explained. “And he wants me to middleman.”
“Most interesting,” said Pinketts, studying me for guile.
I had three more coffees and a Pepsi. Pinketts watched me and told a series of stories as he ate his Andy’s special. He had gory stories of the stars and the starstruck and he had an appetite. When he finally finished, I paid the bill and told him I’d be in touch with him.
He burped discreetly and waved regally, saying, “Be as cautious as the wind and silent as the night, amigo.”
“I’ll try, Pinketts,” I said, and I left Andy’s, not bothering to figure out what the hell if anything he might mean.
For a hundred dollars of Arthur Farnsworth’s money I had bought a name. I knew Grover Niles.
No great surprise. Los Angeles is big, but the people in it holding onto the sharp edges of the movie business—the would-be’s, watchers, wise guys, bamboozlers, babes, bozos, agents, flatfeet, and used-to-be’s—all know each other.
How did I know Niles?
In the spring of ’38 a client of mine, a whistler and bird-caller with a traveling burlesque show, claimed Niles owed her two months’ pay. Niles had gotten the client, Rose-Rose Shale, two weeks in the Red Hot Blues Club on Ventura. Rose-Rose really wanted to break into movies, and Niles promised her rockets to the moon.
Rose-Rose looked great in spangles and she really could whistle like Jolson, but she had the brain of a wren, one of the few birds she did not mimic. Moe Burnhoff, the punch-drunk ex-middleweight who gave out towels at the Adriatic Gym, could have told Rose-Rose that there was no future in the movies for a whistler.
But Niles told her she had beauty, talent, and enough money saved to carry her through till Grover Niles pushed her into the path of onrushing destiny. Niles did not tell her that the Red Hot Blues Club expected something more than birdcalls for their seventy-five bucks a week. They expected her to shed some feathers.
Rose-Rose had a good heart and I took her case on for a little more than birdseed.
Niles denied owing her the money, claimed she owed him his ten percent. Grover Niles was a hard man to believe. Short, thin, with a pockmarked face and sweaty hands, Niles looked and acted nervous and carried a wrinkled handkerchief to wipe his face. Niles was no more than forty but he looked sixty, and if ever a man looked guilty of everything, it was Grover Niles.
We came to a compromise, did Grover Niles and me. He paid Rose-Rose a week’s wages and got her out of the second week of her contract at the Red Hot Blues Club, and I, in return, agreed not to satisfy my curiosity by looking into his past—when, according to Rose-Rose, his name had been Wesley Sternham and he had lived in Ypsilanti, Michigan, with his wife, two kids, and a large number of markers held by the Purple Gang in Detroit.
I had not seen Niles since that episode, but I had heard his name from time to time, usually spoken with a disclaimer.
According to both the phone book and my memory, Niles’s office was on Sunset near Highland. Good address but a decaying office, perched over a bakery that specialized in movie-star cookies and cakes. I parked my Crosley about a half block away near a hotel undergoing renovations and locked the doors. I had a .38 in the glove compartment and Mrs. Plaut’s Mah-Jongg case in the back seat. I was more worried about losing the Mah-Jongg case.
The Crosley had been given a twice-over by No-Neck Arnie, the mechanic near my office. Since I had bought the car from him in the first place, he had recently given me a special deal to fix the broken window, the ax hole in the hood, and the driver-side door that wouldn’t open. He’d also repainted the car a very off green. It looked a little like a kidney stone my old man passed on his forty-first birthday, but it ran.
A maybe-rain was in the air. I was in a good mood and a thin blue zipper jacket. It had been raining a lot this winter and I needed some new clothes, or
“Most interesting,” said Pinketts, studying me for guile.
I had three more coffees and a Pepsi. Pinketts watched me and told a series of stories as he ate his Andy’s special. He had gory stories of the stars and the starstruck and he had an appetite. When he finally finished, I paid the bill and told him I’d be in touch with him.
He burped discreetly and waved regally, saying, “Be as cautious as the wind and silent as the night, amigo.”
“I’ll try, Pinketts,” I said, and I left Andy’s, not bothering to figure out what the hell if anything he might mean.
For a hundred dollars of Arthur Farnsworth’s money I had bought a name. I knew Grover Niles.
No great surprise. Los Angeles is big, but the people in it holding onto the sharp edges of the movie business—the would-be’s, watchers, wise guys, bamboozlers, babes, bozos, agents, flatfeet, and used-to-be’s—all know each other.
How did I know Niles?
In the spring of ’38 a client of mine, a whistler and bird-caller with a traveling burlesque show, claimed Niles owed her two months’ pay. Niles had gotten the client, Rose-Rose Shale, two weeks in the Red Hot Blues Club on Ventura. Rose-Rose really wanted to break into movies, and Niles promised her rockets to the moon.
Rose-Rose looked great in spangles and she really could whistle like Jolson, but she had the brain of a wren, one of the few birds she did not mimic. Moe Burnhoff, the punch-drunk ex-middleweight who gave out towels at the Adriatic Gym, could have told Rose-Rose that there was no future in the movies for a whistler.
But Niles told her she had beauty, talent, and enough money saved to carry her through till Grover Niles pushed her into the path of onrushing destiny. Niles did not tell her that the Red Hot Blues Club expected something more than birdcalls for their seventy-five bucks a week. They expected her to shed some feathers.
Rose-Rose had a good heart and I took her case on for a little more than birdseed.
Niles denied owing her the money, claimed she owed him his ten percent. Grover Niles was a hard man to believe. Short, thin, with a pockmarked face and sweaty hands, Niles looked and acted nervous and carried a wrinkled handkerchief to wipe his face. Niles was no more than forty but he looked sixty, and if ever a man looked guilty of everything, it was Grover Niles.
We came to a compromise, did Grover Niles and me. He paid Rose-Rose a week’s wages and got her out of the second week of her contract at the Red Hot Blues Club, and I, in return, agreed not to satisfy my curiosity by looking into his past—when, according to Rose-Rose, his name had been Wesley Sternham and he had lived in Ypsilanti, Michigan, with his wife, two kids, and a large number of markers held by the Purple Gang in Detroit.
I had not seen Niles since that episode, but I had heard his name from time to time, usually spoken with a disclaimer.
According to both the phone book and my memory, Niles’s office was on Sunset near Highland. Good address but a decaying office, perched over a bakery that specialized in movie-star cookies and cakes. I parked my Crosley about a half block away near a hotel undergoing renovations and locked the doors. I had a .38 in the glove compartment and Mrs. Plaut’s Mah-Jongg case in the back seat. I was more worried about losing the Mah-Jongg case.
The Crosley had been given a twice-over by No-Neck Arnie, the mechanic near my office. Since I had bought the car from him in the first place, he had recently given me a special deal to fix the broken window, the ax hole in the hood, and the driver-side door that wouldn’t open. He’d also repainted the car a very off green. It looked a little like a kidney stone my old man passed on his forty-first birthday, but it ran.
A maybe-rain was in the air. I was in a good mood and a thin blue zipper jacket. It had been raining a lot this winter and I needed some new clothes, or
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