Part 32 (1/2)
”No. I ducked and he missed.” Mason laid a finger against the half-moon-shaped scab. ”I got this when a whitecap flipped me and I got clipped by the board.”
”So what happened next?”
”On my second day in the Valley, I knocked on the door of a little pink bungalow in Santa Clarita, and a very pretty blonde in shorts and a halter top greeted me with a smile. When I told her what I wanted, she didn't slam the door like the others. She invited me in and offered me iced tea.”
”What's her name?”
”Her real name is Frieda Gottschalk, but she started calling herself Shania Bauer six years ago when she moved to Hollywood from Duluth to try to make it in the movie business.”
”How'd that work out?”
”Not well. After a couple of years, she gave it up and started doing p.o.r.n under the names Peachy b.u.t.t and Sugar Sweet.”
”Does she have a peachy b.u.t.t?”
”If that means what I think it does, I'd have to say yes.”
”Is she sugar sweet?”
”I resisted the urge to taste.”
”So what did she tell you?”
”First I showed Frieda the records indicating she had contributed five thousand dollars to the governor's reelection campaign three years in a row.”
”I'd prefer that you refer to her as Peachy b.u.t.t.”
”Why?”
”Isn't it obvious?”
”Okay. Peachy b.u.t.t confirmed that the records were accurate. She also acknowledged contributing two thousand dollars each to our house and senate judiciary committee chairmen. When I asked her why she made the contributions, she said Sal Maniella told her to.”
”Did she tell you where she got the money?”
”She said Sal gave it to her.”
”Did she know this was illegal?”
”She didn't say. I forgot to ask her that.”
”Why do you suppose she told you all this?”
”She said Maniella trimmed his roster of actors a few months ago when he opened a new studio in Rhode Island. She's one of the ones who got dumped, and she's not pleased about it.”
”Did she lead you to some of the others?”
”To five of them, yes. She even called them and said they should talk to me. Those five led me to still more, and by the end of the week I had seventeen on-the-record interviews. I could have gotten more, but I figured that was enough.”
”They all told the same story?”
”Pretty much, yes.”
”I don't suppose you recorded the interviews.”
”I videotaped them with the Sony camcorder I brought along to doc.u.ment my vacation.”
”They didn't mind?”
”Not at all. They were quite accustomed to being on camera.”
”Great job, Thanks-Dad. You're really getting the hang of it. Don't forget what street reporting is all about when you land the big job in the corner office.”
”I won't.”
”After you write this up, let me look it over before you give it to Lomax, okay?”
”You can have it tomorrow. It's already written; I finished it on the plane.”
”Good.”
”Double byline, right?”
”h.e.l.l, no,” I said. ”Why share the credit when you did all the work?”
”There wouldn't have been a story if you hadn't pointed me in the right direction,” he said. ”I think your name should be on it.”
”You don't have to do that.”
”I want to.”
”Up to you,” I said. ”Lomax will want to hold the story for Sunday and strip it across page one. It's gonna make a h.e.l.l of a splash.”
But first, I owed a couple of people a heads-up.
46.
The maid answered the bell and ushered me into the library, where Sal Maniella was waiting for me. I found him seated on the couch, admiring the autograph on the t.i.tle page of Ian Fleming's Moonraker. Copies of Casino Royale, From Russia with Love, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service were fanned out on the coffee table.
”From the Swann Galleries auction?” I asked.
”Yes.”
I'd looked up the auction results online. The signed first edition of Moonraker had sold for more than fifty thousand dollars.
I sat beside him and placed both volumes of the Grant biography on the coffee table. ”Thanks for letting me borrow them,” I said.