Kill All the Young Girls

by Brett Halliday

  Brett Halliday

  Kill All the Young Girls

  Chapter 1

  Larry Zion, whose only real identification was as chairman of the board of Consolidated-Famous Pictures, drifted along Interstate 95 in the direction of Miami, letting his big Italian car proceed at its own speed. Fewer than thirty of these impressive monsters had been sold in the United States market, almost all to executives or top-money stars in the motion picture industry. A TV talk-show host had recently been seen at the wheel of one, and this was an indication to Zion that it might be time to start looking for another symbol.

  But it was a marvelous piece of machinery. Not like people. People were becoming harder and harder for Zion to manipulate, and there was even some danger that his company might be slipping out of his grasp. But the great car, which had cost Consolidated $18,000, was not only the most powerful on the highway, it was fully under Zion’s control; and that was a pleasant feeling. He stepped up the fingertip-pressure slightly. It responded at once. His women used to be like that, but no longer. They balked and asked questions and wanted him to be interested in their ideas. Their ideas, for the love of God.

  Consolidated-Famous was one of the three or four great companies that went back to the early days of silent pictures. When Zion was eighteen, he sold them a book he had hired somebody else to write under his name; and the next time anybody noticed, he was a major producer. He was phenomenally lucky; it was his major quality. Luck is the single most important thing in motion picture production. The money has to be committed eighteen months before the public sees the picture, and guessing right that far in advance takes more luck than brains. Zion’s guesses had been so good that for a long time the bankers were shouldering each other aside to be allowed in on his action.

  Then all at once the business changed. People began queuing up outside out-of-the-way theaters showing pictures that had been made for nickels and dimes. Consolidated-Famous stopped paying dividends. The bankers were slow about returning Zion’s phone calls. He went on making pictures, that being the business he was in; and he managed in the course of a single fiscal year to lose forty million dollars. Sometimes he pulled out that balance sheet to make sure he hadn’t imagined the whole incredible thing. And there it was—a dollar sign, a four, and an endless string of zeroes.

  So the vultures gathered. Every year he had to fight off a challenge for control. The world around him had changed; and Zion, that senile bastard, still thought people went to the movies looking to be entertained. He was too old, it was said; he no longer had the touch. What they were after, of course, had nothing to do with movie production. They longed to sink their teeth in the real estate—the 500-acre backlot in Beverly Hills, the Kern County ranch, the great sound stages built on prime development land.

  And then there was the backlog, the huge library of films made during Zion’s reign, which could be peddled to television for the best kind of money, windfall money. Needless to say, Zion had respect for money. It was the way he measured success. But when he sold his pictures to television, he wanted control over cuts and interruptions. A spoiled picture, a slashed picture, was commercially damaged. His opponents didn’t understand that.

  And meanwhile, he had gone on producing pictures, which the people soliciting proxies against him knew nothing about. Lawyers, accountants. A magazine publisher. In the magazine business, you printed five million copies at so much per copy, sold them at so much per copy, and hoped for ten percent on your money. Whereas in movies, you could bring in a picture for two million; and if the public wanted to go to see it, you could gross twenty times that in your first year.

  But yes, you had to be lucky. And Zion himself had to admit that his luck had been spotty lately.

  No streak lasts forever; and if he could wait long enough, the turn would come. But he had never believed in sitting around waiting for his fairy godmother to walk up and knock him down with her magic wand. He believed in making his own luck. The looters were putting on the pressure this year, throwing money around like chewing gum wrappers; and he conceded the possibility that they might win. But they would know they had been in a fight.

  He fitted a smuggled Havana into a cigar holder and used the dashboard lighter. The powerful car continued to carry him along the almost deserted highway at eighty, tires rustling on the concrete and the motor giving off its comfortable, nearly inaudible murmur. The stereo deck was playing the soundtrack from one of Zion’s old musicals, the ninth top grosser of all time, made at Zion’s insistence in a year when everybody else maintained that musicals were deadly poison. Seven Academy Award nominations on that one because the public had loved it so much. Keko Brannon’s last completed film; and having started on a new medicine, the sweet, insane child hadn’t given them much trouble for once. The new pills had worked well until she began washing them down with Beefeater martinis. The pert little ass on that girl.

  And suddenly, as clearly as though an 8x10 publicity glossy had fluttered up from the roadbed and plastered itself against the windshield, Zion saw Keko nude in one of the pornographic poses she liked to get into; in her judgment, the sexual apparatus and all acts of sex were equally funny. She had been reclining against a table with her legs apart, both hands on her mount, her mouth open and glistening, in a parody of the fan-magazine covers of the time. She wouldn’t have been even thirty now. If she had trusted her talent or even believed that she had any, she would still be packing the theaters. Maybe they had seen the last of that kind of star.

  A shadow, a flicker of movement, pulled Zion’s eye to his rear-view mirror. A fire-engine red convertible with the top down was right on his rear bumper.

  It was close, frighteningly close. Adrenalin spurted. He stepped up the pressure on his gas pedal, and the convertible faded backward. A girl was driving, her blonde hair whipping in the wind. A blonde in a red convertible—an obvious combination that stirred the imagination. Keko’s cars, speaking of Keko, had always been red. Every movie-goer knew the story of how Keko, coming off a difficult abortion, broke, hungry, and with only one decent dress, had boosted a bright convertible, the first in a long line, and had lain in wait outside the Consolidated gates. Zion drove a Bentley in those days, using a driver so he could get off some of his paper work on the way to his so-called home. And what did the nutty girl do but nudge the Bentley playfully every time it stopped for a light, until finally Zion erupted out of the back seat to demand what the hell she thought she was doing. The answer was that she thought she was bringing herself to the attention of a powerful studio head. And having been brought to his attention, she went home with him; and he tested her the next day and gave her a bit in a gangster movie. A great Hollywood legend, and unlike so many others, it happened to be absolutely true.

  The blonde in the convertible behind him now was wearing dark glasses and a blue, blowing scarf. This was a bit odd. Keko, in dark glasses of course, had been wearing a blue scarf that day he first met her. A superstitious person might have worried, but Zion merely thought that it would make a cute opening for a certain kind of picture.

  As he drove, he squeezed the grip of a forearm exerciser, counting somewhere far back in his mind, changing hands when he reached fifty. He was a savage ping-pong player, but he didn’t have the full ferocity he needed for his forehand smash. Nevertheless, he seldom lost. His son Marcus had once thought he could give him some competition, but he had never succeeded in creeping closer than sixteen or seventeen points. Zion was in fabulous shape. He slept hard and exercised hard. His sexual episodes, while less frequent than formerly, were still as intense. He weighed the same as during his first marriage, to a New York girl he rarely remembered now. And yet, at sixty-two, he wasn’t one of those peop
le who want to look no older than forty. His only facial adornment was a thin mustache. He had never capped his teeth or worn a hairpiece. Men who had face-lifts were sick, he believed. He was on hormones, but that was for medical reasons.

  He had almost forgotten the red convertible. It came up behind him very fast and rammed him before he could react.

  It was a hard shot, and Zion’s head snapped back against the headrest. His cigar fell to his lap. His dark glasses had been jolted askew, and the road ahead went out of focus alarmingly. The blue scarf, the whipping hair, the red car. He was jarred back in time, to the earlier moment when he and Keko had clashed bumpers. He heard her voice on the stereo. Not knowing exactly where he was for an instant, he did the wrong thing, letting up on the gas. The convertible hit him again.

  He was braced for this one, but the neck snap was sudden and painful.

  He realized that he was still counting squeezes. He put the exerciser on the seat beside him as the red car slid out of the overhead mirror and moved up alongside. He pushed his shades back into place and brushed the burning cigar to the floor. Action and sound came back into synchronization. In the present again, he prepared to outrun her. If she tried to cut in on him, he would hold the heavy car to the road and tough it out. He owned eighteen percent of the stock in a major motion picture company, and his old luck was coming back.

  He turned his head, and his mind jumped again. The likeness was incredible. But Keko Brannon was dead. She had died seven years ago, on the thirteenth day of shooting a picture budgeted at two million five—a picture sure to have slopped over, like all Brannon pictures, because she found it so difficult to show up anywhere at the appointed time. She had drowned in a bathtub in a rented house in Encino, stunned by a lethal mixture of booze and pills. And after that, how the ink had flowed. A stand-in was used to finish the film, and the publicity had been so enormous that in the end the picture had more than recouped. The movie-going public is ninety-five percent ghoul.

  As a rational man, Zion knew that this had to be some kook who had heard the legend and thought it would work again, not knowing that those days were gone forever. She had fixed herself up like Brannon and was wearing, he noticed, a typical Brannon dress, with a low scooped neck that showed an extravagant pair of boobs. Her car, a stock Ford or Chevy, seemed to be trying to shed its skin. He decided to pull out in front and keep a safe interval until he spotted a patrol car. They might be able to milk this for a little newspaper space.

  He depressed the pedal. In another moment he would be clear.

  The girl whipped off her dark glasses. It was Kate Thackera, in a blonde wig. That explained it all. Crazy was the word for this lass. But what did she think it was going to accomplish? Was he supposed to be so guilt ridden and skittery that at the sight of Keko Brannon—a girl masquerading as Keko Brannon—he would go gibbering off the interstate highway at eighty-five miles an hour? True, she had startled him for a moment. But he was over that now.

  He muttered and dropped back until they were running even again. He had thought of a way to handle this problem—swing over hard and drive the lighter American car into the center divider. Another highway fatality. They all drive too fast at that age; they haven t learned that they, too, are mortal. He checked the highway. No cars in sight. His name wouldn’t be mentioned, and he would have this demented female off his back for good.

  But he hesitated. Was he sure that his luck had actually changed? If a tire blew, for example, at this speed…

  Their movement together was dreamy and unnatural, as though the film had been slowed to sixteen frames a second. He had worked too hard to have it all end in a crash on a highway. He had never walked out on a movie in his life.

  Still in slow motion, she picked up a pistol from the bucket seat beside her and extended her arm. She aimed at Zion carefully, smiling. His foot started the jump from gas pedal to brake; but before he could change his speed, she fired.

  Chapter 2

  The hotel suite was a big, corner one overlooking one of the most expensive strips of sand in the world. The young woman who responded to Michael Shayne’s buzz identified herself as Evie Zion. She gave him a pleasant smile and thanked him for coming so promptly.

  Her husband, Marcus Zion, broke off a phone call to shake hands. He apologized, waved Shayne to a chair, and returned to the phone. Mrs. Zion went to the sideboard, which was crowded with bottles and glasses.

  “What can I give you?”

  “Scotch is all right, unless you have cognac,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Shayne, a private detective, was tall and powerfully built, with large freckled hands and scarred knuckles, and a way of seeming entirely at ease in any context. He looked around. The air in the room was heavy with tension and cigar smoke. There were three phones, all in use. A typewriter clacked in the next room.

  Zion listened and said little, grunting an occasional question and twirling a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Two other men, tanned and paunchy, in rumpled suits, shouted into the remaining phones, switching from incredulity to angry abuse to wheedling. The atmosphere was that of a political headquarters the night before an important election.

  Mrs. Zion brought Shayne a snifter and a bottle of Courvoisier.

  “We don’t usually live like this,” she said. “But it’s wartime. One more day and it’s over, and the clocks can’t move fast enough to suit me.”

  “Weren’t you in the movies once?” Shayne said.

  “Oh, dear, does it show? I’ve aged since then.”

  She couldn’t have been older than thirty. She probably considered herself a few pounds overweight. As far as Shayne was concerned, it was distributed well. Her soft voice had an unusual throaty timbre, but it was her smile Shayne remembered from the days when he went to the movies more regularly.

  “Now think back,” she said. “Did you ever go to vampire movies? I sometimes lasted into the third reel, and then I made the mistake of going to bed with the window open. For some reason, I’ve never wanted to give any blood to the Red Cross since.”

  “Eva Price,” Shayne said.

  “You remember,” she said, pleased. “When I graduated to grown-up pictures, they always cast me as the sweet, suffering wife—the one the leading man comes back to when she’s about to have a baby. Then I married Marcus, and I haven’t suffered too much. I haven’t had a baby either, I may add. But these annual proxy fights. They’re getting to be a bit of a drag. I wish we manufactured something simple, like neckties.”

  Her husband, his head cocked, continued to listen to the voice on the phone. He retracted his lips as though he tasted something sour.

  “Let me know what happens with him.”

  He hung up with a thump and came across to Shayne. He was considerably older than his wife, a common practice in his industry. Unlike the others in the room, he had wasted little time in the California sun. The skin was slack below his jawline. He looked as though he had done nothing since early morning except take unpleasant phone calls.

  He rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand. “I’m pressed for time. I have an appointment in half an hour with a trustee from Boston, and he’ll want me to look my best. Keep me company while I shave. Bring your drink.”

  A man came out of the bedroom with a sheet of paper, but Marcus shook him off. The phone was ringing.

  “Only if it’s a major disaster,” he told Mrs. Zion.

  He stopped at the sideboard and dropped ice in a glass. But after picking up a whiskey bottle, he pursed his lips and put it back.

  “Damn it, better not.”

  Both twin beds in the bedroom were littered with lists and manila folders. A pretty girl was typing with a portable on her knees. The phone between the beds rang, but Zion continued into the bathroom.

  He had brought the ice-filled glass. He filled it from the tap and left the water running.

  “Make yourself comfortable.” Leaning forward, he peered at himself in the mirror. “I don’t think I
look trustworthy, do you? Would you trust a man with this face to help run one of our biggest U.S. corporations?”

  He pushed the shower curtain aside, sat on the edge of the tub and took a sip of cold water. “Who’s that eccentric billionaire who used to hold important business conferences in men’s rooms? Howard Hughes, no doubt. I never thought it was my style.”

  “Do you want me to help by flushing the toilet?” Shayne said.

  Marcus looked surprised and then laughed. “This may seem a bit paranoid. It’s not that I’m afraid of being bugged. But there’s money at stake here. Lots and lots of money. As well as certain intangibles such as power. Fame. I suppose even women. We’ve all got our spies, and some of the things I want to tell you I wouldn’t even like Evie to hear. How much have you heard about my father’s accident?”

  “Just that he ran off the highway and smashed an expensive automobile.”

  “He didn’t run off by himself,” Marcus said. “He was crowded off. And it happened at a bad time. Everything’s popping at once. Are you up to date on our proxy troubles? I don’t want to waste time telling you anything you already know.”

  “I know that an outside group is trying to take over your company. I didn’t read past the headlines. It isn’t my kind of story.”

  Marcus said dryly, “You might be surprised, Shayne. Both sides have been getting pretty rough. My father’s been in charge of our strategy. Unfortunately, nobody knows his secrets; and that goes for his own flesh and blood. So having him unconscious all afternoon has been a very serious thing.”

  “I understand he wasn’t badly hurt.”

  “That’s the way we’re playing it. And as a matter of fact,” he said with some distaste, “the son-of-a-bitch is amazing. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m as full of filial crap as anybody else. I haven’t been sitting around the hospital chain-smoking, but I’ve worried about him from time to time. On top of everything else, we’ve just put a picture into production. I’ve had the full burden of setting up the stockholders’ meeting tomorrow, with no way of knowing what surprises Larry has in store for us. And now this. Larry’s conscious. He intends to chair the meeting and give the main report. Somebody tried to murder him this afternoon. Conceivably they’ll try again. I’m a stranger in Miami. I asked our attorneys to give me the name of a good man, and they gave me yours. But they said you’re semi-retired, and I’d have to persuade you that the job would be interesting. If I can’t make it interesting enough, I’ll call in some writers to help me make it interesting. They also said you expect your clients to be honest with you.”