One Deadly Dawn

By Harry Whittington

As Public Relations Director for Twenty Grand Studios, Sam Howell knew that movie stars would do anything for their front-page write-up. So when Jack Roland got himself charged with murdering a scandal magazine publisher, Sam just groaned. It was so obviously a press-agent’s stunt.

Only one thing didn’t fit. The police were buying it, lock, stock and barrel. And then it suddenly hit Sam that as much as he knew about the antics of filmland, he was a novice to the vicious racket of the newsstand scandal-mongers. There were too many influential people who didn’t want the dead publisher’s confidential files aired. It was no longer a question of innocence or guilt; it was simply a matter of hushing the crime up quickly.

Sam Howell was right in the middle of that squeeze. If he backed out now, an innocent film star would take the rap. If he butted in, he would never live through ONE DEADLY DAWN.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781440544996

Book preview

Chapter One

THE PARTY broke up about 1:00 A.M. Some studio people had dropped in to talk shop, the thing had ignited, and here I was closing the door on the last couple … unknown faces who kept telling me what a wonderful time they’d had, Mr. Fisher. And when they were gone I was sorry.

I checked my watch, thinking a lot of things — the martini some doll had spilled on my Stevenson first edition, Lorna walking in crying and going out crying, the second shake-up in the office this week, this acute sense of needing Betty, the way things had been with us once, and when was I going to get over it?

A glance in the wall mirror should have been enough to remind me I wasn’t the type for this unrequited lover role. Pagliacci was for the Met.

I scrubbed at my stubbled jaw, seeing myself through bourbon-tinted corneas. I was six-feet tall, thirty-one, face not so bad, too thin, needing a shave, good profile, gray eyes — but it just didn’t add up to anything. Probably it was my forehead — give a guy an intelligent looking forehead and he’s dead.

I pushed my fingers through the skinny strands of lifeless hair, faintly angered at nobody but me. Spend your life among Hollywood leading men and soon you’re saddled with a beauty complex no matter how intelligent you once were.

I waded through the debris, taming off lights. A chair was overturned, somebody had left his tie hanging on a floor lamp, one plastic slipper sat upright on a bookcase, and a book end was smashed and matted with hair; I knew this was silly because nobody had even raised his voice in anger all evening.

The last thing I saw in there were the photos of the starlets … Thanks, Sam … Sweet Sam … Always my Sam … Nowhere without you, Sam … and then I walked into my bedroom to sleep alone.

I ignored the farm-country folders on the bed table. The hungrier I got for a place like that, the more I turned my back on it. If I wanted it so badly, why didn’t I just go? That was a good question.

The light glittering on the slick folder covers hurt my eyes, and I snapped it off savagely. I undressed in the dark and fell across my bed, asleep before I could wriggle my toes under the sheet.

I dreamed about fire bells and street-comer Santas and electric-eye buzzers. Then I was in my office and the telephone was ringing but I wasn’t going to answer it because old Yol Myerene was calling personally to tie the can on me, and if I didn’t answer the phone he couldn’t do it; that didn’t make much sense because I’d been begging the old man for months to release me. But the phone went on ringing and finally I had to admit it was my phone and I had to wake up.

I recognized his voice; as his press agents said, once you heard it, how could you ever forget it? But it had been a long time since his press agents said this, a long time since he’d had a press agent and I was clabbered because my watch showed 3:00 A.M.

Sam, he said. I thought I’d never wake you up.

You think you have?

Sam, this is Jack … Jack Roland.

That so?

Sam, I’m in San Carlos De Rafael. I’m in jail.

So? What else is new?

Sam. For God’s sake, I’m not joking.

I hope not.

Sam, there was nobody else I could call. You got to help me. If there was another soul I could have called, I’d never have bothered you.

The burning fuse started a chain reaction behind my eyeballs. You don’t really think your being my ex-wife’s husband gives you any ties on me? You’re not really that stupid.

It’s partly because of Betty I called you.

I looked at the farm folders, the autographed starlets on the wall. Nowhere without you, Sam. My hand tightened on the receiver. What about Betty?

The line hummed. She doesn’t know anything about this yet. It’s terrible trouble, Sam. The worst.

Sure, call old Sam Howell. When trouble gets bad, call good old Sam. I pushed my hand through my thinning hair, wondering if other people’s troubles could be contributing to its loss.

And you want me to hush it up so she never finds out?

I heard him exhale heavily. We can’t keep Betty from knowing, Sam. They say I killed a man. If you don’t help me, I don’t know what I’ll do.

I didn’t speak.

I was awake now, aware of the smog sifting in through the open window, of chill-bumps across my shoulders. In my life I was prepared to hear everything; sometimes I felt I had already heard everything, at least twice. Maybe I had daydreamed a few horrible fates for Jack Roland in Cinemascope and technicolor, but for a lot of reasons this one had never occurred to me, and now when I heard it, it sounded incredible.

His begging for help, though, was right in character.

Sam.

All right.

I thought the connection was broken. Sam, I didn’t do it. No matter what else you got against me, Sam, I never lied to you.

Was it a woman?

His voice caught. No. Some guy named Pawley. Fred Pawley.

Some guy named Pawley. All those years in the movies, stinking up screens from Pawtucket to Palo Verde with his overacting, and now he threw away lines.

The publisher?

"If you want to call him that. He owns that scandal sheet, Tattle."

I stared at a starlet photographed in what she considered appropriate for hanging in my bedroom. It was unbelievable.

I shook my head. Nobody would believe that tonight we had spent an hour cutting up Pawley and the flood of so-called exposé magazines that was overflowing on every newsstand. We had sat around, snug and not important enough to be touched, discussing the suits filed against them by movie stars and society people, agreeing that a good reputation is the most important asset of actors, actresses, producers, directors. I had seen loss of reputation kill off many a star. He could quite logically value his reputation as highly as his life.

We had discussed all this, but it had no relation to Jack Roland and his recent years. Nobody had mentioned Jack Roland all evening.

But Pawley was someone who gave conversation a lot of mileage. We could talk about him as long as the gin lasted. His magazine’s subhead bragged, We Tell What The Others Never Dared Tell. Sure, we said, sooner or later somebody was going to shoot Fred Pawley unless he wore his money belt like a bulletproof vest. But nobody would have thought Jack Roland would ever be accused of killing him.

How did it happen? I said, still not believing it.

I didn’t do it.

Is he dead?

He’s dead…. Sam, I can’t talk. Not on the phone. Get down here, Sam. You’re my only hope.

I replaced the receiver, thinking about that. I was his only hope, the only one he could call. If I were all that stood between him and the gas chamber, somebody up there didn’t love him, either.

I sat down on the side of the bed. Millions of people had paid millions of dollars to see him, and I was the only one he could think of who might lift a finger to help him.

I looked at the bed, thinking there wasn’t anything I needed more than ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. The sheets still looked clean and fresh. The smog was sifting through the window, pushing aside the curtains, bringing in the chill right off the ocean. I was the only one he could call? Not only was that ironic, it was probably true.

My mouth stretched wide in a yawn, so wide my muscles still ached after I closed my mouth, and I let myself think about Jack Roland in the gas chamber. I couldn’t buy that, either.

• • •

The business section of San Rafael was one block long, running between the Santa Fe Railroad and the dry bed of the San Rafael River. It was black dark at 5:00 A.M. when I drove into town across the narrow bridge. Not even one car was parked on the length of the red-brick street and there was no sign of life.

I felt that old compulsive ache looking at the village. This was the sort of place I wanted; a house and twenty acres out about ten miles from a small town like this. There was only one thing wrong with San Rafael — it was too near Los Angeles.

I drove slowly, looking at the dimly lighted buildings, pretending this was the little town I wanted and that I belonged here. Eucalyptus trees lined the street between sidewalk and parking meters. I passed the San Rafael Hotel, the Rexall Drug Store, the Acme Radio & T.V. Sales and Service Shop, a red-front supermarket, a hardware store, some dress shops, a garage and then the tan and brown Santa Fe station.

I parked, wandered around the place until I found a man sleeping between some milk cans.

Where’s the jail? I said.

I ain’t done nothing.

I’m looking for it.

What you done? He sat up.

A friend of mine murdered some guy.

Oh. He was standing by then and his eyes bugged. He pointed back along the street. You turn left up at the Rexall Drug Store. You can’t miss it. You’ll see a light out front.

I drove back along Main Street. It was so quiet I heard a rooster crowing in somebody’s back yard. I knew better; this town had been discovered. All along the coast the smart sets discovered these little villages and moved in with then-station wagons, Cads, servants and swimming pools. They yakked about the treasure of a hideaway they’d found, and the village boomed, then the smart ones found it crowded and went looking again.

I turned left at the Rexall Drug Store and at the end of the block I saw the jail. Seven or eight cars were parked out front, and the whole building was brightly lighted.

A half-dozen men were talking in the outer office. They stopped talking and stared at me. The shock and suppressed excitement showed in their faces; murder had blasted San Rafael out of its warm bed.

A uniformed man looked up from the desk. I told him who I was, said I wanted to see Jack Roland.

How d’ya know he’s here?

He called me. Asked me to come down here.

Oh. The patrolman scowled. You’re that guy. You’ll have to talk to Sergeant Scully.

He got up and jerked his head, motioning me to follow him to the corridor behind the front office.

He knocked at a closed door and after a moment a voice said. All right. What is it?

Sergeant, the guy from Hollywood — the man you let Roland call — he’s out here.

There was an impregnated silence and then the door opened. Scully stood in the doorway looking me over, letting me know that he didn’t care much for what he saw. He’d never work up an argument from me on that. Scully was about my height, weighed over two hundred, had a ruddy complexion. His shirt was sweated, opened at the collar and his tie hung awry. No studio would ever hire this boy to play a police sergeant.

Come on in, he said. He closed the door behind me, pushed a chair toward his desk with his shoe, nodded for me to sit down. He went back around his desk. My name’s Scully. Sergeant Mike Scully. Who are you, and what do you want down here?

Sam Howell, I said. Jack Roland asked me to come.

What are you, Howell? You a lawyer? A relative of his?

By marriage.

What?

Let it go. No, I’m no relation. I’m no lawyer. He used to work for the same studio that I do.

Oh. He nodded and leaned across his desk as if this were the heart of the whole matter. What studio is that, Howell?

Twenty Grand Pictures.

That right? What do you do there?

Public relations.

What?

Handle publicity.

You want to explain that a little bit?

It’s self-explanatory. I handle publicity.

Do you, Howell? He looked wise, pleased with himself. "But how do you handle it? You’re one of the boys who doesn’t get things in the papers. In fact, you’re employed specifically to

Reviews for One Deadly Dawn

[davewilde-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Harry Whittington was one of the top tier of pulp writers in his heyday and One Deadly Dawn proves just how good a writer he is. Whittington sets this tawdry pulp tale in the Hollywood studios and features a fading star up for murder and a studio PR man in the place of the classic hardboiled detective.

You have the usual hoods and slinkydames here, but what sets this terrific story apart from other Hollywood tales is Whittington's descriptions and the mood he sets. He gives us Julie designed by
someone with a yen for long pleasure cruises and they'd included lots of curves and hilly country. Lorna was the Luscious kind of lovely who had to watch her diet, but in her early thirties, she would have made some farmer a healthy stout wife. Marie got her kicks from watching
violence unfold around her. And Leo Ross had a face that showed all the evil in the world. Toni's scent was half something she bought, half something she was born with.

There are no palm trees, no ocean waves, no adoring crowds. It's a journey into a dark, deceitful, backstabbing world where everyone is after something and the main character, Sam Howell, is suspicious of
every slinky dame and what they are really after.

I enjoyed every page of this novel and it was just a ton of fun to read.