Too Sweet to Die

By Ron Goulart

A vanished jungle princess forces John Easy to visit the capitol of kook: San Francisco
The jungle scenery is costing Marco Killespie a cool hundred thousand dollars. A stickler for quality, this king of television advertising doesn’t mind writing big checks, but his latest masterpiece—a root beer commercial—is in serious danger of going over budget. Everything was going fine until his leading lady, the up-and-coming Jill Jeffers, disappeared. When a blonde goes missing in 1970s Los Angeles, it’s best to call John Easy. A too-cool private eye whose wardrobe is in better shape than his worn-out VW, he knows every hiding spot in California. The first thing he learns is that Jill is a senator’s daughter. Next he discovers that she’s gone to San Francisco, the weirdest place on Earth. Finding her there will be just as simple as a walk in the jungle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Jun 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781453257470

Ron Goulart

Ron Goulart (1933-2022) was the author of several series and standalone novels across several genres, as well as nonfiction books on a variety of pop culture subjects, including pulp magazines and comic books. An Edgar Award nominee, a Nebula Award finalist, and an Inkpot Award-winner, his books include the TekWar series (with William Shatner), the Fragmented America books, the Marvel Novels Incredible Hulk: Stalker from the Stars and Captain America: Holocaust for Hire (as Joseph Silva, with Len Wein and Marv Wolfman), and the Mysteries Featuring Groucho Marx, including Groucho Marx, Master Detective, Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders, and Elementary My Dear Groucho.

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Too Sweet to Die

Ron Goulart

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A MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM BOOK

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Contents

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 1

THE PRETTY BLACK GIRL was sitting high in the tree. With her long bare legs swinging, she was sipping a mug of foamy root beer through a straw. She drew the tip of her straw away from her bright lips, leaned forward, smiling, and said, It’s foam-idible. Her right breast swung suddenly out of her leopard skin halter and hung free.

Cut again, for Christ sake, said the enormous stripe-coated man next to John Easy. Keep your damn tits to yourself, Arden. This is a root beer spot not a skin flick, for Christ sake.

Arden made a pouting face, tugged the spotted halter back up over her large round breast.

Marco Killespie took Easy’s arm, leading him away from the cameras and technicians. "Did Renoir have this problem when he made Grand Illusion? Did Welles, for Christ sake, have to cope with falling tits when he made Citizen Kane?"

But how much root beer did they sell? said Easy as he and the fat commercial producer stopped near a grove of real palm trees.

Killespie narrowed his little blue left eye, then chuckled. Touché, he said, poking Easy. It’s no use getting pretentious over what is, after all, hack work. He stepped away from Easy, rubbed his sweating palms on the backside of his tight white Levis. He cupped his hands, calling, Everybody break for fifteen minutes. That’s fifteen, not thirty, for Christ sake. And, Arden, get Molly to sew your boobies in.

Easy watched the fifteen people employed on Killespie’s commercial scatter across the bright morning studio lot. Easy was a tall wide-shouldered man, two years over thirty. His hair was a darkwood brown, his face had an outdoor, knocked-about look. You’ve got a problem? he asked Killespie.

The enormous producer undid his yellow silk ascot, then rubbed his perspiring face. Waving at the acre and a half of real jungle surrounding them, he said, I’ve got a hundred and twelve problems, for Christ sake. You know how much this costs a day to rent? One hundred and seventy-five bucks. In Africa I could get it for a handful of glass beads, or I could have in the 1930s. On top of that the gorilla gets seventy-five dollars a day.

Gorilla?

Seventy five dollars for some pissant Armenian in a hair suit, for Christ sake. Killespie pressed his plump hands against his plump chest. Wouldn’t you think in Hollywood, even as it declines and falls, there’d be more than two guys with gorilla suits. The other guy has an exclusive contract with NBC to do an educational show for kids. So I’m stuck with Norhadian the pissant.

Nodding, Easy asked, The reason you want to hire me has something to do with the gorilla man?

Indirectly, said Killespie. Fortunately he isn’t here today, so I’m saving seventy-five bucks. He glanced up at a banana palm. What the hell kind of birds are those sitting up there? Sparrows, for Christ sake. Some authentic 1930s jungle movie touch. He bent, grunting, and picked up a rubber rock to throw at the dingy little brown birds. Let me, explain my theory of television commercials to you, Easy.

Easy halted him with a raised hand. I’ll charge you twenty-five dollars an hour for talking to you, even if I don’t take your case.

That’s okay, I can pay for that with what I’m saving today on the gorilla, said the enormous man. Basically I believe you have to entertain people, Easy, even when you’re trying to sell them something. I’ve built up my reputation on that theory. A Killespie commercial will always be (A) Entertaining, (B) Amusing, and (C) Hard-selling. Take the segment you saw me trying to put on film just now. There you have entertainment, in the person of Arden. She’s really a very gifted performer and comedienne, when she can keep her boobies under control. Then we have humor, in the realization we’re seeing a subtle but hilarious parody of oh! so many 1920s jungle films. The sell comes across in two ways. Firstly we see this lovely Afro-American girl obviously enjoying the root beer. Plus which we admire the company for giving us another terrific and hilarious Marco Killespie commercial. The sparrows he’d scattered with his flung rock returned now and Killespie paused to scowl up at them. I’ve poured ninety thousand already into this particular one-minute spot, Easy. I have to have a complete rough cut of it in St. Louis with the client in three weeks. As of today I only have about two-thirds of my minute shot. Here’s what I want you for.

Easy had been looking across the hazy jungle toward a silver trailer where Arden was sitting sewing at her leopard skin. Yes?

My jungle princess has vanished. Killespie walked across the loamy ground to a canvas-back chair and picked up a warped manila folder. I inadvertently sat on this, but that shouldn’t matter. He let the folder fall open and extracted two glossy photos and a sheaf of stapled-together mimeographed sheets. Her name is Jill Jeffers.

Taking the material, Easy looked through it. Jill Jeffers was a slim coltish blonde of twenty-five, freckled and faintly sad-looking even in her glossy smiling publicity photos. She was represented by an agent named Noam Glanzman and his biography and credit list of the girl ran to only three mimeographed pages. What do you mean vanished? Easy asked finally.

I mean vanished as opposed to being here yesterday and today, for Christ sake, in this hilarious Marco Killespie spot, said the enormous producer. I need Jill for three, maybe four more days’ shooting. I can work around her for a while, but I can not finish my commercial without her.

What have you done so far to find her?

I’ve done nothing. I’ve been too busy, but my people have called her home, her friends, her agent and the Guild and AFTRA. Which is why I am in a position now to state flat out that Jill Jeffers has vanished.

You saw her last when?

Friday, answered Killespie. We were right here in Burbank for innumerable hours last Friday, running into golden time, for Christ sake. Norhadian the gorilla man kept dropping Jill and we kept doing retakes. You’d expect a man who’s been a gorilla in Hollywood for over thirty years would know how to carry a blonde through the jungle.

Did she say anything Friday, about not being here on Monday?

No, of course not. I’d have kicked her pretty keaster all around the lot if she had. When I’m in the middle of a hilarious Marco Killespie spot nothing is more important and no excuse is valid. Fire, earthquake, marriage, death, nothing.

She didn’t give you any idea where she was going after she left here?

Up the coast.

Up the coast where?

Jill didn’t say. I’m involved, for Christ sake, in the over-all commercial, the gestalt of the thing. I don’t pay too much attention to what they say between takes, said Killespie. I think perhaps Jill mentioned she was going to take off and drive up to San Francisco or some such place.

What about guys?

Jill’s not seriously involved with anybody right now, at least so my people tell me.

I’d like to talk to your people. Find out who they’ve checked with and what they learned.

Nothing is what they learned, Killespie assured him.

Even so.

Okay, check with Molly. She’s the red-haired girl standing by the trailer over there. Killespie sighed, turning his head to survey the palms and vines all around him. "I’m very fond of this jungle. It’s very pleasantly 1930s. It’s almost worth the one hundred and