by Ron Goulart
Groucho’s departure down across the steep rooftop of the bordello garage didn’t go quite as smoothly as he was hoping.
After scrambling out of the window and ignoring Sergeant Branner’s command to stop, he dropped into a crouch and started working his way downward.
There were no outside lights nearby and the pink light from the bedroom didn’t spill very far.
The sergeant had reached the window now. “Come on back in here, you,” he shouted.
Paying no attention, Groucho kept moving. In fact, he moved with considerable rapidity. He slipped, lost his balance and his purchase and went whizzing downward across the roof toward the dark yard that belonged to the house immediately behind Mrs. Ferguson’s establishment.
Maggie had reached the edge and lowered herself over it. She was dangling from the edge, bare feet feeling for the upper side of the garage window frame. “Jesus, Groucho,” she whispered as she saw him come sailing toward her.
Summoning up what acrobatic skills he’d attained during his vaudeville days, he twisted sideways as he plunged over the rim of the roof. He managed to grab the drainpipe.
As he got both hands locked round it and gripping tightly, the pipe groaned and creaked. Then it began to tear free of its moorings and break from the garage side.
Groucho, as though clinging to a giant metal arm, was lowered, in rattling jerks, to the dark lawn below.
He let go of the drain pipe, tripped over a tricycle he hadn’t previously been aware of. He landed hard on his back side.
The bell on the tricycle tingled as he bumped his elbow against it.
From up above came three shots. “Around back, get some men around back!” It sounded as though the sergeant was still up in the abandoned bedroom.
“Did you break your damn leg or anything?” Maggie had come quickly over the damp grass to him.
“That’s a very good question, young lady, and I do hope it won’t stump our experts.” Taking hold of the hand she offered, he pulled himself to his feet. “At a rough guess, I’d say I’m as close to physical perfection as I ever was.”
“Then let’s get our asses the hell away from here.” Gripping his arm, she started running him toward the gate in the picket fence. “That sounds like Sergeant Branner up there hollering. He catches us together, you can be damn sure he’ll think of a good legal reason to shoot us both.”
“I had the foresight,” said Groucho when they reached the night sidewalk, “to park my car a couple blocks to the north of here. If we scurry in that direction, we ought to be able to drive to safer climes before the posse catches up with us.”
* * *
By the time Groucho’s Cadillac reached the outskirts of Hermosa Beach, a short way down the coast from Bayside, a light fog was hanging over the highway.
“The odds are the son of a bitch recognized you,” Maggie was saying. She was huddled in the passenger seat, knees up and a plaid lap robe wrapped around her legs and bare feet. “So he can find me through you.”
Groucho, dead cigar clutched in his teeth, was hunched at the wheel and squinting out into the misty night. “Keep your eyes open for the Big Orange,” he told her. “And cease fretting about dear Sergeant Branner.”
“He saw you at the cat house.”
“No, he saw my backside going out a window,” he corrected. “And Branner doesn’t know me anywhere well enough to recognize its unique qualities.”
“Somebody tipped him you were there, though.”
“Probably the estimable Constance,” he said. “But all she can have informed Branner is that a chap resembling Groucho Marx had dropped by to pay his respects. Granted, I do resemble Groucho Marx, but I’m not the only—”
“She can identify you—in a lineup or from the witness stand.”
“It won’t ever come to that.”
“What makes you think he won’t—”
“As long as he doesn’t have any idea where you are, Maggie dear, he isn’t going to risk annoying me too much,” he explained. “Because Branner can’t be sure you haven’t told me all about his involvement in the murder of Dr. Benninger.”
“What I know doesn’t tie him to that directly.”
“It certainly links him with an attempt to frame Frances London,” he said. “Aha!”
Up ahead on the foggy night highway loomed the roadside juice stand he was seeking. The stand had been built in the shape of a giant orange. Floating above the tin structure was a sign announcing BIG ORANGE—FRESH JUICE 10 CENTS! Although the service window was shut, a slice of light showed along its lower edge.
Groucho swung onto the gravel area in front of the huge orange.
“I never drink orange juice unless it’s spiked with gin,” commented Maggie, rearranging her blanket.
“After we stop here, my dear, we’ll drop by the Big Gin Bottle.” He eased out of the car. “Stay here.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning to take a quick dip in the goddamned ocean.”
When Groucho tapped on the tin window cover, it swung up and open with a rattling rasp. “You better be the guy Leroy telephoned about and got me up out of bed for,” said the sleepy-looking young man who was frowning out at him.
“I am he.” He held out his hand. “The keys?”
“Leroy said you’d give me twenty bucks for my trouble.”
“No, as I understand it he promised you ten.”
“Shit, it’s after midnight.”
Groucho produced a twenty-dollar bill. “Leroy better not have promised you anything else, my lad.”
From a pocket of his jeans, the thin youth took a ring with two brass keys dangling from it. “Biggest one is the front door, other one’s the garage. Got that?”
“I dearly hope so or otherwise I’m liable to park my car in the living room.”
“Huh?”
Groucho made a give-me-those motion and the young man tossed him the keys. “And where exactly is this luxurious villa?”
“Jesus, didn’t they even tell you that?”
“I was told you’d tell me.”
“It’s easy. You go down the highway to the next road and turn left. Go uphill about two miles and then take another left on Ellison Road. It’s the second house on the right, number 914. Mission style. Good night.” He shut the window with a tinny bang.
Groucho, jingling the house keys, trotted back to his car. “We’re near our goal,” he said as he started the engine.
“This is the most elaborate shack up I’ve ever been tangled up with.”
“This is not shacking up, dear child. This is hiding out.” The Cadillac wobbled onto the misty night highway. “Something you’re doing alone.”
“It’s late, Groucho,” she said, touching his shoulder. “Since you’ve driven all the way down here, you might as well spend the night.”
“If only I hadn’t taken a vow of chastity this very morning,” he said. “Attend to me, Maggie dear, and make sure you forget romance and concentrate on keeping above ground.” He turned the big car onto the indicated side road. “Tomorrow morning a gentleman named Ethan Gumpertz will call on you at this hideaway to take your statement. He’s an attorney and a notary public.”
“Aren’t you coming back with him?”
“Probably not, but I’ll certainly visit you during your stay.”
“I’m going to go stir crazy if I have to live here very long.”
“Much better than occupying a hole in the ground up in one of the canyons.”
They climbed away from the beach.
“Your brother Zeppo knows the guy who owns this dump?”
“A client of his who’s in New York starring in a hit play,” answered Groucho. “I thought of this place while cudgeling my brain for someplace to hide you. The play’s a hit, about incest in New England, and this chap isn’t likely to be back for another six months.”
“Christ, I can’t spend six months away from—”
“You probably won’t have to hide out for more than a few days, Magg
ie.” He turned onto Ellison Road. “Once we put Sergeant Branner away, then you’ll—”
“Lots of people have tried to knock him out of the box and he’s still pretty much running things in Bayside.”
“He hasn’t come up against me before.”
“Sure, he has. Last year.”
“Okay, all right. Once before, yes, but this time we’ll get him for sure.” Groucho parked in the driveway beside the large tile-and-stucco house. “Justice is going to triumph.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “And what am I going to do about clothes and a pair of shoes?”
Thirty
When I opened the opaque glass door and, dripping and soapy-eyed, stepped out onto the bath mat, I noticed Groucho perched on the closed toilet seat.
“If Jane still loves you after seeing you in your natural state, Rollo, then she is an extremely tolerant woman.” He’d apparently been sitting there reading the Sunday funnies while waiting for me to finish my shower.
Wrapping a couple of large white terry-cloth towels around myself, I inquired, “What in the hell are you doing here?”
“Something unexpected has come up.” He folded the comic section and rose from the seat.
“You weren’t supposed to get in touch with me until around noon.” I plucked my watch from the glass shelf beneath the medicine cabinet and strapped it to my damp wrist. “It’s only ten-fifteen.”
Groucho said, “Frances London has disappeared.”
“Oh, Christ. Disappeared how?” I used one of my towels to dry my head.
“That’s what we’re going to journey to Manhattan Beach with all due haste to determine,” he told me. “Pollyanna, sometimes known as the shiksa Fanny Brice, telephoned me half an hour ago. She’d been delivered to her mother’s home by the family chauffeur in order to have breakfast with her. Frances wasn’t in the house, there was no note of any kind, and Polly found signs of a struggle of some sort.”
“Did she call the police?” Opening the door, I went into the bedroom.
“Not yet.” Groucho followed me. “Keep in mind that Frances is out on bail and required to stay pretty much in the vicinity. At this point it’s no use giving the cops cause for alarm. With firemen, you might want to give them cause for four alarms, but—”
“Somebody’s grabbed her.” I gathered up fresh clothes and retreated into the big closet to dress.
“That’s my conclusion as well,” he said. “Frances has no reason to skip bail.”
“That we know of,” I said. “But she’s been under a lot of pressure, Groucho, and maybe that—”
“Spare me, Dr. Jung,” he cut in. “The Frances I conferred with the other day in the calaboose is a rational woman. She sure isn’t going to flee the country and leave her kid and her career behind.”
“You’re right, yeah,” I conceded. “And I won’t suggest that she went off on a binge either.”
“Not voluntarily she didn’t. But if the police come in at this point, they’re going to conclude that Frances either jumped bail or went off on a toot,” he said. “And this is such a serious matter that I’m not even going to suggest that she’d make better time if she went off in a taxi cab. Of course, Ginsburg the Human cannonball went off three times a day with an extra performance on Saturdays. Put a great strain on his wife.”
I emerged, fully clothed, to find Groucho stretched out on his stomach atop the spread with the funnies covering my pillow. “I hope you haven’t left footprints on the bedspread,” I said.
“No, fear not, I wiped my boots on the curtains before assuming this fetching pose. When I worked for the Street and Smith publishing outfit in my youth, I had a job fetching prose, but that’s another, and a far better, story. I later turned my experiences into a play I entitled West Lynne but the critics all agreed I’d gone off in the wrong direction.” He folded up his comic section. “I was just catching up with the latest episode of Hawkshaw the Detective. He’s a brilliant fellow who has an assistant who’s even dimmer than you.”
From the kitchen now came the aroma of fresh corn muffins. “I’m going to have breakfast before we go,” I told him, leaving the bedroom.
“We can allow you exactly four minutes for that, Watso,” he said, walking close behind me. “Unless you invite me to join you and then we can spare oodles of time.”
Jane had a dishtowel tied around her slim waist, serving as an apron. It was one of those embroidered ones provided by the Fresno aunt and was covered with a great many too many appliqued kittens.
“The squire here,” Groucho informed her, “has invited me to partake of your humble fare, Miss Jane.”
“We’re all out of humble fare. You’ll take muffins and like them.”
Groucho bowed toward her. “I’ll run into the breakfast nook and make sure I get a good seat.” He tucked the funnies up under his arm and went scooting away. “You two young things can then talk about me when I’m gone.”
“He told me that Frances London seems to be missing,” said Jane after kissing me on the cheek. “What do you think it means?”
“Bigger and better trouble,” I answered.
* * *
“This isn’t the best part of Manhattan Beach,” I said as Groucho parked the Cadillac at the curb.
“There is no best part of Manhattan Beach,” he said, exiting the car. “Something the civic fathers have long been sensitive about.”
The small houses sat close together on forty-and sixty-foot lots and you couldn’t see the ocean at all from this narrow twisting inland block.
The place Frances London lived in was a tired-looking wood-frame house. Cream-colored and trimmed in sea blue. The driveway was short and the tail end of the Pilgrim limousine parked in it hung out over the cracked sidewalk.
The Pilgrim chauffeur was sitting on the bottom step of the porch smoking a cigarette. “Hi, Frankie. Hello, Mr. Marx. Brat’s inside.”
“Anything new?” I asked as we climbed up to the front door.
He shrugged. “The lady’s still missing.”
Polly, tearful, wearing jeans and a pullover, opened the front door. “Groucho, I’m really glad you’re here.” She hugged him, then pulled him into the living room.
I went in and shut the door. “Your mother hasn’t called?”
“No, Frank. I’m really awfully worried.”
Groucho, hands behind his back, was slouching around the small, neat room. “No signs of violence here.”
“Come along with me.” Polly went over to an open doorway, beckoning us to follow.
Even though the curtains were drawn in the bedroom, you could see that there’d been some sort of fracas. A chair near the doorway lay on its side, the magazines that had been resting on it had gone sliding out across the rug. The bedside table had fallen, too, spilling two rental library books, an empty coffee mug, and a black metal alarm clock on the floor. The blankets and the top sheet had been pulled all the way down to the foot of the metal-frame bed.
“Look in the closet,” said Polly, pointing.
Groucho eased along beside the bed and took a look. “Somebody yanked clothes off hangers in a less than careful manner,” he observed. “Suitcases missing?”
“Two small ones,” answered Polly. “But that’s part of the frame-up, don’t you see?”
“You think they gathered up a bunch of your mother’s clothes and stuffed them into the suitcases to make it look like she was skipping town,” he said. “But if she were really making a run for it, she wouldn’t have left those two silk dresses crumpled up on the floor amidst those fallen hangers and she certainly wouldn’t have taken only one slipper of that new pink pair.”
“That’s what I mean, Groucho.” Polly sniffled, rubbed at her nose with her knuckles. “She was kidnapped, wasn’t she?”
“She was pretty certainly forced to vacate the premises against her will.”
“I’ll show you the kitchen door now,” offered Polly. “It was obviously jimmied.”
Grou
cho was looking down at the fallen clock. Stopping he scooped it up and studied it, front and back. “Interesting, Rollo,” he said after a moment.
“Oh, so?”
“Frances set the alarm to go off at seven-thirty this morning,” he pointed out, tapping the clock. “It apparently did ring, but nobody turned it off and it ran down.”
“Suggesting that she wasn’t here when it started ringing?”
“Wasn’t here or wasn’t able to turn the thing off.”
“So she was probably grabbed before seven-thirty.”
“Unless she was still here and merely brushing her teeth or brewing a pot of coffee.”
“She didn’t do either.” Polly nodded in the direction of the bathroom doorway. “Her toothbrush is in its glass and dry. Nothing was on the stove in the kitchen when I got here.”
Nodding, Groucho set the clock back on the floor. “We’ll have to ask the neighbors if they heard anything during the night or early morning hours,” he said to me. “Do you know any of the nearby citizenry, Pollyanna?”
“The people on the right are away in Frisco on vacation. The house on the other side belongs to an old man named Stapleton. He lives alone with a fat old cocker spaniel.”
“We’ll drop in on Mr. Stapleton later.”
“Watch out for that dog, he likes to nip at people.”
“So do I on certain occasions,” confided Groucho. “We’ll have a lot in common.”
We were heading for the kitchen when the police siren sounded outside.
Thirty-one
I knew Detective Gorman of the Manhattan Beach police from my LA Times days. He was in his early forties, overweight, and honest. He and his partner, a freckled, red-haired detective named Kendig, looked through Frances London’s house, asked us all questions and told Polly that she should’ve called the police as soon as she suspected that her mother was missing.
Then, about a half hour after they’d arrived, Gorman pointed a thumb at me and then at the kitchen. “Want to talk to you, Frank.”
“Care to have a witness along, Rollo?” inquired Groucho. He was sharing the sofa with a tearful Polly.
“It’s all right,” I assured him, stepping into the kitchen.
