"The power of the press."
But Cleary was already out of his office.
Dottie was still on the phone. He snatched it away. "Get those photos that Johnny shot developed—pronto. I want blowups of the faces."
"I've got Kaplan's address."
"Save it. I'm gonna need it later."
Milchik bustled out to catch Cleary. "Hey, wise guy, find out something for me. Find out why Kaplan's studio is helping a thug muscle into the union."
The query momentarily stopped Cleary. His eyes locked with Milchik. Then he was gone.
* * *
"What a dump!" Schooley said.
He sat with Johnny inside the Mercury. It was parked in the lot of the Paradise Motel.
"All you need for this kinda location is a good, sturdy bed," Johnny said. "That's part of the room decor in a place like this. I call 'em bump and grind instead of room and board. "
Schooley's face reflected his revulsion.
The two men exited the vehicle. Johnny reached into the backseat. He came out with a large pizza box and two white pizza delivery hats. He rested the pizza box on the Merc's roof and turned to Schooley.
"Time to get in character." Johnny sat the hat on the man's flattop, adjusting it to the proper angle.
"I'm gonna look ridiculous."
"Naw... you look great." Johnny took another look at Schooley and tossed the second hat back into the Mercury. "One's enough. I don't wanna mess up my hair."
Schooley started to take his hat off.
Johnny balled up his fist in Schooley's face. "You don't wanna do that, Orin."
The room they sought was on the second floor overlooking a filthy pool.
"What's Modesto like?" Johnny asked as they climbed the steps.
"It ain't like this. Folks in Modesto wouldn't tolerate some of the goings-on I've seen since I've been here. Course they think Hollywood's the center of the world. Not that Modesto is a barren wasteland or anything like that. There's stuff to do—"
"Okay...okay," Johnny said, wishing he hadn't asked.
But Schooley kept talking. "Aside from my job at the service station, which I find personally fulfilling, there's town picnics... they're real fun with tugs-of-war, frog-jumping contests... then there's cow-tipping—"
"Whoa!" Johnny cried. "I'm kind of a country boy myself. I've never heard of cow-tipping."
"It's a blast. You creep up on a cow when they're asleep. They sleep standing up, you know. Then, you give 'em a quick push, bump 'em right off their feet. When they hit the ground, it's kabloom! And I do mean, kabloom!"
"You do that at the town picnic?"
"Oh, no. It's extracurricular,"
"You're sick, Schooley."
They were in front of the designated room. Johnny dumped the pizza box into Schooley's arms and rapped hard on the door.
Schooley's mood had turned serious. "Eva had a trunk. It had her name on it, written in the prettiest script you've ever seen. You happen to run across it?"
"I haven't heard a thing about it, man. Course I haven't been in this case until today."
"If it turns up, let me know. I'm a sentimental Joe. There's some mementos of ours—well, you know what I mean. Pressed flowers, letters, snapshots ..."
Johnny felt a little sorry for the gas pumper from Modesto. He started to reply when the door to the motel room opened up. A beefy, coarse face glared out at the two of them. The man wore a bright plaid shirt with a solid black tie, and his red face bore the marks of more than one beating.
Johnny took a deep breath. "One pepperoni pie, extra cheese, large anti... hold the chovies—and one tor-to—well, here it is."
"Wrong address," the guy growled, and started to slam the door.
Johnny quickly jammed the toe of his worn engineer's boots against the door. "Hey, bub. I got an order for Victor, Paradise Hotel, 1221 La Brea—and it's getting cold."
The hood looked back into the room. Johnny pushed right by him.
"Hey, wait up!"
The crew was busily resetting the scene, checking lighting, doing the same things they would be doing for an Academy Award candidate. Bored actors, dressed in evening clothes, and several actresses in revealing French waitress skirts were off to the side, giggling over the script. A thin, sickly man was barking orders.
"Put the goddamn wide angle on for this shot," he said. "We're going in for a close-up."
The cadaverous director bent and started to frame the shot. Johnny Betts's head came into his view. The director looked around for assistance. "Who is this bum?"
"You Victor?" Johnny asked. "Got your order. "
"I didn't order anything, but leave it and scram. " Johnny moved in front of the director, jamming the pizza box into his midsection.
Victor looked back at the guy who had answered the door. "Pay the little creep. Then"—he brandished a finger yellowed by nicotine stains—"you hit the bricks."
Johnny dropped the box onto the floor. "Not till you answer a few questions about Eva Miles. "
It was a good day for bad motels. The Aztec wasn't much above the Paradise. As Cleary' exited the Eldorado, a hooker with a beefy trick on her arm came down the outside steps. She gave Cleary the onceover as they passed, but the john took immediate offense. "Keep your eyes to yourself," he snarled.
Cleary shrugged. "Don't blame me."
"Drop dead," the john growled.
"Have a nice day," Cleary said.
Willy Marks was supposed to be in Room 211. Cleary stopped at the door to the unit. He tested the lock and was shocked to find it unlatched. The .45 came out of the shoulder holster as Cleary eased the door open. A suitcase, half filled and spilling its contents, lay on the bed. He moved into the room, turning up his nose at the musty stench. The bed was too low for someone to be under it. The toilet—the only hiding place in the room—was located at the back. The door was closed. Cleary started for it.
"Freeze!" a sharp voice commanded.
Cleary spun, his gun leveled at the door—and saw two men.
"Wait!" One of them was Charlie Fontana. At the last minute, he recognized Cleary.
The other cop, the one with Fontana, wasn't looking at the detective's shocked face. All he saw was Cleary's .45 automatic pointed to his breadbasket. The subsequent explosion rattled the paper-thin walls of the Aztec.
TEN
The man called Victor stared down in offended disbelief at the bits of olives and pepperoni on the frayed carpeting of the motel room. "Who let these assholes in here? Get 'em out of here!"
The guy with the loud shirt flexed and started toward Johnny.
"Come on, Victor. You got smarts. Think about the dough, man. How much is it gonna cost you if vice shuts you down today?"
Another man—this one large and obese—stepped forward, anxious to display his immediate grasp of the facts. "Let's see, with props, the day's room rent, cast and crew—and bail... maybe six grand—"
Victor looked at the man, who was his assistant director. "Thanks, buddy. Why don't you step over there and disappear."
Johnny decided that it was time for a good offense. His hands shot out and closed around the lapels of Victor's black shirt. "Make that twelve grand—six more for the friggin' dentist bill you're gonna have, Victor."
The man who had greeted them at the door started to intervene, but Schooley came up from behind him, wrapping a thick forearm around the guy's neck. "Let them talk, mister."
Victor, resigned to defeat, slumped and said, "Let's step outside on the balcony."
The view from the balcony wasn't anything to write home about, no matter if home was just outside of Memphis or just inside Modesto. The square pool looked even less sanitary from the second floor, the landscaping even more neglected and anemic. Johnny stood slightly behind Victor, just in case the gaunt director had a trick up his sleazy sleeve.
"I don't know nothing about Eva," the director was saying. "I sure as hell don't know what happened to her."
"Who's shel
ling out the bucks for these—these erotic classics?"
Victor watched an ice cream wrapper, energized by a light breeze, dance across the pool deck and land in the water. It hardly made a splash in the thick, murky water. "You'd think the Health Department would make these jerks clean that up."
"It's probably the cleanest thing around this dive," Johnny said. "C'mon, talk to me. Who's bankrolling your operation?"
"I got no idea, and that's the way I wanna keep it. Cash comes over to shoot. When it peters out, I stop—even if it's in the middle of a scene. You get the picture?"
Schooley was on the balcony, too. He reached over and started to toy with the lens around Victor's neck. "What's this thing for? I always wondered."
Johnny reached over and removed Schooley's hand from the director. "Let me handle this, man."
"Who sent you?" Victor asked.
Johnny decided to play another trump card. "Our client is somebody who won't let up, Victor. He wants answers, and, when he doesn't get them, he knows how to turn up the heat—if you get my drift."
"Oh, really?" The director wasn't impressed.
"It's Eva's father. He's got juice."
The dour expression on the director's face slowly vanished. "Her father? Who do you think you're talking to, hayseed."
Johnny glanced at Orin Schooley, who also seemed surprised.
Victor was still talking. "Eva's father croaked over two years ago. He lived somewhere back East. Now, get lost."
Cleary screamed, wondering why he was't dead. What had happened to the pain? The blood? When he dared to look up, he saw that Fontana had knocked the other cop's aim off.
"What are you doing here?" Fontana was shouting.
Cleary, who had dropped to his belly, looked back over his shoulder. There was an ugly hole in the room's wallpaper. "I hope nobody was on the other side."
"Answer me, Jack!"
Cleary pulled himself to his feet and brushed away the carpet lint.
"I got a tip on Willy Marks, Charlie. I was just checking it out."
"From who?" the other cop asked, having also recovered a little from a very close call.
"From none of your business."
Fontana's teeth clenched. "Damn it, Cleary. That won't wash anymore."
"It's the best I can do, Charlie. By the way, thanks for the help, although your partner there would probably have missed anyhow."
Fontana's sidekick started for Cleary, but Fontana stopped him. "Wait for the lab guys outside."
The cop pointed a finger at Cleary. "A rain check, pal?"
"You got it."
Once the guy was outside, Cleary asked, "Why the lab guys, Charlie?"
"I'll ask the questions, goddammit. I want everything you got on D'Rosa... tape, photos... the whole smear. And I want it now, Jack. I'm gonna bring that smooth-talking wise guy to his knees."
Cleary made a gesture of helpless frustration. "I just can't do that, Charlie."
Clearly started toward the door, but Fontana wrapped a rough hand around his arm and spun him around. "You bother me, pal. How come you're covering for a no-good like D'Rosa? He's mob. Hell, the bastard flashes that fact as if it were a blank check. It was guys like him that took out your brother."
"You didn't have to say that, Charlie."
"Then explain it to me, Jack."
"I'm not covering for D'Rosa. I'm protecting my client!"
"If you weren't so busy playing private eye, Jack, we mighta had Willy Marks. You blew it."
Cleary studied the angry eyes of his former partner. "Whadaya talking about, Charlie?"
"We got our own tip."
"About what?"
"Marks, Jack. Willy Marks."
"Just where is Marks?"
Fontana walked over to the bathroom door and pulled it open. Cleary followed and peered inside. His face registered his shock. A man—Willy Marks, Cleary assumed—rested in a thickening pool of blood on the bathroom floor. The eyes were open, flat and very dead. A neat bullet hole was visible on his temple. To the rear of that, most of his head was blown away by the bullet as it had blasted its way out of the man's skull.
"What'd you say about this case, Jack? That it was just a little domestic matter? We were down at the office calling for a crime scene crew when you waltzed in."
Fontana waited for a reply.
He didn't get one. Cleary, the .45 still in his hand, walked away toward the door. The cop at the front door stepped to block his path. Cleary shoved him aside and walked on by.
"Hey!" Fontana shouted.
His partner turned.
"Do yourself a favor. Let him go."
* * *
It was just after noontime when Cleary pulled into the Los Feliz estate of Lou Kaplan. He had gone back to the office after his visit to the Aztec. Betts was still out on the shooting location, and the photos the kid had made were still at the lab. Dottie had given him Kaplan's studio address and his home address.
"You'll find him at home," she had said.
Sometimes, Dottie amazed him. In many ways, she was a lot like Eva Miles. More than anything else, she wanted to be in the movie business. There was a difference, though. In spite of the bubble-headed image she projected, Dottie had her share of street smarts. No way would she fall into the trap of exploiting her body in the hope that it might shoehorn her into the big time. On top of that, she had built some rather handy contacts in the studios. Like any good operative, she protected them. One of those contacts had slipped her the word that Kaplan wasn't going to be in the office that day.
Home for Kaplan was in Los Feliz, an older section of the city where a lot of movie people were building their ego-stroking mansions. Kaplan's house was a two-story Spanish Colonial located at the end of a winding drive. The back of the property bordered Griffith Park. From the outside the grounds appeared to be expansive.
A uniformed Filipino servant guided Cleary through an impressive garden toward the rear of the house. Built on a hillside terraced by red brick, the garden abounded with fuchsia and geraniums. Huge fir trees dotted the property. A high brick wall surrounded the pool area itself, which the Filipino entered through a redwood gate. Rita Marlo's mansion had been impressive enough, but the Kaplan estate left no doubt about who made the big money in the movie business.
Two young women, their eyes concealed behind identical pairs of cat-eyed sunglasses, were standing by the oval pool, lathering each other's ample bodies with suntan oil. They wore matching leopard skin two-piece bikinis that would have gotten them arrested in public. The man himself—Lou Kaplan, head of Diamond Studios—paced the pool deck as he chatted on a phone. He wore a short robe that revealed his stubby but muscular legs. When he saw Cleary approaching, he quickly ended the conversation.
"Gotta go. Do what I said—now. Jack Cleary, I believe?" The man handed the phone to the servant. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Your name keeps popping up."
"Glad to hear that. In this town, that makes the wheels turn."
Cleary paused to light a cigarette. The two girls were giggling as they studied him from behind the sunglasses.
"What can you tell me about Eva Miles?"
Kaplan snapped his fingers and pointed to the bottle of suntan oil in one of the girl's hands. She brought it to him. "Do my back." He shrugged off the robe to reveal a surprisingly well-formed chest. In clothing, Lou Kaplan looked a little dumpy—an image now dispelled for Jack Cleary.
"Poor Eva. She was a doomed child. But I was saddened to hear about her death."
"Just how well did you know her, Kaplan?"
The studio executive sighed with pleasure as the girl's hands worked their magic. "She lived here a while in my guest house—a couple of months maybe. We played around a little. I took her to parties. That's about all there was to it."
"Were you helping her with her career?"
Kaplan laughed. "Her career? She had about as much talent as—well, let's be kind to the dead and say that she had a lot
more desire than she did talent. In truth, sometimes that's enough."
"Did you know she was making porn films?"
"Yeah, I have a couple. She used them as a kind of training. She wasn't even any good at that."
The girl had finished with his shoulders. The sun was high, and it gleamed in the smeared oil. "That's enough, baby. Hollywood's full of girls like Eva, Cleary. They serve a purpose."
"Any idea on who mighta killed her?" Cleary asked. The girl joined her look-alike out of earshot of the men's conversation.
"A burglar—a psycho. L.A. attracts those kind, you know. I'd hate to see what this town's gonna become in a few years. It's a crazy place. It attracts unstable immigrants. You should know that. You're a former cop, Mr. Cleary."
"Sounds to me like you just don't give a damn Kaplan."
The studio exec gestured helplessly. "Look, Mr. Cleary, I meet lotsa people—all kinds. It's business. They want something from me. I take something in return. This town's like booze—it intoxicates people. They grow addicted to it. Certain people like being with me because they think I can help them—and I can. Women like to be seen with me. It's—well, like I said, just business. That's how it was with Eva and me. That's how it is with those two." Kaplan nodded toward the twins in the leopard bikinis.
"I try not to get personally attached," he said as a kind of conclusion to his speech.
"'Who else was Eva meeting? Either in a business sense or otherwise."
"What can I tell you? Eva enjoyed men."
"She was seeing Michael Cornell. Did you know that?"
"Sure, I knew that. Same kinda thing. Michael wanted some attractive companionship, and Eva was lookin' for some juice."
Cleary wasn't getting anyplace at all. "Thanks for your time, Kaplan."
Cleary started to leave, but Kaplan stopped him. "Don't rush off, Mr. Cleary. I wanna talk some business with you."
"I don't think I like the way you do business, Kaplan. Nothing personal, you understand."
The man got to his feet. "Hear me out, Cleary. After all, what harm can it do?"
"I dunno. There sure seem to be a lot of casualties among your acquaintances. You ever heard of Willy Marks?"
Private Eye 2 - Blue Movie Page 9