Shoot It Again, Sam Page 8

  He chuckled suddenly. A low, genuinely amused new note in his voice. He shook his head in wonder at me.

  "You're cured all right. Not even the Veep would talk to me the way you do." Then his eyes got steely again. "All right, Mr. Noon. I'll gamble again. On you. Dan Davis had laid his hands on some very important material. We know he had it with him when he died because we were on our way to pick it up when he collapsed during the shooting of the film on lower Fourteenth Street in New York. He was never able to tell us what he had and we never got close enough to ask, no thanks to his coma, the oxygen tent and the hospital rules. Besides, we thought he would eventually recover. So we waited. We shouldn't have. But we did know something of the nature of Dan Davis' important information. And just listen to this: by a special coded message sent to his contact in Washington, Davis had suggested that he had stumbled onto something fantastic. In fact, the message was not quite sane. It practically leaped off the teletype when you read it in its decoded content."

  I wasn't going to let up on him now.

  "And the message was?"

  The President cracked the knuckles of both hands. The noise was like a pistol shot in the quiet of the little room.

  "Master Spy Cabinet. UN In Danger. Red Alert. Contact Me."

  "What does it mean?"

  "We weren't sure what he meant. Sounds pretty grim, doesn't it? Did he mean there was a spy in my cabinet or was he referring to something called the 'cabinet'? And that part about the UN. What Kind of danger? Was somebody about to blow up the building—?" The Man suddenly rubbed at his eyes. "Well, you can see what a spot we were in. We had to get to Davis and talk to him right away. We didn't know if the information was in his head, on microfilm or down on paper. Or what. We still don't know, of course. Which was where you came in, Ed. It was a long shot but I took it."

  "Go on. This is what I really want to be cleared up on."

  "I stepped in. Officially. Without revealing my reasons, I approached his family, his colleagues, his personal connections. We told them that if they cooperated, Dan Davis would be doing a great service to his country. We made this all up out of whole cloth so no one would ever suspect he had ever served us before. So—we set up a bogus funeral arrangement. Davis' final remains were shipped to California by plane, for the proper burial. The day was correct but the family allowed us to announce in the papers the details about The City Of San Francisco, without announcing time of departure and the rest of it. We knew if the people Davis had been spying on knew anything about his real purpose in life they'd know about the train anyway. Or make certain they found out. You see, we also convinced the family that done that way, they would be spared a morbid scene at the train station and demonstrations from any wild fans in New York. Which is why you were able to get out of town without a mob scene at Grand Central. In any event, I wanted you to accompany the coffin as an armed guard for the trip. If anything untoward occurred, you would be there to help out. You see, we expected if there was anything important about what Davis had indicated with his coded message and that information was not just in his mind, perhaps his corpse was important to them. I wasn't sure, of course, but we were desperate. We had no way of knowing if he had any confederates of any kind, among his movie crowd. We knew nothing. But not any of his personal possessions or anything that belonged to him had been touched or searched prior to your train trip. We were pretty sure of that. Our agents went over the whole ground by the inch. So there you are. You took the trip—the coffin was sealed so that you couldn't ever open it in case you got curious but somehow, some way, according to your story, they got into that coffin, planted a man to look like Davis and—set up the whole scheme on the spot to make you an assassin for them. I don't know if Davis' information is still valid or if it ever was anything. When a man is sixty you can never be sure of anything. But right now, we're all in the dark. Right down the line. And I've done all I can to investigate my Cabinet without ruffling any feathers, we've managed to double Security conditions on the UN but so far—nothing, thank God. It may all just be a puff of smoke and the Red Chinese took advantage of a situation because they had learned somehow what exactly your relation was with me. The rest you know."

  "It's crazy," I said. "Crazy as hell. Can I ask some questions?"

  "Certainly."

  "Why a train going to Frisco instead of directly to L.A.?"

  "Window dressing. For the enemy. They would think it peculiar, too and it would add to their interest in the coffin."

  "I'll buy that. It gave me food for thought at the time. Was Davis really buried?"

  "On schedule. At Holy Cross. Biggest funeral of the year, Ed. Everybody showed up. Including Garbo. The Hollywood colony was well represented. All the world leaders sent telegrams and flowers. Condolences for his widow. Still quite a stunning woman—"

  "Lila Park. Sex symbol of the roaring forties. Have you talked to her at all since this business started?"

  His expression was very grave. "There was no cause to. As far as we know, Davis took his secret to the grave with him. No one ever knew of his connection with us. As for the other thing—it's reasonable to assume he kept that to himself too, right up to the end."

  "And how was I kidnapped from that train? And what about Goolsby?" That, of course, was still the million dollar question.

  "We had other agents on the train, of course. None of them know anything about a conductor called Goolsby. If he was there, he disappeared with you. Somewhere in the night on the way through California. We don't know how they did it but they did. The coffin was left behind." He eyed me almost fondly. "You have no doubt in your mind about seeing Davis or somebody made up to look like Davis climbing out of that box?"

  "None whatsoever. I'm from Missouri when it comes to things like that. It was all obviously staged for me. With Goolsby's cooperation. He set me up for it then probably crowned me from behind."

  The President nodded. "Which would mean they had made their plans well in advance. Oh, I just don't know, I tell you. These cloak-and-dagger games are enough to—" He broke off suddenly and smiled. "Well, do you feel up to getting back to work, now?"

  "Maybe. Depends on the work."

  He shrugged. "The same kind of work. We have to find out what Dan Davis had or knew. We have to certify it or scratch it or kill it, whatever it is. Unless they already have it and we're too late. I'm gambling that we aren't."

  I smiled at him, bleakly.

  "Did you take care of my grieving friends in New York who may have been worrying about me all this time? There are some folks who would mourn my loss, in addition to the Internal Revenue boys."

  The President's smile matched my own.

  "Captain Monks and Melissa Mercer both received notices as to your well-being. We arranged that the day we got you back. We didn't want them waking too many people up about you. Monks got a telegram from Washington and one of my aides phoned Miss Mercer, personally."

  "Then you didn't blow my cover?"

  "No. We simply suggested that you were on government business for us and would be out of touch for awhile longer."

  "Good." I heaved a sigh and looked at him. "Take up a dead man's trail, huh? Find out what he wanted to say or give to us. A tall order. I'm not sure I'd know where the hell to begin, even."

  "I'd suggest Hollywood," the President said, suddenly standing up to stretch his legs. He looked tired. "The Davis home in Brentwood. Lila Park is the place to start. We've tapped the New York end out. The movie Davis was making here proved to be a dead end."

  The small room seemed to take a beat before I answered him.

  "Thanks," I said. "Thanks a lot."

  What he wanted, though, was very small compared to what I wanted. A man who has had half-a-mind for about five weeks and that none too reliable, wants a whole hell of a lot more than an official solution to a federal investigation.

  I wanted to meet Dr. Hilton again and push his Peter Lorre face in while I hummed the musical score of Gone With The Wind
in both of his clever ears. Or maybe the Hall Johnson Lost Horizon choir.

  I wanted to see Brigid O'Shaughnessy again and slap her all around a bedroom before I sent her over for the rest of her life.

  I wanted to do both those things and a lot of other things.

  I had lost something at the movies and unlike Pauline Kael, I wanted to get it back.

  Very badly.

  Dan Davis would have understood that.

  As dead as he was.

  WIFE

  □ The Davis House was a fieldstone monster hidden behind groves of eucalyptus trees so tall that they completely dwarfed the surrounding Brentwood homes lying about fifty feet below in the wealthy maze of residences where a lot of movie stars lived and hid from the pitiful public, as well as the sight-seeing buses. High timber obscured a concrete driveway blockaded by a ranch-style fence of arranged brown logs. A quiet gateman stationed in a sentry box of sorts waved me on through. It was a sunny day, the not too distant Pacific visible beneath a sleepy formation of those kinds of clouds the Hollywood crowd likes to insist only show up in sunny Cal.

  I eased the Buick into a curvature of the driveway, surprised to see what looked like a seagull, so far inland, winging over the fieldstone house. The bird didn't make a sound, as if it didn't dare.

  The setting, the house, and the grounds, spoke volumes of intimidating stacks of greenbacks. Money had spoken here and built anything and everything a famous movie star might desire in the way of creature comforts. A kidney-shaped swimming pool twinkled off to my left. Riding stables lay some fifty yards from the main house. The landscaping, riots of horticulture in the full bloom of summer, dazzled the eye. I hardly looked at the scene.

  I was expected. Dan Davis had been dead almost two months now and his widow had consented, on the telephone, to allowing me to come see her. Or hold her hand. Her voice over the wire was sexily pleasant.

  Camp David was a week-old memory now.

  The Man had let me move out and pick up the trail.

  I had put my own house in order before coming to this house. No more would a Panama hat, plum-colored clothes and black-and-white Oxfords demean me. I was back to a sober grey lightweight Brooks Brothers suit, a snappy porkpie fedora and sensible black shoes. I had trimmed the moustache to a pencil line and sheared the shaggy locks. All in all, I was reasonably presentable.

  Mrs. Davis answered the door herself.

  Either to make me feel more welcome or to see me for herself before allowing me into the house.

  She stood on the stone patio before her high front door and scanned me as I walked up the pebbled trail.

  "The Hour Of Love," I said by way of hello. "You haven't changed very much, lady."

  She glowed, extending her hand. Surprise and pleasure made her face, which had worn very well indeed, light up remarkably. Her figure had held up incredibly. The long, lithe body which had distinguished many an inferior film was still long and lithe in a striped pair of blue bellbottoms. A soft silk blouse with long sleeves, as yellow as sunflowers, caught the sun and held it. Her face, always an oval of lush lips, saucer-big blue eyes and contrastingly tawny skin looked perfectly wonderful for a woman who had to be old enough to be my mother. In the Forties, she had been a famous GI Joe pinup girl and her competition had been Lana Turner, Ava Gardner and Carole Landis.

  Somehow, she was an amalgam of all three.

  Her grip on my fingers was strong and lively.

  "Now that is a very nice way of making introductions. I must say. That was a good flick, wasn't it?"

  "One of the few decent ones they gave you. Can't blame them too much. Looking the way you did, plot wasn't too important an item."

  She glowed again and waved me to a chair. It looked like we were going to do the veranda bit. She wasn't going to invite me in to see her nice rich house. I didn't mind. The veranda was a mosaic-tiled pip with basket chairs, lounge chairs and a cozy bar, all chrome and glass. The ranch-style fence was repeated in a motif running around the left wing of the house. You could see the ocean real good from there.

  "You wanted to talk to me about Dan?"

  Her back was to me, mixing drinks. She hadn't even asked my preference. I didn't mind that either. From the rear, bent over, it was amazing that a woman in her fifties could look so sleek and shapely and new. From behind, you could have sworn on a stack of Playboy calendars you were watching a woman half her age.

  "Yes, Mrs. Davis. You don't mind?"

  "No. Why should I? Dan belonged to the world."

  "I can see how you'd feel that way. All the same— thanks."

  She turned, frowning slightly and came toward me with all the trained grace that something like starring in a hundred movies of all kinds can give you. She handed me a tall, gleaming glass in which ice and something green and cool looking ran around in bubbling circles. I took it and she went with her own glass of the same and plopped down on a tiger-striped lounge. I had taken a basket chair just across from that rather glaring bit of tastelessness amidst so much opulence. She changed the subject.

  "Creme de Davis," she raised the glass. "Didn't ask you what you might prefer. You'll like it. Dan invented it. Some old creme de menthe but with a spike of horseradish to give it some kick."

  I sipped and the drink kicked back. It was very strong.

  "Good?"

  "Fine, Mrs. Davis."

  "You call me Lila and I'll call you Ed. Noon is a peculiar name at that. Irish?"

  "All-American. Though I suppose if I traced it back far enough I'd find a Noonan or something in the works. I never bothered." I eyed her casually. "Forgive me but I'd like to say how sorry I am."

  She shrugged and her eyes didn't do any tricks. She seemed perfectly composed.

  "Water under the bridge. And it was great water and a great bridge. Dan had a wonderful life. Wish I'd met him sooner."

  "I'll drink to that. He seemed happier with you than the others."

  She chuckled. A low sound which had a slight trace of venom in it. Her still ample bust strained against the yellow blouse.

  "We gave it a good run, didn't we? Fifteen years it would have been come October. Oh, I didn't give him any children, of course. But I was a damn sight better for him than that dancing lady, Rita Carlino. A dime-a-dozen hot tamale. And that lezzy, Winnie Talmadge. Dress designer—" She shook her head. She was wearing her blonde hair shorter than in her siren days and it very barely moved. The dye job glistened even in the shadows of the veranda. "If Dan could ever have told the world what that woman did to him. With some of the biggest names out here—but he was too decent a man. He never blew the whistle on her. Tell you what, though, and this may surprise you because the papers and all would make you think I hated all the ex-Mrs. Davises. But I was really sad when Joanna Conklin died last year. Remember? Cancer of the liver? Oh, she drank too much but she was good to Dan except when she'd had too many. That was the marriage that nearly wrecked him until I came down the pike. There were the kids—you know any of them? A fine bunch. Two girls, two boys. But they don't come any better. They lived with us for awhile and then shoved on. Schools, growing up— getting married. Dan was proud as hell about Thomas. That kid is only twenty one and he's vice-president of some toy firm that makes millions back in New York. And Pamela—she's made a grandma out of me twice already, even if it's only by proxy—"

  The flood-tide of talkativeness had come on her all of a sudden. And she suddenly seemed to realize exactly that. Sighing, she shut down and lay back against her false tiger background. The tall drink was held diffidently in her long, slender right hand. Her big blue eyes raised themselves very theatrically, now. I was reminded of the scene in Scorched Angel when Tyrone Power tells her that he has to take off for the front and she blinks back the tears for a good two minutes. It was still pretty effective, thirty years later. Time never lessens a good technician.

  "Well—" she sighed, using that low intimate voice that always made you think that you and her were the only two peop
le in the whole world. "How's The Night Man coming? "

  "Not good. We've tried to get Wayne and he's off in Hawaii somewhere doing a film. Then the idea was to make the character much younger and shoot for Newman or McQueen but it's not so good right now." She made a face at that and it made her look older.

  "It's too bad. Dan would have kicked that role into the next world. Realism was his meat. Realism and two-fisted he-men."

  "And then some." I kept on lying because it was how I had gotten this interview in the first place. Pretending to be one of the executives connected with the filming of Walker's prize novel. It was a safe bet that Lila Park Davis couldn't have known everything about the production of that film. And she hadn't.

  "It would be a mistake to go for a younger man, Ed. Your people ought to wait until Duke is done in Hawaii and sign him up. I made a pic with Wayne once. Did you ever see the one about the Marine and the South Sea Island girl—"

  "Pearl Of The Pacific. I hate to say this but I cut school that day to see it at the Paramount."

  She laughed. It was a giddy giggle, almost, like a young schoolgirl. She had always been too young. And it was something she was obviously still clinging to. Maybe, desperately.

  "How's your drink, Ed?"

  "Just fine."

  "Sorry you had to come by. It wasn't necessary—"

  "But I wanted to. Who was going to pass up a chance to see Lila Park?"

  She snorted at that. "The living legend? Like those damn trade papers call me?"

  "You look simply marvelous. I don't wonder that Dan was so much in love with you. Those first days on the set, he spoke about you all the time—"

  "He did?"

  "Constantly."

  A faint blush tinged her tawny cheeks. She stirred on the lounge and the saucer eyes opened even wider for me.

  "It's damn decent of you to tell me that. I knew I made him happy. But it's always nice to know that he knew it and didn't mind telling anybody about it. I like that. Like it a lot."

  "You deserved it, obviously, Lila."

  "That sounds nice, too. You calling me Lila."