“Right behind you, man. Right there on the couch. She’s one superior pain in the ass, no question about it. But I’m telling you, you’ve never met anyone’s got the goods like that, I swear.”
Lyles admitted to me that he had known all about Fox’s affair with Cynthia Blair. He was pretty certain he’d been the only one who did know.
“I drove the guy everywhere. I knew everything he did. I’ll tell you, when he found out she was pregnant, he got more drunk off his ass than I’d ever seen. The man was out of his gourd, he was so pissed off. It was all pretty trippy for me. Even though I’m shagging his old lady on the side, we’re still partying together. I mean, he was clueless. I was also seeing this other chick at the time. Tracy Jacobs. You’ve seen her. She’s all hot shit now on that show. Century City? She plays the clueless wife of that older guy? Perfect casting, man. Girl couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag, then she lands a plum role in a show like that. Anyway, one night right after Marshall’d found out about Cynthia and how she was planning to have the kid, he tagged along with me and Tracy. He ended up going way over the top. He was drinking like no tomorrow, popping uppers. The guy was a mess. This is all before Tracy’d gotten her show, by the way. She was nobody at this point to Marshall. Just another bad actress all goo-goo to be hanging out with Marshall Fox.”
As Lyles described it, somewhere along the way, Marshall had started getting nasty with Tracy. At first he argued with everything that came out of her mouth, but soon he was trying to put the moves on her.
“He’d do that sometimes, man. Show his mean side, then start trying to get in their pants. It kind of freaked Tracy out. Marshall got a real bug up his tail about Tracy, and I had to pull him off her before he hurt her. He’s got this ugly streak, man. You don’t want to see it. It all sort of cooled down, but the evening was pretty much tanked. Then when I was dropping her off at her place, Marshall suddenly got out of the car and went after her again. I’m telling you, though, it was the whole damn Cynthia thing. He just needed someone to take it out on. Anyway, I had to pull him off of her and shove him back in the car and all that crap. Tracy cut things off with me after that. That’s how it goes, I guess. Thing is, though, she ended up getting me fired. How’s that for fucking irony?”
I went back into the kitchen and fetched more water. I tried Megan’s number but got no answer. Lyles was tugging against the lamp cord when I came back out.
“How about you loosen this up, man. My circulation’s cut off.”
“Go on with your story. If I like it, we’ll talk then.”
He grumbled a bit but went on. Lyles said that several days after Cynthia Blair’s body had been discovered at the base of Cleopatra’s Needle, he got a call from Tracy Jacobs. She was extremely upset and talking about contacting the police to tell them about Marshall Fox’s violence.
“The thing is, like I said, she didn’t know a thing about Marshall getting that girl pregnant. All she knew was that he’d scared the hell out of her that night we all went out. I got her to hold off on calling the cops. I lied and told her that Marshall had an alibi for the night Cynthia got killed. Thing was, he didn’t. Cynthia had actually been up to his place the night she was killed, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell that to Tracy. She said it was her duty to contact the police and all that shit, but I got her to agree to hold off for a day. I didn’t know what to do. Crazy as he was, Marshall didn’t kill that girl.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Some things you just know, and I know that. But all the crap he was going through, the last thing he needed was Tracy getting the cops all excited about him. So I called Mr. Ross.”
“Alan Ross?”
“Yeah. I guess you can say he’s Marshall’s boss.”
“Why would you call him?”
“Ross is the guy Marshall always goes to when he’s in any kind of a fix. He’s connected, he’s smart. He’s one of those take-charge guys. I just thought it made sense.”
“And what did Ross say?”
“He said he’d take care of things. Just like I knew he would. Cool as a cucumber, that guy. He got Tracy’s phone number from me and told me not to sweat it.”
“And that was it?”
“Hell no, that wasn’t it. The next thing I know, Marshall’s all over my ass. He’s ready to kill me. He’s saying Tracy called up him and his lawyer and threatened to tell the police not just about him and Cynthia but about her being pregnant with his kid. I swear to you, I never breathed a fucking word to anyone about any of that. Especially Tracy. Not even that the two were screwing each other. No way she got it from me. But Marshall was ready to take my head off. He fired me on the spot and said if he ever saw me again, he would kill me. Meanwhile, Tracy flies off to Los Angeles, and the next thing you know, she’s on Century goddamn City. It’s totally nuts. This whole fucking show business is nuts.”
I took a minute with Lyles’s story. Then I took another one. There was a piece of his story I didn’t like. I could tell he was giving me the truth, but something wasn’t fitting. It was the same thing that hadn’t fit for Danny Lyles.
I asked, “You’re absolutely positive you didn’t tell Tracy Jacobs about Fox and Cynthia Blair? Or maybe she overheard you two talking about it.”
“No way. Totally positive, man. Marshall was completely nuts on that subject. The whole kids thing freaked him in general. You’ve never seen a guy who was so paranoid about ever being a father. Plus, he was already working on trying to get Rosemary to take him back. The last thing he needed was for the thing with Cynthia to come out.”
I got up and wandered over to the sliding doors leading out to the patio and stood looking at the falling snow. A pack of cigarettes sat on a cast-iron table, half covered in snow. A minute or so later, I returned to Lyles.
“Tracy Jacobs. Where is she now? Is she in Los Angeles?”
Lyles scooted up farther against the wall. “Yeah, that’s where she’s been. Except I ran into her here about a week ago. She was in town for a visit. The show’s not shooting right now. Can’t say she really wanted to talk to me.”
“She’s in the city? Do you have any idea where she was staying? Or how I could get ahold of her? A phone number?”
He grunted. “Hey. It’s fuck-you time, man. You want to talk to Tracy? Sure. I can tell you where she was staying. I don’t know if she’s still there. But you’re going to fucking untie me first, man. Time’s up. I’m not handing out any more freebies.”
I went into the kitchen and fetched a steak knife. May I say that the man looked just a tad uneasy as I approached him?
A FALSIFIED POLICE CAPTAIN’S BADGE isn’t the kind of thing you want to get into the habit of flashing if you can help it. I went with my slightly less impressive PI license, held up to the door that had opened only as far as the chain would allow. “I’m looking for Tracy Jacobs.”