Groucho Marx, Secret Agent

by Ron Goulart

  “The true circumstances of Olmstead’s death haven’t come out because the FBI doesn’t want any of this made public just yet. Not until they find the person who murdered Olmstead and determine what if anything was smuggled out of Lockwood Aero.”

  “Even if they solve the whole business, they may not throw a press conference afterwards.”

  “And if you and Frank Denby find out ahead of everyone else?”

  “Sometimes you can have too much security.” Groucho stretched up out of the chair, his bones making assorted crackling noises. “I think, Ernie, that when we come up with the solution, we want to make as much of it public as we can without screwing up national defense or the orange crop.”

  Vince Novsam was a very large, wide man, very suntanned and in his late thirties. His office was done up in Early American style, and all the furniture had a fragile, spindly look. There were several framed samplers on the wall. The embroidered motto immediately behind his fragile, spindly desk read, “Early To Bed And Early To Rise Makes A Man Healthy, Wealthy And Wise.”

  His pipe went out again, and he paused to relight it. Then he asked me, “How do you feel about cannibals?”

  I was sitting in a low-seated, fragile, spindly rocker, looking up at the new Ty-Gor producer. “No Ty-Gor movie is truly complete without cannibals,” I said. “In fact, when I saw Ty-Gor and the Leopard Woman at a matinee a couple months back, the kids in the audience kept hollering, ‘Where the heck are the cannibals?’”

  After a few reflective puffs on his pipe, Novsam said, “That’s my feeling exactly, Frank. Where Bob Wiener went wrong when he was in the producer’s seat on this series was in trying to make the Ty-Gor films too sophisticated.”

  “Probably so,” I said, trying to be noncommittal while still giving the impression I agreed with him.

  “How’s Orb sound to you?”

  “Catchy. But for what?”

  “The name for the lost city.”

  “The Lost City of Orb,” I said, looking thoughtful. “Yep, that’s good.”

  “Only good, Frank?”

  “Now that I think more about it, it’s terrific.”

  Novsam grinned. “Came up with that myself. You’ve got to have just the right name for a lost city. You can’t simply go calling it Oxnard or Pismo Beach. There’s no mystery or magic that way.”

  “None at all, no.”

  He puffed on his pipe. “What do you think of Lupe Velez?”

  “A splendid person, if a mite temperamental.”

  “I’m thinking of signing her to play the Queen of the Lost City of Orb.”

  “Terrific,” I said, feeling more and more like a yes-man.

  “She’ll look marvelous in a sarong.”

  “They wear sarongs in the Lost City of Orb?”

  “The dames do,” answered Novsam.

  I decided not to say terrific again.

  The wide, sun-browned producer picked up a blue-covered script from atop his desk. “Read this. Ignore the title because we’re not going to call it Ty-Gor and the Ivory Treasure any more. Although, if you think we absolutely need them, our projected budget will allow for maybe five six elephants.”

  When I stood up to accept the script, my rocker made a creaky, twanging sound. It did that again when I resat. “My agent tells me you feel there’s too much humor in this draft.”

  “A hell of a lot too much,” he said, relighting his pipe. “We can always use a little quiet slapstick, but what sells movies is action. My motto is, Screw the gags and give me some action.”

  “That’d look terrific on a sampler,” I said.

  He made a brief chuckling sort of noise. “I don’t mind a little good-natured kidding between coworkers,” he told me. “But I want these Ty-Gor movies I’m producing for Warlock to be serious. This guy’s the lord of the jungle, after all. He’s the King George of the jungle, and we don’t want to see him palling around with a chimpanzee.”

  “I understand.” I patted the Ty-Gor script, which was resting across my lap.

  “How many of our Ty-Gor films have you seen, Frank?”

  “All of them,” I lied. In reality I’d seen three and walked out during the second reel of a fourth.

  “Keep in mind that we’re not dealing with MGM’s Tarzan here,” Novsam explained. “Ty-Gor is an educated gentleman who just happens to wear a leopard-skin loincloth. He doesn’t go in for any of this ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ crapola.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  Novsam rose up. “Can you give me a revised script in four weeks, Frank?” he said, picking up a one-page memo and passing it across to me. “This gives you my thinking on how to revise this damn thing and make it work.”

  “Four weeks will be plenty of time,” I lied.

  “I’ll call your agent, Bickford, and we’ll work out the business details,” the producer said. “How’s Groucho, by the way?”

  “He, too, has decided to become completely serious.” I stood, slipped the script under my arm.

  Novsam chuckled again. “Give him my best. I was an assistant producer on Animal Crackers when I was with Paramount back east.”

  “Are you having the costumes designed especially for the picture?” I inquired casually.

  “Budget won’t allow for that. We’ll use what we have in Wardrobe.”

  “Could I, long as I’m here, take a look at the sarongs and all? It’ll help me visualize the queen better.”

  “Sure thing. Ask Glenda in the outer office, and she’ll write you a pass to get in there,” he said. “I like your thoroughness and dedication, Frank.”

  “Thank you, Vince.” I left his Early American office.

  I sneezed.

  Irene Flannagan looked up from the ledger that was open on her rolltop desk. “You get used to the dust after a while,” she said. “The mildew takes a little longer. Walking around on these cement floors all day can cause bunions, but you won’t have to worry about that.”

  The Warlock Wardrobe Department was housed in a big warehouse sort of building that had been partitioned into several large storage areas by putting up plywood walls. The whole place smelled of dust, dry cleaning, and old perspiration.

  I sneezed once more.

  Irene was a plump woman of about forty, wearing a pale blue smock over her flower-print dress. “Here it is in the record book, Frank,” she said. “The last time the missing Grim Reaper costume was legitimately checked out and back in was in May of this year.” She tapped at an entry on the page with a fingernail painted a glistening crimson. “They used it for three days in some piece of garbage called The Vanishing Corpse. In the scenes, you know, where this dumb bimbo takes off her clothes, puts on a satin nightgown, and decides to spend a night all alone in the haunted bedroom of the old mansion. Geeze, if I was going to spend the night in a haunted bedroom, I’d want some guy along with me.”

  “Nothing since then?” I was standing with my left buttock leaning against the side of her desk.

  “Not a blessed thing, honey.” Irene shut the ledger. Next to it on her desk sat a copy of the latest issue of the Hollywood Reporter. “I wish I could help you out more, Frank, because, like I told you when you came waltzing in here with that phony-baloney yarn about wanting to look at sarongs, I’m a great follower of the detective work that you and Groucho do.”

  “I appreciate the help you—”

  “I’ve followed your work ever since that first case, the business about the faked suicide of poor Peg McMorrow,” the plump woman told me. “And that Sherlock Holmes brouhaha last year was very enjoyable to read about in the newspapers and the trades. That case in the middle, where you kept them from frying Frances London, I found a little dull. Although Groucho is always a lot of fun to—”

  “Would it be fairly easy for somebody to walk in here and swipe a costume?”

  “Too damn easy, honey,” Irene told me. “Half of the time, like right now, I’m working in this big barn all by myself. Some days they’re dragging
out costumes from one place and returning them to another, and just about anybody can pop in without my knowing it. Some of these bit-player dames like to borrow a fancy evening dress now and again. At night the goddamn watchman usually forgets to lock up after he makes his midnight check.”

  “Then you’ve got no idea who might’ve taken that Grim Reaper outfit, or when?”

  She shook her head. “You guys think whoever swiped it might be the one who spooked poor Eric Olmstead?”

  “That’s one distinct possibility, yeah,” I admitted. “Can I go and take a look at the place where that particular costume was kept?”

  “Sure, but you won’t find a damn thing of interest,” Irene assured me. “I already nosed around. Nothing to see except an empty hanger.” She pointed to her right. “You’ll find that in Row Three, Rack Two, in Partition C, Frank.”

  “I’ll go take a look.”

  “Come back and say so long before you leave, honey.” She smiled and picked up the Hollywood Reporter.

  Partition C was several hundred yards away from the cubbyhole where Irene had her desk and her files. It was toward the back of the warehouse, and there was only one overhead light in use when I got there.

  There were six long rows of metal racks lined up, each one with dozens of costumes dangling from hangers. Row C was given over to historical stuff mostly. I saw a lot of musketeer outfits and some costumes you’d probably wear if you were paying a visit to Henry the Eighth.

  It was shadowy in among the rows, and dusty too.

  Hanger Twenty-three was empty and had a hand-printed tag attached to it. “Death/Grim Reaper,” announced the tag. Glancing down at the floor, I saw a twist of something lying there. I bent and picked up what looked to be a six-inch length of leather twine, black in color.

  I straightened up, the piece of leather string in my hand, and checked the nearby costumes. They were more English palace wear, and none of them seemed to use leather strings.

  “Now’d be a good time to quit,” advised someone just behind me.

  I flinched, then started to turn.

  Before the blackjack hit the side of my head, I got a very brief look at somebody who was wearing a black executioner’s hood as part of his outfit.

  Then I dropped to the cement floor and into unconsciousness.

  Twenty

  Humming “Lydia the Tattooed Lady,” Groucho went bounding up the stairs to his Sunset office.

  Flinging open the door, he spread his arms wide and announced, “I heard you’re having fatted calf for dinner, so I decided to come home.”

  Nan shut the large, black-covered scrapbook she’d been working on, stuck the lid back on the small tin of rubber cement. “There’ve been quite a few phone calls,” she said, picking up her notebook.

  “Ever since I took that Dale Carnegie popularity course, the debutantes simply won’t leave me be,” he said as he perched on the edge of her desk. “In fact, the last time I ran into Carnegie, he gave me the glad eye.”

  His husky secretary said, “Louella called.”

  “Louella who?”

  “Louella Parsons. She wants to interview you on her radio show.”

  “Alas, for a brief, delicious moment I thought perhaps it might’ve been my long-lost childhood sweetheart, Louella Fortzenkopf. Of course, she’s only been long lost for three weeks, so I suppose there’s still a faint hope she—”

  “George Burns telephoned to tell you a joke he just heard. In your absence, he told it to me, but I forget the punch line.”

  “Just as well. Continue, my child.”

  Nan consulted another page of notes. “The subscription agent for the Ladies’ Home Journal says your subscription has lapsed.”

  “I was hoodwinked by those people. I originally subscribed over a year ago, and they still haven’t sent even one lady to my home,” he said, locating a cigar in his coat pocket. “The Women’s Home Companion has treated me just as shabbily, I might add. Although Popular Mechanics did send over a mechanic a few weeks ago, but he wasn’t very popular with us. Though he did build a very attractive rabbit hutch in the back—”

  “Somebody claiming to be Aldous Huxley phoned to say how much he enjoyed your performance in At the Circus.”

  “Nobody would claim to be Aldous Huxley unless he actually was Aldous Huxley. It’s not a handle you’d adopt by choice,” Groucho said, unwrapping the cigar. “And, let me tell you, it’s a lousy name to try to use when registering at a motel. I’ve never been able to get by with signing Mr. and Mrs. Aldous Huxley.”

  “Agent Goodrich of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called again to say he was still interested in having a chat.”

  “Next time the lad phones tell him he can have a chat for Christmas if he promises to be a good boy for the rest of the year. But, mind you, he’s going to have to clean up after it.”

  “That’s about all the messages,” she said. “Now I have a request.”

  “Very well, if you insist. What song would you like to hear, and to whom shall I dedicate it?”

  “My request is that I can get off work by six o’clock today. I have a date.”

  Groucho pressed his left had to his temple. “Wait, wait, I’m getting a psychic vibration,” he said. “Yes, a message from the beyond is coming in. Well, actually it’s coming from the corner of Twenty-third and Beyond. It informs me that you have a date with a new magician.”

  “Wrong.”

  “How can that be wrong?” His eyebrows elevated. “All you ever date is magicians. Therefore, if we apply the maxim of Occam’s Razor, it follows that you must be dating a magician. And as long as we’ve got the razor out, let’s take a little off the—”

  “The Great Lando isn’t a magician.”

  Groucho leaned closer. “Of course he is. With a name like that.”

  “He’s a professional juggler.”

  “Well, my dear, I’m pleased to see you’ve finally lifted yourself out of the rut,” he said. “And you’re certain he’s never been a magician?”

  She looked away. “Well, when he was in high school he did a lot of card tricks.”

  “Just as I suspected. Once a magician, always a magician.”

  She tapped the open page of the notebook. “Here’s a message I overlooked,” she said. “Your barber telephoned.”

  “That’s flattering. What, pray tell, did he want?”

  “He saw your picture in the paper yesterday, and he says he’d appreciate it if you don’t tell anybody he’s your barber.”

  “My picture in the newspaper? Why, landsakes, that’s exciting,” he said. “And to think that the gang at the Riding Academy predicted that I’d never amount to a hill of beans. Yet when the stock market closed yesterday, I was worth three hills of beans. Plus a rather handsome gherkin.”

  Opening the scrapbook, Nan said, “The picture was in the Herald-Examiner yesterday. I clipped it out and was pasting it up when you came barging in.”

  He tilted his head. “Ah, that’s a shot taken at the Halloween party Monday night,” he recognized. “I must say I look especially comely and … by Jove! Photographs.”

  “How’s that, chief?”

  “Frank and Jane were telling me about a friend of theirs from the L.A. Times who was taking a bushel of pictures at that affair,” he said, reaching for her phone. “Why didn’t I think of this earlier, Della?”

  For a moment I thought I’d somehow become part of a Dr. Kildare movie. Except for some reason Enery McBride was playing the role of gruff but kindly old Dr. Gillespie.

  “Easy now,” someone was saying.

  Everything started coming more clearly back into focus, and I saw that a lean guy of about thirty, wearing a white medical jacket, was looking down at me. Standing just behind him was Enery, but not in doctor attire, I now noticed.

  “I hate to use such a tired old line,” I murmured, “but where am I?”

  “This is the Warlock First Aid Station,” answered the young guy. “I’m Dr. Cohen,
and you’ve suffered a mild head injury. Much less serious than falling off a horse or having a baby spot fall on your noggin, I judge. There’s a moderate hematoma over the temple, but I don’t believe there’s been a serious concussion.”

  “That’s gratifying.” When I tried to sit up on the white cot, I felt unsettlingly woozy.

  “I’d like to run a few more tests now that you’re with us again, Mr. Denby.”

  Enery eased closer, helped me settle into a more comfortable sitting position. “I found you sprawled among the costumes,” he explained, “and got you over here.”

  “What the heck were you doing in—”

  “I saw you going into the Costume Department while I was sitting up in Gorman’s office,” he said. “When I dropped in to see if you were still there, Irene remembered that you hadn’t come back from looking at the spot where the Grim Reaper outfit had been.”

  “Did you get the part?”

  “Afraid so, yeah.”

  Dr. Cohen held up two fingers. “How many?”

  I told him. He tried a few more tests, then had me go wide-eyed while he shined a tiny flashlight beam at me.

  Nodding, he said, “Everything seems to be okay. I’ll give you some pills to take for your headache—you do have a headache, don’t you?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes. A whopper.”

  “Take one of the pills every three hours or so, and I’d advise you to rest up for the rest of today,” the doctor told me. “If the headache gets worse, if you become dizzy, if you start vomiting, or if you pass out, call your family doctor and have him get right over.”

  “If I pass out, that’s going to be a little tough to do,” I said, “but I’ll sure give it a try.”

  “Now can you tell us exactly what caused your injury, Mr. Denby?”

  “Somebody bopped me on the head with what must have been a blackjack. Two or three times, I think.”

  “Did you see your assailant?”

  “For less than half a minute,” I answered, realizing that I was still sounding a little mush mouthed. “But he wore a mask.”