and got back into the car.
“Jeremy,” I said, getting out of the car. “Stay with them. I’m going to find out if they just delivered what I think they delivered.”
Jeremy nodded and, with great difficulty, squeezed himself behind the wheel.
“I’ll make my own way back to the office,” I shouted as he made a U-turn and darted off after the Chrysler, which was now a good block away.
The sky broke and the rain began to come down. I ran across Slauson ahead of a truck and found the door Bass and Lyle had gone through. Behind and above me, a tidal wave fell, sending up a wet dusty smell that lasted only a second or two.
The building was a gigantic warehouse. Beyond a pile of ceiling-high shelves filled with wooden crates I could hear voices. People were arguing. Murder seemed to be in progress. I moved slowly along the shelves toward the sound and turned a corner.
A pretty young woman with too much make-up and a ribbon in her hair and a man with a thin mustache and sagging jaw each had an end of rope that was tied around the neck of a man who looked slightly bewildered. They pulled and shouted and the man in the middle gulped, the center knot of a strange, deadly tug of war.
Then a voice called out, “Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Damn it, cut.”
That was when I saw, beyond the bright lights blasting down on the trio of actors, a camera and a small group of people.
The man who had shouted “Cut” had a light mustache, a receding hairline, and wore no shirt. A towel was draped around his neck.
“What’s wrong, Jules?” asked the man who had been holding one end of the rope.
“The noise,” said Jules, pointing over his shoulder to the ceiling. “It’s raining. We can’t do sound in here with that.” Jules put his hands on his hips and shook his head.
“Let’s shoot the scene silent,” said the man who was being strangled, the rope still around his neck. “Cut to a close-up of me and we can add rattling sounds later. You know, like my brains are getting scrambled. Then we do a point of view shot and I can see them moving their mouths, but the rope is so tight around my neck that it’s cutting off my hearing.”
Jules turned, thought about it, shrugged and said, “It’ll do, Buster.”
Buster Keaton, who had made the suggestion, put the rope ends back in the hands of the two actors and began supervising his own mock strangulation. He put his tiny hat on the side of his head and said, “Let’s move the camera in and get going.”
The camera operator said something I couldn’t make out, and Jules called to the actors. “Don’s having some problem with the camera. Let’s take a lunch break.”
Keaton took off his hat, removed the rope, shook himself off, and started to walk toward a door in the corner. A lighting man turned off the lights and I moved across the set, apparently a living room, and followed Keaton.
“Mr. Keaton,” I called, catching up to him as he turned. There was no expression on his face as I stepped up. There wasn’t any through our whole conversation. I was a few inches taller than he was and he was a few years older than I had fixed him in my mind. The dead-pan look I remembered from his silent movies was there, but the smooth face had turned to leather, covered by unconvincing light makeup.
“It’s lunch,” he said.
“I heard,” I said. “Can I talk to you for a second or two? Won’t take long.”
“Can’t take long,” he said, waving at me to follow him. “We’ll go to my dressing room.”
I followed him to his makeshift dressing room, which was normally an office complete with desk, file cabinets, In and Out boxes with dusty paper. He opened the file cabinet, pulled out a bottle and a sandwich. The bottle was bourbon.
“Drink?” he said, turning to me.
“No thanks,” I said.
“Good.” He tossed me the sandwich. “You take the liverwurst. I’ll take the bourbon, and I’ll be in Forest Lawn before you.”
I caught the sandwich as he opened the bottle, poured himself an unhealthy glassful, and sat in the wooden, creaking swivel chair, his little hat still on his head. He took a drink and looked at me.
“Let me guess,” he said “I owe somebody money and you’ve been sent to collect it?”
“No,” I said, opening the wrapping of the sandwich, leaning against the wall and taking a bite.
“If you’re looking for a job,” he went on, “you’ve come to the wrong studio.” He looked around the dusty office. “This production is so cheap we have to finish shooting a two-reeler by four o’clock so we don’t have to buy coffee and sinkers for the six-man cast and crew.”
“I’m not looking for a job,” I said. “This sandwich is pretty good.”
“I’ll tell the chef,” Keaton said, toasting me and taking another drink. “I’m out of guesses.”
“What did those two men bring in here? The ones who just left?”
Keaton rubbed his nose and considered another drink. The question the bottle had asked him was more important than mine.
“You want to hear a confession and a declaration?” he said. “This”- his eyes went around the room and looked beyond the door toward the set-“is the bottom. From this, it can only get better. You’re not a reporter, are you? No, you’re not a reporter. You are …”
“A man who wants to know what two men just brought in here in a wooden crate,” I said, my mouth full of liverwurst.
“You’re a cop,” Keaton said, his eyelids drooping slightly.
“Private investigator,” I said. “Name is Peters.”
“And they’re dognappers,” he said. “I’ve played a detective once or twice, done a lot of crime movies, mostly two-reelers for Educational.”
“I’ve seen some of them,’’ I said. “Why did you say they were dog-nappers?”
Keaton took off his hat and balanced it on end on the tip of his finger.
“Some of those shorts weren’t half bad,” he said. His lower lip came up over his upper as he concentrated on balancing the hat.
“Dogs,” I reminded him.
“Not all of them,” he whispered.
“I didn’t mean the movies,” I said.
“I know it,” he answered. “A joke. Those two guys sold me a dog. Now I suppose I’ll have to give it back. My own money too. There’s not enough in the budget to hire a dog, and I’ve got a humdinger of a gag.
“Little dog comes running in, in the last scene, little black Scottie, and the camera moves over to show me, with little glasses and a cigarette holder, a Roosevelt gag. I play Roosevelt and Elmer, my character. We’re in the same shot. Most expensive thing in the movie. Can’t carry it off without special effects and a dog, and you want the dog back.”
“I think he might be the real thing,” I said.
“I wouldn’t buy a fake dog,” said Keaton, flipping the hat in the air. It turned over three times and landed neatly on his head.
“I mean it might really be Roosevelt’s dog,” I explained, pushing away from the wall. “I’ve got reason to believe the guys who sold it to you took the dog. Now things are getting hot and they have to get rid of him.”
Keaton didn’t say anything, just looked at me blankly, but even in that whithered blankness I could see that he was considering whether I was a special movie nut or a general all-around nut who happened to be sleeping one off in the corner of the warehouse when the movie woke me up.
“That’s Fala?” he said.
“I think it could be,” I replied.
“I was going to call him Fella,” said Keaton. “Why would someone take the president’s dog and then sell it?”
“That’s what I’m working on,” I said. “Can I see the dog?”
From beyond the door a woman’s voice called out, “We’ve got it working, Buster. Ready to go again.”
“Coming,” said Keaton, getting out of the swivel chair. He stepped over to me, almost nose to nose, and looked into my eyes. Then he shrugged and waved for me to follow him again. We moved back out the door and to
