Groucho Marx, Private Eye

by Ron Goulart

  The man who’d opened the white door of the bordello was built along the lines of a frequenter of muscle beach and was wearing pinstripe gray slacks, a black dress shirt, and wide yellow suspenders. He surveyed Groucho briefly through the foot-wide opening. “Take a hike, Otto,” he suggested. “This is a private club and I don’t know you.”

  Handing him the letter he’d gotten from Nathanael West earlier in the day, Groucho said, “I realized that, so I had one of your regular customers write me this letter of introduction.”

  The big, wide man took the envelope, slid out the letter, and unfolded it. “You know Pep West?”

  “We’re lodge brothers.”

  “Nice guy, but a little screwy. He comes around quite a lot, you know, but never once goes upstairs,” said the bouncer. “What Pep likes to do is sit around the parlor and just talk to the girls. Says he’s writing a book.”

  “I do believe he is.”

  “A book about what?”

  “A book about Hollywood,” answered Groucho. “May I cross the threshold?”

  “Hold you damn horses, Otto.” He studied the letter. “‘This will introduce my old friend, Otto Heffel of Ventura. He’s a true gentleman and a big spender. Yours truly, Nathanael West.’” The bouncer refolded the letter, put it back into the envelope and returned that to Groucho. “Okay, Otto, I guess you’re kosher.”

  “Rabbis use me as a touchstone.” He entered the carpeted hallway. The scents of face powder and perfume were strong in the air.

  Taking hold of Groucho just above the elbow, the big man escorted him into the parlor. “Wait in there,” he instructed and left.

  The room was dimly illuminated and the shades and the bulbs on the two floor lamps were pale pink. The three flowered sofas and two fat armchairs were unoccupied. A tall, ample woman in a navy blue evening dress was squatting to turn up the volume on the large Atwater Kent radio next to the small empty fireplace. It was a Count Basie band remote broadcast.

  Groucho coughed into his hand. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mrs. Ferguson herself?”

  The woman rose and turned to scrutinize him. “No, she’s flat on her ass with whooping cough,” she told him. “I’m the manager. Constance is my name.”

  Groucho showed her his letter.

  After reading it, she asked, “You like to talk to girls, too?”

  “As a preliminary only.”

  The manager wore a dead white powder and her face and shoulders looked as though they’d been dipped in flour. Her lipstick was a purplish red. “You look like somebody,” she said, coming closer to him.

  “It’s from taking a Dale Carnegie course. Before that I looked like nobody.”

  “No, I mean you look like that guy in the movies except he’s got a moustache.”

  “Oh, you mean Clark Gable.” Groucho nodded. “I was getting mistaken for him so often that I had to shave off my own moustache, Constance.”

  “Nope, I mean you look something like that funny guy.”

  “You’re thinking of William Powell. Lots of people have commented on the resemblance.”

  “Hell, never mind. I’ll think of it eventually,” she said. “What sort of girl would you like, Oscar?”

  “Otto,” he corrected.

  “Otto it is. Now, let me tell you right off the reel that we don’t employ any kids here,” she said, hands on hips. “There’s not one of our girls who’s not over eighteen. We also don’t have any Chinks. Far as I’m concerned, we could provide Chinks and Japs for our clients. Mrs. Ferguson, though—”

  “Well, actually, Pep West recommended a young lady to me,” Groucho broke in. “Her name was … um … what the devil was it? Oh, yes, Maggie Barnes.”

  “You’re in luck, Otto. This is one of the nights Maggie’s on duty.” She returned to the radio. “A very pretty girl, awfully affectionate. She looks sort of like that movie actress that just killed the doctor.” Constance opened the thin ledger book that sat atop the radio.

  With the Basie band Jimmy Rushing was singing “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town.”

  “I do hope she’s available,” said Groucho in what he hoped was a timid voice.

  “Bingo, she is.” She looked back at him over her white shoulder. “That’ll be fifty bucks.”

  “Fifty dollars? I don’t want to hire her by the week.”

  “Fifty bucks. This isn’t some hand-job joint in Tijuana, after all.” Constance put her hands on her hips again and frowned at him. “That’s fifty for us, plus the ten-dollar towel fee and then whatever tip you want to leave for Maggie.”

  Groucho took some folded bills from the pocket of his checkered sport coat. He counted off sixty dollars and, reluctantly, passed them to the manager.

  As her hand closed over the bills, a thin Negro maid entered the room and said to Groucho, “If you’ll follow me, sir.”

  “It’s been a pleasure chatting with you, Constance. I hope I’ll see you on my way out.”

  “You might. Enjoy yourself, Otto.”

  He followed the maid into the hall and up one flight of stairs. After nodding at a door with the numerals 232 painted on it, she handed him a rolled-up white towel and two contraceptives. “It’s all right to tip, sir.”

  Groucho gave her a dollar bill. When she was on her way downstairs, he knocked on Maggie Barnes’s door.

  “Come in, sweetheart,” invited a familiar voice.

  He went in.

  * * *

  Maggie Barnes said, “I’d be risking my life. They’d kill me.” She was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing a black slip.

  “Who’d kill you?” Groucho sat in the room’s only chair.

  “The people who sure as hell don’t want me to talk.”

  “I’m offering you some money right now.” He leaned forward, hands clasped between his legs. “Frances London’s daughter, Polly Pilgrim, is a very successful performer,” he said. “Polly’s father comes from a wealthy family. If you make a statement, Maggie, they’ll see to it that you get a handsome reward.”

  “What’re they going to do, toss the dough into my grave along with the pallbearers’ gloves?”

  The bedroom window was open at the bottom and the wind was fluttering the peach-colored lace curtains.

  “What you know might be enough to put them in jail. That way—”

  She laughed. “Did you ever hear of the Mob, Groucho? They call them that because there’s a whole lot of them,” she told him. “You put a couple in the can, there’s dozens more still on the outside. They’re like cockroaches.”

  “The police can protect a witness.”

  Her left eye nearly closed and she tilted her head. “This wouldn’t be the Bayside cops you’re talking about? Yeah, they’d protect me just swell.”

  “Was it Branner who had you pretend to be Frances London and bang on Dr. Benninger’s door that night?”

  “Who says I did anything like that? The witnesses all said it was Frances herself.”

  “Branner makes a habit of covering up for hoodlums,” said Groucho. “Now, Maggie, I’m a witness to your passing me a death threat. Did Branner hire you for that job, too? Or did you deal directly with Jack Cortez?”

  “You really, Groucho, ought to stick to the movies,” she advised him, crossing her bare legs. “You’re in way over your head.”

  “So are you, Maggie my dear,” he pointed out. “Think about this, if you will. I intend to keep digging into this until I can prove Frances is innocent. That means eventually I should be able to prove you were involved, too. At that point, it’s pretty likely they’ll arrest you as an accessory.”

  “Jail’s still better than a cemetery.”

  Groucho said, “Okay, let’s talk about your profession.”

  “I’m a hooker. So?”

  “I thought you were an actress.”

  She laughed again. “Jesus, Groucho, do you know how many guys have promised to get me in pictures?”

  “You’re not good en
ough for movies yet,” he told her. “But I can help you get hired for some kind of show business job. A job that’s at least a few notches above turning tricks and stooging for hoodlums and crooked cops.”

  She uncrossed her legs, sitting up straighter on the chenille bedspread. “This is just a line of crap,” she said. “Your goddamned brother Zeppo practically tossed me out on my butt. It’s been the same with a lot of other agents.”

  “You help me, I’ll help you.”

  After a few seconds, she said, “No, it’s too dangerous.”

  He left the chair, easing closer to the blonde. “That was you pretending to be a drunken Frances, wasn’t it?”

  She looked toward the door, then the window. “I’ll deny saying this later,” she said. “But, yes.”

  “Where was Dr. Benninger?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody ever came to the door.”

  “Dead already inside the house maybe?”

  “He might’ve been,” she conceded. “But I didn’t know anything about that. What they told me was that somebody wanted to ruin Frances’s reputation, not frame her for murder. But, you know, once you do it—doesn’t matter what you thought or what you were told.”

  “Who hired you, Maggie?”

  She turned her head so that she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “He’ll kill me.”

  “Just tell me. Then maybe I can find some other way to prove it.”

  “It was Sergeant Branner,” she said quietly.

  “Did he pay you to do it?”

  “A little bit,” she answered. “Mainly I did it because I didn’t want him to beat me up again.”

  “Was he taking orders from Jack Cortez?”

  “That part I don’t know,” the blonde answered. “He’s done a lot of stuff for Cortez in the past so it’s sure possible.”

  “Okay, now what about—”

  “Shit,” she said.

  The pink-shaded bedside lamp had started blinking.

  “That a signal?” he asked.

  “Means a raid. We have them now and then.” She ran to the closet, grabbed out a black chiffon dress and pulled it on over her head. “If Branner’s along on this one and he finds you and me together—”

  “What’s out that window?”

  “The roof of the garages,” Maggie answered. “We can, if you’re up to it, slide down that and into the yard of the joint behind us. I’ve done it.”

  “Tonight, my dear, I feel divinely inspired.” Loping over, he jerked the window open wide. Night wind smacked him in the face.

  “Where’s my shoes? Where’s my goddamned shoes?”

  Downstairs a loud pounding had commenced on the front door.

  “We’ll have to do a barefoot escape.” Groucho took her arm, tugged her to the window. “You want to go first, my pet?”

  “Sure, since I know the route.” She swung one leg over the windowsill. “It’s kind of steep, Groucho, so don’t trip and go sliding.” Maggie stepped out onto the slanting shingle roof.

  Groucho thrust his head through the opening. He could hear cars pulling up in front of the bordello.

  Maggie was on all fours, working her way down the roof backward.

  “No time to have my stuntman do this one.” He went lurching out of the bedroom.

  Inside the room the door came slamming open and a voice warned, “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  Twenty-eight

  I sat up suddenly in bed, heart beating fast.

  Beside me Jane went on sleeping, in that huddled position she always got into eventually.

  Looking toward the darkened bedroom windows, I listened.

  Now I heard footsteps moving quietly down the driveway.

  Probably what had awakened me was nothing more than the noises that went with one of Colonel Mullens’ people returning my car.

  I eased carefully out of bed anyway and light-footed it over to where I’d left my clothes. I put on my trousers, shirt, and shoes.

  Jane didn’t wake up.

  When I got to the front windows I got a glimpse of somebody shutting the door on the passenger side of a dark sedan after climbing inside. Lights off, the car went rolling off along the night street.

  Very carefully I opened the front door and stepped out on the porch. From the right-hand side you could see the drive.

  My yellow Plymouth was parked next to the cottage, the imitation raccoon tail hanging from the antenna looking especially bedraggled.

  Sitting on the running board was a large shopping bag.

  “What the hell is that?”

  I went down the steps, stood watching my car and the mysterious package.

  The fat calico cat from three houses over emerged from the deep shadow under my returned car. Standing up on her chubby hind legs, she started poking at the bag with a paw.

  If there were some sort of explosive device in that sack, I ought to shoo the cat off. I would, though, have felt silly yelling, “Get away from there, Peachy Pet!” at 1:00 A.M.

  Crossing the dew-stained lawn with shoes and no socks gave me damp ankles.

  I was still about ten feet from my coupé, when Peachy Pet gave the bag an extra exuberant smack. It teetered and fell to the driveway.

  Several boxes of Mullens Pudding tumbled out.

  The surprised cat dived back under my car.

  “You’ve got a serious case of the heebie-jeebies,” I told myself.

  A note came with the two dozen boxes—in all five flavorful flavors—of pudding. It read, “Hope you’re recovering from your ordeal and it’s not simply because you’re going to do me an awfully big favor, but because I think you’re a very nice person and I’m very glad that chance, unless you believe in predestination, which I’m not really sure I do—”

  “Victoria,” I said and didn’t bother to finish the letter.

  Gathering up the scattered boxes, I tossed them back in the sack along with the note. I carried the stuff over and left it on the lowest porch step.

  Hands in pockets I walked the short distance down to the beach.

  The wind was still strong, the black water choppy. The foamy surf that came washing in across the sand glowed faintly.

  I found a smooth hunk of driftwood above the reach of the surf and sat down. There was a half-moon tonight and what seemed like an extra amount of stars.

  “I’d hate to lose the damn show,” I said aloud. “I can probably get another one going, but not with Groucho and not for this kind of money. You’ve got to face it, Groucho’s the one who was able to get me this salary. On your own, you’re not likely to—”

  “Pardon me, sir, but we’re looking for an escaped lunatic.”

  “What sort of lunatic?”

  “This fellow likes to freeze his backside on chilly beaches while reciting rambling monologues.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “According to the description we’ve got, he’s not much to look at.”

  “And not much to see?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Haven’t seen him. Sit down, Jane, there’s room on this log.”

  “Unlike this loon I was telling you about, I don’t have a morbid desire to freeze my fanny,” She stepped closer to where I was sitting. “Come home with me now and I’ll fix us some hot cocoa.”

  I left the log. “Sorry I woke you.”

  “You didn’t. It must’ve been the people bringing your car home. Just takes me longer to wake up than it does you.”

  “After I went out to see if it was my car, I decided to wander down here for a while.”

  “Who’s Victoria?”

  “I was going to tell you about her. She’s a Mullens Maiden.”

  “They keep a supply of virgins around to sacrifice on important occasions?”

  Side by side, we started back toward the cottage. “The Mullens Maidens are sort of like the Goldwyn Girls or maybe the Wampus Babies,” I explained. “Only they hand out free samples of pudding. When a new market opens or there�
�s a party or convention.”

  “And why’s this particular Mullens Maiden eternally grateful to you?”

  I halted. “Hey, I thought by now you were aware that I was completely and eternally committed to you,” I told her. “This girl is about twenty, wants to be an actress. She’s got an interesting sort of voice and style of speech. I’d like to audition her for the part of Groucho’s new secretary on our show.”

  Jane moved a few steps away, stood eyeing me. “Okay, I trust you,” she decided after a moment. “It’s merely that when a pretty girl comes by in the middle of the night and leaves pudding on the doorstep, I get curious.”

  “Actually, she left it on the running board of my car. She must’ve driven one of the cars over here.”

  “Is Victoria aware of your undying devotion to me?”

  “I told her that my heart was spoken for, showed her the brand on my flank.”

  “Good.” Jane returned to my side and took my hand. “What were you talking to yourself about down by the seashore?”

  “I’m worried about our radio show, Jane.” Because I’d been recuperating from my roller-coaster ride, I hadn’t gotten around to telling her about my encounter with the Colonel, his talented youngest son, and the East Coast admen.

  “I don’t think you have to worry.”

  By this time we were sitting across from each other in the breakfast nook with our mugs of cocoa.

  “The show’s never been as popular as Benny or Edgar Bergen or Burns and Allen or—”

  “There’s a good living to be made by people who aren’t at the very top of the list.”

  “Sponsors don’t think that way, Jane.”

  “Sure, but I still don’t think you have to brood so much about this.”

  “Okay, I swear I’ll brood through the night and into the morning, Jane, and then I’ll quit forever,” I promised, holding up my right hand. “I’ll become a tourist attraction in Southern California, Ripley will come courting. When I stroll along Hollywood Boulevard, people will applaud and cry out, ‘There goes Frank Denby—he hasn’t brooded in over six months.’”

  “Finish your cocoa,” she advised, “and let’s go to bed.”

  Twenty-nine