"Five years ago,” supplied Thaxter. “Or so I thought."
"What about the plagiarism?” asked Wes.
"After we'd worked together for about three months, polishing the Dickie Danger treatment, Hank heard that some guys with a lot of money were starting up a comic book company down in Mexico and—"
"I remember hearing about that bunch,” cut in Casey. “They were doing basically soft-core porn. Went belly up in a year."
"Be that as it may, Casey, Hank was broke, and he couldn't wait around on the hope that we'd sell Dickie. He decided to drive down there in that ancient Toyota of his and apply for a—"
"The poor guy never got there,” said Casey, uncrossing her legs and leaning back. “He had a younger sister, Sara, I think. I ran into her on the beach in Santa Monica back then, and she told me Hank had been killed in an auto accident somewhere south of the border."
"Actually, his car was found in a gully outside a Mexican village,” said Thaxter. “Car had been stripped, and there was blood all over the front seat. The authorities figured he'd been jumped by bandits, killed, and buried God knows where."
Wes was visited by a recollection. “I was already working there when you sold the show. And you didn't put his name on the Dickie Danger proposal, did you?"
"Hank was dead, and I didn't even know he had a sister. If he did, he never mentioned her,” explained the voice man. “Had SpareyArts known there was an estate and a bunch of heirs to deal with, they might've turned me down.” He shook his head. “Way I saw it, Hank Batsford was dead and done for, but Dickie Danger sure as hell wasn't.” He stretched up out of his chair. “I was right, too, and I've made a very comfortable living off of him ever since. Unlike my current wife, whose cookbook career is rapidly sinking into the toilet, I'm thriving."
Casey requested, “Explain how Hank's ghost is blackmailing you."
"This morning a postcard arrived,” he answered, sitting down again. “Mailed in Pasadena, it was a vintage card, and on the front was one of those badly tinted photos of a movie star's home. Groucho Marx's actually.” He paused. “On the backside of the postcard was a short message. I now know it by heart. ‘Hi, Burt. I'm back and I want my share. Best, Hank.’”
* * * *
Casey, carrying a large manila envelope she'd brought back from Burt Thaxter's, came purposefully into their late-night kitchen. “I really think we should shift through these clues, Wes, before turning in."
"Sift.” He carried the cup of hot cocoa he'd just finished brewing over to the table and sat down. “What's that you're wearing?"
"My new pajama top.” Seating herself across from him, she placed the envelope in front of her. “What do you think of it?"
"You look ... Darn, I'm searching for the right descriptive word."
"Cute?"
"Close, yet not precise enough."
"Gorgeous?"
"Warmer, but..."
"Sweet and lovely?"
"Nope.” Her husband then snapped his fingers. “I've got the word. Naked."
Casey wrinkled her nose. “It's perfectly all right to look naked in the privacy of your own kitchen. Not that I actually am.” Undoing the envelope clasp, she lifted the flap. “If you're finished making fashion statements about my pj's, can we proceed?"
"You really sure, Case, that you want to play detective?"
She nodded. “I think it's kind of our duty to help Burt,” Casey replied. “Besides, if Hank's come back from the dead, I'd like to see him again."
"Only casually, I presume.” He took a sip of his cocoa. “Keep in mind that Burt swiped Hank's idea and made a stewpot of money with it. He's not exactly an innocent."
"So far he hasn't heard anything further from Hank. No specific demands about a cash settlement, no threats,” said his wife. “Could be that Hank is truly dead and gone, and some con man is working a scam on him. We ought to find out."
"Speaking of con men, your dear old father wouldn't be behind this, would he?"
"Nope, he's hiding out in Guatemala, as you well know, Wes.” From the envelope she extracted an unframed 8 1/2 by 11-inch glossy photo and placed it atop the table.
The photograph was a black-and-white head shot of a lean man of about thirty-five. He was bald on top, but on the sides his crinkly hair reached well below his ears. The inscription read, “Nat, you understand me, babe. Hugs, Chip. XOXO."
"Since we found this picture on the driveway after she made her latest departure from Burt,” Casey suggested, “we can assume it fell out of Natalie's sloppily packed knapsack.” She tapped the photo near the thin man's sharp nose. “I know you feel we should've taken it inside and given it to Burt. But I don't think detectives can do that with what may be an important bit of evidence."
"We aren't detectives. We're only playing at it.” Reaching across, he slid the glossy over to his side of the table.
"Besides, Burt may not know his current wife has a secret admirer,” said Casey, reaching across the table to borrow his cup of cocoa. “Finding that out at this time might upset him even more."
"That's very thoughtful of you."
After sampling the cocoa, his wife said, “One of the first things we have to do is find out who this guy Chip is. I can probably track Natalie down tomorrow and just ask her. You know, woman to woman."
"Might work, though I doubt it. ‘Hi, Nat, I don't know if this has any bearing on Burt's problem, but I'm dying to know the identity of this gawky guy you've been shacking up with.’”
"So what do we do?"
"Well, you might ask me who he is."
She straightened up in her chair. “You know the name of this man Natalie's having an affair with?"
"We don't know she's having an affair with anybody,” he reminded his blond wife. “All we know is that this fellow is, or was, a friend of hers."
"So who is he?"
"Chip Dunbarton."
"Oh, c'mon, Wes. Chip Dunbarton's a pudgy, lovable teenager,” the skeptical Casey said. “I used to watch that TV show of his, Off the Old Block, all the time."
Reaching across and retrieving his cocoa, he asked, “And when was that?"
"A few years ago, I guess."
"Closer to twenty.” He tapped his finger on the thin actor's nose.
"You're certain that's who this is?"
"Sure. Dunbarton came around to SpareyArts last year looking for voice work. We didn't hire him."
"He used to be so cute and lovable.” Casey sighed. “You'd think that if Natalie wanted to fool around, she'd pick a guy who was still cute and lovable at the moment.” From the envelope, she took the Groucho Marx postcard plus a page of long ago Dickie Danger notes that Hank Batsford had written by hand.
Wes came around to her side of the table as she placed the message side of the card next to an earlier sample of his lettering. Resting a hand on his wife's slim shoulder, he said, “Same handwriting?"
"Seems to be, but..."
"Or a forgery?"
"Don't know. Hank always used a variation of basic comic book lettering. Not too hard to fake."
He picked up the vintage postcard, tilting it from left to right. “The average resident of Southern California doesn't have a sixty- or seventy-year-old postcard lying around."
"Hank was a great fan of the Marx Brothers. He took me to a revival of Duck Soup once, and was always talking about—"
"That sounds like a date."
"Not at all, and don't go acting like somebody who's inanely jealous."
"Insanely,” he corrected, putting the card down. “See up in the right-hand corner, near the stamp. Something was erased, but you can make it out."
"HMS/1/13,” she read. “What does that have to do with Burt's dilemma?"
"Maybe somebody bought this postcard recently,” he explained. “There are three or four shops in Hollywood that handle movie memorabilia. The one just off Cherokee is called the Hollywood Memory Shop."
"HMS. And 1/13 is the date they acquired it."
"Probably."
"A Groucho Marx item must be expensive. Why not just buy a new postcard at the post office?"
He shrugged. “Maybe to look more like Hank.” He drank some more of his cocoa. “In addition to that minimalist pajama top, Case, are you wearing a new perfume?"
"No. Same old stuff."
He sniffed the air, then picked up the page of Dickie Danger notes. “Somebody who handled this page was recently wearing perfume."
She leaned over to sniff. “A scent using sandalwood,” she decided. “Same perfume Natalie was wearing tonight. Didn't you notice?"
"Not in the brief moment we encountered her on the stairs, no."
"Burt told us nobody had seen any of those pages except him. He kept them in a tucked away filing cabinet in his office at home."
"Possibly Natalie took a look,” Wes suggested. “Possibly she made some photocopies and shared them with Chip the middle-aged juvenile."
"To what purpose?"
"To throw a scare into Burt."
"Might be, but I think there's something else behind it,” Casey said. “Hank is due a lot of money from his share of Dickie Danger. I bet either he or the person who's pretending to be him will contact Burt again soon and ask for a pile of cash."
"What can he do if Burt refuses?” Wes asked.
"Expose him as the one who stole the idea from a dead man."
"If all the people who stole ideas in Hollywood were exposed, there'd be—"
"Hey, we're just beginning our investigation. When we're further along, we'll know more."
"You want to continue with this?"
"I surely do."
"Okay, then we will."
* * * *
It was one of those rare afternoons in Hollywood when the sky came fairly close to being a sharp, clear blue.
Wearing a moderately conservative skirt and jacket, Casey was walking briskly along Cherokee Boulevard. As she passed an ailing palm tree and turned on to the side street where the Hollywood Memory Shop was located, a plump woman was emerging from a small Armenian restaurant.
She made a surprised noise. “Why, I know you."
"Probably not, ma'am.” Casey halted.
"Yes, you're on one of the sitcoms,” said the woman, scrutinizing her as she moved near. “It's not that new comedy about suburban nymphomaniacs, is it? No, wait, you play the alcoholic autopsy surgeon on Blood & Guts: Los Angeles, don't you?"
Casey shook her head. “Afraid not. Although I do a television commercial once in a while still, and you maybe saw me on one of them. Or you could've noticed my picture on the inside cover of an issue of Bertha the Biker."
"What in Heaven's name is Bertha the Biker?"
"It's an independent comic book I write and draw. Comes out every now and then."
"Well, I'm out here to see movie and TV actors. Nice meeting you, but I better be getting on my way."
"You're bound to run into somebody who's momentarily famous before the day is out,” Casey assured her and resumed her journey.
The Hollywood Memory Shop was in mid block, next to a store that specialized in souvenir T-shirts and caps. It was narrow, with an old-fashioned wooden door.
A bell above the door jingled when Casey entered the shop.
There were long rows of bins along three of the walls and rows of more bins making three narrow aisles on the worn hardwood flooring. The place smelled strongly of dust, aging paper, and hamburgers past.
A thin man, bald on top, emerged from the back room. “Can I help you, miss?” he inquired. “No visit to Hollywood is complete without picking up a bit of memorabilia or ... Excuse me for a minute."
Hurrying down another aisle, he made his way to the front door. After locking it, he pulled down the old-fashioned shade.
Though Casey had long since recognized him as Chip Dunbarton, she decided to go on pretending to be a customer. “A friend of mine is a great fan of the Marx Brothers,” she explained, watching Dunbarton coming now down the aisle she was standing in. “He likes the whole darn bunch of them. Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zippo, and—"
"Zeppo,” the thin actor corrected. “And you must be Casey McLeod Goodhill."
"Gee, you're the second person in the past ten minutes who mistook me for someone else. A woman out on the street thought I was—"
"According to Nat, you and your stupid husband were nosing around at her place last night,” the erstwhile teenage star said. “And that asshole husband of hers must have shown you the postcard.” He nodded to himself, causing his long side hair to sway. “Sure, and you think of yourself as better than all the casts of all the CSI shows put together. Somehow you traced the card to this shop where I work and now—"
"Not at all, Chip,” Casey assured the angry actor. “Burt did show us the card. I thought I'd like to get something similar for this dear old friend of mine, Bernie Zuber, who has a birthday coming up. This is the third shop in the area I've tried so far, and I'm sure hoping—"
"Yeah, that's another thing Natalie told me about you,” Dunbarton remembered. “You're a world-class bullshit artist."
"I can't imagine why she'd—"
She never completed the sentence.
Dunbarton had suddenly lunged forward to punch her in the jaw, twice.
Casey passed out, fell to the worn floor, and ended the interview.
* * * *
Meanwhile, little suspecting what fate held in store for him, Wes was seated at his drawing board in his SpareyArts office. The early afternoon outside was commencing to cloud up.
He held a soft-lead pencil in his right hand and his cell phone in the left. “It's nothing like that,” he was saying to Mike Filchock, his scriptwriter friend. “But I can't give you too many details. Casey and I are nosing around in somebody else's mystery this time, so—"
"Can you guarantee me, old buddy,” spoke Filchock, “that nobody involved in this caper is now or ever has been a boyfriend of your dear wife?"
"Look, Mike, I know you're not overly fond of Casey, and you have this cockeyed notion that she's continually getting us in trouble,” he told him. “Even if that were true, she's changed even more since we've been married."
"Is this the place where the harp music comes in on the soundtrack?"
"The point I'm getting to is that this current business has almost nothing to do with her."
"Almost?"
"Well, she did know—casually—one of the parties involved,” he admitted. “Years ago."
"Usually, when Casey drags you into a maelstrom of chicanery, intrigue, and serious danger, it has to do with some guy out of her past,” reminded the writer. “And you've shared most all of the loathsome details with me. In fact, I might remind you, I've lent a hand on more than—"
"Other people are involved,” Wes said, clearing his throat. “We've just officially changed the subject. How's the script for your new series coming?"
Filchock produced an unhappy sigh on his end of the conversation. “NBC seems to be having second thoughts, although there are those who swear that NBC isn't even capable of first thoughts,” he said, a forlorn note entering his voice. “Apparently, some of the execs over there think my show's tasteless."
"And?"
"My agents can't convince them that Precocious Pete the Horny Toddler is what the networks need to stave off the growing competition from cable,” continued Filchock. “Christ, the damn show's got kid appeal, it's got sex, it's got heartwarming family life, plus that kind of broad obvious humor that's so popular with the audience group that all the advertisers, unless they make diapers for old coots, are lusting after."
"It sure sounded like a potential hit, Mike, the last time you told me about it."
"I had six flatulence jokes in the first three and a half minutes, and the scene where Precocious Pete jumps out of his crib and chases his statuesque Swedish nanny into the bedroom is going to play so damn funny to a studio audience that it won't even need a laugh track to sweeten it."
&
nbsp; "I'm tempted to laugh just hearing the—"
A very forceful knock had started on the door of his office.
Before Wes reached the door, it came swinging open.
Burt Thaxter, in what for him was an unkempt state, hurried into the room. Clutched in his hand was a manila envelope. “I've heard from them,” he announced, brandishing the envelope. “From the photocopies of Hank's notes that were sent along, I'm damn sure that whoever's behind this—Hank or somebody else—has certainly got the goods on me."
Into his phone Wes said, “Mike, I'll have to call you back.” He set the phone on the taboret next to his board. “How much do they want, Burt?"
"Five hundred thousand dollars,” the voice man replied, angrily shaking the envelope.
"Could you afford that?"
"Sure, but I'm hoping you and Casey can come up with an alternative way for me to get hold of all that incriminating—"
"Show me exactly what you were sent,” he requested.
* * * *
A light rain was drifting down through the gray afternoon. Casey could see it from the one window, barred, of the room she was locked up in.
She had awakened a half hour ago and found herself up here in a second-story bedroom of the hillside house. Rubbing at her sore jaw, she left the venerable rocker that was the only chair in the sparsely furnished room. “Looks like Chip must be the mastermind behind this nitwit plan,” she said to herself. “Although it's kind of a stretch to think of him as a mastermind."
After pacing the room and once again finding no way to break out, she returned to the rocking chair. “Obviously, he's got a partner, somebody who has more than a peanut for a brain,” she reflected. “It's got to be Natalie who's in cahoots with him."
The sound of her door being unlocked caused Casey to halt where she was in the middle of the threadbare carpet. “I shouldn't have dropped out of that karate class last summer. This would be a perfect place to use it on somebody."
"How's your jaw?” inquired Natalie.
"As well as can be expected,” Casey replied. “You and your lover give me a big pain elsewhere."
Natalie, wearing Levi's and a man's blue shirt, shut the door behind her. “Obviously, dear, I had no idea Chip was going to sock you. Basically, he knows that I don't condone violence."
AHMM, March 2007 Page 3