Stuart Kaminsky: Bullet for a Star

“Look,” I countered, sitting heavily in a chair on the saloon set while Flynn retrieved his fallen hat, “I admire your courage, but it’s not needed right now. I don’t know what’s happening, but I’d like to have a few days to work on it. Someone’s trying to kill you and drop Cunningham’s murder in my lap.”

“Toby,” said Flynn, clasping my shoulder, “I don’t like hiding.”

“Errol, it will keep you alive. Did you make that list for me, the list of people who knew the address where I went this morning?”

Adelman fished through his pockets and came up with a crumpled sheet of paper. There were three names on it.

“Sid, I and those three were having lunch together when the envelope arrived,” Flynn explained. “We had no idea what it was all about at first, and by the time it dawned on us, everyone at the table had seen the picture and the note with the address and meeting time. They all promised to forget it and Sid destroyed the picture.”

The list of names was:

Donald Siegel

Harry Beaumont

Peter Lorre

“O.K. Errol, now please go find a hotel for two days. Don’t tell anyone where you are. No one, not me, not Sid, not your best friend. Call Sid this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon. He’ll keep you informed. I know you don’t like it, but believe me, it’s the right thing.”

“All right. I believe you,” he said, touching his fingers to his forehead in a gesture of farewell. The opportunity for a dramatic exit probably turned the trick. “I’ll get in my car at once and go out the back gate.”

When Flynn left, I turned to Adelman.

“Sid, I have about $175 left from what you gave me. That should be enough, but …”

“Not another penny until you deliver the negative and print,” he said, “or proof that they are destroyed.” Scared to death and confused, he did not forget a $200 business deal.

“All right. I want to get started on this list right away. Who is this first guy, Siegel?”

Sid told me he was a kid in his twenties who had a reputation for montage and was getting into second unit directing.

“What’s the kid like?”

Sid shrugged. “Cocky. Too much confidence, too many practical jokes, but sharp.”

“Where do I find him?”

“That’s him.” He pointed at the young man who had just directed Flynn’s punching bit.

“Did you remember who recommended Cunningham to you?”

He didn’t, but said he would keep thinking. As he walked away, I turned to find Siegel. He was no longer in sight. I went into the darkness behind the saloon set and found the cameraman examining the camera for bullet holes. He said his name was Bob Burks and that Siegel was in the next building. I thanked him and found my way through a door and into the next building, a huge sound stage set up to look like a gymnasium, complete with bleachers.

There were only two people on the set. They were in a far corner playing ping pong. One of the people was Siegel wearing a blue tee shirt. The clopping of the ball echoed through the building.

As I approached I could see that he held his tongue in the corner of his mouth and was concentrating on playing. The other man, who looked like a lanky cowboy, was methodically running up points.

“Don Siegel?” I said.

He failed to return a moderately difficult serve and shook his head in disgust.

He paused to tell me that this was a set for the Pat O’Brien movie about Knute Rockne. He also asked me if the shooting had been a joke. While he was talking, he managed to return an easy serve but lost the point.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

“Gee,” he answered sincerely, “I’d like to, but I only have a ten minute break, and I’m playing Jim for a buck a point. I’d like to get some of my money back before we go back to work.”

Jim was clearly one of the slowest ping pong players in North America, and I was in a hurry. I had also won a table tennis trophy when I was a kid in Glendale.

“Look,” I said, “I’ll give you a couple of quick games for a buck a point, and then we talk for five minutes. O.K?”

He pursed his lips and reluctantly raised his eyebrows in agreement. Jim handed me the paddle. We played quietly.

There I was with a head full of stitches, my gun missing, trying to keep out of jail and protect Errol Flynn from a killer, and I was playing ping pong. Siegel managed to stay in the game with some lucky shots and actually beat me 21 to 19. But I had the feel of the paddle back.

“Let’s play the last game for two bucks a point,” I suggested.

“Whatever you say,” said Siegel.

The game lasted a little over two minutes. He beat me 21 to 1. He only gave me the single point to keep the game from being an 11 to 0 shutout. After that one point, the ball didn’t slow down enough for me to see it or hit it.

Jim the cowboy grinned, and Siegel looked at me sheepishly. I reached for my wallet to dig out forty bucks, but Siegel held up his hand.

“No,” he said coming around the table and shaking my hand. “I was just keeping in practice. I haven’t pulled a good table tennis hustle since I came to California five years ago. Let’s talk.”

Jim waved goodby. Siegel and I wandered over to the wooden bleachers and sat down.

“First, tell me where you were at two this morning.”

“A party,” he said with an amused grin. “Plenty of witnesses. You want some names?”

“No,” I said. Since Siegel had been in sight when Flynn was shot at, he wasn’t really a suspect.

“You were at lunch the other day when Flynn got a package.”

Siegel looked at me expressionlessly.

“I’m working for Flynn,” I explained, “investigating the attempted blackmail. You got a good look at the picture?”

“I saw the picture,” he said.

“What did you think about it?”

“Well,” said Siegel slowly, “I work a lot with stills. If someone had asked me, which they did not, I would have said it was probably a phoney. I’d like to see the negative, but even without it there were give-aways. Flynn and the girl were both looking toward the camera. It was too posed. And the man’s body was wrong, out of proportion. I’d say the body was three or four inches shorter than Errol’s.”

I looked at the young man with new respect.

“Did you recognize the girl in the picture?”

He said he didn’t, and I asked him if he remembered how the others had reacted.

“Peter, that’s Peter Lorre, seemed interested, but nothing special. Flynn was amused and Adelman was upset.”

“Beaumont?” I asked.

Siegel looked at me for a long time, pursed his lips thoughtfully, and then spoke carefully.

“He’s a decent actor, a little showy, but pretty good. He did a reasonable job of hiding it, but he was shaken by the picture, badly shaken. Part of my business is watching actors.”

“You’d make a hell of a detective,” I said pulling out my notebook.

“If Jack Warner doesn’t give me a picture to direct in a few years, maybe I’ll look you up. How’s the pay?”

“Rotten.”

“Well, you can’t have everything. I really do have to get back now. I’ve got a tough sequence with Walter Huston and I only get him for an hour. Stay out of table tennis games with strangers.”

I went to Adelman’s office. He had gone home to Westwood to get some sleep, but Esther put aside her reading long enough to dig out some information: Harry Beaumont had a Beverly Hills address on Dayton Way and a Crestview telephone number. I wrote them both on the back of an old business card given to me by a taxidermist who had needed my face to frighten a neighbor with a bad temper.

Beverly Hills was a wealthy suburb long before 1940. I felt out of place as I eased my Buick past well-tanned men and women in white on their way to tennis matches or golf courses. The cars were gigantic, new, or both. Everything looked bright and prosperous but me.