The Case of the Angry Actress: A Masao Masuto Mystery (5 page)

When he showed her his badge, she studied him curiously and challengingly. It was plain that she did not approve of Oriental policemen or trust in geographic accidents of birth. Irritated a little, she wondered what she could do for him.

“You do keep membership records from year to year?”

“Not for the public,” she informed him.

“I am not the public. I am Detective Sergeant Masuto, of the Beverly Hills Police Force. I told you that. I showed you my badge.”

“Have you a warrant?”

“No, I have no warrant. I don't want to pry into your records. I want one simple fact. I want the address of an actress who may or may not belong to the Guild.”

“This is Hollywood, not Beverly Hills. I think I should call the police here—”

“My dear lady,” Masuto said softly, “I do not get angry or provoked, but if you insist on interfering, you will end up by being quite uncomfortable. Now listen to me. Eleven years ago, a girl called Samantha may or may not have joined this organization. I understand that you can play a speaking roll once without joining, but then must join before the second job. Is that so?”

“Yes, and you might as well tell me her name.”

“And yours, Miss?”

“Arthur.”

“All right, Miss Arthur. Her name was Samantha.”

“Samantha what?”

“I don't know. I have one name—Samantha.”

“Then don't you think you ought to come back with the second name before you throw your weight around a poor, defenseless old lady?” she asked icily.

“I may or may not be able to find the second name. That is not your problem. I want every Samantha who joined the Guild eleven years ago, give or take a few months on either end. The name is not a common one and there can hardly be too many.”

“Indeed!” said Miss Arthur.

“Indeed,” Masuto smiled.

Whereupon Miss Arthur led him into another office where two girls sat, both of them younger even when their ages were added together, and where she figuratively washed her hands of Masuto.

“Who is she?” Masuto asked them. “I mean, who was she? The name sort of rings a bell.”

“Della Arthur? And you didn't remember?” asked one.

“He didn't remember,” said the other.

“She hates you. She'll cut your heart out. We'll let you out the back way, officer. We'll protect you.”

“Are you married?”

“I'm married.”

“Then we'll let her kill you. You know, all the Beverly Hills policemen are very handsome. Is that how they pick you?”

“I want—” Masuto began.

“We know,” said one of them. “We heard. Enough of this light-hearted girlish talk. Only we don't file membership by year of admission. We file by name, and you don't have the family name.”

“But there must be some annual bookkeeping.”

“Oh, yes—yes. If she paid dues, we should have the receipts and the duplicate statements.” The girl was dark haired and bright eyed, and she licked her lips when she looked at Masuto. “Why are they always married? Never mind. Come on, we'll go in the file room and study 1955 and we'll find a Samantha. Of course, you know that's a phony name,” she said to Masuto.

She had led him into the next room, facing a whole wall of files, when he turned and looked at her curiously.

“Why do you say that, Miss—?”

“Just call me Jenny.”

“OK, Jenny. Why?”

“Well, isn't it obvious?”

“Not to my inscrutable Oriental mind. I grew up in a Japanese community, let us say a little apart from your folkways.”

“You know, Sergeant, you got a nice sense of humor. Cool, if you follow me.” She had opened a file drawer and was riffling through it with practiced fingers as she spoke. “Suppose this Samantha is a kid of twenty or so in 1955. That makes her born in 1935, right?”

“Give or take a few years—yes.”

“Middle of the depression—who's going to give a kid a nutty name like Samantha? Today's another matter, but around then, from what I hear, people weren't thinking about these stylish names.”

“Good. Go on.”

“I bet you a pretty her last name's a phony too.”

“How's that?”

“You know—like Glendale or Frazer or Buckingham or Sanford, but no Kaminski or Levy or Jones or Richter—”

“You'd make an excellent cop,” Masuto said admiringly.

“Nah. Half the names here are phonies. It's part of the profession.”

“Do they also have to register their real names?”

“No rule about that. Some do. Most don't. If an actor takes a stage name, it becomes part of him. He usually can't live with two names. Hold on—here's a beginning. What do you know about that! Samantha Adams. Here's the address, on Sixth Street in Hollywood. That's a sorry block of bungalows turned rooming house a long time ago—so this kid was no millionaire.”

Masuto copied down the name and address in his pad. There was no telephone number.

“No payment either,” continued Jenny. “The large sum is for membership,” she told Masuto, showing him the statement. “Almost two hundred with the dues, which is not hay by any means. You see, Sergeant, that's the initiation fee, entrance fee, lifetime. But it was never paid. Neither was the dues payment—that is, the first payment. Here's the follow-up statement and the second statement. That finishes the year. So this kid you're looking for never joined the Guild. She had one job, maybe two—but not three. I mean in the profession. Maybe she went back to slinging hash. That's another union. And she's the only one. No more Samantha's for 1955.”

“You amaze me,” Masuto nodded.

“You want me to amaze you some more, officer? I'm only doing it because you're the sexy type. I'll tell you something else about this kid. She never played anything real legitimate. Translated, that means adult theatre. She was never AEA.”

“What's AEA?”

“Actors Equity. Legitimate theatre. Also, she was never AFTRA, which is TV and radio artists, and she never did the clubs—no stripping, no Las Vegas, not even the crumb joints. That's because she never claimed AGVA. So either she dumped it all—or else.”

“How do you know all this?”

“No mystery. Look, we have this big overall membership fee of two hundred dollars. But there are also three other major theatrical unions, and if one had to duplicate the entrance fee for every membership, some of these kids would die first. So we scale it. If you're an Equity member, we give a credit of one hundred dollars. We also have a code of notation for the statements. So that's how I do it. And if your wife locks the door on you, give me a ring right here. Nine to five. You just ask for Jenny. One Samantha, one Jenny. I told you the last name would be a phony too. Samantha Adams—get that.”

Out on Sunset Boulevard and walking toward his car, Masuto wondered vaguely how it would be to be single and to date someone like this Jenny. He had only dated a Caucasian girl once, and she had been shapely but stupid. It had not been a satisfactory evening at all. He was impatient at himself for allowing his thoughts to wander. It was wasteful and childish, and he gathered them together.

Sixth Street, east of Gower; it was an old, old Hollywood bungalow built of spit and slats, as they said, almost half a century before, with the sign out, “Furnished Rooms. Transients Accommodated.” In the old manner—the way most California houses had been before air-conditioning—the windows were closed and the blinds were drawn against the hot noonday sun. Masuto rang the bell, and a fat, frowzy woman of fifty or so, her feet in old slippers, her ample body in a bathrobe and her breath alcoholic, opened the door and said sourly. “I know—you're a cop.”

“You're very perceptive.”

“Nuts. You got it written all over you, and I ain't fooled by the Charlie Chan makeup. What do you want? I run a clean, if a lousy house. Only men. This ain't no Beverly Drive, so I don't want no hookers giving me heartache.”

“I'm looking for a girl.”

“Then you're looking through the wrong keyhole, Officer Chan. I only rent to men.”

“That wasn't the case eleven years ago, I am sure.”

“Good God Almighty, nothing was the case eleven years ago. I was a hootchie-kootchie dancer eleven years ago, believe it or not. Sure, I took in a lady now and then in those days. But what do I remember? I ain't no elephant, except in appearance.”

“This girl's name was Samantha Adams.”

“Samantha Adams. You don't say.”

“Maybe eighteen, twenty years old. Blue eyes, blonde hair, good figure, maybe five feet six or seven inches tall—”

“Poor Officer Chan—what are you, an LA cop?”

“Beverly Hills,” Masuto replied, taking out his billfold and showing her his badge.

“That accounts for it. Some day they give you a day off, wander along the Sunset Strip—you'll find maybe ten thousand babes to answer your description—no! No, wait a moment. Samantha Adams. That wasn't her real name. Some other name—no, I can't remember the other name for the life of me, but I remember her. I used to kid her about that Samantha business. Poor kid—poor, stupid kid.”

“Why do you say that?” Masuto asked softly.

“Ah, she had no brains. You know, mister, for a dame this is the hardest, lousiest, dirtiest dark bunghole of a town in all these USA. Make it—you don't even exist out here unless you got a stainless steel ramrod up your you-know-where. This kid was soft—all the time soft and scared. Then one day she is going to lick the world and she goes off on a job at some studio—I think at World Wide, over in the Valley. Something happens. I don't know what—but here's a kid has the heart torn out of her. She has the curse after that, and we can't stop the bleeding, so I finally get a doctor and pay him. She comes out of it finally, but very weak and not good up on top. She's broke and a month behind. What the hell, I never threw a kid out on the street. That's why I stopped it with the dames. I know what it is to be one, and I ain't got the cabbage for an institution. So I don't even mention it to this Samantha kid, but one day she walks out. Leaves me her lousy suitcase and her few lousy clothes for payment—I should sell them. Can you imagine? Yes, sir, this world is one big joyride.”

“You said your name is Mrs. Baker?”

“Dolly Baker, sonny.”

“You never saw her again?”

“No. That was ‘Goodby Samantha.'”

“And you can't remember her name—the other name?”

“It'll come to me.”

“You wouldn't have a register or anything like that?”

“Buster,” she smiled, “what do I look like, a sap? They can make their space ships without my poor widow's mite.”

He grinned back at her. “Thanks, Mrs. Baker. You have great heart, and I think that when you reflect on it and realize that I bear no harm for this poor girl, you will remember. Here's my card. Will you call me when the name comes back to you?”

“Masao Masuto,” she read from the card. “I like you, Buster. I'll call you, but if that poor kid is in something that stinks, find the lousy male bastard that put her there and go easy on her. Will you?”

“I'll try, Mrs. Baker.”

“You're Leo, aren't you?” she asked, looking at him narrowly.

“How did you know?” He was impressed but not astounded, recalling that he had shown her the open wallet with badge and identity card.

“I'm sensitive to such things. I am Scorpio myself—very perceptive. That girl didn't steal anything. She did not hurt anyone. You take my word for that.”

“It's eleven years later.”

“People don't change—not the deep nut of them. You ought to know that, Officer Chan.”

CHAPTER THREE

Murphy Anderson

I
T
was just 12:15, just past midday, when Detective Sergeant Masuto parked his car behind one of the new savings and loan office buildings on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Northeastern Films had the entire sixth floor, with at least one hundred thousand dollars worth of modern-Italian-Southern-California decor; but today the bright edge of wealth was muted by the haze of death. The men and women who worked in the offices of Northeastern were depressed by the fact that it was incumbent upon them to be depressed by the death of Al Greenberg.

The girl at the reception desk looked upon Masuto bleakly as he told her that he had an appointment with Mr. Anderson. She spoke into the phone and then she rose and led Masuto through a section of minor offices to the rear of the floor. This whole end of the floor was divided into three offices. According to the names on the door, the center office belonged to Al Greenberg, the one on the left to John D. Cotter, and the one on the right to Murphy Anderson.

Expressionless faces examined them as they walked through, and when they reached Anderson's office, the big, white-haired man opened the door himself, invited Masuto to be seated, and closed the door behind him. Masuto lowered himself into a straight-backed Italian import, and Anderson apologized for not having Cotter there with them.