Stuart Kaminsky - Murder on a Yellow Brick Road

My hillbilly neighbors had stopped feuding, and the day was clear. There wasn’t enough time to get my windows fixed, so I left them rolled down and headed for the office of Barney Grundy, the photographer who had witnessed the fight between the two midgets at Metro the morning before. I got to the corner of Melrose and Highland without anyone trying to kill me and found a parking spot a block from where I was going.

Grundy’s address was on a doorway between an auto parts store and a travel bureau. His place was up the stairs behind a door markedB. NIMBLE GRUNDY, PICTURES STILL AND MOVING. The lettering was in pink against a yellow square. I knocked, prepared for almost anything, but I wasn’t prepared for what opened the door. He was about six-foot-three, with bleached, yellow hair that would have been called white on an older man. He wore a blue tee shirt and black slacks, and was drying his hands with a small towel. He was deeply tanned and remarkable. He looked like a caricature of Tarzan. His muscles were enormous and bulging with veins. His tee shirt could hardly contain him, which was probably why he wore it. I thought of asking if there was a man inside the mannikin before me, but I wasn’t sure if he would take it as a joke, and I didn’t want to get started on the wrong foot.

“Barney Grundy?” I asked.

He put out his hand and grinned. It was an infectious boyish grin, and his grasp was firm but not bone-breaking. I had a feeling that he was holding back out of politeness. A second look told me he wasn’t as young as he first appeared. I would have taken him for mid-twenties with a first look. I added ten years to the estimate on second look.

“You must be Peters,” he said, standing back to let me in. “Mr. Hoff told me you might want to talk. Come on in.”

I came on in. There were photographs on the wall in the wide room. The wall was filled with them. Most of them were women, big prints, framed and mounted. I recognized a few of the women as movie stars and almost stars. There was no carpet on the finely polished wooden floor, and the furniture was minimal. The room was clean and bright. Three stairs led up to another level that looked like a combination living room/bedroom, and kitchen. There were a couple of doors beyond it where I guessed he did his work.

“Hey, listen,” Grundy said in a soft tenor. “I was on the way out to get some breakfast. You want to come with me?”

I said yes, and he put his towel carefully over a chair and led the way out.

“You’re in good shape,” I said as we went down the stairs.

“I work out every day for an hour or two with weights in a place down in Santa Monica,” he explained, leading the way out. “There are about a dozen of us. It’s a kind of competition to see who can develop the best muscle tone.”

We walked down Melrose to LaBrea and I asked, “Don’t you get musclebound?”

“No,” he grinned. “That’s something made up by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. I can run a six minute mile, touch my nose with my big toe, and please ladies. You look like you’re in fair shape yourself.”

“Y.M.C.A.,” I said. “I run a little and play handball.”

I didn’t add that my total miles per week had dropped to five and my handball partner was a sixty-year-old doctor who was well ahead of me in games, but a damn good player.

Grundy led me into a coffee shop on La Brea, and we sat in a booth. The waitress recognized him, and he flashed her a smile. She was an overworked, washedout creature with frizzy hair. The smile from Grundy made her day.

We ordered, and I asked, “Why do you do it?”

“Body build?” he said, “Compensation in a way, Mr. Peters. It started when I realized that I wasn’t going to make it as a camera operator or cinematographer with a studio. That was what I wanted. I was born a few miles from here. I’ve passed those studios all my life. I wanted to be behind a camera, even prepared by becoming a still photographer, taking movie courses. But it never happened. I never got the break. I guess I started the weights when I knew it wasn’t going to happen. No one has said I’m not good enough. Maybe I’m just the right guy in the wrong place.”

“So,” I continued, “you make up for it by doing stills for studios when you can get the work and building your body.”

“That’s about it,” he agreed, welcoming his plate of four fried eggs and half pound of bacon from the waitress who smiled at him while she served. She had forgotten my coffee, but went back for it quickly.

“Most of my work is baby pictures and some industrial stuff,” he explained between bites. “Once in a while I get to do spillover work for a studio or a small industrial movie, nothing much; but I live cheap and do all right.”

He was telling me more about himself than I needed to know, but I’ve run into a lot of people like that. They’ll give you their life stories and a cup of Hill’s Brothers if you’ll just sit and listen. I’m a good listener. It may be the thing I’m best at.

“About yesterday, the morning?” I asked.

“Right,” he said, finishing a glass of milk in a long gulp. “I was in the studio to deliver some pictures I’d taken and walked past these two midgets arguing.”

“How close were you?” I asked. The coffee was bitter, but I kept drinking.

“About ten feet,” he said. “Walked right past them. I told the cops. I heard them arguing, and one of them had an accent, a German accent. The other one, the one in the soldier suit, called him ‘Gunther.’ That’s all I heard.”

“Could you identify either of the midgets again?” I tried.

“No,” he said, finishing his toast and looking around for something else to eat. I thought he’d give the plate a try, but instead he motioned to the waitress who knew what he wanted and brought more milk, toast and jam. “Both the little guys were wearing makeup and costumes, and I didn’t really look at them. I was tempted to break them up, but they weren’t actually fighting and it was none of my business.”

“Weren’t you surprised to see them in Oz costumes?”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I know they still do occasional publicity shots with the midgets. I’ve even taken a few myself for Mr. Hoff. The midgets get a day’s fee for posing and so do I for a few quick prints.”

“Did you see anyone else when you passed the arguing midgets?” I’d finished my coffee and had a refill before I could stop the waitress, who was happy for any excuse to come back to our booth and gawk at Grundy.

“No, no one else was in sight,” he said. His fresh order of toast was gone and he wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“Last question,” I said reaching in my pocket for money. “What time did this happen?”

“A little after eight, maybe a quarter after at the latest. Hey, I’ll take the check.”

He reached for the check but I pulled it out of his reach. He had reached fast. He may have had muscles like blocks of wood, but they didn’t slow him down.

‘I’m on an expense account,” I explained. “Breakfast is on Louis B. Mayer.”

He knew how to accept a free breakfast graciously. I paid the moonstruck waitress and walked back down Melrose with Grundy.

“My car’s down here,” I said. We shook hands. “If there’s anything else I can do, let me know,” he said. “And if you ever need any photo work in your business, here’s my card. I’ll work cheap.”

The card read exactly like his door: B. NIMBLEGRUNDY, PICTURES STILL AND MOVING. It also had his address. I thanked him and watched him jog toward his office-home.

It was Saturday and Grundy looked like a man who owned Saturdays. The day wasn’t quite mine, though. Either Grundy was lying, which wasn’t likely, or the midget who killed Cash had faked a German accent. In which case, why had Cash called him “Gunter”? The other possibility was that Gunther was guilty. Or maybe Gunther had fought with Cash but not killed him. In which case he had simply lied to me, for which I couldn’t much blame him.