Dangerous to Know

by Renee Patrick

  “We speak English,” Navy Topcoat said. “Our orders were plenty clear.” He grabbed Simon’s hair and jerked his head up.

  “What’s knittin’, kittens?” I recognized the wheedling voice borne on the breeze. I wasn’t exactly happy to hear the honeyed tones of Malcolm Drewe’s associate Mr. Knoll, but I wasn’t put out, either. Knoll scuffed across the parking lot, kicking gravel into the legs of the bilingual flunkies holding us captive. Garrett and the two men behind him picked up their feet, not wanting to jostle the guns they were holding.

  Knoll inhaled deeply. “A man can breathe free in L.A. County, almost as free as he can at sea. You sure you want to stand out here, Miss Frost? Might catch your death of cold.”

  Garrett’s brogan nudged what was left of the torched photo. “It’s warmer over here. But not much.”

  “You found something in there and the bad men took it away,” Knoll said. “That about the size of it?”

  I nodded. “How long have you been following us?”

  “Longer than these yahoos, not as long as some square johns could be G-men. Like the circus rolling into town with you at the head of it. All kinds of people interested in you.”

  I thought of what Malcolm Drewe had said, that you only noticed people following you if they wanted to be noticed. I suspected he was right.

  “The blond guy went inside?” Knoll asked.

  “We’d like to as well.”

  “Good idea. Get out of this cold. We’ll keep your pals company.”

  “Don’t order any food in there,” Garrett said as Simon and I passed him. I assured him we wouldn’t. I didn’t look back, not even when I heard what I took to be a scuffle, several groans, and a man in a topcoat settling face-first on gravel.

  Inside Club Fathom, Simon led the way to Rory’s office, telling a nosy busboy I’d forgotten my handbag even though it dangled from my arm. We found Rory propped against the wall, a towel full of ice to his head. A waitress hunched alongside him, her pose popping several stitches in her skintight gown. The drawers of Rory’s desk had been hurled across the room, scattering papers everywhere.

  “Return customers! The key to success.” Rory tried valiantly to stand, then slumped against the wall and slid down again. “The music lover came back as well. Struck me on the head with a gun.”

  “That’s his favored technique,” Simon said.

  Jens died from a blow to the head. I looked at Simon and understood he’d had the same thought.

  “What did he want?” I asked.

  “The negative of the photograph I gave you, along with any others I had. He also inquired after Jens’s bloody book. I told him I didn’t have it. Apparently my word was insufficient.” Rory gestured at the office’s disarray. With the waitress’s assistance, he got to his feet. “Forgive me, my head’s swimming. Only appropriate, given the decor. He was about to put the gun to wholehearted use when Lorraine here interrupted him. Now I’d like to ask her to marry me.”

  One glance at Lorraine’s face made it evident the poor girl took him seriously.

  “I’m going to look for him. Stay here,” Simon instructed, and darted from the office.

  “You really want to marry me?” the waitress asked.

  “Permit me to explain a few fundamentals, darling.”

  I pointed at the telephone on Rory’s desk. He nodded. I dug the number Malcolm Drewe had given me out of my handbag. Someone other than Drewe answered. I was told to wait. Neither development surprised me.

  Drewe’s dry martini voice finally crackled down the line. “Can I be of service, Miss Frost?”

  “That escort you provided already came in handy.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “No. I’m calling with a question. Am I looking for a book?”

  “I have no idea. Are you?”

  “Very well, I have another question. Did you buy information from Jens Lohse?”

  “Now we’re talking. Yes. Lohse approached me with a proposition. He had information for sale. I was intrigued, so I requested a sample. What he revealed required a trip to my barber, because it turned my hair white. The things these show people get up to, Christ. It’s enough to make me want to bar my daughters from going to pictures altogether, but then I’d have to say why.”

  “Why pay Jens for the material in advance?”

  “I got a bargain. Or thought I did. Jens was willing to slash his price if I paid him at once. Given the quality of what he had on offer, I took a flier. I can afford to be generous. Jens said he needed time to pull the information together, then he’d deliver it. Right when I was starting to think he’d gypped me, you found his body.”

  “And now you want me to locate this information so you can blackmail people? Because I won’t do that.” Oh, the valor I could summon courtesy of the Southern California Telephone Company.

  “I have no intention of using this material for so crude a purpose, Miss Frost. I simply want to build up my files in advance of my next business venture, whatever it may be. I seek leverage. That is what I paid Jens for. What I want you to do is help me recover what is rightfully mine. If it’s in a book, bring me the book. I came to your aid tonight, didn’t I? Now you come to mine. I’ll always be close by.”

  The click when he hung up sounded nothing like a key bolting a door, I told myself.

  * * *

  SIMON PULLED UP to the club’s entrance. He hadn’t found Peter Ames. I asked what the scene around his car had looked like. “I’m sure everyone’s fine,” he said. He drove slowly, eyeing the rearview mirror at regular intervals. I gazed out at the city rolling past the coupe’s windows, tarted up with Christmas lights. The trip to Club Fathom had waterlogged my seasonal spirit.

  “He was a bad person, Jens,” I said.

  “Told you I didn’t like him.” Simon shrugged. “Have to admire him, though.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “His plan with Rory was clever. He didn’t hurt anyone, just soaked the studios for money they were prepared to spend. He was right about that. I’ve driven Lodestar fixers to those meetings.”

  “He hurt my friend Charlotte, only she doesn’t know it yet.”

  “You’re right, you’re right.” Another metronomic check behind us. “So what exactly is going on?”

  “I think Jens and Peter Ames, whatever his right name is, were partners in a blackmail racket. Jens, for his own reasons, sold it out from under Peter to Malcolm Drewe. Drewe wants the information he paid for. Peter’s bent on finding it first.”

  Simon nodded. “And the information is in Jens’s music book?”

  “Considering Peter’s also after it, it’s the likeliest place.”

  “Then where’s the book?”

  I sank into my seat. “I have no idea.”

  We drove a while in silence. “Another question,” Simon said. “Where am I taking you? We still haven’t eaten.”

  I thought for several blocks. Starvation and exhaustion duked it out. Only one could claim victory.

  “It’s best if you take me home. I have to help Santa Claus in the morning.”

  Simon didn’t bat an eye. “So be it,” he said.

  22

  EDITH DIDN’T HAVE to tell me you never upstaged Santa. Addison would be in red, so I chose a forest green silk dress with antique brass buttons decorating the bodice and cuffs. With brown suede pumps I resembled an ambulatory Christmas tree, but so long as no urchins hung tinsel on me I’d be fine.

  The bus bearing the boys and their chaperones would arrive at nine sharp. I planned on beating it to Addison’s by a good two hours to ensure all was in readiness, leaving time to call Gene. I’d set the kids to gorging on flapjacks and bacon, then greet the stars who would trickle in soon after to nibble pastries and sip champagne. By ten o’clock our young houseguests would be ready to sit on Santa’s lap and receive perfectly wrapped presents from the likes of Clark Gable. Come noon, we’d have brought joy to the world. Or at least Brentwood.


  I tiptoed past Mrs. Quigley’s already open door. Miss Sarah barely glanced up, uninspired by my dedication.

  Outside, I spotted a fellow early-bird tenant, Mr. Pendergast, in earnest conversation with a woman across the street. I lowered my head and powered down the pavement, not wanting to be waylaid.

  On the streetcar, my thoughts circled back to the previous evening. Simon had taken a punch and stood ready to endure additional punishment on my behalf. I hated that I’d gotten him into this morass, I respected his mettle, and I wondered how I would have responded to his question about possible dinner plans had the Santa breakfast not loomed. I was still contemplating the matter when she spoke.

  “Lillianfrost?”

  Snapping out of my reverie I looked into the face of a woman holding a folded newspaper toward me. She had a bedraggled appearance, clutching a rumpled coat around herself, the collar pulled tight against a beret concealing her hair. Shoes black with dust had rubbed the backs of her heels raw.

  I’d seen her before, talking to Mr. Pendergast. She tapped the paper. It was from days ago, the Register article about me discovering Jens Lohse’s body. The woman tapped my name in newsprint insistently. “Lillianfrost?”

  “Yes, I’m Lillian Frost.”

  Hearing this, the woman let loose a cry of relief. She swept the beret from her head, setting her blond hair free. At that moment, I realized where else I’d seen her.

  “Jens dead,” Marthe Auerbach said in a voice thick with hysteria. “Jens dead and I am guilty.”

  I gaped at her, frozen with surprise. Marthe presented the insides of her wrists to me, ready for handcuffs. “Jens dead because of me.”

  “Mrs. Auerbach? Marthe? Please, sit down.”

  She keened again, waking up everyone else on the streetcar. “Lillianfrost, help me!”

  I lunged for the pull cord. “Yes, of course, yes. We’ll go to the police. Okay? Police.”

  Marthe sobbed a little. “Yes. Police. Thank you, Lillianfrost.” She tapped the newspaper again, in case I’d forgotten who I was.

  * * *

  “SHE ISN’T SAYING much,” Gene announced, “in German or English. But it’s exactly what she told you.”

  “She confessed to killing Jens?”

  “I scared up a guy to translate. Mrs. Auerbach stated more than once she and Jens Lohse were in love, and she killed him.”

  “Why?”

  Gene sat next to me on the hard bench in the police station’s hallway. He’d nicked himself shaving under his right jaw, the spot an angry red. “That’s still unclear.”

  “She hit him with the fireplace poker and heaved his body off the balcony. She admitted all that.”

  “In those words? No. She hasn’t offered any specifics, aside from Jens being killed at the cabin.”

  “Then she hasn’t confessed at all.”

  “Easy, Frost. What she’s said is sufficient for us to hold her. The issue now is her husband. Where’s Felix? I asked, and she said he was gone. No, hang on.” He flipped through pages in his notebook. “‘Now he is free.’ Which could be interpreted any number of ways, including she killed him.”

  I twisted around to look at Marthe Auerbach, an oasis of calm amid a scrum of detectives. She’d removed her coat to reveal a dowdy housedress, and loosely organized her hair. She sat serene and luminous, Joan of Arc awaiting the pyre.

  “No,” I said, still staring at her. “She didn’t kill Jens. She’s selling a story. Where’s she been all this time?”

  “Hiding, she says. In churches and elsewhere. Again, not much detail yet.”

  “Or ever. I’m telling you, this is fishy. Jens’s death is tied into Ames and Drewe and what I learned last night.”

  “Now that we have a moment.” Gene’s voice plunged to its sternest register. “I’d like to hear about that. With all the detail you can spare.”

  I’d revised my script while I’d waited, expecting to dazzle Gene with word of Jens’s extortion empire and its pending sale to Malcolm Drewe. But Gene failed to mouth any of the dialogue I had in mind for him.

  “Let me get this straight. You went to a nightclub—that nightclub—with this Fischer character? I thought we agreed we didn’t like him.”

  “But he doesn’t know Peter Ames! Last night proves it!”

  “It proves nothing. You weren’t supposed to see Ames leaving your place. They could have staged last night’s clash for your benefit, to allay any suspicion. A punch in the gut’s even easier to take than a blow to the head.”

  “Why go to such lengths to fool me?”

  “Why? I don’t know. Any more than I know why you called Fischer in the first place.” Gene concentrated on a spot on the scarred green linoleum between his shoes.

  “I knew you wouldn’t want me to go to Club Fathom alone.”

  “Damned right. Or at all.”

  We lapsed into a fraught silence. I glanced back at Marthe. A burly detective handed her a mug. She sipped from it gratefully.

  “Can you ask her about Jens’s music book?”

  “Already did.” He still spoke to the floor. “She said she didn’t remember any book.”

  “She’s lying. She has to be. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I’ll tell you what I know. I know the captain came down to shake my hand and thank me for wrapping this up.”

  “Why didn’t he shake my hand? I walked Marthe in here. It’s my collar.”

  Gene couldn’t conceal his cockeyed smile, but it didn’t stay long. “You’re right. There’s more to this than what Marthe’s admitting. Maybe it’s that she killed Felix. We’ll get her to talk. But you have to understand two things. Jens’s blackmail scheme could be unrelated to his death. And when the captain comes a-glad-handing it means we’re turning the page. A prime suspect voluntarily confessed, and Lodestar’s pressing for a swift solution. Ergo, the case is closed. My doubts aren’t enough to keep it open.”

  Gene had doubts. For now, that would have to be enough.

  “If the case is closed,” I said, “then Detective Wingert isn’t in Dutch for giving Marlene the brush anymore. So he should be willing to talk to me, right?”

  “You want I should ask him again? Anything else while I’m at it?”

  “I have to get to Addison’s Santa breakfast. I’m already late.”

  Gene stood up. “Let the captain’s new golden boy deliver you in style.”

  23

  GENE DEPOSITED ME at Addison’s front door shortly before noon. No buses were in sight, and only a handful of automobiles remained around the fountain.

  “Everybody’s gone.” I did a sterling job of suppressing the panic in my voice; only complete strangers, close friends, and those in between could hear it. “That means the breakfast went without a hitch, right?”

  “It’s fine, Frost. Stop worrying.” Gene squeezed my hand, kissed my cheek, and waited with a reassuring smile until I entered Addison’s house.

  Never again would I know such kindness.

  I was accustomed to Rogers giving me the cold shoulder. But when the entire staff shunned me, I knew disaster had struck. I tore through the house, ignoring multiple smashed holiday ornaments and several disturbing brown stains that I hoped were hot chocolate. I sent up a prayer to Saint Zita, patroness of domestics, as I ran.

  Addison stood outside his study with William Demarest. The gruff-voiced actor said, “Anyway, I seen plenty worse in the army,” then chucked Addison’s shoulder and took his leave.

  My boss still wore his Santa suit, a pair of child-sized maple syrup handprints on one sleeve. His white beard drooped around his throat like a flag of surrender. His spirits hung even lower. I nearly burst into tears at the sight of him.

  “Lillian. Of all mornings to be late.”

  “I’m so sorry. I called and left a message but…” Oh, what was the use? “What happened?”

  “The breakfast came off relatively well, although we could have used you to greet the children. The presenting of the
presents is where things veered off course. You see, we didn’t know where they were.”

  “But I left that information when I telephoned!”

  “It didn’t make it to me, I’m afraid. I sent the staff to find them, and when they reported back with bulging bags I assumed all was well. I made my entrance as St. Nick, and soon Robert Taylor was handing out presents. One little boy—charming tyke, never saw so many freckles—tore his open rather exuberantly and it shattered.”

  “Shattered? But we didn’t get anything breakable for—”

  No. Oh dear God, no.

  “Naturally, the poor child got upset. We were tending to him when another boy unwrapped his present, and I saw the problem.”

  “You were handing out the wrong presents. You were giving away tantalus sets.”

  “Yes. Crystal decanters filled with alcohol. Bob managed to get the set away from the boy before he swallowed a mouthful of rye. I waded in to recover the others we’d given out.” Addison removed his flaccid Father Christmas hat and held it over his heart. “The sight of Santa Claus taking presents away proved traumatic. The lads became unruly. Ran riot all over the house. Some went back for seconds on breakfast and a food fight broke out. Good thing Bill Demarest was here to impose order. I had to plead with the photographers to stop taking pictures. Eventually we located the toys, so the boys didn’t leave empty-handed. But by then the mood of the morning had been lost.”

  “I can’t apologize enough, sir. I hated leaving you in the lurch but it was an emergency.” I explained my unplanned trip to the police station.

  But Addison wasn’t listening. “At least Maude wasn’t here to witness this. She’d be mortified.” He noticed the sticky stain on his crimson coat. “I should clean up. After that I’ll be in the lab. Miss Lamarr will be joining me. I won’t be available for the rest of the day.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I wandered the house in a haze, spotting signs of battle everywhere. The dining room looked like feeding time at the Griffith Park Zoo had just ended, a battalion of maids already on bucket detail. In the reception room, Donald and Charlotte were tucking wrapped tantalus sets under the Christmas tree.