Wilshire was welcome, with its bright lights. I headed east, through MacArthur Park, cutting off a way, then back and down to Columbia. My apartment was around the corner, on Ingraham. Darker, there. I parked in the shadows, then hurried across the street towards the safety and security of the well-lighted lobby.
I climbed the two flights, reaching for my key as I got to the second landing. At the same time I couldn’t keep my hand away from my coat pocket. It wanted to feel the gun nestling there.
I opened the door. The apartment was dark, and I switched on the light. Everything was in order. I stepped inside, but when it came to closing the door behind me, my hand wasn’t having any.
It wouldn’t cooperate. It insisted on leaving the door open as I stepped across the room to peer into the kitchen and the bath. Nobody there, of course. And nobody in the closet, when I went to hang up my coat.
“Silly,” I told my hand. And took it over to the door again. This time, reluctantly, it reached down and closed the door for me.
I turned. And my hand reached out and pointed. I followed it over to the armchair, next to the table. It brushed the top of the table and scooped up the little white card resting against the ashtray. The little white card I’d never seen before, the little white card I’d never propped there. But my hand held it up so that I could read the brief message scrawled with a common ballpoint pen.
“LAY OFF!”
That’s all the card told me.
I wasn’t frightened. My hand was frightened, though, because it trembled.
Then I looked down in the ashtray and I saw the butt. The coarse, crumpled butt of a hand-rolled cigarette. My fingers closed around it, and even before I brought it to my nostrils I could smell the harshly sweet scent of marijuana.
He’d been here. He’d been sitting in my chair, in my apartment, smoking weed. He’d given me another warning, and if I didn’t take it, he might come back. Only this time he wouldn’t bother to warn me. You get high on weed. It was a crazy thing to risk leaving a butt like this. But then, he could be a maniac.
All at once my hand stopped trembling. It dropped the butt back in the ashtray, picked up the card again, and shredded it to bits between my fingers.
Maybe I was up against a lunatic. Maybe I was up against somebody bigger—somebody who didn’t want his secrets revealed. Maybe I was just a little guy, like Bannock said, and a scared little guy at that.
But nobody, sane or insane, big or small, was going to push me around. I needed that eleven grand as badly as Bannock needed his big stake. Besides, I had a prejudice against murderers. It was so easy for me to put myself in the victim’s place.
And that, of course, was exactly what I was doing...
Chapter Five
I don’t like the smell of reefer butts.
I thought the air might be purer at a hotel, so the next morning I moved. I didn’t give up the apartment; just packed two suitcases and checked in at a room in the smallest and cheapest hostelry across the Park.
Then, just to keep the smell out of my office, I went to a hardware store and bought a new lock for the door.
By the time I’d finished changing the lock and holding a treasure hunt with the mail, looking for checks, it was close to noon.
I lunched, then drove out to Harry’s office to pick up my studio pass.
He was out, but his girl had news for me.
“Mr. Clayburn, you’re here about a pass, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Well, Mr. Bannock called this morning. They’re doing retakes on Miss Foster’s scenes, and they’re behind schedule, so the set is closed.”
“I see.”
“But he said for me to tell you he reserved a table at Chasen’s for you and Miss Foster tonight. Eight o’clock.”
“Thanks. And thank Mr. Bannock for me, will you?”
The girl smiled. “Gee, Mr. Clayburn, you’re an interviewer, aren’t you? Mr. Bannock says you see all the big stars. How does it feel to be in your line of work?”
“Feels good,” I said. “As I was saying to Marilyn Monroe last night, though, there are times when I get so embarrassed because Jane Russell keeps telling me things Ava Gardner shouldn’t know.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Could be.” I leaned over the desk. “Funny thing,” I said. “Here you are, right on the inside, seeing Bannock’s clients. And you’re still movie-struck. I’ve never been able to figure that one out. All the smart little chicks in Hollywood going for the phony glamor. Suppose you’d like to get in the movies yourself?”
“Would I?” Her eyes widened. “Why, I’d give anything to land a job.” Then she grinned. “Come to think of it, I did, about two years ago. But I never got the job.”
“You’re lucky,” I told her. “This is steadier work.”
“I’d still trade places with you any day,” she sighed. “Imagine, interviewing Polly Foster at Chasen’s.”
“Which reminds me,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of time to fill until eight o’clock. We interviewers have to keep busy. Does Harry still run a spot-check on current assignments?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Be a good girl and find out if Tom Trent’s listed for anything today.”
“I’ll ask Velma.”
She buzzed Velma and waited for a reply.
“No, Mr. Clayburn, Trent isn’t down on today’s schedule.”
“Good.”
“Are you going to interview him, too?”
“Why not?” I said. “It’s a free country. Thanks for the help. If you want, I’ll bring you Trent’s autograph. I’m not sure if he knows how to write, but they say his horse is very intelligent.”
“Could you...could you get Polly Foster’s autograph for me?”
I shrugged. “I’ll try. See you.”
Then I went away, wondering about this whole whacky business of hero worship. Even here in Hollywood, where you’d think they’d know better, the crowds still jam the prevues, still mob celebrities, scramble for buttons and souvenirs. Crazy. Crazy, but profitable.
That’s what made it important. It was profitable to give people what they wanted. If they wanted heroes and heroines, Hollywood must provide them. And that’s why I was on this job. I had to take the battered, bullet-riddled body of Dick Ryan and prop it up on a pedestal again.
And the first step was to see Tom Trent.
Wrong. The first step was to stop at a drugstore and hunt up his address. I might have guessed he’d live out in the Valley.
But I had time to spare. I took the scenic route and pulled up in front of his place around three.
It hardly surprised me to find that Tom Trent lived in a regulation, sure-enough ranch-house, complete with true Western air-conditioning, a trusty station wagon, and an ol’ swimmin’ hole lined with turquoise tile and surrounded by umbrella tables at which a quick-shootin’, redblooded hombre could set hisself down and have a shot of firewater—bonded, of course.
I pulled into the driveway but didn’t bother to ring the bell, because I could see little ol’ rough-and-ready, two-fisted Tom Trent out yonder at one of the tables. I went thataway.
I’d recognized Trent’s face, of course, but he was the kind who doesn’t depend on that alone. As I got closer I noted the white terrycloth robe thrown over the back of the chair so as to display the TT monogram in gold. A few steps nearer and I could see the same TT on his towel, and reproduced on his trunks. When I reached the table he raised his left hand in salutation, and I saw the silver identification bracelet dangling from the wrist. Three guesses as to what was engraved on it.