HE STILL HAS TO PAY

"Mr Wilder?"

"Call me Billy."

The Austrian writer/director stepped into the Spanish-style Bel-Air mansion, noticing that all the triple pinch pleated curtains were drawn even though it was yet another perfectly bright and sunny side up Los Angeles morning outside.

"I didn't know who else to call," said the young prostitute casually who had her hair all tied up in a turban bath towel as if one of Hollywood's greatest directors hadn't just died in her arms.

"You might have called an ambulance."

"He told me not to. Said it was just indigestion. Said I should call you instead. Said you'd know what to do."

Shaking his head, Mr Wilder sighed. He felt guilty like one of the protagonists in one of his own movies.

"Thanks, boss. Always leaving it up to the writers to fix the ending." The young woman seemed confused by Mr Wilder's mumbling under his breath with his thick Austrian accent.

Lighting up a cigarette, Mr Wilder did all he could to give the impression of being calm to the young woman but inside he was anxious. He knew he wasn't at all prepared for this moment, even though he'd lost almost his entire family in the war six thousand miles away in Europe just a few years earlier. That was still abstract to him somehow as if it was a bad dream he'd yet to wake up from. If only Hitler had been just as abstract, maybe they'd still be alive he thought to himself.

"Might be a good idea to open some windows. Smells of sex and death in here."

The young woman nodded and pulled back some of the drapes on their noisy runners, wondering quite how he knew what death smelt like.

"Where is he?"

"Bathroom."

Walking up the winding staircase to his mentor's bedroom, Mr Wilder couldn't help but think of his present reality as like that of a movie scene from one of his own pictures. He could almost imagine someone playing his part (Ray Milland or Fred MacMurray perhaps?) under his detailed direction.

Walking through the master bedroom into the en suite bathroom, he found Ernst Lubitsch slumped on the floor, his plump, naked body like that of an aged baby covered lazily with a bathrobe.

The water from the shower was still running and Mr Wilder could only assume that the prostitute had just cleaned herself while Lubitsch had remained, a beached whale, on the tiled floor of his bathroom.

"I tried to move him, but he was too heavy," she said, standing just behind the young director.

"You could have turned the water off after you took a shower."

Looking a little ashamed, the young woman deflected with a shrug.

"I got creeped out with him just lying there. It's been quite a shock for me too, you know? I didn't know he was a director."

"Why would you? He just wanted sex with you. Not an interview."

Feeling bad that he was being so hard on the young woman, he immediately apologised to her.

"Look I'm sorry. He meant a lot to me."

"I understand, mister. You want a drink or something?"

"Yeah, why not. Make it a double. Whatever's at hand."

Looking down at his hero, the man who advanced his career beyond his wildest imagination, Mr Wilder was disturbed to find a few tears express from his eyes.

"I guess this is the opposite of those Hollywood endings we were always looking to perfect."

The finality of Lubitsch's death in this unglamorous, unforgiving way felt so undignified to Wilder and yet, so true to form. He knew that Ernst could be as dirty minded and as earthy in his humour as anyone in this town of sin.

"Well, at least the cameras weren't rolling, eh?"

Leaving the bathroom for a moment, Mr Wilder ventured onto the bedroom balcony overlooking the sapphire blue pool below. His mind was racing and along with the more practical things he knew he had to now take care of, he couldn't help but think of a plot emerging somewhere in the back of his mind.

"Poor dope. He always wanted a pool."

"What was that?"

The young prostitute returned holding two tumblers filled to the brink with bourbon and over sized ice cubes bobbing precariously on the top of the reddish brown surface.

"Here's to your friend."

"Here's to him."

The two of them clinked glasses as Mr Wilder felt the sting of the bourbon hit the back of his throat.

"When you've finished your drink, I'll call an ambulance."

"Would you mind if I get out of here, mister. My head is scrambled."

Mr Wilder nodded in sympathy.

"I'll get a name and number off you in case you're needed for questioning."

The young woman looked alarmed.

"Listen, mister. I fucked him. I didn't kill him."

"It's possible you did both."

"I wouldn't have called you if I'd killed him. Do you think I'm acting like a guilty person?"

"No. You're acting like a hooker."

She extended an accusing finger at Mr Wilder as she looked genuinely hurt by his barbed comment.

"You've had your heart broken somewhere along the way."

"In several places."

Finishing up her drink, the young lady went and grabbed her handbag. Handing Mr Wilder her details, she waited for him to reply.

"What? You want a tip or something?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind some money."

"He's dead, lady. He's the one who probably wants a refund from the afterlife."

"Look, just cos he's got a dodgy clock doesn't mean I didn't do my job. He still has to pay."

"He still has to pay ..." The words hung in the air like great music does in a cathedral.

Smiling, Mr Wilder thought how much Lubitsch himself would have loved that line.

Unbegrudging, he took a hundred dollars out of his wallet and paid the girl.

"Don't spend it all at once. Maybe put it towards finding a good lawyer for next time before you screw another one of your customers to death."

She left unamused, but not before making the sign of the cross before the dead corpse in the bathroom.

"I can't help guys who don't look after themselves."

All alone now with his mentor and boss, Mr Wilder lit another cigarette and stared at the lifeless body one more time. "You owe me one hundred."

Lifting up the bedroom telephone receiver and cradling it between his ear and neck, he took one final sip of bourbon before calling for an ambulance.

"I still have to get paid, too," he said wistfully to himself.