Murder on Location (16 page)

The shop was a long rectangle on two levels decorated with weathered barn siding. A horse collar, a kerosene lantern, and a few other rustic touches completed the decor. Four women and two men in green coveralls were cutting a swath through twice that many women, who were draped in rose-coloured wrap-arounds. A lean young man with a comb in his breast-pocket looked up from cutting or perming—I didn't want to look too close—and came over wearing an easy smile.

“Are you lost? I don't remember seeing you before.”

“I'd like a word with one of your customers, please. Miss Mason?” I smiled. He didn't stop smiling. He didn't
twitch a muscle, but the impulse behind his expression died. He didn't move.

“I'd like a word with her myself. I rewrote my whole appointment book to fit her in and now she doesn't show. Some people, honestly. She didn't phone. Nothing. She said she needed emergency treatment, so I break my back trying to accommodate her, and it's not like she's an old and valued customer.”

“Do you think she may have been held up? You know these theatrical people.”

“Well, you don't hold me up more than once. That's a rule I have. You want to wait to see if she comes?” I nodded. He indicated a chair and I took it. He took another squint at his watch, looked as though he could bend aluminum pop cans and left me.

“Sorry we're fresh out of
Field and Stream,”
one of the girls said in a few minutes. “Sherry will be going for coffee in about ten minutes. Would you like some?”

“Sure.” In my chair—a refugee from a farmer's kitchen, but rubber-padded and covered with gingham—I began my re-education when I picked up the magazines. There were new shades in nailpolish and lipstick for the spring. That was heartwarming. And facial cleansers were penetrating more deeply than ever this season. I read two movie reviews which told me nothing about the movie, but everything about the director's post-production depression. In an article called “Dressing for Less,” I discovered that it was possible to buy an Oxford cloth shirt for only $48 and a linen blouse for $105. I skipped the
piece about “Acupuncture for a Younger You” and gave Sherry two quarters as she left the store with her list. A cold wind blew the nests of cut hair away from the door. The woman with the blue hair eyed me suspiciously. Under the mink she was wearing a tan twin-set over slacks in a large hound's-tooth pattern. I stared back at her and she buried her head behind
Harper's Bazaar
.

Sherry returned with a large paper bag stapled closed with a bill attached. She found my regular coffee and gave me an extra package of sugar. It was hot and welcome. The woman behind
Harper's Bazaar
sneered at me as I drank my coffee. I didn't think I was making any noise. I don't know the etiquette for drinking from a Styrofoam cup. I didn't think she did either.

When I'd put my second cigarette butt into the cup, I saw the proprietor headed my way again.

“Well, it looks like she's disappointed both of us.”

“How close is she to not being a blonde any more?”

“Oh, to hear her talk last week, she was within an ace of turning brunette before your very eyes. But I don't suppose she's that badly off. She needs a set more than other major repairs.”

“Oil and transmission okay?” He shrugged, and snipped the scissors in his hand rapidly. “When did she come to see you the first time?”

“Let me think. Well, I know it was more than a week ago. She came in, had the complete treatment. Then she was back a few days later for a special job. That's right: it was New Year's Eve. She said she was out to impress
some movie mogul or something. Said it was her big chance. So I gave her my personalized service, and when she stepped out into the waiting limo that picked her up she was really stunning.”

“A limo, you say?”

“Hired, of course, by the film people. That's what she said anyway. But her movie mogul was a cheapskate, if you ask me. I happened to be celebrating over the river that night with a few friends and I saw the same limo parked outside the Surf Lounge. I wouldn't go into that place if they had it fumigated. Tacky-tacky-tacky.”

“Well, I guess she's not going to make it this afternoon.”

“Tough titty, I say. I won't rearrange my book from now on. Well, I'd best get on with Mrs. Solmi.”

“Mrs. Tullio Solmi?”

“The one and only.”

“Then I guess you'd better.”

The general store bell clanged behind me as I left Anton's Salon feeling like I'd come up with a few loose clues. The limo, for one, the bar across the river, and Mrs. Solmi. It was a strange sort of grab-bag and I couldn't put a value on it. This line of thinking was designed to put me off worrying about my major concern. It was good of my head to try to spare me, but I had to face it: Billie was in some new and deep trouble. Had the tall guy with the chewing gum caught up with her? I tried to think of other explanations that would fit with the facts of two missed appointments. The only explanation that
made sense was the least attractive. Billie was either in a lot of trouble or nothing would ever bother her again.

Noonan was up to tricks. I didn't know him well enough to know that they were old tricks, but I suspected it. A very pretty redhead sat primly across the table Noonan was leaning on with both elbows. He looked like he was going to jump the gap and finish her off with one bite. I hated to interrupt, but there was no butler around to leave my card with. And the only maid wouldn't remain one long if I didn't butt in.

“I need a word with you, Ed.” I'd moved up from Mister when I caught him covering for whomever Billie Mason was seeing.

“Oh, Mr. Cooperman. I didn't see you come in. Ruby, I want you to meet Mr. Cooperman. Ruby Stevens. That's right, isn't it? There's a lot of talent in the little lady, take it from me.” Noonan tried to grin at me, but it was a dark grin from under heavy eyebrows. I could almost let up on him a little, he'd been caught redhanded. Ruby made an excuse to leave after Noonan muttered something to her while patting her hand over the table. He walked her to where the door would have been if there'd been a door, and returned to the table.

We were in a low, shed-like room, part of the government set-up near the Rainbow Bridge. There were some scattered tables with mirrors and make-up boxes on them, and a dozen tubular chairs with plywood bottoms, some
against one wall, the rest where they'd been abandoned by the actors and crew of the film unit, who were using the space for changing and make-up. On one side was a luggage rack with letters of the alphabet strung out to aid the Customs officials. I could hear their voices coming from the other side of the partition, which corralled an office area near the front door,
for official use only
. The windows were few and institutional. There was a coating of bureaucratic dust everywhere.

“Nice kid,” Noonan said, looking after Ruby. “Lots of heart. Now, ah, you were wondering about Mrs. Mason.” I let him struggle with it. Confused people spill more than calm ones. “I tried your office. You're not sore, I hope, because I didn't help you get ahold of Billie the first time, are you, Mr. Cooperman? A job like mine has to deal with very sensitive stuff. It's a position of trust, really.” He pulled a flask from his inside breast pocket and placed it on the table. “Let's talk this over calmly.” He poured a shot into the cap and pushed it toward me with a desperate smile, trying to brighten that dark comical face. I didn't look at it. I somehow had the upper hand and I wasn't going to throw it away for an ounce of rye with Noonan's sweat on it. If he had no reason to be afraid of me, then it was the other guy he was worried about. The one he was covering for could buy and sell a flunky like Noonan and Noonan's white knuckles told me all about it.

“I can't hand out addresses to anyone who wants them,” he continued, with both eyes shifting between me
and the drink he'd poured me. “There's a dirty word for that kind of thing. But I've levelled with you since then. I haven't heard from Billie. I swear it.”

“Has your friend heard from her? The guy you're covering for?”

“She hasn't been in touch. Changed her mind, just gone off.”

“If she's gone off it's probably because she's in a ditch outside town. Get this through your head, Noonan: Billie's disappeared, vanished. She's been snatched. That kind of thing can't be covered up. You'd better get that news back to your pal. There's already been one murder, so they're not kidding around. I've got to talk to the Regional Police and I'm running out of harmless press releases for them. They want to pin that murder on somebody, and I don't want to sweat it out under the bright lights protecting a guy like you, a guy who won't even level with me.”

“Cooperman, you got me all wrong.”

“The way I see it, you're the perfect patsy in this business. You knew Hayes and you knew Billie. You thought you could do something for Billie, but the boyfriend had to go. It's rough, but I've seen rougher. It will hold you until the movie's finished, and that'll be too long for you.”

“There was nothing between Billie and me. I can prove that.”

“I'm not talking about proof. I'm talking about time. Time you can't afford to sacrifice right now. Time that
won't ever come around for you again. Okay, maybe it's stretching it to say that you popped David Hayes, but the cops won't take long to figure out that you're fronting for another party, someone who will let you take it and take it without coming forward and saving your skin. So, you're a patsy, and you can only blame yourself.” Noonan was breaking out in a shiny forehead, and I was getting his bad breath across the table: rye on top of Corn Flakes and milk.

“You've got to be reasonable. I can't tell you what I don't know.”

“Fine. Fine. Play it that way. I won't push it. It's your look-out. But after today, there will be cops around asking the same questions, and you won't be able to stonewall them. They'll have you tucked up in the slammer so fast you'll leave your shoes where they're standing. By the time they finish with you, you can advise on the remake of
Ice Bridge
as a musical.”

“I'll have to phone somebody. I hear what you're saying, Cooperman. I'm not dense. But I'll have to talk to a certain party. Okay?”

“Where will you be at eight tonight?”

“Wherever you say.”

“Good. Meet me in the restaurant at the top of the Pagoda, the one that revolves.”

“I'll be there. I will. I'll do what I can.”

“I know you will, because you're not doing it for me, you're doing it for yourself. See you at eight.”

I could almost see myself walking out of there. I don't know where I'd learned to talk like that. There is something about being on a movie set that brings the ham out in everybody, and I heard an echo of Raft and Bogart with a little Edward G. Robinson thrown in.

Across the street, I phoned my answering service—Lowell Mason had called, so had my mother. I'd almost forgotten I had one. And I was neglecting my client just as badly. There was a message to call Miranda Pride. I wondered what she wanted. I called her suite. No reply. She wasn't in any of the restaurants or coffee shops. I tried the bars in both the Colonel John and the Tudor. Nothing doing.

When I walked past the office of the Colonel John's hotel detective, the door was open, the room was empty and a burning cigarette was sending a straight line of smoke to the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. A detective magazine was lying open, face down on the desk, the girl on its cover cowering in the back seat of a taxi. Under the magazine I found his VIP list which included the movie company's whipped cream as well as a titled nobody from a country that doesn't even exist any more. Miranda's suite number was third from the top. I tried the top drawer of the desk to see if there was an extra set of skeleton keys. There wasn't. Usually security people are pushovers. I walked over to the hotel desk and casually asked for the key to suite 1456. It was a chance. I took it and it worked. I guess it's bad business to question the guests of your guests.

From the doorway of Miranda Pride's suite, the sitting-room looked like Jim Sayre's place over at the Tudor. It commanded the same view of the falls and betrayed the hand of the same interior decorator or his twin brother. Maybe there was more gilt on the lamps and picture frames here, maybe the military prints were more authentic-looking than the Elizabethan recreations next door, but it didn't add up to much. There was a bedroom off the main room and a connecting door to Furlong's suite. I put my head to the door and heard the sound of typing. So that's how it's done. You just put down one word after the other until it's done, and then re-done and then re-re-done, or until Mr. Raxlin says you're done.

I looked in the cupboard: one thousand and one dresses for one thousand and one nights, mostly pastels. Lots of scarves in a top drawer. The three hat boxes on one of the blond wood dressers showed three welllooked-after wigs, of different lengths and styles, each one mounted on a little head-shaped cloth-covered knob. It was like running across a dead animal act. It had a theatrical side and a morbid one. I put the lids back on and opened another drawer. Underwear of all kinds, shapes and colours. I closed that one quick. In the next I found a purse and in the purse a driver's licence for the State of California and a receipt for a Hertz Rent-A-Car dated Tuesday. Not much money, a few travellers' cheques, lipstick, two drinking straws and a small bottle of perfume. Very nice.