Bullet for a Star

12

The cabbie dropped me off in front of the Y, but I decided not to stay there. My brother might check cabs leaving the studio and give my description. That might lead to the Y.M.C.A. Phil would figure me to be smarter than that, but he’d check it out anyway.

I walked a few blocks, got another cab and went three blocks past a cheap hotel I knew on San Pedro. I had once spent the night at the place talking a runaway grandmother into going home to her son and daughter-in-law. The old lady had been living happily in the hotel when I found her. Her son was the owner of a pretty big Van Nuys toy store, and he paid cash up front. I remembered the hotel had asked her no questions and had been surprisingly clean.

I registered as Murray Sklar. When amateurs register anonymously, they usually keep some part of their real name, maybe the same initials, or their middle name. I moved as far as I could from mine. I had no luggage, but I paid cash, and the woman at the desk appreciated being compared to Joan Crawford. Most of the women in Los Angeles thought they looked like Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Joan Blondell or Olivia DeHavilland. The Joan Crawford behind the desk looked more like Marjorie Main in Dead End.

The room was clean and neat, but small. I didn’t care. I only expected to stay for a few hours. There was a phone in the hall. I called Sid Adelman.

“What the hell are you doing? Just what the hell are you doing?” he huffed. “I’ll tell you what you’re doing. You’re killing off the goddamn employees of this studio one by one.”

“I didn’t kill them, Sid, and besides, you really won’t miss any of them.”

“That’s not the point,” he cried. “The publicity is going to be terrible, terrible if anyone finds out. We may be able to keep it out of the papers, but I don’t know.” Long pause. “Was Beaumont the second blackmailer?”

“I think so,” I said. An old man in a bathrobe passed by me in the hall. I nodded and spoke more softly. “I had my hands on the negative for a few seconds again.”

“And you lost it, huh putz?” I could imagine Sid Adelman shaking his little head.

A relatively old lady of the evening walked past me down the hall. She didn’t look as good as Marjorie Main in Dead End. I gave her a polite smile and shrugged at the phone indicating I was too busy.

“What did the cops want?” I asked Adelman.

“Bette Davis’s autograph,” he said sarcastically. “They wanted you. They want you. Some lieutenant named Pevsner will probably kill you if he gets his hands on you.”

“So they know about me fighting with Beaumont?”

“And,” he dripped, “ruining several hundred feet of film and destroying one short comedy by killing the villain.”

“Sidney, I didn’t kill him.”

“The cops think it was you. I’m supposed to tell you to call Lieutenant Pevsner if you call me. Call Lieutenant Pevsner. There, I told you.”

I asked him if he had sent someone to guard Flynn at the hotel. The killer was obviously someone who could get onto the lot without trouble. If he could get on the lot, he might have no trouble finding Flynn in the hotel. Flynn was not doing a good job of keeping his hiding place secret.

“I’m not a jerk, Peters,” he said wearily. “Two of our best security men have been with him since we talked. Whannel and Ellis. You know them?”

“Good men,” I said.

“And tonight,” he went on, “Hatch and Kindem take over at midnight when they’ve finished their shift. You know them?”

“Hatch is a good man. I don’t know the other guy. Sounds fine, Sid.”

He thanked me nastily for my approval and told me to call when I had a killer in hand. Flynn was still holding up production on Santa Fe Trail. He had a big scene scheduled for the next day with Raymond Massey. I said I’d do my best. He hung up.

I went down to the desk and asked Marjorie Main if I could get my suit cleaned and pressed and my shoes taken care of. I gave her all my gleaming teeth, and she blushed.

Fifteen minutes later an elderly kid came to my room and took my clothes and shoes. It would cost me fifteen bucks, he said. I told him it was fine and lay in bed listening to the radio.

On KFI, Jimmy Fiddler told me that Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier were just married and Humphrey Bogart’s career was skyrocketing.

H.V. Kaltenborn said there was good news: that we were almost certain to stay out of the European war, and that prosperity had returned. For about twenty minutes I listened to Sammy Kaye and his orchestra playing from the Make Believe Ballroom. Then there was a knock on the door. It was the elderly kid. He had my clothes. I gave him the fifteen bucks, and he waited for a tip. I knew he was keeping at least five anyway, but I was in no position to upset him. I flipped him two halves. What the hell. I was going to charge it to Errol Flynn for expenses, and he could afford it.

My suit was reasonably clean, and my shoes looked fine. I got dressed and went to the hall to call Flynn. He answered.

“Toby, there have been three more attempts on my life,” he said.

Tension ran through me.

“What happened?”

“Three women caught me in the hall and tried to tear me apart in ecstasy,” he said with a sigh.

“Very funny, Errol. Are the guards there from the studio?”

“Yes,” he said, “but I don’t like it. Bruce and Guinn went home and the two gentlemen are with me now. Toby, I don’t like being treated as if I were some delicacy. Tomorrow morning I am going back to work.”

“But …” I began.

“Jack Warner does not think me a particularly good actor,” he said soberly. “In some respects I agree with him though I am improving, and a few people like Raoul Walsh keep telling me I’m good. In any case, I’ve at least been reliable.”

“Harry Beaumont was murdered this afternoon,” I tried. “It was probably by the same guy who killed Cunningham and tried to kill you.”

“Yes,” he said, “I’m well aware of all that, but tomorrow morning I will leave here, go to the studio, put on my cavalry uniform and join Ronald Reagan in confronting Raymond Massey in the guise of John Brown. Right now I am going to have a small drink with Mr. Whannel and Ellis from the studio and excuse myself to entertain a lady. Take care, Toby,” he said sincerely and hung up.

He was certainly likeable even if he wasn’t the most reasonable person I had ever met.

It was 7:30. I decided to visit Brenda Beaumont an hour or so earlier than she had invited me. It might be much safer that way. There was nothing for me to pack. I left the key at the desk with the woman and said I didn’t know what time I would be back. She said goodby, Mr. Sklar.

A few minutes later I was in a Black and White cab on the way to Beverly Hills. Black and White cabs were “confined to Negro districts” according to the Chamber of Commerce. But the Negro drivers sometimes took a chance. I gave the driver an address a block away from the Beaumont house. I didn’t know if there was such an address. The driver was quiet, and that was the way I liked it.

He stopped at a big house in Beverly Hills about fifteen minutes later. The address was wrong, but I said it was the right house. I overtipped him and crossed the road walking in the twilight toward the Beaumont house. If it was being watched or guarded, I wanted to know.

For ten minutes, I stood quietly under a tree. It looked all right. There were a few lights on downstairs and one or two upstairs.

I went all the way around the big street to the back of the house and found the gate where Brenda Beaumont had tried to get me out during my other visit. The pool house was a fifteen foot run from the gate. I hoped the door was open. There was a light on near the pool, but no one was swimming. The lock on the gate was good, but old. I backed away and gave it a kick. From the front of the house I could hear Jamie and Ralph barking. Their barks got close faster. Dogs from nearby homes joined in the noise. I pushed the gate open.

I ran for the pool house and was a foot from the door just as the two pincers came around the edge of the pool house. I caught only a glimpse of them as I hit the door and went in. I kicked the door closed with my foot and almost caught one of the dogs in the snout. By the outside light I went to the front door. I took a deep breath, opened it a crack and went to the rear door, where the dogs were barking and clawing. I put a chair lightly against the door and ran for the front door. The dogs leaped in pushing the chair away as they sprang. They couldn’t have been more than three feet behind me when I went through the front door and closed it.

Without stopping, I ran around the pool house toward the back door. I didn’t know how smart Dobermans were, but I hoped I was a step or two smarter. When I got to the back door, they had just figured the whole thing out and were dashing back toward me. I slammed the back door and leaned against the wall trembling.

I had them trapped in the pool house, and they were none too happy about it.

Moving to the pool, I stood and looked at the house for a few minutes. Nothing moved. Maybe Jamie and Ralph were frequent noisemakers. Since they were still barking, the people in the house probably thought they were all right, and things were in hand. At least, that’s what I was hoping for.

As it turned out, I was wrong. I was greeted at the back door leading from the living room to the garden by Brenda Beaumont. She was wearing black, a black suit and a small, black gun. She fit the room perfectly as she turned on the lights. She looked beautiful.

“Mr. Peters, you’re early.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” I said. “But I can come back later if it’s a bad time. I don’t want to disturb you and Lynn and the maid.”

“Lynn is staying overnight at a friend’s, and Juanita has the night off. We are quite alone,” she said grimly.

“Very romantic.”

“You are not charming,” she said leveling the gun at me. “Now you will give me the picture you have of Lynn.”

I took my wallet out carefully and handed her the picture of the girl.

“All this isn’t necessary,” I said. “In the first place, someone has the negative and can turn out hundreds of pictures.”

“I know who has the negative,” she said, “and it won’t be used to hurt Lynn or anyone else. It will be destroyed.”

“That makes things a little difficult,” I said. “The person who has that negative killed your husband this afternoon.”

“The police have already been here,” she said, sitting carefully, taking a cigarette and reaching for the Oscar lighter. She was trying to get up enough courage to do something, and I didn’t like what I thought it might be.

“Lynn’s a nice kid,” I said.

“I don’t need your opinion.” The gun came up, and I held my hands in front of me.

“Wait a minute,” I said amiably, “it’s not going to do her much good to have her father dead and her mother on trial for murder.”

“I won’t be on trial for murder,” she said. “We’re going up to my room. We are going to throw a few things around so it will look as if we had a struggle. You came here demanding money.”

“For what?” I said. “You’re not going to get Lynn involved.”

“No, but I have a very nice print of the picture of me and Charlie Cunningham. The police, I understand, know you were at his apartment. They will find the picture on you.”

She motioned me up the stairs inside the house. I walked five feet in front of her, trying to decide when to make my move.

She turned lights on ahead of us and guided me at gunpoint into her bedroom. It was nice, soft and white with fur all around.

“How about some answers before you shoot me,” I said.

“I don’t plan to shoot you unless I have to.”

“Glad to hear that,” I smiled, but I didn’t ask what she planned to do. “First, you hired Delamater to get Lynn’s picture from me, right?”

“Right,” she said, knocking everything but a framed photograph from her dressing table, while keeping the gun leveled at me. “I remembered him from the studio and that he had been in trouble. Charlie also knew him vaguely. Next question.” She moved across the room carefully and turned over a chair. She was lying about Delamater, but I couldn’t figure her angle.

“Why did your husband visit you yesterday?”

She shook her blonde hair, and I could see her reflected endlessly in mirrors opposite each other on the wall. She was a spot of silken black and gold in total whiteness.

“He wanted me to pay him for the negative of Lynn,” she said.

“Nice man,” I said.

She hurled a perfume bottle at one of the mirrors, shattering pieces around the room. I covered my head.

“Did you pay?” I asked.

“I said I would,” she whispered, looking around the room for something else to break.

“But, instead you told somebody,” I guessed. “Somebody who knew where to find Harry, went to the studio, killed him and took the negative, right?”

She looked weak and pale. If my life weren’t on the line, I would have felt sorry for her.

“He … Harry wouldn’t give up the negative,” she said so softly that I almost missed it.

“So, the same person who killed Cunningham killed Harry,” I went on, looking for something to throw or a light switch I could hit. “In both cases, they were killed to keep the negative of Lynn from being used for blackmail.”

She nodded. Peter Lorre had been dead right. I’d have to look him up and tell him if I survived.

“Brenda, didn’t you know that photograph was a fake?”

She looked at me suspiciously.

“It’s a fake and we can prove it. All you had to do was ask Lynn, your own daughter.” I walked slowly toward her. “Don’t you even talk to her?”

The gun lowered slightly, uncertainly, as she spoke.

“We … we don’t talk much, especially not about …”

“You thought it was real?” I was a few feet from her. “You and whoever committed two murders weren’t close enough to Lynn to even talk to her.”

“She, she doesn’t trust me,” Brenda Beaumont almost cried. “She knew about Charlie and me, and others. I thought Charlie had gotten to her. I knew how … how charming he could be.”

The gun was aiming at the floor, and I was a few feet from her. I glanced around the room without moving my head. Then I saw it. My eyes focused on the photograph on her dressing table. It was the only thing still standing on it, a picture of Brenda, Harry, Lynn and a man, in better days. It was obviously a family portrait. The whole thing was suddenly clear to me. I knew who had killed Charlie Cunningham, taken a shot at Flynn and murdered Harry Beaumont.

Brenda looked up and saw my eyes. She followed them to the picture and knew that I knew. I pushed her and dived for the hall. She fired and missed me as she fell against the bed.

I went down the stairs three at a time and hit the bottom one when the second shot came. At first I thought she had missed again. I was still running, and I felt nothing. Then, as I hit the door to the garden, I felt it. It was a slight itch in my back. My shoulder was suddenly numb. I tried to reach for the door with my right hand, but it wouldn’t move. I had taken a bullet somewhere in the back, and I was scared as hell.

Behind me I could hear Brenda Beaumont padding down the stairs. I opened the door with my left hand and ran into the darkness near the pool.

Behind a row of trees I looked back and saw her perfect outline against the light from the house. She was looking frantically around. Then we both had the same idea. She started toward the barking dogs in the pool house. She was going to let them out to finish me. I ran along the trees about even with her, as she hurried toward the pool house.

She heard me and took another shot in my direction. The time she took gave me a few steps on her. I kept running. As I hit the back gate, I could hear her opening the front door of the pool house and Jamie and Ralph streaking for my scent.

I fumbled at the gate with my left hand and slammed it behind me as the dogs turned the corner. They leaped at the fence, but I was outside. I could see the blood seeping through my new jacket.

The light went on in the pool house, and the back door opened. Brenda Beaumont took another shot at me, but she was in panic now. One of the dogs whined pitifully and went down. The other dog stopped barking and turned curiously toward the fallen partner.

I didn’t wait for her to take another shot. She might eliminate all of her watchdogs, but she also might hit me again. Dogs began barking and wailing all over. I ran as fast as I could into the trees.

The numbness was spreading as I ran. I was losing blood fast, but I had to make a call to Flynn. If I didn’t make the call, there might not be an Errol Flynn by morning.

I managed to stumble into a street, but I stayed in the dark in case Brenda had wandered out after me. Her story was still good. Blackmailer shot.

The world was going dark, and I had visions of the inkwell. Taking a swim in it seemed a good idea, very comforting. I stumbled along to an intersection. I was heading for a house with a light on when I fell in the street. Somehow I had to get up and get to a phone, but I couldn’t.

The car came around a curve, and I could see its lights coming toward me. The grill was a great chrome grin. My eyes closed, and I heard a screech of brakes. Then as I plunged into the inkwell for cover, I heard a car door slam in deep water. Koko the Clown greeted me and took my hand. I told him I had to get to a phone, but he paid no attention.

Koko led me to a drawing board the size of The Brown Derby. Brenda Beaumont stood looking at the board; Lynn Beaumont had her back turned. A huge hand came down from the sky and drew a cartoon of Cunningham on the board. Brenda stepped forward with an eraser and rubbed out the cartoon of Cunningham. Koko winked, and the huge hand came down and drew a cartoon of Harry Beaumont sneering. Brenda stepped forward and erased it. The huge hand came down a third time and drew a cartoon of me. I became the cartoon figure and saw Brenda walking toward me with the eraser. I looked up and pleaded with the cartoonist to let me go. He said he couldn’t help me. I had been created to amuse Brenda and Lynn. But Lynn’s back was still turned. Brenda stood in front of me, and I tried to turn and run into the picture. I felt the eraser touch my right shoulder, and the world went blank and white.