Kill All the Young Girls

Chapter 12

Lewellyn called while Shayne was still on the causeway to Miami Beach.

“Outgoing call from Olson. Female voice says hello. Olson says, ‘Is he there? Put him on.’ Sleepy male voice says hello. Oscar: ‘Let’s be careful. This phone is okay,’—little does he know—‘but I don’t know about yours. I think we’d better talk.’ Pause. ‘Where?’ ‘Same place. I’m leaving now. Don’t say anything to what’s her name.’ ‘Do you think I’m out of my mind?’”

Shayne had a cigarette in his mouth. He lit it while he was thinking.

“That doesn’t give us much. All right, thanks.”

“One thing, though. The voice at the other end — the guy Olson was talking to. It’s the same guy who called the girl at the club earlier. Mandy Pitt. Told her to meet him at the drive-in.”

Shayne hit the brakes. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Let’s have that dialogue again.”

Lewellyn repeated the conversation. Shayne swore softly. He was on the wrong causeway, the Julia Tuttle. The Venetian Causeway to Pelican Island lay a mile and a half south, and he would have needed a helicopter to pick up Oscar as he left the club.

Throwing his cigarette away, he told his operator to get him the St. Albans and ask for the room where he had left Timothy Rourke with the physical education teacher from New York.

As soon as Rourke heard his friend’s voice, he said quickly, “Are you using the car phone? Hang up; I’ll call you back.”

Shayne continued to Miami Beach and parked on Arthur Godfrey Road. The phone buzzed.

“It’s okay now; I’m in a booth,” Rourke said. “I’ve been seen going into that room, and it’s known that you’re a friend of mine. Your name hasn’t come up yet, as far as I know; but they’re working on it.”

“How far have they got?”

“They know Kate was drinking downstairs. They’re talking to the bartender now. I’d say there’ll be a call out on you before too much longer.”

“I was hoping for a couple more hours. What else?”

“Lots of talk. I don’t think they’ve come across your clothes in the closet yet. But about that bottle of bourbon. You know — the gift-wrapped quart of Old Granddad. The hotel definitely didn’t supply it, just the fruit and the flowers. Sometimes they toss in a bottle of champagne to the big names. Never whiskey. But! A room-service waiter saw a broad in the corridor yesterday at like five P.M. carrying that kind of package. She had glasses on. Long hair. Does this help?”

“I know who it was. Her name’s Mandy Pitt, and she was killed in a drive-in movie an hour ago. I don’t have time to fill you in. Did you talk to anybody about Keko Brannon?”

“Yeah, I’ve been on the phone, neglecting my social obligations. Jane’s watching an old Brannon movie on television; and what a female that was, Mike. Even on that little screen, she lights up the goddamn room. How do they get so screwed up? I’ve got one small nugget out of all that telephone time. It was only a rumor, and it may not be true. That Marcus Zion was banging her. Not Larry — that would be forgivable. The accountants aren’t supposed to sleep with the stars; and that’s what Marcus is basically — an accountant. The connection was completely kept out of the papers. It’s very stale gossip… Hold on, one of the Beach detectives.”

Shayne heard a muffled off-mouthpiece exchange.

Rourke’s voice: “Shayne? Sure, I run into Shayne all the time. I think he said something about a poker game tonight. I’m talking to the paper. Let me finish, and I’ll give you some numbers you can call.”

The door closed. “Did you hear that, Mike? You are now officially wanted.”

“And not just by the cops. I’d better talk to my client and find out what he wants me to do now. That’s if Marcus still considers himself my client. Will you give him a message for me, Tim? Wake him up if you have to. I’ll be in Lummus Park, just past the auditorium. If anybody follows him out, tell him to go back to the hotel room; and I’ll call in fifteen minutes.”

“Right. You’re back in that rut again, I see, not telling me anything. I thought you said this time was going to be different.”

“I’m in a hurry. Everybody’s awake and moving.”

“You mean awake or dead. Two, so far — not good. I’ve been worrying about you. Don’t give me a long spiel, but how’s it been going? In one word.”

“Lousy. People are lying more than they actually have to, and I don’t know why.”

He crossed to Collins and drove south, nearly all the way to the tip of the Beach. There was only one car in the parking lot near the Ocean Front Auditorium, a Ford with a flat tire. Shayne reversed and backed against the seawall.

He cut his lights.

Five minutes later, a Chevrolet with a license number identifying it as a rented car turned in from Tenth Street. The headlights moved across Shayne’s face. A woman leaned out. This was the lady who had found Keko Brannon dead in the bathtub — Evie Zion. Marcus’s wife.

“Marcus is out twisting arms. Perhaps I can help?”

“Let’s find out. Turn off your lights.”

“I’m getting a little jumpy, Mr. Shayne. Let’s not park side by side.”

Although she spoke pleasantly, it was obvious that she was very much on edge. She came about in a long arc and stopped at the opposite end of the lot. Shayne walked toward her.

He was halfway there when the rented car swung around and came at him with a roar. He was caught in the open. The headlights came up to full beam. She was accelerating hard. Shayne broke for the seawall.

She corrected course slightly. Shayne was running at full tilt, his emergency glands pumping. He faked one way; and when she took the fake and her headlights twitched in that direction, he dug in and cut.

The plunging car missed him by feet. He fell awkwardly.

He was up again at once, his gun in his hand. The Chevrolet was coming around, tires squealing. When it straightened, he could probably get a tire; but she could still knock him down driving on the rim. The only effective thing he could do was kill the driver, and first he wanted to know why she was doing this.

The parked Ford was the nearest stationary object, and Shayne ran for it. She was on a shorter slant this time, too short to build up full power. Shayne wheeled to face the oncoming car. He fired and blew out a tire. The Chevrolet swerved, and Shayne jumped. He slammed down on the hood and began to slide but stayed on by grabbing a windshield wiper. The Chevrolet, out of control, rammed the parked Ford. The wiper blade came loose and Shayne was thrown free.

Evie had jammed the shift into reverse and was trying to back off. Shayne slapped her with the flat of the gun through the open window. Reaching in, he killed the laboring motor.

She had strapped herself in. He waited for her to turn her head to look at him. When she did, he told her to get out.

She freed herself. When she stepped out, she fell on her hands and knees.

He didn’t kick her, but he gave her no help. She shook her head, looking at the ground, and then gathered herself and managed to stand.

“We’ll talk in my car,” Shayne said.

“I don’t know if I can… she said weakly. “I feel… drained.”

“I’m expecting a call. Move.”

She took a few steps. Then she swayed toward him, almost falling again, and took his arm. He stood still until she released him.

“Do it all by yourself.”

When they reached his Buick, he put her inside and went around to get behind the wheel.

“It’s the first time anybody’s tried that in years,” he said. “You didn’t miss me by much.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Let’s leave that open.”

He snapped on the overhead light and told her to look at him. Except for false eyelashes, she was without makeup; and the gun had knocked one set of lashes askew. She was still a very good looking woman, with the wide-set eyes and sweet mouth that had gone with the roles she had played on the screen. She had come out in a hurry, in a sweater and skirt, her feet in sandals.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in apologizing,” she said. “You can’t apologize for trying to run over somebody in a car.”

“Do you have much Consolidated stock in your own name?”

“You don’t think I’d do that for anything so stupid as money?”

“People who don’t have money don’t think it’s stupid,” Shayne said and snapped off the light. “All right, a small explanation. I’ve been working for you people for seven hours, and I’ve nearly been killed three times.”

“Mr. Shayne…” she said miserably.

“You must think I’ve found out something that can damage you. Or that can damage your husband, if you have that kind of marriage. I use a tape recorder. Three or four people know everything I do; and frankly, it isn’t a hell of a lot. But it’s beginning to come. I learn more from what people do than from what they tell me. Where’s Marcus?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tim Rourke knows you came to meet me. If you’d connected with me a minute ago, how were you going to explain the dent in your left front fender?”

“This isn’t a chess problem! I didn’t think it out ten moves ahead.”

He turned on the light for another look. “Or did you miss me on purpose, to make me think your husband has something important to hide?”

“No! I saw you walking toward me, and I was scared, and I had to do something…”

She made a broken gesture. He turned off the light.

“When you say you don’t know where Marcus is, do you really not know; or is it just that you don’t want to tell me?”

“I really don’t know. And I really am scared, Mr. Shayne. I can’t get what happened to Kate out of my head.”

Shayne lit a cigarette. “Kate is a good place to start. Who do you think was nice enough to make her a present of her favorite brand of bourbon?”

“I know nothing about it. Really. I really don’t.”

“Then you must think Marcus knows something.”

“Marcus? Mr. Shayne, I’ve lived with Marcus for eleven years, and I know a little about him. Marcus is incapable of killing anybody.”

“You sound as though you don’t approve.”

“Nonsense. I’m talking about his psychological makeup. There are things he’s capable of. Certain… meannesses, tricks. Murder’s not one of them.”

“Sometimes wives aren’t the best judges of their husbands’ character. I understand you’re the one who found Keko Brannon.”

She filled her lungs and looked at him in the darkness. “Keko. So that’s what this is all about.”

“That’s where it starts. How did it happen that you were the one? Was she a friend of yours?”

“She didn’t have friends. Do you really want that story again? I’ve told it millions of times.”

“I don’t mean that story; I mean the real one. Did she send for you, or did you happen to drop in? Did you think you’d find Marcus with her?”

“That old rumor.”

“Yeah. But was it a true rumor or a false rumor?”

“Don’t push me! I’ll tell you. You can’t realize what it’s like for a person like Marcus… to have so much power of that kind. A thousand women think that all he has to do is nod in their direction, and they will automatically become rich and famous. Of course it isn’t true! He has to get everything approved by that show-business wizard, Larry Zion. And anything Marcus really wants, Larry takes a fiendish pleasure in seeing that he doesn’t get. But the women keep trying. Marcus wouldn’t be human if he didn’t succumb occasionally. In spite of what you may have heard, he’s definitely human. I haven’t let it worry me. Usually it’s a trip to New York or an hour in somebody’s guest room at a party. Keko was the only one who managed to reach him. She reached him; and if she’d lived, she would have cut him up into little strips, like bacon. How much do you need to know about this?”

“That may be about enough. Get to the day she died.”

“I told the police she’d asked me for a drink, but that wasn’t true. She wanted to be found by the cleaning woman the next morning. Kate was supposed to be away, but she came back early. She called me. She never came into the publicity at all. She was very clever about it until — well — until tonight, of course.”

“Did she know Marcus had been there?”

“I think she’d been watching the house. She knew Keko as well as anybody could, and Keko wasn’t the kind of person who kept things to herself. Kate had been through some really monumental bouts with her. She knew it was building up to some kind of climax. So she was there, in a position to do the studio a big favor. After the dust settled, she asked for a test for Keko’s part; and naturally, she got it.”

“If Marcus had been tied in, would it really have hurt him? People have been telling me she had sex with ninety percent of the males in Los Angeles County.”

“It wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just that he was there a few hours before she died. There was some… movie footage. Just take my word for it that if the police had found it, Marcus couldn’t have stayed in that particular job, in this particular industry. I’m telling you this in the wrong order. Marcus wasn’t the only one. Keko was a classic case of woman as a sexual object. She had a long, long history of being hurt and used and exploited. I don’t think poor Marcus could have done anything too horrible to her, but that’s not important if Keko thought it was horrible. And along with everything else, she was a very tough girl. It would have been inconvenient for us all if her plan had worked; but as a matter of fact, I think I admire her a little for that. I couldn’t ever do anything like that.”

“I’m beginning to see it. She made a list of all the people who had done something to her over the years.”

“Yes — Marcus, Larry, Oscar Olson, two of her three husbands, her first agent, one or two others. A director. She made them come to see her — one at a time, of course, so they wouldn’t overlap. And she left various things lying around to incriminate them, to put them all in the same spotlight with her. All the horrible things they’d done to her had made her decide to kill herself, do you see? It was a marvelous scheme. It would have done serious damage. A great blow on behalf of all women who have been discriminated against.”

“Larry was there?”

“Even Larry would have been hurt. He didn’t treat her any worse than he treats everybody else, but the others didn’t commit suicide, and they weren’t Keko Brannon.”

“Did you have a key to the house?”

“No, I used Kate’s. I told the police I found the door unlocked. As soon as I made sure Keko was dead, I looked around and picked up. I missed a few things, but nothing too bad.’

“Were you satisfied that it was actually a suicide?”

“There was never any doubt about that.”

He turned on the light again. She met his look without wavering.

“Oh, there was talk. But we turned every available screw and kept it under control.”

“Did you tell Marcus about the films you found?”

“I’m not a saint, Mr. Shayne. Yes, I told him. They were very poor quality. They must have been taken in a motel, through some kind of air-conditioning grill. I looked at a few frames in a Moviola; and after I got the drift, I cut it up into little pieces and flushed it down the toilet.”

The phone buzzed. Shayne picked it up and said, “Hold it.” To the woman: “Stand out in front of the headlights where I can see you.”

“I understand, yes. You have no reason to trust me.”

He snapped on his lights and waited till she came into them. He waved her further away. She stared into the light and put her hand flat against her stomach in a sudden gesture, as though she was feeling a sharp pain there.

Shayne told his operator to go ahead.

“It’s a woman named Alix Hermes. Do you want to talk to her?”

“Damn right!” Shayne said and cut a tape recorder into the transmission.

“Go ahead, please,” the operator said in her formal voice. “I have Mr. Shayne.”

“Hello,” a voice said, misplacing the accent slightly “Do you recognize my name?”

“You’re Larry Zion’s girlfriend.”

“Is that what I am? I cannot talk on the phone. There is something important. But I have people watching me. If I say a certain place, can you meet me?”

“Where?”

“At the Miami Yacht Basin.”

“Okay. Give me fifteen minutes.”

She told him what kind of car she would be driving, and then she was gone. Shayne motioned to Evie to come back.

“I’ll drop you at a cab stand,” he said, snapping the ignition key. “If you have anything more to tell me, say it fast.”

“I suppose I don’t, really. I made my usual mess of this.”

He wheeled around. Lights blazed in his eyes; he was running on adrenalin, hoping he could get the job done before exhaustion took over. Reaching Collins, he headed north.

“When your husband was involved with Keko, did he want a divorce?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What does he really think about his father?”

She didn’t answer at once, and Shayne tapped the wheel impatiently.

“Well, he admires him, of course.”

“Of course. Does he think Larry’s ever going to retire and give him a crack at the top job?”

“Larry’s not the type to retire, is he?”

“Would Marcus take the job if it were offered to him?”

“That’s so hypothetical, you see. We haven’t discussed it.”

“Did he give Kate Thackera the idea for running Larry off the highway?”

That startled her. “Mr. Shayne, stop this fantasizing.”

“Have you ever thought about going back to work?”

“As an actress? Heaven forbid.”

“No children… you don’t care about money. What does that leave? Your husband, your husband’s career. That’s old-fashioned. There aren’t many of you left.”

He braked to a stop on the approaches to the first of the big Beach hotels. Turning, he said more roughly, “This is as close as I go. I’ll give you one more minute. I still don’t know why you were trying to run me down. If you thought you were doing it to protect Marcus, here are some of the choices: that he killed Keko Brannon, and you and the studio covered it up for him; that he talked Kate into trying to kill Larry and then killed her in a way that would make people think Larry did it; that he’s the one who set up a hungry girl named Mandy Pitt for a fatal beating.”

“Who?” she exclaimed. “Oscar Olson’s secretary? She’s dead?” She put a hand on Shayne’s sleeve and said urgently, “Was that Marcus on the phone?”

“No.”

She went on, her grip tightening, “One minute. I can say a lot in a minute. Like any normal, American Jewish boy, he despises his father. Naturally! I came in late on that, but you just don’t know! Larry really does try to humiliate Marcus more than he does other people. And Marcus thinks Larry killed Keko Brannon. He thinks Larry physically killed her with his two hands. He waited till she passed out from sleeping pills and put her body in the tub.”

“You can have more than a minute if you’re going to tell me anything.”

“I couldn’t persuade Marcus he was wrong. He was bewitched by that creature, dead or alive. Do you believe in sorcery? I do. She was a witch! She could convince anybody that he was the one human being who could make her stop drinking and start being happy. She was a big event in Marcus’s life. He isn’t rational on the subject even now.”

“Why does he think Larry killed her?”

“Because he couldn’t let Marcus have the one thing he wanted. And, then, she was running up costs on the picture terribly. They were already over the budget; and it was getting worse and worse. If she’d waited another three weeks, the whole thing would have been beyond salvage — a disaster. She had an insane contract — he had to pay her percentage even if he replaced her.”

“That’s a rational motive, money.”

“For a monster, which is what Larry is; and Marcus wanted to do something violent! But, Mr. Shayne, by violence I mean walking into Larry’s office and throwing his tennis trophies through the window. I don’t mean gunfire or fistfighting, the way everything used to be resolved in pictures. How can I convince you? You’ll ruin everything. He doesn’t want to kill Larry, he wants to outvote him! He wants to abolish his job. He wants to take over as head of production. And he wants Larry alive and well so he can know what’s happening to him!”

“You mean Marcus is going to vote his shares for the opposition?”

“That’s exactly what I mean! With Oscar and Marcus voting together, they only need a two-to-one break in the small holdings; and Oscar’s solicitation has been going better than that.”

“You don’t think Larry has caught on to any of this?”

“God, I hope not. He’d pull some last-minute rabbit out of the hat.”

“Who killed Kate Thackera, Evie?”

“I don’t know!” She threw her head from side to side. “I don’t want to know! I know you’re a marvel at finding out these things; and after tomorrow, it won’t matter. But tonight I don’t want anything to upset the balance. That’s all I was trying to do — hit you hard enough to send you to the hospital. Does all this sound crazy to you? But this is sort of a last chance for Marcus. If he loses tomorrow, Larry will take him and squeeze out the rest of his juice. Well, I did my best. Do you want me to get out?”

“Yeah.”

She put her hand on the door handle. “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool moviegoer. It might be a little more… satisfactory if Marcus handled things in the John Wayne fashion, but that’s not the way he functions. Really. Goodnight. I won’t wish you luck.”

She got out of the car and walked quickly toward the taxis.