I said: “Don’t cash that last check,” and went downstairs.
I walked over to the Boulevard and got the address of the Golden Dome out of the phone book in a drugstore. It was just a saloon without any dome, golden or otherwise. The only other customer was a horse-player going over a form chart spread out on the bar. The bartender wore gold-rimmed glasses and looked like a bookkeeper. I asked him if he knew Laurie Bressette.
“Little dark-haired girl?” he said. “Sure. Used to come in her a lot. She and a young feller named Danny something.”
“Hasn’t she been in recently?”
He shook his head regretfully, as if he’d missed her. “Not for months. Guess she went back home to the folks. Nearly broke Danny’s heart, I guess. He used to get crying drunk telling me about it.”
I ordered a beer and when he brought it I asked: “What is Danny like?”
“Mild little guy, works at NBC or CBS or one of the radio stations. He was crazy about that girl. She used to give him a rough time — not that she didn’t seem to like him a lot! But she was always doing things that upset him.” He leaned closer, confidentially. “One night a bunch of them were in here and somebody wanted to know why we didn’t have a floor show. Well, do you know what Laurie did?”
“You better tell me.”
“She put a nickel in the juke box and started to do a strip tease, right out there on the floor. Yessir! She got about half her clothes off before Danny made her quit. Of course, I was trying to talk her out of it,” he added righteously, “but cripes, how do you handle a dame like that?”
“How did Danny handle her?” I asked.
“I dunno — just said, Please don’t do that, Laurie. And right away, she quit it. She stopped for him. I could never figure out why she went away without telling him goodbye even.”
“Does he still come in here?”
“Not so much lately. If he’s coming though, it’ll be just about now.”
I thought I’d like to have a look at him, even though he didn’t sound like anyone who’d be responsible for any harm coming to Laurie. I waited about ten minutes, but my patience had been used up waiting all day at the post office. I told the barman to tell Danny about me if he came in. I left my office phone number.
Then I started back to the office, too worried to pay much attention to the screwballs. They were out in full force though. In front of the Egyptian Theatre a couple of little newsboys were trading a lot of wild punches. Nobody paid much attention except a pair of sports who were putting their money down on the outcome. I circled around them and went on. A street photographer took my picture again and I carried the yellow coupon — that with fifty cents would get me an unposed, candid photograph of myself — for three blocks, without realizing it. When I got to the corner of Ivar I straightened out long enough to throw the coupon away.
In front of my office building somebody called my name and I saw O’Leary sitting in her car waiting for me. I motioned her to move over, and I slid under the wheel. She caught a flash of my face and said quickly: “What is it, Willie. What’s wrong?”
“Trouble, I’m afraid,” I said. “I’m looking for a girl who’s been missing for three months. Nobody knows where she went, or why. Her roommate is the only one who knows she’s missing, and she’s so busy covering up for herself she hasn’t had time to care.”
I told her the whole story, and showed her the packet of letters from Doctor Bressette to his daughter. “This is all I’ve got to go on.”
“Let’s go through them,” O’Leary said. “He might refer to something — or someone — that Laurie mentioned in one of her letters.”
“That’s what I had in mind.” I split the pack in two and we started reading. The sun was warm on the back of my neck, and it was no day for trouble. But I had it...
O’Leary found the only important lead. In a letter dated about the time Laurie disappeared, the doctor had written:
... had a letter from young Bill Phipps today. He’s in the Navy, if you remember, stationed in Long Beach. He made an odd remark that has worried me quite a bit. He learned, somehow, that you were in Hollywood (although he said nothing about calling on you) and he says that the “outfit” you’re working for has a very bad reputation. I’ve been wondering, ever since, if you wouldn’t be wiser to find another job...
“That ties up one loose end,” I admitted. “I wondered how he knew about DeCoudre. But I don’t know whether he was referring to DeCoudre, the Anselmo Film Library, or someone else.”
“I guess the next step is for you to get in touch with this Bill Phipps,” O’Leary decided. “That ought to clear up some of the mystery. But it sounds to me like Mr. DeCoudre.”
“He’s got a very bad reputation,” I agreed. I started to push my hat back off my forehead, when someone reached in and tipped it down over my eyes. I thought it was a wise guy, until something hard rammed into the back of my collar. I left the hat where it was. And I wasn’t interested in the caliber of the gun.
And then a voice — that Voice — said: “You’ve had one warning, Carmody. You don’t get any more. Forget about Laurie Bressette.”
A lot of things have scared me in my time, but I’ve never had cold chills from listening to a voice before. I swear I broke out in goose flesh, and it wasn’t the gun in the back of my neck, it was that voice. At the same time I was aware of the incredible fact that this was happening on a busy street in Hollywood, with people streaming by within two feet of us. From under the brim of my hat I could see O’Leary’s face, as white as a cigarette paper, just staring at me. I found out later that she couldn’t see him because of my head. He was carrying a top coat over one arm in such a way that it concealed the gun. And his mouth, just inches away from my ear, said: “Keep looking for her, Carmody, and you’ll find her — a piece at a time. You’ll get her ears in the mail, to start with!”
The gun went away from my neck. The icicles started melting on my spine. With a shaky hand I pushed my hat brim up and got my head out the window.
“My Irish grandmother!” O’Leary gasped. “That voice would scare Lucifer!”
The street was crowded. I caught a flash of his back, and that was all. It could have been anybody’s back. Blue coat, gray hat. Then just as he swung around the corner I saw his hand go up and a piece of yellow paper flutter out. For a second that didn’t register and then abruptly the ubiquitous past, the street photographer, crossed my vision. I gave a little yelp and lunged out of the car. Women and children were practically trampled in the rush. But I got the coupon. For fifty cents I’d soon have a candid, unposed photograph of the man with the voice.
On the way back to O’Leary’s car I handed the photographer a dollar. He took it, but by the look on his face I knew he thought I was another Hollywood screwball.
“That’s the second time,” I told O’Leary bitterly. “He knows what I’m doing as soon as I do it. How does he do it!”
She looked just as white as I felt. “I don’t know, Willie.”
“Here,” I handed her the coupon. “Send this in, so we’ll get a picture of him. I want to know him if I see him again. I’m getting tired of this game.”
She took the coupon and left. I went upstairs and started telephoning. Getting in touch with sailor Bill Phipps was involved, but not difficult. He was in Los Angeles on a twenty-four hour pass. I called the service club in Pershing Square and got his buddy there. The buddy promised to have Phipps in my office in two hours, if he had to carry him.