Bullet for a Star: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book One)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  I left him sitting behind the desk with his back to me. The big cop who had brought me in was waiting in the hallway. I winked at him and made it down the steps and into the night air.

  Phil Pevsner didn’t always like me, and he wasn’t always honest; but he believed me when I said I hadn’t killed Cunningham. Pevsner was a good, tough cop, and I didn’t think it would take him too long to find out the dead man was a Warner Brothers employee named Cunningham.

  The big cop had driven me here in my own car which was parked in front of the station. There was a parking ticket on the windshield, but I still felt lucky. I’d probably have been locked up listening to drunks if my brother Phil weren’t a homicide cop.

  By the time I had showered, changed into my last suit, had a bitter cup of coffee and finished a bowl of Shredded Wheat with sugar and milk, I was ready for Sid Adelman.

  “Peters, you know what time it is?” his voice cracked.

  I looked at my watch, tucked the phone under my chin and poured myself another cup of Chase and Sanborn.

  “It’s a quarter to five. Do you want to hear what I have to say or do you want me to listen to you complain?”

  “Talk,” hissed Adelman.

  “I’ve been in the hospital and a police station.” Adelman groaned, and I continued. “Don’t worry. I kept you, Flynn and the studio out of it. The blackmailer’s dead.”

  “You killed him?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody. Somebody killed him, cracked me in the head and took the cash, the negative and the picture. But I don’t think you’ll hear anything more about the photographs or blackmail. There’s a murder rap tied to the pictures now. He’ll probably burn them faster than you would.”

  It sounded reasonable, and I hoped Sid would buy it.

  “This is …” Sid began, but I heard a scrambling and someone took the phone from him. Then I heard Flynn’s voice.

  “Toby, are you all right?”

  “A few stitches, a bloody shirt, but I’m all right.”

  “Good man. I should have come with you.”

  “Just for the record, Errol,” I said, sounding as buddy-buddy as I could, “were you and Sid together at two?”

  “Why yes, did you suspect us of something?” He sounded delighted with the idea.

  “Not really, I just wanted to be sure. Do you know Cunningham?”

  “Cunningham?” Flynn repeated.

  “What about Cunningham?” Sid’s voice came in. He had obviously picked up the phone in his outer office.

  “He was your blackmailer. He’s dead.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Sid,” Flynn’s voice broke in calmly. “Please be quiet and let Toby talk.”

  “Thanks. I need Cunningham’s address,” I continued. “The cops don’t have any identification on him. Maybe I can get to his place and find something before the law does.”

  “Like more prints or negatives,” said Flynn.

  “I’m looking,” sighed Sid. “What a goddamn crazy business this has turned into. You give a young man a break … Here it is, Charles Henry Cunningham, 1720 Montana, Santa Monica.”

  “O.K., Sid. If the police contact you, don’t tell them about the blackmail and don’t mention me. Meanwhile, make up a list of anyone who could have known the address where the blackmail exchange was made. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  “We’ll have it ready,” said Flynn resolutely. “I’ve got to be on Stage Five for a montage sequence in an hour. Sid will come with me. Meet us there. And let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”

  “Thanks, Errol, I will. Sid, when did you hire Cunningham, and where did he come from?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. I hired him a couple of months ago. Somebody recommended him.”

  “Who?”

  “Who? I don’t remember.”

  “Try to remember. It may be important.”

  I hung up and headed for Santa Monica as the sun came up over the mountains.

  The Montana Avenue address was a fake adobe, one-story courtyard building with palm trees, a dozen apartments and a swimming pool the size of a bathtub. Cunningham’s apartment was easy to find. His name was on the door. I knocked. A gun would have been comforting, but the only one I owned was the missing 38.

  The apartment was silent. I tried the door. It was locked. I pulled at the window and it gave a little. With a sharp push, I snapped the tiny hook that held the window. I stood still in the courtyard for a second or two to see if someone had heard the noise, but all was quiet. Stepping through the window, I pulled the drapes fully closed behind me and turned on the wall light.

  The room was neat, like a hotel room the maid has just visited. Either someone came in daily to clean it or Cunningham had been a very dainty housekeeper. Searching was easy. There was one small bedroom, a smaller kitchen and a living room. The furniture was typical furnished apartment, once colorful, now fading. There was a camera and tripod in a closet and enough equipment to convert the bathroom into a makeshift darkroom. There were no photographs or negatives of Flynn and the girl, but there was a small photo in a dresser drawer. It showed Cunningham and a woman. They were on a beach, probably not far from this apartment. Cunningham and the woman were in bathing suits. He was waving at the camera making his left hand blur slightly. His right hand and arm held the woman. She was an extremely well endowed blonde with short, curly hair. She was wearing dark glasses and a sour expression and didn’t seem at all happy about having her picture taken. She looked vaguely familiar.

  I took the photograph and added it to the one in my pocket, the head of the young girl. As I left through the front door, a woman came out of the next apartment. I turned my back to her and stuck my head back into Cunningham’s apartment.

  “Is a no problem, Chuck,” I said raising my voice a few octaves in my best Chico Marx accent. “I’ll picka them up later.” The woman’s steps clicked past, and I withdrew my head.

  The sun was out, and I was feeling unreasonably good. It was idiotic. My gun was missing; I was a murder suspect; I had fouled up a job and had my brains scrambled, but I felt cunning and powerful.

  Back at the Warners’ gate, Hatch stuck his head into my car to greet me.

  “What happened to your head?” he gasped.

  “Twelve stitches,” I said.

  “I’m really sorry, Toby,” he said, and I believed him. I was certainly a sorry sight.

  “Hatch, I’m supposed to meet Errol Flynn and Sid Adelman on Stage Five.”

  “Sure, Toby, go on in. You know the way.”

  “Thanks, Hatch.”

  In the rear-view mirror I could see Hatch’s hulking form aimed sadly in my direction for a second or two before turning to an arriving Cadillac.

  Stage Five was where all the montage and special effects were shot at Warners. A paternal ex-cameraman from the silent days, named Byron “Bun” Haskin, ran the place like a separate kingdom. Montage, which the studio used a lot, was a series of short shots to show the passing of time in feature films. Maybe ten or fifteen shots of Wall Street crumbling and men taking dives out of windows with ticker tape in their hands, or eight shots of Jimmy Cagney walking up to doors that shut on him. That was montage. Big directors didn’t shoot that stuff, or inserts, shots of hands or objects. All that was done on Stage Five.

  I found Sid Adelman on Stage Five sitting in a director’s chair almost asleep with his hands folded on his stomach. On the western saloon set in front of him, Flynn was solemnly throwing punches at a camera and missing it by inches. He was dressed in cowboy clothes and a broad, white hat. There were five people on the set. The montage director, a kid with curly, dark hair, a thin mustache and a worldly voice, called:

  “Perfect, Errol. Let’s have the lights and take that.”

  The lights went on. The cameraman took a reading. Flynn adjusted his hat. The cameraman crouched behind the big Mitchell camera, and the young director called “R
oll and … action.”

  Flynn punched viciously at the camera.

  “Good,” said the director, “just keep it rolling. Try a couple more punches, Errol.” Flynn dutifully punched as the young man instructed.

  “Cut,” called the director. “Thank you, Errol, looks fine.”

  “Thank you, Donald,” Flynn said, spotting me and walking in my direction. “Toby, old man.” His hand went out to me. Flynn was about ten feet from me when the first shot pinged off the light near his head.

  Nobody on the set paid particular attention to the sound, but I recognized it, and, apparently, so did Flynn. I dropped to the ground and shouted:

  “Everybody down, get down. Somebody’s shooting.”

  Adelman jolted awake and went comically on his hands and knees. The young director went flat, and his crew joined him.

  Flynn neither went down nor looked for cover. From behind a prop box where I had rolled, I could see Flynn standing bolt upright and glaring angrily. The second shot hit somewhere near his feet.

  “For God’s sake, Errol,” I shouted, “get behind something. He’s shooting at you.”

  Near the darkness of the door I had come through a few minutes before, a figure moved. The door opened and closed. Flynn, his cowboy hat flying off, ran for the door. I got up and ran after him. My idea was to try to keep him from getting a bullet up his perfect nose, but he was moving fast and got to the door before me. I ran to his side and looked out. There was no one in sight.

  “Cowardly bastard,” Flynn mumbled. “My life is a charade. I don’t even have a real gun to defend myself with.” He held up his studio six-shooter and shook his head, a wry smile on his lips.

  We went back inside Stage Five, and I did not mention the likelihood of the recent shots being from my gun.

  Adelman was shaking. The young director called out:

  “Everybody all right? Equipment all right?”

  “Maybe we better call the police,” Adelman whispered.

  “What do you think, Toby?” asked Flynn.

  “Errol, I think you should suddenly get sick for a few days and go to a hotel where no one can find you. Can you cover for him, Sid?”

  A pale Adelman said yes.

  “Now wait a minute,” Flynn said.

  “Look,” I countered, sitting heavily in a chair on the saloon set while Flynn retrieved his fallen hat, “I admire your courage, but it’s not needed right now. I don’t know what’s happening, but I’d like to have a few days to work on it. Someone’s trying to kill you and drop Cunningham’s murder in my lap.”

  “Toby,” said Flynn, clasping my shoulder, “I don’t like hiding.”

  “Errol, it will keep you alive. Did you make that list for me, the list of people who knew the address where I went this morning?”

  Adelman fished through his pockets and came up with a crumpled sheet of paper. There were three names on it.

  “Sid, I and those three were having lunch together when the envelope arrived,” Flynn explained. “We had no idea what it was all about at first, and by the time it dawned on us, everyone at the table had seen the picture and the note with the address and meeting time. They all promised to forget it and Sid destroyed the picture.”

  The list of names was:

  Donald Siegel

  Harry Beaumont

  Peter Lorre

  “O.K. Errol, now please go find a hotel for two days. Don’t tell anyone where you are. No one, not me, not Sid, not your best friend. Call Sid this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon. He’ll keep you informed. I know you don’t like it, but believe me, it’s the right thing.”

  “All right. I believe you,” he said, touching his fingers to his forehead in a gesture of farewell. The opportunity for a dramatic exit probably turned the trick. “I’ll get in my car at once and go out the back gate.”

  When Flynn left, I turned to Adelman.

  “Sid, I have about $175 left from what you gave me. That should be enough, but …”

  “Not another penny until you deliver the negative and print,” he said, “or proof that they are destroyed.” Scared to death and confused, he did not forget a $200 business deal.

  “All right. I want to get started on this list right away. Who is this first guy, Siegel?”

  Sid told me he was a kid in his twenties who had a reputation for montage and was getting into second unit directing.

  “What’s the kid like?”

  Sid shrugged. “Cocky. Too much confidence, too many practical jokes, but sharp.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  “That’s him.” He pointed at the young man who had just directed Flynn’s punching bit.

  “Did you remember who recommended Cunningham to you?”

  He didn’t, but said he would keep thinking. As he walked away, I turned to find Siegel. He was no longer in sight. I went into the darkness behind the saloon set and found the cameraman examining the camera for bullet holes. He said his name was Bob Burks and that Siegel was in the next building. I thanked him and found my way through a door and into the next building, a huge sound stage set up to look like a gymnasium, complete with bleachers.

  There were only two people on the set. They were in a far corner playing ping pong. One of the people was Siegel wearing a blue tee shirt. The clopping of the ball echoed through the building.

  As I approached I could see that he held his tongue in the corner of his mouth and was concentrating on playing. The other man, who looked like a lanky cowboy, was methodically running up points.

  “Don Siegel?” I said.

  He failed to return a moderately difficult serve and shook his head in disgust.

  He paused to tell me that this was a set for the Pat O’Brien movie about Knute Rockne. He also asked me if the shooting had been a joke. While he was talking, he managed to return an easy serve but lost the point.

  “Can we talk?” I asked.

  “Gee,” he answered sincerely, “I’d like to, but I only have a ten minute break, and I’m playing Jim for a buck a point. I’d like to get some of my money back before we go back to work.”

  Jim was clearly one of the slowest ping pong players in North America, and I was in a hurry. I had also won a table tennis trophy when I was a kid in Glendale.

  “Look,” I said, “I’ll give you a couple of quick games for a buck a point, and then we talk for five minutes. O.K?”

  He pursed his lips and reluctantly raised his eyebrows in agreement. Jim handed me the paddle. We played quietly.

  There I was with a head full of stitches, my gun missing, trying to keep out of jail and protect Errol Flynn from a killer, and I was playing ping pong. Siegel managed to stay in the game with some lucky shots and actually beat me 21 to 19. But I had the feel of the paddle back.

  “Let’s play the last game for two bucks a point,” I suggested.

  “Whatever you say,” said Siegel.

  The game lasted a little over two minutes. He beat me 21 to 1. He only gave me the single point to keep the game from being an 11 to 0 shutout. After that one point, the ball didn’t slow down enough for me to see it or hit it.

  Jim the cowboy grinned, and Siegel looked at me sheepishly. I reached for my wallet to dig out forty bucks, but Siegel held up his hand.

  “No,” he said coming around the table and shaking my hand. “I was just keeping in practice. I haven’t pulled a good table tennis hustle since I came to California five years ago. Let’s talk.”

  Jim waved goodby. Siegel and I wandered over to the wooden bleachers and sat down.

  “First, tell me where you were at two this morning.”

  “A party,” he said with an amused grin. “Plenty of witnesses. You want some names?”

  “No,” I said. Since Siegel had been in sight when Flynn was shot at, he wasn’t really a suspect.

  “You were at lunch the other day when Flynn got a package.”

  Siegel looked at me expressionlessly.

  “I’m working for Flynn,”
I explained, “investigating the attempted blackmail. You got a good look at the picture?”

  “I saw the picture,” he said.

  “What did you think about it?”

  “Well,” said Siegel slowly, “I work a lot with stills. If someone had asked me, which they did not, I would have said it was probably a phoney. I’d like to see the negative, but even without it there were give-aways. Flynn and the girl were both looking toward the camera. It was too posed. And the man’s body was wrong, out of proportion. I’d say the body was three or four inches shorter than Errol’s.”

  I looked at the young man with new respect.

  “Did you recognize the girl in the picture?”

  He said he didn’t, and I asked him if he remembered how the others had reacted.

  “Peter, that’s Peter Lorre, seemed interested, but nothing special. Flynn was amused and Adelman was upset.”

  “Beaumont?” I asked.

  Siegel looked at me for a long time, pursed his lips thoughtfully, and then spoke carefully.

  “He’s a decent actor, a little showy, but pretty good. He did a reasonable job of hiding it, but he was shaken by the picture, badly shaken. Part of my business is watching actors.”

  “You’d make a hell of a detective,” I said pulling out my notebook.

  “If Jack Warner doesn’t give me a picture to direct in a few years, maybe I’ll look you up. How’s the pay?”

  “Rotten.”

  “Well, you can’t have everything. I really do have to get back now. I’ve got a tough sequence with Walter Huston and I only get him for an hour. Stay out of table tennis games with strangers.”

  I went to Adelman’s office. He had gone home to Westwood to get some sleep, but Esther put aside her reading long enough to dig out some information: Harry Beaumont had a Beverly Hills address on Dayton Way and a Crestview telephone number. I wrote them both on the back of an old business card given to me by a taxidermist who had needed my face to frighten a neighbor with a bad temper.

  Beverly Hills was a wealthy suburb long before 1940. I felt out of place as I eased my Buick past well-tanned men and women in white on their way to tennis matches or golf courses. The cars were gigantic, new, or both. Everything looked bright and prosperous but me.