Murder on the Yellow Brick Road (9 page)

In half an hour with the pistons churning, I shot past Calabassas to the coast highway, and in a few minutes I was on El Camino Real, the Royal Highway. According to my Glendale high school days, the road along the ocean that stretched from San Diego to San Francisco was staked out in the 1780's or so by the Spanish. The Spanish were afraid the French or Russians would claim the land along the coast first. France had picked up a big chunk of land between the Mississipi and the Rocky Mountains. Russia was coming south across the Berring Sea and down the coast from what would eventually be Alaska.

The first big push to stake out the royal road stopped at what became Los Angeles. The whole point of the road was to set up a link between the Franciscan missions in California. The last long trek between Los Angeles and Monterey was done by a force of sixty-seven men under a Captain Portola and a Franciscan priest named Father Crespi.

I drove over the road at about 55 or 60 which was all out for the Buick and wondered what Crespi and Portola would have thought about the gas stations, beaneries, writing on the rocks and garbage. The missions were now tourist stops and the road paved with good intentions.

A long dark cloud going as far as I could see along the coast and into the horizon kept me company for over 100 miles.

The car radio kept me company, too. I heard the news two or three times. The presidential campaign was over and everyone thought Willkie had taken the lead. Roosevelt said he was running because he could keep us out of the war. A writer named H.G. Wells had given a talk at the Ambassador Hotel in L. A. He wanted Americans to support Britain's war effort against the Germans.

From 1:30 to 3:30 in the afternoon I watched the scenery and listened to the Radio Parade for Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt, Joseph P. Kennedy, Henry Fonda, Groucho Marx, Walter Huston, Katherine Hepburn, Lucille Ball and Humphrey Bogart all told me why I should vote for F.D.R. Since I knew Bogart slightly, I was impressed, but I didn't think I was even registered to vote. I couldn't remember the last time I had voted. I was one hell of a good citizen.

I also found out that U.C.L.A. had been beaten by Stanford 20 to 14, and Minnesota had beaten Northwestern University 13 to 12. I didn't even know where Northwestern was.

It was dark when I hit San Simeon. I didn't see anything that looked like a big ranch or a road to it. I stopped at a gas station, filled up the Buick and had a Pepsi. The guy at the station gave me directions to the Hearst Place. I thanked him, took a bag of potato chips and munched as I made my way, slowly looking for landmarks.

I pulled in to what I thought was the right road but I didn't see anything that looked like a ranch, just a little white house a few hundred yards up the road. A man stepped out of the little white house and held up his hand. He looked serious but not unfriendly. I could see another man though the window of the house watching me. Both men wore dark suits and black ties.

The man in the road walked over to the window of my car. I didn't have to roll down the window to talk because they were already down. I had driven drafty to hide the bullet holes. I could see that the guy, who looked something like a serious version of Buck Rogers, didn't think much of my transportation. I gave him a smile and offered him some potato chips. When he leaned over I could see that he was armed.

“Your name sir?” he said politely.

“Toby Peters,” I answered. He hadn't taken the chips so I put them back next to me.

He shouted to the other man in the house giving my name, and the other guy shouted that I was expected.

I could see that the guy standing next to my car couldn't understand my invitation but he hid it well.

“O.K., sir, if you'll just follow this road slowly you'll come to a place to park right near the big house,” he said pointing down the road.

“I don't see any house,” I said.

“It's about five miles,” he explained.

“You mean Hearst owns all this?” I asked.

“Just about as far as the eye can see in any direction on a clear day from the house. And the house is a few hundred feet up.”

I was impressed.

“Now, sir,” he went on repeating something he had clearly gone through many times, “drive slowly with your lights on and give the right of way to any animals you meet.”

“Animals?”

“Mr. Hearst has many wild animals on the property including buffalo and zebras. The zebras are especially curious.”

“I'll be careful,” I said. I adjusted my tie and brushed potato chip crumbs from my lapels.

“One more thing,” he added. “Please don't pick the fruit. You'll find orange and apple trees near the house. They are never eaten.”

I said I wouldn't eat the trees or kill the gorillas, and he held out his hand. It seemed silly to tip or shake, so I waited for an explanation.

“The hardware,” he said.

I handed him the .38.

“We'll give it back when you leave. Be careful on the road. It twists upward. We'll give you twenty minutes to make it to the top. They'll let us know when you arrive. Don't stop, and don't get out of the car.”

I went up the road with my lights on past the white house, where the other man watched me. The guy I had talked to stood in the road following my progress until I went out of sight around a curve more than 100 yards away.

A faint light glittered high above me out of the front of my window. It was to the right, and it looked very far. It might be the Hearst ranch.

I saw some kind of animal after two miles, but I couldn't make it out clearly. It was big and near the road. Bullet holes or not I rolled up the windows. My fears of a wild death were increasing. Now I could be eaten by an ape in Southern California.

When I got to the house, someone was there to meet me. He was built and dressed like the guys at the gate. They seemed to be a fraternity of former heavyweight champions. He motioned me to park and led me up a flight of stone steps and paste nude statues. At the top of the steps we took a right and stopped in front of a huge house.

“Big place,” I said.

“This is one of the guest houses,” my guide said.

He knocked and went in. A group of people were sitting around a blazing fire in a big central room. One of them, a beautiful blonde who I should have recognized from some picture, said Gable was either in the big house or at the pool.

My guide led me out. We went into a courtyard and faced a building that looked like my dreams of a Gothic castle.

We went in, stepping over an inlaid tile floor and into a room as high as a cathedral. No one was in the room, which held tapestries on each wall. The tapestries, six of them, were more than twenty feet high and a few feet more than that across. There were lounges around the room and a lot of chairs, but no people.

A woman in a dark uniform appeared from nowhere, and my guide whispered to her and disappeared the way he had come. The woman motioned to me, and I followed her to a dark wood paneled wall which concealed a door.

“Is Baron Frankenstein home?” I asked her softly.

She didn't even acknowledge that I had spoken. We stepped into a high ceilinged room with cathedral-like windows and wooden church seats around the walls. A bunch of flags stuck out of the wall above. There was a long table stretching across the room with about thirty big, dark and ancient wooden chairs. We had walked out of Castle Frankenstein into a banquet set for The Crusades. Only one thing ruined the impression.

An old man in a dark suit sat at the center of the table. He had a hamburger in front of him and he was pouring a glob of Heinz ketchup on it. He didn't look up as we passed.

“Servants get to use the main room before supper?” I whispered to the hurrying lady in front of me.

“That,” she said, “was Mr. Hearst. He's having a snack before the main meal.”

I tried to turn back to get a look at the old man, but the woman was hurrying along in front of me. I never got a look at her face. We went outside, down a path and then into a building.

It was the fanciest damn indoor pool I've ever seen. It must have been forty yards long and tiled from ceiling to pool bottom. The place radiated blue and was pleasantly warm. A few people were in the water. One of them inched his way toward me and pulled himself out of the pool.

It was Clark Gable. He picked up a towel and dried his hands as he stepped forward and smiled. He took my hand.

“Toby Peters, isn't it? Good to meet you.”

“Good to meet you,” I said. He went to a bench against the wall, and I followed him as he continued to dry himself.

“Want to take a swim before we talk?” he asked. I said I didn't swim.

“I don't either,” he said running the towel over his hair. “Not more than a few strokes. And this damn pool is over my head. There's no shallow end. There's an outdoor pool with a shallow end on the other side of the house, but it's too cold tonight to go out.”

I tried to look sympathetic and he gave me a wry smile I recognized. It was his Academy Award smile.

“You don't think much of all this, do you, Peters?” he said indicating that he meant the whole Hearst set-up.

“Does it matter?” I said.

“Sure,” he said working on his feet.

“I'm impressed,” I said. “I'm a two-buck private investigator with two suits and a one-room shack in Los Angeles. This man could buy a whole damn city.”

“Maybe more,” Gable added. “This is probably the most expensive toy anyone ever had. It's filled with enough to stock ten museums. Hearst is a collector, of things and people.”

“And you're one of them?” I asked.

“No,” he laughed. “Mostly, I'm a friend of a friend of Mr. Hearst. I've done some work with Marion Davies. She invited me up for the weekend. As rich as Mr. Hearst is, I don't think he could afford me. He could have a few years ago though. Now, would you like a drink, or do you want to talk here? I'm through here, and I'll be getting dressed for dinner in a little while.”

I said I'd talk here. I tried not to watch the people diving in the pool from what looked like a marble balcony.

“Shoot,” said Gable with a wave of his hand.

“You saw two midgets arguing at the studio?”

“Right,” he said looking at me the way he looked at Thomas Mitchell in Gone With The Wind. “One of them is dead, murdered I hear.”

“Yes, did the police talk to you about that?”

“For a few minutes on the phone. I was on my way up here. They said they could get the details from Vic Fleming and another witness.”

“Did you see that other witness?” I asked. “A big muscular guy.”

“Nope,” said Gable, “Just the two little fellas going at it. Vic wanted to hurry on so we didn't see very much.”

“Describe what you did see.”

He described the costumes of the two little men and added that he and Fleming had been too far away to hear their words or tell me if either of them had an accent. “I do remember that the shorter of the two seemed to be getting the worst of it from the one in the uniform,” said Gable.

Gunther Wherthman had said one of the reasons Cash had hated him was that he was bigger than Cash. Now Gable was telling me that Cash was taller than the man he was arguing with.

“Wait, are you sure the Munchkin in uniform – the one with the feather in his hat and the yellow beard – was taller than the other one?” I asked slowly. “You said you weren't very close.”

“He was taller,” said Gable confidently. “I may not be a great judge of character, but I'll put money on my judgement of perspective.”

“You'd testify to that?” I asked.

“If it came to it,” he said. “Is it important?”

“You may have just saved the life of one tiny Swiss translator.”

“Glad to do it,” he beamed. “Say, how'd you like to stay for dinner and the movie? There's a movie here every night in the theater.”

“He has a theater too?” My eyes wandered around the pool house again and to the beautiful swimmers in the water. I was definitely out of my league. “Thanks just the same,” I said standing up, “but I've got to head back to L.A.”

He stood with me, shook my hand and patted me on the back.

“Happy I could help, Peters,” he said. The towel was around his neck and he was gripping it in both hands. His dark hair fell over his brow. All he needed was Victor Fleming and a camera crew.

The uniformed woman without a face led me around the house instead of through it and back to the man who had met me at my car. She turned and walked away.

“Nice meeting you,” I shouted. The man in the dark suit took me right to my car door and tucked me in. He made no comment on the bullet holes. I said goodby and drove down the road. It was dark and the sky was star-filled when I reached the gate and the two men who manned it. One stepped out and handed me my .38. I said thanks and he said, “You're welcome sir.”

I headed back south for an hour or so and decided to stop at a diner. After I ate the spaghetti special, coffee and pie, I drove to a motor court to register. It reminded me of a clean version of my own place. It was called Happy Byways Motor Court, and Mrs. Happy Byways took my two bucks, gave me a receipt and handed me the key to bungalow six recently painted white. She was too fat to move and was covered with what looked like a blanket. I thanked her and went to six after she sold me the Sunday L.A. Times.

The radio in the room didn't work so I read the paper. King Doob was missing and Buck Rogers had to find him. Something was missing for me too, but I didn't know what it was. I decided to sleep on it. I had no razor or toothpaste so I just showered and went to bed. Happy Byways seemed safe enough, but I put my gun under my pillow just in case and propped a chair in front of the door. I felt confident enough to leave the light out in the bathroom. I think that confidence saved my life.

Before I went to sleep I felt my stomach to see if it was losing tone. I hadn't hit the Y for days. My stomach seemed all right so I closed my eyes and was out.