Summit Studios looked sort of like one of those permanent fairgrounds with a large number of small nondescript buildings scattered about inside a fence. None of the buildings were very new and most of them needed a paint touch-up.
We went up the stairs at one end of the balcony and walked halfway down the length of the building to a door with a plaque that said ROGER HAMMOND in simulated-oak Formica. We went in. A rather elderly secretary told us to sit on the couch, Mr. Hammond was on the phone long-distance.
I looked at Candy. “Long-distance,” I said soundlessly. She nodded and smiled. “I’ve never met anyone, when I came to interview them, who was on the phone making a local call,” she said softly.
The secretary went back to work. Some phones rang. She answered them. After about ten minutes Roger Hammond appeared at the office door to the left of the secretary and said, “Candy Sloan. I love you on the news.”
We stood up.
“Come on inside,” Hammond said. “I’m sorry as hell to make you wait. But I was talking long-distance.” I smiled. Candy introduced us. Hammond shook my hand firmly and about half a second longer than he should have. He was a slim, sandy-haired, Irish-looking guy, with a fine lacework of broken veins on his cheeks that looked like a healthy color if you weren’t observant. He had a widow’s peak with the hair receding substantially on either side of the peak, and the hair was cut short without sideburns. He was dressed Designer Western with boots, dark blue jeans, and a plaid shirt, half unbuttoned. His belt was a wide one of hand-tooled leather with silver mountings. It matched his boots.
“You in TV, Spenser?” he said.
“No.”
“Oh?”
“Spenser’s helping me on a special assignment, Mr. Hammond. We’re looking into the charges of labor racketeering in the film industry.”
“I’d heard you were doing a series on that, Candy. Or at least that it was on the boards. Have you got anything yet?”
“I got beaten up several days ago.”
“My God, you didn’t. Hell, you did, didn’t you. I can see the marks, now that you mention it and I’m really looking. God, Candy, that’s terrible.”
“I’ll recover.”
“And Spenser,” Hammond said. “That’s where you come in, isn’t it? You are her bodyguard.”
I shrugged.
“Sure you are. You’ve got the build for it. You look like a guy can handle himself. You stay close to this big guy, Candy.”
Candy smiled and nodded. “What can you tell me about labor racketeering in the industry, Mr. Hammond?”
“Roger,” he said. “Call me Roger.”
Candy smiled again and nodded. “What can you tell me?”
Hammond shrugged widely, bringing his hands, palms up, to shoulder level, elbows in. “I wish I could, Candy, but I can’t. I don’t know a damn thing. I’ve never encountered any. I’ve heard rumors, you know, in the industry, but nothing firsthand.”
“I’ve got an eyewitness that said a producer on one of your movies handed an envelope of cash to a thug on the set.”
Roger looked at Candy Sloan for a moment. Then he pressed his hands together beneath his chin and touched the underside of his chin with his fingertips. He rocked back in his high-backed executive swivelchair and gazed at the ceiling. Then he let the chair come forward until his elbows rested on the desk. He dropped his eyes level again at Candy, and with his fingertips still touching his chin, he said, “Candy, that’s bullshit.”
Then he pointed the still-pressed fingertips at her for emphasis.
Candy shook her head. “No, Roger. It’s not bullshit. I have the eyewitness. The producer was Sam Felton. The movie was Savage Cycles. Are you telling me you know nothing of this?”
Roger was shaking his head. “Candy, Candy, Candy,” he said. “This is bad.” He was shaking his head and moving his hands in time with the shake. “This is no good, Candy. This is lousy yellow journalism. Are your ratings that bad?”
“Roger, I’ve got the eyewitness. Now, I certainly wanted to give you a chance to comment before we go on the air with this.”
“Candy, you haven’t got anything,” Roger said. “You got a new director who’s third in the market and he’s scared for his job, that’s what you got. Nobody in my organization is paying anybody anything. That’s my statement. You have an eyewitness, bring him out. Who is it?”
Candy shook her head.
Roger nodded. “Yeah. I thought that’s the way it would be, Candy. You have an eyewitness, but he has no name. You and Joe McCarthy.” He unpressed his hands and made a repelling gesture, as if to brush away a swarm of gnats.
Candy smiled brightly at him and was silent. He was silent. I was silent. Roger stared at Candy and then glanced at me and then stared at Candy some more. He pressed the hands back together again and rested his chin on them, the fingertips against his mouth. Candy’s legs were crossed and her knees were very handsome. So was the line of her thigh beneath the white skirt. Sexism.
“If you have a witness, Candy,” Roger said, “I’d like to confront him, or her. If you have real evidence of wrongdoing in my organization, you owe it to me to level with me.”
