Murder Takes a Break Page 19

  Cap'n Bob and Gus were cartoon characters. So how the hell could one of them go missing?

  As it turned out, it was easy.

  The way Gober explained it; Cap'n Bob and Gus were not merely cartoon characters. They were real. Gus was owned by one of the layout men, Lyman Birch, who'd brought him to work one day and showed him off to the other men in the cartoon studio. Not to be outdone, a backgrounder, Herm Voucher, drove home and got his parrot. It seems that kind of behavior wasn't unusual among the cartoon crowd.

  Gober said that when the animals got a glimpse of one another, it was hate at first sight. The parrot flew off Voucher's shoulder and went for the cat like a P-38 after a Messerschmitt. The cat howled and took off through the studio, mostly across the tops of drawing boards and people's heads. There were animation cells, paper, and drawing pens flying everywhere, and one bald guy got severely scratched on the noggin.

  The rumpus might have continued for hours if someone hadn't held a drawing board up in front of the parrot when it was coming out of a turn. The bird smacked into the board and hit the floor and Birch grabbed it. Took them another hour to find the cat, who was cowering in a supply room.

  Inspired to near genius by that little fracas the artists and writers created the first Cap'n Bob and Gus cartoon, giving the parrot an eye-patch and a tendency to mutter sayings like "A-r-r-r-rh" and "Avast, ye swabbies." Matters progressed from there, with several Gus and Bob adventures following in rapid succession. "The Berber of Seville," with the Cap'n as an opera singing Arab who does Rossini as he's never been done before or since, won an Oscar.

  The story about the cat and combative parrot was funny to me but not to Gober, who also couldn't understand his artists' and writers' continuing need for stimulation and motivation. They insisted that they couldn't write, much less draw, if the parrot and the cat weren't on permanent display in the studio. When inspiration flagged, someone would let the animals out of their cages, and things would get lively almost immediately. The artistic result would be something like "Cat-mandu," with Gus on the trail of the Abominable Snowman, who turned out to be an awful lot like the Cap'n. Or "Cat-O'-Nine-Tales," in which the cat played Scheherazade to the bird's smarmy King of India.

  Gober might not have understood anything else, but he understood the result.

  "And that's why you have to find that parrot!" Gober finished up.

  What could I say? He was paying me, even if he wasn't paying me very much, so I told him I'd be at the studio in half an hour. Then I hung up the phone and got my hat.

  I pointed my old hoopie, a 1940 model Chevrolet with a smooth vacuum shift, down Wilshire and turned right when I got to Vine. Eventually I got to Cahuenga and turned left. Gober Studios was located not far from Universal, though the layout wasn't as fancy. A guy I knew named Harry was on the gate, and he waved me on through without looking up from his copy of Unknown Worlds.

  I drove right up to Gober's office. It was the nicest building on the lot, of course, and there were a couple of post-war Buicks, both of them big black Roadmasters, parked right in front. One of the cars belonged to Gober. I didn't know who the other belonged to. Maybe his secretary, who was undoubtedly paid a lot better than I was.

  She was also a lot better-looking: blonde, six feet tall and built like the proverbial brick sanitary facility. She also had a voice like Veronica Lake, so I figured she was worth every cent Gober paid her.

  She was efficient, too. She ushered me into Gober's office almost before I got my hat hung up. Then she quietly faded away. I stood there ankle deep in carpet and looked at Gober.

  Gober got up from his desk, which was polished walnut and about the size of a football field, and by the time the door had closed behind me he was heading my way.

  "Goddammit, Ferrel, what took you so long? Let's get going."

  He was about five-three with wide shoulders and hair that was slicked down on his head. If he used Brylcreem, he'd used about a dab and a half. He was wearing a suit that hadn't come from Robert Hall, and there was fire in his beady eyes. I could see that he was ready to get to the bottom of this parrot business.

  I didn't move. "Get going where?"

  He didn't even slow down. "The cartoon studio." He passed right by me, opened the door, and headed out. He looked back over his shoulder without stopping. "You coming, or not?"

  I followed him and grabbed my hat off the rack. He was already down the steps and striding across the street. He didn't even look up at the two elephants that nearly stomped him.

  I waited until the elephants passed and stretched my legs to catch up. "What picture are those from?"

  "The elephants? Some goddamn jungle epic, one where Rick Torrance gets to run around for seventy-five minutes with his shirt off."

  I'd seen one of the Torrance showcases. The guy looked a hell of a lot better with his shirt off than I did.

  We went around Studio A, a cavernous aircraft hangar of a building, and I was having to struggle to keep up with Gober. For a guy with legs not much longer than most people's fingers, he could really move. It was a hot day, with plenty of that California sun, and I didn't feel like running. The pace didn't bother Gober, though. He did everything fast.

  The cartoon unit was housed in a building in back of Studio A, and frankly the building didn't look like much. There was a lot of wood, a shingled roof, and a bad paint job. Drop it in the middle of an Army base and it might pass for a barracks except for the sign on the door: "HOLLYWOOD HOME FOR THE CRIMINALLY COMIC."

  Gober didn't seem to notice the sign. He bounced up the steps and threw open the door. Before it slammed into the wall, it was caught by a tall guy with thinning hair. After making sure it wouldn't slam, he let it go and put an arm over Gober's shoulders.

  "Welcome to the asylum, boss," he said. "It's damn good to see you!"

  When he took his arm away, I could see that he'd taped a piece of paper to the back of Gober's sharkskin. "KICK ME," it said in big red letters.

  "Never mind the glad-handing, Birch," Gober said. "I've got a guy here who's going to find that damn parrot of Voucher's."

  Another man came running up to join us. He was round and red-faced and even shorter than Gober. He would have been perfect for one of the seven dwarfs if Disney ever wanted to do a live action version.

  "Cal Franks," Gober said to me.

  "There's no need for anyone to look for the parrot," Franks squeaked, waving his arms. "We've got something better!"

  "Get out of my face, Franks," Gober said.

  "You might want to listen to him," Birch said. "He might have a point. We're used to having the Cap'n around to stimulate our brains, and now that he's gone, we're not getting much done. We need something, even if it's a cockatoo."

  "A cockatoo is a much better bird than a parrot," Franks insisted, heartened by the show of support by Birch. "More colorful, more -- "

  A chorus of voices interrupted him. "No cockatoos! No cockatoos! No cockatoos!"

  The voices stretched out the O sound in the first word so that it sounded like "No-o-o-o-o-o."

  I looked over Gober's head and past the two men standing in front of him. There were fifteen or so other guys gathered in the room, all of them chanting monotonously. "No cockatoos! No cockatoos!"

  "Shut up, you goddamn clowns!" Gober bellowed.

  He had a real talent for it. They shut up and stood looking at him expectantly. He grabbed my arm and pulled me forward for the introductions.

  "This is Bill Ferrel. He's a private dick, and he's going to find that parrot. I want you all to cooperate with him and do what he says. He's the boss here now."

  You could tell by looking that at least half those jokers were just itching to make some kind of half-witty remark that had to do with dick and privates, but they restrained themselves.

  They were a strange-looking bunch, too. One of them was wearing an aviator's cap with the earflaps dangling down. If he was the bald guy who got scratched, maybe he was wearing it for protecti
on. Another beauty was wearing a suit coat over a dirty undershirt. A couple of other swells were smoking cigarettes normally, but one had his stuck in his ear. Every now and then he'd suck in his cheeks and then exhale some smoke. Don't ask me how he did it.

  One guy separated himself from the group and came toward us.

  "Herm Voucher," Gober said out of the corner of his mouth.

  Voucher was so skinny he'd have to be careful not to slip down the straw when he was drinking a malted, but he had an Adam's apple that would keep him from going all the way down. It was big as a softball, and it bobbed up and down when he talked.

  "You've got to find Percy," he said. "We can't go on without him."

  "Percy?" I said.

  "That's the parrot's real name," Gober informed me. "Cap'n Bob is just a stage name."

  "I get it," I said. "The bird has an alias."

  "So does my cockatoo," Cal Franks said. "His real name's Diogenes, but his stage name's -- "

  "No cockatoos! No cockatoos! No -- "

  "Shut up!" Gober bellowed. They shut. Gober turned to me. "Goddammit, Ferrel, you can see what I have to contend with around here. But it's all up to you now. You do what you have to do, and find that goddamn bird."

  He turned on his heel and left. The "KICK ME" sign fluttered as he passed through the doorway, and then he was gone.

  The room was suddenly completely silent. No one was looking at me, though no one seemed to be doing any work, either. One guy lounged against the wall reading a racing form. One, who was wearing a sword that looked like it might have belonged to Basil Rathbone at one time, rested his hand on the hilt and stared at the ceiling.

  Then, very low, so that I almost couldn't hear it at first, a low murmuring of voices began.

  "Sam Spade."

  "Philip Marlowe."

  "Mike Shayne."

  "Sherlock Holmes."

  "Boston Blackie."

  The voices came from all over the room, and every one was different. I wondered if everyone there had studied ventriloquism.

  "All right," I said. "Let's get something straight. You guys may all be geniuses, but I think you're nuts." I opened my coat so they could see the butt of the little .38 I wore in a shoulder holster. "And if anybody puts a 'KICK ME' sign on my back, I'm going to shoot his hand off."

  "We wouldn't dream of doing a thing like that," Voucher said. "We want you to find Percy."

  "That's what I plan to do," I said, without having a single idea about how I'd accomplish it or even if I could. "Who's in charge here?"

  Lyman Birch smiled. "Did you say charge?"

  The guy with the sword whipped it out of the scabbard and stiff-armed it in front of him at about a 45-degree angle.

  "Charge!" he screamed, and ran straight at us.

  Herm Voucher pulled me aside while Birch opened the door. The swordsman ran right on out and down the steps. I could see him heading in the direction of the Studio A as Birch closed the door.

  "I still don't see why you have to find that stupid parrot," Franks said. He was standing right beside me. I'd moved around a little, but he was on me like a stick-tight. "Diogenes is much better. He's better trained, he's -- "

  "No cockatoos! No cockatoos! No -- "

  "Shut up," I bellowed. I wasn't as good as Gober, but I was good enough. "I've had enough of this crap. Now tell me who's in charge of this menagerie. Is there a producer here?"

  From the expressions on their faces, you would have thought I'd asked if Typhoid Mary was in the room. Then there was a lot of histrionic gagging, with people hanging their heads over wastebaskets and out the windows. I knew I must be on the right track. Everybody hates producers.

  "You must mean Barry Partin," Birch said.

  "He'll do. Where's his office?"

  "Back there." Birch pointed to a hallway at the back of the long room where we were standing.

  "Good. I'll talk to him first, and then I'll want to talk to some of the rest of you. Don't wander off."

  I didn't wait for an answer. I crossed the room, avoiding the drawing tables and the men who didn't move out of the way, which was all of them. Hard to believe that I'd thought Gober was a lunatic. He couldn't hold a candle to these guys.

  It was only when I neared the doorway that I noticed the cage on the floor. It was a wire cube about four feet on a side. A gray tabby cat slept on a mat inside. He was huge. Curled up like that, he looked like a black basketball. There was something greenish peeping out from under one of his paws, but I couldn't tell for sure what it was.

  On the left side of the door, there was another cage. This one was on a stand, and there was a cockatoo in it. The cage was very clean except for a few dark splotches that had landed on the newspaper covering the bottom.

  "Is this Diogenes?" I asked no one in particular.

  "Yes," Cal Franks said. He'd followed me across the room, though I hadn't noticed him. I couldn't shake him. "He's quite a handsome bird, don't you think?"

  "No cockatoos! No cockatoos! No -- "

  I wheeled around, digging under my coat for the pistol, but no one was even looking in my direction. In fact, everyone was bent over his drawing board, working busily. Those guys were good.

  I turned back, but I didn't comment on the handsomeness of Diogenes. I left Franks there, or hoped I did, and went through the door to look for Partin.

  I walked down a short hall, past a couple of rooms that were devoted to storyboards featuring rough drawings of Cap'n Bob and Gus, and down to an office that had a closed door. The nameplate on the door read "Barry Partin."

  I knocked, and a man's unhappy voice told me to come in. I opened the door and saw a sad little man in a baggy coat sitting behind a desk that was a mere shadow of the one in Gober's office. The carpet matched the desk; it was mashed flat and worn almost through in spots. The only thing I liked in the office was the two pictures on the wall. One was of Gus and Cap'n Bob decked out as Holmes and Watson in "Catch as Cat's Can." The other showed Gus, his eyes bugged out and his hair ridged down his back as he confronted Cap'n Bob in "Who Ghost There?"

  I looked away from the pictures to the man at the desk. "Mr. Partin?" I said.

  His face was as baggy as his coat. "Yes," he said. "Who are you?"

  "I'm Bill Ferrel. Mr. Gober wants me to look into the disappearance of the parrot."

  "Thank God," Partin said. There was a look of genuine relief on his face. "I thought maybe you were a new animator."

  I didn't blame him for looking relieved. If I'd been in charge of that passel of bozos, I wouldn't have wanted another one dumped on me, either.

  "No," I said. "I'm not an animator. I'm just a detective.

  Partin smiled and some of the bags in his face disappeared. He asked me to have a seat. "You think you can find that bird?"

  I folded myself into an uncomfortable chair by his desk and told him that I didn't have any idea. "I don't even know what's going on. When did the parrot disappear? Who would have wanted him? Have you gotten a ransom note or a call?"

  I'd left the door open when I entered the office; Partin got up and walked over to close it. He stuck his head out, looked down the hall, and then swung the door shut.

  "Surely you can see it," he said, as he crossed the frayed carpet back to his desk.

  I couldn't. I didn't even know what he was talking about. "See what?"

  He looked at me as if he thought I was a pretty poor example of a detective. "It was Cal Franks," he said.

  "Oh. The cockatoo."

  "That's right. He's been trying to get me to hire that cockatoo for the past year. He says he's not insisting on a leading role for it, not yet. A supporting role would be fine to start, he says."

  "But you don't believe him."

  "Of course not. But what I believe doesn't matter. The whole crew's against him. They don't like him, and they don't like his bird."

  The part about the bird I knew already. "Are they really that serious about Cap'n Bob and the cat?" I asked. "I didn'
t know cartoonists used models."

  Partin sighed. The bags came back into his face. "They don't, not usually. But you saw those people. They're all crazy. One of them actually put a 'KICK ME' sign on my back just yesterday."

  I wasn't exactly shocked. I said, "You're kidding."

  "No." He shook his head sadly. "Someone actually did it. I would never have known except that Rick Torrance kicked the hell out of me in the commissary. He thought it was a riot."

  I almost hated to change the subject, but I did. I said, "Tell me what happened on the day the bird disappeared. What were the circumstances?"

  "I don't really know. When we left on Monday afternoon, the parrot was in his cage. When we got here yesterday, he was gone."

  Today was Wednesday, which meant that Gober had waited a day to call me. Maybe everyone had thought the parrot would come back on his own.

  "What about the cockatoo?"

  "Franks brought him in this morning. He said they needed a replacement for Cap'n Bob and they needed it now. They're supposed to be working on a new cartoon. 'The Maltese Parrot.' Gus as Bogart, Cap'n Bob as Sidney Greenstreet. Maybe you saw the storyboards."

  I had, but I hadn't noticed the subject matter. "I guess 'The Maltese Cockatoo' just wouldn't work."

  Partin shook his head. "It would work fine. I think. But I don't know for sure what's funny and what's not anymore, not after being around this place. I'd rather work with Rick Torrance and the elephants than those maniacs out there."

  "Who was the last person to leave the building on Monday? It wouldn't have been Franks, by any chance?"

  "I don't know. I went home early. I had a headache. I seem to be having a lot of them lately."

  He looked like he might be having another one, not that I blamed him. I felt like having one myself.

  "I want to talk to Voucher and Birch. Franks, too. Is there someplace private?"

  He waved a hand to indicate his shabby office. "Nowhere but here."

  "Would you mind stepping out while I talked to them?"