“Do you have her address or phone number?”
Mickey shook his head again. “They’ve only been going together for a short while. She moved to Los Angeles recently. He spends time at her place, so I don’t see them much. You should check with her.”
“I’d love to, but I don’t have her name or address.”
Mickey remained in the doorway and shrugged. “Sorry.”
“May I come in?” I asked. “Maybe Tony wrote her number down somewhere among his things.”
“That’s Tony’s private business. I can’t let some stranger paw through his stuff.”
I sighed. This wasn’t going well.
“Okay, one last question,” I said. “Is Tony’s car in the garage downstairs?”
“He doesn’t have a car.”
“What about April?”
Mickey said that she did, but he didn’t know the make or model or year.
“I think it’s cream colored,” he offered.
I jotted the McCadden Hotel’s number into my pad, tore out the sheet, and handed it to him.
“If you hear from Tony, will you contact me?”
He said he would, but I wasn’t buying it. Then, eyeing me guardedly, he slowly closed the door without another word, leaving me with more questions than when I’d arrived. Fat lot of help he’d been. I didn’t believe anything he’d told me, and I was sure he didn’t trust me. This kid was scared or hiding something. I wanted a look inside that apartment, but beautiful little Mickey Harper wasn’t about to allow that.
I turned to leave, and my eye fell on the brass numbers 102 across the hall. I’d almost forgotten about Evelyn Maynard, and the reminder stung. I put my head down and pushed back through the front door to the street.
Outside on Wilton, as I climbed back into my cab, the first drops of rain began to fall. Just a sprinkling for now, but, according to my driver, more was on the way. He drove me back across Hollywood, passing under the Hollywood Freeway, to my hotel on McCadden.
It was just past five o’clock. The sky had gone dark with clouds and the setting sun, and I was hungry. I’d missed lunch. The McCadden offered no meals, but Marty the bellhop assured me that he could scavenge something for me from a nearby restaurant. He said Miceli’s was around the corner. I gave him three dollars and asked for a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs and a bottle of Chianti, if that wasn’t too much trouble.
I treated myself to a hot shower in the claw-foot tub in the bathroom, then slipped into a robe and phoned Charlie Reese back in New Holland. The call was going to be expensive, even station-to-station, but I would have had to wait another two hours for the rates to drop, and Charlie would have been fast asleep by then. As I feared, his wife, Edith, answered the phone. She sounded put out, as always, whenever I called. It was past nine on the East Coast.
“What’s the update?” asked Charlie, once Edith had handed him the receiver.
“I spoke to Tony’s agent. He wasn’t much help. But he did give me the phone number and address of the producer who hired Tony for the picture. Apparently this Bertram Wallis handpicked Tony for the role. I’ll try the number in a few minutes.”
“Anything else?”
“I found Tony’s apartment and met his roommate. An odd young man. I felt he was holding back something. Maybe he’s spooked by Tony’s disappearance, but he sure wasn’t in a chatty mood.”
“He didn’t provide anything useful?”
“Just that Tony has a girlfriend named April. The roommate doesn’t know anything else about her. Says he doesn’t know where she lives or even what her last name is.”
Charlie grunted. “Any chance of getting him to open up?”
“Maybe with an oyster shucker.”
“You could unleash your feminine charms on him.”
I clicked my tongue. “Don’t you think I’d try that if I thought it would work? This kid doesn’t strike me as the type to go for my charms.”
“Are you saying he’s a queer?”
“Could be,” I said, recalling the super, Evelyn Maynard.
“Well we can’t put that in our story. This is a family newspaper, after all.”
“Let’s find Tony Eberle, then we’ll decide what we can write. Did you manage to reach his parents?”
Charlie said he had indeed seen them. They’d had no idea he’d missed his first day of the shoot. His mother turned white, the father red.
“I got the distinct impression that Mr. Eberle doesn’t approve of his son’s vocation. He kept saying ‘I told you so’ to his wife, who was in tears. The father said Tony should have taken that city job he was offered.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Filling potholes.”
“Poor kid. What about the sister?”
“She’s married. Lives in Pennsylvania now. I didn’t speak to her.”
“Did his parents know of any friends Tony might still have in New Holland?”
“They said he didn’t have many friends. His closest buddy moved away after high school. I’ll try a couple of kids from the drama club, and we’ll share notes tomorrow.”
I dialed the number Zelda Weitz had given me that morning for Bertram Wallis. It rang five times before his answering service picked up. The young lady on the line didn’t know where Mr. Wallis was, but she took my name and number with a promise that he would get the message.
Marty the bellhop returned just after I’d hung up the phone. He waited in the corridor outside my door. I stood inside, safely wrapped in my robe. Marty seemed harmless, but I preferred to keep him on the far side of familiarity just the same. I cracked the door and stuck my head out. In fairness to him, he maintained an indifferent attitude toward me and my state of dress. What he wanted from me was more money.
“The total came to three fifty-eight,” he said, holding out a paper bag. “Because of the wine, you know.”
I fished another dollar out of my purse, wondering again if Artie Short would begrudge me a meal and a little wine at the end of a long, frustrating day. And, of course, Marty had brought no bill for me to present as evidence of the expense. Figuring I’d have to swallow the cost along with the meal, I tipped him a quarter then devoured the soggy spaghetti as I listened to the radio on the bed.
An hour and a half after dinner, I’d drunk half the bottle of wine and sat pondering the untimely disappearance of Tony Eberle. Where had he gotten to? Some banal, possibly comical, explanation was most likely, but still I fretted. Had he run off for some better prospect? What that might be, I couldn’t imagine. Or maybe he was on a bender and had simply forgotten his big day. Perhaps he’d followed his girlfriend, April, to the local mountains for a skiing jaunt. I couldn’t possibly know in that moment. But lurking in my thoughts was the possibility that something else had happened to our local boy. Something sinister. I tried but failed to shake the image of Mickey Harper’s bruises from my mind. Someone had beaten him up recently. Maybe Tony Eberle. Had they fought over the rent? A dirty hot plate? Clothes on the floor, or even April? I doubted that. Mickey didn’t strike me as a ladies’ man.
Of course I suspected Mickey was holding out on me. But did I have any real evidence that he was lying? Sure I’d rattled him, but maybe he was the nervous type. Even though I hadn’t inspected the apartment for myself, I was convinced there was one room and one room only. So why might beautiful little Mickey tell me he didn’t know if Tony had been sleeping or out somewhere in parts unknown? And, if he’d wanted to lie, why hadn’t he come up with a simpler one? Why not just say that Tony wasn’t in when he’d arrived home?
The last thing I remembered thinking before nodding off to sleep was that finding Tony Eberle was not going to be easy.
CHAPTER FOUR
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1962
At Hody’s, I ordered an English muffin, dark, and a coffee, black. After just one day, the big diner, with its freakishly spooky clown’s face on the sign, had become my morning stop. The same waitress from the day before asked me how
my fairy tale had worked out. I shook my head and said it had turned grim.
I dialed Tony Eberle’s phone again from a booth near the door, but got no answer. Where might Mickey Harper be at 8:00 a.m. on a rainy Wednesday morning? Probably lying low, hiding under the covers and refusing to answer the phone or the door. I decided to make a second visit to the apartment on Wilton Place, but not before I’d tried to speak to Archie Stemple.
This taxi thing was inconvenient. Especially with rain now in the picture for the next week. I liked having my own transportation, even if my company car back home in New Holland did suffer occasional electrical problems caused by a dunk in Lake Winandauga a year and a half before. Fred Blaylock, the associate publisher of the paper, had mistaken a boat launch for the highway after too many drinks to drown his sorrows. He’d taken a bath at the races in Saratoga that day, and his car did the same in the lake after his dinner. Once it had dried out, I inherited the Dodge because Artie Short—the same man who considered me expendable in the event of a plane crash—didn’t believe girls should be allowed to drive. At least not good cars. Fred Blaylock was rewarded with a shiny new Chrysler New Yorker.
While I was sure that taxicabs served an essential purpose, particularly in cities like New York, I was less convinced of their practicality in Los Angeles. It was a huge, sprawling metropolis, with vast distances to cover. I needed a car of my own. Would the cheapskate Artie Short ever approve such an expenditure? I doubted it, but was willing to give it a try. I was through hunting for taxi stands.
I found a car rental on Vine Street, just next to the Capitol Records Building. At a little past nine, I was behind the wheel of a seven-year-old blue Chevy 150 two-door. It wasn’t luxury, but it started right up. And at $6.90 a day, I figured it would end up costing less than taxis.
The car agency sold me a dog-eared copy of the 1954 Thomas Brothers street guide for seventy-five cents. Highway robbery, but I needed it. I later discovered that quite a few things had changed in Los Angeles since 1954, especially downtown. And of course the Hollywood Freeway. But the guide proved useful on the whole.
Traffic was painfully slow due to the rain, and I wondered how the locals would react to snow on their streets. Outside the studio, I parked on the street, and, armed with a ragged umbrella I’d borrowed from Marty the bellhop, I approached the front gate.
“I’d like to see Mr. Stemple,” I told the guard.
“Do you have an appointment?” he asked.
I assured him I did, even though I didn’t. He let me wait inside, safe from the rain, while he made up my pass. I read a magazine. Ten minutes later, just as I was wondering what was taking so long, the door flew open, and a woman in full rain gear—hat, rain slicker, boots, and umbrella—pushed her way inside. It was Dorothy Fetterman.
“Good morning, Miss Stone,” she announced, collapsing her perfect umbrella without looking at me. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”
And I surely hadn’t wanted to see her.
“I was hoping to speak to Mr. Stemple,” I said.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
She removed her hat and coat and hung them on a hook against the wall before taking a seat across from me. Her lipstick was still faultless, and not a hair was out of place.
“That’s not what you told the guard,” she said.
I offered a sheepish apology.
“Miss Stone, you must understand that Tony Eberle no longer works for Paramount Studios. There’s really no point in your speaking to Archie Stemple or anyone else here for that matter. And though I sympathize with your predicament, I cannot allow you to interrupt our business of making movies.”
“If I could just speak to Mr. Stemple for five minutes.”
“I promise you he doesn’t know where Tony Eberle is.”
“I’m not here to ask him where Tony is,” I blurted out. “I’ve already found him.”
That was a lie, of course. An improvised one. I doubted it would work and, in fact, wondered if it might not come back to haunt me later on. But now I’d said it.
Over the next several minutes, I tried to convince her to let me see Archie Stemple. She was patient but firm, determined to block all access to anyone at the studio, starting with the ill-tempered director. I was sure someone on the crew must have spoken with Tony before his disappearance, and the director was as good a place as any to start.
“If you know where Tony Eberle is, what do you want with Mr. Stemple? Don’t tell me you’re an actress.”
I shook my head.
“That’s a relief. You’re a pretty young lady,” she continued. “But not Hollywood pretty.”
All right, that was twice I’d been insulted in that manner in twenty-four hours. If this continued, I was going to develop a complex. She must have noticed my expression because she offered an apology of sorts.
“Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m not pretty enough for Hollywood either. Never was. Not even when I was a daisy-fresh girl of eighteen.” She smiled at me. “Very few girls are. And that’s a blessing. This town chews up pretty girls and spits them out. Handsome boys, too.”
“I assure you that I am not looking to be discovered,” I said. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Stemple to ask for Tony’s job back.”
My indignation and pleading aside, Dorothy still wasn’t biting. She crossed her right leg over the left, her stockings brushing against each other. She leaned forward and fixed me with a captive stare.
“You say you’ve located Tony Eberle?” she asked. “Where is he?”
“He asked me not to say.”
She digested that for a full ten seconds, her eyes still studying me. I felt like a pinned-down frog in science class.
“At least not yet,” I added.
She made me nervous. I urged myself to get a grip. These were the same tactics I liked to use when interviewing subjects. Let them fill the gaps in the conversation. Stare at them, make them squirm as you prepare to dissect them alive.
At length she uncrossed her legs and smoothed her skirt over her knees. She pursed her red lips then told me Archie Stemple was unavailable to meet me.
“He’s making a movie,” she said. “He’s already lost one day of production thanks to your Mr. Eberle. And this isn’t helping. I’m sure you understand.”
“Might I speak to some of the cast and crew?” I asked. “Carole Haven, perhaps? Isn’t she the female lead?”
“Miss Haven has been shooting a film in Mexico for the past three weeks. She won’t be back for another ten days. As far as I know, she’s never met Tony Eberle.”
“What about Bobby Renfro?”
“Bobby Renfro? You want a private interview with a movie star?”
I hardly thought of Bobby Renfro as a movie star but figured I would only lose points with Dorothy if I quibbled.
“What about Mr. Wallis?” I asked. “Is he on the lot today?”
“Mr. Wallis rarely comes here. That’s not how producers work.”
She was a tough nut to crack.
“I’d really like to speak to him.”
“So would I,” she mumbled half to herself. Then to me, “He’s an eccentric. A very difficult man. I haven’t spoken to him yet about Tony Eberle. As far as I know, no one has.”
I thought that odd. Bertram Wallis was the producer of Twistin’ on the Beach. If your second lead is a no-show on the first day of production, wouldn’t you want to know about it right away? Before the director took matters into his own hands and replaced him?
“Are you saying he’s missing?” I asked.
“No, nothing like that.” She paused a moment to reflect. “As I said, he’s an eccentric.”
“I’ve heard him described otherwise.”
“You’re a clever girl, aren’t you?” she said. “But we’re not here to discuss Bertram Wallis. He’s my problem, not yours. And you’ve found your Tony Eberle. You should be happy.”
“Please. Just five minute
s with Mr. Stemple?”
She eyed me for several beats, inscrutable, then rose and picked up the receiver of a house phone on a nearby table. She dialed four numbers and waited.
“Archie, it’s Dot,” she said at length. “Do you have a sec? I’m coming over to see you.”
For a moment I thought I’d broken through her intransigence. It appeared I was about to get my interview with Archie Stemple after all. Except I wasn’t.
“Good-bye, Miss Stone,” said Dorothy as she donned her coat and hat. “Please excuse me. I have work to do.”
On her way out the door, she instructed the guard to see me off the lot.
The Writers Guild building was located on Beverly Boulevard. I’d phoned ahead to ask for some information on Bertram Wallis. The nice woman who answered—I believe her name was Blanche—told me she wasn’t the time and temperature lady, and I’d have to come in and do my own research.
According to the biographical sketch on record, Bertram Wallis was born in 1926 in Aberdeen, Scotland, into a prominent military family. His maternal grandfather, Andrew Gilchrist, received the Distinguished Service Order medal for his service in the Second Boer War, before serving on the personal staff of the earl of Minto, viceroy of India. He died in 1909 in Simla, following a fall from a horse in a polo match, leaving behind a widow and young daughter—Wallis’s mother. Bertram’s father, Brian Alvin Wallis, held the rank of lieutenant in the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force and fought and was wounded in France in the First World War. He worked under Home Secretary Herbert Morrison during the Second World War. Young Bertram was in his first year at boarding school when the Battle of Britain began. Like so many children, little Bertie Wallis was evacuated out of the UK. His parents dispatched him to Simla to be safe with his maternal grandmother, who had remained in India after her husband’s death.
After the war, Bertram returned to Britain and university at Aberdeen. He never finished, deciding instead that he wanted to be a writer. I could find no references to any books or stories he might have published. But in 1953, at the age of twenty-seven, he served as a script assistant on Demetrius and the Gladiators. There was no indication of how he’d landed the job. From that moment forward, he worked on several pictures each year, before eventually graduating to producer. Lenny Goes to College (1957), starring Bobby Renfro; Drag Race Friday Night (1958), with Blake Wheeler and Vicky Shay, the pretty blonde who died tragically in a car accident a year later; Varsity Letterman (1959), with Bobby Renfro, again, and Carole Haven; and Beach Bash ’61 (1961), with—once more—Bobby Renfro. Twistin’ on the Beach, Tony Eberle’s star-crossed debut, was next in Wallis’s filmography. I noticed that Bobby Renfro had appeared in three of Bertram Wallis’s films, and I made a note to track him down. His thoughts on Tony might come in handy.
Cast the First Stone Page 4