Private Eye 2 - Blue Movie

by David Elliott

  "He can't prove a word of it, Fontana."

  "But it doesn't stop there," Cleary said, ignoring Kaplan's protests. "He wants to control the industry. McNeil got legislation passed that effectively castrated the union, and Kaplan here arranged the murder of the one man in the union with the guts to stand up to him, Aaron Tomac. I'd bet the axe murderer is one of Kaplan's henchmen."

  "Pure fantasy," Kaplan said.

  "Where does the mob come in?" Fontana asked.

  "That was something Kaplan here hadn't really counted on. D'Rosa showed up in town with an eye toward moving some of the eastern mob in on the industry. I'd be willing to bet that Rita Marlo was introduced to D'Rosa initially through the efforts of Kaplan here. Nobody ever figured that poor Rita would fall for D'Rosa—or that D'Rosa would fall for Rita's daughter."

  Fontana was trying to keep up. "Rita's daughter? Is she the girl in the photo?"

  Cleary nodded.

  Kaplan managed a laugh. "You oughta write movie scripts, Cleary. You have a real vivid imagination."

  Cleary kept talking. "And nobody—the mob most of all—figured that D'Rosa would fall head over heels with a kid and sell out. Kaplan here bought him for fifty thousand dollars. Then, this prince of a fella sold D'Rosa down the river to the mob. He told them about D'Rosa's sellout. Course the mob or Kaplan here—or both maybe—decided that Rita might just solve their problem for them. Why else did they break into my office and steal photos? Somebody wanted to be sure Rita saw them before Nick and little Avon split town. I'd say Kaplan here had McNeil iced, just to tie up all the loose strings."

  Fontana circled Kaplan. "You make Mr. Kaplan here sound like some master criminal."

  Cleary shook his head. "If that's how it sounds, I told the story wrong. He's a two-bit greaseball who takes little girls with big dreams and turns them into whores. He deserves a quick trip to the gas chamber, and I'm gonna do my damndest to see that Mr. Big gets exactly what he deserves."

  Kaplan jumped to his feet and started at Cleary. Cleary tensed. "Oh, yeah. C'mon, Kaplan. That would really make me happy."

  Fontana, though, wrapped an arm around the man. "Now, Cleary can press assault charges against you."

  The executive shook off Fontana. "You're both in too deep. I swing some weight in this town." With that threat, he turned and went back into the beach house.

  Fontana looked at Cleary. "Just how much of that can you prove?"

  "Not enough, Charlie, but give me a little time."

  EIGHTEEN

  They heard a commotion from the interior of the beach house. As they stepped inside, they were stunned by the explosion of flashbulbs. A microphone was jammed toward Fontana's face.

  "Is anyone going to be charged, Lieutenant?"

  He shoved it out of his face and pulled a police sergeant off to the side. "Who let these vultures in here?"

  The sergeant pointed across the room. Kaplan was calling the media people together.

  "My God, man! We're in charge of this case, not that slimeball. Why didn't you tell me?" Fontana snapped.

  "You were out there talking to him," the cop said. "I guess I got busy. I figured he'd talked to you."

  Fontana looked to Cleary and rolled his eyes. "See what you're missing, pal?"

  Donny Breedlove, the reporter on the Hollywood beat, inserted his body between Cleary and Fontana.

  "The word I get, Charlie, is that Rita blew him away. Did she catch hirn screwing around?"

  Cleary latched onto the back of the reporter's coat collar and lifted him to his toes. "He even looks like a buzzard."

  "Damn you, Cleary! Put me down."

  "I'd like to put you down."

  Fontana motioned for a uniform. "Take Breedlove here and put him with the rest of the vultures."

  Cleary released the newsman just as Kaplan started to speak into the cluster of microphones. "Miss Marlo will join us in just a moment. She's in one of the bedrooms. She will have a very brief statement for you. As you might imagine, she's very distraught over this terrible accident and—"

  Cleary saw Milchik pushing to the front. "The police are calling it a homicide, Lou. Will Rita tell us her version of what happened?"

  Kaplan glanced back at Cleary and Fontana. "You know the police, Milchik. They're paid to be skeptics. Miss Marlo will come out in a few minutes and share some comments with you about the tragedy that took Nicholas D'Rosa's life."

  "Son of a bitch," Cleary said, loud enough to turn a few heads. "Charlie, you've lost control of the crime scene. Are you gonna let that grimy bastard get away with this sideshow?"

  The detective shrugged helplessly. "If I stop it, we come off looking like the heavies. As for Rita Marlo, I guess the lady can say whatever she wants."

  He paused for a moment, then put a hand on Cleary's shoulder, "After all, you're the only witness we have to D'Rosa's death, and, according to what you say, he made a dying declaration that it was an accident."

  "He lied."

  "Well, at least it was his last."

  Breedlove pushed Milchik from the spotlight. "What's this going to do to Miss Marlo's career, Lou?"

  Kaplan hoisted his sympathetic face. "Good to see you, Donny. We had hoped to postpone this announcement until a more appropriate time and place—"

  Cleary held his breath. Surely Kaplan wasn't about to announce that Rita had been dropped by Diamond Studios.

  Kaplan was smiling. "—but, since Donny asked, we plan to sign Miss Marlo to a long-term contract. That's a significant step for Diamond. We've never signed stars to extended contracts. As a result, she'll become one of the highest paid screen stars in the industry's history."

  "There's the payoff," Cleary mumbled.

  As if Kaplan's words had been timed as an onstage introduction, Rita Marlo stepped from a door behind Cleary and was whisked by him in the arms of some of Kaplan's publicity men. The crowd of news people turned silent, stepping back to form a tunnel through which the actress could join Kaplan. An anticipatory hush settled over the living room of the beach house.

  Kaplan waited until she was beside him. "Ladies and gentlemen, as you can understand, Miss Marlo is under a heavy emotional strain. She will make a brief statement, but, please, no questions."

  Rita accepted the proffered microphone. "Mr. D'Rosa and I had planned a short trip out of town. I was to join him here. When I arrived at the beach house, he was on the couch—that one just there." She pointed to the piece of furniture. The chalk outline of D'Rosa's body decorated the circular carpet in front of it. Rita paused to wipe a tear from her face.

  When she continued, her voice quivered with emotion. "He just attacked me, threatened me with his pistol. He was even threatening my daughter... We struggled. All of a sudden—"

  She choked up.

  Cleary sighed. "She's never been better, Charlie."

  "All of a sudden," she continued, "I heard this awful explosion, and Nick—oh, Nick!"

  Rita Marlo fled through the stunned news people. As she approached Cleary, her eyes were red and wet, but the emotion in them was anything but sadness. It gave Cleary a chill.

  "I'm sure you can understand her reaction," Kaplan was saying.

  Cleary shook his head. "I need some fresh air, Charlie."

  "Me, too."

  This time, they ambled out the front door. The street was jammed with cars: police vehicles, cars bearing the names of the various news agencies, the ambulance, the pink T-Bird, and D'Rosa's Lincoln. D'Rosa's body rested beneath a sheet on a stretcher just behind the ambulance.

  "Haven't they transported him yet?" Fontana asked of one of the uniformed officers.

  The young cop grinned. "The ambulance attendants wanted to see Miss Marlo and hear what she had to say first."

  "Jesus, go get 'em and tell them to get him down to the coroner before he starts turning stiff."

  "Even the dead have to wait on the Hollywood formalities," Cleary said. "If you can get an ID on the axe murderer, maybe we can tie him to Kaplan
."

  "We're working on it. Like I told you before, thanks to you, we got more corpses than we know what to do with. We still haven't put a name to that female we thought was Eva Miles. The coroner's ready to cash in his chips."

  "Susan, Charlie. Susan Greever from Modesto. She was a friend of Eva's and had just come to town to make a name for herself."

  "And just how long have you been withholding that little tidbit?"

  "Sorry, Charlie—" Cleary saw Frankie Carbo, his nose black and blue and spread over a good part of his face, glaring at him from the back seat of one of the black-and-whites. "I see our gangster survived his ordeal in the trunk."

  "Lucky for you," Fontana said.

  "What are you gonna do with him?"

  "First, we're gonna take him to the hospital, thanks to you. Then, we'll hold him on a firearms violation until some high-priced mouthpiece bails him out. If I were you, I'd make myself scarce after his release." They both saw the small MG snaking through the clutter of cars.

  "Oh, no," Cleary said. "Here comes big trouble."

  Fontana couldn't suppress a grin. "If that's who I think it is, this really oughta turn into a sideshow '

  Avon Marlo's car jerked to a stop right in front of them—within ten feet of her dead lover.

  Avon saw Cleary and recognized him. "Jack, what's going on?"

  "Things went sour, Avon." He nodded toward the stretcher.

  "Who is it?"

  Cleary damned his misfortune. As usual, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Charlie Fontana spared him the ordeal. He stepped forward.

  "Miss Marlo, I'm Detective Fontana." He flashed his badge as a matter of habit. "The deceased is Nicholas D'Rosa."

  "What?" Her lightly tanned face went pale. She started for the stretcher.

  Cleary wrapped an arm around her. "Make it easy on yourself, Avon. Remember him like he was."

  "No! No! I don't believe it."

  At that moment, the army of photographers and reporters exploded from the house. A few of the more observant photographers saw Avon Marlo at the body. Flashbulbs exploded. The best of the shots would earn a prominent place on many of the nation's newspapers the next day. The daughter of Rita Marlo, her face twisted by shock, viewing the body of a gangster who would be described as a close friend to her mother. One of the photographers would even garner a minor press award for the spontaneity of the picture.

  Andy Milchik came out at the tail end, moving at a less frantic pace. Fontana caught him. "What's going on, Andy?"

  "The queen's preparing her departure, Fontana. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you guys were just extras in some spectacular production, masterminded by Kaplan and Rita."

  Cleary was still holding Avon, trying to comfort her.

  "It was Mother, wasn't it?" Avon said, her body trembling.

  To Cleary, it seemed an appropriate time to repeat what he knew was D'Rosa's dying lie. "I got here before he died, Avon. He said it was an accident. He was cleaning his gun and—"

  At that moment, Rita Marlo, guided by Lou Kaplan and again flanked by Kaplan's studio flunkies, emerged from the beach house. Donny Breedlove was laughing and chatting with Kaplan.

  Avon broke away from Cleary and charged toward Rita. Breedlove was in her path. She shoved the unprepared reporter away with such force that he went sprawling in the sandy soil beside the sidewalk.

  "You!" Avon was screaming. Her fists were clenched and held in front of her.

  Kaplan and his public relations men wrapped their arms around her, pulling her tight against them. Rita reached over and put a consoling hand on her daughter's head. The news people formed a moving circle as the group crossed the highway toward Kaplan's long limo.

  "Avon cared so much for him," Cleary heard the actress say as they passed him.

  "That's Hollywood for you, Charlie. Nothing's ever what it seems."

  "Hey, boss—"

  Johnny Betts was shoving his way through the chaos.

  "I heard about it on the radio," he said. "I figured you'd be here. I've been looking for you all day."

  "Excuse us, Charlie." Cleary pulled his operative off to the side. "Did you get the films?"

  Betts slowly nodded. "Yeah, right there in the bus locker—"

  "Fantastic!"

  "Not so fantastic, Cleary. I kinda lost them."

  "You what?" They were alone. Everyone else was gathered together across the street as Rita Marlo gave a brief farewell performance.

  "Eva Miles waylaid me. She was in the back of the Merc with a gun. Anyway, she got away with the movies."

  "Now what, Betts?"

  "Dottie and I have a theory. We think she's gonna try to contact Kaplan—either to go for the blackmail money or maybe even ice him."

  "Kaplan's there." He pointed to the limo.

  Betts looked at it and then back to Cleary. "What the hell happened here anyway?"

  "I'll tell you later. Get on Kaplan's tail and stay there."

  Betts shook his head. "No way. I'm wiped out, man. My head's beating like a bongo."

  Cleary put an arm around Betts's shoulder. "Look, kid, if you'd been a little more careful, we'd have the films. You get on Kaplan's tail. When he comes to a landing, give me a call, and I'll relieve you."

  "What are you gonna do?"

  "Try to find Eva Miles—again."

  A PR man was handing out something to the press when Cleary rejoined Charlie Fontana.

  "Can you believe it, Jack?"

  "What's that?"

  "They're handing out her publicity shots from Dangerous Summer. Kaplan asked the press to use them if they got a chance."

  "How about putting out an APB on Eva Miles?"

  Fontana looked with disbelief at his former partner. "You're suffering from fatigue, Cleary. I did that yesterday. Did she slip through your fingers?"

  "Sorta."

  Fontana's face reddened. "Dammit, Jack, maybe we'd all get along better if you'd just stay the hell outta this case from here on out."

  "I'm beginning to think you're right, Charlie."

  "Then you're going to do that?"

  Cleary lit a cigarette. "Not in your lifetime, pal."

  Johnny struggled valiantly with his own fatigue. He turned the volume up on the Merc's radio. The sound of the bass rattled the cheap speakers. What he needed was a strong cup of coffee, but there weren't any coffee shops within sight of Lou Kaplan's estate.

  The limo had left the beach house and drove straight to Rita's place. By the time it arrived, a group of sympathetic fans had already started to gather in the street. Johnny had watched the long limo roll into the estate. An hour later, just as dusk turned into dark, the limo exited. The small cluster of fans had multiplied into a subdued crowd. Many of them carried candles. If nothing else, they at least provided Johnny with excellent cover.

  Johnny hadn't known for sure that Kaplan had left with the limo, but he had decided to follow it anyway. It pulled into Kaplan's estate a few minutes later, and Johnny had parked the Merc in the shadow of a huge tree. That had been an hour ago. It didn't look like Kaplan would leave again.

  His injured head continued to pound, and the muscles in his legs were beginning to cramp. Maybe it was time for him to notify Cleary.

  He was just about to start the Merc's engine when he noticed the movement. Someone was walking down the sidewalk fifty yards on the other side of the gate into Kaplan's estate. The figure kept to the shadows, avoiding a straight line when it led through a well-lit area. Johnny shook his head and rubbed his eyes, just to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

  As the figure approached the gate, Johnny saw that it was a woman, clad in black. Her hands were jammed into the pockets of a black overcoat. She stopped at the entrance to the Kaplan estate and started to look around. Johnny collapsed into the seat of the car and hoped she didn't recognize his car.

  When he looked up, she was gone. No way could she have vanished so fast unless she entered the Kaplan estate. It was moonless, and
he was a long way from the gate, but Johnny was convinced the woman had been Eva Miles. He went to find a phone.

  * * *

  Cleary had visited just about every two-bit flophouse of a motel or hotel in and around the Hollywood area. Then, he had moved his search to the area down around Pershing Square. He had carried with him an eight by ten of Eva Miles. Several of them had even said they recognized the photo. The cops had shown them the same one. Cleary figured that she was holed up somewhere in the Hollywood area, but he had visited all of the likely places. He himself was exhausted and fighting a headache as he mounted the long flight of steps to his office.

  Maybe Fontana was right. Perhaps he should just give up. The fiasco had started the evening of Rita Marlo's premiere. From that night on, his life was a blur—a nightmare of misfortune, bodies, sleepless nights, more bodies...

  He noticed the small cloth suitcase as he reached the top of the steps. It sat squarely in front of his office door.

  "What the hell?"

  He approached it with caution. The mob occasionally abandoned their submachine guns and .38s in favor of an explosive device. With his treatment of Frankie Carbo, Cleary knew he hadn't endeared himself to them. On the other hand, D'Rosa was dead. That had been their objective. Maybe they had cut their losses and headed back to Cleveland. Then there was Kaplan, who still had plenty of reason to want Cleary dead and forgotten. He cautiously circled the mysterious piece of luggage. If he had to describe it, he would have called it a "carpet bag."

  The phone in the office started to ring. Cleary slipped the key to his office in the door, opened it, and carefully stepped over the strange offering. Whatever it was, he had no intention of moving it until he was certain it wouldn't blow him to kingdom come.

  He moved tentatively into the dark office and picked up the phone. "Yeah."

  "Is that you, Jack?"

  The Southern drawl was a giveaway. "Betts, where are you?"

  "At a phone booth a block or so from Kaplan's layout. I think our mark just walked right in."

  "Our mark?"

  "Eva Miles! Ain't she our mark?"

  "Yeah—"