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

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “True and not true,” I said. “Not true because …”

  “No,” she said walking to the door. “I don’t want to hear.”

  I went slowly and quietly to the door. Defeat was total and the consolation was a soft kiss Ann gave me. I tried to turn the kiss into something, but she pulled back and opened the door.

  “Goodbye Toby,” she said.

  “I’ll see you,” I tried.

  “I hope not,” were her last words as the door closed behind me.

  As I went down the hall slowly on the chance that the door would open behind me, I heard the chime ring in her apartment. Going down the carpeted stairway, I heard the lobby door open. A man passed me as I hit the bottom step. He was about 50, very well dressed with neat grey hair. I couldn’t tell for sure if he was in good shape, wearing a corset or just holding his stomach in. All three possibilities made me tired.

  I got in my Buick and headed for my office. The building was dark when I arrived. As quietly as I could, I went up the stairs, through the office door, past the reception room and into the dental chair. I took off my tie and jacket in the dark, lowered Sheldon’s dental chair and closed my eyes. The phone rang once, but I ignored it. In a few minutes, I was asleep. This time I had no dream.

  My eyes opened to morning and a horrible sight, D.D.S. Shelly Minck’s face, complete with cigar and glasses inches from mine.

  “I thought you were dead or something,” said Shelly.

  “Not yet,” I got up.

  He gathered his tools together and put on some coffee while we talked and I shaved.

  “Four big ones today,” Shelly gloated, taking his cigar out of his mouth to wash his hands. “An extraction, some bridgework and two patients with fillings. Business is picking up I tell you, Toby. The Depression is over. F.D.R. is getting my vote.”

  “Glad to hear it, Shelly.” I fixed my tie, took one of Shelly’s sample toothbrushes and scrubbed my teeth.

  After a breakfast of coffee and sweet rolls, I headed for Warner Brothers. It was a clear, bright day, and I had the feeling that I was close to a lot of answers. My immediate goal was to try to talk Adelman out of $200 and get a line on Beaumont.

  Hatch wasn’t on the gate. The guy who was, was scrawny and mean and didn’t know me. He said Hatch was around, but he wasn’t about to look for him. He called Adelman’s office.

  The scrawny guard got the O.K. from Adelman and passed me through.

  When I entered the building, Adelman was standing in front of his office. He was trying to calm an excited, thin man of about fifty.

  “That explains nothink, nothink Sidney, nothink.” The man’s accent was thick and European, and he was angry.

  “Mike,” said Adelman reasonably, “what am I asking? A day? You can shoot around him for a day?”

  “I shot around one day of him,” said Mike. “Enough. Tomorrow he returns or I talk to Jack Warner. I have an empty horse where Flynn should be, Sidney.”

  Sid shook his head in sympathy.

  “I know that, Mike,” he said. “Believe me, I know. Check back with me later, I’ll do what I can.”

  “What you can,” said Mike, glancing at me as I advanced, “is to get him back tomorrow on the morning.”

  The man walked past me, and Sid looked after him shaking his head.

  “That’s Mike Curtiz,” said Sid seeing me. “He’s directing Santa Fe Trail, the picture Flynn is supposed to be on. You heard. He wants him back. Jesus. Come in. Come in.” Sid ushered me past Esther, who didn’t look up, and into his office.

  Bill Faulkner wasn’t at home. Sid parked himself behind his desk and started to fidget with his pens and pencils.

  “You owe me two hundred dollars,” I said sitting.

  “You’ve got the negative and my money back?”

  “No, but I found the girl in the picture. She doesn’t know Flynn, and he doesn’t know her. The picture is a fake.”

  “You can prove it?” said Adelman eagerly.

  “If we have to, with a doctor. The girl’s a virgin.”

  “Virgin?”

  “Yes,” I said. “So, if your blackmailer calls, we’ll work out something to trap him.”

  “Who’s the girl?” said Adelman, gazing at the photo of Roosevelt.

  “She stays out of this,” I said. “She didn’t know what was happening. Cunningham drugged her and faked the picture. Now about my two hundred dollars.”

  “No negative, no cash, no two hundred,” said Adelman. He actually rubbed his hands together. “Now we can get Flynn back here. Curtiz will get off my back and …”

  “Hold on, Sid. I still don’t know who killed Cunningham and who tried to kill Flynn. Whoever it is may make another try at Flynn.”

  “We’ll give him protection,” he shouted, adjusting his tie. “I’ll send a couple of studio security men to watch him. Where is he?”

  I told him and said the next step was finding Harry Beaumont.

  “Why? What’s the klutz got to do with this?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve got to ask him some questions.”

  “So go ask him,” Sid said standing. “He’s doing a short over on the back lot.”

  I went for the door before Sid could say anything more.

  “Esther, you look beautiful,” I shouted. “A double for Constance Bennett.”

  The back lot at Warner Brothers was a series of exterior sets that ran into each other. There was a fake city street that could be anything from Chicago to London. There was a Western street right around the corner and a fake tenement block a little further on. Shooting was going on on every set. At the edge of the lot, in a corner, I spotted the deck of a pirate ship. A camera crew was shooting two men on the deck. The two men were sword fighting. One of the men was a little comedian whose name I couldn’t remember. The man he was fighting with was Harry Beaumont.

  I came up to the group slowly, trying to stay out of the line of Beaumont’s vision. Beaumont was wearing a pirate costume including a bandana and red-and-white striped shirt. He looked mean. When the director called out, Beaumont added a sullen look to the mean one.

  “Come on, Harry,” the director shouted, “put some life into the shot.”

  “You’ve got all the life you’re getting out of me for a lousy two-reel comedy,” Beaumont answered angrily. “I’m not doing another take.”

  “We haven’t got the budget for another take,” said the director, who shared sympathetic looks with the little comedian and called a break.

  Beaumont was clearly on the way down. Last year, second leads in A pictures and a few leads in B’s; this year, the villain in a two-reel comedy. Next year, a character actor in summer theater in Fresno. Beaumont moved alone to the rail on the ship and leaned over to look at the sky and mountains. The crew wandered away.

  As quietly as I could, I moved behind Beaumont and then next to him at the rail.

  “Future doesn’t look too good does it, Harry?”

  He turned to me suddenly, but I was ready and had my arms loosely at my side.

  “Harry,” I whispered, “we can talk quietly or fight. I’d rather fight.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Did you kill Charlie Cunningham?”

  The hatred in his eyes was no act. I was threatening what little he had going for him, and he wasn’t about to give it up easily.

  “I didn’t kill Cunningham.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Yes,” he said with a twisted smile. “At two in the morning yesterday I was with a young lady who will be happy to testify to that effect.”

  “Who said he was killed at two,” I asked.

  Maybe he was starting to sweat from the question. Maybe it was just the aftermath of the fake fight with the comic.

  “You told Brenda, my wife, and I saw her yesterday. She told me.”

  He had been to see his wife. I was his witness for that, but I couldn’t remember whether I had told her when Cunningham was killed. I di
dn’t think I had.

  “Next question,” I went on, “when you stopped at the apartment you’re renting under the name of Simmons, did you pick up something and take it with you?”

  “Like …”

  “A gun, a negative of your daughter and Errol Flynn, five thousand dollars,” I said.

  “No,” he said, looking away. He played bored, but I wasn’t buying it.

  “Then you won’t mind my searching your clothes and having a look in that Caddy you drive?”

  That did it.

  “If you wish,” he said, turning slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. It was the same turn he had made in the farm at Buellton. His repertoire was limited. He turned fast with something in his hand and swung it at me. I ducked and came in with a hard left just below his ribs. It felt good, but he didn’t go down. Instead, he hit me in the shoulder with the block of wood he had lifted from the rail. I came back with a right to the side of his head that made one of my knuckles pop and swell.

  Beaumont grunted and ran at me. His head caught me in the chest, throwing me backward.

  The crew for the short was moving toward us. A few of the people, including the director, cheered me on. Beaumont turned and ran.

  In the next few minutes, we destroyed a lot of good footage and confused some of the best talent in Hollywood.

  A troop of soldiers was marching down a muddy street. Beaumont plowed into them, and someone screamed “cut”! I followed Beaumont through the mud. End of new suit and last pair of shoes.

  The soldiers stopped and watched while Beaumont panted his way around a corner. I was about twenty yards behind him. When I turned the corner, he was gone. I hurried down the space between the two buildings where he disappeared and found a door. The shooting light was on, but I went in. I heard familiar voices in the darkness and made my way through the shadows toward the light of the set. Beaumont was standing among extras looking over his shoulder for me. He stood out like a pirate among tuxedoed politicians, which is exactly what he was.

  He spotted me stepping into the light and turned to run, but his path was blocked by the extras. I started after him, and he ran right into the set.

  It was a fancy home. Edward Arnold was behind a desk wearing a tux. Gary Cooper, wearing a rumpled suit, was carrying on a conversation with him.

  Just as Arnold said, “Listen here, Doe” to Cooper, Beaumont started across the set. I went over an assistant director’s back and tackled Beaumont, who thudded against the desk knocking it and Arnold over. I didn’t see what happened to Cooper.

  Beaumont had turned and had his fingers around my neck. I butted him with my head and punched him with my left hand. The right one throbbed from the earlier punch.

  Somewhere behind me somebody said, “Should we cut, Mr. Capra?”

  “Hell no,” came a delighted voice.

  I was getting tired, but Beaumont must have been in worse shape. He rolled over on me. His weight was his main advantage. My head hit something, and Beaumont was off me and moving again. I could hear him puffing.

  Someone helped me up. It was Gary Cooper.

  “Thanks,” I breathed.

  “My pleasure,” he said, lifting his eyebrow.

  Beaumont was out of another door, and I was behind him. He pushed a couple of girls in cheerleaders’ uniforms and went through another door. We were on the Knute Rockne gym set where I had played table tennis with Don Siegel.

  We moved slowly, very slowly, and Beaumont almost collapsed.

  His back against the bleachers, he turned for a goal line stand. A weak right came up, and then he made a grab for me with his arms wide. I stepped back and hit him in the face with a right. It hurt like hell, but I felt his bone crack, and he went down.

  I was exhausted and breathing hard. I sat on the floor and started to go through his pockets. He wasn’t unconscious, but there wasn’t enough left in him to raise his arms. It was in the back pocket of his pants under his pirate suit. The envelope was small, brown, big enough to hold a four by five negative. I opened it and recognized the negative. It was the same one I had held in my hand a few seconds before Cunningham was killed.

  I started to put the picture in my jacket pocket and pull myself up. Beaumont, his nose bloody, looked up at me. He looked frightened and gulped blood.

  “You’re really something, Harry,” I gasped. “Using pictures of your own daughter for blackmail. I’ve seen them low, but not as low as you are right now.”

  His eyes looked up at me pleading, but they weren’t focusing properly. Then I realized that they weren’t focusing on me. It was like the moment just before Cunningham caught the bullet from my gun. I started to turn toward where Beaumont was looking. Something inside, maybe experience, told me to duck when I turned. It probably saved my life. There was an explosion, and I saw the inkwell in my desk when I was a kid in third grade. I dived into the ink and swam lazily in the darkness. It was pleasant. After a while I came out of the ink and opened my eyes. I had a feeling that I was alive, but might wish I wasn’t.

  The negative was gone. I knew it would be. Beaumont was still there. I was afraid he would be. His eyes were wide open, and there were two red holes through the chest of the pirate uniform.

  For a minute or two, I sat in the middle of the gymnasium set with my third corpse in two days. This one was the worst. Half of the Warner Brothers lot had seen me fighting with Beaumont. It was even on film, and here I sat with his body. I would have bet my car, my salary from Flynn and the two hundred I would probably never collect from Adelman that the two bullets in Beaumont’s chest were from my gun.

  If history was repeating itself, someone would be coming in a few minutes, and it would probably be the cops. They were getting less friendly with me with each encounter.

  My head was sore. I touched it and felt blood. The killer had tried to make it three, but I was a secondary target, and the bullet had only plowed a furrow in my scalp. The gun wasn’t in sight. I didn’t expect it to be. I got up, looked at Beaumont once more, and moved into the darkness of the set. There were no sirens, and I heard no footsteps, but it wouldn’t be long before my brother was after me. This time, I was sure, he wouldn’t let me walk out of his office.

  I found a water tap outside the building and stuck my head under it. I splashed some water on my muddy legs and shoes, pulled myself together and stumbled in the general direction of my car. I was going to be lucky to come out of this whole thing with my brains still unscrambled.

  When I turned the corner in front of Sid’s office, I saw my car. Seidman was standing next to it. My brother was probably inside talking to Adelman about Cunningham. In a few seconds, my brother would know about me and Beaumont and follow my trail through ruined footage. I headed away from my car and toward the front gate.

  I walked out of the gate as briskly as I could and caught a Sunshine cab which had just dropped someone off. I told the Italian driver to take me to the Y.

  “You a movie actor or writer or something?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, “but I’ve got something to do with pictures.”

  “I just gave a ride to a producer named Blanke,” said the driver, “you heard of him?”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to decide what I was going to do until nine o’clock.

  “Cheap. Quarter tip,” said the cabbie.

  “Well,” I said closing my eyes, “you just never know what to expect from these movie people.”

  The cabbie dropped me off in front of the Y, but I decided not to stay there. My brother might check cabs leaving the studio and give my description. That might lead to the Y.M.C.A. Phil would figure me to be smarter than that, but he’d check it out anyway.

  I walked a few blocks, got another cab and went three blocks past a cheap hotel I knew on San Pedro. I had once spent the night at the place talking a runaway grandmother into going home to her son and daughter-in-law. The old lady had been living happily in the hotel when I found her. Her son was the owner of a pret
ty big Van Nuys toy store, and he paid cash up front. I remembered the hotel had asked her no questions and had been surprisingly clean.

  I registered as Murray Sklar. When amateurs register anonymously, they usually keep some part of their real name, maybe the same initials, or their middle name. I moved as far as I could from mine. I had no luggage, but I paid cash, and the woman at the desk appreciated being compared to Joan Crawford. Most of the women in Los Angeles thought they looked like Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Joan Blondell or Olivia DeHavilland. The Joan Crawford behind the desk looked more like Marjorie Main in Dead End.

  The room was clean and neat, but small. I didn’t care. I only expected to stay for a few hours. There was a phone in the hall. I called Sid Adelman.

  “What the hell are you doing? Just what the hell are you doing?” he huffed. “I’ll tell you what you’re doing. You’re killing off the goddamn employees of this studio one by one.”

  “I didn’t kill them, Sid, and besides, you really won’t miss any of them.”

  “That’s not the point,” he cried. “The publicity is going to be terrible, terrible if anyone finds out. We may be able to keep it out of the papers, but I don’t know.” Long pause. “Was Beaumont the second blackmailer?”

  “I think so,” I said. An old man in a bathrobe passed by me in the hall. I nodded and spoke more softly. “I had my hands on the negative for a few seconds again.”

  “And you lost it, huh putz?” I could imagine Sid Adelman shaking his little head.

  A relatively old lady of the evening walked past me down the hall. She didn’t look as good as Marjorie Main in Dead End. I gave her a polite smile and shrugged at the phone indicating I was too busy.

  “What did the cops want?” I asked Adelman.

  “Bette Davis’s autograph,” he said sarcastically. “They wanted you. They want you. Some lieutenant named Pevsner will probably kill you if he gets his hands on you.”

  “So they know about me fighting with Beaumont?”

  “And,” he dripped, “ruining several hundred feet of film and destroying one short comedy by killing the villain.”