Free Copp On Fire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp, Private Eye Series) by Don Pendleton

you?"
    I didn't tell him I was not working for Melissa. I said, "Give me a verbal script, set up the characters for me."
    He smiled. "A story treatment."
    I nodded. "Whatever you call it."
    He stared out the window, got up to stand with an arm on the fireplace mantel, worked at his pipe. "Begins with a boy genius, a prodigy who was playing Brahms at the piano before most kids get free of the playpen. Very gifted, and not just in music. He masters music, in fact, to his own satisfaction at least, and has gone on to other interests by the time he's twelve. Shy, reclusive boy—not big on relationships or peer groups or any of that. Then he discovers sex and begins a five-year affair with one of his tutors. He—"
    "Male or female tutor?"
    "Female. Linguist." He puffed his pipe. "She teaches him all the tongues."
    "Five years starting when?"
    "Starting at the age of twelve. He's already mastered the usual studies that take a normal kid through high school. Now he's concentrating on economics, languages and sex. He—"
    "Who is this kid turning into?"
    "Sorry, thought you knew. He's turning into Bernie Wiseman."
    "Okay. Please go on."
    "He gets a Harvard A.B., economics major, gets bored with the B-school, goes into Wall Street at the age of nineteen. At twenty-five he's CEO of one of the big investment firms and bored again. Now he's playing too hard and gambling too much. There's a small scandal involving an insider trading deal. He's into therapy now and is often seen in the company of...cheap-looking women."
    "How old now?"
    "Still twenty-five. Moves west and is married at twenty-six, divorced and remarried at twenty-eight, again at thirty. The third marriage lasts five years. Meanwhile he's become interested in movies, works briefly in the distribution and marketing end, jumps into production and finance with a small firm that's doing sexploitation pics ."
    "Porno."
    "No. There's a difference. The Russ Meyer sort of thing but without Russ' special touch. These are just . . . you know, drive-in movie stuff. They'd get a PG rating today, and even the thirteen-year-olds would turn up their noses at them. These were grinders. Five days on a sound stage, a day in the cutting room and into the drive-ins next week. He made piles of money, needless to say. But it wrecked his marriage."
    "Problems with the casting couch."
    "Probably. The problem was always there. Now it was being fed by an inexhaustible supply. The stories are, as they say, legend."
    "What stories?"
    "In the business, I mean.   There was no gossip-column interest in Bernie back then."
    "What stories?"
    "Oh ... that he had a different girl for lunch every day in the office ... a girl comforting him from beneath the desk while he's conducting business . . . similar attention in his car on the freeway, hand jobs beneath the table in fancy restaurants. Those kind of stories."
           "The American Dream, eh?"
           "I think it was more like a nightmare. I've known the man for ten years, worked with him on six pictures, and that is not the Bernie Wiseman I've known."
           "Tell me about that one."
           "Kind, generous, compassionate. Those stories have become legend too, by the way. Gifts to repay a kindness, never forgets a favor, never turns on or forgets a friend."
           "How about wives?"
    "Well, he's just had one since I've known him. Lord knows he tried to get along with Justine. But she can be something of a wildcat."
           "How heavy was he into alimony?"
           "Pretty heavy, I gather. Joked about it sometimes. Like Carson, just smiled and went on. He's been paying Justine a very generous allowance for the past two years."
           I said, "She's still not mourning."
           "Well . . . perhaps not—"
           "Definitely not."
           He restoked his pipe. "Sad. They were very cozy once. I think it came apart for good in Mexico. Did she tell you? He blamed her for the accident with the