Free Natural Causes by Jonathan Valin

the one who's been
spreading the gossip?" I said.
    "Who else? It's his specialty. That and
fist-fucking." She covered her mouth with her right hand. "Oops!
Did I say that?"
    "I'm afraid you did," Jack said dully.
    "It's this martini--it's too damn dry. Well, Mr.
Detective, Frank Glendora would believe that Jesus Christ Himself was
a whoremonger, if Jesus Christ happened to get on the wrong side of
the United American Corporation. He's a goddamn Sadducee, that's what
Frank is.
    "Helen," Jack said in warning.
    "Oh, shut up, Jack. You know it as well as I do.
Frank is a genteel, well-educated thug. Which is not to say that
Quentin didn't have his little faults."
    "Such as?"
    The woman looked at me crossly. "Have you been
listening to me or what? I'm not about to spread shit all over
Quentin's grave, no matter what Glendora says. I happened to have
liked the man."
    "Then it seems to me that you ought to tell me
what you know about him, because all I've heard so far has been
negative."
    "Oh, it has, has it?" Helen gave Jack a
bitter look. "Settling a few scores, are we, Jack, honey?"
    Moon ducked his head in embarrassment. "I just
told him the truth."
    "How could you tell, Jack? You're so bought and
sold yourself."
    Moon turned beet red. For a brief moment I thought he
was going to strike the woman. The moment passed and he sat back
silently on the couch.
    Helen Rose looked at him and frowned. "I
shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry. You're a saint, Jack. You know
how I get."
    "I know," he said.
    "I'm just a bitch, Harry. A worn-out bitch, and
you happened to catch me at the wrong time." Her eyes got a
little moist. "Forgive me, Jack?"
    "Consider it forgiven."
    She wiped at the tears, but they'd dried up on their
own. "Maybe I should tell you about Quentin, after all. It'll be
my good deed for the day."
    "I'm listening," I said.
    "I'll bet you are. Little pitchers have big
ears. And so do big pitchers."
    "I'm not spying for Frank, Helen," I said.
"I told you exactly what I wanted to know."
    She nodded. "If you spend enough time in this
business, you get a mite suspicious, Harry. Just a mite. That was one
of Quentin's virtues. He was among the few people that I've known in
this industry who was never deliberately cruel. He didn't always tell
the truth," she said with a small smile. "But he was always
gracious. Such manners! Such policy! He was Ronald Coleman, for
chrissake. A gentleman to his toes."
    Jack snorted with laughter and Helen threw a hand at
him. "What would you know--you're a man."
    "A few minutes ago you were calling him a liar,"
Jack said.
    "I was angry," she said and shrugged. "All
right, sure, he was a liar. But such wonderful lies! The places he'd
been, the people he'd known!"
    "Or pretended to have known," Jack said.
    "You're missing the point," the woman said.
"Of course he was a fake. In this business, that goes without
saying. You're just too damn idealistic, Jack. That's your whole
problem. You keep thinking you're going to turn a corner and find ...
I don't know, justice or something. That's not the way it works out
here. Under the tinsel is the real tinsel and under that are the
lies."
    "And dollars," Jack said.
    "Sure, and dollars. What are you in it for? The
laughs? Quentin was one of the most gracious men I've ever met. There
was an innocence about him."
    Jack snorted again.
    "All right, call it a corruption. What do I
care? But there was something there--something that didn't change."
    "I'd call it greed," Jack said.
    "Sure, that was part of it. But what was he
greedy for?"
    "For money. What else?"
    "You see," she said. "You don't know
what you're talking about."
    "All right, then, what was he greedy for?"
    "For the life he was pretending to lead."
    "Bullshit!" Moon said.
    "Of course it was bullshit!" Helen Rose
said. "It's all bullshit, Jack. I keep telling you that. You and
Quentin were more alike than you think. You see, I've accepted
it--that it's bullshit. All I've got is the show--no family, no