The X-Rated Corpse Read online

  "Thinking, Brother Ogilvie. About the girl you loved and the girl everybody loved. And if you'll stop checking on the individual habits of certain New York detectives, I'll give you the benefit of some very expert post-mortem deduction. Are you reading me?"

  He gave in, readily. "I had that coming. Sorry, man. Shoot."

  I shot.

  From the hip, the heart and the noodle, giving him everything I had ever learned about men and women and people, shoring it all up with the solid conviction that an old die-hard roué bastard like Bennett Zangdorfer would never have killed the Golden Goose he himself had invented. Not when it could provide so many warming nest-eggs for his solitary Memory Lane days sitting on the veranda of the luxurious mansion in Laurel Canyon. As under the weather as I was, it sounded like a lot of sense even in my ears. I could hear Ogilvie taking it down for all it was worth.

  But he expelled a long sigh when I would up my theory.

  "S'matter, Ogilvie? You won't buy it?"

  "Noon, man," he said with slow and deliberate enunciation. "It all makes a lot of small talk, dig? We've been rapping with Mr. Z. He's a genuine fount of information, now. Wants to tell us everything. Confession being good for the soul? You know. That bit. Well, on the advice of his lawyer—three of them by actual count cause you know how much scratch he's got—Bennett Zangdorfer, the Grand Old Man Of Hollywood, is going to admit that he did kill Violet Paris. But he's going to claim that she was crazy mad in love with him and came at him with that dagger to scare him into loving her. Got that? He's pleading Self-Defense. Never mind his confession and all the things he said to you back at the house. As for the dirty film, well—this one will really put you up the wall."

  "Go ahead. I'm listening and I'm not laughing. I'm not drunk anymore, either." I really wasn't. The room was no longer warm.

  "B.Z. says the film only goes to prove how wild Violet Paris was about him. You remember the film, Noon? There isn't anything in it that will call him a liar or will show that Violet never knew that there was such a film. You following this, man?"

  "I think I get it. B.Z. would rather go to jail as the killer of a young beauty who was mad for him, rather than as a dirty old man. And unless I miss the cue I get from the sound of your disgusted voice, he is also pretty sure that the State won't drag the good name of Violet Paris all over the papers by admitting that film into the evidence."

  "Go to the head of the class, man. You really are a detective, aren't you? The People Vs. Zangdorfer surely won't. I got the D.A.'s word on that. There's no reason for it unless the Prosecution gets real desperate to hang it proper on the old guy. Neat, huh?"

  "Like a noose around your neck." I rubbed my forehead. "What about the film? Did you ask him how many prints there were?"

  "Four he said. All we got our hands on."

  My brain jumped. "Then you got what you want. Your hangups are over. Isn't that all you wanted from the beginning?"

  "You know it is. Only hitch is I don't believe the old slob."

  "Why not?"

  "I can't tell you why not." His snort was angry and upset. "Old cheat and liar like that—why should we believe him?"

  "You're asking for trouble, Ogilvie. Why not settle for what he says and hope for the best? You're running out of time, man."

  "Ain't we all?" he snapped back, with ungrammatical relish. "Look, you keep in touch. I'll keep you posted. You can't talk to Zangdorfer, what with you being the star witness but—hang around."

  "I can't leave town, remember? It's against the law."

  "Sure." He chuckled, a little happier. "Right on. Well, much obliged for the call. Saves me a dime, don't it?"

  "Before you go away," I said. "Have you been pestered by one Richard X. Fairman? Violet's fiancé from back East. The Senator's son."

  "Yeah. I know who he is." Ogilvie's growl was setting up shop again. "He's been in here twice screaming for information. Why you asking?"

  "That's all I'm doing. Asking. Go easy on him, Lieutenant. He may look like a million bucks but he's got a two dollar heart."

  "Speak English. I want to understand exactly what you're saying."

  Briefly, I told him about the visit of the unfortunate young man. For a long moment, Lieutenant Oliver Ogilvie said nothing. Then his voice came back with a weary murmur. The sound of hellish private music.

  "My, my. Club gets bigger all the time, don't it?"

  "Now you're getting cute. What does that mean?"

  "Nothing. Just talking out loud. Ciao, Ed."

  "Ciao, Oliver."

  We both hung up, a million miles apart by birth, occupation and circumstance. Yet, closer than the pages in a little black book, somehow. Cops born of murder cases do have a short time to live.

  I drummed restless fingers on the Ameche. Trying to think straight.

  Damn Ogilvie, anyway. With his blind man's intuition.

  I couldn't help going along with him on his idea about old Bennett Zangdorfer. About there being only four prints of the film lying around. Now, I didn't quite believe that, either.

  My own theory had gone down in flames, right before my eyes.

  It wasn't a very nice feeling.

  Kind of like the feeling Lieutenant Oliver Ogilvie must have gotten listening to the blistering sound track of a movie in which the love of his life had sported in the hay with a man old enough to be her grandfather. A movie he couldn't see but could only hear.

  There are Hells and there are Hells.

  Ogilvie's was in a class by itself.

  . . . you really are something, Mr. Zangdorfer . . .

  And all the rest of that personal, centralized horror.

  . . . oh, you darling man . . . mmmm. . . . more, more, more . . .

  I got out of Room Twelve-Five-Seven before the walls closed in on me. Before Violet Paris overwhelmed me. Before the Dead won out.

  No man should have to live the rest of his life with memories like that. Especially a blind one with no place to go but the Darkness.

  It didn't seem to matter so much about Richard X. Fairman.

  I couldn't have said why.

  But ghosts followed me into the elevator, down the shaft and out through the lobby of the Hotel Dunlap. Toward the dying sunset.

  Ghosts whose high-heeled shoes made no sound at all behind me.

  Because they couldn't.

  They were ghosts.

  All of them.

  Ghosts with secrets there was no way of understanding.

  On top of everything else, adding to all the dilemma and dizziness were several choice, way-out, damnable items.

  How could that special patrol of guards whose mercenary beat was the homes of the movie stars, have missed the little Toyota on the eve that Violet Paris was murdered? Beverly Hills was far too private and exclusive for such vigilant blindness.

  And how do you ignore the size of a large Rolls-Royce wheeling onto the murdered doll's property? The car that Bennett Zangdorfer insisted he had driven himself to an early morning tete-a-tete with a legendary beauty? Before he daggered her into a premature graveyard.

  Was it just another exemplary case of money talking? Protect the great name, at any cost? Save Hollywood and Vicinity from Scandal? Keep the Club sacrosanct, no matter what?

  And why had Violet Paris been in the nude when she was killed?

  How could she be naked for the knife-thrust? According to B.Z., he had done little else but slaughter her. And there was no evidence to the contrary. Ogilvie would have told me something as important as that.

  Last, and maybe not even least, was the absence of an engagement ring on any of Violet Paris' fingers the night I saw her.

  Does a woman, any woman, ever remove an engagement ring?

  Or had she and Richard X. Fairman gone phfft because of his bum ticker and he had been too upset to mention that small fact?

  I was wasting my time thinking about all those items because I didn't have any answers to those lulus, either. Not so much as an educated guess. Gues
sing doesn't go in police work.

  It's far too dangerous. And uncertain.

  All I had was ghosts.

  Following me into the Los Angeles dusk.

  They walked very fast.

  For ghosts in high-heeled shoes.

  Death at Twenty One

  Laurel Canyon in the moonlight was like the mammoth set of some De Mille Biblical spectacle. There were enormous shadows lying in the hollows of the sheer hills, the sporadic placement of villa and mansion light, bobbing and twinkling eerily in the darkness. I wheeled the Toyota slowly and noiselessly along the bordering privet hedge, past the tall, gnarled sycamore trees and parked. Easing up the inclined ribbon of driveway, blackout drive, wasn't a snap. Still, it seemed the proper M.O.* The home of a man currently under lock and key in a city jail for Murder One was bound to be under wraps. The trick was to play it by ear. There hadn't been any sense in asking Ogilvie for permission, either. There was something running around in my brain. Something without any given name. Or a motive. I only knew I had to go to Laurel Canyon, to B.Z.'s house and see something for myself. I couldn't have said what that was. I was operating in the dark, just like Lieutenant Oliver Ogilvie.

  Nothing had changed since my last visit. Only the time of day was different. Time and condition of the featured players.

  The Zangdorfer eyrie rose like a memorial, hidden and massive, in the shelter of the towering bluff of canyon wall. The night itself lent Gothic overtones and subtleties to the place. There was only the gleam of a door light and a pale orange glow from the upper regions. The California sky was vast and impenetrable, the full moon showing like a gigantic prop in the heavens. The stars were grouped in clusters. Galaxies were visible. The Big and Little Dippers rode eternally upon the canvas of blue-black ceiling. When a star moved, it was only a jet passenger plane droning overhead. The muffled hum of the engines was faraway music. Laurel Canyon seemed like one of the quieter locations in a dizzy, orbiting cosmos that was always in motion. Going somewhere. Yet, a certain, ancient timelessness was the soul of all Los Angeles. Of all Hollywood itself. Janet Gaynor, Jean Harlow or Violet Paris, John Gilbert, Clark Gable or Rock Hudson, the playground would never really change.

  It couldn't. And it wouldn't.

  William S. Hart, yesterday. John Wayne, today.

  Dreams hung on. The promise of enchantment lingered.

  Disappointments and failures never would alter things.

  The cycle would go on. Endlessly. Forever and a Doris Day.

  I sat in the dark Toyota under the concealing sycamores, watching the house, smoking a cupped cigarette. My .45 lay on my lap, ready. In the heavy, balmy, warm air of the summer night, even the cicadas were laying off their cricket harmony. It was a universe of soundlessness, broken only by the occasional, passing jetliner. The hum was a whisper.

  Three hours had gone by since I'd left the Hotel Dunlap.

  Three hours in which to sober up, fortify myself with a hot meal at one of the Boulevard's better restaurants and break the doldrums with a plan of action. The best to come out of that was this. A moonlight ride to look over the terrain of the murderer. The key to whatever it was that was so nettling, so unresolved about the entire case, might just be in the door of the Zangdorfer estate. There was no real reason to come, of course. No way of understanding what I was doing, parked like a sneak thief, only yards from the oaken portals with the heavy doorknocker. But Violet Paris was still sitting in the Toyota with me. As palpable as any living doll.

  Still urging me forward, with imploring, tender hands.

  The time was nearly eight and several things were now obvious about conditions up at B.Z.'s house. The status was quo, again.

  No policeman on the entrance path in from the winding roadway had stopped me from entering. No vigilant lookout man had stepped from the bushes to say 'Nay.' Which meant there was no official surveillance of the murderer's home grounds. Yet the lights glimmering through the leafy branches of the trees indicated somebody was on the premises. The house was not deserted. Somebody had been left behind to keep an eye on things. Somehow I didn't think it was any Law. There was nothing to be gained from overseeing the house so long after the fact. B.Z. was in jail, ready for a murder trial. Which left me two alternatives. The Zombie manservant and the muscle-bound kid, Homer Danbury. I didn't expect any trouble from a wrinkled old butler, but I'd never set eyes on Homer Danbury. One of them or both of them were home.

  I eased out of the Toyota and approached the house. Walking fast, dead for the door and not looking back. Whatever I had to do I wanted to do quickly. The bronze knocker thumped hollowly under my fingers in the quiet of the night. Indoors, I could hear a sudden, startled burst of movement. Like a leg bumping into some furniture. I waited. Footfalls were coming. Rapidly, but with measured, tottering uncertainty. Which primed me for the Zombie, not the Muscle Beach kid.

  The door pulled back and I was right. The face that was as dog-eared as an over-used dollar bill, peered around the jamb at me. I was close enough to notice his eyes. They were like two olive pits glowing in rheumy, troubled pools. The rest of the face was bony and hairless. Crisp, thin, silver hair rode uneasily on a lined brow.

  "Oh—it's you—Sir—" Not exactly a Welcome Speech.

  "You remembered. That's swell."

  "What can I do for you?" The door didn't move a fraction. "You can't come in, really. There's no need—"

  "There's all the need in the world. Gee—what is your name, by the way? I do want to talk to you. I've got permission."

  "Kane, Sir." The eyebrows, nearly invisible, shot upward. "Permission? You mean from the Police, Sir?"

  "Kane, huh? Like in the Bible or Orson Welles?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Forget it. Yes, Mr. Kane. The police have allowed me to come up here to the house. Just to look around, you understand. Nothing very special. The case is closed but there are a few loose, untidy ends."

  "Such as what, Sir?" Again, he really didn't open the door. I took my cue and pushed past him. He fell back a little, almost resignedly, very unhappy about everything. I almost felt sorry for him.

  I waited until he closed the door. I stared down the long hall. There was a pleasant, polished orderliness to everything. As before. No sound came from anywhere in the house. Kane was obviously no Radio or TV fanatic. He seemed to be only what he was. The faithful retainer betrayed by the folly of another, older man. His face wore a bewildered, shocked air. The same expression it had shown when he came into the library that day to see what Bennett Zangdorfer was shouting about.

  "I just want to look around, Kane. There won't be any fuss, I promise. I won't move so much as an ashtray out of place. Are you here alone?" Casually, I produced my cigarettes, to disarm him.

  "No, Sir. Mr. Danbury is upstairs. Sorting some of his possessions. We're both not permitted to leave the premises, you see—but, I don't understand why you have come here at this time. Late. At night." A sudden, gritty strength of character crept into the ancient face. The eyes narrowed. "It should be enough that we are ruined, all of us. That Mr. Zangdorfer's proud name is no more. That this house which has known the presence of so many great, so many wonderful people, will become a laughing stock. A tourist attraction in the years to come. With sight-seeing buses coming to the front door—" He sighed heavily and it was a wheeze which shook his lean figure, visibly. "Valentino. Garbo. Miss Shearer. And the senior Fairbanks. Mr. John Barrymore. And Picasso—why, Judy Garland romped in this very hallway where we are standing, playing games with Mickey Rooney. It was a house always filled with laughter. With glory—"

  "I'll try not to stumble over their jacks," I said, refusing to stroll down Memory Lane with him. "Go call Danbury. I want to talk to him. I missed him on my last visit. You remember. He was on holiday or something. Just tell him it's nothing serious. Just a friendly chat."

  "Sir, it's ill-advised. You don't know Homer—Mr. Danbury. He's very quick-tempered and quite powerful. He holds no good fe
elings toward you, you see. Knowing as he does that you are the man responsible for bringing Mr. Zangdorfer to his present sad state. Mr. Danbury is very loyal to the Master. He thought of him as he would a father."

  "Call him, Kane. I'll try to control him."

  "As you wish. But I'd be careful what I say to him."

  "You would, huh? I'll keep it in mind."

  Kane sighed again, shrugged and tottered up the curving staircase to our left to summon Homer Danbury. I walked into the closest room, which proved to be a huge solarium of sorts when I batted the light switch on, and made myself comfortable. The .45 was armed, with a slug in the firing chamber, but it was back in my shoulder holster where it belonged. There was no reason to expect any fireworks.

  Not even from emotional, head-strong, strong-arm kids with a mad on because their Father Figure and Meal Ticket was in the lock-up.

  Maybe five minutes later, with a Camel half-burned down between my fingers and Kane once more lost somewhere in the environs of the house, I was eyeball to eyeball with Homer Danbury. He came as advertised.

  He was very tall, very heavily-muscled, like an in-condition weight-lifter and when he literally bounced into the room, togged out in grey flannel sweatshirt, soiled Chinos and shaggy beard with an undisciplined Jesus Christ hair-do, though his hair was blacker than coal, I was ready for him. He came through the solarium archway like an annoyed bull, his arms dangling dangerously, looking for me. Invisible steam hissed.

  His face was a tight little island of gimlet eyes, pig nose and a blunted, brutal mouth line. The kind of kisser they put on pirates.

  "Well, Fink," he boomed, sarcasm dripping. "What the hell do you want? Gonna make another bust to put yourself in solid with the Fuzz?"

  I didn't get up from the chair in which I had been admiring the showy wealth and characteristic B.Z. ornateness of the room.

  "The first thing I want from you is a sweet mouth, Homer. I may look decrepit to you, kid, but I could flip you over my shoulder without working up a sweat. Be warned. Don't try me."

  His dark scowl widened and he stepped back, raising his bunched fists. They looked for all the world like ham-hocks on sale.