I had to think fast. I obviously didn’t want to get into any long explanations about the mystery woman, Jerome, or the Roberts case. I couldn’t tell him I was a lawyer, hiding behind a bush. He’d hit me with his stick.
“Aw, yeah. Well, you see, I’m an autograph collector and I heard Miss Mary Astor lives here. I have all the stars from The Maltese Falcon, but hers-Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, and, would you believe, I even have Elisha Cook, Jr.” I kept at it, chattering like a magpie on speed. “He’s the little guy, played Wilmer, you know-”
“You about done?”
“Bet you don’t know who played Effie Perrine. I do-”
“Okay, that’s enough, buster. That your car parked over there?” He pointed at my Corvette with his baton.
“Yeah.”
“Get in it, and get the hell outta here. I catch you snooping here again, it ain’t gonna be pretty.” He gave me a slight nudge with his billy club.
“Lee Patrick was Effie,” I said.
He raised his baton. “Beat it, wise guy.”
As I wheeled slowly by the red Mercedes on my way out of the parking lot, I glanced at the plate and memorized the number.
Edging along with the evening freeway traffic, driving back to Downey, I couldn’t get the mystery woman out of my mind. It wasn’t just her dynamite figure that I dwelled upon, although her looks were surely part it. My thoughts were mainly focused on one question: what was she doing at the movie retirement home? She approached me at an at the In-N-Out burger, a short distance from the prison, right after my first meeting with Roberts, warning me off the case. And now she shows up at the place where Jerome lives. I wondered, could there be a connection?
Did she go there to visit Francis Q. Jerome, my only lead to Sue Harvey?
CHAPTER 25
I tossed and turned throughout the night, dreaming strange dreams, all mixed up: insane nightmares. The mystery woman, Jerome, and Mrs. Hathaway would drift in and out in ghostly apparitions, warning me about some unknown doom waiting for me if I didn’t pack up and move back in with my folks on Lubec Street, where I lived during my high school years. The images told me to quit pretending I was a lawyer. That I should stay at home and become a better son to my parents. But no one heard my protest when I shouted that both my mom and dad were dead. Roberts appeared briefly, laughing madly like the Joker in the Batman comic books.
In the middle of the night, well past midnight, I awoke to a clanking sound coming from outside my window. I lay in the tangled sheets, groggy, sweaty, and thirsty. After a minute or so, I pulled the blanket back, swung my feet over the side, and sat there with my face buried in my hands, thinking about the dreams. Maybe I’m the Joker. Maybe my subconscious was saying I’d been a lunatic to get involved in this mess.
Dragging myself into the kitchen for a glass of water, I stopped when I heard the metallic clatter again. But this time the noise was followed by the rumble a truck makes as it shifts gears and drives away. Now I was curious. The racket seemed to be coming from the parking area behind my apartment building. I went back to the bedroom and peeked through the blinds covering the rear window. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, just the shadow of the carport lean-to in the quiet darkness of night. Whatever had caused the disturbance had disappeared.
In the morning as I gulped my first cup of black coffee before heading out the door for the office I mulled over the list of phone calls Vera had made from the motel room, particularly the ones to MGM. Jerome was a contract player with Metro at the time. It was more than possible that Vera saw the photo in the movie magazine, the one taken at Ciro’s with Sue Harvey and Jerome cuddling at a cocktail table. She knew about Sue’s connection with Roberts. Maybe that’s why she made the call. Maybe she wanted to talk to Jerome, let him know Roberts was in town. Maybe she had an angle, figured it might be worth a few bucks somehow.
But then again, it could’ve have been Roberts who’d made the calls. After all, they were staying in the same bungalow.
After being caught by the security guard at the movie retirement home, I decided to ask Rita to drive out to Woodland Hills and talk with Jerome. He liked her, and she would probably get more out of him than I would, anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to have Rita ask Jerome if he remembered talking to either Vera or Roberts back in the summer of ’45. She could also ask him if he had a recent visitor. Maybe a blonde in a mini-skirt. If so, would he tell Rita the woman’s name and what she had to do with him and Roberts?
I drained the coffee, took the last bite of a leftover pizza slice and thought about my day ahead. Later in the morning, after Sol arrived at his office, I’d ask him to run the mystery woman’s license plate; that might shed some light. But most of my morning would be spent untangling the mess at the bank. I also made a mental note to call Millie. I checked my wallet. No problem, I had enough cash to take her to Burger King, hopefully making up for my no-show yesterday.
I set the cup in the sink with the rest of the dirty dishes and left the apartment. When I got to the carport in the back I stood slack jawed, staring at the empty slot where my Corvette was supposed to be parked.
My car had been stolen.
I darted around to the front of the building and looked up and down the street. No car.
“Goddammit,” I shouted as I dashed back into my apartment and called the Downey Police Department.
After being transferred to burglary detail, I explained to the detective on the line what happened, giving him the make, model, and license number of my missing Vette. The cop put me on hold, but came back in about fifteen seconds.
“I got good news and bad news, Mr. O’Brien.”
“What are you talking about? Did you find my car? Was it damaged?”
“No, that’s the good news. It wasn’t stolen.”
“What do you mean, not stolen? It isn’t here. It’s gone!”
“Well, that’s the bad news. It’s been repossessed. They towed it away last night.”
“That can’t be! I made the payment. Maybe a little late, but I paid it.”
“The repo jockey dropped the docs off this morning at about three a.m. The papers indicate you broke the contract, late payments.”
Christ almighty. “Repossessed?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
My next call was to the finance company. The account rep told me my contract had been sold. Selling contracts was common practice in the industry, it seemed.
He stated that his firm had nothing to do with the repossession. He gave me the name and number of the outfit that now held my loan, Los Angeles Bank and Trust. I called them.
In order to have my car released, the bank employee explained, I’d have to pay off the loan balance completely and cough up a myriad of additional fees, the towing bill, cost of storage, substantial late charges, and so on.
Then he said, “But I think we can work something out. Give me a moment to check your file.” I heard the rustle of papers in the background. “According to my report the repossession order came directly from our corporate owners, in fact, straight from the Tower.” He paused for a moment. “Hmm… this is strange. There’s a notation. It says, ‘No compromise allowed.’ I wonder why.”
“If that’s the case I want to talk to someone at your corporate headquarters. What’s the phone number and who do I talk to?”
“Sorry, Mr. O’Brien, but they won’t discuss the matter with you.” He chuckled at the absurdity of my request.
“Why not?”
“Because our bank is owned by a private trust and they simply won’t talk to anyone. Especially someone who just had their car repossessed.”
“I’ve got to get it back! I’m a lawyer. I need my car. Just tell me who owns your bank. I’ll look up the damn number myself.”