The Little Sister (12 page)

I paused and we eyed each other solidly for a while. I said: “You don’t really want the cops to have that picture, do you? Win, lose or draw, they’d crucify her. And when it was all over it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference whether Steelgrave was Moyer or whether Moyer killed Stein or had him killed or just happened to be out on a jail pass the day he was killed. If he got away with it, there’d always be enough people to think it was a fix. She wouldn’t get away with anything. She’s a gangster’s girl in the public mind. And as far as your business is concerned, she’s definitely and completely through.”

Ballou was silent for a moment, staring at me without expression. “And where are you all this time?” he asked softly.

“That depends a good deal on you, Mr. Ballou.”

“What do you really want?” His voice was thin and bitter now.

“What I wanted from her and couldn’t get. Something that gives me a colorable right to act in her interests up to the point where I decided I can’t go any farther.”

“By suppressing evidence?” he asked tightly.

“If it
is
evidence. The cops couldn’t find out without smearing Miss Weld. Maybe I can. They wouldn’t be bothered to try; they don’t care enough. I do.”

“Why?”

“Let’s say it’s the way I earn my living. I might have other motives, but that one’s enough.”

“What’s your price?”

“You sent it to me last night. I wouldn’t take it then. I’ll take it now. With a signed letter employing my services to investigate an attempt to blackmail one of your clients.”

I got up with my empty glass and went over and put it down on the desk. As I bent down I heard a soft whirring noise. I went around behind the desk and yanked upon a drawer. A wire recorder slid out on a hinged shelf. The motor was running and the fine steel wire was moving steadily from one spool to the other. I looked across at Ballou.

“You can shut it off and take the record with you,” he said. “You can’t blame me for using it.”

I moved the switch over to rewind and the wire reversed direction and picked up speed until the wire was winding so fast I couldn’t see it. It made a sort of high keening noise, like a couple of pansies fighting for a piece of silk. The wire came loose and the machine stopped. I took the spool off and dropped it into my pocket.

“You might have another one,” I said. “I’ll have to chance that.”

“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Marlowe?”

“I only wish I was.”

“Press that button on the end of the desk, will you?” I pressed it. The black glass doors opened and a dark girl came in with a stenographer’s notebook.

Without looking at her Ballou began to dictate. “Letter to Mr. Philip Marlowe, with his address. Dear Mr. Marlowe: This agency herewith employs you to investigate an attempt to blackmail one of its clients, particulars of which have been given to you verbally. Your fee is to be one hundred dollars a day with a retainer of five hundred dollars, receipt of which you acknowledge on the copy of this letter. Blah, blah, blah. That’s all, Eileen. Right away please.”

I gave the girl my address and she went out.

I took the wire spool out of my pocket and put it back in the drawer.

Ballou crossed his knees and danced the shiny tip of his shoe up and down staring at it. He ran his hand through crisp dark hair.

“One of these days,” he said, “I’m going to make the mistake which a man in my business dreads above all other mistakes. I’m going to find myself doing business with a man I can trust and I’m going to be just too damn smart to trust him. Here you’d better keep this.” He held out the two pieces of the photograph.

Five minutes later I left. The glass doors opened when I was three feet from them. I went past the two secretaries and down the corridor past the open door of Spink’s Office. There was no sound in there, but I could smell his cigar smoke. In the reception room exactly the same people seemed to be sitting around in the chintzy chairs. Miss Helen Grady gave me her Saturday-night smile. Miss Vane beamed at me.

I had been forty minutes with the boss. That made me as gaudy as a chiropractor’s chart.

19

The studio cop at the semicircular glassed-in desk put down his telephone and scribbled on a pad. He tore off the sheet and pushed it through the narrow slit not more than three quarters of an inch wide where the glass did not quite meet the top of his desk. His voice coming through the speaking device set into the glass panel had a metallic ring.

“Straight through to the end of the corridor,” he said, “you’ll find a drinking fountain in the middle of the patio. George Wilson will pick up there.”

I said: “Thanks. Is this bullet-proof glass?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I just wondered,” I said. “I never heard of anybody shooting his way into the picture business.”

Behind me somebody snickered. I turned to look at a girl in slacks with a red carnation behind her ear. She was grinning.

“Oh brother, if a gun was all it took.”

I went over to an olive-green door that didn’t have any handle. It made a buzzing sound and let me push it open. Beyond was an olive-green corridor with bare walls and a door at the far end. A rat trap. If you got into that and anything was wrong, they could still stop you. The far door made the same buzz and click. I wondered how the cop knew I was at it. So I looked up and found his eyes staring at me in a tilted mirror. As I touched the door the mirror went blank. They thought of everything.

Outside in the hot midday sun flowers rioted in a small patio with tiled walks and a pool in the middle and a marble seat. The drinking fountain was beside the marble seat. An elderly and beautifully dressed man was lounging on the marble seat watching three tan-colored boxers root up some tea-rose begonias. There was an expression of intense but quiet satisfaction on his face. He didn’t glance at me as I came up. One of the boxers, the biggest one, came over and made a wet on the marble seat beside his pants leg. He leaned down and patted the dog’s hard short-haired head.

“You Mr. Wilson?” I asked.

He looked up at me vaguely. The middle-sized boxer trotted up and sniffed and wet after the first one.

“Wilson?” He had a lazy voice with a touch of drawl to it. “Oh no. My name’s not Wilson. Should it be?”

“Sorry.” I went over to the drinking fountain and hit myself in the face with a stream of water. While I was wiping it off with a handkerchief the smallest boxer did his duty on the marble bench.

The man whose name was not Wilson said lovingly, “Always do it in the exact same order. Fascinates me.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Pee,” he said. “Question of seniority it seems. Very orderly. First Maisie. She’s the mother. Then Mac. Year older than Jock, the baby. Always the same. Even in my office.”

“In your office?” I said, and nobody ever looked stupider saying anything.

He lifted his whitish eyebrows at me, took a plain brown cigar out of his mouth, bit the end off and spit it into the pool.

“That won’t do the fish any good,” I said.

He gave me an up-from-under look. “I raise boxers. The hell with fish.”

I figured it was just Hollywood. I lit a cigarette and sat down on the bench. “In your office,” I said. “Well, every day has its new idea, hasn’t it.”

“Up against the corner of the desk. Do it all the time. Drives my secretaries crazy. Gets into the carpet, they say. What’s the matter with women nowadays? Never bothers me. Rather like it. You get fond of dogs, you even like to watch them pee.”

One of the dogs heaved a full-blown begonia plant into the middle of the tiled walk at his feet. He picked it up and threw it into the pool.

“Bothers the gardeners, I suppose,” he remarked as he sat down again. “Oh well, if they’re not satisfied, they can always—” He stopped dead and watched a slim mail girl in yellow slacks deliberately detour in order to pass through the patio. She gave him a quick side glance and went off making music with her hips.

“You know what’s the matter with this business?” he asked me.

“Nobody does,” I said.

“Too much sex,” he said. “All right in its proper time and place. But we get it in carload lots. Wade through it. Stand up to our necks in it. Gets to be like flypaper.” He stood up. “We have too many flies too. Nice to have met you, Mister—”

“Marlowe,” I said. “I’m afraid you don’t know me.”

“Don’t know anybody,” he said. “Memory’s going. Meet too many people. Name’s Oppenheimer.”

“Jules Oppenheimer?”

He nodded. “Right. Have a cigar.” He held one out to me. I showed my cigarette. He threw the cigar into the pool, then frowned. “Memory’s going,” he said sadly. “Wasted fifty cents. Oughtn’t to do that.”

“You run this studio,” I said.

He nodded absently. “Ought to have saved that cigar. Save fifty cents and what have you got?”

“Fifty cents,” I said, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

“Not in this business. Save fifty cents in this business and all you have is five dollars worth of bookkeeping.” He paused and made a motion to the three boxers. They stopped whatever they were rooting at and watched him. “Just run the financial end,” he said. “That’s easy. Come on children, back to the brothel.” He sighed. “Fifteen hundred theaters,” he added.

I must have been wearing my stupid expression again. He waved a hand around the patio. “Fifteen hundred theaters is all you need. A damn sight easier than raising purebred boxers. The motion-picture business is the only business in the world in which you can make all the mistakes there are and still make money.”

“Must be the only business in the world where you can have three dogs pee up against your office desk,” I said.

“You have to have the fifteen hundred theaters.”

“That makes it a little harder to get a start,” I said.

He looked pleased. “Yes. That is the hard part.” He looked across the green clipped lawn at a four-story building which made one side of the open square. “All offices over there,” he said. “I never go there. Always redecorating. Makes me sick to look at the stuff some of these people put in their suites. Most expensive talent in the world. Give them anything they like, all the money they want. Why? No reason at all. Just habit. Doesn’t matter a damn what they do or how they do it. Just give me fifteen hundred theaters.”

“You wouldn’t want to be quoted on that, Mr. Oppenheimer?”

“You a newspaper man?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Just for the hell of it I’d like to see somebody try to get that simple elementary fact of life into the papers.” He paused and snorted. “Nobody’d print it. Afraid to. Come on, children!”

The big one, Maisie, came over and stood beside him. The middle-sized one paused to ruin another begonia and then trotted up beside Maisie. The little one, Jock, lined up in order, then with a sudden inspiration, lifted a hind leg at the cuff of Oppenheimer’s pants. Maisie blocked him off casually.

“See that?” Oppenheimer beamed. “Jock tried to get out of turn. Maisie wouldn’t stand for it.” He leaned down and patted Maisie’s head. She looked up at him adoringly.

“The eyes of your dog,” Oppenheimer mused. “The most unforgettable thing in the world.”

He strolled off down the tiled path towards the executive building, the three boxers trotting sedately beside him.

“Mr. Marlowe?”

I turned to find that a tall sandy-haired man with a nose like a straphanger’s elbow had sneaked up on me.

“I’m George Wilson. Glad to know you. I see you know Mr. Oppenheimer.”

“Been talking to him. He told me how to run the picture business. Seems all it takes is fifteen hundred theaters.”

“I’ve been working here five years. I’ve never even spoken to him.”

“You just don’t get pee’d on by the right dogs.”

“You could be right. Just what can I do for you, Mr. Marlowe?”

“I want to see Mavis Weld.”

“She’s on the set. She’s in a picture that’s shooting.”

“Could I see her on the set for a minute?”

He looked doubtful. “What kind of pass did they give you?”

“Just a pass, I guess.” I held it out to him. He looked it over.

“Ballou sent you. He’s her agent. I guess we can manage. Stage 12. Want to go over there now?”

“If you have time.”

“I’m the unit publicity man. That’s what my time is for.” We walked along the tiled path towards the corners of two buildings. A concrete roadway went between them towards the back lot and the stages.

“You in Ballou’s office?” Wilson asked.

“Just came from there.”

“Quite an organization, I hear. I’ve thought of trying myself. There’s nothing in this but a lot of grief.”

We passed a couple of uniformed cops, then turned to a narrow alley between two stages. A red wigwag was swinging in the middle of the alley, a red light was on over a door marked 12, and a bell was ringing steadily above the red light. Wilson stopped beside the door. Another cop in a tilted-back chair nodded to him, and looked me over with that dead gray expression that grows on them like scum on a water tank.

The bell and the wigwag stopped and the red light cut off. Wilson pulled a heavy door open and I went past him. Inside was another door. Inside that what seemed after the sunlight to be pitch-darkness. Then I saw a concentration of lights in the far corner. The rest of the enormous sound stage seemed to be empty.

We went towards the lights. As we drew near the floor seemed to be covered with thick black cables. There were rows of folding chairs, a cluster of portable dressing rooms with names on the doors. We were wrong way on to the set and all I could see was the wooden backing and on either side a big screen. A couple of back-projection machines sizzled off to the side.

A voice shouted: “Roll ‘em.” A bell rang loudly. The two screens came alive with tossing waves. Another calmer voice said: “Watch your positions, please, we may have to end up matching this little vignette. All right, action.”

Wilson stopped dead and touched my arm. The voices of the actors came out of nowhere, neither loud nor distinct, an unimportant murmur with no meaning.

One of the screens suddenly went blank. The smooth voice, without change of tone, said: “Cut.”

The bell rang again and there was a general sound of movement. Wilson and I went on. He whispered in my ear: “If Ned Gammon doesn’t get this take before lunch, he’ll bust Torrance on the nose.”

“Oh. Torrance in this?” Dick Torrance at the time was a ranking star of the second grade, a not uncommon type of Hollywood actor that nobody really wants but a lot of people in the end have to take for lack of better.

“Care to run over the scene again, Dick?” the calm voice asked, as we came around the corner of the set and saw what it was—the deck of a pleasure yacht near the stern. There were two girls and three men in the scene. One of the men was middle-aged, in sport clothes, lounging in a deck chair. One wore whites and had red hair and looked like the yacht’s captain. The third was the amateur yachtsman, with the handsome cap, the blue jacket with gold buttons, the white shoes and slacks and the supercilious charm. This was Torrance. One of the girls was a dark beauty who had been younger; Susan Crawley. The other was Mavis Weld. She wore a wet white sharkskin swim suit, and had evidently just come aboard. A make-up man was spraying water on her face and arms and the edges of her blond hair.

Torrance hadn’t answered. He turned suddenly and stared at the camera. “You think I don’t know my lines?”

A gray-haired man in gray clothes came forward into the light from the shadowy background. He had hot black eyes, but there was no heat in his voice.

“Unless you changed them intentionally,” he said, his eyes steady on Torrance.

“It’s just possible that I’m not used to playing in front of a back projection screen that has a habit of running out of film only in the middle of a take.”

“That’s a fair complaint,” Ned Gammon said. “Trouble is he only has two hundred and twelve feet of film, and that’s my fault. If you could take the scene just a little faster—”

“Huh.” Torrance snorted. “If I could take it a little faster. Perhaps Miss Weld could be prevailed upon to climb aboard this yacht in rather less time than it would take to build the damn boat.”

Mavis Weld gave him a quick, contemptuous look. “Weld’s timing is just right,” Gammon said. “Her performance is just right too.”

Susan Crawley shrugged elegantly. “I had the impression she could speed it up a trifle, Ned. It’s good, but it could be better.”

“If it was any better, darling,” Mavis Weld told her smoothly, “somebody might call it acting. You wouldn’t want anything like that to happen in your picture, would you.”

Torrance laughed. Susan Crawley turned and glared at him. “What’s funny, Mister Thirteen?”

Torrance’s face settled into an icy mask. “The name again?” he almost hissed.

“Good heavens, you mean you didn’t know,” Susan Crawley said wonderingly. “They call you Mister Thirteen because any time you play a part it means twelve other guys have turned it down.”

“I see,” Torrance said coolly, then burst out laughing again. He turned to Ned Gammon. “Okay, Ned. Now everybody’s got the rat poison out of their system, maybe we can give it to you the way you want it.”