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The last thing I expected was for Alexander Taylor to answer his
own door. It belied everything I knew about Hollywood. A
man with
a billion-dollar box-office record answered the door for nobody. Instead,
he would have a uniformed man posted full-time
at his front door.
And this doorman would only allow me entrance after carefully checking my
identification and appointment.
He would then hand me off to a
butler or the first-floor maid, who would walk me the rest of the way in,
footsteps falling
as silent as snow as we went.
But there was none of that at the mansion on Bel-Air Crest
Road. The driveway gate had been left open. And after I parked
in
the front turnaround circle and knocked on the door, it was the box-office
champion himself who opened it and beckoned
me into a home whose
dimensions could have been copied directly from the international terminal
at LAX.
Taylor was a large man. Over six
feet and 250 pounds. He carried it well, though, with a full head of curly
brown hair and
contrasting blue eyes. The hair on his chin added
the highbrow look of an artist to this image, though art had very little
to do with the field in which he toiled.
He was wearing a soft blue running suit that probably cost more than
everything I was wearing. A white towel was wrapped tightly
around
his neck and stuffed into the collar. His cheeks were pink, his breathing
heavy and labored. I had caught him in the
middle of something and
he seemed a little put out by it.
I had
come to the door in my best suit, the ash gray single-breasted I had paid
twelve hundred dollars for three years before.
I hadn't worn
it in over nine months and that morning I had needed to dust off the
shoulders after taking it out of the closet.
I was clean-shaven
and I had purpose, the first I had felt since I put the suit on that hanger
so many months before.
"Come
in," Taylor said. "Everybody's off today and I was just
working out. Lucky the gym's just down the hall or I probably
wouldn't have even heard you. It's a big place."
"Yes, that was lucky."
He moved back into the house. He didn't shake my hand and I
remembered that from the time I first met him four years before.
He led the way, leaving it to me to close the front door.
"Do you mind if I finish up on the bike while we
talk?"
"No, that's
fine."
We walked down a marble hallway,
Taylor staying three steps ahead of me as if I were part of his entourage.
He was probably
most comfortable that way and that was all right
with me. It gave me time to look around.
The bank of windows on the left gave a view of the opulent grounds
— a soccer-field-sized rectangle of rolling green that
led
to what I assumed was a guest house or a pool house or both. There was a
golf cart parked outside of the distant structure
and I could see
tracks back and forth across the manicured green leading to the main house.
I had seen a lot in L.A., from
the poorest ghettos to mountaintop
mansions. But it was the first time I had seen a homestead inside the city
limits so large
that a golf cart was necessary to get from one
side to the other.
Along the wall on the
right were framed one sheets from the many films Alexander Taylor had
produced. I had seen a few of
them when they made it to television
and seen commercials for the rest. For the most part they were the kind of
action films
that neatly fit into the confines of a thirty-second
commercial, the kind that leave you no pressing need afterward to actually
see the movie. None would ever be considered art by any meaning of the
word. But in Hollywood they were far more important
than art. They
were profitable. And that was the bottom line of all bottom lines.
Taylor made a sweeping right and I followed him
into the gym. The room brought new meaning to the idea of personal
fitness.
All manner of weight machines were lined against the
mirrored walls. At center was what appeared to be a full-size boxing
ring. Taylor smoothly mounted a stationary bike, pushed a few buttons on
the digital display in front of him and started pedaling.
Mounted side by side and high on the opposite
wall were three large flat-screen televisions tuned to competing
twenty-four-hour
news channels and the Bloomberg business report.
The sound on the Bloomberg screen was up. Taylor lifted a remote control
and muted it. Again, it was a courtesy I wasn't expecting. When I had
spoken to his secretary to make the appointment, she
had made it
sound like I would be lucky to get a few questions in while the great man
worked his cell phone.
"No
partner?" Taylor asked. "I thought you guys worked in
pairs."
"I like to work
alone."
I left it at that for the moment.
I stood silently as Taylor got up to a rhythm on the cycle. He was in his
late forties but
he looked much younger. Maybe surrounding himself
with the equipment and machinery of health and youthfulness did the trick.
Then again maybe it was face peels and Botox injections, too.
"I can give you three miles," he said, as he
pulled the towel from around his neck and draped it over the handlebars.
"About
twenty minutes."
"That'll be fine."
I
reached for the notebook in my inside coat pocket. It was a spiral notebook
and the wire coil caught on the jacket's lining
as I pulled.
I felt like a jackass trying to get it loose and finally just jerked it
free. I heard the lining tear but smiled
away the embarrassment.
Taylor cut me a break by looking away and up at one of the silent
television screens.
I think it's
the little things I miss most about my former life. For more than twenty
years I carried a small bound notebook
in my coat pocket. Spiral
notebooks weren't allowed — a smart defense attorney could
claim pages of exculpatory notes had
been torn out. The bound
notebooks took care of that problem and were easier on the jacket lining at
the same time.
"I was glad to hear
from you," Taylor said. "It has always bothered me about Angie.
To this day. She was a good kid, you know?
And all this time, I
thought you guys had just given up on it, that she didn't
matter."
I nodded. I had been
careful with my words when I spoke to the secretary on the phone. While I
had not lied to her I had been
guilty of leading her and letting
her assume things. It was a necessity. If I had told her I was an ex-cop
working freelance
on an old case, then I was pretty sure I
wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the box-office champ for the
interview.
"Uh, before we start, I
think there might have been a misunderstanding. I don't know what
your secretary told you, but I'm
not a cop. Not
anymore."
Taylor coasted for a
moment on the pedalsbut then quickly worked back into his rhythm. His face
was red and he was sweating
freely. He reached to a cup holder on
the side of the digital control board and took out a pair of half glasses
and a slim
card that had his production company's logo at
the top — a square with a mazelike design of curls inside it —
and several
handwritten notations below it. He put on the glasses
and squinted anyway as he read the card.
"That's not what I have here," he said.
"I've got LAPD Detective Harry Bosch at ten. Audrey wrote this.
She's been with me
for eighteen years — since I was
making straight-to-video dreck in the Valley. She is very good at what she
does. And usually
very accurate."
"Well, that was me for a long time. But not since last
year. I retired. I might not have been very clear about that on the phone.
I wouldn't
blame Audrey if I were you."
"I won't."
He
glanced down at me, tilting his head forward to see over the glasses.
"So then what can I do for you, Detective — or
I guess I should say Mr. — Bosch? I've got two and a half miles
and then we're
finished here."
There was a bench-press machine to Taylor's right. I moved
over and sat down. I took the pen out of my shirt pocket — no snags
this time — and got ready to write.
"I don't know if you remember me but we have spoken, Mr.
Taylor. Four years ago when the body of Angella Benton was found
in the vestibule of her apartment building, the case was assigned to me.
You and I spoke in your office over at Eidolon. On
the Archway
lot. One of my partners, Kiz Rider, was with me."
"I remember. The black woman — she had known Angie,
she said. From the gym, I think it was. I remember that at the time you
two instilled a lot of confidence in me. But then you disappeared. I never
heard from —"
"We were
taken off the case. We were from Hollywood Division. After the robbery and
shooting a few days later, the case was
taken away.
Robbery-Homicide Division took it."
A low chime sounded from the stationary cycle and I thought maybe it
meant Taylor had covered his first mile.
"I remember those guys," Taylor said in a derisive voice.
"Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. They inspired nothing in me. I
remember
one was more interested in securing a position as
technical advisor to my films than he was in the real case, Angie.
Whatever
happened to them?"
"One's dead and one's retired."
Dorsey and Cross. I had known them both. Taylor's
description aside, both had been capable investigators. You didn't
get to
RHD by coasting. What I didn't tell Taylor was that
Jack Dorsey and Lawton Cross became known in Detective Services as the
partners who had the ultimate bad luck. While working an investigation they
drew several months after the Angella Benton case,
they stopped
into a bar in Hollywood to grab lunch and a booster shot. They were sitting
in a booth with their ham sandwiches
and Bushmills when the place
was hit by an armed robber. It was believed that Dorsey, who was sitting
facing the door, made
a move from the booth but was too slow. The
gunman cut him down before he got the safety off his gun and he was dead
before
he hit the floor. A round fired at Cross creased his skull
and a second hit him in the neck and lodged in his spine. The bartender
was executed last at point-blank range.
"And then what happened to the case?" Taylor asked
rhetorically, not an ounce of sympathy in his voice for the fallen cops.
"Not a damn thing happened. I guarantee it's been gathering
dust like that cheap suit you pulled out of the closet before
coming to see me."
I took the
insult because I had to. I just nodded as if I agreed with him. I
couldn't tell if his anger was for the never
avenged murder
of Angella Benton or for what happened after, the robbery and the next
murder and the shutting down of his
film.
"It was worked by those guys full-time for six
months," I said. "After that there were other cases. The cases
keep coming,
Mr. Taylor. It's not like in your movies. I
wish it was."
"Yes, there are
always other cases," Taylor said. "That's always the easy
out, isn't it? Blame it on the workload. Meantime,
the kid
is still dead, the money's still gone and that's too bad. Next
case. Step right up."
I waited to
make sure he was finished. He wasn't.
"But now it's four years later and you show up. What's
your story, Bosch? You con her family into hiring you? Is that
it?"
"No. All of her family was in
Ohio. I haven't contacted them."
"Then what is it?"
"It's unsolved, Mr. Taylor. And I still care about it. I
don't think it is being worked with any kind of . . .
dedication."
"And that's
it?"
I nodded. Then Taylor nodded to
himself.
"Fifty grand," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"I'll pay you fifty grand — if you solve the thing.
There's no movie if you don't solve it."
"Mr. Taylor, you somehow have the wrong impression. I
don't want your money and this is no movie. All I want right now is
your help."
"Listen to me. I
know a good story when I hear it. Detective haunted by the one that got
away. It's a universal theme, tried
and true. Fifty up
front, we can talk about the back end."
I gathered the notebook and pen from the bench and stood up. This
wasn't going anywhere, or at least not in the direction
I
wanted.
"Thanks for your time, Mr.
Taylor. If I can't find my way out I'll send up a
flare."
As I took my first step toward the
door a second chime came from the exercise bike. Taylor spoke to my
back.
"Home stretch, Bosch. Come back and
ask me your questions. And I'll keep my fifty grand if you
don't want it."
I turned back to him
but kept standing. I opened the notebook again.
"Let's start with the robbery," I said. "Who
from your company knew about the two million dollars? I'm talking
about who knew
the specifics — when it was coming in for the
shoot and how it was going to be delivered. Anything and anybody you can
remember.
I'm starting this from scratch."
Copyright © 2003 by Hieronymus, Inc.
