Trunk Music

expenses.”
    Without looking up from the notebook, Bosch said, “Just a few more and we’ll leave you alone for now. Did your husband have any enemies that you know of? Anybody who would want to harm him?”
    “He worked in Hollywood. Back stabbing is considered an art form there. Anthony was as skilled at it as anyone else who has been in the industry twenty-five years. Obviously that means there could always be people who were unhappy with him. But who would do this, I don’t know.”
    “The car…the Rolls-Royce is leased to a production company over at Archway Studios. How long had he worked there?”
    “His office was there, but he didn’t work for Archway per se. TNA Productions is his…was his own company. He simply rented an office and a parking spot on the Archway lot. But he had about as much to do with Archway as you do.”
    “Tell us about his production company,” Rider said. “Did he make films?”
    “In a manner of speaking. You could say he started big and ended small. About twenty years ago he produced his first film. The Art of the Cape. If you saw it, you were one of the few. Bullfight movies are not popular. But it was critically acclaimed, played the film festival circuit and then the art houses and it was a good start for him.”
    She said that Aliso had managed to make a couple more films for general release. But after that his production and moral values steadily declined, until he was producing a procession of exploitative dreck.
    “These films, if you want to call them that, are notable only for the number of exposed breasts in them,” she said. “In the business, it’s called straight-to-video stock. In addition to that Tony was quite successful in literary arbitrage.”
    “What is that?”
    “He was a speculator. Mostly scripts, but he did manuscripts, books on occasion.”
    “And how would he speculate on them?”
    “He’d buy them. Wrap up the rights. Then when they became valuable or the author became hot, he’d go to market with them. Do you know who Michael St. John is?”
    The name sounded familiar but Bosch could not place it. He shook his head. Rider did the same.
    “He’s one of the screenwriters of the moment. He’ll be directing studio features within a year or so. He’s the flavor-of-the-month, so to speak.”
    “Okay.”
    “Well, eight years ago when he was in the USC film school and was hungry and was trying to find an agent and trying to catch the attention of the studios, my husband was one of the vultures who circled overhead. You see, my husband’s films were so low-budget that he’d get students to shoot them, direct them, write them. So he knew the schools and he knew talent. Michael St. John was one he knew had talent. Once when he was desperate, he sold Anthony the rights to three of his student screenplays for two thousand dollars. Now, anything with St. John’s name on it goes for at least six figures.”
    “What about these writers, how do they take this?”
    “Not well. St. John was trying to buy his scripts back.”
    “You think he could have harmed your husband?”
    “No. You asked me what he did and I told you. If you are asking who would kill him, I don’t know.”
    Bosch jotted a couple of notes down.
    “You mentioned that he said that he saw investors when he went to Las Vegas,” Rider said.
    “Yes.”
    “Can you tell us who they were?”
    “Schmucks from Iowa, I would assume. People he would meet and persuade to invest in a movie. You’d be surprised how many people jump at a chance to be part of a Hollywood movie. And Tony was a good salesman. He could make a two-million budget flick sound like the sequel to Gone With the Wind. He convinced me.”
    “How so?”
    “He talked me into being in one of his movies once. That’s how I met him. Made it sound like I was going to be the new Jane Fonda. You know, sexy but smart. It was a studio picture. Only the director was a coke addict and the writer couldn’t write and the movie was so bad it was never released. That was it for my career and Tony never made a studio picture again. He spent the rest of his life making video garbage.”
    Looking around the tall-ceilinged room at the paintings and furniture, Bosch said, “Doesn’t look like he did too badly at it.”
    “No, he didn’t,” she responded. “I guess we have those people from Iowa to thank for that.”
    Her bitterness was stifling. Bosch looked down at his notebook just so he could avert his eyes from