The Song Is You

by Megan Abbott

  He decided to call Sutton and Merrel’s manager, Tony Lamont. Hop had met him a half dozen times, had drinks on occasion. Nice guy. Low-key. Not the fly-off-the-handle type.

  “Listen, Tony, there’s a reporter sniffing around an old missing-persons case. A, uh, Jean Spangler. Trying to pull out a story.”

  “What’s it got to do with me?”

  “Nothing, and let’s keep it that way.”

  “You wanna clue me in?”

  “You know, Tony. Jean Spangler.” He knew Tony remembered. They’d made a lot of calls that week following the disappearance.

  Tony paused a second. Then, “You being overly cautious or is there a reason I should batten down some hatches?”

  “Nah, nah. Well, somehow this reporter found out Spangler was at the Eight Ball that night. If she talks to employees there, your boys could come up. You know.” She hasn’t talked to anyone there yet?”

  Hop could hear wheels turning, knocking around, charging faster in Lamont’s head.

  “I don’t think so.”

  There was a click on the other end.

  Three minutes later, the phone rang again:

  “Hop?”

  ‘Yeah.”

  “Problem solved. I renegotiated some arrangements, if you will. Our boys were never at the Eight Ball that night. Or any other night. No one can remember ever seeing them there. Or seeing anybody else, ever.”

  “It’s amazing the place stays open for business.”

  “Ain’t it? Who else we got to remind that there’s nothing to be reminded of?”

  “I’ll do some work on that.” “Hell, yeah. I can’t keep doing your job for you, Houdini. Ain’t that

  what our fat studio contract is for?” He was laughing now.

  “Just in case, where were Marv and Gene that night?”

  “They were with their wives at a show, then a late dinner at Chasen’s, and then a nightcap at my house with my wife and her sister. You can ask Freddie Condon, the maftre d’, Tino, the headwaiter who served them, Loretta, the hatcheck girl they tipped twenty-five bucks, George Thomas, their driver, who deposited them at home at two thirty a.m., at which time Jessie and Iris, their respective servants, greeted them and tucked them into their cozy little beds just about three.”

  Hop smiled. “Nice. Could you run my life, baby?”

  “Some challenges are too great, my friend.”

  After hanging up, Hop paused. How fast Tony was able to make the story. For a night almost two years ago. And how urgent he must have seen the need. Was this an alibi they had prepared.

  Knowing they might one day have to account for that night? Or was this just a ready-made excuse because occasions like this were so profuse, like lipstick on their pillows? How many lost nights in beery roadhouses with prone or pliant or made-pliant B girls? Possibly hundreds.

  He shrugged. This is my bread and butter, after all. Dropping sheets over the Talent’s monkeyshines. If they didn’t have lost nights in beery roadhouses with girls like that, I’d be out of a job. Or still writing about Susan Hayward’s tips for new brides.

  But the thought kept returning: Lamont didn’t even seem that surprised.

  There were only a few possibilities. Either these guys do stuff like this all the time, or they know a little something or a lot about what happened to Jean Spangler. Or they don’t know anything but just don’t want their bedroom high jinks in the public record. That’s really it, of course. Stop thinking so sinister, Hop. Christ.

  So if Frannie Adair is going to hit a rock-hard dead end with Sutton and Merrel, where might she have better luck? He poured himself one last cup of coffee and stared at the cornflowers on the pot. In a flash, he remembered three dozen times Midge spun around the kitchen in some fuchsia chiffon nightgown, some silky robe, that chartreuse dressing gown, twirling and tipping the pot, maybe rapping her talons on the ceramic, trying to get his attention, maybe, more than once, it was true, slamming it down in front of him while whispering, snakelike (or whimpering, soft-soft—that, too), “Son of a bitch.” Or “lousy bastard.” Always about the women, the girls, the Girl, that Woman.

  But, Christ, how was he supposed to help himself when there they’d be, all jasmine and sparkling skin, like a sheen of soft dew hanging over them, dappling their faces, hands, wrists, the glint of supple pink behind pearly ears. Good God, come on. Who could really blame him, the way they leaned over him, radiating such welcoming warmth, a coal oven in winter, and their tender milky breath on his face as they pressed in to show him where to put his hat, his coat, his whatever while he waited?

  Really, if they’re going to wear those darted sweaters tucked tight in those long fitted skirts cradling heart-shaped asses, skirts so tight they swiveled when they walked in them, clack-clack-clacking away down the hall, full aware—with full intention—that he was watching, even as his face betrayed nothing, not a rough twitch or a faint hint of saliva on his decidedly not-trembling lip. It wasn’t he who was unusual, so lust-filled or insatiable. It was they who packaged themselves up so pertly for utmost oomph, for him alone, really, even if they hadn’t met him yet when they slid on their treacherous gossamer stockings that morning, even if they hadn’t known why they had straightened the seams on their blouses so they’d hang in perfectly sharp arrows down their waiting, waiting breasts.

  Christ. Christ, was he really such a cliche? Truthfully, sometimes he bored himself.

  And, if he thought about it, even trying not to, lots of things— not just Midge—could be blamed on his own thrumming head, always lurching forward, looking for the angle. What’s the angle? What’s the angle? How do I get the story, the lay-low, the closed mouth, the Girl?

  And then there’s Iolene and the mystery of her angle and angles. The one who got away, so much air between his fingertips. And if he hadn’t been drooling over her like some horny kid, he never would have gone off with her and Jean Spangler that night.

  But then he would never have gotten any of the rest, either.. . the shiny job, with all its rewards, with its rich promise. One day, one day, if he waited and toiled and hustled and flashed his grin and talked his talk, the keys to the kingdom would be offered and he’d be primed to take them.

  So somehow his own pitching desire both imprisons and liberates —don’t it, though?

  “City desk.”

  “Frannie Adair in?”

  “Adair!”

  A pause, then:

  “Adair here,” her voice chirped.

  “Color me red-faced, Miss Adair.”

  “Oh, it’s my midnight Romeo.”

  “You recognize my voice already?” “You leave quite an impression.” “I promise I won’t make a habit out of last night’s backstage

  confessional.” That’s it. Keep it light, easy.

  “You’d be hard-pressed to top that one. Unless you’d like to share your scoop about who killed William Desmond Taylor. You can’t have been around for that one, too. You would’ve still been in short pants.”

  Hop laughed, trying to read her, his heart banging so loud he was sure she could hear it. “I shot my wad, I promise. I have a few drinks and suddenly I’m imagining myself Mr. Hollywood.”

  “Right,” she said, and he could tell she was trying to read him, too. “So have you heard from your scared friend? What’s her name

  again?”

  “Mae West,” he said, not falling for the ruse.

  “C’mon, give a girl a place to hang her hat.”

  “You always have that from me, Frannie,” he said. “Okay. Listen up, Scoop. Here’s the lowdown: doomed comedienne Mabel Normand really did put that slug in William Desmond Taylor. The rumors were all true.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Oh, Frannie-my-Frannie, I’m close sesame now. That moment is past but good. Unless I trip into a bottle of bourbon and feel impossibly sentimental again. But I’m not a sentimental guy by nature.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls whose doors you show up at i
n the middle of the night.”

  “Maybe, but usually I get sleepover privileges for it.” Why was he expending so much energy with this back-and-forth? Get it together, Hop. Fight your own disposition for a second. “Anyway, it was all a mix of rumor, speculation, and misplaced guilt. Sorry to have bothered you with it.”

  “Anytime. Anytime at all.”

  Sitting there, Hop tried to think what to do next. One night and now he had to hang for it? He could still hear Bix Noonan, that hapless publicity agent in charge of Sutton and Merrel, on the phone, his voice tight as piano wire.

  “If Marv and Gene get called on this, Hop, I’m deader than Pomona on a Saturday night.”

  “I’m not telling. You’re not. They’re not.”

  “How about the colored girl?”

  “I can talk to her.”

  “How about the girl you left with?”

  “Ah, she didn’t see anything,” Hop said. “She was too drunk to notice, anyway.”

  “Hop, we gotta do something. The cops—”

  “How would they put it together?”

  “Who knows? They’re cops.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hop, we don’t know what they did with her. I left an hour after we got to the Lily. She was still in there with them.”

  “I have some friends in the PD. If it ends up playing out, I’ll see what their take is.”

  And he did just that. His angle came to him but quick. When the cops found Jean Spangler’s purse in Griffith Park, the note in it sure sounded like a girl on her way to an abortion: Kirk, can’t wait any longer, going to see Doctor Scott. It will work best this way while mother is away. Hop couldn’t have written a better one himself. Hell, he half believed it was true. So why not tip the hand all the way? And remove her as far as possible from the studio, the Eight Ball, and, most of all, Sutton and Merrel? He went to the studio and he and Bix took her name off the studio records for the night in question. No night shoots at all. Sorry, she was lying to her sister-in-law. Must have not wanted her family to know. He and Bix closed all the doors, spread some money around.

  And Hop called the LAPD himself.

  “I saw the story in the paper about Jean Spangler. I have some

  information. I’m not sure how helpful it is.”

  “What you got?”

  “I saw her Friday night.”

  “Is that so? Okay, pal. No one left but my dead aunt Gertie who

  didn’t.”

  “Lotta cranks and crackpots calling, eh?”

  “You don’t know the half of it. Let me guess. The men’s room at Union Station, third stall down from the left, waiting just for you.”

  “I should be so lucky. Listen, I know you’ve had an earful, Sarge, but I’m legit. I know the girl. I’m a reporter for Cinestar magazine. I’ve met Jean at the studio before. And Friday night, I ran into her at the Cheesebox.”

  So Hop told him he’d recognized Jean by her killer legs and green eyes. Waiting by a phone booth, she seemed to remember him. They chatted a few minutes while she waited for a call. She seemed a little distracted. Then the phone rang. She excused herself to answer it. Being polite, he said his good-byes. By the time he’d gotten in his car down the street and driven past her, she was exiting the booth. She waved over to him, as if to beckon him. He pulled his car up to the curb and she approached. She seemed relieved. Sorry about that, she said. Everything’s fine now. He guessed she thought she’d been stood up and that her date finally called. Can I give you a lift? he’d asked. No, I have someone taking me. He’ll be here any minute, she’d replied, and smiled—beautifully.

  “Taking me?” the sergeant prodded. “She said ‘taking me’?”

  “That’s what she said. I remember because I thought it was a

  funny way to put it. But, you know actresses.”

  “Oh, tons of ‘em.”

  “So I said, “Where’s he taking a pretty girl like you? Someplace

  nice, I hope. And she stopped smiling. ‘Not so nice, but it’ll be over before I know it,’ she said. I told her she sounded like my wife.”

  “Why do you think she told you this, buddy? You Father Confessor or something?”

  “It was like she couldn’t help herself. She was nervous and had to tell somebody.”

  “So she tells a reporter?”

  “I’m not that kind of reporter. I tell housewives what kind of cold cream Linda Darnell uses.”

  “What kind does she use?”

  “Oh, wise guy, eh?”

  “Hey, my wife’s birthday is tomorrow.”

  Remembering all this now, remembering all his handiwork, Hop thought the one to talk to was Bix Noonan. Bix could help him untangle some things. Confirm his memory, help reconcile it with Iolene’s ragged tale.

  He called Bix and asked if he could meet him for coffee. After Hop was hired by the studio, Bix had been bumped down and ended up moving on to another studio, cranking out press releases. Hop felt bad about it, but any guy who needed that much help doing his own job didn’t have the stomach for this business.

  As he was driving, Hop suffered mightily with the kind of self-reflection he’d only heard about. Here was the thing. Sure, he’d helped cover tracks. Because yes, helping Bix would help him into so much more. And within two weeks, he’d gotten the call from the chief of publicity. “We’ve heard a lot about you. We like your style. We’d like you to join our little stable. Would you like that, Mr. Hopkins?” Yessir, he would. He’d been grateful to Cinestar, liked his job, but was he supposed to go on for another three, five, ten years trotting along after the actors as they tried to hunt geese on their five-hundred-acre ranches in stupor-inducing Chatsworth? They were all the same, one after the other, insecure girls and blowhard guys, plastic-faced boys and full-flight bitches—all hiding the private sagas of abject misery in cold-water flats or abject boredom in small towns and cities across the country. None had ever read a book or thought a thought. Left to their own devices, they’d drink too much and tell Hop tales of swimming coaches fondling them, gang bangs by the football team, botched acid-bath abortions, mothers burning them with curling irons, fathers whipping them with brass-buckled belts …

  Most of the time, however, they weren’t left to their own devices. Instead, the press agent—sometimes two—sat right next to the actor or actress, shading the answers, making corrections, laughing loudly to mask bad language or bad form. These guys fascinated Hop. What kind of men got that job? Protecting the fortress, guarding the gates. And so bad at it all. So transparent. And so unsubtle that even a Cinestar reporter could only roll his eyes and take the press release instead. Why write the interview, why coax interesting answers out of this thick-tongued, hayseed actor or gum-snapping, garter-flashing actress when he could just take their press-office copy and go on a bender?

  But then there were the big guys, especially the best ones, the ones like Howard Strickling or Eddie Mannix at MGM or Harry Brand at Fox—the guys so good at what they did that they no longer arranged publicity stunts or chased gossip columnists or dirtied their hands with press releases. Their job was no longer about getting publicity. It lay instead in collecting secrets and erecting steel-cast fortresses around them. He knew guys like this in Syracuse, where his pop was a plumber for the city. A hardcore union man, Pop was always on the front line, fighting the city, the mayor’s men, the shiny-toothed fixers. The fixers who fixed everything. They made his father sick every day of his forty-two years, before a ceiling collapsed on him on the job while Hop was overseas.

  He met Bix at a nondescript coffee shop on La Cienega.

  “Any reason you picked a dump like this? Just ‘cause I’m working over on Poverty Row now doesn’t mean I can’t afford a corned-beef sandwich at the Derby.”

  Hop couldn’t tell if Bix was kidding or not and decided not to guess.

  “It’s all square, baby, it’s just I can’t have anyone overhearing us, you know?”

  “I don’t go for boys, if t
hat’s where you’re heading. Even ones as pretty as you.”

  “Well, there goes my first idea.” Hop smiled, streaming cream into his coffee. “Okay, plan B. Listen, remember that night… ?”

  Bix looked at him. “You mean the night that set you up at my studio like an A number one whore and left me begging for press coverage of glorious stars like Regis Toomey?”

  “That’s the one,” Hop shot back, guessing sympathy was not a wise tack with a boy this bitter.

  “What about it?” Bix said, shoulders straight, hands cupped around the sugar dish.

  “They never found that girl, you know.”

  “I know it. You did good work, my friend.”

  “What do you mean?” Hop said, face tingling. “It’s not my fault they didn’t find her. All I did was keep them from finding our boys.”

  “However you frame it, Hopkins,” Bix said, relaxing his shoulders even as his hands still cradled the sugar dish. “What about it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it lately. I ran into that colored girl we were with that night, Iolene. She got me thinking about it.”

  “What’s it got to do with me, Hopkins? C’mon.”

  “When you left, what was going on, anyway?”

  Bix leaned back against the booth, grinning. “Developed a conscience now, have we?”

  “Well, let’s not get hysterical.”

  “Why should I rack my brain for you? So you can feel better?”

  Hop shrugged. “How about I put a word in? You know. With the big guys.”

  Bix stared at him hard, disgust mingling with a kind of hunger Hop knew well.

  After a minute, he leaned forward and shrugged. “I got no pride or I wouldn’t be in this town, right?”

  “Hey, likewise, I’m sure,” Hop said, trying for camaraderie.

  “Okay, okay. But you gotta make the call now. I don’t yap until I see it.”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “Since when did that matter? Especially for a big shot like you.”

  Hop lifted his hands up as if in surrender. As Bix watched, stone-faced, he slid out of the booth and walked over to the pay phone in the corner.