, coming in before anyone else and leaving late. Once an underpaid judicial officer, he’s now a multimillionaire. He takes two long strides forward and drops a manila envelope on my desk.