Read Online The Glitter Dome by Joseph Wambaugh - Free Book Online Page B

to hope that their embezzling might get discovered after seeing what Nigel St. Claire’s diplomacy had wrought.
    Nigel St. Claire publicly argued that his cousin deserved a second chance. After all, it was this cousin who had the guts to organize the first Hollywood dinner to demand the impeachment and imprisonment of that crook Richard Nixon.
    But now Nigel St. Claire was not even a name on the asphalt. In fact, when Al Mackey and Martin Welborn entered his former office suite, his former secretary was standing at the window peering down into the parking lot at a lethargic studio sign painter who was painting in a new name.
    She sighed and dabbed at a sparkling drop on her cheek when Al Mackey showed his badge and asked to talk with Herman St. Claire III, the new temporary president of the film division.
    â€œI think we told those other detectives just about everything we know,” she said, returning to her desk to blow her nose in a Kleenex.
    She was nubile, with an ass like a melon and eyes like an ocelot. Al Mackey was enchanted. “We’ve had the case turned over to us,” Al Mackey said. “Sorry, but we have to talk to everyone a second time.”
    â€œIt’s such a sad, sad thing,” the secretary said. “I just haven’t got any sleep for days and days. We all loved old Mister St. Claire.” Then she added quickly, “Not that we don’t love the new Mister St. Claire as much as the old one. It’s just so … unbearable to see his name painted right off the parking lot. That’s when you realize he might just as well never have lived. Know what I mean?”
    â€œIt’s tragic, all right,” Al Mackey said, noting that her name was Tiffany Charles and that her phone number was on Schultz and Simon’s reports.
    â€œWell, that’s life, I guess,” said Tiffany Charles, as Martin Welborn looked around the rather plain office at the pictures of other St. Claires of the past and present who were big and little studio bosses.
    Tiffany Charles took a pillbox covered with gemstones from her desk drawer, popped two Libriums, gulped them down with Diet-Rite, and said, “The only thing sadder I can think of would be if they broke your star right out of the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard.”
    The thought of it made her shudder, until she pictured two big sweating construction workers sexily banging away with jackhammers, and she recovered a bit. Then she noticed how Martin Welborn’s long, sad eyes got sensual when he looked right at you. He wasn’t very old, about the same as Tiffany Charles’ dad, which was a turn-on in itself. And he was a pretty big guy with a good body. She wondered what his ass looked like. Tiffany Charles was a sucker for young-looking older guys like this, or else for big sweaty animals that socked it to you and no bullshitting around. Which reminded her: “What happened to those other two detectives? You know, those big, big ones? They didn’t get shot or something, did they?”
    â€œDetectives only get shot in movies,” Martin Welborn said, and his boyish smile made Tiffany Charles almost forget about big sweaty animals.
    â€œWho did your teeth?” she asked. “They’re beautiful.”
    â€œGod,” Martin Welborn said.
    â€œYou mean they’re not capped?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œWow!” said Tiffany Charles, breaking Al Mackey’s heart.
    â€œBack to the deceased Mister St. Claire,” Al Mackey said, all business now.
    â€œOh well,” Tiffany Charles said philosophically, “we can’t dwell on the past, can we? Mister St. Claire wouldn’t have wanted it. He always said you’re only as hot as your last gig.”
    Which was about the last mention of Nigel St. Claire ever heard in those offices.
    When they were admitted to the inner office of Nigel St. Claire’s successor, Herman St. Claire III, a twenty-five-year-old UCLA film