Stuart Kaminsky - Bullet for a Star

“Where’s the print the blackmailers sent your actor?”

“I destroyed it immediately,” Adelman barked. “I didn’t want someone else to get it and make more copies.”

“All right,” I said standing. “Answer three questions, and you have a delivery man.”

“Good,” Adelman sighed, turning to face me. “The answer to your first question is $200 now and the same when you hand me the negative and print. Now your second question.”

“My second and third,” I said holding up two fingers. “What’s in the picture, and who’s the actor? I’m going to know both answers when I make the trade, and you want to be sure I know what I’m dealing for.”

The little man hesitated, touched his hair to be sure it was still there and threw up his hands.

“It’s a picture of a man and a girl, a very, very young girl.” He handed me the envelope and counted $200 from his own wallet. I took the cash and pocketed it.

“You make the exchange at this address in Los Angeles,” he whispered. “You take the envelope there at two in the morning.” He scribbled on a sheet of paper and handed it to me. It was a middle class area off Figueroa near the University of Southern California. “You go to the door, make the exchange and that’s all.”

“You checked the house?” I asked.

“It’s empty, for sale.”

“O.K.,” I said, thinking that I had plenty of time to fix my piston, get a reasonable meal, listen to the radio and get some sleep before the delivery. “Now for the other question I asked.”

Adelman nodded and moved to the door. I caught him glancing at the portrait of the Warner boys and followed him out and past Esther the reader. This time he didn’t take my arm. I caught up with him as he burst through the door of the building. Wet patches of sweat immediately wilted his collar.

We cut through a sound stage where the cast and crew of what looked like a football movie were taking a break. Pat O’Brien, wearing a Notre Dame sweatshirt and a baseball cap, was telling a joke in a heavy, put-on Irish accent. He paused to wave at Sid, who dashed through a door and hurried to another building.

The halls of this small building were empty. I knew the building and the name on the door where Sid stopped, looked up at me, raised an eyebrow and knocked. A male voice answered cheerfully, “Come right in. It’s never locked.”

We stepped into a combination dressing room and den and were greeted by the lone occupant, who advanced on us. He was a tall man, easily six foot two, wearing a Union cavalry uniform and carrying a drink of clear liquid in his left hand.

“Sidney,” he said with genuine affection, “always good to see you.”

Sid glumly shook the extended hand of the man towering over him. The man turned to me with a warm smile, a touch of curiosity and familiar, even, white teeth. He shook my hand firmly and appeared every bit as confident and likable as he did in his movies.

“This is Toby Peters,” said Sid, collapsing into a chair. “He’s going to make that transaction for us. Toby, Errol Flynn.”

“Mr. Peters,” Flynn began, guiding me to a soft brown sofa, “may I call you Toby?”

“Sure,” I said, taking a seat. He sat next to me.

“A rather minor character in my first picture at this studio …” Flynn began.

“ The Case of the Curious Bride ,” Adelman’s voice rose wearily from the chair in which he was slumped but couldn’t be seen, “and you were a rather minor character in it.”

“True,” continued Flynn with a grin. “This minor character, at a crucial moment in the plot, shouted, ‘this is a frame up.’ Please imagine, Toby, that I am shouting those words. Mind you, I am not above the sort of thing implied in the photograph. As a matter of fact, I strongly advocate it, but it is illegal.”

“And very bad publicity,” came the voice of Adelman. I looked at Flynn, who sighed, took a drink of the clear liquid and added, “quite right.”

“I am not a citizen,” he continued, “and it would be a rather simple matter to ask me to leave the country, which would displease me, the studio and, I modestly hope, a great many moviegoers. Can I get you a drink? Vodka?” He held up his glass. I said no, and he went on.

“My past is not entirely sans blemish or incident. When I was a boy in Australia, I ran with a gang of razor robbers, cutthroats. When they murdered a friend, I headed for New Guinea to seek my fortune. Instead I spent some time in jail for assaulting an unsavory Chinese and, a short time later, was within inches of losing my life, when I was put on trial for killing a headhunter who had attacked me.”

It was fascinating, but I wondered why he was telling me all this.

“I’m telling you all this,” he answered, reading my mind, “because I want you to know that if I did spend some time with the young lady …”

“Very young lady,” came Adelman’s voice.

“All right,” Flynn smiled, lifting his hands in mock defeat, “very young lady, I would gallantly admit it. I have known very young ladies both in and out of the jungle, and I do not forget any of them. I have never seen the young lady in that photograph I saw this afternoon. However, Sidney has convinced me that, under the circumstances, we should pay.”

There was a shuffle in Sidney’s chair, and he rose to his full five feet and a few inches as he faced us sourly.

“And the circumstances,” he said, “include the fact that you are in the middle of some very delicate divorce proceedings.”

Flynn rose, put his drink down and looked at his face in a mirror on the wall. Then he looked at my reflection over his shoulder looking at him.

“You know,” he said turning to me, “a few weeks ago I was a pirate. Today I’m in the middle of a Western. This business can be very confusing.” He walked over to me, and I stood up. He put an arm around my shoulder.

“Toby,” he said softly, “I am thirty years old and getting very wealthy. I am a product, a voice, a face, a body. I make three or four pictures a year to get as much out of that product as possible before it wears out. What I would dearly like to do is take your place for that assignation and break the blackmailer’s goddamn neck, but I’m too big an investment.”

He guided me toward the door, and Sid walked after us shaking his head.

“Why don’t I forget the money and issue a challenge to the guy to meet you in Griffith Park with swords at dawn,” I grunted.

It wasn’t much of a joke, but Flynn leaned back in his blue uniform, teeth showing, hands on hips, just like in The Adventures of Robin Hood, and laughed loudly. It got me. For a second I was a ten year old at a matinee instead of a shabby, part-time bodyguard in his forties with a mashed nose.

“I like you, Toby,” said Flynn shaking my hand again, “and I trust you.”

“I’ll do what has to be done, Mr. Flynn,” I said, and I meant it.

“Call me Errol or Princey.”

Sid and I went into the hall.

“Princey?” I asked looking at Sid.

Adelman shrugged. “He picked it up from The Prince and the Pauper . He likes it, and he wasn’t even the fucking prince.”

“I’ll be in my office all night. You call me as soon as you have the negative and the picture and bring them here immediately.”

“Right,” I said looking at a well-built redhead who hurried by, in bizarre costume, reading a script.

Adelman went back to his office, and I retrieved my Buick from Anatole Litvak’s parking space. The piston sounded worse as I backed out. My mind was racing ahead, and I almost hit the redhead. Big feathers drapped over her behind bounced as she jumped out of the way and screamed at me.