Dream Town

Chapter 28

Green had a second brandy and Archer watched her drink it dry. When she was done, she put the glass down, cocked her two-by-four lips just so, and looked at him like she was itching for a fight with someone about something, and he was the only one within pummeling distance.

“I suppose you have many questions for me,” she said icily.

“If Bender was sniffing around your husband’s infidelities, why was he in Las Flores Canyon? Do you think he was having an affair with Lamb?”

“Of course not. Bart only goes in for young and gorgeous. Ellie is neither.”

“Well, then that leaves out her neighbor, Mrs. Danforth, since she’s around eighty.” When Green didn’t respond, Archer did for her. “So that brings us to the Frenchwoman, Bernadette Bonham. But she’s around the same age as Lamb and she’s in France with her husband.”

“Is she?”

“Well, I was told that, but I haven’t verified it.”

“Then maybe you should.”

“I’m not working on your divorce case, Mrs. Green. That was Bender’s job.”

“I’m not seeking a divorce.”

“What then?”

“That’s my business. As you said, it’s not your job.”

Archer shook out a cigarette and held it up. “You mind?”

“No, the lighter’s over there.”

Archer picked up the lighter, as bulky and nearly as heavy as a cannonball, and lit his Lucky. He blew rings to the frescoed ceiling that held babies swirling amid clouds.

“When did you hire Bender? And why him?”

“I’ve used Mr. Bender before, when Bart was out carousing with other nubile women.”

“How’d you hear about him? He’s way down in Anaheim.”

“Other women in Los Angeles that I know had used him when their husbands...”

“Yeah, I understand. Go on.”

“One of them recommended him highly. And I didn’t want anyone from this lousy city. They all talk to each other. I did not want to be a laughingstock. Any more than I already am,” she added testily.

“Okay, I get that. And I’m not laughing at you. I just want to understand the situation.”

She set her glass down and looked at him expectantly.

“Did you suspect your husband was seeing Bernadette Bonham?”

“The fact is, I don’t know if it is her. Bender, I believe, was following up some other leads, too.”

“His car was seen outside of Eleanor Lamb’s house.”

“Who by?”

“Eleanor Lamb. And me. It’s now missing. But I guess Bender was watching the Bonhams’ place, not Lamb’s. He provide you with any reports?”

“Why?”

“If he has, I’d like to read them.”

“Why?” she said more sharply.

“Because he was found dead in Lamb’s house. The connection sort of speaks for itself.”

“I... yes, he did. The reports. I have them in my study.”

“I can have copies made and get you the originals back.”

Green flipped a hand carelessly in his general direction. “Oh, all right.” She rose and left him, coming back a minute later with a yellow manila folder; she handed it to him.

“Was this the only communications you had with Bender? Did you speak to him? Over the phone, or here? Or another place?”

“We had discussions on the phone.”

“Okay, so what did Bender tell you?”

“That Bart covers his tracks well. He has places arranged that he goes into and then out of from different doors. That Bart is always very careful never to be seen in public in the company of other women. This was all done with the purpose of allowing him to consort with other ladies who are not me.”

“You mentioned he had done this before?”

She rose and poured herself another drink. This time it was whiskey with no qualifiers. At this rate she’d be snookered by lunch, thought Archer.

She took a swallow and sat back down. “Twice before. Once with a ‘starlet’ in one of his movies, who was young enough to be his daughter. She is no longer in acting. She went back to Wisconsin or wherever the hell she came from.”

“So she couldn’t act?”

Green gazed at him in stern amusement. “You don’t have to be able to act, Mr. Archer, to become a star in Hollywood. But you do have to have a ruthless fire in the belly, because the competition is like nothing else on earth. And you have to be willing to sell a significant portion of your soul, or perhaps all of it.”

Archer momentarily thought of Callahan. “And the second time?”

“A secretary at his office. Bart surprised me on that one.”

“How so?”

“He likes women with big chests, like the best racehorses. She was as flat as a pancake, but I guess she had other appealing attributes.”

Archer couldn’t help but glance at the woman’s slender frame. She caught this look and smiled. “Bart and I have been married for over thirty years and have four children together. We met when Bart was different, and I was different.”

“There’s always divorce.”

“Marriage, for some, is a competition, and divorce signals winners and losers. And in this day and age, the men are the winners if they can get to that finish line. If I let Bart go now, he could publicly go out and get whoever he wanted. I, on the other hand, could not. And I would be blackballed in this town, because all the studio heads are lecherous men just like him. So if he wants to engage in adulterous liaisons, I just want him to have to work harder. That is really my only recourse.”

“Getting back to Bender. When was the last time you spoke to him?”

“The morning of New Year’s Eve. We were going to meet for lunch tomorrow and he was going to fill me in on things.”

“Did he give you a teaser over the phone?”

“No, he said he wanted to do it in person.”

“Well, that won’t be happening now.”

“You can’t possibly think that Ellie Lamb killed him? Why would she?”

“I don’t know. Did Bender ever mention that he thought someone was on to him?”

“No, nothing like that,” she said quickly, maybe a beat too quickly to Archer’s thinking. “I take it you don’t want to fly to Las Vegas and interrogate my husband?”

“Not today, no. When is he coming back?”

“He spoke of tomorrow or the next day. He was rather vague.”

“You have a photo of your husband?”

She rose again, rifled through a drawer, and pulled out a framed photo. She undid the backing and handed him the picture. She answered his puzzled expression with a terse “Why would I want to look at him?”

Archer gazed down at the photo. Green was standing next to his wife. He was shorter than her, and far wider with a blunt face, bald head, deep-set eyes, and a thin mustache over thick lips. The chin was weak, the cheeks inflamed, and still the overall look of the gent screamed a superior arrogance.

“Looks like a peach,” noted Archer.

“With cyanide inside.”

He rose. “I’ll get you Bender’s original reports back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t rush. What the hell am I going to do with them?”

Archer took his leave while Green poured another drink.

He had met a number of remarkable and distinct women in a very short period of time. Archer had a fairly firm understanding of Gloria Mars, the warrior. And of Alice Jacoby, the dreamer always looking for the greener grass.

The other three were less firm in his mind, but he was beginning to form a few impressions.

Cecily Ransome seemed to be everyone’s idea of the next generation’s great filmmaker. A breath of fresh, honest air in a town full of fuggy smog and dreary, worn-out ideas. He had found her interesting and confident, but perhaps not fully grasping the dark world in which she wanted to spend her days as a writer and director.

Mallory Green, the two-time Oscar winner, was old-school, but also hard and bitter about her unfair plight in life. He could appreciate it; he well knew the double standards employed between men and women in this town — hell, in this world. But she also seemed ruthlessly transactional in her approach to life and marriage. She would make her husband suffer for his infidelity, but she would not sever that bond because her own career would take a clear, if unfair, hit.

And then there was Eleanor Lamb. Missing person, afraid for her life, screenwriter extraordinaire, and a woman, at least according to Ransome’s granduncle, Sam Malloy, who should not be trusted.

And I’m going to have to make my own decision on that at some point. If I ever find the lady.