Murder on the Yellow Brick Road (3 page)

She opened the door and looked back at me.

“I'm all right now Mr. Peters, but I am scared and I'd like your help.”

She left before I could tell her that I had no help to give. I could hear the two women exchanging words outside the door, and Cassie James came back in without Warren Hoff.

“Warren's gone out to get help, someone to make you come to your senses and take this job,” she explained with a smile that kept me from standing. “Would you like something to drink?”

It was about ten in the morning, and I didn't drink anyway except for an occasional beer. I said no, but accepted when she offered coffee.

The coffee was already made and warm in the corner. She poured us both cups and sat next to me.

I shook my head.

“You don't remind me of anyone,” I said, “I was trying to think of something smart to say to get you laughing.”

“I don't laugh easily,” she said, gliding over the compliment. She obviously had a lot of experience bypassing double meaning compliments. I dropped it and turned to business.

In about five minutes, Cassie James confirmed what Judy Garland had said and added that she had been friendly with the actress for about a year or two.

“I did a little acting,” she said getting up for more coffee. I watched her. “But, after a few years I could see I wasn't going to make it. I have some ability,” she shrugged, “but I couldn't take it. When you're an actor, you're yourself and someone else at the same time. People criticize the face you were born with, dissect your emotions, complain about your posture, praise the moments you like least, ignore the instant you feel perfect pain.”

“You're quite a person,” I said.

“Thank you,” she laughed and then the laugh died.

“I had a younger sister who could have made it through,” she said with a slight pout, “but she died. Maybe that's why I'm feeling rather motherly about Judy. She reminds me of my sister.”

I was stumbling around in my head for something to say to make the next move with her, but nothing came. She had, as the toughs in Warner films said, “class”, and I couldn't quite bring myself to invite her to my place for cereal and a night of radio listening. My place was a single room and a bath in a neighborhood where you don't bring people like Cassie James. I decided to try anyway, but Hoff came into the room without knocking.

He looked at Cassie and me to be sure there was nothing going on. He wasn't quite satisfied, but he held his confident look.

“Mr. Mayer would like to see you, Peters.”

I looked at Cassie, who raised her eyebrows in mock respect. I gave a knowing shrug as I rose to follow Hoff.

“Be seeing you,” I said.

“I hope so,” she beamed and I hoped she wasn't just being polite.

Hoff sulked ahead of me, his confidence drooping as soon as the door closed. I tried to adjust to the prospect of seeing the boss, the final “M” in M.G.M., the most important person in the movie world. Hoff didn't give me the chance to adjust.

“What were you two talking about, Peters?”

“I'm Toby, remember, and you're Warren,” I hurried along at his side. He had changed into another suit, but if he kept drooping and hurrying and smoking he'd go through a whole wardrobe before lunch.

“What were you talking about?” he demanded.

“Shove it up your ass, Warren,” I said. It may have blown my $25 in expenses, but a man has some pride and I was still remembering the scent of Cassie James.

Hoff turned in mid stride and faced me, probably remembering his football days when he had run over linemen or tackled cheerleaders or whatever the hell he did. We stood glaring at each other for a few minutes like two twelve-year-olds in the schoolyard who won't back down.

“Warren, either take a swing at me or lead the way to Mayer's office. I have other ways of getting exercise.”

A fat man in a cowboy suit passed us slowly, stalling a bit to see if we would start slugging. Hoff turned suddenly at the sound of Mayer's name and hurried on.

Entering Mayer's office proved to be something like going to see the Wizard in his chamber. Hoff stopped at a door and announced me to a beautiful blonde in a pink dress. If she had a desk, I couldn't see it. The blonde escorted me through a door and turned me over to a deskless redhead who finally took me to another beautiful blonde who had the distinction of having a desk. Blonde Number Two led me down a carpeted corridor, and just as I had resigned myself to endless wandering around the building led by beautiful women, we stopped at a door and she knocked.

From somewhere in the distance a voice answered, “Come in.”

The blonde opened the door and backed away. I stepped into an enormous room. The walls were white with a few pictures. The distant desk was white. The chairs and sofa were white. It looked like a plush padded cell. On the far end of the big room behind the desk stood a short, spectacled man with a prominent hooked nose who appeared to have no neck. He wore a grey suit and a serious look. As I came closer, I could see that his hair was a well-trimmed grey, and he seemed to be somewhere in his mid 50's.

I had to lean across the desk to shake his hand. He took my right hand in both of his and held it tightly.

“I'm Louis Mayer,” he said, “and you are Toby Peters.”

I knew that already, but if the man with the highest salary in the world wanted to remind me, I was happy to listen.

2

“I love this country,” said Louis B. Mayer waiting for an argument. His voice was faintly New York and he seemed sincere enough. “What do you think of this country, Mr. Peters?”

“I love it,” I said.

He kept looking at me with suspicion. I adjusted my blue tie.

“Herbert Hoover says we're far more likely to be drawn into the European War under Roosevelt than Willkie, and Willkie says the United States is sick of the type of government that treats our Constitution like a scrap of paper,” Mayer said lifting a crisp copy of the L.A. Times from his desk in evidence. “I think Mr. Hoover is right. What do you think, Mr. Peters?”

“I think this has nothing to do with a dead Munchkin,” I said smiling.

“You get smart with me and I'll throw you out,” shouted Mayer dropping his newspaper on the floor.

“You'll need a lot of help,” I said relaxing or pretending to. The white chair I was in was covered with fur and damned comfortable.

“I can get help,” said Mayer.

“I'm sure you can.”

We stared at each other for a few more years and Mayer decided on a new strategy, the story of his life.

“I came to this country from Russia with my family when I was four years old. My father was a junk man, and we moved around America from New York to Canada and back again. My father, who was nothing but a laborer in Russia, became a successful ship salvager in the United States. When I was fourteen I became his partner. Do you know what day I was born on?”

I admitted that I didn't.

“I don't know either,” he said putting both hands on his desk. “So I picked my own birthday, the Fourth of July. That's how I feel about this country. When I was a kid I bought a little movie theater in Haverhill, near Boston for about $1,000. That was in 1907. Eight years later I owned a bunch of theaters and was making my own movies for them. I've got a motto, Mr. Peters. I've always had this motto. Do you know what it is?”

I was getting tired of not being able to answer questions M.G.M. people put to me so I tried, “Always be prepared?”

“No, Mr. Peters,” he said solemnly, “I will make only pictures that I won't be ashamed to have my children see. Do you see where we are going?”

It was gradually getting through to me, but he went on.

“The Wizard of Oz is a clean picture. Judy Garland is a wonderful girl, like my own child.… like Mickey Rooney is almost a son to me.”

Like they make you millions of dollars, I thought, but even as I thought it I could see that Mayer was in an odd way sincere.

“A scandal connected with the studio, with that movie, with Judy would be bad for the country Mr. Peters. People believe in that picture, believe in us. If I thought it would help, I'd get down on my knees to you.” He clasped his hands in prayer and his eyes searched my face. His eyes glazed over moistly.

“The truth is, Mr. Mayer,” I said getting up, “I've got nothing you want to buy.”

“Not true, Mr. Peters.” His right hand came out and pointed to me. A smile was back on his face. “You have some influence with the police. You have a reputation for discretion.”

Everyone at M.G.M. was reading the same script on me, and it was still wrong.

“My brother won't listen to me,” I explained.

“A brother is a brother, Mr. Peters.”

I couldn't argue with that.

“And besides,” Mayer continued picking the Times up off the floor and laying it neatly on his desk, “you want to help Judy. She's a sweet girl. I'd do anything for her. You know about the Artie Shaw problem?”

I said I didn't know about the Artie Shaw problem. Since I didn't, he had no intention of telling me.

“What is your fee, Mr. Peters?”

“$35 a day and expenses,” I said.

Mayer smiled. His head shook.

“Your fee is $25 a day without expenses,” he chuckled. “We'll give you $50 and expenses.”

“To do what?”

He held up his fingers as he ticked off my duties.

“Try to persuade your brother to keep the investigation quiet. If any M.G.M. personnel are involved, do your best to keep that quiet too. You're a bodyguard, right? You also act as Judy Garland's bodyguard until this is taken care of.”

“And if I don't keep the investigation out of the papers?”

Mayer shrugged, “You're fired.”

It seemed fair enough so I took the job. Mayer and I didn't shake hands. He turned his head back to some papers on his desk.

“I think I've already said more than I have to say,” he said.

Taking that for dismisal, I plodded my way out of the white fur-padded auditorium he used for an office, made my way down the corridor of smiling beauties and found Warren Hoff waiting for me with a pile of ashes in a tray next to where he sat. He got up quickly. His hair was not neatly in place.

“God says I get $50 a day, expenses and a lot of cooperation.”

“You'll get it,” said Hoff.

We walked back to Hoff's office. On the way, we passed Walter Pidgeon talking to a short, chunky woman in big glasses. Pidgeon was laughing heartily and saying, “That's priceless.”

“Mr. Mayer is very persuasive,” said Hoff without any sarcasm.

“He convinced me it was my patriotic duty to help M.G.M. If I don't work for M.G.M., we'll be at war with Germany within a year.”

I wasn't sure what had convinced me to take the job. The money was good. I did want to provide some fatherly protection for Judy Garland, and by taking the job I stood a good chance of seeing Cassie James again. The only problem was that I didn't think I could come near to doing what I was to be paid for. I pointed out to Hoff that I had one day's pay coming already. He paid me out of his wallet as we walked.

The small dark girl with the Mexican accent and May Company glasses looked up as Hoff and I entered his office. Hoff looked terrible. He had sweated through another suit and run out of Spuds. The girl looked concerned, but we swept past her and into Hoff's office.

While I phoned the L.A. police, Hoff poured himself a small drink of something from a bar hidden in a cabinet. He didn't offer me anything.

I got past the switchboard operator and made my way to an Officer Derry. He wondered why I wanted to talk to Lieutenant Pevsner. No one who knew Phil Pevsner could understand why anyone would willingly seek his company. I used my full real name, Tobias Leo Pevsner, to cut through the blue tape and indicate I was the man's brother. It got me to Sergeant Seidman, my brother's partner.

“Toby,” said Seidman coming on the phone, “he doesn't want to talk to you and if you're smart, you won't want to talk to him. We've had a tough week.”

“Sergeant, I'm reporting a murder. Someone's murdered a Munchkin at M.G.M.”

There was silence at the other end except for the background sounds of typewriters and cops talking.

“You want me to tell your brother that?” he said calmly.

“It's true. Why don't the two of you come.…”

There was a crackling sound at the other end and the clunk of the phone, then my brother's rumbling voice.

“Toby, you fuck-up. If this is one of your stupid jokes, you'll do hospital time.”

He meant it and I knew it, but I couldn't resist. Maybe it was a death wish or something.

“How are Ruth and the kids?” I asked. For some reason, maybe the fact that I never visited him and his family, this always drove Phil up the wall and the walls of the L. A. police department are no fun running up. Besides, with the gut he was developing, a run up the wall was out of the question. He hung up.

“Will he come?” Hoff asked finishing his drink.

“He'll come,” I said leaning back and putting my feet up on the desk. I picked up his newspaper and began to read, trying to look as confident as I was not.

It took fifteen minutes for Phil and Seidman to get to M.G.M. In that time I discovered through my reading that the Greeks had hurled back an Italian invasion, that the Japanese were charging, that Americans were assembling arms at Manila, that the A&P was celebrating its 81st anniversary, that I could get a suit from Brooks on South Broadway for $25 and take three payments, and that a bottle of FF California port could be had for 37 cents.

The call came to Hoff's office from cowboy Buck McCarthy at the gate. Hoff told Buck to take the police to the Munchkin City set, and then he hurried to the door. I slowed him down and told him it would be a good idea to let the police get to the scene first. I folded the newspaper neatly, placed it on Hoff's desk and got up. I was in no hurry to see Phil Pevsner. The only one who had ever successfully stood between us in battle was my dad, a Glendale grocer, who had died a long time ago. There were a couple of times even when he was alive that Phil almost lost control and went for me right over our father. Dad would have been flattened like a beer can in the Rose Bowl parade if Phil hadn't gotten himself under control. It had been something I had said, but I couldn't remember what it was.