Beverly Hills Dead

by Stuart Woods

  “Have you ever signed a petition for aid to the Russians or the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War or war orphans or anything?”

  “I have not.”

  They stood up, and Hy Greenbaum showed him to the door, where his car was waiting. “You’re going to have a long and very successful career,” he said.

  7

  Hyman Greenbaum took a chair across from Rick’s desk, while Vance Calder cooled his heels in Rick’s reception room.

  “I want to see his test,” Hy said immediately.

  “The screening room is tied up right now,” Rick said. “I’ll run it for you later.”

  Hy smiled a little smile. “It was that good, huh?”

  “It was all right.”

  “No seven-year contract,” Hy said.

  “What do you want, Hy?”

  “A two-picture deal with an option; fifty grand for the first one, a hundred for the second.”

  “Not a chance,” Rick said.

  “What are you offering?”

  “A five-picture deal, starting at ten grand, adding another ten grand every time we pick up his option. And I’ll give him a nice dressing room.”

  “Three pictures; twenty-five, fifty and a hundred. And he gets a cottage. And he gets the lead in the Sid Brooks picture.”

  “All right,” Rick said. “Three pictures; fifteen, twenty-five and fifty. He gets the lead, and he’ll share a cottage. That’s it, Hy.”

  “The kid needs a car,” Hy said. “He’s riding around on a bicycle with a motor, something called a Whizzer. He’ll get killed.”

  “I’ll loan him one until he gets on his feet.”

  “Oh, and he gets script approval.”

  “Not for the first three pictures, Hy. We want him to do as well as you do, and I promise you I’ll handle him carefully. It’s not in our interests for him to appear in a mediocre movie.”

  “No more than two pictures a year,” Hy said. “Let’s not wear him out.”

  Rick shook his head. “It’s important for him to be seen a lot early in his career. Later, we’ll see.”

  “You’ll pick up his dental bill.”

  Rick nodded. “We’ve got a good man right down the street; he gets all our business.”

  “This kid is going to be very big, Rick.”

  “I hope so.”

  “All right, you’ve got a deal.”

  The two men stood and shook hands. “I’ll send you a contract tomorrow morning and a check for five grand,” Rick said.

  “Done.”

  “Let’s get him in here,” Rick said, pressing a button on his intercom. “Show Mr. Calder in, please.”

  Vance walked into the room, and Rick shook his hand. “Welcome to Centurion, Vance,” he said. “I think you’re going to do very well here.”

  “Thank you, Rick,” Vance said.

  “Sit down, I want to tell you about the next few weeks.”

  Everybody sat down.

  “We’re in preproduction for a new script by Sidney Brooks, called Bitter Creek. It’s going to be a tough, gritty western with a lot of fresh faces, yours among them. You’re going to play the lead, and you’ll have a script when you leave here. We’ll start shooting the exteriors in about four or five weeks—sooner if we find an amenable location in a hurry. You’ll probably be living in a tent for a month. In the meantime, you have a lot of work to do. I want you to ride as much as you can out on the back lot. You looked good in the test, but I want you perfectly at home in the saddle, and I don’t want you saddle sore on location. Our head wrangler will teach you a lot of stuff you don’t know yet, including roping cattle, and you’ll spend some time on the firing range, working with guns.

  “You’ll need some dental work to make you look good in the closeups, and we’ll send you to the studio’s dentist for that. You’ll be rehearsing with other members of the cast, with an acting coach, learning your lines, and you’ll spend a couple of hours every day in the gym; we want to strengthen your upper body a bit and put a little more muscle on you for the part. After this film, you can decide how much working out you want to do, but it’s important to your career that you be fit. Any questions?”

  “When do I start all this?”

  “Be in the gym at nine tomorrow morning. My secretary will give you a map of our lot, so you can find your way around.” Rick reached into a pocket and tossed him a set of keys. “There’s the key to your dressing room and a ’38 Ford convertible outside in my parking spot; you can use it until the film is over, and after that I’ll sell it to you if you like it.”

  “Thank you, Rick.”

  “Your dressing room will be half a duplex cottage at number 4A G Street. You’ll see it on the map. You can sleep there, if you like, and save some money on rent. You’ll have a pass for your car that will get you through the gate, but the guards will know you almost immediately. If you need clothes for a special occasion, see Marge in wardrobe, and she’ll loan you what you need. Get fitted for a tuxedo today; you’re invited to dinner at Eddie Harris’s house tomorrow evening at seven. Don’t bring a girl; Eddie’s wife, Suzanne, will pair you with somebody. Is there anything else you need?”

  “I’m probably going to need a lawyer,” Vance said.

  “Hy will recommend somebody, I’m sure. Anything else?”

  “I can’t think of anything.”

  “Don’t hesitate to call me if you do. In the meantime, don’t get into any traffic accidents, don’t get anybody pregnant and, generally speaking, keep your nose clean. You’ll get into the columns soon, but we want it to be at a time of our choosing. One of the publicity people will interview you for a studio bio, and we’ll have a lot of still pictures taken. If you need a date for an event, publicity will fix you up with a contract player. Be nice to her.”

  “Of course.”

  “Your screen test is put up in my screening room next door.” Rick handed him an envelope. “Here’s your script. Good luck.” He stood up, shook the actor’s hand and showed him and his agent to the screening room, leaving them there.

  Rick called Eddie Harris and sketched out the deal for him.

  “Fine with me,” Eddie said. “Good job, and you keep that kid happy.”

  “Don’t worry; he’s happy, and he’s going to stay that way.”

  “He’s going to be our Clark Gable and our Clete Barrow, all wrapped up in one.”

  “He just might be. He’ll be at your house for dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Good. Did you give him Glenna’s car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t bother to pick out a new one; it’s already in the parking lot next to your spot, by way of thanks for her spotting Calder.”

  “Thanks Eddie.”

  “You heard from Manny, the location maven, yet?”

  “He’s probably still in the air. Don’t worry; he’ll come up with something.”

  “I expect so. See you later, kid.”

  Rick hung up and turned his attention to the pile of mail on his desk. He went through a few things, then he came to an internal mail envelope, sealed with wax.

  “Now what?” Rick said aloud. He broke the seal and shook out the single sheet of paper onto his desk. It was another photostat of a Communist Party of America card.

  The name on it was that of one Louise Brecht, of a Milwaukee address. Rick sat, frozen, staring at the card. He didn’t burn this one.

  8

  Rick left his office a little after six and found a brand-new, cream-colored, 1947 Cadillac convertible, waiting for him, or rather for Glenna. That was very generous of Eddie, he thought as he walked around it, admiring its lines. It was a lot bigger than the old ’38 Ford, but Glenna would get used to it.

  Rick had been driving the Ford since the day he had joined Centurion as its security chief in 1939. It had been garaged at the motor pool while he was in the navy and used in an occasional film, and when he got home, it was returned to him. No civilian cars had been built during the war ye
ars, and he went back to driving it as soon as his knee wound had healed enough to allow him to bend his leg. When Eddie Harris had tired of his 1940 Continental convertible, Rick had taken it and passed on the Ford to Glenna. Now new cars were coming out of Detroit again, and the Cadillac seemed the best of the lot.

  He got into the car, fiddled with knobs to see what they were for, tried raising and lowering the top, then snapped down the tonneau cover. He drove out of the studio and headed for Beverly Hills, driving slowly. His enjoyment was tempered by his bafflement over the receipt of a Communist Party card with Glenna’s original name on it. Not that he cared whether Glenna was a Communist or not, but he had thought she was a Roosevelt Democrat, as he was, and there was a nagging worry attached to Eddie’s view of the upcoming HUAC hearings.

  He parked the new convertible in the circular driveway and went inside, finding Glenna on the back terrace feeding the baby Glenn her bottle while little Louise, or Lou, as they called her, watched.

  “Hi, there,” she said, offering her lips for a kiss.

  He accepted the offer, then sat down next to her. “Good news and bad news,” he said.

  “Good news first,” she said.

  “Vance Calder’s screen test was outstanding; I signed him to a three-picture deal this afternoon. He’s going to play the lead in Bitter Creek.”

  “Wow! That’s moving fast.”

  “I’m just glad you spotted him before another studio did.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “I gave him your car.”

  “What?”

  “It’s your own fault; you discovered him.”

  “But I love that car.”

  “The poor guy was riding around town on a motorbike. We couldn’t have that, could we?”

  “But my car?”

  “Don’t worry; Eddie found you something to drive. It’s sitting outside.” He gave her the keys.

  Glenna got up, handed him the baby and the bottle and left. A moment later Rick heard a shriek from the front of the house, then the sound of running feet in the hallway.

  “A Cadillac!” she screamed, as she made it back to the rear terrace.

  “I believe that’s what it is. And it’s yours, not the studio’s. The registration is on the steering column, and it’s in your name, a gift from Eddie for discovering Vance Calder.”

  “Can we go for a drive after the baby’s fed?”

  “We can after I’m fed.”

  The children’s nurse, an Irish girl named Rosie, joined them. “All done?” she asked.

  “Yes, Rosie, you can tuck them in, if you will, and will you let Hannah know we’ll dine as soon as she’s ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Rosie left with the two girls.

  Glenna took Rick’s hand. “Why is it that life just gets better and better? What have we done to deserve all this?”

  “Hard work and clean living, I guess.”

  “Do you know how many people in this country have nothing?” she asked.

  “A lot fewer than had nothing ten years ago,” Rick replied. “We’re in a postwar boom, and things are looking pretty rosy.”

  “Well, we’ve defeated facism,” she said, “and that’s something, too. Now we can look forward to a better world.”

  “What’s your idea of a better world?”

  “When everybody has as much as we do.”

  “In order for that to happen, we’d have to have a lot less.”

  “Wouldn’t you settle for a lot less, if everybody could have a lot more?”

  “You mean like in Russia?”

  “Well, not as long as Stalin is in charge, but when he’s gone things will improve.”

  “Glenna, my darling, the rewards of our work are not preventing anyone else from getting ahead, except the people who would like to have our jobs. What the Communists do is drag everybody down without elevating anybody, except their party elite.” He thought now would be a good time to ask her about the party card, but then they were called to dinner, and later, when they were driving around Beverly Hills in her new convertible, it would have spoiled her euphoria. There was no reason to mention it to her, really. He put it out of his mind.

  Three days later Rick was at his desk when a phone call came from Manny, the location director.

  “Manny? Where are you?”

  “I’m in a place called Jackson Hole, Wyoming,” he said. “I spent a day in Colorado, then I heard about this place.”

  “What’s in Jackson Hole?”

  “Absolutely nothing; it’s perfect!”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s ranch land, with the Grand Teton Mountains in the background. I found a sixteen-thousand-acre ranch owned by an elderly couple who lost two boys in the war. It has every location we need, except the town; we’ll have to build that. Lots of cattle on the ranch.”

  “What about housing for the cast and crew?”

  “I found a war-surplus dealer in Denver who has a whole bunch of prefab barracks buildings sitting in his storage yard.”

  “You think the unions would sit still for their people living in open barracks, on cots?”

  “There’s a version that has one-man rooms and another that has two-man rooms. They were used as bachelor officers’ quarters on military bases, and we can buy them for five hundred bucks apiece.”

  “Who assembles them?”

  “The war-surplus guy. He trucks them up here and puts them up for fifteen hundred apiece, including running hot and cold water and toilets. We’ll have to put in a septic field for a couple of grand.”

  “Are they heated?”

  “A couple of pot-bellied stoves in each, plus we can wire each room for an electric heater.”

  “How many will we need?”

  “We can get away with six,” Manny said. “There’s room in the main ranch house for you and the two stars. We can assign first-level people to the two-man rooms, which are fairly roomy: a single bed, a comfortable chair and a radio. We’ll need another, open building for a mess hall and bar; there’s no entertainment around here. I figure we can run a picture every night.”

  “What else do we need?”

  “The dealer has half a dozen surplus trucks we could use and a whole bunch of Jeeps. There’s a good five-thousand-foot dirt landing strip; we could fly the first-level people up here and bus everybody else. We’ll need a bunch of phone lines, but those are available. It’s really beautiful up here, Rick. You’re going to love it.”

  “All right, Manny, draw up a list of everything and a budget and special-delivery it to me tomorrow. Then you go ahead and start putting everything together. How much is the use of the ranch and ranch house going to cost us?”

  “Five grand, and they’re tickled to get it.”

  “How long do you need to put the whole thing together and be ready for us?”

  “Two, maybe three weeks.”

  “I’ll give you a month, but you have to think of everything.”

  “Leave it to me.”

  “Thanks, Manny. I look forward to your budget.” He hung up, feeling a surge of enthusiasm for his new project. He walked to Eddie’s office and filled him in.

  “Okay, you start exteriors in a month. What’s your shooting schedule up there?”

  “Five weeks, and they’ll be building sets for the interiors while we’re up there. We’ll be back here before the snow flies up there, then we’ll need another three weeks for interiors, and we’ll be in postproduction.”

  “So, even if you have to deal with bad weather, we could handle a spring release?”

  “That should be fine.”

  “How’s casting coming?”

  “It’s going quickly. Because we’re using so many new faces, most of the cast is working for scale.”

  “You got a budget yet?”

  “No. In a couple of days, though, and it will be very complete.”

  “Can you bring this in for a million dollars?”

  “Less, I
expect.”

  “Looks like you’ve got yourself a western, kid.”

  “Looks like I have.”

  9

  Later that afternoon a call came from Rick’s father.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, Boy. Your airplane’s finished.”

  “Good news!”

  “Yeah, I flight-tested her yesterday, and the overhauled engines are right on the money. We’re painting that Centurion thing on her right now.”

  “So she’s ready to fly?”

  “She is.”

  “I might want her tomorrow; I’ll call you about that.”

  Jack hung up, and Rick pressed the intercom button. “Please get me a flying weather forecast for tomorrow and as far into the future as possible from L.A. to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I’ll want it in writing.”

  His secretary came back a few minutes later. “They say it’s ideal from tomorrow through the weekend and maybe beyond. I’m sending a messenger over there to pick up the written copy.”

  “Great.” Rick buzzed Eddie Harris.

  “Yeah?”

  “Your airplane is ready to fly, Eddie; what say we take the girls and Sid Brooks and his wife up to Jackson Hole for the weekend, take a look at our locations?”

  “That sounds great, kiddo.”

  “We’ll meet out at Clover Field at nine A.M., then?”

  “Good.”

  “Tell Suzanne the nights will be chilly.”

  “Okay. And remember, you, Glenna and Vance are expected here for dinner tonight.”

  “Right.” Rick hung up and called Glenna and put the trip to her. She was enthusiastic.

  “Can I bring the girls?” she asked.

  “Too much for them and for us,” Rick said. “Rosie and Hannah can handle them.”

  “Okay. What time?”

  “We’re meeting at Dad’s place at nine tomorrow morning, and don’t forget dinner tonight at the Harrises’.”

  “You’re on.”

  Rick hung up and called Sidney Brooks.

  “Hi, Rick, your production people have been keeping me abreast of work on Bitter Creek. I hear it’s going well.”

  “It certainly is, and we’ve found a location for the exteriors at a place called Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Eddie and I are going to take our wives and fly up there tomorrow morning for the weekend. Would you and your wife like to join us?”