And the thug in the back seat with his knife pressed to the nape of the neck of Griswold Weils, able to dispatch him with one slice (as Griswold Weils had seen Laurence Olivier do to Woody Strode in Spartacus), said, “You dumb shit! That’s a cop car over there!”
Griswold Weils started hyperventilating, and spitting up the bile of sheer terror. Suddenly he heard it: a police siren!
Had he not been practically catatonic by now, even Griswold Weils would have wondered why the hell the cop was hitting his siren in a quiet and deserted park at night when there wasn’t another car on the lonely road. Griswold Weils had worked on enough cop shows to know that the siren is only used when there’s heavy traffic to penetrate.
“Gud-damn, Buckmore!” Gibson Hand said to the grinning street monster behind the wheel, “ain’t that a little too much? The fuckin siren?”
But Buckmore Phipps said, “Gibson, this ain’t police work! This is show biz!”
Meanwhile, Schultz was blasting south in the maroon Bentley, which looked black in the moonlight, heading for Beverly Hills where his partner waited at the leasing agency with a very worried agency manager who wondered if he had made a mistake by being a “good citizen” and loaning these cops a $100,000 machine.
When the street monsters approached the Toyota, one on each side, and the driver jumped out saying, “Yes, Officer, what can I do for you tonight?” and the first thug kept his knife blade against the spinal cord of Griswold Weils, who kept thinking of poor Woody Strode, he heard one of the cops cry out: “Watch out, partner!”
And then Griswold Weils felt the release of deadly pressure, and another voice cried out: “Freeze!” And as he was drifting toward unconsciousness Griswold Weils thought, they do say Freeze! Just like on all the shows he’d worked.
Then he felt himself being lifted bodily from the back of the Toyota and he looked into the face of a huge black cop who said, “Are you okay, sir?”
Later, Buckmore Phipps accused Gibson Hand of being the ham, because neither street monster had called anyone “sir” since they were recruits in the police academy.
Then Griswold Weils was being propped up by a huge white cop, and the huge black cop had the two thugs spreadeagled on the ground with their hands behind their ponytails, and the white cop was saying, “What happened, mister? Were they trying to kidnap ya? Was it a robbery? Did they rape ya? What?”
Griswold Weils was periously close to slipping into shock and he lost track of time as the big white cop sat in the police car and called for assistance and had a hurried conversation with his black partner. He said something about getting Griswold Weils to the detectives while the other took the thugs to jail. Griswold Weils found himself being sped to Hollywood Station by the big white cop and helped up the stairs and into the detective squadroom while still too faint to recognize the two detectives on duty there.
“Mr. Weils!” Al Mackey cried. “What are you doing here?”
It was nearly ten o’clock when Al Mackey sat in the detective squadroom discussing the evening’s performances with the actors: Schultz and Simon, the Weasel and Ferret, and the two street monsters, who were looking at their watches and thinking about The Glitter Dome but were nonetheless savoring the success of their dramatic debuts.
“I loved the way the little cocksucker turned gray!” Buckmore Phipps exclaimed. “It was almost as much fun as the real thing. I think I could make it as a character actor in the movies. How much they charge you to join SAG?”
“I think you’d be a little tough on leading men,” the Weasel said, massaging his arm that Buckmore Phipps had nearly jerked loose from the socket.
“I’d like to see how you guys can use any of this information in a court of law,” the Ferret said. “If it ever comes to that.”
“We’re not that nimble and inventive,” Al Mackey said. “We never thought Griswold was a killer, just a liar.”
“Whadda ya suppose he’s doin now?” Gibson Hand grinned.
“Still on the toilet, I bet,” Buckmore Phipps said. “When I dropped him off at his apartment, he said he had to take one more crap. He told me he was gonna write our captain a letter about us savin his life, but I think I talked him out of it. Told him we was too modest, and let’s just keep our heroism a secret between him and us and the detectives.”
“What’s he gonna think when he don’t get a subpoena to go to court and testify against the two guys that tried to cut his throat?” Gibson Hand asked.
“He’s going to be told they pleaded guilty at their arraignment,” Al Mackey said. “He’s going to be thrilled to get out of it with …”
“… with his life.” The Ferret grinned. “Bet he’ll never skate backwards again, long as he lives.”
And as the applause was shared by the evening’s performers, Martin Welborn sat alone in the captain’s office and analyzed the tape he’d made of Griswold Weils’ statement to Al Mackey in the interrogation room.
The first part of the tape wasn’t very useful, what with Griswold Weils admitting that he’d lied to the detectives, and how he shouldn’t have, but how surprised he’d been to have the detectives link him with the dead body of Nigel St. Claire, and how he had just started ad-libbing. And how much of what he’d told them had been in a script he’d shot five years earlier when cop shows were hot.
Martin Welborn punched the stop button when the tape counter reached the part he wanted to hear again.
Al Mackey’s voice said, “But why did you have to lie to us?”
“The first part was true,” Griswold Weils’ voice said. “I didn’t know how much you knew or didn’t know. I just wanted to say enough to get rid a you guys. I didn’t want no more a Lloyd or his project.”
“Then you don’t know for certain if Nigel St. Claire had anything to do with your movie?”
“Not for sure.”
“And the only time you realized he might be involved with Lloyd was when you read the newspaper the next morning about him being found dead in the parking lot?”
“That’s it. Lloyd and his Oriental pal that never talked showed up at my apartment one night and Lloyd told me he heard I’d been busted for kiddy porn and he had a job and it paid five grand for two days’ work.”
“And you agreed,” Al Mackey said. There was a hum on the tape and then Al Mackey said, “If you tell us one more lie, Griswold, we will not be able to protect you from Lloyd, and won’t take responsibility for your safety.”
“I agreed,” Griswold Weils said. “But I’m making a comeback in legit work! It was just … Jesus! Five grand for two days in Mexico!”
“So you put on your Mister Silver disguise and went to the Trousdale house with Lloyd and auditioned the performers?”
“Lloyd gave me that dumb wig and beard. I could see he touched up his hair under that cap to make it gray. He never fooled me with his phony moustache and glasses and I don’t think I fooled any a those kids that came for the audition. But what the hell, they probably expected phony names and disguises, the kind a movie they were gonna make.”
“But they weren’t kids, you said. Or are you lying again? Were some of them kids?”
“Not kids like you mean,” Griswold Weils said. “There was the blond girl with the wonderful complexion. She was Lloyd’s favorite. Or his producer’s favorite.”
“What producer?”
“I don’t know! It was easy to see that Lloyd and the Oriental guy weren’t in The Business. They were working with someone else who was packaging this thing. You think I asked questions? I just lit the bedroom and taped the auditions and that’s it.”
“Who was the director?”
“For this audition? What director you need? Lloyd would tell the actors to strip down, get on the bed, roll around a little bit, and get dressed and out. It was quick. No one ever auditioned with another performer. It was just so someone else could get a close look at the performers on tape. That’s one reason I know Lloyd musta worked with someone. Also, let’s face it, Lloyd
’s not in The Business. Lloyd’s a …”
“Thug.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know he was that dangerous. After the night in the bowling alley parking lot, I never saw or heard from him again till tonight up in Griffith Park. We still had the male performers to tape. They said there was some young marine, and a kid who works parking cars, and another one or two. Christ, I only made the ten percent he paid me in advance!”
“There’s only one thing I can’t understand, Griswold,” Al Mackey said. “Why did you back out?”
“It worried me that he insisted on shooting it in Mexico. They were paying me for two days’ work and I heard Lloyd give that little blond girl an offer for three days’ work. That’s when I figured it out! I’d told Lloyd no little kids and no animals. But I decided they were gonna take me and the equipment down there in Baja and get the place all lit and I was gonna shoot two days of ordinary porn with those young people. And then I was gonna get a ride back to Hollywood and someone else was gonna shoot the last day, which was probably the kind a stuff I said I wouldn’t do. Little Mexican kids maybe? More likely, animals?”
“Who would operate the camera on the last day?”
“Lloyd maybe? He knew a little about photography. And he was asking a million questions when we were auditioning those girls in that house. He already knew something about sound mixing. He had good equipment. Hell, after I got the place lit and showed him how things work, I imagine he figured he could photograph the rough stuff by himself. The last act a their movie, so to speak.”
“So now, Griswold, you’ve told most of the truth. But you haven’t told the truth about why you backed out. You don’t expect me to believe that your conscience started bothering you.”
“The animals. The little Mexican kids. I …”
“All right, get out!” Al Mackey’s voice said. “Forget about police protection.”
“You gotta catch Lloyd!” Griswold Weils cried. “He might try again!”
“He will try again,” Al Mackey said.
“Okay! I got a phone call,” Griswold Weils said quickly. “Somebody told me to get out of the deal with Lloyd or something bad was gonna happen.”
“Who phoned you?”
“I dunno! I panicked and called Sapphire Productions like I always did, and the same old geezer said Lloyd would phone me and when he did I told him I got a warning! And I was backing out!”
“What did he say?”
“What you’d expect. He didn’t believe it. Thought I was getting cold feet. Reminded me he gave me an advance a five hundred. I told him I already earned that much, what with two trips up to that Trousdale house and photographing six girls for him. I just apologized and said I was out and hung up. When the phone rang after that, I didn’t answer. And then … then he found me skating in the parking lot the night a the murder and tried to talk me into it and I said no way, and he almost made a threat. But finally he left and I saw his big Bentley parked over on the far side of the parking lot and it looked like someone was in it. I just figured it was the Oriental guy. I skated straight to my apartment. Next morning I hear on the news that Nigel St. Claire was found shot dead in that parking lot! I say to myself, what would Nigel St. Claire be doing there? Skating? No way. Only one skates there that time a night is me! So I figured he had to a been hooked up with Lloyd. I just hoped and prayed I’d never hear from Lloyd again. And then you guys came one day and scared the shit outa me and I made up a cockamamie story because I knew you didn’t pick my name outa the phone book. And then tonight. You gotta catch this guy! He figures I might tell you about the night in the parking lot and he’s trying to shut me up. He must be the one that killed Mister St. Claire!”
“Why do you suppose Nigel St. Claire ever became involved with Lloyd?”
“You ask me? I can’t figure it. He coulda bought himself every animal flick ever made. If he was some kind a big-time porn lover, he coulda had his own library from every porn producer in Europe and South America, not to mention the States. I ain’t gonna believe Nigel St. Claire was trying to package an illegal porn show for profit. Just as soon believe he was importing Mexican brown from down there in Baja. It just don’t make sense unless … unless maybe Lloyd was blackmailing him.”
“Blackmailing? For what?”
“How do I know? Maybe Nigel St. Claire got loaded and ended up at one a those videotape parties one night? I done a few jobs like that. People lay around sucking and fucking in piles. And they want to videotape it for later so they can enjoy their performances. Celebrities like Mister St. Claire would be dumb to attend those little gatherings, but who knows? Maybe he got loaded some night and ended up on tape. It’s happened before. Or maybe Lloyd set him up with a cute sailor and took his picture on the sly. Then threatened to turn it over to some Hollywood scandal sheet? Maybe like that?”
“You’ve been thinking about this a lot,” Al Mackey said.
“You kidding? That’s all I think about. My skating’s getting so bad, that’s why I let that killer run into me tonight. I never woulda gotten hit if I was still skating the way I was before I met Lloyd.”
“Can you think who the person might be who called and warned you to get out of the deal?”
“No idea. It wasn’t the geezer at Sapphire Productions. I talked to him enough times to know. It sounded like a youngish guy. Lloyd would not believe I got the call no matter what I said. He just thought I was getting cold feet and welshing.”
Then the taped conversation was interrupted by the door to the interrogation room being opened, and Martin Welborn heard his own voice on the tape saying, “Excuse me, but I have a question or two. Griswold, were you driven each time to and from the Trousdale taping sessions by Lloyd?”
“Once I took a taxi back to my apartment. Lloyd said he had a busy night and he called the taxi for me.”
“Was it the night you photographed the little blonde with the beautiful complexion?”
“No, she was one a the first. I think it was the very next night, though.”
“Do you think your taxi could have been followed?”
“How should I know? I wasn’t looking for things like that.”
“As I recall, your name’s on your mailbox?”
“Yeah.”
“Is your phone number listed or unlisted?”
“Listed. I can’t afford luxuries. Besides, I don’t get many calls. But I’m making a comeback and …”
“How young was the guy’s voice who warned you not to go forward with your Mexico film?”
“How young? I dunno. I just know it wasn’t an old geezer’s voice like the guy at Sapphire. It just wasn’t a real old voice and it wasn’t a real deep voice.”
“A tenor, more or less?”
“I didn’t hear him sing.”
The night that had begun with such promise ended in bitter disappointment. At midnight, the address in Trousdale Estates given to the detectives by Griswold Weils was surrounded by eight policemen, four with shotguns. The shotgun wielders were, of course, the Ferret and Weasel, Buckmore Phipps and Gibson Hand. Schultz, Simon, Al Mackey and Martin Welborn had their revolvers drawn and it was Al Mackey and Martin Welborn who stood one on each side of the front door of the darkened house on the very top of the hill. Where, if one were in The Business, one would overlook all of Baghdad. And dream.
Martin Welborn tried the key that had been dropped at the waterfront in San Pedro by the man the Ferret was now praying would try to climb out the window. This time he wouldn’t have to throw rocks at the assassin.
Buckmore Phipps and Gibson Hand were hoping to get Just Plain Bill Bozwell in their sights if he tried to help his pal battle it out. He made a bigger target than a little gook, and they figured to get more television coverage if they blew away a white hoodlum.
Martin Welborn and Al Mackey were hoping that the Vietnamese assassin wouldn’t try to fight or run, so they could capture him alive and perhaps solve the mystery that was driving them all bonzo.
There was no one in the house. After three minutes of creeping down carpeted corridors, and dripping sweat on marble floors, the detectives had checked all five bedrooms and the servants’ quarters. Al Mackey began turning on lights and calling the others inside.
The street monsters were disappointed, and asked the detectives to give them a chance to kill Just Plain Bill some other time. Al Mackey promised he would, and they got into their black-and-white and drove back to Hollywood. The Ferret was beside himself, tearing through the house looking for any clue to the “house-boy” he wanted on the wrong end of his shotgun.
There wasn’t a single lead. On the off chance that they might pick up some lifts around the bar, they called for a latent-print specialist.
It was a lavish, expensive, ugly house. The owners were obviously in parts unknown. There wasn’t a single article of clothing in the closets. But there was something interesting in the garage.
“The Bentley!” Al Mackey cried, when Schultz called him.
“It’s been hotwired,” Schultz said. “We can have it dusted, maybe get that gook’s fingerprints.”
“Maybe get Nigel St. Claire’s fingerprints,” Martin Welborn said. “I’d love to be able to prove he rode in this car.”
The latent-prints specialist found the bar area clean. So was the car. So was the bedroom described by Griswold Weils as the audition room. They found a realtor’s card by the telephone in the kitchen.
“There won’t be a single long-distance call charged to this phone,” Al Mackey sighed.
“And that realtor’s going to tell us the owners are in England making a movie and he leased the house to a nice fellow named Lloyd. You pick the last name. And Lloyd paid cash and wore a cap and had glasses and promised he’d watch the house and see that the plants were watered and that nobody disturbed the owner’s Bentley and …”
The Glitter Dome Page 28