Born To Be Wild

FOUR

The first TV soap opera, a half-hour program, appeared in 1956 with the debut of As the World Turns.

“A dark four-door sedan. No, don’t look back.” He smiled. “It’s okay, he turned off on Topanga Beach.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “Stop worrying, let me do that. Okay, when I checked in with the station, they wanted you to know they have a weekly betting pool going about what Sunday Cavendish is going to do next. Detective Farber asked me to get the inside scoop.”

“You can tell her I honestly don’t know myself, but she should remember I’m bad to the bone.”

Mary Lisa leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “And she knows they like to push the envelope with Sunday.”

“And yet she remains sympathetic.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“You feeling all right, Ms. Beverly?”

She said without opening her eyes, “Compared to lying on the sidewalk with a toy poodle named Honey Boy licking my mouth, yeah, I’ll take it.” Mary Lisa roused herself enough to call Lou Lou. When Detective Vasquez pulled up beside the Colony kiosk, she called out, “ Chad, it’s me. I was hit by a car, but I’m okay. This is Detective Vasquez. He’ll probably be coming around again, so please let him in.”

Chad came around to the passenger side of the car, poked his head in, examined her face. “I heard about some asshole hitting you, not two blocks from here. You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I promise, only temporary agony.”

Chad frowned over that. “I also heard it was on purpose. Carlo saw it all.”

Mary Lisa said to Detective Vasquez, “Carlo Spinelli is one of my neighbors. He used to own a computer company up in Silicon Valley, sold out ten years ago and moved down here. He’s a great surfer, even gives some lessons. He came right after I was lying on the road.”

“I know Carlo,” Detective Vasquez said.

Chad backed away and waved them in. He called after them, “Cool slick you’re driving, Detective!”

Detective Vasquez grinned and patted the dashboard of the Crown Vic.

The Colony, originally known as the Malibu Motion Picture Colony when it was established back in the 1920s, was now simply known as the Colony. Bing Crosby, Ronald Coleman, Gary Cooper, and Gloria Swanson were only a few of the early arrivals who built cottages on the beautiful, pristine stretch of beach. They came to play in privacy. There were two long rows of houses, all set close together, half of them on the ocean side, the others across a narrow street. The houses ranged from palatial to an occasional small cottage. The Colony extended all the way down to Malibu Lagoon State Beach, separated from the public land by a high rusted fence. Even though it was private, with only residents and their guests allowed in, anyone could duck under that fence and walk in. But no cars could get in, not unless the folk at the kiosk weren’t paying attention, which rarely happened.

She directed Detective Vasquez about two-thirds down Malibu Colony Road to her small ocean-side beach house. “Another twenty houses and we’d be in the Malibu Lagoon State Beach. Always lots of action there, big-time surfing. It’s Carlo’s favorite place. Actually, there’s lots of action all over the beach.”

“Nothing would surprise me in this town.” Detective Vasquez paused a moment. “But you know, Malibu isn’t a real town, which sounds strange, but I’ve always thought that.”

She grinned. “Come on now, we have a mayor, we have a high school, we have chiropractors. But I know what you mean. Truth is I think of it as a special place, my own special place.” She directed him into her driveway.

“Hey, nice house.”

Mary Lisa beamed at him. She was still excited about her two-story cottage, all glass and redwood, built back in the early ’80s, and all hers, her very first home, bought and paid for. “I purchased it from an older actress, a friend of Elizabeth Fargas-she’s also a friend of mine-who gave me a good price. She wanted to move back to Nebraska. Go figure that. I step off my back porch and get sand fleas between my toes in under five minutes. And then I dive in the waves and the fleas drown.”

He laughed. “An example of nature’s balance.” He pulled in behind a bright red Mustang convertible. He opened her unlocked door and walked directly into a large, high-ceilinged living room. He helped her ease down on a bright red-and-white-striped sofa. It was one of three colorful sofas set about the big room with at least half a dozen chairs and love seats interspersed among them. Bright geometric rugs were scattered on the oak floor. Pale light poured in through all the windows. “You’ve got lots of places to sit.”

“I’ve got lots of friendly neighbors who are always dropping by. I started out with one sofa and chair and just kept adding.”

Yes, he thought, she’d have lots of friends. She seemed just plain nice, and funny, at least when she was drugged up. He watched her look thoughtful and open her mouth, but she seemed to forget what she was going to say.

He said, “Nice and bright in here. Makes you smile, I’ll bet. You’re looking a bit peaked, Ms. Beverly. Your friend coming over soon?”

Mary Lisa nodded. “Her name’s Lou Lou Bollinger, one of the makeup artists for Born to Be Wild. She’s a bit freaked out so I’m hoping she won’t get a speeding ticket getting over here.”

“Interesting name.”

“Wait ’til you meet her. She’s the best, excellent at her job. I’m going to have her fix me up before anyone else sees me.”

“There’s more than one makeup person on the show?”

“There are at least twelve actors shooting any given day, so the four makeup people we have are kept busy, but Lou Lou always does me.”

“Can I get you anything? Tea, water? All right then, you sit back and relax and we can get started if it’s okay with you.” At her nod, he took out his notebook again and sat down on the green patterned love seat facing her. “You told me you ducked into the army salvage store in the Country Mart to avoid Puker Hodges?”

“Yep. I bought this wonderful pea green T-shirt-”

He liked how that green T-shirt looked on her, noticed the dirt, and nodded for her to continue.

She went through it all slowly, he asked questions and she remembered more, then finally, “…I was lying flat on my back on a gurney, a paramedic placing an oxygen mask over my nose, and there was Puker, hovering over me, snapping photos. You know the rest.”

He looked thoughtful. “I don’t recognize the description of the bag lady you gave one of your T-shirts to, but someone will since we don’t have many homeless people in Malibu. I’ll check her out.”

“She loved the T-shirt. I’ll bet she’s still wearing it.”

“We’ll locate her. Now, about Carlo. Well, everyone knows Carlo. Did you go to his birthday party last month? A cookout on the beach thrown by Ben Affleck?”

“I couldn’t make it. A friend on OLTL-One Life to Live-had a baby shower. I heard Carlo gave midnight surfing lessons to fifty drunk naked people.”

“Sounds about right. Carlo just turned seventy, can you believe that?”

Mary Lisa nodded. “He’s taught a couple dozen stars how to surf over the years.”

“Okay, let’s get back to it. Carlo swore to my deputy that this guy ran you down on purpose, no way it was a hit and run.”

“As best as I can remember how it happened, yes, it was on purpose. He wasn’t weaving around like he was drunk. He came right at me.”

“Now, MacKenzie Corman, the wannabe actress with the white poodle. I’ve seen her around. I’ll speak to her as well. You’re sure the dark car that hit you was a Buick LeSabre?”

“Lou Lou owns a powder blue LeSabre, a 2000 model. It was identical to hers as far as I could tell, except for the color. It was black, possibly, or really dark blue.”

“Excellent. It was the front left fender that struck your side?”

Mary Lisa closed her eyes, pictured herself being knocked to the street in that frozen moment, and slowly nodded. “Yeah, it hit me pretty hard. You think maybe I left a dent in the fender?”

“Not likely, but who knows? We’ll get a list of all dark four-door 2000 LeSabres registered in the area, see if you recognize any of the owners’ names. You said you didn’t see who was driving. No feeling if it was a man or a woman?”

She shook her head.

He paused a moment, then said matter-of-factly, “This might have been a hit and run, someone who was drunk, hit you and was afraid to stay. If I didn’t know Carlo, how reliable he is, I’d be leaning toward an accidental hit. But the deputy told me Carlo swore the guy hit you on purpose. So until proved otherwise, we’ll treat this as an intentional act. Now, do you know of anyone who might be dangerous, or have a problem with you-like an old boyfriend, a business associate, whatever?”

Lou Lou said from the living room doorway, “The moron who tried to run her down could have been Paulie Thomas. You know how weird he is, Mary Lisa. Half a dozen people at work believe he’s going to poison Sunday Cavendish with a Danish.”