We'll Always Have Murder

by Bill Crider

  So that’s what we decided to do.

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  We had no trouble at the gate, and we drove on back to the backlot jungle. There was no sign that anyone had been killed there the night before. The cops had completed their investigation, and the body had been taken away. Dawson was in the morgue somewhere, sleeping the big sleep.

  I’d thought that with Hollywood being such a sentimental town, the murder would put a stop to the filming of Jan of the Jungle, but Bogart assured me that I was wrong.

  “You don’t know this town at all if you think that. Some of the actors might go to the funeral if the press is going to be there taking pictures, but that’s about it. Elledge doesn’t stop shooting this picture for anything like a little murder. Dawson’s death won’t even slow him down. They’ll have a new stunt man on the set already.”

  We got out of the Caddy and walked back into the jungle. I could hear people farther back among the trees, and when we got there, they were setting up for a scene with a lion. The lion, which looked older than any of the actors, lay in its cage and looked out at the proceedings with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

  I was relieved to see that there were no spiders in sight. Lions I could deal with. Spiders were another matter.

  Stella Gordon was there in her jungle girl outfit, but I didn’t see Wendy Felsen anywhere around.

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  Slappy Coville was off to one side, leaning against a tree and cracking jokes with some of the crew, but I didn’t notice anyone laughing. I didn’t blame them. His jokes were probably even older than the lion.

  Timbo the chimp would have been funnier than Coville, but he wasn’t there. He was probably in his trailer, having a smoke and reading the L. A. Times.

  Robert Carroll was talking to Stoney Randall, who was getting ready to fight the lion, though judging from the looks of the lion I didn’t think there was going to be much of a fight. On the other hand, the lion was an actor, and sometimes actors didn’t want to expend any energy until the cameras were rolling. It could have been that the lion was like that.

  Joey Gallindo was talking to Carl Babson, who looked up in our direction, saw Bogart, and flared up immediately. He started walking our way, and by the time he reached us, he was already yelling.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing back here again, but I want you to leave right now,” he said.

  “You know, Carl,” Bogart said, “you’re a good example of the reason no one likes to have the writer on the set.”

  “You son of a bitch, you think you’re too good to be in any picture I write, but all you are is—”

  “Bernie says hello,” Bogart said.

  “—a ham actor with…what did you say?”

  “Bernie says hello. Evan, too. They said they had a great time with you and Bob last night.”

  “Y-you…know B-bernie?”

  “And Evan. Nice guys. Scott and I went for a drive with them last night.”

  “Scotty,” I said. “Call me Scotty.”

  Bogart cut his eyes at me, but Babson didn’t notice. He was still stuttering. He said, “They t-told you about me and B-bob?”

  “Bob? I don’t recall that they mentioned Bob. Was he with you?

  They just said they’d seen you somewhere and asked us to say hello when we saw you.”

  “G-good. T-that’s good. If you see them again, t-tell them I said the same.”

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  to Gallindo, but Joey was no longer there. He must have had a part in the scene, or maybe he’d gone off to look for the chimp.

  They let the lion out of the cage, and it walked apathetically toward Carroll, who was posing like a Muscle Beach boy. I thought he’d look right at home there in Venice with all the other strong men, though of course he wasn’t going to do any actual wrestling with the lion.

  That was Randall’s job.

  The trainer finally persuaded the lion to go into a crouch as if it was about to pounce. Randall moved to the spot where Carroll had been standing, and soon he and the lion were tangled up in a not-so-titanic struggle. It was interesting to watch and see how Randall managed to keep his face hidden behind the lion, and for all anyone would ever know (if they sped up the film a bit), Bob Carroll was engaged in a struggle to the death with a ferocious jungle beast.

  Elledge told them to cut and print, and Bogart and I walked over to talk with Randall, who was toweling lion drool off his arms. We’d decided on the drive to the studio how we were going to play it, and I let Bogart take the lead.

  “I always thought I could trust you, Stoney,” he said, “but you really let me down when you killed Burleson. Especially when you tried to frame me for it. You should have known that I play the sap for nobody.”

  Randall stopped toweling and looked at us.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said, but he was a stuntman, not an actor, and his face gave him away. Our reasoning had been right.

  “We know about Barbara,” I said. “We know that Burleson let you borrow the money for the abortion. It’s just a matter of time until we find out the doctor’s name.”

  “You should have gone to the cops to begin with,” Bogart said.

  “They would have protected you. Mr. Wayne would have protected you, too. This way, everybody loses.”

  “No,” Randall said. “Not this time.”

  He threw the towel in Bogart’s face and ran.

  I started after him, but Bogart got in my way, and we did a little dance around each other while he clawed the towel away from his eyes.

  “Where does he think he’s going?” I asked.

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  “To get help or to warn Barbara. We’d better stop him.”

  We started after him, and everyone on the set was staring at us as we passed by. They must have thought we were part of some scene they hadn’t located in their versions of the script.

  Running wasn’t easy for me. I’m not a natural athlete in the first place, and all my bruises and abrasions were twinging. I could have pulled Orsini’s pistol, I suppose, but I didn’t want to scare everyone on the set, and I wasn’t going to use it anyway. I hadn’t shot anyone since the war, and I didn’t want to start with Randall.

  Bogart was more a natural athlete than I am, and he was running better, not that it was doing him much good because Randall was a physically gifted guy, something that stood him in good stead in the stunt business and in chases. He was easily outdistancing both of us.

  He would have gotten away if he hadn’t fallen.

  One of the many disadvantages of running in a jungle, even a fake one, is that there are all kinds of vines and roots around. Most of the vines and roots are just as fake as the rest of the place, but they’re still there nevertheless, and they can still trip you up if you’re not careful. It was a root that tripped up Randall and pitched him headlong on the ground. He pushed himself up on his hands, shook his head, and jumped to his feet.

  By that time Bogart had caught up. He reached out and grabbed Randall’s shoulder. The stuntman whirled around and hooked a short right that would have connected with Bogart’s midsection if Bogart hadn’t moved back. It was almost as if Randall had pulled the punch, the way he would have in a movie, though I knew that wasn’t the case.

  Randall closed with Bogart and swung again. Bogart ducked under the flying fist, bulled forward, and locked his arms around Randall just above the waist. Together they rushed backward until they smashed into a tree.

  Bogart moved his hands just in time to keep them from being crushed, and Randall crumpled, the breath knocked out of him. Bogart moved back. The stuntman slid down the tree trunk and lay slumped against it as if unconscious. Bogart moved toward him warily, and Randall snaked out a foot, sweeping Bogart’s feet from
under him.

  When Bogart fell, Randall jumped up and swung back a foot to kick him in the face.

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  He didn’t get a chance because I had finally arrived on the scene.

  I launched myself in a short, shallow dive, the only kind I’m capable of. If I’d been more of an athlete, I’d have flattened Randall and landed on top of him. As it was, I almost missed him, but I threw off his timing enough that he missed Bogart with his kick and staggered awkwardly to his left.

  I landed on my side, and Randall took out his frustration by kicking me in the stomach. I was already feeling a little queasy from the run, and the pain was excruciating. It wasn’t as bad as it would have been if he’d kicked my bruised chest, but it was bad enough. I had to clamp my teeth together to avoid expelling the breakfast I’d eaten at Bogart’s.

  Randall was going to kick me again just for the hell of it, but Bogart got up and grabbed him from behind, holding Randall’s arms tight against his sides as his feet danced in the air a few inches off the ground.

  I got up and braced myself against the tree with one arm while they struggled.

  “Don’t just stand there, Junior,” Bogart said a little breathlessly.

  “Hit him.”

  I didn’t feel like hitting anyone, so I fumbled under my coat and brought out the pistol.

  “Why don’t I just shoot him?” I said.

  “Fine, if you’re sure the bullet won’t go through him and hit me, too.”

  “No guarantees,” I said. “Or you could just let him go, and I’ll see if I can get him on the run.”

  “On the count of three,” Bogart said. “Don’t forget to lead him a little.”

  “You crazy bastards,” Randall said, kicking wildly in an attempt to escape Bogart’s grasp.

  “Let him go,” I said, spreading my feet and gripping the pistol with both hands. “Five dollars says I get him in the head with the first shot.”

  “Ten bucks,” Bogart said.

  “All right. Make it ten.”

  “Goddammit! You can’t do this!” Randall said.

  “Who says?” Bogart asked, and he let Randall go.

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  Inever intended to pull the trigger, as I’m sure Bogart was well aware, so I don’t know what I would have done if Randall hadn’t simply fallen to the ground, curled up, and covered his head with his hands.

  Why he covered his head like that, I have no idea. If I’d actually been planning to shoot him, his hands wouldn’t have provided a hell of a lot of protection. Maybe he thought the pistol was loaded with blanks, as if he were in a movie.

  Bogart poked at Randall’s backside with the toe of his shoe. Randall cringed but otherwise didn’t move.

  “You can get up now,” Bogart said. “We’ve decided not to kill you right here. It wouldn’t look good on the police report. We’ll just take you to the station house instead and turn you in.”

  Randall sat up. I was still pointing the pistol at him, so he didn’t get up and run.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” he said.

  “That line was old when the Keystone Kops were rookies,” Bogart said.

  “Try another one.”

  “I mean it. You’re really making a mistake. I didn’t kill anybody.

  Sure, you can cause a lot of trouble for me if you turn me in, but I’m not a killer, no matter what you think.”

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  “You wouldn’t have run if you weren’t the killer,” I said. “We have the whole thing figured out.”

  “Not quite,” Randall said. “You just think you do. Can I stand up now?”

  “Go right ahead,” Bogart told him. “But don’t try to run again.

  Junior there qualified as a marksman in the Army.”

  I’d never told him that, even though it was true. But that had been with a rifle, not a pistol. I’d never been too good with a pistol, not that Randall had any way of knowing that. He got up and dusted himself off, keeping a wary eye on me the whole time.

  “You can put the pistol away,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I stuck the pistol back in my belt. I didn’t feel comfortable holding it. I didn’t want to shoot anybody by accident.

  “I suppose you’re going to tell us who killed Burleson,” Bogart said to Randall. “Since you say it wasn’t you, it stands to reason that you know who did.”

  It didn’t stand to reason at all, but this wasn’t the place for me to conduct a seminar in logic. Anyway, this was Hollywood. Logic didn’t always apply. And it didn’t matter. I’d already figured out who Randall was talking about. Or whom, since I was being pedantic.

  And it even made sense.

  “You’re an accessory to murder, Randall,” I said. “You’re the one who took the pistol from Bogart’s house. Barbara wouldn’t have done that.”

  Randall looked back toward the jungle as if he might be hoping someone would come to rescue him. It was very quiet, but then it usually was on a movie set. They added all the jungle sounds later.

  They weren’t made by real jungle animals but by some sound-effects man who wished he were Mel Blanc.

  Nobody came to Randall’s aid. That sort of thing only happens in the movies. He turned back to us with a hopeless look in his eyes.

  “Yeah, I took the pistol,” he said. “I knew you had one. You told me once. Remember?”

  Bogart said he didn’t remember at all.

  “Well, it was a little drunk out at the time. Anyway, I knew you had it. I even knew where it was. So I was going to grab it when I got the chance. Mayo nearly spoiled it by pulling the gun on you.”

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  “If you knew about the pistol, then you were planning to frame me,” Bogart said.

  “I wasn’t planning to frame anybody. The pistol was just for protection. Barbara dropped it when she shot Burleson, and then she was too scared to pick it up. She just ran away.”

  That might even be true. I’d never been sure there had been an attempt to frame Bogart.

  “She went to Burleson’s house to kill him?” I said, knowing his answer would make a difference to a jury if not to me.

  “No. I was supposed to be the muscle, and I was just going to threaten him, not kill him. But I didn’t have the nerve to do anything at all.” Randall’s shoulders slumped. “I can jump off a cliff or a running horse. I can take a punch with the best of them. But when it came to bullying somebody, even somebody like Burleson, I couldn’t do it. Barbara could, or she said she could. She didn’t plan to kill him.

  The gun was just for protection, in case Burleson got nasty.”

  Burleson didn’t have to get nasty. He was that way all the time.

  “What happened, then?” I asked.

  “He’d told us he needed help to pay off a gambling debt. If we didn’t give him money, he was going to the scandal magazines about Barbara. She went to tell him we couldn’t afford to help him out right now. To reason with him. We both knew we owed him, but we don’t have any money, not yet. We’ll get some, sooner or later, as soon as Barbara wins the Oscar, but that’s a long way off. So we had to do something to let him know that.”

  It was farther away then he could imagine, as far as the moon, as far as the sun. Barbara would never be getting an Oscar, or even a nomination, not after what she’d done. The most glamorous event she’d be attending anytime soon would be visitor’s day at the state pen.

  “She was offering him something other than money, then,” Bogart said.

  “And you let her.”

  Randall looked so miserable that I thought he might be going to cry.

  “We couldn’t let Burleson tell about the abortion,” he said. “Barbara knew he wanted to sleep with her. She thought it was a way out. I tried to tell her it wasn’t. Oh, Burleson wanted her, all right. He just 201<
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  told her that he could have her and the money, too. He’d been drinking some, and he made a grab for her. The pistol was in her purse, and she got it out. He tried to take it from her, and she shot him. She didn’t plan to do it. She didn’t even intend to when he attacked her. It was self-defense.”

  It was a pretty good story, and I was sure Barbara could tell it beautifully on the witness stand. I didn’t think it would keep her out of the crossbar hotel, but she might not have to stay there as long as I’d figured at first. If she’d been Fatty Arbuckle, no story would have helped, but she didn’t look a thing like Fatty.

  “She must have thought that Burleson’s death would be the end of it,” I said. “And that nobody would find out she’d killed him. But it turned out that Dawson knew about the abortion. When he told people that Bogart and I wanted to talk to them, he figured out about the loan Burleson had made you. It got him killed.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. I didn’t kill him, and neither did Barbara. We weren’t anywhere around here last night, and you know it.”

  The hell of it was that I did know it. There was still one piece of the puzzle missing, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. So I made the mistake of saying, “We won’t worry about Dawson right now. We’ll go see what Barbara has to say about all this. Come on, Randall.”

  “I can’t leave. I have a scene coming up.”

  Maybe it was Hollywood that made people like Randall so unreal-istic. Or maybe everyone was that way, all over the country, and I just didn’t know it.

  “You won’t be doing any more scenes,” Bogart said. “Not unless they shoot a movie in San Quentin. Now do what Scott says.”

  Randall looked back toward the jungle one more time. Nobody came to his rescue that time, either. Nobody was even looking for him. Not yet, at any rate. Someone would miss him eventually, but by then it would be too late to do him any good. Then he looked down the long street that led to the entrance. I didn’t know who he thought might come from that direction, and nobody did.

  He gave it up, and I took his elbow to turn him in the right direction. We went to Bogart’s Cadillac and got in. Randall sat in the front passenger seat, and I sat behind him to keep an eye on him. I didn’t 202