Below is a short story I wrote based on a real event that happened at the Hollywood Bowl…

“Death Under the Stars” was one headline, while another read “Death in the Spotlight”. My paper didn’t use anything imaginative, but the report began: “Under the curving shell where the great names perform under the moonlit skies…” Worthy of a Pulitzer, maybe. What did I know? But where the hell was my goddamn photo? I’d thought it was my big break. I got a tip from my (only) contact, jumped in a cab, and arrived at the Hollywood Bowl before anyone else.

At the center of the famous stage was the body of a dead man.

He had short black hair and was wearing a suit with a vest but no jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. Looked like he had been singing to the empty seats, and then just laiddown and gone to sleep. Someone wearing an expensive suit shouted at me, and since there was a cop behind him, I assumed he was a detective. I only had a minute or two to compose the shot, so I stood at the back of the stage and pointed the camera at the rows of wooden benches.

I hesitated, struck for a moment by what I could see through the lens. This was the Hollywood Bowl, after all. I had seen Sinatra here, and lots of classical music too, when I had been trying to impress a girl that I met at Schwab’s. I pressed the button: the shot captured the photographers, the cop and the detective looking down at the body like a curious Greek Chorus.

I knew this was going to make the front page. 

More police arrived, and Monty, Bill and the other photographers were hustled away before they had taken any good shots. They didn’t go quietly, as this wasn’t the deal: the press and cops were tight in L.A., especially on a juicy callout like this. It had legs, and could run in the paper for a few days. That usually meant everybody got paid. 

Dusty, the grumpy photo editor, raised a bushy eyebrow when I told him what happened. I paced up and down while the film was developed – rookies like me don’t get to touch the developing equipment – then he shouted: “Go get a drink, kid. Good job.”I swaggered to the bar like I was the West Coast Weegee, and several beers later someone brought in a copy of that evening’s paper. Flicking through page after page in disbelief and then anger, I found nothing but a report on the victim. Where the hell was my goddamn photo?

Bill and Monty looked at me sympathetically. “Don’t take it to heart, kid. It happens,” said Bill, waving to the bartender for another round. “Yeah. I only got page 12; he was page 11. You woulda thought it was a given: a dead body at the Bowl? Front page for sure,” added Monty.

The red telephone rang. A clever editor had it installed here back in the day, as he knew freelancers were here, like dogs hanging around a campfire. Not on salary, we were paid by the shot – the published shot. The duty news editor told me to come to the office right away, and I sobered up real quick as I walked the couple of blocks to their huge building.  “What’s your name?” said the mustachioed news editor, who I had never met, as he pulled out a check book. “They just didn’t have the space to run it,” he said, bored. “It happens.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that,” I mumbled. But mustache was already on the telephone.

“Never seen that before,” the secretary whispered to me as I stumbled out of the office.

I went back to the bar, because what else was I supposed to do? I  didn’t mention the check, because $200 was more money than I’d seen in a long time. My rent was due, and the electricity, and the gas, and the car. But I was confused. My photo had been spiked, despite the other papers running ones that can’t have been as good. What the hell?

Bill began reading the report out loud. The dead man’s name was Otis Leery; he was 39, and police had determined it was suicide. 

“You woulda though he was an actor, going out like that,” said Monty.  

“Close enough,” said Bill. “He was an interior decorator. And he wasn’t married.”

He wolf-whistled, and I looked around for a blonde, because Bill wasn’t subtle about that kind of thing. But the bar was empty. Monty rolled his eyes.

“One more for Monty,” I shouted to the bartender, putting some coins down on the table. “You can get your own,” I hissed at Bill, snatching his newspaper from him as I went.

“What? It was a joke!” he protested.

I didn’t laugh. $200 in my wallet, but I wasn’t in the mood. I walked a few blocks to clear my head, and ended up at one of my favorite places: Angels Flight. On the first day I arrived in LA, and then every time I came downtown, I took a ride on the silly orange train. Always cheered me up. A minute or so of creaking wood, clanging bells and whining cables later, I realized I still had Bill’s newspaper clenched in my fist. I was about to throw it in the trash when I saw his photo they published.

It showed Leery’s body in a completely different position.

In my photograph, Leery’s arms were bent at the elbow, resting on his chest like he had been playing Tarzan, or was ready for his coffin. But in Bill’s, his arms were splayed out beside him.  But there was something else.  In Bill’s picture, there was a gun right beside Leery’s head. Suicide, the police said. But I hadn’t seen any gun, and that meant that the crime scene must have been tampered with. Maybe Leery had been murdered, but it was made to look like a suicide. Was that why they didn’t run my photo?

*****

I went back to the office, but Dusty wasn’t there. “Vacation. Catalina Island, then Mexico. Lucky bastard,” growled his grizzled replacement. “Must be nice,” I replied, as I scanned the room to see where Dusty had put my photos. Usually they would be laid out in sequence, but not this time. Then I spotted them on a desk that was just too close by, so I made small talk and got in the way. An “accidental” spill of some coffee, and I was told to get lost. Which I did, with the photographs under my arm, wrapped inside Bill’s wrinkly newspaper.

On the trolley back to my Hollywood hovel, I compared them together. Should I go to the cops? No. That detective surely saw my face. And that cop. Mustache editor? No. They’d spiked the photo and still paid me. It would look like sour grapes. And what if I was wrong? It would kill my reputation – such as it wasn’t. And some might say that $200 was a payoff. I’m new in town, and the L.A. papers are vicious rivals. The freelancers too. Monty and Bill have been kind to me, but they weren’t happy I got the jump on them at the Bowl.

I sat down and read the report on Leery again. The last man to see him alive was a friend of his named Harry Ford, who told police that Leery had seemed depressed, but insisted nothing was wrong. Leery’s sister, Doreena, had no explanation for what had happened either. Nevertheless, the scandal-hungry reporter speculated: Leery had won big on the Sweepstakes a few years ago, but had “come up short this year.” The slight was obvious: had he spent it all, or did he have a gambling problem? The suicide story might make sense if that was true.

But my photo didn’t tell that story.

I reached into the fridge for a beer, and banged my head on the door when the telephone rang. It was late, but tips could come at all hours and I was glad to hear Bill’s voice – at least for a couple of seconds. “The police have been asking about you,” he said gruffly, and hung up. I was chilled, and not just from the beer. Then I remembered I had ragged on Bill in the bar earlier. Maybe he was playing a prank on me. Maybe.

I looked again at the two photos. If my photo did prove that Leery had been murdered, or even that the body had been moved, it was evidence. And I had kind of stolen it.

Harry Ford’s eastside address had been in the report, and so I drove to his house, even though it was late. His mailbox had a few letters in it, including one from the very same Sweepstakes, so I took them to the door. He worked at Paramount, and said he and Leery met at Santa Anita Park, but were just “track friends.”

He seemed sorry that Leery was dead, and said that Leery’s luck had been “up and down, like ‘tis for all us guys,” though he “’ad bin on a bit of a bad streak lately. Shame. Can I help yous with anythin’ else?”

My final roll of the dice was seeking out Doreena, Leery’s sister, but that would have to wait until morning. It was going to be a tough knock. I’m no reporter, no whizz with the ladies either, and she had just lost her brother. With nothing but coffee for breakfast, I arrived at her house in Hancock Park as early as I dared and introduced myself as Bill Monty from the Times, which was only half a lie, and tried to fend off a small dog that wouldn’t stop yapping. Judging by the noise there were at least two children in one of the rooms as well.

For a moment she didn’t seem convinced by my story about an obituary, but when I tried to distract her by saying she had a beautiful home, tears came to her eyes. It happened so quickly I thought it was a trick of the light. “Otis helped me with all of this,” she said, gesturing around her. “Please take your shoes off, and come in. Would you like some coffee?”

A maid brought in the coffee, and Doreena talked about her late brother. They had been close, especially in recent months when – she flushed slightly – she and her husband had been having “difficulties.” I had noticed there were no large size shoes, or men’s coasts, in the hallway.

I glanced at the pictures on the mantel. City Hall was in a couple of them, and it was clear her husband was someone “important.”

Back in the day Leery had been a promising actor, Doreena said with a smile. He had married an actress, but she left him after just six months – for another actor.

“You know what they’re like,” she said to me, rolling her eyes. I smiled as if I did.

Since the newspaper report had mentioned the Sweepstakes, I felt I could bring it up. She said Leery had been generous, and bought the dog for his niece and nephew – a bark nearby seemed to confirm this, and we laughed.

“But I think he liked to gamble, sometimes. What man doesn’t? But he would never have…” she paused, “done that. What they said in the paper.”

If I was going to say something, this was the moment. But too late.

“And those photographs! There for anybody to stare at like some cheap gawker!”

I glanced at the doorway, and the children were standing there, the dog at their feet. They looked like they had just found out Santa Claus wasn’t real.

“Go and play, please. Mommy’s just a little upset. This nice man is a friend of Uncle Otis.”

“Is Uncle Otis coming to visit?” the younger one asked. I was grateful the dog started yapping. 

“The last time I saw him, I asked if he owed money to, well, people who weren’t exactly Main Street bankers,” Doreena said, swiping any out-of-place mascara off her cheeks. “He laughed, and told me he was about to get a new job. At one of the studios, I think.”

I thought of Harry Ford and his job at Paramount. Or maybe it was another place in Hollywood?

Instead of driving home, I went back to the Hollywood Bowl.

*****

As I thought, it was easy for anyone to get inside. Hop over a fence, or get your hands and knees dirty and scramble up the hillside.

 “The box office aint open until May. Come back then,” said an elderly black man with a bunch of keys on his belt that were as big as a baseball.

“I’m a reporter from the Times,” I lied again. “I was told you know all about the secret tunnel under Hollywood Boulevard.” It was one of the wild goose chases I had been sent on when I first arrived in town, but his face was like Buster Keaton. Then he laughed.

“Porter Johnson,” he said, offering his hand, “but everyone calls me “Keys.”

He took me to a small hut, offered me coffee from his thermos, and told me several stories. “I seen raccoons on the stage. A fox too, one night. Came right on stage, dandy as you please, sat behind the pianist. The tuxedo though the applause was for him!”

He paused for a moment, and on cue, a coyote howled somewhere far away. At least I hoped it was far away. “Bad business, that poor man who kilt himself,” said Keys. “I’ve chased plenty of kids out of here, some adults up to no good too. But nothing like that.”

A three-legged tortoise could have outrun Keys, and he wasn’t on duty that night anyhow, so he definitely wasn’t involved in the murder. And I was calling it a murder now, at least in my head.

After talking to Keys, I called Ford’s apartment. The landlord told me he had skipped out on his rent. Now I’d sort of put it together, and I had no options left.

I had to become a traitor.  

In an office off of the deserted newsroom, I told the Examiner’s managing editor what I thought had happened. He remained stoic at first, but when he started nodding and shifting in his chair, I knew he was interested. That this was going to be my first front page.

“It wouldn’t have been hard to get Leery to the Bowl on the pretext of a possible job,” I continued. “And for an ex-actor, it would have been a thrill stepping out on that stage.” I knew that was true, because I had felt that when I was there. “And Ford and Leery both played the Sweepstakes,” I continued.

Used to fund the building of hospitals, your chances of winning were about as good as finding me awake before 8am, and it was a well-known secret that it was a front for the mob. The managing editor nodded. “Collect the cash from saps who never expect to win anyway, and then fix the draw so that someone like Leery or Ford gets lucky. Not that they win the main prize. That’s too obvious. But maybe a few grand, here and there? The lucky “winners” already owe you plenty of course, so the cash just comes straight back.”

“Or else,” I added.  

“Or else. A simple cake and eat it scam, unless someone spends all the money on losing horses.”

Or a yapping dog that loved kids. “I don’t know who met Leery at the Bowl, or what gang he was from,” I said. “Maybe it was Ford, but I doubt it. That’s for the cops to work out anyhow, right?”

The managing editor stroked his beard and told me that the cops and the mob were at each other’s throats, more than anyone knew, and that the cops were close to blowing open the Sweepstakes scam. He had been promised him the scoop when it happened.

“They found Leery’s jacket later,” he added, “and it had a Sweepstakes ticket in the pocket. They were keeping that information back.”  

“Maybe Leery wanted to “win” the Sweepstakes again, and threatened them when they said no.

So they decided to make an example of him,” I said. “And what better place than on the stage at the Hollywood Bowl? That would make all the papers, and send a hell of a message. But I guess the cops couldn’t allow that, could they?” 

“No.” said the managing editor. “So they stick a gun beside the guy, and it’s suicide. Goes from front page to page 11. It happens all the time. Poor sap.”

I thought of Doreena, and her children, and even that damn dog. Otis Leery wasn’t a poor sap.

“Where’s the picture?” he said, holding out his hand. He looked at it for several moments.

“See? He was actually raising his hands in surrender. Or pleading for mercy,” I said.

I left the newsroom with a five-year contract – at the Examiner’s New York office. Freelance or not, giving a story to a rival was always a betrayal, and I couldn’t work in L.A. anymore. I went back to my hovel, filled a couple of suitcases, and sold my car at a garage near Los Angeles Airport. I waited it out in the echoingly quiet terminal, and just as they were calling my midnight flight to Idlewild I heard the thump of a bundle of newspapers hitting the kiosk floor.

I asked the gate attendant to wait, and fumbled for 10 cents.

Where the hell was my goddamn photo?

THE END