The Case of the Angry Actress: A Masao Masuto Mystery

by Howard Fast

  Cotter nodded. “We finished dinner a few minutes after nine. Ordinarily, we might sit at the table a while, but Al did not feel too good, and he said that he’d go upstairs and have an Alka Seltzer. Everyone got up. Then the girls left with Mike and Sidney and Al. I am told that Al went up to his bedroom on the second floor. The kitchen people said that. Al went through the kitchen to the pantry, where he has a little private elevator. The others went into the living room.”

  “Sidney and I went into the viewing room—here,” Mike Tulley interrupted. “The girls went to freshen up.”

  “All right,” said Cotter. “Murph—Mr. Anderson—and I sat at the table with cigars. We had things to talk about, and then Murph said about something that before we discussed it any further, we should get Al’s point of view. It was almost a yes or no matter, so Murph said that he would wait at the table while I went upstairs. I went through the living room and up the stairs. No one in the hallway up there. I knocked at Al’s bedroom door. Then I heard Al say, ‘For Christ’s sake, put that gun away and give me my medicine—please—’ He was pleading, crazy, desperate, pleading. He was pleading for his life.’”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Masuto saw Dr. Baxter, the medical examiner, come into the viewing room, and he moved his head for Baxter to join him. Cotter waited. The room was very quiet now. Baxter walked over to Masuto, who whispered to him, “Medicine?”

  “He was on quinidine according to Meyer, but also armed with nitroglycerin sublingual. He would have that in his pocket. Every angina does. But his jacket was off and across the room from where he lay.”

  Baxter spoke softly, but not so softly that everyone in the room could not hear him. Phoebe Greenberg began to cry. She must have washed off her makeup and she was pretty without it. It occurred to Masuto that perhaps she had wept earlier. Emotion and the display of emotion by the population of Beverly Hills was not anything that Masuto felt competent to analyze or predict.

  “Please continue,” he said to Cotter.

  “Yes—of course,” Cotter said. “Al was pleading, and then this dame’s voice says, ‘Like you gave me mine, you bastard—remember?’ And Al pleads again, ‘Please, please—’ Then I start banging on the door and I hear a thud. I hear Al fall, I guess, but the door is locked. I know that Al’s room and Phoebe’s are connected. Each of them has a dressing room that leads into a bathroom, and the two bathrooms connect. So I run to Phoebe’s room—I guess I did some shouting. In Phoebe’s room, I saw Stacy—Murph’s wife—she was lying on the bed, resting. Then I bust through the connecting rooms to Al’s room, and there’s Al on the floor, dead. I didn’t know he was dead then, but that’s what Meyer said. So I go to unlock the hall door and get help, but it’s already unlocked. And that’s it.”

  Still silence. Most of them were watching Cotter, not the detective, who said, “Whose voice did you hear, Mr. Cotter?”

  “Don’t you think we asked him that?” Sidney Burke said. “The other cop asked him. But he’s playing cute. Real cute. Now he’s going to take you into the next room and pin it on his choice.”

  “Oh, why don’t you shut up,” Cotter said tiredly. “What I got to say, I say right here. Murph’s my lawyer, and he’s here. I don’t know whose voice it was. Whoever the dame was, she was crazy mad. Her voice was choking and hoarse. I don’t know whose voice it was.”

  “But it was a woman’s voice—of that you’re certain?”

  “I never gave it a second thought.”

  “A man’s voice can sound like a woman’s voice.”

  “No.”

  “Very well,” Masuto said, smiling sympathetically. “Dr. Baxter here—” pointing to him, “—is our local medical examiner. It is his opinion at this moment that no crime has been committed, that Mr. Greenberg died of natural causes—”

  “How in hell you can talk like that after what I heard, I don’t know!” Cotter burst out.

  “Please, Mr. Cotter—what you heard indicates that violence might have threatened Mr. Greenberg. It would appear, from what you tell me, that a woman was in the room with Mr. Greenberg and that she threatened him with a gun. But it would also appear that Mr. Greenberg’s heart attack had already started. Possibly this woman or person refused to hand Mr. Greenberg the sublingual tablets upon which his life depended. We don’t know, and we also do not know that a crime has been committed. Murder is a very ugly matter, Mr. Cotter, and for the moment I feel it would be best for everyone concerned to refrain from using the word. This does not mean that we will not pursue our investigation. We certainly shall. But for tonight—well, I think Mr. Anderson will agree with me.”

  “I certainly do!” Anderson said emphatically.

  “Then I think that if I may ask a few questions, brief and to the point, you can then leave. No more than ten minutes.”

  “I think I have had about all I can stand,” Phoebe Greenberg said softly.

  “Then two questions and you can leave. Firstly, do you own a gun or is there a gun anywhere in this house?”

  “No.”

  “And where were you when Mr. Cotter shouted?”

  “Apparently I was in the pantry elevator on my way up to the second floor. When I got out, there was the commotion—and Al was dead.”

  “I felt bad,” Stacy Anderson said. “That’s why I went up to Phoebe’s room to lie down. Phoebe said she would bring me a cup of tea. But Al was in his room already, and the doors were closed—two doors, so I could not hear anything. Not possibly.”

  “Then you went into the kitchen?” Masuto asked Phoebe.

  “The pantry. We have a hot-cold water cooler there. No one saw me, if that is what you mean.”

  “Thank you,” Masuto said, bowing almost imperceptably, a tribute to the lady of a house where he once had a friend, for even the small warmth of slight aquaintance is a form of friendship. “You may leave us now, and we will trouble your house only a few minutes more.”

  “Stay as long as you need to, please.”

  Masuto decided that he liked her. She either mourned the dead in her own way or not at all; it was her affair. He nodded to Baxter’s unspoken question, and the doctor said, “I would like to have an autopsy done, Mrs. Greenberg.”

  “If you wish. If it will help.”

  “I think it will only help to put away doubts—but that’s important.”

  “Then do as you see best.”

  And with that, she left the room.

  Detective Masuto turned to Trude Burke.

  “I was in the john,” the strawberry blonde smiled. “I guess supper agreed with none of us.”

  “Where?”

  “Front hall. Came out, heard the commotion, hotfooted it upstairs and almost fell over Arlene.”

  “You mean Mrs. Cotter?”

  “Yes. Jack, her husband, was in the hall then, yelling for a doctor.”

  “Mrs. Cotter?”

  Arlene Cotter rose, glanced quizzically at her husband and then nodded at Masuto. “No alibis—poor Oriental detective. I did not know there was a Nisei on our darling little police force. I was in the guest powder room, upstairs, when I heard the commotion and bounded into the hall. I went in there with Lenore Tulley—didn’t I, darling?”

  Lenore Tulley stared narrowly without replying. No love between them, Masuto decided. They were too alike: Beverly Hills twins, same height, same figure, same hairdresser.

  “But then Lenore disappeared somewhere. Where did you disappear to, darling?”

  “The pot, you bitch. You saw me go in there.”

  “Temper, temper,” Arlene Cotter said.

  “Then I went into the guest room, which connected with the guest bathroom,” Lenore Tulley told Masuto. “To tell the truth, I was prowling. I have never been to this particular castle before. I was curious. Then I heard the commotion and stepped out into the hallway and joined the crowd in Al’s bedroom.”

  Arlene Cotter smiled tolerantly. Mike Tulley watched them both intently, his wife and Cotter’s wife.


  “You remained at the dining room table?” Masuto asked Murphy Anderson.

  “My cigar and I. I heard the commotion and then Sidney joined me. There is a small, spiral staircase in the projection booth, there—” He pointed. “—and first we thought something had happened in the viewing room. But it was empty. We went upstairs by the projection room staircase, which lets one into the far end of the upstairs hall.”

  “And before that, Mr. Burke?”

  “I was with Mike Tulley in the viewing room. We were going to watch some shorts, and Mike was going to run them. He went into the projection booth. I mixed myself a drink and went into the dining room to see what had happened to the girls.”

  “Mr. Tulley?” Masuto said.

  “Like Sidney says, I was in the projection booth, setting up the film. I heard the yelling from upstairs and I went up the staircase.”

  Beckman had been making notes. Now Masuto said, “I don’t think we need trouble you further now. I would appreciate it if you would give pertinent facts, name, place, telephone to Detective Beckman here. Then you can leave. I think it would be wise if you say nothing about what Mr. Cotter heard—for the time being, that is.”

  “In other words, you are closing this up,” Cotter said.

  “No, Mr. Cotter, I am closing nothing. You can give your story to the press if you wish. I only feel that it might be better for everyone concerned if we waited a bit.”

  Detective Beckman was copying out his notes for Masuto, and Dr. Baxter was sipping at a glass of his dead host’s excellent brandy, which the Japanese butler had poured for him. The house was staffed by a Japanese couple, not Niseis but recently come from Japan. The guests had departed. Mrs. Greenberg was asleep under the influence of a sedative; the guests had departed; and Al Greenberg’s body had been taken to the hospital for the autopsy. The Japanese houseman was dutifully waiting for the policemen to depart, and Masao Masuto was explaining to his wife why he would be late. He spoke in Japanese quite deliberately. He wanted the houseman to overhear him, and when he had finished with the phone, he turned to the butler and said in Japanese, “What do you and your wife think of this?”

  “Honorable official, we have no thoughts on the matter.”

  “That is nonsense, countryman of my father, as you well know. It is too late for witless formalities. I am not going to entrap you or arrest you, and not for a moment do I believe that you had anything to do with this. Do you think Mr. Greenberg was murdered?”

  “No one hates such a man,” the butler answered simply.

  “All murders do not signify hate. What of the wife? Did they love each other?”

  “They approached each other with respect. He was more than old enough to be her father.”

  “Would she kill him?”

  “No.”

  “You are very sure.”

  “I am a man of small purpose—a house servant. I am poor and I must take what work is offered to earn my bowl of food. But I am not a fool.”

  “And where were you and your wife when this happened?”

  “In the kitchen—where she is now. Would you speak with her?”

  “No, it is not necessary. Go to her. I will call you when we are ready to leave.”

  The butler departed for the kitchen, and Baxter, the medical examiner, asked what it was all about.

  “I asked him whether Phoebe Greenberg would have scalped her husband. He says no. He’s a student of human nature, so I believe him. I don’t have your Occidental gift for telling Jews from Gentiles. But Phoebe is not a Jewish name, is it?”

  “Anything’s a Jewish name today,” Beckman said. “All the rules are broken. I’m a Jewish cop. But if you want to know about the girls—none of them is Jewish.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. Take my word for it. About the men, I don’t know with any confidence. I would guess that Greenberg was the only Jew in the lot. Maybe Murphy Anderson—”

  “With a name like that!” Baxter snorted.

  “I told you, names don’t figure. It’s all mixed up. By the way, Masao, this Mike Tulley, he whispers to me that you should give him half an hour to get home and then call him. I got his number here.” He handed the number to Masuto, who nodded and said to Baxter, “What do you think, doc?”

  “I don’t think. The autopsy will show absolutely nothing. Nothing. Greenberg died of a heart attack.”

  “Could fear have caused it?”

  “Are you going to prove that, Masao? Come off it. If this is a murder, it’s a perfect murder. File and forget. Even if one of those babes confesses to being in that bedroom and pointing a gun at Greenberg and refusing to get him the sublinguals, and you put me on the stand and read me the confession ten times over, I will still say that there is no evidence of murder or even reasonable doubt that the heart attack came from natural and inevitable causes. And I think any physician you get will agree with me. So if you got a murder, you got a perfect murder.”

  “A very few people on this earth,” Masuto said thoughtfully, “perfect themselves in all of their being and actions. Such people do not murder.”

  Then he dialed Mike Tulley’s number.

  Tulley answered and waited. Masuto reminded the TV actor that he had asked him to call, and then Tulley said, “I think we had better talk, Detective Masuto.”

  “It’s past midnight. Can’t it wait for tomorrow?”

  “Maybe you sleep good. I take pills but that won’t help tonight. I agree with Cotter. Greenberg was murdered.”

  “You’re out in Benedict Canyon?”

  “That’s right. Five minutes from where you are.”

  “I’ll be there,” Masuto said. “Ten or fifteen minutes.” He put down the phone and turned to Beckman. “He thinks Greenberg was murdered and he’s frightened.”

  “Oh, balls,” said the doctor. “I am going home to bed if you don’t mind.”

  “Want me to come along with you, Masao?” Detective Beckman asked.

  “No—no, you knock off, Sy. I’ll see what he has to say. By the way, it seems to me that Anderson and Cotter were Greenberg’s partners. Is that right?”

  “I think so. Greenberg was the president of an outfit called Northeastern Films.”

  “And if I remember, I read somewhere that they produced the “Lonesome Rider” or whatever that thing Tulley plays in is called.”

  “That’s right—very big, successful. Number two on the Neilsen for seven months now. I read the Hollywood Reporter,” Beckman explained to Dr. Baxter. “It’s a sort of a damn trade journal, when you labor in Beverly Hills. I know where all the stars live. So does Masao. It gives us some kind of status among cops, but the pay remains lousy. Sidney Burke is press agent for Northeastern, according to what I hear tonight.”

  “Good night,” Dr. Baxter said sourly.

  Masuto called the Japanese houseman, said his good-bys formally, and then he and Detective Baxter left. Officer Seaton was still outside, but Masuto felt it would be better to call no attention to the house, and he sent Seaton back to duty.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mike Tulley

  MIKE Tulley’s home was in Benedict Canyon just north of Lexington, or something over half a mile north of Sunset Boulevard. Three months before, the tourist sightseeing buses had taken to making a right turn on Sunset along Benedict—which was a tribute to his rating. The house was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars modern with a bean-shaped swimming pool and a carport wide enough to hold five cars.

  Tulley was standing in the carport when Masuto drove up, and he was visibly relieved. He led Masuto toward the house, through the entranceway and living room to the library. Statuswise, this had replaced the den. There was a whole wall of fine leather bindings, Heritage Club, Limited Editions Club, and also several shelves of plain, common books purchased at Martindale’s and at Mary Hunter’s Bookshop. It made a good wall; people like Mike Tulley had little time for reading. There was an enormous antique globe and four Eames chairs. The
couch, upholstered in black vinyl, was built in along one wall.

  Tulley motioned for Masuto to sit down and asked whether he would have a drink. Masuto shook his head. Coffee? Again Masuto shook his head, and at that point Lenore Tulley stepped into the library and said, “You don’t offer an Oriental coffee. Give him some tea.”

  “Lenore, suppose you go to bed. What I got to say to the detective here is private.”

  “You mean it stinks.”

  “You’ve had too much.”

  “Drop dead,” she said, and swung around and left. Tulley stared hopelessly at Masuto.

  Masuto waited. He was tired and unhappy, but he attempted to be patient and objective, without judgement or identification.

  “Great! Great!” Tulley said. He poured himself a drink. “It’s a great, stinking life. I am going to tell you something quick—because if I don’t tell it quick, I can’t tell it.” He went to the door, opened it and then closed it again. “I wouldn’t put it past her to have this place bugged,” he said.

  “Why don’t you simply tell me whatever you wish to tell me.”

  “All right. Now look—this happened eleven years ago. I had a rotten small part in a TV thing they were doing at World Wide. They brought in some idiot kid who wanted a part—you got to know how these kids want a part. There are maybe ten thousand girls in this town who came here to make it big, and none of them do and they would sell their souls and their mothers for one stinking little part. So this kid is promised a part if she lets herself get banged once or twice—”

  “Just spell that out, please,” Masuto said.

  “This guy makes a deal with her. He brings her into one of those little movable dressing rooms. She promises to have some sex with a couple of buddies. Then he invites me to be his guest. So I am a louse—you know a man who isn’t a louse?”