He had twenty, twenty-five years on me, but it seemed the thing to say.
“I’ve threatened to disinherit her, even if she waits till she’s of legal age-but she won’t listen, Louise simply won’t listen.”
Overell went on, at some length, to tell me of Louise’s pampered childhood, her bedroom of dolls and Teddy bears in their “estate,” the private lessons (tennis, riding, swimming), her French governess who had taught her a second language as well as the niceties of proper etiquette.
“Right now,” the disturbed father said, “she’s waging a campaign to win us over to this twenty-one-year-old ‘boy friend’ of hers.”
“You haven’t met him?”
“Oh, I’ve met him-chased him off my property. But she insists if we get to know Bud, we’ll change our minds-I’ve consented to meet with them, let them make their case for marriage.”
“Excuse me, but is she pregnant?”
“If she were, that would carry no weight whatsoever.”
I let the absurdity of that statement stand.
Overell went on: “I’ve already spoken to Mr. Rubinski about making certain…arrangements…if that is what Louise and her Bud reveal to us tomorrow evening.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, we have a yacht-the Mary E.-moored at Newport Harbor.” He smiled embarrassedly, the first time he’d smiled in this meeting. “Excuse my pomposity-‘yacht’ is rather overstating it, it’s really just a little forty-seven footer.”
Little?
“Louise asked me to invite her and her ‘boy friend’ aboard for the evening, with her mother and myself, so we can all get to know each other better, and talk, ‘as adults.’”
“And you’re going along with this?”
“Yes-but only to humor her, and as a…subterfuge for my own feelings, my own desires, my own designs. I want you to explore this boy’s background-I don’t know anything about him, except that he’s local.”
“And you think if I turn up something improper in this boy’s past, it would matter to your daughter?”
His eyes were so tight, it must have hurt. “If he’s the male equivalent of a golddigger, won’t he have other girls, other women? That would show Louise the light.”
“Mr. Overell, is your daughter attractive?”
“Lovely. I…I have a picture in my wallet, but I’m afraid she’s only twelve in it.”
“Never mind that right now-but you should know there’s every possibility that these two young people…and twenty-one seems younger to me, every day…really are nuts about each other. Gollum may not be seeing anybody else.”
“But you can find out!”
“Sure, but…aren’t you overlooking something?”
“Am I?”
“Your daughter is underage. Iyou tch ’em in the backseat of this boy’s jalopy, we can put him away-or at least threaten to.”
“…Statutory rape?”
I held up two palms, pushed the air. “I know, I know, it would embarrass your daughter…but even the threat of it oughta to send this rat scurrying.”
Overell looked at Fred for an opinion. Fred was nodding.
“Makes sense, Mr. Overell,” he said.
Overell’s eyes tensed, but his brow unfurrowed some; another sigh seemed to deflate his entire body, but I could sense relief on his part, and resignation, as he said, “All right…all right. Do what you think is best.”
We got him a contract, and he gave us a check.
“Can I speak with your wife about this matter?” I asked him.
He nodded. “I’m here with Beulah’s blessing. You have our address-you can catch her at home this afternoon, if you like.”
I explained to him that what I could do today would be limited, because Overell understood that his son and daughter were (and he reported this with considerable distaste) spending the day “picnicking in the desert.” But I could go out to the Los Angeles campus of the University of California and ask around about Bud.
“You can inquire out there about my daughter as well,” he said.
“Isn’t she still in high school?”
“Unfortunately, no-she’s a bright girl, skipped a grade. She’s already in college.”
Sounded like Louise was precocious in a lot of ways.
Around ten thirty that same morning, I entered at Westwood Boulevard and Le Conte Avenue, rolling in my rental Ford through a lushly terraced campus perched on a knoll overlooking valleys, plains and hills. The buildings were terra cotta, brick and tile in a Romanesque motif.
I asked a cute coed for directions to the student union, and was sent to Kerckhoff Hall, an imposing building of Tudor design with a pinnacled tower. I was further directed to a sprawling high-ceilinged room where college kids played ping pong or played cards or sat in comfy chairs and couches and drank soda pop and smoked cigarettes. Among sweaters and casual slacks and bobby socks, I stuck out like the thirty-eight-year-old sore thumb I was in my tan summer suit; but the kids were all chatty and friendly. My cover was that Bud had applied for a job-what that job was, of course, I couldn’t say-and I was checking up on him for his prospective employer.
Not everybody knew Bud Gollum or Louise Overell, of course-too big a campus for that. But a few did.
Bud, it seemed, was a freshman, going to school on Uncle Sam. Other first-year fellas-younger than Bud, probably nineteen-described him as “a good guy, friendly, and smart,” even “real smart.” But several didn’t hide their dislike of Bud, saying he was smart-alecky, writing him off as a “wiseguy.”
A mid-twenties junior with an anchor tattooed on his forearm knew Bud as a fellow Navy veteran, and said Bud had been a Radio Man First Class.
“Listen,” the husky little dark-haired, dark-eyed ex-gob said, “if you’re considering him for a job, give him a break-he’s smarter than his grades make him look.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, when you see his transcripts, you’re going find him pulling down some low junk, so far this year…but it’s that little skirt’s fault. I mean, they don’t let dummies into pre-med around here.”
“He’s got a girl friend distracting him?”
The gob nodded. “And it’s pretty damn serious-she’s a young piece of tail, pardon my French, built like a brick shithouse. Can hardly blame him for letting his studies slide.”
“Well, I hope he wouldn’t be too preoccupied to do a good job-”
“No, no! He’s a right fella! Lives at home with his mom and stepdad-he’s an assistant scout master, for Christ sakes!”
“Sounds clean cut.”
“Sure-he loves the outdoors, always going hiking in the mountains up around Chatsworth, backpacking out into the desert.”
“His girl go in for that?”
“They go everywhere together, joined at the hip…don’t give me that look, buddy! I mean, haven’t you ever had a female lead you around by the dick?”
“No,” I said, and when he arched an eyebrow, I added, “Does my wife count?”
He grinned at me. “Does mine?”
A table of girls who were smoking and playing pitch allowed me to pull up a chair for a few questions; they weren’t very cute, just enough to make me want to bust out crying.
“I don’t know what a neat guy like that sees in ol’ Stone Face,” a blonde with blue eyes and braces said. I liked the way she was getting lipstick on her cigarette.
“Stone Face?”
“Yeah,” a brunette said. She wasn’t smoking, like her friends, just chewing and snapping her gum. “That gal’s got this round face like a frying pan and’s got about as much expression.”
“Except when she giggles,” a redhead said, giggling.
All the girls began to giggle, the blonde saying, “Then she really looks like a dope!”
“She laughs at everything that idiot says,” the brunette said. “They hang onto each other like ivy-it’s sickening.”
That was all I learned at the college, and the effort took about three hours; but it was a start.
Pasadena was the richest city per capita in the nation, and the residential neighborhood where the Overells resided gave credence to that notion-mansions with sunken gardens, swimming pools and tennis courts on winding, flower-edged, palm-flung streets. The white mission-style mansion at 607 Los Robles Drive, with its well-manicured, lavishly landscaped lawn, was no exception.