Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

SIX

"So what exactly did Jerry tell you about this place?" Todd asked Maxine as they stood outside the Hideaway.

"Not much. I told you he'd played here as a kid? Yes, I did. Well, he said he had wonderful memories of the house. That was about all."

Maxine hadn't taken any pictures of the exterior, it had been raining so hard that day. Now, seen clearly for the first time, the house appeared much larger than Todd had anticipated; perfectly deserving of the term "dream palace." He couldn't get a complete grasp of its size because the vegetation around it had been left to run wild. A large grove of bamboo to the right of the front door had grown fully thirty feet, its tallest stalks standing higher than the chimney-stacks. Bougainvillea grew everywhere in lunatic abundance, purple, red, pink and white; and even the humble ferns, planted in the shade of the perimeter wall, had flourished there, and grown antediluvian. There was room beneath the fronds to stand with your hands raised and still not touch the nubby spores on their underbellies.

The house itself was palatial Spanish in style, with more than a hint of Hollywood fantasy in its genes. The stucco was a washed-out pink, the roof a washed-out red. There was a great deal of elaborate tilework at the front steps, and around the windows, the tiles themselves still bright blue and turquoise and white, the complex interplay of their patterns lending a touch of Moorish beauty to the fagade. The front door looked as though it had been purloined from the set of a medieval epic; the kind of door Douglas Fairbanks Senior might have slammed and bolted shut to keep out an army of evil-doers. It would have sufficed too, in its enormity.

Maxine had to push hard to open it; and when it finally swung wide it did so not with a gothic creak but with a deep rumble, as a system of counterweights hidden in the wall aided her labor.

"Very dramatic," Todd remarked, playing it off. In truth, he was impressed by the scale of the place; by its scale and theatricality. But guileless enthusiasm he'd had shamed out of him long ago. It wasn't cool to like anything too much, except yourself.

Maxine led the way through the turret, with its grandiose spiral staircase and its trompe l'oeil ceiling, into the house. The photographs she'd taken had come nowhere near doing the place justice. Even stripped of most of its furniture, as it was, and in need of repair, it was still nothing short of magnificent. There was everywhere evidence of master craftsmen at work: from the pegged wood floors to the elegantly carved ceiling panels; from the exquisite symmetry of the marble mantels to the filigree of the wrought iron handrails, only the best had been good enough for the man or woman who'd owned this place.

Marco had artlessly arranged a few items of Todd's furniture in the living room, a little island of brittle modernity in the midst of something older and more mysterious. Todd made a mental note to give everything he owned away, and start again. In future, he was going to buy antiques.

They went through to the kitchen. It was built on the same heroic scale as everything else: ten cooks could have happily worked in it and not got in one another's way.

"I know it's all ridiculously old-fashioned," Maxine said. "But it'll do for a little while, won't it?"

"It'll do just fine," Todd said, still surprised at how much the place pleased him. "What's out back?"

"Oh the usual. A pool. Tennis courts. And a huge koi pond. Probably a polo field for all I know."

"Any fish in the pond?"

"No. You want fish?"

"It's no big deal."

"I can get koi for you if you want them. Just say the word."

"I know. But it's not worth it. I'll be here a month and gone."

"So take them with you."

"And where would I put them?"

"Okay," Maxine shrugged. "No fish." She went to the kitchen window and continued her description of the real estate. "The whole canyon belongs to the house, as far as I can see, but the gardens spread down the hill an acre and a half and all the way up to the top of the hill behind us. There's a guest-house up there. Perhaps two. I didn't go look: I figured you wouldn't be having any visitors."

"Does Jerry know anything about the history of the place?"

"I'm sure he does, but to be honest I didn't ask."

"What did you tell him about me?"

"I told him you had a stalker, and she was getting dangerous. You needed to get out of the Bel Air house for a while until the police had caught her. Frankly, I'm not sure he bought it. He's got to have heard the rumors. I think we'd be best letting him in on what's been happening—"

"We've had this conversation once—"

"Hear me out, will you? If we make him feel like he's part of the conspiracy, he'll stay quiet, just because he wants to please you. He'll only get chatty if he thinks we kept him out because we didn't trust him."

"Why the hell would he want to please me?"

"You know why, Todd. He's in love with you."

Todd shook his bandaged head, which was a mistake. The room around him swam for a moment, and he had to grab hold of the table.

"You okay?" Maxine said.

He raised his hands, palms out, in mock surrender. "I'm fine. I just need a pill and a drink."

"You've had so many pills. Are you sure—"

"I sent Marco out to get some liquor."

"Todd, . . . it's not even noon."

"So? If I stay here and get shit-faced every day for the next month who's going to care? Find me something to drink, will you?"

"What about Jerry? We didn't finish—"

"We'll talk about Jerry some other time."

"Am I telling him or not?"

"I said I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"All right. But if he starts to gossip, don't say I didn't warn you."

"If he tells the fucking National Enquirer it's my fault. Happy?"

Todd didn't wait for a reply. Leaving Maxine to search for the liquor, he wandered out to the back of the house. The lawn—which lay at the bottom of a long flight of steps from the house, their railings entirely overtaken by vines—was the size of a small field, but it had been invaded on every side by the offspring of the plants, shrubs and trees which surrounded it, many of them in premature flower. Bird of Paradise trees twenty feet tall, sycamore and eucalyptus, rose bushes and fox-gloves, early California poppies shining like satin in the grass; meadowfoam and corn lily, hairy honeysuckle and wild grape, golden yarrow, blue blossom and red huckleberry. And everywhere, of course, the ubiquitous pampas grass; soft, fleecy plumes swaying in the sun. It was uncommon, even uncanny, verdancy.

Todd strode across the lawn, which was still wet from the rain, down to the pool. Dragonflies flitted everywhere; bees wove their nectar trails through the balmy air. The pool was a baroque affair, descending from the relatively restrained style of the main house into pure Hollywood kitsch. The model, perhaps, was Cecil B. DeMille Roman. A large mock-classical bronze fountain was set at the back of the pool, the intertwined limbs of its figures—a sea-god and his female attendants—rendered more baroque still by the tracery of living vines which had crept up over it. A sizable conch in the sea-god's hands had once been a source of rejuvenating waters for the pool, but those waters had ceased to flow a long time ago. Todd was mildly disappointed. He would have liked to see sparkling blue water in the pool instead of the few inches of bottle-green rain-water that were there at the bottom.

He turned and looked back toward the house. It was still more impressive from this side than it had been from the front, its four floors rising like the tiers of a wedding cake, its walls lush with ivy in places, and in others naked. Beyond it, further up the hill, Todd could just see a glimpse of one of the guest-houses that Maxine had mentioned. Altogether, it really was an impressive parcel of land, with or without the buildings. Had Jerry shown it to him as part of the grand tour Todd might well have been tempted to invest. The fact that Jerry hadn't done so probably meant that it had not belonged to anyone of significance, though that seemed odd. This wasn't just any Hollywood show-place: it was the creme de la creme, a glorious confection of a residence designed to show off all the wealth, power and taste of a great star.

By the time he'd made his way back inside, Marco had turned up from Greenblatt's with a car-load of supplies. He welcomed his boss with his usual crooked smile and a generous glass of bourbon.

"So what do you think of the Old Dark House?"

"You know ... in a weird way I like it here."

"Really?" said Maxine. "It's nothing like your taste." She was plainly still mildly irritated by their earlier exchange, though for Todd it was past history, soothed away by his wanderings in the wilderness.

"I never really felt comfortable in Bel Air," he said. "That house has always been more like a hotel to me than a home."

"I wouldn't say this place was exactly cozy" Maxine remarked.

"Oh, I don't know," Todd said. He sipped on his bourbon, smiling into his glass. "Dempsey would have liked it," he said.