“Lana is a cold, hard bitch,” was his greeting.
“Not going well, then?”
“We’re finished. I knew when I walked in this morning what we would end up with. I just had to go through the dance with her and the network bun boys.”
He ran through the terms: budget, deadline, network support, ownership rights, and many pages of the usual boilerplate.
“Did they actually sign?”
“They did,” he said. “And I initialed on your behalf as your agent. Meet me at the Pacific Dining Car on Wilshire and Twenty-seventh in Santa Monica for dinner and we’ll get this puppy signed and couriered back to Lana tonight.”
I told him where I was and we figured that I could meet him by six.
“What about Guido and Fergie?” I asked. “Don’t they need to sign contracts as well?”
“We had to make some concessions, kiddo,” he said. “So here’s the deaclass="underline" you are not a network employee on this one, you’re an independent contractor, a production company leasing network facilities. You can hire whoever you want, and using your old independent production company banner, you will pay them. The network takes no responsibility for them, and you even get to negotiate with their unions all by yourself.”
“That stinks,” I said.
“Welcome to the new economy, honey. The good news for you is that they asked for first rights of refusal on your next project. If they pick it up, the numbers go up exponentially. And we both know they won’t be able to refuse the next project because the topic is too compelling.”
“We know what the next project will be?”
“We do,” he said. “It’s Isabelle.”
He was right, but I didn’t feel ready to work on a film about my biological mother, a murder victim. When he told me how much we would be paid I felt a little better. Business concluded, I offered him Jean-Paul’s Philharmonic tickets. He was delighted. He said he would call Mom right away and work out details; Thursday was Mahler night.
The phone was still in my hand when it rang again. Caller ID said it was a private caller, but I answered instead of letting it go to message, something I rarely do.
I waited for the caller to speak first.
“Is this Maggie MacGowen?” A female voice, nothing distinctive about it.
“Who is calling, please?”
Without saying another word, she hung up.
Chapter 14
I had just bailed my car out of the Burbank airport parking lot when my phone rang again. The ID showed the central switchboard number for college, so it could have been anyone at Anacapa. I punched the speakerphone button and said hello.
“Maggie, you gotta help me,” Sly whispered hoarsely, obviously stressed. “The cops have come to get me.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Lew’s office.”
“Where are the cops?”
“In the gallery talking to Lew. I heard them say they want to talk to me. What do I do?”
“Cooperate with them,” I said. “Go with them if they ask you to, but tell them you can’t talk until your lawyer gets there. Did you call Max?”
“I don’t know his number.”
“Sure you do,” I said. Max had taken care of Sly’s legal issues since the kid was nine years old.
“The number’s in my phone. But I don’t, like, know it. Yours is the only number I could remember right now.”
“Where’s your phone?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere around here,” he said, sounding frazzled. “Maggie, there’s been some trash talk about me killing the president. I have a real bad feeling.”
“Listen to me. You’ll be fine. Go into the gallery and say hello to the police. You can tell them your name, but after that, no matter what they say to you, tell them you’re waiting for your lawyer. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call Max right now.”
“Okay, but are you coming?”
“Yes, Sly, I’m on my way.”
I told him where I was and about how long it would take me. Then I called Max.
“Damn, and I was all set for a great steak dinner,” was his first comment. He was already in the car and would be there as soon as the gods of traffic allowed.
Sly was at the Anacapa police station, a block off Main Street, when I located him. He was in the main bullpen, arms crossed over his skinny chest, looking like an abandoned puppy.
Detective Thornbury, focused on a computer monitor, dropped his head in dismay when I walked in.
“They’ll let just about anybody walk in here, won’t they?” he said.
I shrugged and turned to Sly. “How are you doing?”
Sly raised a hand toward his mouth and gestured that he’d put a lock on it.
“You’re not the lawyer the kid says he’s waiting for,” Thornbury said.
“No. His lawyer is Max Duchamps and he’s five or ten minutes out.”
“Max Duchamps?” Thornbury sneered. “Yeah, sure. And his nanny is Mother Teresa.”
“Sly never had a nanny.”
We heard a bit of a stir out at the front desk, manned by a community volunteer whose only compensation was the right to wear a uniform shirt and a badge when he was on duty. Then Max bustled in as if blown by the coming storm. There were raindrops on his shoulders.
“It’s raining?” I asked.
“Just started,” he said, kissing my cheek on his way over to Sly. “How’s it going, kid?”
The relief Sly felt when Max walked in was written all over him. He rose from his chair and wrapped his arms around my uncle.
“Hey, Max. Thanks for coming, man.”
Thornbury, eyes wide when he saw Max in the flesh, managed to say, “I was beginning to think the boy was a mute.”
Max winked at Sly, showing approval for his silence. Then, with a protective arm still wrapped around Sly’s shoulders, he addressed Thornbury.
“What’s up, Detective?”
“We only wanted to ask Mr. Miller here a few questions. But he doesn’t want to talk to us for some reason, so we brought him here to wait for you. Coulda taken care of this in five minutes back at the college, but if this is the way you want it to go…”
“It is,” Max said. “Now that I’m here, let’s have your questions.”
He sent Sly back to his chair and pulled one up close beside him. I hovered behind them, the fly on the wall.
Thornbury asked Sly about the meeting with Holloway on Friday morning.
“He sent someone to ask me to go up to his office,” Sly said. “He told me that my sculpture, the one you saw me working on in the gallery, was only going to hang for a year. I told him it was supposed to be there permanently, and he said he wanted to put something else in that space-on the floor-and too bad for me.”
“What happened then?”
“Nothing. I left.”
“Was there a fight?”
Sly dropped his head, as if chagrined. “No. I just left.”
“But you were angry?”
Sly nodded.
“You must have said something.”
Still looking down, Sly shook his head.
“You didn’t say something like, I’m going to get a twelve-bore and come back?”
“Not to him.” Sly’s face when he leveled his gaze on Thornbury was flushed with embarrassment and maybe remembered rage. “I was too mad to say anything. I was afraid I’d start crying, okay? So I just left.”
“Did you go back later?”
Max put a hand on Sly’s arm as a caution to be careful.
“I never saw him again.”
“How did you feel when you heard Dr. Holloway was dead?”
“How did he feel? Sounds like a question from Barbara Walters,” Max said, taking Sly’s arm and rising. “Sly has told you what you wanted to know, and now you’re fishing. Come on son, we’re finished here.”
We walked out.
“We could do that?” Sly asked ten minutes later as we were shown to a table in the Italian restaurant in the Village. “Just walk out?”
“Absolutely,” Max told him. “Unless they tell you you’re under arrest, they can’t make you stay. Remember that. And remember to keep your mouth shut.”