The Wrong Girl

by Donis Casey

  Feathers smoothed, Alma allowed herself to relax. “Well, I do think that last shot went well. And thank God that was my last scene for the day. I can’t wait to shuck this getup. It’ll be a treat to get home.”

  Mrs. Gilbert checked the pendant watch pinned to her blouse. “Gosh, it’s probably already dark. It’ll take an hour to get you out of that costume. We won’t get home until nine or ten. Do you want to stop at Victorio’s and get something to eat?”

  “God, no. That asshole treats you like dirt. If I didn’t love his pastrami so much I’d never spend another dime there. We’ll rummage around and find something at home. I want to run lines with Blanche before we go to bed.”

  * * *

  Once they finally, finally made their way home, Mrs. Gilbert ensconced Alma in the kitchen and went upstairs to Blanche’s room. She knocked, but the only answer she got was from an overexcited Jack Dempsey, who had been in solitary far too long for such a small-bladdered dog. Mrs. Gilbert opened the door and a hairy streak flashed by her ankles. “Blanche?” she said, and stepped into the room, expecting to see that the girl had fallen asleep, but the room was empty. Mrs. Gilbert switched on a bedside lamp. The top of the little desk was strewn with script pages lying over an open book of full-color art prints. She had been studying, like she was supposed to. This was a big place, and it could be that Blanche was somewhere else in the house, reading in the study, or enjoying the cool night air in a lounge chair on the sunroof. It could be, so Mrs. Gilbert would have a look around even though she knew Blanche was off on one of her late-night excursions.

  She caught sight of something odd on top of the bureau and stepped over for a closer look. It appeared to be a shrine. No, if it was a shrine it was an odd one. It was a collection of masculine things, arranged in a pattern like a wagon wheel, a circle with spokes. A spoon, a man’s black sock, a wing-tipped shoe, a highball glass, a cigar-cutter. A handkerchief. Mrs. Gilbert picked up the pocket square and examined it. The initials GP were embroidered in black thread on one corner. With a heavy sigh, Mrs. Gilbert deflated and sank down onto the bed. “Oh, Blanche,” she breathed.

  * * *

  Alma was confused by Mrs. Gilbert’s report. “What do you mean, she’s gone? Where could she go at this time of night, and by herself?”

  Mrs. Gilbert said, “I have an idea. She’s been sneaking out. I don’t know how long this has been going on. I’ve only known about it for a little while. Last night I followed her in my Ford, just to see where she’s been going. She’s been taking the trolley into Los Angeles and visiting someone in the Westlake part of town, on Alameda. I suspect I know who, but I won’t say until I know for sure.”

  Alma had been sagging with fatigue since they left the set. Suddenly she was electrified. “That stinker! You think she’s got herself a honey?”

  “I don’t know, Alma. I hope she’s not into anything that can hurt her. You know she’s an ‘act now, pay later,’ sort of girl.”

  “Well, I don’t know either, Delphinia, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for another adoption or an abortion. Or bail. Why didn’t you tell me about this?” She punctuated her question by jabbing the air with her turkey sandwich.

  “You’ve got enough on your mind. I meant to confront her myself this evening, but it looks like I missed my chance.”

  “You say you know where she’s been going?”

  “Yes, more or less. I saw where she got off the trolley.”

  Alma stood up from the round kitchen table. “Get your coat. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. You can drive. Go wake up Fee in case we need some muscle.”

  “Fee’s visiting family in Carmel tonight,” Mrs. Gilbert said, “so we’re on our own.”

  * * *

  Blanche made a thorough inspection of the bungalow complex to make sure that Graham’s auto was not there. She had been taking bolder and bolder risks. He would be gone on another trip after today. She knew she should wait until he was safely gone, shouldn’t take the chance that he might be upstairs asleep, but she had been left her on her own all the livelong day. She had tried to be good, and she was good until nearly her bedtime, and Alma and Mrs. Gilbert still weren’t home. One more opportunity to make trouble for the man who had treated her like garbage was too tempting to pass up.

  By the time she left Alma’s house it was already dark, so she had made the trip by cab. The cabbie dropped her off a block or so south of Graham’s place on Alameda, and she took a casual stroll up the sidewalk and around the corner onto Fourth Street. No Pierce-Arrow. She slipped between Graham’s duplex and his neighbor’s, hoisted herself up and tried to slide Graham’s kitchen window open. It was locked. Blanche dropped to the ground and uttered an oath. She wasn’t as surprised as she might have been. Anyone with fifty thousand dollars in his closet would think to lock his ground-floor windows.

  But she hadn’t come all this way to give up so easily. The upstairs bedroom window was situated above her usual entrance, and she could see that he had left it open a crack. She had worn her boots and jodhpurs. She could climb a tree, climb a rope, climb a rock face. There was no earthly reason she wouldn’t be able to shinny up the side of a house.

  * * *

  Mrs. Gilbert parked on Fourth Street a little way down from the corner of Alameda. When she had followed Blanche’s daytime jaunt, this was where she had seen the girl disappear between two bungalow units.

  In the passenger seat next to her, Alma leaned forward to peer out the front windshield. “I think I’ve been here before, or somewhere close, anyway. Edna Purviance lives around here. Mostly movie people live in these places all up and down Alameda. Maybe Blanche got herself involved with somebody she met on one of my locations.” She opened the car door and set one designer shoe on the sidewalk. “I’m going to… Oh, my God!” She slammed the door shut and slid down in the seat. “Look who just drove up.”

  A maroon Pierce-Arrow with the top down pulled over and parked a few yards in front of them. A natty man with fair hair got out and walked down the sidewalk between the bungalows.

  “Who is it? I don’t recognize him,” Mrs. Gilbert said.

  Alma answered in a stage whisper. “It’s Graham Peyton, his own depraved self. I used to see him all the time at that speakeasy I liked to go to, King’s, passing out dope like it was candy.”

  Mrs. Gilbert was too shocked to hide. She leaned forward over the wheel until her nose was practically touching the windshield. “Oh, Blanche! What is she doing, Alma? She’s got what looks like an altar in her bedroom with his stuff on it. She swore to me that she’d never try to see him again.”

  Alma flung the open car door and flung herself out onto the pavement. “Come on, Delphinia. We’re going to put a stop to this right now.”

  Mrs. Gilbert and the actress followed Peyton’s route and emerged into a garden-like courtyard. A rectangle of expensive duplexes faced a vine-covered gazebo. Graham Peyton was nowhere to be seen.

  1926, Santa Monica, California

  What was that about Honor Among Thieves?

  Very early in the morning, frantic pounding on Oliver’s apartment door caused him to scramble out of bed and rush into the front room while pulling a robe on over his union suit. Ruhl was standing on the landing.

  “Dix wants to see you.”

  Oliver scrubbed his stubbly face with both hands, still half awake. “How did you know where I live?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Let me in. I have to talk to you.”

  Ruhl pushed past him and plopped down at the kitchen table. He looked gray and sweaty.

  Oliver couldn’t decide whether to be alarmed at the summons or annoyed at the intrusion. He settled on both. “What’s wrong? What does Dix want with me? I can’t tell him any more than I told you, not yet anyway.”

  “Listen, Oliver, when you talk to Dix, don’t say anything about the ledger.”

>   Now Oliver was confused. He lowered himself into a chair opposite Ruhl at the table. “What do you mean? There isn’t anything to say. I haven’t found out what happened to the ledger.”

  “I mean, don’t bring it up at all. Dix isn’t interested in the ledger, only in what happened to Peyton. Have you found any evidence that he was killed? Or that his death was an accident?”

  “What’s the deal? What’s in that ledger that you don’t want Dix to see?”

  “Look, there were two ledgers. Peyton was skimming. Dix would give him cash to make a purchase and he’d take some off the top and pay the supplier a little less than he told Dix he had. If K.D. finds out…”

  “What if he does? What can he do to Peyton now? Kill him deader?” Oliver’s eyes narrowed as the truth struck him. “You were in it with him.”

  Ruhl clutched at Oliver’s arm. “You can’t mention the ledger to Dix. Peyton was a dope, but he kept meticulous records. He listed every payment he made to…anyone.”

  Ruhl was really scared, Oliver thought, and Ruhl didn’t look like a man who scared easily. “Dix doesn’t know about the second ledger. Why did you even ask me to find it? If I was in your situation I’d keep my mouth shut. That ledger has been gone for years and is unlikely to turn up now.”

  “So has Peyton, and he turned up. I thought he took a powder and took the book with him. But if it’s out there and Dix finds it…”

  “Calm down, Ruhl. It’s no nevermind to me. If Dix doesn’t bring it up, neither will I.”

  Ruhl looked marginally comforted. He pulled a white linen handkerchief out of his breast pocket and mopped his brow. “I’m glad you understand. I’ll personally add another grand to your fee as a reward for your cooperation.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate your generosity.” Oliver’s words belied the contempt he felt for the old weasel. So much for the idea of honor among thieves. He studied the old man’s pale face for a minute, wondering if he, Oliver, should be afraid now that Ruhl had confessed his double dealing. He had been working under the impression that Ruhl was only a mob accountant without either the authority or the cojones to order a hit himself. But what if that assumption was a mistake? What if Ruhl was an enforcer? What if he had been responsible for Peyton’s demise, thinking he could retrieve the ledger before Dix found it and keep all the doubly ill-gotten profits for himself? If that was so, Ruhl must have shit himself when Peyton disappeared and he realized that the book was out there somewhere.

  If that were true, why would Ruhl risk involving an outsider five years after the fact? No, Ruhl didn’t kill Peyton. He had to have believed for all this time that Peyton was still alive and still in possession of the ledger. Ruhl only cared about the book. K.D. Dix was the driving force behind the search for Peyton’s killer. A giant, crushing force was on the loose, and Ruhl was terrified that he was about to get steamrolled.

  Oliver was feeling distinctly unhappy that he had agreed to take on the case, no matter how much money he had been offered. You can’t spend your riches if you’re dead.

  Ruhl stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket. “Well, get dressed, then. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now. Don’t worry. Dix doesn’t expect miracles and won’t pull your arms off like you were a fly. Just be straight about your progress. It’s early days yet.”

  Before he went into the bedroom to change, Oliver offered Ruhl a snort to steady his nerves. The old guy looked like he could use it.

  Ruhl’s limousine took up more than its share of parking spots at the curb in front of Oliver’s building. The driver was the same black-suited hulk with the crooked nose that Oliver had seen both times Ruhl met with him at Bay Cities. Oliver slid into the back seat of the auto next to Ruhl, wishing that he had had time to fry some bacon and eggs. He’d regret dying on an empty stomach.

  Neither man was in the mood for small talk, so they made the hour-long trip in tense silence, out of Santa Monica, east through downtown Los Angeles, through Chinatown, and up into the hills, all the way to Pasadena. Oliver had only been to Pasadena once in the two years he had lived in Southern California, but the sight of mansion after mansion lining Orange Grove Boulevard, known as “Millionaire Row,” had stuck with him, so he was surprised that the limo turned off Orange Grove and drove back into a secluded area north of town, backing up to the San Gabriel Mountains. Oliver understood why when they passed through the gates of a parklike estate. For K.D. Dix, living on Millionaire Row would have been slumming it.

  1921, Los Angeles, California

  Blanche had learned that calm breathing really helps when you’re in a Situation. And, Brother, was she in a Situation.

  Blanche took her time wandering through the duplex, as usual. She peeked into all the drawers she had peeked in before, and rifled through his clothes. She chose a necktie with a subtle thistle design embroidered all over it and stuffed it into the pocket of her jodhpurs. She went back downstairs and mixed a drink for herself, a finger of something amber and about a half-pint of seltzer. She had never succumbed to the allure of liquor, but if it caused Graham the slightest distress that his stash was mysteriously disappearing, she’d drink it. She sat down at the secretary’s desk to finish her drink in comfort, casually looking through the drawers and cubbies. The photo album with headshots of young women was still there, with the green ledger still lying underneath it. She shifted the ledger and discovered a small notch at the back of the writing surface that she had never seen before. Curious, she hooked a finger in the notch and lifted it up to find a hidden compartment below. Inside were a snub-nosed revolver lying on top of a red leather ledger. Two ledgers? She leafed through the book, comparing the numbers and letters in the red book to the ones in the green book. They were similar, in a code that meant nothing to her, but not exactly the same.

  The differences must mean something to Graham, though, she thought, or he wouldn’t keep the red book hidden. She replaced the book and gun and did her best to leave the desk like she found it. It was time to get down to business.

  She opened the door of the front closet, took down the small suitcase, and carried it to a side table to open it. Graham had not gone to the bank as he had promised his co-conspirator. The money was still there, with one small indentation where she had lifted her bundle of fifties. She wondered if Graham had noticed yet. She chose another small bundle from a pile on the opposite side from the one she had taken earlier and stuffed it down the front of her blouse. She walked into the closet to return the satchel to the top shelf, and didn’t hear the front door open.

  * * *

  Alma stalked all around the circle of the courtyard, hunting for a clue as to Blanche’s whereabouts, with Mrs. Gilbert close behind her. She was just about to mount a random front porch and pound on the door when a girl in evening wear rounded the corner. Alma accosted her. “Excuse me, honey, do you live here?”

  The girl stopped in her tracks, her big blue eyes growing even bigger as she recognized the star. “Oh, my goodness. Yes, Miss Bolding, I live right here with two of my girlfriends. Can I help you with something?”

  “Do you know Graham Peyton?”

  “Yes, he lives two doors down from me.” She extended her arm. “Right there. Can I…”

  But Alma had no time for pleasantries. She strode up the steps to Peyton’s bungalow with her companion hot on her heels, opened the door, and walked right in.

  Graham Peyton hadn’t stopped to wonder what a girl was doing in his front closet with K.D. Dix’s fifty thousand dollars in her hands. He crossed the room in a trice, grabbed Blanche by the collar and jerked her out so forcefully that the briefcase flew open and bills scattered everywhere. There was no time for her to scream or make any sound at all. He put his hands around her throat and squeezed before she could take a breath. She could feel her windpipe collapsing. Black spots appeared before her eyes and the light fade
d. Her last thought before unconsciousness enveloped her was that he was going to get away with her murder. She should have taken all his money when she first had the chance.

  ~And just when you think things

  are as bad as they can be…~,

  Blanche swam back up out of the darkness to see Alma’s and Mrs. Gilbert’s concerned faces hovering over her. She gasped a ragged breath and clutched her throat. It hurt. She didn’t know whether she had been lying on the floor for minutes or days, but she was alive.

  “Oh, baby,” Alma breathed, “you total dope, he almost killed you!”

  Blanche tried to speak, but her voice didn’t work and she mouthed her question.

  Mrs. Gilbert interpreted. “Where is he? He’s here. Alma smashed him over the head with a whiskey decanter while he was throttling you. He’s out cold. Can you sit up?”

  Blanche nodded and her two rescuers helped her into a sitting position. Graham was sprawled facedown on the rug, his arms splayed out beside him. Blood oozed over the back of his head and onto one of his shoulders. Blanche managed to get to her knees and crawled over to him.

  “You have some very big explaining to do, young lady.” Alma’s Bronx staccato was hot and rapid as machine-gun fire.

  Blanche pushed Graham’s head over so she could see his face. She was barely aware that Alma was speaking. She made a croaking noise and Alma hesitated.

  “What did you say?”

  Blanche cleared her throat and tried again. “I think he’s dead, Miss Bolding. I think you killed him.”

  ~Blanche takes the reins.~

  Alma was hysterical. “I’m ruined! I’m ruined! What a scandal!”

  “Hush, now, Alma, before everybody in the complex hears you.” Mrs. Gilbert was doing her best to calm the actress down, but drama was both Alma’s forte and her fall-back position. Blanche was still sitting on the floor next to Graham’s body, watching in silence. Thinking.

  “I’ll call the police,” Mrs. Gilbert said. “It was justifiable. You kept him from killing Blanche. You’re a hero.”