by Simon Brett
Von Klappentrappen sat opposite Buza Cruz, who tried hard to look her most seductive. She was a calculating little beast, who recognised that in Hollywood she was a commodity, and knew to the last cent the value of her looks and her body. Being singled out by the director could mean a lot of things, most of them good. He could be about to offer her a bigger part in The Trojan Horse. She might have caught his roving eye and be the target of his seductive intentions. Either scenario could do no harm to her career prospects.
But what he said took her by surprise. ‘You were at a party given by Mimsy La Pim last week.’
She didn’t deny it.
‘My wife Zelda Finch was also present.’
She didn’t deny that either.
‘Rumour round the set has it that you saw her go into one of the bedrooms with a young man.’
Buza Cruz was silent. Gottfried von Klappentrappen was after information, and in her commodified world information, like everything else, had a price. Feeling empowered, she said, ‘Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.’
‘I would give a lot to know the identity of that young man.’
‘A lot? How much?’ asked Buza Cruz.
‘Are we talking dollars here?’
‘We could be, I suppose. But I was thinking more in terms of . . . favours.’ Again aware of the value of her body, she knew plenty of ways of getting money. But the director of The Trojan Horse had the power to provide her with something much more valuable. She went on, ‘You scratch my back . . .’
Though von Klappentrappen had become pretty fluent in the language of his adopted country, there were still some idioms with which he was unfamiliar. ‘I have no desire to scratch your back,’ he protested.
‘Put it this way, Gottie,’ said Buza, feeling increasingly confident of the power she had over him. ‘I’ll tell you what you want to know . . . if you give me a better part in The Trojan Horse.’
The director nodded. He was used to this kind of negotiation. And he was used to making generous offers that he had no intention of fulfilling. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘there might be some way I could help you out there. The fact is, my new Helen of Troy . . .’
‘Honoria Lyminster.’
He nodded. ‘She’s only been on the production for a few days, but I wonder whether she’s going to be on it much longer . . .’
‘Oh?’
‘The fact is that I cast her on the say-so of Hank Urchief . . .’
‘Ah.’
‘. . . and I just wonder whether he’s going to be as keen on having her around as he was when he first made the suggestion.’
Buza Cruz nodded. Everyone working on The Trojan Horse had read Heddan Schoulders’ column about Twinks’s humiliation of the four major players at Toni Frangipani’s party. She felt sure that von Klappentrappen was as keen to get the straight-talking troublemaker off the production as his male lead was.
Helen of Troy was a great part, the kind of part that would lift an anonymous starlet like Buza Cruz into the stratospheric world of stardom. There was a catch in her voice as she asked, ‘Are you offering me the job?’
‘Well . . .’ he hedged carefully. ‘Let’s say there’s likely to be a Helen of Troy-shaped hole in the cast of The Trojan Horse pretty damned soon, and I reckon you’re pretty enough to play the most beautiful woman in the world.’
The combination of flattery and carrot-dangling had the desired effect. But Buza Cruz still wanted to cover all eventualities. ‘Are you offering me a contract to play Helen of Troy?’
He shrugged. ‘My lawyers deal with that kind of stuff. But they’re pretty quick. First, they’ll have to get on to Lefty Switzer to sort out the termination of Honoria Lyminster’s contract, then I think damn soon after that there could be something for you to sign.’
Buza Cruz flushed with excitement, showing once again that her acting range extended way beyond being turned to stone. ‘That’s great,’ she murmured.
‘So,’ said Gottfried von Klappentrappen casually, ‘the young man at Mimsy La Pim’s party . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you give me a name?’
‘No.’ The director looked disappointed, but the starlet assured him, ‘I’d recognise him if I saw him again.’
This was not the kind of detailed information von Klappentrappen had been hoping for. The very distant possibility that Buza Cruz might take over the role of Helen of Troy was now firmly crushed. ‘Isn’t there anything else you can tell me about him?’
‘He was tall, blond, very good-looking.’
The director had no wish to hear that. ‘Anything else?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Yes,’ said Buza Cruz. ‘He spoke with an English accent.’
GRIM FOR VICTIM – WHICH CRIM SNATCHED LA PIM?
Big news today is that there’s no news! Your friendly fact-flasher Heddan Schoulders has come up with a big zero, zilch on Mimsy La Pim. Like the dodo, that gorgeous girlie’s vanished off the face of the eartheroonie. Who’s taken the tottie? Is her kidnapping due to the company she keeps? Is there a guilty secret in her pasta? Has she been cosying up too close to the Cosa Nostra? Has there been a demand for a handsome ransom? Or is the hit hooked up with her Hollywood headlining? Is some dastardly devil about to rope her up to a railway line? Message to Mimsy: ‘We miss you!’
18
On the Trail of Mimsy La Pim
There was a vile calumny going around that Blotto was stupid, but sometimes he confounded all criticism by doing something very smart. And he reckoned that the next move he made in his search for Mimsy La Pim was very smart indeed.
His conversation with his sister had made him realise that he’d been duped by Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto, and that the Cosa Nostra was not the charitable institution he’d been led to believe. Twinks’s words, endorsed by what Heddan Schoulders had written in her column, revived his opinion that there could well be an Italian connection to the fate of the kidnapped actress, so he needed to contact the Mafia once again.
Well, it had worked the last time . . .
He went to the same restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard, Giorgio’s, and once again, as soon as the waiter offered him the menu, Blotto asked the same question. ‘Do you know how I can get in touch with the Mafia?’
The waiter was terrified all over again. He rushed once more to the telephone to conduct a panicky conversation, then returned to the table, asking if his customer would like a drink. Blotto again ordered a St Louis Steamhammer. When it was brought to the table, he took a sip and waited to be hit on the back of the neck by a lead-filled sock.
He was not disappointed. Giovanni and Giuseppe arrived right on cue and duly rendered him unconscious. When he came to, he was tied by his arms to the same chair in the same gilded room, facing Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto.
‘We meet again, Mr Lyminster,’ said the Mafia boss, making no attempt to deny that he knew who his guest was. His whole manner was very different from the way he’d behaved on their previous encounter. This time he was in no mood for pretences about the Cosa Nostra being a charitable institution. In fact, he was seething with suppressed rage. The cranium reflected in the gilt-framed mirror behind him was slick with angry sweat. The snub-nosed automatic pistol on the desk was rather closer to him than it had been before.
‘Toad in the hole, yes,’ said Blotto. ‘And I’m not prepared to listen to any more of your toffee. I now know about your relationship with Mimsy La Pim.’
‘Do you? And what would you say that relationship is?’
‘A pretty fumacious one, if you want my checklist. Why would an innocent young woman like Mimsy La Pim associate with a stencher like you unless she was drugged or coerced into submitting to your murdy advances?’
Behind him Blotto heard a growl from either Giovanni or Giuseppe. ‘Shall I zap him again, boss?’
Lenny raised a hand in dissent. He needed more information before Blotto was returned to unconsciousness. ‘What’s with the “innocent young woman”? Do you kno
w Mimsy La Pim?’
‘Yes, I spoffing well do. She’s as pure as the driven snow.’
‘You’re wrong there. As pure as snow a few trucks have driven over, maybe.’
‘Are you looking for a bloody nose, Mr Orvieto?’
‘Tied to that chair, Mr Lyminster, I don’t think you’re in a position to give anyone a bloody anything.’
‘Don’t you believe it, Mr Orvieto,’ said Blotto defiantly. ‘My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.’
The jaw in Orvieto’s cavernous face dropped, revealing the teeth behind his thin lips and making their owner look more like a skull than ever. Clearly, whatever form of education he had undergone, either in Sicily or Los Angeles, had not, for some bizarre reason, encompassed the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. After a moment, the Mafia boss recovered himself and asked, ‘Why do you think I might have anything to do with Mimsy La Pim’s kidnapping? Why would I want to abduct my own broad?’
‘Because maybe she stood up to you, told you what a lump of toadspawn you really are!’
‘Shall I zap him now, boss?’ came a growl from behind Blotto. He looked up at the mirror to see either Giovanni or Giuseppe handling his lead-filled sock eagerly. His associate, also keen for a bit of violence, had produced a wicked-looking butcher’s knife from somewhere.
But again Lenny raised a hand to defer the immediate assault. ‘No, I’m interested in this fruitcake. You can have your fun in a little while, boys.’ The ‘boys’ snarled with dissatisfaction at this delay while their boss turned again to their visitor. ‘So, Mr Lyminster, do you reckon you’ll be able to find Mimsy La Pim?’
‘Yes, by Wilberforce!’
‘And how will you set about doing that? Do you have any leads as to where the poor little broad might be?’
Blotto was forced to admit that he hadn’t. ‘But I’ll get some!’ he asserted defiantly.
‘May I ask where from?’
‘I’ll get them from you, you four-faced filcher!’
Orvieto chuckled, but no humour glowed in his sunken eyes. ‘I don’t think you’re in any position to get anything from me, you scumdouche. You may not have noticed, but you’re tied to a chair. We’re armed and there are three of us.’
Generations of breeding resonated in Blotto’s voice as he declared, ‘Those are the kind of odds the Lyminsters have always favoured!’
Though anything theoretical would instantly befuddle his brain, in a practical emergency it worked with remarkable efficiency. He didn’t have time to plan what he was to do next. The required actions were instinctively clear to him.
He stood up suddenly, lifting the chair with him. Then, his movements guided by what he could see in the mirror, he whirled round. The chair legs caught the first approaching Giovanni or Giuseppe in the shins and floored him, the lead-filled sock flying out of his hand.
Blotto turned to face the other Giovanni or Giuseppe, advancing with kitchen knife upraised. As the blade was brought ferociously down to stab him in the chest, Blotto executed another perfect whirl and the knife cut through the rope that bound his arms.
Released, Blotto threw a perfect upper cut at the jaw of the knife-wielding Giovanni or Giuseppe, then hurled the chair with all his strength at Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto. By the time the Mafia boss had regained his footing, he found himself looking down the snub-nosed barrel of his own automatic pistol, which his assailant had snatched up from the desk. (Blotto didn’t really like the use of guns. He thought it was unsporting and would far rather have threatened Orvieto with his trusty cricket bat, but on this occasion he had to improvise with what was to hand.)
Giovanni and Giuseppe lurked against the walls, nursing their injuries and fearful of making any movement that might make Blotto pull the trigger.
‘Maybe now you can see how I’m going to get my leads, you shifty sligger!’ he said triumphantly.
‘You kill me,’ Orvieto hissed, ‘and you’ll have the whole Los Angeles Mafia after you! You won’t last an hour!’
‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take!’ came the proud response. ‘Lyminsters have seen off worse stenchers than that. We coffinated Anglo-Saxons during the Norman Conquest, infidels during the Crusades, and during the Wars of the Roses we saw off the . . .’ He could never remember whether his ancestors had supported the White Rose of York or the Red Rose of Lancaster during that particular dust-up, so he finished rather lamely, ‘. . . the other side.’
‘The Mafia are more dangerous opponents than any of those.’
‘Huh, and huh again! Don’t talk such toffee! Don’t dare to start comparing ill-mannered Italian hoodlums to the Lyminsters’ adversaries of yore.’ (Blotto still wasn’t quite sure when, or what, ‘yore’ was, but it sounded right in the context.) ‘Give me a lead on where to find Mimsy La Pim or you’ll find you’ve got a real skull on top of your fumacious neck!’
The Mafia boss, believing the threat was real, instantly crumbled. ‘The Orvieto family had nothing to do with Mimsy La Pim’s abduction. Like I said, I wouldn’t want to kidnap my own tootsie. The people you want to talk to are the Barolo Brothers.’
‘Are they another bunch of Mafia slimers?’
Orvieto nodded. ‘They’re really violent.’
‘Meaning that you aren’t?’
‘We do our best,’ the Mafia boss apologised, ‘but the Barolo Brothers . . . they take violence to a new level.’
‘Hoopee-doopee!’ said Blotto. ‘There’s nothing a Lyminster likes better than a spoffing challenge! And, incidentally,’ he continued, pushing the pistol barrel against Lenny’s short nose, ‘if I find out that you’ve been thimble-jiggling me and the Barolo Brothers have nothing to do with Mimsy’s kidnapping . . . well, you’d better watch your back, Mr Orvieto. I know where you live.’
Lenny Orvieto felt he had to pick Blotto up on a point of fact here. ‘Actually, technically you don’t know where I live. You may recall that both times you’ve been brought here you’ve been unconscious. And when you left the last time you were blindfolded. So you don’t know where I live.’
‘But I will soon, by Denzil! Because I’m going to leave this building with no blindfold on.’ He held out his hand. ‘Give me the key to that door.’
Wordlessly, Orvieto reached into a drawer and handed over the key.
Blotto crossed to the door, the automatic pistol still trained on the mafia boss. Gesturing to the weapon, he said, ‘I’m going to keep this.’ He still wished he was talking about his cricket bat rather than a gun. ‘And I’m going to lock the door from the outside. It’s up to you whether you smash it down or telephone some boddo to open it. But I promise you, try to come after me and, by Wilberforce, you’ll regret it!’
‘We don’t need to come after you,’ said Orvieto in a last gesture of defiance. ‘You go after the Barolo Brothers and they’ll deal with you and save us the trouble.’
‘Let’s jump that hurdle when we come to it,’ said Blotto.
Then he left the room and locked the door from the outside. He waited for a moment, but heard no sounds of immediate pursuit.
Blotto walked through a lavishly decorated hall and out of a massive studded front door to find he was on the south side of Hollywood Boulevard within walking distance of the Hollywood Hotel.
He grinned and congratulated himself on a real buzzbanger of a morning’s work.
19
The Barolo Brothers
Blotto’s first instinct was to share the events of the morning with his sister. Though he was very pleased with what he’d achieved on his own, he knew that Twinks’s superior intellect must be deployed in deciding what their next step should be.
To his surprise, he found no sign of Twinks in her suite and, on checking with reception, he was told that she’d been called to Humungous Studios for a day’s filming as Helen of Troy on The Trojan Horse.
Blotto was rather put out by this news. He was unused to having a sister with demands on her time other than social commitments
. The world of work was one in which he was a total stranger. He didn’t know anyone in his circle whose life was dictated by the demands of something so menial as a job.
So he got the concierge to call a cab to take him to Humungous Studios.
Blotto’s natural air of patrician authority got him past the gateman at the studio building and he was escorted on to the Trojan Horse set. There, Gottfried von Klappentrappen was once again bawling out Zelda Finch, though Blotto didn’t recognise her under her coronet of live snakes. The director was trying to get his wife to stay still for a shot, but though Zelda was the most professional of actresses, she could not overcome her phobia. As her husband grew angrier, his language, a mixture of English and German, grew riper.
The lighting technician running the book on the length of von Klappentrappen’s latest marriage had stopped taking bets on it being over by the end of the month. Now the only odds he offered reckoned it wouldn’t last the week.
Blotto was unconcerned about the main action in the studio, though. All he wanted to do was find Twinks. Passing someone who appeared to be dressed as a long-haired sheepdog, he asked after his sister’s whereabouts and was surprised to hear a familiar voice saying, ‘How’re you doing, my young feller-me-lad?’
He looked through the layers of hair and beard and recognised the eyes of J. Winthrop Stukes. ‘Toad in the hole!’ he said. ‘What in the name of Denzil are you doing here?’
‘I’m playing the part of Methuselah in the movie.’
‘Does that mean you’re putting a candlesnuffer on the cricket?’
‘Good Lord, no. Match next weekend, White Knights v. your chum Ponky Larreighffriebollaux’s johnnies. Hope you’ll be up for a knock . . . ?’
‘You’d have to strap me to a sleeping berth to keep me away!’ responded Blotto, forgetting for the moment that he was going to devote his life to the Holy Gruel of rescuing Mimsy La Pim.
‘Excellent, young feller-me-lad. One thing, though.’