Private Eye 2 - Blue Movie Read online

  "The forensics crew came up with zilch. We're waiting on the autopsy."

  The interior of Johnny's Mercury was dark, and the conversation coming from Rita's bedroom soft and after the fact. At first, Johnny's embarrassment at overhearing Rita's bedroom conversations had made him edgy. Then, he remembered the star was well aware that someone was listening. Maybe she was doing what she did best—acting.

  "What the hell?" Johnny said to himself as he turned up the volume to listen.

  "When you're sweet to me like this," Rita was saying, "I know you really love me. I couldn't believe when we first met, Nicky. You must have sent me four dozen roses in one day. You do love me, don't you, Nicky? Tell me you love me."

  "You bet, baby,"

  Johnny smiled. What a creep!

  D'Rosa continued to lay it on. "I love you with a capital L and in ten different languages."

  Rita giggled. "You do talk with a fine tongue."

  Johnny cackled. "That a girl, Rita. This is better than the movies!"

  He heard the bed squeaking.

  "I'm going out for a nightcap," D'Rosa suddenly said.

  "Oh, man," Johnny moaned. How could the guy walk away from that kind of loving?

  Rita wasn't happy about it, either. "Stay with me, Nicky. I feel so lonely tonight. I want to go to sleep in your arms."

  "Will I do?" Johnny asked aloud.

  Her words, though, didn't move D'Rosa. "I'll be back home early. Watch a little TV or something. Maybe they got one of your movies on. If you can't sleep, take one of those pills the doc gave ya."

  He heard bed sheets rustling.

  "Please, Nicky, don't leave me!"

  "Dammit, woman. Let go of me! And get off your knees. Where's your pride?"

  "I lost it all over you, baby."

  "I'm getting sick of this," D'Rosa pronounced. Johnny heard his departing footsteps, then a door slammed. He slumped down in the Merc.

  "Is anyone out there?"

  It was Rita! Talking to him!

  "Oh, I'm here, you sweet thang."

  He heard sniffling. "Please stop listening now."

  Rita Marlo started to weep. Johnny ripped the earphones from his head. The guilt returned in a suffocating wave. At that moment, the big Lincoln roared out of the driveway. Johnny slammed the Merc into gear and was just about ready to pop the clutch when a huge hand came through the window.

  "What the—"

  The huge hand closed around his neck. Johnny tried to beat it with his fists, but it did no good. Somehow, he did manage to knock the transmission into neutral before he was pulled out the window. The first blow caught him squarely on the chin as he dangled like a punching bag from the open window.

  The file folder—virgin and still very stiff—sat on top of something on Dottie Dworski's desk. Cleary noticed it as soon as he turned on the lights in his office. Dottie lacked many things, sophistication most of all, but she was neat. She never left things on her desk. He lifted the file folder and saw the box. He picked it up.

  EXOTICA, STARRING LITTLE EVIE.

  But the woman's caricature on the box bore a striking resemblance to Eva Miles. Given the images on the box, there was no doubt about the kind of film it contained. He opened it. A reel of 8 millimeter tape fell out into his hand.

  "I'll be damned."

  Eva Miles's diary was still in his coat pocket. In fact, that's why he had returned to the office. He planned to read it. Cleary didn't know why. There was something about the young girl in the photo that haunted him. How had she turned into the floozie on the arm of Lou Kaplan? The transformation had been so quick. Besides, Cleary had a soft spot for fallen women. Like the tale went, most of them had hearts of gold and a true sob story that would melt half the ice in the Arctic. There had been one in particular that Cleary remembered. She had arrived in Los Angeles probably much like Eva had, and her life had ended in much the same way.

  He checked his watch. It was 10:30 P.M. He grabbed the directory and looked under the Ds. With his finger marking the number, he dialed Dottie Dworski. The voice that answered sounded sleepy. "Dottie, what are you doing in bed so early?"

  "Boss? Is that you?"

  "Yeah, it's me. So, how come you hit the sack so early?"

  "What time is it?"

  "Ten-thirty."

  "I always go to bed at ten. I wanna get in practice for when I have an early call. Besides, lack of sleep causes wrinkles. "

  "No wonder I look like a prune. Where did the dirty movie come from?"

  "The dirty movie? Oh, my God, I meant to put it in the desk drawer."

  Jack smiled. "I can't believe you left something cluttering your desk, especially a porno flick. Where'd you get it?"

  "I'm sorry, boss. I didn't mean for you to find it."

  "Dworski, when I ask a question, will you please answer me?"

  "What was the question?"

  "God help me."

  "I'm sorry, boss."

  "One more time, hon. Where did you get this film?"

  "After you left, I phoned this friend of mine. He collects those things."

  "Sounds like an interesting friend, Dottie."

  "Jack! He's just a friend! Anyway, he just happened to have a copy. He let me borrow it."

  Jack couldn't help himself. He laughed right into the phone.

  "What's so freakin' funny?"

  "I bet he can't wait to take you out."

  "I told him it wasn't for me."

  "Sure, and the check's in the mail. Right?"

  "What check?"

  "Go back to sleep, Dottie."

  When he hung up, she was still talking. Knowing Dworski, she would probably continue to talk for another ten minutes before she discovered he was gone.

  He turned the reel of film over in his hand. "Well, Eva, let's go see how you can act."

  As the projector whirred away, a whining, lonely saxophone provided the soundtrack to Exotica. The blonde on the screen moved across the cheaply furnished bedroom with clumsy self-consciousness. The sheer negligee threatened to drop free from one shoulder. Obviously she was approaching someone, probably a man.

  The sax became louder, more sensual. The woman—it was Eva Miles—dipped a shoulder once. The negligee stayed in place. Her eyes darted away from the camera, probably toward some sleazy director who was shouting at her. She dipped again, this time so obviously that she almost fell. The negligee drooped to reveal a full, flaccid nipple.

  In any other place and at any other time, Cleary would have laughed. As it was, he saw no humor. In fact, he felt the slightest hint of moisture in his eyes. Eva Miles was pathetic. She dropped to her knees, her lips making love to the camera. Her head disappeared from view, and the camera pulled back to reveal her head in the lap of a fully dressed man.

  The scene cut away. Eva Miles was reclining on the bed, supposedly writhing in ecstasy. She could have fooled Cleary. To him, she appeared to be in the agony of death. His imagination took over.

  Eva Miles... on her bed... her mouth opened painfully wide as she shrieks her terror... blood splatters the camera lens... the scream is frozen on her face as her head rolls—

  A noise, a loud bump, rescued him from the grotesque vision. Cleary tensed. He saw the shadow. Someone was trying to force his office door. He flipped off the light in his office and eased toward the front office. The automatic came out of its holster as his respiration increased. It never got any better, no matter how many times you faced danger. The gut-wrenching fear was always there, born from the knowledge that this might be the time you got your ticket punched.

  Cleary cursed the squeaking floorboards as he moved toward the door. Come on...give me a few more seconds. Let me reach the door before it opens.

  Just another two steps—

  Too late! The door swung open. Cleary dropped to his knees and leveled the gun at the gut of the intruder as he staggered—

  "Betts!"

  The young rockabilly collapsed on top of Cleary. In the glow from the ha
ll, the ex-cop saw the swollen, bruised features. "What the—"

  "Somebody—somebody made—made me," Betts mumbled, his words muddied by the bloody, swollen lips through which they passed.

  "Jesus, kid. Who did it?"

  Johnny gave an exaggerated shake of his head. "Don't know, man. All I know—" He moaned in pain.

  "Take it easy. We can talk later."

  "I'm okay. All I know is that I got made. I just need an ice pack."

  "An ice pack my ass. You need plastic surgery. You'll never make it in rock and roll looking like that."

  Johnny managed a smile. "I bet—I bet it gives—gives me character."

  "Can you stand up? I'm gonna run you down to the hospital."

  "No way," Johnny said. "Just... get me an ice pack. I'll be fine. I started—started to tell you... all I saw was a big shadow and an even bigger fist. The—the bastard caught me outside D'Rosa's place."

  Cleary helped the young outlaw to his feet and guided him into his office. He put him on the couch and went to the bathroom to get a cold washcloth.

  "You're just in time, kid. I'm finished previewing a blue movie. Be glad to rewind it for you."

  Johnny groaned as Cleary returned with the facecloth. "Some other time."

  "Whatsa matter, kid? Don't tell me you've lost that passionate interest in perverted sex."

  "Jack. I had all the sex I want for one night, and I'm not no pervert."

  Cleary was just about to apply the cold cloth to Johnny's face, but the comment stopped him. "What does that mean? I thought you were on the job tonight."

  "I was, goddammit. That so-called friend of yours sure knew where to put that bug in Rita's bedroom." Johnny grimaced with pain.

  "Here. This'll help." Cleary applied the cloth to the darkened knot on the side of Johnny's face.

  "Gawdamn, man. Easy with that."

  "You oughta let me take you to the hospital."

  "Just let me lay here. Ain't you got no ice, man."

  "Not a lot. I was saving that for my drink."

  Johnny rolled his eyes. "You're all heart, Cleary."

  "Priorities, Johnny. You always gotta consider the priorities. Speaking of which, if I can't take you to the hospital, then I'm at least gonna take you home. How did you get here, anyway?"

  "I drove—at least I think I did."

  "You can leave that eyesore you call a car here. I'll drop you at your place. It's on my way."

  "To where?" Johnny asked.

  "Eva Miles's apartment."

  Johnny pulled himself upright. "I thought we were off that case."

  "We are. I just wanna take a last look-see. Call it morbid curiosity."

  "Take me home, Cleary. I got ice there."

  They were almost out the door when the phone rang. "Let it go," Johnny said.

  Cleary didn't even consider the suggestion. He went back into his office to answer it. Johnny waited outside. When the former cop reappeared, he wore a sheepish grin. "If you feel too good to go to the hospital, then you can get back to work."

  "Like hell."

  "That was Rita Marlo. D'Rosa's at The Crescendo Club with a couple of bimbos. Somebody called and tipped her. I told her you were on the job—which you're gonna be."

  "Man, I ache like a bad back."

  "That's the price you pay for screwing up."

  "What was I s'posed to do, man? I got nailed."

  "You weren't careful enough. When I saw you there, you stuck out like a sore thumb."

  "Jesus Christ, you're outta sight, Cleary. You know that? 'Sides, if D'Rosa can get with it again tonight after what Rita did for him, then he deserves it—he really does."

  "You sound impressed."

  Johnny laughed. "I'd go through this again for one night with her, man. That's how good she sounded."

  "She's an actress. She knew she had an audience."

  "Yeah, I thought of that, too, but the lady wasn't acting. Believe me, I know. I could dig that."

  On the way down Sunset toward The Crescendo Club, Cleary told him that he knew the club's owner. "He owes me a favor or two from my days on the beat. I'll get him to slip a bug around D'Rosa's table."

  "Man, you don't care whose life you risk, do you?"

  SEVEN

  Wouldn't it be great if we could all stay children forever? To know that you'd be taken care of forever? It's not until you get older that you realize how nice it was to be a child—always warm and protected and believing that life's such fun. But it doesn't happen that way. I can remember the day my mother died. Everything seemed so strange—like a dream I was watching. I wasn't even there, it seemed. I was just floating above it all.

  The handwriting of Eva Miles was large, the fat letters very round, every letter very symmetrical. Cleary read it easily in the soft glow of the table lamp in Eva Miles's living room. The more he read of her commentary on her life, the more he realized just how sensitive a young woman she had been, deathly afraid of being hurt by her emotions.

  But with the words, as sensitive as they were, came the crude images from Exotica—visions of Little Evie trying to pretend passion when there was none. She was too sensitive—and too bad an actor—to accomplish that

  The sky seemed so high and far away that day. I wanted to believe that Mother was up there somewhere, but I wasn't sure anymore. The world in which I had been so comfortable was gone, and all I could think of was finding some sunny, warm place to start all over again.

  "'To start all over again,'" Cleary said aloud.

  He lifted her high school photo from the table and rose to walk into the bedroom—the death room. The chalked outline of Eva Miles's torso provided a grisly centerpiece to the room. The police investigators had taken very little from the room. Makeup and perfume sat atop a scarred dresser. The room still smelled of a woman, an odor that reminded him of talc and warm baths. A collection of multicolored scarfs was draped over the mirror. There were two photos still on the dresser, one a graduation photo and the other a photo of pre-Hollywood Eva with a young, clean-cut boy. He had his arm around her. The other girl—the blonde that looked so much like her—was standing apart from them.

  She hadn't lived there long enough to leave much of an imprint on the apartment—just the aroma of her toiletries and the handful of photos. There hadn't even been too much in the way of clothing, and a lot of what was there looked more like downtown Modesto rather than Hollywood partywear. The longer a person lived in a place, the more it assumed their character. The pictures hanging on the wall were drab and had obviously come with the cheap furniture. Most everyone, if they lived in one place long enough, collected boxes of history and junk that soon started to clutter the dark corners of closets and the space beneath the bed. Not Eva—at least not in this grimy little cubicle. There was no real character to Apartment 104 of the Franklin Arms. It must have been a lonely place to die.

  Come to think of it, since Eva had become a woman, she hadn't lived anyplace too long. His thoughts turned to Tom McNeil. Where had Daddy been in all this? What was his connection to the woman in Modesto whose death so moved Eva?

  On the nightstand, Cleary found one personal item, a book entitled Fifteen Great Scenes For Young Actors.

  How gullible these dreamstruck young women were. He looked at the mussed bed and in the soft light saw her lying there, reading the book, studying to become an actress. Did she read the scenes aloud like Cleary sometimes caught Dottie doing? A pair of harlequin glasses were beside the book. He picked them up and turned them over in his hand, trying to divine something about the girl from their touch.

  He felt nothing, though, in the harlequin glasses. They were dead, too. In fact, he couldn't imagine the Eva Miles he imagined as even wearing them. He extinguished the bedroom lamp and went to the living room, where he turned off the light, too. He sat down on the couch and allowed his thoughts to ramble through the purplish darkness of the apartment.

  What makes life so wonderful? The question had plagued Cleary all too of
ten of late. Every few months—or maybe years—a person found a few minutes of true joy, of honest happiness. The time in between was a continuous string of tragedies, misery, and boredom. The older one became, the less frequent the good times. The more friends and relations you buried. What in God's name made life such a precious commodity? Certainly it wasn't those fleeting moments of laughter, the sum total of which hardly amounted to more than a few months of one's entire life?

  The answer didn't come to him, but a sound did. It was a thump, followed by the loud tinkling of broken glass. Cleary's eyes settled on the front porch door just as a large hand came through the broken pane. It fumbled for the lock, found it, and gave it a twist. Cleary jumped to his feet and made a quick but silent move to the door—to a position that would be behind it when it opened.

  A new Negro singer by the name of Sam Cooke stood on the stage of The Crescendo Club. He was entertaining the Hollywood Old Guard—the agents, the managers, the producers—with a stylish display of rhythm and blues, the likes of which most of them had not heard before. It was a new sound, combining the sensuality of the blues with the rhythmic enthusiasm of Negro gospel.

  Off to the side of the stage, Johnny Betts moved his hips and legs with the beat of the music. Johnny, a musician himself, felt a certain camaraderie with the upcoming R&B artists. Just like the rockabilly sound he loved, the new Negro sound was catching on with the kids—the really young ones. White singers were daring to incorporate the sound in their music, and the bigots were doing their best to stop it But the new sounds had momentum, and together, they were going to change the face of popular music forever. They both were coming from the South, his part of the country. Someday, somehow, Johnny wanted to be a part of it

  The owner of the club sidled up to Johnny. "How's it going?"

  "He's hep, man."

  "I meant the snooping, but I wish most of my audience had your musical ear," the squat little man said. He handed Johnny a set of earphones. "I hope to hell D'Rosa doesn't wise up to that thing."

  "Where'd you manage to plant it?"

  "Under the table. I used chewing gum."

  "Crazy, man."

  "You look like you got run over by a high-speed freight"