‘Look, Mike,’ she said. ‘I know a lot of your work is in confidence, but can’t you put me in the picture just a little?’
I told her some of the story; just enough to give her an inkling of what I was driving at. About Starr, and the party and what had happened at Caribou Lake. With Starr, of course. Definitely not Zarah Fayne. That was for later.
She drew thoughtfully on her cigarette, her face white. ‘How terrible,’ she said. ‘And you think somebody in the film colony brought him from out of town to prevent the racket being exposed.’
‘It figures,’ I said. She smoked on in silence.
‘I forgive you, Mike,’ she said at last. ‘I guess it did look suspicious. But I didn’t know half the people at the party.’
Her last remark gave me an idea.
‘I got one of the films Hud Gibson was killed for, Carol,’ I said. ‘I was just having a private preview before you came. I’d like to show it for you if I may. Not for erotic reasons, I hasten to add. But there’s someone in it you might know.’
Her eyes lit up and she shifted forward in her chair. ‘Do you know, Mike?’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen a blue film? What are we waiting for? Get that projector rolling.’
The film flickered on to the wall of the office. Carol Foster, sitting beside me in the darkness, stiffened. The titles came and went. Carol Foster’s eyes opened wide and her mouth made a round O of surprise. Her breath came out in a loud puff that I could hear even above the noise of the projector.
‘God, Mike, this really is a porny,’ she said, wonder in her voice.
‘I did warn you,’ I said, shifting more nervously in my chair than I had intended.
She gave my hand a squeeze. ‘Please don’t apologize. I think it’s marvellous.’
She sat through the rest in silence. I fancied I could hear her catch her breath once or twice. The film came to an end. I switched off the projector and we sat in semidarkness. She didn’t move and something was keeping me from the light-switch.
‘You didn’t recognize anybody in the film?’ I said.
‘Other than Miss Fayne?’ she said.
‘No, should I have?’
‘I just wondered,’ I said.
‘I’m not surprised at Miss Fayne,’ she said. ‘It was an open secret around Hollywood.’
I felt disappointed and empty.
‘You sure there’s no one?’ I asked. ‘Anybody in the background of the party scene, for instance?’
I had to be sure. She shook her head and her hand felt for mine in the gloom of the room. She kissed me gently but we took a long time to come apart.
‘I didn’t recognize anyone,’ she repeated. ‘But we could run it again. God, that was a marvellous film, Mike. I didn’t know they did things like that.’
‘We can run it if you like,’ I said. ‘You’re over twenty-one, I take it?’
She chuckled. I re-threaded the projector with an unsteady hand. Somehow I got the film on the screen. Carol sat up beside me, her hand clasping me tight. Her breath was soft against my ear.
‘Remember,’ I warned her. ‘This is business. You’re supposed to be trying to identify the actors.’
‘Is that what I’m supposed to be doing?’ she said. I sighed and gave up.
The film was about halfway through when I took Carol in my arms.
‘The hell with the film,’ she breathed. ‘Let’s do it for real.’
I lifted her up. It was the first time I’d found a really worthwhile use for all the space on my old broadtop desk. The projector went on in the darkness. The film must have run out hours before we came back to reality. Like she said it was better for real.
13 - Gala Performance
McGiver and I went up the steps of the main block at Jet Studios. He had laid everything on and we had the use of the private cinema where we’d seen the footage on the Esterbrook kill. I checked on my watch as we went up the steps; we had an hour to go before the conference. My fingers tapped against the webbing holster of the Smith-Wesson as I reached in my inner pocket. I wasn’t taking any chances today.
One of the studio heads conducted us through like we were royalty. A publicity manager was trotting at his heels like he had diarrhoea.
‘We gotta play this the right way, sir,’ he panted. ‘Otherwise we got a hundred-thousand dollars worth of sour publicity.’
‘You look after your end, Simpson, and I’ll look after mine,’ said the studio head, who had a face like one of the chiselled likenesses on Mount Rushmore.
‘The main thing is to get this business cleared up. Then the work of the studio can go ahead.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Simpson went on. ‘All I meant was —’
‘I know what you meant,’ the studio head interrupted with all the calm contempt of a man who could throw the whole studio out of gear with a flick of his eyelid. The publicity manager fell silent. He had an expression like a whipped puppy and I had a feeling he’d have whimpered if he’d been alone.
The studio head took us into the V.I.P. commissary for drinks. They had a bar there done up in red leather and walnut that looked like one of their own sets. The publicity manager started rushing about ordering drinks for everyone. Those who were taking part in the conference were drifting in. I recognized Lee Rance, De Lancia and several others. De Lancia had a sneering expression that belied his actions of the other day. He was trying to make out he was a man of iron willpower. The poor man’s Erich von Stroheim. I could see DeSoto too. He was properly awed at being at the seats of the mighty. He stood on the fringe of the group on the barstools and at the tables and looked uncomfortable. I noticed the publicity manager didn’t offer him a drink. I went to the bar and got a beer for him and took it over.
‘Thanks, Mr Faraday,’ he said. ‘It’s nice to recognize a white man.’
I found the studio head at my elbow. DeSoto melted away so quickly I didn’t even see him go. The studio head had on his most affable face.
‘I don’t think you’ve met, Mr Faraday. This is Miss Denise Silverman, our Head of Publicity.’
Miss Silverman gave me a well manicured paw to fondle. She was quite a dish. She had a pair of the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. I should have said she was about thirty. There was something familiar about her face, but I couldn’t place it.
‘Things seem to happen when you’re around, Mr Faraday,’ she said. Her voice was low and did things to your spine. The studio head excused himself and hurried away to greet someone else. Miss Silverman and I didn’t notice him go. The girl had bright blonde hair that didn’t come out of a dye-bag, a strong chin that denoted will-power and a wide and sensuous mouth. She was a lovely thing but I bet she could be imperious to the people in her own office. The publicity manager was obviously frightened of her; he hovered around in the background like she was Moses come down with the tablets. She didn’t actually snap her fingers at him but I got the impression that he would have genuflected if she had.
‘What do you do when you’re not detecting things, Mr Faraday?’ she said.
‘I have been known to indulge in a little social life after office hours,’ I said.
She smiled. She had very white, even teeth that were pleasant to look at. She wore a dark grey tailored suit that was so discreet it must have cost several hundred dollars. A diamond ring glittered on her finger. We were momentarily interrupted by a burst of conversation from a group at the bar behind us. I glanced around. A fat man with a portable viewfinder slung around his neck on a black cord was talking with the cameraman who’d shot the Esterbrook material.
‘You must remember Esterbrook,’ the cameraman was telling him. ‘He was the big white hope of Monogram. And he always stood next to Allen Jenkins in the Warner gangster films.’
The fat man went into peals of laughter. Miss Silverman took the opportunity to excuse herself.
‘I hope we’ll be seeing more of you round the studio, Mr Faraday,’ she said. ‘If I can help you in any way let me know.’
&
nbsp; She gave me a card. I expected it to be one of the usual studio cards but it gave her name, private address and phone number. She tore me off a dazzling smile and then was gone. I admired her walk all the way across the commissary. Just then a cigar came into the room. Manny Freeman was attached to the other end of it. He waited until the publicity manager came and put a drink into his hand. His fine Judean-Roman head had a scowl on its face.
‘I’m surprised you could find the time for this clambake, Manny,’ I said.
He put on one of his bland, inoffensive faces.
‘Money isn’t everything,’ he said.
‘Be careful,’ I said. ‘They’ll put you in a reservation.’
He raised his eyebrows, flicked one finger against his teeth in an expressive gesture and moved off into the crowd. I stood there laughing and admiring his nerve. I went over to one of the tables with my cigarette butt, crushed it out in a stone ashtray. I looked down and there was another butt in the tray. Nothing special about that but this one had a coronet stencilled on the tube. I’d seen one like it before. I quietly palmed it and put it in my pocket. Another piece had just gone into place. It looked like being an interesting afternoon.
The studio head mounted the small platform in front of the projection screen and cleared his throat. The theatre seemed to be filled with people, though I guess there couldn’t have been more than about thirty there. McGiver had salted the audience with a few of his handpicked men; those best with a gun at short distances in a crowded room — just in case.
I could see De Lancia’s supercilious expression and Manny Freeman’s stolid indifference behind the smoke-screen his cigar was putting up. McGiver and I stood next to the studio head who started off by spouting about the good of the studio and nothing that passed here that afternoon going beyond the walls; I could see the publicity manager’s face going bright red and Denise Silverman was openly smiling. I could imagine it too; every gossip column in Hollywood would have it by the time the conference was over.
The Great Stone Face finished up by urging every cooperation with the police and said it was more necessary than ever that Esterbrook’s accident should be cleared up so that the good name of the studios could be preserved. There was a visible shifting in the seats in front of us and someone at the back made a raucous noise that was instantly covered up by an outbreak of coughing in the front row.
The technicians, executives and other grades were grouped like stars round their own particular planets; it would have been pretty amusing if the subject hadn’t been so damned serious. I noticed there was a wide space left around the studio head’s seat; he was the only one present in person to represent the board but they’d chosen the right man. If anyone would weather the storm he would. He had only to leave his hat on his tip-up armchair for everyone to shun that row like the Black Death. He finished at last, having achieved exactly nothing. McGiver and I were all set to blast him out of his complacency.
Now it was McGiver’s turn. He commenced by mentioning that Esterbrook’s death was no accident, but one of a series of premeditated killings and attempted killings that had a definite object. He had asked me along because I was the first to stumble on them in the course of a missing persons inquiry. McGiver glanced round the hall; he was looking very clean-cut and confident; he kept his hands in his pockets of his well turned-out grey suit and went on like he was giving a police lecture. I guess he was at that.
‘Let’s get one thing quite clear,’ he said. ‘This concerns the pornographic films racket. We all know that it goes on everywhere and that Hollywood is one of the world’s biggest centres. Of course, all the studio chiefs will deny it’ — every eye was on the front row now, the big wheel shifting uncomfortably in his chair — ‘but we know it goes on, you know it goes on. Every studio has its problems. You get a small group; starlets who want to earn some money, a few people with technical knowledge. They pass some bills around, cameras, lights and stages are borrowed after hours and they’re in business. And make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, it’s big business. This racket runs into billions of dollars in the States alone and the thing’s on a world scale. Now we can’t stop it; some say we shouldn’t want to stop it. But my job’s to administer the law as it stands. And when the obscene film set-up brings the killers with it, then we’ve got to smash it.’
I stood and looked round the small theatre, blue with tobacco smoke, studying the faces. McGiver spoke well, I thought; just the right pontifical tone, without giving away any of the surprises to come. There were several directors in the third row back, two of them quite well-known ones; I thought I could detect a slight tremor of conscience on one face. It wouldn’t have been the first time a world name got mixed up in something like this. But shooting and marketing porny films for profit was one thing; murder was another. I thought we might flush somebody out before the afternoon was over.
McGiver finished at last. Before he stepped down he introduced me to the audience and went back to his seat at the end of the front row. I glanced around the hall, noted the position of McGiver’s men and then stepped up to the table to begin my spiel.
‘Firstly,’ I said, ‘I haven’t got all the pieces of this; no one has yet. No one, except the man in back of the racket going on in this studio. He’s sitting in this room right now. And we’re going to prove it before this session’s over.’
There was quite a murmur at this, as we’d expected, with people turning to study their neighbours; McGiver’s men sat and looked along the rows, watching the expressions on people’s faces. They didn’t waste time looking in my direction. The studio chief sat with his arms grimly folded, shocked disbelief on his face; the publicity manager looked like he wanted to crawl back into the woodwork.
‘I was called in on a missing persons inquiry, like the Lieutenant told you,’ I said. ‘We won’t bother about that now. In the course of inquiries I came to this studio to ask Chuck Esterbrook a few questions. It was just a routine thing; nobody thought Esterbrook had anything shady to hide. But somebody in this studio couldn’t risk that; somebody high up in the pornographic films racket. I wasn’t interested in that; I didn’t know anything about it. All I wanted was to ask Esterbrook a few questions.’
I paused and walked along the platform until I could see the group I was aiming my words at.
‘But our man didn’t know that,’ I went on. ‘And he couldn’t afford to take chances. At the first sniff I was on the case he’d hired a tough, out-of-town character called Starr. Starr was a cold boy, a professional killer who’d had strict orders. Eliminate anybody who might give away the big operator; if necessary eliminate me. He did pretty good. I wouldn’t be standing here now if it wasn’t for an inquisitive deputy-sheriff with a country beat. Esterbrook was mixed up with the blue films. So he had to go. The big operator gave the word. The morning I was due here at the studio Starr came in on a visitor’s pass, went to props and spoke to DeSoto. At the critical moment someone rang through and called DeSoto away. In that short space of time Starr changed the blanks over for real bullets. Exit Chuck Esterbrook.’
There was a real hubbub in the projection theatre this time.
‘This is preposterous,’ someone called out; it sounded like one of the directors. I saw that the photographer who’d shot the Esterbrook material was looking a bit green.
‘We’ll see how preposterous in a moment,’ said McGiver, standing up at the end of his row. ‘In the meantime let’s have a little hush, gentlemen. Mr Faraday hasn’t finished.’
The room was quiet, the faces of the men and women in the tip-up seats so many white blurs turned towards me. I could see the two operators with their faces to the plate glass windows of their booth at the rear of the hall.
‘The blue film racket was too lucrative to give up,’ I continued.
‘And a little bit of blackmail on the side helps too. Celebrities, famous names brought in for filmed orgies as extra excitement find their prints about to go out on general release — unless
they pay up.’
There was tension building in the cinema now; there were no more interruptions. I could hear seats creaking as their occupants leaned forward. I went on hammering my points home.
‘Right, then. We’ve established the racket. We’ve established the motive for the Esterbrook killing. I was at a deadend then until a character called Hud Gibson turned up. He’d been in on the technical side of the films this group was turning out. He contacted me, said he had a film which would incriminate someone high up in the organization. A film this man had taken part in on one of his off-nights.’
I really had their attention now.
‘Hud Gibson was blasted by Starr as he was handing a tin of film over to me,’ I said. ‘It was in a public place but fortunately no one else was seriously hurt, except an old gent who was wounded in the leg. I hit Starr but he got away. The film told me nothing unfortunately, because a vital part was missing.’
I could almost hear the breath hiss out in relief from several throats. I felt my act was going over well. Miss Silverman was leaning forward as if she didn’t want to miss a word. De Lancia wore a resigned expression. DeSoto was the only person in the hall with satisfaction on his face.
‘Later on, Starr caught up with me out in the country,’ I said. ‘It was a pretty close thing. Starr’s dead now. But I want the person in this room who hired him to know he earned his money. He did a good job from first to last.’
The studio head finally spoke. He’d been quite patient for him, but he had an early breaking point.
‘For heaven’s sake, Mr Faraday,’ he said querulously. ‘Get to the meat.’
‘I’m coming to it,’ I said. ‘In fact it’s right here.’
I went over to the table and picked up my eight-hundred feet tin of 16mm film.
This is the film Hud Gibson was killed for,’ I said. ‘If we hadn’t got Starr there might have been quite a few more to follow.’
‘But you said the film told you nothing!’ This a choked cry from De Lancia.
Scratch on the Dark (A Mike Faraday Mystery Book 4) Page 11