“I know Phil,” he sobbed. “But no one named Skip. Phil’s lying about him.”
“I didn’t say Phillip told me about Skip. I didn’t mention any connection at all between them.”
Mickey wailed louder as he worked on his next attempt. But nothing was forthcoming. April and Bo emerged from the trailer and demanded to know what I’d done to Mickey to make him cry.
“I just asked him about some people he knows,” I said.
“Who?” demanded April.
“Someone Bo knows as well. Skip Barnes.”
Bo actually took a step toward me and drew back his fist. His face had gone purple, and his strong, white teeth shone all the more brightly for it. April stepped between us and saved me from a punch in the face.
“Who is this chick, anyway?” he roared at April. “Why did she come out here lying about who she is? And I don’t know any Skip Barnes. I’m no pillow biter!”
“Who said anything about pillow biters?” I asked.
If it were possible, Bo’s fury intensified, and I wondered if he would kill me with his bare hands or kill himself with a stroke. Perhaps he feared I’d expose him to the world as “a pillow biter.” Or maybe he just hated reporters. Whatever the reason for his anger, he’d confirmed to me that he knew very well who Skip Barnes was.
April pushed him back as he threatened me some more. He let fly the foulest words he had in his quiver and at top volume. An elderly couple from a nearby trailer appeared to investigate the noise. Then two more men and another woman arrived at a run. Finally, a burly man with hairy arms and a big, friendly smile skidded to a stop on one of those Italian motorbikes. Bo noticed him and immediately clammed up.
“What’s going on here, Bo?” asked the man.
This time the surfer’s apology sounded genuine. “Sorry, Papa Joe,” he said, holding up his hands. “Real sorry.”
Then he nodded an apology to the other neighbors and disappeared back inside his trailer. April and I managed to convince the onlookers and Papa Joe that everything was under control. Bo had received some bad news and was upset. We would take care of him. The crowd dispersed.
In the meantime, Mickey had stopped his weeping. He might have thought he’d escaped my questions and, if so, didn’t know me very well. I asked him again about Skip Barnes. April interrupted and suggested we find someplace quiet to talk.
We strolled down to the wharf below the village and leaned against the railing at the very end, April next to me and Mickey sulking a few feet away.
“Who’s Skip Barnes?” she asked.
I tossed a glance over at Mickey, who was staring down into the water. “Maybe Mickey should explain.”
“I don’t know any Skip Barnes,” he mumbled. “Never heard of him.”
“Why did Bo get so angry when you mentioned his name?”
I looked to Mickey again, wishing he would come clean. I didn’t want to be the one to say it. But he closed his eyes and ignored me.
“Bo went ape because Skip Barnes is a well-known panderer who arranges homosexual encounters for rich men—famous actors and directors—with handsome young newcomers.”
“Bo Hanson? A queer? I don’t believe it. Look at him. He’s all man, that one,” said April.
“Which is why he reacted so violently. Look, he denied being a homosexual when I mentioned Skip Barnes. How did he know that ‘pillow biters’ were Barnes’s stock-in-trade?”
April still couldn’t believe it. And she insisted that Mickey didn’t have anything to do with Skip Barnes. “He lives with Tony. Don’t you think we’d know it if he was a fairy?”
“I think you do know,” I said. “I think the three of you know everything about each other. You close ranks when an outsider gets close, and you work together to deceive any and all comers. Not even Bo qualifies for your exclusive club. He’s just a convenient stop in your game of hide-and-seek. Bo and Mickey both know Skip Barnes, make no mistake.”
“You can’t prove it, and it’s not true besides.”
“I’ll tell you what else I think. I think Tony got into some hot water last Monday night at Bertram Wallis’s party. And I don’t believe he was invited.”
Through the corner of my eye, I saw Mickey perk up. I had his attention.
“This is nonsense,” said April. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know that Mickey was the one invited to Wallis’s party that night. He was going to meet someone. Someone who’d paid Skip Barnes to arrange the encounter. Isn’t that true, Mickey?”
“Lies. None of it is true.”
“Weren’t you working with Skip Barnes because you and Tony needed money? And you didn’t want Tony to have to do those things? He was going to be a big star, after all.”
“No.”
“And the phone number in Wallis’s pocket. I assumed he had it to call Tony. But I was wrong. It was you he was calling, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Where did you get the rent money last week?” I asked.
April told me to lay off.
“And what about you?” I asked her.
“What?”
“How well do you know Skip Barnes?”
“I just asked you who he was. I don’t know him. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a homosexual. Not even a lesbian.”
“Skip Barnes is a procurer of boys and girls. He’ll broker a deal for anyone who wants sex.”
“Are you calling me a whore?” she demanded.
“I’m asking if you know a man named Skip Barnes.”
April seethed, struggling to control her rage.
“What if you looked for the person who actually murdered Wallis instead of accusing us of prostitution?”
“Can I believe you that Tony had nothing to do with Wallis’s murder?”
“Yes.”
“And what about you and Mickey? Did you have any reason to want Wallis dead?”
“Are you going to tell the cops Tony’s running to Mexico?” she asked, ignoring my question.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re a nosy reporter who wants to get her story no matter who you hurt in the process. You’ll print it in your paper, and the police will know where he is.”
“I don’t print anything without corroboration,” I said. “And I’m not so sure Tony is on his way to Mexico anyway.”
She took Mickey by the hand and began leading him back to shore. “Tony is innocent,” she said over her shoulder as they went. “And so are Mickey and me.”
“Then tell me who you think killed Bertram Wallis.”
She stopped and turned around to face me, staring me down for a long moment before responding. “Anyone who ever met him.”
I watched them go until they disappeared behind some trailers. Mickey didn’t look back, didn’t say good-bye. I couldn’t really blame him. I’d accused him of turning tricks with men, after all. And, with April’s help, he’d succeeded once more in avoiding my questions with his lies and silence.
Driving back to Hollywood, I gave myself plenty of grief for worrying about Tony Eberle’s career. What did I care if he’d mucked things up for himself by hobnobbing with “inverts and perverts”? Why did I feel the desire to protect him from his own poor choices? Was he guilty of murder? Things certainly looked bad for the handsome young actor, but somehow I believed Mickey’s professions of Tony’s innocence. Maybe I wanted a happy ending for the story I’d been sent to write. Or maybe I just didn’t want to be the one to deliver New Holland its punch in the gut, deserved or otherwise. It was Tony Eberle, after all, who’d taken a powder, not me.
My priority was to bring home the story of what had happened to the golden boy. And if he was a murderer, too bad for him and his loved ones. I didn’t script these things. I only reported them.
I dragged myself into the lobby of the McCadden Hotel a little after five and headed up to my room. A voice called to me from across the lobby as I mounted
the stairs.
“You’re a hard gal to find.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I turned to see Dorothy Fetterman standing there in a smartly tailored green suit. A frisson of shame tripped over my shoulders and down my spine. What if she’d found out about my impersonation of her with Bo Hanson? Surely it couldn’t have gotten back to her so quickly. But if it had, what would I say to her? How would I explain?
Calm down, I urged myself, drawing a breath. She can’t possibly find out. How long had she been waiting for me, anyway? I couldn’t say. But, as always, she was impeccably turned out, her face made up and not a hair out of place.
“Where have you been all day?” she asked.
“Trying to find your Tony Eberle for you.”
“So now he’s mine?”
“You’re very keen on locating him, after all.”
“I thought you were looking for him as well.”
“Yes,” I said. “But my motivations are different from yours.”
She smirked at me. “You’re not going to tell me that your intentions are purely altruistic, are you? I think you’re as self-motivated as I.”
I noticed Mr. Cromartie at the front desk. With nothing else to distract himself, he appeared to be listening in on our conversation. I motioned to Dorothy to follow me up to my room. Once safely away from eager ears, I ditched my handbag on the bed and reached for the bottle of Scotch.
“Will you join me?” I asked.
“It’s been one of those days,” she said. “I won’t say no.”
I poured her a stiff drink, and she took it.
“So have you made any progress?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “Tony’s spooked. He doesn’t want to be found.”
Dorothy wasn’t happy with the news. “What about his friends?”
“His friends do nothing but lie to me.”
Dorothy drew a short sigh. Despite the protestations I’d made to myself, I did want to impress her. There seemed to be a rout on my stock, so I decided to challenge her. She was asking me for my help, after all, not the other way around.
“Why are you relying on me to find him? You don’t know me. Maybe I’m not up to the task.”
“I’m not putting all my eggs in your basket. I’ve got my own people looking for him as well. You haven’t forgotten our little visit to Barstow, have you?”
“Any luck?”
“We have some leads to follow. But since you have a connection to him, I’m expecting you to produce results.”
I thought this was the moment to play a new card. I told her that Tony’s friends were claiming he’d run off to Mexico.
“Mexico?”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t believe he’s gone anywhere.”
She stared at me for a long moment, took a sip of her drink, then smoothed her skirt over her knees as I’d seen her do before.
“What makes you think he hasn’t gone to Mexico?”
“No money. No means to get there.”
“Let’s hope not,” she said, as if it had been my job to make sure Tony Eberle didn’t leave the country. “What about my photographs?” she continued. “I don’t suppose you’ve made any progress in locating those.”
I shook my head. “Nothing yet. I’m hoping Tony will be able to help on that score.”
Dorothy frowned. I pegged her for one of those executives who offered you one chance to prove your worth, then gave up on you with disappointed resignation if you didn’t deliver right out of the chute. But in this case, her frustration was unwarranted, at least to my mind. I’d managed to track down Tony’s slippery friends while her men could not, drawing a line, not from A to B, but from A to D. The fact that I hadn’t put my hands on Tony’s shoulder and brought him back to Dorothy was too bad, but not something I could solve in that moment. Still, she had a knack of making me feel like a failure.
“The roommate swears Tony didn’t steal any photographs from Wallis’s place.”
“Then all is right with the world,” said Dorothy with a sneer. “No need to worry because some pretty boy assured you that his sticky-fingered roommate is a paragon of virtue. I feel quite let down by you, Ellie. I pegged you for a competent girl. One I might like to hire to work for me.”
She reached into her purse to retrieve a cigarette. She lit up, inhaled deeply, and exhaled the smoke in my direction, almost as if she were trying to make me disappear in the fog.
“There’s no avoiding it,” she said, waving her cigarette at me. “You’ll simply have to go to Mexico to retrieve the pictures.”
“I’m not going to Mexico.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said I’m not going to Mexico. I don’t work for you.”
A long moment of silence ensued. Dorothy was a guest in my room, after all, and she must have realized for the first time that she couldn’t exactly dictate terms. She needed me more than I needed her. Her expression softened a touch, and I thought I might just have found the right tack. She clearly disliked doormats.
“Of course you’re right,” she said, tapping her ash into a nearby tray. “Where do you think he is?”
With the exception of Nelson Blanchard, I hadn’t met anyone in Hollywood I could trust. Not Archie Stemple, Sergeant John Millard, Andy Blaine, or even Gene Duerson. Sure, Gene had been fair and generous with the shared credit on our story, but he was out for himself just like everybody else. April Kincaid hoarded the truth as if it were gold, and I was sure Mickey Harper could lie his way past a troll guarding a bridge better than any billy goat. But Dorothy Fetterman surpassed them all when it came to raising my doubts. She figured at the very top of my list of double-dealers.
Tony Eberle hadn’t run to Mexico, I was certain. How would he have managed it? He had no money, and neither did his friends. Another thing I knew for sure was that four people had slept in Bo Hanson’s trailer the previous night. Three in the two beds and one on the sofa across the room. The number of pillows. Four in all. And despite Bo’s convincing betrayal of Tony’s whereabouts, I was confident Tony was still flopping in the Malibu trailer. After more than a week of tracking him, I thought I just might be able to catch him unawares. His friends probably felt safe after feeding me the lie about Mexico. If Tony was going to surface, this would be the night.
So I asked myself if I could trust Dorothy with the information about the Malibu hideout. And could she be of any use to me? Perhaps. If she were true to her word and gave Tony Eberle a juicy role in a big picture the next year, that could only help my career. Was that enough reason to let her in on my hunch? I couldn’t say, but it was better than going back to New Holland with nothing more than a golden-boy-craps-out-and-goes-to-jail story. Yes, I wanted Tony to make it big. And Dorothy could help me with that.
But, at the same time, I also realized that if I told Dorothy my suspicions, she’d have a gang of Teamsters lifting Bo Hanson’s trailer off the ground and shaking out its contents like pennies from a piggy bank in no time flat. I couldn’t risk it. I needed to take Dorothy into my confidence, but couldn’t let her know where we were going until we got there.
“Where do you think he is?” she repeated.
“I won’t tell you,” I said. “But I’ll show you.”
Dorothy dialed her service to retrieve messages. Then she asked if I’d mind if she called Archie Stemple. It was urgent. I nodded.
Suspecting she might pull some kind of trick, I stayed close at hand as she spoke to Stemple, making sure she knew I could hear every word. She listened for a bit, then sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“Yes, Archie, I know all about it and will take care of it in a couple of hours.” She paused and listened some more. “Yes, I promise. Just follow the instructions I gave you, and this will all blow over.”
“Trouble?” I asked once she’d hung up the receiver.
“What else?”
“Care to share your woes?”
“You know I can’t do that. It’s
a confidential matter.”
“Tell me about yourself,” said Dorothy as we motored west on Sunset Boulevard. “Why are you playing at this reporter game? Why aren’t you married?”
“I’m not playing at being a reporter. It’s my job. And I’m pretty good at it.”
“You still haven’t managed to find Tony Eberle,” she said.
“Have your men found him? It seems that I’ve made more progress than they have.”
That quieted her for a moment, but she refused to admit defeat.
“Where are we going?” she asked. “You can tell me now that I have no access to a telephone.”
“Malibu.”
“Nighttime surfing?”
“If you like. But I’m taking you to Tony Eberle.”
With my eyes on the road, I couldn’t gauge her reaction, but she probably hadn’t moved a muscle. She was calculating, though. Considering scenarios and options as I drove. Formulating new strategies and contingencies.
Then she repeated her earlier question. Why wasn’t I married?
“For starters, no one’s asked. And for seconds, I haven’t met anyone I’d like to marry. What about you?”
“Turn here,” she said. “Take La Cienega to Wilshire then turn right.”
“But I plotted our course using the Thomas guide, like a proper Angelino.”
“That’s fine, but I know which streets are busy and which are not. Turn left then right on Wilshire. We’ll make it to Santa Monica in no time on San Vicente.”
I flicked on the turn signal and followed orders. New Yorkers didn’t drive this way. It was all avenues and perpendicular streets, north, south, east, and west. Easy. And it was always a cabbie making the decisions.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
“Of course I didn’t answer your question.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not discussing my life with you,” she said, and just as dismissive as it sounds.
I pulled to a stop at a red light and stared at her. She was looking straight through the windshield, her eyes impassive, inscrutable. I watched her for a long moment. If she’d meant to discourage my curiosity with her curt answer, she’d failed. Why wasn’t she married? What had made Dorothy Fetterman the powerful, intimidating woman she’d become? Was she happy? Had she wished for something different in life? Or had she become exactly what she’d wanted to be?
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