Scratch on the Dark (A Mike Faraday P.I. Mystery) Read online

  There’s no freeway to Santa Monica but this time of year the traffic wasn’t too heavy and I made it out there in about half an hour. Santa Monica’s a dump compared to what it was in the heyday of the movies but it’s almost the only place around L.A. that’s free of smog so it made a change. I glanced again at the piece of paper Crisp had given me. The house was called Les Oleandres; it was way back off the beach, of course, on a place called Sundown Drive. The beach locations were too expensive up here these days, unless you’d bought in the twenties. The front lots went mostly to movie stars though even they were feeling the pinch now.

  I hadn’t been through for some while; it looked depressing in the cold afternoon light. I tooled the Buick through a small shopping center with its boarded beach-shops, found the intersection and turned off up the steep hillside. Many of the houses were cut out of the difficult terrain, the terraces and in many cases the buildings themselves supported on pins and props of concrete to stop them plunging down the slopes. It rather reminded me of Hollywood itself; everything slipping into a sunset sea.

  I changed gear and idled down to a walk while I scanned the side of the road for the house I wanted. It was a long way up. I travelled nearly two miles and still couldn’t spot it. Then I came to another development area and found it was the third house along; it wasn’t a bungalow at all but a two-story frame building, painted pink and white. There were fine views from up here and the lights of L.A. could be seen way off in the distance, the afternoon was so dark.

  I pulled the car in through a white-painted wooden gateway. The gate was wide-open and latched back. It had the name of the house painted in black curlicue script on each of the gateposts. The car scrunched over red gravel and I stopped it at the foot of a flight of cedar wood steps which led up to a glassed-in porch. The shutters were drawn over the windows. I couldn’t see any oleanders. Perhaps the wind up here had killed them all. I walked up the flight of steps. My feet sounded dead and hollow. The wind blew dry and cold on my face. The wavelets were stenciled down below like a pointillist drawing where they met the beach.

  I rang a brass bell button set into the side of the porch and waited. Presently the door opened and a Negress in a dark dress with white cuffs and collar stood there.

  ‘You must be the housekeeper,’ I said.

  Her eyes showed white in her face. Her hands played with the front of her dress.

  ‘Yes, sir. My name’s Jasmine. Miss .Fayne’s away.’

  ‘It’s all right, Jasmine,’ I said. ‘I’ve been asked to make a few inquiries by Dr Crisp.’

  I got out my license in the plastic window of my billfold and showed it to her. She studied it for a moment and then closed her mouth tightly. Her hands stopped their movements on the front of the dress.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ she said. ‘Miss Fayne’s been a very kind lady to me.’

  ‘We can’t talk out here,’ I said. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  She hesitated for a moment longer and then led the way back inside the house. The hall was paved in natural woods and light spilled in from big double-glazed windows; the walls were hung with watered silk and a few prints in black frames broke the monotony of the large expanse of green. The housekeeper slid back large double-doors leading into a living room and went on in front of me.

  The apartment was about forty feet long with views up and down the Pacific. f It had vast double-glazed picture windows on three sides, each with a sea view; the front was punched out right over the downward slope. When I got closer to the main window I could see a paved terrace had been constructed farther out still, its supporting pins sweeping down the hillside to their concrete bases. A coastal steamer made a black smear of smoke way off in the misty grey of the sea.

  ‘I understand Miss Fayne left here about four weeks ago,’ I said. ‘She hasn’t been back since?’

  The dark woman shook her head.

  ‘And you haven’t heard from her?’ I asked.

  She shook her head again. This was getting monotonous. I turned back to the window and watched the steamer; dirty white streaks were showing round its bow now where the wind was chopping the waves up.

  ‘You’ve no idea where she’s gone?’ I said.

  The housekeeper looked pensive.

  ‘You’re fond of Miss Fayne, Jasmine?’ I tried again.

  ‘She’s been the best friend I ever had,’ she said emphatically.

  ‘She may be in danger,’ I said. ‘You’d better tell me if you know where she’s at. Dr Crisp’s a worried man.’

  She burst out laughing then. I never saw a woman’s face change so quickly. In the end she had to go and sit down in a chair.

  ‘Sorry, Mr. Faraday,’ she said at last. ‘If that ain’t the limit. I been housekeeper here for nearly fourteen years. No one can’t tell me anything about Miss Fayne and Dr Crisp. There was no love lost between the two. As if the doctor would care where she was at.’

  ‘All right, Jasmine,’ I said. ‘So that makes me the Comic of the Month. But I’d still like to know where Miss Fayne is. She left a month ago?’

  The housekeeper dabbed at her face with her handkerchief.

  ‘Twenty-seven days ago to be exact,’ she said. ‘It was a Saturday. There’d been some trouble between her and Dr Crisp. I’d been out getting the groceries. She was in her bedroom when I got back. She told me to take a case to the car for her. I was in the kitchen when she drove off. It wasn’t like her to go without saying goodbye.’

  I looked out to where the steamer’s smoke was getting fainter on the grey backcloth of the sea; it was darker now and the black streak seemed like a cut in the dull fabric of sea and sky.

  ‘So you didn’t actually see Miss Fayne face to face?’ I said. Jasmine shook her head.

  ‘I spoke to her through the door,’ she said. ‘But I saw her get in the car and drive off.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  ‘A white linen suit with a red scarf round her neck,’ the housekeeper said. ‘It was a new outfit she’d just bought and she looked great in it. I think it was the first time she wore it.’

  ‘I’d like a look at her bedroom if you don’t mind,’ I said.

  The negress got up. ‘Surely,’ she said. ‘But I’m certain you won’t find anything that will help you.’

  I followed her up a pine-paneled staircase at the other end of the hall. The master bedroom was done out in pink and cream with more pine paneling and a tiled ceiling with concealed lighting; there was an even more spectacular view of the grayness of the ocean. If I was looking for any trace of Chuck Esterbrook I was disappointed. I never saw a more feminine-looking room. Not even a man’s cigarette in the ashtray or a pair of slippers in the wardrobe. Jasmine stood by the edge of the bed and watched me warily.

  I slid the wardrobe door all the way back. The wardrobe ran the entire length of one wall. There must have been more than sixty dresses and suits hanging in there. In a rack inside the top of the door were stacked four or five pigskin suitcases. There was an empty space at one end. I tapped one of the cases. It gave off a hollow, booming sound.

  ‘She always travel light?’ I said. ‘Just the one case?’

  The housekeeper licked her lips. She suddenly looked uneasy.

  ‘Funny thing now you come to mention it, Mr. Faraday,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t like Miss Zarah. She always had three or even four cases even if she only went away for a week-end.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’d better tell me where she went, Jasmine?’ I said. ‘She might be in danger. And I’m better qualified to help her than either you or Dr Crisp.’

  She took the notes I put in her hand and stared at them.

  ‘Well, sir,’ she said in a dead voice, ‘she didn’t say anything specific when she went off.’

  She turned and looked out across the white-streaked grey of the Pacific. Then she faced me again as if she couldn’t bear that blankness.

  ‘Dr Crisp had a small cabin up at Caribou Lake. She might
have gone there. She liked to be alone when she was feeling low. I remember once she was away a whole month and nobody knew where she was. She’d been up at the lake, taking walks, reading and doing her own cooking all the time. Always was independent-minded, Miss Zarah.’

  ‘Thanks, Jasmine,’ I said. ‘You’ve been a real help.’

  She came over to me and put the notes down inside the top pocket of my jacket.

  ‘Don’t want money for helping Miss Zarah, Mr. Faraday. You’ll let me know if you hear anything?’

  ‘Sure, Jasmine,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you know if I hear. I’ll find my way out.’

  I left her standing in the center of the room and went down the stairs. I slammed the porch door, got in the Buick and reversed down the drive to a point where I could turn round. It was almost dark now and I would have to leave the studio until tomorrow. I drove slowly down the hill road until I hit the intersection near the beach. Then I started letting her out. Presently the lights of L.A. began to grow in the distance. I slackened speed then. I had learned quite a few things this afternoon and I needed time to think. The city with its lights and fumes reached out to take me and the Buick in.

  Chapter Three – The Small World of Manny Freeman

  Miromar TV Productions Inc. were on a side street not far from Hollywood and Vine. The front looked like a disused cinema which some industrious entrepreneur had converted; this, with a substantial back lot and some hastily run-up bungalows and executive blocks comprised Jet Studios which was currently engaged in turning out low-grade TV fodder. The beetle-browed commissionaire was known to me; otherwise I might have had to wait three days to get in.

  He pushed over the usual form for me to fill; this asked my name, address, nature of business, person required and about a hundred other impertinent questions.

  ‘They forgot to ask for my birth certificate, Harry,’ I said. The commissionaire grunted. His face cracked open in something which could have been construed as a smile.

  ‘You know these studios, Mr. Faraday,’ he said. ‘It used to be less trouble getting into M.G.M. And that is a studio.’

  ‘Too true,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait in my car.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll give you a shout when I get the okay.’

  I walked over, opened the door of the Buick and sat in the driving seat. I lit a cigarette and frowned at the windscreen. I could see Harry on the phone to someone in the executive building. I had asked to see Manny Freeman. He was down in the directory as Zarah Fayne’s agent and he also handled Chuck Esterbrook’s affairs. Which would save me quite a bit of trouble. I had sat there for perhaps five minutes when a black Caddy pulled up noiselessly alongside. The man in the driving seat glanced at me sideways. He looked like something out of a Warner Brothers gangster film. Thirties vintage, of course; that’s when all the best ones were made.

  He wore a grey hounds-tooth jacket and his blond hair was smoothed back and worn very close to his scalp. It fell forward in a fringe across his forehead. I bet he had it shampooed at least twice a week. His unwinking grey eyes looked like muddy ice water.

  I wound down the window on the offside.

  ‘Think you’d know me again?’ I said pleasantly.

  He thought for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and spat expertly on to the side of my car. It landed on the door panel.

  ‘Sure, baby, sure,’ he said in a dead voice.

  He let in the gear and cruised off while I was still thinking up my reply. I knew I’d remember him all right.

  Just then I saw the commissionaire bang on his glass door panel in my direction. I got out the car, locked it and went up to the studio entrance. Harry handed me a pink slip; it had a blue ink stamp across it with the date and the facsimile of someone’s signature.

  ‘Right through the arch, Mr. Faraday, then turn left. Admin, will send someone out to see you through to Mr. Freeman’s office.’

  I thanked him and went on through the metal wicket gate which opened electrically when he operated a button in his glass cubbyhole. I walked on down a concrete alley between two buildings, squeezing between the parked cars; each was slotted in by the owner’s name painted on a white board at the head of each bay. I came out under the arch and found myself in the plaza of a small Western town. Straw blew about in the rising wind.

  Two roans were tied up at the hitching rail of the Silver Dollar saloon; everything was there, down to the log-built jail and the crooked lawyer’s office. Except that they were all flats supported on four-by-twos and braced against the wind with thicker timber. A camera dolly shuttled across in front of me, pushed by its five-man crew. The big Ernemann camera was blimped for sound shooting; there was no one on the cameraman’s seat. I turned left like Harry had said and found myself out among square-cut lawns, bisected by pink concrete paths. Two Chinamen went by, their pigtails flying in the wind; they were arguing about baseball scores in obvious Bronx voices.

  Three men had a camera-crane stuck on a corner of soggy lawn. One of the rubber-tired wheels was inches deep in the mud. Two cracked struts of the girders stuck out.

  ‘Wait till Mannix hears about this,’ one of them was saying.

  A severe-looking woman with grey hair to match her grey tailored suit was waiting for me on one of the concrete paths in front of the Administration Building. She took my pink slip with a smile.

  ‘I’m not exactly sure where Mr. Freeman is located at this moment, Mr. Faraday,’ she said. ‘But if you’ll follow me to the commissary I’ll have a short-wave call put out for him.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me if Mr. Esterbrook is working this morning? Chuck Esterbrook. He’s a cowboy actor.’

  She walked in front of me up a flight of concrete steps leading to a low cedar wood building set behind a cement-bordered lawn.

  ‘Esterbrook,’ she said to herself. ‘I think he’s playing the heavy in Lone Star Trail. That’s one of our most successful series right now.’

  ‘You could have fooled me,’ I said.

  She turned a remarkably sharp pair of eyes towards me.

  ‘I don’t get much time for watching television,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Really,’ she said coolly. ‘You’re missing a lot, Mr. Faraday. You ought to catch up on your education.’

  We passed through a double-glazed door into an atmosphere like a hothouse. We went on down a corridor lined with matchboard partitioning faced up with cheap overlay that made a pathetic effort to look like mahogany. The doors of the booths had impressive-sounding titles on them. I noticed the nameplates were all hung on hooks so they’d be quick and easy to change over. I figured the walls were so thin that some poor guy pounding out thick-ear melos would get his phone conversation mixed up with someone else five booths farther down. There were so many girls with stiletto heels walking in the corridors it made the place sound like a boiler factory.

  ‘A bit different from R.K.O. Radio,’ I said brightly.

  ‘Oh, certainly,’ the grey-haired woman said enthusiastically.

  ‘We’re geared up to turn out ten times as much product as they ever did.’

  It was my turn to look at her. She was quite serious. She excused herself and went into one of the offices; I stood in the corridor and studied the secretary situation. Some of them weren’t bad either. She came back after about three minutes and gave me a green chit.

  ‘Hand that in at the gate when you go out, Mr. Faraday,’ she said. I thanked her and pocketed the chit. ‘What happens if I lose it?’ I said. ‘I bet it’s easier to get out of the Kremlin.’

  She didn’t even crack the ghost of a smile.

  ‘Then come back to me and I’ll issue you with another,’ she said. I began to feel like a red nose comic playing the Middle West out of season.

  She led the way through into the commissary. It had red-leather seats, plastic-tiled flooring and the usual unappetizing flavors, redolent of dehydration and hygienic cooking. A group of dispirited-looking extras were queuing at one end. Up in t
he executive section with the waiter service I recognized a producer I knew. He nodded frostily over the vast, unbridgeable space between him and me. He was quite a nice guy when you met him on the street.

  A couple of gun-slingers and an Indian in full war-paint sat at the next table sipping coffee in plastic beakers and talking in low voices. I figured the news about Custer had just come through. The dragon in the grey suit snapped her fingers to one of the women behind the serving counter; a couple of beakers of coffee and a pile of doughnuts miraculously appeared.

  A concealed speaker squeaked and then rumbled monotonously, ‘Mr. McGuffey required in the Executive Suite. Urgent.’ The message was repeated three times. Whoever Mr. McGuffey was, he wasn’t in the commissary that was for sure. Leastways, nobody broke into a run. Our coffee was in waxed paper cups. I guessed that was what the executives got. That way there was no chance of getting germs off the plastic cups, which were used over again. I tried to smile over the rim of my cup. The dragon pursed her lips. That passed for hilarity in her.

  We sat there about five years. During that time I heard the speaker paging Manny Freeman. A green light glowed on the front of the dragon’s dress; she spoke into a brooch on her bodice.

  ‘Very well, Mr. Freeman. I’ll tell him.’

  She cracked me a more cordial smile than I’d yet seen. ‘Mr. Freeman will see you now, Mr. Faraday. I’ll show you the way.’

  As we went out the commissary she answered my unspoken question.

  ‘Transistorized, two-way personal radio. It’s the latest thing. Executive Suite insists that all higher-echelon staff and personal secretaries have them.’

  ‘How nice for them,’ I said. ‘What do they do when they take a bath?’