Although she might come up with a more firm identification later, as of now Camile Shatzkin, who had identified William Faulkner as the murderer of her husband, couldn’t tell Faulkner from a trumpet player. I hummed “You Made Me Love You” to keep from thinking about my knee and headed for Sunset Boulevard and Jacques Shatzkin’s office.
The Jacques Shatzkin Agency was on the second floor of a two-story building on Sunset not too far from Bel Air. The first floor of the building housed some elegant stores-a women’s dress shop on one side and The Hollow Bean, an import shop, on the other. The flight of wooden steps was varnished and clean. There were twenty-two steps and each one sent an accordion of pain through my bandaged leg. The trick would be to avoid stairs and keep my leg straight.
The reception area inside the heavy wooden door was clean, bright, and comfortable. It was easily as big as Shelly’s office and mine combined, with room to spare for Union Station. There was no receptionist, but I could hear voices to the left through an open door. I now had a good sense of the decor of Jacques Shatzkin’s offices: elegant, homey. Carpets, thick and dark; chairs, low and soft. The desks were old and highly polished; the walls a light brown. Fluorescent lights twinkled overhead. It reminded me of a funeral parlor, except for the pictures on the wall of clients and near-clients and friends of the deceased. “To a good man Frank Fay,” “For my friend Jacques-Edward Everett Horton,” “I don’t see anything funny about it-Robert Benchley,” “To a guy who can be trusted-Preston Foster.”
“And they meant it,” a voice cut through my reading. I turned to a willow reed of a woman, a dry woman in her fifties with short brown hair and a brave smile on her face. She wasn’t beautiful and she wasn’t homely. She was simply a face in the crowd, but her efficiency was evident in her straight back, neat blue suit, and hands folded in front of her.
“Miss Summerland?” I said.
“Mrs. Summerland,” she corrected. “Those photographs are not just for show, Mr. Peters… You are Mr. Peters?”
“I am,” I confessed.
“Mr. Shatzkin was a very likable man,” she said with affection and a too-rigid control.
“I won’t take much of your time,” I said.
“That’s all right,” she said, stepping back from the doorway in which she was standing. “Please come into my office. Some of the other members of the agency are in the conference room worrying about the future. I’d rather cling to the past for at least a few days more.” I walked past her into the office, which was small and decorated in the same homey manner as the reception area. She went behind the desk but didn’t sit. I got off my leg and into the chair, knowing I would have to look up to and at her for the conversation. I could see she would be more comfortable that way and I didn’t want to make the mistake I had made with Mrs. Shatzkin.
“The police think William Faulkner killed Mr. Shatzkin,” I said.
“I know,” she returned flatly.
“I represent Mr. Faulkner. He says he didn’t do it. Had no reason to do it. Hardly knew Mr. Shatzkin.” I shut up and looked at her, waiting for a reply.
“As far as I know,” she said, “and as I told the police officer earlier, they met only once for lunch.”
I eased out my notebook and began writing.
“Did they get along at that meeting?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t there, and they did not come to the office, at least Mr. Faulkner didn’t. He simply called, asked to talk to Mr. Shatzkin, and the two of them arranged it. It’s right on Mr. Shatzkin’s calendar, if you’d like to see it. One o’clock lunch with W. Faulkner on Thursday.” “I believe you,” I said. “Do you know where they ate?”
“No,” she said.
“Did Shatzkin particularly like Bernstein’s Fish Grotto?”
She looked puzzled and shook her head.
“He never mentioned it. I doubt that he would go there for lunch unless Mr. Faulkner insisted. It’s too far away, and Mr. Shatzkin was not particularly fond of seafood.”
“Couple more questions and I’ll be done,” I said with a smile. “Do you know what they were supposed to talk about at the luncheon?”
“Mr. Peters, why do you not simply ask Mr. Faulkner?”
“Because,” I said, “some things are not making sense in this. I’m not quite sure what they are, but something is cock-eyed besides my old science teacher at Glendale High School.”
“I don’t know what Mr. Faulkner wanted to talk about, but I think it had something to do with getting Mr. Shatzkin to represent him.”
“Okay,” I said, standing up. “Do you have any photographs of Mr. Shatzkin, by any chance?” “No,” she said emphatically. “There was one on his desk, but Mrs. Shatzkin sent her handyman Haliburton to get his things, including the wedding photograph on his desk.”
There was a lot in the way she said it that made me go on. She had underlined both Mrs. and her handyman. There was also the suggestion that the widow could have waited until the corpse had cooled before spring cleaning.
“Mrs. Shatzkin identified William Faulkner as the man who shot her husband,” I said.
Mrs. Summerland shrugged.
“I think she was lying or mistaken,” I continued.
“Both are possible,” said Mrs. Summerland, looking me straight in the eye. “But what isn’t possible is that Mr. Shatzkin lied, dying or not. If he said Faulkner shot him, then he told the truth. Mr. Shatzkin was a quiet, honest man. He wasn’t the fast-talking pitchman who some…” Mrs. Summerland’s composed exterior was about to shatter into tears, and she didn’t want that, at least not in front of me.
“You’ve been very helpful,” I said, closing her door behind me just as her head went down.
The sun was almost out when I limped outside, and it was a little warmer but not warm enough to resell my coat to Hy O’Brien. Things were starting to pile up, and the heap they formed might mean something, especially if I got it burning.
My next stop was the apartment of Jerry Vernoff off La Brea in Inglewood. It was a one-story courtyard job with a small pool in the middle and some stunted yearning palms cutting off the sun. I knocked on his door and knew from my experience in such places that everyone who was home heard the knock vibrating through his walls.
“Yeah,” came a voice.
“Peters,” I said.
“Right,” said the voice. I waited a few seconds, and the door came open on a slightly soft but reasonably good-looking big guy with straight blond hair and a smile. His teeth were white. His skin was tan and his shirt was open.
“Come on in,” he said. “Find a place to sit. I’ve got to clean my hands. Messed up a can of chili.”
He disappeared, and I looked for a place to sit. There was a sofa and two chairs. There was also a card table set up as a desk with a chair. On each of these pieces of furniture there were piles of paper and index cards full of writing.
“Just pick up a pile and shift it,” he shouted. “But try to keep it in order.”
I opted for one of the chairs. I moved two piles of typed notes onto the floor and sat down.
“Can I get you a drink?” Vernoff shouted over running water. “A beer or a Coke?”
“Coke is fine,” I said.
He came back with a bottle for me and one for himself.
“I can’t even cook a can of chili,” he said with a grin.
“I know the feeling.”
“Shoot,” he said, draining a third of his Coke.
“You work with Faulkner?” I said.
“Well, I do on this job. I’m a free-lance story man,” he explained. “See all this,” he said with a sweep of his left hand to take in the pages and the wall of books. “Cabinet in the corner is filled with plot cards. I’ve got hundreds of them. Hell, I’ve got thousands. If you count the possibilities for mixing and matching, I probably have a million plots in this room. Producers and writers hire me to get them going, give them a start, some ideas. I shoot plots and variations at them to see if they can get something going in their imaginations. The pay is reasonably good. The work has been pretty steady for the last few years.”