The X-Rated Corpse Read online

  "Okay. From the top. You're directly involved in what happened. It's in all the papers and you're slated to be the Number One Witness at Bennett Zangdorfer's trial for murder. I've been to the police and I know how they've kept you a secret—your location, your actual connection in the deal. I was in Chicago when this happened and when I got here to ask some questions, everybody clammed up on me. Violet's dead, murdered no less and me—only the guy who was going to marry her, only the man who worshipped the ground she walked on, has been treated like a fugitive from a leper colony. My money hasn't helped, my reputation hasn't helped, no and not even the Senator's fine name has helped. I'm travelling in the dark and you have to be the one man who can light the lights for me. I told you—funerals don't mean a damn to me. I lost my girl and maybe I'll get over it and maybe I won't. But I want your help, Ed. I need it. I'll pay a fortune for it if I have to. And if I'm insulting you by waving my checkbook in your face, I apologize in advance. Now, are you going to throw me out or will we talk some more?"

  I was vaguely and irritatingly haunted by echoes of my old self in his passionate, plunge-right-in, head-on speech. I was twenty nine once, too, and it isn't fun meeting up with your vocal double. I dug out my cigarettes to help me think. He didn't want one.

  "We'll talk some more. How did you find me if the cops were so uncooperative? Did you wave that magic checkbook?"

  "I've got some influential friends at the studios. I learned you were down here to dicker with some indie producers about some film or other. The Hotel Dunlap was on your score card. So I figured you were the one man to talk to if I wanted to know anything about what happened to Violet. Make sense?"

  "Not really. But it adds up. And you found me and here you are. Wanting something I may not be able to give you. So where do we go from there?"

  Richard X. Fairman stared at me. The blue eyes were frosty, again.

  "Please deal off the top with me, Ed. Tell me all about it. What there is to tell. What I ought to know. How you got involved—the whole ball of wax. I want to know why B.Z. killed her. I want to know why anybody would kill a gorgeous girl like her. Is that too much for a man to ask? A man whose fiancée was murdered."

  I watched a smoke ring crawl lazily upward.

  "No, it isn't. But you won't like it."

  His answering frown was strictly negative. And angry.

  "I'll be the judge of that. It's all going to come out in court, isn't it? All the Hollywood dirt, the messy scandal—the mud—that the Rona Barretts love to wallow in. Tell me now. It'll hurt more later on."

  "Don't kid yourself. Now or later, it will always hurt. These kind of heartaches always do."

  Again, he was impatient with me. He flared up like a rocket.

  "Don't make up a set of reactions and responses for me, will you? I know what I am. I know what my limit is. Madison Avenue is no tea party, Ed. You know that jungle as well as I do. We both come off the side of the street that wasn't sunny to begin with. I made mine the hard way in spite of the Senator. I know how to survive. So let up, will you? Just tell me what I want to know."

  He was right, of course. But I was still trying to understand him.

  "Okay. You want information from me. I got that part. But what makes you think it would be worth any money? Couldn't I just talk to you, tell you what you want to know and let it go at that? What makes you so sure you might have to reach for your checkbook?"

  A shadow suddenly darted across his face. Worry or fear.

  "I—heard things. Rumors. Small talk—down at Headquarters. Around the studios. Nothing direct or up front. Everybody dummied up when I started asking questions and word got around who I was. Look, Ed—" He leaned forward in his chair, very unhappy. "I know this town. It's just like Manhattan. Same boom of industry, same inside and outside of a special kind of world. I know this sort of atmosphere. People know things and it gets to be inside stuff and all outsiders are aliens with no place to register. It's like a conspiracy. A cold shoulder with everyone in on the freeze treatment. I got the feeling that there was something bad between Violet and that old bastard. If there was—and is—I want to clear it up. Put a stop to the talk. If it can be done with my money and your expertise, then let's get it done. I'm flying blind, Ed, and I want to come down somewhere before I crash."

  Blind. I pushed Lieutenant Oliver Ogilvie out if my mind and considered what Richard X. Fairman was saying. It made a lot of sense, from his outsider's point of view. But what would the dashing young millionaire advertising executive have thought of a black, maybe crying police Lieutenant at the graveside of his lovely, famous fiancée?

  "Fair enough, Rick," I said. "Answer me a couple, first. I want you to tell me about you and Violet. How long were you engaged?"

  A soft smile touched the corners of his eyes.

  "About six months. Why?"

  "Never mind. Keep telling me about her. And you."

  "We got engaged almost a week to the day after we met. That was last year in New York. They were having one of those big-doings premieres of one of her flicks. You know, Broadway opening, TV coverage. The works." His voice grew suddenly lower. Gentler, as memory caught hold of him with both her arms. "Can't ever forget that night. She was wearing orchids and a black evening gown that made her look like something that stepped out of a stained-glass window. With lace at the collar and all that—God! She looked great." A sigh escaped him as if he didn't want to let it go. "The flick was that last Western of hers. The one that made a mint all over the country. I'm lousy on movie titles—"

  "Gentry's Woman," I said. "With Charlton Heston. Go on."

  "That's the one. Well, it was a helluva classier flick than that title. So—I was invited down by Coronet to handle some of the local advertising campaign. We met and I took her to Sardi's after the preview, big press party stuff, but we were the only two people in the place. We didn't have eyes for anybody else that night. Know what I mean, Ed?"

  "Yes. I've been down that road a couple of times."

  "We were great together, too. Looked good, felt good and hit it off like—you name it. Oh, I didn't kid myself. I knew she'd have to have known a lot of men before me. All kinds of men. The good, the bad and the beautiful. In ten years out here in her kind of profession, Show Biz, I wasn't expecting any plaster saint. But she was on the level with me. I was the same way with her. I bought her a ring at Van Cleef and Arpels and I told the world that Violet Paris loved me and I loved her—" His broad shoulders sagged and the fire went out in him. He was back to tapping the Homburg with restless hands. "Soft music, Professor. I'd never been in love before. I was always a foot-loose guy and the Senator never figured on any grandchildren from me for a long, long time. But I fell hard. And now the fadeout is here, really here, and I don't know how the hell to act—"

  "You're doing fine." I took a beat while he pulled himself together. "Did she ever talk to you about Hollywood? Or her work?"

  "No. Not a murmur. It was as if she was compartmentalized when she was with me. You know. You and Me. Me and You. With us, it was always talk about the future, where we were going to live, how we were going to work our careers into the marriage, how many kids we figured on having—" He broke off. Harshly, almost savagely. "Oh, crap on this. What do you want to know all that for? It can't have any possible bearing on what I want to hear from you. Can it?"

  That last was guarded. It was my turn to shrug.

  "Quien sabe? Murder's a curious business, Rick. You can never know what odd bit of information is going to piece into the jigsaw you're stuck with. Anything Violet said to you could be important."

  He scowled, going negative again. He made fists of his hands.

  "Trade for trade. You talk to me, now. Tell me."

  I had run out of stalling time. There was nothing more to ask him either unless I wanted more Rodgers and Hammerstein lyrics. I didn't. Violet Paris, alive or dead, couldn't really be hurt any longer by what I might say. Not by the likes of him, either. A private detective and
a fiancé. Alone in a shabby hotel in the middle of nowhere in downtown Hollywood. Never-Never Land, all the way.

  So I told him.

  All of it.

  I left nothing out.

  And Richard X. Fairman gave me my greatest shock in that lost weekend of staggering surprises. The biggest and silliest scare of them all. I wasn't prepared for it. No way. Not for a second.

  He fainted.

  Dead away in the chair before me.

  A big, strapping, handsome guy hitting the deck like any frightened schoolgirl. Dropping off into unconsciousness with bullet speed.

  And he passed out just when I got to the part of the story about there being four copies of the blue movie in existence.

  All at once, without any warning.

  Twelve O'Clock Eye

  An hour later I was cutting out mental paper dolls.

  The plot hadn't only thickened, it had sickened. Leaving me confused, abused and sorely uncomprehending. For long crazy moments, I surveyed the room at large from the depths of a cozy armchair and thought about everything in general and nothing in particular. Some cases are like that. A literal avalanche of facts, details and truths come charging at you from all directions, you gather them up as best you can for later, quieter digestion and assimilation and then when accounting time comes, you just don't know where to begin. Or what to believe. Or what to do.

  Richard X. Fairman had just presented me with a very large, very ridiculous monkey wrench. One hidden in his heart.

  All I could do was help him revive, with some cold water from the bathroom tap, loosen his tight collar, watch the color come back into his face slower than molasses, then listen to his pitiful saga of unrequited sexuality as he poured several glycerine tablets down his handsome throat. If I had expected any jokers in the deck of Violet Paris' special cards, I would never have suspected the one that Richard X. Fairman produced with his fainting spell.

  When a guy looks as healthy as he did, something was wrong with the fundamental laws of Physics or Medicine or whatever hell law would apply. But that was the awful ticket in a nutshell. The wealthy, keen, dashing young Ad Man was the owner of a very bad heart. Not only was he under a New York specialist's care, he had been strongly advised to make out his will, stay out of any exciting situations, and above all, the act of love was strictly against all the rules of Stay-Alive-Longer.

  With his woeful tale ended and once more imploring me to keep in touch with him, he left the room, walking like a man on borrowed time. From the room window, I could see him climb almost stiffly into the red shining Thunderbird, looking like a Man Of Distinction ad. He wasn't bouncing and rolling as he had been when first he entered my life.

  I broke a rule myself, after he'd gone. There was a bottle of Chivas Regal in my bureau drawer. I tied into it with a vengeance.

  All the angles and insides of the affairs of the past few days had put me in the mood for the sauce. It doesn't help you think at all, not really, but it sure can take the pain out of some of the realities of modern times. My realities were Violet Paris, Bennett Zangdorfer, Lieutenant Oliver Ogilvie and Richard X. Fairman. Not to mention four prints of the most Selected Short Subject since Shirley Temple.

  Their faces, their voices, the things they'd said and told me, swam around in my skull, fighting against the tide, trying not to drown.

  Violet Paris, haunting, incredibly lovely Violet, telling me I looked like William Holden. Telling me she had slept with a very famous producer to get her first big screen break. Crying to me that the man threatened to ruin her with a blackmail porno-graphical film rendition of the dirty deed. A deed that was ten years old but now was as topical and fresh as Today, thanks to the hot film.

  And now Violet Paris was dead. Murdered with a gory dagger-thrust between her shapely breasts. A Sex Symbol destroyed.

  Bennett Zangdorfer, fabulous, ancient Hollywood name, crowing to me like a Super Stud. Showing me the flaming film. Cackling of his virility and Violet Paris' willing, far-from-bored coupling with his septuageneric passion. B.Z. The man who had murdered Violet Paris when she begged him to give her the damaging film. Murdered her, he said, because she laughed in his face and called him a fraud in the sack. An old man who had lost whatever he had lived for.

  Lieutenant Oliver Ogilvie. Black, blind and beautiful. A tough, smart man who gave up sport stardom for a badge. Went to Vietnam because he felt he had to. And lost the precious gift of eyesight. Ogilvie who fell in love with a famous movie star and had that love returned, to hear him tell it, and then let the movie moguls run him off the golden girl because it would have spoiled a billion-dollar career. Ogilvie who now was so interested in the four prints of her dirty movie. Far more than anyone had a right to be. A man who wanted to do one great thing before he was retired to the white cane and the seeing-eye dog.

  And last but not least, Richard X. Fairman.

  Another Violet Paris lover. Rich, talented, handsome enough for a movie star. But the kicker was his bad heart. The one that had prevented him from consummating his great love for one of the most beautiful women in a man's world. Fairman who also wanted me to track down the offending, awful movies for more reasons than he could give me. Except the familiar ones of it wasn't nice that a dead woman should be shamed so and the Senator would die of mortification and his Presidential aspirations would suffer a severe comedown if it got out that his son's famous fiancée was nothing more than a Casting Couch success story so average and typical of the Hollywood syndrome. The Sin Drome in caps.

  I thought of all those people, all those faces, all those facts, but mostly I kept thinking of Violet Paris.

  Her sad, haunting, exquisite face. You mustn't turn me down—

  Her voice. Oh, please. Be a good guy, can't you?

  And her terrible track record with lovers. I'd be at their mercy—

  If they could be labeled and dignified as such.

  One had been a carnal old slob with bad manners and not a thought for anything or anyone but his own pleasures and accomplishments.

  Two had been a black man who yielded to pressure and enobled his own soul by turning his back on the woman he loved in the name of her possible future greatness of career and fame and fortune.

  Three was Prince Charming. All sophistication, dash and proper family background. The best car on the lot but one with a bad motor.

  What happens to a woman who yearns for Love and finds it, only to have it come with so many trick angles and unhappy endings?

  There had probably been a lot of other men along the trail, too. Down through the years of starring roles, multiple movies and whirling Movieland cosmos. But these were the three I knew about. I somehow sensed they were typical rather than unusual. Classic examples, each and all.

  The answer had been in Violet Paris' face, eyes and voice that one night we had met. Noon had been too busy being the hard guy from Manhattan to see the truth. Noon had turned her down.

  And now all that was left was four rotten reels of film.

  Maybe, a lot more if I could believe Ogilvie and Fairman.

  Four erotic, pornographic lies on celluloid. The tyranny of film which makes all events, all people, all actions, as real as Life itself.

  Now, Violet Paris was a corpse in the ground at Holy Cross.

  A corpse that would be rated X if all the returns ever came in.

  I drank a lot of Scotch in the quiet hotel room at the Dunlap, thinking about it. Not that it took long to make up what was left of my mind. I was already hooked. As bad as Ogilvie, maybe worse even than Richard X. Fairman. I owed it to Violet Paris to help her.

  There wouldn't be any kind of fee, not really, all I was was a witness in her murder case and the rewards would be nothing tangible at all. Except the satisfaction of knowing I'd done what I could.

  It wouldn't prove anything, either.

  Not to anybody but myself, naturally.

  Which is all the fee there is in this world.

  Sometimes.

&n
bsp; Still, it was more than enough.

  For me, that is.

  . . . there's nobody in Hollywood I can trust for something like this. You can see that, can't you? I'd be at their mercy for the rest of my natural life. . . ."

  I kept hearing her say that, over and over again, in the cool, giddy silence of Room Twelve-Five-Seven. The curtains on the window continued to dance to the tune of those vagrant, cooling breezes. There was a timelessness to the room then, as if I'd been in it much longer than a few days. Violet's murmuring, whimpering voice mocked me from all corners of the mind. It was almost as if she were with me, pushing my hand toward the tumbler glass full of Scotch. Drink up, Ed.

  Before I could get any drunker or more maudlin, I gathered what remaining will power I still owned, and reached for the telephone near my bending elbow. Time had ebbed away. It was nearly four o'clock. The daylight streaming in had begun to soften, lose its brightness.

  Violet Paris was still pushing me, even then. From the grave.

  Her voice right behind me said, "Where are you going?"

  "Home," I said, out loud, just as I had on the threshold of the Pad, when she had put her tapering hands appealingly on my arm.

  "You can't—this is worth everything to me—"

  "Lieutenant Ogilvie here," the familiar rumbling voice exploded in my ear. "Who is this?" I caught hold of myself, not barely remembering having asked for him, for the call to be put through from the police switchboard. My mouth felt like it was filled with gasoline-soaked rags. Which is not the way Chivas Regal usually tastes. I must have killed the whole bottle. Which is not the correct way to drink, either.

  "Lieutenant, our troubles may be over."

  "That so? Fill me in, Brother Noon. That is you, isn't it?"

  "You've got a quick ear, man. Yeah, 'Tis I. I've been thinking all afternoon about what we talked about this morning—"

  "You did say thinking, man? Not drinking?"

  His tone was a mixture of amusement and barely-veiled contempt.

  That put my teeth a little on edge so I hit him back with more than I wanted to. But it didn't matter, really. Not anymore.