The Prince of Beverly Hills

by Stuart Woods

  Rick nodded, went to the phone and called Eddie. He had to wait while he was called from the cabana to the phone.

  “Rick? Do you have her?”

  “I think so. Is her real name Louise Brecht?”

  “Yes. The studio changed it to Glenna Gleason. How did you know her name?”

  “She still has a driver’s license in her old name.” He gave Eddie Judson’s report.

  “That’s fine. She’s in good hands.”

  “I’m going to take a look at where she lives and see if I can find out why this happened.”

  “Good idea. Call me in the morning and let me know what you’ve found out.”

  “Will do.” Rick hung up, went to his car and headed for Sunset. 8152 was the Garden of Allah, and he knew it well. The silent star Alla Nazimova had owned a mansion at the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights, on several acres, and she had turned the place into an apartment house and built a hotel and a dozen or so cottages on the property, going broke in the process. She now lived in a corner room of her old home.

  Rick parked on the street and walked through the hotel lobby into the garden, which was surrounded by the cottages. There was a restaurant and bar in the hotel and a nice pool in the garden. The Garden of Allah was home to screenwriters like Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley and various film-community transients. It was not an inexpensive place to live, and Rick wondered how the girl could afford it. Then again, she had three grand in the bank, and that wasn’t hay.

  He found bungalow seven and knocked on the door. No answer. He tried the knob, which turned easily, and he was in. A tiny foyer gave way to a sitting room, nicely furnished and neatly kept. At the rear was a small kitchen. Rick looked in the icebox, which held a couple of bottles of champagne and some half-eaten Chinese food. Glenna Gleason must eat out a lot, he imagined.

  On one side of the sitting room a door was ajar, and Rick looked inside to find a bedroom with an unmade bed. He stepped over a bloodstain near the door and went into the bathroom, which had spatters of blood on the sink and floor. He went back into the living room and saw another door on the other side. He opened it; another bedroom, occupied. Someone was under the covers, blond hair sticking out.

  “Excuse me,” he said loudly.

  The girl threw back the covers and sat up. She was naked and had quite beautiful breasts. “What?” she said. Then she realized a strange man was in the room and clutched the covers to her chest. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Barron,” Rick said. “I’m from Centurion Studios.”

  “Oh.”

  “Get something on and come into the living room. I need to talk to you about Glenna.” He closed the door and went into the kitchen, where he found some coffee and put the pot on. He went back to the front door, found a DO NOT DISTURB card and hung it on the outside doorknob. He had already poured himself a mug of coffee when the girl emerged, wearing a little sunsuit and nothing else.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “That’s what I want you to tell me,” Rick said. “What happened here this morning?”

  “I don’t know if I should talk to you,” she said, accepting a mug of coffee and finding some sugar in a cabinet.

  Rick handed her his card. “I have to know what happened so I can help Glenna.”

  She peered at the card. “Well, I guess it’s all right,” she said. She went into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

  Rick took a chair beside her. “What’s your name?”

  “Martha Werner,” she said. “Glenna and I are both from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We went to high school together.”

  “Do you work at Centurion?”

  “No, I’m not that lucky. I do extra work, when Central Casting calls me, which they don’t do often enough. Glenna is the one with the studio contract.”

  “How long have you and Glenna lived here?”

  “Glenna’s been out here for more than a year. I came a couple of months ago.”

  “How long has she lived at the Garden of Allah?”

  “Since she got her contract, I guess—six, eight months.”

  “How does Glenna afford the rent? Do you share it?”

  Martha shook her head. “I don’t make enough to share it. Glenna gets a hundred and fifty a week from her contract, and she’s got money from her father. He died last year.”

  “How about her mother?”

  “Died when we were seniors in high school.”

  “Tell me what happened this morning.”

  “I had a date last night and got home around midnight. Glenna was in her room, and I could hear her arguing with a man.”

  “Arguing about what?”

  “I couldn’t tell, through the door. It didn’t seem like anything very serious, so I went to bed. I woke up around ten and went to use her bathroom, because my toilet is clogged up. She was lying on the bathroom floor, bleeding.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I put some towels around her wrists and called the police.”

  “Did you call them through the desk at the hotel, or directly?”

  “Directly. The number is in the front of the phone book. They came, and an ambulance was right behind them. Is Glenna all right?”

  “What did you do then?” he asked, ignoring her question.

  “They said she’d be okay, that they were taking her to Cedars-Sinai, and that I wouldn’t be able to see her until this afternoon, so I went back to bed. I was—am—kind of hungover. Is Glenna all right?”

  “She’s in a private clinic. She’ll be fine, but she’ll be there for a few days. Do you know who she was arguing with last night?”

  “No, just a man. I try not to pry.”

  “Who else knows what happened here?” Rick asked.

  She shrugged. “Nobody, I guess. Just the police and ambulance men.”

  “All right, Martha, here’s what I want you to do: I want you to clean up Glenna’s bathroom and soak the towels in the tub in cold, not hot water, and do it before you let the maid in. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “And I don’t want you to talk to anyone at all about this. Do you understand? It could hurt Glenna’s career, and then you wouldn’t have anyplace to live.”

  Martha nodded dumbly.

  “This sort of thing can get around this town in a hurry, and we don’t want that to happen, do we?”

  Martha shook her head.

  “You’ve got my card,” Rick said. “Call me if anything else happens—call me first, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Remember, clean up before the maids come.”

  “All right.”

  “And if you do as I say, I’ll see if I can do something for you at the studio.”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said.

  “Now you can go back to bed.”

  She got up and went back to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  Rick went back to Glenna’s bedroom and went through all the drawers, finding nothing that wouldn’t ordinarily be in a girl’s room. Then, as he was about to leave, he noticed that the bloodstain by the door had an odd, crescent-shaped imprint at one edge. After a moment’s staring, he realized it was part of a man’s shoe print. So whoever had been there had left after she cut her wrists. Nice guy.

  22

  RICK WAS STILL HUNGRY, having had his lunch interrupted, so he stopped at a drive-in restaurant and had a cheeseburger. The waitresses were in short skirts and on roller skates, and they were amusing to watch.

  He finished his burger and checked his watch. Time to go. He drove to the Beverly Hills PD station and sat in the parking lot, checking his watch again. Cops were arriving for their shift, and he exchanged greetings with a few of them, enduring comments about his new job and his new car. Then the patrol cars began returning to the station, to be turned over to the next shift.

  Tom Terry was a big, good-natured Irishman from Boston who had decided he would co
ntinue the family tradition of police work in a warmer climate. Rick waved him over as he got out of his patrol car, carrying a clipboard.

  “Hey, Rick,” Terry said, grinning at him and offering his hand. “I hear you landed in a pot of jam.”

  “Jam is a nice place to be,” Rick said.

  “I’m available, if you need an assistant.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not important enough for an assistant, but if anything comes up, I’ll let you know.” Rick wasn’t lying to Tom Terry; he was just the sort of guy he would call. “I hear you made a stop at the Garden of Allah this morning.”

  Terry laughed. “You get around, don’t you?”

  “I do. It’s the new job.”

  “Was she one of yours at Centurion?”

  “Let’s just say I’ll give you fifty bucks for your report.”

  Terry’s face lit up. “Those things are numbered, you know.”

  “Yeah, but nobody’s counting, and she’s a nice kid who doesn’t need her name in police records.”

  Terry looked through the sheets on his clipboard and tore one out. “There you are,” he said, handing it over.

  “And there you are,” Rick said, looking around the parking lot for trouble, then handing over the fifty.

  “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, buddy,” Terry said.

  “Spread the word among the fellows that I’ll always be generous where the studio’s interests are concerned.”

  “Will do. I gotta check in. You take care.” Terry turned and walked into the station, and Rick pointed the Ford toward home. He thought about tracking down the ambulance drivers, but if they were going to sell the story, they would have already done so. Anyway, the name Louise Brecht wouldn’t mean anything to them.

  HE ARRIVED AT HOME AND, as he parked the car, saw Eddie Harris sitting alone by his pool, reading a script, his guests having gone. Rick walked over and sat down next to him.

  “You were a long time,” Eddie said.

  “I had a lot to do.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Glenna has a roommate named Martha Werner, a high-school chum of Louise Brecht. She found Glenna on the bathroom floor, bleeding, and called the cops and an ambulance.”

  “So there’ll be a police report?”

  Rick took the sheet from his pocket and handed it over.

  Eddie smiled broadly. “Good boy!”

  “Martha Werner has been doing extra work. It would help her to stay quiet if she got a small part in a Centurion movie. She’s decorative, and she’s on file with Central Casting.”

  Eddie made a note of the name on the back of his script. “I can do that.”

  “There was a man in Glenna’s room after midnight, and he left a partial shoe print in her blood on the bedroom floor, which means he was there either when or after she cut her wrists. That probably didn’t happen until morning, or she might have bled to death before Martha found her. Martha heard arguing after midnight.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “No. I went through her things. There was no address book or any sign of a man. No stains on the sheets.”

  “Sometimes this is a tawdry business,” Eddie said sadly. “Frankly, I wouldn’t have figured Glenna as a girl to get into this kind of trouble. She seems to have a level head on her shoulders.”

  “It’s man trouble,” Rick said. “That happens to a lot of women. They tend to believe what they’re told.”

  “I hope Judson can get her back on her feet,” Eddie said.

  “He said he’d have her wrists sutured by a plastic surgeon and have a psychiatrist see her.”

  “Good. She’s not working this week, anyway.”

  “Might be good to get her back to work as soon as she can. Get her mind off what happened.”

  Eddie nodded. “And I want you to find out who this man of hers is and see what you can do about keeping this from happening again.”

  “All right.” Well, this was different, he thought. When he had been a cop, he would have dropped her off at the emergency room, and that would have been that. “Let me know what film you assign Martha Werner to, and I’ll have another chat with her while she’s on the lot.”

  “I’ll take care of it tomorrow and let you know. Did you get lunch?”

  “Yeah, I stopped at a drive-in.”

  “Garbo liked you.”

  Rick grinned. “I liked Garbo.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head. She doesn’t like men all that much. I mean, in that way. She prefers other company, when she can be discreet.”

  “Oops. I’m glad you told me.”

  “You want to be careful with women who are at or near the top of the ladder out here. They tend to think of themselves first, and no man likes that. If they somehow thought you might impede their progress, you could end up with high-heel prints up your back.”

  Rick laughed. “That’s good advice, Eddie.”

  “I’m full of good advice,” Eddie said, “but hardly anybody ever takes it.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “You having dinner with Clete tonight?”

  “I’ll call him.”

  “We’re down to the home stretch on this film now, and every frame we shoot of him counts.”

  “He seems to be holding up well.”

  “He always seems that way, right up to the moment when he falls off the wagon and does something crazy.”

  “I’ll watch for signs of that.” Rick thought of bringing up Clete’s concerns about a war between England and Germany, but he held back. He and Clete were becoming friends, just as he and Eddie were, and he would have to pick his way through all this, trying not to betray either of them.

  Rick thought of something. “Can I see that police report again?”

  Eddie handed it to him.

  He read it carefully and handed it back. “I just wanted to get the details firmly in my head.”

  “Sure.”

  “See you later.” He got up and went to call Clete.

  23

  RICK WENT BACK TO THE COTTAGE, called Clete, got a busy signal. Feeling sweaty, he showered and changed, then called again; still busy. He tried three more times over the next hour and still got a busy signal. He called the operator.

  “Central,” she said.

  “This is Lieutenant Barron, LAPD,” he said. “Please check a constantly engaged number for me.”

  “Please hold.” She went away and came back. “Nobody’s on the line,” she said. “You want to listen?”

  “Yes, please.”

  There was a click, and Rick listened intently. He thought he could hear the sound of ragged, distressed snoring. “Thank you,” he said, and hung up.

  WHEN HE WALKED THROUGH Clete’s unlocked front door, he immediately smelled alcohol. He walked faster. “Clete?” he called. No answer, but he heard the snoring.

  He walked into the living room, and the smell of scotch was overwhelming. Clete was sprawled in a living room chair, one foot on an ottoman, slumped so far down in the chair that his head was nearly on the seat. The snoring was ragged because his head was at an odd angle, and his feet were bloody. The smell of scotch came from a broken bottle near the bar.

  Rick walked over to him and shook him. “Clete? Wake up.”

  Clete didn’t stir.

  Rick pulled him farther down in the chair and put both his feet on the ottoman, so that he was horizontal. The snoring stopped, but the breathing was still ragged. A telephone lay on the sofa, the receiver off. Rick hung it up.

  Rick examined Clete’s feet and found bloody glass in both of them. The cuts were more than Rick could handle. He tried again to wake up Clete and failed, so he flipped through his notebook and found Dr. Judson’s home number.

  “Hello?”

  “Doc, it’s Rick Barron. Twice in the same day. Sorry about that.”

  “What’s up, Rick?”

  “Clete Barrow is passed out in his living room. I can’t wake him up and I don’t like
the sound of his breathing. Also, he’s cut both feet badly on a broken liquor bottle, and I think he’s going to need stitches. I’d rather not take him to the emergency room.”

  “He’s at home?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be there shortly. Make sure his airway is clear, that he hasn’t vomited. Turn him on his side, if you can.”

  “Will do.” Rick hung up and got Clete turned onto his side, and he seemed to breathe easier. He went to the kitchen, found a mop and a bucket and cleaned up the glass and spilled scotch on the tile floor of the living room. By the time he was finished, Judson was there, and so was an ambulance. The doctor went to Clete, listened to his heart and breathing with a stethoscope, then he turned to the ambulance men. “You can go,” he said, and the men left.

  “He’s all right, then?” Rick asked.

  “He’s just very, very drunk, but not quite at the point of alcohol poisoning. How long have you been with him?”

  “I had dinner with him last night, and he was fine. I arrived here less than half an hour ago and found him like this, so I called you.”

  Judson began examining Clete’s feet. “You were right; he needs suturing.” He opened his bag, took out a large pair of tweezers and began plucking glass from Clete’s soles. “Get me something to put the glass in, will you?”

  Rick found an empty nut bowl on the bar and brought it over.

  “How did he do this?”

  “There was a broken scotch bottle on the floor when I arrived. He seems to have walked through the glass. I cleaned it up.”

  Judson began swabbing Clete’s feet with alcohol, then he laid out some instruments and started suturing the cuts. “It’s just as well he’s out,” Judson said. “I don’t have any Novocain with me.” He finished, then applied bandages to both feet.

  “How long is he likely to be out?” Rick asked.

  “Hard to say. He could sleep straight through the night. Can you stay with him?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s important he doesn’t drink any more tonight. I’ve seen Clete put down a lot of liquor and still walk and talk. It must have taken a hell of a lot to put him in this condition, and he’s going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow.”