The Hollywood Starlet Caper

by Robert Muccigrosso

  I assured Mumbles that I was interested only in women and in a pet rock collection that I had kept with me since my early years.

  “Well, you may not be a fruit, but why don't you and Scarlett head for the Saliva Valley, where you can find a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables?”

  I didn't bother to ask him why I'd want to eat fruits and vegetables covered with spit. Maybe he knew something that I didn't, but it didn't matter. Scarlett, I reminded him, had already picked the spot where we'd be going. I thanked Mumbles for his advice and told him that I would contact Blatt. He mumbled something and went for another taco.

  Next I called Blatt's office and told Hedwig that I needed to see her boss. “He's busy all day,” she snapped, “but I'm sure he'll be heartbroken not to see you. I know that I am.”

  “Listen, Emily Post, tell him that I have very important news concerning Scarlett Stickbottom, and that I need to see him today.”

  She reluctantly told me to hang on while she conveyed the message. Thirty seconds later she announced, just as reluctantly, that he could see me briefly at one o'clock. “Since it's the lunch hour, she added, “see if you can bring any brains with you.”

  Now that really puzzled me. Did she mean brains for herself or her boss or both? And where was I, a stranger to the city, supposed to pick up these delicacies? And did she want the brains ungarnished or with paprika, the way I liked them? I couldn't bother worrying my own brains to unravel this mystery. I had more pressing matters, and that included pressing my only semi-clean shirt.

  I arrived at Blatt's office a few minutes ahead of time. Hedwig was eating a sandwich. I guess she figured that I was not bringing any brains to the office. She guessed right.

  She looked at me with a cross between disdain and contempt, a little more of the latter perhaps. Then she used the intercom and told her boss that the gumshoe had arrived in all his glory. She said for me to go in.

  “Sit down, Mr. DeWop.” He eyed me warily. “Now what's so important that you had to see me today and that a telephone call wouldn't have done the trick?”

  I told him the full story, except for the one tiny omission that Scarlett was also paying me.

  Fat Sheldon was puffing on a big cigar as usual. I was beginning to wonder if a cigar was part of his face or merely an add-on.

  “You know, you may be right, DeWop. This crazy floozy might have stashed the black book out of town or she's planning to take it out of town with her. In either case, this might be your big chance to grab it. And if you do, there's a little something extra in it for you. You see what I mean?”

  Yeah, I saw what he meant, though I was also beginning to feel a bit guilty for what this would do to Scarlett. She was a royal pain in the ass, but I didn't want to screw her. Well I did. Sort of. But I wouldn't. At least not in that way, and if I could figure things out, no ways.

  I told Blatt about the need for a car. “Not a problem,” he said. “I'll have a car dropped off at your place later today. I've got influence, you know. I move my little pinkie, and the town moves with it.” Modesty ranked as high for him as did watching his weight.

  “So do right by me, DeWop, and I'll do right by you. Now I gotta go see Louis B about a client. On your way out you can pick up some spending money for the trip. We wouldn't want our little gold digger to think that she was dealing with a gigolo, would we? Oh, and in case you were thinking of pulling a fast one, don't. Nasty things happen to guys who try to pull fast ones in this town.”

  I wasn't feeling guilty about playing Fatboy, but I was feeling scared. By instinct, I patted my suit jacket to make sure that I had my good friends, Mr. Smith & Mr. Wesson, with me as I left.

  “Yes, Mr. Blatt, but are you sure you want to do this?” His secretary sighed as she clicked the intercom off. “Isn't this your lucky day? My, my. Oops, sorry that I dropped the money on the floor. I guess that you'll just have to pick it up.”

  I wanted to floor her with a right to the kisser but settled for picking up the moola. With a little luck—make that a lot of luck—the next time I saw her would be to pick up my pay and the “little something extra” from her employer.

  I went back to the apartment just as the phone was ringing. It was Louie, and he sounded all excited, almost out of breath.

  “Mr. D, I found out something big that you gotta know, but I have to get off the phone in a hurry. Meet me tonight at 6:00 at The Gentleman Guzzler, a bar at the corner of Olympic Boulevard and 9th Street. It's not all that far from the Civic Center.”

  I tried expostfactulating with Louie to tell me now or at least give me some idea of what had happened, but he said, “Sorry, Mr. D, but I gotta run.” All I could think of was that someone from back East had tipped the authorities that my favorite yegg was in town. Louie had to skeddaddle but not before imparting some news to his favorite private eye.

  I took the time between Louie's call and my appointment to meet him to pack my suitcase with various items in anticipation of going somewhere with Miss Stickbottom. As I was throwing in my galoshes and an extra pair of underwear late that afternoon, I realized that I should call Dotty, not only to check for messages but to inform her that I would be away for an unknown period of time. I also decided to call Polish Phil. I hated to think of all the expensive long-distance calls that I had rung up, but didn't feel that I had much of a choice in the matter. I phoned the nitwit first, promising myself that I'd make it short and sweet with this one-of-a-kind secretary.

  “Hello, Dotty, this is Mr. DeWitt.”

  “Oh, Mr. D, I'm so glad you called. I've got the most wonderful news. I finished The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

  “That's just swell, Dotty,” I said, wondering how much the phone company would be charging me for this earth-shattering bit of nonsense.

  “And is that fellow who was coming over to your place to discuss the book impressed?”

  “What fellow, Mr. D?”

  I let it drop.

  “Any messages for me, Dotty, since I last called?”

  “Since you last called where, Mr. D?”

  I let that one drop, too. The way this was going, I'd be up to my keesters in phone bills.

  “By the way, Dotty, I'll be out of town for a while, just in case you have to get in touch with me.”

  “But how can I get in touch with you if you're out of town,” Dopey Dotty countered.

  I let that one pass as well, but, unfortunately, she didn't.

  “Well, where are you going?”

  “I don't know at this point.”

  “Well if you don't know where you're going, how are you going anywhere?”

  I suppose she had a point besides the one that crowned her head, but I couldn't figure it out and didn't want to. My patience was growing shorter, my telephone bill larger

  “Listen, Dotty, I've got to run now, but I'll be in touch. Any other news before I go?”

  “Noooooo. I don't think so. Oh, wait a minute! I almost forgot to tell you that I'm engaged to be married.”

  “Well, that's real swell. Who's the lucky Joe? Your pal who reads books with you?”

  “Oh no, silly. And his name isn't Joe. I'm engaged to marry Cousin Elmer!”

  I knew it. Cousin Elmer had been sniffing as much, probably more, glue than his cousin Dotty.

  I took the bait. “But Dotty, didn't you once tell me that he's your first cousin?”

  “Of course he is!”

  “But aren't you worried about the children that could result if cousins marry?”

  “Yes, I've thought about that, but you needn't worry. You see, Elmer and I are first cousins, not second ones.”

  That explained everything. Dotty herself had to have descended from the Jukes or Kallikak families, or another tribe of inbred who had produced a quantity of mental misfits and criminals. Now she would add to the list. I wished her well a second time. Then I wished the world good luck as well.

  With my ever-growing long-distance telephone bills in mind, my first tho
ught was to walk to The Gentleman Guzzler. But since Blatt had forked over some dough and Scarlett was promising the same, I splurged on a cab. Besides, I didn't feel like rummaging through the suitcase for my galoshes.

  The Gentleman Guzzler had quite a few guzzlers but, as far as I could see, few if any gentlemen. When I arrived, two of the guzzlers were in the process of beating the tar out of a third one. This guzzler was yelling for the bartender to call the police, but the dispenser of suds seemed too busy dispensing or too deaf or both. I took a seat at a table far from the maddening crowd. I felt like a beer but decided to wait for Louie. If he had good news, I might even treat him to a cold one. But it had to be pretty good news.

  Six fifteen, no Louie. Six thirty, still no Louie. I wondered where the stumblebum was. It was not like him to be late for anything, certainly not for a possible free drink. I called his place. No one answered. I waited until seven and left. Louie, you lowdown, lying, conniving son of a bitch, you're on my list. I didn't want to overreact, but I promised myself that I would call the cops back East and report that he was here unless I heard from him within the next twenty-four hours.

  Outside it had started to pour. And me without my galoshes. That call to the authorities looked more tempting with every rain-filled minute.

  As I approached what passed for home, a parked car honked and scared the bejeesus out of me. The driver rolled down the window and asked if I was DeWop. I felt like belting him but settled for telling him that my ancestry had a bit of Scotch-Irish, German, Dutch, Bessarabian, and maybe Laplander, but no Italian. He explained that Sheldon Blatt had sent him around with this big Ford Sedan, and that he had been waiting for me for nearly two hours. Tough, I thought, but I thanked him, took the keys, and shook his hand, although I think that he was waiting for more than a handshake. He asked if I could drive him home. I told him that he had to be crazy. I was soaked to the bone and hadn't yet had my evening meal. I kidded him and told him to get a horse. He didn't laugh. Neither did I when I realized that I had forgotten to bring the apartment key with me.

  Chapter 16

  The next morning I phoned Louie right after I had awakened, yawned, stretched, and relieved myself. The bum didn't answer. He was probably at work, but that was no suitable excuse as far as I was concerned. Most safecrackers would have had the common decency to call someone they had stood up, unless, of course, the police had nabbed them. I'd try Louie later, and meanwhile maybe he'd know what was good for him and get in touch with me. The no-good, untrustworthy crook.

  The anticipation of contact with Louie was not the only thing that kept me at home. Maybe Scarlett would call and we would hightail it out of town. I looked out the window at the black sedan that Blatt had sent over. It was an improvement on Mumbles's beat-up coupe, which had more dents than Carter's had little liver pills, but I had hoped that Blatt would fork over something a bit better, say, a Bugatti, Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, or even a Packard Super E. Who said that beggars can't be choosy?

  I chafed at the bit and also at the crotch, which I'd rather not go into, but no calls. I felt like storming out and buying a pack of Old Gold, but I didn't wish to endanger my health, not that there was any danger in smoking of course, but a few quacks had warned of it. I had no patience for the radio, which was featuring soap operas, sort of like what my life was threatening to become.

  Around six or so, Mumbles returned all atwitter. “Hey, pal, what was the last name of your stoolie, you know, the one you call Light Fingers Louie.”

  “O'Lansky,” I said. “Louis Solomon O'Lansky. He was part-Mick, part-Hebe. That was on his mother's side. On his father's side he always claimed to be one-hundred-percent American. That side came to our shores with the Pilgrims on the Santa Maria, or so he boasted. But he also swore that he was related to some big-time mobster who knew Capone. But Louie was always a kidder. He could pick his stories almost as well as he could pick locks. But now if the little bastard doesn't call me soon, I'm going to pick his nose with a pair of pliers.”

  “I'm afraid that you're a little late for that.”

  I was confused. How did Mumbles know that another person had already picked Louie's nose with a pair of pliers? And why? Had Louie sneezed some snot on the mug? Did the mug have a thing for picking other people's noses? And only with pliers? These were the sort of good, hard questions that had got me to the top of my profession.

  “I guess you haven't seen the afternoon paper or listened to the news, have you? Because if you had, you'd know by now that the police found the body of a Louis O'Lansky in a canyon on Mulholland Drive.”

  I was shocked. I returned to asking tough, thoughtful questions. Was he drunk? Had his landlord thrown him out and he had no place to sleep? Was he parachuting and the contraption failed to open. Frankly, I didn't get it.

  “Dick,” Mumbles said, “I'm sorry to be the bearer of ill tides, but your stoolie has committed suicide.”

  I was flubbergasketed. Louie killed himself? Not my Louie. He had too much to live for, too many safes to loot, too many locks left unpicked. Nah, it couldn't be true. “Say it ain't so, Marty,” I pleaded.

  “I'm afraid it is so. According to the paper, the coppers found his body with two slugs to the back of the head.”

  It sounded reasonable, but a tiny voice told me to hold on. Two slugs to the back of the head? Wouldn't one have been enough? And although he was famous for his light fingers, wouldn't it have been easier to shoot himself in the front? This didn't add up. I felt bad, real bad. I had lost an honest stoolie. But I knew that I couldn't afford to mourn for long. If someone had permanently silenced his lips, could it have been because Louie was about to put me onto something important? It was a possibility, remote as it seemed, but I couldn't afford to take chances. I poured myself a drink and toasted the late Louis Solomon O'Lansky. “Here's looking at you, kid,” I said, although there was no more Light Fingers Louie to look at, unless I wanted to take a quick trip to the morgue. Which I didn't.

  I finished the drink and got back to more important matters: me.

  I had to do some quick thinking if I didn't want to wind up like the lately lamented. Which I didn't. Maybe I had to get out of town as much as Scarlett. And maybe I should tell the sexy-looking souse that I had to stay here and sniff around. But maybe I should just say the hell with it and go back home, look for new clients, and enjoy good times with my old pals at The Slippery Elbow. Even Gus, the gloomy bartender, was beginning to look a whole lot more inviting.

  While I was trying to puzzle out this corundum, the phone leaped off the hook. Well, maybe it just rang, but my nerves were jangling like Ma Bell's wires at this point. Mumbles answered the phone and said it was my Polack friend.

  Phil knew Light Fingers Louie only slightly, and what he knew of him, he didn't particularly care for. But he also knew that I had dealings over the years with the late lamented and was now letting me know that he had heard the news of the stiff's suicide.

  “Suicide, my fat Polish ass,” he said. “Someone rubbed him out, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't because he knew you. Tell me it was only a coincidence.”

  I would have liked to have reassured him but couldn't. “I can't say for sure, Phil. On the one hand, he was supposed to tell me something important, but he failed to show up for our meeting. On the other hand, Louie was forever getting involved with trouble, whether it was with the law or other crooks.” I would have like to have enumerated on yet another hand, but I didn't have such a hand or the foggiest notion of why else Louis might have met with foul play.

  “I'm worried about you, pal. You're a little bit like Louie, you know. You're always rubbing someone the wrong way, whether it's the police or the lawbreakers. Maybe you should think more seriously about coming home.”

  Then I told Phil about plans to go on the lam with Scarlett.

  “You should think real seriously about getting out while you still can, Dicky boy. You're skating on thin ice.”

  I told him that there wasn't any i
ce out here, even if it was winter. It rained a lot. Sure, but the temperatures so far hadn't dropped below the freezing point, which I learned in my high school chemistry class was 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius. “Take your pick,” I told him. “Europeans generally prefer to measure temperatures in Celsius, while we use Fahrenheit. Of course, Europeans also use the metric system, whereas…”

  I heard something that sounded like snoring. These long-distance connections, I reminded myself, aren't terrific.

  “Hello, Phil,” I yelled. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

  The noise stopped and Phil told me that he could hear me fine but had to get some shut-eye. He told me again to be careful and to reconsider my stay in LA. I thanked him. For such a totally corrupt cop, he was a real pal. As they say, a friend in need is a friend in something or other.

  Mumbles, who had been munching on some hostages he had found in the fridge while I was on the phone, asked me what my friend said. I told him and in turn asked him if he had any suggestions. He did, but with a mouthful of food he was more than ever a man of vocal mystery. I didn't bother to ask him to repeat his words. They probably weren't worth repeating anyway. Like Polish Phil, I needed some shut-eye.

  Chapter 17

  Eight fifteen the next morning. I was usually still in bed at that hour, but a bad dream or two had convinced me to get up. The coffee was brewing and I was having some canned sardines when the phone rang. It was Scarlett. Another bad dream.

  “Get over here as fast as you can,” she said. “We're leaving.”

  I could tell that this was the real thing. “Now hold on, Scarlett, I haven't had my breakfast yet. Do you have any idea of how much indigestion I could get if I eat my sardines too fast?”

  “Dick, I'd really like to tell you what you can do with your sardines, but we don't have time. Now get over here. We're going to a small tourist court in Morro Bay that I once stayed in.”