Dog Heavies (A Lucas Hallam Mystery Book 3)

  DOG HEAVIES

  A LUCAS HALLAM MYSTERY BOOK THREE

  L.J. WASHBURN

  Dog Heavies

  Kindle Edition

  © Copyright 2022 (As Revised) L.J. Washburn

  Rough Edges Press

  An Imprint of Wolfpack Publishing

  5130 S. Fort Apache Rd. 215-380

  Las Vegas, NV 89148

  roughedgespress.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  eBook ISBN 978-1-68549-064-5

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-68549-065-2

  CONTENTS

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  A Look at: Darkness Under Heaven

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  About the Author

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  To James, a true follower of the cowboy way

  DOG HEAVIES

  ONE

  Hallam could hear the shouting before he ever reached the office. The angry words, muffled by the thick wooden door, were so indistinct that he couldn't make them out, but there was no mistaking the tone.

  Somebody in there was madder than hell.

  Hallam paused just outside the door and leaned closer to it. He told himself he was just indulging an old man's curiosity, listening to the argument going on inside the office of J. Frederick Darby, the head of production here at the studio. Darby's office was at the end of a long, thickly carpeted hall, and all the other doors along the corridor were closed at the moment. It was close to lunchtime; probably most of the people in the building had already gone over to the commissary. The reception desk up front had been empty when Hallam arrived, so he had wandered back to Darby's office on his own, on the chance that the production chief would be there. Darby had asked Hallam to drop by sometime today when he called, but he hadn't specified a time.

  From the sound of it, Hallam thought, this wasn't what they referred to as an opportune moment. He straightened as one of the voices suddenly got louder, indicating that its owner was coming toward the door in a hurry. Hallam had just stepped back out of the way when the door opened and a young man stomped out, his face red with anger.

  The man barely gave Hallam a glance, just brushed past him and stalked down the hall toward the front of the studio's administration building. A few seconds later, another man appeared in the doorway of the office and called after the departing youngster, "You'd better go somewhere and cool off, Eliot. It's not going to do any of us any good for you to act like a stubborn fool!"

  Without looking around, the younger man replied with a curt, obscene suggestion that made J. Frederick Darby turn pale. Darby stood there in the doorway for a moment, then seemed to notice Hallam for the first time.

  It was hard to miss Lucas Hallam for very long. He was a big man, several inches over six feet, with broad shoulders and a powerful frame that age had bent only slightly. His craggy face could never be called handsome, but it had an unmistakable strength. His hair was gray and thick and usually a little unkempt, and a moustache of the same shade drooped over his wide mouth. He wore boots, a tan suit, and a broad-brimmed Panama hat shoved to the back of his head. With a grin, he said, "Mornin', Mr. Darby. Hope I didn't come at a bad time."

  Darby gave an exasperated sigh and shook his head. He was half a foot shorter than Hallam and rapidly balding, with sharp, pale blue eyes behind thick glasses. Despite his unimpressive appearance and thin, high-pitched voice, he wielded more power than anyone else at this studio.

  "No, Lucas, I'm glad you're here," he replied. He nodded toward the lobby at the front of the building, where the angry young man had disappeared. "That's my problem, right there. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Come on in."

  Hallam followed Darby into the office and took the seat the production chief indicated in front of his desk. Balancing his hat on his knee, Hallam waited while Darby settled down behind the desk and then sighed again.

  The office was not overly large and was strictly functional, unlike some of the producers' sanctums Hallam had seen since coming to Hollywood. Darby was more interested in results than luxuries. Hallam could understand and admire that in a man, as long as it wasn't taken to extremes.

  Darby leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers together on his small belly, and said, "That was Eliot Tremaine, Lucas. Have you ever heard of him?"

  Hallam considered for a moment and then shook his head. "Don't reckon I have. He any kin to Pete Tremaine?"

  "Eliot is Peter's son. I'm not surprised you don't know him; he's been back East with his mother for years. She got him a few parts in some of her plays when he was a boy, and he's done quite well for himself. He's had several leads on Broadway, in fact."

  "What's he doin' out here in Hollywood?"

  Darby closed his eyes in sheer frustration for a few seconds, then opened them again and said, "Peter Tremaine has decided that it's time for his son to have a movie career."

  Hallam frowned. "Doin' what?"

  Slowly, spacing out each word, Darby said, "Peter wants us to make him into a cowboy."

  Hallam sat back in his chair, his frown deepening. He had no idea what his connection was with Darby's problem, but he had a feeling that he wasn't going to like it.

  He had known Peter Tremaine for several years, had been a riding extra on several of Tremaine's pictures, including Western Passage, the epic that had put Tremaine up in the same class as James Cruze and Jack Ford, directors who were given big budgets and a fairly free hand. Nobody in Hollywood carried as much clout as DeMille and, before him, Griffith, but Peter Tremaine was in the next rank. And at the moment, he was Darby's leading director. The studio counted heavily on Tremaine's efforts to keep them in the black.

  So Hallam could understand why Darby had a problem. If Tremaine wanted his son to be in the movies, Darby was going to have to do everything he could to accommodate him.

  Hallam mulled that over for a few seconds, then asked quietly, "Can the boy ride?"

  Darby shook his head.

  "How 'bout ropin', shootin' a gun, things like that?"

  "He's never been further west than New Jersey," Darby replied bleakly. In a display of anger unusual for such a normally mild man, he slapped the top of his desk and went on, "Peter just doesn't know what he's asking! We can't take a boy who's never played in anything except drawing-room comedies and make him into a Western star. It just can't be done!"

  Hallam wasn't so sure about that. He happened to know that G
ilbert Aronson had never even been on a horse until he became Bronco Billy Anderson. For every real-life cowboy who had gone on to a career in moving pictures, like Art Acord and Yakima Canutt, there were others like Bronco Billy and Tom Mix who had had to learn the required skills—or at least learn enough to fake it for the camera. But Darby had a point. It was a hard thing to pull off, especially when the actor didn't want to learn.

  "Looked and sounded to me like the boy wasn't too sold on the idea," Hallam commented. "I reckon that was what the two of y'all were wranglin' about?"

  Darby nodded. "When Eliot's father wired him to come out here, the boy thought he was going to act in the same sort of material he had been doing on the stage in New York. He didn't find out until he got here that Peter wants him for his next film."

  "He wants to cast the boy in Sagebrush?"

  "That's right." Darby looked puzzled. "How did you know about Sagebrush, Lucas?"

  Hallam had to grin. "Shoot, there ain't many Westerns comin' up that we don't hear about down at the Waterhole. Pays to keep an ear to the ground."

  That was true enough. The speakeasy where the Western stuntmen and riding extras gathered was usually rife with rumors about upcoming productions, especially large-scale features like Sagebrush that might employ hundreds of extras. The script was still in development, according to what Hallam had heard, but he knew it was going to be centered around the great cattle drives from Texas to Kansas in the 1870s.

  He had been born a little too late to take part in the drives himself, but he had paid more than one visit to some Kansas cattle towns that were still wild and woolly. A feller who fancied himself a fast draw had even pulled a gun on him once in a saloon in Abilene….

  Hallam gave a little shake of his head. That was another time and place, in days long gone. The only folks slapping leather in Hollywood were doing it on movie sets.

  "What do you intend to do about the young feller, Mr. Darby?" he asked.

  "We're going to try to honor his father's wishes, whether Eliot wants to cooperate or not. We've already got a great deal of money sunk in Sagebrush's production. Peter can be a… demanding director. We can't afford to make him too upset."

  Hallam had to grin again. He had gotten along well enough with Peter Tremaine, but he understood Darby's comment. Tremaine was plenty strong-willed, all right; a good director had to be. Tremaine sometimes pushed it up a notch further, though—not to the point where he was a dictatorial son-of-a-bitch like DeMille, but almost.

  "We're going to try to teach Eliot what he needs to know," Darby went on. "I've already contacted several of our best men who are willing to train him in riding and roping and shooting, all the things you mentioned."

  "Not goin' to be easy," Hallam said, "not if he ain't willin' to work hard at it. And with all the distractions a young feller can find in Hollywood, I reckon it'll be that much harder."

  "That's why we're not going to keep him here in town," Darby said. "Peter won't be ready to start shooting Sagebrush for at least a month. That gives us some time. I'm sending Eliot to the Flying L Ranch in Texas."

  Hallam shook his head and looked puzzled. "Don't reckon I've heard of it."

  "It's north of Fort Worth. I've been in touch with the owner, and he's agreeable to having Eliot and several of our people stay there for a while, even though it's a working ranch, rather than what they call a dude ranch."

  Hallam snorted. "I've heard of them dude ranches. Reckon that's a pretty good name for 'em."

  "The man who owns the Flying L, Wayne Lindsey, has some connections in the oil industry out here. That's how I heard of his place. I think it's a perfect solution, Lucas. We send Eliot out of Hollywood, to a place where he'll be surrounded by actual cowboys. There won't be much for him to do there except learn what we need to teach him. What do you think?"

  Hallam nodded slowly. "Sounds like it might work. I've heard tell of other studios sendin' their Western actors off to ranches to get the feel of the real thing. I still ain't sure how I come into it, though. You said you've already got some of the boys lined up to show him the ropes."

  "That's right. What I need now is someone to keep young Mr. Tremaine out of trouble while he's there."

  Hallam was not surprised by Darby's answer. He had begun to think that it might be something like that. Darby, along with most of the studio people in town, knew that he had a private detective's license and handled jobs along those lines when he wasn't doing picture work. Some folks called him a private eye; he didn't mind the name, but he was starting to wonder why people naturally seemed to think of him when they had a mess that needed cleaning up. Or, in this case, one they wanted him to stop before it got started.

  "I'm not sure, Mr. Darby," Hallam said slowly. "Sounds like you think the boy's goin' to need some nursemaidin' —"

  "That's it exactly," Darby replied, leaning forward. "I know I said there wouldn't be anything there on the ranch to occupy Eliot's mind, but you know how young men can be. And I happen to know that Eliot Tremaine has a… fondness, shall we say, for old whiskey and young women."

  "Pretty potent combination."

  "Indeed. His mother has bailed him out of more than one scrape back East, I'm told. And from what I've seen of him, I can believe it. He certainly blew up at me when I told him we were sending him to Texas. He flatly refused to go. He was angry enough that his father wants to put him in a Western; the news about the ranch was the last straw."

  "I reckon that was right before I got here. He did look a mite peeved when he left."

  Darby laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "He'll come around. He has no choice. He signed a contract with us. If he doesn't cooperate, he won't be making pictures for anybody else."

  "He could always go back to New York, I suppose."

  The production chief shook his head. "His mother has cut him off. Evidently he caused one problem too many. Of course, he has some money of his own, but not enough to live in the manner to which he's accustomed. When Peter heard about that, he sent Eliot a telegram immediately, offering him work. You may know about Peter and his wife…?"

  Hallam knew enough to understand the situation. Peter Tremaine and his wife Georgia had been separated for years, although Hallam didn't think there had ever been a divorce. Georgia had been an actress on the so-called legitimate stage, Tremaine a director. Tremaine had abandoned New York to come west, finding more success in Hollywood than he had ever experienced on Broadway. Georgia had stayed behind, raising their son and becoming a celebrated leading lady in her own right. From what Hallam had heard, the separation had been a bitter one, on both sides.

  And now Eliot Tremaine was caught in the middle, with more problems of his own making. Hallam had a feeling that the boy was going to be trouble for anybody who tried to work with him.

  "Well, what about it, Lucas?" Darby asked when Hallam hesitated. "Will you take the job? All you have to do is keep Eliot out of any jams he tries to get into until we've gotten him back here to Hollywood."

  Hallam rubbed a big hand along his jawline and considered the offer. He hadn't been back to Texas in a long time. He had been born there, not far from Fort Worth, in fact. This would give him a chance to see some of his old stomping grounds.

  "If it's a matter of money," Darby went on when Hallam still didn't say anything, "we're prepared to pay you a thousand dollars."

  Hallam had to suppress a whistle. That was damn good wages for less than a month's work. All of his instincts told him that riding herd on a proddy young buck like Eliot Tremaine would be quite a chore, but it was hard to turn down that kind of money when he was used to making four or five dollars a day, plus a box lunch, for picture work. Even his private-detective jobs didn't pay a whole hell of a lot more than that, and he had to buy his own lunch besides.

  "It's a mighty attractive offer, Mr. Darby…" he said.

  "Then you'll do it?" Darby's eagerness was obvious in his voice.

  An image suddenly appeared in Hallam's m
ind. A woman with red hair and features that were beautiful to him despite the lines that experience had put there. A woman who had gotten to him like no woman ever had before.

  Liz…

  A woman who was gone.

  Hallam stood up and extended a big hand across the desk to J. Frederick Darby. "I'll take the job," he said.

  After the last few weeks, it would be damn good to get out of Hollywood for a while.

  TWO

  Darby gave Hallam a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, pulling a big checkbook out of his desk and writing the draft himself rather than waiting to have a secretary do it later.

  "Eliot will be leaving for Texas tomorrow," Darby said as he handed the rectangle of paper across the desk to Hallam. "We have him and the others booked on a train that will be pulling out of Union Station at noon. I took the liberty of making a reservation for you, too, Lucas."

  Hallam grinned as he glanced at the check, folded it, and slid it into the pocket of his shirt. "Sounds like you were pretty sure I was goin' to take the job."

  "Let's just say I was very hopeful."

  Hallam wondered for a moment if Darby knew about his problems with Liz and the way she had taken off for the tall and uncut when things hadn't worked out between them. The little production chief was noted for his ability to keep up with everything that was going on in Hollywood. Hallam doubted that the problems of an old cowboy and a redheaded gal were important enough to come to Darby's attention, though.