Jimmy and Fay Read Free Page B

me and those are not our sets. We didn’t shoot anything in New York. It was all on the Culver City lot.”
    They didn’t shoot anything in New York? That surprised me. Freddie Hall had explained how they used movable models and shot one frame of film at a time, but I can’t say I really understood it. I knew it must have been some kind of trick photography for the city stuff because I’d have heard about it if they’d really wrecked an El train, or if there’d been a giant ape on the Empire State Building. But I didn’t think about any of that while I was watching the picture. It was only when she said it that I thought about how they did it. While I was in the theater, all of it—Skull Island, the big wall, the dinosaurs—they were real, real enough, anyway. I didn’t want to think about the reality behind them. I enjoyed being fooled.
    Ellis demanded the book and flipped through it quickly. Whatever it was, he’d seen worse. Or better. He went to hand it back to the lawyers, but Hazel grabbed it and jammed it into her bag.
    The detective took a slug of his gin and said, “All that funny stuff there in the book has something to do with this movie, right? King Kong ? Don’t know anything about that but it’s easy enough to see that it’s not you in the pictures. Still”—he turned to the lawyers—“if you want to do this the easy way, pay ’em. Six thousand dollars isn’t even chicken feed. My captain told me that the studio wants this handled without any official police involvement, is that right?”
    â€œIt’s publicity, bad publicity, that we’re worried about,” said the shorter one. “But we’d like you to be available if the situation were to become uncomfortable.”
    Ellis nodded in agreement. “Of course we can handle that, but it’s been my experience, in matters like this, that the people on the other end won’t have anything to do with a cop, even if I’m helping you unofficially.”
    The lawyers looked at each other and nodded.
    â€œThat’s why I suggested we meet here. Quinn has a lot of experience handling cash without calling attention to himself.” Ellis’s smile had a nasty edge.
    I said, “Sure. We can call Detective Ellis’s precinct and talk to some of the officers he works with if you’d like more details on my bona fides. They know exactly what I do. Firsthand, you might say.”
    Ellis’s nasty smile disappeared and before I could name names, he jumped in. “I’m just saying that where the law is concerned, Quinn works both sides of the street. Hell, he runs a speakeasy. He has dealings every day with guys who are not one hundred percent legit. They trust him, and I can promise you that he won’t run off with your money. That’s about all you can ask for in a go-between.”
    There was some more back and forth with the lawyers, and they agreed that when the guys with the dirty picture book called again, they would stipulate—that was their word, stipulate —that I was to be their representative. And for the six grand, they wanted every copy of the book. That’s when Miss Wray piped up again and said she’d be happy if she could get assurances that all the books had been destroyed. The lawyers seemed disappointed.
    After that, they started to get pissy about my fee. I cut it off. “No discussion. It’s ten percent, no matter how it turns out. You make a deal for me to drop the money, I get six hundred bucks whether it goes through or not.”
    They didn’t argue the point.
    Finally, I said, “One more thing. Do you have any suspicions as to who’s behind this?”
    The lawyers shook their heads. So did Hazel and Miss Wray, though they cut their eyes at each other like they were thinking something else.
    â€œSo you don’t think it could be somebody who’s got a grudge against