The Prince of Beverly Hills
Description
Los Angeles, 1939. It’s Hollywood’s Golden Age, and Rick Barron is a suave and sharp detective on the Beverly Hills force. After a run-in with his captain, he finds himself demoted, but soon lands a job on the security detail for Centurion Pictures, one of the hottest studios. The white knight of such movie stars as Clete Barrow, the British leading man with a penchant for parties, and Glenna Gleason, a peach of a talent on the verge of superstardom, Rick is dubbed “the Prince of Beverly Hills” by society columnists. But when he unearths a murder cover-up and a blackmail scam, he finds himself up against West Coast wise guys whose stakes are do-or-die... | Praise for The Prince of Beverly Hills
“Woods’s sturdy, self-assured crime thriller is satisfying enough to expand an already immense fan base.”—Publishers Weekly
“Woods writes with smooth confidence as famous names add spice to a diverting summer read that simmers but never gets hard-boiled.”—Kirkus Reviews
More Praise for Stuart Woods
“Stuart Woods is a no-nonsense, slam-bang storyteller.”—Chicago Tribune
“A world-class mystery writer...I try to put Woods’s books down and I can’t.”—Houston Chronicle
“Mr. Woods, like his characters, has an appealing way of making things nice and clear.”—The New York Times
“Woods certainly knows how to keep the pages turning.”—Booklist
“Since 1981, readers have not been able to get their fill of Stuart Woods’ New York Times bestselling novels of suspense.”—Orlando Sentinel
RICK BARRON HEARD THE HOWL of the engine from at least a block away. He was not happy to be sitting in a patrol car at the corner of Sunset and Camden at two A.M. on a summer evening in 1939; he was not happy to be wearing a badge with the rank designation of Police Officer, instead of the detective’s badge he had worn until the day before; and he was not happy to be in a uniform, instead of a suit. The stiff, new cloth itched.
He looked to his right, toward Ciro’s and the Mocambo and the rest of the clubs on the Strip. At this hour, Sunset was devoid of traffic, except for one set of large headlights rushing toward him at a high rate of speed. Rick started the patrol car. This might be fun, he thought.
Then he saw the other car. It was a Model A Ford coupe, and it was across the boulevard, coming toward him down Camden, about to stop at Sunset. Only it didn’t stop. The little car drove right through the stop sign, moving slowly, toward the safety of Camden on the other side of Sunset. Rick’s mouth dropped open; this couldn’t be happening. He looked at the oncoming speeder and had just enough time to identify it as a Mercedes-Benz SSK, top down, before it struck the little coupe broadside. The powerful sports car had been doing at least sixty, Rick thought, and it had never even braked.
The coupe collapsed as if it had been made of tinfoil, absorbing nearly the entire force of the crash, then spun toward the side of the road and came to rest, hard, against a telephone pole. The Mercedes was not stopped, only deflected. It skidded sideways toward the opposite side of the street, struck the curb and rolled over, flinging its driver into a high oleander hedge before coming to rest in an upright position. Rick picked up the microphone.
“This is car 102. I’ve got a serious car accident at Sunset and Camden. Request an ambulance and another patrol car immediately.”
The radio crackled. “Roger, 102, they’re on their way.”
Rick switched on the flashing light on top of his Chevrolet patrol car, drove across Sunset and stopped at the curb, next to what was left of the coupe. The street was still perfectly clear, with a wreck on each side. He jumped out of the car and started for the coupe.
Sheets of paper littered Sunset, and Rick picked up one. There was a picture of Paul Whiteman on the front: sheet music. He dropped it as he reached the coupe and looked inside. The car was a third of its former width, and the woman inside was barely distinguishable from a pile of cubed beef on a butcher’s counter. Rick had never seen such gore. He reached into the car and picked up her left wrist, feeling for a pulse, but felt none. Nothing more to be done here.
The road was still empty of traffic. He ran across Sunset to the hedge and found the other driver lying facedown in the hedge. Rick turned over the unconscious man and saw that he was wearing a tuxedo. And he wasn’t unconscious. The man coughed and sat up, leaning on his elbows. “Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered. “What the fuck happened?” He had the makings of a fine shiner around his left eye.
Rick got a snootful of alcohol fumes. “You hit another car,” he replied. “Are you hurt?”
The man shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. He was handsome, tanned, with thick blond hair and a well-trimmed mustache. “You’ve got to get me out of here,” he said, grimacing. His beautifully even teeth gleamed under the streetlamp. His accent was British.
Then Rick recognized him. Sirens could be heard in the distance, and his mind worked at a furious pace, weighing options, considering gain against punishment. He decided. “Can you stand up?” he asked.
“I guess so,” the man replied.
Rick helped him to his feet, took hold of a wrist and slung the man’s arm around his neck. Rick was six-two, and the man was as tall. “Come on,” Rick said, “we’ve got to move fast.” He scurried across Sunset, half walking, half dragging, and got the man into the rear seat of the patrol car. “Lie down there, so nobody can see you,” he commanded. He was about to get behind the wheel, when he had another thought. He ran back across Sunset to the wreck of the Mercedes, found his pocketknife and quickly unscrewed the license plates. Then he went to the driver’s side, groped around the steering column and ripped off the registration certificate that had been secured there. As he stuffed it into his pocket, another patrol car arrived, siren dying.
“I’ve got one of ’em in my car,” he said to the driver. “He doesn’t seem to be hurt too bad. I’ll take him to the hospital. You wait for the ambulance. The other one is hamburger.”
“Okay,” the other cop replied.
Rick ran for his car and got behind the wheel. “Where can I take you?” he asked.
“Find a phone,” the man replied from the depths of the rear seat.
Rick started the car, made a U-turn and swung down Camden, driving fast. After two blocks, he saw a pay phone on a corner. “Who do you want me to call?” he asked.
A hand came up from the backseat with a small, black address book. “Call Eddie Harris,” his passenger said. “Tell him what’s happened. He’ll know what to do.”
Rick ran to the phone booth and closed himself inside it. The light came on, and he riffled through the book, looking for the number. The names there were a roster of Hollywood celebrities, most of them women; Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr were there. He found a home number for Harris, dropped a nickel into the phone and dialed. Harris was something at Centurion Studios; Rick wasn’t sure just what.
“What?” an angry, sleepy voice barked into the phone.
“Mr. Harris, my name is Barron. I’m a Beverly Hills Police officer.”
“Go on,” Harris replied. His voice was calm now.
“I’ve got Clete Barrow in my patrol car. He’s been in a bad accident; a woman is dead.”
“How badly is Barrow hurt?” Harris demanded.
“He seems to be okay. He should be checked out at a hospital, though.”
“No. Take him to Centurion, to his bungalow. I’ll meet you there. What was your name again?”
“Barron.” Rick spelled it for him.
“Hurry up,” Harris said.
“Yessir.” Rick hung up and ran for the car.
IT TOOK HIM LESS THAN ten minutes to reach the film studio, no flashing light, no siren. He slid to a stop at the gate. A guard, apparently warned he was coming, waved him on.
“First left, second right,” the man in the backseat said. “Number 104.”
Rick followed the directions.
“Right here,” Barrow said from the rear seat. He was sitting up now.
Rick parked the car, slid across the seat, opened the rear door and helped his passenger out. He looked around. He was on what looked like a street of bungalows. He steered Barrow up the front walk of a pretty cottage with window boxes and a swing on the front porch. Barrow fumbled with a key and let them into the house.
Rick found himself in a beautifully decorated living room, furnished with every comfort. Barrow opened a door and switched on some lights in an adjoining room. Rick blinked in the glare. Barrow sat down at a wide dressing table with a big mirror surrounded by little lightbulbs. He looked carefully at his face in the mirror. “No real damage,” he said, with some satisfaction. He felt his body. “Maybe some bruised ribs, and they’ll have to shoot my right side only, but I can work.” He got up and went back into the living room, to a bar. “You want a drink?” he asked.
“No, and you’re not going to have one either,” Rick said, removing a decanter of scotch from the actor’s hand. “You’re going to need to be as sober as possible.”
The door opened and a sturdy-looking, balding man in his forties walked into the room. “Clete,” he said, “are you all right?”
“Sure, Eddie,” Barrow replied. “Thanks for coming.”
“That’s some shiner. We’re going to have to shoot around it tomorrow. The doctor will be here in a minute. I want you checked out thoroughly. Get out of that tux and into a robe.”
“Sure, Eddie. You want a drink? The cop won’t let me have one.”
“No,” Harris replied. He turned to Rick and stuck out his hand. “I’m Eddie Harris,” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Harris.”
“Call me Eddie; everybody does. What’s your first name?”
“Rick.”
“Frederick?”
“Richard, but nobody has ever called me that, except my mother, when she was angry with me.”
“Rick, is Barrow under arrest?”
“Not unless you want him to be,” Rick replied.
“Good man. Come and sit down for a minute, and let’s talk.”
Rick followed Harris to a pair of leather armchairs before a fireplace and sat down in one, removing his uniform cap.
“That uniform looks brand-new,” Harris said, “but you don’t look like a rookie.”
“I’m not. It’s just my first day back in uniform. I seem to have put on a little weight since the last time I wore one.”
“How’d you get busted? What was the beef?”
“I was seeing a young lady who turned out to be my commanding officer’s niece,” Rick said. “The captain and I didn’t see eye to eye about it.”
“I’ll bet,” Harris said. “Is she pregnant?”
“Not anymore.”
“What was your job before?”
“Detective, assigned to Homicide and Robbery.”
“That’s a plum assignment, isn’t it?”
“It was.”
“Now you’re a patrolman. It’s a long way to fall.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Sounds like you don’t have much of a future with the Beverly Hills Police Department.”
“Let’s say Chief Blair doesn’t have to worry about his job.”
“I’ve seen you somewhere before, but I can’t place you.”
“I get around, I guess. Probably a restaurant or a club.”
“That’s it: at the bar at Ciro’s, more than once.”
“I’ve been there more than once.”
Harris nodded. “Tell me what happened tonight. I want it straight—everything.”
“I was sitting in my patrol car at Sunset and Camden. Barrow came from the direction of the Strip, doing at least sixty. He struck a Model A coupe that ran a stop sign. The woman driver was killed instantly. Barrow’s car rolled, and he was thrown into a hedge.”
“What did you do?”
“I called for an ambulance and a patrol car to deal with traffic, checked the woman, then checked on Barrow. When I recognized him, I got him out of there. The car’s license plates are on the bar.” He reached into his pocket. “Here’s the registration.”
“Good man. Let me give you a little lesson in Hollywood damage control: The woman drove right out in front of Barrow, so she was at fault. He was driving the speed limit; he didn’t smell of liquor; he asked to be brought here, instead of a hospital. Got that?”
Rick nodded. “If you can, you ought to send a tow truck over to Sunset and Camden to get Barrow’s car out of there. You don’t want those two cars compared in newspaper photographs. The coupe got much of the worst of it.”
Harris picked up a phone next to his chair, dialed a number, barked some orders and hung up. “It’ll be out of there in half an hour.”
Simultaneously, Barrow came out of his dressing room in a robe, and a man came in the front door, carrying a satchel.
“Doc,” Harris said, turning toward the man, “Mr. Barrow’s been in a car accident. I want him checked out thoroughly, and get some ice on that eye, will you?”
“Right,” the doctor said. “Mr. Barrow, let’s go in the other room.” He turned back to Harris. “You want a blood sample taken?”
“Yeah,” Harris said, turning to Rick. “You been drinking at all tonight?”
“No.”
“Roll up your sleeve.”
Rick did as he was told, and the doctor removed a syringe from his bag, swabbed the arm with alcohol and drew some blood.
Harris stood up and held out a business card to Rick. “You may not have much of a future with the police,” he said, “but you just might have a future with Centurion. Call me tomorrow morning.”
“All right,” Rick replied, pocketing the card.
“What’s your captain’s name?”
“Lawrence O’Connell.”
“Don’t speak to him unless you have to. If you have to, stick to the story. I’ll call him first thing in the morning.”
RICK WAS BACK AT THE accident site before the ambulance left. A fire engine was present, and two firemen were working on the wrecked coupe with crowbars, while two patrol cars stood by. The Mercedes was nowhere in sight.
A sergeant got out of a car and walked over. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
“I took the passenger who was still alive to a doctor,” Rick said.
“Is he all right?”
“He seems fine.”
“Was he drunk?”
“I observed nothing that would make me think so.” He took a glass tube from his pocket and handed it to the sergeant. “I witnessed the doctor take a blood sample,” he said, but he didn’t say whose. “I’d like you to take custody of it.”
“All right,” the sergeant said. “You said you took him to a doctor. Not a hospital?”
“He didn’t seem badly injured, and he insisted on seeing his own doctor.”
“Was this guy somebody . . . I ought to know about?”
“He was Clete Barrow. A Mr. Eddie Harris at Centurion Studios said he would speak to the captain.”
The sergeant nodded. “I’ll tell the captain about this. You stay away from him. Write an accident report and have it on my desk before you go off duty.”
“Right,” Rick said. “Can I go back to the station and do it now? Tomorrow’s my day off.”
“Go ahead. And I don’t want you talking to the press, you understand? If they track you down, refer them to the captain.”
Rick nodded. The sergeant walked away, and Rick looked over at the remains of the Ford coupe. Two firemen had done their work, and now the ambulance men were loading the mangled remains of the woman onto a stretcher. He felt for the woman, but she shouldn’t have run that stop sign. His conscience, such as it was, was clear.
2
RICK WAS WAKENED BY THE ringing telephone at nine A.M. He let it ring three times, then picked it up. “Barron,” he groaned.
“I saw your report,” the captain’s voice said. “Is that the way it happened?”
“That’s the way I saw it, Captain.”
“It better be correct in all respects.”
Rick didn’t reply to that.
“Where is the Mercedes?”
“I don’t know. It was gone when I got back to the scene. A Mr. Eddie Harris said he’d call you.”
The captain hung up without another word.
“Miserable son of a bitch,” Rick said aloud. He reached for his cigarettes before he remembered he had quit smoking some weeks before. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up, stretching. He’d had only three or four hours of sleep—he’d have had more, if the captain hadn’t called—but he felt pretty well. At twenty-nine, he could stand the strain. He showered, then fixed himself some breakfast. He retrieved the LA Times from outside his door and scanned it as he ate. There it was, on page four:
PIANIST KILLED IN SUNSET BLVD ACCIDENT
Somebody got it in the paper at the last minute, he figured. That way, there was no time for anybody at the paper to investigate before they went to press.
Lillian Talbot, a professional musician, was killed in a traffic accident on Sunset Boulevard early this morning. Police say Miss Talbot, who was on her way home from a party at which she had played the piano, ran a stop sign at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Camden Drive and drove into the path of an oncoming car, the resulting crash killing her instantly. The other driver was examined by a doctor and pronounced unhurt. The Beverly Hills Police Department released a statement that said, in part, “The accident was witnessed by one of our officers on patrol, and a thorough investigation indicates that Miss Talbot was at fault. A test of the other driver’s blood found no trace of alcohol, and no charges will be brought against him.
Well, that wrapped it up neatly, Rick thought. He washed the dishes and put them away. Rick was neat by nature, and, as a result, the little apartment in West Hollywood seemed a better place than it really was. He got dressed, and in changing the contents of his pockets from the uniform to his civilian clothes, he came across Eddie Harris’s card. “Edward R. Harris, Executive Vice President,” it read. Rick picked up the phone and called the number, which turned out to be a direct line.
“Mr. Harris’s office,” a woman’s voice said.
“My name is Rick Barron. Mr. Harris asked me to call him this morning.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Barron,” she replied. “Mr. Harris would like it if you could come to see him at four o’clock this afternoon. Would that be convenient?”
“Yes, it would.”
“There’ll be a pass for you at the main gate. Come to the administration building. The guard will direct you.”
“I’ll be there at four.” Rick hung up. A future for him at Centurion? It was nice to know there might be a future for himsomewhere.
RICK DRESSED IN HIS BEST SUIT, drove his Chevrolet coupe down to the Beverly Hills Hotel and went to the barbershop. He had a shave, a haircut and a manicure and, feeling fresher, had a club sandwich in the garden of the Polo Lounge. He couldn’t really afford all this anymore, in his reduced circumstances, but he felt like keeping up appearances. Word had already gotten around about his being busted, and he wanted to be seen doing the usual things. He didn’t want people feeling sorry for him. He spoke to a few people he knew, left a generous tip and went back to his car. He didn’t have anything to do until four, so he drove out to Santa Monica, to Clover Field, and parked at the tin hangar that was Barron Flying Service. He looked into the office and found only the bookkeeper.
“He’s in the hangar,” she said, barely looking up from her ledgers.
Rick strolled into the hangar to find his father changing the oil in the smaller of his two airplanes. He was dressed in his suit trousers, a white shirt and a tie. Rick grabbed two sets of coveralls from a shelf, got into one and handed the other to his father. “Put these on, Dad. You’ll ruin your clothes.”
“You sound just like your mother,” Jack Barron said, struggling into the coveralls. “What brings you out here?”
Rick walked around the airplane and peered at the other side of the engine. “It’s my day off. I thought I’d see how you’re doing.” He picked up a wrench and tightened a fuel line fitting, then began looking for other anomalies.
“I’m doing fine,” Jack said. “You want to fly a party down to San Diego for me this afternoon?”
“Sorry, Dad, I’ve got an appointment at Centurion Studios at four.”
“They making you a movie star?”
“I don’t think that’s what they’ve got in mind,” Rick said, laughing, “but a guy named Eddie Harris seems to have something in mind.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Jack said. “I could use some business from those people, if you get a chance to mention it.”
“I’ll do that at the first opportunity.”
Rick noticed an airplane he hadn’t seen before—a Lockheed Vega—parked in a corner of the hangar. “Who belongs to the bush plane?” he asked.
“New customer. I’m leasing it from him.”
The two men worked on quietly for a while.
“I heard you’re back in uniform,” Jack said.
“Afraid so,” Rick replied.
“Heard it was something to do with a girl.”
“It was.”
“Figures.”
“You want to hear about it?”
“Only if you want to tell it.”
“I was seeing this girl, and she turned out to be Captain O’Connell’s niece.”
“Wouldn’t think that would upset anybody all that much, unless you got her in trouble.”
Rick blushed, in spite of himself. “Well, yeah.”
“She still in trouble?”
“Don’t worry, you’re not going to be a grandfather.”
“Not ever?”
“Never say never.”
“Well, I guess you can handle it. You always land on your feet, you do.”
“I try.”
“You ever want to fly for me, come into the business, it’s here.”
“Thanks, Dad, I appreciate that.”
“So how long’s it going to take for you to get the gold badge back?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I want it back.” That was a lie.
“What do you want? I’ve always wondered.”
“Me, too,” Rick replied.
The two men continued working on the airplane.
3
THE GUARD AT THE CENTURION main gate wrote down Rick’s name and issued him a visitor’s pass, then gave him directions to the administration building. Rick put the pass on the dashboard of his ’32 Chevy coupe and drove onto the studio lot. The night before had been his first visit to a movie studio, and he was interested to see it in daylight. He drove down a street that looked like New York, with neat brownstones lined up, curtains in their windows. When he turned a corner, he saw that they were only facades, propped up by scaffolding.
He found the administration building and parked in a visitor’s spot. There was an array of expensive cars in the lot—sedans, convertibles and roadsters—with people’s names lettered in gilt on little signs. In Eddie Harris’s spot was parked a black Lincoln Continental convertible, very new. Rick entered the building and came to a desk where a uniformed studio guard took his name and directed him to an elevator to the third floor.
A receptionist greeted him and asked him to take a seat. The waiting room was lushly furnished, with movie posters on the walls and an array of trade publications arranged on a coffee table. He had been seated for only a moment when a handsome woman in her forties appeared.
“Mr. Barron? I’m Celia Warren, Mr. Harris’s assistant. Would you come with me, please?”
Rick followed her through another, smaller reception room, where two secretaries worked at desks, and into a large, sunny office furnished in dark mahogany furniture and paneling, with a conference table at one end and a group of sofas at the other. Eddie Harris was seated at his desk, his feet up, talking on the telephone. He waved Rick to a chair, and the assistant left them. A moment later, Harris hung up the phone.
“How you doing?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Get any sleep last night?”
“Nearly enough.”
Harris laughed, something he seemed to do easily. “What do you know about Centurion Studios?” he asked.
“You’re the new kid on the block, and you’re growing fast,” Rick replied. “That’s about it.” He read Variety once in a while.
“That’s it in a nutshell,” Harris said. “Sol Weinman and I were at MGM, until a couple of years ago. Sol had his own unit, and I was his production manager. When Irving Thalberg died, Sol didn’t want to work directly for Louis B. Mayer, so he rounded up some investors, including me, and with some of their money and a lot of his wife’s, he bought this property, which had been a poverty-row studio with a lot of real estate. He got it at Depression prices. It originally had two soundstages. We’ve built another two, and there are two more under construction. We’re already making two pictures a month, and by this time next year we expect to be making one a week. We’re hot, and the whole town knows it. Being new, we’ve had to borrow a lot of stars for productions, which puts our costs up, but we’re building a stable, and since we stole Clete Barrow from Metro, it’s getting easier. What Clark Gable is to Metro, Clete Barrow is to us.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Rick said.
“It is. Now, enough about us, let’s talk about you.” Harris opened a manila file folder on his desk and consulted the contents. “You know what I found out about you that really surprised me?”
Uh-oh, Rick thought.
“You and I were born sixteen miles apart.”
Rick relaxed. “Where were you born?”
“In Greenville, Georgia, right near Delano, where you were born.”
“Well, we left there when I was a kid and came out here, so, apart from a couple of visits to my grandparents there, my only claim to Delano is my birth certificate. What happened to your Southern accent?”
“It comes back when I’ve had a couple of bourbons. You know who else is from Greenville?”
“Nope.”
“Y. Frank Freeman, who’s head of production over at Paramount. Frank and I grew up together, came out here together, but we were too close to work together, if you know what I mean.”
“I can see how that could be tough in business,” Rick said. He had no idea what he was talking about.
“How did you come to be born in Georgia?” Harris asked.
“My old man is from Minnesota, but he was a barnstorming pilot in the old days, and he met my mother when he blew through Meriwether County. It was a whirlwind courtship, and I’m the result. My mother and I stayed on for a while in Delano while he barnstormed and saved his money, then he joined the Lafayette Escadrille during the first war and flew over there for two years. When he came back, he moved us out here. He was planning a solo flight across the Atlantic, but his friend Lindbergh beat him to it.”
“Your folks still alive?”
“My mother died when I was ten. Dad has an FBO over at Clover Field in Santa Monica.”
“What’s an FBO?”
“Fixed Base Operation, as opposed to barnstorming. He has two airplanes—a Beech Staggerwing and a Lockheed Electra—for air taxi work, and he gives flying lessons and maintains a few airplanes for private owners.”
“What’s the FBO called?”
“Barron Flying Service.”
Harris made a note of it. “Maybe I can throw some business his way.”
“He’d like that, and you’d like him.”
“You fly, too, it says here.” Harris consulted his folder again.
“Yeah, I’ve got a commercial license and a few thousand hours.”
“Why did you become a cop? Didn’t you have any interest in the family business?”
“Not really. I enjoy flying for recreation and as a means of travel, but if you’re doing it for a living, you’re just a glorified taxi driver, and on somebody else’s schedule. I intended to become a lawyer, but after UCLA and a year of law school I found it pretty dry stuff. Torts were not for me. The practical application of the law on the street seemed a lot more interesting.”
“You were with the LAPD first?”
“Yes, for three years. I’ve been with the Beverly Hills Department for five. I switched to get a detective’s badge quicker.”
“You ever expect to get it back?”
Rick shrugged. “Not while Larry O’Connell can still draw a breath.”
“I talked with him about you,” Harris said.
“Then you must have a low opinion of me.”
“Nah. I can read between the lines. He couldn’t find anything bad to say about you as a cop. I talked to a few other
PUBLISHER:
Penguin Publishing Group
ISBN-10:
0451214625
ISBN-13:
9780451214621
BINDING:
Paperback / softback
PUBLICATION YEAR:
2005
NUMBER OF PAGES:
416
BOOK DIMENSIONS:
4.2600(W) x 7.4000(H) x 0.9000(D)
AUDIENCE TYPE:
General/Adult
LANGUAGE:
English