Rage

“Until the lab report,” I said.

“The lab report came later. What blew everything up was I caught her doing Daney. In my house, my bed, my robe and slippers on the chair.” He laughed. “Total cliche. I had a meeting over at Fox TV on a script. The moron in charge cut it short because she heard my demographic wasn’t right. Meaning my projects were aimed at I.Q.s higher than that of a rutabaga. I was expecting a longer meeting, brought along the writer, poor schmuck. So I’m out of there in ten minutes, in a not-so-good mood, decided to go home, take a swim and a shvitz in the brand-new sauna I put in. When I get home, I hear moaning and groaning from upstairs and go into the master suite- which I just paid a fortune to remodel, let me tell you, our place in Brentwood was state of the art. The door’s wide open and Sydney and that pissant are doing the two-headed goat.”

His voice had risen loud enough for passersby to notice. Smoothing his apron, he cracked his knuckles. “I yell, Sydney opens her eyes. Then she closes them and keeps going. I rush over and I’m hitting Daney on the back and neck and he wants to get off her but she’s got a leg-lock on him. I’m pounding him on the back, his head, anywhere I can land a punch and he’s struggling to get free but Sydney still won’t let him. Finally she finishes and shoves him off and the bastard grabs his clothes and runs out of there like his nuts are on fire.”

He laughed until his eyes got wet. “I can laugh at it now. Even feel sorry for the idiot.”

I smiled.

“Mr. Subdued Reaction,” he said. “Remind me not to put you in the audience. Anyway, that’s the story.”

“Any idea how long they’d been carrying on?”

“No, because we never talked about it. Sydney locked herself in the bathroom, took a shower, when she came out I was ready to fight. She breezes past, gets in her car and leaves. She stayed out all night, luckily the boys were away at school. I sat there like a lox, waiting for her, finally got myself a room at the Hotel Bel-Air. A few days later, pus started coming out of my dick. But I got her good. Guess how?”

“Something financial.”

“The pre-nup. Which her old man put in for her sake. The deal was she got to keep all the assets she came into the marriage with. Only problem for Sydney was the old man made some real bad investments and emptied her trust fund. Her sole assets were zippo leaving only our joint assets. Which wasn’t as much as either of us thought because we were living way beyond our means. For me it was no big deal, my dad worked for a living- the nut business. I used to put it down for not being glamorous, till I learned about the industry.”

“Sydney had trouble coping,” I said.

“Sydney was a spoiled bitch who became a lawyer for status and fulfillment. After we split, she tried to get herself a private practice job but it didn’t work out. Meanwhile, the divorce lawyers are looting whatever’s left. Her mother finally died and left her enough to get herself a place in the Palisades along with a small monthly allowance. The zip code’s right but it’s a dump and she doesn’t maintain it. She was always hyper, now I hear she’s downright manic.”

He looked to me for confirmation. I said, “What happened to her private practice job?”

“Ah, that,” said Boestling, smiling. “Unfortunately, her boss received a copy of that pesky lab report. So did every other serious criminal defense firm in town. Now, who’d do something so vengeful?” He yawned.

“And you told Daney’s seminary about him.”

“I figured I was doing the Lord’s work. Thanks for the memories, Doc. Time to get back to real life.”

“You said Daney should have thanked you.”

“Damn straight he should’ve. I got Sydney and him meetings with some serious people.”

“To make a film?”

“No, to make Polish sausage, yeah a film. A feature, not TV. Sydney made a big point of that, her attitude was always I was TV so I was low on the food chain. Her project was going to be stars and a substantial shooting budget. The two of them thought they had the greatest story ever told. But who did they come to when they wanted references?”

“Was the story the Kristal Malley murder?” I said.

“Yup,” said Boestling. “Two kids kill another kid and go to jail. Not exactly Titanic.”

“Whose idea was it?”

“Can’t say for sure, but my bet is Daney was your typical delusional jerk and he infected Sydney.” He snickered. “Along with other things.”

“You know for a fact that he gave her the clap?”

“Or it was one of the other five thousand dicks she rode. He’s the one I saw, so I’m putting a face on it- so to speak.” He shrugged. “For all I know it was the other kid’s lawyer, some Latino guy.”

“Lauritz Montez,” I said. “She slept with him, too?”

“For sure.”

“How do you- ”

“When Sydney first started on the case, she did nothing but bad-mouth Montez. Stupid, no experience, an albatross who was going to drag her down. Then, a couple weeks in, she started taking late meetings with him. Lots of late meetings. Working on a joint defense. I bought it until I caught her with that scumbag Daney and finally stopped being the densest moron in the galaxy. The only joint defense going on was when Montez tucked his dick back in his pants.”

I said nothing.

Boestling said, “Just another waltz down memory lane. Now if you- ”

“Did Sydney say anything about the Malley case that you thought was unusual?”

“This is about that? After all these years?” he said. “What’s Daney suspected of?”

“Can’t get into details. Sorry.”

“One-way conversation.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, all Sydney told me was that her client was a murderous little monster and there was no way she was going to get him off. Seen her recently?”

“I tried to talk to her a few days ago. She got very upset- ”

“And went nuts on you and started screaming, right?”

“Right.”

“Good old Sydney,” he said. “Freaking out was always her technique. In court she was real controlled, but outside, anyone tried to disagree with her she’d just blast out with this wall of Indy 500 noise. At me, the boys, her parents.” He shook his head. “Amazing what I put up with. My second wife was a different story. Mellow, couldn’t be sweeter. Dead in the sack, though. Eventually, I’ll find the right combination.”

He got up and headed back toward his store. I walked with him, pressed for more details about the movie.

“Never saw a script. Never got involved directly. Don’t forget, I was just a TV guy.”

“You were good enough to set up meetings,” I said.

“Exactly.” He scratched his chin. “I did all kinds of stupid things back then. Had a little substance-abuse problem that clouded my judgment. I’m talking to you in the first place because my sponsor says I need to be honest with the world.”

Same thing Nina Balquist had said. How much of what passed for honesty nowadays was atonement?

I said, “I appreciate that.”

“I’m doing it for myself,” said Boestling. “Should’ve been a lot more selfish when it counted.”

***

I drove to Beverly Hills and caught Lauritz Montez exiting the court building on Burton and Civic Center. The