I’m not one of those guys who don’t feel dressed without a gun. In my line, a gun won’t do anything for you that money won’t do almost as quick and not so messy. But I’ve learned to trust my instinct, and today my instinct says Remington.

  I keep the gun in my sock drawer, across from the bed – not so close I’m tempted to use it as an insomnia cure, but close enough I’ll be able to get to it before somebody can break down the front door. Plus the bad guys never look under the socks.

  It took me a long time to get the gun thing right. First off, I went for big – a forty-four automatic so heavy it made me list. So then I went small, with this little .22 revolver that looked like one of those trick cigarette lighters. It made people snicker. Now I’ve got a .32, a Remington Model 51 – light and reliable but with plenty of punch. I’ve got this special holster, too. It clips inside my belt in the small of my back. It’s a little harder to get to than a shoulder rig. But it’s invisible under my coat, added to which it gives me an excuse to practice my draw in front of that full-length mirror.

  The gun came with a snubbed-down silencer. Cuts down the range some, and the gun can backfire after a couple of quick rounds. Still, I keep the silencer screwed on. I figure not to need more than a couple chances. And the silencer lets me squeeze off a round with less noise than a rat’s cough.

  Coat back on, I’m ready to go. I’m not thinking about that letter at all. Like I say. I’m done with that.

  Chapter Five

  The Santa Ana’s blowing stronger than ever when I get outside, bringing haze down from some brush fires in the hills above Whittier. I get the Caddy out of the underground garage, put the top down and drive up Sunset, then over to Beverly and out to Culver City, my eyes smarting from the smoke.

  You’ve seen pictures of the Studio gate, which is all plaster columns and wrought iron. We working stiffs go in the back way, which looks like the factory entrance it is. Once inside, you’re in a different world. There are 22 sound stages here, each one the size of a blimp hanger, plus warehouses full of costumes, a commissary that dishes out 3,000 meals a day, a carpentry shop with 200 men building sets, a dentist and even a chiropractor. You could be born, live a full life, die and be buried without ever stepping outside the gate. I park in a little square that fronts the main building, and a couple minutes later I’m sitting hat on knee in the boss’s outer office across from his secretary Ida, who’s looking at me through frameless lenses with the usual mixture of fondness and disapproval.

  “How are you, Jake?” Ida is a lady of uncertain age. Her hair is always tightly curled and henna red, like a hat she puts on every morning. She’s the brains of the outfit, and the only one who’s never afraid to tell Meyer what she thinks. Like she told him to ignore Gable’s jug ears and bad breath when Mayer was about to let Gable slip away. She’s also Mayer’s connection with the Grand Old Party and with both the Hoover’s, Herbert and J. Edgar. A place like this needs friends in politics, and L.B. Mayer’s got ‘em.

  “I’m perfect this morning, Ida.”

  “I doubt that,” she says. “Terrible about that girl being killed last night. Himself is that upset.” I hear a muffled curse through the wall. Ida hears it, too. “He must be reading the papers,” she says. Then the intercom on her desk buzzes and I hear the boss asking if I’m there. I can hear it through the wall at the same time. Before Ida can answer, I’m up and headed in.

  “I’m happy you’re in a good mood, my friend,” she says to my back. “He has a surprise for you today, and she’s due any second.” I don’t turn around. I think I know who she is, but I’m hoping I’m wrong.

  L.B. has an office the size of a tennis court with a wall of windows at the far end

  looking out over his domain. Everything is white. The rugs, the upholstery, the curtains, even the circular desk which sits up on a little podium to make sure Mayer’s head is higher than yours. With the sun streaming in behind him, he looks like an Old Testament God, only shorter and with better tailoring. He ignores me as I come in, but the dapper dude with the soft face who’s sitting next to Mayer’s desk jumps up and strides toward me, his hand stuck out for a firm shake and a big smile on his face.

  “Jake, good to see you,” he says like he means it. It’s hard to dislike Howard Strickling, the studio huckster. He’s a good judge of talent, a wizard with a press release and maybe the last real family man in Hollywood. Of course the only thing that stops him kissing Mayer’s ass is when Mayer sits down, but God knows that ain’t unusual in this vicinity. “Bad business at Langston’s last night, Jake,” says Strickling as he walks me the last mile to Mayer’s desk. “Damned messy.”

  Mayer’s reading the newspaper, and gestures me to a chair with a jerky hatcheting of his arm like he’s cutting the heads off chickens. Strickling takes a chair on the safe side of the desk. crosses his legs and closes his mouth.

  L.B. Mayer is a stylish guy. He made his first buck diving for scrap iron off a rowboat in Canada somewhere, then borrowed some money and bought a run-down burlesque house where he showed the flickers. Now his lapels have that smooth role only London tailors seem to get right. He is fond of mothers, happy endings and any beautiful female on the happy side of puberty. He hates commies, the other studio heads and anything pretending to be art. He finishes reading something in the paper before tossing it with disgust in my general direction. It lands on the floor at my feet, but I can see the screaming headlines about the Langston deal, not to mention the picture of me below the fold - a little stab from Aggie because I didn’t let her at Langston last night. I pick up the paper and read the caption under my picture. It gives my name and identifies me as the boss’s ‘associate’, which makes me wince. Doesn’t mention me making off with the chief suspect – Lou would have seen to that – but in the picture I sure as hell look guilty of something.

  “Associate my ass,” the boss says instead of hello. “Was the girl legal age?”

  “In Calcutta maybe.” Apparently, it’s the wrong day to be a wise guy, and the boss looks at me long and hard.

  “Goddam perverts,” he spits out, though whether he means all of them or just the ones who work for him is hard to tell. I figure Lou Carnesi has filled him in on details, so I just sit.

  “I hear you hit Langston pretty hard,” he says after a pause.

  “He was too strung out to do anything else. He was yakking to the cops, shooting off his mouth. I figured best to get him out of there.” That’s a better explanation than I came up with when I talked to Lou. But not much better. Still, it seems to do the trick.

  “I never did like the son of a bitch,” he says. “But the next time you hit somebody, especially somebody on contract, you get the bounce. Unless I tell you otherwise. We understand each other?”

  I tell him we do. He nods.

  “That’s OK, then,” he says. “Lou’s taking Langston to the DA’s office tomorrow. He wants you there. He’s talked to Fitts and the fix is in.”

  “What’s the fix?”

  “Never mind that. But it cost me too damn much, which I plan to take out of your hide. Meanwhile, Carnesi will clean it up. Just get to that damned meeting tomorrow and otherwise keep your hands off. I’ve got another job for you.”

  He pushes the intercom button and shouts, “She there?” Apparently she is. Before Ida can answer, the door opens and in sweeps a short, slender woman in a cloud of perfume. The suit is blue silk with shoulder pads wide as an angel’s wings. The eyes, in their mascara’ed sockets, have a hard sparkle, like the diamond rings made special to fit over the dove gray gloves she always wears. But what you notice first is her mouth. It ain’t ugly exactly, but something about it reminds you of the places it’s been. Strickling hustles over to greet her, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders and walking her back to a chair like he’s a doctor and she’s dying of something painful. She sits down, sniffs into the hanky, crosses her slim legs – the legs are good, I gotta give her that much – and offers her hand up to me, saying ‘hello, Jake’ and smiling bravely through her tears.

  I’ve known Joan Crawford since I got important enough for her to notice. She asked me to call her Billie once, as all her lovers do. But she’s Miss Crawford again since a few years ago, when I found out something about her she didn’t want Mayer to know, so to keep me quiet she screwed me cross-eyed for a couple of weeks. I gotta say this for Joan: she’s democratic about sex. Men, women, young and old – Joanie will have sex with just about anybody who might do her some good. And I won’t say I didn’t enjoy it. But I ratted her out anyway, and she found out I had.

  “Look, Joan, Jake is here,” says Strickling. Mayer is unimpressed.

  “Of course he’s here, for chrissakes,” he says impatiently. “She isn’t blind.” Crawford isn’t one of his favorites: too many scandals and not as much box office as there used to be.

  “Hello, Mr. Mayer,” says Crawford with a sniff

  “Joan has a problem,” Strictland says to me, “and she needs your help. Tell Jake about it, Joan.”

  She’s still sniffing, but she pulls herself together and sits up a little straighter. I’m being silly,” she says. “Jake, some people are trying to blackmail me.”

  “Who, and with what?”

  “I don’t know who they are, but this is what they’re using.” She reaches into her leather handbag and hands me a can of film. It’s small, one of those eight-millimeter reels like they use in home movie cameras. I think I know what this is about, but I ask anyway.

  “A blue movie?”

  “Yes,” she says. The rumor that Crawford made a blue movie in her salad days has been around town for years, but no one’s ever actually seen the thing, at least as far as I know. I’d always figured Strickling’s people bought up all the copies, if there were any.

  “Men, woman and so forth..?” the Boss asks.

  “Just..uh..men and women, right Joan?” asks Strickling in a worried voice. They both know the story as well as I do, but it looks like we’re going to pretend.

  “What are you implying, Howard?” Joan is indignant. “I haven’t actually watched it,” she says, throwing them a look.

  “Then how.. ?” I let the question dangle.

  “It says so in the note that came with it,” and she hands me a piece of paper. Sure enough, the note says that it’s a dirty movie featuring Lucille LeSeure, which is the name on Joan Crawford’s birth certificate if such a thing exists. The film will be sent to the papers unless two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars is paid in a way that will be communicated later.

  I whistle softly. “Two hundred fifty G’s. At least they’re not pikers.”

  “Nick Flanagan’s involved in this, Jake,” the Boss says. The name stops me short. Flanagan calls himself a producer but earns his keep pimping, pushing a little dope and generally making himself useful. If you’re famous enough, good old Nick will pick up your mother at the train station and score a little horse on the way home to help you cope. He was a friend once, but that’s a long time ago.

  Joan takes up the story. “It was Nick who came to me. This morning. He said some mysterious person handed him an envelop at the track. Just walked up and handed it to him. It had my name on it.”

  “Why to him?” I asked.

  “He’s a…. friend,” Joan says. “A close friend.” Her eyes move demurely to the white carpet. I’m thinking Nick’s a little down market for Joan. But as I say, she spreads it around.

  “You think he’s in on it?” I ask the boss.

  “Doesn’t have the balls…pardon me, Joanie.” The boss doesn’t think much of hangers on.

  “No, no,” Joan says. “He wants to help. He told me he’d go to the police if I wanted him to.”

  “No police,” the boss says like a shot.

  “That’s what I told him,” Joan says. “But now, with that phone call..” She trails off.

  “What call?” I ask

  “They – or rather, he — called this morning, about an hour after Nick left, ” Joan says. “The housekeeper picked it up.”

  I’m thinking the blackmailer must be from out of town. He thought you could blackmail a star like Joan over the phone. A Hollywood crook would have known you have to call her agent first and cut him in for his ten percent.

  “Poor Esmeralda was scared to death, and her English isn’t all that good, but the man made her repeat his message over and over until she had it right”.

  “What did he say?”, the boss asks.

  “He described the film, in the filthiest language. I can’t repeat it,” and she plunges her face into his hanky and gives her shoulders a little heave. Strickling nods sympathetically. Mayer rolls his eyes and waits for her to stop. I’m trying to think what the blackmailer could have said that was filthier than what she’d said to me when she found out I’d dimed her to the Boss.

  Joan is warming to her subject: “Then he said I should come here,” she tells the boss. “You could get the money, and you’d better or he’d ruin your property. That’s the word he used, ‘property’, like I was real estate or a horse or something.”

  Now you’re thinking the obvious question to ask at this point is whether she actually made the movie in the little metal can. But I’m just smart enough not to ask her that. If I did, I know that hooker’s mouth of hers would clamp down into a thin line and she’d scream something about how could I even think such a thing. And asking is a waste of breath anyway. If she didn’t do it, what’s she so worried about? So, instead, I say: “Anything else?”

  She turns to me. “It was strange when I thought about it. He mentioned you, Jake.” Now she has my full attention.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. In the note, I mean. He said he wanted you to deliver the money. He’s going to send a postcard to my house with the directions for delivery. Any trouble, and he’ll give copies of the film to every reporter in town.”

  This is beginning to sound fishy as hell, but I keep my mouth shut.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, darling,” Strickling says. He’s made the short walk across to her chair and pats her on the shoulder. “We’re going to take care of this. We’re going to protect you against this awful slander and make sure the people behind it get what’s coming to them.” It’s right out of one of our bodice rippers, and Joan doesn’t miss her cue. “Thank, you, Howard,” she says laying a hand lightly on his arm. Then she calms down, and her and Mayer talk business. She’s heard they’re going to make a movie of some Civil War saga that’s getting a lot of press. Joan wants the lead. I mean she really wants it. As she talks about it, those eyes are turned up to full glitter and even Mr. Mayer seems a little spooked. He keeps assuring her she’ll get a test. I get the impression she’s about to leap over desk, sink her teeth into his neck and suck out his blood. In the end, though, she seems as satisfied as she ever gets.

  Strickland’s on his feet, a signal her time is up. She stands and grabs him in those thin arms like a praying mantis grabs a fly.

  “I trust Jake,” she says, eyes shining at me. A great exit line. She pecks the air by the Strickling’s’ cheek and waits, probably hoping that Mayer will see her out. He stays planted, so she spins on a very high heal and stomps toward the door, ass swaying. I catch a look at her face as she’s going out. All business.

  When he’s sure she’s gone, Mayer pushes a button and a skinny little guy with a brush mustache comes out of side office pushing a 8mm projector on a cart. “We better take a gander at it,” the boss says. He won’t enjoy it. He’s does his share of screwing around, but he’s also a true blue nose. Go figure.

  Brush mustache picks the film off the boss’s desk, takes out the reel and unwinds a couple hundred frames, holding the strip up to the light.

  “Be prepared,” he says. “This is a copy of a copy of copy – at least. It’s grainy as hell.” He threads the projector and points it as the wall. I get the blinds and it’s on with the show.

  Three young guys are sitting around playing cards on the bed. It’s a big room in what must be a big house. That’s unusual. Usually they shoot these things in a basement or a flophouse. The holes and scars on the film make it look like the ceiling’s falling in, and the lighting comes and goes, as if somebody’s moving a floor lamp around to get it right. The card playing goes on for five seconds, a door on the left opens and the shot shifts to a close-up of the three guys, who pantomime surprise. Back to a long shot, and a girl’s walking in. I’ve been hoping for a short blond with a limp, but it’s someone about Joan’s size and shape, with dark hair cut flapper style. There’s a close-up of her, arms thrown high in delight. Oh boy, three guys to poke and paw me for an hour or two! She moves to the bed, lifting her dress over her head as she goes, and the four of them get down to business. Her body is beautiful, slim and smooth, like a water nymph I saw in book once. It makes me wish the film was better.

  In the scene, the girl comes to grips with two of the guys, while the other one stands behind and tries to lift off her feet without using his hands. I’ve seen enough.

  “Do we have to watch the whole thing,” I ask the boss. “I know how it ends.”

  “I’ve seen more than enough,” says the boss, and nods at the skinny guy, who cuts the projector. The boss waits until he’s rolled his cart back out the door.

  “So what do you think?” the boss asks when he’s gone.

  “I think she starred, directed, wrote the script and sold tickets. But you can’t tell by the film. Could be anyone. Which means it doesn’t matter a damn.”

  “Don’t take this lightly, Jake,” says Strickling. “Joan is important to the studio. People want to see her in the movies, God knows why. This sort of thing could ruin her, and cost us real money.”

 

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