Max Collins - Quarry's ex

Identifying the body would take a while, if it ever was identified; and his death-mysterious as it was (had a drunk stumbled out into that road and got run over?)- would hardly make headline news. Jerry had said his part of the job was over, so I didn’t figure Nick would be looking to get in touch with him. If the local paper in a day or two carried a little story about the weird death in the boonies, well, why should Nick think it was about Jerry?

And assuming somebody helped himself to the Mustang, it would either wind up in a Vegas chop shop or be merrily driven off by some lucky winner. Admittedly, that winner would have an eye-popping moment or two, discovering the weapons in the trunk of his new car. Or maybe not. If it was a pro and not an amateur who took the Mustang, the guns might just be something else to fence.

Everybody wins.

With the Mustang dumped, and the Hendrix t-shirt stuffed in a trash bin, I returned to the Four Jacks and found my way through slots and poker machines and bluehaired patrons to the snack bar, which was off to the right. Open onto the busy casino, Jack’s Shack was fashioned after an old-time soda fountain with tables and a few booths, its back wall decorated with cartoon cut-outs of cowboys and Indians and gunfighters. I got myself a sugar cone with Rocky Road ice cream and sat in a booth licking and nibbling it, while I thumbed through the dead man’s notebook.

I could bore you with details, because Jerry had filled almost sixty pages, and there was a lot to piece together. But I won’t. What I learned boiled down to this: the target was Arthur Stockwell, film director.

The first two weeks of Stockwell’s activities proved irrelevant because this period represented something called pre-production. His hours were erratic, as he apparently was spending time at various film locations in Boot Heel, and sometimes checking with production staff who were staying at three hotels (including the Spur but not, you may be shocked to learn, the luxurious Saddle Up). Halfway through the second week, Stockwell began rehearsing with actors in a conference room at the Spur, but the times were all over the place.

For somebody in the murder business, dealing with a target involved in such a constantly shifting activity was your worst fucking nightmare. You want to deal with your mark in his or her daily life, where there’s a routine to discern. Patterns, predictability- so important when you’re planning to kill somebody.

What I didn’t get was why the hit was going down here, and now — why not wait till after the film wrapped? (That was the term, wasn’t it?) Why not wait till the director would be back in Beverly Hills or wherever, living a normal life? Not that people lived normal lives in Beverly Hills. Even so, that life certainly had some order, some structure, not this movie-making chaos.

Speaking of which, why hadn’t Stockwell been snuffed before he came to Boot Heel to shoot a movie for weeks at a time or maybe months? (Jerry’s notes gave me no indication of how long this-or any-movie production might last.)

Last week the film had started shooting. Again, the times were all over the place, with the only common thread the director working very long hours. He would be on the set as early as six a.m. and get back as late as nine or ten or even midnight. The sets ranged from a desert location just outside town to, well, the Four Jacks Hotel amp; Casino. Apparently they’d shot a scene in this very snack bar.

A local home and an apartment had been used as sets and were (according to Jerry’s notes) “shot out.” Had Jerry ingratiated himself with crew? He seemed to have picked up the jargon.

And it seemed one full day had been spent at the local sheriff’s office. Great place to be shadowing a subject! This seemed more and more like madness…

A dozen names of cast and crew appeared in Jerry’s notes. Either he was a hell of a back-up guy, soaking up information at the scene, or he’d been briefed heavily going in to the job. I could only assume the latter, because as far as I could tell what Jerry really soaked up was Dewar’s.

The names that seemed to matter-the ones that showed up again and again, and figured in Jerry’s surveillance-were (in addition to Arthur Stockwell himself) Tiffany Goodwin, apparently the lead actress, Eric Conrad, lead actor, and J. Kaufmann, producer. Another actress, referred to only as J.S., rated four notations.

I had actually heard of both Tiffany Goodwin and Eric Conrad, and the movie they were making- Hard Wheels 2 — was the sequel to a sleeper hit of a year or so back.

Tiffany Goodwin had been a Playboy Playmate of the Year half a decade ago-I didn’t know she’d gone on to be an actress in the movies. I figured she was probably just hanging out at the Playboy Mansion fucking Hefner.

Eric Conrad had been on a very popular TV show about cops who worked on the beach. Actually, I thought he was still on it, though I couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t something I kept up with, despite the beautiful girls in bikinis running on the beach. Even I need some plot.

We were not exactly dealing with Al Pacino and Diane Keaton here. Nor did I figure Bogie and Bacall’s romantic icon status was likely to be challenged by Conrad and Goodwin. And John Ford and Steven Spielberg had little to worry about from Arthur Stockwell.

Clearly the movie being made in Boot Heel was strictly of the drive-in variety, the kind turning up on the shelves of these video stores popping every wherever these days. One of my poker buddies owned such a shop in Lake Geneva.

I have always liked movies but am no film buff. Still, the name Arthur Stockwell rang a bell. That, and the thought of that video store back home, gave birth to an idea…

I got some change at the snack bar counter, and found a row of payphones near the bar. It took a while, as I had to go through directory assistance, but eventually I heard a familiar nasal voice answer, “Lake Geneva Home Video, two tapes, three days, four dollars. This is Bruce, how may I help you?”

“Hey, Bruce,” I said.

Bruce, at thirty, was the only guy in the poker group younger than me.

“Hey, Jack. Ya haven’t been in lately. What’s it take, dude? I don’t even charge you late fees!”

Jack was a first name I used a lot. Mostly it was the last name that shifted.

“I’ve been out of town visiting relatives. Still am, actually. We’re playing one of those silly trivia games, and hell, Brucie, you know more about movies than anybody I know.”

“No argument there.”

“So help me look good, dude.” Yes. I said it. “Tell me who Arthur Stockwell is.”

Bruce did.

Turned out Stockwell was a very well known B-movie director. As a young man in the late ’50s, he had directed a number of films for producer Roger Corman; he broke off on his own and in the ’60s specialized in genre movies of all kinds, mostly for American International-science fiction, horror, biker, “a few hippie flicks, where they drop acid and stuff.” He had worked with Jack Nicholson, Peter Falk and Bruce Dern before they got famous. And, as with Jerry Lewis-who I like, so watch it-he had a favorable reputation among certain influential French film critics.

“Stockwell got a chance to make a movie for Twentieth Century Fox,” Bruce said, “about ten years ago. After one of his cheapies, Acid Trip, unexpectedly broke box office records, he got his shot. Made this big epic about World War One biplanes, The Red Baron. And I don’t mean Snoopy.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“It tanked. El flopperoo. For a while he couldn’t get arrested.”

That’s a bad thing?

“The drive-in market kind of dried up in the ’70s,” Bruce was saying. “Stockwell started directing episodes of TV shows, mostly cop shows, you know, Quinn Martin action crapola. Then last year he made Hard Wheels, a throwback to his classic biker movies. And it was a big hit on home video.”