THE GIRL

  WHO LOOKED

  LIKE JEAN HARLOW

  by

  G.M. Jackson

  Copyright © 2015 G.M. Jackson III

  All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part (beyond that copying permitted by U.S. Copyright Law, Section 107, “fair use” in teaching or research, Section 108, certain library copying, or in published media by reviewers in limited excerpts), without written permission from the publisher.

  The mansion was built in the Spanish style, on a hill, as were most of the fashionable

  houses in Los Angeles and, as most of the mansions in any city in 1936, it was rented, room by

  room. The elderly woman who owned it let me use a room when it would suit my purpose and

  would forgo the rent in place of a weekly visit to keep her company.

  I thought I would visit with the woman when I concluded my business. I made this

  decision when I parked my coupe in the garage built into the hill separate from the house. Since a Pierce-Arrow was parked on the road that curved into the driveway, I figured my

  client was already inside the dwelling. I crossed the courtyard to the house, entered through

  the rear door, and passed the phone resting on the directory in the niche as I walked down the

  hall and turned up the stairs to my room.

  My client was waiting for me on the landing.

  She seemed out of place in those surroundings. Despite her tailored clothes, there was

  a coarseness about her appearance that did not fit in with the gentility of the neighborhood.

  She spoke my name in an inquisitive tone. I replied in the affirmative and ushered her into the

  room.

  The room was bare, except for two chairs facing each other. Sunlight poured in and

  emphasized its barren nature.

  “Can’t you afford more furniture?” she asked over her shoulder.

  I smiled. “You emphasized privacy over the phone,” I replied as I let her take her chair.

  “Since we’re away from my office, these are the most private accommodations I can find.”

  “I think my husband is unfaithful. I want you to find out for certain.”

  I was taken aback by her frankness. Usually, my clients need prompting before they tell

  me the purpose of their visits. I told her so.

  “Most people don’t know what they want, I do!”

  I checked myself before saying “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How long have you suspected your husband, Mrs. –“

  “Waverly, I began getting suspicious last week, but it could have been going on for a

  month now.”

  “Do you know the other woman’s identity?”

  She shook her head curtly.

  “All right, Mrs. Waverly,” I sighed, “I charge twenty-five dollars a day and I require a

  day’s fee in advance.”

  “Certainly,” she said as she fished inside her purse. “Could I pay you a week’s fee in

  advance?”

  “Yes, certainly,” I straightened in my chair as she handed me two, crisp, one-hundred

  dollar bills.

  “Cash?” I enquired.

  She looked surprised. “Is anything wrong?”

  I shook my head. “Usually, my clients pay with a check. That way, they have a receipt.”

  “My husband keeps a close watch on our account.” She smiled, rather her lips curled,

  but her eyes kept the same expression. “I saved this from my allowance.”…

  It was the third day of my surveillance. I decided I would light up a cigarette while I was

  waiting for Waverly to leave his building. Yes, I said building. He wasn’t satisfied with an office.

  There was a man named “Waverly” involved with illegal gambling in Southern California’

  I wondered if it was him since he’d have enough money to finance a legitimate operation in

  L.A.’s commercial district.

  Since he had remained in the building during lunch the previous two days, I hoped he

  would have a luncheon date today.

  I removed the cigarette case from the inside pocket of my suit jacket. One advantage to

  living in a Depression is the availability of gold cigarette cases through pawn shops. This case

  had the feature of bearing my last initial, painted in black. I flipped the case open, picked out a

  cigarette and clapped the case shut.

  I was halfway through the cigarette when Waverly appeared. He left through the front

  entrance, crossed to his roadster and drove into mid-afternoon traffic.

  We both had to stop for a red light. Suddenly, a girl with a striking resemblance to the

  movie star Jean Harlow, down to her trademark platinum blonde hair, darted from the sidewalk

  and jumped into his car as Waverly held the door open.

  When he parked for lunch, I snapped two photos as they left the roadster. As they went

  into the restaurant, it seemed as though they were posing for me; stopping to put their arms

  around each other and walking in together. Thirty minutes later, he left the restaurant. Alone.

  I followed him back to his building, parked in the same spot where I had parked earlier

  that morning and settled down to wait. I didn’t wait for long.

  Something clamped on the shoulders of my suit jacket and yanked me out through the

  open window of my car door. It slammed me against the side of my coupe and I bounced from

  the impact, turning to face my opponent.

  I had finally met a man as big as a house.

  “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, friend?”

  Most thugs would have grabbed my lapels and pulled my face close to their’s. This

  Moose simply flexed his hands.

  I made sure that my toes were pointed in his direction and swung my right fist with all

  my weight behind it. He blocked it with his open palm, eclipsed it with his fingers and pushed

  me back against the coupe.

  Something hit me in the stomach and all the air went out of my lungs. I dropped to my

  knees and fell forward, striking my forehead against the sidewalk.

  Finally, I rolled onto my side and fell unconscious. …

  I was awake a few minutes before I tried to get up. I pressed myself up on one foot, but

  the pain in my stomach brought me back down. I let the pain subside and pulled myself up by

  the car door handle. I anchored one arm on the roof of the coupe and opened the door slightly

  ajar ; wide enough to slide in behind the steering wheel and pull my legs in behind me.

  I gripped the wheel for support and leaned back against the seat. I noticed that my

  camera was still on the floorboard where I had left it. I picked it up on the slim hope that

  Moose hadn’t ripped out the film.

  To my surprise, he hadn’t.

  I patted my pocket and felt the reassuring presence of my cigarette case.

  I chortled. Waverly had traded brains for brawn.

  Just then, I saw Moose leaving the building and walking toward my coupe. From the

  look on his face, I decided that Waverly had finally asked him if he had checked my car for a

  camera and had raked him over the coals for not doing so.

  I didn’t wait to find out.

  Luckily, I had left the keys in the ignition. I gunned the motor and sped away. As I went

  by, I swerved at Moose to give him a scare.

  He answered me with a finger. …

  I decided that evasion was the better part of valor. I stopped at a pay phone and called

  another detective. I told him I was in debt to a loan shark and asked him to watch my office in

  case two clients, one larger than the other, should visit me at the same time. He charged me

  twice his daily rate, but my stomach was in no mood to argue.

  After losing fifty dollars, I drove out to the mansion since that would be the best hiding

  place. As Waverly had found me out, I would charge Mrs. Waverly only one hundred dollars. I

  determined that amount while I ascended the stairs to my room.

  I opened the door to find Mrs. Waverly rubbing the chair she had sat in with a cloth.

  She stopped to fish something out of her purse.

  “Mrs. Waverly, wha—“

  She cut me short with an upraised pistol.

  It was one of the small automatics a woman will carry in her purse.

  She waved me over to my chair with her gun, shaking her head in disgust.

  “Since you were engrossed in your pursuit, I didn’t think you’d notice my Pierce-Arrow

  behind you every day this week.” She paused to take in a deep breath. “Oh, to answer your questions,” she continued, “The last time I was here I saw a cluster of trees, near that road out there, that was perfect for hiding my car.”

  She must’ve been clairvoyant since I had just started wondering why I hadn’t seen her Pierce Arrow when she spoke.

  “You’re not Mrs. Waverly,” I guessed out loud.

  “No, I’m not ‘Mrs. Waverly,’” she answered in a mocking tone. “But I needed a reason

  for you to follow him.”

>
  There was a pregnant pause, until she filled the silence.

  “You’ve probably heard that Waverly runs gambling and narcotics in this town. You

  wouldn’t know this, but I run a ’guest house.’”

  Her tone of voice put quotation marks around “guest house.”

  “I don’t have to pay for my women, lady. I wouldn’t know.”

  She smirked in self-assurance.

  “You’d pay for the women in my stable, lover-boy.” She suppressed a laugh as she

  added, “Like you could ever afford my services.”

  I ignored that crack as I asked what had happened to the girl who looked like Jean

  Harlow.

  “Back at the restaurant, Waverly sent the girl out the rear door. Then, he waited thirty

  minutes to lead you away.”

  She brought her free hand up to her eye since she was starting to tear.

  “While they were concentrating on you, I was waiting behind the building,” she

  continued. “I trailed ‘Miss Harlow’ to the hideaway Waverly had bought for her and shot her in

  the heart.”

  She brought the gun hand to her face since the tears were really starting to flow.

  “I met her a month after she had arrived here from back East. She thought her

  resemblance to Jean Harlow would help her find parts but the doors slammed in her face

  anyway. She was starving and had been thrown out of her apartment, so she was ready to do

  anything.”

  She paused momentarily to stare at a bare wall like there was a window with a view.

  Then, she returned her gaze to me.

  “I may have cornered the market on ‘Jean Harlow,’ but there’s supposed to be a house

  somewhere up here in the hills that specializes in lookalikes for stars like Loretta Young and

  Barbara Stanwyck. I don’t know what they’d charge but you wouldn’t believe what men would

  pay to sleep with ‘Jean Harlow.”

  She pursed her lips in anger as she inhaled and exhaled deeply.

  “I was making a fortune with her but ‘Little Miss Harlow’ told me she was tired of ‘living

  in the dark.’ Those were her exact words. “

  Again, her tone put quotes around words as she spoke.

  “I sent money her way. She never wanted for anything, but Waverly offered her a new

  world with his gambling money. In the open.”

  Her head sagged against her chest as the hand with the pistol eased to her side. I

  moved toward her, but she straightened and brought the pistol back up in my direction.

  “I couldn’t let her leave my business without my approval. I had to kill her, so I shot her

  in the heart.”

  “You were going to wipe off your fingerprints here, go kill Waverly and pay me a

  farewell visit at my office.”

  “Yes,” she replied. Then, she aimed the pistol at my heart.

  “I’m sorry,” she added as she squeezed the trigger.

  I stiffened and fell to the floor.

  A dictionary falling from a desk would have made a louder report than her pistol, so I

  realized no one outside the house would have heard the gunshot.

  I was tense in anticipation that she would put a bullet in my head for luck. When I heard

  her clamber down the stairs, I sat upright in my chair and removed the cigarette case to see

  what damage the bullet had caused.

  The bullet had disfigured the initial and I was unable to open the case.

  I reflected on my situation. “Mrs. Waverly” must have realized that Waverly would be

  expecting someone to be tailing him. She hired me as a decoy so, while Waverly was

  preoccupied with me, she could observe them without discovery.

  I nodded in self-affirmation before replacing the cigarette case back in my pocket.

  I patted it thanks and went to follow “Mrs. Waverly.”

  My stomach was still sensitive, so I gingerly walked down the stairs and down the

  hallway to the phone in the niche.

  Since “Mrs. Waverly” would probably recognize my car, I called a cab instead. When the

  dispatcher heard I was calling from a hillside mansion, she said I’d have a cab in five minutes.

  She was right.

  Luckily, I was able to give the cabbie Waverly’s address from memory as he drove away

  from the mansion.

  I wondered how “Mrs. Waverly” would get past the real Waverly’s guards. On a hunch, I

  had the cab driver drop me off behind the building.

  I was right. She had climbed on top of a trash can, grabbed the last flight of the fire

  escape and had used the weight of her body to pull the flight down to street level.

  Waverly would have had his office on the top floor and, if any office had an open

  window giving access to the fire escape, it would be his.

  I climbed up the first flight like it was a ladder; then, I ran up the rest of the fire escape,

  two steps at a time.

  There were fourteen stories in that building, so I had plenty of time to consider my

  approach. My stomach screamed in agony, but my mind ignored it. …

  When the fire escape leveled off, I stopped to peer through the open window adjacent

  to the landing. I used my right forefinger to pull down a slat in the Venetian blind and saw

  “Mrs. Waverly” pointing a gun at Waverly himself. Moose was lying in the doorway opening to

  his outer office, a red circle growing on his chest.

  Again, none of his guards outside his office door would have heard her diminutive pistol.

  “If you’re counting on that private detective, forget him,” she laughed mirthlessly. “He’s

  peeped through his last keyhole.”

  That was my cue. I pushed the Venetian blind aside, hooked my right foot through the

  window to ease my way into the room and stood erect.

  “Greetings, all,” I said, nonchalantly.

  The “O” of surprise on her face became a smaller “O” of pain as the ashtray Waverly

  threw caught her in the head.

  She was dead before she hit the ground.

  Waverly reached inside his desk drawer. I stepped over to face him, made sure both my

  feet were pointed in his direction and belted him under the eye.

  Waverly spun and staggered to the wall. He leaned against it for a second, then he

  slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  I took his private elevator to the first floor and left by the front entrance, unmolested by

  the guards. I took a cab back to the mansion, secured my car and drove back to my office.

  When Waverly eventually recovered, I figured he would be grateful I didn’t kill him and,

  consequently, would not feel the need to disqualify me as a witness. I must have been right

  since his henchmen haven’t paid me a visit.

  “Mrs. Waverly” and Moose were both in the same obituary column. Her real name was

  the same as my aunt’s; his was Stanislaus.

  Both had died from heart attacks.

 

 

  G.M. Jackson III, The Girl Who Looked Like Jean Harlow

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