1 The Hollywood Detective (12 page)

After a few minutes the door behind me flung open. I turned to see Red standing over the threshold, her face paler than I’d seen it before.

“I think you better come in,” she said.

“What’s up?” She didn’t answer, so I followed her inside. A short hallway led to an internal door. Red pushed it open. The studio lay on the other side. It was littered with props and camera equipment. The lights were on but it didn’t seem anyone was in. At the far end of the room I spotted another door. Red saw me looking.

“It’s locked,” she said. “When I knocked a voice yelled at me to wait a minute.”

“Was it a Russian accent? European?”

“Sounded American to me.” She let out a breath. “Then I heard noises, clattering and banging. Like things falling over. Then it stopped and I’ve heard nothing since.”

I hurried over to the door and tried the handle. It turned but the door wouldn’t budge. I put my ear against the wood. I could hear movement on the other side. I banged on the door with a fist. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

There was no answer. I put my shoulder to the door and pushed. It moved a fraction of an inch so I pushed harder. It moved some more, but it felt like someone was pushing from the other side. I shoved again, with everything I had and this time it shifted wide enough for me to step inside. There was a heavy black drape hanging down just inside the doorway.

“You sure you should be going in there?” Red asked.

“Ask me again in five minutes. You stay out here. Wait until I call, okay?” I felt for the Colt under my jacket.

Red nodded, but I wasn’t sure she’d really heard me. “Be careful,” she said.

I squeezed through the gap. As soon as I was inside, the door snapped shut behind me and I walked straight into the drape. I couldn’t see a thing: the room was completely, utterly black. It must have been Tomasky’s darkroom. I felt my pockets for a matchbook but didn’t have one. One of the disadvantages of not smoking.

“Hello.” I raised my voice. “Anyone in here?”

I listened and thought I could make out the sound of someone breathing. In the darkness I felt disoriented; I couldn’t tell how far away they were. I took a step forward and my shoe hit something soft and heavy. I stepped over it.

“We knocked a couple times. I’m real sorry for barging in like this… interrupting your work.”
 

I got no response.

“Hey, come on, buddy. I know you’re in here.”

The breathing got louder. What kind of commotion had Red heard? I thought about the pictures I’d seen at the bookstore and wondered what I’d just walked into.

“I’ll tell you what. I’m going to wait outside for you to finish up. I’ll be—”

I felt a hand on my arm. Then my shoulder. Next thing I knew something hit me real hard in the face. I reached out my hands but there was no one in front of me. I could still hear the heavy breathing. I swung a hand toward the sound, swiping nothing but air.

The breath I’d been hearing inhaled sharply. Then bam! A direct hit to my jaw. So hard my knees crumpled and I hit the deck. I touched a hand to my face, it came away wet. Whoever hit me then drove a sharp-pointed shoe into my ribs.

Then the door opened, letting in a little light. I heard a loud yelp from outside. The door swung shut and I was in darkness again. I struggled first to my knees and then to my feet.
 

I needed to get to Red.

I stretched out my arms and felt my way toward the door. My feet hit an obstacle on the floor and I fell right over it, slamming into the door. Frantically I pushed the drape out of my way and managed to find the handle. I yanked open the door. A shaft of light fell across the obstacle that had blocked my path. My stomach lurched.

The big hard heap lying on the floor was Wilfred Tomasky.

I swallowed and ran out of darkroom and back into the studio. Red was sitting on the floor, gripping her foot with her hands. “What happened?” I asked.

 
“I tried to stop him. Stuck out my leg to trip the guy up. He just kicked it out of the way. My foot hurts like hell.” She looked up at me and then promptly jumped to her feet. “My God, Spencer, you’re bleeding.”

“Hey,” I said weakly, “you should see the other guy.”

“They all say that.” She pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse and dabbed my face.

“No really. I don’t think he was breathing.”

She looked perplexed. “I saw him leave.”

“I don’t know who you saw, but Tomasky is on the floor the other side of that door.”

She pushed past me and ran back into the darkroom. “Help me, will you?” she called to me.

I looked for a heavy weight to wedge the door open while Red checked his vitals. “Looks like he’s been strangled.”

I found a camera case that kept the door open a crack. I took a step closer and leaned over him. A spot of red appeared on his cheek as I stared at his pale face.

“What the…?”

“Spencer! You’re dripping on him.”

I stepped away quickly.

“What do we do now?” Red asked. “Should we call the cops?”

“Not yet.” I looked around for a lamp. I found a chain hanging from the ceiling, tugged on it and a red bulb flickered into life in the center of the room. The place had been turned upside down. Metal trays lay beneath a workbench that ran the length of the back wall, boxes and papers knocked off shelves, a file cabinet was on its side, all the drawers pulled out.

“Must have been one hell of a fight,” Red said.

“Or maybe something else.” I turned to her.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you get a look at the guy who ran out?”

“Only a glimpse. He was a big guy, carrying a bit of extra weight. Shirt sleeves and suspenders. Pointed tan shoes. Five ten. Holding a pack of brown paper files against his chest.”

I was impressed by her powers of observation.

“Hair color?”

“I didn’t see his face. His hat was pulled down low over his ears.”

I spotted a telephone at the end of the bench. I hurried toward it and picked up the receiver.

“Hello, operator,” a voice said at the other end of the line.

“Good afternoon. I seem to have been disconnected. Could you please put me through to my last call?”

“One moment.”

There were several clicks on the line and then the pulse of a call being put through.

“Mr Strickling’s office, how may I help you?”

I slammed down the phone. My chest tightened. The pain in my jaw grew hot and my legs started to feel like they wouldn’t support me. I leaned on the bench. Who had called Strickling? Tomasky, or the guy who had just killed him? Strickling’s name had come up on this case too many times to be coincidental. Did he know what had happened to Clara?

“We should get out of here,” Red said and tugged on my arm.

I looked at her. Her face was glowing pink in the red light.

“Come on, Spencer. You can’t be anywhere near this place.”

The blow to my face had muddied my thoughts. I couldn’t understand her urgency.

“You had a fight with Tomasky. Plenty of people saw you, right? And now he’s dead.” She pulled harder on my arm.

Finally my head cleared a little. “No. Not yet.”

Outside, in the distance a siren sounded. The wailing howl of a police siren.

“Come. On.”

“Wait!” I grabbed a rag cloth from the bench and wiped down the phone. Then the surface of the bench where I’d been leaning on it. I did the same thing with the light pull and the door handle, both sides of the door. We got half way across the outer studio when I pulled up.

“For God’s sake, Spencer!”

The siren was louder now. Heading in our direction for sure. The guy with the sharp-toed shoes must have called the cops.
 

“Wait for me outside.” I ran back to the darkroom and wiped the drop of blood from Tomasky’s face. I’d heard they might be able to tell all sorts of things from blood these days. No need to take any chances.

Red was waiting on the sidewalk when I exited the building.

“We take this nice and easy, just a couple out for an afternoon stroll.”

Red produced another handkerchief, this time from her purse. “In that case you’d better cover your face.”

We got to the corner just as a cop car swung onto Hollywood Boulevard. I made sure my hat was good and low over my forehead.

“That was good work in there,” I told Red as we crossed the intersection. “I was impressed by how you handled yourself around a dead body. Plenty of girls would get hysterical.”

“Do I strike you as the hysterical type?”

I shrugged. “I guess not.”

“I’ve seen more dead bodies than an average undertaker.”

Sure. I said nothing.

“I’m a natural at this game.”

“Oh yeah?” I turned around when we reached the opposite curb. The cop car had pulled up outside Tomasky’s studio. I pointed toward it. “Notice anything?”

Red stared at the scene for a moment, then gasped. “The car… the Cadillac. It’s gone.”

“Seems it didn’t belong to Wilfred Tomasky after all.”

Mary Treen had paid me for four days, which meant I had less than twenty-four hours to get a result. There’s nothing I like less about my job than having to tell a client I’m no good at it. The way things stood, I’d failed Mary completely. I was no closer to discovering what had happened to Clara Lockhart than I had been when she had first come to see me. I didn’t want to let her down.
 

For that reason, after I’d been home to clean up my face, I went back out to Culver City in the hope of following up the one lead I had—that damned Cadillac convertible. I’d seen it so many times it felt like it was taunting me.

I took sandwiches and a flask of coffee, parked the Plymouth outside the MGM gates and settled in for the night. Shortly after ten I got lucky. The gates cranked open and out spewed the Cadillac. I waited until the convertible reached the next corner then crunched the Plymouth into gear.
 

The driver headed west in a hurry. He floored the gas between intersections and flew through traffic signals whether they were green or red. I had no choice but to drive as recklessly as he did. At Ocean he unexpectedly stopped at the signal just before it turned from green to red. I came to a screeching halt behind him.

The big guy got out, left his door open and walked toward the Plymouth. He had to be over six feet tall and must have weighed at least 230 pounds. A car pulled up behind me.
 

I was trapped.

The guy walked slowly but with clear intent. When he got closer I saw he was holding something behind his back. I was convinced he was about to drag me from the car, pummel me with a club or a baseball bat till I was senseless, then toss me into the oncoming traffic. He drew level with the driver door and I watched as he reached for the handle.

The signal changed and the car behind honked as the big guy fumed at my missing chrome work. I leaned over and locked the passenger door just before he got there. We stared at each other through the glass, him bursting with fury, me thinking about reaching under my jacket for the Colt. The car behind honked again. Then I saw exactly what the big guy had in his hand: a tire iron.

Still honking, the car behind reversed hard in a squeal of rubber then pulled round me, getting through the signal just before it changed back to red. That was my cue: I put the Plymouth into reverse and stamped on the gas. I pulled out—into the oncoming traffic—and the angry fella raised the iron and brought it down with both hands hard and fast. Straight onto my nearside fender. I heard the fender crumple. He lumbered after the car as I maneuvered around his Cadillac, he swung the tire iron again and took out my taillights. I floored the gas and saw him recede in the rear-view mirror. He hurled the tire iron after me.

So much for tailing him. My only lead had gone nowhere.

*

I made sure I got to the office good and early on that Thursday morning. The wind looked like it’d whip up wave after wave, but instead of heading for the ocean, I parked up outside Joe’s in the battered Plymouth and grabbed breakfast. Red pulled up twenty minutes later in a Pontiac 224. I hadn’t considered what kind of car she drove before and I was surprised a woman like Red had made such a conservative choice. It was the sort of car I associated with provincial insurance salesmen. It seemed far too dull for her.

I tapped on the window of the diner as she walked past and gestured for her to join me. She slipped into the seat opposite mine. I told her to order whatever she wanted and I’d pick up the tab, but she waved away the menu.

“I’ll just have coffee.”

“You eaten breakfast already?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t face it.”

It was the reaction I’d expected. Sometimes it just gets delayed as people take it all in. Coming face to face with a murder victim can do that to anyone. I’ve seen cops lose their lunch when they see their first corpse.

“I’m sorry. I should never have taken you to Tomasky’s studio. It was too dangerous.”

She stared at me, holding my gaze firmly in hers. “You couldn’t be more wrong. I simply ate something last night that didn’t agree with me. My loss of appetite this morning has nothing to do with what happened yesterday at Tomasky’s.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Honestly.”

“Have it your own way.”

“It’s the truth. I saw plenty of dead bodies when I accompanied my father on his house visits.”

“Was he an undertaker?”

“He is a doctor.”

I dabbed the corners of my mouth with a napkin and signaled for the check. “Whole world of difference between some little old lady dying in her bed of old age and the victim of a violent crime. First times are always tough.” I reached out and placed my hand on top of hers. We both flinched a little, as surprised as each other at the inappropriate intimacy.
 

Red pulled her hand away.

“You got nothing to be ashamed of,” I told her.
 

The waitress put the check on the table and I reached into my pocket for some cash.
 

“Why won’t you listen to me? I ate some… seafood last night that wasn’t cooked properly. My stomach is a little unsettled. I’ll be fine in a while.”