Blues in the Dark

by Raymond Benson

  “I, uh, I heard you were recovering nicely,” he said, his voice quavering. “That you were ready to come back to work! That’s, uh, good! I have a number of projects I think you’d be really good in.”

  The sweat beaded on his forehead. His eyes darted nervously. His hands shook.

  “Trying to sweet-talk me, Eldon?” she asked.

  “Blair, I’m just happy you’re back. Oh, and I’m so sorry to hear about your child. That’s a tragedy. If he had … if he had survived, we could have found him a good home, and—”

  “She.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The baby was a she, Eldon. And if she had lived, the home she deserved was with me and Hank. What happened to her father, Eldon? Where’s Hank?”

  His mouth trembled, and he said, “Blair, wait a minute. I don’t know anything about—”

  She pulled the trigger. The recoil thundered in the cavernous office. The bullet missed, sailing just over his left shoulder and striking the wall behind him. Had she missed on purpose? She didn’t know. It had the desired effect, though—it had scared the bluster out of him. He yelped and started to cry. “Blair! Please, don’t. You don’t know …. Listen, I have a wife and a son and a—”

  “Studio? You have a wife and a son and a studio? Tsk tsk, Eldon. You cheat on your wife all the time. You barely pay any attention to your son. All you love is that coin collection. How would you feel if you lost it?”

  “Blair. Wait. You don’t understand. The collection—it’s not all mine. I share it. I just manage it, I do all the work and the collecting.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Eldon held up his hands. “Put the gun down, and I’ll tell you.”

  “No.”

  “You know, the guards will come running. They probably heard that shot.”

  “What guards?” she asked. “They’ve all gone home. The only one here is Barney, and he’s way outside and was about to leave. Nobody can hear what goes on in this office.”

  “Buddy’s here.”

  The mention of his name produced a sharp intake of breath. Blair wanted to find him, too. “Where?”

  “In his office. Upstairs. You know where it is.”

  She nodded at the binders. “What were you saying about the coins?”

  “I have friends in Las Vegas. One of them, a guy named Meyer Lansky. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s in the casino business there.”

  “Meyer Lansky’s a gangster.”

  “Yes.”

  “You share a coin collection with a gangster.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they stolen?”

  Hirsch hesitated. “Maybe some of them are. I don’t know. The ones I acquired were … supposed to be … legitimate. Where he gets his, I don’t know.”

  “And they’re all there in those binders?”

  Hirsch nodded.

  “So, you’re telling me that these coins belong to the mob?”

  “Well … and me, too … and Buddy …”

  She fired the pistol again, this time hitting him squarely in the left shoulder. He screamed and jerked back in his chair, but it was such a strong, heavy piece of furniture that it didn’t tip over with his weight. He continued to blubber and cry, clutching the wound with his right hand. “Blair! Please! Agh! Call an ambulance!” Blood began seeping over his shirt, between his fingers.

  “Tell me the truth, Eldon. Those coins were acquired illegally, right?” She pointed the gun at his face.

  His eyes were headlamps of fear. He nodded furiously. “Yes.”

  “You imprisoned me for months. Kidnapped me.”

  He continued to move his head up and down. “Blair! Please! I’m sorry …!”

  Another shot. This one struck his right shoulder. Another scream.

  “What happened to Hank?” she shouted.

  Sobbing, practically dripping off the chair, Hirsch managed to say, “I really … don’t know! You’d … have to … ask Buddy.”

  “But he’s dead? Hank is dead?”

  Hirsch squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He reluctantly nodded.

  Blair shot him again. This time the round hit the middle of his chest, just over the sternum. The studio mogul slumped in the chair. No more cries. No more trembling. No more movies.

  Time stood still. Blair could feel herself breathing. She could see and hear the things around her, but it was as if everything was now in slow motion. She knew what she’d done, but she was not inside her body. She was floating along the ceiling, looking down, watching the two figures on opposite sides of the desk.

  The next thing she knew, she had gathered the coin binders and tucked them under her left arm, the purse still dangling there. She turned and rushed out of the room, only to meet Buddy Franco coming in.

  He had a gun, and it was pointing at her.

  Instinctively, the lessons Hank had taught her paid off. Without hesitation, she simply raised her right hand and squeezed the trigger. The bullet caught Franco in his side, causing him to fall and drop his weapon. He lay on the floor, unmoving. Blair stood over him for a moment. Was he dead? She thought so, but she didn’t really want to stick around.

  Then Franco’s eyes opened. He tried to move but it appeared that he couldn’t.

  “Help me …” he whispered.

  “Why should I? You killed Hank. And you know what? I don’t believe my baby just died. You killed her. Didn’t you!”

  Franco attempted to shake his head. “Orph …”

  “What? I can’t hear you!” Blair shouted at Franco.

  “Orph … nage.”

  Blair’s heart leaped. “What? An orphanage? You took her to an orphanage?”

  “Yes. Just … got back … from there …”

  “Where? Where?”

  “I’ll tell … if … help me …”

  Blair squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. The man wanted her help? He’d tell her where her daughter was if she helped him?

  “Where is she, Buddy?” she shouted at his face.

  He flinched, and then whispered, “Santa …”

  She reached in and shook him by the shoulders. “Tell me! Santa what?”

  “… Barb … ara.”

  “Santa Barbara?”

  Franco reached for something in his jacket. Blair was ready to strike him with the butt end of the pistol, but he pulled out an envelope. With a trembling hand, he gave it to her. In the stark illumination of Hirsch’s office and through blurry eyes, she caught the words “Children’s Home” embedded in the return address on the envelope. She quickly looked inside and noted that it contained a form of some kind.

  “All right, Buddy, I’ll—”

  But Franco’s head had dropped, his eyes closed. Was he dead or only passed out? She didn’t know and didn’t care.

  Her child was alive!

  But with the elation came the feeling of panic. She turned to head out the office door—and collided with an elegant, beautiful woman in a white dress. She had bold red hair that appeared to be a circle of flames around her head.

  “Who are you?” the woman snapped, surveying the scene. “What have you done?”

  At first, Blair was frozen. She couldn’t move or speak.

  The woman eyed the coin binders under Blair’s arm. “Give me those!” She started to reach for them.

  Blair snapped out of her immobility, pointed the gun at the redhead, and shouted, “Out of my way!” The woman snarled and raised her hands halfway. Blair pushed past her and ran down the dark hall to the front of the building.

  A gunshot resounded behind Blair. A round missed her by a few inches and tore a chuck out of the wall beside her.

  Blair burst outside to the parking lot. She reached her car, threw the binders, gun, and purse on the passenger seat, and got in. She tried to start the Oldsmobile, but the engine coughed and sputtered. Another seizure of anxiety coursed through her chest.

  The woman in the white dress emerged from the building, aimed her
Colt .38 at Blair, and fired. The passenger window shattered, and Blair screamed.

  Malena Mengarelli strode determinedly toward the Oldsmobile. Blair turned the key again—and this time the engine kicked over. She backed out of the space with a screech and drove toward the gate.

  Another round smashed the rear driver’s-side window. Blair slammed the gear into first, stepped on the pedal, and released the clutch. The Oldsmobile shot forward. It didn’t register to her that the gate was missing. She hurtled past the seemingly empty guardhouse and onto the road like a demon from hell.

  34

  KARISSA

  Karissa’s eyes darted from her landlord to the old woman on the couch.

  “You’re Hank Marley’s sister?”

  Regina Trundy nodded. “Sit down, child. You shouldn’t stay here long. They’ll be watching us. It’s why we haven’t made much of an overture to you before.”

  “I don’t … I don’t understand.”

  The woman patted the sofa next to her. “Sit, please, child.”

  Karissa did so. Trundy sat in the other chair.

  “Men are after you, aren’t they?” the woman asked.

  “I suppose you could say that. Someone tried to kill me the other day. Mostly they’ve just tried to scare me into not making the movie I want to do.”

  “It’s about Blair and my brother?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “Good. That story needs to be told.”

  Karissa looked at her landlord. “Mr. Trundy, why didn’t you tell me about your mother? I’ve been asking you questions about the house and all.”

  He displayed his hands and said, “It was for your protection, and ours. These men mean business.”

  “Why? It’s history, isn’t it?”

  “Is it that man Barry Doon who has been harassing you?” the woman asked. Karissa could see that, despite her age, Regina Trundy had her wits about her. There was intelligence in her eyes and a feistiness in her spirit.

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  “He may be associated with that movie studio, but he’s really a gangster. He works for bad men in Las Vegas who have been in bed with the Hirsch family for years and years. They own a large piece of the studio.”

  “Ultimate Pictures?”

  “That’s right.”

  Trundy continued. “From what we understand, Eldon Hirsch made a deal with the devil a long time ago. The mob bankrolled the studio when it started up. They get a piece of the profits every time the studio makes a movie that is successful.”

  “That’s extraordinary,” Karissa said. “How can that be allowed to happen?”

  Trundy answered, “We can’t answer that. It’s too complex for us to understand, and frankly that’s a whole other world. The son—the guy who runs the studio now …”

  “Justin Hirsch.”

  “Yes, him. He’s still beholden to the gangsters. If you ask me, he’s a madman. He’s harassed us for years. My mother and I, and my own family—we just want to live our lives peacefully and forget all that stuff that happened in the past.”

  “What did happen?”

  Regina placed a hand on Karissa’s. “Honey, my brother was murdered by those men.”

  Though Karissa was unsurprised, she still gave a start. “I know that he disappeared in 1949, but no one ever reported what had happened to him. Do you know more about it?”

  Regina looked at her son and cocked her head at him. He replied, “We know that a friend of Hank’s—Ray Webster—saw him get into a car with a man named Buddy Franco. I guess you could say he was the Barry Doon of that time, the fixer for Eldon Hirsch, who was the head of the studio. Franco was also a mobster who answered to his bosses in Las Vegas, although he was on the payroll of Ultimate Pictures. You’re right, no one knew what happened to Hank, but in 1952, a skeleton was found out in the desert between here and Vegas. There was a hole in the skull, indicating the man had been shot. Because it was a skeleton, the medical examiner was unsure what other tortures the poor man had to endure before he was killed.”

  “And that was Hank?”

  Regina nodded. “The skeleton’s bony finger still wore a ring—a gold wedding ring—that once belonged to our father. I had engaged a lawyer back then to try and find out what happened to Hank. He learned of the discovery in the desert and did some investigating. The police never officially identified the remains, but my lawyer attempted to get it in the papers.”

  “The African American newspapers,” Trundy said. “The California Eagle and the Los Angeles Sentinel. They ran a story about it that year, but no one paid any attention.”

  Karissa winced. “When I tried to find those articles, I discovered someone had censored them. They were completely missing from the archives at the library and online.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Trundy said. “The studio didn’t want anyone to know they were responsible for the murder of a black man. I’m sure there were bribes and payoffs to law enforcement in the region where the skeleton was found. You see, if it had come out, the studio’s stock would have fallen, and the mob in Vegas wouldn’t have been very happy. They wanted to protect their investment.”

  “They also didn’t want it known that Blair Kendrick, a white woman, was seeing Hank, a black man,” Karissa said.

  Regina laughed a little. “Yes, that would have been bad PR, too. An interracial relationship of that type at that time was forbidden. California may have made it legal for white and black people to get married, but that didn’t mean everyone was all for it. Not on your life! I understand that Blair became pregnant with Hank’s child and they wanted to get married. Buddy Franco kidnapped her and took her someplace. She was held against her will for months until she had the baby.”

  “Kidnapped her? Oh, my God! What happened to the baby?”

  “We believe Franco murdered her. We really don’t know for sure. Considering the evil that was inside those men, I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  “Oh, my God. That’s awful. Do you think it’s possible that the baby lived and is still alive?”

  Trundy shrugged. “I suppose anything is possible, but I highly doubt it.”

  “What about the house, Mr. Trundy? Now can you tell me who owns it?”

  Trundy answered, “We honestly don’t know. Someone set up a shell company with some lawyers that would handle Blair’s house and belongings. That company at first paid my mother to be the landlord to the house, and now I do it. We’re not supposed to sell it, and we were recently told to rent it to the first person who came to ask about it. That was you.”

  “That’s all you know?”

  “The company was set up to run itself by a lawyer or lawyers in some foreign location,” Trundy added.

  “I don’t mind saying that the company has kept my son and me comfortable. Tried to get me to move into the house,” Regina said, “but I love this little place too much. I’ve been here forever it seems. I never wanted to move.”

  Trundy nodded. “Anyway, those studio people have hounded us forever, asking questions about Blair and a bad woman named Malena Mengarelli. Not only them, but the police. The mobsters from Vegas. I can’t tell you how many times they’ve interrogated us. They want to make sure we say nothing about Hank. If we started talking about what happened to him, they’d come after us. We shouldn’t be talking to you, but my mother and I just happened to discuss it yesterday. I knew you were looking into all this. We felt that if you came to us, we should speak. Those people also seem to think we know something about a missing coin collection that’s worth a fortune. Apparently, it was jointly owned by Eldon Hirsch and the Vegas mob.”

  Karissa thought about that. She wasn’t sure if she should mention that someone had sent her three of what she assumed to be the missing coins. “So, what role did Ray Webster have in all this?”

  Regina said, “Ray would never talk about it. He helped Blair in some capacity after she escaped her kidnappers. He was hounded the rest of his life, too.”

>   “Is that why his son is so hard to find? I’d love to talk to him.”

  “Gregory?” Again, Regina shared a glance with her son and then said, “Gregory knows some things, but he keeps his whereabouts secret even from us. He doesn’t want those studio and gangster thugs to bother him. He had to sneak in and out of the city to see his father.”

  “Do you know where he lives? I’ve heard it was in the Bakersfield area.”

  “That’s all we know, too,” Trundy answered.

  Karissa sighed heavily. It was all clear now. The reason Justin Hirsch was going to great lengths to stop her film and even kill her if he had to was not just to protect his father’s “legacy,” such as it was, but to protect the studio from legal culpability in past murders. Maybe there were even more bodies in the desert that Justin didn’t want uncovered.

  Hollywood’s dark underbelly.

  The sound of a car door slamming outside alerted them. Trundy went to the window and peered through curtains. “Oh, Lord, it’s Barry Doon. He’s coming to the door.” He turned to Karissa. “Quick, go out the back. Hurry!”

  Karissa jumped up and followed the man, pausing long enough to turn to Regina and say, “Thank you for talking to me!”

  “Run, child! Do not call the police! We’ll handle him.”

  Trundy held the back door open and she hurried into a small yard. The wire fence continued around the tiny house to the back. Where was she supposed to go now? She moved around to the side of the building and paused there as she heard Doon banging on the front door. “Open up, Mrs. Trundy!”

  Karissa waited. Then, her landlord’s voice mixed with Doon’s. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, until Doon said, “You better let me in. I’m going to have a look!”

  After a moment, Karissa bolted out to the front of the house. The gate had been left open, so she ran through it and out into the street. Her car was parked just a few doors down on the other side. She figured Doon must have seen it and assumed she was inside the Trundy home. Karissa quickly got inside the Murano, buckled up, and started the engine. As she pulled out of the space, she glanced at the little house to make sure Doon hadn’t seen her, and then she drove away.