One Deadly Dawn

by Harry Whittington

  I bent over, reached under the bush.

  As my fingers closed over the small piece of stone, I heard Davies crunch up close behind me.

  Before I could move he had brought the side of his hand down across my wrist. The pain shot upward through my arm and exploded in the base of my brain.

  “I told you. Don’t touch nothing.”

  Luckily it was my left hand that was momentarily paralyzed. I came up off my toes, bringing up my right fist from as far as I could. I sank it as deeply under his belt as I could drive it, and Davies went staggering back, gasping for breath and vomiting at the same time.

  He was still staggering backward through the plants when Scully came running into the garden.

  “What in hell gives out here?” Scully was staring at Davies, who had stopped backing up by now, but was still folded like an accordion.

  I massaged my left arm. “The sonofabitch made a mistake,” I said. “He should have shot me.”

  “You hit him?” Scully stared blankly at me. “You hit a cop? What in hell for?”

  “Ask him.” I bent down and picked up the piece of the statue. It was part of a hand.

  Davies was coming forward again. He could hardly speak through the sickness in his throat. “I’ll kill him … I’m going to kill him.”

  “Sure you are,” I said. “But the next time you’re going to play it safe and use your gun.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Davies said. “Stop me, or I’m going to kill him.”

  Scully shrugged. “I’m not going to stop you, Davies. Go ahead.”

  Davies took two more steps toward me. He stopped, put his hand on the butt of his gun. His face twitched and he looked from me to Scully and back.

  “That’s all, Davies,” Scully said. “Wait out front.”

  Davies stared at me, his eyes black and narrow. I stood there, looking at him. His gaze fell away. He turned and stalked through the door from the garden.

  “You can get yourself in a hell of a lot of trouble, poking a cop,” Scully said.

  “The way I read it, the law says the attacker is wrong, no matter what he’s wearing.”

  Scully shrugged. “Okay. You’re through down here anyway. It wouldn’t do any good to book you. You seen enough?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “All I know is that if Jack Roland killed anybody, then he’s changed.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s afraid of his own shadow unless it’s on a movie screen. I got fed up once, tried to get him to fight me. He broke down and cried. Stood there crying. Weirdest thing I ever saw. Only person who could look at him doing a thing like that and respect him afterwards was my wife She married him, and she’s been mothering him ever since.”

  Scully stared at me. “This actor — this Jack Roland — is married to your ex-wife?”

  “That’s right. She left me for him when he was king of the whole studio. Today, I’d say she’s about all he’s got left.”

  Scully shook a cigarette from a pack, offered me one. I shook my head, watched him fire up. “If he took your wife, what’re you down here for?” He looked as though something tasted bad, and not the cigarette. “You want to help him?”

  I looked around the garden, the scent of it heavy in my nostrils, studied the white powder that outlined the spot where Pawley had been beaten to death.

  “Call it habit,” I said. “I got so used to wiping his nose for ten years, maybe I can’t stop. Maybe I’m trying to do Betty one last favor — she and I had a couple of nice years together, before she discovered how badly lover boy needed her. I don’t know. I can’t explain it to myself; how can I explain it to you? Maybe I’m trying to show her. Maybe that’s it … maybe I want to show her what a nothing her wonderful husband is; show her that he’d die in the gas chamber except for me.”

  “Too bad,” Scully said. “But I’m afraid you can’t show her anything like that, Howell. There’s one more little thing.” He fished a yellow sheet of paper from his inner coat pocket. “A telegram. This was also on Pawley when he was found out here. You want to read it?”

  He handed me the sheet of paper. I read the message addressed to Pawley at this San Rafael hideaway. Go ahead, do what you like. I’m not going to try to stop you. You’ll regret it the rest of your life.

  The telegram was signed Babo, which meant it was unsigned.

  “Go ahead, do what you like,” Scully said. “An invitation to print that old Roland Scandal. You’ll regret it — that’s a threat in my book. That story on Roland’s cut-up days, and he was right here on the place. How much proof do you need?”

  “How do you know who sent this telegram?”

  “Pretty obvious to me.”

  “Pawley made his millions out of scandals. Anybody could have sent it.” I copied down all the numerals and information.

  Scully snatched at it. “Here. What’re you doing?”

  The wire had been sent from Hollywood. I let him grasp it from my fingers, put the notebook back in my pocket.

  “What kind of stuff are you trying to pull, Howell?”

  “Nothing. I could get that information from the local telegraph office. It’s just easier this way.”

  “I told you, don’t mess this up. We’ve got our killer.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. This I know; Roland is no killer. But one think you are doing — you’re giving the real killer plenty of time to get away.”

  Chapter Four

  IT RAINED all the way back to Los Angeles. I parked on the side street nearest my apartment house entrance and ran across the walk. The foyer was quiet and the elevator stood open. As I walked along the fifth floor corridor, I saw my door was ajar. Since I never gave out keys to my place — no takers — I knew the manager had been slick-talked into letting somebody in. I’d warned her about it, but I lived in a homey part of Los Angeles where the rent is reasonable and everybody is friendly. I walked faster, feeling the anger building in me. I pushed open the door and it struck the wall so there’s be no mistaking my feelings on this matter. I started across the threshold, and stopped. Maybe my mouth tilted slightly. I know my heart did.

  It was Betty.

  Hell, I don’t know why I was astonished to see her. Her boy Jackie was in trouble, wasn’t he? It would have been surprising if she hadn’t shown up.

  She was sitting rigidly in my reading chair, her eyes staring straight ahead toward the starlets on my wall, but not really seeing them.

  It hit me again, the minute I saw her. All of it. Sharp and clear. Once this had been the way it was, me coming home, hurrying, and Betty waiting for me. That was a long five years ago, but still my blood warmed up when I saw her at a preview, or crossing a street a block ahead of me. That was the terrible way it was, wanting her and knowing I couldn’t have her, and knowing nobody else would do either. Sure, we were married two years and it wasn’t all crazy pinwheeling from peak to peak; there had been quiet moments that said when we reached that plateau we were still going to be right for each other … only that wasn’t the way it worked out.

  “Been waiting a long time?” I made my voice a lot tougher than the occasion called for. I shook the rain off my shoulders, noticing that she was dry; not even her shoes were damp.

  I had to keep it sharp. I didn’t want her seeing what she did to me, the way I was looking her over. We still live in the same town, but now we only meet accidentally and occasionally, and I never could get over wanting to see her.

  “I need your help, Sam. There was nobody else.” That throaty voice had thrilled plenty of men in darkened theatres in the few pictures she’d made. It still made little goose bumps across the nape of my neck.

  She got up, took my rain slicker, carried it into my bathroom, shook it out and draped it over the shower rod. She was completely at ease, just as though there hadn’t been any one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days, more or less, since she’d left my domicile.

  When she came back into the front room I wa
s pouring myself a drink.

  “Drinking in the morning, Sam?”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s a new habit.”

  “I’ve had plenty of time to develop a lot of new ones.”

  “You’d better get out of those wet clothes, Sam.” Her voice treated me like a stubborn child. “You’ll catch a death of cold.”

  I tossed off the drink, watching her over the top of the tumbler. I thought of a lot of answers, but made none.

  She hadn’t changed much since the exhibitors had elected her “Miss Golden Girl of Tomorrow’s Box Office.” They said she looked like Frances Dee’s younger sister, had all the promise of Norma Shearer, and spoke with a gulp-producing something in her voice that was reminiscent of Margaret Sullivan.

  I didn’t blame them for what they said. She was not quite twenty when she arrived in Hollywood. I was twenty-four at the time, and just beginning to lose my hair. Seven years ago. It seemed more like seven centuries … until I looked at Betty. Not even life with Jack Roland could damage her fragile beauty. Dark hair highlighted with copper glints, deep, soft violet eyes … if that sounds like press-agent talk, it is; writing about Twenty Grand’s little starlet was the easiest job I ever had.

  I married her despite the yelling of the studio, and everybody saying it couldn’t last. Sam Howell was a new publicity hack fresh from newspaper work, and Betty Clane was a girl going to the heights. They were right. It didn’t last, but for none of the reasons the wise ones gave.

  I walked past her and went into the bedroom. I sat down on the side of my unmade bed and peeled off my shoes and socks.

  Betty followed me, casually, as if she had never stopped thinking first of my welfare. Maybe that’s what the panting men in the theaters saw in her: a lovely girl, sweet and gentle and ladylike that nobody had a right to touch without a sterilized spoon — and when she was yours, she was all yours, your slave. Hot damn, they thought. And they were right….

  She went directly to my bureau, opened the correct drawer without any hesitation, removed a clean pair of socks and fresh underwear. “Get out of those wet things,” she said.

  She closed the drawer, straightened a few things on top of it, and stood looking critically at the autographed picture there.

  “Nice,” she said over her shoulder. “She’s not for you, though, Sam.”

  “No. You’re right.”

  “She isn’t good enough.” She shook her head and turned around, forcing a smile. “I’m sorry, Sam. She’s a beautiful girl. And I’m a cat. Maybe I’m still a little jealous, Sam. I know you can have anybody you want.”

  I looked at her, at the bed in which I slept alone.

  “Sure,” I said.

  She sighed. “They all love you, Sam. Sex pours out of your ears.”

  I laughed, not bothering to answer that one.

  She walked away from the dresser, laid the clothing on the bed beside me.

  “I see you’re still dreaming of your Shangrila.” She nodded toward the farm and country estate folders on the night table.

  “Yes.”

  She smiled. “You don’t truly believe you’ll ever go, do you, Sam?”

  My voice was more bitter than I intended. “If I didn’t, I’d give up right now.”

  “Oh, Sam. Who’re you kidding? That stuff is for people who want to run away … people who need to run away. Why, Sam, you’re the strongest, most self-reliant person I ever knew.”

  I stared at her. “I wonder how it’s possible for two people to have been married even two years when the wife knows so little about the man.”

  She turned away, running her hands over the folders.

  “That’s easy, Sam. You never needed me. You were complete without me. Really … I stood in your way. If you needed a woman at all, it was someone exciting to sleep with — and you could find hundreds anxious to oblige, and most of them much smarter in bed than I.”

  “Oh, I was well rid of you?”

  She fretted at her lower lip with white, even teeth. “Yes, Sam.”

  I shook my head, peeling off my shirt. She was frowning slightly, and her face was faintly pale, as though I’d hit her. God, as though I ever would. Could she actually have forgotten that she walked out on me? That I was a zombie for six months after she was gone?

  It all raged back through my mind. Betty Clane, the most exciting new starlet in twenty years. And she was mine. I never thought she would marry me — hell, I never even asked her. The way it happened was really a joke. She told me she wasn’t going to see me any more, that I upset her, and there was nothing she could do about it. I either had to marry her or quit seeing her. Hell, I thought she was kidding. I tried to laugh, and thank her for letting me down easy. She got so mad she started crying and three days later we were married.

  We were married a year before she met Jack Roland. The studio put her in Run, Killer, Run opposite Jack. He was right up there at the top, and the studio figured the millions who saw the Jack Roland movie would be that many new fans for Betty Clane.

  Jack hated that picture. I think three lines of dialogue were different than anything he had done, before. It was adapted from a stage play, and if they hadn’t tailored it to Jack Roland’s mediocre talents it would have been a smash. He was in trouble with the studio from the first day’s shooting. Most of the time he showed up drunk.

  The biggest blow of my life was when Betty came home one night and told me she thought Jack Roland was right. I tried to explain to her that he had been born wrong and had a relapse. She got angry with me and sided with Jack against the whole studio brass. Jack, the gutless wonder, backed down when things got too hot, but Betty fought on.

  The studio suspended her.

  One thing saved her. She got ten thousand fan letters the first week after Run, Killer, Run was released.

  The funniest thing was that I hadn’t been behind more than five thousand of them.

  She was really hot. I had worried myself sick for nothing.

  The studio took her back and Jack Roland got his fourth divorce the same week. At the time I didn’t think there was any connection between the two events.

  That was when Betty started talking about giving up her career. She wanted a home and babies — five babies. I told her that the studio would skin me, emasculate me and blacklist me if she even missed a period, much less got pregnant just when she was getting three thousand fan letters a day.

  She didn’t say any more about it. She went into her first starring picture — her last movie by the way — and that was when Jack Roland started bringing her home in his foreign sports car.

  I’ll say this for him: he wanted Betty and he put on a campaign for her. He never spent money easily on anyone, but he went out of his mind giving her gifts that she refused to accept. He gave her a purebred Arabian stallion, I remember. I asked him where were we going to keep it in our apartment. He told me if I moved out there would be plenty of room for the stallion.

  At that point I was still laughing at him, because there was one thing I knew. He never kissed her away from the screen.

  She was different to live with, but she never went to bed with anybody but me. She was strange and withdrawn, but her loyalty to me drove Jack Roland insane. He proposed marriage by mail, telegram, telephone and in person. He couldn’t stay away from the place.

  I got sick of it and one night told him to get out. He stared at me as if I were a stick of furniture suddenly become animate and obtrusive. “Look,”, he said. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but get out of here.”

  I told him I was her husband and I was sick of looking at him. I told him if he didn’t get out, I was going to beat that profile to a pulp. It took him a couple of minutes to realize I meant it. That’s when this hellish thing happened.

  He broke down and cried. I don’t mean tears ran out of his eyes; he sobbed. He sank down on the couch and wept, shoulders shaking. He couldn’t get out because he was petrified with terror. He’d never fought
anyone in his life except on the screen where the director and writer had fixed the fights.

  Little mother Betty couldn’t resist this. She sank down there on the couch beside him and cradled his beautiful curly head against her breasts and let him cry out his heart. All those months his campaign had gotten nowhere with her, but the minute she saw how alone and frightened he was, how terribly he needed her, she was his.

  Hell, she had taken his side in the studio fight because he was alone and helpless against them. I suddenly realized that she hadn’t known or cared whether he was right or wrong; he was a motherless kitten, and she had to take him in.

  Why go through the rest of it? Jack Roland was a smart cookie. He had clawed his way to the top in Hollywood by knowing what he wanted and how to get it. He saw what would win Betty over, and from that moment he was her helpless little boy.

  • • •

  I put on a change of clothes in the bathroom, came back out and sat on the bed again to put on my shoes and socks.

  I sat there on the bed, looking up at her, hating her, hating myself, hating the whole damned world.

  “You came here about Jack, didn’t you?”

  She chewed at that full lip again, nodded.

  My voice was savage, tense. “You know where he is?”

  She nodded, not looking at me.

  “Yes. I know. He’s in jail down in San Rafael. They say he killed Fred Pawley. I know better, Sam.”

  “The cops down there say they have him by the short ones.”

  Her head tilted. “He didn’t kill Pawley. Without even knowing anything about it, I “know that. Jack never killed anybody. He couldn’t — and you know it!”

  I agreed with her, but I wanted to hurt her.

  “I don’t know. Anyway, it looks like they’re about to hang the hat on him.”

  “Why?”

  “Pawley happened to be carrying a scandal story in his pocket that concerned has-been Roland.”

  Her throaty voice got soft. “Does it really make you feel better, Sam, to call him names like that … things he can’t help? You’re trying to hit at me, Sam. That’s petty, and not like you.”