by Ed Ifkovic
Within minutes, Jake Geyser barreled up the stairs. “I called him,” Mercy told me. “He’ll have to handle this.” That didn’t make me happy. Two clowns for the price of one. Why had Mercy done that? I would have nixed that notion. But Mercy understood the peculiar politics of Hollywood. Movies governed municipal law, perhaps. Oddly, Jake seemed in his element now, leaning into Cotton, whispering, even placing one hand on the detective’s shoulder, a fleeting suggestion of camaraderie, though Cotton didn’t look too happy being touched. Jake was tall, lanky; Cotton small, compact, runt of the litter. Mutt and Jeff. Jake was dressed in a ratty sweater, torn at the elbows, no socks in his black tie-shoes (very unflattering), and wrinkled pants. Where was he coming from? And so quickly? Both men conferred and looked back at the doorway, where I now stood, watching. Cotton motioned to one of the cops, and we were hustled downstairs to the superintendent’s apartment, where, minutes later, Cotton questioned us.
Upstairs, a crime team took over; and just as well. I had no desire to see Carisa’s sheet-draped body lifted onto a gurney, shuffled down the stairs, the stench of death already palpable in the apartment. I had little to say to Cotton; and with Jake there, a ghostly shadow against back wall, I believed the less said the better. What could I say? We knocked on her door, it flew open, and Carisa lay there, dead. We backed out of the room. Or, at least, Mercy said she did. I was quiet. But why were we there? To see Carisa, whom Mercy knew. And I? A writer from New York, slumming. Why the finery? Well, post-party wanderings. A visit to Carisa. Cotton eyed me suspiciously. The old lady gussied up in party silk.
“A writer? Like scripts?”
“Like novels,” I said, dryly. Curtly.
“You write anything I heard of?” he asked.
“I doubt it.”
He turned away for a second, made a note. “Why at this hour?”
Mercy shrugged. “Eight-thirty is hardly late. We left a cocktail party, got a bite at Jack’s Drive-in,” Cotton widened his eyes, staring at Mercy’s dress, “and it seemed a good idea at the time.”
“In this neighborhood?”
“We were in the neighborhood.”
He clicked his tongue. “I doubt that.” He looked at Jake. “So she worked for Warner Bros. Studio?”
“She’d been fired though. A month or so back.”
“Then why is everybody here?”
“I came because Mercy called me.”
Cynical. “The good citizen.”
“She was an employee.”
“Then what’s this crap you’re telling me upstairs about the studio wanting to handle the publicity?”
Jake leaned in. “As we speak, Jack Warner is talking to your chief.”
Said matter-of-factly, but deliberately, the line hung in the air: its power obvious, its no-nonsense ultimatum clear-cut. Cotton looked from me to Mercy, back to Jake. So this is what was happening, his disgusted look indicated. Stonewalling, movieland style. This, his narrowed eyes suggested, was no minor-league murder case. “There’s a murder here,” he said, flatly.
Jake, almost snidely, “And it’s your job to solve it.” He softened his tone. “And you will.”
Detective Cotton, equally snide, “I appreciate the vote of confidence from Howdy Doody.”
Then I spoke up. “Just why is Warner involved in this?” I looked at Jake, who stared at his hands.
Cotton looked at me. “Madam, in L. A., you learn that the studios wield a lot of power-even over the police.”
Jake cleared his throat. “The studios don’t obstruct the police, Detective.”
“Maybe not, but they do delay and hinder and…” He shrugged, then shook his head. “Hollywood corrupts.”
Mercy had been staring at Cotton intently. “Excuse me, Detective, but you look like you might have been an actor. Once?”
The comment caught him off guard, it seemed-as it did me, I have to admit-for he flipped open his notebook and reached for a pen, as though he’d just had a brainstorm that could solve this murder.
“Just out of college, UCLA, a few attempts. Bit parts.” His voice got louder: “And then I realized how-how corrupt it all was.”
So, I reasoned, that might explain some of the bitterness, the contempt for Hollywood. One more failed actor. That, and the fact that he probably faced stonewalling often-the long arm of MGM, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. Studio. Maybe even Disney. Mickey Mouse as dissembler, Minnie as stonewaller. I stared at his face. The thin manicured moustache, the slicked-back hair, shiny with cream, even the cut of his sports jacket. That was it, I realized. He’d patterned himself on some matinee idol of another decade. John Gilbert, maybe, or John Garfield. Some mannered, stylish notion of metropolitan lover. Or, maybe, an early Clark Gable. Was everyone in L.A. a one-time (or future) bit player? Was that the coin of the kingdom here-actors as loose change? And most of them unhappy. I thought of Tommy Dwyer and Lydia Plummer and even the now-dead Carisa Krausse.
Detective Cotton, noting the hour and my visible fatigue-I sat slumped at the super’s kitchen table, my hand around a cup of coffee he’d provided-let us go, but said he’d get statements from both of us later on. “But I have nothing to say,” Mercy said.
“Then say that.” He turned away.
I kept silent. After all, I’d been left in the apartment while Mercy bounded down the stairs to call the police (and, lamentably, Jake). I’d gingerly stepped into the room, touching nothing, but observing, making an inventory. A glance at the dead woman’s face. The familiar grotesquerie of features, a face contorted with surprise and astonishment. But, curiously, the eyes thankfully shut. The pool of blackened blood, swirling away from her twisted head, seeping into ancient floorboards. Short shrift there-instead, I surveyed the room: a tiny apartment, broken down, a cracked window repaired with brown tape, a ceiling molding pulling away from the wall, a cabinet door with loosened hinges. But Carisa had tried to make the place decent, with cheap draperies over the windows, small Montgomery Ward prints of flowers and star-lit fields and New England covered bridges, and a threadbare oriental carpet, ragged at the edges. But she was clearly a packrat, a woman who didn’t discard anything, stacks of L.A. Times, a neat pile, but ready to topple; movie magazines, too many, Modern Screen, Movie World, Hollywood Secrets, TV Radio Mirror, and Photoplay, piled everywhere, all looking pristine, unread. Orderly piles, though, the edges evened, if abandoned. But glancing into the small alcove that served as a kitchen, I saw a tiny table with one plate, one fork, one knife, an old cloth napkin, a bottle of opened wine, red. But there was no glass. I looked into the sink. Nothing. Did the woman drink out of the bottle?
Moving back toward the door, I stepped around the statue I’d seen when I first walked in. Lying perhaps four feet from the body was a chunky, weathered-green, stained object, heavy looking but cheap, maybe a foot high, lying face up. A grotesque woman, with an exaggerated protruding stomach. A fertility goddess? What? Mexican or Aztec or Indian? Something from a tourist stand at a desert reservation in Arizona or New Mexico?
Against a back wall there was a small desk with two drawers pulled out, the only sign of disturbance in her apartment-save, of course, the very obvious body. The contents were strewn onto the desktop-piles of letters, shifted through. A letter from someone in San Francisco. I dared not touch them, tempted as I was. But someone had obviously rifled through the pile, looking for something. Some letter? Someone who knew that Carisa Krausse saved everything. And that person wanted something back. One of the drawers was empty, and I surmised that it had contained the scattered letters. I stood there, a little shaky, and stared from the rotund statue to the scattered letters on the wobbly desk. And then, looking into the other open drawer, I spotted what looked like a syringe, resting on a small cloth bag. Drugs? Medicine? That, the murderer had left. Or left behind?
Then I had heard noise in the hallway, and backed myself toward the entrance. And suddenly the music from the radio, a quick-paced jingle, upbeat and advertising Pepsi-Cola, was
buried under the swell of rising voices in the stairwell.
When I arrived at the Burbank studios just before noon, dropped by my driver at the Giant soundstage-I’d violated my long-standing rule of rising promptly at seven, choosing instead to lie, wide awake, in bed until after nine-I expected frenzy, if not hysteria. A foolish assumption, that. Wandering around, strolling toward dressing rooms, I found calm and silence, an eerie pall covering the conversations and movements. I learned shooting had been suspended for that day, over Stevens’ protests. So the vast expanse of Jett Rink’s ballroom looked abandoned, but I noticed production teams still fine-tuning the large banquet hall, preparatory to Jett-Jimmy’s final disastrous moment, the drunken collapse of the mighty wildcatter. In the cavernous room, an electrician cursed loudly, and his voice echoed off the high ceiling.
Unable to locate Tansi who was, I learned, sequestered with Jack Warner and Jake Geyser, I knocked on Mercy’s dressing room door, and was pleased that she was there. She was in a foul mood. “Shooting suspended, but Stevens demands we sit here, in costume. Just sitting. Liz Taylor is sleeping in her dressing room. I heard her yelling at someone. Rock Hudson is God-knows-where. Luckily I have no lines scheduled-I died in Marfa, in more ways than one.” She stood up. “I’m sorry, Edna. Come in. I’ve been itching to yell like a banshee since nine this morning.”
“I thought there’d be a flurry of reporters all over the lot today.”
Mercy pulled out a chair for me. “God, no. Reporters are only allowed on set at the discretion of Stevens-and Warner. But, Edna, word has come down that the murder is not-repeat, not-to be spoken of. Of course, when I arrived, everyone was buzzing. Lots of folks knew Carisa, and I gather there was a short piece in the press this morning. The Warner PR machinery is already in place: a short squib stating the Carisa Krausse, an actress, was found dead in her apartment last night, apparently a homicide. No mention of her connection to Giant. No mention of Warner Bros. Studio. One more ingenue going the way of all flesh, fading into the Hollywood Sunset and Vine.”
“You’re bitter, Mercy.”
“I suppose I am.” Mercy reached for her coffee. “I knew Carisa. You know, I thought her odd, maybe genuinely crazy, and I came to dislike her. No, I came to a point I thought it best not to be with her.”
I nodded. “Surely Cotton will do his job?”
“As much as he can, Edna. You don’t understand the power of men like Jack Warner. The folks at MGM. At 20th Century. All of them. All branches of government in California are contained in them. No, Detective Cotton will investigate, and will probably solve it, but it’s going to be done with a low profile.”
I rubbed my weary eyes. Last night’s sleeplessness still covered me.
Yes, I understand that movies are big business; the bottom line is cold cash, often ugly cash, piles of green moolah. I play at that game myself, having negotiated with musty publishers like the old-time Doubleday crew, often with tart tongue and steely eye. I like to win. I understand money. But I also understand the ethics that, I hope, underlie my reason for living: the life of the decent, socially conscious middle-class Jew that I emphatically am, especially in the post-Nazi era, in the lame-brain Eisenhower malaise that breeds a Joe McCarthy and his nefarious ilk. “I’ll speak to Warner.”
Mercy chortled. “Edna, Edna.”
“I mean it.”
“Let me be cynical a moment here. When you’re around, they’re kowtowing and salaaming and treating you like the High Priestess of God-Almighty Fiction, but Warner is a hard-nosed skinflint with a propensity to believing that folks are born evil.”
Sighing, resigned, “So what will happen?”
“First off, you may have noticed the chilly temperature of the soundstage. This morning Tansi assembled the troops, and read-with shaky voice, I might add, unhappy to be designated lackey-a terse memo from Jake Geyser. Why he couldn’t do it I don’t know, except that it came off as mean-spirited and petty. Leave that tone to a woman, right? So Tansi reads the note that we should all cooperate with the police, in particular Detective Xavier Cotton from the Central Detective Bureau, who will be roaming the hallways, questioning folks about Carisa. But there was to be no gossiping at the water cooler and no idle chatting to reporters. Carisa’s death was ‘unfortunate’-that’s the word he used-but it has nothing to do with ‘the production of Giant or the inner workings of Warner Bros. Studios.’ Signed, ‘The office of Jack Warner.’ Jake couldn’t even affix his own weaselly name to it, though I saw him hand it to Tansi, coach her when she sputtered, and even push her out in front of the troops. She wasn’t happy.”
“So Cotton is around?”
“He’s somewhere. I talked to him for a bit, then gave one of his men a statement, and they’ll be gunning for you shortly. He’s not happy because he knows his hands are tied here, and he can wander the halls all he wants, with his All Access badge on, but it doesn’t mean a thing because Jack Warner and the Chief of Police-Jack’s golf and charity-function crony, by the way-are his bosses. If he stumbles on a murderer, all well and good, so long as it’s low key. Warner Bros. will distance themselves from it.” Mercy waved her hand in the air. “Shall we go for fresh coffee? This cup is cold.”
“We’re avoiding something.” I stared into her face.
“He didn’t show up,” Mercy answered, quietly. “He was supposed to be here and he’s not. There’s no answer at his place.”
“So what’s the scuttlebutt?” I asked, nervous. I hadn’t stopped thinking about Jimmy since last night-the moment of discovery, my hours awake in bed, and even this morning, having coffee in my room.
“We’re not supposed to talk, but here’s what everyone is whispering about. Cotton learned that Carisa sent letters to Warner and Jimmy, and had copies in hand when he spoke to me. Warner may logjam the investigation, but he’s not a fool. It would get out soon enough. The studio can’t seem to be hiding anything. But Cotton is aware of the slippery ground he’s on. Jimmy’s name is all over this deed, obviously. And so Cotton reads that Carisa has gossip to reveal to Confidential, that she’s carrying his baby, she wants money and marriage and whatever else she spewed in those insane letters.”
“So Jimmy is suspect number one?”
“Our rebel as killer.”
“Not good.” I shook my head slowly.
Mercy smiled. “You do love the understatement.”
“Jimmy ran out of the party early, around six or so.” I paused. “Are the police looking for Jimmy?”
“Cotton has been asking, ‘Is he here yet? Let me know the minute he shows up.’ He’s obviously decided Jimmy is the easy answer, so far as a designated murderer is concerned. Though ‘easy’ is the wrong word here. If Jimmy is the killer, it means trouble for everyone.”
“For the studio.”
“Everyone. It’s sort of hard to release an epic film when the star is being electrocuted at San Quentin.”
I felt a chill. My heart beat wildly. “My God, Mercy, no.”
“I really don’t believe Jimmy killed Carisa, Edna, but what do I know? Even accusation of murder can get the censors in an uproar. My God, remember the uproar two years back when Columbia used the word ‘virgin’ in The Moon is Blue? The Catholic Legion of Decency started speaking in tongues. Walter Winchell turned purple.”
“I want to talk to Jimmy,” I said.
“Don’t we all.”
Later Tansi joined us in the commissary, and I asked how she was. “I will never do Jack Geyser’s dirty work again,” she sputtered. “He sprang that on me.”
Mercy patted her wrist. “He’s a damn coward.”
Her hands shook. “It’s bad enough I have to be called late at night, told to prepare the dumb press release, then say-no comment, no comment, no comment. I couldn’t sleep all night. And Jake pushing me out like that.”
“Have you seen Cotton around?” I asked Tansi, interrupting.
“He’s blowing hot and cold, frustrated. He’s asked me the same ques
tions ten times. What did I think of Carisa? I told him I scarcely knew her. In Marfa I had to deal with her when she was fired-get her out of there. Cotton says to me, ‘Was she angry?’ I said yes, she seemed angry all the time. I don’t remember much about her. Then I hear him asking the same questions of people in lighting and in sound. They stare at him as though he’s speaking another language. He shows her picture. They nod. Yes, she was around. No, no, they didn’t know her. It’s maddening.”
“It’s police work. Stabs in the dark, looking for a light.”
“Well, I have to contend with the slow simmer of Warner and the hiccoughing panic of Jake.”
“Scylla and Charybdis,” I said.
Tansi smiled. “More like Ma and Pa Kettle, fighting over a chicken bone.” But she leaned in. “But he’s already asking for Jimmy, who, by the way, I can tell he doesn’t like, not even having met him.”
“Why?”
“He referred to Jimmy and Marlon Brando as the dirt-under-the-fingernails school of acting.”
“Who else did he ask about?” I wanted to know.
Tansi whispered. “He asked me if knew Max Kohl.” She turned to Mercy. “Do you know a Max Kohl?”
“No.” Puzzled. “He didn’t ask me that. It must be a name he picked up after my conversation with him.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “A bit player.”
Tansi looked confused. “No, I don’t think he’s ever worked for us. At least I’ve never seen him on the Warner list. But he was-or is-part of Jimmy’s world, I gather. Cotton talked to me right after he talked to Lydia. She cornered me in the hall, panicking, and told me about her talk with Cotton. She mentioned Max to him-that he dated Carisa, disappeared, came back. She says his name just came out because she was nervous. Lydia says he’s been seeing her, since Jimmy left her. He calls her. She says he scares her.”
“What in the world does that mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She breathed in. “After she was fired, Carisa retreated into that apartment, and Max was seen around town with her. He’d met Lydia through her. But Max had a fight with Jimmy, Lydia said.”
