Let's All Kill Constance (Crumley Mysteries 3)

“Did you work with all or some?”

“Some I did two falls out of three in a Santa Barbara motel. I do not brag. A thing is either true or not.”

“You’ve never lied to me, Fritz.”

“I have, but you were too stupid to see. Polly. Molly. Dolly. Sounds like a cheap Swiss bell ringers’ act. Hold on. Can’t be. Maybe. Yes!”

He was leaning up, adjusting his monocle, squinting hard. “Why didn’t I see? Dummkopf. But there was time between. Years. That one and that one, and that. Good God!”

“What, Fritz?”

“They’re all the same actress, the same woman. Different hair, different hairdo, different color, different makeup. Thick eyebrows, thin eyebrows, no eyebrows. Small lips, large lips. Eyelashes, no eyelashes. Women’s tricks. Woman came up to me last week on Hollywood Boulevard and said, ‘Do you know me?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m so-and-so,’ she said. I studied her nose. Nose job. Looked at her mouth. Mouth job. Eyebrows? New eyebrows. Plus, she had lost thirty pounds and turned blond. How in hell was I supposed to know who she was?

“These pictures, where did you get them?”

“Up on Mount Lowe—”

“That dumb newspaper librarian. I went up there once to do research. Quit. Couldn’t breathe in all those goddamn news stacks. Call me, I yelled, when you have a clearance! Constance’s dimwit first husband, married when she rebounded off a manslaughter bomb scare. How I managed to direct her in at least three films and never guessed at her changes! Christ! An imp inside a devil inside Lucifer’s flesh-eating wife.”

“Maybe because,” I said, “you were courting Marlene Dietrich one of those years?”

“Courting? Is that what they call it?” Fritz barked a laugh and rocked off the edge of the bed. “Take those damn things down. If I can help, I’ll need the junk.”

“There’s more like this,” I said. “Grauman’s Chinese, the old projection booth, the old—”

“That crummy lunatic?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Why not! He had a missing reel of my UFA film Atlantica. I went to see. He tried to tie me to a chair and force-feed me old Rin Tin Tin serials. I threatened to jump off the balcony, so he let me go with Atlantica. So.”

He spread the pictures out on the bed and gave them the fiery stare of his monocle.

“You say there are more pictures like these upstairs at Grauman’s?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Would you mind traveling ninety-five miles an hour in an Alfa-Romeo to get to Grauman’s Chinese in less than five minutes?”

The blood drained from my face.

“You would not mind,” said Fritz.

He blundered swiftly out into the rain. His Alfa-Romeo was in full space-rocket throttle when I fell in.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Flashlight, matches, pad and pencil should we need to leave a note.” I checked my pockets.

“Wine,” Fritz added, “in case the damn dogs up there on the cliff don’t carry brandy.”

We passed a bottle of wine between us as we scanned the avalanche of dark stairs leading to the old projection booth.

Fritz smiled. “Me first. If you fall I don’t want to catch.”

“Some friendship.”

Fritz plowed the dark. I plowed after, swiveling the flashlight beam.