The Case of the Angry Actress: A Masao Masuto Mystery

by Howard Fast

  Masuto filled his cup with coffee again and began to consume another Danish pastry, reflecting on the fact that so much evil is mediocre beyond belief; so much vileness, the writhing of frustrated children trapped in the bodies of adults. Anyway, it was not his to judge. He even felt a little ashamed of himself when he said, “Naturally, Mr. Burke, you brought the grip a picture of your wife.”

  “That’s my duty as a citizen, Sarge.”

  “Naturally. But the grip could make no identification.”

  “No.”

  “Did he remember the girl having red hair?”

  “All he could remember was blonde. So what? You think Trude’s some kind of idiot? She’d wear a wig.”

  “Does she have wigs?” Masuto asked.

  “Sarge, wake up. You’re running with the wrong crowd. There ain’t a dame in this town doesn’t have a closet full of wigs.”

  Leaving this statement unchallenged, Masuto asked about detective agencies. “Surely, you would have thought of that, Mr. Burke?”

  “I did.”

  “Which agency?”

  “Intermountain. They’re up on—”

  “I know where they are.” Masuto nodded. “Who do you deal with there—Frank Gillespie?”

  “No, his partner, Adam Meyerwitz. I been dealing with them for years and they can be trusted one hundred percent. So I put them on the job. I told Meyerwitz the whole story. I told him I wanted it quick.”

  “Just out of curiosity,” Masuto said, “what do they charge for a job like that?”

  “Six hundred dollars a day. They were on it five days.”

  Masuto whistled.

  “Well, there you are,” said Burke. “You don’t see them making no heroes out of Beverly Hills cops, do you, Sarge? A private eye, that’s something else. He’s America’s lover boy.”

  “And what did Intermountain give you for six hundred dollars a day?”

  “Nothing. Not one stinking, lousy thing. They found out that Trude Steffenson, the name she had when I married her, was not the name she was born with. But they couldn’t come up with the name she was born with. They found indications that she had come to Hollywood in 1952, but from where they don’t know, and they can’t put a finger on her before 1961. Can you imagine? Can you imagine being married to a broad who’s a phony from the word go? When I think of the way that broad took me in—”

  “Are they still on it?”

  “Are you kidding? At six hundred dollars a day? Anyhow, she’s a smartass broad and she felt something, and then she went to the Pinkertons and hired her own man and found out and she comes home and tells me that she’d ruin me forever in the industry if I ever try something like that again.”

  “Could she?”

  “She could make plenty of trouble for me. That’s gratitude, Sarge. I marry a broad like that, who’s worth maybe a yard for a night to some jackass from Kansas, and I give her everything in the world, but everything, and what do I get?”

  “You know when Mike Tulley was killed?”

  “Today.”

  “I mean the time.”

  “About twelve-thirty,” Burke replied.

  “Did you ask your wife where she was at that time?”

  “I did,” Burke said.

  “And what was her answer?”

  “Drop dead.”

  “What?”

  “I mean that was her answer, Sarge. That’s what you asked me, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

  “I asked you that.”

  “So I told you. She says to me, ‘Drop dead.’”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else. We don’t have conversations these days. Does the butcher talk to the goose he picks out? So why should she talk to me?”

  “You haven’t tried to divorce her?”

  “With what she’s got on me?”

  “Will she be at the chapel now?”

  “Who knows? Murph invited her to his house tonight for the meeting or whatever he intends to do.”

  “He did?”

  “That’s right. He did.”

  “Suppose we drive over to the chapel now,” Masuto said. “I don’t think Mrs. Greenberg will be offended by my presence there.”

  The chapel was on Wilshire, about a mile toward downtown. Here Greenberg’s body would lie through the night, and from here it would be taken for burial the following day. There would be a brief service at Mt. Ephriam Cemetery the following day, after which the actual burial would take place. Now, at the chapel, close friends and relatives were gathering. Anderson and Cotter would both be there. From there, they and their wives would go to Anderson’s house.

  As Masuto drove his car into the parking lot behind the chapel, Sidney Burke voiced his uncertainties. “It’s not like I don’t regard you as a gentleman, Sarge,” he said, “but won’t it look peculiar?”

  “Because I am a cop or because I am a Nisei?”

  “Well, you got to admit that the combination is peculiar.”

  “Yet curiously enough,” Masuto said quietly, “I was a friend of Al Greenberg.”

  “You?”

  “Myself,” Masuto nodded. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll pay my respects.”

  “Mind? Why should I mind?” He led the way toward the chapel. “Mind. You talk like I’m running this show. I don’t mind. I’m the last one in the world to mind.”

  They entered the chapel, where they were met by a man in tails with a professionally funereal countenance. He asked them which of the several rooms in use that evening they were concerned with, and when they specified Al Greenberg, he sighed just enough and guided them to the proper place. There were about fifty people in the room, a high-ceilinged room, decorated in a popular West Coast style known as dubious-Hollywood-Gothic. Masuto entered and stood silently just inside the doorway. Burke joined Anderson and Cotter, and then Cotter walked purposefully over to Masuto and said hoarsely, “You ought to know better than to come here. Is nothing sacred to a cop?”

  “I am a Beverly Hills cop, Mr. Cotter,” Masuto said without rancor.

  “What is that supposed to mean? That there’s nothing sacred in Beverly Hills?”

  “It’s my own poor sense of humor, Mr. Cotter. I know this is neither the time or the place. But I must ask you something.”

  “You’re right when you say this is neither the time nor the place.”

  “But if you would give me a moment—”

  “OK—OK—ask.”

  “Did Samantha get the bit part she was brought down there for? I mean, was she actually filmed?”

  “Big thought!” Cotter said sarcastically. “You really got it pinned.”

  “Do you mind answering.”

  “No. Jesus God, man, do you think she was in any condition to act?”

  “I wasn’t there,” Masuto smiled, “so I don’t speculate on her condition. Just as I make no judgements about what happened there.”

  “You could go too far, buddy boy. And you still haven’t explained by what process you horn in here tonight.”

  “I felt I had to talk to Mrs. Greenberg and persuade her to join us tonight,” Masuto said patiently.

  “She is joining us. So that’s that.”

  “Still, I must explain my presence. She’s seen me now. I must explain the misunderstanding.”

  Cotter shook his head and walked back to join Anderson and Burke. Phoebe Greenberg, who had seen Masuto now, came over to him and said, “Why did you come here, Sergeant? Has some new terrible thing happened?”

  “No. But I must speak to you.”

  “I’ll see you later at Murph Anderson’s house. I can’t talk here. My husband’s family is here. They have no notion that there was anything unusual about his death.”

  “I must talk to you now. If you would only step out into the corridor with me. I won’t take more than five minutes of your time.”

  “Very well.” She sighed, and he held the door open for her and she walked through. Outside, he looked at her sharply, and then
said, “No one will ask you whether you loved your husband. Did you?”

  “I loved him very much,” she said flatly. “He saved my life. He gave me back to life. He was one of the few good men I have ever known. He did everything for me, and I did very little for him. Does that answer your question, Mr. Masuto?”

  “Yes. Will you do something for him now?”

  “What can I do for him? He’s dead.”

  “Help me to take his murderer.”

  “He was murdered?”

  “Yes. I have no doubt about it.”

  “How?”

  “I think the murderer held a cushion over his face. He had an attack and died.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to be at World Wide Studios tomorrow at ten-thirty or so in the morning. Do you have anything filming now?”

  “Yes, we have two pilots in work. But you don’t understand. The funeral is tomorrow.”

  “I do understand. Then you have makeup people there. I don’t want you to make any arrangements in advance. Just turn up and tell them to make you up immediately.”

  “Who? Mr. Masuto, you simply do not have the faintest notion of how a studio operates. I can’t just walk on to a soundstage and tell the makeup people to go to work on me. You have a film in process. You have a production manager, a director, a cast—”

  “I know all that,” Masuto said impatiently. “Aren’t you forgetting one thing?”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you own Northeastern Films.”

  “I do not. The partners will buy my husband’s shares.”

  “Next week, next month. At this moment, you are the widow of the president. No one will question anything you ask—just so long as you make it plain that you are the boss. Believe me.”

  “Even a crazy request like makeup—?”

  “Yes. Any request.”

  “And what shall I make up as?” she asked hopelessly.

  “A middle-aged woman. Dark wig. Glasses. Padding around your middle.”

  “And that will help catch the murderer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You give me your word?”

  “Yes—except that all plans have a point of failure. This is dangerous, very dangerous. I will protect you as much as one human being can protect another. But it will still be very dangerous.”

  “And if I refuse, Mr. Masuto?”

  “Then it will be even more dangerous, because the killer will kill you. We will try to protect you, but for how long?”

  “I will do it,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Good. You get into costume. Do you know where Stage 6 is?”

  “The stage where poor Freddie died?”

  “That’s right. At exactly 11:10, I will be outside of Stage 6. I will look for you. If you don’t see me, walk on and then return. But under no circumstances must you enter Stage 6 without me.”

  “Suppose I don’t see you at all?”

  “Then go back to where your people are shooting and call the Beverly Hills police and find out what happened to me, or whether there is any message for you.”

  “All right.”

  “And tonight, not one word of this. Not to anyone. Not to Anderson and not to his wife. Not to the Rabbi, Do you understand me?”

  “I understand you, Mr. Masuto.”

  “Good. You are a very brave woman. Will you tell Mr. Burke to go with the others. I am going to leave now.”

  She nodded and returned to the mourning room. Masuto left the chapel and walked around to the parking lot. He got into his car, started the motor and drove slowly past the chapel into Wilshire Boulevard. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that a side door into the chapel was half open. Behind the door, only darkness, and then as he came close to it, the darkness was broken by a tiny tongue of light, almost like the flicker of a firefly. There must have been a silencer on the gun—or perhaps the slight whip of a twenty-two caliber pistol was absorbed into the sound of his own motor.

  It was when he stopped his car out on Wilshire and looked at the small, neat hole in his windshield that he realized the gun was a twenty-two, probably one of those tiny, deadly little pistols that nestle so well in a lady’s handbag.

  He leaped out of the car and ran back into the chapel, stumbling and skinning his knuckles in the Stygian blackness of the side door. He crouched there, licking at his hand and cursing himself for a fool. What had he expected to find? If the murderer had waited, he, Masuto, would now be dead. Nothing put down Masuto so completely as to discover a wide, foolish hole in his own intelligence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Stacy Anderson

  MASUTO took a liberty that his chief would certainly note and resent and called his wife on his car radiophone. The children were asleep, and she was reading a mystery novel by Rex Stout. She was rather nervous, and pleased that he had called her; and after telling him about the children, she suggested that it would be a nice thing some day to take a vacation and go to New York City.

  “A very long and expensive trip.”

  “In this book, it is a very pleasant place. Perhaps you will stop being a policeman and earn a great deal of money.”

  “That’s not likely,” he said.

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  “I think it’s possible,” he said.

  “Now you tease me.”

  “Never.”

  “You have no more use for me, your wife, but only for the beautiful blondes one sees in Hollywood.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I know. I know. There was a picture of Mike Tulley’s wife in the evening paper—in the Times. She is so beautiful.”

  “The Times is a morning paper.”

  “Don’t we get it in the evening? Is she as good as she is beautiful?”

  “Who?”

  “Lenore Tulley.”

  “I am happy to speak to you, and I love you very much,” he said.

  “But you never tell me about the wonderful things that happen to you.”

  “I love you anyway,” he said.

  “Michael has a sore throat.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “No. I gave him some aspirin. I am sure he’ll be better tomorrow.”

  Then Masuto said his goodbys, put away the telephone, and fingered the tiny hole in his windshield. He felt better since speaking to his wife. He felt better able to face the rest of the night.

  Murphy Anderson’s house on Rodeo Drive was gigantic Beverly Hills-half-timber-Tudor. Stacy Anderson must have left the chapel soon after Masuto, since she was already home to open the door for him and usher him into the red leather, brass nail, Oriental rug interior and through the baronial hall into an immense sunken living room, which sported medieval banners from its cross-beams. In a fire-place large enough to drive a sport car through, two huge imitation logs glowed with light and warmth, and in one corner a suit of armor leaned moodily on its spear.

  “I felt someone had to be here to welcome you, Inspector,” Stacy Anderson said, “so I made my apologies and rushed home.”

  “Sergeant, Mrs. Anderson.”

  “Sergeant?”

  “I mean, we don’t have inspectors. We should, I often feel.”

  “You are humorous. I mean, for a Japanese. We never give Orientals any credit for a sense of humor, and I fear we make a dreadful mistake—don’t you?”

  “I really couldn’t say, Mrs. Anderson. I have never been in the Orient.”

  “What a shame!”

  Could she be as stupid as she appeared, Masuto wondered, as insensitive and gauche? Or was she putting him on? Was she possibly one of those extraordinary women who can move through life playing the role of the fool, and who wears a fool’s mask to cover the intelligence? Now it was hard to say, and he rejected any quick judgements. Certainly, she was a beautiful and seductive woman, about thirty-one or thirty-two, round, just the slightest bit plump, pale blue eyes contrasting strangely with her black hair. For the chapel
, she had put on a dress of black velvet—a stunning repeat for her glowing hair. Masuto reflected that in today’s America, it is almost unthinkable that a blonde woman should dye her hair black. Blondness was big business, a passion, a semiracist ingredient of the mythology current in the land. Yet few women could adorn themselves with anything more beautiful than Stacy Anderson’s hair. Why shouldn’t she dye it black?

  He became conscious of the fact that he was staring at her and pulled his gaze away. She was in no way disturbed. Quite to the contrary, she was pleased at being the object of his admiration. Masuto had the very strong feeling that she would be pleased to be the object of any man’s admiration, and he was in no position to draw conclusions. Why Murphy Anderson had married her was only too evident, and why she had married him was almost equally obvious.

  “Isn’t this a huge room?” she asked. “You know, Murph has two children from his first marriage and they spend their summers with us and they’re absolutely divine youngsters, so when Murph and I decided to buy a place here in Beverly Hills, I felt we should have something that was both homey and big enough for the kids to romp around in. This seemed just to fill the bill perfectly, and there’s a wonderful big pool and a tennis court out back. But do you know, Inspector—”

  “Sergeant,” Masuto said.

  “Of course. Sergeant. You know, they always seem to be a little overawed by the house until they get the hang of it. That takes time, you know.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Do you like my dress?”

  “It’s very attractive.”

  “Thank you, dear Inspector. I wonder whether you would suggest something I might serve. I thought of champagne, but this isn’t that kind of a party, is it?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Then each to his own desire.”

  “You don’t appear to be very upset by anything today,” Masuto said quite deliberately.”

  “Upset? You mean by Al’s death?”

  “And Tulley’s murder.”