Script for Scandal

by Renee Patrick

  I made a faint sound of agreement and glared at the Streetlight Story script. Vi flicked the cover. ‘Put this silliness out of your mind. Gene’s going to be fine.’

  How I wanted to believe her.

  Miss Sarah Bernhardt was waiting on the porch when I returned home, but I knew that to be purely coincidence. The imperious Burmese cat had paused while touring her kingdom and our paths happened to cross. She had been through a crisis around New Year’s Day, shunning her food and losing weight, and my landlady Mrs Quigley had allowed the building she owned to fall into near-ruin as she nursed the companion that had been more faithful to her than any of her late husbands. Miss Sarah was back in the pink now, her brief brush with death not making her any more congenial; if anything, she’d only become haughtier, determined not to squander any of her remaining time on those beneath her station. Judging from the flick of her tail as she strutted past, I’d failed to make the grade.

  I called out a good evening to Mrs Q. She bustled out with a flush in her cheeks and her reading glasses tucked in the gray cushion of her hair, like an errant bird that had crash-landed there. From within her first-floor apartment came the scrape of utensils. She had company.

  ‘I’ve been entertaining your friend,’ she chirped in her too-loud voice.

  A long, lean shadow fell across the hallway behind her. Then the silhouette of the man who cast it appeared, almost as lanky. He placed a hand on the doorjamb, aiming for a debonair insouciance, but I could tell it was because he was well into his cups and needed the support. Only someone half-deaf and almost blind like Mrs Quigley would be unable to tell Simon Fischer had been drinking most of the day.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, his voice lightly amused. ‘I was beginning to fear you’d gone out on the town.’

  I suggested we take a stroll. Simon scratched the scarred skin at his left temple, an unwanted souvenir from his service in the Great War. The flesh around the stark white patch had flushed red, proof he’d taken a few glasses of the homemade wine Mrs Quigley bought from the DiStefanos across the street as she’d plied him with the stew perpetually bubbling on her stove.

  ‘Why not? I could use the exercise,’ he said. The bow he offered Mrs Quigley almost toppled him, and she laughed as if it were a pratfall staged for her amusement. I tugged him toward the door.

  The cool night air sobered Simon up at once. He took a flask from his jacket, his two-tone shoes echoing hollowly against the sidewalk. ‘How are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Tired. I’m supposed to be at a Bund meeting. Some speaker from Chicago on fire with news from the Führer. But I’m not in the mood to listen to that nonsense tonight.’

  He offered me the flask. I took it, mainly to keep it away from him for a few moments. Simon made his rent working as a driver for Lodestar Pictures, the position merely a pretext for his true job – clandestinely gathering intelligence on Nazi sympathizers in Los Angeles operating within the German-American Bund. He was part of a ring of agents initially bankrolled by the studio moguls and now funded by the city’s broader Jewish community. Simon had spun a web of lies out of necessity when we’d met last year, then I’d suspected the worst when I’d learned about his Bund associates. I was suffused by a curious sense of relief once I’d been vouchsafed the truth; I had wanted to like Simon, and now I could – although not in the way he would have preferred. What’s more, I’d been entrusted with his secret. That made me a lifeline for him, one of the few people around whom he didn’t have to wear a mask.

  I felt a bright tension whenever I was with him, a mixture of unease and excitement. Simon treated me like a woman of the world who knew something of the perils of the modern age, not a blinkered Catholic schoolgirl who buried her nose in movie magazines. I was deeply flattered but feared in my heart he’d miscast me. No Marlene Dietrich roles for yours truly. I’d been cut from character cloth, fated for sidekick turns. I wasn’t up to the challenge of this part; the isolation of his double life took a toll he’d increasingly been treating with liquor, and I didn’t reciprocate his romantic interest because Gene and I were keeping steady company. Still, I could on occasion help him shoulder his burden, an assignment I took seriously.

  I raised the flask to my lips without taking a sip. ‘Are you hungry? How about a bite at Cavanaugh’s?’

  ‘Mrs Quigley fed me. Could feed a regiment on what she dished out. Would you like to go someplace?’

  ‘I’m happy to walk. How’s work? Driven anyone exciting lately?’

  ‘The usual gaggle of money men. Caught a glimpse of Cagney when he was on the lot.’

  ‘I’m surprised you recognized him.’

  ‘It’s only because I know how fond of him you are.’ He gestured for the flask, which I reluctantly returned. ‘How’s you these days? How’s Prince Charming?’

  Simon had his own woes. I didn’t need to share mine about Gene. That I did so anyway only reinforced I had no business being on his call sheet. ‘He’s under investigation,’ I said, telling him everything about the pending movie and the murder of Nap Conlin.

  ‘Don’t worry about Morrow,’ Simon said. ‘I don’t care for the man but there’s no way he’s low enough to have killed his own partner. He’ll come through this smelling like a rose. His type always does. Though I admit I’m happy to see him sweat. Have to tip my cap to this fella Fentress. He’s someone I’d like to talk to.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Pointers on how to crack the writing racket. Something I’ve been thinking about.’

  I peered at him. ‘No fooling?’

  ‘I’ve been toying with turning some of what I’ve seen into stories for the pulps, maybe even pictures. They’re making that Confessions of a Nazi Spy, after all. Gotta have some way to foot the bills once they find me out.’

  ‘I think that’s a fine idea.’

  ‘Maybe you can help me when the time comes to get off my duff.’ He stopped abruptly, squinting into the dark as if searching for assailants. The light from a streetlamp slashed across the ivory patch on his face and the slick of perspiration on his forehead. ‘Shall we go somewhere? Into Hollywood proper?’

  ‘I can’t. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘I suppose mine’s about to get longer, then. If I leave now, I can make it for the second half of this big talk at the Bund, maybe hear something I can pass along to the mucky-mucks. Stay in their good graces a week longer. Can’t have bad reports circulating about me.’ When we reached his car he kissed my forehead, maintaining a distance by placing his hands on my shoulders so as not to bring any trace of me to his next destination. He smelled of whiskey. I lingered on the sidewalk and watched his Buick lurch into the night. Simon could feel himself drifting away, and I wasn’t enough to keep him tethered. I genuinely wished him well, and thought considerably less of myself.

  The downstairs phone rang as I was rinsing a few things out. Mrs Q hollered my name, and I fought my way through the jungle of damp stockings without benefit of a pith helmet.

  ‘Greetings, kid! How goes the war?’ Kay Dambach’s voice rattled down the line in best Walter Winchell fashion. It had grown a touch fulsome of late, rehearsing for the radio show she didn’t yet have. Another veteran of Mrs Lindros’s boarding house, Kay – Katherine, professionally – was a budding gossip columnist, constantly on the prowl for scoops and pestering me for dirt from Addison’s parties. Her aggression had put a chill into our once fast friendship. She was the last person I felt like speaking to now.

  ‘You caught me at a bad time,’ I said. ‘Most of my wardrobe is in the sink.’

  ‘There’s no sink big enough. This’ll be a short call. I only wanted your reaction to the story of the day.’

  I waited. ‘And what story is that?’

  ‘Easy on the coy routine. Spill what you know and I’ll get out of your hair, which I’m sure you just washed also.’

  ‘You’re going to have to enlighten me.’

  A melodramatic gasp followed, no doubt accompanie
d by the clutching of Woolworth’s pearls. ‘Heavens, is it possible you genuinely don’t know?’ She couldn’t suppress her glee, coiled around her words like a snake. She knew full well she was the bearer of bad tidings, and had pretended to assume I’d already been informed so I’d feel even worse when she told me. I braced for the bulletin.

  ‘Word is Gene got into a set-to this evening. At a bowling alley. With a nobody. A writer, if you can imagine. Why would anyone tussle with a scribe, especially Gene?’

  If I knew Kay, she already had the answer to that question. ‘What’s this writer’s name?’

  ‘Clyde Fentress. The way I have it, Gene stormed into a Paramount party at the Highline Bowling Court – you know the place, we went there a few times – and chewed this Fentress out in front of several notable names. Then Gene started throwing punches.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I protested. ‘If there was a fight, then Fentress started it.’

  ‘So you do know him.’ I heard her scratch down a note. ‘My people tell me he’s one of those suspect scribblers lately liberated from the hoosegow and selling squalid stories from therein, so maybe you’re right. Anyway, both injured parties are at Saint Luke’s right now. Quite the donnybrook.’ Her voice dropped to a more hushed level. ‘I’m not going to quote you, sweetheart, you have my word. But do you have any comment?’

  I let the click of the receiver speak for me.

  EIGHT

  Los Angeles did a booming business in private hospitals, secluded sanitariums where notable names could recuperate from whatever maladies afflicted them – including ones they’d brought on themselves – far from the public eye. St Luke’s put on no such airs. It was open to whoever required comfort. Not that many would seek it there; along with an antiseptic sting that singed the nostrils, an aura of doom hung over the place. Maybe it was the nuns around every corner, walking in tandem, their habits billowing, as if presaging some demented Busby Berkeley number.

  I raced in, searching for Gene. The first familiar face I spotted wasn’t one I expected. Preston Sturges loitered by a water cooler, grinning at a pair of passing sisters in a manner implying he’d just conjured the perfect gag for them to add to their act. Paramount’s top writer – and friend to Edith Head – looked spiffy and wholly out of place in a mustard-colored sportscoat with a pattern of faint brown checks along with trousers the shade of Brazilian coffee. His impressive crown of hair stood in becoming disarray. ‘Miss Frost! You join the party in time to aid in the tidying up. The festivities and fisticuffs are over.’

  I stumbled through a greeting and asked why he was there.

  ‘Made the mistake of joining a studio bowling expedition. Normally wouldn’t go, but this new script has me addled and I needed a break. Used to roll the odd line with Philip Dunne and Harry Cohn. Did you know Harry once worked the Midwest lanes with a partner, grafting rubes out of their hard-earned? A writer name of Clyde Fentress was the cause of the hubbub. Do you know him?’

  I allowed that I had made his acquaintance.

  ‘Fentress tells a great story. I’m sure most of them are bilge water but at least they’re not about battling for a table at Earl Carroll’s. Makes for a change of pace at any rate.’

  Gently, I urged the writer to recount what had happened.

  ‘The damnedest thing, if you’ll forgive my coarse language. Fentress was coming back from a telephone booth when this other fellow stormed in and pulled him aside. Quite roughly, I should say. Their conversation grew heated and came to a peak when the fellow called Fentress a liar, prefaced by a compound word I’m electing not to repeat. Fentress simply smiled at the man. I’m told it’s difficult to stare down a man who’s been in prison. Then again, Fentress is the one who told me. The confrontation became physical. Not particularly graceful, but physical. Mostly half-hearted haymakers and some rather sad grappling. The police were called, and as I hadn’t yet spoken to them, I agreed to accompany Fentress here.’

  ‘How did it become physical?’ I labored to keep my voice neutral. ‘Who threw the first punch?’

  ‘Couldn’t say, although Clyde would certainly have been in his rights. Calling a man a liar in public isn’t cricket, no matter how noisy the venue. They’re both contending with the gendarmerie now.’

  Shouting my thanks over my shoulder, I ran down the hall.

  After passing another covey of nuns, I spied police officers in the doorways of two adjacent rooms. I sat down to wait. Nearby a young woman about my age maintained a solemn vigil. A clip kept her chestnut hair from falling into her freshly scrubbed face. She wore a straw-colored blouse and a brown skirt with a front box pleat to allow for ease of movement. That, along with the bowling shoes she’d neglected to remove, made me think she’d been part of the Paramount party. She possessed the wary stillness of an athlete, the tang of perspiration her only fragrance.

  One of the police officers moved and the woman craned her neck to peer into the room. Clearly she was awaiting news of Clyde Fentress.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said in appropriate hospital tones. ‘I just got here. Is Clyde OK?’

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, suspicion coming so easily to her the lids practically clicked into place. ‘They haven’t said. Do you know him?’

  ‘Slightly. My name’s Lillian. I met him at the studio.’ I was in close proximity to too many nuns to lie.

  The woman said nothing in reply. ‘Anyway, I’m sure he’s fine. I haven’t seen you around the lot,’ I went on cheerily.

  ‘I don’t work there.’

  ‘Oh. Then how do you know Clyde?’

  She shifted in her chair to face me, eyes down to slits, bowling shoes flat on the floor in preparation for launching herself at me.

  I leaned back in honest supplication. ‘I don’t mean to pry. Hospitals always make me nervous.’

  One blink, then another, then the woman relented. She crossed her legs, left foot bouncing. ‘My name’s Sylvia. Sylvia Ward. Clyde’s my … we’re friends.’

  ‘From San Quentin?’ Her foot froze. ‘Sorry. Bad joke. Clyde told me about his alma mater.’

  ‘He did?’ Sylvia flashed a nervous smile. ‘Clyde is – he and I – well, I’m his protégée, I suppose.’

  ‘You don’t say. Don’t think I’ve met a protégée before.’

  ‘You can’t let him know I used that word. He’d tell me not to get above myself.’ Another smile, this one more genuine. ‘I wanted to learn to write pictures. Clyde sort of took me under his wing.’

  ‘I should find a mentor of my own. Have you written anything I might have seen?’

  ‘Oh, no. I’m not—’

  ‘Sylvia!’ The voice boomed down the hallway. Nuns turned, the heads of many a nurse snapped up in alarm. What they saw merited the effort: a redheaded woman in an emerald green satin gown, the color showcasing her hair, the exquisite tailoring complimenting her curves. Matching evening gloves leant her appearance a regal quality, which she undercut with an abundance of jewelry. She struck me, at first glance, as a woman who’d wear diamonds by daylight.

  Wordlessly, Sylvia rushed over to her, the woman folding her in her arms with a gentle tutting. ‘It’s your lucky day, sweetheart. You caught me on my way out for the evening. And I always come when called.’ Honeyed strains of the South sweetened her somewhat harsh voice. She stepped back to look Sylvia up and down, the two of them an almost comical contrast. ‘First thing we do, sugar, is replace those shoes. You see him yet?’

  ‘No. And I have to before … before she …’ Sylvia trailed off, eyes moistening, a hint of tears all she was prepared to show.

  Her crimson-topped companion required no further prompting. After caressing Sylvia’s arm, she sashayed to the door of Fentress’s room and targeted her feminine wiles on the police officer standing guard. The poor man didn’t have a chance.

  The redhead proceeded to put on a show worth a pretty penny. She leaned in close to speak to the officer, never quite touching him even though some part of her form o
r another was forever on the verge of grazing his. She gestured toward Sylvia and then Fentress’s room, every movement bigger and more suggestive than it needed to be. When the officer said something, the woman tossed her head back to laugh raucously, offering her throat to him, the square-cut neckline of her gown presenting her pulchritude for his delectation. By this point, even a heavily bandaged man on a nearby gurney had propped himself up to admire her performance.

  The officer’s resolve was waning. The redhead slipped a hand into her emerald clutch, and I heard a soft snap. It took me a moment to recognize the sound of a rubber band around a sizeable wad of bills letting one slip. The greenback moved to the woman’s gloved hand, which shook the officer’s, no doubt in tribute to his steadfast devotion to duty. The policeman looked pointedly at Sylvia, then glanced up and down the hallway before sauntering off.

  Sylvia knew a cue when she saw one. She scampered into Fentress’s room. The redhead commandeered Sylvia’s seat. An almost physical force shot through me as she crossed her long legs, like the crackle of electricity before a storm hits. Here was a woman, I thought, who took center stage wherever she went, who carried herself more like a movie star than any movie star I’d ever met. And I’d met my share.

  ‘Always amazes me hospitals don’t have bars,’ she drawled. ‘The one place you really need a drink. Think one of these here nuns could rustle up a stinger? I left mine warming up at home. You part of this Paramount crowd, honey?’

  ‘Sure.’ I invisibly crossed myself in case that answer constituted a lie. ‘You look like you’re going to a better party.’

  ‘The best party’s one you throw for yourself. Tell you the truth, I dress like this to listen to the radio.’ She punctuated the comment with another husky laugh. I had no choice but to join in. I introduced myself.

  ‘Glad to know you. I’m Virginia. Sylvia didn’t give me the whole story. Who threw a punch at ol’ Clyde?’