The Case of the Angry Actress: A Masao Masuto Mystery by Howard Fast

you?” Bones demanded. “Every accident is an accident only until you know better.”
    â€œBut this joker knows better than anyone.”
    â€œIt happens.”
    â€œThe hell it happens,” Kelly said. “I’m not satisfied—not one bit. And speaking for myself, you haven’t heard the end of this—not by a long shot.”
    He went to the desk and began to wrap the lug wrench in the piece of paper.
    â€œFingerprints?” Masuto asked innocently.
    â€œFingerprints? You been reading too much Fu Manchu.”
    He put the lug wrench in his pocket and stamped out. Bones stood looking after him hopelessly, and the Chief sat behind his desk, staring moodily at Masuto.
    â€œDo me a favor, would you, Pete?” Masuto asked Bones.
    Bones looked at the Chief, then at Masuto, and said, “You know, Masao, you could do me a favor. What do I do about this? A car goes over the shoulder on Mulholland Drive, and I got to come back to the boss with Kelly riding me and tell him how it’s a murder, but we can’t tell him who did the murder because you won’t guess no more.”
    â€œTomorrow.”
    â€œAnd suppose tomorrow you don’t want to guess?”
    â€œMasao,” the Chief said, “is this the only way you can play it?”
    â€œI have three of them. One is the killer. They all spin threads, like damned little spiders. Three killers, three motives, three possibilities. I think I could guess. Then I guess wrong, and I have done precisely what the killer desires. This killer is not smart—diabolical but not smart. Every mistake in the book. Blunder after blunder, but because we are dealing with a lunatic, even the blunders work.”
    â€œBones, do him his goddamn favor,” the Chief said. “And as for you, Masao—you haven’t even filed a report.”
    â€œWhen do I write it? In my sleep?”
    â€œWhat do you want, Masao?” Bones asked him.
    â€œI want to find out what happened to a kid called Samantha Adams. That’s her stage name. Her real name is Gertrude Bestner. She was born in 1936 or 1937, and her last known address was here in Los Angeles on Sixth near Gower. I’ll give you all the facts and details. The last fix I have on her is 1955, a rooming house on Sixth, run then and now by Mrs. Dolly Baker. So you start with 1955 and bring it up to today or as far as it goes. Where is she? Dead or alive? Doing what? Where was she?”
    â€œYou don’t want much, do you?”
    â€œI want it tonight.”
    â€œYou’re nuts,” Bones said.
    â€œWell, then how soon? Shave the hours, and maybe you give a life to someone.”
    â€œWill you back him up, Chief?” Bones asked.
    The Chief nodded.
    â€œTomorrow. Maybe,” Bones said. “But only if she stayed in LA. If she took off, maybe a month, a year—or you can kiss your whole project goodby.”
    â€œTry?”
    â€œI said I’d try.”
    â€œI want it the first moment you have it. I’ll keep my band open in the car. The moment you have it, you can phone here, and the dispatcher will give it to me.”
    â€œAll right. And what do we do with the Peggy Groton thing? Keep it open?”
    â€œYou damn well do. It’s murder, isn’t it?”
    â€œThat’s what you say, Masao.”
    â€œTomorrow night I’ll buy you both a drink.”
    â€œSaki—and take me out for one of your Japanese meals.”
    â€œIf I can fix it with my wife.”
    â€œI thought you Japanese—”
    â€œI am a Nisei,” Masuto explained.

CHAPTER FIVE

    Phoebe Greenberg

O N his way out, the girl at the dispatch desk called after him, “Masao!”
    He came back, and she told him that there was a call for him. “A Mrs. Greenberg.”
    It took him a moment to relate it to a face and a person, and then he took the phone, and a low and pleasant voice said, “Sergeant Masuto, this is Mrs.