by Wayne Turmel
As we chugged and clanged along Madison Street, I kept asking myself: how would Douglas Fairbanks handle this? It didn’t matter, I wasn’t Douglas Fairbanks. More like Fatty Arbuckle. Chaplin would do something charming that would send the bad guy packing and still get the girl. I imagined the chasing and the furious bad guy stomping and chewing his hat all to the tune of a tinkling piano and I smiled. By the time I reached Kedzie on the way back, I had something close to a vague notion of an idea of an outline of a plan.
I jumped off the street car and up Dearborn, running south as fast as my winter coat allowed. Fortunately, I found Skinny standing exactly where I’d left him. That meant the Count was still at the boarding house, too. Perfect.
I came up behind him as quietly as I could. Then I leaned in to his ear and shouted, “Hey!” Poor guy nearly messed his pants.
“Jesus H Christ on a crutch, what’re ya doin’?”
I pulled myself to my full height and leaned in. “Tell your boss I have something for him.”
“Don’t have a boss. Don’t know whatcher talkin’ about.” He was loyal, but not too smart. I knew how that felt so I backed off a step and lowered my voice.
“Tell Joe Havlicek that I found what he’s looking for. The missing… uhhh… item.” I hoped I made it sound mysterious and enticing enough. I must have, because he bit hard.
“Really? What did you find?” Like I’d tell this yahoo.
“Just tell him to meet me at Union Station tomorrow at nine thirty. The door to the platform. We have to catch a ten o’clock to St. Louis.” He nodded and repeated the instructions.
I leaned in and lowered my voice. “And tell him I expect to be properly taken care of. I’m going to be out of a job if His Nibs finds out about this.” I gestured with my thumb over to the boarding house.
“Got it,” he said. I could see that he did. Fear of getting caught doing something sneaky was something this guy could relate to.
I left him standing there as I hustled back to Mrs. Cudahy’s. Crossing the street, I nearly got hit by a cab. That would have ruined my plans, but if this didn’t work it might be for the best.
Chapter 23
Chicago, Illinois
March 6, 1926
“He’s really going to St. Louis?” Havlicek asked. I held up two tickets in response. “Gotta give it to’m he’s a trooper. Show must go on and all that.”
It was my turn, “You’re really following us down there?” He held up his own ticket.
“If he goes, I go. That’s how the game’s played. Least it’ll be warmer there, right?” It had warmed up a bit, but even a warm March in Chicago is colder than most places any sane person would want to be, and the wind whipped up the platform blowing paper bags, old newspapers, and the occasional expensive hat all over place. The detective shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Whaddya got for me?”
I reached inside my own coat and pulled out a shiny black strongbox. “Look familiar?”
His eyes scrunched in confusion. “I thought dere was nothin’ in it?”
“Ta-da.” I thumbed it open quickly, just to enjoy his reaction. He leaned in and his eyes unscrunched. I didn’t have to look, I knew what was in there. It was a small necklace made mostly of smooth red and brown stones with a few blue and green gems mixed in, held together by cheap gold and copper wire, unrecognizable beneath the tarnished patina, all strung together by unsophisticated hands and fit for a barbarian queen.
“I’ll be damned. I really thought he was telling the truth. Doesn’t look like much, does it? I thought this was supposed to be the find of the century.”
I gave my best sad sigh. “Yeah, well he’s a bullshit artist, isn’t he?” I took my time, carefully thinking out each word and pushing my tongue to the bottom of my mouth to fight the stammer. “Most of what they found was junk, and almost all of it went to the museums in Africa and Paris. This was the only thing he could sneak out.” I paused and moved my tongue over my teeth to keep it loose. “He figured the Oriental Institute would pay for it—and they were going to—but the heat’s on thanks to you and they won’t touch him with a ten foot pole. He’s going to try and find some rich geezer in New York or someplace.”
Havlicek took another gander at it. He pointed to the stones. “What’s that?”
“It’s called Carmelite—kind of agate they used in jewelry.”
“And that’s gold? Looks kind of dinged up.” The sap wasn’t completely sold yet, and I was afraid he might pull out one of those jeweler’s eye-thingies for a better look. We didn’t have time for this. I drew on my reserves of panic and hoped I could turn it into the right amount of aggression.
Maybe he needed another push on the carriage. “Jeez, what an idiot.” He looked like I’d slapped him. Good. “What does your mom’s jewelry look like when it ain’t been polished for a while? Now imagine no one’s given it a decent cleaning in fifteen hundred years.” He whistled in appreciation. He reached for it again, and I nearly snapped his fingertip off slamming the lid shut.
“Time’s wasting. He’s prob’ly already wondering where I am. You got something for me?” He gave me a conspiratorial smile, like we were pals or something and reached into his pocket, pulling out a wad of bills. He didn’t hand it over, though, just looked at me with his old ex-cop eyes.
“Why now? You been a straight shooter all along. Not real bright, but a good kid. Why now?”
I looked away for a minute, trying to control my breathing, my tongue and my bladder, then turned to him with a shrug. “Like you said, how long do you think I have before the gravy train runs out? Sooner or later he’s gonna leave me flat. Might as well get something for it, right?”
“Right.” He handed me the money. “Thirty bucks. That’s two week’s salary, right? Mr. Kenny says to thank you very much. I think he likes you, kid.”
I resisted the urge to punch the piker right in the snoot. Instead, I pulled the box closer to my chest. I knew how this particular piece of equipment operated now. “He likes me more than that. What did he really tell you to pay me?”
This got a laugh out of the Pinkerton, and he dug into his pocket, adding another twenty to the roll. “He said fifty. I figured you’d settle for thirty. You’re smarter than you look.” If he really believed that, I was in big trouble.
Fifty sounded about right. It was a nice round number, and nothing to a guy like Kenny. I took the money, grabbing it tight to control the shaking, and handed over the box. For a moment, I thought he was going to look in it again but fortunately the stream of people getting onto the platform was turning into a mob.
“It’s time to go. Luggage is all loaded. He’s gonna be wondering where I am. He’s waiting in the bar car.”
Havlicek snorted. “Where else?”
“D’you always have to bust balls? Yeah, he’s in the club car. I don’t want him to see us together. Give me a minute, then get in one of the cars ahead of us.”
He nodded. “That’ll work. Alright.” He put the strongbox under his coat and picked up his valise. “See ya in St. Louis, kid.” He touched the brim of his hat in salute, and I felt those piggy eyes burn into my back as I grabbed the handrail at the second car and pulled up. I allowed myself one last look back. Yup, he was watching.
As soon as I got inside, I dropped into a seat and leaned against the cold glass. I was panting and sweating, and my hands shook wildly as I felt the wad of bills in my pocket, sure my pants would burst into flame the way it burned there. A fat Pullman gave me a suspicious once-over, but I waved my ticket at him, and he moved along. I leaned back with my head craned to the right as a brown hat and its owner bobbed past the window towards the front of the train. I pressed my forehead to the glass, watching him until he climbed into the first car behind the locomotive.
The conductor waddled to the doorway and hollered out, “All aboard.” I stood up, calmly moved to the door beside him, grabbed the railing and stepped out onto the platform, keeping as close to the train as I
could. The train started to move, and I headed towards the caboose. I took one last look behind me, saw nothing, and ran like hell.
“Hey, where you goin’? We’re leaving,” the conductor shouted. Not fast enough for my liking, I thought, and kept running and dodging oncoming traffic until I was safely inside the depot. The only people who paid me any mind were the concerned folks wondering why the big guy was grabbing his knees, huffing and puffing and looking like he might pass out any minute.
“Is he gone?” the deep voice came from behind a pillar.
I nodded and gasped for air. “Yeah… On his way to St… Louis.”
“You’re sure?” I nodded again because it took less air than talking. The Count allowed himself the first smile I’d seen in three days. “How did you manage it?”
“I just gave him the necklace.”
His eyes weren’t clear, but they sure got wide. “What necklace?”
“The one you stole in Algeria. F-f-fashioned by crude hands in a savage land,” my voice dropped to an imitation of his. He still didn’t get it. “The one I was making for you as a surprise.”
“He believed you?” I wasn’t sure if he was relieved or insulted. Relief won out. “He really thought I stole a necklace and was stupid enough to carry it around with me? How could he believe such a thing?”
“He wanted to,” I said. He just nodded thoughtfully. Then I handed him the two tickets. To my disappointment, but not my surprise, he took them both from my hand without looking at me.
His embarrassment lasted only a moment. He gave himself a shake, and his best business smile reappeared. “Well, Mr. Brown. I believe I owe you three week’s wages.” He handed me a wrinkled stack of fives. I was tempted to count it, but took the high road. Instead I nodded and calmly put the cash in my right hand pocket, where they burned just as hot as Kenny’s did in the left.
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I’d used up my whole supply of clever, so I just said, “Thank you, Sir.”
“Thank you, Brown. Thank you very much.” Then he paused, and for the first time, probably in his whole life, the Count de Prorok was at a loss for words. He took a couple of preliminary stabs at a sentence before he could ask me, “What are you going to do?”
It was the first time he’d asked me that, and I fought down the resentment that burned in my gut. “I have no idea,” I said truthfully. “But I’m not going back to Milwaukee.” That was equally true. “What about you? What’s your next move?”
He sighed and straightened his shoulders. “I’ll go to New York, from there back to Paris soon as I can get a boat and win my wife back. I can keep my family together, I know I can, if I can just get there before her family... I think if we agree to live here—New York, I mean—that might make Alice happy enough.” His eyes didn’t believe what his mouth said for a minute, and neither did I, but I nodded anyway.
We slowly walked over to where his luggage was stacked. My battered, flaking suitcase lay on top of the pile. I picked it up and clicked it open, pulled out half the money de Prorok gave me, shoved it inside the socks that served as the National Bank of Willy and pushed it to the bottom of the suitcase. I saw my drawstring bag containing the broken pasteboard sword, the mold for the Libyan Venus, a few beads, glass chunks, and a little copper wire. I shoved the rest of de Prorok’s money into that bag. That made forty-five bucks in my suitcase, and another fifty in my pocket, plus what I had in my billfold.
“Can I buy you lunch before I go?” he asked. I knew he’d have to trade the tickets to St. Louis just for fare to New York. Plus, I didn’t know what else to say. I let him off the hook.
“No sir, a deal’s a deal. I pay my own meals.” I held out my hand. “Good luck.”
He took it in both hands. “And to you, Braun. Bon chance.”
We stood a moment longer than was comfortable, both of our eyes looking everywhere but at each other. Then I picked up my suitcase and turned my back to him. I figured I could wrangle a night our two out of Mrs. Cudahy. At least meals were included. It was as good a plan as any.
Walking through the rotunda, I studied the big board. Trains were arriving and departing from all over the country. Imagine, being able to just pick a spot and go anywhere you wanted. Then it dawned on me. I had everything I owned in my hand and a hundred bucks in my pocket. I stopped, unsure whether I should continue outside or not.
Through the revolving doors, I could see flakes falling gently to the sidewalk onto Canal Street. People walked past the glass doors, huddled up against the lake wind, one hand holding their collars closed, the other keeping their hats from blowing away. I looked from the winter outside back to the departure board. The heck with it. It was time to go somewhere warm.
Chapter 24
Los Angeles, California
November 22, 1954
Even after twenty-eight years in California I never got tired of the sunshine. I was whistling, “The Nearness of You,” along with the radio in the old Chevy and tapping on the steering wheel when I turned off Melrose into the Windsor Gate at Paramount Studios.
“Morning, Nathan.” I beat him to it this morning.
“Morning, Will.” Nathan had greeted me the same way for almost twenty years—a jaunty good morning and a tip of the cap. The striped wooden barrier lifted up and I drove towards the workshops at the back of the lot.
The front was all studio offices, busy nebbishy guys in suits and ties and secretaries way too good for them. Then were the working lots, where if you weren’t careful you could get distracted by all the cowboys, saloon girls and extras dressed as Martians. I remember trying to explain to my insurance guy once that I lost a front bumper to a falling suit of armor. Only in L. A. I suppose.
The prop and set workshops were stashed away at the back of the lot. I pulled into my usual spot. Maury Lewis stood expectantly, holding the papers and a bag of crullers. He couldn’t even wait for me to get out of the car before accosting me. “Morning, Will. Whatcha got today?”
I had to think for a moment. “Conquest of Space, I think. You?”
He gave me that smug look he always got when he was working on an A picture. “Starting that Grace Kelly thing today, “The Country Girl”. Bing’s in it, too.” Maury always liked to rub it in when he got a prestige assignment. When he got “Sabrina,” you’d think he won the Irish Sweepstakes and got to marry Audrey Hepburn as a bonus. I’d be hearing “Bing this,” and “Grace that,” for weeks to come. “Conquest of Space,” was just a programmer George Pal was riding herd on. Personally, I didn’t care how big the picture was, just what kind of work I’d be doing on it. Props was a union job, so we all got paid the same no matter what. Maury could have the women’s pictures and the big melodramas. I much preferred playing with swords and guns. Hell, we were building some kind of kooky space ship thing for “Conquest,” which was way more fun than making sure we had the right kind of coffee cup for Miss Kelly, who was a bit of a brat, truth be told.
I’d been at Paramount for twenty years by that time. I came over in thirty-four, after kicking around at the Sennett studios, then Columbia and RKO until JT got me the job on “The Scarlett Empress,” with Marlene Dietrich. I was always good with swords, and some dumb ass had given the Cossacks scimitars instead of shashkas. “Swords are swords,” was good enough for Poverty Row, but not for the big time, and I took over that bonehead’s job on the spot. I’ve been here ever since. Some call it luck, but how hard is it, really, to just do your job?
The routine never changed. Maury and I arrived, checked the schedule to see which lazy S.O.Bs we could pawn off on the other, and which hustlers we could claim for our own teams, then we’d work like crazy to make sure everything was set up for the first shot of the day.
Once shooting was underway, there was plenty of down time, which meant shooting the shit over coffee and the papers. I normally looked at the trades and a little local news. Maury was a racing schedule and sports guy. Lately, he’d taken to reading the obituaries, which wor
ried me a bit, but he said there was nothing to it.
I was on my second cruller when Maury sat up and passed the Examiner across the table. “Hey, don’t you know this guy?” He stabbed it with his finger. “This guy, right here.”
It was Shelley Mazer’s column. I usually didn’t read him, since he was one of those “Broadway is better than pictures” types, but the words leapt off the page at me:
REMEMBERING “COUNT” DE PROROK
One of the hazards of being an old hand at this business, is you hear about a lot of people you know going to their rewards. I was talking to my old New York agent pal, Lee Keedick, who told me one of the oddest ducks on that pond has just passed… “Count” Byron de Prorok.
For those of you too young to remember, “The Count” was quite a character: an archaeologist, lecturer, and shameless self-promoter. In 1925, when Lee first took him on, he was fresh off an expedition in the Sahara that saw him splashed all over the front page of the New York Times. His high-society wedding to the daughter of W F Kenny—yes the Tammany Hall Kenny—was all over the papers. I remember my buddies at the old Brooklyn Eagle couldn’t get enough of them. Pretty Alice Kenny and her Handsome Count were all the rage at parties, at least on the wrong side of the East River.
He was quite the bon vivant and raconteur; handsome, with a stupendous gift of gab. The “Count” was the Lion of the Midwest lecture circuit—a real novelty in the minor metropolises of Iowa and Missouri where he made the housewives’ hearts flutter wildly. He wrote four books, with titles like “Digging for Lost African Gods,” and “Dead Men Do Tell Tales.” The problem is that while dead men might tell tales, so do archaeologists, some of those tales very tall indeed. The “Count” was exposed as something of a “fabulist,” which is Lee’s favorite word for a pathological liar. He could spin a good story, though.
Seems his title was “borrowed” from a Polish Uncle, and his claims of finding tombs full of gold turned out to be pretty much as phony as his English accent and his claims of fighting Tribesmen and Italian agents in Abyssinia or uncovering lost temples in Mexico. Pretty Alice Kenny divorced him, leaving his two daughters with his in-laws, and she very quickly remarried an Englishman with a real title and three names. Byron continued to drag his pictures and films around for years, although he never reached the same level of fame despite getting decent reviews at Carnegie Hall, including one from me. After the divorce, he lived full-time in Europe, where he remarried (at last count, according to Lee who quit keeping tally) three times. Old Byron never had a problem attracting the ladies. He’d just put that silly helmet on his head and they’d melt.
