Dream Town, page 12
He could hear shouts from all over now and knew his odds of escaping were slim to zero, and his final resting place might be in a hole in Chinatown, or the silty bottom of the Pacific. Neither one appealed to him.
The next second Archer ran headlong into someone and he felt the man’s fingers close around his throat. It was the struggle on the beach all over again. Although this time his opponent was the doorman. And his empty knife holder apparently hadn’t really been empty, because the curved blade was in his hand.
Archer didn’t waste a second because he didn’t have one to waste. He grabbed the knife hand and held it away from him. Next, he planted an elbow in the man’s face, breaking his nose. Then he kicked his foot out and bent the man’s knee the wrong way. The man went down screaming in pain, and then Archer laid him out with a crushing hook to the jaw. He had to keep thanking the Army for teaching him so thoroughly how to fight, win, and stay alive to fight again. As he kept running he looked down at his hand: It was wet.
The guy’s knife hadn’t entirely missed. Archer had a two-inch-long gash in his left palm. He took out his handkerchief, wound it around his hand, and kept running.
Just as he got to the front entrance the silver Rolls pulled up, and the same actress staggered down the steps and into it. Archer followed right behind the lady, pushing her into the far seat and closing the door after him. The Rolls sped off, the driver apparently not even aware that he had a spare passenger.
Archer looked out the window in time to see the man in the gray suit hustle out of the front entrance and look around. He had obviously not seen Archer slide into the Rolls. But Archer did get a good look at him. He was in his forties, trim and hard, standing about five-ten. There was nothing particularly memorable about him, except for the sets of ugly intersecting scars across his face. Archer had been unable to see these marks when he had first arrived here, because the man had ducked away too quickly.
As the Rolls turned the corner and sped up, Archer looked at the woman next to him. He wasn’t sure she was aware he was there until she turned to him and said, “Who the hell are you?”
The words were not uttered in anger or fear. She just seemed curious.
“Just hitching a ride to where I parked my car, if you don’t mind. You like the Jade?”
“I go there for kicks.”
“I’m sure you do. You’re in pictures, right?”
Her lovely face now showed alarm. She sat up and said, “You’re not some dirty reporter, are you? So help me God if you’re with—” She tried to hit him but he caught her wrist an inch from his face.
Archer looked toward the driver, but he was old and maybe a little hard of hearing, or he was used to arguments in the back seat of this car. Whatever the reason, he just kept looking out the windscreen and driving while the car’s radio played Nat King Cole.
“Relax, lady, I don’t work for any rag. I was at the Jade on my own business.”
“What sort of business?” she snapped.
Archer could see why she was a star. The camera would love the angles of her face, the way her eyes widened and then brightened like precious stones before they tapered back to a dull glow that was even more interesting and perhaps telling of what she was thinking, and of a possible vulnerability. And the way her full lips quivered just so.
“I’m a detective.”
“What were you doing in there, then?”
“Detecting.”
“Says you. I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t either if I were you.” He looked out the window to see where they were. “Hey, Pops, right at the next street and then two blocks down, you can drop me.”
The old man eyed him in the mirror, suddenly aware that he was there. “Miss—”
“It’s all right, Alan, just do as he says.” She looked at Archer and then her gaze dropped to his hand. “My God, you’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing. Fell on a knife back there that a guy was holding.”
“What happened to him?”
“When he wakes up, I’m sure he’ll try to figure it out.”
“Did you figure out anything back there, Mister Detective?” she said.
“Yeah, but the Jade’s not a good place if you ask questions, or want a drink that doesn’t incinerate your throat. How long you been going there for kicks?”
“Ever since I got famous, hell, didn’t you know?”
“No, I didn’t. Which begs the question of why you need that kind of place now.”
Archer didn’t need an answer to his question. She had to go back because she couldn’t not go back. But she could get her fix from anywhere, including her own studio, so what was the draw of the Jade?
She seemed to know what he was thinking. She turned away from him and curled up in her furry fox stole. “Just leave me alone.” Her voice was no longer breathless; it sounded normal, and upset.
“You got a good thing going, why mess it up?”
She looked back at him. “If I had a choice, maybe.”
“And you don’t?”
“Who in this town really does, Mister Detective?”
Archer was about to reply with something pithy and mildly scolding, but then he thought about Callahan and the casting couch. If a person like Liberty…
“I see what you mean.”
She looked back at him, her full lips parted in pleasant surprise. “Do you really?”
“I got friends in the business. It’s got this public side with the pictures of good-looking people doing wonderful things, all the glam, the money, the homes, the yachts. Then you got the other side, which is about ninety percent of the pie, like the part of the iceberg no one sees until it’s too late. That part isn’t pretty at all. But you know that better than I ever will. It’s a high price to pay, but people pay it. Lots of them.”
She was nodding before he stopped. “You’re cute. And smarter than you look.”
“Cute men often are.”
“Did you happen to see me back there?”
His grin faded. “Back where?”
“You know where. And why else would you be advising me to quit that joint unless you saw something?”
“I saw more than maybe I needed to see. But it goes no farther. I promise.”
“Hell, people make promises in this town every minute of every day with no intention of ever keeping them.” She turned away. “I came here from a little place in Minnesota. I don’t want anyone to know about…the Jade.”
“I’m not telling anybody. And what studio owns you, by the way?”
“MGM. Why?”
“They have a pretty decent fixer group. I know one of them. You shouldn’t have to go this alone. Where are they on all this?”
“Nowhere, because they don’t know.”
“And you think that’s smart?”
“I’m actually happy about it. If they knew, the studio would make me sign a new deal, and I’d have to go to bed with the asshole who runs it, again. I don’t want to. I’m sick and tired of it. And he’s old and married.”
“Who is the clown?”
“Never mind. There’re a million just like him, so what does it matter?”
“You want me to talk to him for you? Lay down the law?”
She laughed. “What are you, a Boy Scout or a choirboy, or both?”
“I have my moments. But while I have you here…” He pulled out the photo of Lamb. “You ever seen her at the Jade?”
The woman looked at the photo. “Sure, a few times.”
Archer looked surprised, because he was. He tapped Lamb’s image. “You’re sure? Take a closer look.”
“No, not her, the other one.”
Archer gazed down at the beaming Alice Jacoby. “Her? You’re certain?”
“Didn’t I just say I was?”
The car slowed and Alan said, “Right here, sir?”
Archer looked out the window and saw the Delahaye parked across the street. “That’ll do, thanks, pal.” He opened the door, but then looked back at her. “For what it’s worth, if you never go back to that place, it’ll be the best thing you could ever do.”
“For my career?” she said with lovely, hiked dark eyebrows. The feeble illumination in the car seemed to make her platinum hair shimmer like descending sunlight on rippling water.
“No, for your life.”
She leaned over, nuzzled his neck, and then kissed him on the lips, running her soft hand down his jaw. “I’ve never had a man jump into my car before. I kind of like it.”
“I have to do it more often then.”
“Maybe our paths will cross again.”
She sounded like she was delivering a line from a bad script, but was believing every word. Not wanting to pop her drugged-up bubble, Archer finished the lousy scene by kissing her cheek and saying, “You can cross my path anytime, lady.”
He got out, and the Rolls drove on.
Archer knew if the woman were lucky her career would last until this time next year. If she were unlucky, she’d be dead by the end of the month. And they’d find a hundred just as lovely and breathless to take her place, no problem. The Midwest alone was turning them out like GM did cars.
Archer left Chinatown behind with a lot to think about and make sense of. He needed some more peroxide and a bandage and, most critically, a drink, a real one. And Archer knew exactly the lady he wanted to have that drink with.
Chapter 25
I’LL HAVE TO PLAY A NURSE in one of my next pictures, Archer. I mean, look at all the practice I’m getting with you.”
Callahan had washed the slash on his hand, dabbed enough peroxide on it to make the hairs on Archer’s neck stand up and salute, and then applied ointment and a bandage, winding it around his wrist and tying it off.
He had told her some of his adventures from the night, and she kept shaking her head and warning him that the next time might not be so easy for him. Yet her look was far more worried than her words.
“I didn’t think this one was easy,” he said.
“Who was the actress? I’m just wondering if that’s her lipstick on your collar.”
“She was a little loose with her affections. Comes with the drugs. I don’t remember her name. She was platinum blond and curvy and appropriately breathless.”
“Well, that narrows it down to just about everybody. You sure you can’t remember a picture she was in or something?”
“I don’t go to the movies all that often. Sort of a waste of time for me.”
“Thanks, Archer, a lot.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. Anyway, she said she was with MGM. The fixer there doesn’t know about the Jade, at least that’s what she said. She also said if they did know, they’d use it to blackmail her into a new deal, and she’d have to sleep with the studio head again.”
“And what, you’re surprised by that?”
“But if she keeps going back there, her career is going to be over because she’s going to croak.”
“Maybe she wants that.”
“She had a fur coat and a Rolls with a chauffeur and she was maybe our age.”
“At first it’s the money and fame and it’s great. But then all that takes a back seat, because they’ve all got the damn furs and a Rolls with a driver. It’s a lot of pressure, Archer. Some folks get to the top and suddenly realize they don’t want to be there. They don’t want to have to keep doing what it takes to stay there. She just might be looking for a way out. I just hope she’s breathing when she finds it.”
He flexed his injured hand and then mixed himself a whiskey and soda, and a gin and tonic for Callahan. He handed hers over and said, “But her only way out might be a grave.”
Callahan sat in a chair with one long leg elegantly crossed over the other, and sipped her drink. “She wouldn’t be the first and she won’t be the last.”
“That’s pretty tough,” he finally said.
“I know it. But I’m not a star, Archer. No one’s trying to hook me on drugs and that bondage stuff. I’m not valuable enough.”
“And if you ever get that valuable?”
“Then I’ll have to deal with it. But that’s a long road, at least for me.”
“And somebody’s taking pictures of her. I saw the camera.”
Callahan thought for a moment and said, “Maybe that’s why she keeps going back.”
“So the Jade is blackmailing her?”
“This is LA, Archer. Somebody is always blackmailing someone else.”
He looked at his drink and shook his head. “This place stinks right down to the core.”
“And still you keep coming back. And it’s not just to see me.”
“There is a certain intoxication with the place, I’ll admit that. Plus, the cases here are…more original.”
“Can’t get that same high in Bay Town? Because in a way, you’re an addict too.”
“Keep going, Liberty, I’m not nearly depressed enough yet.”
“So, Alice Jacoby goes to the Jade? But she told you she’d never heard of it.”
“The lady tonight was on drugs. Maybe she was mistaken. But she seemed pretty sure. And if so, Jacoby lied to me.”
“What would Jacoby be doing at the Jade?”
“She struck me as being pretty straight-laced, but sometimes it’s those very same ones who end up being the wild spirits.” He took out the vial he’d found in one of the rooms. “I got a pretty good idea what’s in here.”
Callahan looked at it. “What?”
“Heroin. They bring it in from Mexico mostly.”
“So, what are you going to do now?”
“Sleep. I haven’t done a lot of that in the last couple days. Hey, can you do one thing for me? The gal checking people in at the Marses’ party?”
“Donna, what about her?”
“Can you talk to her and see if Lamb ever showed? I have to be really certain about it.”
“Sure, I can do that.”
She rose and sat on the arm of his chair, running a hand gently over his head, avoiding the bandaged part. “Is it really worth it, Archer? I mean, like you said, you make just a fraction of what I do standing up in front of a camera and regurgitating someone else’s words. And no one’s trying to kill me while I’m doing it. Hardly seems fair.”
“I’m reasonably good at being a PI, I enjoy the work, and I hope I’m doing a little bit of good.”
As he heard himself say these words, Archer wondered if any of them were really true.
She stopped rubbing his hair. “And if you end up getting killed?”
“Then you can miss me.”
She frowned. “That’s not funny. You’re the only real friend I’ve got.”
“Then you need to get out more.” He rose. “Go to sleep. You’re on set tomorrow. And I need my shut-eye. Things will look better in the morning.”
She stood and faced him. “How was her kiss?”
“I’ve had better.”
“Oh really? From who?”
He said, “You’ve already forgotten?”
“I didn’t forget, Archer. I plan on taking that memory with me for the long haul.” She kissed him on the cheek and left, shutting the bedroom door behind her.
Archer went over to the window and looked out.
Was it worth it?
He didn’t have a ready answer, which might have been an answer in itself.
Archer did not sleep much. Every dream he had did not end well for him.
Chapter 26
ARCHER HEARD A KNOCK on his door at six thirty a.m.
Callahan called through the wood, “I’m heading to the studio for my early call, Archer. There’re eggs and sausages in the fridge and bread in the box, and I’ve got plenty of coffee. I’ll check with Donna about Ellie. And I’ll leave a note with the guard if you want to drop by the set later.”
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled,” he called back. “So long as you’re in your toga.”
An hour later Archer rolled out of bed, showered, shaved, and dressed, and had two fried eggs, a sausage link, two pieces of buttered toast, and half a pot of coffee. And he was still feeling lethargic. It might have been the almost dying two nights in a row.
He had sponged his clothes off the best he could, but at some point he would have to drive to Bay Town and pick up clean stuff. And he could report in to Willie.
He phoned Green and Ransome at nine on the dot, and an efficient-sounding female voice answered. He asked for Cecily Ransome. She was not in, he was told. After he told her he had been hired by Ransome to locate Lamb, the woman told him to wait. When she came back on the line she said, “Mrs. Green would like to talk to you.”
“You mean Bart Green’s wife?” asked Archer.
“Is there another?”
The call was transferred and another woman’s voice came on. It was cultured with a bit of flame attached at specific intervals, noted Archer.
“I’m Mallory Green, Mr. Archer. Cecily spoke with me early this morning from her home and told me about her meeting with you and what you’re investigating. She is very concerned. And I’m very interested in this matter as well. Very interested. Ellie has become a good friend of mine.”
“Okay.”
“I’d like to meet with you. And I think you should speak with my husband as well.”
“All right. Is he in town?”
“No, he’s in Vegas, but I can have our pilot fly you there today in our plane, if you wish.”
Our pilot, our plane, thought Archer. It made one’s little mind go round and round about what some people called normal.
“Let’s talk and then we can go from there. Where would you like to meet?”
“At my home. I was just in the office this morning to check on a few things. I’m leaving now.”
“Let me have the address.”
He wrote it down. It was in Beverly Hills off Santa Monica Boulevard. The address sounded expensive and no doubt was.
He gave her time to get there and then got into his car and drove to her home. The rain was gone, and 1953 had its first day of sparkling California sunshine, at least through the dense smog, which was provided courtesy of all the smokestack and car exhausts huddled over them. He had taken off his head bandage, combing his hair straight over the wound, but redressed the one on his hand. At this rate, he might start looking like a mummy.
