Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Louis B. Mayer’

Aide-Memoire in a Complicated Case

From July 16:

“Those two guys?” Bernie said. “No idea. Two actors from some old movie?”

“Not exactly,” said Muriel Breit. She’s our go-to guy when it comes to movies, have I mentioned that already? She ran the film through her machine again, real fast this time. I didn’t like that at all, in fact felt a bit pukey. But no actual puking happened. Muriel pressed a button and the film stopped, right where the two dudes – the bald guy and the one with glasses – were wrestling for the gun and the young woman was falling. She pointed her finger at the screen. Muriel’s finger was interesting – yellow at the tip and smelling strongly, strongly to me, at least, of cigarettes. I felt like shifting sideways a little and giving that finger a quick lick, and was still considering it when Muriel said:

“The bald one is Erich von Stroheim. The one with the glasses is Louis B. Mayer.”

Ross Macdonald and Iggy

And yes! Iggy was out! Out and free! Out and free and running around crazily, his huge ears flopping and flying. I hardly heard what Bernie was telling Suzie, maybe something like this:

“The long-ago violent act was this killing – almost certainly an accident, but a killing just the same – of a young woman who was in the wrong place when Louis B. Mayer and Erich von Stroheim were struggling for the gun. That struggle got captured on film, film that might have been shot by Ezra Printz, PR flack, but for sure ended up in his hands.”

“How do we know it’s a real killing,” Suzie said, “and not some kind of scene?”

“If it was just play acting there wouldn’t have been all this effort to find it,” Bernie said. “Also, it was labeled ‘The Greed Murder’. But the main thing is you’d have to see it. It’s on the desk in the office.”

Suzie went that way.

“I thought you said it was in the safe,” said Trimmer.

“Caught in a lie,” said Bernie.

And meanwhile, Iggy was zooming around, making lots of sudden stops to mark every possible object.

Note to Ivy: Max and Buddy are commenters, down in the comment section.

TMI

“You were about to explain the case,” Suzie said, taking out a notebook.

“I can’t explain everything,” Bernie said. “And until then this has to be off the record.”

“Fine,” said Suzie. “But I want an exclusive.”

Bernie gave her a look hard to interpret. “An exclusive is what you’ve got.” That all zipped by me, but it seemed to make Suzie happy – she flashed a quick smile.

“Let’s start with Ezra Printz. He handled PR on the Greed shoot. Chet found a film can in Death Valley.” Hey! I’d almost forgotten that. And then I remembered something from that Death Valley cave: a skull. Uh-oh. “What are you barking about?” Bernie said. “Easy, boy.” I stopped. “The making and editing of Greed is a very fractious story. It led to bitter feelings between Erich von Stroheim and Louis B. Mayer. I believe they got into an argument in Death Valley and a bystander, possibly a script girl or something like that, was accidently killed. Somehow the whole thing got filmed, and I think Ezra Printz ended up with the film.”

Trimmer looked up from the floor. “How do you know all this?”

“Zip it,” said Portia.

Suzie’s the Best

Suzie came over. She’s a reporter for the Valley Tribune. Bernie likes her and so do I. She smells great. We sat out on the patio. “Think Chet would like a rawhide chew toy?” she said, reaching into her bag.

“You can bet the ranch,” Bernie said.

Ranch? Suzie had a ranch? News to me. But then out came the chew toy and I got pretty busy for a while.

“Making any headway on the Greed case?” Suzie said, or something like that.

“Maybe a little,” Bernie said. “It started a long time ago with a coverup.”

“Coverup of what?” said Suzie.

“A killing,” Bernie said. “An accidental killing, but a killing just the same.”

“Who got killed?”

“Still working on that,” Bernie said. “But the killers were Louis B. Mayer and Erich von Stroheim.”