by Ron Goulart
“I thought Joe Penner had exclusive rights to all duck jokes. Don’t you want to know about the problem I alluded to when you came schlepping in here, Groucho?”
As he opened the paper sack and thrust his hand inside, he grew thoughtful and considered her question. “I always like to look on the bright side and avoid problems whenever possible, which is why everybody on the plantation has taken to calling me Julius the Glad Girl. Except for kindly old Uncle Tom, who calls me—”
“You’ve been challenged to a duel,” his secretary informed him.
The half of a pastrami sandwich that had been en route to his mouth stopped in midair. “Don’t tell me Errol Flynn is jealous of me again.”
“Nobody’s talking about swords or pistols. This is a proposed duel of wits.”
“I could say, ‘That lets me out.’ But, due chiefly to that anguished expression on your face, Nanook, I’ll refrain.” After taking a bite of his sandwich, he continued. “Can you provide some vital statistics? Such as who’s challenging me?”
“That ham.”
He gestured toward the darkening windows with the hand that wasn’t holding the pastrami sandwich. “This is Hollywood, ham capital of the universe. Pray, be more specific.”
“Miles Ravenshaw.”
Groucho carefully smoothed out the paper bag, placed the half of a sandwich gently upon it, and then dropped free of the desk. “Ah, the ham of hams, the prototypical hambone,” he said. “What sort of duel does that schlemiel have in mind?”
Picking up her open notebook, his husky secretary said, “So far this afternoon, Groucho, we’ve had telephone calls from Dan Bockman of the Los Angeles Times, Norm Lenzer of the Herald-Examiner, Gil Lumbard of the Hollywood Citizen-News, and somebody who might possibly be named Harlan Waffle of the San Diego Union. They are all extremely eager to talk with you.”
“And I’m extremely distraught over the obvious silence on the part of the Westwood Shopping News.”
Nan tapped her forefinger on the page. “As I understand it, Felix Denker was murdered out at the Mammoth lot and you and Frank found the corpse.”
“We were cofinders.”
“Be that as it may. At exactly three this afternoon, Miles Ravenshaw, who is starring as Sherlock Holmes in the movie Denker was directing, held a press conference at the studio,” she continued. “Now, Bockman and Lumbard attended, but Lenzer is relying on a handout he got from a publicity gal at Mammoth. So their accounts don’t exactly jibe. In Lenzer’s version, Ravenshaw called you a pretentious fathead. But Bockman insists he labeled you a fatuous fathead.”
“I think it sounds better in the alliterative version, don’t you, Cousin Agnes?” He returned to his sandwich. “In fact, if Rita Hayworth stands me up again this evening, I may just spend my time in the sewing room embroidering”Groucho is a Fatuous Fathead” on a set of dish towels.”
“Okay, this is pretty much what that hambone actor had to say: ‘Felix Denker was not only a brilliant cinema director, he was one of my dearest friends. It is a source of great regret that he didn’t live to finish directing me in the role of Sherlock Holmes in Mammoth’s lavish production of The Valley of Fear. I intend to devote every waking hour, when I’m not in front of the cameras, to finding the solution to this horrible murder. I vow to track down the person responsible and to see that the vicious killer is prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’ Of course, Groucho, I can’t imitate that drawly British accent he affects.”
“May we cut to the part where I’m maligned and challenged?”
She turned to the next page. “Bockman asked him about you, mentioning that you’d found the body and that you’d built up quite a reputation as a successful amateur sleuth. How’d Ravenshaw feel if you beat him to the solution? To which Ravenshaw answered, and I more or less quote, ‘As most everyone knows, I come by my investigative skills legitimately. Before I entered into my highly successful career in films, I was a much-respected inspector with Scotland Yard in my native England.’ Now, pay close attention, Groucho, here comes the good part. ‘Unlike a certain low comedian who has bungled his way, with a combination of hubris and dumb luck, through some recent murder investigations in this benighted community, / happen to be a professional.’ Then Lumbard asked him if he was worried about competition from you. ‘I fully suspect, old man, that once that baggy pants mountebank learns that Miles Ravenshaw is on the case, he won’t even dare to compete.’” She leaned back in her swivel chair, shutting the steno book.
Groucho retrieved his sandwich and took a few more thoughtful bites. “What really wounds, Nanette, is that baggy pants bit,” he confessed. “It slights not only my tailor but my sweet young daughter Miriam, whom I require to do all the ironing and heavy lifting at our ménage”
“What the gents of the press are extremely curious about, Groucho, is whether you’ll accept Ravenshaw’s obvious challenge or just turn tail.”
“Obviously, with a tail like mine I can’t afford to—”
The phone on the secretary’s desk rang. Nan picked up the handset. “Groucho Marx Enterprises,” she said and then listened for a moment. Placing her palm over the mouthpiece, she said, “It’s Johnny Whistler.”
Groucho set down his sandwich again and took the phone. “Johnny, you may tell your millions of radio listeners that the code of the Marxes requires me to accept any and all challenges—even when they originate with the likes of Miles Ravenshaw,” he said. “I intend to take up the gauntlet. That is, I’ll do that just as soon as my staff and I determine what in the heck a gauntlet is. I thought I had spotted one at a jumble sale over in Glendale, but, alas, it turned out to be a gravy boat. Later on, after the ladies have adjourned, I’ll recite a breathless account of how I sailed a gravy boat around the Horn and discovered—how’s that, Jonathan? Oh, yes, you want my concise answer. Very well, just say that I accept the challenge and that no-good faigeleh can take a flying schtup at the moon. And you may quote me, Johnny.”
Six
Jane and I got the news about an hour later.
We’d taken a walk along the beach after dinner. A heavy rain started up when we were about a block from the Bayside Diner and we let go of each other’s hand and started running for the narrow, bright-lit little restaurant.
“Oh, darn,” she said as we crossed the threshold.
“What? Hurt yourself?”
“No, I just remembered I bought a bottle of champagne for our celebration and I forgot to serve it.”
“We got sidetracked,” I reminded her, walking over to the counter and pulling a few paper napkins out of a dispenser. “I’ll drink some out of your slipper before we turn in.”
“If you think I’m going to walk around in soggy slippers for the rest of the week, you’ve got another … Hi, Enery.” She accepted a few of the napkins and wiped rain off her face.
Now that Enery McBride’s movie career was on the upswing, he’d switched to the night shift at the diner so he’d be available for studio work daytimes.
He smiled at us from behind the counter, then inquired, “Well, what do you think?”
“About what?” I inquired as I crumpled up the napkins I’d used for towels.
“I’ve got to gain another twenty pounds. Do I look any heavier than when you saw me last?”
“We saw you three nights ago, Enery.”
Jane settled onto a stool and looked at him with her head tilted slightly to the left. “Well, you are looking more cuddly,” she decided. “So I suppose the new heft is starting to show.”
There were only five other customers in the place. Two crew-cut teenage boys hunched over hamburgers at the far end of the counter, identical twin platinum blondes arguing about a play script in one of the booths, and an unemployed projectionist named Reisberson trying to outwit the pinball machine. The radio atop the icebox was turned low and tuned to an Andy Kirk band remote.
“Why the hell do they want you to be twenty pounds fatter to play Mr. Woo’s chauffeur?” I clim
bed onto the stool next to my wife.
“This is a different role I’m up for—over at Mammoth,” Enery confided, resting both palms on his side of the pale yellow counter. “I’m going to be the voodoo priest in Curse of the Zombies.”
“Who else is in it?” asked Jane.
“In this one I’m trying to turn Heather Angel into a zombie, but Regis Toomey saves her in the nick of time and shoots me.”
“With a cast like that,” said Jane, “you ought to get top billing.”
He nodded. “Absolutely. Clarence Muse and I are going to flip a coin to see which of us gets his name above the title.”
“We really thought you were great in Mr. Woo Takes a Chance, Enery. Did Frank mention that to you?”
“When I asked him if he’d seen the movie, Jane, he just blushed, stammered, and said he had to use the John,” Enery told her, grinning. “When he came back he did tell me I was a credit to my race, though.”
“As long as we’re here,” said Jane, putting her hand on mine, “we might as well have something. Cup of hot chocolate, Enery.”
“Me, too.”
Enery moved to the stove and got a pan of milk heating. “I read Hollywood Molly almost every day in the Times, Jane,” he said, reaching for a tin of cocoa off a shelf. “It’s funny.”
“You’re absolutely right,” she agreed.
The radio said, “Time now for America’s favorite Hollywood reporter—Johnny Whistler.”
Enery mixed the cocoa into the hot milk, then turned the radio up. “Maybe he’ll mention me tonight. You never know.”
“ … Good evening to you and you and especially you,” Whistler was saying in his breathless, high-pitched style. “I’ll be giving you an inside report on the biggest news in the movie capital today—the brutal slaying of director Felix Denker. Ironically, he fled Hitler’s Nazi Germany just three years ago to come to America. He found fame and fortune here, yes, but today—in a yawning soundstage Felix Denker found death … .”
Enery set our mugs of cocoa in front of us and asked me in a low voice, “You discovered his body, didn’t you, Frank?”
“Sort of.”
“ … I’ll also be sharing with you what I just learned during an exclusive interview with fading comedian Groucho Marx, who discovered the bloody corpse of the Nazi-hating Denker. Earlier this afternoon Miles Ravenshaw, who is playing the immortal Sherlock Holmes in the movie that the murdered man was in the midst of directing, vowed that he would find the person who killed his beloved associate. Ravenshaw, a former Scotland Yard inspector, also challenged Groucho Marx to beat him to the solution. Although, as you know, Groucho has had some success solving a murder case or two here in Tinseltown, Ravenshaw asserts that luck and not skill was the reason for that. Groucho, you’ll be happy to learn, assures me that he will find the killer of Felix Denker long before Ravenshaw. The Burbank police have no comment on this battle of the actors. We’ll get back to these exciting stories and others right after Martin Terman brings you a word about Weber’s Beautybar Bath Soap … .”
“I didn’t know you guys were back in the detective business,” said Enery, leaning an elbow on the counter.
“Neither did he,” said Jane.
“Could be Groucho is going to work on this one solo.” I picked up my cup and took a sip of the chocolate.
“C’mon, Frank, don’t mope,” said Jane, giving me an encouraging poke in the ribs. “You and Groucho are partners. Besides, if you want my opinion, he couldn’t solve a mystery without your help.”
I gave a halfhearted shrug. “We’ll see. I suppose he—”
The door of the diner came flapping open and Groucho, clad in a yellow slicker and rain hat, came hurrying in out of the wet night. Removing his dead cigar from his mouth, he slouched over to us. “I had a suspicion you’d be hanging out in this seedy den,” he said. “Gather as many of your belongings as you can load in a middle-sized Conestoga wagon and let’s be up and doing. The game’s afoot again, Rollo. In fact, by this time it’s closer to a foot and a half and growing rapidly.”
Our beach cottage on Mattilda Road in the town of Bayside had a large living room and that gave Groucho quite a bit of space for pacing.
I was sitting on our new sofa, yellow legal pad open on my knee, and Jane was perched, long legs crossed, on the arm of an armchair.
The night rain continued to fall enthusiastically, hitting hard on our slanted shingle roof and brushing at the windows.
“Okay, Watso,” Groucho was asking, “are you absolutely certain you want to embark on another investigation?”
“I am, yeah.”
“Keep in mind that it’s my honor and not yours that’s been besmirched by Ravenshaw,” he said, pacing bent-legged over our pale tan carpet. “In a way I’m glad that happened, since it establishes the fact that I have any honor left. The point being, Rollo, that nobody’s called you a fraud and a slipshod gumshoe.”
“When they attack you, they attack me,” I said. “At least when it comes to our careers as amateur investigators.”
“Frank’s going to help out on this one,” Jane told him. “So let’s get down to business.”
Groucho halted, eyeing her. “You are an admirable young woman,” he conceded. “I’m sorry now that I ever warned Franklin to avoid any young lady who had a brain larger that an avocado pit. You’ve turned out to be okay, sis.”
“How about starting,” she suggested, uncrossing her legs, “with a list of possible motives for the killing of Felix Denker?”
“I was hoping we’d commence with a list of toys I wanted for Christmas,” he said, returning to his pacing. “But I have to admit your suggestion is better. Don’t forget, however, that an Erector set is my number one want. If it lives up to its name, I—”
“Motives,” she repeated, leaving the arm of her chair and heading for the kitchen. “Coffee, Frank?”
“That’d be swell, Jane.”
“All righty,” said Groucho, watching her walk away, “why would anyone want to knock off Denker?”
“He was an arrogant shit that most everybody disliked,” I offered.
Nodding as he strolled the carpeting, Groucho said, “That’s one possibility, to be sure. A lot of people weren’t fond of him. But a lot of people don’t like me and I haven’t been shot.”
“Not yet,” I said. “I don’t actually think he was murdered because he was a pain in the ass to work with, but there still might be a work-related reason. And there are a lot of strange people in Hollywood.”
“You think so, Ramona? I hadn’t noticed,” said Groucho. “I suppose it’s possible that a disgruntled actor, writer, or studio hand got angry enough to lower the boom on Felix, but that strikes me as unlikely. We’re looking for a more serious motive here.”
Jane said, “Before you get off the topic of disgruntled colleagues, fellows—what about that drunken lady scriptwriter they unearthed in the vicinity?”
“Clair Rickson.” I shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll have to find out what the hell she was doing there, sure.”
“I notice Johnny Whistler didn’t mention her at all,” she continued. “Think the police told him not to?”
“Might well have been the studio,” said Groucho. “One more thing for young Franklin to investigate once a new day has dawned.”
“I know Clair well enough to telephone her—provided Jack Norment hasn’t locked her away as a material witness.”
‘‘Or a suspect,” added Jane.
“Meantime, how about a domestic motive?” I suggested. “That’d make his wife, Erika Klein, a possible suspect.”
“Lew Marker, prince of producers, told us Erika was too indifferent to her hubby to work up much in the way of jealousy or hatred.”
“He says.”
“We’re definitely going to have to poke into the home life of Felix Denker, so jot that down on our list of flatfoot chores.” Groucho slowed, dropped into the armchair Jane had vacated. “And we’ll have to find o
ut if he was fooling around with any young ladies besides Marsha Tederow. Make that find out who they were. There’s bound to have been more than one, since Felix was what Carl Jung calls ‘a dodgosted tomcat.’”
“That’s a very good Jung impression,” observed Jane, returning with three cups of coffee on a tray.
“Oy, what a night,” complained Groucho. “First Johnny Whistler alludes to me as a failing comedian and now the mate of my boyhood chum razzes my mimic abilities.”
“Whistler referred to you as fading not failing.” Jane handed him a cup of coffee and then brought one over to me. “That isn’t, the way I see it, quite as bad, Groucho.”
“I suppose that’s true, Nurse Jane.”
Jane settled into our bentwood rocker, cup cradled in both hands. “What about the Nazi angle?”
“That was going to be my next recommendation,” said Groucho. “Denker was active in organizations like the Anti-Nazi League and he raised quite a bit of money for that and similar organizations. On top of which the Gestapo must’ve had his name on more than one shit list.”
“If he had been in Berlin, I can see assassinating him for his opposition,” I said. “But using a German agent to bump the guy off in this country is something else again.”
“Make a note that we’re going to have to find out just how important Felix was to his former countrymen.” Groucho slid a cigar out of the pocket of his tweedy sports coat, unwrapped it, and put it in his mouth. He didn’t bother to light it.
