The obliging archives of the Palm Beach Post reveal that the Sea Urchins, the chief beneficiary of Jimmy’s estate, is an old and well-regarded charity that sponsors children’s marine camps in Key Largo, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. The kids are of elementary-school age, and come from impoverished neighborhoods throughout the United States and Canada. The seven stories on file contain no hint of scandals or misdeeds connected to the program. A recent feature piece about prominent Sea Urchins boosters includes a quote from a “James B. Stomartie” that I assume to be Jimmy, surname misspelled. “Every kid, no matter how poor, deserves a chance to dive into an ocean at least once in his life,” he said.
Janet’s brother wasn’t a complicated man, and his bequest was born of uncomplicated motives. He probably figured that a glimpse of the undersea world would do for those kids what it did for him. Cleo might be fuming about the terms of her husband’s will but she’d be an idiot to challenge it now. The headlines alone would annihilate her career (Pop Star Widow Sues to Claim Kiddie Charity’s Loot). As
Janet said, if Cleo wanted Jimmy’s money, she’d have been better off divorcing him than killing him. If she did murder him, it surely was over something else.
I hope to learn much more when, at noon sharp the day after tomorrow, the phone should ring in a booth at the end of the Silver Beach fishing pier. Maybe it’ll be Cleo calling, maybe somebody in her posse.
Or maybe the phone won’t ring at all, and then I’m stuck again. Maybe she never found the “Cindy’s Oyster” disc with the phone number. What if she’s allergic to coleslaw, and tossed the bag in the garbage?
“Jack.”
It’s Emma, sneaking up on me like in the old days. Only now, instead of acting officious, she seems rattled and hesitant.
“Do you have a credit card?” she says. “Because I haven’t figured out how to get the paper to pay for this yet. But I will, don’t worry. I’m waiting to corner Abkazion between the five- and six o’clock news meetings.”
“Pay for what? “I ask.
“A plane ticket to Los Angeles. Here, look.” She hands me a printout of a short piece from the Associated Press. Before I can begin to read it, Emma blurts: “Tito Negraponte was shot last night.”
“No shit,” I hear myself saying. “You were right… ”
“He’s not dead. They’ve got him listed as serious at Cedars-Sinai. You want to take a crack at an interview?”
I’m dumbstruck. “You mean it? You want me to get on an airplane and go chasing a story, just like a real reporter?”
Emma reaches out lightly to touch my arm, as if she’s brushing away a fleck of lint. “You’ve got to promise you’ll be careful.”
Already I’m groping in my desk for extra notebooks and pens. “Emma, you were right. You were absolutely right!”
“Sure looks that way.”
“Somebody’s killing off the Slut Puppies!” Then I clutch her pale startled face and smooch her lustily on the forehead, right there in the newsroom in front of God, the assistant city editors, everybody.
23
By the time I got to L.A. it was ten-thirty at night. Most hospitals are penetrable at any hour, so I was surprised to be turned away by the late-shift lobby crew at Cedars-Sinai. My next stop was the emergency room, but heart-wrenching lies failed to thaw the glacial resolve of a senior trauma nurse who had thrust herself, as demurely as Mario Lemieux, in my path.
At first I figured the problem was me, rusty at double-talk after so long on the sedentary obit beat. Then I remembered this was the Spago of hospitals; every major star of the entertainment industry winds up at Cedars one way or another. Madonna and Mrs. Michael Jackson came here to deliver their babies; Liz Taylor, for brain surgery. This is where they brought Spielberg after his limousine crash, and where Francis Albert Sinatra was pronounced dead of a heart attack at age eighty-two. The place is constantly under siege by tabloid vultures whose subterfuges are elaborate and advanced by fistfuls of cash. No wonder security is tight.