Bullet for a Star

8

The girl looked around the room. I looked too. There was still some glass on the floor. The door was hanging loose. Two chairs were demolished. Pieces of ceramic lamp and a mashed shade were piled in a corner, and a small chunk was missing from the wall where a bullet had hit. Mrs. Eastwood’s inventory had been correct.

Lynn Beaumont caught me looking at her.

“This place is a mess,” she said with distaste. “Do you live like this?”

I sat up in bed, running a hand over my face and tasting the dryness in my mouth.

“Sorry, I would have told the Mexican maid to tidy up if I knew you were coming.” I pulled my legs over the side of the bed.

“I called you during the day and last night,” she said, glaring at me. “You didn’t answer.”

“I had a very busy night. Somebody tried to kill me.”

She was unamused.

“Can you make coffee?” I asked, heading for the bathroom.

She couldn’t. I tried toast. She thought she could handle that, but I remembered that I had no bread. There were no eggs either. There was some milk and a lot of cereal. I love cereal. I made the coffee while she glared at me.

I took a good look at her. She looked cute, clean and serious. Her dark hair was short and straight, and her dress was blue and conservative schoolgirl. She didn’t fit the image of the girl in the picture with Flynn.

While I brushed my teeth and washed, I screamed some questions at her. She screamed back. She had tried to reach me at Warner Brothers. They had told her I didn’t work there. Then she had tried my name in the phone book. I was there, the only Toby Peters. She had called. I hadn’t answered. So she got in a bus and came over from Beverly Hills. It wasn’t a long ride.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Lynn?”

“Please call me Miss Beaumont.”

“Miss Beaumont.”

Her glare was steady and stern. She looked determined and strong willed. Maybe that’s what comes of having parents who are actors. The question was whether she had the strength of her mother behind it or something her father passed on to her.

“I don’t want you to see my mother any more.”

“Have to,” I said, going for the coffee and pouring her a cup. “Part of some work I’m doing.”

“What is your work?” she said sarcastically, accenting the word “work” with a slight sneer.

“I’m a private investigator.”

The coffee was good and strong. She hated it. I poured us bowls of Shredded Wheat. She refused hers, and I ate both while we talked. I looked at the picture of Niagara Falls on the box. It looked cool, clean and far away.

“Mr. Peters, I know what you and my mother were doing in the pool house.” Her hands were folded on the table. I poured out the last of the coffee. “My parents are getting a divorce, but I don’t want … I mean, I don’t think she …” She looked as if she were either going to hit me or cry.

“Miss Beaumont,” I lied, “my interest in your mother is strictly professional. In fact, I’m on my way to see your father this morning about the case I’m on.”

She didn’t believe me.

“Have you made other visits like this to friends of your mother?” It was a long shot, but it couldn’t hurt.

“Other visits?”

“You know a man named Charles Cunningham?” I watched her eyes. They filled with anger. “You know a man named Charles Cunningham.”

“He is, was, a friend of my mother … like you.”

“Was?” I said.

“They are not friends anymore. He promised …”

“What did you do to get him to promise?”

“Do? Nothing. I just talked to him and told him I’d tell my father and grandfather.”

She seemed to be telling the truth, but she might also be a good actress.

“Was Cunningham friendly to you?”

“You mean did he try to get me in bed?”

“Something like that.”

“I think he had something in mind, but I didn’t let him get started.” She looked firmly at me, but the tears weren’t far.

“Have you ever done it with anyone?”

She shook her head no. I went on, finishing the coffee.

“How many times did you go to see Cunningham alone?”

She said she had gone to his place only once. He had made the one try and then had given up and tried to be friends.

“Did he give you anything to eat or drink?”

“Like coffee and Shredded Wheat?”

“Like whatever?”

The girl was beginning to think I was a lunatic. She looked around the mess of the room again and then at my face.

“He gave me a couple of Cokes while we talked.”

“When was this?” I finished dressing; and she followed me, curious about the questions, as I looked at myself in the mirror. I still had a good chunk of the $200 left. Before I saw anybody else I had to buy a new suit, a shirt and a tie at a ready-to-wear place I knew on Hollywood. A former client owned the place. I had run a stake-out for him for five days. Someone was stealing his merchandise, one suit at a time. It was his brother. I got my $15 a day for the five days and two new shirts. I remembered it fondly as one of my better weeks in the business.

“Couple of weeks ago,” the girl said.

“You got sleepy after you had the Cokes.” It was my turn to glare at her.

“How did you know? I was sick. My stomach. It was a hot day.”

“I’ll bet it was,” I answered.

“Huh?”

“Skip it,” I said, “I spend most of my time talking to adults who keep trying to prove they’re a little sharper than each other. It rubs off.” She looked puzzled. “I was trying to be a wise guy,” I explained.

To prove my good faith, I called Warner’s while she sat there. Beaumont was not back from location on the Walsh film near Santa Barbara. The rain had hit all along the coast and ruined the shooting. They were going to stay one more day. I got the location and told Lynn Beaumont that I was on my way to see her father.

While she waited, I coaxed Bruce Cabot’s phone number out of a secretary at the studio. Sid Adelman would have given it to me, but I would have had to take a lecture with it.

The girl continued to glare at me. While I gave the operator Cabot’s number, I handed her a magazine. She put it down.

From Cabot, I got the name of the hotel where Flynn was staying, The Beverly Wilshire, and the name he was registered under, Rafael Sabatini. There were 800 hotels in Los Angeles. The one Flynn had picked was in the heart of the city on Wilshire Boulevard. It was not what I had had in mind as a hiding place.

Lynn Beaumont gave a maybe-I-was-wrong-about-you look, and I tried to look as innocent as my gnarled face would permit. I told her I had someone I wanted her to meet, and then I’d drive her home.

“Part of the case,” I added.

“You have a gun?” she asked, still not sure I was what I claimed.

Looking as tough as I could, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the Woolworth special. She was impressed. I slipped it back.

Fifteen minutes later, we were side by side while I knocked at the door to Rafael Flynn Sabatini’s hotel room.

“Come in,” he shouted cheerfully.

We walked in. He was being about as careful as a drunken mouse at a cat convention.

The room was big, but not a suite. The bed was massive, plenty of room for Flynn and the two women who were in it. They were both dark and looked like twins.

“Toby,” Flynn smiled. He was wearing no shirt but fortunately, his lower torso was under the covers. “What have you found?”

“Errol Flynn in bed with two girls,” I said sourly.

“Ah,” he grinned. “DeQuincey …”

“How about saving DeQuincey for later, Errol?” I was businesslike. The two girls simply looked at me and Lynn blandly. Lynn Beaumont’s eyes were wide and her mouth open. Her sophistication had fallen.

“And,” said Flynn looking at her, “who is this young lady?”

“You’ve never seen her before?”

He paused, still smiling, and touched his chin. Then he snapped his fingers. “The girl in the photograph, of course.”

Lynn was totally confused.

“Toby,” Flynn went on, “you are marvelous. Where did you find her?”

“Lynn,” I said ignoring him, “have you ever seen this man before?”

“Certainly,” the girl said.

“Where? When?”

“Where?” she stared at me as if I were insane. “That’s Errol Flynn.” She blushed. “I’ve seen all of his movies.”

“Not all, my dear,” said Flynn. “I was in an Australian version of Mutiny on the Bounty, and I did a thing in England I’d rather forget, back in ’31, I think.” His arms encircled the two girls.

“You’ve never met him in person before now?” I asked Lynn.

“No, never.”

“Well,” said Flynn, “I’m very happy to meet you now. Please forgive me for not rising to shake your hand.”

I asked Lynn to wait in the hall for me. She looked confused, but obeyed.

When the door was closed, I asked Flynn if he had ever met Brenda Stallings Beaumont. He had, at a party, and had attempted to “strike up a friendship” as he put it. That was two years ago and she was not interested.

He knew Harry Beaumont, but not terribly well, and he didn’t like him particularly.

“Actually, Toby,” said Flynn seriously, “Beaumont is a bit jealous of me. We came to the studio at the same time, and I got the breaks. Between the two of us, I don’t think he comes across on the screen with the kind of thing you need to get an audience with you. There’s a softness about him even though he’s big enough and can act. Do you think he had something to do with all this?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Am I to gather from the little episode we just went through with the girl that I am no longer in danger of being blackmailed?”

“Looks that way,” I said. He flashed his teeth at the two girls who smiled back.

He jumped out of bed stark naked and started to put on his pants. I suggested that it might not be a good idea to go back on the streets, since the person who took a shot at him was still around.

“But, Toby,” he said, advancing on me and putting a hand on my shoulder, “Mike Curtiz is having a Hungarian fit. I’ve delayed the picture and, I’m afraid, left the impression that I ran off to do something frivolous.”

He nodded toward the two girls who stayed in the bed.

“Errol, I’ve got a good lead, and I’m sure I’ll have this wrapped up by tomorrow night, the latest.” I wasn’t sure at all, but I didn’t want Flynn out where he could get his head blown off with a bullet from my gun.

“You’re right,” he said, his lips moving into a firm line. “I’ll just have to stay here another day or so.” He started to take off his pants and said, “I’ve never starred in a mystery, but you inspire me. Someone just showed me a script, Footsteps in the Fog. I think I’d be some kind of a detective.”

“One more thing, Errol,” I said, my hand on the doorknob. “When Adelman finds out that the blackmailer has no weight, he will officially can me. I’ve had a run-in with the cops.”

“Yes, Bruce told me,” he said, climbing back in bed between the girls, “wish I had been there.”

“Well,” I continued, “I want to be able to say that I’m working for you if things get rough.”

“Of course, old fellow,” he said. “What’s your fee?” He looked at the two girls.

I grinned.

“I’ll take cash. $20 a day and expenses.”

“You’re working for Errol Flynn,” he said with a wave.

I left without another word. Lynn stayed confused. I drove her home and left her at the gate. She said her mother was out. The dogs, Jamie and Ralph, escorted her to the steps where a Mexican maid was waiting at the door.

At this point, Charlie Chan or Nero Wolfe would have gathered everyone together in his office, trotted out the clues and exposed the murderer.

There was no room in this case large enough to hold all the people involved, the Beaumonts, Siegel, Lorre, Williams, Flynn, Cabot, Sid, the giggler and the mailbox. They’d be spilling over Sheldon Minck’s x-ray machine. Besides, I didn’t know who had done what to who and why. I was a first-rate, determined plodder with a hard head. That was the way I worked, and the way I liked it. Things were just too confused for a logical answer anyway.

Hy O’Brien, the owner of Clothes for Him on Hollywood, helped me pick out a conservative suit. No alterations necessary. I’m a straight 40 jacket, a 34 waist and 29 legs. I took a shirt and matching tie. Hy said I looked terrific and charged me half price, eighteen bucks. His brother, who was still working for him, gave me a friendly wave while he fitted a pear-shaped customer.

The ride to Santa Barbara wasn’t bad. Actually, it was what the Chamber of Commerce calls scenic, but it isn’t all that close to Los Angeles. I went beyond Santa Barbara to a place called Buellton, almost half way to San Francisco. The movie Beaumont was on was somewhere in the hills around here.

It was noon when I got to Buellton, and I ate a sandwich in a diner. The guy who served it wore a cowboy hat and a white beard.

“You one of them movie people?” he asked, serving me a hot mug of coffee.

“No, but I’m looking for them.” The coffee was damn good.

“Back down the road,” he said, pointing while he wiped his hands on a clean, white apron, “about two miles to your right. There’s a road, says Miller’s. Go up there into the hills. You’ll find ’em. I brought them sandwiches yesterday. You think they appreciate a good sandwich?”

He never answered. I had a second cup, thanked him and gassed up at a Sinclair station. The Miller’s sign was easy to find. I went up the road about four miles into the hills. A truck with some equipment passed me going the other way.

The location was against some high hills, nearly mountains. The director was shouting at someone dressed like a state trooper. The director wore a cowboy hat and an eyepatch.

Ida Lupino, carrying a dog, walked near me, and I asked for Harry Beaumont. She looked around and directed me toward a young man who said he had seen Beaumont, talking to an actor named Cowan. He pointed out Cowan, who was leaning against a tree, smoking. I recognized him. He was thin, taller than me, with a pencil-line mustache and hair thin and combed straight back.

“Jerome Cowan?” I said sticking out a hand.

“Right,” he said, shaking my hand.

“I wonder if you can tell me where to find Harry Beaumont?”

Cowan looked at me quizzically.

“I’m a private investigator working for the studio on something rather confidential,” I whispered.

“Really,” he said, “I’m playing a private detective in my next picture.”

We talked for a few minutes, and he said he was going to play Miles Archer, Sam Spade’s partner in The Maltese Falcon. It wasn’t a big role, but it was a good one. I told him about my meeting with Peter Lorre. It wasn’t much of a coincidence since Warner character actors appeared in many pictures in a year. He didn’t know where Beaumont was, but he knew someone who might.

“Beaumont just had a few unpleasant words with Bogie,” said Cowan, “maybe he knows which way your man went.”

I thanked Cowan who told me they were on a shooting break and Bogart was probably halfway up the hill. I started up the hill toward a knot of people, one of whom was talking rather loudly in a voice I recognized, a near-angry lisp.

“Try it again, one more time,” growled Bogart.

I was close enough to see a wirey little guy in a state trooper’s uniform lunge at Bogart, who laughed, jumped on top of the man and went tumbling with him into a tree.

“That’s one out of two,” said Bogie his back against a tree and panting. “Let’s leave it at that.”

The state trooper and two other men and a skinny woman carrying a script started down the hill. As I moved toward Bogart, he looked up at me.

“Don’t tell me,” he said lifting his upper lip in a familiar grimace of thought. “Peters, Toby Peters, used to work security at the studio.” He started to get up but I motioned him back, took his hand and joined him against the tree. “Where you been?”

“Private investigator,” I said. He nodded and lifted an eyebrow. Bogie had always looked either very gentle to me or very rough. There was no inbetween. Right now he looked rough as he nervously touched the lobe of his left ear. His hair was shaved at the sides and he seemed a bit jumpy.

“It’s been a while,” he chuckled. “Last time I saw you you were helping me into a car after a party where I was saying a few things to the brothers Warner that I would have regretted in the morning. You back at the studio?”

“No,” I said looking up at the mountain. It looked rugged.

“Yeah,” he said seeing my eyes move up. “It’s a bastard all right. This Walsh is some character. I’ve spent five years making movies on Warner sets that looked like everything from a roadhouse to the yard at Alcatraz. Now, I get a nut who gets me to shave my head and climb mountains. I really think he’d like it if one of us fell as long as the camera was moving.”

“Rough,” I said sympathetically.

“Hell no,” he laughed slapping me on my shoulder. “This is a big break for me. It’s a good part, might even put me up with the big boys on the lot.” He put his thumb up and gave me a wink and then pulled a silver flask from his pocket. He extended it to me with uplifted eyebrows of invitation. Then he stopped.

“I remember,” he said. “You don’t drink. A beer once in a while.”

He drank himself and got to his feet. I joined him and realized that he was about my height and a little on the thin side. I’d seen him in some films since I left the studio and had started to think of him as tall and burly when I knew he was average and thin. As a cop, I had seen dozens of victims identify their robbers, rapists and loonies as a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier than they really were. I knew that for his height and weight Bogie could be rough, and I also knew from experience that he was willing to face uglies who met the descriptions of those robbers of my cop days.

Bogart stretched, put his hands on his hips and looked up the hill.

“It’s a long one, but I think George made a mistake in turning it down,” he said. I figured George was George Raft. Bogart confirmed it with his next words. “Now if old George will just turn down the Falcon role it’ll be a good year’s work for me.”

From about 100 yards down the mountain, a man’s voice echoed into the rocks.

“That’s enough vacation, you lazy clown. It’s time we got you killed. Get ready to die in 15 minutes.”

“Walsh,” shouted Bogie, “you one-eyed baboon. I’ll die for you, but I’m not taking the tumble from up there.”

“Fifteen minutes,” shouted Walsh.

Bogart was shaking his head and smiling when he turned back to me.

“You know that maniac actually carries a gun on the set?” he said tilting his head toward the crowd of small people below us. “You’re a private cop; you carry a gun?”

“Sometimes,” I said, “but about half the time it’s a dime pistol from Woolworth. I’ve got to get going, Bogie. Fella down the hill said you might know where I can find Harry Beaumont.”

The name did something to the actor. His jaw tightened and his cheekbones quivered.

“The man’s got problems,” he said. “I can understand that. I’ve had a few myself, but he’s carrying a big cow chip on his shoulder and I’m going to take it and smash it in his kisser.”

Bogart’s anger was on the surface and ready to explode. It had come fast and I stepped back. He saw what I had done and the fire, steam or dry ice in his eyes cooled suddenly.

“Come on,” he said touching my arm. “I’ll take you to him. What’d he do, murder a crippled newsboy?”

As we started down the hill I gave him just enough to answer his question and not enough to lead to details. He knew there was something I didn’t want to say and he respected it.

We passed the director wearing an eye-patch and a cowboy hat.

“Where are you going Edwin Booth?” cackled Walsh.

“My friend and I are going to the latrine together,” Bogart said in a high falsetto. Walsh and the group of actors and technicians around him broke out laughing.

“And my family wanted me to be a polo player,” whispered Bogart leading the way toward a farmhouse about fifty yards away. Bogie explained that the farmhouse was being used for costume changes. Beaumont had already finished his shooting for the location and was on his way back to L.A. by now if he had changed quickly.

The farmhouse was small. Bogart knocked and a voice told us to come in.

Harry Beaumont was facing us and looking none too happy about it. He was dressed in a state trooper’s uniform.

“What do you want?” He was a big man, but I thought I could take him. A look at Bogart made it clear that he was quite willing to test the bigger man on the spot. Beaumont’s fat was beginning to show and his skin was loose on his hands and face.

“Harry, this is a friend of mine, Toby Peters,” said Bogart. “I’d appreciate it if you’d answer a few questions for him.”

“You know what you can do with your appreciation,” Beaumont snarled.

Bogart pointed a finger at the bigger man and spoke softly.

“And you know what you can do with a mouthful of loose teeth.” He turned from Beaumont to me with an amused look and whispered. “Sorry, that’s the best dialogue I could come up with on short notice. It lacked a certain flair wouldn’t you say, Toby?”

I shrugged. I had a couple of good answers, but it was Bogart’s scene and he was enjoying it, playing with Beaumont to keep tension from turning to flying chairs.

“Stupid bastard,” Beaumont said under his breath.

I could see Bogart tense, and reached out to put a calming hand on him. My hand didn’t calm him. What did stop him as he took a step toward Beaumont (who had turned his back) was a voice from outside the house calling Bogart for the next scene.

He pulled his eyes away from Beaumont’s back and turned to me. He sighed, knowing that his moment to break a knuckle on Beaumont’s skull was moving away from him.

“Toby, take care of yourself and my little pal Beaumont here.” Beaumont grunted, his back still turned. Bogart ruffled my hair, smiled and went out.

When the door closed, Beaumont turned and looked at me with his patented sneer.

“In a year,” he hissed, “he’ll be where I am, bit parts in B pictures.”

“I’m fascinated by your predictions,” I said, “and I’d like to hear more, but you and I have some business. I’m a private investigator working for Errol Flynn.”

“I’m impressed,” he said sarcastically.

Maybe he knew nothing, but he could be the key to this whole thing-the guy who took a shot at Flynn and murdered Cunningham over his daughter’s honor. He didn’t seem the type, but I’d been fooled before. Getting him angry was the quickest way to get information and Bogart had given me a good start on the job.

“You were at the table when Flynn got that blackmail threat?”

“You came all the way out here to confirm that?”

“No, I came all the way out here to ask you what you did when you recognized the girl in the picture.”

He wasn’t as good an actor as his wife. His look was narrow and wary.

“Recognized the girl?”

“Your daughter, Lynn.”

He walked toward me. I was ready for him if he didn’t have my gun in his pocket.

“You mind telling me what you’ve been doing for the past two days,” I said evenly, “like every minute of your time, and what you know about the murder of a guy named Cunningham?”

He fingered his moustache.

“Not at all,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”

He started to turn and I relaxed slightly. It was a mistake. I was making a lot of them. He turned quickly for such a big man and rammed his fist into my stomach. I doubled up, trying to refill my lungs. Beaumont pushed me backward with both hands, and I slid down catching a little air, but it was coming too slowly. He opened a closet and shoved me in. I reached up to hold the door open, but a coat was in my mouth. The door closed and I heard Beaumont’s footsteps moving away. As I untangled myself from the clothes and got to my feet, I heard a car start and pull away. There wasn’t much room in the closet to get my shoulder into the door. I sat in the dark with my back against the wall. It took two or three good kicks to break the lock, which wasn’t designed for holding men.

As I ran out of the house, I met Cowan coming down the hill. Behind him and in the distance I could hear Bogart shouting, “All right. All right. I’ll take the goddamned fall.”

“You talk to Beaumont?” Cowan asked me.

“Briefly,” I said panting.

“Mean-tempered son of a bitch, isn’t he?”

Cowan told me Beaumont had torn down the road in his car, a white ’39 Cadillac. I thanked him and made it to my car, which was no match for a Caddy. My wind was back, and I wanted my hands on Beaumont. I had been pushed around enough.