Detective Rosemont nodded curtly. There was a sour taste in his mouth, and the memory of the early-morning tableau danced horrifically before his eyes. His head ached, his lips were parched, and his eyes felt sunken and dry. He wished he was at home in bed with his wife, sweet black Millie, and wouldn’t that give this old bigot something to think about.
“They should stay on South Street where they belong,” muttered the old man ominously. “Comin’ to live among decent folk. It ain’t right, there should be a law.”
Detective Rosemont pushed himself heavily out of the overstuffed armchair and headed toward the door. Screw it. He was beginning to feel suffocated. “Thank you, Mr. Bullen,” he said tightly. “We’ll be needing a formal statement, of course. One of my men will be back later.”
“Niggers!” screeched the old man hysterically, warming to his subject. “They shoulda been left in Africa runnin’ around naked. That’s what I think. That’s what all decent folk think.”
Angrily Leon Rosemont let himself out of the small house. It was raining, a bleak relentless drizzle. The television trucks were blocking the end of the street, and some ghoulish sightseers huddled in a group behind a police barricade. What had they come for? What was so exciting about the outside of a house where violent deaths had occurred? Just what the hell did they expect to see?
He shook his head. People. He would never understand them. Grimly he pulled up the collar of his old English raincoat and hurried across the street.
In all his years of hard-grind service he had never had to deal with a murder case where he knew one of the victims. This was a horrible sickening first. And in a chilling way he wondered if any of the guilt was his.
3
Montana Gray gazed at her husband, Neil, as he studied himself in the dressing-room mirror of their Coldwater Canyon house. His obsession with his appearance whenever he wore a suit amused her. She waited patiently for the inevitable question.
He did not disappoint. “Do I look all right?” he asked, quite certain that he looked fine, but anxious for her approval anyhow.
She grinned. “How come you’re always so insecure when you know you look terrific?”
“Me? Insecure? Never,” he replied, sounding more like Richard Burton than the original. “I merely enjoy your praise.”
She loved his English accent; it had always been a turn-on. “Hmmm . . .” She regarded him quizzically. “Later—in bed—I’ll praise you till your hair stands on end.”
“Only my hair?” he mocked.
“And anything else you can think of.”
“Oh, I’ll think of something.”
She laughed. “I’m sure you will. Not only are you the greatest movie director around, but your imagination ain’t bad either!”
He grabbed her and they began to kiss.
Montana was twenty-nine, Neil fifty-four. During a year of living together and four years of marriage the twenty-five-year age gap had never bothered either of them, although it still bothered a lot of other people—Neil’s ex-wife, Maralee, some of his friends, and all of their wives.
“Hey.” Gently she pushed him away. “We have a whole bunch of guests anxiously awaiting our illustrious presence at the Bistro. We’d better shift ass.”
He sighed theatrically.
“Don’t go giving me any heavies about tonight, Neil. This whole celebration bit was your idea.”
He mock-bowed and ushered her to the door. “Well, madam, in that case let us—as you so succinctly put it—shift ass!”
• • •
Montana. Five feet ten inches tall. Waist-length black hair. Direct gold-flecked tiger eyes. A wide sensual mouth. An unusual and striking beauty.
Montana. Named for the state she was born in by parents who were unconventional, to say the least. Her father was a geologist, her mother a folk singer. They both loved to travel, and by the time Montana was fifteen she had been around the world twice, had had two short affairs, spoke fluent French and Italian, could water-ski, snow-ski, and ride horses like a cowboy.
Her parents were strong, independent people who instilled in their only child a firm sense of confidence and self-worth. “Believe in yourself and you can do anything” her mother often said.
“Never be frightened in life” was her father’s motto. “Face whatever comes your way with dignity and strength.”
It was all right for them, they had each other, but although they loved her very much, she often felt like an intruder. When they finally decided to settle down on a ranch in Arizona, she knew the time had come to move out into the world on her own, so she took off with their blessing and a small amount of money to keep her going. It was 1971; she was seventeen years old and filled with all the energy and enthusiasm of extreme youth.
First she went to stay with an older cousin in San Francisco He gave her pointers on sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll and left her to her own devices. She was inquisitive and anxious to learn, trying out a series of jobs—everything from waitressing to making silver jewelry and selling it on the street.
Then she met a rock musician who talked her into India and meditation. They ended up in Poona, sitting at the feet of the celebrated guru, Rajneesh. She tired of this sooner than her companion, and traveled on to London alone, where she stayed with friends in Chelsea, mixing with photographers, models, and writers. She tried a little of everything until eventually she moved to New York with a radical journalist and began to do what she had decided really interested her most of all—write. The pieces she turned out were both cynical and stylish, and it wasn’t long before she developed a name for herself, and a regular page in Worldly, an avant-garde magazine. It was on a working trip to Paris that she first met Neil.
A party on the Left Bank. Crowded. Noisy. Montana arrived with a sometime boyfriend, Lenny. Neil was already there, stoned on a mixture of Jack Daniel’s and Acapulco Gold. A wasted-looking man with intense eyes, a well-lived-in face, and a mass of unruly graying hair, he was sitting in a corner holding court while a group of admirers hung on his every word.
“You know, I really want to meet that guy,” Lenny said. “He’s better than Altman.”
“Nobody’s better than Altman,” she replied dismissively, heading in the direction of friends.
It was hours later when she finally wandered over to the group still gathered around Neil Gray. Lenny introduced her.
By this time Neil was so drunk he could hardly speak. But he did manage, “What kind of a bullshit name is Montana?”
She ignored him, smiled sweetly at Lenny, and said, “Let’s split.”
Two days later, while browsing through magazines in the American Drug Store on the Champs Elysées, a voice said, “Montana. What kind of a bullshit name is that?”
She turned, and for a moment did not remember him. Then he breathed whiskey fumes in her face and she recalled the party.
“Want to have a drink?” he asked.
“Not particularly.”
Their eyes locked and for a brief moment something sparked. She was intrigued enough to change her mind, although older men had never been her scene.
He escorted her to a bar where he was obviously a regular patron, and proceeded to get totally smashed, after impressing her with sharp, knowledgeable, and witty conversation. She began to wonder why he had this need to obliterate the present, and took the trouble to find out more about him. He was a complex man bent on self-destruction. A talented director who had alienated many people along the way with his drinking and erratic behavior, and he was now reduced to shooting television commercials for large sums of money which he used to support his ex-wife, Maralee, who lived in great style in Beverly Hills.
In Paris he seemed to enjoy his celebrity, starting off each day sober, but by early afternoon becoming hopelessly drunk.
Montana postponed her return to New York and began spending more and more time with him. Neil Gray was a challenge, and that excited her. Her father would have said she had the hots for him. Sex had
always been a very open subject when she was growing up, and the only advice her parents had given her was to do whatever she felt was right. Something told her that Neil Gray was right, although he made no move to get her into bed, which intrigued her even more. She finally invited herself, and to his drunken amusement he couldn’t get it up.
Montana did not find this funny. She thought that maybe the time had come to do something about Mr. Neil Gray, so she hired a car, borrowed a friend’s chateau in the country, and persuaded him to spend the weekend. He agreed, expecting a two-day binge of booze and fun.
The chateau was isolated and empty; Montana had made sure it housed no spirits. She hid the keys to the car, pulled the connection on the phone, and kept him there for three delirious weeks. Well, after the first few days it was delirious, when she calmed him, stopped his furious ravings, and finally got him into bed sober. He was a devastating lover when he didn’t have alcohol slowing him down. No young stud, but a man whom she felt very comfortable with.
By the time they returned to the city they had both decided togetherness was the name of the game. They stayed in Paris only a few months, until Montana had managed to convince Neil he was wasting his talent, and he agreed to return to America. Word soon spread that he was sober and straight, and by the end of their first year together, he was back in action shooting a low-budget thriller on the streets of New York. The film was a modest hit, and once more Hollywood beckoned. They headed west. “You’ll hate Beverly Hills,” he warned her. “There’s more crap per square inch than in a sewage plant.”
She grinned and busied herself with her own projects. She had an idea for a television series, and there was a book she wanted to write about Hollywood in the thirties. Neil encouraged her all the way. He also insisted that they get married. She would have been happy leaving things the way they were, but he was not prepared to risk losing her. She was special. She had dried him out, got him working again, and given him a whole new outlook on life.
They got married in Palm Springs, and from then on commuted between a permanent suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and a New York apartment.
Montana wrote her television series, which was quite successful. She collaborated on the book about Hollywood, and then, drawn toward the movies, she wrote, produced, and directed an offbeat short film about children in the Watts area of Los Angeles. It won two awards.
Neil was proud of her accomplishments, and he had more than encouraged her on the next project she had become involved in—a gritty screenplay titled Street People, which she wrote in six weeks flat. When he first read the script he was thrilled. As a director he felt it had the potential to be an exciting and important movie. And he knew at once that he wanted to do it. He was hot again. His previous two films had made money, and several studios were ready to back anything he cared to do. But he wanted control, so after discussing it with Montana, he took the script to Oliver Easterne Productions. Oliver was a snake, but Neil knew he would give them the deal they were after.
Now everything was agreed, and as of that very morning contracts were signed.
It was an excellent deal. Total artistic control, which meant that no one could mess with Montana’s script or with what Neil planned on putting on the screen. As long as they stayed under budget and on schedule, no interference from anyone. They were both delighted.
Final cut. Total control. Magic words, and now a special dinner to announce the project to their friends.
• • •
Montana stared moodily out the car window as three hours later they drove home. As far as she was concerned, the entire evening had been one big waste of time. Friends. She could manage quite nicely without them, thank you very much. As long as she had Neil, of course, because he didn’t give a damn about anybody, and she admired that quality in a town full of ass-kissers. In fact it was one of the qualities that had attracted her to him in the first place.
“Cigarette?” He shook one out of the pack while he guided his silver Maserati across Santa Monica, up Beverly toward Sunset.
She accepted it without a word, and thought yet again about the reaction to their news from Neil’s so-called friends. They had all said, “Wonderful! Congratulations!” Then one by one they got their little digs in.
Bibi Sutton, the social pacesetter of Beverly Hills, chic French wife of one of filmland’s biggest stars, Adam Sutton. “Sweetie? Neil? He really do film you wrote?” Her amazement was barely disguised.
Chet Barnes, a talented screenwriter with two Oscars to prove it. “Writing for movies is a very specialized art, Montana. It’s not like hacking it out for TV.” And fuck you too, Mr. Barnes.
Gina Germaine, thirtyish sex symbol trying to be taken seriously and looking like an overgrown Barbie Doll. “Did you have a ghost writer, Montana? You can confide in me, I won’t tell. As a matter of fact I do a little writing myself.”
And so on and so on. One crack after another. People were just plain jealous, and that was the truth. Good-looking women had roles in life and they were supposed to stick to them. They could be movie stars, models, housewives, hookers, but God forbid they should skirt onto what was strictly regarded as Big Boys’ Territory. Writing a major movie for a major director was Big Boys’ Territory. And in their own petty little way everyone wanted to let her know that.
“Sometimes I hate people!” she exploded.
Neil laughed. “Don’t waste your energy, my love.”
“But they were all so . . .”
“Envious.”
“You noticed it too?”
“I could hardly help it. Karen Lancaster kept asking me to admit that I wrote the bloody movie myself.”
“That spoiled bitch!”
“And then Chet insisted on telling me I’d ruin my career. Oh, and even Adam Sutton wanted to know why I was helping you this way.”
“Christ! Friends!”
He took his hand from the steering wheel and patted her on the knee. “I told you when I first brought you here never to take any of them seriously. Hollywood’s a funny town with funny rules. You break them all.”
“I do, huh?”
“Most certainly.”
“How?”
“Well, let’s see now. You don’t shop on Rodeo Drive. You don’t give catered parties. You don’t lunch with the girls. You don’t employ a maid. You don’t have impeccable fingernails. You don’t gossip. You don’t spend my money at a speed faster than sound. You don’t—”
She held up her hand, still laughing. “Enough already! Let’s go home and make out.”
“And you don’t wait to be asked.”
Her hand slid across the gear lever and settled on his crotch. “Aren’t you the lucky one.”
The Maserati swerved across the street. “Who, my love, is arguing?”
• • •
Montana slept soundly as Neil crept quietly from their bed early in the morning. He found that the older he got the less sleep he needed, so he showered, did a few halfhearted pushups, then walked out to the patio and admired the view. When the smog wasn’t in action you could see for miles, sometimes as far as the ocean. It was one of the main reasons they had purchased the house several months before. A lot of people put Los Angeles down, but Neil had a genuine love for the city. Born and raised in England, he found he never missed the place. America was his home, and had been for over twenty years.
• • •
Neil Gray first came to Hollywood in 1958. He was a young brash director who thought he knew it all. The studio that brought him over after his first hit English film treated him royally. A bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, a parade of beautiful starlets, and an endless expense account.
The movie he made for them died at the box office. A woman slapped him with a paternity suit, which he hotly contested, and suitably chastised, he fled back to England.
However, American fever was in his blood, he wanted more, and early in the sixties he returned to Hollywood—this time with no studio to back hi
m. He rented a room at the Chateau Marmont, a modest old-fashioned hotel above the Strip. Then he tried to get a script he had optioned off the ground. The going was hard, until one day, around the pool, he quite literally bumped into Maralee Sanderson. She was a pretty, spoiled teenager whose mother had died when she was fourteen. She had been raised by her father, Tyrone, the founder of Sanderson Studios. At the time Maralee was having an affair with a New York method actor, but she took an immediate fancy to Neil and switched affections. He had no choice. What Maralee wanted, she got. Besides, he was flattered. She was young, gorgeous, and rich. And Daddy owned a studio. What more could an out-of-work film director want?
“Daddy’ll put up the money for your movie,” she remarked casually one day. “If I ask him, that is.”
“What the hell are you waiting for?” he yelled.
“A little thing called marriage,” she replied innocently.
Marriage. The very word scared him. He had tried it once at nineteen and found it sadly lacking. But now, seventeen years later, many women later, much booze later . . .
Marriage. He thought about it for a week. Then decided why not? It was about time he took the big step again, and besides, it seemed to be the only surefire way to get his movie off the ground.
An inner voice nagged him constantly: What about integrity? Making it on your own? Love?
Fuck it, he thought. I want to make this film. I need a little clout in this town.
“Yes,” he told Maralee.
“Good,” she replied. “Daddy wants to meet you.”
Tyrone Sanderson had not gotten where he was by charm. He was short and thickset. He smoked outsize cigars and favored starlets with outsize attributes. He was desperate to marry his daughter off. She had bedded half of Hollywood, but Neil Gray was the first man she had shown any permanent interest in.
“You wanna do a movie, do it,” Tyrone growled at their first meeting.
“I have the script for you to read.”
“Who reads? Do it.”
“Aren’t you interested in what it’s about?”
“I’m interested in you marrying my daughter. Period.”