“Why are you here?”
“There have been threats against your husband’s life. I’m looking into it.”
“So I was right about what you are.”
“Joni, what I do is way off the radar. Nothing near legal, understand?”
“More melodrama, Jack?”
“No. It’s real and it’s rough. That’s part of why I waved that gun at you.”
“You didn’t wave it at me. You pointed it down. I wasn’t scared.”
“Really? Because the other part of why I waved it was to scare you.”
“To get back at me?”
Yes.
“No,” I said. “Just warning you about what you’re in the middle of. Watch yourself. Don’t trust anybody you don’t know. And maybe some you do know.”
“Should I trust you?”
“Sure. Joni, we really do need to talk. I need to ask you some things.”
“All right. Give me a second.” She got up and dripped over and got her towel and dried her hair and face off a little. Then she trotted back and sat next to me, feet and most of her legs in the water. Like mine were.
I asked, “Is there anybody you can think of who’d want your husband dead?”
Her response was immediate and damn near casuaclass="underline" “Sure. You know who Lou Licata is?”
“I know who he is.”
“Well, that bimbo Tiffany is Licata’s girlfriend. Never mind that the Godfather has a wife and four kids, Miss Goodwin is his property.” She shrugged. “And Art was fucking her for a while. How’s that for stupid? Fucking a mob boss’ mistress.”
“It’s not smart. How did that make you feel?”
“It didn’t. Art’s fooled around before. He’ll fool around again.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“No. I was his ‘this year’s model’ a long, long time ago. Enough of one to get a wedding ring out of him. Any love or passion is long gone. We’re still friendly. We like each other. Let me answer the question in your eyes, Jack-yes we still have sex. Once or twice a month.”
“You’re okay with this.”
“Fine with it. Jack, you know what kind of background I come from. Now I live in the Hollywood Hills. In a house that’s damn near a mansion. With a pool bigger than this.”
“Your husband isn’t exactly the hottest ticket in Tinsel Town.”
“No. Some would say he’s on the way down. But on the way up, he made a lot of money, and invested well. He likes to work, so he takes gigs wherever he can-TV mostly. And that pays just fine. Me, I’ve had a good career, too, but I’m almost over the hill. Thirty-six, Jack. Two, three more years, I’m an unemployable hag in Hollywood terms. Meantime, it’s a comfortable life. And will continue to be.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“And this silly picture we’re making? The first Hard Wheels was enough of a minor success to put Art back on the map, at least as a genre filmmaker.”
“What does that mean, genre filmmaker?”
“Action stuff. Sex and violence. Horror. Sci-fi. He’ll keep working. And he’ll use me in his movies, and he’ll never leave me for anybody, because he’s not looking for a new wife, just an occasional starlet to bang. Don’t you dare look at me like you feel sorry for me, Jack. I am happy. I have everything I want.”
Which of us was she trying to convince?
“Joni…none of my business, but…how the hell did you become an actress, anyway?”
“Oh, it was Art. Art my husband, not art the pursuit of which. He discovered me. I was working at Disneyland… not in one of those fucking suits! You should see them pour the sweat out of those things at the end of the day…I was a waitress in a German-theme joint and I guess he liked the way I looked in a peasant blouse. Gave me a screen test.”
“And you passed the audition.”
She was kicking in the water. “You ever think about me, Jack?”
I didn’t lie. “Sometimes.”
“I loved you in my way, Jack. I didn’t want you to die over there. I really didn’t want any of you boys to die.”
“All three of us?”
She shook her head, smirking humorlessly. “So I married three times. And got the benefits. If you feel like looking at me like you feel sorry for me, do it because of that. Do it because my life was such a hopeless dead-end that the best I could come up with was to go after a serviceman’s crappy monthly check.”
And benefits. Three times. But I didn’t rub it in.
Her gaze was at once sweet and patronizing. “Jack, you were a nice kid. Naive. You didn’t understand that sometimes people do things, to survive, that look crazy or immoral to other people. Maybe you can understand better now, how a young girl could get fucked-up enough to-”
I held a hand up. Shook my head. “You don’t owe me explanations. It was a long time ago. We’re different people now.”
“Jack, maybe it helps to finally air this out…”
This shit was getting old. I flat out asked her, hoping maybe, just maybe, her eyes would tell me something. “Do you want your husband dead?”
“What?”
“If you had a choice between me stopping something fatal happening to your husband, and-”
She gripped my arm. Other than when we shook hands, it was the first time she’d touched me.
“ No,” she said. “Help him.”
“Did you sign a prenup?”
“What?”
“Do you stand to benefit if he dies?”
She just looked at me. “I don’t remember you being such a prick.”
“ Do you benefit? It’s not like it’s a foreign concept to you. Maybe you’re taking it to a new level.”
“That’s fucking cruel…”
I put a hand on her shoulder. Tight but not enough to hurt. “I don’t like being near you, Joni. It stirs things up in me, none of it good. You need to understand something-you need to believe me: if you are behind this, I don’t give a shit.”
“What?”
“If you want him dead, I’ll walk away. I wouldn’t kill him for you, but I’d walk away.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I’m fairly well-balanced, considering. I’m giving you an out. Tell me to go and I’ll go. If I stay, I can probably save him.”
“ Stay! Stay.” She stroked my face. It was like pleasant razor blades. “ Please. If you have even one tiny memory of me that you cherish…stay.”
“You didn’t answer me. Would you benefit if he died?”
She sighed. Turned away from me and stared into the gentle ripple of the pool where she’d been absently kicking. “There was no prenup. But, Jack-we live in California. Community property. I get half anyway, if I ever decide to bail on him.”
“Maybe you want it all.”
She set those big brown eyes loose on my face. “All I want is the life I have right now, Jack. It’s the kind of life I dreamed about as a young woman-a really nice house, swimming pool and everything, no kids, plenty of money, a husband who is nice to me but gives me lots of space. I was never looking for a white knight, Jack. Just a life of comfort. A life that didn’t suck. And I fought to get that life.”
“Tell me about it.”
Her upper lip curled a little. “You know what your problem is, Jack? You don’t know whether you want to fuck me or kill me.”
I got out of the pool. To dry off a little, I had to dump the nine millimeter out of the towel, and it bounced on the deck chair webbing. Got her attention.
“Is there an all-of-the-above?” I asked her.
And I gathered my gun and went up to my room.
SEVEN
After my evening swim, I got dressed and made my way down to the Spur’s lobby, taking along a western paperback I’d been reading, Valdez Is Coming, to pass the time while I waited for Stockwell to get back from the film shoot.
With the lobby’s slots and poker machines making their ringing whirring music, concentrating on the book wasn’t easy. But I only had to sit forty minutes before Stockwell showed, around a quarter past midnight, with his producer Kaufmann striding at his side, a supportive hand on his friend’s shoulder.
The director seemed beat, his eyes so puffy they got lost in the folds of flesh; he was smoking and-for all his tiredness-moving fast, in the midst of a jocular conversation with the producer, who appeared far less frazzled, even energetic. Kaufmann’s light polo shirt and darker blue slacks looked comparatively fresh next to Stockwell’s sweated-out t-shirt and dirt-smudged jeans.