Never Cross A Vampire

CHAPTER FOUR

With Gunther’s help, I got my knee bandaged tightly. With a couple of pain pills Shelly Minck had given me months earlier for my back, I was ready to work, provided I didn’t have to run and no one kicked me in the kneecap. I made some phone calls. I got the home address of Jerry Vernoff, the writer who had worked with Faulkner the night before, from the telephone directory. Using Martin Leib’s name got me Shatzkin’s home address in Bel Air from Warner Brothers. Shatzkin’s office was listed in the phone book.

A call to Vernoff told him who I was and told me he would be home to see me in a few hours. A call to Shatzkin’s office let me know that his secretary was there helping the junior members of the firm keep their world in order. Her name was Miss Summerland, and she wearily expected to be in the office for many hours. I didn’t call Mrs. Shatzkin. She might not want to see me. I simply got in my pigeon-egg-green car and headed for Bel Air, admiring the frost on the few people in the streets. Even Westwood was nearly empty of UCLA students.

Bel Air is as exclusive as you can get and still be within bragging distance of the movie studios. It has its own police and its own privacy. I talked my way past the guard at the entrance by telling him I was from the funeral parlor handling “things” for the Shatzkin family. He was properly professional and sympathetic, which means he made it clear he didn’t much care. My car made him a bit suspicious, but I told him it was a loaner while my Rolls was being repaired. The story was idiotic, but the business card I handed him reading “Simon Jennings, Brentwood Funeral Services” was real enough. I had a whole stack of assorted cards given to me as payment by a job printer whose sister-in-law had stolen his 1932 Ford.

I found the house on Chalon Road, a big two-story brick building set back in a wooded area on a hill. It was impressive. A chauffeur was washing a real Rolls in the open garage and trying not to freeze. I knocked at the door, and it was opened almost immediately by a Mexican girl in black who looked so somber that I wasn’t sure whether to believe her.

“Peters,” I said seriously, opening my wallet to show her my identification and knowing she wouldn’t take a close look. “I’m investigating the crime. I’d like to talk to Mrs. Shatzkin.”

The maid stood back, I moved forward, and she said she’d get Mrs. Shatzkin.

I held my hat in my hand and kept my coat on, looking as serious and official as I could. I examined the hall mirror with suspicion and continued to do so when I heard the footsteps behind me and saw Camile Shatzkin in the mirror. I turned to face her.

“Officer?” she started. She was a good-looking woman, dark, dressed in black, with her hair worn up in one of those complicated hairdos. She was a little plump, but certainly not little. She reminded me in some ways of my former wife Anne, but in some ways she didn’t. Camile Shatzkin’s furrowed brow and wringing hands complete with handkerchief evoked Kay Francis in a melodrama, and Kay Francis was always up to something.

“Peters,” I said and then before she could think of questions, “Officer Cawelti talked to you, but a few things have come up since last night that I need confirmation on.”

“I’m not sure…” she began, looking back into the house for someone who didn’t come. “It’s been a very… horrible… I’m sure you understand.”

“Fully,” I said sympathetically, “but this will only take a few minutes.

“Very well,” she said with a pained smile, but she didn’t offer to guide me to another room or a seat. We talked in the Mexican decorated hall. I pulled out my new Walgreen’s notebook and pretended to read questions.

“Who invited Mr. Faulkner here last night?” I began.

“My husband,” she replied, turning her eyes to the floor.

I pretended to write and nodded in approval.

“How did you know the man who came here last night was Mr. Faulkner?” I said as sympathetically as I could. “You’ve never met the man.”

“Well, yes,” she said a bit nervously, “but I have seen his picture on book jackets and in the newspapers, and Jacques did tell me he was coming. I recognized him as soon as he came through the door. I…”

She was ready to break down so I came to her rescue.

“I understand, Mrs. Shatzkin. We have to be sure. Can you identify this picture as Mr. Faulkner?” I pulled out my wallet, reached in, and withdrew a small photograph that I handed to her.

“That’s the man,” she said with a sob, handing the photograph back to me.

“You’re sure?” I said, taking it and putting it back.

“I’ll never forget that face,” she said, covering her eyes.

Well, that was a step toward Faulkner’s defense. The photo she identified was one of Harry James that had come with the wallet when I bought it at the dime store. I decided to push Mrs. Shatzkin a bit.

“We’ll need a photograph of Mr. Shatzkin,” I said, putting my notebook away.

“There are no photographs of Jacques,” she said sadly. “I wish to God there were. He wasn’t fond of being photographed.”

“Everyone has a photograph of himself somewhere,” I said. “Especially a man as prominent as Jacques Shatzkin.”

Suspicion flared in Camile Shatzkin’s eyes.

“Do you have a photograph and some identification, Mr. Peters?” she said. “I’d like to make sure you are not a reporter trying to get a story at the expense of my grief.”

“The only photograph I have of myself is when I was ten,” I said, reaching for my wallet and knowing I had no identification that would please her.

“Well, perhaps we can find a photograph of Jacques when he was ten,” she said. The widow’s grief had given way to determination. Kay Francis was running the company and she meant business. “Your identification.”

I pulled out my private investigator’s card and showed it to her.

“You said you were a police officer,” she hissed through even, white teeth.

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “You and your maid simply assumed I was. I’m working for Mr. Faulkner’s lawyer and…”

“Haliburton,” she shouted, her breast rising like a coloratura’s. An enormous figure in a black sweater, wearing as granite a face as could be carved, hurried into the hall from the rear of the house. He looked at Camile Shatzkin and at me, waiting for her orders.

“Now wait,” I said, holding up my hands and knowing I had no chance of making a run for it on my former leg. “We have a legal right to question witnesses. We could have done this through the district attorney’s office, but…”

“Haliburton,” she said firmly and left the room.

Haliburton had clearly spent his life lifting cars and putting them neatly on shelves. He advanced on me without emotion and with very little sound.

“Haliburton,” I said, “I know when I’ve had it. I’m leaving.”

His hand caught the back of my neck and spun me toward the door. Without thinking, I threw my left elbow back in the general direction of his face about half a foot up in the air. I caught him in the windpipe, and he let me go. I scrambled for the door, pulling my leg behind me without looking back. What I did was meant to be a run but probably looked like a Fourth of July handicap race. I heard the door open behind me as I made it to the car. The chauffeur stopped, wiped his hands, and watched from the garage as I opened my door and locked it just before Haliburton grabbed the handle. He was clearly angry.

“No hard feelings,” I said, putting the car in gear as he tried to put his fist through the roof. I could see the dent he made. I backed down the roadway fast, extinguishing a couple of well-trimmed shrubs. Haliburton must have been the gardener because my attack on the shrubs brought out the worst in him. He came thundering down the driveway, picking up a rock as he ran. On Chalon Road I straightened out and managed to avoid hitting him as I pulled away. The rock hit the hood, scratched its way along, and flew up the windshield, taking off into the air toward Uranus. I headed out of Bel Air, watching the receding dark figure of Haliburton in my rearview mirror.

Another day, another friendship formed. Dale Carnegie could have hired me cheap as a negative example. But I had learned something. Maybe.

Although she might come up with a more firm identification later, as of now Camile Shatzkin, who had identified William Faulkner as the murderer of her husband, couldn’t tell Faulkner from a trumpet player. I hummed “You Made Me Love You” to keep from thinking about my knee and headed for Sunset Boulevard and Jacques Shatzkin’s office.

The Jacques Shatzkin Agency was on the second floor of a two-story building on Sunset not too far from Bel Air. The first floor of the building housed some elegant stores-a women’s dress shop on one side and The Hollow Bean, an import shop, on the other. The flight of wooden steps was varnished and clean. There were twenty-two steps and each one sent an accordion of pain through my bandaged leg. The trick would be to avoid stairs and keep my leg straight.

The reception area inside the heavy wooden door was clean, bright, and comfortable. It was easily as big as Shelly’s office and mine combined, with room to spare for Union Station. There was no receptionist, but I could hear voices to the left through an open door. I now had a good sense of the decor of Jacques Shatzkin’s offices: elegant, homey. Carpets, thick and dark; chairs, low and soft. The desks were old and highly polished; the walls a light brown. Fluorescent lights twinkled overhead. It reminded me of a funeral parlor, except for the pictures on the wall of clients and near-clients and friends of the deceased. “To a good man Frank Fay,” “For my friend Jacques-Edward Everett Horton,” “I don’t see anything funny about it-Robert Benchley,” “To a guy who can be trusted-Preston Foster.”

“And they meant it,” a voice cut through my reading. I turned to a willow reed of a woman, a dry woman in her fifties with short brown hair and a brave smile on her face. She wasn’t beautiful and she wasn’t homely. She was simply a face in the crowd, but her efficiency was evident in her straight back, neat blue suit, and hands folded in front of her.

“Miss Summerland?” I said.

“Mrs. Summerland,” she corrected. “Those photographs are not just for show, Mr. Peters… You are Mr. Peters?”

“I am,” I confessed.

“Mr. Shatzkin was a very likable man,” she said with affection and a too-rigid control.

“I won’t take much of your time,” I said.

“That’s all right,” she said, stepping back from the doorway in which she was standing. “Please come into my office. Some of the other members of the agency are in the conference room worrying about the future. I’d rather cling to the past for at least a few days more.” I walked past her into the office, which was small and decorated in the same homey manner as the reception area. She went behind the desk but didn’t sit. I got off my leg and into the chair, knowing I would have to look up to and at her for the conversation. I could see she would be more comfortable that way and I didn’t want to make the mistake I had made with Mrs. Shatzkin.

“The police think William Faulkner killed Mr. Shatzkin,” I said.

“I know,” she returned flatly.

“I represent Mr. Faulkner. He says he didn’t do it. Had no reason to do it. Hardly knew Mr. Shatzkin.” I shut up and looked at her, waiting for a reply.

“As far as I know,” she said, “and as I told the police officer earlier, they met only once for lunch.”

I eased out my notebook and began writing.

“Did they get along at that meeting?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t there, and they did not come to the office, at least Mr. Faulkner didn’t. He simply called, asked to talk to Mr. Shatzkin, and the two of them arranged it. It’s right on Mr. Shatzkin’s calendar, if you’d like to see it. One o’clock lunch with W. Faulkner on Thursday.” “I believe you,” I said. “Do you know where they ate?”

“No,” she said.

“Did Shatzkin particularly like Bernstein’s Fish Grotto?”

She looked puzzled and shook her head.

“He never mentioned it. I doubt that he would go there for lunch unless Mr. Faulkner insisted. It’s too far away, and Mr. Shatzkin was not particularly fond of seafood.”

“Couple more questions and I’ll be done,” I said with a smile. “Do you know what they were supposed to talk about at the luncheon?”

“Mr. Peters, why do you not simply ask Mr. Faulkner?”

“Because,” I said, “some things are not making sense in this. I’m not quite sure what they are, but something is cock-eyed besides my old science teacher at Glendale High School.”

“I don’t know what Mr. Faulkner wanted to talk about, but I think it had something to do with getting Mr. Shatzkin to represent him.”

“Okay,” I said, standing up. “Do you have any photographs of Mr. Shatzkin, by any chance?” “No,” she said emphatically. “There was one on his desk, but Mrs. Shatzkin sent her handyman Haliburton to get his things, including the wedding photograph on his desk.”

There was a lot in the way she said it that made me go on. She had underlined both Mrs. and her handyman. There was also the suggestion that the widow could have waited until the corpse had cooled before spring cleaning.

“Mrs. Shatzkin identified William Faulkner as the man who shot her husband,” I said.

Mrs. Summerland shrugged.

“I think she was lying or mistaken,” I continued.

“Both are possible,” said Mrs. Summerland, looking me straight in the eye. “But what isn’t possible is that Mr. Shatzkin lied, dying or not. If he said Faulkner shot him, then he told the truth. Mr. Shatzkin was a quiet, honest man. He wasn’t the fast-talking pitchman who some…” Mrs. Summerland’s composed exterior was about to shatter into tears, and she didn’t want that, at least not in front of me.

“You’ve been very helpful,” I said, closing her door behind me just as her head went down.

The sun was almost out when I limped outside, and it was a little warmer but not warm enough to resell my coat to Hy O’Brien. Things were starting to pile up, and the heap they formed might mean something, especially if I got it burning.

My next stop was the apartment of Jerry Vernoff off La Brea in Inglewood. It was a one-story courtyard job with a small pool in the middle and some stunted yearning palms cutting off the sun. I knocked on his door and knew from my experience in such places that everyone who was home heard the knock vibrating through his walls.

“Yeah,” came a voice.

“Peters,” I said.

“Right,” said the voice. I waited a few seconds, and the door came open on a slightly soft but reasonably good-looking big guy with straight blond hair and a smile. His teeth were white. His skin was tan and his shirt was open.

“Come on in,” he said. “Find a place to sit. I’ve got to clean my hands. Messed up a can of chili.”

He disappeared, and I looked for a place to sit. There was a sofa and two chairs. There was also a card table set up as a desk with a chair. On each of these pieces of furniture there were piles of paper and index cards full of writing.

“Just pick up a pile and shift it,” he shouted. “But try to keep it in order.”

I opted for one of the chairs. I moved two piles of typed notes onto the floor and sat down.

“Can I get you a drink?” Vernoff shouted over running water. “A beer or a Coke?”

“Coke is fine,” I said.

He came back with a bottle for me and one for himself.

“I can’t even cook a can of chili,” he said with a grin.

“I know the feeling.”

“Shoot,” he said, draining a third of his Coke.

“You work with Faulkner?” I said.

“Well, I do on this job. I’m a free-lance story man,” he explained. “See all this,” he said with a sweep of his left hand to take in the pages and the wall of books. “Cabinet in the corner is filled with plot cards. I’ve got hundreds of them. Hell, I’ve got thousands. If you count the possibilities for mixing and matching, I probably have a million plots in this room. Producers and writers hire me to get them going, give them a start, some ideas. I shoot plots and variations at them to see if they can get something going in their imaginations. The pay is reasonably good. The work has been pretty steady for the last few years.”

“And you like it?”

He shrugged and gulped down another third of the bottle before he grinned in my direction.

“It’s all right until I can sell one of my own screenplays. Hey, about Friday, I told the cops Faulkner and I were in his hotel room.”

“But you said he went out around nine.”

“Right,” said Vernoff, “but that was to throw down a few drinks. Faulkner has been known to tie one on from time to time. That’s what did him in the last time he worked out here.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?”

Vernoff laughed, and I made a dent in my Coke.

“He didn’t invite me. Our Mr. Faulkner is a rather private man, and to tell the truth I don’t think he liked working with me. I move too fast, think too fast. I made him nervous, but hell, that’s what I was getting paid to do, to stimulate him, get him moving and thinking.”

“You like him?” I asked.

“Not much,” he admitted, “do you?” “I don’t think so,” I admitted. “But I don’t think he killed Shatzkin.”

“I don’t even know he knew Shatzkin,” sighed Vernoff. “Shatzkin’s my agent, or was. Can’t say he did a hell of a lot of good for me, but he was a good man. The whole thing doesn’t make sense. I’m not even going to do a plot card on it.”

“Maybe you can work out a plot to tell me who killed Shatzkin and why,” I said, finishing my Coke and standing up.

“Sure,” he said, joining me. “I could think of a lot of them. It’s all there.” He pointed at the file cabinet. “Numbered and ready if you know what to look for. Say, it’s lunch time. You want to share a can of chili and a hunk of lettuce?”

I agreed, and we moved into his kitchen, which was an extension of his living room, full of papers, newspaper clippings, books, and notes. He cleared two places at the table and served the chili in two bowls directly from a messy pot that I could see was burned at the bottom. Vernoff told me about his adventures with various writers, including a stint with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who had come to the apartment, looked at the mess, and departed on a one-week binge. In turn, I told Vernoff about some of my more celebrated cases, concluding with the Bela Lugosi problem.

“I’ve got about two hundred cards on vampire plot variations,” he said dripping chili on a copy of American Mercury. “I could do a vampire script in five days… no, three days, but nobody wants vampire scripts. They want war stories. That’s what I was trying to feed Faulkner, but he kept getting melancholy about the war and some brother who died in an airplane. Say, I earned my money working with him.”

I finished up, we shook hands, and he asked whether he could get in touch with me some time to work up some plot cards from my cases. I told him it was fine with me and left him to clean up the dishes and find the typewriter he had temporarily misplaced.

I headed home because it was easier to park there than my office, and I wanted to catch Gunther. I passed Mrs. Plaut on the way in and said, “Good afternoon.”

She smiled back and said with as much relevance as was her wont, “You didn’t bother yourself.”

Gunther was in his room, which looked like the model for a Good Housekeeping ad. Everything was always in place and clean. His books on the shelf were all lined up evenly, and there was seldom more than a book or two on his desk and a manuscript.

“Well, Gunther,” I said. “How did it go?”

He took out his notebook and read:

“Shatzkin made no reservation nor did Faulkner when they ate at Bernstein’s. If they were there, they simply took their chances. No one recognized them or remembers them. Both lobster naturale and the shrimp salad are, of course, on the menu.”

He put the notebook away and looked at me. After borrowing a couple of nickels from Gunther, I went down the hall to the pay phone and got through to the Wilshire station. I asked for my brother.

“Pevsner,” he growled.

“Brother of Pevsner, Son of Pevsner. Grandson of Pevsner,” I answered.

“What the hell do you want? Hold it.” Then, to someone in his office, “So don’t book him. Just take him upstairs and question him a little before you let him go… Okay, Toby, what do you want?”

“Listen,” I said, “I’ve got some questions on the Shatzkin murder you guys may want to follow up.”

“Take it up with Cawelti,” he said.

“Can you just listen?” I shouted. “You’ve got me hobbling around this damn city. The least you can do is listen.”

“Talk fast,” he said. Age or war scare was creeping up on Phil. He actually responded to an emotional plea. I didn’t like it.

“I saw Mrs. Shatzkin. She’s pretending to be broken up, but she’s not. She never saw Faulkner in her…”

“Besides the time he came through the door and shot her husband,” Phil put in.

“But how did she know it was Faulkner? When I showed her a picture of Harry James, she swore it was Faulkner.”

“She’s a confused woman with a lot on her mind,” Phil said impatiently.

“She’s a confused woman who has devoted some of her first morning of widow’s grief to getting rid of photographs of her husband. Now why would she do that?”

“She doesn’t want to be reminded of her grief,” he said. “Is this all you’ve got?”

“Why did Shatzkin take Faulkner to Sixth Street to eat? It’s nowhere near his office, and he didn’t like seafood. It looks like he wanted to go somewhere where he wouldn’t be recognized.” “It looks that way to you,” said Phil. “To a jury and me it looks like he went to Bernstein’s. What has this got to do with anything?”

“Faulkner says Shatzkin called him to set up the meeting,” I went on. “Shatzkin’s secretary says it was Faulkner’s idea.”

“We didn’t book Faulkner for a lapse of memory or for lying about his business deals,” Phil returned to his growl.

“Okay,” I gave it another try. “Faulkner says Shatzkin was a loud-mouthed, fast-talking pusher at lunch. Shatzkin’s secretary says the dead man was a pussycat.”

“So where are you taking this?” Phil demanded. “We’ve still got the dead man’s statement. I’ve got it right here.” I heard him shuffle some papers and then read. “Officer Bowles: ‘Take it easy, sir.’ Shatzkin: ‘Faulkner shot me. William Faulkner. Why did he do that?’ Officer Bowles: ‘Take it easy, Mr. Shatzkin.’ Mrs. Shatzkin: ‘Officer, it was Faulkner. He came right in and shot Jacques for no reason, no reason.’ We also found the gun in Faulkner’s hotel room.”

“Someone’s trying to frame him,” I said.

“A unique argument,” rasped Phil.

“And no motive,” I said. “Take your tale to Dick Tracy,” he said and hung up the phone.

I invested another nickel and called Vernoff.

“I forgot to ask you something,” I said. “Why did Faulkner leave just before nine last night? Why not earlier or later? Just coincidence?”

“I don’t remember,” said Vernoff. “I think he just said he needed a break and would be back in an hour.”

“Thanks,” I said and hung up. I needed another talk with Faulkner, and I owed Bela Lugosi a day’s work. A few more of Shelly’s pain pills got me back to the station. This time I was led down to the lock-up where Faulkner was sitting in a cell.

“Mr. Leib believes there is a chance bail can be set for me in spite of the charge,” he said, putting aside the book he was reading. The turnkey hovered impatiently at my side.

“This’ll take a second or two,” I said. “I need some answers. Whose idea was it to eat at Bernstein’s?”

“I told you it was Shatzkin’s,” he said impatiently.

“Why didn’t you go up to Shatzkin’s office?”

“Because he was walking down the stairs when I arrived. He recognized me and we simply turned around and walked out. I fail to see the relevance of these questions.”

“I’m not sure I do either,” I said. And it was clear that the fat blue-uniformed turnkey didn’t see the point.

“Shatzkin called you to set up the meeting.”

“That is right.”

“On Friday night when you were working with Vernoff, whose idea was it to take a break just before nine?”

“I think it was mine. I found the man barely tolerable and had quite as much as I could absorb. Working with him was not my idea but a condition of the studio. He actually told me that he could reduce As I Lay Dying to one hundred fifty plot cards. The man is a menace to creativity.”

I bid Faulkner goodbye, resisted the temptation to chuck the turnkey under his five chins, and limped outside with the feeling that I had something in all this, but I didn’t know what the hell I had.