Читать книгу The Classic Car Killer - Richard A. Lupoff - Страница 9

CHAPTER FOUR

Lindsey ate lunch at a student rathskeller on Telegraph Avenue. By the time he finished it was after two o’clock, so he phoned Joseph Roberts at the office number Roberts had given him. Roberts said he could come right ahead.

Lindsey drove back to Oakland, parked and went to see Roberts. The Clorox building was a huge marble-walled slab, part of downtown Oakland’s sometimes sputtering renaissance. Roberts’ office was at the top of the building on the twenty-fifth floor. A plain door marked J. Roberts Enterprises. Lindsey knocked.

Roberts’ voice invited him in.

The room was modern and light, its furnishings a minimalist’s handiwork. Roberts sat behind a metallic contraption. Atop the gadget on a thick slab of glass stood a computer. The walls were lined with framed movie posters. Lindsey actually recognized one or two of them from Vid/Vid/Vid. He thought he’d seen the opening credits of Wyoming Roundup once on a late show, but he certainly hadn’t caught any screen credit for Joseph Roberts.

“What do you think? Not bad, eh?”

“You look a lot better than you did yesterday.” Actually, Roberts had what the old razor blade ads called a five o’clock shadow, but Lindsey figured that the stubble was a fashion statement, just as Roberts’ coat with its folded-back sleeves was a fashion statement. His blow-dried hair looked fuller than it had yesterday. It should, after a good night’s sleep instead of a hard night’s drunkenness.

“Feel it, too. Wow, for a while there I figured I’d have to look for work as a George Romero extra. Night and a Half of the Living Dead.”

“Are you an actor, Joe?”

Roberts laughed. “Hardly! Hitchcock was right. Actors are cattle. Tell ’em where to stand, what to do, put words in their mouths. That ain’t me, babe!”

“Then what do you do?”

“I write the scripts. Did my first script when I was a sophomore at Hollywood High. Later on I was a mail boy at Paradox, made a friend in the script department and got ’em to look at my work. Couldn’t sell to Paradox, but they passed it along to Bookbinder and Bloom. You ever hear of ’em? Not surprising. Pipsqueak outfit. But they bought the script, made the picture. They got some Hong Kong money. Swinging Schoolmarms. See that poster, right behind you?”

Lindsey turned around and looked at the poster. It did list Joseph Roberts as screenwriter.

“I’d appreciate you help in this matter of the auto theft.” Lindsey had opened his pocket organizer on his knee and held his gold-plated pencil poised to write. “I realize that you weren’t quite up to par yesterday.”

“Yep, Swinging Schoolmarms. Maybe it wasn’t exactly Fatal Attraction but they brought it in under budget. Can you imagine making a feature film for one million eight-fifty any more? Of course that was in ’83. I was just twenty-seven years old. Not bad, what do you think? Lot of guys don’t get to do a feature till they’re thirty, thirty-five years old. Or never. Twenty-seven years old.”

“That’s wonderful, Joe.”

“I’ve done erotics, slashers, westerns, thrillers. Want to do a real, classic-style PI flick next. Very tough, very noir. Got a brilliant idea for casting, too. Sean Penn and Madonna. Nothing like a good, juicy divorce to energize a relationship. Think of the electricity on the set. Think they could bring it off, Bart? Do you? And I want to direct it myself. This is really important. Go right up there with Joseph H. Lewis, Nicholas Ray, Sam Fuller, Phil Karlson. They were the greats.”

“If you’re so interested in Hollywood, why are you working here?”

“Hah! Good question.” Roberts jumped from his seat and stood with his back to Lindsey, peering out the window. Lindsey could look beyond Roberts, eastward across Broadway. The Tribune Tower poked into the sky. It had seen Oakland through prosperity and despair. Now it presided over the construction projects that were destroying its familiar neighbors one by one.

“I hate LA, that’s why.” Roberts turned back. “Everybody I know down there hates it. But that’s where the industry is. So I commute as often as I have to. Anybody who can help it lives someplace else. San Diego, Bakersfield, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara. LA is one miserable town.”

“You mean, you commute between Oakland and Los Angeles? You live here and work here, and just head down there when you have to, to, uh, attend a meeting, or whatever?”

Roberts smiled. “Well, I keep a little place down there. My little cottage in the valley, you know.” He whistled a few bars of an old tune. Lindsey recognized the melody. He could almost hear Bing Crosby singing, “I’m gonna settle down and nevermore roam, and make the San Fernando Valley my home.”

Lindsey said, “I see. And you’re working on your next film now?”

“TV series. I’m thirty-three years old and I’ve got my own series. My concept, I pick the scripts, I write the ones I like. Already did a pilot, network loved it, we’ll be on next season.”

“I didn’t realize you were switching from motion pictures to TV.”

“Not switching. Done both all along. You ought to see my episodic credits. You ever watch Kelly Scalese, cop show? Galaxy Force, sci-fi? Uncle Bud, real heart-warmer? Did scripts for ’em all. Almost won an Emmy year before last. Well, almost got nominated. Let me tell you something, there are so many bums peddling their scripts down there, anybody has a shred of talent can’t help succeeding.”

“That’s fascinating. I always wondered.…”

“Writers Guild is full of deadwood, more smarts in a Burger King than most studios and networks put together.”

Lindsey had the feeling that this conversation was slipping away from him. He’d meant to ask a few polite questions about Roberts’ work, get him talking freely, then switch the subject to the Duesenberg and the New California Smart Set. Now Roberts was revving up to speed for what looked like a full-fledged exercise of Hollywood ego.

“I don’t want to take up your time,” Lindsey interrupted. That was usually pretty successful. “It’s just that, as the only eye witness to the theft of the Duesenberg, I was hoping you might be able to give me some help.”

“Didn’t we go over this yesterday? Didn’t you come to my condo?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Then I don’t see what I can do to help you. I’m awfully busy, you know. I have to start stockpiling scripts for Jazz Babies. You know who this is for? I don’t even want to say it. Look at this.” He picked up a matte finish Cross pencil and sketched a network logo. “They’re all cast, going to use most of the people from the pilot, they need to start shooting episodes. Network wants to run the pilot again, that’s fine with me, then start right off, hour a week.”

“Is that the name of the show? Jazz Babies? Oh, that must be what your license plate means. Very clever. Mother wanted to watch the movie of the week.”

“That’s what they do with pilots nowadays. Too expensive to make ’em and then trashbarrel ’em if they don’t fly. So they put ’em on as movie of the week. If they fly, the pilot pre-sells the show to the public, you get a ready-made audience from day one. If they crash, at least the net makes some money off the pilot so it isn’t a total loss.”

“Yes. Uh—”

“Did your mother love it?”

“Well, she—”

“Would it be impolite to ask you her age? She’d have to be in the fifty-five-to-sixty-four bracket, I’d think. White female. Marital status?”

“Uh, she’s widowed.”

“Income, no, never mind, I can gauge that, total household thirty-five-to-fifty kay. Ah, never mind that. Did she love it a lot?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, Mr. Roberts—”

“Joe. You can’t imagine what it’s like, getting called Henry Fonda ten times an hour. Just Joe. What about your mom?”

“Well, she wasn’t feeling very.… She has these, ah…let’s say, spells. You know, she isn’t quite as—well, anyway, she had to lie down so she missed the movie. Jazz Babies. But she wanted to see it.”

“You didn’t tape it? Time-shift. She could watch it when she felt better.”

“No, actually I didn’t.”

Roberts turned to his computer and entered a few words from the keyboard. “There, that should remind me to give you a tape for her. She’ll love it a lot.”

“Is that why you joined the Smart Set? Are you doing research for your TV show?”

“Nobody down there knows that.”

“I won’t tell.”

“Sure. Bunch of old geezers. You get some of those old-timers off in a corner, get a couple of drinks inside ’em, they won’t turn it off about the old days. In fact, you don’t need to get any drinks inside ’em, often as not. They love to talk about it.”

“And you listen.”

“Sure. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? Have to do research. They all know what I do for a living, they’ve all figured it out by now, why I’m there.”

“You just said nobody knows.”

“Well, officially nobody knows. Unofficially, some of them know. Hell, probably all of them know. They get a thrill out of thinking they’re the only one who’s caught on.”

“Your license plate is a clue, isn’t it? And I imagine most of them would have seen Jazz Babies.”

“Jazz Babies—the Movie.”

“Yes.”

“I like to call it that to distinguish it from Jazz Babies—the Series.”

Lindsey grunted.

“Once we’re on the network, I’ll be made,” Roberts said. “There will be no stopping me, then. You just have no idea what it means to have a prime-time series of your own. This will be it for me!”

Lindsey said, “Who do you think stole the Duesenberg?”

Roberts’ eyes widened. He’d been dazzled by the brilliance of his own Hollywood fantasy. In his mind he’d been surrounded by big-shot producers and glamor-dripping actresses. Suddenly he was back in Oakland, back talking with an insurance adjuster about a stolen car.

“You have a theory?” Lindsey pressed. “Let your creative imagination roam.”

“I can think of a lot of people who’d love to own a Dusie. Hell, I’d love it myself. But not to steal one. It’s too hard to hide.”

“Right. I’ve been over that ground myself.” There was an uncomfortable silence, then Lindsey said, “Well, I suppose I’d better be on my way. Thanks for your time, Joe.”

Roberts swung toward the door. “Think I’ll ride down in the elevator with you. Take a little walk, get out of this air conditioning and breath some natural pollution for a change.”

On the way to the lobby, Roberts said, “Where you headed now? You going to play sleuth on this thing?”

“I don’t know.” Lindsey frowned. “I’ve handled plenty of stolen auto cases, but never one like this before. I think I’d better get back to the Kleiner Mansion while it’s still daylight. Walk around the scene, maybe talk to Ms. Smith.”

“Like some company? I wasn’t getting much done today, on Jazz Babies. Maybe this’ll clear my head for me.”

Lindsey shrugged. “Sure.” After all, why not? Roberts had given him a lot of information about his career in Hollywood, but almost nothing about the Smart Set or the theft of the Duesenberg. Lindsey had a feeling that Roberts could help more than he had. Maybe, away from his office with its posters and publicity stills, he would talk about something besides making movies.

They crossed Broadway, heading toward the mansion. When they got there, Lindsey noticed a discreetly lettered sign giving days and hours that the mansion was open to the public. It normally closed at 3:00 PM, and it was now almost 4:00. He rang the doorbell anyway.

He turned back toward the lawn and driveway, trying to re-create the crime in his mind’s eye, and heard the door open behind him.

A female voice said, “I’m sorry but we’re—”

“Miss Smith.”

“Oh, you’re—”

“Hobart Lindsey, right. We met briefly.”

Beside Lindsey, Joe Roberts said, “Hello, Jayjay.”

She ignored Roberts. “Did you want to come in, Mr. Lindsey?”

Lindsey said, “If you don’t mind.” He wondered why she’d snubbed Roberts.

She pulled the door open.

As Lindsey stepped inside he heard Roberts say, “Come to think of it, I’ve got to get some work out today. So long, Lindsey. Nice seeing you, Jayjay.” Lindsey wondered what that had been about.

Jayjay Smith locked the door behind Lindsey, pulling down a translucent shade. No fancy party togs today, she was wearing a pale blouse and a pair of middle-aged jeans.

“You actually live here, Miss Smith?”

“It’s convenient for the city and for me. I could never rent anyplace livable on my salary. And if I didn’t live here they’d have to hire a watchman. So—I get a free home, Oakland gets a free watchwoman.”

“All alone?”

“What?” She had led him into a parlor he hadn’t seen on Saturday night. On the way there, he saw that the evidence of the Smart Set’s gala had been cleaned up. There was no sign of the buffet that had filled one end of the ballroom or of the bandstand that had stood at the other end. He looked around. Where had Roberts gone?

“What did you ask?” Jayjay Smith looked at him. Apparently she hadn’t caught his last question.

But instead of repeating it he asked, “Where did Joe Roberts go?”

She gave him a slightly rueful look. She was fortyish, with a slightly fleshy look to her. Hair in a natural arrangement, cut to the length of her jaw. Some light makeup. Well-preserved, as they said in some of the old novels his mother had got interested in lately. “You didn’t see him turn around and leave when I opened the door?”

Lindsey shook his head. “He must have been embarrassed because of the other night. Getting sick, and all.”

“You don’t know what else happened?”

Lindsey felt uncomfortable. “Well, he did mention, ah.…”

She raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t going to make this easy.

“He said he’d made a pass at you.”

“Yes.”

“Well.…”

“I mean, I wouldn’t think that would be so terrible. I mean, you’re both grown-ups.”

She laughed, not entirely good-naturedly. “He didn’t tell you how many passes he’s made at me.” She looked at him, and he could see anger come and go in her eyes. “Oh, look, this is silly. You didn’t come here to quiz me about my love life. What were you asking me before?’

It was a relief to get back to the previous topic. “You live here all alone?”

“Not quite. Old Mr. Kleiner has his room. Actually, I’m very worried about him. I might have to call in a doctor if he doesn’t snap out of this.”

Lindsey was startled. “Who’s old Mr. Kleiner?”

“You didn’t know?”

Lindsey hadn’t known, no.

“This is the Kleiner Mansion. It was his, his family’s.”

“But—”

“You know, the Kleiners were an old Oakland family. Nineteenth Century settlers, merchants, real estate. They lost everything in the Depression. Including the mansion. The mansion and the Duesenberg.”

Lindsey looked around for someplace to sit. It wasn’t a tough problem. He chose an elegant sofa with polished wooden legs and well-stuffed cushions. They must not let visitors sit on the furniture, though, or they’d be re-upholstering it constantly. He opened his pocket organizer on a low table and leaned over it. He said, “You mean to tell me—”

Jayjay Smith sat opposite him.

He had let his sentence trail away, hoping that she would pick up where he left off, but she left him hanging. A trick he’d used many times, and got useful information from difficult people. Now it was being used on him.

“You mean there’s actually a Mr. Kleiner?’

“Of course. They didn’t name this place for a Mozart ditty!”

She seemed to be waiting for something, but Lindsey didn’t know what she was waiting for.

“A play on words,” Jayjay Smith finally explained.

Lindsey still drew a blank.

“Never mind.” She crossed her legs. “You wanted to know about Mr. Kleiner.”

Lindsey held his pen poised over the organizer. He grunted his assent.

“Well, I don’t know very much about Mr. Kleiner. And I don’t know how much it would be right to tell you. I mean, there are privacy laws.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Besides, there’s a historical pamphlet about the mansion. Did you pick one up, Mr. Lindsey?”

“I didn’t know you had one.”

She found a brochure in a polished breakfront and handed it to him. He slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Thanks.”

“Well, you can read the brochure at your convenience. It doesn’t really tell you much—it was written by some bureaucrat. It has a couple of nice photos in it, and a little history of the mansion. Anyway, when the Kleiners lost all their money they couldn’t keep up the taxes on the mansion. There was quite a scandal. The Kleiners were supposedly the richest family in Oakland. Millions and millions of dollars. Nobody knows exactly how much.”

Lindsey scribbled notes, mainly reminding himself to check on the Kleiner family. Tax records should still be available from the 1920s, and records of real estate transfers. And there had to be a local historical society. They might have something.

Jayjay Smith was still talking. “I don’t really know all the details of what happened. All I know is what Mr. Kleiner told me. And some of the members of the Smart Set.”

Lindsey nodded encouragingly.

“Apparently Mr. Kleiner went to his lawyer’s office and had a paper drawn up deeding the mansion and all of its contents, as well as the garage and the Duesenberg, to the city in lieu of taxes. The city had to forgive any other taxes that the Kleiners owed, they had to give Mr. Kleiner lifetime residence in the mansion, and they had to employ him for life. As chauffeur.”

“And the city went for that?” Lindsey jotted down: Kleiner lawyer? Newspapers for ’29?

“Apparently they did. I guess they figured it was a good offer. Somebody was really foresighted. If this house were in private hands today the city would really miss it. They couldn’t afford to buy it. And then the owners would probably knock it down and build condos here. Great for the people who live in them, rotten for everybody else.”

“How much did the Kleiners owe the city?”

“I don’t know. Must have been plenty, to give up this house. Even by 1929 standards, it must have been worth a fortune. Today you couldn’t touch it for any amount. The lawns, Lake Merritt in the backyard—it’s priceless.”

“Looks like a good bargain for Oakland. How do they handle the use of the car?”

“That was a problem. If the city kept the car, they had to make it available to anyone who wanted to use it. Or else keep it for civic parades, special events, you know. It turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.”

“I can see that. So, what did they do?”

“The city sold the car to the club. Let somebody else worry about what to do with it. Let them worry about Mr. Kleiner, too.”

“Mr. Kleiner? You mean—” He paused and studied his notes. “I still don’t—”

There was a stirring from another room.

Jayjay Smith stood up. “I’m sorry. I have to see if he’s all right.”

“Can I help?” He expected her to say no, but he’d get some points anyway. And points might lead to information.

He was right. She disappeared through a dark wood doorway. He stood up and walked around the room, picking up porcelain figures and display china dishes with Eighteenth Century ladies and gentlemen painted on them, done up in their satin clothing and powdered wigs.

He heard Jayjay Smith’s voice, a pleasant contralto. He couldn’t hear her words, but the tone was warm, coaxing. She sounded the way a mother ought to sound, not the way Lindsey’s mother did.

And in the pauses, the hint of another voice. An old voice, thin and dry and weak. Mr. Kleiner. That had to be Mr. Kleiner. Mr. Kleiner, and the Duesenberg stolen from the Kleiner Mansion. The story of the house deeded over for taxes, and the clause about the chauffeur.

Why in the world had Mr. Kleiner insisted on that odd arrangement, living in cramped quarters in the mansion that he’d once owned, and caring for the Duesenberg and acting as chauffeur of the car that had been his personal property? Did he really love his lifestyle that much? Surely he could have found a better job and a nicer place to live, even after the Kleiner fortune was gone.

Did that make sense?

But the Dusie was the property of the New California Smart Set. Probably, Kleiner had been unable to interfere when the city sold the car, for all that he might have disapproved. But the club was also tied into the mansion. But, but, but, his mind was starting to feel like an outboard motor. Lindsey shook his head and tried again to get a grasp on what was going on.

It was like something out of an old movie. Good gosh, how many of the things had he seen since he’d bought the VCR and the cable started bringing in those old movie channels. But there was a particular one, he could almost see it. Yes, with Gloria Swanson and William Holden and the young Jack Webb. But who played the chauffeur? He had it!

Erich von Stroheim!

He ran back to his pocket organizer and scribbled: Sunset Boulevard!!!

Jayjay Smith’s voice still came from the other room. Lindsey heard the distinctive sound of a telephone hitting its cradle, and Smith came partway back into the room where he was. She stood in the doorway. She looked pale. “I just called for an ambulance. I hate to send the poor man to the hospital. He doesn’t want to go, but he has to.”

Lindsey stood near her and she put her hand on his cuff as if she could draw strength from him. He said, “What is it?”

She said, “Since Saturday. He’s been beside himself. You don’t know how much he loves that car. He hasn’t been eating or sleeping right, he won’t get dressed.”

“How old is he?” Lindsey asked.

She calculated. “He was born the year after the Wright brothers flew. He used to talk about that all the time. He always said he could remember the ’06 earthquake, but I never believed him. The Wright brothers flew in 1903, so he was born in ’04 and he would only have been two years old. That makes him eighty-five now.”

“And he was still working as a chauffeur?”

“He still has a license. And he’s always been spry. Sharp as a tack. Until Saturday. He just changed. He used to spend every day working on the Duesenberg, polishing it up, cleaning the engine. He has a full set of tools in the garage, all sorts of old Duesenberg manuals and spare parts. When they stole that car, it was like they killed him.”

“But—I can’t see an eighty-five-year-old man working as a chauffeur.”

Jayjay chewed her lower lip. “Well, in fact he only drove the car once or twice a year. The night of the 1929 Ball and maybe another occasion, maybe in a parade. I worry about him myself, I’ll admit. But he never so much as scratched a fender. He was like a man twenty years younger. Until now.”

From outside the Kleiner Mansion, Lindsey heard an ambulance whooper. The whooper stopped and there was a pounding on the mansion’s front door.