Ideal Read Free Page A

famous—screen star. That is all we know.
    â€œSorry we can’t give you any lower lowdown—but we can suggest a few questions—if they have not occurred to you already. It would be interesting to know where that enchanting siren of the screen was on the night of May 3rd—after dinner. Or where she has been ever since. And if—as Miss Frederica Sayers maintains—there is nothing to whisper about, why arethere such persistent rumors linking that certain famous name with the death of the great oil king of the West? All of which leaves Miss Frederica in the position of the West’s oil queen and sole heiress to the Sayers millions—if any.
    â€œNow, to change the subject. Many readers have called in inquiring as to the present whereabouts of Kay Gonda. This lovely lady of the screen has been absent from her Hollywood home for the last two days and the studio moguls refuse to reveal the why and the where. Some suspicious persons are whispering that the said moguls do not know it themselves.”
    T he City Editor of the
Los Angeles Courier
sat down on the desk of Irving Ponts. Irving Ponts wore an eternal smile, wrote “This and That,” star column of the
Los Angeles Courier,
and had a stomach which interfered with his comfort when he sat down. The City Editor transferred his pencil from the right corner of his mouth to the left, and asked:
    â€œOn the level, Irv, do you know where she is?”
    â€œSearch me,” said Irving Ponts.
    â€œAre they looking for her?”
    â€œDitto,” said Irving Ponts.
    â€œHave they filed charges against her in Santa Barbara?”
    â€œDitto.”
    â€œWhat did your police friends say?”
    â€œThat,” said Irving Ponts, “wouldn’t do you any good, because you couldn’t print where they told me to go.”
    â€œYou don’t really think she did it, do you, Irv? Because why the hell would she do it?”
    â€œNo reason,” said Irving Ponts. “Except, is there ever any reason for anything Kay Gonda does?”
    The City Editor called Morrison Pickens.
    Morrison Pickens looked as if in the sparse six feet of his body there were not a single bone, and only a miracle kept it upright, preventing it from flopping softly into a huddle. He had a cigarette which only a miracle kept hanging listlessly in the corner of his mouth. He had a coat thrown over his shoulders, which only a miracle kept from sliding down his back, and a cap with a visor that stood like a halo halfway up his skull.
    â€œTake a little trip to the Farrow Film Studios,” said the City Editor, “and see what you can see.”
    â€œKay Gonda?” asked Morrison Pickens.
    â€œKay Gonda, if you can,” said the City Editor. “If not, just try to pick up something about where she is at present.”
    Morrison Pickens struck a match on the sole of the City Editor’s shoe, but changed his mind and threw the match into a wastebasket, picked up a pair of scissors, and cleaned his thumbnail thoughtfully.
    â€œUh-huh,” said Morrison Pickens. “Shall I also try to find out who killed Rothstein 1 and whether there is any life after death?”
    â€œGet there before lunch,” said the City Editor. “See what they say and how they say it.”
    Morrison Pickens drove to the Farrow Film Studios. He drove down a crowded street of little shops, shrunken and dried in the sun, with dusty windowpanes ready to push one another out of the tight, grim row. Behind the panes he could see everything men needed, everything they lived for: stiff dresses with rhinestone butterflies, jars of strawberry jam and cans of tomatoes, floor mops and lawn mowers, cold cream and aspirin and a famous cure for gas in the stomach. Menpassed by, weary, hurried, indifferent, hair sticking to hot, wet foreheads. And it seemed as if the greatest of human miseries was not of those who could not afford to enter the shops and buy,