Cast the First Stone

by James W. Ziskin

  “Awake?” came a voice from across the room.

  The candles had all burned down and extinguished themselves. Suicide by wax. I could see nothing but a faint red glow several feet away. It looked like a tiny star in a cloudy sky. Then it moved and brightened for a moment before returning, retrograde, to its earlier position.

  “Are you awake, Miss Stone?” the voice repeated.

  A flashlight sparked to life and illuminated the room. I sat bolt upright and struggled to focus.

  The first thing I saw was a beefy figure in a fedora and an overcoat holding the light, which he was aiming at the floor. Then I saw the pair of legs. Silk stockings, crossed, their owner reclining in the same chair Gene had used earlier. I couldn’t see more than her mud-splattered heels in the low light, but I recognized the voice. It was Dorothy Fetterman.

  “Where is Tony Eberle?” she asked.

  “You’re trespassing,” I answered. That didn’t impress her. “I remember when you had me kicked off the lot at the studio. Tell me why I shouldn’t return the favor.”

  “You’re welcome to try,” she said. “But my visit is a friendly one. Why spoil it with threats?”

  “Is that why you brought Grendel along?” I asked, motioning to the man holding the flashlight.

  Dorothy rose out of the chair and crossed the room into the light. Standing above me, she smiled.

  “You’re very clever, Miss Stone. I could use someone like you at the studio.”

  “I have a job.” My eyes shifted back and forth between her and her companion. “Where’s your pal Stemple?”

  “Archie? He’s in Ventura. He has a picture to shoot, though with this weather, that’s going to be a challenge. Still, I’d rather be there than here. Driving to Barstow in the pouring rain was not how I thought I’d be spending my Saturday.”

  “Nobody asked you to follow me.”

  “Actually, somebody did.”

  “I don’t know where Tony is. Your car scared him off.”

  “So that was his girlfriend who left here earlier with Mr. Duerson?”

  I said nothing.

  “If you sent her away, that means you stayed behind to wait for Tony Eberle.”

  “Not necessarily. We didn’t know who was lurking in the sedan out on the street. I thought it might be wise to smuggle her out of here just in case your intentions weren’t friendly.”

  “What’s the girl’s name?” she asked, taking a seat on the arm of the sofa.

  Again I said nothing.

  “You know we can get the name off the mailbox.”

  “There is no mailbox.”

  Dorothy’s nose twitched. “Are you really going to force me to search property records to get the name?”

  “All I know is that her first name is April. You’ll have to find the rest.”

  “Dennis, would you mind waiting for me in the car?” she asked her man. Dennis nodded, handed her the flashlight, and left without a word. “Eleonora. May I call you Eleonora?”

  “I prefer Ellie.”

  “That’s fine. Ellie. You may call me Dot.”

  “I don’t know where Tony is,” I said, anticipating her question. “He was smart enough to run when he saw our cars in the street.”

  She drew a deep sigh. “Ellie, you’ve got to believe me. I’m not the enemy. True, I have no particular interest in Tony except for the missing script. But I gave you my word he can have his job back if he’s not involved in Bertie’s death.”

  She corrected herself, explaining that his role in Twistin’ on the Beach was gone. But she would make sure he’d get another role as soon as feasible on another picture.

  “Seems fair enough,” I said. “But I still don’t know where he is.”

  My watch read 9:00 p.m. Dorothy Fetterman finally gave up. She’d done her best to win me over, assuring me that she meant no harm to Tony Eberle or April. Or me. I was skeptical, of course. Dorothy was no fool. She could smell my distrust. But there was nothing more she could accomplish that Saturday night. There was nothing to eat, nothing to drink in the ramshackle house. In the end, she pursed her lips and announced that she was returning to Los Angeles. She instructed me to keep her informed of any news of Tony’s whereabouts. That was her way; she needed my help but still spoke to me as if to a plebe.

  She left. Walked out the door of the tumble-down shack and climbed into the sleek dark sedan. The engine turned over, and the headlights sparked to life, flooding the windows of the house, nearly blinding me. Then the car was gone.

  I knew Dorothy would have April’s full name by Monday morning at the latest. That meant I needed to get April out of her apartment before then. I wanted to phone Gene to fill him in on the visit and decide where to stash her, but there was no phone in the house. It was past nine, and I had to eat something or faint. Reluctantly I grabbed April’s keys and slipped into her car.

  The fuel needle was pointing to E. That figured. I’d have to fill up before anything else. And I worried that Tony would choose the precise moment I was away to return to the house. It couldn’t be helped, I thought, as I turned the key and shifted into reverse.

  I found a Richfield station on Route 15, where a sleepy kid topped off the tank and checked the oil, wiping the dipstick on his coveralls. He was about to wash the windshield with a rag but caught himself. We shared a silent smile over that.

  The Charlie Horse Diner seemed as good an option for food as any in the area, so I pulled up at the curb and climbed out. I took a seat on a stool and ordered a BLT and a coffee from the man in a spattered apron behind the counter. He was about fifty, sturdily built, with a faded-blue anchor tattooed on each of his hairy forearms. He wiped the Formica in front of me and remarked that I was a stranger in these parts.

  “Los Angeles?” he asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Is it a state secret?”

  “New York,” I said to cut the explanations short.

  “What brings you out here?”

  “I’m looking for someone. You wouldn’t know a fellow named Tony Eberle, by any chance?”

  He shook his head and pushed a mug of steaming coffee across the counter.

  “What about April Kincaid?”

  That name he knew. He cocked his head and took a long look at me before asking what I wanted with April.

  “She used to work here, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah. Left a while ago to move to LA. Is she in trouble?”

  “A little bit,” I said. “Maybe things will work out all right. If I can find her boyfriend.”

  “That Tony fellow you mentioned?”

  “That’s right. The police want to talk to him about a movie producer who took a long tumble down a ravine last Monday.”

  “Dead?”

  I nodded and sipped my coffee. “Tell me about April. Why did she go to LA?”

  “You’re cute, you know that?” He flashed a smile at me. “I don’t even know who you are or what you want with April, and you think I’ll tell you anything you ask. I know you’re not a cop. Don’t tell me you’re a PI. I won’t believe it.”

  “I’m a reporter,” I said. “Working on a story on Tony Eberle, but he’s been hard to find since the producer was murdered. He was here in Barstow earlier today and might still be around.”

  “Good luck on that.”

  “Can you tell me a little about her? I won’t print anything I can’t corroborate.”

  “Save your breath, hon,” he said with a smile. “I got no love lost for April Kincaid.”

  “So why did she quit?”

  “She wanted to be a star in Hollywood. She’s a pretty girl, all right, but no more than any cheerleader in a thousand towns across the country. And I’m not sure she’s got any talent. Wouldn’t bet on it. But that didn’t stop her from reading movie magazines and talking nineteen to the dozen about becoming a star. Some of the girls here made fun of her. Called her Shirley Temple.”

  I glanced at a couple of the waitresses across t
he room. In their fifties. That explained the Shirley Temple crack.

  “Anything else you can tell me about her?”

  He wiped his hands on his apron. “Yeah. That girl’s rotten to the core. And she’ll do anything to get what she wants.” He leaned in and fixed me with a dark, dead serious stare. “Anything.”

  I returned to the ranch house in hopes of finding Tony there. But the place was empty. No one had been there since I’d left. I wanted a drink. It was after ten, and I calculated how long it would take me to get back to Hollywood and pour myself into a glass of whiskey. Two hours later, I was seated at the bar in a place called the Frolic Room on Hollywood Boulevard. A couple of fellows traveling stag tried to buy me drinks, but I ignored them. I was too busy worrying about where I was going to hide April Kincaid.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1962

  Still raining. Still chilly. I was ready to go home to upstate New York to enjoy some dry weather. This California sunshine was not delivering as advertised.

  By nine o’clock that morning, I’d made some phone calls and driven April’s Rambler back over to her place on North Edgemont. I roused her from bed, bundled her into my car, which Gene had left parked downstairs the night before, and transported her up to Nichols Canyon.

  “Thank you for agreeing to help,” I said to Nelson Blanchard.

  Lucia was nowhere in sight so early in the day. But Nelson, who positively glowed when he caught sight of April, said not to worry. She could stay in their small guest house for the time being.

  “She’s a pretty young thing,” he whispered to me. “A little underfed, perhaps, but we can remedy that.”

  “Please behave,” I said. “She needs a hand, Nelson. And not up her skirt.”

  “Clever you,” he replied. “You say the funniest things.”

  With April safe for the time being, I concentrated on my next task: talk to Bobby Renfro. A tall order on a Sunday. The Screen Actors Guild offices were closed, so there was no way to find his agent’s contact information until Monday. I checked with Gene on the off chance he might know how to find him. No luck. Then I screwed up my nerve—and chutzpah—and dialed the Roosevelt Hotel.

  “Room 135, please,” I said.

  “May I have the guest’s name?”

  “Mr. Porter.”

  There was a pause. “I’m sorry, miss. There’s no Mr. Porter registered in that room.”

  Damn. Had he gone back to New York? He’d said he spent most of his time in Los Angeles.

  “Could you check if he’s in another room?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid there’s no one in the hotel under that name. Can I help you with something else today?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. By any chance, is there a Mr. Alden in room 135?”

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” said Chuck Porter.

  We were seated outside his poolside cabana watching the rain fall. An overhang kept us dry as we sipped our drinks. He’d wrapped himself in a robe, under which he was wearing tan slacks and an open-collar shirt with a paisley ascot.

  “I was thinking what a dreary Sunday this was going to be,” he said, baring his white teeth at me. “Now here we are, enjoying cocktails around the pool.”

  “But it’s pouring buckets.”

  “Still. It’s a pool, and we’re enjoying drinks.”

  “Life’s funny that way,” I said, aiming for mordantly philosophical but probably achieving staggeringly banal instead.

  “And here I thought that you weren’t interested in my company.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Chuck. I need a favor from you.”

  “You scratch my back . . .”

  “Let’s not ruin this nice afternoon with talk of quid pro quo. I need to locate an actor. And I thought of you. You told me, after all, that you knew lots of people in the film business.”

  “I’m happy to help if I can.”

  But his expression betrayed doubt. Perhaps he wasn’t as well connected as he wanted young women in restaurant bars to believe.

  “Is it your hometown actor you’re looking for? Your Tony what’s-his-name?”

  “No, not him. Do you know Bobby Renfro?” I asked.

  Relief spread over Chuck Porter’s face. Of the dozen or so celebrities he might have known, eternal teenager Bobby Renfro could count himself among the lucky.

  “Of course I know Bobby. He’s working on a picture with one of my acts.”

  “You don’t mean Rockin’ Johnny Bristol,” I said, recalling that Chuck had mentioned him when we met a few days before.

  “That’s right. He’s got two songs in Twistin’ on the Beach.”

  “And you know Bobby Renfro?”

  “Well, not exactly. But Johnny pals around with him. He can put me in touch.”

  “Can he do it today?” I asked.

  For all his flirting and persistence, Chuck Porter turned out to be a decent sort. Sure he probably would have loved to exact a price for his help, preferably with payment on delivery inside his conveniently located cabana, but not at the expense of my good opinion of him. In my experience, some men didn’t care either way what you thought of them as long as they got theirs. I once asked a fellow I knew in college how he could patronize prostitutes. Didn’t he realize that they were only interested in him for his money? That they wouldn’t give him the time of day if he weren’t paying them? He laughed and told me he didn’t mind at all. After all he had absolutely no interest in them beyond what he was renting them for.

  But then there were men like Chuck who seemed to care about what people thought of them. He wore a leer on his chops for sure. But he seemed more a sheep in wolf’s clothing than the other way around.

  Rockin’ Johnny came through for Chuck. He agreed to meet me at four with Bobby Renfro at a place called Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood. A sign on the wall behind the bar declared “Fagots [sic] Stay Out,” and I nearly choked. I wanted to leave, but this was my only chance to speak to Bobby Renfro, so I held my nose and took a seat in a booth where I could see the front and side doors. The heartthrob wasn’t going to recognize me, but I would know him from the lousy movies he’d made.

  The atmosphere was dark, and the place smelled of chili and spilled beer. I ordered a Scotch to keep the afternoon chill at bay. It was Sunday, after all, and I’d already joined the battle, having tucked a couple of cocktails under my belt at the Roosevelt pool with Chuck Porter.

  I retrieved a cigarette from my purse but couldn’t find my lighter. The waitress gave me a book of matches, red with large black lettering: Again “Fagots Stay Out.” I hated the idea of patronizing the troglodyte who owned that place. I lit my cigarette, then the entire matchbook, which I threw into the ashtray to watch it burn.

  When Bobby Renfro and Rockin’ Johnny Bristol arrived ten minutes later, they paused at the door, perhaps waiting for a welcoming cheer from the three old men nursing their beers at the counter. If so, they were disappointed. No one took notice.

  I waved to attract their attention, and, at length, Rockin’ Johnny spotted me. The two “stars” slid into my booth opposite me. I introduced myself.

  “I wasn’t expecting a young chick,” said Johnny, and he winked at me.

  “Yes, hello,” I replied. “But actually I’m here to talk to Mr. Renfro.”

  Johnny’s enthusiasm wilted. Wasn’t he used to chicks fawning over his more famous friend? Of course I wouldn’t exactly characterize my attitude toward Bobby Renfro as fawning, but he was the object of my current professional interest. I took pity on Rockin’ Johnny and explained that this was business and had nothing to do with his charm.

  “You can call me Bobby,” announced Renfro on cue. He was incredibly pleased with himself, if the twenty-tooth smile meant what I thought it did. “I have a rule: all cute girls get to call me Bobby.”

  “I thought that was your name,” I said, and his grin dimmed a couple of lumens.

  A waitress arrived and t
ook orders from the two idols. They studied the menu for the better part of thirty seconds. I took advantage of their distraction to consider the only two famous people I’d come across during my week in Hollywood.

  Bobby Renfro had put on a couple pounds since I’d last seen him in a picture. On the other hand, the hair on the top of his head had lost some weight. The Twistin’ on the Beach hair-and-makeup folks had their work cut out for them, I thought. Would they be able to engineer a tonsorial solution that could resist strong beach breezes and spraying surf? I exaggerate, of course. But only a little. Bobby Renfro still had a lot of charm and good looks, but the boy next door was looking more and more like the boy next door’s dad.

  Rockin’ Johnny, on the other hand, was easily ten or twelve years younger than his pal. He sported a full head of thick, black hair, swept back behind the ears. And I could scarcely ignore his broad shoulders, chiseled chin, and bright white teeth. Yes, he was awfully good-looking, even in street clothes without makeup. It made sense in the order of the universe; he had to be handsome because he sure couldn’t play the guitar or sing worth a lick.

  Bobby finished reading the menu but had a doubt. Who exactly was paying?

  “Oh,” I said, thinking what a gentleman he was, “yes, of course, this is on me.”

  His worries behind him, he ordered a couple of beers and some chili fries for himself and Rockin’ Johnny. I asked for a second whiskey.

  “Scotch drinker,” observed Bobby. No point that I could discern. Just stating the obvious. Next I assumed he would start reading off the numbers on the license plates nailed to the wall.

  “Hey, look over there,” he said as if on cue. “A Tennessee license plate. I’m from Tennessee.” He squinted across the room and read, “MB 546.”

  “I’m from California,” said Rockin’ Johnny, disappointed to miss out on the thrill of discovery of a piece of home on the walls of Barney’s Beanery.