Shallow Graves Page 5

  Walking then through the same stubbly grass he now limped over, smelling the same scent of damp foliage, bathed in the same pale cast of light. Twenty-five years ago Pellam Senior had struggled through the fields, lifting the long Browning shotgun with an effort and missing even the slowest of pheasants. Two days later the man had collapsed with the first of the heart attacks that would eventually finish him.

  Pellam associated the hunting trip with his father's death.

  That memory came back to him now and would not leave.

  He walked slowly, favoring his left foot to ease some of the dull ache in his back. Should've taken the damn cane the doctor had offered him, he thought again.

  The top of the park had been roped off by the police. A thin yellow tape that said, "Sheriff's Department," every few inches stretched from one thick rusted pipe to another. There was a chain on the ground attached to one pipe; they could have used that to bar the entrance but Pellam guessed the cops wanted the chance to use all their crime-fighting gear. He walked around the pipe and started to climb toward the summit of this hill.

  Pellam, breathing hard against the pain, reached the top of the drive and stopped.

  Obliterated.

  He walked to the center of the parking area-what had been grass and gravel was now just a pile of rich dark earth and the surrounding mess made by the dozer, whose tread marks he'd seen on the way up but hadn't thought anything of.

  Obliterated.

  In the exact center-probably just where Marty's car had been-there was no trace of scorch marks, no trace of footprints, no car treads. Just a dry foamy powder of dug-up dirt like a huge round grave. He stayed here for a long time. Mostly just walking around in slow circles, listening to the birds and the whiplashing wind in the leaves; there was really nothing to see. Nothing at all.

  "What happened?"

  "Happened?" the deputy asked.

  They were standing outside the camper, parked on Main Street. The beefy deputy looked familiar. Pellam thought he was maybe the same one who'd helped him to the clinic after his accident. (What was the driver's name? May? Mary? No, Meg. That was it. Meg.) The law enforcer stood with his arms pushed out from his body by a lot of biceps muscle. He noticed the man's.357 had rubberized combat grips. He wondered if the gun had ever been fired anywhere but on a range.

  This deputy also had teardrop-shaped glasses though his had lavender-tinted lenses.

  "I get to where the accident was," Pellam explained, "and the ground's all plowed over."

  Lavender?

  "Oh, that. What it was, they figured it would be, you know, discouraging for people to see where it happened."

  Discouraging? "How do you mean?"

  "Wasn't my decision. I don't really know. I just heard, what with leaf season here and all, it might hurt tourist trade."

  "Discouraging?" Pellam asked in exasperation.

  The deputy answered in a monotone. "It was kind of unpleasant. A bad fire, you know. Blood. We get a lot of hunters too. We-"

  "Then why was the tape still up?"

  "Tape?"

  "The police tape. That'd discourage tourists too pretty fast, you'd think."

  "Oh, the tape. You're right, sir. We forgot about it. But thanks for bringing it to our attention."

  "You're welcome," Pellam said. "What happened to the car?"

  "Car?"

  The miniature troops with needles were climbing up and down Pellam's back, working hard. He thought about the Demerol. He thought about tequila, with or without worms. The pain was bad and he was losing patience fast. "My friend's car, the one that burned?"

  "Yessir?"

  "I'd like to take a look at it."

  "Don't think that'd be possible."

  "Why not?"

  Not a nick in his deputy soul. The man was a real side of beef. "Well, sir, it just wouldn't."

  "I see. That explains it." The men stood facing each other, the deputy scanning the street for crime. Pellam scanning the man's face. "If you could just tell me where it might be."

  "I really don't know. I just know it was hauled away after the investigation."

  "You do any forensics?"

  "I really-"

  "Got it," Pellam said. "Never mind." They both did the street scan this time. Pellam looked back and asked, "I don't remember what the company was. Would you know?"

  "Company?"

  "Where my friend rented the car."

  "We don't have any Avis or Hertz here. Or nearby."

  "It would be more helpful to know where he did rent it, rather than where he didn't."

  "Sillman's Garage, I think it was. Up the road a quarter mile."

  "Thanks."

  The deputy said, "Kleman's Funeral Home's made all the arrangements."

  "Thank you, officer. Appreciate it."

  "Not at all, sir. I was to L.A. once. Me and the wife went to Disneyland. You know, the real one."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Suspect you'll be going back for the funeral. The mayor's got an airline ticket-"

  "No, I won't be going."

  There must have been a flicker somewhere in the brain, but there's wasn't one in the eyes. "No?"

  "I'll be staying around for a while."

  "Around here?"

  "That's right."

  "Oh. We expected you'd be leaving."

  "Yeah, well, I won't be. Now, I'd like to see the police report. And-"

  "Can't do it, sir."

  "What?" Pellam felt the anger popping like fire-crackers.

  "That's not public record material."

  "Public record material?"

  "That's right, sir."

  "Well, I'm not public. I was his friend."

  "Sorry, sir."

  "How about the coroner's report? Is that public record material too?"

  "Nosir, it's not. But all it says is he died as a result of injuries caused by a fire of his own making. I'm pretty much quoting."

  "Officer, someone killed my friend. There were incidents of vandalism against our camper before he was killed and…"

  "In Cleary?"

  "That's right," Pellam said.

  "I don't recall you reported them."

  "We didn't. I didn't think anything of them until this happened."

  "Yessir. Let me ask you, you drive into any small town, the local kids probably go fooling around some with your vehicle, don't they? Pranks. That's happened before, hasn't it?"

  "Sure, but-"

  "There you go."

  "But it's never happened the day before one of my friends is murdered."

  "Murdered? Nosir. The coroner said it was accidental."

  "I guess there's not much more you can tell me."

  "That's right, sir." The sunglasses went back on and the big man's eyes turned a delicate shade of purple. He said, "You staying around, sir, I'd be a bit careful. Already, these couple accidents. Maybe you're kind of a bad luck fellow."

  Pellam said he'd be careful, but he was thinking there was a good chance the deputy was right.

  5

  Alan Lefkowitz sat in his huge, completely immaculate office, rocking back and forth in a leather desk chair, and looked out the windows, which were also huge and completely immaculate. Beneath him the traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard flowed past Century City. His eyes were on this wide road, full of nice cars, but his thoughts were solely focused on Upstate New York.

  President and principal shareholder of Big Mountain Studios, Lefkowitz, 52, put in at least ten sweaty hours a day working on his film projects. A law school graduate, a successful former agent, he took continuing education classes at UCLA and USC in accounting and finance-at an age when many of his friends (well, this was Hollywood; call them colleagues), also producers, were delegating the hard work to underlings and spending mucho time engaged in the "Development" work (that is: thinking in Palm Springs and drinking at the Beverly Hills Hotel).

  Also on the asset side of the balance sheet: Lefkowitz had integrity. He'd pretty much res
isted Hollywood's strongest gravity, which pulled producers toward teenage comedies, buddy cop movies, special effects-fat science fiction and horror films. His own orbit wasn't as lofty as his favorite directors, Bergman, Fassbinder, Kurosawa and Truffaut, but in his heart he wanted to make quality films.

  With film schools pumping out students who learned cinema (not, no, never movies), there was no lack of independent directors in the U.S. making wonderful, small, serious flicks. But Lefkowitz's particular talent was that he worked within the system. His films were mostly financed, and wholly distributed, by major studios, one of which he presently had a five-movie housekeeping deal with (this being one of the better gold rings in contemporary movieland). Balls, a temper and an ability to convince people that he had vision had managed to get him into bed with this huge entertainment conglomerate, which was putting up 80 percent of the money for any five pictures he wished to produce.

  Good muscle tone, a beach permit for his Mercedes, and a housekeeping deal for five flicks. It didn't get much better than this. But, although he could legitimately be spending this lunch hour reflecting on his good fortune, what Lefkowitz was in fact obsessing about was New York, the Empire State, while he swung back and forth in a three-thousand-dollar leather chair.

  The reason for this meditation sat in front of him on his desk (which was huge but not at all immaculate): a battered, red-covered script, marred with doodles and numbers and words. It was the first flick in the five-movie deal. A dark and lyrical film called To Sleep in a Shallow Grave. A picture that had no buddies, no car chases, no wisecracking teenagers, no karate fights, and not a single actor magically turned into a dog, baby or person of the opposite sex.

  The property had had a strange history. The film was in turnaround-another studio had bought the script and started production. A month later, though, it had been canceled. Lefkowitz, who'd lusted to do the film ever since he'd read the book it was based on years before, immediately snatched up the rights. But buying a turn-around property meant paying a premium; he had not only to pay for the script itself but he also had to reimburse the first studio for its production expenses. So what should have been a small art film became overnight a big-budget monster.

  Then a famous rule in Hollywood proved true: If anybody wants it, everybody wants it. Last week, two other studios started bidding for the film.

  Loyalty in Hollywood is a moving target and Lefkowitz's studio would have sold the property out from underneath him in a minute, except that under his contract he had an absolute right to make the movie.

  Absolute, that is, provided the film met a complicated series of production deadlines. It now seemed there was a serious possibility that these deadlines might be missed. Already the company was two weeks behind schedule and Lefkowitz knew that the studio lawyers had notified the production execs that if principal photography didn't begin in three weeks, all bets were off. Lefkowitz would be in breach, and Shallow Grave would disappear from his company faster than a gold chain on the streets of New York.

  Lefkowitz was reflecting on this when the assistant producer, a handsome, intense thirty-year-old, walked through the door.

  Since he'd been working for Lefkowitz, the young man, who'd been so eager and talked so flippantly about ball-busting when he'd accepted the job, didn't look so young anymore. He definitely wasn't as eager. And the only balls he thought about regularly were his own.

  "He's calling at three," the AP announced.

  Lefkowitz examined his Oyster Perpetual. Five minutes. "Tell me what happened."

  The assistant producer began, "Marty-"

  "Who's Marty?"

  "Jacobs. Pellam's assistant."

  "Okay."

  "He was killed, and-"

  "Jesus."

  "Pellam ended up in the hospital. I'm not sure but the way the sheriff explained it they seem to be separate accidents."

  "What happened to Marty?"

  "The car blew up."

  "Jesus. What about his family?"

  "The sheriff called and he told them. I made a call for your office. You don't have to do anything, but-"

  Lefkowitz said, "We'll send flowers. You know that florist, the one I mean?"

  "Will do."

  "I'll write a note too. How's Pellam?"

  "I'm not sure. All I know is I got a message saying that he was going to be calling in at three."

  "We should get mobiles in all the honey wagons. It's crazy we don't. Look into that, okay?"

  "Youwant, yougot."

  "Any chance we'll get sued?"

  "By who?"

  "Marty's family?"

  "I don't know… But there's something I've got to tell you, Alan. It gets kind of worse."

  "How could it get worse?"

  "The mayor of the town where it happened? Cleary? He called. Crazy man. I'm talking PMS. They won't issue permits."

  "Oh, Christ in a tree. Oh, Christ."

  "It's like a real small town. They found the stuff-"

  "What stuff?"

  "Aw, Marty had a little grass on him. They said some crack too, but I don't think-"

  "Brother," Lefkowitz whispered. He looked out at the huge, immaculate highway. He closed his eyes. "Why, why, why?…" He spun around and faced the AP. "Any chance we can buy our way in?"

  "I tried. Thousands. I practically gave him head."

  "And?"

  The AP swallowed. "He called me a ghoul. Then he called me a prick. Then he hung up on me. It's cratered, Alan. The whole's project's cratered."

  Lefkowitz felt numb. A moment passed. Finally he asked, "Pellam's okay, though?"

  The phone rang. Both men looked at their watches. It was three. The AP said, "Why don't you ask him?"

  Pellam leaned his head against the glass of the phone booth. Cleary still had booths with squeaky, two-panel doors. He looked at two initials carved into the aluminum; otherwise there was no graffiti. One set of initials looked like JP. He listened to the buzz of the phone ringing. He felt the vibration of the healing skin under the bandage on his temple.

  Alan Lefkowitz came on the phone himself, something he had never done. No secretary. No AP. Just the soft voice of a tanned, fit, eccentric, multimillionaire producer.

  "John, how are you? What happened?"

  He sensed some real sympathy.

  "Fine, Lefty. I'm okay." Pellam then told him in general terms about the accidents-Meg's running into him, Marty's death.

  Lefkowitz said, "The permits. What happened?"

  "Permits? What about them?" Pellam was squinting. No, it wasn't JP written on the phone booth wall. It was JD. Below that, in marker: Tigers, they're number one!!! One thing about the country: teenagers were literate. In Manhattan he'd seen a similar sign. Debbo and Ki there the best!

  "They're not issuing permits. The mayor, or somebody. Didn't anybody tell you?"

  Pellam felt the shock. He burned with a wave of sudden fever. A week's work, wasted.

  Marty's death, wasted.

  "I didn't hear. Did they say why?"

  Lefkowitz said, "They found some shit on him. I don't know, pot or something. You guys…"

  "Alan, Marty wasn't smoking when he died. I don't know what happened but it wasn't that. I found his stash. It hadn't been opened."

  "Whatever… You know I don't have any choice."

  "It wasn't Marty's fault." Pellam focused outside the glass and found he was staring directly into the window of Dutchess County Realty. The awning was down and the lights inside were on. There was nobody in the office.

  "Well, I'm sorry, John. But you understand."

  "Sure." Then it occurred to Pellam that there were two conversations going at once. He said, "Actually, no, Alan, I don't understand. What're you talking about?"

  "I've got to let you go."

  "Alan, what are you saying?"

  "I'm saying you're fired, John."

  "What?" Just like that?

  "I thought that little incident a few years ago would have taught you a
lesson."

  In a low voice Pellam said, "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  "I'm back at square one, thanks to you and Marty."

  "I'm telling you Marty was murdered. It was a setup."

  Lefkowitz seemed distracted. "Get the wagon to the New York office. We'll have your check waiting for you."

  "Just-"

  Lefkowitz said, "Sorry, John. I got no room for mistakes with this project."

  He hung up.

  "-like that?"

  The first thing Meg Torrens did when she woke up: she put her two-carat diamond ring on her index finger then lay back in bed for fifteen minutes and tried to think about nothing.

  It was a form of meditation she'd read about somewhere. It cleared your mind, made you healthier, relaxed you, made you more creative. It didn't always work, but even if not, the discipline required-working with your brain like an unruly puppy-seemed helpful. Marginally helpful. Mademoiselle helpful. Better Homes & Gardens helpful.

  Beside her, Keith stirred slightly. His breathing was slow.

  She glanced at him, closed her eyes.

  Thinking about nothing.

  A bird trilled in the distance, a truck shifted gears on the grade of Lampton Road.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing.

  An instant before the alarm rang, she sensed it in her mind. An electronic Bzzzzt. Meg opened her eyes and just as the Seiko went off, reached over to tap the off button. She patted Keith on his solid shoulders. He was ten years older than Meg and had some serious businessman fat on him. But she didn't mind that. His legs and butt were thin; you could get away with a lot of belly if everything else stayed in line. He had a broad, handsome face, the face of an actor who played kindly merchants and railroad owners. His hair was dense and unruly and he forced it into shape with spray and split it with a ruler-straight part. Meg regularly talked him out of dye; she thought salt-and-pepper was sexy.

  Keith reached up and squeezed her hand, muttering something. She moved closer to him, smelling the warm body sleep scent puff out from under the bellows of the sheet and comforter.

  The tip-off was his wristwatch.

  Keith groggily pulled the Rolex off his wrist and dropped it heavily on the bedside table. When he took off the watch she knew what was coming.