by Phil Swann
“Where have you been, Callaway?” Sam bellowed. “I’ve been calling you all day.”
“Why?”
“I heard about the explosion at that recording studio in Hollywood. It had Clegg operation written all over it. I wanted to make sure you were still in one piece.”
“Thanks, Sam. I’m touched.”
“Don’t be. You owe me dinner, and I wanted to make sure you were still around so I could collect.”
“Of course,” I replied, not believing him for a second. “I’m fine, but not by much. I was supposed to be in that recording studio.”
“No kidding.”
“No kidding. I’ll tell you about it later. Right now, I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Can you get me a street address from a Los Angeles phone number?”
“Sure. But why can’t Clegg do it?”
“He’s not around, and I need it now.”
I heard him sigh. “Okay, what’s the number?”
“213-555-6255?”
“Okay, give me a second,” he said, and then put me on hold.
While I was waiting, a couple of fellas walked in and went to a vending machine that dispensed coffee. One was holding drumsticks, the other staff paper. They were chatting about something and all but ignored me. Finally, the one with the drumsticks looked over and smiled. I smiled back and gave a salute. They got their coffee and left just as Sam came back on the line.
“18106 Ventura Boulevard, Tarzana.”
I took out a pen and jotted down the number on my hand. “Thanks, Sam. You’re the best. I’ll call you back later and fill you in on what’s going on.”
“Hey, wait a minute. I got something else for you.”
“What?”
“I pulled that old case we worked on a few years back regarding Anthony Cabaneri. The woman he had here in Vegas was named Maria Anna Jilani.”
“Maria Anna Jilani,” I repeated, writing it down on my hand, as well. “Is she still alive?”
“Couldn’t tell you. At the time she had a place out near Red Rock.”
“Thanks, Sam. That it?”
“That’s all I got.”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up the phone and headed to the car.
It was a thirty-minute drive out of Hollywood and into an area of the San Fernando Valley known as Tarzana. After I exited the freeway, I decided I should let Clegg know what I was doing, so I found a phone booth and called his car. He didn’t pick up.
I got back into the Rambler and zipped over to Ventura Boulevard. Once I neared the eighteen thousand block, I slowed it down to a crawl and began checking the addresses. When I found it, I didn’t believe it and checked the address three times to make sure I was reading it right. I then considered perhaps Sam had gotten the address wrong. But then I remembered despite his disheveled appearance, Sam was never sloppy when it came to his work. It was the correct address.
The red brick, one-story building was on the corner of Ventura and Lindley, and the building’s parking lot was on Lindley, which meant I had to make a U-turn, and swing around again. Once in the parking lot, I pulled into a space reserved for guests.
The street was quiet and canopied with old-growth trees. The building boasted colorful, well-cared for flowers planted all around it, with flower boxes in every window. I heard the tinkling of wind chimes and spotted one made of seashells hanging from the eaves. At first glance, it looked like a reasonably nice apartment building. But it wasn’t, as the wooden sign on the small, grassy area next to the entrance confirmed. It read: SUNNYSIDE RETIREMENT HOME.
Even if I hadn’t seen the sign, I would have known where I was the moment I walked in. The smell wasn’t so much bad, as it was pungent and bitingly antiseptic. It spoke of advanced age, as did everything else in the austere main lobby. The couches, chairs, and tables were at least a decade old, and the art on the walls was right out of grandma’s house, depicting serene images of green mountain tops, gentle waterfalls, and lazy meadows.
I eyed an older gentleman wearing a bowtie and suspenders sitting at a tiny desk. He looked to be grabbing some zees. I walked over to him and loudly cleared my throat. The man quickly lifted his chin out of his chest.
“Yes, sir,” he said, with a wide smile. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Daniel Glass and Sidney Bern. Do they work here?”
The man chuckled. “Work here? That’s a good one. I don’t believe ol’ Dan and Sid have done an honest day’s work since the Hoover administration.”
“You know them?” I asked.
“Of course. They’re in the courtyard right now. You want to say hello?”
“I do,” I answered.
“Well, come on. I’ll take you to them.”
I followed the old man down a hallway to a glass door that slid open onto a small patio. The patio was empty save for two elderly men sitting in wheelchairs, next to a metal table. Neither was saying anything.
“Dan, Sid,” the man yelled as we approached. “You two have a visitor. You can sit right here,” the old man said to me, pulling out a chair. “They don’t say much, but I know they like seeing people.”
I nodded and sat at the table.
“I’ll leave you be. Just let me know when you’re done so I can take them back to their rooms.” Then he hobbled away.
I sat back in the chair and looked at the two ancient men. “Hi, Daniel. Hi, Sid,” I said. “Heard any good jokes lately?”
Neither responded or even acknowledged my presence.
Chapter 13
Pop told me a story once about a guy he knew on Guadalcanal during the war. The guy was a young corporal who everyone liked and looked up to. When things got tough, and the outfit was having a hard time of it, Pop would say this corporal would lift everyone’s spirits with stories about his upbringing on a ranch in Texas. He’d tell them how he rode the range from dusk ’til dawn, fighting off wild critters, running from dangerous banditos, and battling every unruly element Mother Nature would throw at him. The corporal would proclaim that since he had survived all of that, he considered the Japs to be no big deal. Pop said the young corporal’s stories would never fail to give him and the rest of the boys the boost they needed to carry on.
Sadly, the corporal was killed during a Japanese offensive to retake Henderson Field. Pop said after his death they learned the truth. Not only was the corporal not a cowboy, but as it turned out, wasn’t even from Texas. He was from Massachusetts, and due to a profound sense of patriotism, had left college his senior year to enlist. The corporal’s field of study in college was English, and he was planning on becoming a novelist—a western novelist.
Pop said that while they all grieved the corporal’s death, they were also angry. Learning his stories were just made-up fantasies made them question if anything was true, including if they were up to completing the mission they were sent there to do.
I sat in the Rambler, stared out the window, and fumed. No, it wasn’t Guadalcanal, and there was no enemy about to charge over the ridge, but still, just like Pop, I was angry and questioning the truth about everything I thought I knew. Specifically, everything I thought I knew about Miriam. A scene kept playing out in my mind. The two of us are sitting in a small Italian restaurant in Hollywood. I asked her about her and Daniel’s relationship. Her response: “Daniel and I have been friends for years.” The words were as clear as if she was sitting next to me at that moment. “Daniel and I have been friends for years.” It was a lie. A bald-faced, unabashed lie.
It was eating away at me, but I knew I had to let it go. Besides, my hands weren’t exactly clean in the whole truth-telling department, either. So, Miriam had lied to me. You lied to her too, I consoled myself. It didn’t fix things, but I suppose it made it go down a little easier.
There was work to be done and questions still to be answered. Not the least of which being, I knew why I had lied to Miriam, but why had she lied to me?
I started the car and put it into gear. I was preparing to pull out when something hit me. There might have been a lot of things I didn’t know were true, but there was one thing I knew for certain was true. Daniel and Sid—the young Daniel and Sid I knew—were musicians. Good ones, at that. I had heard them play. That meant someone else knew they were musicians too. And that meant I knew where I had to go next.
I went for my wallet and took out Levine’s business card. I memorized the address and then tossed it on the floorboard in disgust. I was done with all the games, I was done with being lied to, but mostly I was done with Hollywood and just wanted to go home. To do that, though, I knew I had to get answers. Which was why I was prepared to do whatever it took to get them.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I consider myself to be a cultured man, and as such, someone who abhors violence. I believe it to be the last bastion of a weak mind. In a battle between brains versus brawn, brains shall always prevail. However, I am a man not without certain skills. You don’t do what I do, in the places I’ve done it, and not pick-up a thing or two on how to handle yourself. I’m talking about playing nightclubs. Don’t let the red Naugahyde and fancy white tablecloths fool you. Even the most respectable establishment can get pretty dodgy at three in the morning. Alcohol tends to guarantee it.
As well, I might not be a big man, but have always kept in shape and can be quite scrappy when I’m forced to be—which means I have no compunction about fighting dirty. Given Larry Levine was at least twice my age and a good four inches shorter, I didn’t expect that would be necessary. Still, I wasn’t prepared to bet the family farm on it, so that’s why I thoroughly planned my attack in advanced. I dubbed it the sound and fury sortie.
Levine’s office was in Van Nuys on a low-rent street, above an even lower-rent pawn shop. It wasn’t so much an office space as an attic. I climbed the outside metal stairs beside the pawn shop until I reached the first landing. The hand-lettered sign on the glass-paned door read: LARRY LEVINE, MUSIC CONTRACTOR. There was also a smaller sign hanging below it that read: PLEASE KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING. I didn’t.
I pushed the door open so hard, I thought the glass pane might shatter.
Levine looked up from his tiny desk. “What the—”
I stomped toward him with my fists clenched.
“Callaway, what are—”
“What’s wrong, Levine?” I growled. “Did you think I was dead?”
With one violent swipe of my arm, I cleared the man’s desk of all papers, files, pencils, and pens, as well as a stapler, Rolodex, telephone, and an ashtray overflowing with butts—one still burning.
As everything crashed to the floor, Levine leapt from his chair and took a step backward toward the wall. “I did,” he responded, his voice shaking. “I mean, I’m happy you’re not…I just thought you were—”
“In the recording studio,” I yelled. “Yeah, I know. I was late. Sorry about that, Larry. It appears you didn’t get me, after all.”
“Didn’t get you?” he yelled back. “What are you talking about? I didn’t have anything to do with that explosion. Are you out of your—”
“Save it, Levine,” I ordered, seizing him by his shirt collar and manhandling him back into the chair. “Here’s the deal. You’re going to tell me everything you know about what’s going on, including your part in it. And you’re going to start with Daniel Glass and Sidney Bern.”
“But I—”
“And if you don’t,” I added, grabbing his face and squeezing his cheeks together, “I’m going to take you outside, and throw you down those stairs. Got it? Good. Now start talking.”
I lifted that last part from Robert Mitchum in the movie Night of the Hunter. Mitchum portrays the psychopathic serial killer Reverend Harry Powell, for my money the best movie villain in the history of cinema.
I let go, and Levine swallowed. “Look, Callaway,” he said, attempting to straighten up. “I didn’t have anything to do with that explosion, I swear.”
I went to grab his face again.
He pulled back. “But I wasn’t surprised when I heard about it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because nothing’s been right about that stupid show from the start.”
“Such as?”
He shook his head.
“Such as?” I yelled again, making a fist in his face.
“Such as a stage crew I’d never seen before on any set. A director I’d never heard of. Writers, producers, costumers, set designers, cameramen, not one, as far as I could find out, who had ever worked a single show in Hollywood. Also, I’ve worked in this town for thirty-five years. I know when a new show is coming down the pike, it’s my job to know, but this one just came out of thin air. There was not a single whisper of it. It just appeared. That doesn’t happen.”
“Then how’d they get the stars? Benny, Beryl, and Damone?”
“That’s the easy part,” he scoffed. “You call their agent, offer a bucket of money, and if the star is free, and the union regs check out, you got ’em.”
“Tell me about Daniel Glass and Sidney Bern,” I ordered, not letting my intimidating tone soften.
“I don’t know anything about them,” Levine replied.
I grabbed his collar again.
“I don’t know anything,” he yelled. “What do you want me to say?”
“But you booked—” I stopped myself. After a second, I let go of his shirt collar and stepped back. “That first day at the television studio, when you said, I used to be able to book my own players, you weren’t just talking about me, were you? You were talking about all four of us.”
“Yeah, I thought you knew that,” he said, his voice still quivering.
I let out a sigh. “So, who told you to book the other three players, Daniel Glass, Sidney Bern, and Miriam Kaplan?”
“The same person who made me book you.”
“Colson,” I stated, more than asked.
“Yeah,” he replied.
I rubbed my brow. Of course it was Colson. “So, what does Colson have on you?”
Levine shook his head, “Drug possession, but it’s a total sham.”
I snickered.
“It is,” Levine snapped. “Some cop pulls me over one night for no reason and finds heroin in my car. Heroin, for Christ sake! I don’t use that garbage. I might smoke some grass every now and then, but heroin? Never. Anyway, next thing I know I’m being visited in the county jail by none other than District Attorney Sebastian Colson. He tells me he can make the whole thing go away, but I would owe him. What was I to do? I said okay.”
“When did all this happen?” I asked.
“About two months ago. I couldn’t understand why someone like Colson would be interested in somebody like me. I don’t know anybody. I’m not connected. I’m a music contractor. I book musicians on TV shows, movies, and recording sessions. Why hassle me?”
“When did he contact you about Gabriella’s show?”
“Last week. He said it was time to return the favor. He informed me about the players I’d be getting and to be on the set to check everybody in. So I did. After that, as far as I was concerned, my work was done. Then I heard about the explosion at the studio. Now you’re here about to take my head off. Like I said, nothing’s been right about that stupid show from the very start.”
“And you’d never seen Daniel, Sid, and Miriam before that day at the television studio.”
“No, never. But I had a feeling none of them were who they claimed to be. Not even you.”
“Why?” I replied.
“Because I’ve known Miriam Kaplan for over thirty years. Excellent wind player. Started out in this town playing in the pit orchestra for silent movies. When I saw this Miriam Kaplan, I thought to myself, wow, Miriam, you look great. Especially since the last time I saw you was at your funeral.”
“Her funeral?” I replied.
Levine chuckled sarcastically. “Yeah. Miriam Kaplan died six months ago from a stroke at
the age of ninety-one.”
It was only about a twenty-minute drive from Levine’s office to the television studio in Burbank. I can’t report much about what I was thinking as I drove there; I can only recall the feeling in my stomach. It was kind of an empty shaking. A hollowness aching for sustenance, but at the same time needing more than anything to regurgitate a gut full of poison.
The woman I knew as Miriam, the woman I was mourning, the woman I thought I might have had a future with, was not Miriam after all. She was somebody else. Who? I didn’t know. A ghost? Someone who might never have existed to begin with? No, she had existed. I knew she had existed because I could remember her music. I knew she had existed because I could remember how she walked, talked, and how she laughed. I could also remember how she felt, how she smelled, and how she made love. She had existed because all I had to do was to close my eyes, and she was there. She had existed because, more than anything in the world, I wished she hadn’t.
I suppose had I been a seasoned operative like Clegg, I would have been able to step back and see the entirety of the situation. Detach from the personal and only focus on what it meant to the bigger picture, or how it played in the field, as Clegg would put it, but I wasn’t Clegg. I didn’t have his ability to toss everything else aside and focus on the end game, the result, the desired outcome for the good of God and country. No, I wasn’t Clegg. Instead, I was the person who could’ve cared less about any of it. I was the person who was ready to say the hell with it all, get on Route 15, and just go home.
I pulled up to the television studio’s main gate and stopped. The gate was shut, and I didn’t see Burt, the old security guard. I got out of the Rambler and walked up to the fence. I tugged on the gate to see if it would open. It didn’t. I was about to get back in the car when another security guard, one I’d never seen before who was younger, stouter, and brandished a no-nonsense expression on his face, came out of the guard shack.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Hi. Is Burt off today?”
“Who?” the man replied.