Death by Sarcasm

Thirty-three

The names ran through Mary’s head like old news headlines of tragic stories. Ready Betty. Martin Gulinski. David Kenum. All eliminated, some of them quite literally, from the picture.

Only one name remained from the list she’d generated with the help of Brent’s old gang.

Marie Stevens. The old guys had said that she was buried at Forest Hills. And that Harvey Mitchell had paid for her burial. But Mitchell had said she was crazy and never mentioned where she was buried or if he had in fact paid for it.

The drive to Forest Hills didn’t take long, nor did finding the manger of the cemetery to the stars.

“I called a while back about a Marie Stevens,” Mary said to the manager, a highly effeminate older man wearing a conservative suit and sporting smokers’ teeth. “I recall you said there were two.”

“Yes, I recall that,” the man said, not offering anything more.

“Can you tell me where I can find their final resting places?”

Mr. Tidy whipped out a walking map of Forest Hills and a slim black pencil. He clicked on a desktop computer, typed in a few words, then circled two plots on opposite ends of the cemetery.

“This is where they are in repose,” he said. His eyebrows lifted on the word ‘repose.’

Mary took the map and walked to the farthest one first. It was a classic L.A. day – warm and sunny with a sense of foulness in the air.

She still couldn’t believe she’d been labeled a sexual predator – and that her prey was elderly men. She shook her head. What a low point in her life. And now here she was surrounded by dead people. Old men and dead people. That was the kind of company she’d been keeping lately. Not good. Not good at all.

It only took a brief glance at the first headstone of Marie Stevens to cross one off the list. Born in 1909, died in 1961. Her husband had followed her three years later. No way. Brent’s gang were in their heyday at the time, and long after she was dead, when the real Marie Stevens was partying with them.

A two minute walk to the second Marie Stevens also created a black checkmark on Mary’s suspect list.

Born in 1966. Died in 2001.

Too bad, Mary thought. Young.

On the way back to her car, Mary thought about her next steps. She could swing by a V.F.W. Hall and pick out a couple 80 year old hotties and f*ck them.

Or she could go back to her office and ransack her Internet resources for this Marie Stevens. Being a sexual predator and all, her first instinct was to go for the old guys. But her sense of duty to Uncle Brent and Aunt Alice led her to the right, and just decision. Go back to her office and find out what happened to Marie Stevens.

Then go to the V.F.W. and invite some old men to her place for an orgy. Yes!

As much as she hated it, she excelled at meeting the organizational demands of her private investigation firm. Scheduling, filing, accounts payable, expenses. They were all nicely filed and collated.

So it took her no time to assemble the stacks of research she’d done this far on Brent’s case.

Mary brewed some coffee and turned on her office stereo, putting Prince’s CD Musicology on to play. As the stuttering rhythms filled the office, she dove back into the history of Brent Cooper and his supporting cast of cuckoos.

What came to her after nearly an hour of intense reading, was that it seemed like Brent and Harvey Mitchell were really the founding fathers of the dysfunctional group. Whitney Braggs played a significant role, as well, but not quite as expansive as the other two.

It was those two who had the big house in Malibu that essentially became party headquarters. It was those two who got the first paying gigs – as writers on some long defunct variety show. And it was those two who had progressed the farthest and the fastest in terms of success; with Mitchell obviously eclipsing all of them by a huge margin.

But despite her best efforts, she could find no further mention of Marie Stevens. Nor any pictures. Not any illuminating mentions of a Marie, or an attractive young brunette who had a wicked sense of humor and a penchant for booze and drugs.

By the time she hit the bottom of her material and found the top of her desk, it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. Mary did some rapid calculations in her mind and decided that she had just enough time to try one last-ditch effort to find Marie Stevens.

She flew out of the office and into the Accord and fifteen minutes later she was at a run-down neighborhood in Venice.

The Southern California Comedy Museum looked less like a public space and more like a St. Vincent DePaul gone to seed. Mary had just read about its grand opening in the local paper. Well, it had actually been their non-grand opening, because it had been cancelled and postponed to an undetermined date.

She parked the Accord and went to the door. Inside, she could see two men standing next to a kiosk. One wore a tattered sportcoat with filthy khakis, the other had on blue jeans, a denim shirt, and a tool belt.

Mary opened the door and stepped inside.

“We’re not open,” the guy in the mangy sportcoat said.

“No kidding,” Mary answered. She pulled her own sportcoat aside and let the guy see her gun, figuring he’d think she was a cop. He noticed it, and turned to the guy in the tool belt.

“I’m not upgrading my service – just do it so I can turn on the lights without blowing a f*cking fuse.”

He walked over to Mary.

“What can I do for you, Officer?” the guy asked. Mary didn’t correct him. She was, after all, an Officer. An Officer of female strength. An Officer of good wine. An Officer of Sex With Old Men.

“I need to do some research on a woman who lived here in L.A. back in the fifties and sixties,” she said. “Her name was Marie Stevens and she was tight with a group of guys. Brent Cooper was one of them, and Harvey Mitchell was another.”

“Look, man,” the guy said to her. “This ain’t a frickin’ research center. It’s a comedy museum. One without much electricity,” the guy said, raising his volume so the guy in the tool belt would hear. “And I still haven’t seen your badge.”

Mary did the trick with her p.i. license.

“That’s not a police badge. What are you? A p.i?”

“No, I’m an oceanographer,” Mary said. “That’s why I smell like fish. Anyway, Brent Cooper was my uncle. He was murdered a week ago and I’m trying to help find his killer. Can you help me out here?”

Just then, the worker flipped a switch and the lights went on inside the room.

“That’s a sign from God, friend,” Mary said. “Ignore it at your own peril.”

The guy turned and walked toward a door in the back. “Well come on,” he said. “You might want to look through this stuff fast. The way things have been going, there’s probably an electrical fire starting somewhere. This place will be toast in a half hour.”

“You got a name, there, Dapper Don?” Mary said.

The guy let out a small smile. “Dapper. I like that.” He looked down at his tattered khakis and grungy sportcoat. “Dressed for success,” he said. He held out his hand. “Carl Michaletz.”

“Mary Cooper.” They shook. Mary looked around the room. It was piled with boxes. Boxes of all shapes, sizes, colors and branding.

Michaletz pointed to a small group of boxes on the left side. “All of my stuff on the comedy writers and variety show writers from that period are here,” he said, leading her over to the section. “It’s hard to categorize a lot of people from back then, but I did my best.”

He pulled some boxes out and opened the lids to all of them.

“I would have figured you for a career in animal husbandry,” Mary said to him. “How did you wind up here?” She sat down cross-legged on the concrete floor and pulled up the nearest box. Michaletz pulled a floor lamp over nearer to them and sat down as well.

“I did a lot of coke and booze in the eighties while trying to become a comedian,” he said. “By the time I cleaned up and was sober, I realized I wasn’t very f*cking funny.”

“At least you’re honest with yourself,” Mary said. “It took me years to admit that I wasn’t the hottest woman in L.A. I’ve accepted that I’m the second hottest woman in L.A. When Bea Arthur moves on, then I’ll take over the top spot.”

She hauled a load of scrapbooks and handbills out of the box and set them on the ground, then began sorting through them.

“So I wasn’t bad at business management, though, so I started managing some of the clubs,” Michaleltz said. “One thing led to another and I got hired to run this place, at the behest of a very wealthy comedian who doesn’t want his name attached to this thing, in case it ends up being a huge embarrassment.”

“Very supportive,” Mary said.

There was a small pop and then a sizzling sound from the back room. Michaletz got up.

“Well, everything I have is here. If I have time, I’ll come back and help you look,” he said. “Marie Stevens, huh? Was that her real name?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

He left Mary to the boxes and she didn’t’ waste any time.

She thought she smelled smoke.

Most of the material consisted of lots and lots of head shots. Even more call sheets with names and phone numbers. It wasn’t until she hit the bottom of the second to last box that she found something.

It was a series of pictures of Harvey Mitchell. There were lots of them, mostly with other celebrities and a few of him on stage doing different types of things: stand-up, skits, acting.

It was when she got to the photos of Mitchell and Uncle Brent that she sat up and took notice.

Here was Uncle Brent and Harvey Mitchell standing by a swimming pool with drinks in their hands.

And their was another one with Brent and Mitchell leaning against a Porsche.

And finally, the photo that had Mary on her feet, cell phone in hand.

It showed Harvey Mitchell.

And a lithe, stunning brunette with a white dress and ruby lipstick.

Marie Stevens.

In the photo, they had their arms around each other and were mugging to the camera.

But what caught Mary’s eye wasn’t the image of Marie.

It was the look on Mitchell’s face.

She’d never really seen that look on her own face, but she’d seen it on others.

It was the look of someone deeply in love.