Murder on a Yellow Brick Road

10

When my eyes opened on Wednesday morning, Franklin Roosevelt was sure of another four years in the White House, but I didn’t know that for a while. What I knew was that someone had taken my clothes off and put a gown on me, that a termite in my head was trying to get out the hard way, and that my brother and Charlie Cimaglia, the little muscle man, were looking down on me.

I moaned pitifully and tried to turn over, but Phil wasn’t about to let me.

“Let’s talk, Toby,” he said.

“Can’t,” I said, letting out a fearful groan.

“I’ll punch you in the back so hard your kidney will turn to mud,” he whispered.

I turned back over and sat up on my elbows.

“Let’s talk,” I said.

“This the man, Mr. Cimaglia?” he said.

The man with all the muscles looked at me without anger and said I was the man.

“What was in the can, Toby?” asked Phil.

“Movies,” I said. “Mostly stuff stolen from Metro. I returned it to them.”

“The charge wasn’t theft,” said Phil. “It’s assault with a deadly weapon. You took a shot at Mr. Cimaglia and threatened his life.”

“I don’t remember threatening his life, and I was five feet from him when I shot. If I wanted to hit him, I would have hit him. Hell, I did him a favor. I got Grundy out of his place. He should be giving me a reward.”

For some reason, this amused Cimaglia, who laughed and said, “You got balls, Mister. You really have.”

“You want to talk to a lawyer, Toby?”

“My lawyer’s name is Leib, Martin Leib…” I began, but I didn’t finish.

“Hold it,” said Cimaglia putting up his hand. “I made a mistake. This isn’t the man.” Cimaglia looked at me with a grin.

Phil turned toward Cimaglia, his hands in tight fists, his belly rumbling. There wasn’t much room in there, but I sat up to watch the battle if it came. I’d say it was even. Cimaglia was much smaller and a little older, but he had muscle. Phil had anger and a lot of experience hitting people. The battle didn’t come. Phil unclenched his fists and told Cimaglia to get out. He did.

“Cassie James confessed to the murders of Cash and Grundy,” Phil said, resting his big rear against the window ledge and folding his arms. “With you, Woodman, Fearaven, and Garland, we didn’t need her confession, but it helps. Now, there’s no trial.”

“And,” I continued, “no need for publicity? No need to mention M.G.M., Gable, Garland?”

“No need,” said Phil. “That woman doesn’t like you, Toby.”

“Yesterday I thought she loved me.”

“Look in a mirror,” he said. “She says you tossed Peese out of the window.”

“You believe her?” I laughed. “Not even you would believe her.”

He pushed away from the window and pointed a finger at me. “Not so chummy, Toby. It doesn’t matter what I believe, does it? We’ve got a case against you. Now, who is this writer who can give you an alibi?”

“Chandler,” I said. “His name is Raymond Chandler, and he lives someplace in Santa Monica. He’s listed.”

“Same Chandler who wrote The Big Sleep?” asked Phil.

“You heard of it?”

“I read it,” he said. “A lot of bullshit. Read it. You’ll love it.”

He stopped talking and circled the room a few times. I watched. There was nothing else to do with the back of my head as sore as it was, unless I turned my back on him, and I wasn’t going to do that with my brother. Something might upset him and give him the idea of a parting chop at my kidneys. He stopped pacing and turned to me.

“Toby, you’re a little old, but I could swing it. I can get you on the L.A. force. Detective, at the bottom.”

It was one of my dreams. I was sure of it, but he didn’t move. I turned my head a little. The pain was still with me. I was awake.

I’d been a cop before, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like worrying about what the guy above me thought about what I was doing. I didn’t like having to be somewhere every day and tell someone where I was all the time. I didn’t like someone else deciding on whose misery I had to live with. The pay was steady. The power felt good, but you had to give up too much. I knew I wouldn’t take it.

“I’ll think about it Phil. Thanks,” I said.

He knew I was saying no, and the hurt showed in his eyes as rage. He didn’t know how to show any other emotion to me, and he didn’t like having opened himself even a little. It must have taken a final push from Ruth, my sister-in-law, to get him to actually come out with it.

“I’ll really think about it, Phil,” I said.

“You’ll wind up a bum, he said. “You’re close to it now. What happens when your legs go and you don’t think so fast anymore?”

“Then I’ll be qualified to become a cop,” I said. I knew I shouldn’t have said it, but I couldn’t resist the opening. Phil came at me around the bed, but he didn’t make it. The door opened as Jeremy Butler and Shelly Minck came in. Even Phil thought twice about assaulting a patient in his bed in front of two witnesses.

Phil turned his back on me and pushed past my two visitors.

“My brother,” I said.

Butler nodded knowingly, and Shelly paid no attention. Under his jacket Shelly wore his once-white smock. His cigar was out, and I asked him to please leave it that way.

“Shelly,” I said, looking as ill as I could, “I’m sorry I didn’t return your car yesterday, but things got out of hand.” I gestured to the room in explanation, but Shelly had seen the room before, and he wasn’t impressed.

“Slept in the office,” he said. “It’s all right. I brought your car. The cops told me I could pick it up and bring it to you, Here’s the key.” I took the key and told him to get his out of my pants’ pocket.

“Thanks for coming to see me, Jeremy,” I said.

He shifted uncomfortably. The shift was massive. Something was troubling him, but I didn’t want to push him.

“Mr. Peters.” He always called me “Mr. Peters.” “I have some sad news for you. Your bungalow is being demolished today. The city condemned the property. All the houses in the court will be flattened.”

“Can they do that to you?” I asked.

He said they could, but they also had to pay for it, and they were paying a lot more than the property would be worth for at least twenty years. They were talking about putting up a fire station on the site. Butler didn’t care.

“All your stuff is in your car,” Shelly said. “Someone broke your windows. So I jammed it all in the trunk.”

Somehow that sobered me for a second. I remembered that everything I owned could fit in the trunk of a ’34 Buick.

“We’ll help you find another place,” Butler said. “I’ve got a friend with a place a few blocks from downtown, not far from the office.”

“I’ll look at it,” I said. “Thanks.”

Butler probably didn’t know I was turning him down. He hadn’t been dealing with me for over forty years the way Phil had. Some time in the few seconds since Butler had told me my place was being flattened, I had decided to gain a little respectability, find a reasonably decent apartment, maybe acquire a little property. My mind didn’t tell me how I was going to do this with my income, but it made me feel noble to believe I was going to try.

Doc Parry came in while Shelly was telling us that Mr. Strange’s single tooth was a marvel and that he was considering bridgework to go around it. Strange would have a mouthful of teeth anchored to Shelly’s monument. The whole job would be worth a few hundred bucks, which Shelly would have to put up himself. It wasn’t kindness towards the bristled bum that prompted Shelly. It was pride. He’d make up the few hundred by shoddy work on other patients.

Parry listened to him for a few minutes with a sour face of disgust. He shook hands with Butler and turned his back on Shelly, who didn’t seem to notice. Butler and Shelly left after telling me where my car was, and I said I’d give them a call.

Parry ran his left hand through his thin blonde hair. He was in his twenties and would be bald in five years. He took my pulse, listened to my heart, examined my head, told me I was a fool-which I already knew-and said I could go home. I didn’t have a home, but I didn’t tell him that.

“Remember what I said about that head,” he said at the door. “It can’t take too much more of this.”

I got dressed slowly, picked up my hospital bill, and went to my car. My face bristled with beard, and my mouth was dry. I opened the trunk of the car. It wasn’t even jammed. Under the cardboard suitcases I found my. 38. No one had even noticed it.

Before going to the office, I stopped for something to eat at a drive-in that offered three jumbo fried shrimp for a quarter. I drank a Pepsi, ate a taco, looked at the sun, and listened to the people in the next car talk about the election. They knew all the time that Roosevelt would win again.

Breakfast over, I went back to the office. Butler waved and dragged a bum toward the alley. The hall still smelled of Lysol, and our waiting room still hadn’t been cleaned. Shelly had a patient waiting, an incredibly skinny young woman carrying a baby. She didn’t look like big money. The patient in Shelly’s chair didn’t look like big money, either. It was another bum.

“Phone call for you,” said Shelly over his shoulder, shifting his cigar.

The call was from Warren Hoff.

“Warren,” I said when I reached him. “It’s all over.”

He said he knew.

“Thanks for keeping me out of it,” he said. “I destroyed the print, but there may be other prints around.”

“There may be,” I said. “I’ll bring you a bill for my services later.” I was tempted to give him more advice about going back to a newspaper, but who was I to give advice? I’d just turned down equally good advice from my brother. Maybe Warren Hoff was smarter than I was, but I doubted it. Our experience with Cassie James was evidence.

“Could you come in this afternoon, Toby?” he said. “Mr. Mayer would like to see you.”

I said I would and that I’d drop off my bill with him.

In the next hour I shaved and worked on the bill and came up with this:

Fee: $50 per day for five days (minus $50 advance)

$200

New windows for 1934 Buick

40*

Payment for information

10

Hospital room and expenses

37

Replacement of ruined suit

25*

Telephone

3.50

Motor court, one night

7

Holy Name Church of God’s Friends

1

Food

11

Parking. 50

Gas

8

–

Total

$343.00

*Estimated expenses

I had a feeling I had missed something, but I wanted the whole thing over with. I clipped on the hospital bill, a parking stub, and a receipt from the Happy Byways Motor Court, and put the bundle in an envelope. The only envelope I could find had Shelly’s name on it, complete with the D.D.S. and the S.D. The S.D. didn’t mean anything. It was something he had made up to look impressive. At least the return address was right, and it was the only one I had.

I was getting up to leave when Gunther Wherthman came through the door. His mustache was gone, and he wore a smile.

We shook hands, and he found a way to get on my chair with dignity. He politely did not look at the office, nor comment on it.

“I should like to thank you for what you have done, Mr. Peters,” he said. His suit was neatly pressed, and the bruise from my brother was fading.

“That’s all right,” I said.

“I should like to pay you for your services. For your time and trouble. What is your normal fee?”

“M.G.M. is paying me, Mr. Wherthman,” I explained.

“Nonetheless,” he said, reaching for his wallet, “I wish no charity from M.G.M.”

Even I could recognize dignity when I saw it, though I hadn’t seen much of it around Los Angeles. I knew Wherthman was just getting by and anything he gave me would cut into his rent or lunch, but I wasn’t going to deprive him of what he wanted.

“Ten bucks,” I said.

“That is very little for what you have done,” he said, counting ten singles out, “but I must admit if it were much more I should have to owe it to you.” He got down from the chair, and we shook hands.

“Can I buy you dinner tonight, Mr. Wherthman?” I asked. He said he would be delighted, and I said I’d pick him up at his place around seven.

“I’ve got to make a stop at M.G.M. and then look around for a place to live,” I explained. “I just lost my last place.”

“There is, I believe, an opening in the house in which I am living,” he said. “If you would be interested. It is clean, quiet, and on a nice street. The landlady is pleasant, and the rent is reasonable.”

I thanked him for the idea and said I’d think about it. There was nothing to read into my answer this time. I really meant to think about it. It might not be exactly what I had thought about a few hours earlier, but it was a step in the right direction, and I liked Wherthman’s company. His dignity might rub off on me.

My stitches were tight when I stepped into Shelly’s office. He was working on the skinny lady. Mr. Strange of one-tooth fame was holding the woman’s baby and making faces at it. It was his God-given talent. The baby loved it.

The drive to M.G.M. was pleasant. I only thought of Cassie James and what she had done once or twice. The rest of the time I thought about my next meal, the money from Metro, and my future.

Buck McCarthy was on the gate, and we jawed for a few seconds until a car pulled in behind me. Greer Garson was in it, her red hair blowing in the slight wind. She pulled next to me, and Buck waved her in. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. Everyone was smiling today.

“Adios,” I said to Buck, and he smiled.

Hoff’s secretary gave me a pleasant South of the Border smile and told me to go in. Hoff pumped my hand and thanked me. I accepted a ginger ale with ice, and he looked at the bill.

“Looks reasonable,” he said. He went into his pocket and pulled out four 100-dollar bills. They were crisp and new and I took them.

“We’ll just even it out,” he said. “I’ll get reimbursed when I turn in your bill.”

We wanted to say something else to each other, but there was nothing to say. What we shared we didn’t want to talk about, and there was a hell of a lot we didn’t share. So I drank my ginger ale, and he drank something dark with ice in it. I said I had to go. He reminded me that Mayer wanted to see me. I hadn’t forgotten.

We walked back to Mayer’s office, and he left me. He said he hoped we’d see each other again, and I said the same, but neither of us meant it.

This time I had to wait for Mr. Mayer. Someone was with him. I tried to talk to Blonde No. 1, but she acted busy, as if she had misplaced her desk.

I spent half an hour looking at the photographs of the studio’s stars on the walls. Then the door opened, and Mickey Rooney came out with a tall, dark man wearing a dark suit and carrying a briefcase. Rooney was grinning and rubbing his hands. He almost danced out. The shoulders on his suit were too wide. I expected him to say, “Oh, boy, oh, boy” in glee, just like Andy Hardy.

He recognized me and said hello, but he couldn’t put a name to my face. A lot of people can’t. I told him who I was and reminded him that I had worked a premiere or two as security.

“You working here full time now?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Just temporary.”

“Too bad,” he said, grinning. “It’s a classy dump.”

The tall man with him said nothing. Rooney bounced away smiling. It was a classy dump.

The blonde led me through the door and turned me over to the redhead; then to the second blonde, who led me into Mayer’s office. He was talking to a woman in a grey suit about redecorating the office. I thought it was a good idea, but I didn’t say so. I sat in the same comfortable white chair without being asked and waited.

“I want it to stand out and yet be subtle,” he told the woman, who nodded to indicate she understood.

When she left, Mayer came around the table, and I stood up. He pumped my hand a few times and looked into my eyes.

“Words can hardly express how much I appreciate what you’ve done, Mr. Peters,” he said.

“Words and cash,” I said. “I’ve been paid, and I’ve been thanked.”

“Do you know who was just in here?” said Mayer. “Mickey Rooney. He’s a good lad, a little excitable, but a good boy. This studio has a reputation for good, wholesome entertainment, and you’ve helped to keep our image clean.”

He was overdoing it, but that was his style when he wanted something. I’d learned that from my last trip into the huge chamber. I had nothing left to give him, and I couldn’t imagine Louis B. Mayer holding me up for a kickback from 400 bucks.

“So,” he said, “how would you like to become part of our organization?”

It was my second job offer of the day, but I turned it down. I’d worked security for Warner Brothers for enough years to know I wouldn’t want to go back to it. It had the same drawbacks as being a cop, with none of the advantages except slightly higher pay.

Mayer hadn’t really expected me to accept, and that wasn’t what he had on his mind. I think part of his social interaction was to offer jobs to people he liked.

“It’s been nice talking to you again, Mr. Mayer,” I said getting up, and he looked surprised. I guess people didn’t walk out on him very often; they waited till he was finished.

“You’re a pusher, aren’t you?” he said, standing behind his desk. I shrugged. “I’ve got a job for you,” he said. “A job for you in your own line.”

“Fifty a day and expenses if I take it,” I said quickly. He brushed that away with his hand, and indicated that I should sit down. I sat and he leaned over his desk.

“How much do you know,” he whispered, “about the Marx Brothers?”

“Well, in a few minutes I shall be all melted, and you will have the castle to yourself. I have been wicked in my day, butI never thoughta little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and end my wicked deeds. Look out, here I go!”

With these words the Witch fell down in a brown, melted, shapeless mass and began to spread over the clean boards of the kitchen floor. Seeing that she had really melted away to noth ing, Dorothy drew another bucket of water and threw it over the mess. She then swept it all out of the door. After picking out the silver shoe, which was all that was left of the old woman, she cleaned and dried it with a cloth, and put it on her footagain. Then, being atlastfree to do as she chose, she ran out to the courtyard to tell the Lion that the Wicked Witch of the West had come to an end, and that they were no longer prisoners in a strange land.