Murder on a Yellow Brick Road tp-2 Read online

  When we entered the room, I found out what the transformation was all about. Before us, in the dressing room, stood a dark, beautiful woman. She was wearing a black sweater, a knit skirt, and a slight smile behind the most perfect soft mouth that I had ever seen. Her eyes were narrow, almost Oriental. For some reason there was a tape measure around her neck. I found out the reason when Warren Hoff introduced us.

  “Cassie James, this is Toby Peters, the man Miss Garland called,” he said. I noticed that Judy had become Miss Garland. “Cassie is a costume designer and a friend of Miss Garland’s.”

  Cassie James extended her right hand, and I took it. It was firm, warm and tender. Up close she was a few years older than she had looked from the doorway. I guessed her to be about 35, a perfect 35. I released her hand before she could see the excitement building in me. The same hormonal response was bursting out through Warren Hoff’s pores.

  “Is Miss Garland here, Cassie?” Hoff said showing a beautiful double row of near-white teeth. He was clearly a Kolynos toothpaste man. What was their ad? “Now you can make your teeth look their romantic best.”

  I never knew what I was brushing my teeth with. I used samples the drug company salesmen gave to Sheldon Minck, the dentist I shared my office with.

  “Judy took a… something to calm her nerves,” Cassie James explained softly. “I think she’s sleeping.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  The voice came from the other side of a high-backed, flower-decorated sofa in the corner. Judy Garland sat up and looked sleepily at the three of us.

  Cassie James stepped over to her and took her hand.

  “This is Mr. Peters, Judy,” she explained. “The man you called.”

  The name rang a bell, and she brushed some of the sleep from her eyes. She stood up and tried a weak smile, but I could see that something had gotten to her, probably the dead Munchkin. She was several things I didn’t expect. I had seen the little girl in The Wizard of Oz. It was the same person, but she was not a little girl. She was also shorter than I expected, no more than 5’2”, and her clothes were definitely not little girl’s clothes. She wore a white fluffy dress with a big patent leather belt, and her hair was built up on her head to make her look taller or older or both.

  “Mr. Peters,” she said taking my hands. The voice belonged to a more familiar Dorothy of Kansas, but it was filled with sadness and pleading. I wanted to hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. If she cried, and she looked as if she might, I probably would have turned into a fool running around looking for a handkerchief.

  From the corner of my eye I could see Hoff sliding his way to Cassie James’s side. He was looking at Judy Garland, but the body warmth was going to Cassie James. I didn’t feel sorry for my pal Warren anymore.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any trouble, Mr. Peters,” Judy Garland continued, that near sob in her voice, “but I panicked. You know how that can happen? I… Cassie and I saw him lying there, and I just turned and ran to the nearest phone and called information. They gave me your office, and a Dr. Minck told me you were at Warner Brothers and I just…” She shrugged, gulping in air, and led me to the sofa. We sat while she held both of my hands tightly and looked into my eyes. My God, there was a tear forming in one eye. In another second, I’d be lost.

  “You knew the dead man?” I asked.

  She shook her head in a decided, sad no.

  “To tell the truth, Mr. Peters,” she said softly, “I… I didn’t even like most of the little people who worked on the film. They like to be called little people, you know, not midgets or dwarfs.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said, noticing that Cassie James was listening to our conversation with concern, and that Hoff was so close to her I couldn’t tell if they were touching. “Why didn’t you like them?”

  “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t dislike all of them, just some of them. One especially who kept touching me and asking for dates and saying things. I…”

  “O.K., O.K.” I said. “You saw the dead Munchkin, and you felt glad and guilty. I’ve seen a few dead ones, and my first reaction was always, I’m glad it’s not me. The second reaction is to feel queasy in the stomach. Cops, hospital people, and some soldiers get used to it, but the rest of us feel lucky, sick, and guilty.”

  “I guess it was something like that,” she said taking a deep breath. “Mr. Peters,” she began, and then turned her head toward Cassie James. “Cassie, could I please talk to Mr. Peters alone for a minute?”

  Cassie James showed a slight smile of perfect teeth and an understanding turn of her head as she led a pleased and confident looking Hoff outside and closed the door behind her. Hoff was one hell of an actor for a PR man-inside, he was filled with fear for his six-figure job, but to look at him now you’d think he was William Powell.

  My attention turned back to Judy Garland, who was watching my face.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” the girl-woman said.

  I thought about lying, pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I also felt that I didn’t have to.

  “She is,” I said.

  “I wish I could be beautiful like that,” she sighed.

  “You are beautiful, and you’ll get better,” I said.

  “Mr. Peters, I am not a fool.” Her voice was stronger now, waking up. “I’m a plain 18-year-old girl who can sing. As my mother says, I’ve got the talent, but not the looks. I’m playing a woman for the first time in Ziegfield Girls, and we start shooting tomorrow. You know who I’ll be with in that picture? Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr. Any beauty I’ve got has to be put there by makeup, lights and experts.”

  “You’re underrating yourself,” I said, uncomfortable with the role of confidant to a teenager. Besides, who was I to give advice on beauty? On a good day, I could pass for the steady loser in tank town five-rounders.

  She looked at me steadily, and almost whispered, “I got a call to go to that set. Someone called this room and told me Mr. Mayer wanted me to get over there fast for some publicity shots with Wendel Willkie.”

  “Wendel Willkie?” I said. “He’s in…”

  “Camden, New Jersey,” she finished. “I know that now, but I didn’t until I just saw the newspaper. Cassie checked. No one from Mr. Mayer’s office told me to go to that stage. No one from publicity called me to go to that stage. Mr. Peters, someone just wanted me to be the one who found that body. Why would they do that?”

  Her big brown eyes were examining my face for an answer. I didn’t have answers, only questions.

  “Was the voice male or female?”

  “Male, but a little high I think. I didn’t pay too much attention at the time.”

  “O.K.,” I said. “Did you recognize it-the voice?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “He called you here?” She said yes.

  In a few minutes, I discovered that Cassie James had been in the dressing room with her when the call came, that Cassie had not talked to the caller, that she had accompanied Judy to the Munchkin set, and they both had discovered the body. According to Judy, Cassie James was a good friend and a kind of mother figure for her, though Cassie James didn’t look motherly to me. Judy’s own mother, I picked up from a few remarks, was not the girl’s favorite person. It seemed reasonable, or so I told myself and Judy Garland, that I should talk to Cassie James before I decided what to do. In the course of the few minutes we talked, whatever she had taken wore off. She stood up and moved to the door, telling me that she felt well enough to go back to a Ziegfield set where they were rehearsing around her.

  She opened the door and looked back at me.

  “I’m all right now, Mr. Peters, but I am scared and I’d like your help.”

  She left before I could tell her that I had no help to give. I could hear the two women exchanging words outside the door, and Cassie James came back in without Warren Hoff.

  “Warren’s gone out to get help, someone to make you come to
your senses and take this job,” she explained with a smile that kept me from standing. “Would you like something to drink?”

  It was about ten in the morning, and I didn’t drink anyway except for an occasional beer. I said no, but accepted when she offered coffee.

  The coffee was already made and warm in the corner. She poured us both cups and sat next to me.

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t remind me of anyone,” I said, “I was trying to think of something smart to say to get you laughing.”

  “I don’t laugh easily,” she said, gliding over the compliment. She obviously had a lot of experience bypassing double-meaning compliments. I dropped it and turned to business.

  In about five minutes, Cassie James confirmed what Judy Garland had said, and added that she had been friendly with the actress for about a year or two.

  “I did a little acting,” she said, getting up for more coffee. I watched her. “But, after a few years, I could see I wasn’t going to make it. I have some ability-” she shrugged “-but I couldn’t take it. When you’re an actor, you’re yourself and someone else at the same time. People criticize the face you were born with, dissect your emotions, complain about your posture, praise the moments you like least, ignore the instant you feel perfect pain.”

  “You’re quite a person,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she laughed, and then the laugh died.

  “I had a younger sister who could have made it through,” she said with a slight pout, “but she died. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling rather motherly about Judy. She reminds me of my sister.”

  I was stumbling around in my head for something to say to make the next move with her, but nothing came. She had, as the toughs in Warner films said, “class,” and I couldn’t quite bring myself to invite her to my place for cereal and a night of radio listening. My place was a single room and a bath in a neighborhood where you don’t bring people like Cassie James. I decided to try anyway, but Hoff came into the room without knocking.

  He looked at Cassie and me to be sure there was nothing going on. He wasn’t quite satisfied, but he held his confident look.

  “Mr. Mayer would like to see you, Peters.”

  I looked at Cassie, who raised her eyebrows in mock respect. I gave a knowing shrug as I rose to follow Hoff.

  “Be seeing you,” I said.

  “I hope so,” she beamed, and I hoped she wasn’t just being polite.

  Hoff sulked ahead of me, his confidence drooping as soon as the door closed. I tried to adjust to the prospect of seeing the boss, the final “M” in M.G.M., the most important person in the movie world. Hoff didn’t give me the chance to adjust.

  “What were you two talking about, Peters?”

  “I’m Toby, remember, and you’re Warren.” I hurried along at his side. He had changed into another suit, but if he kept drooping and hurrying and smoking, he’d go through a whole wardrobe before lunch.

  “What were you talking about?” he demanded.

  “Shove it up your ass, Warren,” I said. It may have blown my $25 in expenses, but a man has some pride and I was still remembering the scent of Cassie James.

  Hoff turned in mid stride and faced me, probably remembering his football days when he had run over linemen or tackled cheerleaders or whatever the hell he did. We stood glaring at each other for a few minutes like two twelve-year-olds in the schoolyard who won’t back down.

  “Warren, either take a swing at me or lead the way to Mayer’s office. I have other ways of getting exercise.”

  A fat man in a cowboy suit passed us slowly, stalling a bit to see if we would start slugging. Hoff turned suddenly at the sound of Mayer’s name and hurried on.

  Entering Mayer’s office proved to be something like going to see the Wizard in his chamber. Hoff stopped at a door and announced me to a beautiful blonde in a pink dress. If she had a desk, I couldn’t see it. The blonde escorted me through a door and turned me over to a deskless redhead who finally took me to another beautiful blonde who had the distinction of having a desk. Blonde Number Two led me down a carpeted corridor, and just as I had resigned myself to endless wandering around the building led by beautiful women, we stopped at a door and she knocked.

  From somewhere in the distance a voice answered, “Come in.”

  The blonde opened the door and backed away. I stepped into an enormous room. The walls were white with a few pictures. The distant desk was white. The chairs and sofa were white. It looked like a plush padded cell. On the far end of the big room, behind the desk, stood a short, spectacled man with a prominent hooked nose, who appeared to have no neck. He wore a grey suit and a serious look. As I came closer, I could see that his hair was a well-trimmed grey, and he seemed to be somewhere in his mid-50’s.

  I had to lean across the desk to shake his hand. He took my right hand in both of his and held it tightly.

  “I’m Louis Mayer,” he said, “and you are Toby Peters.”

  I knew that already, but if the man with the highest salary in the world wanted to remind me, I was happy to listen.

  2

  I love this country,” said Louis B. Mayer, waiting for an argument. His voice was faintly New York, and he seemed sincere enough. “What do you think of this country, Mr. Peters?”

  “I love it,” I said.

  He kept looking at me with suspicion. I adjusted my blue tie.

  “Herbert Hoover says we’re far more likely to be drawn into the European War under Roosevelt than Willkie, and Willkie says the United States is sick of the type of government that treats our Constitution like a scrap of paper,” Mayer said, lifting a crisp copy of the L.A. Times from his desk in evidence. “I think Mr. Hoover is right. What do you think, Mr. Peters?”

  “I think this has nothing to do with a dead Munchkin,” I said, smiling.

  “You get smart with me and I’ll throw you out!” shouted Mayer, dropping his newspaper on the floor.

  “You’ll need a lot of help,” I said, relaxing or pretending to. The white chair I was in was covered with fur, and damned comfortable.

  “I can get help,” said Mayer.

  “I’m sure you can.”

  We stared at each other for a few more years, and Mayer decided on a new strategy: the story of his life.

  “I came to this country from Russia with my family when I was four years old. My father was a junk man, and we moved around America from New York to Canada and back again. My father, who was nothing but a laborer in Russia, became a successful ship salvager in the United States. When I was fourteen, I became his partner. Do you know what day I was born on?”

  I admitted that I didn’t.

  “I don’t know either,” he said, putting both hands on his desk. “So I picked my own birthday: the Fourth of July. That’s how I feel about this country. When I was a kid, I bought a little movie theater in Haverhill, near Boston, for about $1,000. That was in 1907. Eight years later, I owned a bunch of theaters and was making my own movies for them. I’ve got a motto, Mr. Peters. I’ve always had this motto. Do you know what it is?”

  I was getting tired of not being able to answer questions M.G.M. people put to me, so I tried, “ ‘Always be prepared’?”

  “No, Mr. Peters,” he said solemnly. “ ‘I will make only pictures that I won’t be ashamed to have my children see.’ Do you see where we are going?”

  It was gradually getting through to me, but he went on.

  “ The Wizard of Oz is a clean picture. Judy Garland is a wonderful girl, like my own child… like Mickey Rooney is almost a son to me.”

  Like they make you millions of dollars, I thought, but even as I thought it I could see that Mayer was, in an odd way, sincere.

  “A scandal connected with the studio, with that movie, with Judy would be bad for the country, Mr. Peters. People believe in that picture, believe in us. If I thought it would help, I’d get down on my knees to you.” He clasped his hands in prayer and his eyes searched my face. His eyes glazed over
moistly.

  “The truth is, Mr. Mayer,” I said getting up, “I’ve got nothing you want to buy.”

  “Not true, Mr. Peters.” His right hand came out and pointed to me. A smile was back on his face. “You have some influence with the police. You have a reputation for discretion.”

  Everyone at M.G.M. was reading the same script on me, and it was still wrong.

  “My brother won’t listen to me,” I explained.

  “A brother is a brother, Mr. Peters.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “And besides,” Mayer continued picking the Times up off the floor and laying it neatly on his desk, “you want to help Judy. She’s a sweet girl. I’d do anything for her. You know about the Artie Shaw problem?”

  I said I didn’t know about the Artie Shaw problem. Since I didn’t, he had no intention of telling me.

  “What is your fee, Mr. Peters?”

  “$35 a day and expenses,” I said.

  Mayer smiled. His head shook.

  “Your fee is $25 a day without expenses,” he chuckled. “We’ll give you $50 and expenses.”

  “To do what?”

  He held up his fingers as he ticked off my duties.

  “Try to persuade your brother to keep the investigation quiet. If any M.G.M. personnel are involved, do your best to keep that quiet, too. You’re a bodyguard, right? You also act as Judy Garland’s bodyguard until this is taken care of.”

  “And if I don’t keep the investigation out of the papers?”

  Mayer shrugged. “You’re fired.”

  It seemed fair enough, so I took the job. Mayer and I didn’t shake hands. He turned his head back to some papers on his desk.

  “I think I’ve already said more than I have to say,” he said.

  Taking that for dismissal, I plodded my way out of the white, fur-padded auditorium he used for an office, made my way down the corridor of smiling beauties, and found Warren Hoff waiting for me with a pile of ashes in a tray next to where he sat. He got up quickly. His hair was not neatly in place.