“And you’re one of them?” I asked.
“No,” he laughed. “Mostly, I’m a friend of a friend of Mr. Hearst. I’ve done some work with Marion Davies. She invited me up for the weekend. As rich as Mr. Hearst is, I don’t think he could afford me. He could have a few years ago, though. Now, would you like a drink, or do you want to talk here? I’m through here, and I’ll be getting dressed for dinner in a little while.”
I said I’d talk here. I tried not to watch the people diving in the pool from what looked like a marble balcony.
“Shoot,” said Gable with a wave of his hand.
“You saw two midgets arguing at the studio?”
“Right.” He said looking at me the way he looked at Thomas Mitchell in Gone With the Wind. “One of them is dead-murdered, I hear.”
“Yes. Did the police talk to you about that?”
“For a few minutes on the phone. I was on my way up here. They said they could get the details from Vic Fleming and another witness.”
“Did you see that other witness?” I asked. “A big, muscular guy?”
“Nope,” said Gable. “Just the two little fellas going at it. Vic wanted to hurry on so we didn’t see very much.”
“Describe what you did see.”
He described the costumes of the two little men and added that he and Fleming had been too far away to hear their words or tell me if either of them had an accent. “I do remember that the shorter of the two seemed to be getting the worst of it from the one in the uniform,” said Gable.
Gunther Wherthman had said one of the reasons Cash had hated him was that he was bigger than Cash. Now Gable was telling me that Cash was taller than the man he was arguing with.
“Wait, are you sure the Munchkin in uniform-the one with the feather in his hat and the yellow beard-was taller than the other one?” I asked slowly. “You said you weren’t very close.”
“He was taller,” said Gable confidently. “I may not be a great judge of character, but I’ll put money on my judgment of perspective.”
“You’d testify to that?” I asked.
“If it came to it,” he said. “Is it important?”
“You may have just saved the life of one tiny Swiss translator.”
“Glad to do it,” he beamed. “Say, how’d you like to stay for dinner and the movie? There’s a movie here every night in the theater.”
“He has a theater, too?” My eyes wandered around the pool house again, and to the beautiful swimmers in the water. I was definitely out of my league. “Thanks just the same,” I said, standing up, “but I’ve got to head back to L.A.”
He stood with me, shook my hand, and patted me on the back.
“Happy I could help, Peters,” he said. The towel was around his neck and he was gripping it in both hands. His dark hair fell over his brow. All he needed was Victor Fleming and a camera crew.
The uniformed woman without a face led me around the house instead of through it and back to the man who had met me at my car. She turned and walked away.
“Nice meeting you!” I shouted. The man in the dark suit took me right to my car door and tucked me in. He made no comment on the bullet holes. I said good-bye and drove down the road. It was dark and the sky was star-filled when I reached the gate and the two men who manned it. One stepped out and handed me my. 38. I said thanks and he said, “You’re welcome, sir.”
I headed back south for an hour or so and decided to stop at a diner. After I ate the spaghetti special, coffee and pie, I drove to a motor court to register. It reminded me of a clean version of my own place. It was called Happy Byways Motor Court, and Mrs. Happy Byways took my two bucks, gave me a receipt, and handed me the key to Bungalow Six, recently painted white. She was too fat to move and was covered with what looked like a blanket. I thanked her and went to Six after she sold me the Sunday L.A. Times.
The radio in the room didn’t work so I read the paper. King Doob was missing and Buck Rogers had to find him. Something was missing for me, too, but I didn’t know what it was. I decided to sleep on it. I had no razor or toothpaste so I just showered and went to bed. Happy Byways seemed safe enough, but I put my gun under my pillow just in case and propped a chair in front of the door. I felt confident enough to leave the light out in the bathroom. I think that confidence saved my life.
Before I went to sleep I felt my stomach to see if it was losing tone. I hadn’t hit the Y for days. My stomach seemed all right, so I closed my eyes and was out.
I dreamed of midgets crawling in under the cracks and through the drains. They oozed through a chimney and went for me with long, thin knives. I fought to wake up and heard a sound at the door, but I was too befuddled to respond. The chair in front of the door slowed my guest down, but just a little. The door broke, the chair flew, and he stood framed against the faint light. The form in the door was no midget. The bed wasn’t in line with the door so I was in darkness. With the bathroom light off he had to take a guess. The guess was good. He hit the bed and one bullet thudded into the wall over my head. I fumbled for my. 38 and fired. I wasn’t even worried about hitting him. I just wanted him to know I was armed. For all I know, my bullet hit the ceiling.
The figure in the doorway backed out fast, and I got out of bed in shorts and ran after him. I fell over the chair that had been propped in front of the door. By the time I got outside, I could see a car pulling into the highway, but I couldn’t be sure of the color, and I couldn’t make out anything on the license.
It was a big, newish car, and I had no chance of catching him. Even if I did want to take a chance, I was standing in my shorts, holding a gun, and people were popping their heads out of the windows of the court around me.
“It’s all right!” I shouted. “I’m the police.”
I walked back into my room slowly and closed the door. My explanation would hold them for about five minutes. I dressed in two and went to the Happy Byways office. The fat woman wasn’t there, but the light was on. The clock on the wall said 2A. M. I reached for the registration book as I heard her grunting to her feet in the next room. I tore out the page with my name on it, jammed it in my pocket, and went out the door before she took a step. I didn’t want to do any explaining.
I drove for about fifty miles, trying to think straight. The impression had been brief, but I had seen a big figure in that door. When I was certain that no one was in sight, I pulled behind a hill on my right and turned off my lights. I had an old picnic blanket in the trunk. I got it out and climbed in the back seat after reloading the. 38. I fell asleep in a few minutes, clutching my gun like a cold teddy bear.
5
Winter is the mischief in me. I heard a scratching sound and sat upright in the back seat. Something was at the front window. I shot. The window shattered and I missed the collie by about a foot. I heard him trotting away and barking in fear. I knew how he felt.
I sat upright and discovered another problem. Sea dampness, dew, and a contorted position for six hours had done in my back. The injury went back to a black guy who didn’t like my kidneys and had told them so. When wet weather hit, I felt as if my vertebrae were welded together, surrounded by a sensitive band of exposed nerves.
The groaning helped a little as I rolled on my side and went through the door. The collie stood on a hill watching. In about two minutes he saw me make it into the front seat and brush away the glass. I had nothing to kill the pain, but I knew someone who did. I got into a position I could barely live with, tucked the. 38 into my holster, cursed the ocean which I could see a few hundred feet below me, and got back on the highway.
Part of the drive back wasn’t bad. I mean I wasn’t in total burning agony. I got hungry in an hour, but I didn’t want to get out of the car. I wasn’t sure I could. Just before noon, I found a place near Santa Barbara where you could honk your horn for service. I honked my horn at the El Camino Drive-In, and a skinny, red-headed girl in a tacky red uniform approached me. She stopped when she looked at my stubble-covered and anguish-filled face.