High Risk 6.3

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[Continuing chapter six]

The interior of Straebo’s Packard smelled of soaped leather and Turkish tobacco, with hints here and there of various perfumes. From the outside world, Casey caught an occasional hint of oranges. The hills were bathed in shades of purple as the light faded into evening; from time to time he saw lights indicating another mansion. Beverly Hills was only a few miles, but a universe away, from Hollywood.

Benjamin McMahon’s house wasn’t the biggest in the hills, but it was big enough. It could probably give Pickfair the running, and Pickfair was Hollywood’s Windsor Castle.

“You will follow me,” Straebo said as the Packard coasted to a stop at the top of the drive, “and you will do as I say and say nothing yourself unless you are asked. Is that clear?”

“No,” said Casey, “but since you’re my ride home, I’ll play along. Of course, I can think of worse places to be stranded.”

“Don’t play wise with me, Casey. You may think that you’re clear now, but you’re really in a lot of trouble. You’re here because the men you’re about to meet want to know if you’ll be useful. If they decide you’re not, you might as well be dead.”

“I’ve been in worse situations,” Casey said. He looked pointedly at Straebo. “Have you?”

Straebo didn’t reply. Stomping to the large, wooden doors, he pounded on one until it opened, revealing a dark-suited man. “Come in, Mr. Straebo,” the man said. “They’re in the library.” English accent, thought Casey. Only the best butlers for our friend McMahon.

Benjamin McMahon, Casey had learned on the drive from Monarch’s Gower Street studios, was Monarch’s vice-president in charge of production. Casey guessed that this was the “Ben” he had overheard the other day abusing Straebo about High Risk’s schedule and budget.

Straebo had taken Casey to the studios in order to have a startled wardrobe department employee provide him with a suit and fedora—after first seeing that he got cleaned up in what turned out to be Richard Armstrong’s dressing room. Two days, Casey had thought, and two different stars’ dressing rooms. I’m going to know them better than the cleaning staff at this rate. The suit was summer-weight and pale yellow, and Casey had to suppress the urge to say “Anyone for tennis?” to the butler as Straebo led the way to the library.

The library exuded the scent of burnt tobacco and male sweat that took Casey back a decade to the closed-in messes of his wartime squadrons. If a woman lived in this house, her presence didn’t announce itself here. Casey remembered Conrad Hart’s house; didn’t any of the men and women in Hollywood live together?

Two men got up from overstuffed armchairs as Straebo and Casey entered. The slender, pale man in the dressing-jacket would be McMahon, Casey decided—though he didn’t look like any McMahon Casey had ever met. Still, whatever a man chose to call himself was of considerably less significance than what the man did with himself.

The other man Casey pegged as a retired policeman. He had a sergeant-major’s beefy outrage limned into his ruddy cheeks and the lines around his eyes. His suit was expensive and fit very badly, as though it had been forced on at gunpoint. The man’s expression implied that Casey had done something to offend him, such as perhaps having been born. McMahon, meanwhile, looked at Casey in a way that suggested the detachment of a man viewing someone else’s stamp collection.

“Here he is, Ben,” Straebo said. “Casey, this is Mr. McMahon. Peter Neal here is the head of studio security. They want to talk to you about Lily Cross.”

“Please sit down, Mr. Casey,” McMahon said, gesturing to a couch.

“If it’s all the same, I’ll stand,” Casey said. It was a nice couch, but he had no intention of sitting as long as everyone else was on his feet.

“How many times were you together with Lily Cross?” Neal asked. He had a mid-western accent. Iowa or some such place.

“If by that you mean how many times were we alone together, the answer is none,” Casey said. “I talked to her twice. She was at Conrad Hart’s place for a few minutes Friday night; I’d say she left a couple of hours before I did. The only other time I talked to her was at that blow-out last Saturday night. And there were plenty of people who talked with her more than I did. Right, Mr. Straebo?”

“That attitude hardly helps, you know,” McMahon said.

“If I’ve upset you, I apologize. But what I’ve been through today doesn’t help either. I’ve been abused by the police, sucker-punched by a detective, and Mr. Straebo here has tried to have me fired. What did I do to deserve this? I found a body, and that’s all.”

“That’s what you say,” Neal said.

“Would you mind telling me about the interrogation you were subject to, Mr. Casey?” McMahon looked a little more interested in him now. A man in a more generous mood might even think there was a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

“Do you know, you’re the first person today who’s asked me about that?” Casey looked pointedly at Straebo, who returned the stare for a second before looking away.

“Detective Sergeant Clark took me into Los Angeles. I asked him why we weren’t going to the Hollywood police station, and he asked me why I thought we should. When I explained to him about my working on High Risk he smiled but didn’t say anything. At the time I didn’t know what that smile meant. Now I do.”

“What do you think it means?” McMahon asked.

“I think it means he’s trying to shake you down,” Casey said. McMahon nodded, a thin smile on his lips.

“Clark didn’t have anything to do with the interrogation. He dumped me with a couple of goddamned goofs named Wood and Morrissey. They couldn’t seem to get it through their skulls that I hadn’t seen Lily since Saturday. I didn’t know how she died—all I really saw before I called the cops was her arm, and that was more than enough as far as I’m concerned.”

“The latest I hear is that she was beaten and strangled,” Neal said. “Which of those actually killed her I don’t know. But it was brutal, that beating. Only a healthy, strong man could have laid something like that on her.”

So Eve Adams had been correct, Casey thought. How were the police going to solve the case if they couldn’t keep information under control?

“These fellows were certainly strong enough to have done it,” Casey said. “When I didn’t answer to their liking, one or the other would lay into me. Open-handed stuff, nothing that would leave much of a mark.”

“Unlike that bruise on the side of your mouth,” McMahon said quietly.

“Courtesy of Detective Sergeant George Clark,” Casey said. “Who will get his back some day, damn him.”

“I’d chalk that up to experience and leave it alone if I was you,” Neal said. “You’re never going to get the last punch on an LA cop.”

“Did they ask you about the movie?” McMahon asked.

“Not as such. They asked how long I’d been working in Hollywood. They kept coming back to how I knew Lily Cross, and I kept telling them I didn’t, really. The long hours just flew by, let me tell you.” Casey thought about Lily Cross for a moment. I still don’t know a damned thing about her, he realized. “I’d be willing to bet that every one of you knows ten times as much about Lily Cross as I do,” he said. “For instance, how long did she work on High Risk?”

“A little over a week,” Neal said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“None of my business? The police think I killed her!”

“No, they don’t,” Neal said.

“All right, then, they’ve decided that I’ll make a convenient scapegoat. And why, might I ask?”

“Because you’re as close to Mr. McMahon as they can get right now. And because Clark thinks he doesn’t have to get any closer.” Neal turned to McMahon. “I don’t think we’re going to get much that’s useful out of this guy. What are we going to do with him?”

“What are you talking about?” Casey asked. “I don’t work for you. I work for Ed Hogan.”

“Who will do as I … suggest,” McMahon said. “Mr. Hogan can probably stand up to someone like Jerry here without having to fear too much in the way of repercussion.” Straebo scowled at that, until he saw the bemused smile on McMahon’s face and wiped the anger from his own. If he had a forelock, Casey mused, he’d have tugged it. “Going against my wishes might be more harmful to his interests,” McMahon said. “Monarch isn’t the largest studio in Hollywood, but I have many good friends in this industry. It wouldn’t do Mr. Hogan well to alienate me, not at all.”

“This isn’t fair,” Casey said.

“No, it isn’t,” McMahon agreed.

“Sorry I’m late,” Desiree Farrell said from the doorway.

Casey reacted just slowly enough to be able to see each of the other men spin his head around to stare at Desiree as she made her entrance. She was in an evening dress, cut extremely low and with a hemline that came up almost to her knees in front and scalloped down to near ankle-length at the back. The dress was a green that almost perfectly matched her eyes.

McMahon recovered first. “Desiree,” he said. “What a pleasure to see you. We don’t get together nearly enough these days. Might I ask what brings you up here tonight?”

“Oh, I heard through the grapevine that you boys were going to be talking about Lily Cross tonight, and I thought that someone from the cast ought to be here. After all, we were so fond of dear Lily.”

It took Casey a second to realize that the buzzing sound he heard was Jerry Straebo trying to suppress some sort of angry explosion.

McMahon didn’t rise to the bait, though. Perhaps he had more experience dealing with her. “I can only hope that poor Miss Cross knew, while she lived, how highly her fellow actors thought of her.”

“With all due respect, Mr. McMahon,” Neal said, “this isn’t really Miss Farrell’s business.”

“Like it isn’t my business,” Casey said. “I wonder whose business it is.”

“I can’t speak for you, Casey,” Desiree said, “but this is most assuredly my business. Let’s get one thing straight, Ben. You don’t care about Lily Cross any more than I do. What you care about is the studio.

“Well, so do I. Because whatever Clark does to you now reflects on me. I know what happens to actors who get caught up in scandal. And what happened to Roscoe Arbuckle and Mary Miles Minter and Mabel Normand isn’t going to happen to my career, I’ll tell you that right now. So you see, Mr. Neal, it really is my business that the studio avoid any scandal connected with Lily Cross’s murder.”

“I think we’re all agreed that this is the best course,” McMahon said. “We’re just trying to determine how to get there.”

“I believe that the method in current favor involves sacrificing me to the police,” Casey said. “Even if Straebo over there makes a better suspect than I do.”

“Bastard!” Straebo, whose face had been reddening throughout Desiree’s speech, charged across the library. Casey waited until the last second, then stepped aside. Straebo crashed into the couch, upending it. The noise brought the butler, who stopped abruptly in the doorway at the sight of Straebo, sprawled on the floor and sputtering curses.

“Perhaps you might help Mr. Straebo to his feet, Hemmings,” McMahon said. The incident didn’t seem to have fazed him at all.

Desiree burst out laughing. “Oh, Ben, you throw the most marvelous parties!” she said.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Desiree.” McMahon walked over to a sideboard and poured something from a decanter into a snifter. “The fact is, though, that we are facing a serious situation here.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Desiree said. “Just phone Buron Fitts and tell him to have Clark lay off.”

“I don’t think the district attorney is allowed to do that,” Casey said. “Is he?”

“Your charming naivete is just one of the things I’m finding to like about you, Casey,” she said.

“Talk about the pot and the kettle,” Neal said.

“I beg your pardon?” Desiree turned her green-eyed stare on the security chief, who actually blinked for a moment before returning the glare.

“It’s not enough to just call Fitts,” McMahon said. “I could do it; in fact, I will do it. But all that will do is keep the investigation out of the papers. I can’t ask him to drop a murder investigation entirely, Desiree. It’s not as if I’m Louis B. Mayer.”

“Where is Asa Keyes when you need him?” Desiree asked in a slow, deliberate drawl. “Why did we ever allow that man to go to jail? He was the perfect D.A. for Los Angeles.”

“The question we are dealing with,” said Straebo from the chair into which the butler had helped him, “is how we can best assist the police in their investigation.”

“Well, it won’t be by stringing me up,” Casey said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. What do I have to do to convince you of that? Find the guy who did it?”

“That would be something, wouldn’t it?” Desiree was looking at him now, and once again Casey found himself uncomfortably aware of the effect her gaze was having on him.

“I couldn’t do a worse job than those two bummers who quizzed me this morning,” he said.

“Desiree, dear,” McMahon said, “would you mind taking Mr. Casey to the living room for a few minutes? Fix him a drink or something; now that we’ve met him and heard what he has to say, we’re going to discuss how we want to handle this.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Casey asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Neal said.

“Forgive Neal, here,” McMahon said. “He’s inclined to be blunt. The truth is, we’re finding the two of you a bit disruptive. I’m sure you understand.”

“Don’t I just,” Desiree said. “Come on, Casey. McMahon’s got some great stuff; wait’ll you taste his Scotch.”

Next     Prologue    Chapter One    Chapter Two    Chapter Three    Chapter Four    Chapter Five
Chapter Six