The Case of the Kidnapped Angel: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Six)

by Howard Fast

  “How disappointing! I always wanted to be a suspect.”

  “Were you at the party last night?” he asked Hennesy.

  “I was. But I assure you, I did not kidnap the Angel. If I had, I would never return her. I would give up my seat in Congress and find a desert island somewhere—a place where she and I could live out our lives in idyllic ecstasy.”

  “Ah, so. And does she feel that way about you?”

  “Sergeant, must you be so literal? Half the men in Los Angeles are in love with the Angel,” Mrs. Cooper said, and then to Hennesy, “but you are a very heartless man to sit there and tell me you dream of running off with the Angel.”

  “My apologies, and the disclaimer must include the fact that I am here with you, while the Angel snuggles in the arms of her devoted husband. How devoted, I wonder? How much was the ransom, Sergeant?”

  “I have no idea,” Masuto said.

  “Close-mouthed—ah, well, an officer in pursuit of his duty.”

  “Did you leave the party before or after Mrs. Barton?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “You mean with all your talk about a desert island, you didn’t notice whether she was gone or not?”

  “She left before Mr. Hennesy did,” Mrs. Cooper told him. “I don’t think any of my guests were candidates for a kidnapping—Jack Fellows and his wife, more millions than they know what to do with, the Tudors—well, a star does not dash around kidnapping people—Kennedy, only the most successful director in town, the Butterworths and the Goldbergs and the Lees. Not a very large party, Mr. Detective, and no one who is a potential for your kidnapper. If you think that any of my guests walked out of here and went over to the Barton place and kidnapped Angel Barton, you are absolutely out of your mind.”

  Masuto stared at her for a long moment; then he nodded. “We’ll be going now—oh, one thing. Which of your guests live here in the Colony?”

  “The Lees and the Goldbergs. Are you going to grill them as well?”

  “I haven’t grilled you, Mrs. Cooper.”

  “The Goldbergs are four houses down, the Lees are the sixth house.”

  “And, Congressman, when did you first learn about the kidnapping?”

  “About two minutes before you arrived, Sergeant. I’ve been here about an hour, but Mrs. Cooper was upstairs doing her bath and things. I walked around to the beach side and made myself comfortable on the terrace. We’re old pals. And, by the way, I didn’t think you were serious about who left first, and I was rather put off by your questioning me. I did leave before Angel, if that matters.”

  “Thank you,” Masuto said coldly.

  Outside, Beckman let out his breath and shook his head. “They are a pair. She’s a normal Beverly Hills type phony. The congressman’s a fuckin’ pain in the ass. They almost had an indictment out on him once, and then it was squashed, and they go on reelecting him. You want to keep your hands in your pockets if you get too close to him.”

  “What now?” Masuto asked him. “The Lees or the Goldbergs?”

  “Let’s give the Goldbergs a shot.”

  The Goldberg house was painted pink. Mrs. Goldberg was small, with dark hair, dark eyes, fiftyish, and had a schoolgirl figure and a good coat of tan. Her house was furnished in beach baroque, apparently de rigueur in the Colony, but with accents of pink. She asked them to sit down on the pink chairs on the terrace and poured Cokes for each of them.

  “How exciting to have two real live detectives here. Wait until Joe gets home and I give him a blow by blow. Only poor Angel—”

  “She’s safe, Mrs. Goldberg. She’s home, unharmed.”

  “Oh? Then I’ll be bitchy and rescind my sympathy.”

  “I take it you don’t like her?”

  “Ugh! You see, I don’t hide my feelings.”

  “That sounds like very strong feeling.”

  “It is. You see, Detective Masuto—that is it, Masuto?”

  “Yes, indeed. And this is Detective Beckman.”

  “You see, I wasn’t born to this sun-drenched, orange-ridden, never-never land. Joe and I made it the hard way, and he’s just about the best producer in the business, so I don’t have to be a diplomat, or an ass-licker, whichever you prefer. Now this is not a place without its gonifs and stinkers, as I’m sure you know, but this Angel is a beauty. Yes, indeed—even for the film business.” She stopped and shook her head. “But I’m sure you’re not interested in Angel.”

  “But we are. Please go on.”

  “Where do I start and where do I stop? Don’t ask me to go into Angel Barton on my own. Ask me questions.”

  “All right. We’ve just come from Netty Cooper’s house. She told us that you and your husband were at the party last night.”

  “We were. Netty’s all right. She just keeps hurting all over with rejected-woman syndromes, three divorces—but since we’re a community-property state, she’s done brilliantly financially. Joe says she’s worth at least five million.”

  She has fangs and she’s no one’s fool, Masuto reflected, asking her, “How did you find out about the kidnapping?”

  “Sergeant, Joe, my husband, is producing Mikey’s new film. In this kind of trouble, he would tell Joe before he told his own mother. Mikey isn’t poor, but to put together a million dollars in a few hours is not easy. Joe always maintains a large liquid position, just in case he wants to tie up some literary property or a director. Joe was able to put his hands on two hundred thousand or so, and with Bill Ranier and Jack McCarthy pitching in, they were able to supply what Mikey needed for the ransom. But a million dollars for the Angel—ah well—”

  “You keep saying Mikey,” Beckman put in. “You must be very close to Mike Barton.”

  “He’s like a son to us. Joe ran into him over in West Hollywood one day, pumping gas. You see—” She paused. “You see, I want to tell you this because I just don’t like the smell of what’s happening here, and both of you look like decent men. But please don’t blow it all over town. Joe went to great effort to give Mikey a certain aura. So if this can be just among us?”

  “I’ll try,” Masuto agreed. “We’re involved with a crime, so I can’t promise anything. But we’ll try.”

  “Good enough. Mikey’s father had a grocery store in Flatbush. That’s in Brooklyn. We knew his father and we knew Mikey as a kid. His name then was Bernstein.”

  “You’re kidding,” Beckman said. “You mean he’s Jewish?”

  “What’s so strange? You’re Jewish, aren’t you?”

  “I look it.”

  “No law says you have to.”

  “And what about this rumor that his real name was Brannigan and that he came from upstate New York?”

  “If you read Gloria Adams, you’ll find a lot of rumors. When Joe and I were living in Flatbush and trying to make it the hard way, I saw Mikey every day, the sweetest, most willing, most decent kid I ever knew. The only kinkiness in him was that he wanted to be an actor. Then we came out to the Coast and lost touch with him, and then one day, about sixteen years ago, Joe met him at a gas pump. He brought the kid home, and we fed him and made him stay with us. Joe got him a part in a TV film, and he liked what he saw and got him an acting coach. From there on it was step by step, until he became the Mike Barton of today. We love Mikey, so I don’t want to put Joe on a pedestal as Mr. Good Guy, but without Joe he would be another of the ten thousand unemployed actors around town. I don’t say Joe didn’t profit. He made eight films with Mikey, and six were enormous money-makers. But that’s not why he did it.”

  “He had already changed his name to Barton when your husband met him?”

  “Yes. He wanted it that way, and Joe let it stay. They decided on a mysterious past, and it worked, for what it’s worth.”

  “And how did he meet Angel?”

  “That’s another well-kept secret—” She hesitated, studying Masuto and Beckman thoughtfully.

  “But you’re going to tell me,” Masuto said deliberately. “You’re not
a chatterer, but you’ve decided to tell me a number of things. May I ask why?”

  “Is why important?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’m afraid. There’s something happening here ever since Mikey married her, and it frightens me. He’s changed. A lot of stars and semi-stars in this town cat around like they’re in competition. Mikey wasn’t that way. There were a few girls in his life whom he really cared for, but he didn’t marry until he met Angel. He lived with one lady for five years, and while they were together he never looked at another woman. He has one real weakness—one, maybe a dozen. Who hasn’t? Mikey wouldn’t win any prizes for smarts. He’s sweet and kind, but not too bright. But the one real weakness I’m talking about is gambling. It’s a sickness, and he’s a big loser. He met Angel in Vegas, where she was dealing blackjack, and he fell for her like a ton of bricks. She had been on the job only a few days, and already she had the reputation of wanting nothing to do with any of the studs around the place. She walked off the job with him the next day and they came back to L.A. together and she moved in—and it didn’t work, not one little bit. It was a rotten, screwed-up marriage from the word go.”

  “Not according to the media,” Beckman said.

  “You can talk to the media or you can talk to me. The Angel that the fan magazines write about—the sweet, gentle, compassionate creature—doesn’t exist. The real Angel is by no means a sweet, warm woman. She’s a controlled cake of ice.”

  “They say she has a slight foreign accent.”

  “She’s French. She claims to have learned her English dealing at Collingwood’s in London.”

  “Which you don’t believe?”

  “Joe’s been to Collingwood’s. He says they don’t have lady dealers.”

  “If the marriage is so bad,” Masuto asked her, “why do they stay together?”

  “You never met Mikey?”

  “This morning. I talked with him at his house.”

  “All right. He paid a million dollars for her. He adores her, pays his price, and gets nothing, absolutely nothing, in return. If you want reasons, talk to a psychiatrist. It’s nothing I understand, nothing Joe understands. If she told Mikey to lay down at the front door so she could use him as a doormat, he’d do it. The one real fight Joe ever had with Mikey was when Mikey wanted him to put Angel into a picture.”

  “Why?” Beckman asked. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Beautiful, Mr. Beckman,” she said patiently, “is a salable commodity in Grand Rapids or St. Louis. In Hollywood you can’t give it away. On any street in West Hollywood, you’ll see ten girls as beautiful as Angel, and if you walk through one of the studios, you’ll see a hundred. Of course, they don’t have her press, which comes from being married to Mikey.”

  “Still, if Mike Barton wanted it—”

  “When you have ten million dollars riding on a picture, you don’t make gifts of starring roles. Anyway, Joe agrees with me. She can work her charm in a living room, but she’s not enough of a woman to make it on the screen.”

  “What exactly do you mean?”

  “I don’t really know what I mean. I’m Jewish. I look at Detective Beckman here and decide that he’s Jewish. Maybe if I wasn’t Jewish I wouldn’t know. I’m a woman, and when I look at Angel and talk to her—well, something’s missing. It’s just a feeling. I can be very nasty when I put my mind to it.”

  “One more thing, if you can still put up with our questions. At the party last night, who left first, Angel or Congressman Hennesy?”

  “They left together.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure. But if you think Hennesy’s involved in the kidnapping—no. It’s not his style. He’s a white-collar crook—payoffs, bribes, influence peddling.”

  “You seem to know him.”

  “Ah, Detective Masuto, you live here in the Colony, and you know a great many people, some nice, some not nice at all.”

  “Where does Hennesy live?”

  “A few miles from here.”

  “Is he wealthy?”

  “That’s hard to say. You see, a public servant is always so ready to sell at almost any price that it’s difficult to say whether poverty or larceny is the motivating factor.”

  Masuto nodded, repressing a smile. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful and informative.”

  “How often do we get two good-looking city detectives out here in Malibu?”

  “Even if you do look Jewish,” Masuto said to Beckman when they were outside in the car.

  “She’s a tough little lady. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.”

  “Still, it’s puzzling,” Masuto said. “One loves Angel, one hates Angel. Nobody gives any reason why.”

  “You’re going to look for reasons why a dumbbell falls in love, you got to be crazy.”

  “You think he’s a dumbbell?”

  “She does. She may love him like a son, but she don’t give him even passing marks. Anyway, Masao, I think that as far as we’re concerned, the case is closed. The feds will step in, and they want all the cards where a kidnapping is involved. Anyway, the break-in part of it and the snatch itself was in Malibu, so it drops into the lap of the Malibu cops. We might as well head back to Beverly Hills to Barton’s place, and then I can tell my wife I actually saw Mike Barton in the flesh. That’ll give her meat for the coffee klatch for the next two weeks. Unless you want to talk to Lee?”

  “He’s a screenwriter, isn’t he?”

  Beckman consulted his notes. “That’s right. Cominsky says he’s the hottest writer in the business.”

  “We’ll skip him. I don’t want any more imagination. I already have too many notions of what happened here last night.”

  They were on Sunset Boulevard, heading east toward Beverly Hills, when Masuto’s radio lit up. It was Polly at the switchboard at the station house.

  “Where are you?” she asked him.

  “Just east of Sepulveda.”

  “Let me try to patch you through to the captain. He’s been trying to get you.”

  “Masao?” Wainwright’s voice was flat and bleak. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Just passing the university.”

  “Well, get your ass over here to San Yisidro, just up from Tower.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mike Barton is sitting here in his car with a bullet through his head.”

  San Yisidro

  San Yisidro is a road that winds up into the Santa Monica Hills, branching off from Tower Road a short distance from Benedict Canyon. For about a mile and a quarter San Yisidro is within the city limits of Beverly Hills, and then the road goes on into Los Angeles. It must be noted that Beverly Hills itself is an island, entirely surrounded, not by water but by the City of Los Angeles. San Yisidro is a very elegant neighborhood, but there are spots where the cactus and the mesquite still grow untouched as they have for the past hundreds of years.

  It was at one such spot that Mike Barton’s black Mercedes was parked, drawn up on the shoulder of the road, the central attraction for two Beverly Hills police cars, Wainwright’s car and Dr. Sam Baxter’s car. A uniformed policeman stood in the road, waving the curious by. Masuto and Beckman parked behind a prowl car and then joined Wainwright at the Mercedes. The door was open, and Baxter was examining the body of what had been Mike Barton. On the other side of the seat Sweeney, the Beverly Hills fingerprint man, was dusting the car and the dashboard.

  “When did you find it?” Masuto asked Wainwright.

  “Half hour. Officer Comdon was patrolling the road, and he saw the car. Barton looked alive just sitting there, which is why, I guess, other cars passed it by, but Comdon figured he might be lost or something.”

  “When was he killed?”

  Wainwright nodded at Sam Baxter, and Masuto went over to the doctor and asked him.

  “How the hell do I know?” Baxter snapped. “Was I here? All right, we’ll play the guessing game.” He looked at his watch. “It’s fo
ur-thirty now. I’d say he’s been dead four hours, and that’s just a guess, and if you put me on a witness stand, I’ll say it’s a guess.”

  “Thank you, Doc. Next to your skill I admire your sweet nature most. What killed him?”

  “A gun. What in hell do you think killed him?”

  “Yes, of course,” Masuto said humbly. “I thought perhaps you could tell us what kind of a gun.”

  “The bullet’s still in his skull. When I open him up and take it out, I’ll give you all the details. Meanwhile, from the entry hole, I’d guess it was a twenty-two, and since the bullet didn’t go through, I’d say it was a twenty-two short. A guess, you understand? But what the hell, if I did my work the way you people do yours, my whole life would be guesses.”

  “Yes, our work is hardly as precise. How far away was the gun when the bullet was fired?”

  “You’re sure you don’t want the name of the killer?”

  “Only if you have it.”

  “The gun was no more than twelve inches away. Powder burns. If you want me to do all your work for you, I’d say that his killer was sitting in the car with him. Barton turned away, and the killer put the gun to the back of his head and fired.”

  “And then wiped every print from the inside of the car,” Sweeney said. “Took his time and polished the inside and the door handles like he was working in a car wash.”

  An ambulance drew up now, and two attendants pulled a stretcher out. Beverly Hills was not large or violent enough to require its own morgue and pathology room, and they had a long-standing arrangement with All Saints Hospital for the use of both facilities. Sam Baxter, chief pathologist at All Saints, doubled as medical examiner when his services were required.

  The ambulance pulled away, Baxter following it, and Wainwright, studying the car thoughtfully, asked Masuto whether he had any ideas.

  “Too many.” He had squatted down by the rear wheel, feeling the dirt. “It rained day before yesterday. If the killer was parked here waiting for him, there should be tracks on the shoulder in front.”

  Beckman anticipated him. “Right here, Masao.” Wainwright and Masuto joined him. “Do you know,” Masuto said wryly, “television has become an enemy. It gives the criminal the benefit of a writer’s imagination.” The tracks had been there, but they were deliberately scuffed out.