1 The Hollywood Detective (13 page)

Red decided to hit the phone when we got back to the office. She wanted to solve her first case and knew time was against us: Mary Treen’s credit ran out at midnight.
 

“I suppose I could put in a few hours of my own time,” Red suggested.

“You start doing that and you’ll run out of hours pretty quick.” I put my feet up on the desk and leafed through the case file, hoping I might spot something I’d missed. “Obviously I want to find Clara, and Mary’s missing necklace—that’s the result we’re still aiming for. That way, I’ve got a satisfied customer who recommends me to all her friends.” I closed the file and pushed it aside. “But if we haven’t succeeded by midnight we have to stop looking and move on to the next case.

I scanned the Times and the Chronicle looking for a report on the murder of a photographer in his studio, but yet again a story I had witnessed hadn’t made it into print. Which meant it came as a big shock to Mary when I told her about it on the phone.

“Do you still think he took Clara?”

“I’ll be honest with you, I can’t say for sure, but there is another connection I’m following up that might lead me to her.”

“So you think she’s alive?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know that either. But I’m almost certain she isn’t enjoying a vacation some place.”

“Why do you say that?”

“There’s an odd thing about crooks… more of them would get away with their crimes if they didn’t try so damn hard to cover them up. I’ve seen enough to know there’s a clean-up operation going on, but not enough to have seen the crime.”

“You think something bad has happened to Clara… and someone’s trying to hide it?”

“It’s starting to look that way.”

“Who?”

“That I don’t know.”

I heard her puff out an impatient breath at the other end of the line. “Do you have anything else to report?”

“Actually I have something you might be able to help me with.”

“Me?”

“A fella I’ve been tailing for a while, he works at MGM—I figured you might know him.” I described the man Red had seen at Tomasky’s and his flamboyant convertible.

“I don’t really pay attention to cars, I have no idea who drives what.”

“It was worth a shot.”

“I’m no good with cars, but I never forget a face and your description fits three men I’ve seen out at Culver City. Do you think one of them knows where Clara is?”

“That’s what I hope to find out.”

I wrote down the three names Mary gave me, promised her an update when I had some news and hung up. I stared at each of the names in turn. One of them was starting to ring a distant bell. I circled the name. Why did it sound so familiar? I had definitely seen the name before. Seen it rather than heard it. As soon as Red was off the phone I’d ask her if she knew him. I stared at the bold, black letters on my notepad and underlined them two, three times.
 

And then it came to me.
 

I jumped up and hurried over to Red. I waved a hand in front of her face. She held up a finger and turned away. I tapped her on the shoulder and she wriggled free.

“Excuse me one moment,” she said and shoved a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “What’s gotten into you?” she hissed.
 

I grabbed her face with both hands and planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Cut it out!” She knocked my hands away. “I’m sorry,” she said returning to her call, “what were you saying?” She thrust out a leg. The point of her heel drove into my calf.

“Ow!”

“Uh huh, yes, yes I’ve got that. Thank you so much.” She put the phone down and stood up, hands on hips. “What the hell are you playing at, mister?”

“I wanted to congratulate you.”

“What did I do?”

“I think you might be about to crack your first case.”

Her expression changed. “I am?”

I nodded.

“Remember you cross-referenced the names from the hospital admissions forms and the guest list from the party?”

She nodded. “I do. Only one name was on both lists—Eddie Mannix. But I didn’t take it any further—what with the postcard from Clara, and Wilfred Tomasky, I didn’t pursue it.”
 

“Well we’re pursuing it now.”
 

I phoned back Mary Treen and asked her about this Mannix fella.

“I was just about to call you,” she said. “I’ve been making some inquiries myself. Given the urgency of the situation… Two of the names I gave you no longer work at MGM. The third is most definitely still on the company’s payroll.

“Which one?”

“Eddie Mannix.”

I smiled at Red, who frowned back at me.

“He works for Strickling,” Mary continued. “Mannix is Strickling’s right hand man… or henchman, depending on your point of view.”

Strickling. His grubby fingers were all over this case.

I told Mary she had been a big help and hung up.

“Well?” Red said. “Is Mannix our man?”

I nodded: “He has to be. He’s in hospital with a woman matching Clara’s general description the night she goes missing; then he’s outside Gloria Butterfield’s apartment when she gets robbed; and we see him run out of Wilfred Tomasky’s studio when Tomasky is lying dead on the floor. And Mary’s just told me he works for Howard Strickling—”

“Strickling?”

“You heard of him?”

“I worked at the Cocoanut Grove, I wouldn’t have been doing my job properly if I hadn’t.”

“So you know what he does at MGM?”

“Publicity.”

 
“I’d say Strickling has Mannix doing everything he can to cover up what happened at William Powell’s party.”

“So we just need to follow Mannix until—”

“—he leads us to Clara.”

“Before midnight.”

“That’s the plan.”

She smiled at me. “Well that rather puts my news in the shade.”

“What did the cops tell you?”

She picked up her notepad as if she were playing the part of a dutiful secretary. “They autopsied the panther, as you requested.”

“And?”

“No Clara.”

The phone started ringing and Red answered. “Spencer McCoy and Associates.”

Associates? She had some nerve.

“I’ll pass you over, please hold.” She pressed a button and the phone on my desk started trilling. “Says his name is Vincent Kekua. From the Chateau Elysée?”

I picked up the receiver. “Aloha, Vincent, nice to hear from you.”

“Hello, Mr McCoy, I think I might have something you’d be interested in.”

“You know I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I sure hope so. You might want to get over here. I just had a call from Gloria Butterfield’s agent. Says he needs access to her apartment.”

“Did he say when?”

“In about a half hour.”

“Did he say why?”

“He’s coming to clear it out.”

Montgomery Pearce came out of the elevator at the Chateau Elysée with a pile of heavy boxes in his puny little arms. He was probably nearly thirty but still looked like he should be in high school. His name cropped up in
Variety
every now and then and I got the impression he had a high regard for his talents. After slipping Vincent a few bucks for his help, I followed Monty out into the parking lot.

“Montgomery Pearce?”

“My books are full.” He spoke as quickly as he walked. The trunk of his blue Buick was open and he tipped the boxes in. When he straightened up, I was right behind him. “I’m sorry, pal, I’m not taking on any more clients.”

I frowned at him.

“You not an actor?”

“No, I am not.”

“My mistake, I thought everyone in this building was an actor.” He sidestepped round me and heading back for another load.

“I don’t live here,” I said following a couple paces behind. “I came to see you. I think you can help me.”

“If you’re not an actor I don’t see how.”

“I want to talk to you about Gloria Butterfield.”

Montgomery Pearce let the double doors of the Chateau Elysée shut in my face. By the time I’d followed him into the lobby, he’d darted into the elevator and the door was sliding shut.

“Not the talkative type?” Vincent asked from behind his desk.

“Not yet. I’ll have another crack at him when he comes back down. So, when are we going to get you in the water?”

Vincent and I chatted about breakers and riptides while I waited for Pearce to fill a few more boxes. He reappeared in the lobby after ten minutes and I followed him out into the sunshine.
 

“Like I say, I want to talk to you about Miss Butterfield.”

“I got nothing to say.” I was used to people stonewalling me, but this guy seemed particularly hostile.

“Look, I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot, and I can see you’re busy…” I lifted a box from his arms and carried it to his car. “But I think you can help me.”

“And I think I’ve already helped you enough.” He placed his boxes into the trunk and then snatched the remaining one out of my hands.

“But we’ve never met.”

He peered at me over his wire-rimmed glasses. “Maybe, but I’ve met your boss plenty.” He stepped toward the building again and I reached out to grab his arm.

“I don’t have a boss, I don’t know who you think I am, but you’ve got me mixed up with some other guy.”

He pulled his arm away from me but kept his feet rooted to the spot.

“Okay, so you’re not an actor… and you don’t work for Howard Strickling…” Pearce fixed me with a stare. “So who are you?”

I explained my situation and how my investigation into Clara’s disappearance had led me to Gloria Butterfield.

“I wasn’t even at Powell’s party, so I don’t see how I can help.”

“But Miss Butterfield was. You can put me in touch with her. You’re sending her things on somewhere, right? Give me the address and I’ll pay her a visit.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

He paused, pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. “She doesn’t want to be found. Will you excuse me?”

“Listen, a girl’s missing. Now you’re telling me a girl who was at the same party, who wore the same necklace, has disappeared too. I won’t let you snow me on this. I need to know where Gloria is.”
 

He looked nervous, or maybe rattled. In the distance a dog was yapping. I was getting a little rattled by its high-pitched squeaks myself.

“I’m sorry, I really can’t help.”

“If I were Clara’s brother, or father, would you tell me the same thing then? Come on, pal, you might just be saving a life here.”

He stared at me some more and I could tell he was considering my request. The yapping grew louder and more insistent. And more distracting. I looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of a dog. Then I realized the noise wasn’t coming from the street, but from inside the Buick. Hadn’t Vincent told me Gloria didn’t go anywhere without her little dog?
 

“If I open this car door,” I asked Pearce, “what will I find inside?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to: a young, dark haired woman opened the door and looked up at me from the backseat footwell.

“Hi,” she said in a tiny little voice. “You want to speak to me?”

“Are you Gloria?”

“Uh huh.”

“You changed your hair,” I said.

A miniature—and very excited—poodle leapt out of the car and sniffed my ankles.

“The hair is just the beginning,” she said as she climbed out of the Buick. “Monty promises in a couple months no one will recognize me. It’s a fresh start. A whole new me.”

It was hard to square the gal in front of me with the starlet in the newspaper standing next to a beaming Jimmy Stewart. Dressed in a sweater and slacks, she looked so different from the glamorous blonde flashing Mary Treen’s necklace.
 

“I need your help, Miss Butterfield.”

She listened attentively as I explained who I was and why I was there, but as soon as I mentioned the lion’s head pendant, she got twitchy. “You’re not in trouble,” I said, trying to reassure her. “I’m not a cop. I don’t care about the necklace, I just need to know what you saw at Powell’s place.”

She nodded that she understood. “I already got into so much trouble about the necklace. I don’t want to bring it all up again.”

“What kind of trouble?”

She looked at Pearce who answered for her: “Strickling.”

“You’d have thought from the way he’s behaved that I must have stolen it, but I didn’t… I swear.”

Gloria told me she’d spent the night at Powell’s place trying to get an introduction to Jimmy Stewart, or “Mr Stewart” as she insisted on calling him. She told me that after she’d caught the eye of the critics with her last picture, the studio was keen to raise her profile. Consequently they’d arranged for her to accompany Jimmy Stewart to the premiere. “It happens all the time,” Gloria explained. “I used to think when I saw two movie actors in a photograph that they had to be lovers, or at least real good pals, but it just isn’t like that.” She let out a disappointed little sigh, as if someone had just reminded her Santa Claus didn’t exist. “Strickling’s office called and said I’d been selected.”

“It’s a real feather in her cap,” Pearce added, “walking into a premiere on the arm of Jimmy Stewart.”

“I was thrilled about it, but really nervous too. So when I was at the party, I spent most of the night looking for him.”

“He’s a tall guy,” I said, “he couldn’t have been that hard to spot.”

Pearce leaned toward me conspiratorially. “He’s not as tall as you think.”

“Even though lots of people told me they’d seen him, all night I only ever seemed to get a glimpse of the back of his head. I just wanted to meet him ahead of the premiere, you know, face to face, to say thank you for agreeing to take me.”

The way she was talking, it sounded as if she was a little in love with the guy.
 

“Some people said they’d seen him at the bar, some in the summer house, others at the swing seat. Honestly, I must have walked ten miles chasing after him.”

“Did you finally get to meet him?”

“Uh huh. Just to say hi, though he didn’t seem that interested.” Her gaze dropped. She had the disappointed Santa Claus look again. “He seemed kind of distracted.”