Jeff Sherratt - Detour to Murder

“Who you calling?” I asked.

“I’m calling your phone numbers, changing the exchange letters for their number.” He held up a finger. “Sorry, wrong number,” he said into the phone. He dialed again, listened for a moment and then hung up. He kept dialing, listening, and hanging up until he had called all the numbers on the list. Finally he looked up at me. “Most of the numbers are no longer in service. But some are still the same.”

“How could that be?” I pointed to one of the phone numbers on the paper, a Crestview exchange number. What about that one, CR 5-4211? There’s no area code or anything.”

“That’s easy. The Crestview exchange used to be in Beverly Hills. The area code for Beverly Hills is now 310, same as here, so I just dialed the number, substituting 27 for the corresponding letters, CR.”

“Who answered?”

“It’s Saks Fifth Avenue, on Wilshire. Vera must’ve have been planning to pick up a new wardrobe. There’s also another Crestview number on your list, CR 6-5723, but no one answered.”

“Wouldn’t the telephone company have changed the phone numbers after thirty years?”

“Nope, not for businesses. Why would they?” He thought for a moment. “Remember that Glenn Miller song, recorded in the forties, ‘Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand’?”

“Vaguely.”

“The title of the song was the actual phone number for the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York, PE 6-5000. Before the war, Miller and his band used to perform in their ballroom. But after all these years the hotel has the same number now as they had then, Pennsylvania 6-5000. Numbers instead of letters, of course.”

“No kidding?”

“Don’t believe me? Dial the number, 212 area code.”

“I believe you.”

“Dial it.”

“Sol, I said I believe you.”

But when he handed me the phone I dialed 212-736-5000. The hotel desk clerk answered. I asked him how long they had that number. “Forever,” the guy said and hung up.

After I put the receiver down, I asked Sol about the other numbers on the list. “Okay, you’re right. But who else had Vera called?”

“As I said, most of them are no longer in service, people move and stuff. With a couple of numbers, the phone rang but no one answered. One belonged to a Chinese takeout, Chung’s Chop Suey,” Sol said. “Hey, I haven’t had Chinese in a while, maybe we should try to find a good Chinese joint, but not chop suey, Peking duck-”

“Sol, the phone numbers.”

Oh, yeah. Here’s something interesting.” He pointed to a couple of numbers on my list.

I leaned forward. “What?”

“Three calls were made to a VErmont number, Culver City. Do you know what’s in Culver City, Jimmy?”

“I don’t know. Used car lots, restaurants? Christ, what kind of question is that?”

“Take a guess. It’s big.”

“Sol, damn it, just tell me who she called.”

“She called the MGM movie studio. In fact, two of the calls were made to the private line of their security department.”

The next morning I wokeup early, unusual for a Saturday, and when I looked in the mirror I noticed that the bruise on my jaw had spread to my cheek. My shoulder was black and blue and still throbbed. I took three aspirins and washed them down with coffee. My tooth seemed okay, so I figured I’d head to Dolan’s Donuts for breakfast, have a couple of glazed and relax with the Times before driving to the LAPD to report the incident. I’d need the report for insurance purposes-though again I hoped that Mabel had paid the last premium.

But, I’d just file a simple hit and run report. The Buick had no license number, and with only a sketchy description of the goons the cops couldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t do anything, anyway. They’d just file the report and that would be that. So why spend half the morning in the Newton Street station answering questions that I couldn’t answer?

On the way back to Downey from the police station, I thought of something. I pulled off the freeway and called Rita’s apartment from a payphone.

“Hey, Rita, did you find anything out about Sue Harvey? She came to L.A. to break into the movies. Maybe she had something going at MGM.” I’d been thinking about Vera’s call to the studio.

“No, Jimmy, there’s no record of her ever being in a movie, but I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. I want to show you something important I found out about Sue.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you at the office in twenty minutes.”

“It’s almost lunchtime. Want me to bring you a snack? I can whip up a veggie plate.”

That’s all I needed, on top of everything else, a veggie plate. “Not hungry, Rita, but thanks anyway. Hey, I’d love a cup of your coffee, though.”

Rita stood fussing at the coffee bar when I walked in. She turned and her eyes grew large. Before she could comment about the bruise on my face I said, “It’s a long story. Don’t ask.”

She kept staring at me angrily, and I knew she wouldn’t drop it. So I told her how some hothead had rear-ended my Vette. Then when I got out of the car to talk it over he became angry and took a punch at me. The lie was so weak even I wouldn’t have bought it. But, I figured, if I told Rita the truth about the thugs she’d just worry, and what good would that do?

Finally, she shook her head slowly and turned back to Mr. Coffee. She filled a cup and handed it to me. “Let go sit at your desk. I have something to show you. Might help us find Sue Harvey.”

She picked up her briefcase and we walked into my office. I sat behind my desk and she sat in the client chair. She produced several sheets of papers, stapled at the corner.

“I spent most of yesterday at the Central Library downtown. I checked the 1945 Los Angeles phonebooks, of course, looking for a Sue Harvey. Lots of Harveys but no one named Sue. Then I went through a motion picture directory that listed everyone who had a cast member credit for movies made in 1945 and ’46; nothing there either.”

“Not even a bit part in a movie made by MGM?” I asked, thinking of the phone call again.

“Not that I could find. But L.A. is a movie town, so they have a large collection of motion picture memorabilia, including fan magazines that go way back to the twenties. I figured if Sue got her foot in the door at a studio, maybe the promotion department planted a story about her. It was a long shot but I thought I’d give it a try. They did that for starlets back in those days, even before the girls were actually in a film.”

I took a sip of coffee. “They still do it today. Testing the waters, I guess.”

“That’s right, and I looked through a dozen or so movie magazines from 1945, Silver Screen, Motion Picture , Movie Star Parade , and so on. But look what I found in the July issue of Photoplay.”

Rita leaned forward and handed me what appeared to a Xerox copy of a magazine article. A black and white photo took up a quarter of the first page.

As I glanced at the document, she said, “They wouldn’t let me take the magazine out of the library, but they have a copy center. The article’s not important. But take a look at the picture and read the caption.”

I stared at the photo of a man and a woman all decked out in evening clothes sitting at a table in Ciro’s, a high-end nightclub located on the Sunset Strip. Several glasses of partially consumed drinks, a small lamp with the nightclub’s logo on the shade, and two ashtrays rested on the linen-draped cocktail table.

The man pinched a cigarette holder between his two fingers, the smoke from the cigarette wafting in front of his long face. He had dark wavy hair plastered back with a razor sharp crease on the left side of his head, and he had long slender hands, almost effeminate. Though rather small, he had the look of a distinguished gentleman. I guessed his age to be in the mid-forties. Other than the cigarette holder, he didn’t look like a movie star. He looked more like a guy who made a movie star’s funeral arrangements. The woman sitting next to him had her hands folded politely on the table. The picture was taken in 1945 and the couple’s clothes reflected the period. The man wore a formal tux and the woman, in her twenties, had on a dark evening gown, low cut with spaghetti straps. Some kind of big flower was pinned in her long blonde hair.