"Danziger had been Walsh's biggest supporter. He was the one who okayed the project and gave Walsh carte blanche. No wonder he was pissed."
"He should have gotten involved sooner. Walsh was a genius, but he was in way over his head."
"A sloppy set and too much time on your hands-there must have been plenty of gossip. What were you hearing about Walsh?"
"Sex or drugs?"
"Sex."
Martin rolled his eyes. "The man was a machine, a piston-driven fuck machine. I don't know how he got anything done. Actresses, secretaries, models-there was even a girl on the lighting unit who would pop into his trailer after a call."
"Was there anyone special?"
Martin buffed one of his black cowboy boots with the palm of his hand. "There were a few regulars, but Walsh was a free-range hump-monkey. For a while, anyway." He shrugged. "If you're writing a general feature about sex on the set, I can give you a few names. One sitcom actress in particular makes Walsh seem like a celibate-" There was a knock on the door. "Go away!" He looked at Jimmy. "I'm not going to out anyone, if that's-"
"What did you mean, 'for a while'?"
Martin turned his boot in the overhead light, checking his reflection.
"You said Walsh was free-ranging it for a while. When did he stop?"
"I don't know-three or four months into the shoot. Suddenly the talent was turned away, and the great man's trailer declared off-limits." Martin smiled. "The crew-certain members of them, anyway-were quite happy to comfort the rejects."
"Was there one woman who still had access to the trailer? Someone who seemed to have an ongoing relationship with him?"
"You're asking if Walsh found Ms. Right?" Martin chuckled, then shook his head. "I just assumed he decided to focus on the film. Still, I was quite busy with my job. I might have missed something."
"Did Walsh have any enemies on the set?"
"Just everyone."
"I mean did he exchange words with anyone? Threats or-"
"Everyone. I saw one of the caterers wave a knife at Walsh once, threaten to cut his balls off if he talked to her like that again, and who could blame her? The producers-you don't even want to get into that. He drove them absolutely mad. Mick Packard kicked in the door to Walsh's trailer one afternoon, one of his signature roundhouse kicks, but it was no act. The PA closed the set and told us to go to lunch, but we could hear them shouting from fifty feet away."
"That's right, Packard was the star of Hammerlock."
"Mr. Action Hero himself. He was hotter than Boys Town on a Saturday night in those days, and he wanted the whole world to know it. God, was I grateful when his career went into the shitter. Talk about karma."
"What were he and Walsh arguing about?"
"No telling. It was one of those typical Hollywood-alpha-male pissing contests from the very first day on the set." Martin took another sip of his power drink. "In your article I hope you don't just talk about the bad things that Walsh did-killing that poor girl. He was a very talented man. The Hammerlock shoot was a mess, disorganized and self-indulgent, but he shot some incredible footage. Walsh's out-takes were better than most of the crap that gets released today. I just hope you tell people the truth about him."
"Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?"
Martin looked pained. "I thought about it, but I can't afford to miss work, and besides-it's just kind of sad, isn't it? Drowning in a fish pond, eaten away by koi, for God's sake, which are just so… passe." He started giggling, "I know I shouldn't laugh." He laughed harder. "Forgive me, but it's this stupid movie-you spend all day making beautiful girls look like hamburger, it changes your sense of humor."
Jimmy smiled. He didn't even have Martin's excuse.
Martin drained the blender, stood up, and stretched. "Finish your shake, dearie. It's got yohimbe extract-your prostate will thank you."
Chapter 10
"You can always tell a true has-been, pilgrim-they have lousy timing," said ATM, shaking his head at the sparse turnout for Walsh's funeral. He snapped a couple of telephoto shots of a cop scratching his nuts beside a wilting floral display at the entrance to the chapel. "Walsh gets planted on the same day that a nationally syndicated talk-show queen may be getting indicted for murder, you know where the cameras are headed. Not that I blame them. Debra! caps her longtime boyfriend-that's entertainment."
"So what are you doing here, ATM?" Jimmy looked across the grassy expanse of Maple Valley Memorial Gardens, a boneyard just outside Seal Beach, with a view of the ocean from the most expensive plots, and a view of the 405 freeway from the lowlands where Garrett Walsh was being interred. "Why aren't you camped out at the Hall of Justice, waiting for the DA to announce his decision?"
"Major miscalculation." ATM sighed, the three cameras slung around his neck swinging gently. He was a rotund, slovenly paparazzo specializing in car crashes and Hollywood Babylon, utterly heartless in pursuit of a tabloid buck. "Not an A-list star in sight, no current ones anyway-strictly cable and movie-of-the-week-grade heat." He assessed the crowd. "No wonder the only other shooters here are amateurs who wouldn't know an f-stop if it blew them." He snorted. "Second-rate media coverage too. A couple of radio talk-show remotes and one local TV news crew. Bottom line: This funeral is a waste of film."
"Not for you," said Jimmy, looking at ATM. The photographer was renowned for staking out the rich and famous in a food-stained sweatshirt and baggy shorts, but today ATM wore reasonably clean jeans and a black tuxedo T-shirt, his tangled hair freshly washed. "I think you knew what you were doing when you came here today."
"Yeah," ATM admitted, scratching his belly. "Walsh-he was a stone genius. A snap of Debra! sneaking out the side door of County is good for a paycheck, but sometimes you have to show respect. Even if it costs you."
"Does that mean you didn't try to bribe the funeral director to open the casket for a shot?"
"Come on, give me some credit."
"I am."
ATM sighted through his camera. "Open-casket portrait of a floater that used to be famous? I could peddle that horror show to some European tabs maybe, but it would barely bring in what I'd have to lay out to take it." He swung the barrel of the telephoto toward the chapel. "Just for your information, never approach the funeral director-go through his assistant. It maintains deniability, and assistants have a better grasp of the marketplace."
A dozen or so demonstrators from Voices of Victims, a throw-away-the-key advocacy group, marched around the gravesite, waving their signs at a cluster of listless goth teenagers who squatted on the nearby markers flipping them the finger. Jimmy waved to Lois Hernandez, the Orange County chapter president, and she waved back. The goths were sweating in their black outfits, capes dragging on the grass, necks layered in silver crosses and ankhs, but even in the heat they remained cheerful; death of any kind was cause for celebration, but the death of a murderer was particularly festive. Every few minutes a bored off-duty cop would order the goths and the VV demonstrators to disperse. He was ignored by everyone. The cop didn't care; he was pulling down forty dollars an hour for standing around watching the freaks. The Maple Valley officials didn't care either- any kind of publicity was good for business, and they were as bummed out about the arrest of the talk-show diva as everyone else.
"I'm going to check this out," ATM said, heading toward the demonstrators. "With any luck, maybe it'll turn into a riot."