“He’s from a small town in upstate New York,” he said. “New Holland. This was going to be his film debut.”
“How do you spell that?” asked the reporter next to him. “Like it sounds?”
Harvey nodded then explained that he was from nearby Schenectady. If he’d been hoping to impress the fellow, he failed.
At length, the questions died down, but not the energy. I could sense that every reporter in the room was itching to run to his car, find a phone, and call in the new information to his editor. But for now they were stuck. The tour was equally important to their stories. Millard led the way to the sliding doors.
“The cleaning lady came out to the terrace Thursday morning when she heard the dog barking. It seems the dog, a pug named Leon”—he paused to throw a look my way—“got shut outside sometime after the party Tuesday morning. We now believe that little Leon might have slipped through the door when the assailant was throwing Wallis’s body over the railing. Then the dog got locked out when the assailant closed the door again.”
“Why do you think the murderer let him out?” asked a reporter in a long coat and fedora.
“The cleaning lady says the dog lives for sneaking outside. Wallis thought the dog might slip through the bars of the railing, so he never let him out there. He was fanatical about it, she says.”
“Can we talk to the cleaning lady?” I asked.
“She’s here on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Or whenever Wallis throws a party.”
My brethren didn’t appear to be interested in the cleaning lady, but I liked to cover all the bases. If she worked Wallis’s parties, she might have seen or heard something relevant. Or maybe she could fill me in on Bertram Wallis himself. I was sure there was lots to learn about him.
Millard made his way through the glass door onto the terrace, which stretched out over the ravine about twenty feet in a semicircle of white tile. Modern and unremarkable except for the arresting views. We shuffled over to the railing where Millard pointed down into the void for anyone who cared to look.
“As you know already, the body was discovered Thursday morning down there. We measured it: two hundred and eighty-three feet below.”
Several photographers, including Andy and me, leaned over the railing and fired off dozens of shots of the scene. The longest lens I had was a 90mm, but it would have to do.
“Has the coroner given any further details?” I asked. “Was Wallis dead before he went over the railing?”
“We figure so. Or at least he was unconscious. No way a person could throw him over otherwise. He was a round gent. A little like you,” he said to Harvey. “Only not quite so.”
“Any drugs in his system?”
“Don’t know. But he didn’t die from drugs.”
The others were champing at the bit, wanting to leave to pursue the Tony Eberle angle. But I asked if we could see the upstairs.
“What for?” asked Millard. “All the action happened down here.”
“We don’t know what’s upstairs unless we look. For instance, are there only bedrooms? A study? A velvet swing? This is a big house. There might be something worth reporting up there.”
Millard shrugged and asked if anyone else wanted to look upstairs. A few others were game, including Harvey Dunnolt. He’d just noticed me.
“You’re that Stone girl from New Holland, aren’t you?” he asked as we climbed the stairs behind Millard. I couldn’t very well deny it. “I thought I recognized you. Didn’t think Artie Short would spend the money to send someone all the way out here.”
“Mr. Short is a good businessman and a fine publisher,” I said, defending the home team. “Why would you think that?”
“No offense, but he throws nickels around like manhole covers.”
“He flew me out here first class,” I lied. “And put me up at the Beverly Hilton. Where are you staying?”
“Just some place in Hollywood. The Gilbert Hotel on Wilcox.”
“Nice place, is it?”
“I think I got bitten by something last night,” he said, scratching his side.
“This is Wallis’s bedroom suite,” announced Millard, interrupting my tête-à-tête with Harvey.
Eleven reporters filed inside. The bedroom occupied part of the space directly above the big room on the first floor and shared the same spectacular views. Hollywood, then Los Angeles beyond, spread out as far as the eye could see. The sky was still gray, even if the rain had stopped. I stared out the windows imagining how much more beautiful the vista was at night with the city illuminated below. I thought it would be a nice place to have drinks.
The floor was covered with a plush white carpet, nearly wall-to-wall. Not quite my taste, but, as my father used to say, “De gustibus non disputandum est.” The bed was a monstrosity. Circular and covered with what appeared to be a polar bearskin rug and black satin sheets. The balance of the furniture consisted of a couple of plush chairs and some erotic artwork on the walls. I glanced up at the ceiling and got an eyeful of my head. A great circular mirror, centered over the bed, provided a view of the action below for those who got a kick out of watching while doing. And the final pieces to the tableau were the three tripods: an eight-millimeter movie camera mounted on one, a thirty-five millimeter Heiland Pentax on another, and a spotlight on the third. I noted a variety of lenses and other cameras on the chest nearby. Apparently Bertram Wallis liked to direct as much as produce.
“You can see Wallis liked to document his, ahem, nocturnal activities,” said Millard with a grin. Humor was not his long suit. “But you boys know the rules. We don’t print that kind of thing, right? At least check with the studio before you even think about it.” He turned to Harvey and me. “You two can print whatever you like. No one’s going to read it.” Again, humor not his long suit.
“Was there any film in the cameras?” I asked.
Millard shook his head. “No. That would’ve been too easy. In fact, we haven’t found much in the way of photographs in the house. Just some artsy black-and-white nudie pics. Nothing you can’t find in a photography annual.”
There were two other bedrooms and a study on the second floor. After we’d glanced inside them all, Millard announced that the tour was over. I asked if we could have a look at the desk and shelves in the study.
“Just a quick look-see. And no one touches anything.”
“May we take pictures?” I asked.
He thought about it and, after a few beats, said okay.
The desk was a glass-top affair, consistent with Wallis’s modern tastes. The IBM Selectric sitting front and center made me jealous. Since August of the previous year, the new typewriter had been the talk of the newsroom back in New Holland. But Georgie Porgie was the only reporter who got one. And that was a waste. He could barely type his name with one finger. I’d exacted my revenge on several occasions, though, through subtle and not-so-subtle means. Whereas in the past I’d had to pry the green plastic letter covers off the different keys and switch them around to create confusion, the Selectric’s “golf ball” type element meant I could simply remove it and hide it. Or drop it from the fifth-floor window into the street to see how high it would bounce. Other tricks included switching the American type ball for a German one that had come with the machine. It usually took George a paragraph or two before he realized ßomething was öff.
Besides the Selectric on Wallis’s desk, there were papers, pencils, and pens, a calendar, and some ledgers of some kind. On the bookshelf I saw dozens of bound scripts, each with its title written by hand along the spine. I figured these were projects Wallis was considering for possible movies. I snapped a photo of the desk and the shelves before we were all hustled downstairs and out the door. I rejoined Andy and Gene in the driveway to review the latest turn of events.
“Your local boy just torpedoed our exclusive,” said Gene, lighting up a cigarette.
“At least we still have a head start. They’ve got to do the same research we’ve already don
e.”
He nodded. “I’m going over to the Times to sell them our story now. Are you okay with that?”
I gave it some thought. What would Artie Short say if he found out I’d written an article for another newspaper? What would Charlie do? I knew very well what they’d do. Fire me on the spot and probably demand I repay them for the cost of my trip. How I wanted that credit on the story Gene and I had written. I wanted to see my name in the byline. Damn it, I wanted a big-city readership and to have my story picked up by the wire services. Yes, I wanted all that.
“So are you okay with it, Ellie?” he repeated.
I looked him in the eye. We stood there in the chilly, gray morning atop Nichols Canyon, staring at each other.
“Just put your name,” I said, turning away.
I walked to my car, and only once I was safely inside did I allow myself to pound the dashboard with both fists.
I drove off down the hill, heading back to Hollywood to collect my film. Swerving down the winding road, I cursed myself for working for a louse like Artie Short. He hated me and took every opportunity to remind me how incompetent he thought I was. All the plum assignments went to Georgie Porgie; the best company cars were reserved for drunken associate publishers who drove them into lakes after bad days at the races; and even when he had to send me to Los Angeles to cover the Tony Eberle story, his hand was itching to pull the trigger and dispatch his son-in-law to take it away from me. And, still, I’d defended him to Harvey Dunnolt. Still, I’d refused to attach my name to the article I’d written with Gene Duerson, all because of a misguided sense of loyalty.
I swore under my breath as I took a curve a mite too fast, and I nearly ran over a lady taking in her trash cans from the side of the road. Slamming on the brakes, I pulled over to the shoulder and jumped out.
“Are you all right?” I called.
“You should be more careful,” said the lady. “I almost fell in the mud.”
Dressed in a housecoat and slippers, she looked to be in her sixties. Her hair was wrapped around curlers under a hair dryer bonnet. The air tube hung past her shoulder. I apologized and made sure she wasn’t injured. Offering to help her back inside her house, I took her elbow and guided her past the trash cans. She scowled at me.
“You people drive so fast down the canyon. Don’t you know how tight these turns are?”
“You’re right,” I said. “It was very careless of me.”
“Just last week some idiot smashed my trash cans driving rashly down the road. And it’s not the first time. I can’t afford to keep buying new ones.”
We arrived at her door, and I went back to the street to retrieve the two trash cans. The lady seemed to warm to me after that. She patted her bonnet and smoothed her housecoat.
“You’re all shook up,” she said, looking me over. “It’s okay. You didn’t hit me. Come inside, and I’ll fix you a cup of tea.”
I wanted to decline. Many stops to make. I turned to point to my car, intending to tell her I couldn’t, that I needed to be somewhere else, and that was when I noticed the house up the hill a short distance away. It was Bertram Wallis’s place. Over the lady’s shoulder, I could see another home a little higher up: the Blanchards’.
“Are you . . .” I searched my memory for the name. “Are you Mrs. Hirshland?”
She cocked her head, perhaps wondering how I knew that. Then she nodded.
“Yes, I’m Trudy Hirshland. Are you here to serve a summons?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said. “But I’d like that cup of tea, if it’s not too much trouble.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I suspected that nothing in Trudy Hirshland’s home, built perhaps twenty years before, had ever been moved or changed. From its curling linoleum kitchen floor to the worn wooden planks of her parlor to the faded drapes and braided rugs, the house oozed an air of resignation. It wasn’t that the place was dirty or unkempt. It was just tired, as if the occupants had made maximum use of its rooms and walls and floors to squeeze every penny of value out of their investment of a lifetime.
Trudy showed me to the small kitchen where she indicated a chair at the white-and-gold Formica table for my comfort. An old electric stove heated the teakettle, and my hostess offered me some Gerber’s teething biscuits. Odd choice, I thought. But not bad tasting. She didn’t have milk for the tea, but I hadn’t come for the refreshments. I wanted a look into her parlor.
Trudy settled into a chair opposite me, plugged the air tube into a portable hair dryer, and switched it on. A low buzzing noise filled the room as her bonnet inflated.
“It’s okay, hon. I can hear you,” she said.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked in my normal voice, testing her statement.
“Since thirty-six,” she said. “My late husband, Bob, built this place with money he made working in the Inglewood oil fields.”
“I was born in thirty-six,” I said, trying to put her at ease.
“How is it you know my name?” she asked, apparently uninterested in my life’s story.
“I know the Blanchards, Lucia and Nelson. They mentioned you when I saw them a few days ago.”
“Why would you three be discussing me?”
“Let me start at the beginning. I’m a reporter from a small town in New York. New Holland. I came out to Los Angeles to profile a local boy from home who’d landed a good part in a movie.”
Trudy watched me, teething biscuit hovering over her steaming cup of tea, waiting for me to get to the part involving her.
“The day I went to see my young actor,” I continued, “he’d gone missing and hasn’t been seen since.”
“So where do I come into it?” asked Trudy, finally taking the plunge with her biscuit. She dipped it into her tea and bit off a small piece.
“Your neighbor, Bertram Wallis, was the producer of the picture my actor was in. In fact, Wallis handpicked him for the role.”
Trudy’s eyes grew, and a smile spread across her face. She dipped her biscuit again and took a larger bite. “Now I see. Your boy is one of those.”
“One of those?”
“A homo. One of Bertram Wallis’s stable of beautiful young men.”
I choked on my tea.
“I know everything that goes on in his house,” she continued, relishing the reaction she’d provoked. “Well, not everything, but whatever can be seen through those big windows or on that terrace of his.”
I must have looked skeptical because Trudy proceeded to assure me that she’d seen things that “nature never intended.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I don’t judge. I enjoy it, actually. But that man gave more physicals to naked young men than a doctor at the selective service. And they put on shows; Wallis took pictures and made movies. Rich stuff.”
Trudy was on a roll. It was as if I’d opened a spigot and released a gushing stream of ribaldry. This was one randy old gal. Smiling from ear to ear, she catalogued some of the more debauched things she’d witnessed.
“Have you ever met Wallis?” I asked, trying to distract her from the details.
“Many times. He tried to buy my house so he could raze it to the ground,” she said with a cackle. “Thought it was an eyesore that ruined his view and lowered the value of his property. I refused to sell, of course.”
“Were there ever any complaints from the other neighbors?”
“About my place? Never.”
“I meant about his parties.”
“All the time. You can hear everything in the canyon. The sound bounces off the walls and gets trapped in here. Sometimes people would call the cops. It doesn’t bother me, of course. Those wild parties your handsome young actor attended are my entertainment. I don’t have a television. No reception in this part of the canyon.”
“But surely you’re not saying that Tony Eberle did those things with Wallis and his young men,” I said, returning to her earlier pronouncement.
“Who’s Tony Eberle? Your act
or?”
“Yes.”
“Never heard of him. Are you sure he’s an actor?”
“New to Hollywood. Was supposed to be in Wallis’s latest picture. Twistin’ on the Beach.”
“Twistin’ on the Beach? Isn’t Bobby Renfro in that?”
“Yes.”
She harrumphed and grinned some more. “Now him I’ve seen at Wallis’s place. I was surprised the first time I spotted him there. But he was always with a young lovely.”
“So Bobby Renfro’s not one of Wallis’s boys?”
“God, no. That Bobby Renfro is as normal as they come.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Positive. I can tell. I see him all the time through the telescope. And I ran into him twice on the road. He stopped and signed an autograph for me. I’ll show it to you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said.
We fell quiet for a long moment as I reflected on the scandalous information Trudy was dishing out. The activities she’d described went so far beyond what I’d ever heard or experienced about sex. In my mind, fornication was a game for two. I didn’t think of it as an activity requiring enough players for a basketball game. And while I had no qualms about certain acts in the bedroom, the thought of a sixty-something-year-old lady settling in behind her telescope to enjoy the show just made everything sound dirtier.
I shook my head in woe. What kind of story was I going to be able to write for the New Holland Republic?
“And you’re sure of what you saw?” I asked, reluctant to take another sip of tea for fear of spitting it back in her face when she revealed some new juicy detail of the perversions that went on chez Bertram.
“Come with me,” she said, switching off the hair dryer and disconnecting the air tube. “I’ll show you something.”
We passed from the kitchen down a dim hallway into Trudy’s parlor. There, against a bank of large picture windows facing northeast, a telescope stood on a tripod. On the small table nearby were two pairs of military-looking binoculars, one of them short, the other long. I peered through the windows. Not a hundred yards away, Bertram Wallis’s modern steel-and-glass Sodom and Gomorrah loomed in the mist of the canyon. I feared I would turn into a pillar of salt just looking at it. And I was no angel.
Cast the First Stone Page 17
