Читать книгу Kill the Mother! - Michael Mallory - Страница 7

THREE

“Did you just ask me if I was fucking your mother?” I said, driving ahead cautiously.

“Seems like an easy question,” Taylor commented.

“How can I be fu…having se…I just met your mother a few hours ago!”

“Yeah, but if you want to, it’s okay with us,” Burton said. “I think she can use it.”

“Um, guys—”

“She’s kinda uptight,” Taylor interrupted. “Of course, if you did start to fuck our mother.…”

Burton picked up the thought. “That would make you.…”

“A motherfucker!” they cried in unison, and then snickered.

I got it; a carefully rehearsed routine. “Very funny,” I said. “You two should be on the road.” Flattened by a logging truck, W. C. Fields added. I decided to change the subject. “I’m sorry to hear about your father. I understand he was a hero.”

“We don’t like to talk about our father,” Taylor said.

“All right.”

We drove for several more miles before I tried breaking the silence again. “So, what do you guys like to eat?”

“Food,” they replied in unison.

After several more miles, I said: “You guys like to watch television?”

“If it’s not retarded,” Burton offered.

“Or gay,” Taylor elaborated.

At that point I gave up. No further words transpired between then and the time we pulled into the driveway of the Frost home on Commonwealth Avenue in Los Feliz hills. It was a quasi-Tudor brick house, probably from the 1920s or ’30s, and while not perhaps fully qualifying as a mansion, was certainly more upscale than my apartment in Studio City (which, if promises were kept, Nora Frost was going to allow me to keep through the end of the year.) “We’re home, boys,” I said switching off the ignition.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Burton said, keeping his eyes on his Game Boy, or whatever the hell it was he was thumb-abusing. Neither he nor Taylor made a move to exit the Toyota.

“Well,” I said, opening the car door, which set off the annoying dinging until I pulled the keys from the ignition, “you guys can stay here if you want. I’m going inside. Maybe I can find where your mom hides her good silverware and steal it.”

Almost unbelievably, that drew responses from them. When they looked up from their games, they were actually smiling. “We get a cut from the sale,” Taylor said.

“For not telling,” Burton added.

“Fair enough, let’s go.”

I was steeling myself for what the inside of the house must look like, but the reality of it exceeded my most exaggerated expectations. I can’t recall ever seeing shrines to living people, but that accurately described the Frost living room. Practically every square inch of the walls was covered with framed photographs of the two boys. One poster sized image, which was grainy and blurry, and appeared to have been blown-up from a very low-res phone picture, showed the boys standing outside a restaurant next to Tom Hanks, who smiled dutifully. I could only assume that Hanks was innocently having dinner there when he was spotted by Nora. Next to the leather sofa was a life-sized cardboard standee of the boys, dressed like Indiana Jones, and over the fireplace was an oil painting of the two boys that was of near photographic quality. I walked over to the standee, the sort of thing they have in tourist traps that allow you to pose for a picture with your arm draped around one cardboard shoulder so that it looks like you and your best friend Elvis are hanging out together. “Was this from a film or something?”

“No,” Taylor said. “We were supposed to go on a safari in Africa and Mom was going to shoot it and make some kind of television show, but we ended up not going.”

“I think she’s planning on dragging us out to someplace called an Arborium or something, so that it looks like a safari,” Burton said. “Then she’ll film the lions at the zoo and cut it together.”

“Probably the Arboretum,” I said. “They have a whole jungle setting out there that has been used for films for decades. They shot some early Tarzan movies out there.”

“I thought Tarzan was a cartoon,” Burton said.

“Before the cartoon, there were about ninety live action…oh, never mind. Just let me look around for a rocking chair.”

“I don’t think Mom has one,” Burton said. “Why do you want one?”

“Yeah, I thought you were after the silverware,” Taylor added.

“Oh,” Burton muttered. “Was that rocking chair thing like a joke? Like you’re so old?”

My brain suddenly conjured up the image of a birthday party clown sweating his greasepaint off in front of these two and then deciding to go home and commit suicide. But before I could say anything, Taylor announced: “I’m going to get something cold to drink. C’mon, Burt.” The two of them marched out of the room, presumably toward the kitchen.

“Nothing for me, I’m good, but thanks for asking,” I called after their shadows. Perhaps I should have gone with them, not to keep an eye on them, but because number five on the list in my notebook is that you can learn more about someone by viewing the contents of their refrigerator than you can anywhere else. On the other hand, I was relieved to be away from the little brats for a few moments. I decided to use the opportunity to examine the living room more closely. A brick fireplace with an ornate grate was set into one wall, though it appeared not to have been used any time recently. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was cleaner than my apartment. Its primary function was as a shelf; the mantle held several framed photographs, including one large, formal one of a man in military dress uniform. Examining it closely, I saw a small brass plate affixed to the frame that read: Lt. Randall Frost. This was Dad, the hero.

Perpendicular to the fireplace was the sofa, and across from it was a large plasma television atop a horizontal cabinet with containing the kind of equipment one would expect to find in the home of a couple of tween boys, chiefly a DVD player and a game console. There was also a VHS machine. Sliding open the large drawer as silently as possible, I found about two dozen games in PS3 format, but a lot more jewel boxes filled with homemade disks, each labeled “Brothers Alpha” followed by a situation or location: “Brothers Alpha on Horseback”; “Brothers Alpha at Space Camp”; “Brothers Alpha on Catalina”; “Brothers Alpha at the Art Museum”; and about fifty more. I stopped looking, afraid I was going to come across “Brothers Alpha Knocking Over a Seven-Eleven,” or something else the knowledge of which would make me an accessory after the fact.

I closed the drawer and went to sit down on the sofa. The iron-and-glass coffee table in front of it was empty save for a large scrapbook, which I did not even need to open to gauge its contents. But curiosity got the better of me. Sure enough, it was a photographic record of the Brothers Alpha from what looked like preschool through to the present. The last third or so of the book consisted of professional acting headshots in a variety of poses and costumes, but virtually no changes of expression, like flesh-and-blood paper dolls. There was no agent logo on the shots, just “Nora Frost, Alpha Productions,” and a phone number. I pulled out the card Nora had given me and checked it against the photos: the phone numbers were the same.

It was getting a bit dark inside the house, since the sun was sinking behind a hill, so I took the liberty of turning on a few lamps. It was quiet, too; the only sound I heard was the ticking of the clock that hung on the wall over the television, and which, miraculously, did not have pictures of the Brothers Alpha on its face.

I walked to the spacious dining room, which did not appear to have hosted many recent meals despite the large table. The table was covered with what looked like week’s worth of mail, Hollywood trade papers, BackStage, which was a casting newspaper, and a box full of mailer tubes. I presumed these would eventually contain the posters of the boys protesting fox hunts. “You guys okay?” I called into the void.

“Of course we’re okay,” a voice replied, and I think it was Burton’s. “It’s our house.”

“We’re having soda, and Mom doesn’t allow us to bring soda in the living room,” Taylor’s voice added. It stood to reason: what would happen if all those photos were to have something spilt on them?

“Okay, just checking.”

A little while later, through the dining room window I could see headlights. Nora Frost’s Lexus was pulling into the driveway and not a moment too soon for me. It had not been two hours, or even close to it, but it seemed like it. I went to the door to wait for her and she burst through a moment later. “Where are the boys?” she asked, not bothering with such formalities as “Hello.”

“In the kitchen,” I said. “They wanted sodas.”

“I guess they can have a little splurge, since they performed so admirably today,” she said. “Come with me.” I followed her into the living room where she opened up her purse and withdrew not a cashier’s check, but a stack of cash, which she flopped on the coffee table. “It’s the whole ten-thousand, not half. I didn’t think you would mind.”

I had never before heard the sound of ten-thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills thumping down on a hard surface, but I enjoyed it. It was rich, warm and resonant. “I decided this would be easier than a cashier’s check,” she said.

I tried to think of a cool Bogarty comeback that would hide my astonishment at the sight of so much cash in one place at one time, but failed. Even inside my head, all I heard was an impressed, Bogart whistle. So after gaping for a moment, I said, “I don’t mind at all. This is fine.”

“Count it.”

“Cases such as this are based on trust.” I picked the stacks of bills up and forced them into various pockets. I probably looked like I was wearing bad stunt padding. Do you have ten grand in c-notes in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me? Mae West cooed inside my head. “I’ll send over an agreement for you to sign tomorrow.”

“Can’t we operate through a verbal agreement?” she asked.

“A signed contract is standard procedure,” I told her. “Sometimes people refuse to pay the investigator if they don’t like the results of the investigation, so this is protection against that.”

“But I’ve already paid you.”

“All right, I’ll send over a receipt for the cash, then.”

“I would really rather prefer no paperwork of any kind, unless it’s required by law.”

“No, no, the law doesn’t really have an opinion about it—”

“Then it’s settled.”

Why was she so resistant to having a paper trail? Well, I would worry about that later. Lots later. I had ten-thousand of her dollars already in my pockets, and I didn’t want to push so hard that she would think better of the deal and ask for it back.

“Do you need anything else, or do you have enough to get started?” she asked.

“I’ll need the names of any of the women you suspect might have sent that letter. Oh, and I’d like to see the letter, too.”

“I have it locked away upstairs in my bedroom,” she said. “I didn’t want to leave it anywhere the boys might see it. I’ll go get it. Stay here.”

She left the room and I heard soft footfalls on a staircase. In less than a minute, they returned, this time coming back down. Nora’s eyes darted around the room as she walked in, as though making certain the boys had not come in while she was gone. Once satisfied, she came over and handed me a piece of paper. It was plain typing paper on which was written in Sharpie:

TO NORA FROST.…

EITHER KEEP THOSE KIDS OF YOURS OUT OF AUDITIONS OR I WILL. THIS IS NO JOKE! I HAVE HAD IT WITH TAYLOR AND BURTON GETTING ALL THE ATTENTION! UNLESS YOU WANT THEM TAKEN AND CUT UP INTO PIECES, YOU WILL RETIRE THEM FROM THE BUSINESS. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.

“Did this come in an envelope?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you still have it?”

“No, I threw it away.”

I sighed. Doesn’t anybody watch cop shows on television anymore? “Could it still be in the trash somewhere?”

“Trash pick-up was this morning. Did I do something wrong?”

“There is a lot the envelope could have told us. Its postmark could have identified the location of the sender.”

“It didn’t come in the mail,” she said. “It was slipped under the door.” She began pacing again. “That’s what’s so terrifying about it. Whoever sent it already knows where we live. But you said the letter itself might have fingerprints on it.”

“There probably are, but the problem with fingerprints is that unless the suspect has a record, or was once in the military, or has a government job, there would be nothing to match them up against. But I’ll see what I can deduce from this letter. Can I take it with me?”

She nodded.

“How soon can I get that list of people who might be responsible for this?”

“It will take me a little bit to put it together. How can I get it to you?”

“Email works,” I said, reaching for my wallet and pulling out a business card. Taking a pen from my shirt pocket, I jotted my new email on the back of the card. One of these days I would have to get cards reprinted to include all the pertinent information, but I still had a box of the old ones, and I hated to see them go to waste. “The sooner the better.”

“Tomorrow morning. Is there anything else you need from me?”

The question was asked with a pregnancy of tone that I did not really want to contemplate at the moment. So I settled for a legitimate question. “What do you do, Nora?”

“Do?”

“For a living. I’m looking around at all these photos and oil paintings and photographic cutouts, and you clearly paid for that photo shoot today, and you’ve just handed me ten-thousand dollars in cash, not to mention this house, so you clearly have money. I’m just curious what you do to get it.”

“Well, I and the boys receive a military pension from my late husband, but.…”

“But?”

“I am what you would call independently wealthy through an inheritance. My parents were quite well off. Will that suffice, or do you need to know who they were?”

“Well, I think—”

“Have you ever heard of Steve Cousins and Natalie Strange?”

Had I? “Are you kidding? I loved Steve Cousins!” I said.

She looked at me curiously. “I trust you’re not speaking literally.”

I knew what she meant. Steve Cousins was an actor of the 1950s and beyond, and the epitome of what used to be called a light leading man. He had style and charisma to spare, if not outstanding talent, but he reliably got the job done while the Paul Newmans and Richard Burtons were getting all the attention. His biggest claim to fame was a 1960s television series called Luger about a private eye named Steve Luger, since television was never interested in a private eye named Bob Schwartz. Cousins died, to the best of my recollection, about ten years ago. It was a long-standing rumor that he was gay and that his marriage to actress Natalie Strange, who had been a starlet at Universal in the 1950s, and then later enjoyed a career renaissance on Broadway in the 1970s, had been one of convenience, since she was suspected of being a lesbian. They were the ultimate lavender couple, insiders hinted. But despite all that, the two were also known as the happiest couple in Hollywood because, it was said, they had a wide-open marriage in which neither had to worry about infidelity, since it was already a given. In the 1980s they turned up on shows such as The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, and even in late life were depicted as the ideal couple.

“What I mean,” I said, “is that I love Steve Cousins’ work. You’re Steve and Natalie’s daughter?”

“Their adopted daughter. Mother died six years ago, and Dad a few years prior to that. I’m the sole beneficiary of their estate, which was considerable. In addition to acting, my father was a rather astute businessman. He had real estate holdings on the side.”

“Wow,” I said, suddenly feeling like I had gained insight into Nora Frost. She had been raised by movie stars, and even though they were second tier movie stars, she felt she had to live up to the attention and glamour awarded to her parents, but did not have the natural equipment to do so. But now that she had children of her own, she was projecting the desire for that same attention and glamour that had escaped her onto them. Rosario, the costume woman, had intimated as much. “So you got everything when your mom passed away?”

“She didn’t pass away, Dave, she died,” Nora said softly. “In her final years she had become rather forgetful, and like so many other forgetful people, she refused to acknowledge that she was forgetful. She wouldn’t remember whether or not she took her pills so one day she ended up taking too much.”

“I’m sorry, Nora.”

She shrugged. “Life goes on.” Clearly she had managed to build a wall around her feelings.

“I will do my best to find out who is behind this letter,” I said.

“I’m counting on that.”

“Don’t forget to email that information to me.”

“I won’t.”

I walked to the dining room and called, “Goodnight, guys.”

“See ya,” a voice replied from a distance, and I think it was Taylor’s.

I walked to the front door, but before I could leave, Nora asked: “Dave, do you mind if I ask a personal question?”

“Go ahead.”

“How old are you really?”

“I’m thirty-two, Nora.”

“Okay. You seem younger.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Do you want to know how old I am, Dave?”

“I don’t wish to be rude.”

“I don’t mind at all. I will be forty in October. How do I look?”

You look mahvellous! Billy Crystal said as Fernando Lamas inside my head, but I forced it away. “Do you really want me to answer that?” I said instead.

“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

“I think you look damn fine for any age,” I said. Sheez! I thought, hearing it bounce back. Where the hell did that come from?

“Take your money and get your ass out of here,” she commanded, but neither her expression nor her voice registered displeasure.

“All right. I’ll be in touch.”

She leaned close and breathed: “Touch me any time.” Then she closed the door in my face.

Bogart or Mitchum would have had something to say back. I simply rubbed my nose.