“You ate hamburger.”
“That’s what I got. I’d have to be a pig to turn it down and ask for tempura.”
“I guess you would.”
It was about twenty-five miles from Masuto’s home in Culver City to the old Malibu Road, the location of the Bartons’ beach house. When they were on the Pacific Coast Highway heading north, Masuto reminded Beckman about Barton. “You said his real name might just be Brannigan. Why ‘might just be’? A good many film actors change their names. It’s no great secret.”
“It is and it isn’t, Masao. In the old days Jewish and Italian and Polish actors used to sit on their real names, and sometimes their real names were absolutely secret, actors like Leslie Howard and Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis to name only a few. But after the war things changed and you got people like George Segal and Sylvester Stallone who don’t give a damn and lots of others too. But with Barton, it’s different.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, think about the way he looks, a kind of a cross between Robert Redford and Ronald Reagan. He’s got to be Irish or Wasp, so you don’t think of him changing his name. But his past is as blurred as the Angel’s. He turned up here in Hollywood in 1964 and it seems that for two years he did everything except act-washed dishes, waited on tables, pumped gas. Then he got some bit parts in TV, and then he pulled off a major role in a series-and from there, zoom. He’s one of the top ten. But who is he? Nobody seems to know.”
“A hundred million people have seen his face. How does he hide?”
“Maybe he don’t have to hide. You hide if you’re on the run, if there’s a want out for you. If it’s just a background you’re maybe ashamed of, or some kind of nastiness that won’t help the image, or maybe even something you want to forget, you change your name.”
“Then where did the Brannigan notion come from?” Masuto reminded him.
“I talked to Gloria Adams at the L.A. Times. She says that in the interviews with fan magazines and such, Barton just blurs his past-admits to being an Easterner from upstate New York, but she mentioned that two years ago she got a letter from back East. She tells me her column is syndicated all over the country, and this letter says that Barton’s real name is Brannigan and that he comes from Schenectady in New York. So she asked Barton, and he says it’s a lot of hogwash, so she just forgot about it, because crazy mail is a part of her job. She wanted to know how come the Beverly Hills cops were suddenly interested in Mike Barton, but I put her off and told her that if something broke, she’d be the first to know.”
“Did you call the Schenectady cops?”
“I did that, but they don’t have fancy computers, and they said that for anything seventeen or eighteen years ago it would take a couple of days to get into their old files.”
Masuto nodded. “That’s good work, Sy. From here on we’ll just take it as it comes.”
“You think he’ll ever see Angel again?”
“Somehow, I do.”
“It’s almost noon. By now Barton’s made the drop.”
“I would presume so.”
It was just past twelve when they turned left off the Pacific Coast Highway at old Malibu Road and pulled up in front of the Malibu police station. Joe Cominsky, the Malibu chief of police, had started out as a uniformed cop with Sy Beckman when they were both members of the Los Angeles police, and now he shook his hand warmly. “It’s been a long time, Sy, many moons.”
“I envy you. If you’ve got to be a cop, I suppose Malibu’s got everything else beat.”
“It has its points. Glad to meet you, Sergeant,” he said to Masuto. “Maybe you’re just what we need on this, because this Barton thing is sure as hell a Chinese puzzle.”
“The sergeant’s not Chinese. He’s nisei.”
“I know, I know. Just an expression. No offense.”
“Forget it,” Masuto said. “I know what you mean. I’d like to look at their beach house, and then I’d like to talk to Netty Cooper. I’m sure you’ve been talking to her.”
“Just got back from there.”
“Then you have a list of the guests last night?”
“It’s a Who’s Who of the film business. You know the kind of people we got out here in the Malibu Colony. Top directors, top stars, top producers. The thought of a couple of them sneaking down the road after the party to kidnap Angel Barton is just bananas.”
“Were there no people from outside the Colony?”
“Fred Simmons, the producer, and his wife. Simmons is sixty-seven with a bad ticker. They left about eleven. Fred Simmons has more millions than you could shake a stick at. He’s no candidate.”
“How many people were there?”
“About twenty altogether.”
“I’d like to talk to Mrs. Cooper.”
“Absolutely,” Cominsky said.
“And to have a look at the Bartons’ beach house.”
“Sure. Suppose we go along there now. I’d like another opinion. When I said Chinese puzzle before, I wasn’t making an ethnic crack. I meant the puzzle part of it. It’s just a mile down old Malibu Road. I’ll drive you there.”
“Then Angel never had to touch the highway. She just drove down Malibu Road. I suppose someone could have been waiting, watching for her car.”
When they reached the Barton beach house, Cominsky pointed to the slope on the inland side facing the house. “Nothing there but mustard grass. No place to hide.”
“On top?”
“Maybe. There’s a road up there, between here and the Pacific Coast Highway, so I guess they could have parked there and watched. But let’s look at the house.”
The house was one-story and brown-shingled, presenting a blank wall to the road. The entrance was on the beach side, and alongside the house, nestled between the Barton house and the adjoining house, an alley led through to the beach. Cominsky opened the door to the alley, explaining, “Most of the people here leave passkeys with us.”
“No garage?” Masuto asked.
“Not here. Very few of them. People park in the space in front of their houses.”
“I don’t see her car?”
“They took it-a yellow two-seat Mercedes. Worth over forty grand. We put out an APB on it, but no word yet.”
“And when they left, was the gate open?”
“Right. Hold that thought, Sergeant. The gate wasn’t jimmied. Either they opened it with a passkey, or they came around from the beach. And the nearest public pass-through to the beach is a quarter of a mile away. Just follow me through here.”
The passageway was no more than three feet wide, the house directly on the left making a windowless wall. In the Bartons’ house there were several side windows, all of them covered with fretted iron grillwork.
“What about these people next door?” Masuto asked.
“Divorced actor. He does westerns in Spain. Been there three months and not expected back until next month.”
They emerged into the blazing sunlight of Malibu Beach, the white sand stretching in front of them, a man walking a dog, a youngster in a wet suit trying to surf, and four pretty girls playing volleyball. The Barton house had a broad shaded porch facing the ocean, and in front of it and three steps down, a wooden terrace enclosed by a picket fence. On the terrace were tables under striped beach umbrellas-folded now-lounge chairs, and dining chairs. Cominsky opened the gate at the side of the picket fence and led them across the terrace.
“Barred on the road side, but not the beach side.”
“The water kills thoughts of evil,” Masuto said, and Cominsky glanced at him strangely.
“Yet the evil persists,” Masuto added, smiling. “Only the sand is washed clean. Forgive me, Chief. I’m also puzzled.”
“Oh? Yeah,” Cominsky agreed. “Just take a look at this front door.” He unlocked a police padlock that had been bolted to the door and stood aside. Masuto and Beckman stared at the door, which had been attacked in two places by a jimmy and forced open. In the lower corner of the window, next to the door, was a stick-on label with the legend HELMS SECURITY.