The Timid Traitor (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 10)

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The Timid Traitor (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 10) Page 6

by Frank W. Butterfield


  "Tell me why I shouldn't call the cops and have you thrown out on your ass?"

  "Because I have a business proposal for you."

  "Yeah?" The man, whose face was always red, bit down on an unlit cigar and scowled at me.

  "Yeah. Mind if I have a seat?"

  "Sure. Why the hell not?"

  I walked into his office and closed the door behind me. Taking the seat furthest from his desk, I removed my hat and said, "I have an honest-to-God business proposal for you. I think you're going to like it."

  He sat back in his chair and glowered, "That so?"

  I nodded. "Yeah. Only thing is, I need you to answer one question for me before I make you the offer."

  "What's that?"

  "What happened to Crawford's blue movie?"

  Mannix looked down at his desk for a moment and then back up at me. It was the first time I could ever remember him being surprised by something I'd said. "There ain't no such thing, and anyone who tells you different is lying. Why do you ask?"

  "Someone here in your accounting office is trying to extort her for money over it." I'd called the Vermont number from the pay phone in Ventura. The man who answered it had identified himself as a Mr. Reynolds. I'd said I had a message from his friends down in San Pedro. He'd hissed some obscenities at me and hung up. When I called the personnel department, posing as a Mr. Jones who was checking credit references, they'd confirmed that Harvey Reynolds, 49, of Claremont, did indeed work in their accounting department and had done so since 1938.

  "Who?"

  "Harvey Reynolds."

  "That asswipe?" He shook his head. "Don't think so. He's like a goddam glass of warm milk."

  "That may be the case, but some clown tried to shake me down last night and had Reynolds's work number in his wallet."

  Mannix looked at me for a long moment. I could tell he was trying to figure out my angle. I didn't have one other than trying to save Miss Crawford the hassle of being blackmailed. I still wasn't convinced it would do Ben any good. Finally, he asked, "You want me to call him in and ask?"

  I shook my head. "I'll handle it on my end."

  A noticeable wave of relief passed over his face, which was a definite first. "Now, what's your proposal?"

  "I wanna buy the rights to It Was Raining Then."

  Mannix opened his mouth in surprise, and his unlit cigar fell into his lap.

  . . .

  I tucked the envelope into my coat pocket as I got into Ben's big Chrysler. I'd just written a check to Metro for fifty grand to secure an option to buy the rights to the film at a price to be decided upon at a future date, but no later than ninety days hence, as the legalese said. I had the feeling that the option would be rolled into a sale contract with no further cost. In other words, I now owned the rights to produce a movie. It felt kinda good, to be honest.

  As I pulled out of the Metro lot, I made my way to Washington and then proceeded north to La Cienaga. The film lab the box had come from was at that corner.

  I parked the car in one of the spots marked "Visitor" and made my way through the blacked-out glass front door. As the door opened, it rang a small bell hanging from the ceiling.

  I was standing in a compact lobby of sorts. The room wasn't dark but it was dimly lit for whatever reason. There was a very sharp smell of film processing chemicals in the air. I walked up to the empty counter of shellacked wood and waited.

  After about thirty seconds, a lean man in rolled-up shirt sleeves came out from behind a thick black curtain. I immediately recognized him. Peter Markinson was carrying a medium-sized box that held several of the same kind of square boxes that he'd dropped the night before in the alley behind Shanghai Red's. Without looking up, he asked, "Can I help you?"

  I pulled down the brim of my hat and turned to my right, as if I was looking at the rack of film that stood against the wall and asked in a slightly gruff voice, "You sell sixteen-millimeter film?"

  The man put the box on the counter and said, "Sure. How many do you want?" He began to walk toward the rack.

  "Five."

  "They're twenty-five a pop. You sure?"

  "Yeah."

  "OK, mister." With that, he grabbed five boxes of the film and laid them on the counter. I reached for my wallet, brought out a couple of C-notes, and put it down next to the boxes without looking up. He took the cash, leaned down below the counter for a moment, stood up, and presented me seventy-five in change.

  He asked, "Receipt?" as he put the boxes in a sack.

  "No, thanks." I grabbed the bag and quickly made my way out.

  Opening the passenger door of the big Chrysler, I got in and slid over. Dropping the sack on the passenger seat, I started the engine and peeled out as fast as I could. Keeping one eye on the traffic on Washington and one eye in the rear-view mirror, I felt satisfied the man didn't recognize me. He hadn't come out of the store to chase me down.

  After a couple of blocks, I pulled over and looked up the man's address in the copy of Thomas Brothers that Ben kept in the backseat. I plotted my course and then pulled back into traffic to make my way there.

  . . .

  Markinson lived at 3029 East 5th Street in a small white bungalow in Boyle Heights. His house looked like most of the houses on the street. The street was narrow but there were cars parked along the curb on the south side. I pulled over in front of a cute little house about half a block from Markinson's and slid out from behind the wheel.

  Briskly walking up the street, I made my way up the narrow driveway and slipped around the single-car, stand-alone garage to the back of the house. The kitchen door stood at the top of three wooden steps right at the back corner of the house. The yard was trimmed and watered. It was nice and green in the bright January sun.

  I stood at the back door and knocked. Listening carefully and hearing no movement, I turned the doorknob to see if it was unlocked. To my surprise, it was. So, I let myself in.

  The door opened into a small but bright kitchen. It was that color of light green that had once been standard for any California house built in the 20s. Two things stood out. The room was immaculate. And there were pigs everywhere. Ceramic pigs of every shape and sort were on the green tiled counter, on the kitchen table, and proudly displayed on two wooden shelves along the far wall of the kitchen. For some reason, it occurred to me that all the pigs had a view of the bank of windows that looked out on the driveway. I thought that was very courteous, all things considered.

  Moving past the kitchen and its many porcine occupants, I walked down a short hallway, complete with phone alcove, and into a small but neat sitting room. The furniture wasn't anywhere near new, but it was in good shape and obviously cared for. There was no dust to be seen anywhere, which was remarkable. I had a sudden desire to remove my shoes, in case I was tracking in something unseemly from outside. I decided against doing so in case I needed to get out in a hurry.

  I walked around the sofa and down the small hallway that connected to two bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom contained many more porcine figurines. There were even small soaps of different pastel colors sitting in an oversized brandy snifter. Each soap was in the shape of a pig.

  The back bedroom door was open. I looked in and confirmed it was a bedroom. The double bed was neatly made. A large stuffed fabric pig looked at me accusingly with beady black eyes from the top of the pillows that were tucked under a pink bedspread. It was the only pig in the room.

  I peeked into the small closet and looked through the shoes that were neatly stacked on a couple of shelves. They were all men's and all marked as size eight. They all had the same slightly worn area on the outside of the back heel which would have been expected for a stout man. But given that Markinson was lean, I guessed that he was slightly bowlegged. In any event, the shoes confirmed that only one man lived in the house unless he had a roommate who occupied the front bedroom. I got the sense that no one, of either sex, other than Markinson, was occupying the double bed which was too bad since he wasn
't unattractive.

  I moved to the front bedroom, whose door was closed. Using my handkerchief, I carefully opened the door and discovered what could best be described as a shrine.

  The windows were covered with the kind of black-out curtains once used during the war and now available for those cursed to work the overnight shift who needed to sleep during the day. The only light was coming from a small lamp that sat in the middle of the only table in the room. It was empty, except for the lamp, and positioned against the wall the room shared with the bathroom.

  The walls were covered with framed photographs of Joan Crawford. Many of them were signed. Some were blown up and pinned to the wall instead of being framed. The photos dated from the 20s all the way to the present. It was astonishing, really, to see how truly gorgeous she'd been in the past. Her smiles in the older photos were genuine and she looked happy, even when she was trying to be sultry and not quite pulling it off. It was unfortunate to see how much her professional demeanor had taken on a mask. She had hardened over time which was no surprise considering what Hollywood tended to do to its denizens.

  There were several framed letters from Miss Crawford addressed to Peter Markinson. The earliest one dated back to 1939 and read like a form letter, including a reference to her appearance in The Women. The later ones called him "Peter dear." They were all typewritten. The were all on the same light blue note paper embossed with her Brentwood address at the top of the page. The latest one was dated in November and thanked him for his kindness in sending her a very particular variety of orchids.

  The room, like every other part of the house, was immaculate. I looked in the closet and found it full of numbered boxes. I picked one at random, opened it, and discovered it contained a copy of Our Dancing Daughters on four 16 m.m. reels. That was her first big silent picture at M-G-M. It was the one that made her a star. It was also a movie I remembered one of the maids at our house had been out to see with her boyfriend, my father's chauffeur who, incidentally, had been my first crush. The event of their seeing that particularly scandalous movie along with a whole list of other sins had been continuous grist for the gossip mill among the household staff.

  Looking down on the closet floor, I found a compact 16 m.m. projector. As I studied the boxes, I realized they mentioned the studio in a kind of code. The box I'd looked at was labeled "MGM-10." There were a smaller number of boxes whose labels started with "WB." Those must have been Crawford's movies at Warner Brothers. I then saw one labeled "Rep-1." I figured that was Johnny Guitar, an over-the-top film in blazing Technicolor that had been produced by Republic Pictures and released the year before.

  I stood in the closet for a long moment trying to figure out what else was in there and then wondered if the blue movie was even in the house. My gut said it wasn't. Or, that if it was, it wasn't anywhere near the shrine.

  I put everything back. I knew that a man as immaculate as Markinson would know that someone had been in his house. I did my best to make sure to cover my tracks, but I doubted it would be possible.

  Closing the door to the front bedroom behind me, I walked into the back one again. Standing there for a moment, it didn't make sense that the film would be there, either.

  Walking into the sitting room, I looked around. Markinson had a small television in one corner. It sat on a large lace doily on top of a much older radio cabinet. There was a bay window to the left of the front door. A tall lamp with a frilly shade stood on a medium-sized table in front of the window. On either side of the lamp were two wide-mouthed decorative vases, identical in shape and color and, oddly, free of any porcine images. They were both modern in design and painted a kind of sea-foam green. Using my handkerchief, I gingerly picked each one up in turn. The one on the left was empty. The one on the right contained a small, unboxed spool of 16 m.m. film which I pocketed.

  . . .

  I pulled up in front of the house in Brentwood and wondered, one more time, about the wisdom of what I was about to do. I thought about calling Mike to talk it out with him. For some reason, I felt like I was betraying Markinson. I couldn't put my finger on the reason why.

  Taking a deep breath, I dismissed those concerns, slid out of the car, walked up to the front door, and pressed the door bell.

  After a minute, the maid who'd let us in the day before opened the door and asked, "Yes?"

  I took off my hat and asked, "Is Miss Crawford at home?"

  The maid looked me up and down for a long moment and then sighed. She stepped back and let me in. She said, "Wait," and made her way up the long and dramatic staircase.

  After about five minutes, she came down the stairs and then motioned to me. "Follow me." Leading me back out to the brick patio, she said, "Have a seat." I did just that as she disappeared back into the house.

  As I waited, I looked around the yard. For some reason, in contrast to Markinson's home, I realized hers was a little ragged. The brick apron around the pool had weeds coming through the mortar. I wondered how long it had been since the gardener had been by. It looked like it had been at least two or three weeks.

  The afternoon wasn't warm, but there was no air behind the house. I was feeling a little stuffy. I was used to the constant breeze of living on Nob Hill in San Francisco and began to wave my hat in front of my face.

  "It's a warm day, isn't it?"

  I stood up. She was dressed to the nines in a perfectly tailored dress of similar cut to the one that Ros had been wearing the night before. It was very New Look and cinched around the waist in a way that emphasized her legs perfectly. Her auburn hair was pulled back under a small hat. She also had her full face of make-up on.

  I nodded. "Yes. How are you, Miss Crawford?"

  "I'm late for lunch."

  "I won't take much of your time."

  She looked at her watch pointedly. For some reason, I heard myself say, "May I drive you to your lunch appointment?"

  She looked up and smiled. "Perfect. We can talk along the way."

  . . .

  The restaurant was in Beverly Hills. The name was Chasen's. As we made our way down the hill in Ben's big Chrysler, she mentioned that her regular place, Perino's, was temporarily closed due to a fire. At her direction, we took Sunset to Rodeo and then Santa Monica to Beverly. As I drove, she gossiped non-stop.

  She would ask if I knew so-and-so, as in, "Have you met Jimmy Stewart?" When I would inevitably reply, "No," she would tell me a juicy tidbit or two. The only people she talked about were men in the business that she knew or had worked with. The stories were either about their acting skills or their sex lives. None of it interested me in the least, although I did make a mental note to repeat what she said about Errol Flynn to Carter, who still had a crush on the man. He was going to be disappointed.

  As we pulled up in front of the restaurant, the valet opened her door. "Good afternoon, Miss Crawford. So nice to see you again."

  As she stood, she replied, "Thank you, Jimmy. How's Estelle?"

  Leaving the keys in the ignition, I walked around the back of the car and waited as they talked.

  "She's feeling better. I suggested that lemon juice and cayenne pepper treatment you mentioned and it's really helped her breathing."

  "Wonderful, Jimmy. Please give her my best."

  As she walked towards the door, I handed the man a folded five and said, "Thanks." He tipped his hat to me and winked.

  A doorman opened the door for her and, instinctively, I followed in her wake. As we approached, the maitre d' moved around from his stand with a big smile. "How wonderful to see you again, Miss Crawford."

  "Thank you, Joseph."

  "Your table is waiting for you. Won't you follow me?"

  We moved through the dining room, which was about half full. I saw a couple of faces I knew from the movies but mostly I noticed that people were recognizing me. It suddenly occurred to me the difficult position I was putting her in.

  Once we were seated, a waiter came by for our drink orders. She asked for vodka
and soda, light on the soda. I asked for beer and got a slight frown from her arched eyebrows.

  "Who are you meeting for lunch?" I asked.

  She smiled. "You, of course."

  "You're not afraid to be seen with me in public?"

  She waved away my concern and shook her head. "I don't pay any attention to the papers."

  I nodded. I very much doubted that was the actual case.

  "So, Mr. Williams, what news do you have for me?"

  Right then, the waiter returned with our drinks. We ordered lunch. She asked for a salade niçoise. I had the same.

  Once the waiter was gone, I leaned in and quietly said, "I found the movie and I've destroyed it." The last part wasn't true. It was in the trunk of the car under the spare tire. I still wasn't sure what I was going to do with it.

  "My, you do get fast results, don't you?"

  I smiled and waited. I wanted to find out what she wanted to know before I told her the full details.

  Taking a long drink from her glass, she asked, "Is it true that you've optioned It Was Raining Then?"

  Somewhat surprised, but then again not, I nodded. "I had a meeting with Eddie Mannix this morning." Obviously, the blue film would never get discussed. Her bacon was out of the fire. It was time to move on.

  Looking around, she said, "I wouldn't get on his bad side if I were you."

  I laughed. "This is the first time I've ever been on his good side."

  She smiled and finished off her drink. Within thirty seconds, the waiter had removed the empty glass and replaced it with another.

  The rest of the lunch was more of the same kind of conversation we'd had in the car. Once she'd finished her salad, and four more drinks, I looked at my watch and said, "I'm so sorry, Miss Crawford. I have an appointment I need to get to."

  She smiled, still very much in control of her faculties, and replied, "That's fine, Mr. Williams." She waved her hand and the waiter was instantly at the table. I pulled out my wallet and handed over my Diners' Club card.

 

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