Hollywood and Levine (20 page)

And Dale Carpenter, racing to Parker's house with a folder and greeted at the door like a carrier of typhoid, then mysteriously murdered, his house torn apart. By White? And who was White? Could he have infiltrated so brilliantly that he was among the group of mourners congregated at Walter's house the night of the “suicide”?

All my theorizing, of course, hinged on the identity and whereabouts of C. D. White. If, in fact, he was the FBI undercover man, I could be on the verge of exploding the case. If, on the other hand, C. D. White was still swinging his stick on a Denver beat, all I had was a long and bloody shaggy dog story.

The obvious move was to place another call to Denver. I left the reading room, proffered the bound volumes and my effusive thanks to Miss Anderson, and descended to the library basement, where a pair of empty phone booths were keeping company with a coffee machine. I made the mistake of trying the coffee—a thin brown gruel with specks of curdled milk spinning on its surface—before obtaining a line to Denver police headquarters.

A young woman answered. I asked her where I could get some information about a past member of the Denver force.

“That's Personnel,” she told me, pulling the plug.

Personnel picked up. An older woman, she courteously answered my query about C. D. White by announcing that such information could not be given out over the phone.

“I don't want a dossier on White, I just want to know if he's currently a member of the force.”

“I'm very sorry, but we cannot transmit such information over the phone.”

I gripped the receiver until my hand hurt. If she didn't spill, I'd be forced to go to Denver.

“Ma'am, you're speaking to Lieutenant George Wynn of the Los Angeles Police Department homicide squad. Are you telling me that I have to take a full day out of an important murder investigation,” I brought my voice up to a shout, “to find out whether or not C. D. White is currently a member of the Denver police?”

Personnel turned a bit timid.

“What is your name again?”

“Lieutenant Wynn, George Wynn. You want to look it up, fine, but God help the next Denver cop who asks me for a break.”

I heard her rifling through a book.

“Oh, yes,” she said cheerfully, “here it is: Lieutenant George Wynn, LAPD.”

“This is long distance, ma'am.”

“Of course. You wanted to know about whom again? I'm afraid I …”

“C. D. White. As in Sox.”

“It'll take a minute, Lieutenant.”

I fed six more quarters into the phone while a brunette knockout in a low-cut sweater dropped her nickel into the coffee dispenser. She bent over to pull out the cup, affording me an unobstructed look at her remarkable nineteen-year-old breasts. When the girl stood upright, they bounced firmly back into place. She caught me gawking and drew her mouth into a thin line of contempt.

“Lieutenant Wynn?”

“Yes, I'm holding on.”

“According to my card, C. D. White is no longer a member of the force. He left in 1940.”

“Does the card say where he went?”

“No. All I have is that he left voluntarily in 1940.”

“I see. And the initials stand for what again?”

“Clarence Depew.”

“Thank you very much.”

“You're welcome, Lieutenant. You understand, of course, why I hesitated to give the information out immediately. We have regulations, as I'm sure you do in Los Angeles.”

“Of course. Thanks again.”

I hung up in a high flush of success. Clarence Depew White was my man. I was sure of it, like a bloodhound with a shoe locked in his drooling jaws.

An hour later I sat having Twining's English Breakfast tea in Helen's kitchen with the redhead herself, the sour and edgy Wohls, and Larry Goldmark, who had dropped by to leave off some manuscripts of Walter's and a check from Warner Brothers.

“What do the police make of Dale's murder, Mr. Le-Vine?” asked Rachel Wohl. Her eyes looked as though they had been left out in the sun and she wouldn't have been much paler if she had died. Her manner, however, remained forceful.

“They're pretty lost, I think.”

“You have any theories, Jack?” asked Goldmark. The agent was chewing gum and smoking.

I shrugged. “Theories are cheap. I'm only concerned with Carpenter's death as it relates to Walter's.”

“You think it relates?” asked Milton Wohl.

“You don't?” I snapped. The words had come out a little harsher than I had intended. Wohl winced and his wife came bounding to his defense.

“Don't cross-examine Milton, Mr. LeVine. He's gone through enough anguish without being treated in this police-station manner.”

Now Helen came out of the bullpen for me.

“Rachel, I don't believe Jack is cross-examining Milt; he's just trying to get at the truth of all this.”

The wifely tone of Helen's remarks was lost on no one. Goldmark inhaled enough smoke to fill a zeppelin and shot me a sly, somewhat sickening, glance.

“You think that Carpenter's death makes it unlikely that Walter killed himself?” the agent asked.

“Absolutely,” I told him.

“I see,” he said, but didn't. “Why?”

I shook my head.

“You'll have to take my word for it, but suicide appears to be out of the question.”

Rachel Wohl eyed Helen.

“Has he told you this before?” she demanded. “You knew this before?”

Helen nodded.

“Then why not tell us?” The screenwriter's wife got shrill and anxious. “For God's sake, we can't be trusted? There's some nut loose killing progressives and Milt and I aren't told? We're supposed to go about our business and if someone wants to shoot us through the heart …”

“Honey,” Wohl said a little sheepishly.

“No, don't stop me, Milt,” she continued. Wohl shrugged and looked into his tea. “I'm deeply hurt. That information of literally a life and death nature is kept from us … the only justification could be that we are prime suspects. A husband and wife murder team.”

“Rachel, I don't think anybody …” Goldmark began.

“What does the detective say?” Mrs. Wohl stared at me with those red, frightened eyes.

“I don't blame you for being upset, Mrs. Wohl,” I said in my best bedside manner. “But please understand that you and your husband are not ‘prime suspects' or anything of that sort.”

Milton Wohl looked up from the table, his eyes magnified and dreamy behind the thick lenses.

“I understand that, LeVine,” he said softly.

“But the danger?” said his wife. “Leaving us exposed …”

“You're in no danger,” I assured her. “Unless you know something you're not telling me.”

“Like what?” asked Goldmark.

I shook my head.

“That's what I'd like to know.” I was being coy, of course, but there was no reason to share what I had learned about Parker and White. “It seems to me, however, that Carpenter was killed over a matter of knowledge. As for Walter, I have to assume the same, but I don't have a shred of evidence to support it.”

“But you're sure of it?” asked Goldmark.

“Yep.”

The slender agent poured himself some more tea.

“Why?”

“Because there's no other reason for him to have been murdered.”

Helen had been staring off into the garden, a fork pressed contemplatively to her lips. She turned to me.

“Unless it was a mistake,” she said coolly. “What I mean is that someone thought Walter knew something that he didn't know, or thought he was going to do something that he wasn't going to do. Or just thought that he was someone else.”

She put the fork down and lit up an Old Gold, all eyes upon her. Especially mine. Maybe the lady had hit a bull's-eye; it was possible that the uncertainty, the nagging lack of clarity, in Walter's death, could be explained by something as simple as a mistake.

“What do you think about that, Jack?” Helen said to me and me alone. There was a small light of triumph in her eyes and a note of relief in her voice. If Walter's end had resulted from a slip-up, the dense and suspicious air she had been breathing would certainly be lightened and purified.

“I think you might be right,” I told her.

The Wohls and Goldmark were by now thoroughly confused, but the hell with them. They'd find out sooner or later, if they didn't know now—and their ignorance was a matter of conjecture. I got up and walked over to the window. A couple of jays were having a confused brawl; it ended after a five-second flurry of blue and feathers. I turned and leaned against the sink.

“I'd like to ask you folks just one question,” I began, scratching my cheek. “How long have you all been out here?”

Goldmark lit himself another cigarette.

“Living, working?” he asked.

“Both.”

“I've been here since '32,” said Wohl. “With Rachel. My first screen credit was in '33.
Night Stop
.”

“I remember it,” I told Wohl. “About the bus that breaks down.”

The writer beamed.

“That's right! Jesus Christ, I didn't think anyone remembered that one. The studio certainly doesn't.”

“I saw them all, good and bad. Goldmark, when did you come out here?” I sounded as genial as the host of a quiz program.

“1937,” the agent said.

“From where?”

“Pittsburgh. I was a press agent for KDKA radio and they really had me running my butt off. The money wasn't bad but it was Pittsburgh and even when it's sunny all you see is black smoke. Gets to you.”

“I'll bet. Then what?”

“Then I came straight out here and hooked up with the Morris office—the William Morris Agency. That was in July of '37. During the war I worked for the Information Office, and opened my own shop after V-J Day.”

“Larry's represented me since '39,” said Wohl.

Rachel Wohl nodded.

“I remember,” she said. “It was about the time of the Nazi—Soviet Pact.”

“No connection, I hope,” I said pleasantly.

Goldmark guffawed, but the Wohls did not find the remark amusing. Helen covered her smile with a napkin.

“The rest of your group,” I continued. “How long have they been here?”

“What do you mean, ‘group'?” Rachel Wohl asked coldly.

“Political group.”

“How does he know everything?” Mrs. Wohl demanded of Helen. She was furious, shaking.

“Rachel, for God's sake.” Wohl got up and walked with her to the far side of the kitchen. “Excuse us,” he said over his shoulder.

Goldmark got up and came over to me.

“You think it was one of them?” he asked in a whisper, his face mere cologne-scented inches from mine.

“One of the Wohls?”

“No, not them necessarily. One of the group.”

I shrugged, all plodding professional ignorance.

“Who knows? I'm just trying to get an idea of the field.”

The agent's eyes narrowed.

“I thought you knew that a long time ago.”

“Hell no. My knowledge is pretty limited.”

“I figured you were right on top of it, Jack.” Now he was beginning to rag me. “Way ahead of the cops.”

“Nope,” I said amiably. “You overestimate me.”

The Wohls returned to the table and sat down. Rachel Wohl blew her nose and wiped at her shining eyes.

“I really don't want to cause any more pain,” I told all of them. “But your group, Milt, everybody's been around since 1932 or thereabouts?”

Wohl frowned and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. He stared at the ceiling.

“Since '32,” he mumbled.

“Take your time,” I told him, walking to the refrigerator. I pulled out a bottle of club soda and poured myself half a glass.

“No,” Wohl finally said. “I'll tell you, LeVine. Carroll Arthur has been in Hollywood since the twenties and he started coming around in, say, '36. But are you interested in the length of political activity or how long they've been in Hollywood?”

“The politics is secondary. Helpful but secondary. Don't tell me any more about the politics than you want to; I understand your position right now.”

Wohl shot a sharp glance at Goldmark, who snuffed out his cigarette and lit another. Everyone was just electric with anxiety.

“I appreciate that, LeVine,” Wohl said. He played with the remains of a pastry on the plate before him. “Carroll Arthur, late twenties, like I said. Sig Friedland is an Austrian refugee. He lived in England for a couple of years and made his way here in … 1941.” He looked to his wife. “Was it '41?”

She nodded.

“'41, early '42 the latest.”

“Fine,” I said. “Go on, Milt.”

“Now Dale Carpenter had been out here since the thirties,” the writer continued, “but his political involvement dates from the early forties.”

“Since the invasion,” said Mrs. Wohl.

“Which invasion?” I asked.

“Since Hitler invaded the Soviet Union,” Wohl told me. “The Nazi-Soviet Pact was a pragmatic, time-saving move, of course, but at the time it caused an uproar in the progressive community. A great many people dropped out; almost no one joined up.”

“But things livened up when the Germans went galloping into Russia?” I asked.

“Sure.” Wohl relaxed a bit, happy to be discussing history rather than murder—a fine distinction at best. “See, people realized that Stalin had only been buying time. With the Allies dawdling over the establishment of a second front, seemingly content to let the Soviets absorb enormous losses … well, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, in retrospect, made a whale of a lot of sense. People woke up.”

“Henry made a big difference at that point,” Mrs. Wohl interjected.

“Absolutely. When Henry came in it gave us a big boost,” Wohl agreed.