Roll the Credits: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  That voice through the still-closed door, silky and husky all at once: “Hector Mason Lassiter?”

  “Jesus, Duff, you turn psychic?”

  “Sam Ford called ahead,” she said through the door, fiddling with the lock. “Sam said you’d likely drop by. He said you said we’re okay, but in case that was less than so, Sam thought I should have time to run or turn off the lights and pretend to be away.”

  Surprising sensitivity from Sam. I said, “What’s the verdict, darlin’?’”

  “I’m opening the door, or trying to. It swells and sticks in the rain.”

  Duff cracked the door and smiled. Silk blouse and tailored skirt; killer heels that did wonderful things for her calves. At thirty-nine, she was still a looker. I wanted to think she’d dressed for me. “It’s raining hammers,” she said.

  “Tell me.”

  She smiled and opened the door. She kissed me, then took the flowers and wine. “You’re looking good, Hec. I’ve heard worrying stories about your last couple of years.” She knew just how to put it. “I’m so sorry to hear about Maria. Much, much sorrier about Dolores. I was worried what might walk through my door. But you look so fine.” She put the wine on a table and stroked my cheek. “Want to talk about it?”

  “If I did, you’d be the one I’d pour it out to, darlin’. But you’ve heard the stories, like you say, and there’s not much to say beyond that. Frankly, I find it’s best at this point just to put it all away.”

  “But you’re holding it together?”

  “Better every day,” I said. “You know me—despite all my efforts to the contrary, I’m the consummate survivor.” I took her left hand, checked for rings, then kissed her hand. “Looks like you’re single again, too. I’d heard differently.”

  “Didn’t work out.” She smiled and pulled me to the kitchen. “Good news is, from your perspective, maybe that means so far as we went, I was the problem.”

  “No way,” I said. “I blew it. Can’t cut off the dark parts of myself that fire the writing.” I went back and scooped up the bottle of wine. “Got a corkscrew?”

  “In that last drawer,” she said, “left of the sink.” Duff rummaged around cupboards and found a vase and started doing something with the flowers. “I really think it is me. I’m in love with being in love. Building intimacy is heady. But maintaining it?” A head shake.

  The cork popped and I said, “Little late to let it breathe.”

  Duff smiled and handed me two wine glasses. “No bottle of wine ever gets to breathe around you, Hec.”

  As I poured, I said, “Word is you just signed on for this gig, for The Judas Kiss. They didn’t tell you I was on board, or did you maybe agree despite knowing I’m in the fold?”

  “If I’d known you were on this one, I’d probably have signed on just to see how you’re doing. I’ve been quite worried about you, darling.”

  I smiled. “Like I said, I’m doin’ okay.”

  Duff smiled and stroked my face again. “Those dimples…” She sighed. “I’ve been getting calls about you. Some guy says he’s your official biographer.”

  Fenton goddamn Young. I was going to have to send him to the dentist, that was becoming clear. “He isn’t. Don’t talk to the bastard. Besides, he’s from Yale.”

  “And that’s a problem?”

  “This year, yeah, it surely seems to be.” I passed her a glass of wine. We tapped goblets and I said, “To absent friends.”

  “And reunited ones.” She sipped, said, “You still know the best wines.”

  “Not the most destructive of my talents.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Duff took my hand and led me to the couch. “Fact is, I’ve been backing away from the movie business. The nightclub performing isn’t going to make me rich, but it keeps me pretty well, and I’ve got my own little following. So I’ve been thinking about going full-time as a torch singer.”

  “Sounds a fine plan. So why take this job with Sam? Why really?”

  “I was partly flattered into it,” she said. She sipped some more wine. “Some guy raved to Sam about my skills. Stroking my ego’s always been a pathetically effective way of getting my attention and into my good graces. But I also took it to help my young friend get a foot in the door. But you, actually, can do that more effectively than me.”

  “What, some would-be screenwriter?”

  “That’s right. Flies in tomorrow.”

  “Got talent?”

  Duff nodded. “I think so. In spades.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Her name,” Duff corrected me. “Marie O’Rourke.”

  I said, “Not that Marie? Little Marie? Jimmy’s Marie?”

  “Jimmy’s Marie,” she said, “but not so little anymore. She’s twenty-four, Hector.”

  39

  Duff said she was feeling cooped up; she’d spent several days at home, coming off a cold. I’d caught her on the rally. After a light meal at the Pacific Dining Car, we took a rainy ride up into the Hollywood Hills with the corked bottle of wine and a couple of paper cups.

  We parked and stared down at the lights through the rain-streaked windshield. The radio on low. Patsy Cline was crooning “Walkin’ After Midnight.”

  I said, “Jimmy must hate this, his niece in this wicked town, in this business. This city is a shark pool, you know that. Jimmy certainly thinks that way.”

  Duff took my hand. “The fact you and I are here to watch out for her mollified Jim. And anyway, it’s Marie’s dream. We’ll see she gets the right start. And we’ll see to it that everyone in the industry knows you’re watching over her. That will keep the wolves and mashers at bay. My God, you should hear the way people in this town talk about you.”

  I shrugged and said, “City like this one, it’s better to be feared than loved.”

  Duff scooted across the seat and rested her head on my shoulder.

  She said, “It’s a beautiful view in the rain. But coming up here in this weather is probably borrowing trouble, Hec: these very hills already lost the film its original director.”

  “Yeah. Who was this admirer who drafted you for this gig with Sam?”

  “Armand something,” Duff said.

  “Ah-hah.” Armand Vargas. Suddenly I had acid stomach.

  She looked around the interior of my Chevrolet. “I like this very much. It’s new?”

  “Relatively. It’s a fifty-seven, that is to say.”

  This wicked smile. “You christen it, yet?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Define christen.”

  “You know, fool around in it?”

  “That’s kid’s stuff,” I said, laughing and shaking my head.

  “I’m still a kid. Got a little while yet before I hit forty and am over the hill like you. The rain, the lights down below. That backseat. C’mon, Hec, you’re not that old.”

  ***

  Business was light in the Brown Derby. I’d picked the place. Duff said, “You’re a pushover for anything even vaguely Latin looking.” Yeah.

  They seated us in number five. Story went Gable proposed to Lombard in that very booth.

  It was a weeknight and the rain was something more than just weather tonight; it was downright vicious now. Smoking a cigarette and listening to the rain lash the windows, I studied all those crazy caricatures lining the walls. Duff had excused herself to the ladies room.

  Duff slid back into the booth and said, “Doubt we’ll get another chance to do that again once Marie gets here. She’s due in after lunch.” Duff reached across the table and took my hand. She said, “So maybe you should spend the night. I mean, if you want to.”

  I smiled, uncertain Duff truly wanted that with me. “You’re sure?”

  “Hector, I’m virtually insisting.”

  ***

  A rusty red DeSoto was hard on our tail. Couldn’t be anything good about that. Chewing my lip, I eased off the gas; let a red light catch me. I shifted into park, said, to Duff, “If something goes bad, slide across the seat
and drive on.”

  Before she could balk, I slid out of my Bel Air. I recognized the man behind the wheel. I whipped out my Colt and used the butt to break the DeSoto’s driver’s side window. The man inside raised his hands, cowering and sputtering. I reached in and shifted his car into park then tore the keys from the ignition. I pitched them far.

  My self-declared Boswell, my would-be biographer Fenton Young, sprayed spittle as he sputtered, “What in God’s name, Lassiter?”

  “Jesus,” I said. “I should just shoot you and be done with it.” The light had gone green. The drivers behind Young’s car began leaning on their horns. I waved my Colt in their direction, and that shut them up.

  I gripped Young’s chin in my hand. “My last warning, pal. Come after me again and I swear I’ll make you wish you were dead. My life is mine, and mine alone to write about. Drop your damned book.”

  ***

  After breakfast, Duff and I said our good-byes. I needed to dash back to my place and get some fresh clothes for a meeting with Sam and his prospective lead actor. Duff was on her way to the airport to pick up Marie.

  I’d driven perhaps four miles when I got the sense the gray, fifty-five Olds back there was almost certainly following me. There were two men in the car. In the still-drizzling rain, and far back as they were, I couldn’t get a good look at them. At first, I thought maybe Fenton Young had hired some help. But two men? That didn’t compute.

  I’d been in L.A. earlier in the year because of the caper with the skulls, so I still had the roadmap pretty squarely in my head.

  Stubbing out my cigarette in the ashtray, I gave the Bel Air the gas and made a hard right onto Ventura Boulevard, tires squealing on the slick pavement.

  The ones following me were dumb enough to follow suit and lay the hammer down, leaving no doubt but that they were shadowing me.

  But I had horsepower on my side. I made a few more stomach-tugging turns, then got the boys on a straight-away. I put three blocks between us, then peeled through an alley. When I reached the street at the other end, I hopped out and wheeled a dumpster into the middle of the alley, blocking my pursuers’ escape. I sprinted back to the Bel Air and whipped around the corners to block the other end of the alley, my pursuers’ only route of retreat.

  The boys in the Olds were backing up at speed when they saw my Bel Air slide into their path. I scooted across the seat and slid out the passenger side door. From the far side of my Chevy, I put two shots through the back window of the Olds with my civilian piece, a vintage Colt .73 Peacemaker. The first shot was to break the glass and reduce the risk of deflection; the second shot was to take out the passenger with a bullet to the left shoulder.

  The driver flattened out on the front seat, probably being bled all over by his wounded buddy.

  I hollered, “Out of there now, fellas. First fling your guns far out through the window, then you come out slow and with your hands up. Once you do that, you spread eagle on the ground.”

  Silence.

  One minute passed, then another.

  I yelled again, “The gun through the window, and you follow, or I’m going to start shooting again.”

  Two shots rang out.

  The interior of the surviving windows of the Olds were sprayed with blood now.

  Frowning, I gave it a minute.

  Two.

  I crept over to the Olds, Colt at the ready.

  The driver had shot his passenger, then turned his gun on himself.

  Two head shots.

  What the hell?

  Professionals wouldn’t tote around wallets with identification. These fellas did.

  “Joseph Brown” of Alameda.

  “John Green” of Oakland.

  Right.

  I dug deeper. Yes, these suckers were very much amateur hour. In hidden wallet compartments meant for storing “get-away cash,” I found their real identification cards.

  The driver was Max Veidt. His partner was Dieter Dönitz. Max had killed himself and Dieter with a Luger.

  I checked the bloodstained glove compartment, then under the seats, careful to keep my sports jacket clear of all that dripping blood and brain matter.

  Sirens in the distance: maybe they were headed my way, but maybe somebody else had their own little blood mystery unfolding a few blocks away.

  I slipped the men’s wallets into my pockets, then swiftly patted down the corpses. In Max’s shirt pocket I found a single slip of paper:

  A.V., Biltmore Hotel

  506 S. Grand Avenue

  Room 603

  The Biltmore. And, apparently, a neighbor of mine. I slipped the paper into my shirt pocket and fled the scene.

  ***

  The present desk clerk at the Biltmore, fortuitously new to me, seemed to think he should be paid some gelt for information. His approach rubbed me the wrong way.

  I said, “You really want to shakedown a cop?” I flashed an honorary LAPD badge Jack Webb gave me after some under-the-gun script-doctoring I’d delivered for the staccato, laconic Joe Friday. I think old Jack has boxes of those damned badges, passing them out to Hollywood scribes like candy bars.

  Either way, it was a good enough hunk of tin to fool the hotel wage-slave. I said, “Room 603, who’s in there, hombre?”

  The clerk, of a sudden come-all-over-obsequious, checked his registration book. “Checked out an hour ago.”

  “His name?”

  He squinted, said, “Hector Lassiter.”

  “Come again?”

  “His name was Hector Lassiter.”

  “Let me see that damned book.” I spun the registration book around. Sure enough, it was my name, but nothing close to my handwriting. And it sure didn’t gibe with those initials on that slip of paper I took off the dead driver of the Olds.

  I pushed the book back across the desk to the clerk. “Has that room been cleaned yet?”

  “Probably not.”

  I snapped my finger and held out my hand, palm up. “Pony up the key, ace.”

  ***

  The bed was turned down and the sheets rumpled. I scooped up the note pad to check later for any writing impressions.

  I emptied the wastepaper basket on the floor and sorted. Some tissue paper, a spent matchbook from Chicote’s. That was one of my old Madrid haunts back when I could still go to Spain. I found an empty cigarette pack—a European brand—HB, or Haus Bergmann smokes. German coffin nails. I slipped the empty HB pack into the pocket of my sports jacket.

  After checking my watch, I decided to give the room five more minutes of my time. There was a newspaper on the writing table with an empty Coca-Cola bottle. I flipped through the L.A. Times, looking for anything underlined, circled or torn out I might be able to check against a pristine copy.

  Nada, nada and nada.

  Whoever had been here had taken a shot at the crossword puzzle, abandoning all hope of cracking that sucker about a third through after several screw-ups in unforgiving fountain pen.

  I moseyed back downstairs and tossed the key to the clerk. “Any outgoing calls this guy placed?”

  He frowned and turned his back on me, digging through paper. He handed me a single sheet with three numbers written on it.

  The first two phone numbers were identical and placed to another hotel on Rodeo Drive.

  The third call had been placed to Sam Ford at eight o’clock last night, just about the time Duff and I were “christening” my Bel Air.

  I headed back up to my own room. Someone was crouching by my door. I slowed, reaching for my gun. A man was sprawled there on the ground. Wary, I kept a hand on the butt of my Colt and eased up next to the body on the floor. I squeezed the man’s earlobe, bringing him back around.

  Son of a bitch if it wasn’t Fenton Young. He had a black eye now… and a fat lip. Dried blood at both nostrils. He groaned and cupped his swollen, bruised eye. “What now, you sorry son of a bitch? Who hit you? And what are you doing outside my room? I told you—”

  “Government me
n,” he snarled. Young whimpered and pressed his hand harder to his eye. “Some crazy men stopped me. They beat me! They were dressed in black suits and ties. They said they were on official business. Wanted me to tell them something about you and some German man.”

  Black suits and ties.

  Hm. FBI? CIA? Six-of-one, a-half-dozen of the other.

  I helped the bastard up, said, “So someone is trying to get to me through you, huh, Fent? Let this be a lesson to you. You’re not the only mouth-breather bent on the notion of harassing me, dumbass. And what were you up to, anyway? Trying to break into my room maybe? Guess so, given you’re at my doorstop. Well, learn a lesson here. It’s not just me you have to sweat when you nose into my affairs. I’ve got enemies by the truckload.” I shrugged. “Guess I just live that kind of life. You stay out of it, now, yeah?”

  “I need a doctor,” Young said.

  “Sure you do,” I said. “I’ll ask the hotel detective to see you get some help just as soon as I call down to have him haul your ass away from here for trying to burgle my room. I mean to see you do some time for this one, sport.”

  40

  I drove to Rodeo Drive, foot heavy on the gas. I was squeezing in the trip before my scheduled meeting with Sam and his potential star who’d play “Hank” in The Judas Kiss.

  My Jack Webb badge got the names of those registered to the room “Hector Lassiter” had called from the Biltmore, the two men who had followed me from Duff’s apartment.

  “I’m going to need to search the room,” I said, hand out for the key.

  ***

  Nothing too revelatory emerged: anonymous clothes, spare ammo for that Luger.

  The boys had bypassed the requisite hotel Bible in the bureau in favor of a copy of Mein Kampf that one had packed.

  This chilly epiphany tardily ambushed me:

  They followed me from Duff’s apartment.

  They’ve been watching Duff’s!

  The cops would probably find this place, eventually. They’d start checking in-and outbound calls. I couldn’t risk a phone call to Duff from this room.

  I hit a payphone in the lobby. I called the airport. I had Duff paged. She said, “Hector? What’s wrong?”