Stuart Kaminsky: Murder on a Yellow Brick Road

He kept looking at me with suspicion. I adjusted my blue tie.

“Herbert Hoover says we’re far more likely to be drawn into the European War under Roosevelt than Willkie, and Willkie says the United States is sick of the type of government that treats our Constitution like a scrap of paper,” Mayer said, lifting a crisp copy of the L.A. Times from his desk in evidence. “I think Mr. Hoover is right. What do you think, Mr. Peters?”

“I think this has nothing to do with a dead Munchkin,” I said, smiling.

“You get smart with me and I’ll throw you out!” shouted Mayer, dropping his newspaper on the floor.

“You’ll need a lot of help,” I said, relaxing or pretending to. The white chair I was in was covered with fur, and damned comfortable.

“I can get help,” said Mayer.

“I’m sure you can.”

We stared at each other for a few more years, and Mayer decided on a new strategy: the story of his life.

“I came to this country from Russia with my family when I was four years old. My father was a junk man, and we moved around America from New York to Canada and back again. My father, who was nothing but a laborer in Russia, became a successful ship salvager in the United States. When I was fourteen, I became his partner. Do you know what day I was born on?”

I admitted that I didn’t.

“I don’t know either,” he said, putting both hands on his desk. “So I picked my own birthday: the Fourth of July. That’s how I feel about this country. When I was a kid, I bought a little movie theater in Haverhill, near Boston, for about $1,000. That was in 1907. Eight years later, I owned a bunch of theaters and was making my own movies for them. I’ve got a motto, Mr. Peters. I’ve always had this motto. Do you know what it is?”

I was getting tired of not being able to answer questions M.G.M. people put to me, so I tried, “ ‘Always be prepared’?”

“No, Mr. Peters,” he said solemnly. “ ‘I will make only pictures that I won’t be ashamed to have my children see.’ Do you see where we are going?”

It was gradually getting through to me, but he went on.

“ The Wizard of Oz is a clean picture. Judy Garland is a wonderful girl, like my own child… like Mickey Rooney is almost a son to me.”

Like they make you millions of dollars, I thought, but even as I thought it I could see that Mayer was, in an odd way, sincere.

“A scandal connected with the studio, with that movie, with Judy would be bad for the country, Mr. Peters. People believe in that picture, believe in us. If I thought it would help, I’d get down on my knees to you.” He clasped his hands in prayer and his eyes searched my face. His eyes glazed over moistly.

“The truth is, Mr. Mayer,” I said getting up, “I’ve got nothing you want to buy.”

“Not true, Mr. Peters.” His right hand came out and pointed to me. A smile was back on his face. “You have some influence with the police. You have a reputation for discretion.”

Everyone at M.G.M. was reading the same script on me, and it was still wrong.

“My brother won’t listen to me,” I explained.

“A brother is a brother, Mr. Peters.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“And besides,” Mayer continued picking the Times up off the floor and laying it neatly on his desk, “you want to help Judy. She’s a sweet girl. I’d do anything for her. You know about the Artie Shaw problem?”

I said I didn’t know about the Artie Shaw problem. Since I didn’t, he had no intention of telling me.

“What is your fee, Mr. Peters?”

“$35 a day and expenses,” I said.

Mayer smiled. His head shook.

“Your fee is $25 a day without expenses,” he chuckled. “We’ll give you $50 and expenses.”

“To do what?”

He held up his fingers as he ticked off my duties.

“Try to persuade your brother to keep the investigation quiet. If any M.G.M. personnel are involved, do your best to keep that quiet, too. You’re a bodyguard, right? You also act as Judy Garland’s bodyguard until this is taken care of.”

“And if I don’t keep the investigation out of the papers?”

Mayer shrugged. “You’re fired.”

It seemed fair enough, so I took the job. Mayer and I didn’t shake hands. He turned his head back to some papers on his desk.

“I think I’ve already said more than I have to say,” he said.

Taking that for dismissal, I plodded my way out of the white, fur-padded auditorium he used for an office, made my way down the corridor of smiling beauties, and found Warren Hoff waiting for me with a pile of ashes in a tray next to where he sat. He got up quickly. His hair was not neatly in place.

“God says I get $50 a day, expenses, and a lot of cooperation.”

“You’ll get it,” said Hoff.

We walked back to Hoff’s office. On the way, we passed Walter Pidgeon talking to a short, chunky woman in big glasses. Pidgeon was laughing heartily and saying, “That’s priceless.”

“Mr. Mayer is very persuasive,” said Hoff without any sarcasm.

“He convinced me it was my patriotic duty to help M.G.M.. If I don’t work for M.G.M., we’ll be at war with Germany within a year.”

I wasn’t sure what had convinced me to take the job. The money was good. I did want to provide some fatherly protection for Judy Garland, and by taking the job I stood a good chance of seeing Cassie James again. The only problem was that I didn’t think I could come near to doing what I was to be paid for. I pointed out to Hoff that I had one day’s pay coming already. He paid me out of his wallet as we walked.

The small, dark girl with the Mexican accent and May Company glasses looked up as Hoff and I entered his office. Hoff looked terrible. He had sweated through another suit and run out of Spuds. The girl looked concerned, but we swept past her and into Hoff’s office.

While I phoned the L.A. police, Hoff poured himself a small drink of something from a bar hidden in a cabinet. He didn’t offer me anything.

I got past the switchboard operator and made my way to an Officer Derry. He wondered why I wanted to talk to Lieutenant Pevsner. No one who knew Phil Pevsner could understand why anyone would willingly seek his company. I used my full real name, Tobias Leo Pevsner, to cut through the blue tape and indicate I was the man’s brother. It got me to Sergeant Seidman, my brother’s partner.

“Toby,” said Seidman coming on the phone, “he doesn’t want to talk to you, and if you’re smart, you won’t want to talk to him. We’ve had a tough week.”

“Sergeant, I’m reporting a murder. Someone’s murdered a Munchkin at M.G.M.”

There was silence at the other end, except for the background sounds of typewriters and cops talking.

“You want me to tell your brother that?” he said calmly.

“It’s true. Why don’t the two of you come…”

There was a crackling sound at the other end and the clunk of the phone, then my brother’s rumbling voice:

“Toby, you fuck-up. If this is one of your stupid jokes, you’ll do hospital time.”

He meant it and I knew it, but I couldn’t resist. Maybe it was a death wish or something.

“How are Ruth and the kids?” I asked. For some reason, maybe the fact that I never visited him and his family, this always drove Phil up the wall, and the walls of the L.A. police department are no fun running up. Besides, with the gut he was developing, a run up the wall was out of the question. He hung up.

“Will he come?” Hoff asked finishing his drink.

“He’ll come,” I said, leaning back and putting my feet up on the desk. I picked up his newspaper and began to read, trying to look as confident as I was not.

It took fifteen minutes for Phil and Seidman to get to M.G.M. In that time I discovered through my reading that the Greeks had hurled back an Italian invasion, that the Japanese were charging that Americans were assembling arms at Manila, that the A amp;P was celebrating its 81st anniversary, that I could get a suit from Brooks on South Broadway for $25 and take three payments, and that a bottle of FF California port could be had for 37 cents.