This one had a neat windup. My detective was after some stolen pearls, and I'd figured out a clever way to hide them. Earlier in the story I'd mentioned these big Moors, lazy, thick-bodied fish with telescope eyes. At the climax, my detective opens them up to find the missing pearls sewn into their bellies. I knew Joe Shaw would love the idea.

  I'd just lifted one of the Moors from the tank (on paper, that is) when the phone rang. It was Hammett, calling from Global Studios. He'd returned the previous weekend from a film location in Arizona, was already on another picture, and wanted to see me.

  "Sorry I couldn't make the funeral," he said. "I talked to Erle, and he told me all about your murder theory."

  "It's Cissy's murder theory," I declared. "Did Gardner also tell you about the book I found?"

  "Yeah, he did."

  "Well, up to then, I couldn't accept the fact that Julian's death was a suicide. But now I do. I still don't know why he killed himself. There obviously had to be some kind of deep problem in his life that none of us knew about, but I think the evidence is strong enough to eliminate the idea of foul play. However, Cissy won't budge. To her, it's murder."

  "Come over to Global and tell me about it. Erle didn't give me much on the phone. I'm curious."

  "It's the Pinkerton in you," I said. "Always looking for a crime angle. Can't you ever give up being a sleuth?"

  "Hey, pal, I gave that up fourteen years ago, remember?"

  "Technically, you did. But based on what we went through last year, looking for that damned jeweled skull, I'd say you still get a big kick out of playing detective."

  "I was just trying to help out Joe Shaw," he claimed. "Nothing more to it."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Get your butt over here and let's talk. I'm in bungalow eight. They handed me a crappy outline about a three-hundred-year-old vampire with an Oedipus complex, and I'm trying like the devil to keep from having to start scripting it. You'll provide a welcome diversion."

  I told him okay, that I'd be there as soon as I wrapped up the climax to "Goldfish" for Mask, and that I intended to drop the manuscript into the mail on the way over.

  "You're becoming Joe's star writer," Hammett said. "I hope he's paying you more than I got."

  "I'm getting his top rate," I said, "but I'm still starving."

  "That's because you're too damn slow!"

  "I'm meticulous," I corrected. "Quality can't be rushed."

  "I keep telling you, come work in pictures. These studio people love dumping money on writers."

  "I'll leave the scripting to you," I said. "Right now I'm still learning how to turn out decent prose."

  ***

  Hammett had been assigned one of the new writers' bungalows on the corner of the Global lot, just behind a row of tall, concrete-walled soundstages. A knight in full armor, carrying a long wooden sword, clanked past me. A trio of giggly dancing girls in flouncy red skirts entered the nearest soundstage just behind the knight, and they were followed by a bored-looking propman lugging a rubber cactus.

  Hammett's place was impressive. It had its own bathroom and kitchenette, and the main workroom contained a king-sized couch, glass-topped desk, six comfortable chairs, and a varnished walnut conference table. Papers and scripts were stacked on the desk next to Hammett's typewriter.

  "How was Yuma?" I asked after we'd shaken hands.

  "It was hell," said Hammett. "Hundred ten in the shade, when you could find some, with the heat coming at you from the sky and the sand. And speaking of heat, I could use a cold drink. What about a Coke?"

  "Swell," I nodded.

  "I've been putting away a lot of these," he said, getting two frosted bottles of Coca-Cola out of the icebox. "I'm trying to stay away from the hard stuff-at least when I'm at the studio."

  "You tried to give up smoking last year," I reminded him, pointing to the pack of Chesterfields on the table.

  "I've cut way down," he said defensively. "It isn't easy. Old habits die hard."

  We sipped our Cokes and I looked him over. Dash was as skinny as ever, a tall, lanky, elegant man with a shock of prematurely white hair that lent dignity to his angular face. His mustache, as always, was neatly trimmed, and he wore a freshly pressed white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A pair of gray sharkskin slacks hugged his bony legs as he stretched out full length on the couch in his socks.

  "I work better with my shoes off," he told me. "But that applies only to lousy scripts. Wiggling my toes helps when I'm working on a lousy script."

  "I didn't expect to see you back here this soon," I said, taking a chair next to the couch. "What happened with Selznick?"

  "What happened is, I quit," Dash said. "Selznick is nuts. Thinks he's Christ the Second. Worries about everything. Sends endless memos. Nothing anybody does satisfies him. Changes his mind ten times a day. Working for him on this desert disaster took years off my life."

  I'd read about David O. Selznick's Garden of Allah in the Hollywood trade papers. Paramount had just finished Trail of the Lonesome Pine, which was the first outdoor picture to be shot in full Technicolor, so Selznick decided to use this expensive color process to enhance his film. The budget was enormous. He was paying Marlene Dietrich two hundred grand to play a mixed-up dame who goes to the Sahara in search of spiritual peace and ends up falling for a renegade Trappist monk played by Charles Boyer. Selznick sent his entire cast and crew to the Buttercup Valley in Arizona, sixty miles beyond Yuma, with the Mojave filling in for the Sahara. That's where Hammett had been for most of the last month.

  "Were you hired to script the picture?" I asked him.

  "No, no. They already had this god-awful screenplay when Selznick contacted me. He knew I'd worked with Dietrich on Blonde Venus. I was hired to supply her with on-set dialogue. Marlene likes to change her lines during production, and I was there to try and keep her happy. Kind of a literary whore."

  "I hear she's a tough lady."

  "Yeah. She can spit nails if you cross her."

  "How'd the two of you get along?"

  He grinned. "She's tough and I'm tough, so we got along fine."

  He held up a printed sheet.

  "What's that?"

  "Some ad copy Selznick cooked up for this flyblown epic. Straight out of Horatio Alger." He began reading from the page. "Quote: 'The memory of barren, bitter years fell away. Nothing remained except the tropical stars, the silent desert night, and the tumultuous beat of their singing hearts.' Unquote."

  "Wow. I see what you mean."

  Hammett finished his Coke, setting the empty bottle on the floor next to the couch. He yawned, stretching both arms above his head. "Selznick sure put a lot of jack into this one. Even had a fake oasis built in the middle of the Mojave. With a giant pool, fancy tents, and imported palm trees. It actually looked great, except the whole shebang kept getting hit by desert storms. The pool would fill with sand, the trees would blow over, and all the tents would go sailing off in the wind like big kites. Each time, the production crew would put it all back together again. Meanwhile, Lady Marlene is prancing around in flowing silk gowns and high heels, with Boyer panting after her."

  "Doesn't he wear a hairpiece?"

  "When he can keep it on, he does-but the wind kept lifting it right off his scalp." Hammett chuckled. "He'd go chasing after his hair, wading through the dunes and cursing Selznick with every step. Generally, he was in a foul mood. But we all were. Sand in your coffee, sand in your ears, up your nose, in your mouth, down your shorts. You just couldn't get away from the stuff."

  I had turned to face the window, listening to Hammett, when I saw a white limousine pull to a stop in front of Soundstage 6. A tall woman in a red dress, wearing a large picture hat, got out of the car, nodded to the driver, and began walking toward the stage entrance.

  "It's her!" I exclaimed. "The weird character I saw at Julian's burial."

  Hammett joined me at the window. "She's weird, all right. That's Carmilla Blastok. Claims she's a Hungarian countess."

  "Is she?"

  Hammett snorted. "Hell, no. Her real name's Letty Knibbs, and she's not from Hungary, she's from Newark. Her mother was a barmaid with three ex-husbands on the string and her daddy worked in a New Jersey meat-packing plant."

  "How did she get tagged as a countess?"

  "Don't you ever go to horror films?"

  "Never," I said. "Cissy and I seldom go out to the pictures, and when we do, it certainly isn't to see horror."

  "Well, kiddo, this dame has starred in a whole slew of 'em. She got going in the silent days with a series of Dragon Lady pics. When sound came in, she switched to playing vampires. Her first talkie was The Blood Countess, for Universal, which was a big hit. That's when she started telling everybody that she really was one, a genuine Hungarian countess-a kind of female Lugosi."

  "Him I've heard of. Ole Dracula himself-Bela Lugosi."

  "Right."

  "And I saw Boris Karloff in Frankenstein." I shrugged. "But that's about the extent of my acquaintance with horror."

  "Well, take my word, in fright-film circles Carmilla is the Vampire Queen. Or was. She retired from acting three years ago."

  "How come?"

  Hammett shrugged his thin shoulders. "She never said. Now she just 'consults.' When a major bloodsucking epic is underway, the studio calls her in for 'occult expertise.' "

  "Do you think she knew Julian?"

  "Maybe. Easily could have."

  "During the burial ceremony she was standing off to one side, playing it veiled and mysterious. When she saw me notice her, she hopped into her limo and was gone." I hesitated. "Do you know her personally?"

  "Know her? Hell, Ray, I've been on this vampire thing for just two days and already she's driving me bats-to use an apt phrase. Global brought her in as consultant, and I have to listen to her spouting all this crazy stuff about 'the Undead.' The Countess is a royal pain in the ass."

  "I need to talk to her," I told Hammett.

  "Why?"

  "To find out the reason she attended Julian's burial. She may know something about his death-something important. Will you introduce me?"

  "Sure, no problem. Lemme put on my shoes and we can go over to Stage 6 right now, if you want to."

  "I do," I said. "I most definitely do."

  FIVE

  On the way to the soundstage I asked Hammett: "How come she's here at the studio today?"

  "They've built a full-sized family crypt, and the producer wants Carmilla to check it out for authenticity. You know, to see if it's dank and gloomy enough. That sort of crap."

  When we were about to enter, the door burst open and a man in white swept out. He seemed electric with energy, moving with grace and purpose. He wore an all-white suit, topped by a white bow tie and a white, wide-brimmed panama hat. He was young, soft-faced but handsome, with a sensuous mouth (unusual on a man) and dark, arresting eyes that were fixed on Dash. Me, he ignored.

  "Christ, you're Hammett!" he exclaimed in a bass rumble. His smile was bright as a beacon. "What extraordinary good fortune-to run into you here! I'm just in town for the day, on business-be producing my own pictures soon-but I never expected… Well, by damn!"

  Hammett looked curiously at him, saying nothing.

  The man thrust out a meaty hand. "I'm Welles. Orson Welles. Heard of me?"

  "No," said Dash. "Should I have?"

  "Perhaps not, as yet," said Welles, "but the New York papers are going wild over my Macbeth. I'm directing it for the W.P.A. at the Lafayette in Harlem. Staging it myself. Savage, primitive emotion. All-Negro Shakespeare. Never been done. Voodoo drummers. Dancing witch doctors. My star is a black Barrymore."

  "What does all this have to do with me?" Hammett asked with an amused smile.

  "I'm a rabid fan of yours," declared Welles. "Your novels explore the dark heart of America. You dig into the roots of societal corruption. I rate you with Dostoyevsky."

  "That's nice to hear," said Hammett, "even if it's rather extreme. Is there a point to all this fulsome praise?"

  "Indeed there is! To put it in simple terms, I want to stage your Dain Curse as a gothic musical."

  "A gothic musical?" Hammett chuckled. "That's quite a switch."

  "Exactly. I take pride in giving the public what they don't expect to get." He hesitated, frowning. "At the moment, in this Depression era of ours, I am rather short on personal funds, but this condition is only temporary I assure you. Unhappily, the fact is that as we speak I do not have the money at hand with which to option your book-but Macbeth is bound to launch me as a major force in theatrical circles. When this happens I'll be able to-"

  "How old are you, Mr. Welles?"

  "An odd question."

  "I tend to ask odd questions."

  "Well, I'm happy to answer you. I'll be twenty-one next month."

  Hammett nodded. "Come back and see me when you're thirty."

  Welles flushed beneath his white panama. "I'm no callow young fool. I know precisely what I'm doing. I daresay you are passing up a golden opportunity."

  "I daresay I am," said Hammett, "but what I said stands."

  Welles stiffened. "You severely underestimate me, Mr. Hammett. I made my stage debut as an actor at the age of three, with the Chicago Opera. At ten, I was adapting and directing. I wrote my first musical review at eleven. At fourteen, I was playing Marc Antony in Julius Caesar. I was doing Shaw at fifteen. At sixteen, I joined the Dublin Gate Theater Company in Ireland to pursue a host of starring roles. Two years ago I became involved with radio and I have now performed on a wide variety of top programs. I design costumes, produce, direct, play the piano, and paint my own stage sets. There is a greatness in me, Mr. Hammett, a greatness that you cannot comprehend."

  "Along with a fair amount of bull."

  This time he laughed, a deep drum rumble. "Insults mean nothing to me. I happen to possess an unwavering belief in myself, in my future potential. A small ego begets a small man. A giant ego begets a giant. When I'm thirty, I'll be world-famous and beyond your reach."

  "Then that'll be my loss," said Hammett. "In the meantime, I wish you luck as a major force in theatrical circles."

  "I make my own luck, sir, so I am not in need of yours." And he swept away, a white force of dynamic, kinetic energy.

  Dash grinned at me, shrugged, and opened the stage door.

  We went in.

  There were three standing sets that had been built inside the cavernous soundstage. No filming was in progress, but a number of technicians were at work, dressing each set. The first was an exterior for a Global Western, consisting of some fake fir trees, a grouping of papier-mache boulders, and a carefully spread dirt yard surrounding a false-front bunkhouse-all of it framed by a fifty-foot painted backdrop of purple mountains under a cloud-flecked blue sky.

  Two stagehands were leading a swaybacked mustang past the set when the horse relieved itself.

  "Dammit, Sid," growled the taller of the pair, "just remember, it's your turn to clean up the horseshit!"

  "Can't have horseshit in a Global Western," Hammett said to me as we walked past.

  The second set duplicated the interior of a flashy New York apartment, with chromium art deco furniture, mirrored walls, and a painted view of the Manhattan skyline. In the rafters above the set, two electricians were adjusting beam lights.

  The third set was the vampire crypt, built at the edge of a fake cemetery with slanted wooden headstones and lots of weeds and dead grass. The crypt was open on one side, for camera access, and looked suitably dank, gloomy, and menacing to me, with its fake cobwebs, fat rubber spiders, and ersatz mold. The area swarmed with set workers busily painting, plastering, and hammering, supervised by a tall, laconic drink of water in faded orange coveralls who was, according to Hammett, the production manager. He nodded to us, shifting a wad of chewing tobacco from his right cheek to his left.

  Inside the crypt, checking out the cobwebs, was the Countess herself. Spotting Hammett, she walked over to him, extending a gloved hand. The heavily rouged face beneath her picture hat had seen better days; she was gaunt, with sunken green eyes the color of stagnant seawater. Her mouth was thin-lipped and wrinkled under a long, patrician nose.

  "Dashiell, how nice to see you!" The voice was high and fluttery.

  Hammett took her hand in a mock bow. "Carmilla."

  "What are you doing out of your ivory tower?" she asked him. "I thought you were deeply immersed in our script."

  "My script," Hammett corrected her in a mild tone, edged with irritation. "You are the consultant, I am the writer."

  "My, my, but aren't we touchy today. Have you been drinking, Dashiell?"

  "Only Coca-Cola," he said. He turned to me. "This is my friend, Raymond Chandler. He insisted on meeting you."

  "How nice!" She gave me the same gloved hand to shake. "And what is it you do, Mr. Chandler?"

  "I write lurid detective stories for Black Mask."

  "Wonderful!" she said. "I adore detective stories. I'm sure you're very good at it."

  "I'm sure I am."

  Hammett broke into our exchange. "Hedda's just come in. She wants to see me."

  An agitated woman, wearing a huge beribboned hat with magenta feathers, was gesturing from the door of the soundstage.

  "Who's Hedda?"

  "The gossip columnist," said Hammett. "Hedda Hopper."

  "Oh, yeah. I've seen her stuff in the papers," I said.

  "She keeps saying neat things about me in her column. Gets me fatter contracts. I'd better go talk to her."

  He headed for Miss Hopper.

  "I never liked that woman," said the Countess, watching Hammett go. "She failed to appreciate the art I brought to my films. Louella Parsons was much kinder to me. Did you know that I was a featured guest on her radio show?"

  "That's nice," I said.

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Then the Countess asked: "Are you seeking my autograph?"

 

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