There could not, I realized, be any clean resolution of this whole thing. Ellis Esterland had been killed twenty-one months ago. And what he had been killed for was long since down the drain, flushed down by an erratic and talented middleaged woman, misled by her parasitic friend, Peter Kesner. Circumstances changed for the folks in the black hats, just as they did for the white hats. And the gray. Their universe continued to unfold. The Senator flew over the cliff with a sea gull in his face. Up until now I had not been able to feel any particular personal imperative at work. Annie Renzetti had dropped delightfully and unexpectedly into my arms, but possessing her did not act as a spur to action, to learning what really did happen to Esterland.
In my blundering about, with my dull uncomprehending smile, my earnest clumsiness, I had inherited half a motorcycle haven and tattoo parlor. And now I had joined the FBI, or the equivalent. I had begun to feel a little bit like Sellers in his immortal Being There. I felt no urge to enrich either Ron Esterland or myself. And no urge to punish Josie Laurant any more than she was going to be punished by the gods of stupidity at some time in that future which was getting ready to crash down on her. I was a fake consultant in the employ of Lysa Dean, queen of the game shows. I represented, to Kesner, a chance for free promotion of a motion picture that would probably never be shown in the unlikely event it was ever completed.
I had zigged and zagged until, finally, I had completely confused myself. I had spent some of Ron’s money and had myself a nice balloon ride, and I wished heartily that Meyer would happen along, listen, and tell me what to do next.
At least, now, there was a sense of personal involvement. The misdeeds of the vague past seemed unlikely. What is the penalty for killing a dying man? But I had seen Freaky Jean, Joya’s ex-friend, and I could visualize blond Karen in her baby fat as, under the lights of the improvised little studio, she came to the horrid and ultimate realization that the creature of her nightmares, Dirty Bob himself, was going to jam that incredible ugliness right up into her while the women watched and the wizened little man came closer with the camera and the hi-fi rock masked her yelps and hollers, her pleas for mercy.
The fracture line was, of course, somewhere between Peter Kesner and Desmin Grizzel. And I could improvise a pry bar of sorts. Perhaps there was another vulnerable area between Josie and Kesner, labeled Romola. Daughter lost and gone. Twenty months gone.
Time to try to close the store.
Fifteen
I DROVE my rental Buick back to the pasture five miles out of town. Kesner’s car was there. Clouds were bulging up to interfere with the last of the sunlight. There was the usual amount of milling about, but there appeared to be fewer vehicles.
After asking three people where I could find Kesner, I finally located him in Josie’s trailer. She was not there. He let me in, went back to the couch where his drink was, and continued his conversation with a thick-bodied man of about fifty who sat bolt upright in a chair and had no drink at hand. “What’s your name again?” Kesner asked him.
“Forgan.”
“Forgan, this is Travis McGee. He is here as a consultant for Take Five Productions. He is representing one of the owners, the famous actress Lysa Dean. I ask you, Forgan, would they be interested in doing a network feature on this operation here if we were some kind of scumbag ripoff?”
Forgan gave me a single brief glance, his brown eyes as still and dull and dead as the glass orbs in a stuffed bear.
“I want to talk to a woman named Jean Norman,” he said.
“I told you, they’re looking for her. They’re looking for her. Jesus!”
“Where’s Mrs. Murphy-Wheeler?”
“Forgan, why do you keep asking me the same shit over and over? I told you before, she was on flight today. We did one of the big scenes. They’re coming back in now, one at a time. Eight balloons.” I saw Kesner stiffen with sudden realization. “Hey, you flew with her, McGee! She back?”
“That’s what I’m supposed to tell you, Peter. They were all packed up to take off after the flight, so they wouldn’t have to come back here. She has to get back to work, she said. Back in Ottumwa.”
He smacked his fist into his palm. “Goddamn! That makes three who broke away today. Those bastards have got me down to five balloons. They’re trying to kill me. They’ve been getting free chow, free propane, and a hundred bucks a day per balloon. What do they want?”
“So Mrs. Murphy-Wheeler isn’t returning here?” Forgan asked.
I could see interesting complications if he got to Joya and she told him about me. But I couldn’t see anything I could do about it. This man Forgan was official. He had all the rich warm charm of a tax collector. Or of J. Edgar Hoover.
“I told you before, Forgan. Feel free. You and your skinny buddy. Poke around. Ask anybody anything. But get it over with, because this is a working set and we got work to do, and delay costs money.”
I tried to look at Peter Kesner out of Forgan’s eyes. The bald tan head, long white ropy body, big flat dirty white feet, lots of dangling gold jewelry, graying chest hair poking out of the pink Gucci shirt, crotch-tight blue jeans, faded, frayed, threadbare, half glasses perched halfway down his generous nose, thick fingers saffroned by the ever-present cigarette. Forgan would second a motion of no confidence.
Forgan stood up slowly and turned toward the door. He stopped and gave me a long official look, memorizing me. Apparently I failed to meet his standards, too.
At the door he turned back toward Kesner and said, “Besides this Grizzel clown, how many more people you got working here with records?”
“I wouldn’t have any idea. Most of them are hired by my office in Burbank. They have the personnel records there. Major Productions. They’re in the book. The production people here on location are all trade union people, guild people. The payroll is killing me.”
Forgan stared into space. “I never go to movies,” he said softly, and went out and pulled the door shut. The trailer moved a little on its spring as his weight left the step.
Peter Kesner sprawled on the couch, leaned his head back, sighed, took off his little glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Sit down, McGee. Sit down and relax. How was it?”
“The flight? A great experience. I appreciate your making it possible.”
“I went up with Joya once, and with Mercer, and we took a hell of a lot of footage of going across country in a good breeze at about zero altitude. That lady was scraping the gondola on the tops of the cows and chickens. Like a fun ride at the park as a kid. What I can’t understand, why would Joya turn me in on some kind of weird rap about making dirty tapes? She say anything to you?”
I handled that one with care. “Just that she was worried about what was happening to Jeanie Norman.”
He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Shit, yes! Sure. They used to be friends. Old Freaky Jean. God only knows what Jeanie thinks is happening around here. She’s around the bend, way around. If anybody hooked her, Linda did. Linda had good sources, and she likes big brunettes. It’s easy to see how Joya might get the wrong idea from things Jean might tell her. There’s videotape equipment around, portable recorders, and Jap cameras. The kids fool with it. It’s a professional tool, the way a photographer will use a test shot on Polaroid film before going ahead with the real stuff. A bit player can improvise a death scene or whatever, erase the tape, and try again. You can look at the scene in living color the minute you’ve finished it. They probably got Jeanie involved with some of their horsing around, and she got the wrong impression, or Joya got the wrong impression of what Jeanie was trying to tell her. I can’t afford all this hassling!”