by Sam Roskoe
Maybe me and Johnny were going to be friends, we had so much in common.
“Good for you,” Johnny said, “you hit a wall with him too, did you?”
“Climbed over it and it brought me to you.”
“Kid didn’t know nothing. If he’d known where Meriwether was, he would have ‘fessed up to me. I was a breath away from snapping his chicken neck, believe me.”
I did.
But I was too busy biting my tongue to respond. Me and Johnny weren’t chasing the same rabbit at all. Christ, I was hiding the damn rabbit in my hat and Johnny didn’t have the first idea.
I didn’t want to give him a second idea.
“You talk to anybody else?” I asked.
For all his brute stupidity and the way he stretched out a hat with that caveman head of his, Johnny was quick enough to put down the cage on what he was saying.
“You might not be a trigger man, but I’m not kicking over that kind of information on a whim, Gumshoe. Try another path.”
“My name is Finch.”
“Finch, you got a first name to go with that one?”
“Finch will do for now.”
“Whatever you like, Finch, but me and you we’re not buddy-buddy or anything and we won’t ever be as long as we’re after the same man. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said, and there was something off in the way I said it, because Johnny Jackson was on it in a flash.
“Got a joker up that sleeve of yours, Finch? You got a bead on where our rabbit is hiding, do you?”
“If I knew where he was, would I be here asking you for your leftovers?”
“Suppose not. But you’re hiding something, Finch, and I reckon whatever it is would do me good in knowing.”
I stood.
Johnny Jackson was a dead end. I wasn’t going to hang around all day waving my gun at him in the hopes he would spill something useful. Besides, every extra moment I waited was another moment for Johnny to ask questions and for me to accidentally show him where that rabbit of his was hiding.
“I’ll be seeing you, Johnny,” I said as I backed out of the room, my gun still pointed at him.
“Next time I won’t let you point that pea-shooter at me as easy as you are now, Finch.”
“If I can help it, there won’t be a next time, Johnny,” I said, and pulled his door closed with my foot.
Chapter 4
A man waited on the sidewalk next to my Cadillac when I left Jackson’s office. A tall, pale man wearing a black tailored suit and a Chauffeur’s peaked cap. He was as stiff as a January breeze in Milwaukee and just as cold.
“You standing here for any reason or is this just a hobby of yours?” I said as I put a hand on the driver’s door of the Cadillac.
He cleared his throat.
“You are Mr. Finch, Mr Elliot Finch are you not?”
“Who’s asking?”
“I’ve been instructed to escort you around the corner, Mr. Finch. My employee would like to have a word with you.”
“He would, would he? And would this employer of yours happen to have a name?”
“I’m sure he’ll tell you that in good time, Mr. Finch. Would you please…” he waved a hand at the sidewalk and beyond.
The beyond was a dark little chunk of alleyway a couple hundred yards away to where I suspected his employer, whoever that might be, would be waiting.
“Listen, I’m not in the habit of following strangers into stranger places, not for any reason. If your boss wants to talk to me, have him phone me or make an appointment, but I won’t sit still for this—“
“He has your dog.”
There was coldness in that voice that was even colder than I’d imagined it could be. It hinted at colder things that I didn’t want to think about.
I glanced to the interior of the Cadillac.
Where there should have been a dog ignoring my every word, there was nothing but a few stray hairs and the empty water dish I’d left behind to make sure Steinbeck kept his cool.
“He has my dog, does he?”
“He does.”
“Well then, let’s go see this employer of yours and have us a word or two, shall we?” I said through gritted teeth.
“Please, follow me would you, Mr. Finch.”
I dropped my hand into my pocket and wrapped it around the .38. Whoever this mysterious man was, I wasn’t going to let him take my dog from me. He would mark this day as the day he messed with the wrong man’s pet.
Unless the calendar was already marked.
I doubted Steinbeck would have gone quietly. Maybe the mysterious stranger was tending a few bite marks where there hadn’t been bite marks before. I was hoping for a few missing fingers as well, just to round out the revenge.
The thought kept me from cold-cocking the Chauffeur as I walked along behind him toward the alleyway.
He walked us down to a stretch limousine and opened up the rear door. With a slight bow he waved me toward the interior and the employer waiting for me.
Not so much an employer as a Hollywood God.
David Elsnick, the head of Omniverse Studios waited for me in the rear of the limousine. He was a manicured man, with milky skin and doe eyes. He wore a purple cravat that nestled neatly beneath his fifth chin. He didn’t so much as sit on the red leather interior of the car, as he did lounge, like some ancient Roman waiting for someone to drop grapes in his mouth.
Steinbeck did the same.. Legs in the air, belly exposed as Elsnick tickled him.
“Please, please, make yourself at home, Mr. Finch. A drink, perhaps, champagne or would you prefer something less flamboyant?”
Elsnick had a voice as soft and pampered as the rest of him, but underneath was the kick of an Eastern European accent that would always give his words a sharper edge.
“I see you’ve won over my dog,” I said, climbing inside. “Neat trick.”
The door shut behind me.
“No trick, Mr. Finch, no trick at all. Animals and people, they are the same. Give a man, a woman, a dog what they want and every instinct they have to bite, to rebel is lost. I have learned this is the truth in my many years in the picture business.”
I caught Steinbeck’s eye.
He caught mine.
“Traitor,” I said to him in a half whisper.
“Do not blame him, Mr. Finch. Like all of us, your dog here only wants what feels good, what is best for him in this moment. You are the same, are you not?”
I glowered at Steinbeck until he looked away in shame, at least I thought it was shame, who knew, he might have been cozying up for another belly rub with Elsnick.
“Are you offering to rub my belly, Mr. Elsnick?”
The milky complexion of his face turned sour.
“I will not have such talk, not from you, not from anybody. Do you understand me, Mr. Finch?”
“I understand you kidnapped my dog, that’s all I understand. Or should that be dognapped?”
I scratched the thought out on the side of my face.
Elsnick didn’t much like that I wasn’t scared.
“Do you know who I am?” he said.
“Everyone knows who you are and if they don’t I suspect you’d do all you could to tell them.”
“Then you’d be wise not to upset me, would you not, Mr. Finch? Would that not be in your best interest?”
“Is that a threat?”
He laughed. It took a good few seconds for all his chins to come to a full stop.
“Threats are for street thugs and politicians. I run a studio, the most successful studio in Hollywood history. Do you know, Mr. Finch, how important that makes me?”
“I’ve got a horrible feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“And you would be wise to listen and in so doing you might walk away from all this a wiser and richer man than when you arrived.”
I gave Steinbeck another look that hinted at his traitorous ways.
“What’s the pitch, Elsnick? I’ve
got places to be and people to see and you’re not on my list.”
I was telling the truth. Out of all the people that could have been at the wrap party, the boss of the studio was not in attendance. If he had anything to do with the death of Marla Donovan and the framing of Tarquin Meriwether, then it wasn’t anything I could figure out just then and there.
Elsnick held his hand in the air and waved it open as though performing an illusion with a full deck of cards.
“Magic, Mr. Finch, the fantasy made real. Reality poisons them and I, through the magic of the moving pictures, I give them the antidote. When they put down their money, when they enter the darkened theater, they make a bargain with me, with my studio. Here is my money and in return I wish to be cured, Mr. Finch. Inoculated against all the everyday horrors, the disease and the hunger, the drudgery and repetition. There, up there on the screen there is no death and there is no pain and if there is, it is merely a short blink and gone again. I give them the happy endings that they will never have in life.”
“Pretty,” I said, “what the hell does it have to do with me?”
He leaned forward.
The smell of lilac came off him like heat comes off the desert floor.
He prodded me softly where my jacket met my tie and where, if I’d bothered to go deeper, my heart lurked and lurched.
“You are an unhappy ending in the making, Mr. Finch.”
“I never knew I had it in me, won’t my mother be proud once she hears that—“
He prodded me again. It wasn’t as soft a second time.
“I won’t have any unhappy endings at my studio, Mr. Finch. I won’t have Omniverse be synonymous with bad things and bad people. I won’t have you digging up any graves.”
“You mean Marla Donovan, don’t you?”
He leaned back and resumed his Roman position. Still no grapes.
“I will name no names as that would be impolite and disrespectful. But know this, Mr. Finch, if you are still haunting my studio, if I hear of your presence in Hollywood come the premiere night of Miss Donovan’s final motion picture, I won’t be in as generous a mood as I am now. I will not accept your meddling in my affairs or the affairs of Omniverse Pictures.”
“Are you telling me to leave town, Mr. Elsnick?”
“Nothing of the sort, but if you were so inclined, before Friday evening of course, I would expect that you would receive a healthy monetary compensation sent to you not long afterwards. Compensation commensurate with your…let’s say, understanding.”
“And if I’m still here come Friday evening?”
He smiled a tiny smile that was lost somewhere in the milky rolls of his face.
“I would not like to be in your shoes come Friday evening if you insist on remaining in Hollywood. Is that a good enough answer for you, Mr. Finch?”
“It’s an answer, it’ll do for now.”
“Well then, goodbye, and goodbye to your little doggy too. I must say he was a lot more pleasant than his master.”
I clicked my fingers and Steinbeck gave me a look like a child who didn’t want to leave carnival before bedtime. He looked at Elsnick too.
“Shoo, shoo, go on now, doggy,” Elsnick said, flapping his soft hands like flags in a light breeze.
With a gruff little snort, Steinbeck rolled over and dropped off the seat onto his feet. He gave a little shake then looked up to me.
I scowled at him.
The door opened and I clambered out, Steinbeck behind.
Elsnick’s soft voice followed us out with a threat.
“Be gone by Friday night, Mr. Finch. Come Friday this town will not be a safe place for you.”
Back at the car I gave Steinbeck the cold shoulder.
He nuzzled up into my side and flashed me a set of puppy dog eyes that he’d been saving for just such an occasion.
I tried to be angry with him, but it was hard to be angry with a dog for any length of time. It was like trying to be mad at the rain for being wet.
“You’re not off the hook,” I told him as I started up the Cadillac. “Next time some fop offers to tickle your belly, I expect you to bite at least one of his fingers off. Got me?”
He barked a yes, or at least something approaching a yes, I still wasn’t as proficient in doggy language as I hoped to be. Maybe one day.
But not that day.
Chapter 5
I’d rented a room at a cheap motel called the Sunset that sported views of a brick wall one side and an empty swimming pool on the other. I wasn’t in the mood to go sightseeing or take a dip in any case, so I showered, shaved and shared a cold burrito with Steinbeck then nursed a lukewarm beer as I went over the names still on my list.
For a lush and a man on the run, Tarquin Meriwether’s memory didn’t fail him when it came to who was at the wrap party. What did fail him was everything that happened afterwards and quite a bit of what had happened just before. He certainly didn’t remember sticking a knife into Marla Donovan’s chest sixteen times and leaving her to bleed out in an ornamental fountain on the lot.
I ran my finger over the list hoping, like some old man with a divining rod, that I would feel my way toward gold, or water, or whatever it was that would make some sense out of what I had in my hand.
I didn’t strike gold.
Or water.
My hand was just a hand after all and the list was just a list. I needed another approach.
“Okay, you’ve been quiet for a long time, mister,” I said to Steinbeck.
He was perched at the end of the bed, muzzle on his outstretched paws, gaze fixed on the carpet. At the sound of my voice he gave me a disinterested look over his shoulder, then resumed his staring competition with thin air.
“Oh, it’s like that is it?” I said. “You didn’t have to come along, you know. Lucy would have been more than happy to put food in your bowl and water in a dish.”
He didn’t listen. No doubt he felt a little homesick and I didn’t blame him. Hollywood wasn’t a place you could feel at home. It was a ghost town where the ghosts didn’t know they were dead. Around every corner I expected the whole façade to fall in on itself and reveal that the town was just another elaborate set on the Omniverse back lot.
“Not talking then, are we?” I asked Steinbeck.
He did a little doggy shrug, but there was no answer from him.
“How about I read the names on this list and you bark when you like one of them? How does that sound?”
Not exactly scientific, but I was at a loss to who would be worthwhile and who would wind up as another dead end. Everyone I’d talked to that morning had either known nothing or told me to get out of town. If Steinbeck didn’t work then my next stop was a set of darts and a blindfold.
“Okay, here we go. Kay Martin, agent at—“
Steinbeck jumped around and barked.
“That quick, huh? You sure?”
He barked twice.
I looked at him suspiciously. “How come you’re so sure?”
He barked three times and this time I knew why.
I turned and saw that the door to the room had swung in on itself and the motel manager was waiting outside.
He had a vulture’s beak of a nose and a greasy feather of black hair slapped back on his tanned head. A slight arch in his back pushed him forward so that he looked like he might fall if the wind picked up. Both of his bony hands twisted around on each other.
“Everything okay?” His voice was as greasy as the rest of him.
“Peachy,” I said, “help you?”
I knew his game. It was one of the oldest games in the book. He ran this dive and it was the perfect place for a vulture like him to pick up easy money. Wouldn’t take much for him to take a few notes out of a wallet or some stones from a dresser drawer and blame it on one of the maids that waddled around early in the morning.
“The rooms are cleaned at eight in the morning, I forgot to tell you.”
“Anything else you came up here sp
ecifically to tell me that you couldn’t have told me a few hours ago when you saw me walk past your window?”
There was no embarrassment on the vulture’s face, no hint that his game had been rumbled. He’d probably been at it too long to let a little thing like being caught interrupt his flow.
“Eight o’clock and check out time is twelve, if you’re planning on leaving.”
“Huh-huh, really, well, that’s very interesting,” as I spoke I twisted off the bed and pushed the door closed.
I heard the vulture mumbling to himself as he went off looking for easier scraps.
“So,” I said to Steinbeck, “looks like it’s going to be Kay Martin next, agreed?”
Steinbeck looked at me like I was five cards short of a flush. He turned a circle on the bed, nestled down and promptly fell asleep.
“I’ll take that as a yes then,” I said.
Chapter 6
The ASSOCIATED TALENT building was a two-story glass affair standing lonely at the edge of Century City. From the outside it looked like a place where men in suits spent their nine-to-five drinking sly gin, seducing secretaries and watching wall clocks. On the inside everything shined, and where it didn’t shine there was thick grained wood, and where there wasn’t wood there was marble and water flowing out of the trumpets of stone cherubs.
Swanky.
Behind the reception desk was two hundred pounds of stoic, ice-cold, horn-rimmed spectacle wearing woman named Ruth. She had a face that would give a buffalo a coronary and voice to make a Drill Sergeant jealous.
I was getting exactly nowhere with her.
“When will Miss Martin be back?” I asked.
“When she’s back, I already told you more than once and yet you persist. I’m more than a little tired of your shenanigans.”
I put on my best big-boy smile.
“Today though, she’ll be back today some time, right?”
The redness in the secretary’s cheeks was as close to a blush as a bruise was to eyeliner.
“If, and this is a big if, mind you. If I knew what time Miss Martin was returning, and if I was authorized to tell you, if all those things were true, I would still not tell you, Mr. Finch.”
