The Million-Dollar Wound

“So what?” I said, unimpressed.

After all, what was it to me? Just another rambling two-story Colonial “farmhouse,” white frame and brick, surrounded by a rustic rock garden, perched on a hill against a horizon of more hills. Hell, there’s one of them on every third corner back in Chicago.

He took me up the winding drive, up the sloping lawn. Plenty of trees, too, and not a palm in sight. Clearly this Montgomery was a guy with dough who wasn’t afraid to spend it. Clearly, too, this was a guy who’d rather not be in Hollywood, to the point of reinventing the place into New England.

I got out of the cab and handed in a sawbuck to the guy, saying, “Keep it.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Do you know Robert Montgomery?”

“We’re like this,” I said, holding up crossed fingers.

“I’m an actor, too,” he said, earnestly.

“Aren’t we all,” I said, and turned my back on him and went up the sidewalk.

I knocked on the polished white door, and soon it swung open and a small, attractive woman in her thirties, with light brown hair and a fine smile, greeted me, smoothing her crisp print dress, blue on white, as she spoke.

“You’d be Mr. Heller,” she said.

I had my hat in my hands. All I could think of was I hadn’t brushed my teeth since that goddamn sixteen-hour plane ride.

“Yes I am,” I said, the soul of wit.

“I’m Mrs. Montgomery,” she said.

I hadn’t taken her for a servant.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

She offered me her hand and I accepted it, a smooth, cool hand which I gently grasped rather than shook.

“Please step inside,” she said, taking my overnight bag (although I could use the toothbrush therein about now) and she stepped graciously aside and then I was in.

The hall was knotted pine, and the smell of pine was in the place too; it brought to mind Pegler’s aftershave, which was fitting I suppose, since Pegler brought me here. Mrs. Montgomery paused to gracefully point toward an elaborately framed picture that seemed a little out of place, amidst the otherwise early American trimmings of the place: a bunch of royal-looking dopes in a carriage.

“This picture is a special prize,” she said. “We were in England at the time of the Silver Jubilee, and this is a signed copy of the Jubilee picture. Painted by Munnings.”

“By Munnings. Really.”

“Yes. That’s Queen Mary and King George V on their way to Ascot. And there in the carriage are the Prince of Wales and his brother who became, of course, King Edward VIII and King George VI, respectively.”

“Of course.”

A stairway curved gently to the left; also opening to the left was the open-beamed dining room, where dark mahogany early American furniture was surrounded by wallpaper brightly depicting scenes from the Revolutionary War, redcoats and bluecoats cheerfully fighting. I guess I knew who Queen Mary and King George V would’ve rooted for. At a bay window, next to sheer ruffled curtains, sat a small oval table. At the small oval table sat Robert Montgomery. He was reading the Daily Variety, a cup of coffee before him.

“Mr. Heller’s here, Bob,” Mrs. Montgomery said, and Montgomery rose and smiled. It was the same urbane smile I’d seen in any number of light comedies; it was also the same urbane smile of the killer in Night Must Fall.

He was about my size, six foot, and weight, one-seventy, casually attired in white shirt and brown slacks; and, like me, was in his mid-thirties or so. His eyes were blue and his hair brown, and he wasn’t strikingly handsome, exactly-it was one of those faces that seemed soft and strong at once-but you knew you were in the presence of somebody.

We shook hands. He had a solid, strong grip, and his hands were not the smooth movie-star hands I’d expected; this man had, at some time in the not too distant past, worked a real job.

“Please join me,” he said, gesturing to the chair opposite him at the small oval table, and he sat down, and I sat down.

“We waited breakfast for you. Is French toast all right? Orange juice and coffee?”

“Sure. That’s very gracious of you.”

He folded the Variety and put it to one side of his place setting; only his coffee cup was before him-he really had waited to have breakfast till I got there.

“I knew what time you were getting in,” he said, shrugging, smiling just a little. “And I know what those flights are like. You’ve grabbed a random bite at this airport cafeteria and that one. And, despite sleeping on the trip, you’re very tired, aren’t you?”

I was. I hadn’t noticed it, really, but I was bone tired.

“I guess I am,” I said.

“Well, you can relax some, while you’re here. You’re to stay at least overnight. I’ve made reservations for you at the Roosevelt.”

“Yes, that was my understanding. Thank you.”

“Thanks for coming out here on such short notice.”

His wife brought the food in and served it; again, no servants, at least none in sight.

“It looks delicious,” I told her, and it did.

“Breakfast is usually a one-man affair at our house,” she said. “I’m sure Bob will appreciate the company.”

They smiled at each other, quite warmly, and she left. This was a civilized house, that was for sure. Of course with dough like this, they could afford to be civilized.

Well, the breakfast tasted as good as it looked, the orange juice everything fresh-squeezed California orange juice is supposed to be including pulpy, and we didn’t talk about the pending case, rather talked about my flight and other general small talk. At one point he asked me what I thought about FDR seeking a third term; and I said, I didn’t know it was official; and he said it wasn’t, but that it was going to happen; and I said, I’d probably vote for the guy again.

“I worked for him in ’33 and ’37,” he said, thoughtfully, seriously, “but it goes against my grain to support any president for a third term. We stop short of royalty in this country, thank God.”

Jubilee painting or not.

“I liked you in that movie where you played the killer,” I said.

He smiled, but it wasn’t the killer’s smile. “It was the role I liked best,” he admitted.

“You got an Academy Award nomination for that, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He laughed to himself. “Do you know what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences really is?”

“Uh, not exactly, no.”

“A company union.” Now he smiled the killer’s smile. “A failed company union. You see, Louie B. Mayer wanted to fight any legitimate unionization of actors and directors. The Academy was to be the contract arbitrator between the studio and the guilds. You can imagine just how impartial that arbitration would be. Well, we put a stop to that.”

“That’s good.”

After breakfast he ushered me into the nearby “study,” which was bigger than my entire suite at the Morrison: fireplace, built-in shelves of leather-bound books, hunting prints on pine walls, tan leather furniture (none of it patched with tape, either). He settled at one end of an absurdly long leather couch and helped himself to the pipes and tobacco on a small round table before him. He nodded to an overstuffed leather chair opposite him and I sat down in it, and I mean down, in, it.

“Smoke, if you like,” he said, lighting up the pipe.

“I don’t smoke.”

“I thought all private eyes smoked.”

“Nope. And my secretary isn’t in love with me, either.”