Stuart Kaminsky - Murder on a Yellow Brick Road

I hung up. Then I talked to the long distance operator and asked her to connect me to the William Randolph Hearst Ranch in San Simeon. I didn’t have the number. I began to think I’d have to track down Hoff and get the number when I was connected to someone. It was a man who said, “Can I help you?”

I said he could if this was Bill Hearst’s place, but I didn’t say Bill and I didn’t say place. I told him Clark Gable was expecting a call from me. He told me to wait, and there was some buzzing and clicking on the line. This time a woman’s voice came on, and I repeated my message.

She said Mr. Gable and some other guests were on a picnic and wouldn’t be back for three or four hours. I asked if someone could bring him a message and she said he was about ten miles away. Then she told me to wait. I waited, considering my next move. In a few minutes she came on.

“Mr. Gable left a message for you,” she said. “If it’s not inconvenient, you can come up here and see him this evening or call him tonight.”

For a few good reasons, I decided to take the trip to San Simeon. First, I liked to be face to face with someone I’m talking to on a case. A facial expression or a move of the body might lead me somewhere. In addition, telephones demand action and business and hate silence. They don’t give you much time to think, and I needed time to think. Going to San Simeon would give me some time and I had no other leads to follow. Getting out of town would also put distance between me and the guy who took the shots at me.

I drove off the lot, waving to Buck as I left, and checked my watch. It was almost noon. I beat the crowd to the Gotham Cafe on Hollywood and had an order of their special potato pancakes and sour cream to fortify myself for the trip. Then I was on my way.

In half an hour with the pistons churning, I shot past Calabassas to the coast highway, and in a few minutes I was on El Camino Real, the Royal Highway. According to my Glendale high school days, the road along the ocean that stretched from San Diego to San Francisco was staked out in the 1780s or so by the Spanish. The Spanish were afraid the French or Russians would claim the land along the coast first. France had picked up a big chunk of land between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. Russia was coming south across the Berring Sea and down the coast from what would eventually be Alaska.

The first big push to stake out the royal road stopped at what became Los Angeles. The whole point of the road was to set up a link between the Franciscan missions in California. The last long trek between Los Angeles and Monterey was done by a force of sixty-seven men under a Captain Portola and a Franciscan priest named Father Crespi.

I drove over the road at about 55 or 60, which was all out for the Buick, and wondered what Crespi and Portola would have thought about the gas stations, beaneries, writing on the rocks, and garbage. The missions were now tourist stops and the road paved with good intentions.

A long, dark cloud going as far as I could see along the coast and into the horizon kept me company for over 100 miles.

The car radio kept me company, too. I heard the news two or three times. The presidential campaign was over and everyone thought Willkie had taken the lead. Roosevelt said he was running because he could keep us out of the war. A writer named H. G. Wells had given a talk at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. He wanted Americans to support Britain’s war effort against the Germans.

From 1:30 to 3:30 in the afternoon I watched the scenery and listened to the Radio Parade for Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt, Joseph P. Kennedy, Henry Fonda, Groucho Marx, Walter Huston, Katherine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, and Humphrey Bogart all told me why I should vote for F.D.R. Since I knew Bogart slightly, I was impressed, but I didn’t think I was even registered to vote. I couldn’t remember the last time I had voted. I was one hell of a good citizen.

I also found out that U.C.L.A. had been beaten by Stanford 20 to 14, and Minnesota had beaten North-western University 13 to 12. I didn’t even know where Northwestern was.

It was dark when I hit San Simeon. I didn’t see anything that looked like a big ranch or a road to it. I stopped at a gas station, filled up the Buick, and had a Pepsi. The guy at the station gave me directions to the Hearst place. I thanked him, took a bag of potato chips, and munched as I made my way, slowly looking for landmarks.

I pulled into what I thought was the right road, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a ranch, just a little white house a few hundred yards up the road. A man stepped out of the little white house and held up his hand. He looked serious but not unfriendly. I could see another man through the window of the house watching me. Both men wore dark suits and black ties.

The man in the road walked over to the window of my car. I didn’t have to roll down the window to talk because they were already down. I had driven drafty to hide the bullet holes. I could see that the guy, who looked something like a serious version of Buck Rogers, didn’t think much of my transportation. I gave him a smile and offered him some potato chips. When he leaned over I could see that he was armed.

“Your name, sir?” he said politely.

“Toby Peters,” I answered. He hadn’t taken the chips so I put them back next to me.

He shouted to the other man in the house, giving my name, and the other guy shouted that I was expected.

I could see that the guy standing next to my car couldn’t understand my invitation but he hid it well.

“O.K., sir, if you’ll just follow this road slowly, you’ll come to a place to park right near the big house,” he said, pointing down the road.

“I don’t see any house,” I said.

“It’s about five miles,” he explained.

“You mean Hearst owns all this?” I asked.

“Just about as far as the eye can see in any direction on a clear day from the house. And the house is a few hundred feet up.”

I was impressed.

“Now, sir,” he went on, repeating something he had clearly gone through many times, “drive slowly with your lights on and give the right of way to any animals you meet.”

“Animals?”

“Mr. Hearst has many wild animals on the property, including buffalo and zebras. The zebras are especially curious.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said. I adjusted my tie and brushed potato chip crumbs from my lapels.

“One more thing,” he added. “Please don’t pick the fruit. You’ll find orange and apple trees near the house. They are never eaten.”

I said I wouldn’t eat the trees or kill the gorillas, and he held out his hand. It seemed silly to tip or shake, so I waited for an explanation.

“The hardware,” he said.

I handed him the. 38.

“We’ll give it back when you leave. Be careful on the road. It twists upward. We’ll give you twenty minutes to make it to the top. They’ll let us know when you arrive. Don’t stop, and don’t get out of the car.”

I went up the road with my lights on past the white house, where the other man watched me. The guy I had talked to stood in the road following my progress until I went out of sight around a curve more than 100 yards away.

A faint light glittered high above me out of the front of my window. It was to the right, and it looked very far. It might be the Hearst ranch.

I saw some kind of animal after two miles, but I couldn’t make it out clearly. It was big and near the road. Bullet holes or not I rolled up the windows. My fears of a wild death were increasing. Now I could be eaten by an ape in Southern California.

When I got to the house, someone was there to meet me. He was built and dressed like the guys at the gate. They seemed to be a fraternity of former heavyweight champions. He motioned me to park and led me up a flight of stone steps and past nude statues. At the top of the steps we took a right and stopped in front of a huge house.