CHAPTER 16
Notes from a Coma
Shmendrick had left the place at nine for the La Jolla. He returned shortly after ten and announced he was going on a trip. The barkeep saw him go into the small room in the back and come back almost immediately with a suitcase.
“Close up the place at one sharp,” he had said. “And if anybody asks you where I went, tell ’em I took a ride to Death Valley on account of my grandmother ain’t feelin’ well.”
He didn’t say when he would return. That was the story.
“Why did you close early?” asked Homer. “It was a little after midnight when we arrived.”
“I had a date,” the zombie said. “As soon as Shmendrick left, I called a dame and made a date. You can’t blame me. I got extra-long hours every day, working for a guy like Shmendrick.”
Homer got off his stool. “Show us where Shmendrick got the suitcase.”
He led us to the back, to the little room full of checkered tables and then sharp left to a door close to the end of the bar.
“That’s it,” said the barkeep.
I tried the door. It was locked.
“Where’s the key?” I laid a hand on his collar.
“I don’t know. Listen, I ain’t Shmendrick’s chambermaid. Honest, I been working here a year and never once did I see that room.”
Homer gave me the nod. I leaned into the door once, twice, three times. The last lunge split open the hinge and crashed me through.
It was a longish, narrow little den, abounding in filth, disorder and all the dirty signs of sluggish bachelorhood. The air was heavy with the smell of butchered cigars, cheap hair oil and the personal odors of Shmendrick.
Homer went through the place quickly, handling the furniture and fixtures with tentative fingers. There was only one small chest of drawers, a Grand Rapids item full of liquor advertisements, old cigar boxes and a few bottles of usual medicine chest drugs. There was no closet.
“Shmendrick didn’t live in this room,” said Homer. “Do you know where his real hole is?”
“I thought he lived here.”
“Ridiculous! Even a pig like Shmendrick can’t live the year round in one suit, one shirt and one tie. What made you think he lived here?”
“I never saw him leave this dump. When we closed, Shmendrick always let me go first. I took it for granted the guy stayed here.”
We returned to the bar and allowed ourselves two hookers of his best Scotch.
“Have another snort,” said the zombie, full of twitch and torment. “Then I can beat it on my date.”
We had the snort. Then Homer made a phone call to headquarters. “Send over a man,” he ordered. “I want you to pick up a barkeep at Shmendrick Schultz’s tavern. We’ll lock him in and leave the keys under the mat. And handle the kid gently; I believe he’s done nothing wrong. Just playing safe.”
The barkeep accepted his fate stoically, with one foot on the rail and the bottle in his hand.
We left him that way, locked up with his conscience and the Scotch. I drove towards the lights of Hollywood. I said, “That kid has nothing to do with this business, Homer. Why didn’t you let him go?”
“Because I’m not as trusting a soul as you. Of course he may be innocent. But, on the other hand, he may know exactly where Shmendrick really lives. I don’t believe the gorilla left town any more than I think he lives in that pesthole behind the bar. If the kid is innocent, he’s suffered nothing more than a lost night’s sleep. If he’s involved with Shmendrick, however, we might miss an important piece of business by letting him go.” He nudged me into a right turn. “We’re not going to Hollywood Boulevard, Hank. Your salami on rye will have to wait. Head for the hospital.”
There was a long stretch of silence. This was because I don’t like to talk much when I’m driving fast. We climbed away from the bright lights and found the hospital nestling in the shadows of a canyon.
Dr. Millett was in and anxious to please.
“There’s been no change in Mr. Griffin,” he said, smiling his best professional smile. “Not since nine-thirty last night.”
“What happened at nine-thirty?”
“He came out of the coma for a while. It’s a common thing in cases of this type. There is usually a comatose period for six to eight hours after the accident. Then the patient may babble irrationally for a few hours. After that—”
Homer interrupted. “How long was Griffin talking?”
“For a few hours, though not steadily, of course.”
“You heard him?”
Dr. Millet chuckled tolerantly. “I haven’t the time nor the inclination to listen to concussion babblers, Mr. Bull. There was a nurse, however.”
“Will you get her for me, please?”
The doctor shrugged amiably. “If you like.”
While we waited for the nurse, Homer paced the floor in long slow strides, like a flibbertigibbety father waiting for twins.
I said, “Lloyd wasn’t babbling when I called last night. Or was he?”
“You spoke to Dr. Millett when you phoned. If Griffin had been babbling when you called, I’m sure Millet would have told you.”
He turned on me with a thin smile. “You don’t trust the doc?”
“I never have trusted smiling medicos. It’s a childhood fixation, ever since our family sawbones laughingly forced castor oil down my infantile throat.”
Dr. Millett returned with the nurse, a small, neatly wrapped parcel with a Bonnie Baker voice. “This is Miss Eva Wagner, gentlemen. She’s been with Mr. Griffin since nine o’clock. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
Eva was wired for sound. “Isn’t it awful, a nice man like that, so handsome and all, with a concussion? It’s like I was saying to the girls—”
“What time did Mr. Griffin begin to talk?”
“Time? Let me see, I went out to eat just before nine, and left him with Miss Reeves. I must have got back at nine-fifteen. Then I sneaked a—I read a while. When he started to talk I stopped reading to listen. It’s interesting to hear what head cases say. Once they brought a hairdresser in here with a fractured skull. You should have heard what that kid knew—”
“What did Griffin say?”
She made a moue. “Nothing much. Nothing much at all. You’d think, first off, a man like him, so handsome and all, he’d talk about his lady friends. Not a chance. Mostly he kept saying a name, over and over. It was monotonous. I almost fell asleep listening to him.”
“What name?”
Eva bit a fingernail. “Am I terrible on names? I’m something awful—never can get them straight. Faces I can remember good. I never forget a face. But let me see—what on earth was that name he kept saying?”
“Was it a man’s name?”
“Of course, it was a man. Irish name.” She plumbed the shallow depths of her memory until a glimmer lit her eyes. “Mike! That was it—Mike!”
I said, “Mark?”
“Aren’t you wonderful!” she gushed. “It was Mark, sure enough.”
“You mean Mr. Griffin kept repeating that name over and over again?” Homer asked. “Are you sure he said nothing else?”
“He said plenty more, naturally. But the trouble is I couldn’t understand it when it came out in sentences. He wasn’t talking clear enough for that. It was more like a whisper.”
“Come now,” said Homer, in his smoothest undertone. “Think hard, Eva. Can’t you remember anything at all?”
There was a pause while she made faces. But the brain behind that pretty brow was obviously muscle bound. “I’m sorry, I can’t think of a thing.”
“You stayed with him until he stopped talking?”
“He didn’t talk for long. I left the room once when the relief girl came in. That must have been around ten-thirty. There was a call came through at the switchboard, and they wa
nted information about how Mr. Griffin was doing?”
“A call? Did you talk on the phone?”
“No. Dr. Millett was there speaking to somebody. He just asked me how the patient was and if there was any sign of a break in the coma. I told him about how Mr. Griffin was talking—I mean mumbling; then I went back to the room.”
Homer rose, thanked Eva Wagner, and we left the hospital. “That must have been Dick Piper who called. This business has certainly broken him up.”
I swung the car down the sanded driveway and into the street. It was after one o’clock and my mental image of the salami on rye was fast fading into nothingness. We sailed down the hill toward the main boulevards.
“Stop at the nearest drugstore,” Homer said. “I’ve got to see a phone book.”
I said, “You can’t get salami on rye in the drugstore. Aren’t there phone books in delicatessens anymore?”
“Could be. You finally worked your way to my stomach by persistent suggestion. I have use for corned beef and liverwurst on rye plus a bottle of celery tonic.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere, at last,” I said.
The Hollywood Apex Delicatessen and Appetizer gleamed like a light of hope on the sea of gloom that was Vine Street. Homer disappeared to the rear in search of the phone books.
The little lox house was alive with Vine Street cowboys and well-painted chorines. I sniffed and filled my lungs with the sharp spicy smells that meant good food lurked under the glass before me. I took our huge corned beef sandwiches to a booth and filled my mouth in great hungry gulps.
Homer returned, satisfied. “I got him. Finish your sandwich in a hurry.”
“Got who?” I asked.
“Essig. Albert Essig, remember?”
I didn’t remember, until Homer explained. Only Homer could have remembered the name. Homer had a microscopic memory, like an English teacher who can catch split infinitives in an open forum. Albert Essig (according to the story Barton Noyes had told us yesterday morning) was the man who, many years before, had taken Dick Piper away from his job selling something or other and transformed him into a potential animated movie tycoon through his generous financing.
Homer wrapped his sandwich in a paper napkin and jerked me to my feet, my face still full of meat and bread.
“Westwood,” he said. “Go straight up Sunset Boulevard.”
Albert Essig’s estate (built on the profits of $17.98 Suits for Men), sat on a black shrubbed hill somewhere in the neighborhood of Ginger Rogers’ emporium and the brocaded palaces of many other movie bigwigs. It was a marble, modernistic mess, well windowed, well landscaped, and well hidden from the staring eyes of tourist busses.
Essig himself greeted us at the door, wrapped in a magenta robe. He was a roly-poly gent, built for good food, good wine and annual play-acting at amateur Santa Claus roles.
Homer said, “This is an imposition, Mr. Essig, but we need your help. You are the one man in Hollywood who can tell me what I want to know quickly.”
“A pleasure,” said Essig, as though he meant it. He led us through an entrance hall big enough to swing eight cats, and from there to a rug-cushioned library walled with books and reeking of capitalistic comforts. We had a drink. We had two drinks. “And now?” he asked.
Homer told him about the murder, and I watched his face register several degrees of unfeigned surprise, incredulity and curiosity.
“Ah, this is terrible,” he said. “Terrible for poor Dick. He’s worked so hard to put that studio on top, and now— Yes, I knew Mark Richmond well. A keen intellect, a man with a future in movie business. I’ve known Mark for many, many years.”
“Your organized the Piper Studios, didn’t you, Mr. Essig?”
“Not exactly. I reorganized the original company—the group that was working patiently with Dick, even when he was a salesman. That was a long time ago, and many things have happened since the early days at Dick Piper’s place. I had a controlling interest in the reorganized studio, you know. But Dick bought me out when I wanted to invest my money in other things.”
“How long ago did that happen?”
“In nineteen thirty-six. It was about two years after the studio went on a paying basis. The public had finally accepted Benny the Bear.” Essig laughed. “I shouldn’t say ‘accepted,’ but I can’t think of a stronger word. Benny, all of a sudden, became a national box-office hero. People were paying money to see the bear, even when the big feature picture smelled a little. You know what happens to a studio when a star crowds the box-offices? That’s what happened to Dick Piper—and I was glad for his sake. Dick immediately hired extra men and, together with his original staff, went into full-time production on features. The place was a success, and I decided it was time for Uncle Albert to leave.”
“Why did you leave?”
Uncle Albert chuckled. “Uncle Albert doesn’t enjoy backing sure things, that’s all. I had a nephew in Brooklyn who had ideas about producing motion pictures, a kid named Loewenthal—Lawrence Loewenthal. You heard of him? Sure you have—he’s the big boss now over at Magnum Pictures. A big success. And do you know what Uncle Albert is doing next week? I’m pulling out of Magnum Pictures. You see, it’s a habit with me.”
Homer said, “I understand. You’re trying to tell me that you left the Piper organization without a fight, aren’t you?”
“Fight?” Essig’s voice took a high note. “But no—the boys at Piper and I are still the best of friends. Dick is up here in my library at least once a week. Nobody can fight with Dick Piper—he is one sweet boy. And much too clever to fight the hand that fed him.” He roared. “A good joke, no?”
The big mahogany grandfather clock in the corner didn’t think it was funny. It bonged a loud, metallic bong to its mate, which answered in a tremolo from some distant room. It was one-thirty.
“How much of your stock did you sell when you left, Mr. Essig?”
“All of it.”
“Who bought it?”
“The boys. I sold Dick the most, and he let the rest go to his friends, Mark Richmond and Clark Threadgill. He wanted them to share in the profits, especially these two, who had been in the game with him from the very start. After all, they were pioneers with Dick in the old company. Dick knew this and appreciated it.”
“You sold only to Dick Piper, Richmond and Threadgill?”
Uncle Albert was surprised at this question. “But of course. They were only too willing to buy, you know. I didn’t have to look for other customers for such a good investment, even though I knew where I could find plenty of people who would grab such stocks.”
“People like Shmendrick Schultz?”
If Homer expected the old man to blanch at the mention of Shmendrick’s name, he must have been sadly disappointed. Essig wrinkled his nose in a mask of half laughing curiosity and said, “Shmendrick who?”
“You don’t know the gentleman?”
“Do I?” Essig asked himself slowly. “It’s somehow a familiar name, and yet—”
“He’s a saloon keeper. Owns a tavern right near the studio.”
“Shmendrick Schultz. Shmendrick Schultz,” muttered Uncle Albert, and then laughed a short gruff snort. “That sounds like a friend of Threadgill’s.”
Homer leaned forward. “Are you sure of that?”
Essig said, “Sure? I’m trying to remember. You say he owns a saloon. His name reminded me of a saloonkeeper, or a rum runner or something. Clark Threadgill had a lot of Shmendrick Schultzes as clients in the days when he was a busy lawyer in Los Angeles. I seem to remember a case now with a Schultz involved. Clark defended him. He was taking stuff over the Mexican border. Clark made big money defending those loafers during prohibition. Not that I’m absolutely positive about this Shmendrick fellow, mind you. It’s just the name that reminds me of something.” He paused to sigh. “It’s funny how a man’s pa
st always comes back to haunt him. Clark Threadgill is perfectly all right now. But he had a bad reputation years ago fighting battles for terrible fellows like Augie Pogono, Boo-Boo Werkelheimer and all the other cutthroats in that liquor gang. All bootlegging names. That’s what makes me think of Shmendrick Schultz as one of those old-time ‘goniffs’.”
I rose with Homer. The interview was over. We had another drink, and Essig guided us to the main door. He seemed sorry to see us go.
“Poor Dick,” he clucked. “Give him my best, poor fellow. Ah, it’s a shame for this to happen to that studio, after all the years of work. Will you boys come back to let me know how things are? Come up and swim in my pool—I’ve got a big swimming pool behind the house.”
I said, “You bet we will. Homer is a pervert about swimming pools.”
Uncle Albert was still laughing when we rounded the last turn in the drive and hit street level. I took a quick squint back at the house. The little man was standing where we had left him, under the wide portico. And he was waving us a last good-bye.
CHAPTER 17
Ask Me No Questions
It was almost two-thirty in the morning, a black, cold hour in Hollywood, an hour of empty streets, shuttered bungalows and long silences. We shot along Sunset Boulevard at a gay pace, and squealed a turn down Vine Street with never a jitterbug pedestrian to make the driving interesting. Homer leaned on an elbow in the corner of the roadster, whistling a thin, tuneless improvisation of his own, a strain that took me back a year or so to another day, when I had last heard him chirp his confidences.
For Homer only whistled when he came to the end of all deductions. It meant that the last puzzling piece of the enigma had been put in its place and the jigsaw was complete. He had whistled that way in Woodstock, two hours before a certain artist admitted he had murdered twice.
It was a soulless dirge, full of more breath than melody.
I said, “You’ll knock yourself out with that swing version of a voodoo ceremonial. You like what Essig told you?”
He turned to me with a laugh in his eyes. “It may mean the end of this mess by breakfast time.”
He Died Laughing Page 13
