by Mary Miley
“From Portland?”
He nodded. I didn’t have to ask anything else. David was going to sell the contents of the Heilmann suitcases to someone from Portland, probably someone from his old gang.
The chief of police arrived and took charge, dismissing most of the officers and shooing away onlookers. A doctor who chanced to be passing through the station pronounced Salazar dead. “You ladies all right?” he asked. Myrna and I nodded. “You’re a couple of lucky girls. You should go home and have a stiff drink … medicinal, of course,” he added with a nervous glance at the chief.
“As soon as you answer a few questions,” said the chief, “I’ll have one of the men escort you home. Now, tell me what happened.”
I repeated what I’d said to the cops who came first on the scene. Enough time had elapsed since then that I had figured out a plausible story and managed to convey in a few sentences how my friend Myrna and I had come to the station with David to meet a friend.
“Salazar arrived at about the same time we did, to pick up his suitcases and leave town—at least, I presume he was planning to leave town. Unfortunately, he spotted the plainclothes cops hanging around. He panicked and grabbed Myrna, intending to use her as a hostage.” The chief looked at Myrna, who nodded her agreement. She knew nothing different. “I distracted him and David knocked the gun out of his hand. They both dived for the gun and struggled for it, and it went off.”
“And how did you come to know Salazar was the one who shot Tuttle and Rios in the desert?” the chief asked.
I pointed to Myrna. “Myrna overheard him talking. She was working at his studio and heard him boasting about it.” I spoke louder, so Myrna could hear me. “He threatened you, didn’t he, Myrna?”
Salazar had certainly threatened to ruin Myrna’s career, which is what she thought I was referring to. Still shaken, she could only nod her agreement. I’d coach her a little more later, in case we were questioned further. It was a sure thing Salazar wasn’t going to contradict anything we said.
David confirmed my account, as did several bystanders who had witnessed part of the fight. Names and addresses were jotted down in case the police needed to follow up, and two men arrived with a stretcher to carry off the late Mr. Salazar. The chief said we could leave.
I was congratulating myself on a masterful performance when I caught sight of someone standing just within listening range, someone I was beginning to know rather too well. Then our eyes met, and I knew there was one cop who wasn’t convinced.
David drove us home. Questions burned inside me, questions I couldn’t ask with Myrna beside us in the front seat. David was not similarly constrained.
“So how did you find out about the ambush?” he asked as we pulled out of the depot parking lot. He displayed an extraordinary degree of sangfroid for someone who had just knocked off someone else.
“Some cops were in our yard shooing away a pack of reporters, and a police car came by with a couple of plainclothesmen to tell them to get to the depot right away. An informer had tipped them off that the man who killed the two detectives would be there at two o’clock. I remembered you were going to be at the depot to meet someone at two, and it was nearly two, so I grabbed a cab.”
“You thought I had killed the detectives?”
The truth of it was, I hadn’t been certain. That was part of what I was itching to ask. I had to know what David’s role was in this affair. But with Myrna next to me, I chose my words carefully. “Noooo, but it looked like you were going to get caught up in it anyway.”
I translated his grunt to mean that he understood I couldn’t talk freely. We drove west in silence for a couple minutes before he spoke again. “I don’t remember telling you I was going to the depot at two.”
I gave a resigned sigh. No one was going to slip anything past David. “Yeah, well, you did. I heard you talking to someone named Ruby at the studio about a boating party. You begged off because you had to meet a friend at two.”
“How—? You weren’t—”
“I was the girl in the blue and white sailor suit.”
He looked at me with disbelief. “Hey, watch the road, buster,” I reminded him. “I’ve met my danger quota for today.”
He pulled up to the curb in front of our house on Fernwood, and Myrna and I got out. “Dinner?” he asked. I remembered our engagement and my intention to break it off in some dramatic fashion. It seemed so petty now. I wanted—I needed—to talk to him alone, but there was no way I could handle being out in public tonight. I could not fathom how he could think of food at a time like this. What I needed was a hot bath and a glass of relaxant.
“Not in the mood,” I replied.
He nodded. “Tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow.” I’d have to wait to hear his story. I wondered whether it would be fact or fiction.
35
Turned out Johnnie Salazar was the Hollywood Killer. Newspapers across the nation blared headlines like SMALL-TIME HOODLUM CRASHED HEILMANN ORGY, RETURNED FOR REVENGE AFTER BEING TOSSED OUT, and WAITRESS WITNESSED MURDER, HUNTED DOWN. Stories explained that Salazar feared other late party guests had witnessed his actions and so had had to murder Lorna McCall in her home. Then he had gained access to Paramount by pretending to be a director and poisoned Paul Corrigan and Faye Gordon. Meanwhile, two detectives were preparing to bust up Salazar’s dope ring, one of California’s most notorious, and they surprised him as he was taking delivery of a shipment from Mexico. The ensuing gunfight left two of Los Angeles’s finest detectives dead, not to mention three worthless gangsters. Much was made of the heroism of Tuttle and Rios, and their funerals received extensive coverage.
The police were pleased to have wrapped it all up. Their detectives had been avenged. Case closed.
The big studio bosses—the Warners, Zukor, Mayer—were giddy with relief. They knew the puzzle parts didn’t fit together that well but preferred not to challenge an explanation that so neatly deflected criticism from the film industry without linking Heilmann or any other movie people to dope, sex, or liquor. They took every opportunity to point out piously that Hollywood was as much a victim of gangland mayhem as any other city in America.
It was really very tidy. Too bad none of it was true.
I didn’t remember the money until the following day. I broached the topic over dinner with David in my usual subtle way.
“What the hell happened to the money?”
“What money?”
We had just been seated in a dark corner at one of Musso & Frank’s red leather and mahogany booths.
“Don’t go innocent on me. The money that wasn’t with Heilmann’s suitcases. The money Johnnie Salazar was going to pay Tuttle and Rios for the dope.”
“Oh, that money. When the dust settles, I’ll find some worthy charity…”
“Right, you and Andrew Carnegie.”
“I won’t be building libraries, but the public will certainly benefit. I plan to invest the proceeds in sound films and color process.”
A waiter came to take drink orders. I asked for a highball; David ordered whiskey.
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t serve alcohol.”
I swallowed my surprise and ordered ginger ale.
“Make it two,” said David.
“A law-abiding proprietor,” I said. “Who could have imagined?”
“Most likely they have it for regulars. They don’t know us here. And anyway, we’re inside the city limits.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Los Angeles cops don’t have jurisdiction beyond the city limits. Why did you think that far end of Sunset Strip had so many cabarets and nightclubs?”
Trust a bootlegger to know the ins and outs. “This is the first time since I arrived in Hollywood that I haven’t been served. I thought liquor was available everywhere. Mexico is so close, I hear people drive across the border and come home with cases of the stuff in the trunk.”
“Yeah, this is a pretty easygoing town.
But it isn’t all Mexican, you know. Plenty of bathtub gin is brewed right here. A friend told me most of it starts downtown at L.A. General Hospital. They’re allowed to buy alcohol for cleaning surgical instruments—a legal exception, like the Catholic Church’s sacramental wine. The funny thing is, though, before Prohibition, the hospital bought denatured alcohol by the gallon. Now they buy it by the boxcar. Someone gets hold of the extra, ‘renatures’ it, dilutes it with water, adds a little juniper juice, and presto! Gin.” He shook his head with admiration as we sipped our sodas. “Pure genius. Ideas like that keep me humble. In all my years in the business, I never thought of the hospital angle.”
I waited until we had ordered our steaks and the waiter was out of range before I steered him back to my original topic.
“All right, I want to know the whole story. How did you get the suitcases from Johnnie Salazar? And don’t lie to me.”
A smile softened the angles of his face. “I don’t dare. Besides, I have you to thank. You told me about the detectives stealing the dope from Heilmann’s. I was following them to see where they’d stashed it, thinking I might be able to relieve them of it without much trouble and sell it out of town. Do you know where it was all along? In the trunk of their damn police car! I had binoculars. I saw them out in the desert trying to sell the stuff to Salazar’s boys. A very stupid plan. Anyone over the age of eight could have told them that.”
He shook his head, baffled at such naïveté. “When the dustup was over, I followed Salazar back to town. I could tell by the way he was driving he’d been hit pretty bad, and I saw my chance. I figured he’d go to a hospital, and I could grab the suitcases then. But he was no fool. He stopped at a doctor’s house, some fella who knew better than to talk about bullet wounds. While he was getting patched up, I moved all three suitcases to my car, the dope and the cash. I didn’t think anyone saw me.”
“Someone did. Someone must’ve told Salazar. Maybe described your car.”
“Probably got a license plate number. Anyway, I went straight to the train station to put the luggage where it would attract the least attention and contacted an old chum to buy the contents. Heilmann suitcases in one locker, money suitcase in another. Never mix dope and money, that’s my motto. The man I was meeting had a satchel full of Grover Clevelands that he was going to put into a locker, then we were going to swap keys and go our separate ways.”
“Nothing like selling the dope twice.”
“Double the money. That was the idea. Still, I came out ahead. Thanks to your warning.” He lifted his glass in a toast.
“I wasn’t trying to help you get rich. I was trying to pay you back for saving my life in Oregon last year. The cops thought you’d killed Tuttle and Rios, and you were not going to live to see a trial.”
“I am forever in your debt.”
“No, the score’s even now.”
“Let’s see if we can’t both stay out of trouble.”
“I’m still wondering who could have tipped off the police. Who else knew you were going to the depot at two o’clock?”
“Salazar must’ve followed me there. As for the police … I have my own ideas.”
“Such as?”
“The only people who knew about the two-o’clock swap were me and the Portland boys. I hear there’s a struggle going on between some of the old gang now that I’m not there to keep a lid on things, and I’m pretty sure one of them sent word to the L.A. cops in order to be rid of Danny. That’s the guy I was meeting. Maybe also to make sure I wasn’t planning a comeback.”
“And are you?” I asked.
“I told you. I’m done with all that. Gone straight.”
Our steaks arrived. “You promised your whole true-life story.”
“In exchange for yours.”
A nod sealed the deal. He waited for the waiter to finish serving, then surveyed the room again. Musso & Frank’s was popular with film people, but I saw no familiar faces, and no one was close enough to eavesdrop.
“When I was about fourteen,” he began, “I fell in with some lads who were bringing whiskey in from Canada. Oregon went dry before the rest of the country, you know, and there was good money to be made for doing nothing more than driving through Washington, across the Canadian border, and back again. Over the years I worked harder and smarter than anyone else, and it got noticed. I moved up in the ranks, supervised local purchases, organized overland and sea runs, and branched into speakeasies. Pretty soon I was running the show.”
He paused to cut into his steak.
“What sort of show, besides the hooch?”
“Some gambling around town.”
“Dope?”
“The Chinese handled most of that through their opium dens. And you don’t want to cross the Chinese when it comes to opium.”
“Brothels?”
“A couple high-class houses attached to the speakeasies, to keep customers and cops happy.”
“Did you kill people?”
He put a large piece of steak in his mouth and chewed it slowly. “Only in self-defense. Like yesterday.” Something in the way he replied told me further questions on that topic would not be welcomed. Besides, I wanted to believe him. “When the cops came after me last fall, I skipped to Vancouver, changed my name, and lay low for a while. After things quieted down, I came back to the States, but no one knew where you’d gone. Finally I tracked down some of your vaudeville friends who told me you were living in Hollywood, so I came south, figuring Hollywood would be just the right starting-over business for David Carr. I have plenty of money, and that makes me very popular in the film industry. And now that you know more about me than anyone on this earth, you’ll have to marry me.”
I looked up, startled, and my face flushed hot. David had a way of getting under my skin with a single word. I raised my eyebrows and looked my question at him, hoping the dim light was hiding my discomfort.
“Wives can’t testify in court against their husbands,” he continued.
“Ahhh, I see.” He was toying with me, the way men do, trying to rattle me. Our conversation paused as another couple was seated in the booth behind ours.
“And what about your activities now?” I asked, careful to use innocent-sounding words and a quiet voice.
“You mean here in Hollywood? Like I said, I’ve gone arrow-straight.”
“Except for Salazar’s cash.”
“That doesn’t count. It fell into my lap. I didn’t go looking for trouble. I could not in good conscience let all that money get into the hands of some undeserving crook, could I?” The deserving crook grinned. It was all a game to him.
Over apple pie and ice cream, it was my turn. I gave David a brief synopsis of my life in vaudeville, describing the hungry times as well as the successes. I told him a little about the mother who raised me and the grandmother I had only recently discovered. He wanted to know more about my acts, the best ones and the worst.
“That’s a hard question; there were so many.” I thought a while, then told him the best act was probably the Little Darlings, a lighthearted song-and-dance team where I played one of the older children. “And the worst? Let’s see. Well, I guess I’m not too proud of my stint with the fakir when I impersonated a grieving widow to help swindle other grieving widows. And the time I worked as a magician’s assistant was pretty sleazy. As I was telling Myrna last week, I was practically nude on the stage.”
“I’d like to have seen that!” I tried to keep a stern face but the mischievous look on his face drove off all my resolve. “Any chance of an encore later tonight?”
“Nope.”
“Mmmm. And you started over when you came to Hollywood, just like me.”
“Hollywood’s a new start for a lot of people.”
“You sure you’re not operating a swindle now?”
“No!”
“Don’t give me any outrage. Are you going to tell me you’ve never run afoul of the law?”
I sighed. “It was a long time ago
. I … well, I got off light—if anyone had known my real age, the story would be a lot worse.”
“So here we are, two reformed delinquents. Two upstanding citizens. No reason we can’t let this fine friendship grow into something stronger, is there?”
36
In Son of Zorro, Douglas Fairbanks plays two roles, reprising the original Zorro from the first film, now a graying aristocrat but still a formidable swordsman, as well as Zorro’s son, Don Q. Thanks to the wizardry of the studio’s film crew and cameramen, he could play them both in the same scene. This delicate procedure, perfected a few years earlier for Mary Pickford’s astonishing dual role in Little Lord Fauntleroy, calls for the cameraman to matte part of the frame, then rewind the film for a second pass. One of these double-exposure scenes was on the schedule for Monday.
Douglas Fairbanks emerged from a lengthy session in Makeup looking so much older that Frank Richardson called him Gramps. Douglas scowled, and Frank didn’t repeat the joke.
We worked hard until noon. Frank called a lunch break, and Douglas motioned me to his side. “What happened this morning? Did you get to talk to Faye Gordon?”
“Nothing happened. I went to Faye’s home at about nine with some flowers. A snooty maid let me in and took my name, then returned to tell me Miss Gordon wasn’t feeling well enough for visitors.”
“You really think she can tell you anything you don’t already know?”
“It was worth the try.”
He tapped a cigarette out of its box and struck a match. “I’m glad you haven’t given up on the case. It spooks me knowing the person who killed Lorna McCall and Paul Corrigan—and very nearly killed Faye—is still walking around. What if you went to see Faye again this afternoon?”
“I don’t think I’d have any better—”
“What if my Mary went with you?”
I considered it. “That might work. Although as I recall, Faye wouldn’t see Miss Pickford when she was in the hospital.”
“But she might now.”