Beverly Hills Dead Read online

  “So, is there a part for me?”

  “There’s only one decent female role,” Rick replied, “a sort of younger Marjorie Main character.”

  Glenna made a face. “Not for me. I’m not ready for character roles.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.” He tossed the script on the bed and began to undress. “Read it, though; I don’t want you to come back after you’ve seen the picture and yell at me for not giving you the role.”

  “I don’t yell.”

  “Yes you do when you don’t get the roles you want.” Rick got into bed.

  “Mmm, no pajamas, huh?” she asked. “What could that mean?”

  “Just that I’m available.”

  Glenna took a deep breath. “Before I make that decision, I want to ask you something.”

  “Shoot.”

  “An unintentionally ironic reply,” she said. “Did you shoot Chick Stampano?”

  Rick drew in a quick breath. That was completely unexpected. Stampano had been a slick Mafia thug and blackmailer who had preyed on rising actresses, Glenna among them. He had also given her a horrible beating that had put her in the hospital for weeks. “Why are you asking me that after what, four years?”

  “I have an opinion; I just want a fact. I want to know if my husband would kill for me.”

  “Yes,” Rick said.

  “Yes he would, or yes he did?”

  Rick turned and looked her in the eye. “Both,” he said.

  “And that’s why you joined the navy, instead of coming to look for me?”

  “Yes.”

  Glenna shucked off her silk nightgown and wrapped herself around him. “I’m so glad,” she said.

  “Glad I joined the navy?”

  “Glad it was you who dealt with Stampano.” She kissed him on the neck. “Did it make you feel guilty?”

  “No,” Rick replied, “not for a moment. It made me feel sick for a moment, but I knew I had done the right thing. I had already talked with the navy recruiter and had taken my physical. They were able to get me into training almost immediately. I’m surprised Eddie didn’t tell you all of this.”

  “He came to see me at the hospital and told me some things but not everything. As soon as I could, I got out and went to New York. Eddie didn’t have a chance to explain further, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Did you have problems with the police?”

  “My friend Ben Morrison was the investigating officer. He bought me enough time to get out of town, then he spread a rumor that I’d gone to Canada to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force. When I came back to L.A., after I was wounded, the whole thing had blown over. Nobody seemed to want to know anything, except Bugsy Siegel, who still wanted my head on a platter.”

  “Eddie took care of that, didn’t he? I mean, I know the conventional wisdom was that the mob murdered him, but I never believed that.”

  “Neither did I, but Eddie never said another word about it after he brought me the newspaper with Ben Siegel’s picture on the front page, missing part of his head.”

  She snuggled closer. “Was there something you wanted to do to me?”

  “I want to do everything to you.”

  She kissed him again. “Then do it.”

  And he did.

  3

  Rick got up early, careful not to wake Glenna, dressed and left the house without breakfast. He got into Eddie Harris’s old 1940 Continental convertible, drove out to Clover Field in Santa Monica, then to his father’s hangar at Barron Flying Service. He parked out back and walked into the hangar. His father was standing before Centurion Studios’ Douglas DC–3, which, after being confiscated for military use and used as a general’s personal transport during the war, had finally been released to its owner. Jack Barron and his people were renovating the airplane thoroughly.

  “Morning, Dad,” Rick said.

  “How you doing, Son?” Jack said, offering his hand.

  “How’s she coming?”

  “Couple more weeks, I guess. The interior is mostly done, and I’ll have the overhauled engines back next week. We’re repolishing the aluminum, starting today, and we’ll put the Centurion name back on her when we’re done.”

  “I’ll tell Eddie Harris,” Rick said. “He’s tired of driving to Palm Springs on the weekend, and he’ll be glad to fly again.”

  “How’s work?”

  “Just great. We wrapped on a new picture yesterday, the one that I directed, and we’ll start the editing and other postproduction work today.” Jack had heard enough conversations about Rick’s work that he knew the jargon by now.

  “You’re moving up in the world, boy. You know, when you quit the Beverly Hills police force and took that job as the studio cop, I thought you were headed downhill. In fact, I was kinda hoping it wouldn’t work out, so I could have you back out here as my partner, doing the flying.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Rick said, laughing.

  “How are my granddaughters?”

  “Thriving. Louise is talking a blue streak, and Glenn is a sweetheart, so far.”

  “Wait till she’s two; you were a hellion at two.”

  “You’re coming to lunch on Sunday, right?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “I’ll let you get back to work, then.” Rick left him, went back to his car and drove to the studio. The guard at the gate gave him a smart salute, and he drove to the administration building and parked in his reserved spot. He went upstairs to his office, which had belonged to Eddie before studio founder Sol Weinman had died. Eddie now worked in Sol’s palatial office next door. Rick passed through the outer reception room and the inner secretaries’ office, where two women kept things running.

  One of them handed him an envelope. “This just came. It’s the final budget for the war movie.”

  “Thanks,” Rick said, “but it looks like we’re going to be postponing that.”

  “You want to send out a memo?”

  “Later this morning; I’ll let you know.” Rick went into his mahogany-paneled office and sat down at his desk. Immediately, his phone buzzed.

  “Hyman Greenbaum for you,” the secretary said. Sidney Brooks’s agent wasn’t wasting any time.

  Rick picked up the phone. “Morning, Hyman, here’s the deal: I’ll pay fifty percent more for Bitter Creek than I did for Times Square Dance, all the money on signing, the usual revisions and polishing, all other stipulations as per the last contract.”

  There was a brief silence before Greenbaum could speak. “This is a negotiation?” he asked, finally. “With negotiations like this, what will I do for a living from now on?”

  “Don’t worry; you can tell Sid you fought like a tiger for the deal, and I’ll back you up. Get me a contract over here this morning; we want to start preproduction immediately.”

  “Anything you say, Rick,” Greenbaum said.

  Rick hung up, and his phone buzzed again. “Just a reminder,” the secretary said. “You have an appointment with your architect in ten minutes.”

  “Oh, right,” Rick said. “And take a memo to the preproduction staff: Eddie Harris and I are postponing production of Pacific Invasion in order to begin preproduction immediately on a new Sidney Brooks script, Bitter Creek, a western. Meeting in my office at nine A.M. tomorrow morning. Hold that until the contract arrives from Hyman Greenbaum, then send it out. Also, come in and get the script, get it retyped and run off a hundred copies as soon as possible, and send each member of the preproduction team a copy with the memo.”

  “Will do,” she said. She came in and got the script. “What’s going with this? No revisions? How come I never heard of this?”

  “Because I read it only last night.”

  “It must really be something,” she said.

  “It really is, but don’t take time to read it until the copies come in.”

  “Peter James, the architect, is outside.”

  “Send him in.” Rick walked over to the conference table and met the
young man there. “Good morning, Peter.”

  “Good morning, Rick.” He spread out the plans on the table. “Your revisions are done; you want to go over them?”

  “Tell you what, take them to the house and go over them with Glenna, then let’s meet out at the site at twelve-thirty. I’ll call her and tell her you’re coming.”

  “That’s great. The pilings are going in this morning.”

  “Make them deep; I don’t want the place swept out to sea.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  The architect left, and Rick called home and woke up Glenna. “You’d better roll your ass out of bed; Peter James is on his way over there with the revisions on the beach house.”

  “How long have I got?”

  “Fifteen minutes, tops. We’re going to meet at the site at twelve-thirty; I’ll bring sandwiches.”

  “I don’t know how you can do all this at the crack of dawn,” she said.

  “It’s ten-fifteen.”

  “Okay, okay.” She hung up.

  Rick went through some papers on his desk and found the Los Angeles Times staring up at him:

  HUAC SUBPOENAS FORTY-ONE

  He read the lead paragraph, then set the paper aside for later. Among the papers on his desk was a manila envelope, the kind for interoffice communications, with two rows of lines for names of addressees. It was a new, previously unused envelope, and his was the only name written on it, so he couldn’t tell who the sender was. Also, it was sealed with red sealing wax, which was very unusual. Ordinarily, such an envelope was secured only with a piece of string wound around a paper disk. He broke the seal, unwound the string and shook the contents of the envelope out on his desk.

  There was only one sheet of paper. He picked it up and looked at it. It was a photostatic copy of a membership card of the Communist Party, made out in the name of Sidney Mark Brooks, dated 1935 and showing a New York City address.

  Rick was startled. He had never seen one of these before, nor had he, to the best of his knowledge, known anyone who was a Communist. There were rumors around town, of course, but he had never paid much attention to them. He had trouble imagining Sid Brooks as a bomb thrower, or even a subversive.

  He put the photostat back in the envelope, walked over to the coffee table in front of the sofa, picked up the Ronson table lighter, took it to the fireplace and set fire to the envelope and its contents, watching until it had completely burned, then stirred the ashes.

  He didn’t know who had sent it, and he didn’t care. He didn’t care about Sid Brooks’s politics, either. He went back to his desk and tried to put it out of his mind.

  4

  At noon Rick left his office with a picnic lunch prepared by the studio commissary and drove down to Santa Monica, then out the Pacific Highway to Malibu.

  At the insistence of Eddie Harris, Rick had started investing in real estate not long after getting his medical discharge from the navy in early ’44, at first borrowing money to do it. As his income rose, he bought more, among the properties three beach lots in the village of Malibu. After the war he began thinking about building on the beach, and, as materials became more available in the postwar environment, he and Glenna had hired Peter James to design a house for them.

  The lots were half a mile south of the Malibu colony, an enclave of movie stars and the very rich, which together fronted four hundred feet on a gorgeous stretch of beach and stretched for more than three hundred feet from the highway to the beach.

  A pile driver had been set up, making tremendous noise every time the weight was hoisted and fell. Half a dozen piles were already in place. He found Peter James in conversation with a man who appeared to be the foreman and greeted both men. Glenna was nowhere in sight, though it was twelve-thirty.

  “They’re making really good progress,” Peter said, “and we’re going very deep, as you asked. A couple more days of this, and we can start framing.”

  Glenna drove up in Rick’s old 1938 Ford convertible and got out. “Piles!” she yelled over the noise. “How exciting!”

  Peter took them over to where a tabletop had been set on a pair of sawhorses and spread out the plans. He pointed out the changes that Glenna had asked for, and Rick agreed with everything.

  “One more thing, Peter,” Rick said. “The room on either end that we were going to build later? Build them now.”

  “Oh, Honey!” Glenna shrieked. “You’ve made my day!”

  “What the hell,” Rick said, “we’ll go the whole hog.”

  They talked for a few more minutes about the way the house would sit on the land, then Glenna said, “I’m hungry; did you bring lunch?”

  Rick went to the car and got the picnic basket and a blanket, and Peter walked over to the foreman and told him to break for lunch. The noise abruptly ceased.

  “Let’s go down to the beach and eat there,” Rick said, and he led the way. As he reached the edge of the sand he looked back to see Glenna in conversation with one of the workmen. Wearing a baseball cap and naked above the waist, he was tall and well-muscled. He was also deeply tanned and bathed in sweat from his work. To Rick’s surprise, she indicated that he should follow her, and they began walking toward the beach.

  “Rick,” she said as they approached, “I want you to meet somebody; this is Vance. Vance, this is my husband, Rick, and our architect, Peter. I’ve asked Vance to join us for lunch.”

  “Sure,” Rick said. He was mystified about this, but Glenna had her reasons, he supposed. The young man was very handsome; maybe that had something to do with it. He felt a little jealous.

  Rick spread the blanket, and Glenna distributed the food and drink from the basket, then they settled down to eat.

  “Vance is an actor,” Glenna said, and then Rick understood.

  “Where are you from, Vance?” Rick asked.

  “England, a small village in Kent.”

  “I don’t hear an accent.”

  “It’s better with the crew if they think I’m American.”

  Rick laughed. “I understand. How long have you been in L.A.?”

  “About four months.”

  “Looking for work?”

  “Mostly, I work at this,” Vance said, waving a hand toward the pile driver. “I only get weekends off, and to tell you the truth I don’t have much of an idea about how to look for acting work.”

  “Have you had any experience?”

  “I ran away from home when I was fifteen and joined a touring repertory company. Mostly, I moved scenery around, but now and then I got a small part with a few lines. After a year or so, I got bigger parts and stopped moving scenery.”

  “Did you ever make it to the West End?”

  “I got a second lead in a comedy that ran for a year; then, when they brought the production to New York, I came with it. It ran for five weeks, then closed. The troup went home, and I stayed to look for work on Broadway. I found nothing, and it was bloody cold in New York, so I came out here. At least, I’m not freezing to death.”

  They talked for a bit longer, then finished their lunch, and Glenna began putting the dishes back into the basket, while Peter dealt with the trash.

  “Do you know who I am?” Rick asked Vance.

  “You’re her husband,” Vance said. “I certainly know who she is.”

  Rick laughed and handed him his business card. “Tell you what, Vance,” he said, “you tell your boss that your career in the construction business is at an end, then be in my office at eleven tomorrow morning. Do you own a suit?”

  “I do.”

  “Wear it, and bring your English accent, too. I’ll leave a pass for you at the front gate. Do you have an agent?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll recommend a couple of people.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr….” he looked at the card, “Barron.”

  “What’s your last name, Vance?”

  “Calder.”

  “Vance Calder. That sounds pretty good. What’s your real name?”
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  “Vance Calder.”

  “How old are you?”

  Vance looked around to see if anyone could hear him. “Nineteen.”

  “Jesus,” Rick said, “I thought you were twenty-five.”

  “I’ve always looked older. When I was fourteen, people thought I was eighteen, and so on.”

  “That’s an advantage at your age. From now on, don’t tell anybody how old you are; they’ll just think you’re lying about your age, the way everybody out here does.”

  “All right.”

  “See you tomorrow.” Rick joined Glenna and walked her back to her car. “Thanks,” he said.

  “You didn’t notice him, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I think he’s stunning, Rick; very sexy, too.”

  “He’s probably queer, like half the boy actors in L.A.”

  “Don’t you believe it for a moment,” she said.

  5

  Before Rick left the house the following morning he called his assistant director on Times Square Dance. “Hi, Billy, I’d like you to set up a screen test this morning, and I want you to direct it. I’m sorry it’s such a rush, but it’s important.”

  “Sure, Rick. Who’s the girl?”

  “Guy. His name is Vance Calder, and he’s coming to my office at eleven. I’ll talk to him for a few minutes and then send him over to the little stage.”

  “What sort of stuff do you want?”

  “I want a dramatic scene and a comedy scene, then I want you to dress him in cowboy gear—nothing Roy Rogers, just plain stuff—then take him out to the back lot and shoot him handling a gun, throwing a rope and riding a horse.”

  “Does he know how to ride?”

  “I have no idea. Tell you what, for the interior stuff, use the comedy scene on about page thirty of Times Square Dance and the dramatic scene toward the end, when he tells Katherine how good she is. In the dramatic scene, have him use an English accent.”

  “Okay. I can even put the real set back together.”

  “If it’s no trouble. Take the time to light this guy well; he’s very tan, so he won’t need a lot of makeup. You can pick him up at my office at eleven-fifteen.”