by Ron Goulart
Dianne moved closer to me. “You think Brian was killed to keep him from making his addiction public?”
“It’s not a bad motive for murdering him.”
She turned again toward the valet, nearly spilling some of her highball. “Is that possible, Edwin?”
“I suppose it might be, madam.”
“Jesus, they could come after me next,” she said, dropping into an uncomfortable antique chair. “Brian told me a lot about Jack Cortez and Dr. Benninger.” She gulped down half of her scotch highball.
The valet said, “I don’t believe they’d deem that necessary.”
I asked him, “Before you went out, Edwin, did anyone stop by to see Montaine?”
He shook his head. “No one, sir.”
“How about phone calls?”
“There were always phone calls.”
“Who that particular night?”
“The studio, of course,” answered Kingsmill. “As I recall it was one of the Zanksy Brothers—Leon probably. Miss Dubay, the screenwriter, and a reporter from Screenland. I’m nearly certain that Dr. Benninger telephoned as well.”
“Why didn’t you say that right off, nitwit?”
“It only just now occurred to me, madam.”
Dianne finished her drink. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
“Perfectly understandable.”
I asked, “Did Montaine take any of the phone calls himself?”
“To the best of my recollection, sir, he spoke to Mr. Zanksy and to the doctor.”
“Did he make an appointment to see anyone?”
“That I don’t know, sir. When I left here, at a few minutes after eight, no one had been here and Mr. Montaine made no mention of expecting a guest.”
“Where was he when you took off?”
He nodded toward the hallway. “In his den, which is at the rear of the house,” he said. “A messenger from Paragon had brought over some revised pages of the King Arthur script and he was going over those.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Did he have any particular friends—a girlfriend, say—who might just stop by unannounced? Someone who had a key of her own?”
He looked toward the widow. “Well, there was one such person, sir.”
She waved her right hand in a loose permissive gesture. “You can go ahead and tell him about that peroxide bitch.”
The valet said, “Mr. Montaine had been quite close to a young actress named Karen Ambers. She was playing a lady-in-waiting in The Legend of King Arthur.”
“That’s a laugh,” said Dianne, laughing. “That floozie couldn’t wait for anything, especially jumping in bed with somebody who could help her career.”
“Mr. Montaine hadn’t been as close with the young lady in recent weeks, sir,” continued Kingsmill. “So it seems unlikely she would have been by that evening. In fact, it’s possible that their relationship had already ended.”
I nodded. “Okay, now tell me about Tad Ballard and what he did after you called him,” I requested.
* * *
The Paragon Pictures studios lay in the middle of Culver City, covered about thirty acres, and were surrounded by a high freshly painted plank fence. There was a billboard-size poster touting The Legend of King Arthur stretching along the planks to the left of the studio gates.
The heavyset guard used to work at MGM and he smiled at Groucho. “I hear you and the boys finally got a job again,” he remarked as Groucho pulled his Cadillac up to the guard shack.
“Yes, Michael, we’re working as stand-ins for the Boswell Sisters,” answered Groucho. “I get to double Connie, which is just oodles of fun.”
Chuckling, the hefty guard studied the visitor roster. “Julius Marx. Guess that’s you. You have an appointment to see Tad Ballard at two-thirty.” He grimaced. “Why do you want to see that jerk?”
“Purely in the line of duty.”
“Seriously now, Groucho, what’s the name of your new movie?”
“Seriously, Michael, it’s not a movie but an animated cartoon. It’ll be in Disney’s Silly Symphonies series and I’m set to play the leading buttercup,” explained Groucho. “Originally I was slated to be Goofy, but my reading of ‘Gorsh,’ was considered inadequate and the part went to Ronald Colman instead.”
“It’s impossible to get a straight answer out of you.”
“If I started giving out straight answers, my boy, I’d be even less employable than I am now.”
“Go on in, Groucho, and park in Lot A. You’ll find the jerk in Office Building Two.”
“Thank you and give my best to the little ones.”
“I don’t have any kids, Groucho.”
“I heard you were romancing a couple of midgets. Adieu.”
He drove on into the studio grounds, coming to a stop so that a platoon of Foreign Legionnaires could march across the street.
“Imagine all those fellows trying to forget.”
Lot A was crowded and it took him nearly five minutes to find an empty slot. Lighting a fresh cigar, Groucho went loping along a curving street lined with stately palm trees.
Office Building 2 was a two-story structure with red tile roofs and a peach-colored stucco façade.
After pausing to ogle a starlet who went whizzing by on a boy’s bicycle, Groucho slouched up the red tile steps and popped into the reception area.
The plump young receptionist behind the wide curved desk sat up and exclaimed, “Groucho Marx.”
“Everybody has been saying that to me today.” He skulked closer to her desk. “What does it mean, my dear? Is it some Gypsy curse, the first line of the Albanian national anthem, the lyric of a new Tony Pastor novelty tune?”
“It’s your name.”
“Ah, how disappointing, just another meaningless phrase then.” He exhaled smoke. “I’m Otto von Bismarck, dear child, and I have an appointment with Tad Ballard.”
Her plump face took on an unhappy expression. “Oh, gee.”
“Really?”
“What I mean is that Mr. Ballard isn’t here.”
“Elsewhere, is he?”
“Yes, he’s over on Sound Stage Five, which is where they were shooting the interiors for The Legend of King Arthur before poor Brian Montaine kicked the bucket,” she said. “He had to rush over to help out the new publicity girl who suddenly felt she wasn’t up to showing a bunch of newspaper people around and explaining to them how Paragon is going to finish the movie as a tribute to Brian Montaine. Well, that part she could handle, but not lying about how they’re hoping they can use his stand-in to film the twenty percent of the darn thing that’s not done yet. So that’s where Mr. Ballard is.”
“I don’t suppose Ballard would mind if I wandered over there and kibitzed until he was finished and free to chat with me.”
She shrugged. “So long as you don’t clown around and screw up their pitch to the newspaper idiots.”
Groucho leaned an elbow on her desk and gazed deeply into her eyes. “You have no doubt heard, my sweet, that inside every clown there is a serious person?”
“I’ve heard that, yes.”
“Well, I just had my serious person surgically removed and I’m liable to behave like an absolute buffoon.”
“Actually, that’s okay by me, Mr. Marx.”
“With your kind permission then, I will take my leave.” He grabbed up her pudgy left hand and gave it a smacking kiss. “I may not come back from the front, Renee, so this is farewell. At this point, if you must know, I’m even having trouble telling the front from the back except that I think the back has a pleat in it.” He kissed her hand once more and then went trotting out into the afternoon.
Twenty-one
There was a suckling pig, an apple in its mouth, sprawled on a silver platter at the center of the Round Table. Seated around the massive table, in ornate high-backed oaken chairs, were five people who were probably reporters, a very nervous blond young woman and Tad Ballard. Ballard was in his late thirties, tan, with an Errol Flynn s
ort of moustache.
As Groucho watched, partly concealed by a canvas flat that represented a portion of castle wall, the studio troubleshooter lit his cork-tipped cigarette with a glittering gold lighter and chuckled.
“What Esther meant to say, folks, is that Paragon won’t be conning the American public in any way,” he told them. “Fortunately, at the time of Brian’s unfortunate and untimely death, The Legend of King Arthur was close to ninety-five percent completed.” He flicked ashes in the direction of the plaster prop pig. “What you and Brian’s millions of fans will eventually see on the screen, when this latest Paragon Pictures epic is released—very close to schedule, I might add—what you’ll see, folks, will be nobody but the late Brian Montaine in the role of his lifetime, the legendary King Arthur.”
“No doubles? No back shots of a look-alike?” asked the fat reporter from the Herald-Examiner. “That’s not the way I heard it, Tad.”
“Sometimes, so I hear, your hearing ain’t so good, Mark.” Ballard ground out his cigarette by sweeping it across the underside of the table. “Okay, folks, I have another meeting to hit. Thanks for your time and now, for them as wants to, Esther will take you on a tour of the outdoor King Arthur sets. I think you’re going to be especially impressed by the jousting field. It’s authentic as all get-out. Esther, honey.”
The blond young woman pushed back in her heavy oaken chair. “If,” she said, clearing her throat, “if you’ll all tag along with me, we’ll go do that.”
Ballard watched them trail her off the set. “I hope,” he called, “you’ll all help us make this a fitting tribute to the memory one of Hollywood’s great talents, the late Brian Montaine.”
Groucho stepped out from behind the canvas wall and went striding across the castle floor. “Give me a moment to control my tears, Tad,” he requested. “Then we can have our postponed meeting.”
“Groucho, hi.” Ballard looked at his silver wristwatch. “You have to keep in mind that Hollywood is built on a firm foundation of bullshit.”
“Yes, and you’re one of its most distinguished architects.”
The troubleshooter consulted the watch again. “I actually am running way behind today, Groucho.” He rested his backside against the edge of the Round Table. “You were sort of vague on the telephone, but I agreed to fit you in. Hell, we’re friends from way back and—”
“You’ve already spread enough foundation for one day, Tad,” suggested Groucho. He hoisted himself up and sat on the table. “I came to chat about Brian Montaine.”
“A marvelous actor. It’s a damn shame he had that heart attack…” He lowered his head, shaking it sadly. “Hell of a nice guy, too.”
Groucho tilted slightly forward and turned his head toward Ballard. “But he didn’t have a heart attack,” he said. “He died from an overdose of heroin and you covered the whole thing up.”
Ballard stiffened, sliding off the table. He spun, glaring at Groucho. “Where do you get off accusing me of—”
“We have witnesses, my boy,” Groucho told him quietly. “Now I can trot over to that famous jousting field and mention their names to your reporter chums—or we can have a private talk here with only the pig as witness.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. And if—”
Groucho dropped free of the Round Table. “Why don’t I catch up with Mark Evans from the Herald-Examiner? He’s not an especial fan of yours and—”
“Okay, hold it.” He took hold of Groucho’s arm. “Why are you interested in any of this?”
“Because it connects with Frances London’s troubles.”
“That lush? Why do you give a damn about—”
“Humor me, Tad. Write it off to an old man’s whim—but tell me about your cover-up.” He pulled free of the troubleshooter’s grip.
“Shit.” Ballard sat again in the ornate chair he’d occupied earlier. “All right. What do you want to know?”
“Just about everything,” Groucho told him.
* * *
As I shaved, I scrutinized myself in Jane’s bathroom mirror. “You didn’t really tell Dianne Sayler I was dippy looking, did you?”
“What?” she called from the living room.
I left the bathroom, crossed the bedroom and looked into the living room.
Jane was sitting in an armchair, long legs crossed, going over some proof sheets of the Hillbilly Willie comic strip. “What were you bellowing about?”
“Dippy. Did you mention to your old art school chum that I was somewhat dippy?”
Smiling, she lowered the proofs to her lap and shook her head. ‘Now, see? That’s exactly how rumors get started,” she said. “I told her you were sappy and, by the time it got back to you, the message was all distorted.”
“Okay, sappy I can accept. How about my being a shrimp?”
“I only mentioned that you weren’t tall.”
“Five foot nine isn’t exactly short.”
“But you’re only five nine if you walk around on tiptoe, Frank. I figured she might catch you by surprise sometime and notice that you were really only five eight and think—”
“I’m going to have to hire my own press agent to counter all this negative propaganda that’s floating around.”
Jane said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said about Dianne and the valet.”
“And?”
After setting the proofs on the rug, she stood up and stretched. “Well, if she has been having an affair with that guy—could they maybe have murdered Brian Montaine?”
I ran a knuckle over my chin, getting foam all over my thumb. “There is, I suppose, a motive,” I conceded. “Classic one, in fact. Handsome servant helps restless wife knock off spouse. They then share in fortune she inherits. Good James M. Cain sort of plot.”
“It is, I admit, trite.”
“Problem there would be,” I added, “that if they murdered Montaine for his money—well, then his death doesn’t connect with the killing of Dr. Benninger. And that’s the murder we really have to solve.”
“Suppose Benninger slipped them the stuff they used to kill Brian.”
“So?”
“We know the doctor had money problems,” said Jane. “He goes back to them and demands a larger fee than they’d agreed on. Otherwise he’ll sing.”
“You been reading Dames Love Diamonds? Sing?”
“If they don’t give him more money, he’ll reveal the true circumstances of Brian Montaine’s demise.”
I shook my head. “He couldn’t threaten that. Benninger, if we accept your scenario, is an accessory. He couldn’t turn them in without screwing himself, too.”
“But you and Groucho believe he did have something to do with Brian’s death.”
“Sure, but not in cahoots with the widow and that gigolo.”
Bending, Jane gathered up the proofs and took a few steps in the direction of her studio. “If you don’t value my suggestions, you can simply say so and I won’t—”
“I value your suggestions, Jane. I value you,” I assured her. “I don’t, however, feel like I have to accept every blessed idea that falls from your lips or—”
“You can try making your points without shouting.”
“I wasn’t shouting. Had I been shouting, Jane, several of the lightbulbs would’ve popped and a window pane or two.”
“Now you are being dippy.” She left the living room.
I went back and finished shaving for the Colonel’s party.
Twenty-two
Most nights the big tent pitched at the center of the King Neptune Playland at the Beach was the home of a girlie show called Honolulu Honeys. Tonight, since Colonel Mullens had hired the entire amusement park for his birthday party, the tent was going to be used for the entertainment that included Groucho and Polly.
The wind that had come up at sundown was worrying the canvas sides of the tent, causing them to shake and produce occasional popping sounds. About two hundred folding chairs were arrange
d in rows on the sawdust-covered plank floor. The whole place smelled of stale beer, perspiration, and something that was either cheap perfume or insect spray.
There was a small elevated stage up at the front of the tent with five chairs and a piano on the floor right below it.
No one was in the tent. I stood just inside the entrance for a few minutes, taking it all in. Then I made my way down the center sawdust aisle. The spangled curtain, which had a fading painting of hula dancers on a tropical beach decorating it, was partially open.
Walking up the six wooden steps at the side of the platform, I reached the stage. Now I could see a plywood partition at the back. It had an unpainted door at its center and lettered in whitewash, in an arbitrary mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, were the words dRessiNg rOomS.
“Not quite the Palace,” I said.
“When do the elephants arrive?”
Groucho, carrying his guitar case, his makeup kit and a large paper-wrapped bundle, was loping along the aisle toward the stage.
Outside in the windy dusk the merry-go-round started up, playing a pipe organ version of “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
Dropping everything, Groucho straightened up and saluted. After a few seconds he said, “Ah, forgive me. I thought they were playing the national anthem.” Taking out a cigar, he glanced around the tent. “Where’s my amazingly cute little costar?”
“Not here yet,” I answered. “Nobody is.”
“I assume they’ve shooed the chimpanzees out of my dressing room and I can unload my wandering minstrel equipment someplace hereabouts?”
Returning down to the sawdust, I reached for his bundle. “Dressing rooms are behind that partition yonder.”
“Take it up tenderly,” he cautioned me, gathering up his guitar and the makeup box. “I’ve got Nelson Eddy’s hat in there and I intend to wear it for my duet with Pollyanna.”
“Which hat?” I went climbing up the steps again.
“The one he sported in Rosemarie. My brother Chico knows a girl—well, no, actually, Chico knows, at last count, two thousand and three girls. This particular one, however, has access to the MGM wardrobe facilities and she was able to extract the actual skimmer Eddy wore while yodeling to Jeanette MacDonald and pretending to be a Royal Canadian Mountie. Of course, if he were half a man, he’d have doffed the hat and mounted the lady, but—”
