The Prince of Beverly Hills

by Stuart Woods

  “Listen to me, Glenna. We’re going to have to face this and deal with it, or it will never end.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ve seen the photograph,” he said.

  She turned toward him and sat up on one elbow. “That’s not possible.”

  “I assure you, I’ve seen it.”

  She fell back onto the sofa. “I’ll move out today,” she said. “I know how you must feel.”

  “Sweetheart, the only thing I feel is love for you. If you’ll trust me, I’ll handle this.”

  “How can you handle it?”

  “First, you have to tell me everything that’s happened, then I’ll know what to do.” He handed her a box of tissues.

  She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “Do you have to know the details?”

  “Yes, that’s important.”

  It took her a moment to screw up her courage. “It started with your predecessor and his wife.”

  “The Keans.”

  “Yes. I met them in the commissary shortly after I was signed by Centurion. They were very kind to me, and they invited me out for dinner at a restaurant in Malibu.”

  “Go on.”

  “When we got to the restaurant, Stampano was waiting at our table, and the Keans introduced us. He was very charming, and I was enjoying our evening. After dinner, he insisted that we have a cognac. I declined, but he persisted, so I had, maybe, half the drink. A couple of minutes later, I began to feel oddly, and the Keans said I should go home and lie down. They helped me to their car, and I guess I passed out. The next thing I remember, I woke up in a motel room, on the bed. I was naked, and so was Stampano. The Keans were getting dressed.

  “I asked what was going on, but they ignored me, then the Keans left me alone with Stampano. He told me to get some sleep and he’d come back for me, then he got dressed and left. I tried to get out of bed, but I couldn’t, and I passed out again. When I woke up I felt terrible, and it was mid-morning. Nobody was there. I got dressed and walked to the motel office, and they called a taxi to take me home. I missed a photo session that morning at the studio.

  “I didn’t hear from them for a couple of days, then when I came home from the studio, an envelope had been shoved under the door. There were half a dozen photographs of me in bed with Stampano and the Keans, most of them close-ups of me that didn’t reveal any other faces. I burned them and flushed the ashes down the toilet. Then, later that evening, Stampano phoned.

  “He sounded shocked when I told him about the pictures, and he said we must have been photographed from the room next door through some kind of mirror. He said he would get to the bottom of it.

  “The next day, as I was leaving for work, he turned up at the bungalow. He said he had been to the motel and had found out how the pictures were taken, and he implied that he had beaten up the motel owner. Then he said he had gotten a blackmail note. Whoever had taken the pictures wanted money from all of us. He asked me how much I could raise.

  “I drove to the studio and went to John Kean’s office and told him about the conversation with Stampano. He said he’d gotten the same letter.”

  “Did you see either letter?”

  “No, but Stampano and Kean both told the same story. Kean said he was scrambling to get together as much money as he could and that I should do the same. I asked how much, and he said whoever was blackmailing us wanted fifty thousand dollars. I was stunned. I had inherited some money from my father when he died, but I had spent some of it to support myself after I came out here and started looking for movie work. Kean said he thought he could raise ten thousand by borrowing on his house and asked how much I could come up with.

  “I was a fool, I know, but I told him I might be able to get twenty-five thousand. He said he would talk to Stampano and see if he could come up with the rest.”

  “Did you ask him or Stampano how you came to be in the motel in the first place?”

  “Of course, and they both said I was enthusiastic about the idea after we had left the restaurant.”

  “So did you give him the money?”

  “I gave him twenty-two thousand dollars. It was all I had left.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Stampano called me a couple of days later and asked where the money was, that the blackmailer was threatening to send the photographs to Eddie Harris. I told him that I had given it to Kean, and he hung up. A few days after that, both the Keans were dead. The police said John had shot his wife, then himself.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No, I was afraid to.”

  “When did you hear from Stampano again?”

  “About a week after the Keans died. He said Kean had stolen the money I gave him and nobody could find it, and that the blackmailer was still after us, that he was going to send the photographs to the studios and the gossip columnists and the movie magazines.”

  “And he wanted more money.”

  “Yes. He said he had already given the blackmailer twenty-five thousand dollars, and I had to come up with as much before he would give us the negatives. I told him that I was broke, that all I had was my salary from my contract.

  “He finally said that he would pay the other twenty-five thousand, but that I would have to pay him back. I agreed to that. Then he took me out to dinner and told me that he now had the negatives, and had burned the ones with him or the Keans in them, and that unless I started giving him money every week, he would go to Eddie Harris. When I didn’t give him enough, he came to the bungalow, held me down and injected me with something, and that was the last thing I remembered until I woke up in Dr. Judson’s clinic with my wrists bandaged.”

  “Thank you for being frank with me about all this. First of all, you’re going to get back your twenty-two thousand dollars. I found it locked in Kean’s safe in the office when I came to work, along with a photograph of the four of you. I haven’t told anyone about it. It seems obvious that Kean was in on the blackmailing scheme from the start and that he tried to hold out on Stampano.”

  “You think Stampano killed the Keans?”

  “Yes, or he had it done. And when he thought he had gotten all he could from you, he tried to kill you, too, so that you could never prosecute him for blackmail. Now we can have him arrested, on your testimony.”

  “Oh, Rick, I can’t testify against him. If any of this becomes public, I’m finished, don’t you see?”

  She was right. “All right, we’ll see that it doesn’t become public.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Leave it to me. Did you hear from him yesterday?”

  “Yes, he said he wanted all the money in three days, or he would send the photographs to everybody in town.”

  “How did he tell you to get in touch with him?”

  “He gave me a phone number. It’s on a pad on my dressing table.”

  Dr. Judson rapped on the door, then came in.

  Rick took him aside for a moment. “She’s very upset about something, but don’t ask her about it.”

  “Do you want me to give her a sedative?”

  “Yes. I think she needs the rest. I’ll call off the rest of the day’s shooting, but tomorrow she will want to work. I’ll want you on the set early in the morning.”

  Judson nodded and went to work.

  Rick took her hand and kissed it. “You get some rest. I’ll come back later today.”

  “All right,” she said.

  Rick took Stampano’s phone number from Glenna’s dressing table, told the director to wrap for the day and to be ready to shoot the following morning, then he left the soundstage and went to look for Eddie Harris.

  51

  RICK GOT INTO AN ELECTRIC CART and headed for the administration building. Halfway there he nearly ran into Eddie Harris in another cart at an intersection. Rick waved him down.

  “Jesus, you’re driving fast,” Eddie said. “You could have killed me.”

  �
�Sorry about that, but we have to talk.”

  “Problems on Caper? I thought everything was going smoothly.” He got into Rick’s cart.

  Rick drove a block over to the New York street set, which was not being used that day, then stopped. “Stampano’s back, and this time it’s bad.”

  “Oh, shit. We’ve got to do something about that bastard.”

  “You’re right about that.” Rick told him the whole story from the beginning.

  “You mean you’ve had that photograph since you came to work here?”

  “Yes, but for a long time I had no idea who the girl was. I’d never seen Glenna’s face until that night at Ciro’s, when she sang with Artie Shaw.”

  “I think it’s time to call Al,” Eddie said.

  “I’m not sure that’s the way to go,” Rick replied. “Not yet, anyway. He may be in this with Jack Dragna or Ben Siegel, and they may have access to the photographs.”

  “You mean, you want to pay the son of a bitch? That won’t work. He’ll just keep coming back for more. That’s what blackmailers always do.”

  “We may have to pay him, as a last resort.”

  “I take it you have a plan.”

  “Sort of. Stampano has the negatives, but I think he would have destroyed the shots that had the Keans in them. I have one that shows the Keans and Stampano with Glenna, and, with Glenna’s testimony about the twenty-two thousand that Kean was holding back from Stampano, that would give him a motive for murdering the Keans, something the police could act on.”

  “But if Stampano is prosecuted, Glenna would have to testify, and her public testimony would have the same effect as the worst Stampano could do.”

  “If what I want to do works, he won’t be prosecuted, and we’ll get back the negatives.”

  “But we’ll never know how many prints he’s made.”

  “Maybe not. All we can do is to make it extremely unprofitable for him to do anything with them.”

  “I don’t know, Rick.”

  “Eddie, if you have a better idea, tell me what it is and I’ll do it.”

  Eddie sighed. “I don’t have a better idea. What do you need from me?”

  “I need the studio still photographer to make some copies of the photograph of Stampano, Glenna and the Keans—I’ll cut Glenna’s face out of it before I give it to him—and I’ll need five five-thousand-dollar bills that can’t be traced back to us. And I’ll need Al.”

  “Five James Madisons,” Eddie muttered. “I think I know where I can get them.”

  “If you go to Centurion’s bank and ask for them, there’ll be a record that the police can check, if something goes wrong.”

  “No, I know another way.”

  “Good. You’ll need to get them today, tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “I can do that. I’ll call you when I’ve got them, but I want to know what to do with them.”

  Rick gave him a rough outline of his plan, and Eddie agreed.

  Rick looked at his watch. “I’ve got a lot to do. I’d better get going. Send the money over to my office when you get it, and let the photographer know I’m coming.”

  Eddie got back into his cart and drove back toward the administration building. Rick found a phone and called Ben Morrison at the LAPD.

  “Ben, can I buy you a drink at Jimmy’s this afternoon? It’s something I don’t want to talk about on the phone.”

  “Sure.”

  “Five o’clock?”

  “Sure.”

  “See you then.” Then he called Tom Terry and invited him, too. Rick hung up and went back to his office. He opened his safe, took out the envelope with the photograph in it, found some scissors and cut Glenna’s head out of it. He burned that part of the photograph in an ashtray, then put the eight-by-ten glossy in an envelope and drove to the studio still photographer’s office. He took the man into his photo lab and handed him the photograph.

  “I want you to make ten copies of this,” he said. “Wipe it down before you shoot it, then I want to watch you make the prints.”

  “Okay. I can make an eight-by-ten contact negative and print from that. It’ll take about an hour.”

  Rick looked at his watch. “Go to it,” he said. “An hour is all I’ve got.”

  He watched the work being done, then put the new prints and the original, along with the contact negative, into an envelope and left. He went back to his office and put the photographs in his safe and locked it, then he got his handcuffs from a desk drawer. He checked the ammo in the little .45 and stuck it in his shoulder holster, cocked and locked. He walked out to Jenny’s desk.

  “I’m going to be out for the rest of the day,” he said to her. “If Eddie Harris sends over an envelope, put it in my safe. The envelope is very important.”

  “Gee, can I look inside?”

  “If you open it, it’ll explode.”

  He got into his car and headed for Malibu.

  52

  IT WAS A PLEASANT DAY, AND with the top down, he soaked up the Southern California sun as he drove down to Santa Monica and peeled off on the Pacific Coast Highway.

  Malibu was a small community of beach houses scattered along miles of beach, some of them widely separated, so the Pacific was easily seen and enjoyed in the gaps. He saw half a dozen FOR SALE signs along the way, and it occurred to him that, if he ever got far enough ahead to start investing in real estate, buying a lot out here might be a good place to begin.

  He drove past the little business district, which consisted of a filling station, a grocery store, a hardware store and not much else, and finally came to the Moon Rise Motel. He knew the place. It had a reputation for renting rooms by the hour, as well as by the night, no questions asked. At this hour of the day the place was pretty much deserted, so he figured he wouldn’t be disturbed. He parked out front and walked into the little office at the end of the row of rooms. A man in shirtsleeves and a necktie sat behind the counter at a desk.

  “What can I do you for?” the man asked.

  Rick looked at the business license hanging on the wall nearby. “Are you Melvin Carson?” he asked.

  “That’s me. If you’re selling something . . .”

  “I’m not selling, I’m buying.”

  Carson looked at him narrowly. “Buying what?”

  “Information.”

  “Information about what?”

  “Let me lay it out for you, Melvin,” Rick said, retrieving a fifty-dollar bill from his pocket and laying it on the counter. “That’s two weeks’ rent for any room in the place.”

  Carson looked interested. “So?”

  Rick produced his lieutenant’s badge, showed him the handcuffs and gave the man a hard look. “Here’s the alternative,” he said. “Arrest, trial and conviction in a blackmailing scheme.”

  “What are you talking about?” Carson asked indignantly.

  “Let’s you and I take a walk. Come on.”

  Carson got up and lifted the flap of the counter. “Where we going?”

  “We’re going to look at the two rooms my suspect rents when he wants to take pictures.”

  “Now wait a minute, mister . . .”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Lieutenant, then. You’re a little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a deputy sheriff, too.”

  “Well, you ain’t got nothing on me.”

  Rick slapped the man across the face with his open hand. “I don’t want to hear one more word of denial out of you, Melvin, because I’ve got a stack of photographs in my desk drawer that shows a lot of detail about the furnishings of one of your rooms, and I’ve got a witness, a victim, who is ready to testify in court that she was brought to this place against her will. Now, do you want a piece of a kidnapping and blackmailing charge? Because you’re going to do the same time as the other guy.”

  “Which other guy is that?” Carson asked.

  “That’s Chick Stampano,” Rick said. “Why? You got any other ‘bus
iness partners’?”

  “Look, that guy is connected, you know what I mean?”

  “His connections are nothing compared to mine. I’m connected to the district attorney and to the warden at San Quentin. How does twenty years sound?”

  “You’re putting me in a spot, Lieutenant.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing, Melvin. Now, which room did Stampano use?”

  “Down at the end,” Carson muttered, taking his passkey from his pocket. He led the way to the last room in the row and opened the door.

  Rick followed him into the room and had a look around. It was seedy but clean, and the furniture could have been worse. He walked over to the mirror over the dresser, facing the bed, and peered into it, then he lifted it off the wall and had a look behind it. There was a hole in the wall, about four inches in diameter. Rick held the mirror up and looked at the reverse side. He could see clearly right through it. “Very cute,” he said.

  “Look, I didn’t do that, and I don’t know who did.”

  “Let’s take a look next door.” He followed Carson into the next room and found an identical setup. “Very nice. You can shoot from either room into the other.”

  “I swear I didn’t know nothing about that.”

  “Let’s go back to your office, Melvin.” He situated Carson at his desk. “I’ll bet you’ve got some stationery with the motel’s name on it, haven’t you?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Get out a couple of sheets.”

  Carson opened a desk drawer and removed some stationery.

  “Now, I want you to write me an account of how Chick Stampano came out here and made his deal with you. I want to know how many times he came, and who came with him, and don’t leave anything out.”

  “Look,” Carson said, “I’d like to help, but that guy wouldn’t think twice about killing me.”

  “He can’t kill you from San Quentin, so don’t worry about it. Anyway, I’m sure Stampano threatened you in some way to get you to do this awful thing. Maybe he even beat you up.”

  “Well, yeah, that’s how it happened.”

  Rick stood over him and supervised a first draft of his statement, then made him make a clean copy.