Groucho Marx, Private Eye Page 5

  “Right, or some kind of revenge thing,” I said. “I can’t see how a hundred-twenty-pound woman could knock off a six foot tall two-hundred-pound guy that way.”

  “She could’ve got him drunk first.”

  I gave a negative shake of my head. “No evidence of alcohol or drugs in his blood,” I said. “And no sign that Dr. Benninger was slugged beforehand.”

  “Your detective friend pass along anything else?”

  “They got on to Frances because of a telephone tip,” I added. “From the ever popular anonymous.”

  “The question being—how did that person know that there’d been a murder?”

  “Exactly, yeah.” I sighted the house on the right. Easy to do, since there was a large multicolored Sunnyland Realtors for rent sign planted on the large green front lawn. “Meaning anon. is the true culprit.”

  At least half again as large as either of our cottages, it was a Spanish-style one-story house, cream stucco and red tile roof. There were well-kept shrubs and neat flower beds and the whole place looked well taken care of.

  “Think this will make a suitable love nest?” I asked while getting out of the car.

  “Let’s go find out,” she said.

  Eight

  The day had brightened somewhat and by the time Groucho was loping along Little Santa Monica Boulevard toward Hannigan’s Bookstore a hazy yellow sun was visible in the afternoon sky. The shop sat between a French restaurant that had been in operation a little over three weeks and a store that specialized in what appeared to be authentic Swedish Modern furniture. A pyramid made up of about thirty copies of The Yearling dominated the small display window and rising up only half as high was a stack of Homage to Catalonia.

  “I thought Catalonia was something they served in Italian restaurants,” mumbled Groucho as he reached for the highly polished brass knob on the dark wood door.

  The door opened before he touched it and Nathanael West stepped out onto the sidewalk, a parcel of books tucked under his arm. He was a thin, pale man in his middle thirties, wearing tweedy clothes and a tan snapbrim hat. “Oh, hi, Groucho,” he said, smiling.

  “Nathan, if I am ever forced to grow a real moustache, I intend to model it after yours.” He shook hands with the writer. “To paraphrase Disraeli, how’s tricks?”

  West shrugged. “I’m still working on the novel about Hollywood,” he answered. “And making a living writing a lousy script for RKO.”

  “There’s a coincidence for you. My siblings and I are preparing to star in a lousy script at RKO.”

  “They have more than one of those over there.”

  Groucho reached again for the doorknob. “Give my best to Sid and Laura,” he said. “I envy your being related to such a literary luminary as Sid Perelman, an author I rank right up there with Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bertha M. Clay, and the fellow who writes all those Burma Shave signs.”

  “Next time I see them, I’ll suggest that he adopt you.”

  “No need, since I intend to leave myself on his doorstep in a wicker basket. The only thing that’s holding me back is finding a basket of sufficient capacity.”

  West said, “Let me ask you something.”

  “This doesn’t involve naming any of the capitals of states, does it?”

  West made a vague gesture toward the street. “You’ve been out here longer than I have,” he said. “Don’t you ever get tired of all the shit in Hollywood.”

  “Not thus far,” replied Groucho. “And that is chiefly because we’re still busy mining it for gold.”

  West shrugged again. “Well, it’s my theory the whole place is going to burn down eventually, so it really doesn’t matter.” He tapped Groucho on the arm and went walking away.

  Groucho eased into the bookshop.

  It was long, narrow, and shadowy, its tables and shelves offering a mix of popular fiction and political works.

  A thin young woman in a very large gray cardigan sweater approached him. “Might I help you, sir?”

  “I hope so, miss,” he said. “I’m frightfully eager to read that novel about a lad who raises a lovable deer. Afraid, though, that I can’t dredge up the title.”

  Her nose wrinkled as she nodded toward the front window. “Oh, that’d be The Yearling. Everybody is reading that stupid book.”

  Groucho frowned. “That’s not the one I’m seeking, my dear. The novel I want is about a little nipper who raises a stray deer in his Moroccan-style mansion in Bel Air. Then, after he teaches it to do tricks, tap-dance, and imitate Jimmy Cagney, he stars it in a series of boffo B-movies about Rex the Wonder Buck. I think it was written by André Gide.”

  The thin girl’s shoulders rose and fell as she realized, “Oh, you’re Groucho Marx.” She didn’t sound especially enthusiastic about her discovery.

  “You’ve penetrated my disguise,” he acknowledged. “Is Jake Hannigan around and about?”

  She pointed toward the rear of the store. “You’ll find him back in his office,” she said, watching Groucho with her head slightly tilted to the left. “What sort of books do you really like to read, Mr. Marx?”

  “At the moment I’m working my way through Tarzan and the Lost Delicatessen,” he answered. “Once I finish that, I’m hoping to dip into Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and then the sequel, Anatomy of Melancholy Baby.”

  “Maybe you ought to browse through our psychiatry section before you see Mr. Hannigan,” she suggested on leaving him.

  * * *

  Jake Hannigan was a handsome man of forty-one with a deep outdoor tan and wavy dark hair. The fact that he was only five foot one was what prompted him to give up his movie ambitions and open a bookstore some nine years earlier.

  He was sitting in a large armchair in the small, cluttered back office of his shop, drinking tomato soup out of a cracked coffee mug. “We’re having a special meeting of the Anti-Nazi League at Eddie Robinson’s place tonight, Groucho,” he said. “Can you make it?”

  Groucho shook his head, lifted a tied bundle of back issues of The American Mercury off a bentwood rocker and seated himself. “I have to do not one but two broadcasts of my radio show tonight, Jake,” he explained. “One for the East and one for the West. Thank the lord we don’t also have to do separate ones for the North and South.”

  “Sorry, I forgot all about Groucho Marx, Master Detective.”

  “We now call it Groucho Marx, Private Eye. Are you no longer a devout listener?”

  “I’ve been spending a hell of a lot of nights with meetings and committees,” he said. “But I do still drink your coffee.”

  “We lost our coffee sponsor just before Christmas,” Groucho told him. “Fact of the matter is, Santa Claus dropped the cancellation down my chimney on Christmas Eve. One of his reindeer—we’ve got the suspects narrowed down to Donner, Blitzen, and Trixie—dropped something else but we just left that lying amidst the ashes.”

  The book dealer said, “We’re thinking of putting on a benefit show for the Spanish Loyalists. Can we count on you for that?”

  “As long as it’s not on a Thursday night,” he replied, “and I can sing selections from Gilbert and Sullivan.”

  Hannigan winced slightly. “Okay, I suppose so,” he conceded after sipping his hot soup. “But you’ll wear your moustache, won’t you? Some people don’t recognize you without—”

  “That’s going to depend upon the outcome of a case before the State Supreme Court right now,” said Groucho, running his fingertips over his hairless upper lip. “When we left MGM, Louis B. Mayer claimed that he still owned my moustache and he wouldn’t return it. I hear he’s been allowing Clark Gable, William Powell, and the gent who makes the chicken soup in the commissary to wear it whenever they please. I’m not even certain, should I win the case, that I want to use that thing again after they’ve been sticking it—”

  “You paint it on with greasepaint,” reminded Hannigan.

  “Jove, you’re right about it’s only being the Platonic idea of a moustac
he. What a silly little fool I’ve been.” Groucho rocked back and forth once in the chair. “Perhaps we can get down to the actual purpose of my visit.”

  “You’re working as an amateur detective again, trying to help Frances London.”

  Groucho straightened up. “How’d you know that?”

  “It was on Johnny Whistler’s broadcast this morning.”

  “I’m definitely going to have to start tuning him in. I’d gotten the impression, considering his voice is so high pitched, that only dogs could hear him. But apparently I was in error.”

  “Do you think Frances has got a chance?”

  “I’m damn sure she didn’t kill Dr. Benninger.” He took a cigar out of a pocket of his checkered sportcoat. “But faith isn’t going to spring Frances—we have to prove who really did knock off the guy.”

  Hannigan said, “I saw Russ Benninger just last Saturday.”

  “Where?”

  “He came into the shop here.”

  Groucho’s eyebrows rose. “Weren’t you sworn enemies after that tussle at the Trocadero?”

  “Benninger was a customer of mine for years, Groucho. He was a real California history buff,” explained Hannigan. “When he was here Saturday afternoon, he apologized for the business at the Troc, admitted that he was drunk and out of control. Claimed he’d been under a lot of pressure lately and—”

  “Pressure from what?”

  The book dealer shrugged. “No idea, Groucho,” he answered. “He seemed to be in a jittery mood when he was here, but he didn’t mention anything about expecting to be shot dead within the next few days.”

  “Was he by himself?”

  “No, Dracula’s Daughter was with him.”

  “You’re alluding to Maddy Dubay?”

  “The same, a woman who’s a walking definition of a shrew.” He drank some of his soup. “She’s not a bad screen writer. I heard she was doing some last-minute rewrites on The Legend of King Arthur, keeping about a day ahead of the shooting. Don’t know where that leaves her now that Brian Montaine’s kicked off.”

  “Was Maddy with him that night at the Trocadero?”

  “She was, yes.”

  Groucho said, “Now about what went on. Did Frances threaten to kill Benninger?”

  “She didn’t, no,” he answered. “The Bayside cops claim to have witnesses who’ll swear otherwise, but that’s a lot of crap. Nobody could’ve heard anything, because there wasn’t a damn thing to hear.”

  “What did happen?”

  “The doctor was drunk—and I think he’d been squabbling with Maddy, too. On his way out he noticed us and came over, staggering plenty, to make some nasty remarks to Frances.”

  “Such as?”

  “Gutter stuff,” said Hannigan, frowning. “Accusing her of being a tramp, of getting drunk again. I told him to take a hike and, to back up my suggestion, I stood up and punched him a couple times.” He paused, exhaling and then inhaling deeply. “Frances did used to behave in a pretty wild way, sure, but that all ended years ago. She’s okay now and I wasn’t going to let that bastard talk to her that way.” He paused again. “All right, I guess that makes me a hypocrite, continuing to keep him as a customer. But I figure, he apologized and I might as well take his money.”

  Putting the cigar in his mouth, Groucho leaned back in the rocker. “Any ideas about who might’ve sent Benninger on to glory?”

  “It wasn’t Frances,” he said. “Oh, and it wasn’t me.”

  “You wouldn’t rub out a paying customer.”

  Hannigan said, “I wish I could tell you who’d make a likely suspect, Groucho. I have heard that he was the kind of doctor who’d do favors for his patients.”

  “What sort of favors?”

  “You know, ranging from setting up an abortion to providing narcotics,” he said. “That’s only hearsay, though, and I don’t have any real information.”

  “At this stage,” said Groucho, “I’m accepting hearsay.”

  Nine

  May Sankowitz’ office at Hollywood Screen Magazine was at least three times larger than the one she’d occupied at the Los Angeles Times when she’d been posing at Dora Dayton and handling the lovelorn column. May herself was a small, slim woman in her late forties and she was currently a honey blonde.

  From the high, wide window you could look down on Wilshire Boulevard. There were no framed photos on the eggshell-white walls. But sitting sideways on her desk was a large framed glossy of Abraham Lincoln.

  “Congratulations on the new job,” I said, sitting down and facing her. “Why Lincoln?”

  She sighed. “It isn’t Abe Lincoln,” she answered, “it’s Slim.”

  “Slim the lengthy cowboy actor?”

  “That Slim, yes.” May sighed again. “Usually my romantic interludes with lanky dimwits only last a matter of weeks. For some reason, though, I’m still entangled with Slim.”

  “Love, do you think?”

  “Search me.” She shrugged and spread her hands wide. “If I were still batting out Dora’s gush, I might be able to advise myself about my dilemma. But as a purveyor of movieland gossip, I haven’t got the faintest notion of why I continue to see the guy.”

  I pointed a thumb at the picture. “So why’s he got up as Lincoln?”

  “Slim is playing Honest Abe in a movie. Well, not a movie really, a serial,” she explained. “Over at Columbia, a twelve-chapter epic called The Phantom of Gettysburg. Dick Foran is starring, along with Fuzzy Knight.”

  “An all-star cast,” I observed. “As I was saying on the phone, May, I need some information about—”

  “First I’d like some info from you, Frank dear.”

  “Well, Jane and I are just good friends and rumors of any impending—”

  “Would that either you or that terrific girl were of any interest to the vast army of dimwits who read Hollywood Screen every month in beauty parlors across the land,” said May. “No, what I need to know more about is Polly Pilgrim, that freckle-faced little songbird.”

  “I can’t talk about her mother’s case or—”

  “No, not the murder. I don’t cover crime,” cut in May, tapping on her desk with a sharp-pointed yellow pencil. “But I just heard that your dumpy little darling is about to sign a very big contract with Paragon Pictures. The Zansky Brothers, who run that joint and are still in mourning for the late Brian Montaine, are betting she’s going to be another Deanna Durbin.”

  “So does our sponsor, Colonel Mullen. But then, he also believes his puddings are edible,” I said. “If you’re asking me to confirm the rumors, May, I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” She tapped again with the pencil.

  “I haven’t heard a damn thing about any lucrative new movie contract for the kid. Really and truly.”

  “I suppose you’d cross your heart and hope to die if I so requested?”

  “I’d even swear on the Bible, if you had such a thing in your office.”

  She made a brief low humming sound. “Doesn’t that moppet confide in you guys? I mean, now that you and Groucho are doing your Sherlock and Watson act for her benefit.”

  “Polly talks about her mother’s problems when we get together, May,” I said. “Not her own career.”

  “Although I’ve always been petite and adorable myself, I can sympathize with that kid,” she said. “She’s got a terrific voice, but pretty she isn’t. Going to make it tough for her to compete with a cutie pie like Deanna Durbin or even Judy Garland.”

  “It’s just a phase.”

  “Ugly’s not a phase, sweetheart.”

  “Can we chat about Dr. Benninger and Frances London now?”

  “Next time you bump into Little Miss Melody, can you, sort of subtly, inquire about the Paragon deal?”

  “Surely you’ve got better sources of information than me,” I said. “But, yeah, I can give it a try.”

  “Despite your lack of celebrity, Frank, you’re a movieland insider now. Hobnobbing with Gro
ucho Marx, scripting a hit radio show, solving baffling Hollywood mysteries.”

  “Dr. Benninger,” I reminded.

  May scowled at Slim’s Lincoln portrait, then reached out and turned it facedown. “Most of what I know about that prominent plastic surgeon I couldn’t run in my gossip column here at the magazine,” she began. “But the gent did a lot more than streamline aging and inadequate pusses.”

  “For example?”

  “The word was that if you needed dope to perk you up, help you snooze of an evening, or just make you feel that life wasn’t as shitty as it was looking—well, hey, kindly old Doc Benninger was the medic for you.”

  I asked, “Where was he getting his drugs?”

  “Not too tough for a doctor to get morphine and stuff like that,” May answered. “For the more exotic products—like heroin and coke—he apparently had some good Combination sources.”

  “Joe Tartaglia?”

  “None other, so I heard,” she said, nodding. “Plus Tartaglia’s little helper, Jack Cortez.” Pausing, she looked directly across her desk at me. “I know you ran up against some of our eminent local hoodlums while you and Groucho were finding out who killed Peg McMorrow—but those guys were lambs compared to Tartaglia’s bunch. So, Frank dear, you be real careful if you go anywhere near those bastards.”

  “I was planning to be careful,” I assured the columnist. “The way Dr. Benninger was done in—it looks like a mob killing to me.”

  “It sure could’ve been, all the more reason to play it very carefully, dear.”

  “Let’s say,” I suggested, “that it wasn’t about drugs and that Tartaglia’s not involved at all. Who else?”

  She gave a slight shrug. “Benninger fooled around a good deal. So there’re probably a long line of unhappy husbands who might’ve pumped a few slugs into his lecherous carcass.”

  “Any names?”

  “I’d have to dig some to get you the latest, up-to-date list, Frank.”

  “Can you?”

  “Sure, yeah, especially if you can get me something about that impending deal of little Polly’s. Is the kid signing to sing for the Zanskys and for how much?”