The Boy Who Never Grew Up (42 page)

Mr. Shelley shook his head at this. “I don’t understand why. What was the point?”

“Because what she didn’t want,” I replied, “was any kind of peaceful, amicable compromise. Or worst of all, a trial separation. That would blow the whole deal. She needed an outright war, and she made sure she got one.” I turned back to her. She was watching me with those innocent blue eyes of hers. “You took up with Trace Washburn right away, knowing it would set off a major scandal. And knowing that Big Steve would be willing.”

Trace stirred and went into his heavy breathing thing. “He tries to please,” he acknowledged. “Be a sin for him to leave ’em itchy, wouldn’t it?”

“You gave Abel Zorch tons of sleazy dirt about your marriage,” I continued, “which he promptly and gleefully leaked to the papers. Meanwhile, you set yourself up as the poor victim, the good little mother who had somehow gotten caught in the middle of this mean, vicious studio war. You made everyone think you were being used by Abel. Not so. You were in the driver’s seat all the way. You landed yourself a big-time book deal and hired the most hard-nosed ghost you could find, Cassandra, knowing that the prospect of a juicy, tell-all memoir would force Matthew into writing one of his own. Dueling memoirs. What more could a gal ask for? Lots of noise. Lots of ill will. Plus the chance to get down on paper the authorized, utterly fabricated story of your life, a lie that Cassandra has unwittingly been cranking out for you, night after night.”

“I been boned,” cried Cassandra, aghast. “She’s been boning me all along!”

“Welcome to the big time,” I said, patting her hand. “This is about where I came in. My first night in town you showed up at Spago, complaining to Abel that the press was treating you like a whore. You begged him to cool it. Strictly a performance for the benefit of anyone who happened to be listening, particularly me. You figured I could be of use to you, what with being privy to the family secrets and all, so you pulled me aside and unloaded on me. Told me there was no one you could trust. Told me everyone was trying to use you, hurt you. It was quite some performance, considering that it was you who was doing the using and the hurting. You who stole your own negatives out of this office in the middle of the night. You knew how to sneak onto the lot undetected. Johnny showed you how to.”

“How did you know where the negatives were?” Mr. Shelley asked her.

“I overheard you tell Sarge, years ago,” she replied coolly.

“But how’d you get into the office?” Sarge wondered.

“I still have keys to everything. Hard as it is to believe, I was actually a member of this family once.”

Bunny muttered something under her breath.

“What did you say, you old bitch?” sneered Pennyroyal.

“I couldn’t repeat it in polite company,” Bunny huffed.

“You’ve always hated me, haven’t you?” Pennyroyal charged. “Well, guess what? It’s mutual.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that,” Bunny fired back.

“When you say, miss, that you possess keys to everything,” Shadow interjected, “would that be with the possible exception of Mr. Selden’s desk?”

Pennyroyal admitted this was so. “I had to use a pry bar to get the drawer open.”

Shadow nodded, satisfied.

“Negatives in hand,” I continued, “you slipped out the way you came and dropped them off at the
Enquirer
in a plain envelope. Then you sat back and watched both sides yell at each other while you sobbed over the cruelty and injustice of it all. The Bedford Falls people figured it for a Zorch gambit. Zorch figured they did it to discredit you. Me, I didn’t think it made sense for either side to have done it. Neither side did—it was strictly you escalating the war. Zorch phoned me, wanting to discuss it. He was upset. This was, after all, just the sort of noisy public spectacle Murakami was pressuring him to avoid.”

“I screamed bloody murder at him,” Schlom confirmed. “He swore to me he didn’t do it. You wanna know the truth, I wasn’t sure myself whether to believe the guy or not.”

“Did he know you did it?” I asked Pennyroyal.

“He knew
he
hadn’t,” she replied. “And he didn’t think Shelley Selden was the type. That left me. He gave me a bunch of shit about it. Called me names. Suggested I may have blown the whole Murakami deal. Then he told me he was going to advise Norbert to forget about Bedford Falls for the time being. Too hot to handle. He actually wanted to go back to Murakami and attempt to restructure the deal without it. He figured if they were patient Bedford Falls would eventually go under on its own anyway.” Shelley Selden reddened at this. “He thought Norbert would go along with the idea. Which was well and good for them. But what about me? Where did that leave me?”

“Out in the cold,” I said. “You and Abel quarreled, and you came to the conclusion that it was time to dump him as your lawyer, like you told the lieutenant and me. Only you had a different reason for dumping him than you gave us, and a rather stronger definition of job termination in mind. You had already killed one man who threatened to stand in your way. Now it was time to kill another. Abel, he would always be a threat to you. He knew too much about the real you. He might try to use it against you in the future. Besides, his murder would be an excellent way of escalating the war even further. Certainly no shortage of people around who would want him dead. All you had to do was plan it right. Did you already have the gun?”

“I’ve always kept a couple of guns around,” she replied. “Shambazza gave them to me.”

“You ducked out on Cassandra at some point in the afternoon,” I suggested.

“Yeah, yeah, shewa,” Cassandra confirmed. “She said she had to pick up a script.”

“You went to Zorch’s building in Century City and removed the battery from the remote control in his car. You’ve got a remote-controlled gate just like it at your house. Later that afternoon you called Abel’s office to set something up. He was in court, but he called you back from the courthouse and suggested you meet him at his house at, say, six?” She nodded. “You and Georgie got there early, five-thirty, so you could—”

“Georgie was with you?” cried Matthew, greatly disturbed. “Georgie was
there
?”

“You wanted to be good and ready to ambush him at the gate,” I went on. “There was, however, a small, unforeseen problem—Johnny. Sitting there across the street on his Fat Boy with his broken heart. I expect this threw you somewhat.”

“I wasn’t sure what to do about him,” she acknowledged. “But I stayed calm. I rang the bell at the gate. Kenji came out and told me how pleasant it was to see me but that Abel wasn’t home. He didn’t invite me in. Apparently, Abel hadn’t told him I was expected, or he would have. I thanked him and then I—”

“You improvised,” I suggested. “Turned Johnny’s presence there into a bonus. He’d already tried to kill his own mother. He’d even shot out the windows of Zorch’s Rolls just the night before. And if the police happened to ask you, you’d have to admit that, yes, you did see him lurking outside Zorch’s house just moments before the killing. Johnny was perfect for it. He was easy. And just think of the publicity: ‘
Badger Hayes, All-American Killer
.’ You waved good-bye to Kenji, then you approached Johnny. He panicked and took off like the paranoid little boy he was. This suited you. You didn’t want him around. You drove away. Kenji saw you leave. He saw both of you leave. What he didn’t see was that you turned around and came right back. No one saw you that time. Zorch showed up a few minutes later. He was even nice enough to bring his new boyfriend, Geoffrey with a G. That made Johnny look even better for it. You shot them both, Zorch once in the groin, figuring a sexual twist would place it right at Johnny’s feet. Then you took off. You used the less popular way out, Alto Cedro, in case anyone, such as me, was on the way up. Then you drove around in the hills like you said you did. You’ve already acknowledged you have no alibi for the time of the killings. No one to vouch for you except Georgie, and he’s not very talkative. Johnny looked ideal for it. A neighbor’s housekeeper even IDed him as someone who’d been hanging around outside Zorch’s house for days. It all worked to perfection. Except for one problem: Johnny managed to get himself an alibi. He streaked down the hill to the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset and Doheny, went inside, and phoned Matthew. He was sitting there with Matthew when it happened. That let him off the hook. A shame, but no great loss for you. You still did what you intended to do—you got rid of Abel Zorch. And no one suspected you. You were America’s Sweetie Pie. How could anyone in their right mind believe
you
would do something so horrible? The whole thing looked more and more like a war over the future of Bedford Falls. You made sure of that the very next night. You sneaked onto the lot once again, this time dressed to kill in diamonds and black leather, and toting two cans of gasoline, which you splashed about over the false fronts of Homewood. Then you hightailed it over to my bungalow smelling of rosewater, which covered the aroma of gasoline. It took a while before the place caught fire. How did you manage that?”

“I lit a long piece of string, like a fuse.”

Matthew sat up. “Hey, I used that in
Badger and His Chemistry Set
, when he blew up the old Applegate place!”

She smiled at him. “Of course. Where do you think I got the idea, Matthew?”

“When you got to my place,” I went on, “you sobbingly revealed that you’d been raped and tortured by none other than Norbert Schlom. Now this was quite some performance. Possibly your best to date. You figured this would remove any lingering doubts I might have about your past association with Toy.”

“You seemed so skeptical,” she conceded.

“I generally am. And with good reason, I’m sorry to say. You also figured I’d eventually leak it to the press. What ghost wouldn’t? It was such a lovely yarn. And such a lovely way to escalate the war. You’re very shrewd, Penny. And careful. You also tried to seduce me that evening, figuring that as long as I was besotted by you I wouldn’t suspect you. You came prepared. Candles, champagne, caviar … You were extremely persuasive.”

“That part wasn’t so hard,” she said softly.

“Thank you. I’m flattered. But let’s not forget that your primary mission that evening was to burn Homewood to the ground. You wanted the Bedford Falls people to think Schlom was behind it. You wanted them calling each other more dirty names in the paper. It made for one outstanding photo opportunity, too. Page one all the way. Is that about right?”

She was silent a moment. “Not really.”

I stared at her. “Then why did you do it?”

Georgie wriggled in her lap. She shifted him, stroking his blond hair with motherly tenderness. That tenderness is something I still think about at 4
A.M.,
when I can’t sleep. “I did it to stop Matthew from making his new movie,” she replied. “I don’t want him making it.”

“Why not?” Matthew demanded.

“Because she’s not in it,” Mr. Shelley figured. “She’s pissed off about it.”

Pennyroyal snorted derisively.

“Why?” I asked.

Everyone leaned forward, awaiting her reply.

“Because it sucks,” she said.

“Because it sucks,” I repeated.

“Everyone knows it,” she insisted. “The script’s a total piece of shit. A born flop. It’ll cost us millions.”

Mr. Shelley frowned at her. “ ‘Us’?”

“This studio is half mine,” she said firmly. “Or it soon will be. I have a right to be involved in the decision-making process.”

“I admire your idea of creative participation,” I said.

“Hey, it’s not as if they’d actually pay attention to me, would they?” she demanded hotly. “I hoped Matthew would get the message and back off. But he didn’t, so I had to take more drastic measures.”

“Johnny,” I suggested.

She nodded. “He was so weak. A lost little boy. I went to his place directly from Toy and Norbert’s party.”

“How’d you know where he was staying?” Sarge wondered. “We only just took the place.”

“From me,” Joey Bam Bam murmured, a sickly expression on his face. “I told her.”

“You told Cassie,” Pennyroyal explained. “She wanted to interview him. I got the address from her. Not that she had anything to do with it. She’s innocent as an angel.”

“Thanks loads,” said Cassandra sourly.

“Don’t be so bitchy,” Penny scolded. “You wouldn’t have wanted to know, would you?”

“You’re absolutely right,” Cassandra said sarcastically. “My mistake.”

“It was a really dark, quiet street,” Pennyroyal said. “But his porch light was on. I couldn’t take a chance on a neighbor recognizing me, so I went around back. He let me in. He was real scared until he realized it was me. He put some music on. Popped open a beer. We talked about Abel, and how much he missed him.”

“Did he realize that you had killed him?” Lamp asked.

“Johnny wasn’t coherent enough to realize anything,” she replied. “You know what he said to me? He said that I should be in the new Badger movie with him. He said it wasn’t right, my not being in it. He was so sweet. I think that was the last thing he said before I killed him. … I made it look sexual again to distract people. And to make it more lurid and sensational for the papers.” She lowered her eyes. “I hated to do it. I always liked Johnny. But I had to stop this movie. The only other way was to kill Matthew, and I couldn’t—Matthew’s the studio’s biggest asset. This place is worth zero without him. Johnny … Johnny was expendable.”

“My God!” erupted Mrs. Shelley. “You killed him to stop a
movie
from being made!? He was your
friend
and you
killed
him and you don’t even
care
!”

“Don’t look down your nose at me, you little bitch!” Pennyroyal snarled. “What have you ever done in life except grow up in the same house with
him
?!”

Mrs. Shelley looked at her brother with great sadness. “I’ve loved him,” she replied. “Which is more than you ever did.”

It turned quiet now. Everyone in the room was staring at Pennyroyal, taking in the sublime horror of her. Or trying to.

She colored slightly. “Why are you all looking at me like that?” she demanded.