The Virtuous Woman (6 page)

“Why, certainly not! They do every scene entirely out of
context. There’s no continuity to it. They have people standing on every side telling them exactly what to say. That’s not theater, and it will never last.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Mrs. Fountain. Well, this makes my job much simpler. Now all I have to do is find Charles Bannister.”

“Let me make a call for you, Mr. Key. I know an agent who knows the status of every actor in the business.”

He could not help feeling that God himself had sent him to this place. “That would be most helpful,” he said.

Francis waited while Blanche got her glasses, perched them on her nose, and dialed a number. She spoke to a man who gave her another name, and finally she called an agent by the name of Abe Goldfein.

“Mr. Goldfein, this is Blanche Fountain.” A pause, and then she said, “Certainly you must remember me. I have a gentleman here who needs help finding Charles Bannister. Would you know his whereabouts?”

Key was sitting straight up listening, and when the actress reached for a tarnished brass pencil to write something down, he felt the burden of finding this man lift from his shoulders.

Putting the phone down, she handed him the slip of paper and said, “He’s in Hollywood. Awful place!”

Key rose, and when she put her out hand, he bent over it and kissed it as if he were a prince. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Fountain. You’ve been so helpful. I know this is not usual, but I would have spent money finding out this information.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a money clip, and removed a twenty-dollar bill. “Please give this to your favorite charity in your name.”

“Why, certainly I will be happy to do that.”

Francis was certain that her favorite charity would be Blanche Fountain, but that didn’t bother him. “I’ll be eagerly anticipating your comeback, Mrs. Fountain. Look for me in the front row.”

“Certainly. You must come backstage after the performance.”

****

“Mr. Winslow, I think I found the man that took your daughter away from Bertha Zale.”

Phil Winslow’s voice crackled with excitement over the telephone. “That’s great! Where is he?”

“He’s in Hollywood. Los Angeles, actually. I have his address. I can’t guarantee he’ll be there, Mr. Winslow, but this is the best lead I’ve come upon.”

“I want you to go out there at once, but come by here first. I’ll get you a ticket for the train and I’ll give you some money. You’ve done good work.”

“You can thank Blanche Fountain.”

“No, I can thank you,” Phil said with relief in his voice. “I’ll have the ticket and the money ready for you.”

CHAPTER SIX

The Ring of Death

The taxi pulled up in front of a single-story building stretched behind a line of tall royal palms. Francis eyed it suspiciously. “This is Bellingham Hospital? It doesn’t look like a hospital to me.”

The burly cab driver turned around to face him. His face and arms were bronzed by the California sun, and he had two teeth missing. “It ain’t no hospital if that’s what you want,” he grunted. “If you’re sick, you’d better go someplace else.”

“What do you mean it’s not a hospital?” Key demanded. He searched the building in vain for a sign, but he saw none. “Isn’t this Bellingham Hospital?”

“I said it ain’t no hospital. It’s just a clinic. It ain’t even that. It’s a place where rich people come to dry out when they get the DT’s.”

Key chewed his lower lip thoughtfully and pushed his reading glasses up with his forefinger as he checked the address again. “If there’s no hospital by that name, I guess this is it, then. How much do I owe you?”

“One seventy-five.”

He pulled two dollars out of his billfold and handed it to the driver.

“You know, a lotta them movie actors come to this here clinic,” the man said as he took the money. “I brung John Barrymore here twice already. The place is filled up with famous drunks. Hey, thanks for the tip.”

“You’re welcome.”

Key stepped out of the cab and glanced up at the azure sky through the towering palm trees. Light, fleecy clouds drifted lazily along. It was like a spring day in the tropics, with the breeze barely stirring the trees. As he walked up the steps, a gigantic yellow cat appeared from nowhere and stared at him suspiciously before turning and running, intent on some urgent business of his own.

Key stepped inside the glass door and approached the information desk to the right. A curvaceous woman in a white nurse’s uniform sat behind the desk, reading a fan magazine. “Can I help you?” she said, smiling brilliantly.

“Do you have a Mr. Charles Bannister as a patient here?”

“Oh yes, indeed!” Her blue eyes quickened, and the smile became even more engaging. “Are you in the movie business?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

The smile disappeared, and the receptionist fluffed her auburn hair. “His room is two twenty-six, but you’ll probably find him out sitting beside the pool. Right down this hall and to your left. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks. I hope you make it in the movies.”

“How did you know I wanted to be a movie star?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Francis grinned at her and winked before striding off down the hall. He turned left and followed the signs, stepping outside into the open air at the back of the hospital. To his right was a pool shimmering like a huge emerald. He passed several chaise longues and chairs occupied mostly by female patients. Francis slowly walked along until he saw a man lying on his back with a towel over his face under a colorful umbrella. Francis cleared his throat, and the man lifted the towel. “Who are you?” he mumbled.

“My name’s Francis Key. Are you Mr. Bannister?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Bannister sat up and looked Key over carefully. He was tall, finely tanned, and had a rather muscular body, spoiled by a roll of fat around the middle. “I don’t know you, do I?”

“No, you don’t.”

“What a shame for you,” Bannister said with a grin. He had an actor’s voice, full and strong, and spoke a little too rapidly. “You’re not from Liberty, are you?”

“Liberty?”

“Yeah, Liberty Pictures. You know.”

“No, I’m afraid not. I’m from New York, and I’m working on a case I thought you might be able to help me with.”

“A case? You a doctor or a policeman?”

“Neither one,” he said carefully, wondering how best to approach Bannister. It was a touchy situation, and he did not want to offend the man. “I don’t know how to tell you this—it’s actually a little embarrassing.”

Bannister laughed, and his capped teeth flashed against his tanned skin. “I doubt if anything you could say would embarrass me. Just spit it out, partner.”

Key nodded, understanding that straightforward tactics would work best with this man. “I’m looking for a young woman named Ruby Zale.”

Bannister’s eyes opened wide but almost immediately narrowed with suspicion. “You’re lookin’ for Ruby? What for?”

“It’s confidential, I’m afraid.”

“That means you’re a cop.”

“Not at all,” he said quickly.

“You have to be a cop if you’ve come all the way out here lookin’ for Ruby.”

“Actually, Mr. Bannister, I once served as a private investigator for the Rader Agency. Now I’m employed by a family that’s anxious to find the young woman.” He hesitated, then added, “I think there might be some money in it for her.”

Bannister shook his head, and his mouth twisted in a grimace. “It couldn’t be from her old lady. She didn’t have a pot to plant petunias in.”

“Is there any reason,” Key said carefully, “why you can’t help me with this?”

“I don’t want to get into any trouble.”

“No trouble. I just need to speak to her.” He turned his head to one side. “Why should she be trouble for you?”

“Well, to tell the truth, she was only a kid when we took up together, and we crossed the state lines. I think there’s some kind of law about that.”

“That’s right—it’s called the Mann Act. I understand she was only fifteen when she ran off with you.”

Alarms went off in Bannister’s head, and he clamped his lips together. “That was a while ago, and you can’t prove anything.”

“Look, Mr. Bannister, I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just trying to find the girl, and I think the situation will be a help to her. I can’t force you to tell me anything, but you must have felt something for her at one time. If you did, you can help her by helping me.”

Bannister picked up a jug of orange juice and poured some into a tumbler. He drank it, then set the glass down, seeming to come to a decision. “She’s a wild broad, Key. A good-lookin’ woman. But I’m tellin’ you she doesn’t care about
anything!
”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean she’s kind of nutty. Oh, she can be as sweet as sugar one minute, but what a temper. Why, I’ve seen her cryin’ over a dead bird and not ten minutes later hit a guy with a blackjack. You know she carries a blackjack?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, she does, and she knows how to use it too.” He reached up and rubbed his temple as if it were sore. “She laid me out cold one time. Believe me, I never forgot it.”

Francis followed the flight of a small bird that swooped over the pool. “Do you have any idea where she is?”

“We got in a fight, and she split on me. Just walked out with nothing more than the clothes she had on. I’ll give Ruby this, she never asked me for money. I gave her things, but she never asked for them.”

“When did she leave you?”

“Almost a year ago—no, more than that. Probably fourteen months. Yeah, that’s right. She found me with another woman, and I thought she was gonna kill us both. But she just gave me a look that would burn a hole in steel and walked out. Never even said good-bye.”

“You don’t know where she went?”

“Oh, sure,” Bannister said. “I looked around for her and found out she took off with a biker.”

“You mean a motorcycle rider?”

“That’s right. One of the real tough ones, from what I hear. A guy named Hack Keller.”

“And you never saw her after she left?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did once. I heard she was at this carnival doing an act with Keller, so I went to catch it.”

“An act? What sort of act?”

“Oh, you’ve probably seen them. It’s this big round steel thing called the Ring of Death. A guy on a motorcycle starts it up on the bottom and runs it up around the walls.” He made a face. “Pretty hairy, if you ask me. They could get killed doin’ that.”

“And you saw Ruby there?”

“I’ll say. After Keller got through runnin’ around like a squirrel on a treadmill, he stopped his cycle and Ruby rode in on another motorcycle. She had on black leather. I’m tellin’ you, she was a knockout. Her helmet was off, and that hair of hers could knock your eyes out.”

“What color is her hair?”

“Strawberry blond, and it’s the real thing. I know that for a fact. Anyway, she brought in that cycle and both of them started up around the cage. They went around together at first, and then Keller reversed so that the two of them were going in opposite directions.” Bannister shook his shoulders. “I wouldn’t get in a thing like that if they gave me the state of New York!”

“Did you talk to her after the show?”

“Yeah, just for a minute. I went around to their trailer, but
I didn’t get anywhere. She took one look at me and showed me the gate. I tried to argue, but about that time Keller came back and threatened to take my head off. A real troglodyte!”

“Do you remember the name of the act they were with?”

“It was the Royal Shows. Just a two-bit carnival was all.” Bannister swallowed hard and leaned forward. “You ain’t got a drink on you or a hip flask, have you, pal?” he whispered.

“Afraid not.” Francis looked at him quizzically. “I thought you were in here to get away from that.”

“Yeah, I am, but I’ve had about all I can take. I’ll get out of here tomorrow. I’m not a drunk like the rest of these people here. I just enjoy a drink now and then.”

Key nodded. “Thanks for the help.”

“Hey, if you see her, tell her I’m thinkin’ about her. And you can tell her she can come back if she wants.”

“I’ll tell her.”

****

The carnival was not terribly difficult to locate. It only took Francis three phone calls to discover that it was set up just outside of Los Angeles. He took a cab the next day, arriving at the fairgrounds at dusk. He was carrying his suitcase, which was as light as he could make it. Shifting it to his free hand, he walked down the middle of the midway with the noisy crowd. Garish lights flooded the place, and loud calliope music filled the air. The merry-go-round pumped the horses up and down as parents held their children steady on pink and green and red horses with flaring lips. Farther on, shills called out to passersby to try their luck at games of chance. Key stopped long enough to throw some baseballs at a fake batter and, to the chagrin of the owner, succeeded in winning a huge kewpie doll.

“You must be a professional pitcher,” the man complained.

“Not really. You can keep the kewpie doll.”

Key made his way through the carnival until he found the Ring of Death. There was a platform outside, and a huge
and poorly executed painting of a man and a woman on motorcycles. The woman had on a skin-tight black biker’s outfit, her helmet under one arm and her strawberry blond hair blowing freely. Key studied the picture, wondering if the face was true to life. He approached a heavily made-up woman who was sitting behind a ticket box. “When does the show start?”

“Ten minutes. You want a ticket?”

“Yes.” He paid for his ticket and then started up the ramp that wound around to the top of a large steel sphere, where a crowd had already begun to gather. He found a place where he could set his suitcase next to him. As more people came he clung tenaciously to his place as the crowd tried to find good seats.

While he waited he thought of his mission and wondered how he was going to convince Ruby Zale that she was Grace Winslow.
I’ll have to try to get her to some quiet place by herself in hopes that she’ll listen to what I have to say.