A proper butler opened the door at Stark’s this time. He was bald with a horseshoe of hair around the back of his head, a pencil mustache, and a tuxedo with white gloves. He led the way across the marble entry hall, back through the same set of rooms I had seen the day before, and out onto the same verandah where Stark was in the same position. He was reading a different script, though, because only a few pages of this one had been turned back. Or maybe he was rereading his lines.
“He hasn’t come back,” he said, and tried his million-dollar smile, but his face looked pinched, and his eyes were afraid. He set the script down. “You will find him, won’t you?”
“I charge twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses and I get one hundred dollars up front as a retainer.”
His face lost any pretense now. He was very troubled. “That won’t be a problem. That doesn’t matter. He doesn’t even need to come back. I just want to know that he’s all right.”
“You said he’s done this before when you’ve fought. Where did he go?”
“He never gave me specifics. That was part of our unspoken arrangement. He could go on an occasional bender but we would act as though it hadn’t happened. I know that he would get high, shoot up.”
“H?”
“Morphine, I think. Maybe it was heroin. His eyes were always glassy. Sometimes he’d end up with bruises on the insides of his arms. He’s very delicate.”
“Any friends, family he might have gone to?”
“I don’t think so. Definitely no family. Greg isn’t from San Angelo. Maybe friends, but I never met any. I know he would go to the Blacklight, Choices, all those Market clubs. If he was feeling lucky, maybe the Tip. He knew people who went there.”
“Who?”
“Well, me, for one.”
The Tip was Gilplaine’s club. Of course it had to be the Tip. I didn’t know the other places, but I wasn’t the type who would know them. “Clubs close. He would have had to sleep somewhere.”
“I told you. We never spoke about details.”
“Do you have a photo of him?”
“No.”
There was a sound at the door and I turned to find Vera Merton standing there in a bright red blouse with an oriental pattern and a muted red skirt that stopped just before the tops of her brown calfskin high-heeled boots.
“I step out for a moment, and I miss everything.”
She touched my shoulder as she went past me and I caught the scent of cinnamon and cloves. She went around Stark’s chair and settled herself in the one beside him, putting her boots up on the wicker ottoman.
“This is Mr. Foster,” Stark said. “He’s here about Greg.”
She smiled, and her smile had no concern dampening it at all. “I think maybe we saw one another yesterday. Is that right?”
“Yes,” I said.
She bit her lower lip and then said, “This has been a horrible horrible day.” It sounded like the sort of thing she might say on a day when it rained too much.
Stark said, “I know that I’m not giving you very much information, but it’s all I’ve got. I met Greg when he was nearly just off the bus and since then he’s been living here. He didn’t have much of a life outside of the house.”
“And you never went out in public with him,” I said.
He stiffened and said, “Not never. But rarely. I’m sure you’ll understand, and you’ll understand why this matter has to be kept private. If the studio hired you, I know you can be trusted.”
“The studio doesn’t feel that way this morning. I was the one who found Mandy Ehrhardt.”
Miss Merton winced, almost as though she were remembering the ghastly scene herself.
Stark said, “I didn’t know.”
“Why would you have?” I said.
“Was it awful?” Miss Merton said, and now her face was pale and her voice unsteady.
“It always is,” I said.
“Hey, Johnny,” a man called from inside, and then appeared at the entrance to the porch. He was tall with dark hair, wearing dress pants and shirtsleeves, very neat, but the back of his shirt wasn’t tucked in all of the way. He stopped short when he saw me, and ran his hand through his hair. I’d seen him yesterday, too.
“Tommy, this is Mr. Foster,” Miss Merton said. “He’s a private eye. Daddy hired him to look after Chloë.”
“Oh?” Tommy said.
“But now I’m working for Mr. Stark,” I said.
“John,” Stark said, almost on reflex. “Please.”
“Smashing,” Tommy said. Up close, his breath carried a hint of gin on it as he exhaled. “I hope it all works out.” He darted glances at each of us in turn. “Well, everybody...I need to see a man about a horse.” And he gave a little bow with his head. As he walked, he faced backwards, pointing at Stark. “Don’t you go anywhere, Johnny. We need to talk.” Then he slipped inside the house.
“Is he always like that this early in the morning?” I said.
“What do you mean?” Miss Merton said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Excuse me,” Stark said. We both looked at him. “Can’t we please get back to Greg? I’m concerned that he might have done something to hurt himself. With drugs or...” He shook his head and made a distasteful face. “I just want to make sure he’s safe.”
“And to get him to come back.”
“If he wants to,” Stark said. “But finding him is what matters. At least you’ve seen Greg, which is a place to start from.”
“If you’ll allow me to be blunt, John, that’s nothing to start from. And if you’ll allow me to be even blunter, all you’ve given me is that he’s a queer dope user. Well, I guess that narrows it down a little.”
“There’s no need to be nasty,” Stark said, and he seemed genuinely hurt.
“I’m not being nasty, I’m just making sure I’ve got the facts since it seems some of them have only been implied and I don’t want to work from the wrong implication.”
Stark nodded. “You have the facts right.”
I said nothing.
Miss Merton said, “So where will you start?” The color had come back into her face.
“I’ll start with the crime blotters to make sure he wasn’t picked up on a charge or thrown in the drunk tank or any other reason that the police might have gotten involved.”
“I should have thought of that,” Stark said.
“You wouldn’t have gotten anywhere and might have caused yourself some embarrassment. I can call people I know and can keep your name out of it. If those calls are a washout, well, I suppose I can try Hub Gilplaine. He and I are old friends these days.”
Stark nodded. He looked satisfied. “Potts can give you a check on the way out.”
“Don’t worry about it. I know you’re good for it.”
There was an awkward silence in which Stark looked out at his lawn, Miss Merton looked at her feet, and I watched the two of them.
“You’re sure there’s nothing more you can give me?” I said.
He shook his head.
“I’ll call you when I’ve got something to report. It might not be today.”
Stark looked up, shocked. “What if he’s on the street?”
“It’s warm out,” I said. “You do understand, you’ve given me basically nothing to go on.”
He returned his gaze to the horizon. “Of course,” he said.
Miss Merton said, “We’re all just so shaken by Mandy Ehrhardt’s death.”
Maybe she was and maybe she wasn’t. Stark was shaken all right, and probably had cried all morning, but not over Mandy Ehrhardt.
I left them to commiserate, and let myself back into the house. The butler met me before I got out of the music room.
“Is there anything you require?” he said.
I didn’t stop, and he fell in beside me. “Is Mr. Stark good friends with Miss Merton and her brother?” He didn’t answer at first and I could see him try to think of a way to reply. I turned to him. We were in the main entrance. There were blinding patches of white on the marble floor in line with the windows. “Mr. Stark just hired me to find Greg Taylor. I think that he would want his staff to be cooperative, so that I can conduct my investigation.”
The butler still hesitated, but said, “Yes, Mr. and Miss Merton are regular guests here. Their father, too. Many people from the studio are.”
“They would all have known Mr. Taylor?”
“Yes.”
“How about you? How well did you know Mr. Taylor?”
A disdainful expression came over his face. “We were hardly fraternal,” the butler said.
“Of course,” I said, and walked away from him, my shoes echoing in the hall.