Clouds covered the morning sky when I woke up the next morning. I had long ago grown used to getting to bed very late and getting up way too early for normal people. Today was no exception. On my way to the bathroom then to the kitchen for the required morning cup of coffee, I glanced out the window.
A fiery haze seemed to hang over the mountains in the distance.I could barely make out the glow of the sun cresting the mountains miles away. Closer to home I took note of the cars on the street and anything that looked like it could be trouble. I didn't see anything of note.
Soon the smell of coffee and toast worked its way to our room. Bring Brenda in a cup of coffee and a couple of slices of toast.
I sat down on the bed next to her while we ate toast and drank coffee.
“Morning Hon. I’m going to meet Walt and pick up my car, and head over to Bob’s and talk to him about what you remembered yesterday. You stay here until it's time to leave the bar.” I hugged and took her empty cup and took care of stuff in the kitchen.
A half-hour later I left for Walt’s place. Walt had been busy the last several days lining up a new rear window and getting the bodywork patched where the 12 gauge pellets had torn up the cowling under the left rear of the window. He’d also been poking around looking to find a line on Ben Roberts.
Pulling up into Walt's driveway I saw my old Ford Coupe. The rear window had been replaced, and the holes from the shotgun pellets had been filled and sanded and were barely visible. As the rest of the car varied from one shade of rust and paint to another, We didn't worry about making the new repairs looks perfect. They just needed to be solid and keep the weather out.
Getting out of the Ford sedan Walt had loaned me, I meet him in the driveway, he showed me the work, and we went inside to settle up.
The bill for the repair of the car was about what Walt had said. So I had the cash.
I thanked him for the help.
Then we got into the Brenda Thing. I went into details about what Brenda had told me about finding the poster of the aerial shot showing the bar, How she’d opening a wrong door, and saw Ben Roberts and a woman, she only saw them for a second or two, but she did recognize Him, once she connected the incident to the poster, and remembered it at all. But she still hadn't recalled who the woman he was with was. After coffee and a quick bite, we went out to move my gun rack from his car to my trunk. I thanked Walt for the use of his old car and getting mine fixed. He said he’d do some more checking and meet us at the bar later when we opened.
Walt locked up his place and we both left in different directions.
Walt downtown to see if he could find a lead on Ben Roberts. And I, to go see if Mr. And Mrs. Porn were at the theater and rattle them again. Also to check out the thrift store next to the theater. There had to be a connection between it and Ben Roberts, why else would he have been in a back room with a woman?
Pulling up in front of the two buildings. I sat and watched them. The thrift store, which I hadn’t paid a lot of attention before looked interesting now. I decided to try that first. I put the picture of Ben Roberts on top of my pile of pictures and went in.
The old wooden glass door seemed to slam shut on its own, rattling the old glass in it. The first thing that hit me was the smell. Musty and old. I could smell the age of everything in the rooms. The dust seemed to hang in the air. The sun through the plate glass windows in the from seemed to magnify the dust in the air. Wandering back towards the back of the store.
I spotted the hall which Brenda had described. Hovering around it pretending to look at the junk that was piled there. I kept a watch out to see if anyone was around. After a few minutes, a fat old man came from behind a pile of stuff.
“Can I help you?” he asked pleasantly enough.
“I don’t know, A few months ago, My wife bought a large photo of LA here, You know an aerial view of the city. I was wondering if you had any more like that?”
“ I don’t think. We get stuff from all over the area, mostly from apartments that have been abandoned and the building owners don't want what been left behind. And I buy some stuff once in awhile. I don’t run into big pictures like that very often. But I can keep an eye out for you if you like.” He offered.
“No never mind. What I’m really looking for are some films.” Lowered my voice like I didn't want to be heard. ”You know gillie films, ” I let it trail off.
He winked and smiled knowingly.
“Ah, I see. Some 8mm films for the boys?”
“Uh, yeah, you wouldn’t have anything like laying around?”
“Actually, I think I do..”
With that, he turned back to the piles of stuff the barely formed a passable path.
“Come with me, my boy.” Leading back through the maze of chairs, tables, and cabinets, We eventually found our way to his office. Looking at my kinda sideways,
“You ain't no copper are you?”
“Hell NO !! Do I look like one?” I replied acting insulted that he’d even suggest such a thing.
“UH you don’t have to get all defensive, about it” he joked lamely.
Pulling open a small door in his back wall he opened a safe hidden inside.
Reaching in he pulled out about 4-5 rolls of film in metal canisters.
“Here you go some of my best stuff.” laying them on his paper-covered desk.
I gingerly looked at each one. Reading the titles.
“Rhonda and Ron Play” I read out loud.
“I assume they're not playing monopoly.?”
“Oh no, no games there, at least not that kind,” he smirked.
“How much?”
“Ten dollars for all of them.” I handed him a ten spot.
As I collected the film canisters.
“Oh, If I wanted to make some myself, you know professional like Who would I see?” I asked idly as I got ready to leave.
“You mean professionally?” he perked up.
“Yeah I don’t want to make no amateurish crap”
“That's easy Ben Roberts has the best set up and cameras around, He knows his stuff. All these films you have there are his.” Pointed to the pile Of films I had in my hands.
“Where can I get in touch with him?” I pushed.
“He has a new place over on the east side. He’s been laying low for the last few months since he got into a spot of bother with some actress he was seeing.”
The old fat man wrote an address on a paper and handed it to me.
I thanked him and got out of there as fast as I could.
Sitting in my car I looked over the tin canisters of film. They were pretty standard issue. I’d seen dozens of them during the war. Only the films in them were of battles and aerial surveillance for planes across enemy lines. Not young girls doing things they shouldn’t be.
I stacked in the seat next to me. Pulling out the paper he’d written the address where I could find Ben Roberts. That was the real prize. I glanced at my watch. It was getting about time for a visit with Bob.
The heat was oppressive as I headed across town to the police station. Parking in the front like I always did I quickly found my way to his office.
Knocking on his door-frames like I always did. I stepped into the small office. The smile on my face must have surprised him when I appeared in view.
“My don’t you look like the cat who swallowed a canary.”
"Yeah, I was a good morning. Here.” I plopped the canisters of film on the desk in front of him.
“Films compliments of Ben Roberts and this is from our friendly neighborhood junk dealer,” I announced handing him the paper with the address He’d written.
Bob just stared.
I knew generally where the address was. It was back in the warehouse district. It would like a little looking to find it, especially seeing Ben was keeping a low profile. But we’d find it. I then filled Bob in on my discussions with Brenda and how she finally remembered where she saw Ben Roberts before, and how she couldn’t remember who the woman she’d seen was. But she did finally recognize his picture as the man who was in the back room at the junk store. Which of course by itself didn’t mean a thing. But she could remember who the woman was It might be important.
The kicker was the junk dealer was literally right next to the movie theater I’d been in the day before.
We sat around and discussed our next move. Bob had a fan blowing in the office. The trick was to get air from the fan, without blowing papers all over the desk. Mostly it just made an annoying noise and moved hot air around.
Bob made a couple of calls. Within a few minutes, a uniformed officer brought up several files folders. One was the owner of the junk store, turned out he had a record for selling stolen merchandise, and passing bad checks among other things. But they didn't have a connection with him and the porn industry. Most of the charges were little stuff.
The other was the warehouse that I had the address for.From the tax records, it was owned by a company call Roberts inc.
“From what little we can tell, Roberts Inc is a subsidiary of the movie production that Ben Roberts owns. And get this Roberts Inc, is still paying the electric and phone bills for the movie company, where we were last week.”
“What about the junk shop? Who owns that?
"Wanna bet Roberts Inc owns the building?”
“I haven’t been able to find out yet. But I wouldn’t doubt it.’ Bob replied.
“Do we have enough to get a warrant for the warehouse?”
“I doubt it. But it's enough to post a couple of cars over there to watch, and the movie theater and junk store too.” Bob decided.
He made some more phone calls. Within a few minutes, he had unmarked cars heading to the locations to stake them out. With orders to only watch and report.
“Well, I’ve got to get going.” I got up and collected my hat.
“There's been something bothering since Brenda told me about seeing Him in the back room of the junk shop, I can’t put my finger on it. I seem to remember seeing something in the paper several months ago. But I can’t for the life of me remember what the hell it was. I’m going to the library and dig through their old papers and see what I find. I’ll call you later”
We said our goodbyes, and I went from the dark hallways of the police station to the bright scorching sunlight of the LA day.
I took me awhile to get to the library. Once there I found the periodical section and asked to see all the old newspapers for the last six months. They showed me where they were stored in the back room.
Settling in a looked over the different types of papers, several were regular LA newspapers and were out of state papers like the New York Times, and several from other regions of the country and state. Towards the end, I found several trade papers. Particularly for the movie industry. Then I found the familiar one. Variety.
Then it clicked it had been in the Variety paper that I’d seen the article that was bothering me.
The next several hours were spend paging through every back issue of the newspaper they had. I knew it had been several months ago I’d seen what was stuck in my mind. So I skipped several months back. Being that it was a daily magazine I had lots of issues to go through. While I didn't know exactly what I was looking for I kept my eyes out for mentions of Movie Producer Ben Roberts. I just knew it was something about him.
After a while, they all looked the same. Finally, I saw a small article buried in the inside on of one of the dailies. From March of this year. There was a picture of Ben Roberts and a young woman. According to the short article, she had accused him of sexually attacking her. And he had denied the whole thing ever happened. While not a great picture, I hopped it would jog Brenda’s memory. If it was her, then we also had a name to go with the face Brenda saw. I cleaned up the mess I’d made of the papers and replaced most of them where I’d found them. And headed for the desk.
Pulling out my PI license I told the girl at the desk I needed this copy of a six-month-old Variety magazine for a case I was working on, without going into details. She said just take it. I thanked her and headed for the bar.
Glancing at my watch I noticed it was getting late, and I hadn’t eaten in awhile. I debated whether to stop and grab a bite at a dinner. But decided to head straight for the bar. I could eat there, and talk to Brenda at the same time.
So twenty minutes or so later I pulled in behind the bar. I unlocked one of the back doors and went in. Brenda was behind the bar stocking the night. I helped her finish, and then made a cold sandwich and handed her the Variety magazine.
“Look on page 3,” I said.
She turned the pages and found the pictures and article.
I could tell she recognized someone.
“It's her. That's the woman I saw with him in the back room.!”
“That's what I figured. I spent the afternoon at the library going through old back issues of a ton of magazines and newspapers looking for this.” She hugged and kissed me. I returned the hug and kiss. We stood like that for several minutes behind the bar.
“Now we have a name.”
‘Yes that's her, I remember it clearly now.” she confirmed looking closely at the pictures and reading the short article that went with it.
“Lisa Mayer.” she read to herself quietly.
“She looks pretty young to be a star, not more than 16 or 17.”
“Tomorrow I’ll have Bob run a check on her,” I told Brenda. Who had by now went into my office and was going through the stacks of pictures we had from the offices of Ben Roberts. Glancing in my office At her sitting at my desk looking at the pictures, I left her there and finished getting the bar ready to open. Just about the time, we were ready to open the front doors, Walt showed up. He was armed as usual with two guns. I showed him the article and told him Brenda had definitely identified the woman she’d seen with Ben Roberts in the back room. The picture in the paper was from a gala grand opening of a movie that had been some time before the events detailed in the article.
Brenda finally came out of my office. The look on her face was puzzled.
“I saw her picture somewhere before, But I can't remember where. It's not in any of the files from Roberts.” I hugged her waist and kissed her on the check.
“It's OK Hun, we’ll figure it out. We’re already ahead of what we were this morning.” She switched gears.
“Time to go to work.” And went out front to the bar, and I unlocked the doors. Within a few minutes, the first of our regulars came in. Walt was at his usual place pretending to drink the beer in front of him.
The evening passed quietly. No fights or drunks that need help out the door. And we made a good cash in when we closed. So we were happy. Actually, I was really happy that I finally had some kinda handle on what had been going these last few days. I didn't have all the answers but at least now I had places to look for them.
I
A fiery haze seemed to hang over the mountains in the distance.I could barely make out the glow of the sun cresting the mountains miles away. Closer to home I took note of the cars on the street and anything that looked like it could be trouble. I didn't see anything of note.
Soon the smell of coffee and toast worked its way to our room. Bring Brenda in a cup of coffee and a couple of slices of toast.
I sat down on the bed next to her while we ate toast and drank coffee.
“Morning Hon. I’m going to meet Walt and pick up my car, and head over to Bob’s and talk to him about what you remembered yesterday. You stay here until it's time to leave the bar.” I hugged and took her empty cup and took care of stuff in the kitchen.
A half-hour later I left for Walt’s place. Walt had been busy the last several days lining up a new rear window and getting the bodywork patched where the 12 gauge pellets had torn up the cowling under the left rear of the window. He’d also been poking around looking to find a line on Ben Roberts.
Pulling up into Walt's driveway I saw my old Ford Coupe. The rear window had been replaced, and the holes from the shotgun pellets had been filled and sanded and were barely visible. As the rest of the car varied from one shade of rust and paint to another, We didn't worry about making the new repairs looks perfect. They just needed to be solid and keep the weather out.
Getting out of the Ford sedan Walt had loaned me, I meet him in the driveway, he showed me the work, and we went inside to settle up.
The bill for the repair of the car was about what Walt had said. So I had the cash.
I thanked him for the help.
Then we got into the Brenda Thing. I went into details about what Brenda had told me about finding the poster of the aerial shot showing the bar, How she’d opening a wrong door, and saw Ben Roberts and a woman, she only saw them for a second or two, but she did recognize Him, once she connected the incident to the poster, and remembered it at all. But she still hadn't recalled who the woman he was with was. After coffee and a quick bite, we went out to move my gun rack from his car to my trunk. I thanked Walt for the use of his old car and getting mine fixed. He said he’d do some more checking and meet us at the bar later when we opened.
Walt locked up his place and we both left in different directions.
Walt downtown to see if he could find a lead on Ben Roberts. And I, to go see if Mr. And Mrs. Porn were at the theater and rattle them again. Also to check out the thrift store next to the theater. There had to be a connection between it and Ben Roberts, why else would he have been in a back room with a woman?
Pulling up in front of the two buildings. I sat and watched them. The thrift store, which I hadn’t paid a lot of attention before looked interesting now. I decided to try that first. I put the picture of Ben Roberts on top of my pile of pictures and went in.
The old wooden glass door seemed to slam shut on its own, rattling the old glass in it. The first thing that hit me was the smell. Musty and old. I could smell the age of everything in the rooms. The dust seemed to hang in the air. The sun through the plate glass windows in the from seemed to magnify the dust in the air. Wandering back towards the back of the store.
I spotted the hall which Brenda had described. Hovering around it pretending to look at the junk that was piled there. I kept a watch out to see if anyone was around. After a few minutes, a fat old man came from behind a pile of stuff.
“Can I help you?” he asked pleasantly enough.
“I don’t know, A few months ago, My wife bought a large photo of LA here, You know an aerial view of the city. I was wondering if you had any more like that?”
“ I don’t think. We get stuff from all over the area, mostly from apartments that have been abandoned and the building owners don't want what been left behind. And I buy some stuff once in awhile. I don’t run into big pictures like that very often. But I can keep an eye out for you if you like.” He offered.
“No never mind. What I’m really looking for are some films.” Lowered my voice like I didn't want to be heard. ”You know gillie films, ” I let it trail off.
He winked and smiled knowingly.
“Ah, I see. Some 8mm films for the boys?”
“Uh, yeah, you wouldn’t have anything like laying around?”
“Actually, I think I do..”
With that, he turned back to the piles of stuff the barely formed a passable path.
“Come with me, my boy.” Leading back through the maze of chairs, tables, and cabinets, We eventually found our way to his office. Looking at my kinda sideways,
“You ain't no copper are you?”
“Hell NO !! Do I look like one?” I replied acting insulted that he’d even suggest such a thing.
“UH you don’t have to get all defensive, about it” he joked lamely.
Pulling open a small door in his back wall he opened a safe hidden inside.
Reaching in he pulled out about 4-5 rolls of film in metal canisters.
“Here you go some of my best stuff.” laying them on his paper-covered desk.
I gingerly looked at each one. Reading the titles.
“Rhonda and Ron Play” I read out loud.
“I assume they're not playing monopoly.?”
“Oh no, no games there, at least not that kind,” he smirked.
“How much?”
“Ten dollars for all of them.” I handed him a ten spot.
As I collected the film canisters.
“Oh, If I wanted to make some myself, you know professional like Who would I see?” I asked idly as I got ready to leave.
“You mean professionally?” he perked up.
“Yeah I don’t want to make no amateurish crap”
“That's easy Ben Roberts has the best set up and cameras around, He knows his stuff. All these films you have there are his.” Pointed to the pile Of films I had in my hands.
“Where can I get in touch with him?” I pushed.
“He has a new place over on the east side. He’s been laying low for the last few months since he got into a spot of bother with some actress he was seeing.”
The old fat man wrote an address on a paper and handed it to me.
I thanked him and got out of there as fast as I could.
Sitting in my car I looked over the tin canisters of film. They were pretty standard issue. I’d seen dozens of them during the war. Only the films in them were of battles and aerial surveillance for planes across enemy lines. Not young girls doing things they shouldn’t be.
I stacked in the seat next to me. Pulling out the paper he’d written the address where I could find Ben Roberts. That was the real prize. I glanced at my watch. It was getting about time for a visit with Bob.
The heat was oppressive as I headed across town to the police station. Parking in the front like I always did I quickly found my way to his office.
Knocking on his door-frames like I always did. I stepped into the small office. The smile on my face must have surprised him when I appeared in view.
“My don’t you look like the cat who swallowed a canary.”
"Yeah, I was a good morning. Here.” I plopped the canisters of film on the desk in front of him.
“Films compliments of Ben Roberts and this is from our friendly neighborhood junk dealer,” I announced handing him the paper with the address He’d written.
Bob just stared.
I knew generally where the address was. It was back in the warehouse district. It would like a little looking to find it, especially seeing Ben was keeping a low profile. But we’d find it. I then filled Bob in on my discussions with Brenda and how she finally remembered where she saw Ben Roberts before, and how she couldn’t remember who the woman she’d seen was. But she did finally recognize his picture as the man who was in the back room at the junk store. Which of course by itself didn’t mean a thing. But she could remember who the woman was It might be important.
The kicker was the junk dealer was literally right next to the movie theater I’d been in the day before.
We sat around and discussed our next move. Bob had a fan blowing in the office. The trick was to get air from the fan, without blowing papers all over the desk. Mostly it just made an annoying noise and moved hot air around.
Bob made a couple of calls. Within a few minutes, a uniformed officer brought up several files folders. One was the owner of the junk store, turned out he had a record for selling stolen merchandise, and passing bad checks among other things. But they didn't have a connection with him and the porn industry. Most of the charges were little stuff.
The other was the warehouse that I had the address for.From the tax records, it was owned by a company call Roberts inc.
“From what little we can tell, Roberts Inc is a subsidiary of the movie production that Ben Roberts owns. And get this Roberts Inc, is still paying the electric and phone bills for the movie company, where we were last week.”
“What about the junk shop? Who owns that?
"Wanna bet Roberts Inc owns the building?”
“I haven’t been able to find out yet. But I wouldn’t doubt it.’ Bob replied.
“Do we have enough to get a warrant for the warehouse?”
“I doubt it. But it's enough to post a couple of cars over there to watch, and the movie theater and junk store too.” Bob decided.
He made some more phone calls. Within a few minutes, he had unmarked cars heading to the locations to stake them out. With orders to only watch and report.
“Well, I’ve got to get going.” I got up and collected my hat.
“There's been something bothering since Brenda told me about seeing Him in the back room of the junk shop, I can’t put my finger on it. I seem to remember seeing something in the paper several months ago. But I can’t for the life of me remember what the hell it was. I’m going to the library and dig through their old papers and see what I find. I’ll call you later”
We said our goodbyes, and I went from the dark hallways of the police station to the bright scorching sunlight of the LA day.
I took me awhile to get to the library. Once there I found the periodical section and asked to see all the old newspapers for the last six months. They showed me where they were stored in the back room.
Settling in a looked over the different types of papers, several were regular LA newspapers and were out of state papers like the New York Times, and several from other regions of the country and state. Towards the end, I found several trade papers. Particularly for the movie industry. Then I found the familiar one. Variety.
Then it clicked it had been in the Variety paper that I’d seen the article that was bothering me.
The next several hours were spend paging through every back issue of the newspaper they had. I knew it had been several months ago I’d seen what was stuck in my mind. So I skipped several months back. Being that it was a daily magazine I had lots of issues to go through. While I didn't know exactly what I was looking for I kept my eyes out for mentions of Movie Producer Ben Roberts. I just knew it was something about him.
After a while, they all looked the same. Finally, I saw a small article buried in the inside on of one of the dailies. From March of this year. There was a picture of Ben Roberts and a young woman. According to the short article, she had accused him of sexually attacking her. And he had denied the whole thing ever happened. While not a great picture, I hopped it would jog Brenda’s memory. If it was her, then we also had a name to go with the face Brenda saw. I cleaned up the mess I’d made of the papers and replaced most of them where I’d found them. And headed for the desk.
Pulling out my PI license I told the girl at the desk I needed this copy of a six-month-old Variety magazine for a case I was working on, without going into details. She said just take it. I thanked her and headed for the bar.
Glancing at my watch I noticed it was getting late, and I hadn’t eaten in awhile. I debated whether to stop and grab a bite at a dinner. But decided to head straight for the bar. I could eat there, and talk to Brenda at the same time.
So twenty minutes or so later I pulled in behind the bar. I unlocked one of the back doors and went in. Brenda was behind the bar stocking the night. I helped her finish, and then made a cold sandwich and handed her the Variety magazine.
“Look on page 3,” I said.
She turned the pages and found the pictures and article.
I could tell she recognized someone.
“It's her. That's the woman I saw with him in the back room.!”
“That's what I figured. I spent the afternoon at the library going through old back issues of a ton of magazines and newspapers looking for this.” She hugged and kissed me. I returned the hug and kiss. We stood like that for several minutes behind the bar.
“Now we have a name.”
‘Yes that's her, I remember it clearly now.” she confirmed looking closely at the pictures and reading the short article that went with it.
“Lisa Mayer.” she read to herself quietly.
“She looks pretty young to be a star, not more than 16 or 17.”
“Tomorrow I’ll have Bob run a check on her,” I told Brenda. Who had by now went into my office and was going through the stacks of pictures we had from the offices of Ben Roberts. Glancing in my office At her sitting at my desk looking at the pictures, I left her there and finished getting the bar ready to open. Just about the time, we were ready to open the front doors, Walt showed up. He was armed as usual with two guns. I showed him the article and told him Brenda had definitely identified the woman she’d seen with Ben Roberts in the back room. The picture in the paper was from a gala grand opening of a movie that had been some time before the events detailed in the article.
Brenda finally came out of my office. The look on her face was puzzled.
“I saw her picture somewhere before, But I can't remember where. It's not in any of the files from Roberts.” I hugged her waist and kissed her on the check.
“It's OK Hun, we’ll figure it out. We’re already ahead of what we were this morning.” She switched gears.
“Time to go to work.” And went out front to the bar, and I unlocked the doors. Within a few minutes, the first of our regulars came in. Walt was at his usual place pretending to drink the beer in front of him.
The evening passed quietly. No fights or drunks that need help out the door. And we made a good cash in when we closed. So we were happy. Actually, I was really happy that I finally had some kinda handle on what had been going these last few days. I didn't have all the answers but at least now I had places to look for them.
I