by Kevin Olson
A coil of rope lies in a corner with some scrap lumber. Another rope hangs down in the corner, next to the black wall. Dumont tugs on it and realizes that it isn’t rope at all. It is an electrical cord that is looped through a pulley. The pulley is rigged to a series of metal arms high above the floor. Dumont plugs the electrical cord into a socket, but nothing seems to happen.
Dumont’s eyes adjust to the dim light. He sees a ladder bolted to the wall opposite to where he came in. He crosses the floor and scales the ladder. About sixty feet above the floor the ladder reaches a catwalk that runs along the wall and then crosses the stage suspended from the ceiling.
Dumont notices a black object in the corner of the stage next to the black wall. He walks the catwalk to the corner. Something large is wrapped in black cloth with a coil of wire lying next to it. One end of the wire runs underneath the black cloth. The other end runs through the pulley that is hanging from the metal rails.
Dumont pulls the fabric off the shape in the corner and a glowing light shines from under the fabric. A luminescent figure is revealed.
“The Specter!” Dumont exclaims, his eyes widening. The spectral apparition looks just like the one from Kaiser’s Ghosts.
In the quiet corner of the empty Stage 7, glowing brightly, is the Studio Spectre. Dumont inspects it. The wire attaches to the Specter and runs through the pulley and down to the ground below. There are strings running off the arms and head like a giant marionette.
Dumont softly chuckles, “It’s a puppet.” His expression darkens, “A big puppet that helped commit murder....”
Dumont rewraps the Specter, unplugs it, and exits the stage. He goes off in search of a phone.
A gorilla nods a friendly hello as Dumont crosses the Triumph lot heading for the commissary. A group of Mayan girls is waiting in line. Jean is laughing and chatting with the group. He sees her, but it is too late to evade her glance. Her eye catches Dumont for a moment.
Jean eyes him, flashes a bright smile, “Jethro Dumont, how interesting to find you here.”
Dumont plays it strong. “I’m helping a friend out,” he says, leaning in close to whisper, “with this nasty business. You know, the murder.”
“How is that coming along?” Jean asks, returning the lean.
“How about I tell you over lunch? I’m buying,” Dumont says, looking to the cashier. He points at their two trays and pays.
Jean excuses herself from her Mayan costumed friends. They give Dumont a once over and give Jean their seal of approval. The pair finds some seats at an empty table in a shaded courtyard.
“So who’s your friend?” Jean asks, taking a bite of her grilled fish.
Dumont laughs, a little taken aback by Jean’s directness. On the other hand, it is one of the things he likes most about her. The directness, and the red hair, and the green eyes, and her perfect skin. Tan and flawless under the strapless Mayan get-up she is wearing. Jean blushes, and Dumont realizes he’s staring. “Herman,” He says. “Herman K. Herman is an old Harvard classmate.”
“Really? He offered me a part in the Mayan Mummy.”
“I’m sure you’ll be great. How’s the director?” Dumont asks, diverting attention off Herman.
Jean looks up past her fork. “He seems distracted. He’s dating the star, you know, Fay Reynolds.” Jean leans in and whispers, “But I hear that she is two-timing him with the cinematographer.”
“Are they serious?” Dumont asks.
“I don’t know. Some of the other gals think that she is playing them both.”
Dumont lets that sink in. He is lost in thought for a moment.
“Have you figured out who the Specter is yet?” Jean asks.
Dumont looks at her. She has caught him completely off guard.
“Well?” she says.
He flashes a look around, but there is no one else within earshot. “No. Well, yes. Sort of.” He stammers. “I’m pretty sure, I think.”
Jean smiles, “Mr. Dumont, are you nervous?”
“No. Well, I, uh. Look. I found the Specter in Stage 7. The whole thing is a fake. Movie magic. I don’t know exactly how it was pulled off or who is responsible, but I am certain that the Studio Specter is a crock of bull conjured up to scare Miss Reynolds off the lot.”
“Really? And what makes you so sure I can be scared off?” a familiar voice says.
Jean and Dumont whirl around, startled to see Fay Reynolds standing by their table. She’s got her hands on her hips and is looking feisty.
Dumont is knocked further off balance. He stumbles to his feet and says, “Miss Reynolds! I, uh, I’m surprised to meet you here. So the Specter doesn’t have you scared?”
“Me? Heavens no! That was acting!” she says with a forced laugh. “They’re begging me to stay. Jean, you haven’t introduced me to your friend.”
Jean stands and says, “Fay Reynolds, meet Jethro Dumont.”
Fay says, “Mr. Dumont, it is my pleasure,” and holds out her hand.
Dumont takes it and she guides her hand up to his lips. He kisses it without thinking. He glances at Jean. She looks jealous. Fay sees this, too. Fay extracts her fingers, turns, and walks away. Dumont watches her. Fay looks every bit the movie star in her tight skirt and high heels.
Jean is watching Dumont watch Fay. She walks over to him and pushes his jaw shut. “Back to business, tiger,” she says, throwing a nasty look at Fay.
Dumont turns sheepishly back to Jean. “Sorry. Now the question is, when was she acting? On the set, or right here?”
Jean laughs. “I’m not sure. And I’m not sure knowing would help us find out who is behind the Specter.”
“I’m quite sure it is either Freddy Dmytryk, or Linn Edwards,” Dumont says. “But which one? Unless it is Fay Reynolds…”
Jean says, “Oh, she’s good, she’s very good. One look and you are loopy.”
“Perhaps if we find the motive we will find the man,” Jean says.
“Now you’re sounding like Maga,” Dumont says.
“What?” Jean says.
Dumont says, “Never mind. You follow Edwards and I’ll follow Dmytryk. One of them is bound to show their cards sooner or later.” Dumont says, but he thinks to himself, “I hope sooner.”
Jean visits the guard shack and the studio gate. She talks up the security captain about Linn Edwards, trying to get some useful information. Jean pretends to be romantically interested in Linn, and asks the guard some questions.
Chapter 4
The Dream Factory
Dumont heads to Freddy Dmytryk’s office. When he gets there the office door is open a crack and the secretary is away. Dmytryk is in the inner office, screaming on the phone. “No! He can’t have her. I don’t care who he is, I’m Freddy Dmytryk for Pete’s sake.” Dumont silently steps into the outer office. Dmytryk continues his rant, “Look, I am paying you a lot of money and I want that bitch all to myself.”
Dumont watches from the shadows, stunned. Dmytryk paces all over the office. He listens on the phone for a moment and is getting worked up again. “No. No. NO! He is not getting her. There is no sharing. I’ll kill her before I will let him have her.” Dmytryk slams down the phone.
Dumont eases his way out of the office, unnoticed. Herman K. Herman has an office in the same building. That is Dumont’s destination.
In the meantime, Jean has caught up to Fay. Jean sees the starlet sneak in the back door of Stage 7. After a moment, Jean peeks in. She sees Fay Reynolds and Linn Edwards talking.
Fay says, “You’ve got to do something. That friend of the producer’s – the guy that fixed The Last Dinosaur problem – he’s getting too close. And his little friend Jean Farrell, too. She’s in on the fix with Dumont.”
Linn says, “I think it’s time the Studio Specter disappears onc
e and for all.” He crosses the stage and climbs the ladder up to the catwalk sixty feet above the stage floor. He reaches the catwalk and approaches the hidden form of the Specter.
Suddenly, the shape under the black cloth moves. Linn Edwards screams, “The Specter!” and jumps back, nearly falling off the high catwalk. The black shape rises and sloughs off the black cloth, its brightly glowing form revealed. The Specter starts moaning. It shuffles toward Linn. He screams again.
“What the blazes is going on up there?” Fay shrieks.
“It’s the Specter. It’s alive!” he says.
“You’re scaring me, Linney. Get that thing down here!”
The glowing Specter moans louder and shambles toward Linn. The frightened cameraman crosses the catwalk. He trips on a cable and almost falls seventy feet to the cement floor. He hooks his arm on the catwalk railing and hangs tight. The Specter shambles across the catwalk approaching the dangling cameraman. The Specter claws at Linn. The man screams and fights his way back onto the catwalk. The Specter keeps coming.
Down below, Fay looks up in horror as the Specter is relentlessly pursuing Linn. Then she notices that a cable is trailing behind the Specter; the cable that loops over the pulley and trails down to the floor. She races to the wall and unties the cable from a cleat bolted to the wall. Fay looks up. The Specter is bearing down on her man, tearing and pulling on his arms and legs. Linn desperately hangs onto the railing.
Fay pulls the black cable with all her might. “Hang on, Linnie!” she yells. The spunky starlet yanks again and the Specter lifts up off the catwalk.
“Keep at it Fay!” Linn yells encouragingly.
The Specter has been lifted just far enough away from Linn for him to get on the catwalk and make a run for the ladder. Linn scrambles down the ladder – sliding half the time – and lands on the stage floor.
Fay has the Specter swinging out over the open air. She runs to the middle of the stage to keep him away from the catwalk and the ladder.
Suddenly, Fay trips over a piece of lumber and falls to the ground, the cable slipping out of her hands. The Specter plummets toward the floor, the cable trailing up. Twenty feet... thirty feet... fifty feet the Specter falls. Then he stops, having grabbed the cable in his own arms. He now descends – hand over hand – down the cable.
Linn is sliding down the ladder, panic in his eyes. He reaches the stage floor. “We better get out of here, Fay!” Linn says. He grabs her around the waist. Fay is just staring at the Specter. Linn bodily grabs her and drags her out of the main door of Stage 7.
Jean rushes in the back door of the stage as the Specter is reaching the floor. She pulls her gun on the strange form. “Hold it right there,” she says.
“Please. It is I,” the Specter says in a voice that surprises Jean with its softness and strange phrasing. Jean keeps the gun trained on the glowing form.
The Specter reaches its arms up and pulls off its luminescent head.
“Miss Farrell, we really should be chasing after the killers,” Tsarong says. He shucks off the rest of the Specter costume and they race out the airplane hanger-sized door of Stage 7. Linn and Fay are a hundred yards ahead. Tsarong and Jean pour on the speed.
Freddy Dmytryk is putting a beautiful black Labrador into the back seat of his car. An angry man runs toward the car. His name is James Harold and he is the animal wrangler on The Mayan Mummy.
“Mr. Dmytryk! Wait!” Harold says.
Dmytryk looks up and sees the man coming. Dmytryk slams the door as Harold approaches. The director gives the man the stink eye. “Stay away from my dog!” Dmytryk says. “I told you on the phone that she is mine, there is no way DeMille is getting this dog.”
Dumont bursts into Herman’s office suite, racing right past his stunned secretary. She stammers, but doesn’t quite get the “Wait” past her beautiful lips before Dumont is in Herman’s private office. The Mogul has a gorgeous office; all oak and glass and modern art on the walls. Paperwork covers Herman’s desk and large windows show off the studio gates behind him.
Herman has the phone up to his ear. He looks up from some contracts, startled. “Jeez, Jethro, what’s the hurry?” he says.
“How much longer does Fay Reynolds have on her contract?” Dumont asks.
“Two years and seven months. Why?”
“I have a feeling that she is trying to shorten that!” Dumont says.
Two figures get Dumont’s attention. Through the window he sees Linn and Fay race into the parking lot. Moments later Tsarong and Jean follow.
“If you’ll excuse me, Herman,” Dumont says and rushes out the door, nearly bowling over the drop-dead secretary.
“Sure. I’ll be fine,” Herman K. Herman says, looking back to his paperwork. “No problems here. Stop by any time....”
Dumont throws open the door to a stairwell and starts to go down. He quickly changes his mind and heads up. Dumont opens his briefcase on the run and pulls out a vial. He downs the salts within and lets the vial drop. He continues his frantic climb. He pulls the green robe out of the briefcase and throws it on. He paws the kata free, slamming the case shut. There is no time to apply the make-up that transforms him into Dr. Pali.
“That’s just it. That is not your dog. She belongs to the studio,” Harold says.
Dmytryk moves to the driver’s door and opens it. “She was in my movie and she is mine. I cast her. She would be nowhere without me.” Dmytryk gets in the car. Harold tries opening the back door, but it is locked.
“Aw, c’mon, Mr. Dmytryk. If that dog goes missing, I’ll lose my job,” Harold says as he moves around to stand in front of the car.
Dmytryk starts the engine, revs it a few times. Harold stays put.
Another quick flight up and the Green Lama crashes out the fire exit onto the roof. He dashes across the roof and sees the starlet and the cameraman clawing their way into a tan sedan. The Green Lama takes aim and hurls the briefcase off the roof.
Linn Edwards jams the key into the ignition of the tan sedan and the starter cranks away. “C’mon!” he shouts.
“Get us out of here!” Fay cries.
The engine catches and Linn throws the car in reverse. At that moment, the briefcase hits, the windshield smashes, and shattered glass showers the occupants of the car.
Fay screams. Linn squeals the tires and the car lurches forward.
“Give me the dog. She belongs to Triumph,” Harold yells.
Dmytryk couldn’t be angrier. “This bitch is mine!” Dmytryk throws the car in gear and hits the gas yelling, “Get out of the way!”
Harold dives out of the way. Dmytryk’s car misses him by scant inches. Harold gets up and watches the car race off the lot. Suddenly, a blaring horn gets his attention. A tan sedan burns rubber through the parking lot and heads straight for him. The animal wrangler barely avoids the sedan as Linn Edwards and Fay Reynolds race by. Harold shakes his fist in frustration.
On the roof, the Green Lama watches the sedan holding Fay and Linn. The car tries to leave, but its path is blocked by a large studio fire truck. Jean and Tsarong rush across the parking lot toward the sedan. The Green Lama takes a few steps back away from the edge of the roof and hopes that the salts have had time to work.
After a few softly spoken words and few clicks of the prayer wheel around his neck, the Green Lama runs full speed toward the edge of the five story building and launches himself into the air. While his body is active, he has calmed his mind and he soars through the air, the radioactive salts doing their work, temporarily giving him mild levitation powers. He floats slowly toward the ground but the speed of his jump takes him toward the gate as well.
Linn Edwards is wearing out the sedan’s tires as he screeches around the ladder truck. He shoots out the entrance ignoring a shouting guard. The car hurtles down the street.
&n
bsp; Jean Farrell leaps up to the open air cab of the fire truck and says, “Excuse me, I need to borrow your truck.”
She pulls a burly fireman out of the driver’s seat. He tumbles to the pavement. Jean hops in, jams the truck into gear, and floors the gas pedal.
The Green Lama floats down and just manages to grab the last rung of the ladder on the back of the fire truck as it speeds away.
The Green Lama takes aim and hurls the briefcase off the roof.
Jean sees the sedan make a hard right onto Western Avenue and guns the motor. At the back of the truck, the Green Lama climbs up onto the ladder and crawls along it toward the front of the truck.
Jean sees him in the rearview mirror and smiles. “I’ve been waiting for you to show up,” she shouts while he scrambles along the ladder toward her. She flicks a switch and the siren starts wailing.
In the sedan, Linn shoves the briefcase back out through the hole in the windshield. It slides off the hood and clatters onto the street, bouncing its way across traffic. The case is crushed by an oncoming car. The Green Lama winces, hoping that he won’t need any more radioactive salts. He has only a few precious minutes left.
Fay looks back and sees the truck coming. “Would you lose them already?” she yells.
Linn pushes pieces of the broken windshield glass out of the way. His eyes go wide. “Red light! Hang on!” he shouts, twisting the steering wheel to avoid the Sunset Boulevard cross traffic. A car clips the driver’s side rear fender and wheel, sending the sedan into a slide. Linn somehow manages to clear the intersection and straighten the wheels. His foot tromps the accelerator and the sedan rockets toward Griffith Park, the left rear tire a bit wobbly in the crushed fender.
The Green Lama scrambles along the ladder, finally arriving at its front, perched above Jean. She looks up and shouts above the siren, “Hang on!”
A car runs the red at Sunset, darting out in front of her. Jean jams on the brakes. The Green Lama barely manages to hook his arm in the rungs as the force of the brakes sends the extension ladder slamming out. It hammers to a stop ten feet past the front of the truck. The force of the stop jars the Green Lama loose and he flips off the end, hanging by the last rung out in front of the racing fire truck. He dangles there with the roadway rushing under his feet, facing Jean in the open cab of the truck. He looks at her and says, “Don’t lose them.”