were others I didn’t recognize, probably old friends. Maybe people in the business with him. There were a couple of numbers after initials. One of them struck me as familiar. I looked at it for a while until it blurred and came back into focus.
Night was coming over the mountains. I thanked the ex-cop and drove slowly toward the setting sun. Everything fit now. It didn’t make sense, but it fit. All the tinkertoy facts built into a tower of truth, an ugly tower built by a sick child, but it was hard to turn away from.
The drive back took about an hour. I should have been in a hurry, but I wasn’t. No matter how the day ended the next one would look dirty. Maybe Raymond Chandler had been right about the shoddy merchandise and shoddy people. Maybe old Toby Peters and his optimism were finally dead. Maybe Toby Peters would stop laughing at the crap he lived in. Maybe.
9
I must have caught the election day shift at Metro. I didn’t recognize either of the guys at the gate. I asked if Warren Hoff was still there and told them to give him a call. Hoff told them to let me in, and I headed for his office. More and more of my time was being spent at M.G.M. at night. Pretty soon I’d be able to find my way by feel.
Hoff’s secretary was gone for the day, but Warren was well-trimmed and seated in his desk chair.
“Well?” he said.
“Not very,” I answered. I sat in the chair across from him and put my hat on his desk.
“I heard about what happened last night,” he said. “We’re going to have a hell of a time keeping two murders quiet. Mr. Mayer will just have to understand.”
“Keeping the murders quiet is the easy part, Warren my friend,” I said. “The hard part is catching the murderer.”
“The police think you did it,” Hoff said. He got up and poured himself a drink. This time he offered me one, but I said no.
“No, they don’t, Warren. They just find me handy to have around for unsolved crimes and a place for their bloodhounds to piss if the hydrants aren’t available. They don’t think I did it.”
“Who do they think did it?” His voice was calm.
I don’t know,” I said. “They’re running out of suspects. Every time a good one crops up he gets himself killed. But I think we can end all that.”
I threw the green notebook to him.
“What’s this?”
“A new list of starlets from central casting. Check the number on page fifteen, near the bottom.”
He flipped through the book and found the page. He recognized the initials and the number. The notebook came flying back to me, and I speared it before it went for a hit into center field.
“Whose book is that?” he demanded.
“James Cash.”
“The dead midget?”
I told him he was right, and he said he didn’t believe it, that there had to be some explanation. There was one, and he and I knew it.
“You want to help me find a roll of film?” I said, heaving myself out of the chair. He didn’t, but I knew he’d come along. I led the way, but we both knew where we were going.
We turned on the light when we got there and began to search. He wasn’t trying too hard, but I was enjoying the mess I was making. There was a shelf of old books, a low shelf I hadn’t seen before. One of the books, a huge, oversized one, looked funny. It was old-new with a brown, wood-like color and yellowing crisp pages. The book must have been two lifetimes old or more, but some of the first pages hadn’t been cut. The centers of the middle pages were cut out, and a roll of film nested neatly inside. The film was no longer in a can or on a reel. It was on a core to keep the weight down. I closed the book and handed it to Hoff.
“Well?” I said.
“Not very,” he answered.
My opinion of Hoff had changed four or five times in the few days I had known him. I thought he was taking it all pretty well now, all things considered.
We walked outside. The night air felt colder than it had when we went in. Hoff held the book against his chest to prove it was there and for warmth.
“You want to tell me about it?” I said.
“No,” said Hoff, “but I will. I just can’t believe what this implies.”
“It doesn’t imply anything,” I said. “It proves it. Maybe not good enough for a judge and jury, but good enough for anyone who can add with two hands. Cassie James killed Grundy and Cash. There’s no other answer. Now, what can you contribute to the cause?”
Back in his office, he poured another drink and told his tale. Cassie had gotten close to him, very close to him. Close enough over the period of a year to get him to help her smuggle out pieces of film and to get him to let her use certain sets for a film she was doing. As a publicity executive, he could explain that it was all part of a publicity campaign. Besides, she never wanted to use anything that was in demand.
Hoff didn’t know exactly why she was doing it. He was told that it was part of a scheme to get cheap screen test reels for young actors. The actors would be able to take finished reels around with them when they applied for jobs.
“It sounded innocent enough,” he said. Hoff was on his third drink when he said it, and the words were starting to run together.
“It was a lousy story,” I said. “She didn’t even bother to make up a decent lie.”
“I know,” said Hoff, “but I believed her. I wanted to believe her, and she didn’t make a big thing out of it. It was all kind of casual.”
“You must have thought something was up when Cash was found dead.”
He admitted that he had and had wanted to talk to Cassie about it. That was why he had been so nervous on Friday morning when he met me. While I was talking to Judy Garland, Cassie was outside the door convincing him that she had nothing to do with the death of the midget.
“She made me feel like a fool for even asking,” he said. “Why would her screen test idea lead to murder? It was just two midgets who were to be in a screen test with a young actor. The midgets had fought, and one of them had killed the other one. She said if I told about the screen test business we’d both lose our jobs and for nothing. The film had nothing to do with the murder. She can be very convincing, Peters.”
I knew how convincing Cassie James could be. She had convinced me into corners for three days. I fed her everything I knew, and she had Grundy try to take me out. She even had him get Peese when I got too close. Hoff was an amateur idiot compared to me.
“Where is she now?” I asked. Hoff didn’t know, but he said he’d try to find out. I thought he was too drunk to handle the phone, but he became a changed man with the phone in his hand. It was his tool and, drunk or sober, he knew how to handle it. He started calling places on the lot where she might still be, but he came up blank. Finally, someone on the set of Ziegfield Girl remembered that Judy Garland had said she was going to dinner with Cassie James.
“O.K., Warren. Here’s what I want you to do,” I said, popping a pain pill. I hoped they weren’t addictive. “You call Cassie’s house. If she’s there, try to find out if Judy’s with her. Got that?”
“What else?” he said soberly.
“That’s all. Cassie put the poison in that water pitcher to harrass Judy. Cassie had Grundy or Peese call Judy Garland on Friday and tell her to go to the Munchkin City set. Cassie James does not like Judy Garland. You got that straight?”
He got it straight. He didn’t have to look up the number in the green notebook or his own. I only got his side of the conversation, but he was worth listening to.
“Cassie,” he said happily, “how are you… Yes… No, I’m just clearing up a few things here… Yes… the police are sure that Grundy killed both midgets and Peters killed Grundy… I am, too… Cassie, I was wondering if I might
