by Steve Fisher
“Thank you, mister.”
“For what? What are you talking about?”
“That’s the first time you’ve flattered my ego with fear. I’ve made progress. You’ve never admitted before you thought I was capable of anything.”
“Progress! Your silly attempts to wear me down. You can’t hypnotize me! Do you think you can? You’re whacky!”
“Perhaps—but inevitable.”
”—you!”
“Vicky and I—in our room—we think of you at night.”
“Why, you dirty degenerate bastard!”
There was a bus on Seventh Avenue and I raced a block ahead and stopped. I reached over and opened the door.
“You can catch the bus,” I said.
“Very well, mister. Thank you for the ride. I hope you aren’t angry. I’m only following my conscience to the—”
I jerked the door out of his hand and slammed it shut.
“That’s very queer,” the assistant D. A. said. “Cornell has said nothing at all to me about you. Some of the boys suspected you in the beginning, and since then there’s been a flurry of interest in Hurd Evans—because of the money angle. But this office had concentrated on Harry Williams.
“Obviously, Williams has skipped the state. A crime of passion is generally committed by a man of his low mental caliber. We pin our suspicions upon him entirely. If he were innocent—why should he run away?” The attorney paused. “He won’t get far,” he went on smugly. “No, sir. We’ve got dodgers throughout the country.” He picked up a fact detective magazine. “Got an article about him with a picture—in here. Take a look at it.”
I opened the book and my hands shook. There was a lewd morgue picture of Vicky. I couldn’t bring my eyes up; they were hot with steam. My heart hammered at my chest.
“Wrote the article myself,” the lawyer went on. “Pick up a few dollars every month that way.”
I threw the magazine across the room and got to my feet.
“You dirty son of a bitch!”
He stared up at me—stunned.
“You dirty swine!” I was half choking.
“Why—it’s just—we always do that—and—”
“Is there nothing sacred to you, you two-bit bastard!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
It was useless; he was so stupid! He was assigned to Vicky’s murder, but he was only one of maybe half a dozen assistant district attorneys. He was a hundred-dollar-a-week heel with a mind in which only the very obvious was understandable.
“You’re a ghoul,” I said. “You pimp corpses.”
It was all Greek to him. I walked to the window. The magazine lay at my feet, the page open. There was a fly buzzing on the windowpane. The lawyer went on talking, very nervously:
“Ed Cornell has no right to molest a citizen. He has no orders from the police to go near you. Of course, he’s doing it on his own time.”
“What the hell do I care whose time he’s doing it on?”
“I quite understand how you feel. I—I appreciate your emotions.”
“You do like hell,” I said. I squashed out the fly with my thumb. It was a big blue fly with white guts and I had to wipe my hand on a handkerchief.
“Ah—you seem upset.”
I turned around. “Do I?”
“Yes.” He was playing with a pencil. “And isn’t it strange Ed Cornell should bother you? He has taken a similar interest in cases of this sort in the past. Working quietly on his own—not a word to us, mind you. But he’s never failed to turn in a brilliant case record. Once he’s started on a man’s trail he’s never failed to bring him in with evidence enough for a conviction.” He paused. “He’s a queer chap, all right. One track mind—with a cyanide pellet at the end of the track.”
“Look, sweetheart, are you by any chance implying that—”
“Of course not! I’m terribly sorry!” He rattled the pencil. “I was reflecting on Mr. Cornell. I wasn’t necessarily considering you. Naturally, he is wrong this time. He’s only human and certainly he can be wrong.”
“There’s always a first time,” I said. I said it before he could say it, and to keep him from saying it, because I could feel it coming.
“Exactly. You word things so well!” (Oh, God!)
“I guess that comes from being a writer.” (You want to hit a man as stupid as that.) “Of course, I write a little myself.”
“Let’s not go into what you write,” I said. “Ah—no. Let’s not. Won’t you sit down?”
“I’d rather stand.”
“It’s possible”—he went on slowly now, thinking very hard—“that Ed Cornell is railroading you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen it happen,” he said.
He was a fine, intelligent attorney. I sat down.
“How? Tell me how?”
“A cop gets a suspicion in which he thoroughly believes—but there’s no evidence. So he goes around and builds evidence. He finds little things that look incriminating. What he can’t find, he invents from whole cloth. He forgives himself for this because he sincerely thinks his victim is guilty and it’s the old story of planting phony money on a man you know to be a counterfeiter. You have to have proof for the courtroom.”
“I see,” I said. He wasn’t so bad; he was all right in his own shop, I thought. Every man is all right in his own shop.
“It is possible to build a case out of nothing,” he continued. “It takes time and intelligence—both of which Cornell has. Time and brains. To demonstrate what I mean: how often have you heard of an innocent man serving time for say—murder—only to be pardoned when the actual killer signs a confession? The killer, dying, or indicted for another crime, reveals the truth. The innocent man is freed. But did you ever stop to consider the insurmountable evidence there must have been against the innocent party to send him up in the first place?”
“Go on,” I said.
“That’s all. The police believed the innocent victim guilty—and because they couldn’t get a conviction otherwise, they built up a case. I don’t say that it happens very often, but it’s quite possible.”
“Does it take the police to do it?”
“No, a lawyer could do it. Or any man could if he took the time to engineer details that would stand up under the microscope of logic.”
“And that’s what Ed Cornell is doing to me?” I shuddered. “I can almost feel him throwing the dirt on my coffin. Every day another spadeful.”
“I don’t say that’s what he’s doing. Naturally such a thought is small comfort to you. Because we will surely prosecute to the hilt if he brings in a case, I may as well tell you that.”
“You mean to say—”
“We’ll check the facts, naturally. This office isn’t against you. But this office badly needs a conviction for the Vicky Lynn murder, and so much time has gone by that I’m afraid—”
“You’re afraid you won’t be very particular?”
“Well—”
“You’d just as soon convict me, and close the books.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Convict me and write another article,” I said. “What about Harry Williams?”
“I imagine we’d have to assume he was dead if—”
“You make me sick,” I said.
“Well, Ed Cornell can be wrong. But the fact is—”
“He’s never been wrong yet!”
“I was just going to say that. How did you know?”
14
ON HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD all of the street signs were changed, and now they read “Santa Claus Lane.” On every lamppost as far as the eye could reach there were gay, colored Christmas trees, very fat and laden with silver, blinking with lights, rich and bright and happy. In a tinsel archway that made a bridge over the street were golden bells and tiny figures of Santa Claus, and bulbs, red and green and yellow; and reindeer, the gayest, dizziest reindeer you’ve ever seen, and red holly berrie
s, and green wreaths, and white, artificial snow. It was as though Santa Claus Lane was a magic tunnel, festooned with beauty, the splendid, endless line of Christmas trees its radiant, painted walls.
At night people came from everywhere to see Santa Claus Lane; they packed the sidewalks, they jammed the streets. They crowded into the bright shops, for the shops all stayed open. Pretty shops full of lingerie and champagne and boxes of candied fruits and shiny red tricycles and electric trains and new TV sets and spacemen suits and toy sailboats. Shops all decorated with Christmas, dolled up like pretty girls, doors open wide, every clerk busy, wrapping packages in scarlet and blue and silver paper. And there were little fruit markets with arc lights swinging back and forth at the curb in front of them. And there were theaters, the Chinese, across from the Roosevelt Hotel, and the Egyptian, marquees sparkling, and book stores with bright, eye-catching window display, and newsstands gaudy with Christmas issues.
“Darling, this is a nice café. But I’m not hungry at all. I’m just kind of tired. It’s—nice sitting here where you can rest—and sort of watch the boulevard.”
“Yes—God, look at those mobs!”
“Uh-huh. And everyone has bundles under his arms. Presents …”
“From Oscar with greetings—”
“From Aunt Minnie with love… .”
“Makes you feel warm, doesn’t it, Peg? Christmas always makes me like this. I’m all full of songs like a little hurdy-gurdy.”
“Sell me a carol.”
“Sure, Peg, what kind?”
”—Channing.”
“Oh, that’s terrible!”
“I know. Damn it. Jill, maybe we’d better eat.”
“I’m not hungry. You eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then let’s just sit here. The champagne’s good—and my feet are so tired!”
“Shall I order a bottle of champagne?”
“No. This is fine. Look out there, Peg. That hunchback midget selling his papers.”
“He’s a landmark.”
“Oh, darling, this is a lovely night!”
“Jill—”
“Yes?”
“Let’s get married!”
“When?”
“Tonight. We’ll fly to—”
“No—in January. The old year’s been sad. I’d rather start new.”
“It’s a date, Miss Lynn. New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas!”
“Oh, that’s thrilling!”
“Think so?”
”Think so!”
“Merry Christmas then—from me to you, with love.”
“What is it? … Peg! Oh, darling! It’s such a beautiful ring! When did you get it? Such a gorgeous diamond … !”
“Hey, Jill, you’re crying …”
“Shut up, you idiot! Don’t you know Christmas isn’t for eight days yet? Eight more shopping days— Look, the ring fits!”
“Must be some mistake. I’ll send it back.”
“Over my dead body!”
The sky was gray and heavy, and the lot was quiet, the little streets dark and empty, and yet it was a fraud, for the sound stages were alive; you could see the wagging signal and the light flashing red. The office buildings were lighted up and bursting with sound. Five More Shopping Days. The hysteria has begun. Holiday time. We’re crazy. We’re all a little crazy. Hollywood Christmas. Drink with me! Doors were wide open. Radios were going: Sweet Lalanai won at Santa Anita to pay $3.20. There was a running crap game in 411. Secretaries were everywhere. Merry Christmas. Or is it Christmas yet? Five More Shopping Days.
“Where’s Lanny Craig?”
“Over on stage ten.”
“Is it an open set?”
“Sure, it’s a B hive. They’re shooting a space thing. Nobody over there knows what outer space is but they’re shooting a space picture.”
Outside of the door of stage ten the red signal was wagging, and I waited, and then I went in, opening the padded, soundproof double doors, bolting them after me with the big dog winches. Almost the moment I was inside the bell sounded again and they had resumed shooting. I stood very still, afraid to breathe lest the microphone should pick it up. The set stood at a right angle and I could see about half of it. The heavy lights played down on an office desk, behind which, in make-up, stood Oscar Markoff, a fine character actor whom the studio had greatly over-worked. Markoff stood behind the desk, his face flushed with grease paint. He was apparently concluding a telephone conversation, and as he set down the phone the door of the small set opened. Robin Ray, wearing the outfit of an astronaut, came striding in.
Oscar Markoff
I thought you were out in space by now.
Robin Ray
The rocket ship has been sabotaged. Strange things have been going on.
I heard Hurd Evans’ irritable, haranguing voice.
“Cut. God damn it, cut!”
The main arc lights snapped off and I moved forward. I could see the whole set now. The camera—a huge, square box, cameramen sitting on small seats on either side of it— was on tracks. The moment Robin Ray had entered the door of the set it had registered him in a Close Shot and then immediately trucked back with him as he crossed the room. But Robin had crossed the set at a slight angle and as he had reached the desk the camera had pivoted on its axis and wiped to a Close Two Shot, side angle, favoring Robin Ray. It was in this position as the dialogue started, and its mechanism had clicked off, leaving it here.
Hurd Evans sat up on a high stool near the camera. He was wearing gray slacks and an open shirt. His brown hair was stringy and his face was covered with sweat. They’d evidently been over this one scene a number of times. The props men and the electricians, planted around the set, and perched in roosts on top of it where they directed dozens of overhead lights, looked worn and disgusted. I didn’t see Lenny Craig.
“What was wrong?”
“What was wrong? God damn it, Robin. You can’t even remember one line at a time, can you?”
Oscar Markoff, quiet and resigned, sat down.
“Shall we get you an off-stage blackboard? When great artists blow up we try to assist them, you know.”
“You don’t have to get nasty,” Robin Ray said. He looked very young and handsome in the heavy tan make-up. He looked like a champion of outer space.
“The line is,” said Hurd Evans, “strange and mysterious things are going on.”
“Well, it stinks.”
Lenny Craig stumbled onto the set. His huge bulk swayed unsteadily. He needed a shave. His eyes were dilated. He stared at Robin Ray.
“Maybe you’d like to rewrite it?”
Robin looked at him contemptuously. “Why don’t you go lie down?”
“It’s lyrical. Saroyan never equaled it.”
“Saroyan stinks,” said Robin.
“Sure. He stinks a Pulitzer Prize worth. He hasn’t any form. He peddles vitality. I peddle fish. If you’ve got oomph, it doesn’t make any difference how you write. But if he had vitality and ever learned to plot he’d be one of the great ones. Shakespeare wasn’t too good to use a plot. I’m going to get a plot. I’m going to get a plot in Forest Lawn.”
“Saroyan smells,” said Robin.
Lanny wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “What the hell do you know about it? What does a two-bit actor know about anything but his face? For my dough I’ll take Rod Serling. Serling is a sweetheart on paper.”
“For Christ’s sake, shut up!” Robin said.
“We’re only trying to make a picture,” said Hurd Evans.
“You run off at the mouth,” Robin told Lanny. “You’re washed up here. Why don’t you get out of a studio where you’re not wanted?”
Lanny Craig looked as though he were going to fall down. “This is my last picture and—” He stopped. “You son of a bitch,” he said.
I went into the set and led him away. I tried to get him out of the sound stage but he wouldn’t go. He sat down on a box and belched. He began
to cry, silently, unreasonably. Hurd Evans was talking and the lights came back on very bright. I heard the buzzer “Roll ‘em,” and the clacking noise. The sound man, seated at his machine, wearing ear phones, said: “Scene twenty-three, take seven.” Then Oscar Markoff was talking on the phone again. Robin Ray made another entrance. The dialogue commenced.
Robin Ray
—strange and mysterious things are happening.
“Cut—damn it! Cut!”
Everyone was upset and it went on like this. There was no glamour. It was tedious, uninspiring labor. The manufactured art going into tin cans. And yet it was not of these things I thought now. I was thinking of Lanny Craig, sitting there, tears on his flushed and mottled face, hiccoughing softly. He imagined Vicky had broken up his million-dollar marriage. He had been in the apartment the very hour she was murdered. I saw Hurd Evans, distracted and nervous, sitting on the high stool. He had needed money. He is always in jams with women. He had insured Vicky for fifty thousand dollars. I shuddered and looked over at Robin Ray. The handsome lad: but clumsy with women notwithstanding. He’d loved Vicky, hadn’t he? He had loved her desperately.
There was an aching all through me, and I laughed. It was all so incredible. Harry Williams, that was it. The switchboard boy. A crime of passion—and he had skipped. Subject matter for fact detective magazines. These things happened. This other, this mean suspicion, was born of the fetid thing fear. Holiday hysteria. But what if Harry Williams, too, was dead? What if he lay rotting in some shallow grave? I was cold and sick.
“Back to New York,” Lanny Craig mumbled, “snow and steam heat.”
”Scene twenty-three, take nine.”
”Mysterious things are going on. There are far stranger things in outer space than earth has ever dreamed of.”
“My heart’s in the highlands,” whispered Lanny. “That’s sweet, sweet dialogue!”
“Cut,” said Hurd Evans.
What if Harry Williams, too, had been murdered?
I felt a tap against my arm. It was a messenger. “There’s a guy on the lot looking for you,” he said.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Funny guy, though. He must be drunk. He says he’s going to arrest you for murder.”