“What can I do for you?” said Cimaglia. I didn’t see Grundy among the grunters in the room.
“I’m looking for Barney Grundy,” I said. “I’m a friend of his, and he has something for me.”
“Left about five minutes ago,” said Cimaglia. “Didn’t stay long. Just did the weights.”
“Did he say where he was going?” I asked.
Cimaglia said no.
“Did he have anything with him?” I tried.
“Just his bag,” said Cimaglia, who saw something in the room beyond that he didn’t like, so he shouted, “Slower Rocco, slower! A lot slower.”
Cimaglia watched Rocco for about a minute, and when he was satisfied he turned to me.
“Wait,” he said. “Barney had something else with him. A big round tin box.”
“He brought it in here?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think he left it in his locker.”
The locker room door was behind Cimaglia, and my mind moved fast. I had figured Grundy for a cool killer who had calmly thrown a man out of a window and then went to his favorite gym for a workout. It didn’t fit with the nervous killer who kept botching attempts on my life. Grundy had come to Cimaglia’s to hide the film he had taken. For some reason, possibly the fear that the cops or I might search the place, he hadn’t taken it back to his studio home. He probably didn’t trust anyone to hold it for him. A locker at Cimaglia’s would be a perfect place to put it.
The problem was getting into that locker.
“Thanks,” I said, turning for the door.
“Want to leave a message in case Barney comes back?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Tell him Peese is looking for him.”
“Will do,” he said, turning to watch Rocco.
There was a window in the outer door of Cimaglia’s, and from the street I could see the counter and Cimaglia looking back into the gym. I hung around for ten minutes, keeping an eye on Cimaglia and trying not to look too suspicious to the guy in the gas station who stared from across the street.
One of the muscle builders came out, and I said hello to him. He said hello back and headed down the street. I looked back through the window, and I could see Cimaglia moving into the gym. I went back in, holding the door so it wouldn’t make noise, and watched Cimaglia move to a far corner to show a sweating Hercules how to curl a bar of steel.
I moved along the wall near the door and ducked into the locker room. It was smaller than I expected. Just enough room for two benches and two rows of lockers. There was a toilet in the corner and a stall with two showers. The locker room was clean and empty with a few spots of water on the floor where someone had dripped after showering.
The lockers had pieces of adhesive tape on them and a name in ink on each piece of tape. Grundy’s locker was in the corner near the shower. I moved fast, not wanting to be caught in there, but I knew I had to deal with the lock. I put the barrel of my. 38 into the loop of the lock and tugged. Nothing much happened, but the top of the locker did give a little. I pulled again with one hand and got a few fingers into the space at the top of the locker. I pulled some more and wormed a few more fingers in. The locker snapped against my hand but I kept the space open. I put the. 38 away so I could have two hands working. In about twenty seconds I had worked up a sweat, but I had a good two-handed grip on the top of the locker.
The locker bent a little when I pulled. Luckily for me the lockers weren’t built for high security, just for privacy. I did my best to violate that privacy and finally did with a grunting tug that snapped the latch. The lock didn’t break, but the door banged open. It made a lot of noise. The can I was looking for sat on top of a pair of shorts behind an orange towel that had been drapped over it. I tucked the can under my left arm and stood up.
There was one door to the locker room. I had come in through it, and now Cimaglia stood in it. Behind him stood Rocco and there was another bulky body behind him.
“What’re you doing?” asked Cimaglia.
I was fresh out of lies. I pulled out my. 38 and pointed it at him. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Grundy stole this film,” I said. “Now I’m stealing it from him. If you want to take a bullet for someone else’s can of film, that’s your choice.”
“That’s not much of a gun,” said Rocco. The sweat was still on his forehead and darkening his tee shirt. He was right. In that space and with his bulk it wasn’t much of a gun.
“If you shoot it right,” I said softly, “it can make a nice little hole in someone’s face. And I can shoot it right. Now just back away from the door, and I’ll leave. You can tell Grundy what happened, but I don’t think he’ll call the cops.”
They didn’t back away. Charlie and Rocco took a step forward. I wasn’t about to shoot two citizens trying to keep me from stealing something, but I had a sudden vision of what that small army of muscle could do to me. I leveled the gun and shot. The bullet crackled next to Cimaglia’s ear and slammed into the plaster wall behind him. Cimaglia stopped moving.
“I meant to miss,” I said, “but I’m running out of bullets and getting nervous.”
“I can see that,” he said. A slight grin touched his face, and I think he liked the way I was handling the situation. “O.K.,” he said with a lift of his hand. “Back up and let him out.”
They backed up reluctantly and I moved through the door. I could see that Rocco didn’t like to back up for anyone.
“If you’re lucky, you’ll never meet any of us again,” Cimaglia said.
“I’ll try to be lucky,” I answered, backing out of the front door. My car was a few feet away, and I got into it, dropping the can on the seat next to me. Cimaglia stepped out of his door, but he was in no hurry. He just watched me pull away. I waved to him, but he just stood there with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.
After a mile or so, I pulled over and put the film in the trunk. It was getting late, and I had some choices to make. I could get to my brother fast and tell him I had car trouble. Or I could just turn the film over to him and let him find out what was on it. I could go back to Grundy’s place and talk to him. I could do a lot of things, but I headed for M.G.M.
I wanted to see what was on the film.
The faces at the gate were unfamiliar, but I gave my name and they called Cassie James, who was on the lot. She vouched for me, and I drove in and over to Judy Garland’s dressing room, where Cassie met me, wearing solid green. She touched my arm and gave me a soft kiss.
“I’ve got some film to look at,” I said. “Where can we set it up?”
While she arranged for a projectionist and a projection room, I told her about Peese and Grundy and the film. She asked me what it all meant. I told her I didn’t know, but maybe the film would tell us. Cassie went to tell Judy where she’d be, and I tried to hold up the film to the light, but I couldn’t tell anything.
She came back, held my arm, and stayed close while we walked around a few buildings and into a small one with a projection booth and a couple of armchairs.
An old projectionist Cassie called Lyle threaded the film in the booth and sat back. We turned off the lights and looked at the screen. Blank white film shot through, and Lyle focused on some numbers. There was no sound. The first image was a scene from The Wizard of Oz, with Judy Garland in a yellow wig.
“They shot a few weeks of Judy in the yellow hair,” Cassie explained, “but they decided it looked too phony.”
The next shot was of two male Munchkins holding hands and walking into a house. The Munchkins were dressed as a soldier and a lollipop kid. The film was in color, but the quality of the color was nothing like the first shot. The two Munchkins went into a house and saw a girl lying on her stomach in bed. The girl was wearing the Dorothy costume and had long yellow hair.