1 The Hollywood Detective (9 page)

The sound of a thousand technicians, costumiers, make-up artists and background players wolfing their meals before their next call was almost deafening. We grabbed a couple trays and joined the line.

“So, you said you had something to show me?”

“Pardon?”

“It sure is loud in here. You said you had something,” I shouted over the din. “On the phone. Something from Clara?”

“Yes. When we sit down, I’ll show it to you.”

Now I was really intrigued. She ordered a meal and I collected a juice. We found a couple seats opposite each other in the middle of a long trestle table. On my right were two girls tapping out the rhythm of the musical score in front of them. To my left were a group of stunt guys mapping out a scene using cutlery and salt shakers as barriers and half a hotdog as a car. Mary and I both winced: we knew it wasn’t going to be easy to talk.

“This came this morning.” She pulled a postcard out of her jacket pocket and slid it across the table to me.
 

On the front was a photograph of gently sloping hills above a sweeping crescent of a golden sand. Printed in a florid, curling script was the legend “Santa Barbara”.

“This is from Clara?” I asked.

“Turn it over.”

Hi M

Met a real nice gent who’s showing me a real good time. Be back home in a couple weeks.

Love C

“You seen the postmark?” Mary shouted at me across the table.

Los Angeles.

“Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”

I did. If Clara was here in Los Angeles, why hadn’t she returned home? Was somebody stopping her?

“Should I take this to the police? Do you think they’ll take me seriously?” she asked.

“If you float some notes they might.”

“What do you make of it?” she asked.

I flipped the card over again and studied the picture. There was something about it that didn’t seem right. “Maybe it’s time to call her folks,” I said. “Do you have their number?”

She took a big mouthful of food. I waited for her to swallow. “No need. They called last night to talk to her. I told them she was at the movies. From the way they spoke I could tell they hadn’t heard from her.”

“You didn’t say anything about her going missing?”

“Didn’t see the point of worrying them.”

I stared at the reverse of the card. “Is this her handwriting?”

Mary had to duck as a stunt guy demonstrated a spectacular collision between the salt shaker and the hotdog. I think he apologized, but it was hard to tell with such a racket going on.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her writing. I guess it might be hers.”

“Is this the kind of thing she’d write on a postcard? Does it sound like her?”

“If you’re asking me is she the kind of girl who would run off with a guy she just met at a party, then, sure. Clara enjoys a good time. But not last Sunday night, not when she had a big audition at Paramount in the morning. It feels screwy to me, that’s why I wanted you to see it.”

I took a long sip of juice. “Maybe this is good news. Maybe she really has just taken off with some charming guy in a fast car.” I thought about what Myrtle Willoughby had told me. About the car she’d seen Clara getting into at the party. Just like the one I’d seen at Chateau Elysée. “But on the other hand…” I screwed up my face, not wanting to share the less positive explanations.

“Oh believe me, I’ve been driving myself crazy going over all the things that might have happened to her. This is what I’ve come up with, tell me what you think.” She stuck a thumb in the air. “Scenario number one: the card was written by somebody who’s taken her some place against her will and is using it to delay the police investigation by a few days.” She waved thumb and forefinger at me. “Scenario two: it was written by Clara, but with a gun at her temple—”

“You watch too many movies.”

“Professional hazard. Three: it was written by her killer, trying to cover his tracks.”

“You’re forgetting number four: she’s been kidnapped by white slave traders.”

“I don’t appreciate your making fun of me, Mr McCoy.”

“I’m not, I swear. You asked for my opinion. And I still think the most likely scenario is she’s been swept off her feet by some Romeo and is so head over heels that she forgot to post the card in the place where she bought it.”

Mary turned and glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. She collected the postcard from the table and slipped it back inside her jacket.
 

“Listen, you’ve paid me until the end of tomorrow. I still got a few leads to chase up. I’m sure we’ll find her. Try not to worry.”

Mary sat very still and thought about what I’d said. She dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “How can I not worry? Los Angeles isn’t the safest place in the world at the best of times. But now, with that wild animal on the loose?” She patted a hand against her chest. “I mean, can you imagine finding a big cat on your porch when you stepped outside?”

I thought about the tiger. “I can picture it.”

She straightened the cutlery on her plate. The girls to my right started to hum along to the rhythm they’d been tapping.

“Shall we?” Mary pushed back her chair and stood up. We walked over to the rack of used trays covered in dirty crockery and food spills. “You said you still had a few leads.”

“Yeah, I spoke to a gal named Myrtle Willoughby—a name you recognized on the guest list? She told me she saw Clara leave the party on Sunday night, so I’m looking for the car she traveled in. And that Tomasky fella? He’s a photographer, he did her head shots. I intend to speak to him this afternoon.”
 

“Right now?”

“Just as soon as I get to his studio on Hollywood Boulevard.”

We pushed through the double doors into the blistering sun. Mary shielded her eyes with a hand. “But he’s here.”

“He is?”

“Yes. I recognized the name when I saw it on a friend’s call sheet this morning. He’s right here on the lot doing publicity shots for the new Tarzan movie.”

I thought that was a happy coincidence until I saw an even happier one. On the way over to the Tarzan set, I spotted something very interesting in the parking lot. Parked up close to a single-story building was a maroon and green Cadillac convertible.
 

Finally I felt like I was getting somewhere.

The thing you notice first whenever you walk on a sound stage is the acoustics. If you sit and watch people arrive, chances are that four out of five of them will stick a finger in their ears within the first ten paces, trying to unblock something that isn’t there. I don’t know what they do on set, but things always sound muffled, like you’ve got custard in your ears.

I have to say, I was grateful for that custard: the noise in Stage 17 was about ten times louder than in the refectory. The lights were humming, the cameras whirring and about a hundred different people were all barking instructions at one another. Plus, because this was the Tarzan set, add in the squawking parrots, chattering monkeys, and the sound technicians making like trumpeting elephants, and you’ve got yourself a headache so bad a whole bottle of aspirin wouldn’t shift it. I wanted to pull my hat right down over my ears, even if it would have made me look like Stan Laurel. The director called action, and for about thirty seconds the sound levels slumped, only to soar straight back up when he yelled “cut”.
 

It’s not always easy to get onto a set when a picture’s in production, but once you’re on, there are so many people hanging around that a private investigator who keeps his mouth shut and his head down won’t attract any attention, unwanted or otherwise. So I wandered around freely. I took a good look at the guys who were looking after the animals. Between takes, Cheeta scampered over to his handler, a middle-aged guy with a never-ending supply of bananas. They were filming a scene that involved Tarzan capturing a snake, and the snake handler always made sure he grabbed the mambo when the cameras weren’t rolling. There were at least two men corralling the parrots—which were flying all over—and another two men guarding a large cage that was shrouded with a heavy curtain. A sign on the cage said Raymondo. Crocodile. 18 yrs. They all seemed very professional, and very responsible. I wondered if they were from Goebel’s. I thought about striking up a conversation with one of them, but they all seemed far too preoccupied to make small talk with me.

A photographer was trying to get Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan to pose with the mamba whenever there was a break in filming. Johnny seemed much more obliging than his co-star, but I wasn’t really paying that much attention to the actors: I kept both eyes on the photographer.

Though he was tall, he seemed to have a permanent stoop, probably from bending over cameras all day. He looked like something straight out of the movies himself. His hair was slicked back, he had a pencil mustache, and wore spats at the end of his skinny legs. I didn’t need to speak to the guy to know I didn’t trust him. The fact that Myrtle Willoughby had seen him fighting with Clara certainly didn’t help to raise my opinion of him any.

After a few more takes someone shouted that the camera had jammed and there would be a thirty minute break. Maureen and Johnny immediately left the set, and headed to their dressing rooms, while most of the crew made a dash for the refectory. With only the animals to photograph, Wilfred Tomasky tried to get some close-ups of the snake. He probably felt some affinity with the slithering creature.

“Was WC Fields right?” I asked him.

Tomasky looked up briefly from the camera.

“About never working with children and animals,” I explained.

“You think I have not heard that question before?” He spoke with a thick accent. Maybe he was Russian. Or Polish.

“Still, at least these ones are a lot tamer than the animals on Sunday night, huh?”

He turned his attention from the snake and finally looked in my direction. He scrutinized my face.

“You were there, right?” I said. “I’m sure I saw you down at the pool.”

The snake charmer came over. He was a short guy in the wrong kind of suit for the heat inside the studio. “If you don’t need Charlie, I’ll take him away,” he said quietly.
 

Tomasky sneered at him. “Okay, I am finished with him anyway.”

Charlie dutifully coiled himself around his handler’s arm and was quickly deposited in a trunk.

“I got a little wasted myself,” I continued. “Man, William Powell knows how to throw a party, right?”

Tomasky didn’t answer me, instead he concentrated hard on changing plates.

“You ever shoot in color?”

He nodded.

“Use Kodachrome? Everyone says they’re the best.”

“It’s okay. Agfacolor Neu is better. For true professionals.”

Just about the only thing I was learning about Wilfred Tomasky was that he wasn’t a talker. He was about as interested in my company as he was in the price of grapes.

“Yeah, I remember now.” I wasn’t about to give up. “You were with a blonde gal. Pretty. What was her name?” I would have impressed the Academy with my acting skills, but Tomasky was utterly unmoved. “Clarissa? Clare, maybe? No, wait a minute… Clara!”

Tomasky turned very slowly toward me. “You know Clara?” His tone was cautious, with more than a hint of suspicious.

“Hey, she’s not your girlfriend is she?” I put my hands up, mocking submission. I must have seemed like a prize jerk. “Because when I said she was pretty, I was just, I mean… I wouldn’t want you to think…”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” He turned back to his equipment.

He had an efficient way of shutting down a conversation, and I was getting tired of prying it back open again.

“But she was your girlfriend, right? I mean before Sunday.”

No response.

“She had to be. The only time I fight like that with a broad is when I’m dating her.”

Tomasky had his back to me and I could see the muscles tighten under his shirt. I felt I had no choice but to provoke him further.

“She probably deserved it, right? What she do? Run off with another guy?”

Tomasky started to turn toward me, straightening to his full height as he did so. He spun round fast. I could see he’d balled his right fist and it was heading for my face. I took a step backward so quick his knuckles barely made contact, but still hurt enough to make it easy for me to react.
 

“Ow! What the hell was that for?” I made a big show of looking like I would retaliate and put my fists up. A few voices round the set started to tell us to cut it out. “Bet you hit girls too,” I said.

The narrowing of his eyes told me he’d taken my bait. “You want me to do it again?” he sneered.

I noticed some of the guys around the studio take tentative steps toward us.

“I’d rather you hit me than some poor girl, what kinda monster are you any—”

This time his fist made more contact that I was expecting and I stumbled backward, kicking over a wooden crate. We were now hemmed in by a group of a half dozen men.
 

“You all right, Willie?” the sweaty snake handler asked.

“Hey!” I protested, “I’m the one getting socked here.”

“What’s this all about?” A taller guy, beefy too, pushed his way into the group. “You wanna get banned from the set you’re going the right way about it.”

“You ought to ban this guy,” I said, rubbing my jaw theatrically. “He’s a wild man.”

Tomasky was straining to have another swipe, but just as he was going to take a swing a loud shriek stopped him in his tracks.

A woman behind us was screaming at the top of her lungs. “Lord Almighty! Get it away from me!” she hollered.

The mamba was standing up on its tail, hissing at her. The snake handler called for calm, but no one heard him, and as panic engulfed the stage, I decided to slip away. I’d got what I’d come for: Tomasky had overreacted to my mentioning Clara. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but, I was fairly sure the Cadillac convertible in the parking lot had to belong to him. It was all adding up. I figured if I followed the guy when he left the studio, there was a chance he’d lead me in the direction of Clara.