“Vanessa Morgan died,” Sherry said. “I just saw the news headline.”
Genaro looked up irritably. Everything irritated him lately. Sammy Candelosi had become a major pain in the ass, and he still hadn’t figured out how to deal with him.
“Who?” Genaro said.
“Vanessa Morgan. She was a big-time classic film star. Won an Oscar.”
“When?”
“A while back.”
“How old was she?”
“Eighty something.”
“I’m surprised she lived that long. Those stars burn themselves out.”
“Not this one. She retired in her heyday, had a big contract with Centurion Pictures and just walked away.”
“You remember all that?”
Sherry pointed to the paper. “Says so here. Apparently she had a big fight with the studio and wound up having to give back half her stock options. Must have cost her a fortune, but she did it.”
“What was the studio?”
“Centurion Pictures. Why?”
Genaro shook his head, but the name rang a bell. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that was the studio where his skip tracer had once found Billy Burnett. “When’s the funeral?”
“Sunday. Were you thinking of going?” Thoughts of a trip to Hollywood danced in Sherry’s head.
“I got enough shit to deal with.”
Genaro went back to brooding. Funny it would be Centurion Pictures. He was pretty sure that was where they’d found Billy Burnett. And that bar girl Bambi had seen him on a movie set. Was that a Centurion picture?
Genaro wondered if Billy Burnett was still there.
14
Tyrone Flynn cleaned himself up for the funeral. He still had a runny nose and watery eyes, but that was appropriate for a man mourning the loss of his mother. Only those closest to him would have known he was celebrating his inheritance with an ounce of Peruvian flake; though the truth was Tyrone had no close friends, just fellow cokeheads and people to whom he owed money. They’d all come crawling out of the woodwork now, hoping to cash in on his bounty. He’d have to lay low for a while.
But not today. Today he had to stand in the spotlight and murmur his thanks while a seemingly endless parade of Hollywood stars offered their condolences.
It was a Hollywood funeral in every sense of the word. Vanessa Morgan might have been a recluse alive, but dead she pulled out all the stops. The cathedral she’d booked would have seated six hundred, though fewer than fifty A-list celebrities made the cut. Their selection was rumored to have been specified in her will. The lesser stars milled around outside where tents had been set up for the reception, and TV crews vied with one another for the biggest remaining names to interview.
Peter and Ben were in the church. Ben Bacchetti was invited as the head of production at Centurion Pictures. The studio had long since buried the hatchet with Vanessa, honoring her with a lifetime achievement award on the occasion of her seventy-fifth birthday. Vanessa had accepted, on the condition that her age not be advertised as the reason for the award. Peter was invited as the stepson of Vance Calder, an Academy Award–winning actor in his own right, who had acted opposite Vanessa in two of her final films. Hattie and Tessa, discreetly gorgeous in black, accompanied their husbands.
Teddy could have attended as a Centurion producer, but Billy Barnett was on vacation, and he couldn’t justify showing up as stuntman Mark Weldon. Still, he had taken note of the passing of one of Centurion’s largest stockholders, and, according to Kenny in Accounting, one of the least likely to sell. While the police were not treating her death as suspicious, Vanessa Morgan had not died from natural causes; she had drowned in her bathtub, and, according to the home aide who found her, her home security system had been turned off.
* * *
—
Gerard Cardigan watched it all from a distance. He saw Tessa Tweed Bacchetti arrive with her husband and friends and go into the church, and he saw her come out at the end of the service and climb into a limo. He was glad to see the Barringtons and Bacchettis go. He did not want to trip over them today.
Gerard mingled with the crowd until the A-list celebrities had gone and the TV crews were packing up. Then he snuck up on Tyrone Flynn, who had ducked furtively around the corner of the church. Tyrone had just unscrewed the top of a gram bottle of coke and was tapping a line out on the back of his hand. Gerard waited patiently until he snorted it and had the cap back on the bottle before he cleared his throat.
Tyrone jumped.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Gerard said. “I’m sorry for your loss. Drowned in her bathtub, I understand. Terrible thing.”
Tyrone was wary, probably took him for a narc.
“I’m a big fan of your mother’s,” Gerard said. “Seen all her films. On Turner Classic Movies, of course. I’m much too young to have seen them on release.” He indicated the church. “Big turnout. Lavish event. Specified in the will, I suspect. Even the most devoted son would choke on the cost.”
Tyrone frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I did my college dissertation on the deaths of movie stars,” Gerard said. He was, of course, making it up out of whole cloth. “Your mother hung around too long to make the cut, but I studied her at the time.”
Tyrone’s head was coming off. “Look, I need to get back.”
“Satisfy my curiosity first. A movie star of her age, richer than God. Usually they don’t leave it to family—they hold a grudge for some imagined slight, leave it to charity instead, usually with their name attached. The Vanessa Morgan Grant. The Vanessa Morgan Hospital for Special Surgery. And the cost of the funeral eats into what would be going to the heirs.”
Tyrone exhaled impatiently. “Do you have a point?”
“They usually leave the stock to the family, though. That’s the saving grace. Of course, it takes a while to convert stock into cash.” Gerard smiled. “I imagine you’ll be needing cash.”
15
Mason Kimble loaded the video into Final Cut Pro. It popped up in the directory as Untitled. He double-clicked on it, and the footage appeared in the preview screen.
“How much are you going to use?” Gerard Cardigan said.
“Just a clip, a teaser. Enough to prove we have footage she wouldn’t want going public. A good clip, though.”
Mason clicked Play and they watched the video of Tessa Tweed again. He stopped it on the money shot, backed up a few seconds, and marked the clip. Then he ran it forward a few seconds past the spot where he’d stopped before, and marked the clip again. He clicked on the section he’d marked, and that short segment jumped down into the timeline of the film. He clicked on that and played the segment in the viewer screen.