Spyfall Read online

  Suzi sat near, watched my expression, and tried to listen in. I tilted the edge of the phone receiver so she could hear the tiny, metallic voice from the islands.

  Mr. P apologized for not telling me sooner. “Honestly, it wasn’t a problem, Stan. Not to me anyway. You were your own man and a hell of an investigator. You stood your ground and waded through the muck to find the answers and help people. That’s why I turned the agency over to you when I retired. You earned it, Stan.”

  It went on like that for another couple of minutes. Him talking. Me listening. Suzi watching. It was all good to hear, but I still felt conflicted and told him the same thing I’d told Walt. “I’ll think about it.”

  His voice broke up from the bad connection, so we rang off.

  I just sat there, silently arguing with myself.

  Suzi continued to wait.

  Finally, I said, “Why would they keep this from me for so long?”

  She placed a hand on my knee. “There’s no answer for that, Standy. And it’s only when you stop asking that it gets quiet inside.”

  Then she changed the subject by suggesting dinner at my favorite restaurant, the Villa Capri, adding, “And I have passes to a preview at MGM.”

  I went along with it, for now. Still, it didn’t add up. But I decided not to let it ruin our evening.

  Dinner was great, as usual, and so was the company. I saw Roger Moore at the bar with a trim brunette on his arm and tried to recall the name of his character on The Alaskans. Slinky or Slimy? Just another Brit, like that Fleming guy.

  But the Noir Man kept pitching questions at me. Had Walt been successful in tracking down and stopping Reed’s brother? When and where would Max’s funeral be? What was I going to do for a car now?

  Suzi continued to lighten my mood as she drove us over to MGM Studios on Washington Boulevard. At the gate, she flashed her preview pass to the guard and parked beside several other cars next to a tiny theatre at the back of the lot. We walked to the theater’s entrance where an attendant checked her name on a clipboard and gave us each a five-by-seven card to capture our comments.

  I’d been to one of these previews before. The studio gave out passes to test a movie in production by asking the sample audience for their opinions before the film’s full release. Sometimes, if the comments came back so negative, major changes were made to the movie. Sometimes not.

  I didn’t know what film we were to see, until the curtain parted, and I recognized the lush, heady overture that had to be the work of Miklos Rozsa. Within minutes, we were in ancient Egypt with Ben Hur. Within hours, we were done and out.

  Near the end of the picture, the audience had collectively gasped as a charioteer was thrown and trampled beneath a team of thundering horses. I was pretty sure I saw the director, Willy Wyler, slouched down in the row of seats in front of us, keenly watching the crowd’s reaction to the death scene.

  He seemed to smile.

  During the drive back to her apartment, Suzi and I discussed the gruesome scene.

  “It looked like a real death to me,” she said.

  “Imagine if word like that got out,” I mused, captured by her stunning profile. “It could kill the movie.”

  “It could ruin MGM,” she said, executing a perfect parallel parking maneuver on the street in front of her building. “I hear that the studio is almost bankrupt again.”

  “Worse than that,” I said. “It could damage the image of the US, if the world thought we were pandering a real death scene to an international audience.”

  She shivered. I reached a palm over and lightly patted her cheek.

  She held my hand next to her face. After a moment, we went inside for a night together. And to hell with the dumb cat, four ways.

  CHAPTER 4

  We enjoyed and indulged ourselves by sleeping in until 8:30. We shared scrambled eggs and coffee after first sharing a shower. Suzi had to go into the office to work on the Edwards doggy case and she planned to first drop me off at my boat.

  Plans changed when we found a suspicious envelope in her mailbox. It had no stamp or return address, but it rattled when shaken. I had her go get a pair of scissors which I used to gingerly cut off a small corner from the envelope. Peering inside, I made out the smiling face of Mickey Mouse chained to a set of car keys.

  We walked out to the street and found a new Ford Thunderbird convertible parked directly behind her Renault. It was robin’s egg blue and had enough chrome for a thousand toasters.

  “Uncle Walt did this,” she breathed with awe.

  I kicked a whitewall tire next to its spoked hubcap, but didn’t answer.

  Suzi rattled my hand that held the keys.

  I told her to stand back while I looked under the car, into the empty trunk big enough to hold a rowboat, beneath the seats, and under the hood.

  She watched and finally asked, “Look safe?”

  I pulled at my chin and made a side-to-side “guess-so” gesture with my head.

  The engine was a 352-cubic-inch V8 with factory air. The bucket seats were matching pale blue. The interior was tooled leather. The ragtop was white canvas.

  The odometer had sixty-four miles on it and the glove-box had the title in it, made out in my name.

  “Guess I won’t need to be dropped off after all,” I said, with a faint grin.

  The luscious blonde gave me a hug and a wave and drove off in her mundane vehicle.

  I held my breath and started the Bird’s engine. It turned over and purred like a toothless Leo the Lion. Since the hood opened backward, I could see the motor from the driver’s seat. Everything seemed fine. I closed up the hood and then listened to the servo-motors lower the cloth roof. I put the shiny car into gear and eased out from the curb.

  Minutes later, I was doing a smooth fifty in the sun on 101, headed southwest, fiddling with the knobs on the radio to find the Dodgers game. It was the bottom of the fifth and we were behind the Cubs twelve to two. The Noir Man was not happy, but he was never happy about anything.

  I got off the freeway at Hope and cut over to Seventh, parking directly in front of the eleven-story Biltmore Hotel’s main entrance on Olive Street. As I tossed the keys to an attendant and stopped to take in the lush green on Pershing Square across the street, something there tickled my sinuses and I sneezed.

  The doorman tipped his cap and blessed me. Then he whistled lowly and slowly as the big, square T-bird glided away. One damn impressive car, but it drew way too much attention for use by a lowly PI, especially on stakeouts. I’d probably have to sell it or maybe trade it for Suzi’s less-noticeable buggy. But not for a while yet. I think I may have been in love.

  Once through the revolving glass doors and into the air-conditioned atmosphere of the hotel, my sinuses settled down. The beaux arts interior surrounded and enfolded me, sweeping me up in a mélange of ornate fixtures, intricately-patterned rugs, and murals that would have shamed the Vatican. They once hosted the Academy Awards here and the vast ballroom was known as “Oscar’s Home.”

  Even though there were dozens of people around me, coming and going, the lobby’s cavernous expanse high above hung heavily as the hush of a cathedral. There were many sites in LA, especially in Hollywood, that whisked you to another place and time. It’s what we do here and our visitors expect it. The Biltmore was one of the most enchanting of these places. Not that it doesn’t have a few skeletons in the closets of its roomy suites.

  Mr. P once told me that this was the last place the Black Dahlia was seen before her untimely death. That was before my time, but it still sent a chill when I thought of the photos of her severed, nude body. The city and the hotel would probably never live that one down, regardless of all our fancy trappings.

  Since I already knew Fleming’s room number, I skipped the front desk and went straight for the bank of ornate elevators. I was surprised to see George Reeves in his Clark Kent disguise step out of a descending car, and then quickly recognized as he passed me that it was only Steve Allen.r />
  I got off at Fleming’s floor and walked down the oriental carpet. The hallway was crypt-quiet, until I knocked on the gilt-edged door of room 1070. When the door opened and I introduced myself, Fleming reacted the way a lot of people do upon seeing me up close for the first time. He couldn’t keep from glancing at the streak of white that ran across my crown. I had a little fun with him by pointing at my face and saying, “My eyes are down here.” I could have been less confrontational, but I honestly wasn’t in the mood.

  “Brown,” he said. “What do you want?”

  I could see that he wasn’t amused and planned to stand his ground at the door. “A mutual friend told me that you were being threatened by a mob--of unfriendly people. I’m here to see if I can help you with that.”

  “Oh,” he said, stepping back. “In that case, do come in. I believe you said your name was Wade.”

  “That’s right.” I followed him into a room that carried forward the décor from the lobby, scaled down to less godly proportions.

  Fleming stood in the middle of the room, wearing slacks, a smoking jacket, and a bow tie. Any more British and he’d have had a bowler and umbrella. His dull eyes scanned my face. He gestured to one of two dun, high-backed wing chairs that sat beside a cart of premium liquors and fixings. There was a copy of Playboy on the floor next to the other chair.

  I knew he was a writer and remembered at last where I’d heard of him. Chandler had liked his work, so I decided just then to give one of his books a try when I had the time. But at the moment, I sat and said, “I have a funny feeling that you are our mutual friend’s opposite number.”

  He smiled, sadly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by that.”

  I said, “Yes, of course,” and smiled back.

  He offered me a drink and I declined with thanks.

  It occurred to me that this guy, with his hair thinning and graying at the temples, looked a lot like Walt, only without the moustache. “My understanding is that you’re being pressured by the mob to change the way you write. They don’t like negative publicity in any media.”

  “That’s true,” he said, beginning to mix Beefeaters with Roses lime juice.

  Even though I’d stopped drinking a few months back, I recognized a gimlet when I saw one being prepared. “They recently stopped production on a Hope and Crosby movie, because the bad guys in the script were supposed to be members of the Syndicate.”

  He added a wedge of lime to the concoction in his martini glass. “Organized crime still wields incredible power in your country. If they wanted, they could be king makers or president makers. Cheers.”

  “I assume you don’t mean Hope and Crosby.”

  “No,” he said, sipping his drink. “The other chaps--the ones threatening me.”

  “So why don’t you just write them out of your story?”

  He set his drink down and almost magically produced a gold cigarette case from the pocket of his smoking jacket. Panache. “How do you mean?”

  I leaned forward. “Well, instead of the Mafia, can’t you just make the villains some international crime organization?”

  “You mean like Fu Manchu?” he asked, lighting what looked like a custom-made cigarette.

  “More like, say, the Non-American Terrorist Organization, or something.”

  “That would have an acronym of NATO.”

  I looked closely and saw the barest trace of a smile at the corner of the novelist’s mouth. “Well, you get the idea,” I said.

  “Yes,” he puffed. “And it’s a good one. Something mysterious and worldwide.”

  “I have connections with a certain Mr. Cohen and can help you get the word out that you’re switching bad guys. It might keep the animals off your back.”

  He sipped his drink again and thought about it. “So if I change the villains into some super-secret cabal, you can tell the local Mob boys and they’ll stop the threats.”

  “Very likely. I’ve seen it work before.” My throat was becoming dry from the smoke and I was beginning to regret not accepting a drink. “They don’t want to be featured in the spot light or the lime light.”

  He politely sniggered at that. “Sort of like rats and roaches,” he replied. “I must say, it makes about as much sense as a juggler on the radio, but if it’ll work, I’ll do it, starting today.”

  Now, I had to snicker. This guy was quick and clever. “Fine,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll get the word out for you. How long do you expect to remain in our fair city?”

  He followed me to the door. “Actually, I’m not supposed to be here at all, you understand. I registered under a false name, because there’s a woman in town who desperately wants to see me.”

  “Yes, of course, there is.” I gave him a raised eyebrow. “You can rely on my discretion.”

  He thanked me and went back to mixing another drink. Mr. Fleming seemed to enjoy many vices.

  ***

  I called Mickey and then Norman from a highly-polished phone booth in the lobby. Norman wanted to sing lyrics at me, but I told him I was busy before ringing off and strolling back out into the September heat. After I retrieved my car from the attendant, the radio reported that the Dodgers had lost and Khrushchev would soon leave New York. I caught a cheeseburger and chocolate malt at Carl’s Jr. and dined, driving in luxury. The power steering and power brakes were “ripping.”

  I now had what I needed from Fleming in order to safely go see Mickey Rat. I’d dealt with him before and was on as good of terms with him as humanly possible, I hoped. He could laugh and still kick you in the balls. For a couple of years now, he’d quietly managed the local bookmakers and enforcers, so that even Joe Friday--let alone Robert Kennedy--couldn’t pin anything on the donkey named Cohen.

  I recalled that he’d complained to me about Fleming a few months back, calling him a “limey bastard.” The Syndicate wanted to keep their heads down and appear as “respectable businessmen,” and if Fleming hadn’t lived over in England, they probably would have had a hit out on him. Still...

  I drove up San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood to the swank haberdashery where Mickey once had held court. The quaint men’s clothing shop was one of the last places you’d expect him to use as a hang out these days--which was probably why he was there. If the cops found him on premises, they wouldn’t pass Go. They’d take him directly to jail, assuming that the cops weren’t already collecting $200 from Mickey’s payroll.

  As I parked, fed the meter, and walked into the shop’s entrance, I could feel eyes on me from somewhere. The question was, where they the eyes of hired hoods, hidden police, or someone else. Maybe they were Norman’s Tingler using Percepto.

  The only patron in the air-conditioned men’s store was a guy who looked like Richard Arlen, fingering silk ties on a spinner rack. I’d once been told that I looked like a young Richard Arlen, except for the streak in my hair.

  A beefy guy with jowls as dark as Dick Nixon’s stood behind a glass counter loaded with tie clasps and cuff links. He glanced up and gave me a hitchhike gesture toward the back room.

  Another gent with crocodile-bitten features, who I was pretty sure I’d seen before in mug books, gave me a frisk and then stepped to one side with an open palm.

  “Wade-o,” Cohen said, not getting up from the hand of rummy he was playing against two overweight thugs in dynamite suits. After all, this was a haberdashery. “Tell me you got good news.”

  He shifted a cigar from one side of his flat face to the other and waved me nearer. The card players watched my every move like cats. Otherwise, they seemed dead. I hoped they stayed that way.

  Despite his expensive outfit and pinky ring, the Mick was starting to show his age. He must have been past fifty by now, but still a showman. There were long lines at his box-office face, deep furrows across the stage of his slick brow, and touches of gray huddled in the longue seats above either ear. Still, he hogged the limelight, regardless of what Fleming had said, performing like a trouper, if not a ve
teran, partly for me and partly for his gang.

  “You’re right, Mickey,” I said. “I’ve come with news that Ian Fleming plans to write you guys out of his next book. No more Mafia references in his novels. You guys have been written out.”

  “Fleming?” he mused, as casual as Como. “Fleming?” “Oh, yeah,” he finally announced. “The limey with the spy novels. I wanted to put the kibosh on. You found him?”

  He must have been trying out a new cologne. I had the presence of mind not to tell him he smelled like Suzi’s Chanel No. 5. Mrs. Wade’s son didn’t need any extra holes in his head. “It’s all taken care of, Mickey. You won’t have any trouble from him from now on.”

  He put his cards and cigar down. “You sure?”

  The stooges looked as dumb and dull as test patterns.

  “Sure, I’m sure. Scout’s honor.” I almost raised my hand and then noticed the thugs’ eyes tightening.

  Cohen got up, dusted off his trousers, and came at me, chuckling. “You’re my favorite peeper, kiddo,” he confided, resting a palm on the left cheek of my face. “But you cross me and you’re wife’s a widow. Get me?”

  I backed up a step. “Mickey, I’m not married.”

  “No, not yet,” the Connected man said, “but my spies are everywhere, kiddo. So you’d better watch your step, while you still can. Get me?”

  I gave him a “Gotchu.”

  “Then get outta here.”

  Again Mrs. Wade’s son played it smart and got the hell out of there.

  CHAPTER 5

  Norman had recently moved into new digs on Elysian Street near the construction site around the old Chavez Ravine. On the way over there, I swung into an alley off Cahuenga and parked. Walking back to the street, I went along the rows of magazines on display at World Book and News and bought the latest copy of Famous Monsters as a house-warming present. The stand had been here for years, just south of Hollywood Boulevard, but as I went back to my car, I realized one of those déjà vu moments. I knew this alley from somewhere else.