The Hollywood Murders-The Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series-Book 3

by Steven M. Thomas

  “Nancy's mother?” Hearst asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “In fact, it was Nancy who brought the letter to me.”

  “Bring them to me immediately,” the old man said. “I will see to it that they are published tomorrow morning in every newspaper I own.”

  I got lost driving to the Hearst building as usual, but when I did finally get there, I was ushered quickly into his massive office. Half a dozen men dressed in expensive business suits were sitting with Hearst around a giant desk. He introduced them to me as editors, but I didn't bother to memorize their names. One of them took the letters from me as if they were the Holy Grail and scurried away. The others followed behind him, leaving me alone with Hearst.

  “I understand Colonel Kots has The Rose back in order,” the old man said.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Thank you for letting him back onboard. I really think it will be useful.”

  “These killings,” he said. “I am taking them all very personally. I knew all of those women in some form or fashion at one time. I knew Rudolph as well.”

  “I know you are doing everything you can,” I answered.

  Hearst closed his eyes for a moment and I could tell he genuinely was in pain. The old man never shows that to anyone. He seemed vulnerable. I was witnessing a side of him that I am sure very few rarely see.

  “You remember that letter from Adolph Hitler?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I replied. “I am the one who handed it to you.”

  “The Graf,” he said. “It haunts me. I can't help but feel this is a continuation of that nightmare.”

  I wasn't sure how to respond to that or what the hell the old man was talking about, so I just sat there in silence, waiting for him to explain.

  “It was a warning to me,” Hearst said. “That horrible ordeal. The panic. The deaths. It was all directed at me.”

  “We were never able to prove that,” I finally replied. “It was just a theory.”

  “You don't have to prove something that I already believe,” the old man said. “These murders are the same as the Graf.”

  I was speechless. William Randolph Hearst was suggesting to me that the murders of five former Hollywood movie stars were carried out by the same men who conspired to blow up the Graf.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I could hear Wolf banging away on the typewriter as I knocked on his hotel door.

  “What the hell are you writing?” I asked.

  “The book,” he replied. “What else?”

  “But the story isn't over yet,” I said.

  “Some of us write as we go along,” Wolf answered. “You, on the other hand, wait until the last minute then bang it out in two weeks.”

  “One week,” I replied.

  I told Wolf what Hearst had said at his office. “He truly believes that there is more than one killer,” I said, “and that they are doing it to get to him.”

  Wolf was quiet for a moment, then got that serious look on his face, like he does when he suddenly gets an idea. “If that's true,” he said, “then this story is even bigger than I imagined.”

  “The old man is just being paranoid,” I said. “He's doubled his personal security and doesn't even go out in public anymore.”

  “Everyone in Hollywood is paranoid,” Wolf replied. “But Hearst has good reason to be. If someone is trying to scare him, it sure as hell is working.”

  I didn't particularly buy the conspiracy theory, but I knew I had to tell Wolf about it. We were now faced with the daunting task of finding more than one killer, if it turned out Hearst was right.

  “You know,” I told Wolf, “I've looked straight into the eyes of a madman before. I've never seen anything more horrifying. Alvon, the Monkey Man, was as crazy as they come. But this person we are looking for now …”

  “Yes, I know,” Wolf said. “I can see where Hearst is coming from. Alvon wasn't the only madman. He was just a crazy puppet.”

  “How can you stab a women seventeen times!” I exclaimed.

  “And then take a shower and write a letter,” Wolf added.

  The old man's theory was just a distraction as far as I was concerned. We had to find the killer. Once that was done, we'd know the motive.

  “You remember Carl?” Wolf asked. “From the Selig Zoo?”

  “Hammer Man?” I asked. “Of course. What does that have to do with it?”

  “He was killed today,” Wolf said.

  “No kidding?” I asked. “What happened?”

  “That lion we saw when we were there finally ripped his face off,” Wolf replied.

  “My god!” I said. “I guess I shouldn't be surprised! He must have thrown a hammer at him one too many times.”

  “Yeah,” Wolf said. “Carl was crazy. You can't really blame the lion. It's kind of ironic, though.”

  “How's that?” I asked.

  “The old man,” Wolf said. “He's thrown a lot of hammers in his time and gotten away with it. And now he is afraid that it is just a matter of time before the cross-eyed lion rips his face off.”

  “That's a strange analogy,” I said. “But I like it.”

  I got back to Bela's house and helped Patty put the suitcases in her car for our trip back to her house.

  “Okay, you know the plan,” I said. “You drive up front alone and go into the house and exit out the backdoor to the alley where I will be parked, waiting for you.”

  “Yes, I know,” she replied. “We've been over this a million times!”

  “Don't waste any time once you are in the house,” I said. “Just go straight out the backdoor.”

  “I know, Bay,” Patty said. “In the front door, out the back! It's pretty easy!”

  Just before we left, I went into Lugosi's library and found his pistol. I shoved it into my waistline and grabbed a box of bullets. I was nervous as hell as I waited for Patty to come out the backdoor. We arrived at her house at the same time, but ten minutes had passed, and still, no Patty.

  Damn it! I thought. She must be talking to Eva!

  It was pivotal that no one see her come out of the backdoor and get into my car, and so far, there were no other vehicles in the alley. A heavy cloud was overhead, casting a dark shadow as far as the eye could see. It was the only comfort that I had. I knew it was Colonel Kots and The Rose watching over us.

  I couldn't stand waiting anymore so I opened the car door and stepped out. Just then, Patty came out of the house and got into my Packard.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was just talking to Eva. She's such an interesting lady!”

  “You need to get on the driver's side,” I said.

  “You want me to drive?” Patty said. “Are you still getting lost around here?”

  “No,” I replied. “I want you to drive yourself back to Bela's house. I am staying here.”

  “What?” she asked. “But why? That wasn't the plan!”

  “It was my plan all along,” I replied. “But no one agreed with it.”

  “Bay!” Patty said. “Leave it to them!”

  “No one wanted me to stay here tonight,” I answered. “But it's my damned plan. It's my call. Now you high tail it back to Bela's and I will see you tomorrow. If that son of a bitch shows up, I want to be here waiting for him.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I knocked on the backdoor and waited for Eva to let me in. The door opened slowly, but no one was there.

  “Hello?” I asked. “Eva? It's me, Bay.”

  “I know,” a voice said from behind the door. “Get in here!”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Change of plans,” I answered. “I am staying with you.”

  “I thought we all agreed that you might scare him off,” she said.

  “Well, I didn't agree,” I said as I sat down at the kitchen table. “I will stay right here so he doesn't see me.”

  Eva closed the door of the kitchen to the living room and joined me at the table. She was dressed in a white robe that
reminded me more of Jean Harlow than Patty Albright.

  “But this is the room he's going to end up in,” Eva said. “All the murders took place in the kitchen. Remember?”

  I pointed to the bathroom that was just off of the kitchen. “If this guy ends up in the house,” I said, “then I will wait in there until something happens.”

  “It's your charter,” she said. “But I need to get back out to the living room and make sure I can be seen.”

  Eva left me sitting in the kitchen and closed the door behind her. I expected more of an argument from the spy, but she was military one hundred and ten percent, and apparently I was her commanding officer.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was bored out of my skull. I should have brought a deck of cards or something, I thought. At least then I could play solitaire.

  I finally knocked lightly on the living room door. “Eva,” I said. “Could you come in here for a minute please?”

  She swung the door open, nearly knocking me down.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It could be a long night,” I said. “And I didn't bring anything with me to keep me occupied. Could you look around and see if you could find a notebook and pen for me?”

  Eva rolled her eyes at me and went back into the living room without saying a word. Sure, she was a government spy and a martial arts expert, but she was also a woman. And I know when I've ticked one off. I might be commander in chief, but she was damned well in charge.

  Another fifteen minutes passed. I finally started looking in the cabinets for something to write on. There was no paper anywhere, but I did find a red ink pen.

  “Eva,” I called out. “I found a pen. All I need now is a notebook or something to write on.”

  After a long pause, she finally came back into the kitchen. She walked in, picked up a stack of napkins and handed them to me, and walked right back out, slamming the door behind her.

  I've tried writing on napkins before. It is not an easy task. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so I sat back down at the kitchen table, red ink pen in hand.

  I've got to lose myself in writing, I thought, otherwise I will never make it through the night.

  The only thing I could think of was to continue the story I'd started on the set of Dinner At Eight about my dear friend Bela Lugosi.

  The Hollywood murders influenced the direction that the story would take. I took the blood red ink pen and began writing on one napkin at a time.

  Fade in from black…

  He dipped a fang into the glass. ”Hmm,” he said. “I feel like blood and heroin tonight.” It splashed on his chin and crisp white dress shirt. His long tongue swirled along the circumference of the container he called Death. “A pity,” he said, blotting up the thick red mixture from his chest with the golden silk napkin. ”I should be on the set by now,” he thought. He rolled his eyes into the back of his head, heart pounding, and dropped the glass onto the well stained floor. ”Maybe this time, I will die” he thought. “And not come back again.”

  I paused, wondering where I should go with the story. The first movie I had ever been in was White Zombie with Lugosi. That's what started it all for me. Then I thought, what if Bela really was a vampire? What would happen then? I quickly filled up a stack of napkins with red ink.

  Frank Gorsky received a frantic phone call on the set of “White Zombies” on the second day of shooting.

  “What are you calling me for? I am in the middle of shooting a scene with Lugosi!” the director yelled.

  “There's a problem with the footage you shot yesterday, sir” the film editor said.

  “What problem?” he asked. The cast and crew stood staring at Frank.

  “Lugosi is not there!” the editor explained.

  “What do you mean he's not there?” Frank asked.

  “I mean he is not in the film. The set is there, the other actors, but Bela is not showing up in the scenes! It looks as if you have shot around him!”

  “Are you crazy, man?” the director shouted.

  “You need to come down here right away!” said the editor.

  “I'll be right there!” Frank said, slamming the receiver down.

  He looked up at the actors and made eye contact with Lugosi. Bela had the strangest look on his face. Pulling away from Lugosi's eyes, a shiver went down Frank's spine. “Okay folks!” the director said. “Something important has come up and I have to go now. “You all wait right here and I will return in an hour's time!”

  He bolted for the door as Lugosi turned walking in the opposite direction towards the green room shaking his head in apparent displeasure at the delay in shooting.

  I was nearly out of napkins but not out of ideas for this story. I began panicking, searching around the kitchen for something to write on. There, on the bottom shelf of a cabinet was my salvation. An entire roll of butcher's paper.

  Frank sat in front of the editing machine in shock. “Play it back again,” he said.

  “How many times do you need to watch this?” asked the editor, Walter Hughes.”He is not showing up on the film!”

  “This can't be,” muttered Frank. “Why? Why?” he asked aloud.

  The only light in the room was from the editing machine, casting an eerie glow of dancing black and white shadows. A strange noise came from behind them.

  The men spun around in their chairs and standing just above them was a massive figure of a man drenched in light and darkness. It was Bela Lugosi.

  “Is there some problem, gentlemen?” he asked. Frank clutched his chest in fright, shaking his head from side to side. The two men were frightened beyond anything they'd ever experienced in a theater.

  “Just some technical problem with the film” Frank explained. “We may have to re-shoot the scenes we did yesterday.”

  Lugosi crept closer, cocking his head to the side. “Oh?” he said. “May I see?”

  “No, no!” Frank countered, holding his hands out to back Bela away. Lugosi, now inches away, took one end of the film in his hand and with a great yank, unspooled the reel, sending it flying in a fury around the heads of the two men who screamed in fright. He grabbed each man by the throat at the same time while the film spun in circles in front of him. He raised them by their throats, shaking them hard, as the blood splattered from their eyes and mouths, and ran down Bela's arms. And as quickly as the film hit the floor, so too did the director and editor--in dead silence.

  I was shocked back into reality by the sound of the phone ringing in the living room. A few minutes later, Eva came into the kitchen.

  “Hide now!” she said. “Someone is coming!”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I ducked into the bathroom and pulled the pistol from my waistline, leaning against the door in an effort to hear something.

  I couldn't hear a damned thing. Whoever came to the door was obviously still in the front room with Eva. The suspense of not knowing what was going on was killing me. After about sixty-seconds, I left the bathroom and put my ear to the door in the kitchen. I could hear faint talking. My heart beating in my chest was louder than the voices.

  Suddenly, the kitchen door swung open. It was Eva.

  “He's gone now,” she said. “He just ran down the street. Kots will track him in The Rose.”

  “What the hell happened?” I asked.

  “He knew I wasn't Patty,” she explained. “I tried to get him to come inside, but he wasn't having it.”

  The phone rang and Eva and I both dove for it. I managed to grab it before she could. It was Colonel Kots.

  “We've got the suspect in close sight,” he said. “Wherever he is going, we'll be right on top of him.”

  “Call the minute you have his location,” I replied.

  Eva was very disappointed that she failed to lure him inside.

  “But I got a very good look at him,” she said. “Short, around thirty-five years old, blond hair and blue eyes. I could ID him in a second.”

  “What did he s
ay?” I asked.

  “I opened the door and he had this puzzled look on his face the moment he laid eyes on me,” she said. “He just said he must have the wrong house and walked away, then he started running.”

  “He was obviously expecting Patty to answer the door,” I said.

  “I thought I did a pretty good job of making myself up to look like her,” Eva replied.

  “It's not your fault,” I said. “But you know what this means, don't you?”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “He knows Patty Albright well enough to recognize that I was a fake.”

  It was a chilling realization. The Valentino Killer had been within feet of me while I was hiding like an idiot in a bathroom. This rabbit wouldn't be coming back. I'd have to chase him down now.

  “There's something else,” Eva said. “He was carrying a bag.”

  “What kind of bag?” I asked.

  “Like an overnight bag,” she replied. “Why would you bring an overnight bag with you unless you planned to stay awhile?”

  All Eva and I could do was sit and wait for Colonel Kots to call back. Every second was nerve-racking. I remembered the napkins and butcher's paper that I'd written the Lugosi story on. I needed a distraction, so I went back into the kitchen and began writing the story again where I'd left off.

  Producer Victor Halperin received a phone call late that night at his home in Canyon Springs. He was informed that the bodies of Frank Gorsky and Harold McLernon were discovered in McLernon's editing studio. Work on “White Zombies” was put on indefinite hold while Halperin made the first of many phone calls. His first is to Bela Lugosi.

  “I am sorry to hear that,” is Bela's only reply. Halperin was shocked at how cold and unemotional Lugosi seemed upon hearing the news. “When is production expected to resume?” Bela asked.

  “I don't have any idea right now” Halperin answered. “We have a lot of things to sort out.”

  “Very well,” Lugosi said, “I may take a trip in the meantime. I will let you know when I return.”

  Their brief conversation disturbed the producer. “This man has no emotions,” he thought, as he dialed the next in a long list of numbers. Two men had just been brutally murdered, and Lugosi was planning a vacation.