‘What? Why?’
‘Because we have a new reform-minded mayor and the DA’s looking to curry favor. He thinks he has a tiger by the tail with this one. It’s got everything. Missing money and the possibility of a police officer murdered by his partner.’
The air rushed out of my body. A moment later, I felt Abigail’s hand cradling my face. We had switched roles; now she offered comfort to me.
‘It’s still in the early stages,’ Gene continued matter-of-factly. ‘All being handled on the QT directly out of Fitts’s office. Rumor is they’re reviewing every aspect of the case, but paying particular attention to me.’ He laughed; the sound was hollow. ‘Amazing I still have friends who’d pass along rumors to a stone-hearted blackguard like myself. Must be after some of that twenty grand I have stashed away.’
‘How can you joke about this?’ My voice cracked and my eyes sought out the Streetlight Story script. I wished Gene hadn’t sealed up his fireplace, so I could consign its offending pages to the flames. ‘Why now, after three years? Is this because of the movie?’
‘No,’ Gene said. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of Streetlight Story or Clyde Fentress, so it’s unlikely. Something else lit a fire under Fitts.’
‘We don’t know what it is.’ Abigail had at some point taken both of my hands in hers.
I couldn’t give shape to my next question, but then I didn’t have to bother. Abigail spent every day working with children. She was accomplished at divining what was on the minds of those who couldn’t properly string words together. ‘As soon as Gene heard about the investigation, he let me know. We’ve spent the last few weeks figuring out how to handle it.’
‘Weeks?’ I said. ‘When did you find out?’
‘It’s ridiculous.’ Gene paced the perimeter of his well-worn rug. ‘Fitts has enough skeletons in his closet to fill Forest Lawn. And the brother of our last illustrious mayor was just found guilty of cooking the city books to sell jobs. But what are they doing? Coming after me. At least I’ll go out in glory. I’m getting a damn picture made about me.’ He gestured at the script and the title page fluttered.
Abigail instinctively smoothed it flat. ‘Lillian? Would it be all right if I borrowed this? I’d like to read it.’
‘What for?’ Gene asked.
‘Well, if Teddy’s a character …’ She hesitated. ‘It would be like having him back for a while.’
‘He’s not a character,’ Gene said. ‘The script’s nothing but bushwa.’
‘Of course you can have it!’ I assured her. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘It is. At least, I think it is.’ Abigail lifted the script uneasily, as if expecting it to snap at her. ‘Who’s playing in it, anyway?’
It was a sign of how rattled I was that I’d never thought to ask Edith. ‘I’ll find out,’ I promised.
‘Tell them it’s Gable for me or bust.’ Gene clapped his hands. ‘I don’t know about you ladies, but the condemned man could use a hearty meal.’
‘Don’t call yourself that,’ Abigail said. ‘And I couldn’t possibly eat.’
‘Me, neither,’ I added.
‘While I could eat a horse, jockey and saddle included. Let’s go up the street to Tony’s for some spaghetti. I’ll polish off what you don’t finish.’
I excused myself to powder my nose. As I started down the hall, Gene walked over to Abigail. His arms enfolded her slight frame. I ran the rest of the way to the bathroom.
I understood perfectly why Gene had confided in Abigail regarding the DA’s investigation. Had he told me about it, I would have immediately asked if she knew.
But he hadn’t told me. He’d known about the DA’s interest for weeks, Abigail had said. We’d seen how many movies and shared countless cups of coffee in that time without Gene breathing a word of his troubles. Why hadn’t he brought me into the fold too? Gene and Abigail were a united front, while I was excluded.
United front. Where had I just come across that phrase?
In a line from Streetlight Story. I cursed the script again as I locked the door behind me.
FIVE
I was scrubbing my apartment with hot water in a cold fury when a downstairs neighbor shouted that I had a telephone call. Gene sounded in deceptively high spirits. ‘Happy Saturday. Are we still stepping out tonight?’
‘I’d understand if you’d rather cancel.’
‘I promised you, didn’t I?’
‘Is that what I am to you? An obligation?’ I chided playfully. ‘You know where I am. Come get me.’
When he did, I was garbed for gaiety in a navy crepe dress with a white linen bib collar and matching ruffle cuffs, and liberally spritzed with Coque d’Or, the perfume that had been one of Addison’s several Christmas gifts to me. I waited until we broke our clinch to ask, ‘Did you learn anything?’
‘About what?’
‘Clyde Fentress. Last night you said you’d find out all there was on him.’
Gene wearily rubbed his eye, which roused disturbing images of Nap Conlin. ‘I asked around.’
‘And?’
‘And Fentress robbed a dance hall in Oakland at the tender age of fourteen. Graduated from youth camp to matriculate at several other fine California institutions. Plied his trade around San Francisco mostly. Would resort to violence only when necessary, but on those occasions took to it with aplomb. Can’t gauge him as a writer of pictures because I haven’t seen his work, but by all accounts a tough customer.’
‘I don’t like the sound of him.’
‘Clyde doesn’t worry me.’
‘What does worry you?’
Gene couldn’t conceal his exasperation. ‘It’s Saturday night, Frost. I’m trying not to worry about anything. You aren’t making it easy.’
I responded by making the ultimate sacrifice. ‘OK. You choose the picture.’
‘Jesus, I’m not in that much trouble.’
‘I want you to enjoy yourself. What haven’t you seen?’
‘They Made Me a Criminal.’
‘Be serious.’
‘I heard it was good. There’s another one called Sergeant Madden. Cops and robbers.’
It would not have been my first choice, not with Midnight, a new romantic comedy co-written by Billy Wilder and featuring costumes by Edith Head, playing. It wouldn’t have been my fourth or fifth, either. But when the name Josef von Sternberg appeared in the film’s titles I relaxed, Gene’s fingers entwined in mine. Von Sternberg had directed all those gorgeous pictures starring Marlene Dietrich, who I could attest was even more swoon-worthy in person.
Only here the object of Von Sternberg’s attention wasn’t Dietrich’s exotic mystery but the blunt features of Wallace Beery. He played a stage-Irish cop, forever puffing on his pipe and lecturing the good-looking but pigheaded son who’d followed him onto the force.
By the time young Madden, framed for a crime he didn’t commit, was shipped to Sing Sing, my hand and Gene’s had long gone their separate ways. As the son died in a hail of gunfire, a victim of hard luck and his own stubbornness, I shrank into my seat while Gene chuckled darkly through the onslaught.
Outside the theater, I mentioned dinner knowing Gene would instead suggest an early night. On the ride home I berated myself for not insisting we see Three Smart Girls Grow Up. Nobody ever got railroaded in a Deanna Durbin picture.
I arrived early for Sunday mass to say a prayer to Saint Raymond Nonnatus, patron of the falsely accused. Gene hadn’t officially joined their ranks yet, but as my uncle Danny said, it never hurt to put a word in with the right man. Confession was being heard at that hour, and I briefly considered joining the queue. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been fourteen days since my last confession. I have told white lies, coveted my neighbor’s cute jumper, and wished ill on everyone involved with a Paramount production except the costume designer, who really should have shopped the picture’s wardrobe. I resisted the impulse because I feared ending up in the confessional opposite Father N
ugent, and when he asked if Streetlight Story had a good role for Pat O’Brien, I’d have to say the actor would make a perfect Eddie.
The good father’s homily explicated the Sermon on the Mount by drawing repeatedly on Angels with Dirty Faces. My kind of sermon.
I emerged from church to find the sidewalk speckled. It was raining. Drizzling, to be precise, the light precipitation a pleasant change of pace – unless, of course, you were hosting a croquet party.
Addison’s Cadillac waited at the curb as scheduled. I let myself in, knowing Rogers, Addison’s chauffeur, wouldn’t budge from the car to aid me, even under postcard-perfect conditions. He harbored a childish grudge simply because during an ill-advised driving lesson I’d almost gotten us both killed.
‘Better get going, and don’t spare the whip!’ I cried. Rogers spent the next minute and a half adjusting mirrors, then rolled the car slowly forward.
The rain hadn’t intensified by the time we reached Chez Rice. Still, the household help transported tables from the lawn to the lobby. My benevolent boss Addison Rice supervised from a doorway. He had donned a festive tam o’shanter, the matching argyle vest stretched to its breaking point over his stomach. ‘It’s not much of a sport if it’s at the whims of the weather.’ He pouted.
I took the croquet mallet that dangled from his hand, noticing the smashed pane of glass at ankle level. ‘I’ll send the league a strongly worded letter. What’s the plan?’
‘We’ll have an indoor picnic instead. I’ve requisitioned blankets from the linen closets.’ I fell in and set about my tasks. Within an hour the fun was in full swing, a phonograph filling the foyer with music as Dorothy Lamour demonstrated a suggestive dance from one of her jungle movies. I didn’t join in the appreciative hooting, though, preoccupied with Gene’s predicament and my complete inability to help him. Through the window I watched Mr Ayoshi, wearing a slicker and trailed by an assistant carrying an umbrella, as he carefully removed croquet hoops and reclaimed what was his.
The rain slacked off by evening. I would bid farewell to this disappointing weekend by luxuriating in the splendor of Edith’s creations for Midnight. As I contemplated which friend might accompany me, a knock came at my apartment door. Soft but insistent, a mouse carrying an important message.
Abigail retreated from the threshold when I responded, then laughed at her own timidity. I waved her inside. ‘This place is darling,’ she cooed. ‘I’ve always wanted to see it.’
That’s right, I thought, Abigail hadn’t visited my humble Hollywood abode before. For that matter, she and I had never been alone together without Gene in a nearby room. Absent his gravity, which had pulled us both close, we’d never really bonded.
‘I’m sorry to drop in, but I thought you might need this back.’ Abigail thrust the Streetlight Story script toward me. It looked like she’d run a warm iron over the pages. ‘Thank you for letting me borrow it.’
‘You didn’t have to trouble yourself. You read it, then.’
‘I did.’
The lengthy ensuing pause sent my movie-going plans out the window. ‘The drug store up the street does Dutch apple pie on Sundays,’ I said idly.
‘With crumbs on top?’
Ensconced in a booth with flaky goodness to fortify us, I broached the subject of Streetlight Story anew. ‘What did you make of the script?’
‘It was strange. Like looking in one of those mirrors at a carnival that warps your reflection, so it’s close to but not quite you.’
‘That must have been unsettling.’
‘On the contrary. Every once in a while, there’d be a glimmer of my Teddy. It was nice to see him again.’ Abigail chased strudel around her plate with a fork. ‘They got his attitude right. Lots of bluster. And he did love betting on the horses, although that wasn’t always funny like it is in the script. And the way he and Gene ribbed each other. I’m not sure I can watch two actors do that.’ She discreetly dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. I hadn’t seen her reach for it, then realized she’d kept it wadded in her palm as a precaution in case she needed it during our talk. She seemed awfully young to be a widow.
I scrambled to change the subject slightly. ‘I thought you came off well.’
‘Really?’ Abigail wrinkled her nose. ‘My character seemed kind of thin.’
‘You have two men in love with you!’
‘I suppose that’s the way to look at it.’ She tapped her fork against porcelain. ‘That Jim was a real louse.’
‘Charming, though.’
‘True. He has all the best lines, which should make Gene happy. He’s so frustrated by the district attorney’s investigation. He has no idea what prompted it. He wants it to become public or dry up and blow away. Until then, he’ll joke about the sky falling.’
And what if it did fall? ‘I wish there was some way I could help.’
‘But you did. You spared us a rude surprise by telling us about this movie. It’s not like you could investigate the bank robbery.’
The thought struck with such force it drove me back into my seat, almost knocking the fork from my hand. Abigail reached toward me. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. I just realized we can have these pies à la mode. What do you say?’
Monday morning posed a major problem. I was trying to make a musical with George Raft.
‘The Trocadero!’ Addison announced as he moved his token around the board. ‘Excellent! I could use a rest.’
Faced with finding a Christmas gift for Addison, the man who literally had everything and could invent whatever came next, I opted for silliness. I’d purchased the Transogram Movie Millions board game, the object of which was to mount a production by building the right hand of cards. Addison had insisted we play as soon as he opened the box on Christmas Eve, and dealt a hand to me several mornings a week. Photographs of Hollywood luminaries adorned the cards and most of them had been guests in Addison’s home, a fact that tickled my employer no end. I shuffled my hand. Joan Blondell and Shirley Ross smiled up at me, but unless I swapped out Raft with Bing Crosby, my dream of making The Runaway Cinderella would die aborning. I didn’t worry about who was behind the camera; according to the game’s rules, a good director could tackle pictures of any stripe but Ray Milland could only appear in westerns, a fact that undoubtedly came as news to him.
As we played, Addison plotted his agenda for the coming months. ‘Springtime in Los Angeles! Let’s celebrate! A season of soirées! I’m toying with a Zodiac theme to start. It might require hiring some farm animals, though. And some twins. But be sure to schedule Thursday afternoon workshop time for the next few weeks. Hedy and I are on the verge.’
‘Is Miss Lamarr’s idea panning out?’
‘It’s intriguing, to say the least. Still a few wrinkles to be worked out, but she’s onto something.’ Only my employer, a man who’d made a mint designing radio parts, could meet the actress billed as ‘The World’s Most Beautiful Woman’ and wind up collaborating with her on some harebrained engineering scheme.
I jotted down a note about Addison’s lab time on the pad I kept handy. With frustration, Addison tossed down a card bearing the handsome face of Fred MacMurray. ‘That tears it. I give up on romance. But I love a mystery.’ He chortled. ‘Just like that show on the radio.’
‘From the makers of Fleischmann’s Yeast.’ Time to present my own harebrained scheme. ‘On the subject of your parties. When I saw Edith on Friday I met the producer of her next movie. He told me your parties inspired a scene in the film.’
‘You don’t say.’ Addison absently laid his cards on the table face-up. Yep, he held Crosby. I was never getting my musical off the ground. ‘What’s the fellow’s name?’
‘Max Ramsey. An old hand at Paramount, knew Jesse Lasky. Said your parties had great energy and tasteful opulence.’
Addison repeated the last two words, relishing how they felt on his tongue. ‘When did we have him here?’
‘We didn’t. That’s purely his impr
ession from the columns.’
‘Remedy that, Lillian. Invite Max to the next one. In fact, let’s schedule one so we can invite him to it.’
‘Consider it done.’ I shuffled my cards and, with an exaggerated sigh, threw down Gail Patrick. Addison’s mystery needed a leading lady. ‘Max even asked for details on your parties to help plan the scene.’
‘Did he?’ Addison was so pleased he didn’t notice I’d surrendered Gail Patrick. I had to nudge the card again. ‘Feel free to share whatever he’d like to know.’
‘Good. I didn’t want to say anything without your permission.’ Now to bait the hook. ‘It did occur to me you should receive something in return.’
Addison smiled and gestured at his ornate office. ‘There’s nothing I need.’
‘That may be true, but there is something you want. I know it’s your dream to appear in a picture.’
A sharp intake of breath. ‘You don’t think that’s possible?’
‘It could be, as you’re providing technical help. It only seems fair. I’m not saying you’d end up on one of these cards like – who is that? – Gail Patrick. You wouldn’t have a speaking role. You’d be an extra. But you’d be in the picture.’
Addison leaned back to mull the notion while I fussed with my remaining cards as if his decision didn’t matter. But it was the key to ending my malaise and helping Gene. Abigail had been correct. I couldn’t investigate a years-old bank robbery. The District Attorney’s office had that charge.
But I could investigate the script based on that robbery. I could find out what Clyde Fentress knew and how he knew it. I only needed Addison’s blessing to spend the necessary time at the Paramount lot.
‘Could such an appearance be arranged?’ Addison asked with the voice of a boy inquiring about the Christmas gift he dared not hope for.
‘If I enlist Edith to help grease the wheels.’
‘Then grease away! At once!’ He beamed at me, his grin stretching further when he finally spotted the Gail Patrick card on the table. ‘And I have my cast! Lights, camera, action!’
Script for Scandal Page 4