Beverly Hills Dead Read online

  “I am,” she said. She was wearing jeans and a work shirt and sturdy boots.

  “Siddown,” Leo said, pushing a chair toward her. “Here’s what I’m gonna do,” he said. “I’m putting you in charge of wardrobe and the secretarial pool, both of them important things on this picture. The secretaries may be more important than wardrobe, since that’s pretty much settled.”

  “All right,” Glenna replied.

  Leo noticed that without a star’s makeup and wardrobe she was suprisingly wholesome looking, in a shiksa sort of way. There was something a little odd about her face, as if she had been slugged a few times and had needed repairs, but, still, it was a good face. She was, what, twenty-five, twenty-six? Still had a career ahead of her, especially with her husband so well plugged into the studio. “Is there anything else that particularly interests you?”

  “The animals,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind dealing with the wranglers and cowboys.”

  Leo grinned. Fine with him, since he didn’t know shit about either horses or cowboys and was glad to have them off his back. “They’re all yours,” he said. “You go through the script and see when and where we’re going to need the livestock and the guys.”

  “I’ve already done that,” Glenna said, holding up a copy of the script.

  “Good girl!” She wasn’t stupid; that was the sort of thing he himself would have done in her position. “Anything else?”

  “Can’t think of anything right now, but as we move along I might see someplace else where I think I can help.”

  “Sing out,” Leo said, “and let me know if you need my help on anything.” He looked at his watch. “We’re on the first setup, out by the corral. Go on out there and tell the wardrobe lady she’s reporting to you, and the head wrangler, too.” He’d see how she could handle that.

  “Thanks, Leo,” Glenna said, then left.

  Leo had already planned how he was going to handle this: he was going to give her her head, and if she got into too much trouble, he’d hand her her head. He wouldn’t have to complain to Rick; he’d see it happen sooner than Leo would.

  Leo went back to his papers.

  18

  Sidney Brooks had been back at his house in Beverly Hills for less than an hour when the phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Sid, it’s Al James.” Alan James, formerly Alvin Jankowski, was a rising movie actor; they had been friends back in New York, when they were both members of the Group Theater and looked down on anybody who went to Hollywood. James had been subpoenaed, too.

  “Hi, Al.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you. Where’ve you been?”

  “I spent a few days up in Wyoming, where they’re shooting my script.”

  “How is it up there?”

  “Gorgeous. What’s up, Al?”

  “We need to talk. Can you have dinner?”

  “Okay.”

  “Seven o’clock at Benny’s?”

  “Okay, see you there.”

  Al had been at the big meeting where Sid and the others discussed their trategy for the HUAC hearings, and he had been uncharacteristically quiet. Sid wondered why he wanted to talk now.

  Benny’s was sort of a bush-league Musso & Frank, a hangout of writers and actors, mostly at a time in their careers when they hadn’t made it and were looking for the commiseration of their peers. Sid hadn’t been there for a long time, and he doubted if Al had, either. He found the actor in a dimly lit booth in the back of the restaurant, looking glum, no more than a sip of whiskey left in his glass. “How goes it, boychick?” he said jocularly. He couldn’t get a grin out of his old friend.

  “What are you drinking?” James asked.

  “Whatever you just had.”

  James held up two fingers, and a waiter brought them over, along with menus. “Are you ever sorry you came out here?” Al asked.

  Sid took a deep breath and thought about that. “I was, at first, when they were fucking with my scripts. I’ve gotten to a point, though, when they’re doing that less and less. The people at Centurion haven’t asked me for a single, substantive change on Bitter Creek, just a little polishing. Now I think I’m happy to be out here.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What, you miss the snows of New York?”

  “I miss the theater.”

  Sid laughed. “You miss eight shows a week, rain or shine?” Al had a reputation for being lazy.

  “Sometimes, I actually do,” James replied.

  “Come on, Al, I remember when you hated going to rehearsals, and we practically had to root you out of Sardi’s to get you to matinees on time. You were made for the movies.”

  The actor lifted his handsome head a little and smiled, revealing his beautiful Hollywood dental work. “You have a point. We wrapped on Dark Promise earlier this week. I saw a rough cut this morning, and it’s going to be really, really good. The studio says I’ll get nominated.”

  “Please accept my premature congratulations,” Sid said.

  “My agent, Max Wyler, says I’m up for something even better: a Faulkner script. There’s a chance of back-to-back nominations.”

  “Faulkner and who else?” Sid asked, laughing. “I don’t think Bill has ever written a whole draft that anybody could shoot.”

  “There’ll be some good lines of his in it, though; I haven’t seen the script yet. The rumor is Kazan is going to direct.”

  “Sounds like a nice package, so why are you so depressed?”

  “Let’s order,” James said. They both opted for the steak, which was Benny’s claim to fame. James didn’t answer the question.

  “How did Alice like Jackson Hole?”

  “She loves it. In fact, she’s going to stay up there and keep an eye on how they handle the dialogue for me while I go to Washington.”

  “Alice in Wyoming for a month? I don’t believe it. There can’t be any shopping up there.”

  “She doesn’t want to be here,” Sid said.

  James nodded. “I’m glad I’m not married,” he said.

  “I thought you and that actress were headed that way.”

  “Not any more; she ran for the hills.”

  “The hearings?”

  “Oh, it’s not her; it’s her agent. He’s warned her off me, told her she could become tainted by the association, ruin her promising career.”

  “Oh.”

  “Have you noticed that some people don’t want to be seen with you any more? Don’t even want to talk to you?”

  “No, I can’t say that I have.”

  “People at the studio?”

  “Eddie Harris and, especially, Rick Barron have been just great. They paid me up front for the script, so I’ve got a cushion now.”

  “I wish I could say that.”

  “Didn’t you get the rest of your money when you wrapped your picture?”

  “Yeah, but there’s the mortage and the cars.” Al lived very well but paycheck to paycheck.

  “Well, I’m a little flush; if you need a loan I can come up with a few grand.”

  “Thanks, Sid, but I don’t think you’re going to want to loan me money.”

  Sid wanted to ask what he meant by that, but their steaks arrived, and they began eating. He remained silent. He would let Al spit out whatever it was in his own time.

  “What are you writing next?” Al asked.

  “I’m going to option an old novel that I think would make a great romantic comedy.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “I’ll tell you when I’ve got the option in my pocket.”

  Al grinned. “Smart.”

  Finally, Sid couldn’t take it any more. “Come on, Al, what’s eating you?”

  Al put down his knife and fork and signaled for another Scotch. “I met with the HUAC investigator this week, my lawyer and I.”

  Sid looked at him askance. “Al, is that a good idea? We all agreed not to talk to them until we’re in Washington.”

  “He wasn’t a bad guy, really. He
’s kind of in the same bind we are, getting a lot of pressure from the committee.”

  “Go on.”

  “He wants me to name names.”

  Sid stopped eating and swallowed hard. “Whose names?”

  “He started with everybody I ever saw at a meeting.”

  “And you agreed to that?” Sid was becoming alarmed.

  Al shook his head. “No, I held my ground.”

  Sid relaxed a little. “That’s good. You shouldn’t even have met with him.”

  “Sort of, I mean.”

  “Sort of?”

  “After a lot of talking he finally said I didn’t have to name anybody the committee doesn’t already know about.”

  “Why would they want you to name names they already know? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes sense to them. They don’t think the way you and I think. They want witnesses to name names in the hearings.”

  “Al, you didn’t agree to this, surely.”

  “Sid, my career is taking off. I have the prospect of two nominations in successive years, maybe even two Oscars. I’d be made for life. I could write my own ticket. Should I give up all that for a bunch of people, most of whom I never even liked? I haven’t paid any dues or been to a party meeting in four years, not until I got subpoenaed. I thought they’d forgotten about me, that I was out.”

  “The party tends to have a long memory,” Sid agreed.

  “So do the studios,” Al said. “If I make the wrong move here, I’m done in pictures; I’ll never work again.”

  “There’s always New York and the theater. You said you miss it.” Sid said.

  “Sid, you have a bigger reputation there than I do. What reputation I have is out here. And I can’t live on the few hundred a week I’d get for a play.”

  “Al, what are you going to do?” There, he had asked the question, and he tensed for the answer.

  “They’ve asked me to name six people, all of them known to the committee.”

  Sid didn’t speak; he just stared at his friend, whose jaw was working, but nothing was coming out.

  Finally Alan James spoke. “You’re one of them,” he said.

  19

  Sid Brooks got Alan James into his car and drove him home. Al, he knew, would never have made it without crashing his car; he had probably consumed half a bottle of Scotch at Benny’s.

  Al mumbled unintelligibly during the ten-minute drive. At his place in the Hollywood Hills, Sid got him out of the car and over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry he had learned in the Boy Scouts. The front door was unlocked, and Sid struggled up the stairs with the nearly unconscious actor and dumped him on his bed. He sat him up, stripped off his coat, loosened his tie and belt and let him fall back on the bed. He pulled off his shoes, spread a blanket over him and positioned a wastebasket where he could vomit into it. “Good-bye, Al,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other any more.” He walked out of the house, putting the door on the latch, and drove home to Beverly Hills.

  Sid let himself into the house and turned on some lights. He walked around the place, inspecting it as if he had never seen it. They had bought the house two years before, but they had only just finished the renovations and decorations. He walked into his beautifully paneled study, poured himself a Scotch and sank into his comfortable leather chair, the one where he did most of his thinking. His typewriter sat, waiting, on his desk, a stack of foolscap next to it, a coffee mug of sharpened pencils nearby.

  A place to work and everything he needed to do it—that had been his dream when he was younger. If this were New York, he and Alice would be crammed into a three-room apartment, bursting at the seams with their stuff. He had told himself that he was coming out here for the weather and the paycheck, but this house was what he had come for. This was the first time in their lives that he and Alice had been ahead of the game: money in the bank, the cars paid for, an investment in a small, six-unit apartment building in Santa Monica. They had made it. He dozed.

  The doorbell woke him. Sunlight was streaming through the study windows, reflecting off the walnut paneling. He looked at the clock on his desk: just after ten o’clock. His Scotch glass was on the floor next to the chair in the middle of a wet spot. He struggled to his feet, slapped himself to wake up. The doorbell rang again, more insistently.

  Sid opened the door to find two men in suits. They flashed badges. “Mr. Brooks?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Sergeant Flynn, LAPD. This is my partner, Detective Schmidt. May we come in?”

  What was this? Sid thought. Some new kind of harassment? “Sure,” he said, opening the door. He showed them into the living room and pointed at a sofa. “Have a seat.”

  The two men sat down, and the sergeant opened a notebook. Sid took a wingchair.

  “Were you at a restaurant called Benny’s in Hollywood last night?”

  “Yes. I had dinner with a friend.”

  “What was your friend’s name?”

  “Alan James.”

  “Did the two of you leave together?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Was Mr. James drunk?”

  “I don’t think that’s too strong a word to use.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Well, he was in no condition to drive, so I took him home, carried him bodily up the stairs, put him to bed, then came home.”

  “What time did you leave him?”

  “Couldn’t have been later than ten o’clock.” Sid began to feel uneasy; this wasn’t the kind of questioning he had expected. When would they get around to party membership?

  “How would you describe Mr. James’s condition when you left him?”

  “I think he had fallen asleep or passed out by the time I left.”

  “Did you and Mr. James argue about anything last night, either at the restaurant or after you left?”

  Sid shook his head. “Not really.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we had a discussion, but not what I’d call an argument, nothing heated.”

  “Were you close friends?”

  “We’ve known each other for a good ten, eleven years starting in New York.” Then he caught the past tense of the policeman’s question. “Has something happened to Al James?”

  “His housekeeper found him dead in his bathroom this morning. His throat had been cut with a straight razor.”

  Sid sucked in a breath and held it for a moment. “He was on the bed when I left; I spread a blanket over him.”

  “Did anyone see you leave Mr. James’s house last night?”

  “I’ve no idea. I didn’t see anyone.”

  “What kind of car do you drive?”

  Sid was almost grateful for these questions, to keep talking. “A 1941 Buick convertible.”

  “What color?”

  “Kind of a medium green. It’s in the garage.”

  “Was the top up or down last night?”

  “Down; still is.”

  “Good; that squares with what a witness told us; a neighbor, walking her dog.”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  “She saw you, and the coroner says Mr. James died around three A.M., so you’re not a suspect.”

  “You think he was murdered?” This had not occurred to him.

  “Looks like a suicide,” the sergeant said. “Do you know if Mr. James had any family in the Los Angeles area?”

  “No, he didn’t. He had parents in New York. Their name is Jankowski. I think his father’s name is Myron. He had a brother, too, but I don’t remember his name.”

  “Would you have a phone number for Mr. and Mrs. Jankowski?”

  “No, but they live on the Lower East Side; I expect they’re in the phone book.”

  “Do you know them at all?”

  “I was introduced to them once at the opening of a play I wrote that Al appeared in. That was the only time I ever saw them: two minutes, maybe. The brother was there, too, but as
I said, I can’t remember his name.”

  “And there’s no one in L.A. we can contact?”

  Sid shook his head. “Al was unmarried, and he told me last night that he and his girlfriend had broken up. His agent’s name is Max Wyler. I think he’s at the William Morris Agency. You should call him; he can contact Al’s family. He’ll know who Al’s lawyer is. Was.”

  “Thank you, that’s a good idea. Do you have any idea why Mr. James would take his own life? Did he say anything last night that would have made you think he might do that?”

  Sid stared at the coffee table. “He seemed depressed.” He looked up at the detective. “He had made a decision, and it’s possible he may have regretted it.”

  The two detectives stood up, and Sid walked them to the door.

  “How did you learn that we had dinner last night?” he asked.

  “When you drove him home, Mr. James’s car remained parked in front of the restaurant. Someone there called him at home this morning to ask him to move it, because it was blocking their deliveries. A police officer answered the phone at Mr. James’s house.”

  Sid nodded. “Thank you for letting me know.”

  “Thank you for your help, Mr. Brooks. Good morning.”

  Sid watched them walk to their car, then he closed the door, leaned against it and began to cry.

  20

  Rick sat under a huge umbrella he shared with the camera and watched his actors slog through the scene. It had rained a lot since they had started shooting, but they were on schedule. It was going to be a wetter picture than he had planned, but the weather added character to their footage: the peaks of the Tetons obscured by cloud, an occasional flash of lightning behind the actors, their wet clothing, the mud.

  “Cut. Print that,” he said.

  “Cut. Print it!” the assistant director shouted for the benefit of those who could not hear Rick, who tended to speak softly.

  “We’ll break for lunch. Next setup by two o’clock, please.”

  The AD repeated his instructions.

  Rick went over to Susan Stafford, their leading lady. “Susie, I think you’ve got this character exactly right, and it’s good to see that this early in our schedule.”