On the streetcar out to Bunker Hill I watched the lights flicker to life. They illuminated once-grand Victorians now subdivided into rooming houses, and hastily constructed apartment buildings that looked seedy on the day they welcomed their first tenants. I had a soft spot for the no-longer-fashionable neighborhood. Elsewhere Los Angeles teemed with starlets and millionaires, the aspiring and the arrived. In Bunker Hill, no one dwelled on the glorious past or planned for a hopeful future; they simply aimed to make it through another day. The stubborn pride of the occasional neatly tended lawn and the scent of home-cooked meals heavy on cabbage and carrots reminded me of Queens, where I’d grown up. Like most indomitable things, it wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t need to be. In Bunker Hill, life was looked square in the eye. I had come to look longtime resident Gene square in the eye, too.
I’d caught him in the middle of something; he wiped his hands on a rag as he kissed me on the cheek. ‘Hello, stranger,’ he said. The bruises on his face had faded, noticeable only if you knew to look. ‘Sorry I haven’t called. Been busy. Abigail’s here.’
He led me inside, detouring to the garage. Abigail waved to me. She looked wan, or maybe it was her tan shirtwaist dress. Gene’s ancient lawn mower lay on a workbench, its blades too dull to gleam in the light. He glared at it. ‘Started to cut the grass, but the damn thing stopped working. Trying to fix it.’
Abigail widened her eyes at me and suppressed a grin. We both knew Gene had no mechanical inclination whatsoever, approaching common household tasks with dread. ‘And I dropped in to see if there’s any news.’
‘Is there?’ I asked.
Gene’s tongue pistoned against his cheek as he studied the machine’s innards. ‘Nope. Still twisting in the wind.’
‘On that morbid note, I’ll leave you two. And you should hire a neighborhood boy to cut the grass.’ Abigail paused at the door. ‘I nearly forgot. I had a question about summer jobs at Tremayne’s. Can you walk me out, Lillian?’
The scents of jasmine and barbecue jostled on the night air, proof that spring had indeed sprung. ‘I can call my old manager Mr Valentine if you think it’ll—’
‘Never mind that,’ Abigail interrupted. ‘I wanted to make sure you’re OK.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Gene said you hadn’t called since he got into that silly fistfight. I was afraid you were avoiding him.’
‘He hasn’t called me, either.’ The petulance I heard in my voice indicated Abigail might be right. Perhaps I had been steering clear of Gene, at least until I’d unearthed some truffle of useful information. I wondered what his excuse was for keeping his distance.
Abigail, naturally, already knew. ‘That’s Gene pretending to be stoic. This is tearing him up inside. Not that he’d ever say so. You know men. They have to appear strong at all costs.’
‘And we have to let them?’
She cracked a smile. ‘It worked with Teddy.’
She took out her keys as we reached a roomy dark blue Hudson Terraplane. ‘It’s twice the car I need. Should sell it and get a smaller one, but it was Teddy’s. Big and flashy, just like him.’ When she spoke again, her gaiety sounded forced. ‘It does wonders for my posture. Have to sit up straight so I can see over the wheel. Go easy on Gene, will you? And make sure he doesn’t hurt himself on that damned lawn mower.’
I found him looming over the offending apparatus, holding a screwdriver in each hand as if they were a knife and fork. ‘Want to take a break?’
‘Probably a good idea.’ He doused the light before he finished the sentence.
We moved into his drafty kitchen. I imagined Gene as a boy, sprinting through on his way to build a fort in the backyard. The thought made me weepy, and I pushed it away realizing I hadn’t eaten anything aside from the olive in my Musso & Frank martini. In the icebox I found some cold cuts teetering on the edge of edibility and set about making a sandwich. I’d been in Gene’s house often enough to feel comfortable doing that.
‘I need to ask you something,’ I said as I foraged for mustard. ‘It’s been bothering me. Why didn’t you tell me you were in trouble?’
‘I didn’t want you to worry, Frost.’
‘I’m Catholic. I’m going to worry no matter what. You might as well harness that power and put it to use.’
Gene laughed, the sound as refreshing as water in the desert. ‘Fair point.’
‘I understand why you told Abigail. I suppose I’ve been wondering why you didn’t think I needed to know, too.’
‘I have an answer. You’re not going to like it.’
I set my sandwich on the table. It could wait.
‘I didn’t want you trying to help me,’ Gene said flatly.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you can’t. No one can.’ He started to speak, fell silent, started again. ‘This investigation is one of two things. Either the fix is in, and I’m on my way out because I’ve made enemies. Or it’s a show, being staged for reasons I can’t fathom. In which case, it’ll be over soon enough. Those are the only choices. I know you, Frost. You can’t help getting involved, so I wanted to spare you.’ He looked at me across the table, his eyes exhausted. ‘But I didn’t, did I? You’ve been helping me.’
I chafed at how he said ‘helping’. Like a patience-strained mother in a flour-strewn kitchen speaking to a child. What a good job you did helping Mommy! But now was not the time to object.
Gene pushed himself to his feet and fetched a beer. When I declined one, he poured a glass of water and put it next to my sandwich. ‘I suppose I should thank you for adding Nap Conlin to the equation. I gather it’s one reason Fentress didn’t raise hell about our tête-à-tête. He suddenly had a more pressing problem.’
‘A detective talked to Edith and me about Nap at Paramount yesterday.’
‘You got Tate to leave his desk?’ Gene rocked backward. ‘I didn’t think a stick of dynamite could do that.’
‘No, another man came to the studio. Frady.’
The legs of Gene’s chair slammed onto the linoleum with a sound like a gunshot. ‘Byron Frady? A knight in tarnished tweed? He showed up at Paramount?’
His intensity was such that I could only nod.
Gene howled with laughter. ‘Byron’s no detective. He’s a captain.’
‘He never mentioned his rank. He just passed along his regards.’
‘I’ll bet he did.’ Gene set down his Pabst, the better to brace his head with both hands. ‘He hates my guts.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Teddy was his fair-haired boy. Frady spotted him early on, earmarked him for big things. When Teddy was killed, Frady blamed me.’
‘But – what does he think you did?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he heard the same bullshit rumors about me and Abigail as the rest of the department. Maybe it’s enough I was there when Teddy died. Since then, he’s made his displeasure known every chance he gets.’ He pressed both palms to his forehead. ‘Captains generally don’t undertake solo interrogations, Lillian. Remember when I said I made enemies? Frady’s gunning for me.’
‘Why now?’
‘Because the whole department’s being shaken up by Mayor Bowron’s election and his reform push. This month they forced out dozens of senior men. All with over twenty years of service, all of them loyal to the old chief, Two-Gun Davis. But not Frady. Wily Byron survived the purge.’
I felt many steps behind. ‘So … couldn’t that mean he’s honest?’
‘Sure, if you’re Pollyanna. Downtown, the stories run a little darker. They say he’s so bent not even the new broom crowd can lay a hand on him. He’s crooked in ways they can’t even see. Frady’s paying for those tweed suits somehow. He’s cagey. And he’s got plans.’ He chuckled, the sound like something rising from a drain. ‘Mayor Bowron’s Police Commission decided the department’s promotion list was so tainted by corruption they tossed it out. Started from scratch. Every test for the next rank has to be taken again – only thi
s time they’re including chief of police. Frady’s let it be known he’s throwing his hat in the ring. Bastard could actually land the job. This could all be in preparation for his big move. It’d be just like the son of a bitch to settle my hash before he tries ascending to the highest office in the LAPD.’
‘Wait, so if Frady’s on some personal vendetta—’
‘No. I hope he is. I’m praying for it. Because the alternative is worse.’
I didn’t understand, and said as much.
‘The other explanation is the department is sufficiently concerned about the DA’s investigation they’re looking to torch me before Fitts can do it. Better to clean your own house than let someone else call it dirty. And Frady’s just the man to drop the hammer.’ He took a hearty pull on his beer. ‘However you slice it, it doesn’t look good for your Mudville Nine.’
I thought I’d scream, or cry, or slap the beer can out of his hand. Instead, I found myself thinking of everything Florabel Muir had told me. Find the money or find the evidence.
‘The DA wouldn’t reopen the California Republic investigation unless he had a witness or something explosive. You don’t know what it could be? You can’t even guess?’
‘No.’ He sensed my frustration and took pity on me. ‘But whatever it is, it’s a lie.’
That put me slightly at ease. ‘Do you think the robbery could have been planned by someone else? A fourth man, still at large?’
‘“At large?”’ Gene grinned at my use of the term. ‘No. I’ve heard that cockamamie theory. There’s no one else.’
‘Then what happened to the loot?’
‘Yates or Hoyer hid it before they died. Some homeowner will turn it up decades from now when they start putting in a swimming pool, and the last California Republic mystery will be solved. Probably after I’m dead. I’m having another beer before Frady breaks my door down. You sure I can’t interest you?’
‘No. Could gangsters have been involved with the robbery?’
‘Gangsters? What brought this on?’
‘I met Virginia Hill the other day when I talked to Clyde Fentress’s protégée.’
‘I don’t know the name.’
‘I thought she was an oil heiress, but it turns out she moves money for some gangsters in Chicago. It seems strange she should turn up in the middle of this.’
‘All manner of strange things turn up in cases like this. The trick is focusing on the right ones. No gangsters are involved, from Chicago or right here. This was about three strong-arm men, all of them long gone. Any other questions?’
I took a breath. ‘Yes. What can I do for you?’
‘I already told you. Nothing.’
‘That’s ridiculous. There must be something.’
He smiled genuinely then for the first time in the conversation. ‘One thing. You can believe in me.’
‘Done.’
‘I have a question now. You going to eat that sandwich?’
‘It can wait.’
He stepped around the table. I stood up and melted into his arms, inhaling the faint aromas of beer and grease, the ghost of the aftershave he’d put on that morning, the jumble of familiar scents he carried in his hair and skin and clothes. I fell into it all. As I did, a part of me wondered how many more times I’d be able to do so.
The sounds of a radio quiz show came from Mrs Quigley’s apartment, including Mrs Q calling out incorrect answers to her Philco. I hollered in a greeting.
‘There you are!’ she replied. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yes, thanks.’ The sandwich wasn’t much, but it counted.
My landlady shuffled into the front hallway, wrapped in a dressing gown she swore had been a gift from Flo Ziegfeld himself. The garment had turned shiny with age, so maybe she was on the level. ‘Your friend was here.’
I hoped desperately she meant Vi. ‘Who?’
‘The fellow who eats me out of house and home, bless him.’
‘What time?’
‘Around two, two-thirty, so he only took a bit of lunch.’
Simon at liberty in the middle of a workday. Not a promising sign.
‘And you had a phone message. Such excitement!’ Mrs Q fished a scrap of paper from her dressing gown pocket, replaced it, then found it again. ‘Yes, here it is. A detective telephoned, but not your nice Mr Morrow. Yes. A Mr Farrell.’
She’d written down Frady. I didn’t bother making note of the number. I had no intention of returning the call.
I was bidding Mrs Q goodnight when her head snapped toward the radio. ‘Oh, what’s his name? McKinley’s vice president! You know who I mean. Hobart! Garrett Hobart!’ She smiled angelically at me. ‘He died in office, you know.’
Miss Sarah sidled past with a look that said, I’ve been dealing with this all day.
Upstairs, I changed into my own dressing gown and retrieved the file George Dolan had given me, containing Sylvia Ward’s fledgling attempt at writing for the screen. A brief note had been clipped to the first page, the handwriting with nary a trace of girlishness.
Mr Dolan,
Here is a sample of my scribblings. Thank you for taking the time to look at my work. Please blame any shortcomings on your partner Mr Fentress.
Regards,
Sylvia Ward
I fixed a cup of tea, sat in my favorite overstuffed armchair, and dimmed the lights in the theater of my mind.
Sylvia hadn’t titled her nascent script of twenty or so unnumbered pages. The action began in 1760s Philadelphia, with a young Quaker seamstress named Betsy Ross learning she has been apprenticed to an upholsterer. She finds herself instantly smitten with a fellow laborer, a non-Quaker named John; by page four she was sewing tiny hearts into her work where only he would see them. Betsy and John soon marry against their families’ wishes and open their own upholstery shop. The excerpt ended with a customer inquiring if they could make bed hangings for a newly arrived delegate to the Continental Congress named George Washington.
I let the final page flutter to the floor. Sylvia’s efforts surprised me for several reasons. The subject matter seemed a tad grandiose for her. The young lovers’ dialogue had a playfulness that came as a contrast to Sylvia’s brittle nature.
The biggest shock, though, was understanding I’d heard every word of it before. I suspected it on page one, but needed to skim the others for the realization to sink in.
Sylvia, as far as I could tell, had retyped the opening pages of The Stars and Stripes. Lodestar Pictures had released the mighty pile of patriotic hooey the previous summer in the hope of sparking Fourth of July box office fireworks, but the film had fizzled. Critics praised the meticulous recreation of Washington crossing the Delaware and the cast of thousands used in the epic Battle of Trenton scenes, but those garlands couldn’t overcome the titters in the gallery when Lodestar icon Madge Granger, too old to play the now-widowed Betsy Ross, seduced a Hessian colonel on the eve of the skirmish.
I’d always loved Madge Granger, though, and I teared up when a tattered Old Glory caught the breeze in the closing shot.
To impress George Dolan, Sylvia had passed off as her own work pages from a produced script, one that had likely come through the offices of Central Casting in order to fill out those lauded battle scenes. Why, I wondered, would she do that? No time like the present to find out.
I stepped into my slippers and trotted downstairs. Mrs Quigley’s radio droned on as I leafed through the White Pages. Sylvia – all praise to the Archangel Gabriel, patron saint of telephony – was listed. But apparently not at home; the phone trilled hollowly five times. I had pulled the receiver from my ear when I heard someone pick up.
‘Who is it?’ More than annoyance registered in Sylvia’s voice; it sounded hostile, as if I had joined a pitched argument already in progress.
‘Sylvia? It’s Lillian Frost. We—’
‘You. I know all about you. I know who you are now. You and your boyfriend.’ Whatever heat had been in her words drained away. She spoke cold
ly now, a minister presiding over a stranger’s funeral. ‘He took a swing at Clyde, and you’re a liar. You’re no Paramount employee, and you have no friend interested in extra work. I’ll bet you have no friends at all, you witch. Why on earth should I talk to you?’
I’d somehow ended up on this side of the accusation when I was the one who’d called in high dudgeon. ‘Three words. The Stars and Stripes.’ OK, that was four words, but still, it made a worthwhile rally.
After a moment Sylvia’s muffled voice came down the line; she wasn’t alone, and whoever she was speaking to found themselves at the sharp end of some pointed instructions. When she addressed me again, she seemed wholly unperturbed. ‘I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘Neither of us has been honest. How about we both come clean?’ I heard another muted comment directed at her visitor, this one emphatic. ‘Sylvia?’
‘How about you go to hell.’ Her slamming down of the receiver was emphatic, too.
I turned on my radio, hoping music would soothe me after a long day. So I’d caught Sylvia in a lie. I’d lied to her, too. Whatever it meant could wait until tomorrow.
The sounds of the King Cole Orchestra washed over me. I waited for them to still the voice in my head insisting something was off and needed to be tackled at once. Silence, little voice, I instructed, remembering Gene’s words. He didn’t want or need my help.
Then Abigail’s comment came back to me. That’s Gene pretending to be stoic. This is tearing him up inside.
I donned a coat for my second trip downstairs. I noted Sylvia’s address in the telephone directory, then arranged a taxicab.
She lived in a newer boxy building, close enough to Central Casting for her to walk to work. A scattering of potted petunias lining the entryway made a meager bulwark against the building’s drab brown brick. Buzzing Sylvia’s apartment yielded no response. I stared at the faux stained glass inlaid in the front door, the lobby’s single bulb refracted through varying shades of amber and green. I would wait until Sylvia returned home. The silly little fears rampaging through my head were baseless, and certainly not worth rousing anyone else from their bed.
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