Hard Case Crime: Shooting Star & Spiderweb (6 page)

Trent stood up. “I told you,” he said. “I never heard of Dick Ryan. End of story.”

“Well, if that’s the way you want to be.”

He wasn’t letting me finish my sentences. “That’s the way it is, Clayburn. And let me give you a tip for what it’s worth to you: you never heard of Dick Ryan, either. And you don’t want to write a yarn about him, or ask anyone else.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

Trent scowled. “How’d you lose the eye?” he asked. “Poking it in other people’s keyholes?” He was a big man, and he had a big hand. It felt like a ton, resting on my shoulder.

“What’s wrong with asking?” I murmured. “Who knows, maybe I can find a few interesting angles. Since you didn’t know this Dick Ryan, you might be surprised to learn that he was murdered.” I paused. “Then again, you might not.”

Trent’s hand began to clamp down. I reached up and batted it off. He made a sound in his chest. “Why, you!”

There was the sound of splashing from the pool. Both of us turned and saw the face beneath the bathing cap bob up. The head shook again, a slow, grave movement.

“All right.” His voice shook with the effort at control. “I’m giving you a break. I’m leaving you the other eye, if you get out of here right now. But get this, Clayburn. You aren’t doing any story on Dick Ryan. You’re not asking anyone else about him, either. He’s dead. Let him stay that way. You’re alive. And if you want to stay that way—”

The hand gave me a shove. I moved back.

“Thank you for the hospitality and the advice,” I said. “You’ve been most gracious.” I gestured toward the pool. “Now I’ll leave you to your goldfish.”

Trent made a suggestion which I didn’t care to follow, due to certain physical limitations that rendered it impossible.

I walked away, and he stared after me. So did the face in the pool.

Then I climbed into the car and drove back to town.

The lights were coming on, twinkling in Glendale, flickering over Forest Lawn, sparkling along San Fernando Road. Los Angeles, that gaudy old whore of a city, was putting on her jewels for a big night.

It was time for me to get to the hotel, to put on a few jewels of my own. I thought it over and settled for a shave, shower, soft shirt and striped tie. What the Well-Dressed Interviewer Should Wear.

According to me, that is. Tom Trent would probably prefer to see me in a shroud, nothing fancy, of course, but he’d be willing to let me have my initials embroidered on it.

I thought about Trent as I drove over to Chasen’s. A very aggressive gentleman, Mr. TT. What had his alibi been? Home with the butler, nursing his black eye; something like that. I wondered if the butler had been in the swimming pool. Somebody was calling signals. Maybe I’d better follow them, because it seemed as if the game was getting rough.

My table was reserved and waiting at Chasen’s, but Polly Foster hadn’t arrived. I glanced at my watch. Just eight. Perhaps I had time for a before-dinner drink.

I took it at the bar, and it tasted good. Felt good to be there again, after all this time. Used to spend a lot of evenings here, a long while ago. But of course, none of the crowd at the bar remembered me. Too much time had gone by. Almost a year.

And a year, in Hollywood, is an eternity.

I remembered the old legend about Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus went to Hades and got permission to take Eurydice away, on condition that he didn’t turn around and look at her during the return trip. But he looked back, and the bargain was cancelled.

Nobody here in Hollywood would ever be guilty of making Orpheus’s mistake. Because in Hollywood, no one looks back. What you did, what you were yesterday, doesn’t count. Nobody cares if you won the Academy Award last year; the big question is, who’s going to win
next
year?

I raised my glass and drank a silent toast to Mr. Orpheus, who’d never get in the Musician’s Local out here. I knew just how he felt.

I spotted three or four familiar faces down the bar, including a man named Wilbur Dunton who was still working out at Culver City on the strength of a contract I’d landed for him when he was in my stable.

Nobody looked at me. The freeze was on. Everybody was talking about tomorrow, and I belonged to yesterday. And so did Dick Ryan. Nobody wanted to look at him, either, or talk about what had happened.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum,
if you’ll pardon the expression.

I ordered another drink and wondered about Dave Chasen. Did he ever look back, now? Did he remember the days when he played stooge for Joe Cook in all those wonderful shows—
Rain or Shine, Fine and Dandy, Hold Your Horses?
I hoped he did. Somebody should remember old Joe Cook. A great comic. And Chasen had been a great stooge, too.

How long ago was that? Less than twenty years. And now Cook was ill and forgotten, while Chasen was a big man out here on the Coast.

There was a moral somewhere in all this, and I was just looking for it at the bottom of my glass when I happened to see Polly Foster come in.

I’d seen her on the screen several times, of course, and that had been enough to make me look forward to this evening with a certain mild anticipation. Recognizing her now, my anticipation changed immediately from mild to wild. Polly Foster in the flesh was quite something else again. Nor is that “in the flesh” merely a figure of speech. The figure she cut had nothing to do with speech.

White-gold hair over white-gold shoulders; her dress was robin’s-egg blue, and where it left off beneath her neck, any resemblance to robins’ eggs ended.

She halted just inside the door and looked around for a moment. Heads turned, which wasn’t hard for me to understand; she’d just turned mine. Several people nodded, and she nodded back. But all the while she was scanning the crowd.

I got off the stool and prepared to walk over. At that moment she spotted me and came into the bar. She walked right up, without any hesitation, and she smiled.

As she stood before me now, I could see that her lips were full, too. Her eyes were something rather special. They were smiling along with her lips, and all for me.

“Hello,” she murmured sweetly. “Are you the one-eyed bastard who wants to pump me about Dick Ryan’s death?”

“My dear Miss Foster,” I said. “There seems to be—”

“I’m not your dear Miss Foster. And I don’t give a damn about what there seems to be. What I want to know is why you’re sticking your big fat nose into somebody else’s business.”

“Tell you about it at dinner,” I said. “Come on, our table’s ready.”

“Do you think I’d actually have dinner with you?”

“Of course.” I grinned at her. “You didn’t come here just to call me names. You’re just dying to find out what I know. So you’ll just have to pay the price.”

“And that price is having dinner?”

“Half of it.”

“What’s the other half?”

I winked. “Tell you about it later.”

“Well, of all the nerve—”

But she had dinner with me. Steaks, New York cut, and baked Idaho potatoes and one of the special salads. Plus Manhattans. A quick one before we ate and several during the meal.

The drinks helped a lot. Let’s give credit where credit is due. She got the first one down fast before she started to go after me.

“I suppose this is Bannock’s idea of a joke,” she said. “Pulling that interview gag. Wait until I get hold of Costigan tomorrow morning.”

“Who’s Costigan?”

“Publicity. Bannock set this up with him. I’ll tell that cheap flack a thing or two.”

“Why? It’s not Costigan’s fault. How could he know? And Bannock really thought I was after a story.”

“The hell he did.”

“What other reason would he have?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But I intend to find out. And fast.”

“Be reasonable,” I said. “Bannock was just doing me a favor. He’s not involved in this at all.”

“Then who is?”

“It’s my own idea. I’d like to do a story on the Ryan case.”

“That’s not what you told Tom Trent.”

“Oh, so he’s the one who tipped you off.”

Polly Foster made a face which might have surprised her fans. “All right, so he called me. And I said I’d find out what this was. So start talking, Mr. Clayburn. A bargain’s a bargain.”

The steaks arrived with the second round of Manhattans. “I already told you. I want to do a story, for the true-detective magazines.”

“Why don’t you go to the police?”

“I did that little thing, but they can’t seem to tell me what I want to know.”

“Which is?”

“Who killed Dick Ryan?”

She put down her fork and picked up her drink. For a moment I thought she was going to throw it at me. Instead, she gulped.

“Level with me,” she said. “Are you a cop?”

“No. Just a literary agent. Do a little writing of my own, now and then.”

“In other words, all you’re interested in is a chance to make some money.”

“That’s right. I could use a little dough, and this seemed to be an excellent lead.”

The big gray eyes narrowed. “So that’s it. I’m beginning to get it, now. How much?”

“What do you mean?”

“How much are you asking to lay off?”

I looked at her. Then I put down my knife. I put down my napkin. I stood up.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“Home,” I said. “I’ve been insulted.”

Polly Foster looked around hastily, then reached out and grabbed my wrist. “For God’s sake, sit down!”

I smiled, but didn’t move.

“Come on, everybody’s looking.”

“And you don’t want anyone to see me walk out on you, is that it? Imagine the gossip! ‘Who was the unknown escort who staged a public walkout on glamorous Polly Foster the other night at—’ž”

“Sit
down!
”

“Say you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry, damn you!”

“There’s a sweet girl.” I sat down again. “But don’t ever accuse me of anything like that again. Poor but proud, that’s me. I’m no blackmailer.”

“Sorry.”

“I understand. Easy to make a mistake. The woods are full of them out here. Come on, let’s have another drink.” I signaled the waiter and ordered.

“Trent guessed you were after shakedown money.”

“Trent’s a slob.”

“Isn’t he, though?”

“What about Dick Ryan, was he a slob, too?”

“
Must
you drag him in?”

“That’s what I’m here for, lady. Do you think I enjoy working evenings?”

This time she nearly got up. “Well, of all the!” She dug her nails into the tablecloth. “There’s a million men who’d be damned glad to trade places with you right now.”

“Sure.” I nodded. “I know all about that. Your Mr. Costigan has done a good job for you on the glamor angle. Now, about Dick Ryan—”

“You don’t like me, do you?”

“I never said that.”

“What’s the matter? Are you a qu—”

“Careful,” I told her. “Want me to get up again?”

“Oh, hell!”

“You know what I’d do if you were mine?” I said. “I’d wash your mouth out with soap. You swear too much, young lady.” I smiled. “Outside of that, I like you fine.”

“Well, that’s certainly a load off my mind.” But she relaxed and lifted her glass. “You know, you’re kind of attractive, the way you get mad.”

“Thanks. How about Ryan, now. Was he attractive when he got mad, too?”

She groaned. “For—”

“Careful!” I said. “No profanity. Not before dessert. Or will you settle for another drink instead? Good.”

I ordered, and the waiter went away.

“All right. You win. I’ll tell you what I can. But it isn’t much. Suppose you’ve read up on the case?”

I nodded. “Got everything they printed. And I checked with Homicide on it, too. I don’t expect you have anything to add to the story you told them. What I’m interested in is a new lead.”

The drinks arrived.

“Seems to me the way to figure things out is to find out more about Ryan himself. What kind of a guy he was, what was eating him that made him get loaded that night, things like that.”

“I see.” Polly Foster twirled the maraschino cherry in her glass. “Ryan was a louse from the word go, if you must know. Strictly a bad casting. He was a conceited ham, he was a tomcat who’d prowl anybody’s back fence, he was a lush, he was a double-crosser, and—”

“He was also your lover,” I said, softly.

She made a gesture midway between a shrug and a wince. “All right, if you want to be blunt about it. He was. I suppose you can’t figure out why.”

“Yes I can. I’ve seen his pictures.”

“Funny.” She stared down into her drink. “You get so used to the type that after a while you forget there are any right guys left. And of course, there’s always a line, some kind of phony front to fool you. Then afterwards, when you find out, you figure what the—” She smiled. “Whoops, nearly got the soap there, didn’t I?”

I picked up her glass and held it out to her. “Wash your mouth out with this, instead,” I said. “I’ll order another.”

She was beginning to get a glow, and that was good. “You know the last time anybody told me that?” she said. “Fifth grade. Old lady Perkins. Kid in back of me dropped an eraser down my neck and I hollered at him.”

“I’ll bet they were all trying to drop things down your neck,” I told her. “Even when you had brown hair.”

“How’d you know my hair was brown?”

“Just guessing. Complexion. Am I right?”

“Right.” She lifted the new glass. “You’d make a good detective.”

“Don’t know about that. I’m not getting many leads on this case.”

“But there’s nothing to tell. Honestly.” She leaned forward. “You know it all. Ryan went to his trailer that night, after we finished shooting.”

“Anything happen during the day to make you suspicious?”

“You mean, to make me think he was in trouble? No. But he acted kind of sulky. I knew what that meant.”

“What did it mean?”

“He wanted me out of the way. Some other woman on the string.”

“Who?”

“How would I know? He had plenty of choices. That boy played the field.”

“What about Estrellita Juarez?”

“Could be.”

“And you think he was just putting on an act, pretending to be angry so that you’d leave him alone that night?”