by George Baxt
There were times Jim Mallory reminded Herb of Stan Laurel and his occasional dimwitted insights and he hoped Nana Lewis was up to coping with Jim’s non sequiturs and the frequent derailment of his thoughts.
“Mike Lynton?” Herb shook his head. “I’m with Carole. He’s not the killer type.”
“Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t hire one to do the job for him.”
“That’s Louis B. Mayer territory.” He leaned back in his chair, scratched his cheek, and stared at the ceiling. “Not Mike Lynton. Certainly not Groucho. W. C. Fields?”
“Nah,” dismissed Herb. “If he ever tried to kill someone he’d bungle it.” He remembered something concerning Fields and chuckled. “Remember some years ago when Paramount kept pairing Fields in some pictures with Baby LeRoy?”
“Sure. Baby LeRoy Winebrenner. That was his full name.”
Herb said with a sigh, “You have more garbage stored away in your brain. Baby LeRoy what?”
“Winebrenner.”
“Winebrenner. Well anyway, the execs knew Fields loathed children and he especially grew to loathe Baby LeRoy. But strangely enough, the kid adored Fields and innocently stole every scene away from him. I mean he was so cute and Fields wasn’t. So one day Fields got hold of the kid’s baby bottle and filled it with gin.” He roared with laughter at the perverse memory. “It almost killed the kid! He was sick for days!”
Mallory suggested, “You think maybe Fields gave Lydia Austin a baby bottle filled with gin?”
Villon stared at Mallory until there was a glaze over his eyes. In his mind he was hearing. “The March of the Cuckoos,” the Laurel and Hardy theme song. He finally said, “I can’t quite envision Lydia Austin accepting a baby bottle loaded with gin without voicing some suspicions.” And then he asked himself, Why do I bother answering stupid questions? Because Jim Mallory is so ingenuous and doesn’t recognize it. He was only a few years older than Mallory but felt like a father to him. He asked Jim in a friendly voice, “Kid, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Older.”
Villon laughed. “I wish this was Christmas so I could ask Santa to deliver me a ransom note.”
“It’s useless. You said her family has no money. So why bother kidnapping her?”
Said Villon grimly, “To shut her up.” He met Mallory’s eyes. “She wasn’t kidnapped for ransom. I think she’s been erased. She knew something she shouldn’t have known and her killer was afraid she’d talk.”
“Oh God,” said Jim, “what a terrible thing to do to someone so beautiful. She had so much to look forward to.”
“Yeah, she had a great future behind her.” He hit the desk with a fist. “But what was her connection to the Japanese and the other guys? Jim, I don’t think she has any connection to them at all. Her going missing the same time they did is purely coincidental.”
Jim asked eagerly, “You got proof?” He ducked the pencil Herb threw at him.
“You don’t have to get sore at me!” said Mallory as he retrieved the pencil from the floor. “Sometimes you treat me like I’ve got nothing in my attic. We’ve been working together a long time now, Herb, it’s about time you showed me a little respect.”
“I absolutely respect you, James. But there are times when I have to resist the urge to throttle you.”
“I think I’m a hell of a lot smarter than Gable,” said Mallory defiantly.
“Believe me, Jim, you most certainly are. I don’t know how he landed Lombard, but land her he did. Luckily she’s got enough brains for the two of them. She’s the highest paid actress in Hollywood. Remember when she recently had her press agent plant the item in the newspapers that it was an honor to pay income taxes for the privilege of living in the United States?”
“A very noble statement.”
“Noble indeed. And it brought her a million dollars worth of publicity plus a commendation from President Roosevelt and an invitation to visit him at the White House. Of course, he didn’t tell her she was as cute as a button, which he told Janet Gaynor when she visited.”
“I think Lombard has class,” said Jim, “and what a body.”
Villon looked at his wristwatch. “You better get started for Nana Lewis. And I shall pick up Hazel.” He crossed himself. He now stood at the mirror that hung over the sink and examined himself and then recited a verse he had composed earlier that day.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, Before I start heading for a fall, Please deliver me a note of ransom, Even if you have to toss it over the transom.”
“That’s real cute, Herb, you write it yourself?”
Villon didn’t answer him. He was praying for a break, a badly needed break.
* * *
While Herb Villon was praying for a ransom note, Carole parked the Cadillac in the driveway of the ranch and said to Clark, “I hear strange noises.” Clark jerked his thumb in the direction of the back seat. Carole turned and looked and saw Roy Harvey and Sammy Rowan fast asleep. Their snores sounded like a harmonica duet. “Why those darlings, I completely forgot about them.” She now assumed what she hoped was a motherly look. “Roy is adorable. He looks like a naughty little boy with his blond hair curled over his eyebrows. And look at Sammy. He’s so enchanting with his mouth open, wheezing and dribbling.” She puckered up her lips and whistled what she hoped was “Reveille.” No response. Clark leaned over and first shook Roy and then Sammy.
“Come alive, you sleeping beauties!” shouted Clark. Roy’s eyes opened slowly and then Sammy shook himself awake while drying his mouth on a jacket sleeve. It took them a few seconds to acclimate themselves and then Roy grinned sleepily at Carole. “It’s been a long day,” Roy said through a yawn.
“It’s going to get longer as soon as I change into a beach outfit. We’re going to a party at Malibu.”
Sammy and Roy exchanged a look. Sammy said, “But we’re not dressed for a beach party.”
Carole said smartly, “You don’t dress for a beach party. You undress.” Clark and the young athletes followed Carole into the house. Carole yodeled for the help. “Albert! Agnes! Ada!”
Albert and Agnes hurried in from the kitchen while Ada, the maid, appeared at the top of the stairs. Carole said to Albert, “Where’d you stash Mr. Gable’s old bathing trunks?”
“They’re in his closet on the top shelf. I was thinking of heaving them out.”
“For Pete’s sake don’t. They’re still usable. Take the boys to Mr. Gable’s room and, boys, you pick yourselves a pair of trunks. You can change in the guest bedroom.”
Roy remonstrated, “But Mrs. Gable, we don’t plan to go swimming. We’re bodyguards!”
Carole patted his cheek. “You dear sweet thing. This is Hollywood, the Gomorrah of the West Coast. Just about everybody will be shedding their outer garments and plunging into the Pacific.” The blood drained from Roy’s face and Carole could see he was trembling slightly. “My God!” said Carole. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. I can tell you’re both built beautifully. Aren’t they, Pappy?” Gable ignored her, taking the stairs in his ascent two at a time. He didn’t like being reminded that he was almost forty and a bit flabby to boot. He’d never had a spectacular physique, even when he shed his shirt in It Happened One Night and single-handedly destroyed the underwear industry because he was barechested. Lately, when he had to bare his chest in a film his skin was tightly taped back to give an illusion of muscularity. These boys were genuinely muscular, beautifully proportioned, and Carole privately thought they looked good enough to eat, but she kept the thought private lest Gable throw a tantrum.
Carole recognized that both the young men were uncomfortable. “What are you afraid of? This isn’t going to be an orgy.” Somebody snorted and she assumed it was Agnes, who had come to them after an unpleasant stay with Lionel Atwill and his wife. The Atwills were celebrated for their weekend orgies, which almost destroyed Atwill’s career.
Sammy was suddenly all bravery and bravado. “Orgies don’t frighten us, Mrs. Gable.
”
“I should hope not,” said Carole. “You don’t get bitten at outdoor orgies unless there are mosquitoes. Hee hee hee. I can assure you you’ll be perfectly safe. Really, you don’t have to go in swimming if you don’t want to. In fact, I’m not so sure I will. I just had my hair done yesterday and Pappy goes bananas if I spend too much money at the beauty salon.” She shouted up the stairs. “I’m coming, Ada. Get out that purple number I wore in True Confession. The one trimmed in monkey fur.” She said over her shoulder to the boys, “I just adore monkey fur! I just adore monkeys. I did a jungle movie once, White Woman opposite Charles Laughton. Poor bastard. Such a slob.” She clapped her hands sternly like a headmistress gone berserk. “Come on up, boys! Pick out your trunks.” Roy and Sammy reluctantly climbed the stairs, Roy thinking, How can you be a bodyguard in swim trunks?
* * *
Jim Mallory had gone home and changed into tan slacks and a Hawaiian beach shirt that was a kaleidoscope of surfers, divers, porpoises, and general dubious taste. It was his favorite shirt. Herb and Hazel had bought it for him when they were on holiday in Honolulu last year. Driving his sports car to the house Nana shared with the other girls, his mind was a jumble of unconnected thoughts. There was Gable abusing Lupino, and Herb wishing for a ransom note. Jim briefly entertained sending him one just for the hell of it. There was Carole Lombard watching in horror as Lansing Brown shot Russ Columbo dead, though it was never proved she was present at the tragedy. He also saw Mike Lynton pouring himself another Drambuie, while waiting in the wings of his very active imagination was Groucho Marx doing a laugh-clown-laugh bit. He saw Loretta Lynton seducing any number of men that Mallory had never met and probably never would meet. And here was Lydia Austin trussed up like a holiday turkey revolving on a spit and being basted by a phantom. Mallory replaced that vision with Mala Anouk chomping down on a square of greasy blubber while Takameshuga offered her a damp towel. Takameshuga was faceless because Jim had never seen a picture of him.
Come to think of it, he’d never seen a picture of any of the missing Japanese. None were ever reproduced in the newspapers because apparently none existed. Then something else rang a bell in his mind. These men were reported missing by their business offices, not by their families, because as Herb had commented a few days earlier, “It seems they’ve left their families behind in Japan. And what about the three non-Japanese? They too were reported missing by business associates. Apparently they too had no families.”
Jim pulled over to the side of the road just a short distance from his destination and made notes in his pad. His heartbeat had accelerated and he knew he was on to something. He wasn’t sure what, but he knew he was on to something. He couldn’t wait to tell Herb. He’d have to choose his time carefully. Not speak in front of Hazel. He wondered if Herb had given this situation any thought and not discussed it with Jim until he was sure of what he was talking about. Herb was always careful, sometimes too careful, thought Jim.
And then, as he placed the pad back in his pocket, gunned the motor, and proceeded on to pick up Nana Lewis, Jim thought, suppose these men never existed? What a crazy thought, but still, it nagged at him.
The little men who weren’t there. But they had been there, all right, and now they had vanished, presumably into thin air. Didn’t anybody ever vanish into fat air?
He pulled up and parked, got out of the car, crossed to the door, rang the bell, and waited. The door opened and Nana Lewis, a striking vision in white dress and white beret, made him catch his breath. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“Hell no,” said Jim, “something very right.”
Five
Herb Villon didn’t plan on it, but he would be late picking up Hazel. He told her so on the phone. He was entertaining a late caller, freshly arrived from Washington, D.C. It was important he spend some time with him. From the tone of Villon’s voice, Hazel knew better than to give him an argument. She would make her own way to Miriam Hopkins’ house on the beach. Herb told her he’d get there as soon as possible. The man sitting in the chair opposite Herb introduced himself as Carl Arden. He was with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A fed. His credentials were in order. Herb had respect for government seals and in turn he expected respect from Carl Arden. Arden was prepared to give him that. Before flying to L.A., he had done a thorough check of Herb Villon and what he found out impressed him. Herb was something rare in the LAPD, a good, honest cop. He didn’t always play by the rules, often bending them to his own specifications. But he was respected by just about everyone in Los Angeles. His record for breaking cases was impeccable. Carl Arden knew about his relationship to Hazel Dickson and had also read up on and approved of Jim Mallory. He questioned Jim’s whereabouts.
“He’s picking up a very beautiful actress who he’s escorting to a party in Malibu Beach. The hostess is Miriam Hopkins.” Carl Arden was impressed. “The lady I was speaking to on the phone is my girlfriend, Hazel Dickson.” He told Arden about Hazel’s proclivities—sniffing out gossip and frequently very important information. “I’m meeting Hazel at the party.” He smiled. “She didn’t kvetch about my not picking her up. She could tell something important was the reason for the delay. So, you’re here about the missing men?”
“This case didn’t interest us until we noticed the names of Nathan Taft and Ito Takameshuga.”
Herb had lit a cigarette and narrowed his eyes when the smoke attacked them. “Am I wrong in suspecting they’re enemy agents?”
“Go to the head of the class, Herb.”
“I don’t want to go to the head of the class, I want to go to the party. I need some laughs, though I had Groucho Marx in here a couple of hours ago. He depressed me.” He told Arden about Lydia Austin and Arden advised him she was not linked to the missing men. “You’re on your own with her.” Herb told Arden about Lydia, the three other girls, and their involvement with Carole Lombard.
Arden shrugged and said, “Every story should have a little sex appeal. The only thing that interested me about Bonnie and Clyde was Bonnie. Then we found out she was a lez and he was impotent and I live in dread of the day I hear Mae West is really a man in drag.”
Herb laughed. “That’s a nasty rumor I think Mae started herself. I was on a case involving her five years ago and believe you me, she’s got everything in the right place including a hair-trigger brain.”
Arden was lighting a pipe, which Herb decided was FBI stock in trade. A legal background was essential to becoming an FBI agent and legal backgrounds and pipes seemed to go hand in hand. “Anyway, what I’ve got to tell you about Takameshuga and Taft and their supporting cast won’t take too much time. They’re enemy agents, Takameshuga for the Japanese and Taft for the Russians.”
Herb was surprised about Taft. “No Nazis?”
“He could be a little of both. We only know his Russian connections.”
“You know he was friendly with Pola Negri in Berlin?”
“Miss Negri came to see us in D.C. on the advice of her very smart lawyer. We cross-examined her for hours and the result was we gave her a clean bill of health and let her stay in the U.S.” He sucked on the pipe but it was dead. He applied a match to the bowl and it soon glowed. “I might add she had some valuable information to give us about Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and the rest of the all-star cast but I don’t think she knew how valuable it was. She was chock full of gossip about the Nazis. Did you know Rudolph Hess painted his toenails?”
Herb feigned shock. “No!”
Arden nodded gravely. “The whole gang of them is perverted. It seems they’re all dopers too.”
“I guess it takes their minds off pressing matters.” Herb crossed one leg over the other. “Carl, I have a suspicion what you’re really trying to tell me is we’re heading toward war whether we want to or not.”
“Oh, it’s inevitable. We were closing in on Takameshuga, Taft and the others, but they were tipped off and high-tailed it. To get us off the scent they cooked up this mass kidnapping
crap, which I gather has all of Hollywood in a panic.”
“There isn’t a free-lance bodyguard available in this town. They’re all booked and at very fancy prices.” Arden chuckled. “There’s an Eskimo actress in town named Mala Anouk. She was occasionally dating Takameshuga. Funny, I kept thinking she was dating Nathan Taft. I guess my subconscious was suspecting Taft and Takameshuga of the same perfidy. Perfidy! Ha! And where the hell did that word come from?”
“Your subconscious, I guess.”
“No, I think it came from the last Charlie Chan movie I saw. Anyway, you want to talk to the Eskimo. She’s got a hot stash of whale blubber in her cold refrigerator.”
“I’ll talk to her but I doubt she’ll have much to tell me. Takameshuga’s a clever bastard. He doesn’t talk very much and that’s because there isn’t very much he dares say.”
“How much danger have we to fear from Japan right now?”
“We know they’re building a stockpile of arms and ammunition from the scrap iron we sell them.”
Herb said with indignation, “We should stop selling them scrap iron!”
“What? And make them suspicious we know more than they want us to know?” He sucked on the pipe. “Very vicious circle. We put an embargo on scrap iron and we’ve tipped our hat. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. By the way, I’ve got some associates with me. They’re off on other related assignments. We’re all staying at the Ambassador.” He suddenly exploded. “That Victor McLaglen is certainly one big pain in the ass!”
“Very stupid too,” added Herb. “Investigating his private army, the Black Shirts?”
“The Black Shirts! Sons of bitches. They cribbed that from Mussolini’s Black Shirt army. McLaglen doesn’t worry you?”
“His cockamamie army is mostly Hollywood’s Irish has-beens and boozers. It’s another excuse to get drunk and whoop it up on Sunday. They only meet on Sunday because most of the rest of the week they’re too busy making movies. No, McLaglen and his McNamara’s band don’t worry me. They’ll soon get bored with playing soldier and disappear back in the woodwork.”