“They hired Dr. Sandor Marzloff? Quack physician and phony self-proclaimed sorcerer to the stars?”
“Not so phony, it seems, Hix. He brought Alex back to life, after all,” the actress pointed out. “He told me once that he’d lived for several years in Haiti and learned—”
“You dated him, too?
“We had a few drinks a couple of times. Long before I met you, Hix.”
“Um,” commented Hix.
“I have the impression that Alex Stoner wasn’t the first defunct actor he reanimated,” she said. “In fact . . . Holy Christ!” She had risen partly off the sofa and was staring past the writer.
Slowly he turned. “Oops.”
Two large men, wearing pinstripe suits and with cloth sugar sacks over their heads had silently entered his living room and were pointing large revolvers at him and the young actress.
“You couldn’t possibly have tailed us here,” Hix told them. “I dodged any—”
“You forget that you’re one of the most famous hacks in Hollywood, Hix,” explained the larger of the intruders. “One of our people spotted you with this dame at the Carioca. We didn’t follow you, we just looked up your address in a phone book.”
“Ah, the price of fame. Now, I suggest you—”
That was as far as he got. The other hooded intruder had returned his gun to its shoulder holster, withdrawn a substantial-looking blackjack from a side pocket and lunged to bop Hix on the skull.
He heard Marlys scream as he was dropping down into oblivion.
Birds were twittering and chirping, in a cheerful Disney-like manner, to announce the advent of a new day. Morning sunshine was beaming in through the opening between Hix’s tacky yellow drapes. With an awakening groan, he sat up on his living room floor.
“Oy,” he observed, feeling suddenly dizzy. “One doesn’t usually experience a hangover after two glasses of ginger ale.”
Then he recalled that a hooded intruder had conked him on the coco last night. Slowly and carefully, he glanced around the small room. It didn’t appear to be in any worse shape than it had been prior to the intrusion.
“Marlys?” he said in a voice that vaguely resembled his own. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Marlys?”
Tottering some, Hix arose to a standing, albeit wobbly, position. He stumbled through the entire rest of his cottage. Outside of a scraggly stray orange cat who’d snuck in through the open kitchen window to explore the substantial collection of dirty dishes in the lopsided sink, there was nobody else in the entire place.
“Shoo,” he suggested half-heartedly as he returned to his living room. “I reckon I better call the police to report—”
His phone rang. It was residing on a sprawling stack of old copies of Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.
After swallowing and blinking a few times, he made his way to the telephone and snatched up the receiver. “Forest Lawn Annex.”
Marlys, somewhat breathlessly, inquired, “Hix, dear, are you okay?”
“I might ask the same of you.”
“I’m fine, perfectly fine,” said the starlet, inhaling and exhaling. “That whole business last night was simply a misunderstanding.”
“Those hoodlums really meant to coldcock somebody down the street from here?”
“No, silly. See, they weren’t hoodlums at all. But a couple of Paramount Pictures executives.”
“Oh, so? Is that the current style for Paramount execs? Flour sacks over their heads?”
“Actually those were sugar sacks.”
“Even so,” he said. “What in the hell is going on, kiddo?”
Taking another deep breath, the young actress told him, “See, dear, they got the foolish idea that you had kidnapped me. What happened was a sort of rescue operation.”
“Your value to Paramount has apparently increased a lot since yesterday.”
“They reconsidered my proposition and decided it was in the best interests of the studio to comply,” she said. “It’s very exciting.”
“Sounds like.”
“Oh, and I wanted to let you know, dear, that I won’t be able to go with you to that Korngold concert at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday.”
“Are they shipping you off to Guatemala?”
“No, just to Arizona for a few weeks. They’re picking me up at noon,” she said. “I’m going on location. Paramount wants me to play the dance hall singer in the new Randolph Scott Western. It’s a real step up for my career. I get shot in the final reel.”
“A painful place to be shot,” he said. “Now explain what the devil is going on?”
“It turns out that quite a few people at Paramount were unhappy that I was unhappy. So they—”
“I bet you’re going to have to forget all about Alex Stoner and Dr. Marzloff.”
“Not exactly forget, just simply keep mum about what I may or may not know,” Marlys explained. “Oh, and you don’t have to worry, Hix. I convinced everybody at the studio last night that—”
“That’s where they dragged you?”
“I went voluntarily once I realized what was up. This is the first time I was at a meeting with so many important movie people,” she said, still sounding a bit breathless. “As I was explaining, dear, I convinced them that you and I were simply shacking up for a one-night stand. I never mentioned anything about Dr. Marzloff or poor Alex to you.”
“There goes my reputation for celibacy.”
“At least you won’t get conked on the noggin anymore . . . Gosh, I just looked at the clock, Hix. I really have to finish packing.”
“Well, it’s been swell having this little chat,” he assured the actress. “It’s sure taken a load off my mind.”
“One other thing,” she cautioned. “I don’t think it’d be a wise idea for you to talk to anybody about zombies for a while.”
“The word zombies will never cross my lips again,” he promised. “Bon voyage.”
“Same to you, darling.” She hung up.
Hix cradled the phone, picked up the receiver again, and made a series of calls.
A few minutes past two that afternoon, Hix was seated at one of the huge oaken tables in the vast dining hall of Camelot. He was finishing up the second half of the baloney on rye sandwich he’d found in his box lunch and conversing with the two former chorus girls who were working as extras in The Holy Grail. Like the writer, they were dressed as Hollywood’s idea of Middle Ages peasant folk.
“I hear,” Hix said, setting aside the remnants of his sandwich, “that Alex Stoner has been feeling poorly of late, Exine.”
“You can say that again, sweetie,” she replied as she scratched at her bosom through the coarse gray material of her tunic. “Yesterday they had to do thirty-seven takes of the scene where he’s supposed to be knighting Ray Milland. He kept dropping his goddamn sword.”
“Only thirty-three takes,” corrected the redheaded peasant girl on Hix’s left. “By the way, Hix honey, how come you’re working as an extra on this flicker?”
“I’m really not an extra, Mindy,” he explained, lying. “I’m doing research for an A-budget Hollywood murder mystery George Marshall wants me to script for Alan Ladd.”
Exine observed, yet again scratching her bosom, “That’s good news. It’s about time you quit writing those crappy Mr. Woo programmers.”
“Actually, the Mr. Woo films are considered by many an astute and discriminating critic to be stellar examples of the mystery cinema at its absolute best.”
“C’mon, where the hell would an astute and discriminating critic find a job in this pesthole of a town?” asked Mindy, who was now scratching her bosom, too. “Geez, everybody in the Middle Ages must’ve spent most of their time scratching their boobs.”