“So, tell me exactly what—”
“Nope, it’s too darn risky to say any more from where I am right now. Meet me at the Carioca Room. Bye, darling.” She ended the call.
Cradling the receiver, he stood up and lifted his umber-colored sport coat off the eagle-topped coat rack to the left of his desk. As he shrugged his way into it, frazzled hair vibrating, he made his way to the door. “If I crack a zombie case,” he said, grabbing the dented doorknob, “I can get some terrific publicity for I Waltzed with a Zombie.”
The green and scarlet parrot behind the long teakwood bar was alive. He swung on his gilded perch in his gilded cage, now and then squawking out what were probably Brazilian curses. The other parrots, the ones perched high in the fake banana palms that decorated the dim-lit Carioca Room, were stuffed.
Arriving about ten minutes after five, Hix stopped near the bar and scanned the surrounding South American gloom.
“Still busily turning out crap, Hix?” asked an overweight writer who was occupying a nearby stool.
“I’ve recently been promoted to writing tripe, Arnie.” Eyes narrowed, he looked again at the surrounding tables. There was no sign of Marlys.
After swallowing the rest of his Manhattan and plucking the cherry from the bottom of the glass, Arnie said, “Buy you a drink, old buddy?”
“I’m meeting somebody.”
“Anybody I know?” he inquired, biting the cherry.
“I’m hoping for Carmen Miranda,” Hix answered. “My doctor advised me to get more fruit in my diet. I figure if I eat her hat, I’ll—”
“Marafona,” cried the parrot, agitating his golden cage. “Marafona.”
Marlys Regal, smiling very faintly, had just entered the cocktail lounge. She spotted Hix, gave him a minimalist wave before crossing to an empty table next to an almost believable palm tree. Before sitting down, she looked back toward the doorway. She was a very pretty young woman in her early twenties, slender and, at the moment, a redhead.
Arnie nodded. “Cute, but a little too skinny for my tastes,” he observed. “And obviously too good for you.”
“She’s lowered her standards because of wartime shortages.” Hix, his crinkly hair fluttering, went trotting over to the actress. En route he passed out greetings to some of the other customers. “Hi, Chester, you were great in the new Boston Blackie flicker.”
“That crap,” said the actor.
“Tripe,” corrected Hix. “Howdy, Eleanor, loved you in Ship Ahoy.”
“Do I know you?”
As he seated himself opposite Marlys, the young actress asked, “Did you notice anybody watching me as I came in, Hix?”
“Sure, each and every guy, with the exception of Grady Sutton. As I’ve oft told you, kiddo, you’re very presentable.”
“No, seriously. I’m pretty sure I’m being watched.”
He reached across, put his hand over hers. “Okay, so what’s going on wrong?”
“Well, I know something and I figured maybe Paramount wouldn’t want it known. All I really was after was a chance at a good part, you know.”
“Are we talking blackmail?”
“I call it goosing my darn career. Thing is, I’m not sure how they took my proposition and, past couple days, Hix, I have this really spooky feeling they’ve got a watch on me.”
“The time has come, Marlys, for a few more details.”
She inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly. “Now this all started before I met you at the Rathbones’ party in April, Hix, so don’t get jealous or hit the ceiling. You see—”
“What’ll you folks have?” asked the buxom blond waitress who materialized out of the shadows.
The red-haired actress said quietly, “I’d like bourbon and water.”
“Plain ginger ale,” said Hix.
Nodding, the waitress departed.
Resting both elbows on the tropical-patterned tablecloth, Hix suggested, “Get back to your story.”
“Well, before I met you I dated other people.”
“Sure. I’ve been known to do the same.”
“Well, some four months ago I was seeing Alex Stoner and—”
“Stoner? The grand old man of the silver screen? Ain’t he a bit old for you?”
“He was only fifty-six.”
Hix straightened. “Was? According to Louella, Hedda, and Johnny Whistler, the old boy is still above the ground. Fact is, he’s over at your very own Paramount about two-thirds of the way through starring in their big budget historical fillum of the year, The Holy Grail. He’s cast as King Arthur.”
She took another slow breath in and out. “Alex died early in March,” she said in a low voice. “Three weeks into The Holy Grail.”
“So how come he’s still acting in the darn film?”
“They brought him back to life,” she replied.
It was a little over an hour later that Hix got knocked cold by a conk on the head.
He and Marlys had retreated to the small living room of the small cottage that Hix was renting on the ocean side of Santa Monica. The starlet had become convinced that it wasn’t safe to keep talking at a public place like the Carioca.
Pacing the venerable flowered carpet he’d acquired at a rummage sale over in Altadena last fall, Hix was going over what details the young actress had thus far provided. “So you were sleeping with this old coot when he shuffled off?”
Marlys was sitting on the lime-green sofa. “Yes, I woke up at seven in the morning and the poor guy was stone cold dead next to me,” she said. “That was really unpleasant.”
“Tell me some more about what you did next, kid.”
“I was alone at his place in Bel Air. Alex had given his two servants a few days off,” she said. “I was darn certain he had kicked off, so there sure wasn’t any reason to call an ambulance.”
Hix sat on the wobbly arm of his only armchair. “And what about the cops?”
“Spending a night in bed with a dead major movie star doesn’t give you the kind of publicity I need,” she answered. “Besides which, Alex was already partway through shooting the King Arthur flick and I figured Paramount might not care to have his dying made public right away.”
“How come you phoned this guy Wally Needham?”
She looked toward the draped window, frowning. “Did you hear something outside?”
“Relax, kiddo. Nobody followed us here from the Carioca,” he assured her. “Having penned a bunch of Mr. Woo pictures, not to mention three Dr. Crimebuster epics, I know a little bit about how to avoid being tailed.”
Sighing, Marlys continued. “Well, I first met Wally at Schwab’s when I stopped in for a cup of coffee one afternoon a few months ago.”
“Another of your beaus?”
“We were friends, sure. It doesn’t hurt to have a friend who works in publicity at Paramount Pictures.”
“No, that could sure be darn helpful to anybody’s career.” He stood, crossed to the lemon-yellow drapes, and pulled them a few inches open to look out into the approaching twilight. “Nobody around. By the way, I’m not crystal clear on how I can help you rise in show biz.”
“C’mon, Hix,” she told him. “I’m simply fond of you.”
“Well sir, that’s a relief.” He turned his back to the window. “Explain to me a bit more about what this publicity lad did.”
“Well, he got to Alex’s mansion less than an hour after I telephoned him,” she said. “After making certain Alex was dead, Wally asked me if I’d like to sign a movie contract with Paramount.”
“Provided you kept your mouth shut about Alex Stoner being dead.”
She nodded. “Yes, I couldn’t very well pass up an opportunity like that to graduate out of Poverty Row quickies,” she replied. “Then Wally went into Alex’s office and phoned various people, higher-ups at the studio. I heard him tell somebody, ‘Dr. Marzloff can do it. We’ll use him.’ ”