the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) (9 page)

"We' re homicide detectives," I said. "We d like to talk to somebody about Scott Berman."

"You should talk to Shay. Let me see if I can get her," she said, then buzzed an extension. "Miss Shaminar, two police officers are here about Scott." She listened for a minute. "Okay."

She hung up. "Miss Shaminar says you should wait in Mr. Berman's office. She'll be with you as soon as she's off the phone. As you can imagine, it's been pretty stressed around here this morning."

She stood and led us into Scott Berman's office. It was huge. Six beautiful leaded-glass windows lit a lush, paneled room. Two of the windows looked out over Lucy Park, the others were in a dining conference room, which we could see through a large opening in the south wall of the office.

The executive desk was big enough to play table tennis on. There was a big marble-faced fireplace fronting two wine-red sofas with a glass-top table set in between. All of the walls were dark wood. The modern art that hung inside each of the paneled insets looked stupid enough to be expensive. It wasn't hard to imagine Howard Hughes running his empire from this suite.

A few minutes later, a very slim, very directed black-haired woman with olive skin and a classic profile swept into the room. Her hair was pulled back in a bun. She was the executive assistant version of the beautiful librarian cliche. Severe suit, abrupt manner, glasses perched on her nose and secured on a no-nonsense chain around her neck. But you knew when she took those specs off and let down her hair, the results would be dazzling.

"I'm Shay Shaminar, Mr. Berman's executive assistant," she said. Her voice was crisp and strong, but underneath her command visage, you could see she was very upset.

It was the little things that gave her away. The rigid posture, the ring she turned manically on her right middle finger. But she was strong and kept a tight grip on her emotions.

We introduced ourselves and she motioned for us to sit on the wine-colored sofas near the fireplace. She sat opposite us, her shapely knees pressed together, her skirt just long enough to cover them.

"We re all a little shook up," she said. "Adding to Scott's horrible death, we were deep into preproduction on his next film, but now the studio is putting our picture on hold, which is a nice way of saying it's canceled."

"We'll only need a little time," I said. She looked very tense. I felt bad for her.

"This was Howard Hughes's office, wasn't it?" Hitch jumped in, asking her a question that was completely off the point.

"Yes. Back when he ran RKO in the forties, this was the studio headquarters. The RKO property was bought by Desilu, then became part of the Paramount lot in the late forties. Now administration is in the new building on the north side of the lot."

"Bet a lot of amazing stuff happened in here," Hitch replied.

It was a good play, so I went with it. People who are too locked up in grief miss details and don't give good interviews. It was a worthwhile technique to start by getting her mind on something else.

"Famous offices all have histories," she said, glad to talk about this and not the death of a boss she clearly worshipped. She seemed to relax slightly. Her expression softened.

"For instance, I ran into an old waiter from the commissary when I first came to work here," she continued. "The man was about eighty. He told me when Howard had this office, he used to order a tuna salad sandwich with chips on a plate every day. He wanted it placed right outside the door, which was always locked when he brought it. He was supposed to put the sandwich plate, covered in wax paper, on the floor at eight A
. M
. exactly. Then he had to come back at six and get the plate.

"But the sandwich and chips were always untouched. After a few days of this, he decided not to bring it anymore. At eight fifteen the next morning he got a call from Mr. Hughes. 'Where's my sandwich?' he shouted. The waiter said, 'But Mr. Hughes, you never eat it, so I didn't think you wanted it.' You know what Howard Hughes said?"

"No," Hitch replied, leaning forward, totally captivated.

"He said, 'I need to know it's there.'" She paused then smiled wanly. "Tells you a lot about the man, doesn't it?"

Hitch nodded. "Obsessive-compulsive."

That story had slowly brought her out, so I gently switched to the more painful topic of Scott Berman's death.

"I know this is hard, but can we start by talking a little about Mr. Berman's personal life," I said. "I understand he was divorced."

"Yes, from Althea," she told us. "His ex-wife was awful. A total bitch."

"Do you think she could have been involved somehow?" Hitch asked.

"I doubt it. She got a pile of money in the divorce. That seemed to be all she cared about. The settlement was almost five years ago. Since then, Mr. Berman's been all about his movies. He was married to his films. I know it sounds awful and shallow, but he was a celluloid artist. He didn't have time to invest in personal relationships. That's why he dated the girls from the Double Click Club."

"He didn't hide it?" Hitch asked.

"He didn't," she said, without rancor. "He even brought the escorts to studio functions. They were educated and beautiful."

"What about Chrissy Sweet?" Hitch asked. "We understand she wasn't exactly on the waiting list for Mensa."

"There's an expression in show business about beautiful, dumb actresses. 'God gives with one hand, but takes away with the other.'

That was Chrissy. She was gorgeous, but if you're a guy, don't get caught in a locked room with her when you're planning to keep your clothes on. You could die of boredom."

"And Mr. Berman liked that?" I asked.

"I think so. She was easy for him to be with. She made no intellectual demands."

"Can you tell me about the Christmas party last night?"

"He went to last year's party, so this was his second time. I bought a diamond tennis bracelet at Tiffany's for him to give to Chrissy as a Christmas gift. Fifteen grand. That's me, the working girl's friend," she quipped. Hitch and I both smiled at her attempt at humor.

"Did Scott have any enemies?" Hitch asked, getting to the meat of it. "Was there anybody you can think of who might have wanted to kill him?"

"You mean, besides the entire movie department at CAA and Endeavor?" she said, smiling. We nodded.

"As a matter of fact, he almost didn't go to that party because of Chrissy Sweet's husband, who she was divorcing. His name is Carl. He called here twice yesterday. He told Mr. Berman to stay away from his wife or there would be big trouble.

"Even though she was in the midst of divorcing him, Carl wasn't about to let go. He was extremely possessive. Scott wasn't going to go to the party because of that threat. Then unfortunately he changed his mind and went at the last minute. If I were you, I'd definitely go find Carl Sweet," she added. "If he doesn't have a hell of a good alibi, I'd bust him."

"Any idea where he lives?" Hitch asked.

"No. I don't think Scott even knew Chrissy's real address. It was one of Miss Dublin's strict rules. All dates had to be arranged through her Internet site. The girls were prohibited from giving out their addresses. At first, the only name we had for her was Slade Seven.

Eventually, she told Scott her real name. The Double Click Club kept it all very arms length, because that's the way Yolanda wanted it."

We talked to her for another ten minutes, but that was all Shay could really tell us. As we stood to go, Hitch took her hand then bowed elegantly like Count Hollywood.

"Shay is a very beautiful name," he said in his most bullshit courtly manner.

"Thank you," she demurred. "My father was from the South Pacific. In some obscure Indonesian dialect, Shay means princess."

We left and walked back across the lot.

"Nice lady," Hitch noted.

But I had tuned him out. My mind was parsing another idea. By the time we were back to the car, I had it.

"If Shay means princess in Indonesian, I wonder how you say Sweet in Czechoslovakian."

"Wow," Hitch said. "Good get, homes."

Once we were inside the car, I picked up the radio mic and I called the research desk at LAPD. It took five minutes to find out that the Czechoslovakian translation for Sweet was "Sladky."

We ran "Carl Sladky," spelling the whole name out.

"Roger, D-28," the RTO came back. "But the first name is Karel, spelled with a K and an E. Sladky is as you spelled it. He has three outstanding domestic violence warrants, all for aggravated assault. The warrant delivery team says they have tried three times to serve those warrants, but have no current address. According to their notes, since his wife moved out on him, he lost his apartment in Hollywood. She was paying for it. They think he's living in his van."

Chapter
15.

We flagged the outstanding warrants so if the warrant delivery team finally pulled up an existing address on the guy, we would be on their contact list. Then I called in a new firearms check, giving them the correct name and spelling.

When we got back to the office, guess what? No Brooks Dunbar. Stender Sheedy was there with his little jar of Vaseline, trying to get another six hours. I jammed the warrant into his hand.

"That's a copy. If your client even makes an illegal turn, he's gonna end up in jail. You want my opinion, we should let it happen. He's got too many people protecting him. Next time he falls, you oughta let his ass hit the dirt instead of always shoving a feather pillow under him. Maybe some jail time will straighten him out."

"Don't do this," Stender pleaded.

"Already did."

After he left, we were pulled into Jeb s office. We'd been working the whole night and for us, it seemed like forever since we'd gotten the case. Jeb, on the other hand, had gone home to bed, and since Scott Berman's death was blasting out of every radio and TV speaker when he awoke, he was complaining about how quickly the press had gotten it.

We brought him up to date on Karel Sladky, who was a definite person of interest. The fact that we had a name to chase after seemed to please our captain.

"This is good progress," he said. "Good stuff. You've made me happy."

"We live for those moments, Skipper," Hitch said. I couldn't tell if he was kidding or just in the midst of a monumental ass kiss.

"You guys now have a prosecutor assigned to work with you," Jeb continued.

"Already?" Hitch moaned. "Aren't we supposed to arrest somebody before they assign a prosecutor?"

"District Attorney Chase Beal wants to make sure none of the evidence is compromised. He put one of his best gunslingers on this."

"Uh-oh," I said. "Who'd we get?"

"The Black Dahlia."

"Dahlia Wilkes?" we both said, simultaneously groaning.

"She wants to meet with you before the end of the clay to be briefed. In the meantime, she gave instructions that she wants you to personally get back out to Skyline Drive with an evidence collection team and some metal detectors to locate every single slug that was fired from that Bizon.

"So far CSI got no prints off the cartridges they found," Jeb continued, "but they only picked up twenty casings and fourteen slugs. The Bizon's got a sixty-four-shot clip, so there's a lot still out there. It's a big job. Sorry."

"Do you think there'll be time for us to wash and wax Miss Wilkes's car before we go?" I said.

"Look, Shane, you're the one who wanted to work on high-profile hits."

We left the captain's office and sat at Hitch's cubicle because Sally still hadn't cleaned out her desk. I looked up at Hitch's cork divider. He had put up pictures of different clothing ads from GQ and Vanity Fair. The men in the shots had sculpted chins and moussed hair. They stood in poses that could get you killed in a biker bar.

"These are nice." I frowned.

"Hey, Shane, 'til I was assigned to partner up with you I had no fucking cases. I was working on my spring look."

We arranged for an evidence team to meet us at the crime scene. I walked over to my desk, unlocked the bottom drawer, and switched guns. I left the Ultra-Lite .38 revolver with its ankle holster in favor of a bigger-bore 9 mm automatic. Something told me I might want to pack heavy. Then, because I was still separated from my vehicle, we were back in the Porsche Carrera. Hitch gunned the engine.

"Can we at least put the top up?" I suggested.

"Sure, homes." He hit a button and a mechanical hardtop lifted out of the trunk deck and cantilevered forward, snapping down and locking itself into the brackets.

"Pretty sweet, huh?" he said.

I nodded because it was, and we were out of there.

We parked down the hill from 3151 Skyline Drive and walked up. The vacant lot we'd assigned to the press now looked like the media center in Baghdad's Green Zone. Satellite uplinks, news vans with station call letters on the sides, a craft services section complete with a catering truck advertising five choices of hot meals.

"American journalism at its finger-lickin' best," Hitch said, checking out the food truck. We walked past a phalanx of microphone-wielding reporters gathered by the gate. I knew a few of them. They all knew Hitch.