Beverly Hills Dead

by Stuart Woods

  “Vance is too smart for that. Go out to the back lot and introduce yourself. Get to know him and help him in any way you can. If he works out he’s going to make a lot of money for the studio over the next few years, maybe even longer.”

  “I’ll do that. By the way, for what it’s worth, I hear the locations are good.”

  “We’ve got sixteen thousand acres to choose from. The owners of the place, Mac and Ellie Cooper, are sweet people, and you treat them with kid gloves. Between you and me, Eddie Harris bought the place from them this weekend, but they’ll still be living in the ranch house.”

  “Where will I be living?”

  “Work that out to your satisfaction with Manny; there won’t be room in the main house.” There would be room, Rick knew, but he didn’t want to live with Leo.

  “Speaking of casting, what are we doing for extras?”

  “When you get up there go into town and take a look at the locals, especially the men, the guys who hang out in the saloon. They’re a salty-looking bunch, and, sober, they’d look great on camera. Don’t mess with the ranch hands; they’ve got four thousand head of cattle to deal with. If you need anybody from L.A., call casting, and they’ll scare them up for you.”

  “Okay, anything else?”

  Rick stood up and held out his hand. “This will be the first time we’ve worked together, Leo; let’s do it right.”

  Leo grinned, shook his hand and left.

  Watching him go, Rick hoped he had been firm enough with him. Leo reminded him of a touchy bull he had seen at the ranch, all muscle and no finesse.

  15

  Rick was near the end of his day. Casting had nearly been completed and the various contracts issued. Just before five, his secretary buzzed.

  “Jed Crawford from the extras union is on the phone.”

  “Okay,” Rick said, pushing the button. “Jed, how are you?”

  “Not so good, Rick; I hear you’re about to start shooting a western, and I haven’t heard anything about how many extras you want to use.”

  “We’re shooting out of state, Jed; we probably won’t need any L.A. people.”

  “That’s unfriendly, Rick.”

  “I’m sorry you think that, Jed; I certainly don’t intend for it to be. In fact I don’t anticipate using more than half a dozen extras, and we’ll hire them locally, as much for their cattle-handling skills as for anything else.”

  “We’ve got plenty of guys who can ride horses and handle cattle.”

  “So, you want me to hire here, then transport them to the location, then feed and house them for a month, so that we can use them in two or three scenes, is that it?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Jed, have you read the contract lately? I mean, we signed it only a couple of months ago, both of us, and it excludes out-of-state extras.”

  “It would be nice if you used a few of our people, and it won’t be nice if you don’t.”

  “Do I hear just the hint of a threat in that sentence, Jed? Because if that’s what it is, then this conversation is going to take a different turn.”

  “Take it easy, Rick; you’ll have a heart attack.”

  “Not over this, I won’t.”

  “Be seeing you.” Crawford hung up, and Rick went back to work.

  Five minutes later his secretary buzzed again. “A Mickey Cohen is on the phone.”

  “Put him on hold.” Rick thought about this for a minute. Mickey Cohen had stepped in and taken over many of Ben “Bugsy” Siegel’s responsibilities after Bugsy had had an eye blown out of his skull while sitting in his girlfriend’s living room, and those responsibilities, apparently, included using the extras union for the purpose of extortion. Rick picked up the phone.

  “Rick Barron.”

  “Hi, Rick. This is Mickey Cohen.”

  Rick waited a couple of beats before replying. “Who?”

  “Come on, Rick. You wouldn’t have taken the call if you didn’t know who I am.”

  “I’ve heard of you.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “I’ve heard you’re the new Bugsy Siegel.”

  “Ben wouldn’t like to hear you call him that name, Rick.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait for his call.”

  “Consider this his call.”

  “What do you want, Mr. Cohen?”

  “I understand you just had what could be interpreted as an unfriendly conversation with Mr. Crawford of the extras union.”

  “I had a business discussion with Mr. Crawford; he was what I interpreted as unfriendly. Are you an official of the extras union?”

  “Not in a formal way; I’m sort of a counselor to them.”

  “Well, you can counsel them all you like, but this studio is a signator of a contract with the extras union that doesn’t say anything about my having to deal with counselors. Crawford knows that; if you have any questions about it, get him to explain it to you.”

  “I’m sorry you’re taking that attitude, Rick; it would be so much simpler just to have a nice chat about this and come to an arrangement that benefits everybody.”

  “Listen, Mickey,” Rick said, forcing himself to sound more conciliatory, “let me be frank with you: I didn’t deal with Bugsy Siegel or Chick Stampano, and I’m not going to deal with you.”

  “Yeah, I heard about how you dealt with Stampano.”

  Rick had blown off the top of Stampano’s head, after he had beaten up Glenna. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “Oh, I believe that story, all right. You’re a tough guy who takes the law into his own hands.”

  “Only when dealing with people who take the law into their own hands.”

  “You’re an ex-cop, aren’t you?”

  “I still carry an LAPD badge,” Rick said. And he did. Eddie Harris had paid a hundred and fifty bucks for it to a corrupt former chief of police, and Rick was actually listed on the rolls of the department as a detective lieutenant.

  “That doesn’t concern me, since I never do anything illegal.”

  Rick couldn’t suppress a short laugh. “That doesn’t really concern me, Mickey, because you and I are never going to do anything together that doesn’t involve a lot of cops and lawyers.”

  “Listen, you want to place a bet, call me.”

  “Not even that.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you can’t take a more flexible view of our contract terms,” Cohen said. “But pretty soon, you’re going to need extras for something shot in California, and that could get rocky.”

  “Mickey, if you and Jed Crawford want your names and the union spread all over the front pages of the trade papers, then do your worst. I can promise you this: I will never lose so much as a day’s shooting because my extras don’t show, and if you ever interfere with our business I’ll see you in federal court. You do know that interference with a trade union is a federal offense these days, don’t you?”

  “Bye-bye, Rick.”

  Rick hung up and walked over to Eddie Harris’s office.

  “Got a minute?”

  “Sure. You want a drink?” Eddie got up and went to his bar.

  “Yeah, some of that bourbon of yours.”

  Eddie poured two drinks, handed Rick one and sat down.

  “I just had a phone call from Jed Crawford at the extras union, followed closely by a call from Mickey Cohen.”

  Eddie’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah?”

  Rick gave him the substance and detail of each conversation.

  “That’s exactly what I would have said, Rick,” Eddie said, “except maybe more profanely.”

  “You think we’re going to have trouble?”

  “Yeah, I do. Cohen made his demands and was rebuffed; he’s not the kind of guy who will take that lying down.”

  “Should I start going around armed?”

  “I don’t think you’ll get shot at, but I think it’s a good time to go on location in Wyoming. Cohen will wait until we need forty extras for an
expensive scene, then he’ll make his move.”

  “What will we do then?”

  “I’ll brief the lawyers tomorrow and have them draw up a lawsuit. I won’t even make a phone call; the minute they’re in breach of contract I’ll have them served, and Cohen, too, and I’ll call the trades and the columnists personally. I think I can arrange for the FBI to have a chat with Cohen, too. We’ll have our extras the next day. Until then I think it would be a good idea to have a backup scene ready to shoot, if we should have extras problems.”

  “Okay, Eddie.”

  “You make movies, kiddo; I’ll do what I do.”

  For a moment, Rick thought this might be a good time to mention the Communist Party card with Glenna’s name on it, but he didn’t.

  16

  After a day’s delay for weather, Rick loaded Glenna and the girls, their nurse, Rosie, and Sidney and Alice Brooks and Vance Calder onto the DC–3, along with another pilot, who would return the airplane to Santa Monica. Their flight was a little bumpier than the last one, but they landed midafternoon in Jackson, where Manny White and a small army bus were waiting for them.

  “What’s with the bus?” Rick asked, while their considerable luggage was being unloaded.

  “I bought it,” Manny said. “It cost nine hundred bucks. I bought six Jeeps, too, for two hundred apiece. And something else I’ll show you when we get to the ranch. I’m telling you, this war surplus thing is a location manager’s dream.”

  When they arrived at the ranch, the place had been transformed; it looked more like a small army base than a working ranch, with neat rows of barracks and former military vehicles scattered about. Parked next to one of the barracks was a Caterpillar bulldozer, painted olive drab.

  “What the hell is that for?” Rick asked, pointing at the machine.

  “For keeping the ranch roads in good shape,” Manny explained. “We had some rain last week, and they needed work, if we’re going to truck equipment and cast around. It was twelve hundred dollars, and it had six hours of use on the meter. The bus has thirteen hundred miles on it.”

  “What are we going to do with all this stuff when we’re done?”

  “Sell it or move it back to L.A., if there’s something we can use there.”

  “Okay, Manny, whatever you say, as long as we’re on budget.”

  “We’re under budget.”

  “Now tell me what the problems are.”

  “Well, we’ve had an unavoidable delay on the phone lines, but the good news is we have our own Western Union service. Our cable address is BCREEK.”

  “When do we get the phones?”

  “At least a week, maybe ten days. I’ve been over and over this with them, and it really is the best they can do. They’re in the middle of installing new equipment at the central office. Our lines have all been run out here, and the phones installed; they just don’t work yet.”

  “Send an explanatory wire to Eddie Harris,” Rick said.

  Rick greeted Mac and Ellie Cooper, then moved his family into the ranch house. He gave Vance the same room he had used before, and soon they were comfortably settled.

  At dinner, Mac, the normally terse rancher, was particularly ebullient. “Rick, this movie business is a hoot; it’s like hosting an invading army.”

  “That’s a good description, Mac,” Rick replied. “I’ll ask our people to hold down the looting and pillaging.”

  Mac laughed uproariously. “When you get a minute, I want to show you the house Ellie and I have designed for ourselves. We poured the footings the last couple of days.”

  “It’s a pity you don’t need any piles driven,” Rick said. “Vance would be your man for that. His former career.”

  “I can pour footings, too,” Vance said, “but I warn you, I get two bucks an hour.”

  “Is that what Rick’s paying you?” Mac asked.

  “I wish,” Rick said.

  Sid Brooks stayed for three days, doing some polishing on the script, then returned to L.A. with the airplane, while his wife, Alice, stayed on.

  “I’m grateful to you for letting Alice stay, Rick,” he said. “She’s extremely nervous about the HUAC hearings, and it’s better to have her up here and out of it. I’ll be back, if you want me, when I return from Washington.”

  “I’d love to have you back, Sid,” Rick said.

  “That’s good to know; the writer isn’t usually welcome on the set.”

  “That’s because you’re all such royal pains in the ass,” Rick explained. “Where’s Basil?” he asked. The director of photography was not at dinner.

  “He lit out of here late this afternoon,” Mac said. “Something about taking pictures of the thunderstorms over the mountains.”

  They were having drinks after dinner when Basil turned up, dirty but happy. “I got some gorgeous stuff,” he said to Rick. “We had a sunset with thunder and lightning, and I got a lovely shot of Vance’s double riding in from the direction of the mountains and watering his horse in the river.”

  “I have a double?” Vance asked.

  “Of course,” Basil replied. “He’ll stand in for you when we’re lighting; we don’t want you sweating through your makeup under those hot lights. You’ve got a stunt double, too.”

  “I don’t wear makeup, and I don’t think there are any stunts in the script I can’t handle myself,” Vance said.

  “Vance,” Rick said, “we can’t afford to have you hurt while we’re making this picture. Also, our insurers don’t like it when you start falling off horses and jumping off cliffs.”

  Vance shrugged.

  After dinner, Manny White showed up with a telegram for Rick.

  GOOD LUCK ON YOUR SHOOT. PHONE ME WHEN

  YOU CAN. WE NEED TO TALK. EDDIE.

  17

  Leo Goldman hit the ground running. Before sunset on his first day in Jackson Hole he had selected the smaller of two Airstream trailers, earmarking the larger one for Rick Barron. He had unpacked his clothes and his briefcase and moved into the trailer, which had a water and septic hookup and a gas bottle outside to run the stove. He had wandered the barracks, introducing himself to and ingratiating himself with everybody he ran into, cast and crew. By the time Rick arrived on location, everybody was accustomed to reporting to Leo.

  Leo had anticipated every problem and had his fingers on every button. He had mapped the way to every location, and, if necessary, he could unhook his trailer from the utilities, hitch it to his Jeep and tow it anywhere the cameras went. Leo had learned the ropes, beginning in the mail room, during six years at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, the grandest of the studios, and he had absorbed both its organizational brilliance and its many excesses. He knew how to get a movie made, as long as he didn’t have to write, photograph or direct it, and he knew how to use the machinery of a studio to his own advantage.

  Something else he had absorbed from his betters at Metro was an abiding hatred of Communists and anybody who sympathized with them, and he had been royally pissed off to see Sidney Brooks getting off the war-surplus bus at the Cooper ranch. Leo had joined a nascent organization that styled itself, rather grandly, the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, known as MPA, an outfit that included Walt Disney, John Wayne, Cecil B. DeMille and a lot of other well-placed producers and actors in town whom Leo wanted to get to know under favorable circumstances.

  Sidney Brooks, he knew, was going to be an early target of HUAC, and he, for one, hoped the bastard got gutted, along with all his fellow travelers. Leo had gone over the casting lists for Bitter Creek with a fine-toothed comb, looking for Reds, but, since so many of the cast were new to pictures, he had only found two suspects, and he had managed to squelch the employment of both of them without calling undue attention to himself.

  He had also gone over Brooks’s script, searching for any trace of Communist propaganda that he could root out. Somewhat disappointingly, he had found nothing he could legitimately complain about, and he was smart enough to know t
hat it was a damned fine script that would reflect well upon him as its executive in charge of production. He had learned, too, that Brooks had already been paid, so there was no way he could interfere with that.

  Leo liked Eddie Harris, whom he considered to be almost as smart as he was, and he thought Rick Barron was okay, too, though he had not yet tested the political views of either man. He had heard that Eddie was going to Washington in support of those who had been subpoenaed, and he didn’t like that much, but there was no percentage in his challenging Eddie on that, or on much of anything else, either. After all, he worked for these two guys, even if he did have plans to change that some time in the future.

  Leo was a Jew, and this was the first time he had worked for somebody who wasn’t Jewish, and at first that circumstance had made him uncertain of his judgment of Eddie and Rick. Soon, though, he discovered that, WASPy as they were, they were little different from their Jewish counterparts at other studios, and it impressed him that the brilliant Sol Weinman, who had founded Centurion, had hired them both. Also, he had never heard an anti-Semitic remark by anybody at Centurion, which was more than he could say for some other places around L.A.

  Now, as he sat in his Airstream, surrounded by the paperwork that validated his talents as an organizer, he was nonplussed by only one thing: Glenna Gleason. What the hell was a movie star doing working as an associate producer, even if her husband was the director?

  Leo’s experience of female movie stars was broad and deep; he had worked with Claudette Colbert, Norma Shearer, Rita Hay-worth, Bette Davis and, God help him, Joan Crawford, and not one of them would have ever allowed herself to be anybody’s associate anything, let alone producer.

  At eight o’clock on the first full day of work, Glenna knocked on the door of Leo’s trailer.

  “Yeah?” Leo shouted through the door.

  “It’s Glenna Gleason,” she called back.

  He opened the door and showed her in. “Hi, Glenna. Good to meet you. You ready to go to work?”