A more perfect union

CHAPTER 6

I dropped the girls off at their apartment downstairs and dragged myself home. My foot was killing me. I noticed it the moment I was alone in the elevator. A bone spur is one of those nagging, ever-present ailments that slips into the background when you're busy but comes throbbing to the surface the moment you're not fully occupied. I figured a Jacuzzi and an early out would do me a world of good. That was not to be, however, at least not as early as I would have liked.

The phone started ringing as soon as I put my key in the lock. It was Captain Powell, boiling mad and ready to chew ass, mine in particular.

"Just who the hell do you think you are, Beaumont?" he demanded. "Ten minutes ago I had a call here at home from the Chief who had just spoken to the mayor. It seems the Dawsons had dinner guests tonight-Mr. Goldfarb and his assistant as well as some other friends of the mayor. It was supposed to be a small reception to celebrate finishing the location shooting."

I had some idea of what was coming, but I decided to play dumb. "What does that have to do with me?"

"They're not done, goddamnit. According to Goldfarb, you're the one who held them up."

"Me?" I couldn't believe I had heard him right. "I held them up?"

"That's what Dawson said. That you screwed them around all afternoon on Saturday and then walked off the set today. They're going to have to pay a king's ransom to rent Lake Union Drydock for a half-day tomorrow."

My first instinct was to fight back, to tell the captain to cram it, but something told me that maybe Powell wasn't playing with a full deck. "Wait just a damn minute here, Larry. Did anyone happen to mention the body?"

"Body?" Larry echoed, sounding surprised. "What body?"

"Nobody told you about the corpse we fished out of the lake Saturday afternoon?"

Powell exhaled a deep breath. "No, they didn't. I've been out of town, haven't had a chance to glance at the paper. Maybe you'd better fill me in, Beau."

By the time I finished telling Powell about Logan Tyree making an unscheduled appearance on the set of Death in Drydock, the captain was already apologizing.

"Sorry about that, Beau. Either His Honor failed to mention it, or the Chief neglected to pass the word. I don't know which. Excuse the fireworks. Who did you say is handling the case-Davis and Kramer? I'd better get in touch with them and see if they can tell me anything more before I get back to the Chief. Thanks for letting me know."

He hung up the phone. I sat there looking at it, aware that I hadn't told Powell everything he ought to know. I hadn't mentioned my misgivings, that maybe Logan Tyree's accidental death wasn't. But then, aside from the vague ramblings of a talkative old man and my own gut-level hunch, I had nothing solid to tell him. Captain Powell has reamed me out more than once for what he calls my "off the wall" hunches.

I was still staring glumly at the phone when it rang again, making me jump. I picked it up. "Hello."

"Guess who?" There's a good deal of interference on the security phone in the lobby. I couldn't quite make out my male caller's voice.

"I give up," I said.

"It's me. Derrick. Guess who's with me?"

If I still owned a television set, I could have tuned to the building's closed-circuit channel and had a bird's-eye view of whoever was down in the lobby, but I didn't have one and I was far too tired to play games.

"I haven't the foggiest, Derrick. You tell me."

"Merrilee," he said. "Remember her? We're having a little party. BYOB. Can we come up?"

I could have said no. I didn't. When I opened the door it was clear neither one of them was feeling any pain. Out of uniform, Merrilee Jackson was more than moderately attractive. Her regulation shirt and trousers had concealed both her figure and her legs. The clingy knit dress she was wearing accentuated both.

Derrick made his way to the bar and poured three drinks, two from one bottle and one from another. "She offered to give me a little extra police protection," Derrick said with an exaggerated wink as he slopped an old-fashioned glass full of MacNaughton's in my direction. "Cutest little bodyguard I've ever had."

Merrilee had kicked off a pair of high heels at the door. Even without them, she was none too steady on her feet. She took the glass Derrick gave her and with a giggle the two of them toasted one another's health.

"How'd you two get here?" I asked dourly.

Merrilee grinned and toasted me as well. "A cab," she said. "I told him we're both too drunk to drive."

"You've got that right." It's hard to catch up when you come into a party that far behind the rest of the drinkers. I picked up the phone and dialed the doorman.

Pete Duvall is a full-time biology student at the University of Washington who works part-time as a doorman/limo driver for Belltown Terrace. It's a good job for a student. He can use the slack times to study.

Pete recognized my voice instantly. "Hello, Mr. Beaumont. What can I do for you?"

"What time do you get off, Pete?" I asked him.

"Eleven o'clock," he replied.

"How about making a limo run around ten-thirty. I've got some guests here who need to be hand-delivered."

"Sorry, Mr. Beaumont," he apologized cheerfully. "No can do. The Bentley threw a rod coming back from the airport tonight. We don't have a replacement vehicle until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. Would you like me to call a cab?"

I turned around and looked at Derrick and Merrilee Jackson. They were sitting in my window seat, necking up a storm. I didn't much want to turn them loose in a cab in their current condition. Seattle still has enough of a small-town mentality to be scandalized by the comings and goings of movie people, stars especially. There had already been some unfortunate gossip about Derrick Parker's public antics, for which Cassie Young held me totally responsible. I had more faith in Pete's discretion than I did in some late-night cabbie's, but there wasn't much choice.

"You do that," I said. "Have the cab here just before you get off."

Parker was looking at me balefully over Merrilee's shoulder when I hung up the phone. "Some friend you turned out to be," he grumbled. "We just got here and already you're trying to throw us out."

"Look, Derrick, a few minutes ago I learned that I have to be back on the set at six tomorrow morning."

Parker poured himself another drink and offered one to Merrilee. She tossed down two fingers of Glenlivet as though she'd been weaned on it.

"Me, too," Parker sighed. "Isn't that a pisser! It was all scheduled to be over today. I mean, that's what the party's supposed to be for. Too bad." He dropped heavily back against the window. The drink in his hand sloshed precariously, but it didn't spill.

I glanced at the clock. It was only ten, but I picked up the phone and dialed Pete again. "Go ahead and call that cab right now, Pete." I told him. "The party's over."

Ignoring Derrick's noisy protest that it was his very last one, I relieved him of the remaining half-bottle of Glenlivet and then escorted the two of them downstairs. Merrilee was a happy drunk, and leaving was fine with her. Derrick turned morose.

"Spoilsport," he grumbled. "We were just starting to have fun. Besides, those makeup people can work miracles."

"You'll thank me tomorrow when Cassie Young doesn't string you up by your thumbs," I told him.

As the elevator door opened into the lobby, we were greeted by the sound of a raised voice.

"If I wanted a goddamned cab to pick my mother up at the airport, I wouldn't be living in a luxury high rise! I made that limo reservation over a week ago. The concierge assured me it would be no problem."

Pete Duvall was doing his best to be polite. The man who was berating him was someone I had never seen before.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Green," Pete said. "As I was trying to explain, the Bentley was out of order with a fuel-pump problem last week. We got it out of the shop day before yesterday, but tonight it threw a rod. We should be able to have a substitute here by early afternoon, a Caddy probably, but your mother's plane reservation is too early for that."

Mr. Green bristled. "You know, when they rented me this place, they told me that the Bentley was one of the amenities. It was in all the ads, remember? The property manager is going to hear about this. And so are the owners. Personally. I'll see to it."

Pete gave me a veiled look. "I'm sure they will," he said mildly.

In actual fact, I had already heard far more about the ancient Bentley than I wanted. It had been a pet project of one of the syndicate's five principals. The proposal had sounded fine when it was first suggested, but it had turned into a major headache once the Bentley actually arrived on the scene. The car spent far more time in the shop than it did on the road.

A cab pulled up out front and honked. Happy to be rescued from the irate Mr. Green, Pete hurried to the door. "Here's your cab, Mr. Beaumont."

He helped me shepherd Derrick and Merrilee into the cab. By the time we got back inside the lobby, Mr. Green had disappeared into the elevator. I watched the digits as the elevator monitor ticked off the floors of the building and stopped on seventeen.

"I take it Mr. Green is new to the building. I've never seen him before."

Pete nodded. "He's only been here a few weeks."

"He's not the one who works across the alley in the Labor Temple, is he?"

"I think so," Pete replied. "The concierge told me he's a big-time mucky-muck with one of the unions."

The elevator returned. With a good-night wave to Pete, I got inside. Once more I felt the aching throb in my foot. As soon as I was inside my apartment, I stripped off my clothes. Within minutes I was in my private Jacuzzi soaking away the day's problems. Not even early-bird Peters could be counted on to call at five A.M. I managed to fumble around and reset the alarm on my clock radio before I stretched out naked across my king-sized bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

When the alarm went off the next morning, the first thing I did was grope for the telephone and dial the Sheraton. I asked for Derrick Parker's room. The phone rang several times before anybody answered. Derrick sounded as though someone had pounded him into the ground.

"Up and at 'em," I told him, imitating Peters' brisk, early-morning manner.

"We…I just got to bed," Derrick croaked.

"Too bad," I said. "I'm picking you up in twenty minutes. You'd better roust your friend out of there. She's got to work today too, you know."

For an answer, Derrick slammed the phone down in my ear. Being the one making the wake-up calls for a change made me feel terribly self-righteous. I got to the Sheraton in time to see Derrick hustle Merrilee Jackson into a cab with a quick peck on the cheek. I wondered if she'd have time to get home and change into uniform before she had to report for duty.

Derrick was pretty hung over. He weaseled a couple of aspirin out of Wanda, the morning waitress at the Doghouse, and when the food came, he barely picked at it. He seemed unusually subdued.

"What's the matter?" I asked him finally.

He shook his head. "My conscience is bothering me. Groupies are one thing, but Merrilee's really a nice kid. I shouldn't have taken advantage of her that way."

I tried not to laugh aloud. The headlines on the National Enquirer never hint that movie stars might have attacks of conscience the morning after a romantic conquest, although AIDS has made old-fashioned one-night stands an endangered species.

"You don't strike me as the type for morning-after reservations," I said with a chuckle. "Besides, you're not that much older than she is. I'm sure Merrilee Jackson is perfectly capable of taking care of herself."

Parker brightened a little at that. He gave me a sardonic grin. "You know, you may be right. She was packing condoms in her purse."

I choked on a mouthful of coffee and spattered my clean tie. They don't seem to make women exactly the way they used to. For the most part, it's probably a good thing.

We got to Lake Union Drydock by a quarter to six. Unfortunately, someone hadn't negotiated an extension of the parking barricades for the last half-day of shooting.

Parking places are always at a premium in that Eastlake neighborhood. With both the weekday working people and the movie folks competing for space, it was almost impossible to park the car. We finally found a spot and walked back to the set at a respectable five after six.

The drydock was a whole lot more crowded than it had been on the weekend. The shipyard workers were all hanging around idle, swilling down free canteen coffee and doughnuts. I saw Woody Carroll just inside the gate with his own cup of coffee.

"What's going on?"

Woody shook his head in disbelief. "Nobody's working. Goldfarb's paying extra to keep the sandblaster turned off until they finish up. Too much noise, he says."

Captain Powell had been right about the king's ransom, then. If Goldfarb was paying wages to keep unionized drydock workers standing around on the job with their hands in their pockets, then it was indeed costing money. Lots of it.

Cassie Young was waiting in ambush with both hands on her hips. She didn't appear to be overjoyed to see us. "If it isn't the gold-dust twins," she remarked sarcastically. "Makeup's waiting for you, Derrick." He took off without a word. "So you decided to come back after all?" she said to me.

"I didn't have a choice."

She shrugged. "It's a good thing. Mr. Goldfarb wants to talk to you. He's out on the houseboat dock."

So Goldfarb was going to chew me out, too. Some days are like that. He was sitting up in the director's boom overlooking the houseboats when I got there. I waited until they lowered him to the ground.

"I understand you wanted to see me, Mr. Goldfarb?"

Instead of climbing my frame, he clapped one arm around my shoulder. "I'm glad to see you, Detective Beaumont. You were absolutely right about that scene with the little kid. I saw the rushes late last night. It just didn't work. Too melodramatic. We're going to shoot it again today, the whole scene. Now tell me, just exactly how would you do it?"

Wonders will never cease. Sam "The Movie Man" Goldfarb's sudden change of heart left me completely bewildered, but then I don't suffer from an overdose of artistic temperament. In fact, there isn't an artistic bone in my body.

Artistic or not, we did it my way, the whole scene, from beginning to end. Derrick Parker's gun stayed in its holster. When one stuntman finally tackled the other, it was a full body blow that sent them both crashing onto the deck of one of the houseboats. They rolled under the table where the unsuspecting family was eating a picnic dinner, but no one got hurt. The little kid didn't get shot and die.

Fight scenes are incredibly complicated and time-consuming to map out. Choreographing, they call it, and I can see why. It's very much like an elaborate dance. Everything has to come together in total synchronization. We worked on that scene all morning long, first one segment and then another. For the first time, I had some inkling of how the final product would look. Not only that, I finally felt as though I was making a contribution, doing what Captain Powell had asked me to do.

For a change, the cop didn't look stupid.

And I saved a little kid's life, even if it was only make-believe.

Protecting the lives of innocent people is what I get paid for, really. At least that's what it says in the manual.