The Englishman’s Boy

“Shorty may be an old man,” he says. “But he’s a fucking grudgeful old man.”

“I don’t intend to give him any reason to hold a grudge. Against me or anybody else. I like to be everybody’s friend.”

He picks up the bill, crushing it in his fist as if he wants it out of sight before anybody notices. “This is all I know. Two months ago somebody said he was bunking at Mother Reardon’s.”

“Who’s Mother Reardon?”

“She runs a boarding house. She likes cowboys. Gives them a preference on rooms.”

“Address?”

The bartender takes a stub of pencil from behind his ear, scribbles on a torn envelope. “I ain’t promising nothing. It’s just what I heard – that he might be there. Cowboys don’t stop long in one place.”

“I understand,” I say.

He passes me the paper. “If you find him, don’t bother mentioning me. I don’t want no credit on this one.”

Mother Reardon’s is a shabby little bungalow not far from the empty lot on the corner of Sunset and Hollywood boulevards where Griffith constructed the gargantuan Babylon set for his film Intolerance. A hand-lettered sign on a piece of cardboard in the front window says, “Room and Board, Weeklie, Monthlie.” The old woman who answers my knock is thin as a straight razor and wears a black dress so shiny it looks wet.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. McAdoo,” I say.

“Not here.”

“When do you expect him back?”

“Don’t. Moved out.”

“Do you have a forwarding address for him?”

“Nothing to forward. He never got mail.”

I think for a moment, hand on the screen door. “He didn’t happen to skip out on the rent by any chance, did he?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m a business associate,” I tell her. “It’s possible I might be able to settle any debts. Collect any personal belongings he might have left behind.”

A shrewd, cold look passes over her face and then she dismisses the opportunity with a regretful, weary shake of the head. “No, he paid in full. Always did. He’s a punctual man.”

“Do you have a guess where he went to?”

“No.”

“Did he say anything? Give any reasons for leaving?”

Mother Reardon cocks her head, shoots me a look like a bright-eyed scrawny bird. “Business associate, you said?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Then you ought to know him to be closed-mouthed. Never said much more to anybody than a word at the supper table. ‘Pass the butter.’ ‘Pass the beans.’ That’s all he ever asked from anybody, that they pass him what he paid for.”

“So he just up and left.”

“That’s right. Came out of his room one Sunday morning with his duffel bag packed and asked what he owed. Left without breakfast.”

“On the run?”

“No. He wasn’t in any particular hurry.”

“I talked to a man this afternoon. He mentioned something about a director. Did Mr. McAdoo ever say anything about a director?”

“I heard him say a thing or two about directors. None of it good. I feel the same way. Movie people don’t get into my house if I can help it. They’re all whores and thieves. Except for the cowboys. They may be rough but they’re honest.”

“Did he have any visitors?”

“A few young fellows came by. Just to sit with him. They admired Mr. McAdoo. Wanted to hear about the old days. Once I heard him tell them, ‘Don’t ask me about the old days. Let the dead bury the dead. I ain’t dead.’ ”

“What do you think he meant by that?”

“I don’t think he meant anything. It’s just something an old man might say.”

“Do you know the names of any of those young fellows?”

“No.”

“And you have no idea why he left?”

“Could be any number of reasons. Could be money, he hadn’t worked in some time. I’ll carry people I trust until they find work. Mr. McAdoo I trusted, but he never asked me to carry him.”

“You mentioned there might be a number of reasons. What other reasons?”

She considers a moment. “I came in the house the night before he moved out. I’d been visiting my sister. It was dark. Saturday night the boys are usually out. I walked in the living room and threw the light switch. Mr. McAdoo was sitting by the radio.” She paused. “He was crying. That’s the last thing I expected to see… Shorty McAdoo crying. He’s a tough old bird. I thought, Lord God, what’s this? His face was all wet with tears, he wiped them off with his hands. I said to him, ‘Mr. McAdoo, are you feeling poorly? Anything I can get you?’ He said, ‘No, the light coming on so sudden made my eyes burn.’ I said, ‘Well, let me get you a cool cloth for them.’ I went out and ran some water on a washcloth; I knew it wasn’t the light. He slipped out before I came back. Maybe he got bad news about family. Maybe he learned he ain’t well.”

“Anything else?”

She shook her head.

In the next few days I make no more progress. Groping for a lead, I go to the obvious places and ask the obvious questions. I spend an unfruitful afternoon loafing around the Sunset Barn, where a lot of the Western stars stable their horses. It’s a popular place for corral buzzards who perch on the rail fences hoping to get noticed by somebody important. For young men who hail from Montana, Arizona, Texas, and Oklahoma, the Sunset Barn is what the drugstore counter was later to become for the corn-fed beauties of the Midwest, the rosy-cheeked milkmaids of Minnesota; it’s the place to get discovered. They drawl and spit, do rope tricks, and show off their bandy-legged struts. I don’t find Shorty McAdoo here, nor do I discover any reliable information as to his whereabouts.

The next day I motor out to Mixville, the ranch where the great Western star Tom Mix produces his horse operas. The ranch foreman knows McAdoo but has little to say about him. He was there three months before doing a picture, but nobody has seen him since. “He’s a tumbleweed,” he says. “Blows in and blows out.” I leave my number and ask him to call if Shorty happens to blow in. The only profit in this wasted day is catching a glimpse of Tom Mix in a lurid purple tuxedo, matching purple stetson and boots, easing himself behind the wheel of his white Rolls-Royce with the fourteen-karat-gold initials TM on the doors. He puts the evening’s sunset to shame.

Each night I am required to call Fitzsimmons to make a report on my progress or lack of it. Fitzsimmons wants results and he wants them fast.

“You got expense money – spread it around.”

“If anybody knew anything, I would. But they don’t.”

“How do you know if they know anything until you offer a little fucking incentive? Get the rag out, Vincent. You’re getting paid a hundred and fifty dollars a week to get results. A hundred and fifty is a lot of money.”

“I know how much money it is, Mr. Fitzsimmons. And the rag was out the minute I signed on. There’s a lot of ground to cover and I assure you I’m covering it. It seems everybody has heard about Shorty McAdoo but nobody knows him. No wife, no kids, no friends. A fucking loner. He could be anyplace, doing anything. He might be dying in some flophouse. He might be making a movie. He might have fucked off to Kansas, or Montana, or Arkansas – anyplace they need somebody to serenade cows from a horse. I don’t know. But I’m looking.”

“Shit.”

“And what’s the point of phoning you every night and going through this song and dance? Half the time you’re not in. I call a dozen times; I’m up until midnight trying to get through to you. Why can’t I call only if I have news?”