Nothing avant-garde about Player's Management's home base, though. The company occupied a dreary two-story box the color of chocolate milk, set back from the street and fronted by a parking lot. Weeds whiskered through the asphalt, gutters sagged, stucco corners were chipped. H. Carter Ramsey wasn't much of a landlord.
Balch's black Lexus was the only vehicle in the lot. So he was in, not answering the phone- orders from the boss to discourage the media? She peeked inside the car. Empty.
Two tenants took up the ground floor of the chocolate cube, a travel agency sporting the green tree flag of Lebanon and advertising discount flights to the Middle East and a wholesale-to-the-public beauty-supply store. Both closed.
Rusting open steps on the right side climbed to a cement walkway, and three mustard-colored doors were in need of refinishing. Suite A housed Easy Construction, Inc.; B was something called La Darcy Hair Removal; and tucked in back was Player's Management. No windows on the west wall. Oppressive.
She knocked, got no answer, knocked again, and Balch opened.
He was wearing a black zip-up velvet sweat suit with white piping and looked genuinely surprised to see her. Odd. Ramsey had to have called him. Maybe he was an actor, too.
“Hi.” He offered a soft hand. “C'mon in. Detective Conners, was it?”
“Connor.”
He held the door for her. The suite consisted of two low-ceilinged rooms connected by a door, now open. The rear space looked bigger, messy. Piles of paper all over the cheap green carpet; take-out cartons. The front room was furnished with a gold couch and a scruffy oak desk piled with yet more paper. Flagrantly grained fake rosewood walls were covered with photographs, mostly black-and-whites, the kind you saw at every dry cleaner's in town- big airbrushed smiles of stars and has-beens, dubious autographs.
But only one celeb in these. Ramsey as cowboy, police officer, soldier, Roman centurion. An especially ludicrous shot of young H. Cart decked out like some kind of space alien- plastic body suit armored by exaggerated pecs, rubbery-looking antennae protruding from his puffy sixties mop-top. No mustache; wide, white, hire-me smile. A passing resemblance to Sean Connery. The guy had been a looker.
A color photo at the top showed Ramsey decades later dressed in a nifty sport jacket, turtleneck, looking flinty, striking an action pose with a 9mm. Dack Price: The Adjustor. She should probably watch the damn show.
She was about to enter the back office when she noticed something that confirmed her guess about Balch as performer. At the bottom of the wall, half hidden by the desk. Low man in the exhibit- not a coincidence, she was willing to bet.
Balch in his twenties. He'd been decent-looking, too. A good fifty pounds lighter, sun-blond, nicely defined muscles, like a hero in one of those beach movies she used to watch for laughs- Tab Hunter or Troy Donahue.
But even in his youth, the business manager had worn a dull, subservient smile that robbed him of star quality.
“Antiques,” said Balch, sounding self-conscious. “You know you're old when you don't recognize yourself anymore.”
“So you acted, too.”
“Not really. I should take that stuff down.” The sweats were tight around his paunch, baggy at the seat. New white sneakers. Now that she had a good look, she could see that his thin, waxy hair was a mixture of blond and white. Pink scalp peeked through.
“Can I get you some coffee?” He indicated the rear office, stood by the door, waiting for her to enter.
“No thanks.” She stepped in. Finally a couple of windows, but they were covered by chenille drapes the color of old newspaper. No natural lighting, and the single desk lamp Balch had on didn't do much to pierce the gloom.
The clutter was monumental- papers on the floor, chairs crowding another cheap desk, bigger, L-shaped. Ledgers, tax manuals, corporate prospectuses, government forms. On the shorter arm of the desk was a white plastic coffeemaker spotted with brown. Kentucky Fried Chicken box in a corner, grease stains on the underside of the open lid. A glimpse of breaded fowl.
Total slob. Maybe that's why Ramsey maintained him in low-rent circumstances. Or maybe that was the essence of their relationship.
All those years playing lackey. Could she wedge the guy? He did live in Rolling Hills Estates, very pricey. So Ramsey paid well for loyalty.
Balch cleared an armchair for her, tossing papers into a corner, and sat behind the desk, hands laced on his belly. “So how's it going? The investigation.”
“It's going.” Petra smiled. “Do you have any information that might help me, Mr. Balch?”
“Me? Wish I did, I still can't get over it.” His lower jaw shifted from side to side. “Lisa was… a nice girl. Little hot-tempered, but basically a great person.”
“Hot-tempered?”
“Listen, I know you've heard about Cart hitting her, all that stuff on TV, but it only happened once. Not that I'm excusing it- it was wrong. But Lisa had a temper. She went off on him all the time.”
Trying to blame the victim to excuse the boss? Did he realize he was offering a motive for the boss's rage?
“So she had a tendency to criticize Mr. Ramsey?”
Balch touched his mouth. His eyes had gotten small. “I'm not saying they didn't get along. They loved each other. All I'm saying is Lisa could be… that I can see her- forget it, what do I know, I'm just talking.”
“You can see her getting someone pretty angry.”
“Anyone can get anyone angry. That has nothing to do with what happened. This is obviously some kind of maniac.”
“Why do you say that, Mr. Balch?”
“The way it- it was done. Totally insane.” Balch's hand rose to his forehead, rubbing, as if trying to erase a headache. “Cart's devastated.”
“How long have you and Cart known each other?”
“We grew up together, upstate New York, went to high school and college together at Syracuse, played football- he was the quarterback, damn good one. Scouted by the pros, but he tore his hamstring at the end of the senior season.”
“And you?”
“Offensive lineman.”
Protecting the quarterback.
“So you go back a long ways.”
Balch smiled. “Centuries. Before your time.”
“Did you come out to Hollywood together?”
“Yup. After graduation, one of those last-fling things before we settled down. Also to cheer Cart up- he was pretty upset about losing out on the NFL. His dad owned a hardware store and wanted Cart to take it over and he thought he'd probably do that.”
“And you?”
“Me?” Surprised that she cared. “I had a business degree, some offers from accounting firms, figured eventually I'd get a CPA.”
Petra gazed around at the sty he called an office. Weren't bean counters supposed to be organized?
“So what led you to acting?”
Balch stroked the top of his pale head. “It was one of those weird things. Not exactly Lana Turner at Schwab's- are you old enough to know about that?”
“Sure,” said Petra. Knowing it from her father. The honeymoon he and his bride had taken to California. Kenneth Connor had loved L.A.; saw it as an anthropologist's dream. Look at me now, Dad. Hobnobbing with the never-greats. Working the industry.
“You and Cart were both discovered?” she said.
Balch smiled again. “No. Cart was. It was right out of a script. We were a few days from going back to Syracuse, having a couple of beers at Trader Vic's- over at the Beverly Hilton, this was before Merv owned it. Anyway, some guy comes over and says, ‘I've been watching you two fine-looking young men; would you like parts in a movie?' And gives us his card. We're thinking it's got to be a scam, or maybe he's a que- Some gay guy hustling. But the next morning, Cart pulls out the card and says, Hey, let's call, for the hell of it. 'Cause we were gonna go home and get jobs, why not be adventurous. Turns out it was for real, a casting agency. We went down and auditioned, both got parts- not that it was any big deal. Not even a B movie, more like D. A western. Straight to the Dixie drive-in circuit.”