“That’s probably not a bad idea.” I said. “I’ll be back shortly.” I left the office and walked the hallway, waiting for the bloated feeling to pass, one way or the other. I opened the door to the stairway and walked down one flight and then back up. Somewhere in the stairwell, it passed—literally.
By the time I had walked back up one flight to the third floor and down the hall to the office, my stomach was feeling much better. I breathed easier and let myself back into the office. Dad was sitting at my desk and there was a man sitting across from him in the client’s chair. I approached Dad and he immediately stopped talking to the client and introduced me.
“Simon Fuller,” Dad said, “I’d like you to meet my son, Elliott Cooper.”
Fuller stood, turned toward me and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Elliott,” Fuller said. “I was just telling Clay here that I think I’d like to hire you both.”
Gloria stood now and shot me a glance. “Mr. Fuller,” I said. “Have you met my wife, Gloria yet?”
Fuller turned toward her and offered his hand. Gloria hesitated momentarily.
“Mr. Fuller,” I said, “has Dad mentioned that Gloria is also a licensed private investigator with all the skills that we have and in some cases more so?”
“I don’t believe he mentioned that,” Fuller said, smiling at Gloria, his hand still extended. “Naturally I’d want your participation as well, Mrs. Cooper.”
Gloria took his hand now and shook it. “Thank you, Mr. Fuller. We work best as a team and I’m sure we can get the results that you want.”
Gloria and I pulled two more chairs up beside Fuller’s and listened as he relayed his problem to Dad.
“Mr. Cooper,” Fuller said. “I’d like to hire you and your team to help me with a problem I’m having. You see, I’m from a little town in Idaho called Caldwell. It’s just twenty miles west of Boise. I’m here looking for my son, Jay, and not having any luck at all.”
Dad took notes on his yellow legal pad as Fuller spoke. “And you’re sure Jay came here to California?” Dad said.
“Not just to California,” Fuller said, “but to Hollywood specifically.” Fuller pulled the wallet from his back pocket and produced a three by five snapshot of a teenage boy and handed it to Dad.
“Do you mind if I make a few copies of this photo?” Dad said.
Fuller nodded. “Sure, go ahead, if you think it’ll help.”
Dad lifted the lid on his desktop scanner, stuck the photo on the plate and closed the lid. He scanned the photo into the laptop and printed three copies, distributing one each to Gloria and me and keeping one for himself.
“Jay came out here to try to get into the movies,” Fuller explained. “That was all he talked about for months before he left home five months ago. He sent letters home regularly but now we hadn’t heard from him in more than a month and I couldn’t reach him at the hotel where he’d been staying. I decided to come down here myself and try to locate him. I’ve been in town for more than a week now, Mr. Cooper, and I can’t find any trace of him.”
“That’s a familiar story,” Dad told Fuller. “Kids come out here by the carload, expecting to break into show business their first week here. Most of them end up going home, broke and defeated. A few of them stay here and find themselves jobs as waitresses, theater ushers, dishwashers, valets and on and on. Very few of them actually achieve any level of success. There’s just too much competition. As a matter of fact, my father, Matt, who started this business in 1946 took on a case very much like this one. He had told me about it on more than one occasion.”
“And what was the outcome of his investigation?” Fuller said.
“My father eventually found the girl and sent her home again,” Dad said. “And we’ll do our best to do the same for you, Mr. Fuller.”
I turned toward Fuller and said, “Mr. Fuller, do you have any information about the last known place your son was seen? Did he send letters or postcards home with a return address? Did he mention working anywhere in Hollywood? Did he mention any friends or co-workers? This is all the kind of information we would need to start looking for Jay.”
Fuller reached into his inside jacket pocket and produced three envelopes and two postcards that had been addressed to him and his wife in Boise. He handed them to me. The two postcards had a return address in the Silver Lake district, near Glendale. One of the letters showed an address on Yucca Avenue, just north of Hollywood Boulevard, near Highland Avenue. The return address on last two letters was from downtown Los Angeles in one of the seedier parts of town. I handed these all to Dad, who copied the postmark dates and return addresses onto his legal pad before handing them all back to Fuller.
“Mr. Fuller,” Gloria said, “do you know how Jay supported himself while he was living here?”
“In one of the letters home,” Fuller said, “Jay said that he’d gotten a part as an unpaid extra in one of those low budget movies that everybody seems to be making these days. I think he said it was something called a slasher film, whatever that is.”
“It’s generally a budget movie with lots of blood and gore,” Dad said. “Purely for shock value and mostly not very good.”
“Well,” I said, “like you said, he was an unpaid extra so he’d have had to find other work just to get by. Did he mention any other jobs?”
“One of the postcards mentioned that he was stocking merchandise at a Lane Bryant store in Beverly Hills,” Fuller said. “Only he didn’t stay there because he said the manager was coming on to him—a male manager, and it made him uncomfortable so he left. I think he was only there a week or two at the most.”
“And after that?” Gloria said.
“Oh, you know,” Fuller said. “The usual. He sold newspapers on the street corner for a while. He told us that he played his guitar for spare change every now and then. During this time we got one letter from him with that Glendale return address on it. He said he’d met a couple of girls named Shelly and Doreen. I never got their last names. I believe the last job he told us about was distributing value coupons door to door.”
“Value coupons?” Dad said.
“Yeah,” Fuller said, “You know, those booklets with fifty coupons in them that give you discounts at some of the area stores. Or they could be good for a free meal when you buy one, that sort of thing. That job was six weeks ago and we haven’t heard from him since.”
“I think we have enough information to start our investigation,” I said. “Is there someplace we can reach you while you’re in town?”
Fuller thought for a moment. “I’m not sure of the name of the hotel,” he said, “but it’s that one up on the hill on Highland Avenue, I think it is. There’s a winding set of cement steps going up to the rooms. Do you know which one I mean?”
“I know the place you mean,” Dad said. “It’s just north of Franklin on the west side of the street.”
“That’s the one,” Fuller said. “I don’t know their phone number, but it really doesn’t matter. I can give you my cell number.”
Dad added Fuller’s cell number to the yellow pad and then stood up. “We’ll get started on this today,” Mr. Fuller,” Dad told him. “We’ll call you when we find something out.”
Fuller stood now, too. He shook Dad’s hand. “Thank you Clay,” he said and then turned to me and extended his hand. “Thank you, too, Elliott.” He turned to Gloria. “I’m sure you’ll show them both how it’s done, won’t you, Gloria?”
“You bet,” Gloria said. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Fuller. If Jay’s in town we’ll find him for you.”
“I feel better already,” Fuller said, before he left the office.
Dad and Gloria and I huddled around my desk. “I think we’d better split up,” Dad said. “We can cover more ground faster.” He tore the yellow sheet in three pieces and we each took a former employer. Gloria took the Lane Bryant lead, Dad said he’d check out the two girls from Glendale and I decided to pay another visit to the movie studio to find out
about that slasher movie and who the extras were. I didn’t see any way of tracking down the newspaper selling job. It could have been any of a number of those rags with mostly ads in them that they almost gave away for free on the street corners. There was also no way to find out about Jay Fuller’s panhandling venture with the guitar.
We all left the office and went our separate ways from the parking lot. Gloria headed west to Beverly Hills and pulled into the parking lot behind the Lane Bryant store on Pico Boulevard. She entered the store through the back door and walked directly toward the information counter near the front of the store. She asked the clerk behind the counter if she could speak with the store manager. The clerk buzzed her manager on the phone and asked Gloria to wait right here.
“My name is Bill Fischler,” the man who had approached Gloria told her. “I’m the manager here, may I help you?”
“Mr. Fischler,” Gloria said, handing the man her business card, “my name is Gloria Cooper and my company is looking into the disappearance of one of your former employees, Jay Fuller.”
“Jay Fuller,” Fischler said, trying to recall the name. “I don’t recall anyone by than name having worked here.
Gloria produced the scanned photo of Jay and held it up in front of Fischler. “Ring any bells now, Mr. Fischler?”
Fischler flushed a little and pretended to suddenly remember. “Ah yes,” he said. “I do recall the lad. He didn’t stay with us very long. I’m afraid he was only here for a week or ten days, something like that. I haven’t seen him since then. I’m afraid I can’t help you, Miss…”
“Cooper,” Gloria said. “Mrs. Cooper. You have my card, Mr. Fischler. If you see him or if anything else occurs to you, please give us a call at that number.”
“Certainly,” Fuller said, turning and walking back in the direction he’d come. He never even said good bye.
Dad drove east to Glendale to a house near Silver Lake. It was a two-story bungalow with a full front porch and detached garage. Dad parked at the curb, climbed the six steps to the front door and rang the doorbell. A blond woman in her mid-twenties answered the door and said, “Right, on your way, guv’nor. We’re not buying anything today.” She was obviously English, from the thick Cockney accent he had detected.
From over her shoulder Dad heard a more American-sounding voice yell, “Who is it, Doreen?”
“It’s one of them door-to-door solicitors,” Doreen said.
Dad shook his head and produced my business card. “I’m not selling anything, I promise,” Dad said. “I’m looking for Jay Fuller. We’re trying to find him for his father. He’s worried about Jay.”
Doreen took the card and looked it over, handing it back to me. “Well, ‘e’s not ‘ere,” she said.
Just then the other woman came to the door and opened it wider. She was a brunette, perhaps a few years younger than the blond English lady. “Hello,” she said, in a much friendlier voice. I couldn’t help overhearing what you and Doreen were talking about. Won’t you come in?”
Dad stepped past a scowling Doreen, who obviously still didn’t trust him. “You must be Shelly,” Dad said, handing the business card to her now. She looked it over and didn’t hand it back to him.
“That’s right,” she said, extending her hand. “Shelly Lorenz and I guess you’ve already met Doreen Shacklock. So, you’re looking for Jay, are you?”
Dad nodded. “I understand that he stayed here with you two for a while a few months ago,” he said.
Shelly nodded at the fond memory of their former house guest. “Yes,” she said. “Jay was a real delight. He was always playing that guitar of his and he always had a smile for you. I always wondered whatever became of him.”
“When was that he stayed here with you?” Dad said, pulling his notepad from his pocket and producing a pen.
“Let’s see now,” Shelly said. “When was that, Doreen?” She turned to me and added, “Doreen would probably remember better than I would. After all, they were an item for a while there.”
“I haven’t a clue,” Doreen said, avoiding the ‘item’ comment. “A few months back, I’d say.”
“I remember now,” Shelly said. “I met him on the Sunset Strip with another girlfriend of mine and brought him home with me. He said he had no place to stay, so we let him stay with us for a couple of weeks. He didn’t have a job and Doreen and I always paid for his meals. I guess he got tired of that arrangement and finally left one day. Neither of us has seen him since that day. I’m sorry we couldn’t be of more help to you.”
“Do you know of any other people he might have contacted out here?” Dad said. “Or maybe you heard if he was working someplace?”
“Like I said, Mr. Cooper,” Shelly explained. “We never saw or heard from him after he left here, but he did tell us of one guy he’d met while he was working as an extra in some movie.” She turned to Doreen. “What was that fella’s name where Jay stayed before I met him? Oh, you remember. It was that curly-headed guy from Michigan. Dan or Don, no it was Ron. Ron Schuster. That was it.”
“Schussler,” Doreen said, correcting Shelly. “And I only remember because I thought at the time how it rhymed with hustler.
Dad made a note of Ron’s name and asked if they knew where Mr. Schussler lived. They both shook their heads.
“I never heard the address,” Shelly said, “but Jay mentioned some apartment building on Yucca Avenue.”
Dad checked his notes. “That wouldn’t be sixty-seven fifty-five Yucca Avenue, would it?” he said, reading the address off my yellow slip.
Shelly shrugged. “Could be,” she said. “But like I said, I never did know the actual address. Just that it was near Highland Avenue in Hollywood.”
“Well,” Dad said, heading for their front door, “thank you both for your time and information. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“No bother at all,” Shelly said.
Doreen seemed to have softened a bit since I first met her. “Tell ‘im to come by, if you see ‘im.”
“Thanks,” Dad said. “I’ll do that. Good bye, ladies.”
Dad headed back into Hollywood and drove west on the boulevard to Highland and turned right. Yucca was just a block north and the sixty-seven hundred block was right off Highland. Ron Schussler’s apartment was in the middle of the building up a flight of stairs and to the right. Dad rang the bell and waited. A man came to the door a few seconds later but didn’t open it. Instead he said from behind the closed door, “Who is it?”
Dad pulled out his I.D. and shield and held it up to the peep hole. A moment later the door opened and Dad was looking at a curly-haired young man, perhaps twenty or twenty-two. He was dressed in cut-off jeans, a Mickey Mouse tee shirt and sandals. He invited Dad in. Dad introduced himself and the kid confirmed that he was, indeed Ronald Schussler.
“I’d ask you to sit,” the kid said, but as you can see, everything’s packed up. I’m moving out tomorrow.”
“Had enough of the movie business?” Dad said.
He gave me that how’d-you-know look and said, “How’d you know?”
“I’ve been to a few places today,” Dad said. “My two partners have also been asking around. We’re working for Simon Fuller. He’s hired us to find his son, Jay. He tells us that Jay had sent home a letter with this return address. Had he been staying here with you, Mr. Schussler?”
Ron nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Jay was here for a couple of days, but he was starting to cramp my style, if you know what I mean. I asked him to leave and I didn’t hear from him again for about a week. He called to let me know he was staying with two girls he’d met on The Strip. He wanted to thank me for kicking him out. He said if I hadn’t he’d never have met the two girls. Funny how it all works out, isn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Dad said. “I understand that you and Jay worked as extras in the same movie for a few days. Is that right?”
“Sure,” Ron said. “There were lots of kids in that movie. No one made a dime but we al
l had a lot of fun.”
Ron’s face gave away something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. He excused himself and walked over to the refrigerator and withdrew a small bottle and laid it on the kitchen counter. From a black zipper bag he produced a hypodermic needle and a one inch square pad of gauze. He must have seen something in Dad’s face because he quickly smiled and explained that he was diabetic and that he needed to give himself a shot of insulin. Dad’s face eased and Ron tipped an alcohol bottle onto the gauze pad and rubbed a small patch of skin on his stomach. He pinched that patch of skin with his thumb and forefinger and quickly jabbed the needle into himself, pressing the plunger down and withdrawing the syringe. He breathed easier now, returned the small bottle to the refrigerator and zipped up the black bag with the syringe inside.
“I’m sorry,” Ron said. “Now what was that you were saying about Jay?”
“I was asking if you knew where he might be now,” Dad said.
“Like I told you,” Ron said, “I talked with him on the phone, but I never saw him again after he left here that night. You don’t suppose anything’s happened to him, do you?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Dad said. “Thank you for your help. Good luck with whatever you decide to do next.”
“What I’m going to do next is go back to Southfield and forget about Hollywood,” Ron said. “Michigan is a much more normal place to live, believe me.”
Dad left the apartment and got back into his car. The office was only six block away on Hollywood Boulevard so Dad decided to wait there until he heard from Gloria and me.
I pulled up to the gate at the movie studio and rolled my window down. The guard recognized me from this morning and smiled. I asked for directions to the main office and told him I wanted to see the head of personnel.
“Thinking of trying your hand at acting?” the guard said.
I laughed. “No,” I said, “I need to find out about one of the extras that worked on a recent film. Who should I ask for?”
The guard ducked his head back into the guard shack, grabbed a clipboard and turned to me. “That would be Barbara Albright,” he said. “Straight ahead and turn right at the second intersection. Building J on your right.”
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 241