Poodle Springs

9

The three-hour drive back to Poodle Springs was more than I could face, so I had a steak in a joint on La Cienega and bedded down in a roach trap on Hollywood Boulevard, where the bed would vibrate for a minute if you put a quarter in the slot. There was no room service, but the clerk said he could sell me a half pint of bonded rye for a buck.

I sipped a little of the rye while I talked on the phone to Linda. Then I fell asleep and dreamed of a cave with a cross-beamed door that stood half open and from the darkness came a giggle endlessly repeating.

In the morning I showered and shaved, ate eggs and toast at Schwab's counter and drank three cups of coffee. I loaded my pipe, got it fired, climbed into the Olds and drove through Laurel Canyon. I picked up 101 in Ventura and headed west through the Santa Monica Mountains and then north along the coast.

San Benedict looks like tourists think California looks. It is full of white stuccoed houses and red tile roofs. The Pacific rolls in flatly along its ocean front where palm trees grow sedately in a long, orderly park.

The Chamber of Commerce was in a cluster of Spanish-type buildings that looked like somebody's idea of a hacienda, about two blocks uphill from the ocean front. The bald guy manning the office had on arm garters and suspenders and smoked a noxious cigar that was obviously not worth the nickel he'd spent on it.

"My name's Marlowe," I said. "I called yesterday asking if there was a movie company shooting here."

Baldy took the cigar out of his mouth and said, "Yep, logged that call in myself. Right here." He looked down proudly at an open ledger. "NDN Pictures shooting something called Dark Adventure. I told you."

"Yes, sir," I said. "Could you tell me where they are today?"

"Absolutely, Bub. We make 'em tell us every day, so we can steer people away from the traffic, or toward the set, depending on what they want."

"Smart," I said.

"Which do you want?" he said.

"Toward the set."

"Shooting today." He consulted a batch of papers on his desk. All the papers were clipped together with a big metal spring clip. He licked his thumb. "They're shooting today…" He thumbed several papers, licked his thumb again, came to a mimeographed sheet, studied it a moment. "Shooting at the corner of Sequoia and Esmeralda. It's a playground."

He looked up at me with a big friendly smile, shifted the cigar to the other corner of his mouth. His teeth when he smiled around the cigar were yellow.

"Down the hill, left along the water, 'bout six blocks, can't miss 'em. Damn trucks and trailers and things all over the place."

I said thank you and went out and drove back down the hill and turned left and drove along the water. He was right. I couldn't miss them.

I parked behind a truck full of electrical gear and walked into the location. Every time I went to where they were shooting film I was struck by how easy the access is. Nobody asked who I was. Nobody told me to get out of the way. Nobody offered me a screen test. I stopped a guy at the commissary truck. He wore no shirt and his sunburned belly sagged out over his chino shorts.

"Who's in charge around here?" I said.

"Hell of a question," he said. "You from the studio?"

"No, I'm just looking for a guy. Who do I talk to about staff?"

The fat man shrugged. "Producer's Joe King," he said.

"Where do I find him?" I said.

"Last I seen him he's down by the cameras talking to the UPM." The fat guy had a paper cup of coffee in each hand and gestured with his belly in the direction of the cameras.

"Where you see all the lights," he said.

I walked where he told me to, picking my way over the tangle of cables and around light stands and generators. The crew had probably arrived with the morning dew because the ground was muddied and the grass had been churned into the mud by the equipment and the men setting it up. Movies made a mess even before they were shot.

There were several men grouped behind the cameras while the Director of Photography fiddled with the lighting.

"Which one of you is Joe King?" I said.

A tall young guy turned toward me. He was loose jointed and moved easily and there seemed to be a great natural calmness in him. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, and the sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled above the elbows.

"I'm Joe," he said.

I showed him the photostat of my California license, inside the celluloid holder in my wallet.

"Name's Marlowe," I said. "Looking for a photographer named Les Valentine."

King looked carefully at my license, then looked up at me, friendly as an alderman at a picnic.

"Can't say I know him," King said.

"I was led to believe he was here, on assignment, shooting the stills."

King shook his head. "No, we have a regular studio photographer that does that for us. Name's Gus Johnson. I don't know any Les Val… whatever."

"If he were here would you know it?"

"Certainly."

"Thank you," I said.

"Care to stay, watch a little of the shooting. The star is Elayna St. Cyr."

"I have a picture of Theda Bara in my car. I'll look at it on the ride back."

King shrugged and turned back to the camera and I headed back to my car.

There were several things I thought as I drove back down the coast. The most important one was that Les Valentine was not who his wife said he was. Or who he said he was. He didn't have an office in L.A. He hadn't photographed Sondra Lee. He wasn't shooting stills on a movie being shot in San Benedict. After two days hot on his trail I knew less than I had when I started.