You have little to lose, she said.
Chapter 5
I SAT in the production office on Soldiers Field Road I and talked with Sandy Salzman. Without his tasseled ski cap he was balding.
Do you want me to protect Miss Joyce, I said, or do you want me to find out whos harassing her?
Or if, Salzman said. Through the picture window in his office you could look across Soldiers Field Road at the Charles River, and across the Charles to Cambridge on the other side.
The river was frozen now and snow covered. There were cross-country ski tracks on it, and trampled paths where kids and dogs had cut across. It was a steady-moving river, and it took a deep chill to freeze it enough to walk on. Every year there was a thaw and someone went through.
Or If, I said. But someone needs to decide. I cant do both at the same time.
Whats Jill say?
Jill says shes looking for one this long. I made the measuring motion for him.
Yeah, Jill says stuff like that, Salzman said. Whatd you say?
I told her she was in luck. Salzman laughed.
Then she had another glass of wine and fainted at me.
Salzman nodded. She does that too, he said.
Makes a swell date, I said.
Salzman spread his hands and shrugged. Jills a television star, he said. Shes been one for twenty years in a medium where a lot of people are reading weather in Topeka six months after their first show is canceled. You got Jill Joyce on a project and youve got a thirteen-week on-air commitment, and all three networks fighting to make it.
That explains why she gets loaded every lunch and swoons on strangers? I said.
No, it explains why she gets away with it.
So which is it? Protect her or investigate the incidents, whatever the hell they are, no one seems too clear on that.
I know, Salzman said. The truth is, nobody pays a hell of a lot of attention to Jill beyond keeping her in shape to go on. Line producer earns his money on one of her shows.
So you dont know what you want me to do, I said. But you havent got time to deal with her.
Salzman tapped the sharpened end of a prone pencil on his desk, causing it to flip up and somersault in the air.
Exactly, he said and jabbed his forefinger toward me while he said it.
There were pictures all around the office, most of Salzman; a couple with actors, the rest with dead pheasant and elk and trout.
Okay, I said. Ill talk to Jill and Ill decide what I should do. If I decide I need to do both, Ill hire someone to watch Jill while I investigate.
You have someone in mind? Salzman said. Jill is very tough about people.
I grinned. Yeah, I said. I got a guy in mind. It made me happy, thinking of Hawk with Jill Joyce.
Salzman frowned a little, but he let it pass. He was affable in the Hollywood way, and permanently pleasant, but behind it there was a pretty good mind working. And most of the time it was working on getting his show made on time, on budget. He knew when to go with the flow, and if Id take the matter of Jill Joyces harassment off his back hed agree to hiring Geraldo Rivera as a bodyguard if I said so. He knew that. I knew that. And he knew that I knew that.
We got you through the police commissioner, Salzman said. Commissioner himself said you were good.
Man loves me, I said.
Actually, Salzman said, he remarked that he didnt like you a bit, but you were the best at what you did.
Same thing, I said. Wheres the lovely Miss Joyce?
Were shooting here today. Too cold out for fill. Salzman got up. Ill take you down. Ever seen film being made?
Yeah, I said.
Exciting?
Like watching ice melt. I said.
I can see youre a fan, Salzman said.
We went out through the outer office where two young women hunched over typewriters. There was a fax machine on the window sill, and six file cabinets, and on the wall a big, and detailed, map of Boston.
Ill be on the set, Salzman said to one of the young women. She nodded without looking up. Remember youve got the teamster guys at eleven forty-five, she said.
Page me when they arrive, Salzman said. We went down the corridor past glassed-in office space where people labored over computers and drawing boards and typewriters. We went down the stairs and through the lobby, with a huge promotional poster of Jill Joyce on the wall, and a receptionist at her desk, and down another corridor, past the wardrobe office and the property room and the carpenter shop to a sound stage. On the thick door to the sound stage was a big sign that said DO NOT ENTER WHEN RED LIGHT IS ON. Above the door was a red light. It was on. Salzman opened the door quietly and we went in. We were on the back side of some walls that had been assembled from plywood and two-by-fours. On the other side of those walls the space was brightly lit. I followed Salzman around the cluster of ragged crew members loitering off camera, waiting to do what they were employed to do.
The set was of an office, or two walls of an office, in-which a psychiatrist, Dr. Shannon Cassidy, was confronting an obviously demented man who was armed with a Browning automatic and was pointing it