Of course, I'd made sure Braun never saw my face - I'm not suicidal, no matter what you might think - and you don't take candid pictures of the strongest man in the world if you expect him to know who you are. All he must have thought looking at me was that I was another Malibu Siegfried, even if I was half Irish.
I don't know of any man who'd say no to an invitation from Marilyn Monroe. That man was certainly not Jack Braun. He and his scotch joined the party at the Lawfords's, and everyone was still there except Paula and Josh.
Braun got a lot of attention, but didn't want to talk about the Four Aces, or the script. He said he'd had enough of playing Golden Boy and wouldn't take the part. That was probably a relief - I don't recall Welles ever offering it. "I'm not a hero," Braun said between drinks. "I just get paid to swing on vines and talk to chimps. I don't even do my own stunts - They've found it's cheaper to get an actor who doesn't glow when he slams into trees than to retouch all the negatives."
To demonstrate, he stood up and pounded his chest, flashing gold like a strobe light, then gave a yell as he jumped into the pool in his clothes. It may not have been part of the mystery I was paid to solve, but I at least knew why Tarzan always used the same closeup of Braun beating his chest.
The rest of the evening went by in a blur. I wasn't drunk or stoned, but everybody else was, and that helped. I played the sober gallant and drove everyone home who didn't crash at the Lawfords's.
Marilyn didn't do either. The next day I discovered that she'd spent the night at Jack Braun's.
Braun followed her to the set, as under her spell as any man, though he'd joined the circle who'd actually gotten to touch her. I hated him for it, but then there was a peculiar scene that made me wonder just what I had to hate.
Braun was drunk, as usual, and stumbled out of Dalton's trailer. He was shouting back at Trumbo: "No, you're right, I'm a scum and I betrayed my friends. Everything should stay except the last scene - I never got a chance to say goodbye to anyone."
Braun walked down the street, kicking rocks into Sherman Oaks, and a cloud of French cigarette smoke materialized next to me. "A very troubled man, don't you think? He is haunted by his past. He does not think himself a hero."
I looked over to see Dr. Rudo, smoking one of his trademark cigarettes. He offered me one and his lighter.
I lit up, figuratively, and passed the lighter back. "He's not a hero."
"He could be, Mr. Williams. That is his great lie. He cannot ever be close to another for fear of hurting them."
I wasn't sure whether he'd said that to gauge my reaction, or if he just got off on summing up people's lives in a couple of lines. I think it was a little of both.
That was the last I saw of Braun, but I saw a good bit more of Dr. Rudo.
Marilyn ran round the studio in a daze of alcohol and Paula Strasberg's tranquilizers. I knew, though not from experience, that if you mixed the two you got a feeling of euphoria.
If what Marilyn was going through was euphoria, you can have it.
In the next few days, they contracted Ron Ely for Golden Boy and Jeff Chandler for Harstein. I never saw much of either, Ely for the obvious reason, Chandler because what few scenes he had with Golden Boy, he practiced with Ron. Jim Bacchus, the eternal father figure, came on as Archibald Holmes and kept making Rebel Without A Cause jokes to Dean: "Well, I see you've gotten into trouble again. Now we've had to move across the galaxy. I hope you're satisfied."
I did a quick prowl around Wally Fisk's apartment, but his fire had been thorough, and I didn't find anything not already included in the notes I'd gotten from Welles. The only thing I'll say about Fisks's detective work is that he'd constructed an impressive case that someone was sabotaging pro-wild-card films. The question of who was left open. And the question of how Blythe was going to be killed was up in the air as well.
And the only man who might have a clue had gone mad.
However, the scuttlebutt had worked its way around and I heard about Wally from Flattop and about six others. Now that it was safe, I sought out Dr. Rudo.
He said he'd had one or two conversations with Fisk, but could hazard a guess as to what happened.
"Conscience, Mr. Williams," he said, flicking his cigarette. "Conscience can be a terrible thing. A private detective must bury his very deeply, or else it may rise up and destroy him. I suspect that is what happened to the unfortunate Mr. Fisk."
He asked if I knew what case Wally had been working on, but I said I didn't know. I didn't say how close he'd come to my own reservations about my profession.
That done, I called up a contact in the press. Now, I know I was supposed to keep my investigation secret, but let me explain: A major Hollywood detective had gone mad, and if I wanted an interview for a case I was not officially working on, I'd need an alibi for a case I was officially working on. Bit actors wear a lot of hats, and it's hardly unusual for one to pick up a bit of extra money as a spy or journalist. I slipped my Press Pass into the band of my fedora and headed down to County General.
Hospitals were places I'd always hated, and the lockdown ward was always the worst. It stank of urine and pain and sedatives. The set designers for Blythe had tried to convey the dismal inadequacy of a state hospital, but none of that could compare with the reality.
I talked briefly with the doctors and asked about the blood panels, but they didn't show any sort of drug or poison. Wally was as clean as the next man.
He was also completely insane. They had him in a straight jacket and I don't think he even recognized me. In the movies, the madman sputters some sort of cryptic clue or shouts a warning at the investigator. Wally only stared at the wall and drooled.
The doctors were slightly more helpful, but not very. They only confirmed Dr. Rudo's diagnosis: acute attack of conscience. Wallace Fisk was being tormented by his own personal demons and so far no therapy had helped.
I asked to have a little time with him alone, playing the role of grieving friend, though I was really just shocked former colleague. But I knew a bit about shocks, including that the electrical sort could sometimes knock people like Wally back into some form of sanity.
As soon as the nurse had left, I popped one of my little lightning balls into my hand. Will-o'-wisps I called them, 'cause they just sort of floated and bobbed unless I kept a grip with my mind.
This one was only three inches across, just a shocker, not even enough to knock someone out. I let it ground on one of the buckles of his straightjacket.
He jolted, but didn't change expression. I tried a couple more, a little larger, then bobbed one in front of his eyes kind of like a hypnotist's pendulum. I'd usually never risk something like that, but even if Wally remembered, I could explain it away as the hallucinations of a madman.
I called his name several times until he blinked and I saw his eyes focus on the will-o'-wisp, then I let it slip back inside me and waved my hand in front of his face. "Wally," I said, "what do you remember? What's the last thing you remember?"
His voice was hoarse from not having spoken, but I got him to describe a relatively ordinary day snooping around the Fox lot, checking for anything that might look like sabotage, but not turning up any more than I had. He'd blacked out everything since then, which was good.
Then I made a mistake and asked him if he remembered me.
He turned and took one look at my face and started screaming and raving, well, like a madman. It was just like the stuff in the movies, lots of "Stay away from me!" and "No!" and "I didn't mean to!", thrashing around enough to make the bed lift off the floor.