by John Rechy
Dr. Crouch nodded somberly. “Yes.”
“How the hell was Alberta able to coax you to join her—with all her goddamned principles?” Normalyn demanded.
Miss Bertha was curiously silent.
“Young lady, your language, please!” Mrs. Crouch reprimanded.
Dr. Crouch raised his chin. “Alberta needed us. And she had some knowledge of our youthful associations when we and she were members of the same—”
“Why should we be branded because of that subversive group so long ago?” Mrs. Crouch interrupted. “Why? Why, child, when we had found our rightful place with . . . the studios?”
Normalyn knew: “Alberta refused to name even you to that committee that sent her to prison. She kept your secret.” Her respect resurged for the “indomitable Alberta.”
“Yes, so she could use it when she needed it—”
“—and she did, in her plan that keeps us in grave danger!” Mrs. Crouch finished.
Were they in danger? Really? Now?
It was time to demand this: “Show me the bouquet of flowers I know you received—the ones Marilyn saw as herself, the ones to remind you of all you’re responsible for!” And of loyalty, like Mark Poe’s, Normalyn added to herself.
“We’re not responsible for anything!” Mrs. Crouch’s hands waved away the accusations, memories.
Normalyn stood up to face the man and his wife. “You thought as much about telling her her child was dead as you did about destroying lives for the goddamned studios!”
Mrs. Crouch gasped.
“Young lady, please!” Dr. Crouch reacted to blasphemy against the sacred studios.
“Show her the flowers, Dr. Crouch, please. Just stop her accusations!” Mrs. Crouch pleaded.
With a few long steps, Dr. Crouch left the room. He returned with a bouquet of artificial blossoms in his long, bony hands. There were no decayed blooms! But . . . there were fewer blossoms in this bouquet. Another message? Or was the sparsity an indication that rotting blossoms had been plucked out—by them? Yes! Normalyn was sure.
“Now you tell us who’s sending these!” Mrs. Crouch seized the bouquet. She looked like an old, terrified bride.
“And why?” demanded Dr. Crouch. “Are you Marilyns daughter? Did she live? Are you her?”
“I don’t know!” Normalyn heard the confident power drain from her voice. “I don’t know,” she said more softly. She knew they had detected her sudden vulnerability.
“Who sent you to extort, then?” Mrs. Crouch took a quick step toward Normalyn.
“To blackmail!” Dr. Crouch took two steps forward.
“Who’s doing all this?” Mrs. Crouch advanced.
Surely they weren’t menacing her—not this old man and woman in their old-fashioned new clothes? Yet she detected a resurrected strength in their movements as they came at her. Normalyn edged away from the sofa, gliding her hand over the pane shielding the reflections of the two beautiful women.
The old man and the old woman flanked her—as if to close in on her!
Normalyn reached behind her for any object on the table, preparing to—
Wearily, Dr. Crouch located his chair and sank into it. Mrs. Crouch crumbled into hers.
As if they had exhausted all the energy they had dredged up to exhume troubled spirits, Normalyn thought, as she saw the pitiful old man and woman aging before her. No, they were not pitiful; they were the same evil man and woman who had ravaged lives so blithely, she reminded herself, who had protected Alberta’s plan only because of fear of discovery of past associations—and who in the crucial last moments of her life had told Marilyn Monroe her child was dead.
“Oh, child,” Dr. Crouch said, “we know nothing.” The genial smile returned to his face.
“Why, it was all dramatic invention for the Dead Movie Stars.” Mrs. Crouch smiled sweetly again. “Certainly you didn’t believe any of it? Child, when you deal with Marilyn Monroe, you have to be extravagant in your own creation.”
“The Dead Movie Stars,” Dr. Crouch sighed, “bless them. They come around and listen to us; we dramatize now and then.”
“There’s so little left,” Mrs. Crouch agreed.
Retreating, like Miss Bertha. Still afraid? Normalyn walked past them. She paused in the hall, under a starburst of a chandelier sprinkling diamond-pins about her; and as pointedly as she knew Enid had spoken these words years ago, she said to the old man and his wife, “Thank you, dear Dr. and Mrs. Crouch.”
“Why, you’re—” the tiny voice of Mrs. Crouch began to acknowledge automatically. Instead—fiercely—she flung the jacaranda blossoms to the floor.
“Murderers!” Normalyn thrust at them.
Thirty-Nine
She would never have a life, never! She had no one, no friends. She was in one of the largest cities in the world, lying in an uncomfortable bed trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep in a mangy furnished room in a crumbling châtaeu, still lingering in the past with phantoms.
After she had left the Crouches earlier, Normalyn had eaten a sumptuous meal at a restaurant crammed suddenly with tourists thrilled to have just sat in—live!—on “Wheel of Fortune.” Forcing herself not to roam over discoveries and new mysteries, Normalyn had returned to her rented room, avoiding the Dead Movie Stars. She felt terribly alone . . . except for the closeness growing between her and the young Enid, a closeness aroused by Enid’s drive, the daring with which she lived her life. At times Normalyn forgot—almost forgot—that that same woman had accused her cruelly, turning bitter—but, Normalyn reminded herself, continued always to express fierce love for her.
Surrendering to sleeplessness, she tried to read a book she had been thrilled to find in a paperback bookstore after leaving the restaurant—My Life in Art by Constantin Stanislavsky. She’d bought it because she remembered he was the author Michael Farrell had been reading in Palm Springs. But she was too restless to give the book the required attention. And something else kept pulling for scrutiny.
Evidence recurred that someone existed who could verify the truth of her birth, someone signaling to the reliability of witnesses with the message of the lavender bouquets. The Crouches were certain they were being extorted into giving information they would prefer to hide. In retrospect, it seemed to Normalyn that others might have felt “directed” in their recollections, as if at some point a judgment would occur! David Lange had told her there remained one person who could put together the gathered pieces of the puzzle “at the exact time.” She was sure that person was not David. He was central to the mystery, but he was seeking answers. Enid’s question mark constantly loomed over him.
2
In the morning, when the room was brightest, Normalyn decided with excitement, I’ll go back to Long Beach today, to Miss Bertha! Yet she felt apprehension. The woman remembered by others as Alberta Holland had been so sure, so unswerving. Could she have become the subdued old woman in the Victorian house in Long Beach? Miss Bertha had told her to come back when she was “ready,” Normalyn recalled. Now she did know much more. The wonderful old woman had been harsh in judging herself that afternoon with Jim in Long Beach. Because of the hired abortion? The necessary association with the deadly Crouches? Because she felt responsible when she, like the others, was devoured by the enormous unseen machine? She had to be the same woman.
“The wing of the angel.” Normalyn pronounced aloud the phrase the older woman at auditions had left echoing in her mind. A connection to Enid’s chipped angel—broken now? She must locate Sandra, attempt to find others. And then she would confront—yes, confront!—David Lange.
And she would move out of this dump, rent a clean apartment. That was one way to start her life. She tried to sustain wavering excitement.
Sounds outside the door! Normalyn walked there barefoot.
Buzz, buzz, buzz. “. . . the cover of Rolling Stone”. . . . Buzz, buzz. . . .
Normalyn waited silently for the whispers to fade. There was an urgent knock at the door, startling h
er because her ear was pressed against it. She did not respond. The knocking insisted.
“Listen, inside, Lady Star wants to see you,” said the voice of Veronica Lake. “I know you’re in there.”
Normalyn waited silently until she heard departing footsteps. Then she went to shower, dress. She was still surprised to see her reflection in the mirror. She was changing, had changed, even without the outline of the star’s face.
She packed her things. Now she would go call the Mayor, hear a caring voice. And she would call Troja. When she opened the door, she saw Veronica Lake sitting on the floor. “Good morning, Ms. Lake.” Normalyn tried to glide by coolly.
‘Mornin’,” said Billy Jack from the other side of the door. With his hand on her waist he guided her—firmly—along the corridor. Veronica Lake led her by the elbow to Lady Star’s room. Normalyn refused to be alarmed. She put resolve into her movements, which were beginning to feel natural now, free.
“Darling!” Lady Star trilled as Normalyn was ushered assertively into the veiled light of the familiar room. Hedy Lamarr was there—and James Dean, Rita Hayworth, Tyrone Power— all sitting or lounging on the floor—and looking at her. Billy Jack leaned emphatically against the door. He had applied Day-Glo to the rose bursting out of the tombstone on his chest, so that it seemed to be bleeding.
The suggested menace that had occurred in the house of the Crouches had crept in here. Normalyn sat defiantly on the floor, on a large orange pillow. Tossed nearby was a copy of a large-size magazine: Rolling Stone. That’s what they had been buzzing about outside her door.
Mounted on her chaise, a resurrected feather boa curling about her long neck, Lady Star announced to Normalyn, “We have to prepare for new auditions. Just. As. Agreed,” she reminded. “I trust your meeting with the Crouches was a grawhnd success!”
Normalyn had no intention of “auditioning.” Yet there remained central contacts she had relied on.
Lady Star explained: “We’ve called a special council, and we’ll start as soon as those braggards arrive—”
“Laggards?” queried Veronica Lake.
Lady Star’s voice deepened, her arms melted over the chaise. “As soon as those parties arrive,” she alerted Normalyn, “we’ll be discussing the addenda—”
Veronica Lake threw up her hands.
“—in order to get the word out immediately for auditions. Tonight!” She threw the word at Normalyn.
Tonight? Normalyn wanted to run out. But Billy Jack was guarding the door.
“We have a full galaxy,” Lady Star informed. “We’re allowing the petitioner for John Derek and Shaun Calhoun to try for Zachary Scott this time. He—somehow—managed—overnight—to convince Betty Grable and Errol Flynn to champion him.”
“Yeah,” sniffed Hedy Lamarr, “and I bet I know how.”
Excitement once again punctured Lady Star’s huskiness: “And just from outside we can recruit—” She snapped her fingers in rapid succession, indicating a vast number of petitioners they might choose from. “There’s a Lana Turner, a Montgomery Clift, a Bette Davis, the usual Crawfords, another Valentino—”
“—and a great Johnny Weissmuller!” Tyrone Power enthused.
“And Sandra—” Normalyn counted on surprising Lady Star’s mounting excitement for a truthful answer.
“You never can count on that crazy old thing; she—” Lady Star stopped herself. “But of course Sandra will be there,” she guaranteed Normalyn. With a dagger of looks she kept Billy Jack from disagreeing—he had shaken his head.
“I’m not ready to audition,” Normalyn said. She reached idly for the magazine on the floor. Eyes trailed her. Over its cover and attached with tape was a sketchy drawing of— . . . the Dead Movie Stars!—and prominent among them was a figure obviously intended to be that of Marilyn Monroe.
Normalyn calculated quickly: Whatever their loyalties to the Crouches and Mildred and whomever else, the Dead Movie Stars had their own goals, and fading into obscurity was not one of them. They had not been in “the media” for days now. And, Normalyn noticed, Lady Star’s daily orchid had apparently not arrived today—testily, she kept touching a worn felt one in her hair. The buzzed reference to this magazine earlier and the hopeful sketch for a future cover indicated they were preparing to take a big plunge—and they were counting on her. Still, Normalyn was sure they were not ready to risk exposing to possible public derision any mishap that might occur during uncontrolled auditions.
“I need more time to prepare,” she said.
“Auditions are tonight!” Lady Star was firm.
Normalyn got up. She would merely walk out.
Billy Jack leaned more firmly against the door. “Where the hell you think you’re going?”
“Stay put . . . darling!” Lady Star emphasized.
The painted faces of the Dead Movie Stars looked at her.
Normalyn sat down. “Okay!” She searched for a strategy. “Auditions tonight. But I’ll have to get myself ready!” She stood up again.
“We’ll help you,” Rita Hayworth offered.
Normalyn sat down.
Suddenly Errol Flynn and Betty Grable dashed into the room. “They found Verna La Maye!” Errol Flynn gasped. “It’s on all the news—TV, radio! And they’re all talking about us, and auditions!”
Lady Star . . . stood . . . up . . . very . . . slowly. “What . . . happened . . . to . . . her?”
“The guy who threatened to kill her—remember? At auditions? The supporting player? He was waiting for her outside the church that same night. He strangled her with her stocking!” Betty Grable said breathlessly.
“Just one thing, though,” Errol Flynn told them. “They’re calling her Mary Yarrow.”
“You mean she’s really dead? Really, really?” Hedy Lamarr seemed to be struggling to understand something ugly. “Really?” For a moment her hand at her lips seemed about to wipe away the purple paint.
“Really?” Rita Hayworth tested.
“You mean: Really?” Tyrone Power moistened his finger but didn’t curl his eyelashes with it.
“Really . . . dead,” Hedy Lamarr understood.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Betty Grable asserted. “It hit me right here at first—” She punched her stomach. “But, hey, that’s life!”
“Oh, no!” Normalyn pronounced the words she had been repeating silently since Errol Flynn and Betty Grable flung the ugly news at them. She remembered the pretty youngwoman and the youngman who had threatened to kill her—meaning it! He had waited for her that very night, outside the darkened church basement.
Lady Star stood motionless on her mounted chaise.
Silence paused in the room filled with photographs of whitely lit movie stars against black backgrounds.
Hedy Lamarr walked out silently, quietly.
Billy Jack snapped the silence away with his fingers, his body involved in an excited dance with himself. “We gotta be ready with real hot secrets and lots of glamorous tragedy cause they’ll really listen to us now!”
“And we won’t need you!” Veronica Lake sneered at Normalyn. “Because now we’ll get all the attention we want— without you!” She moistened the wave over her eye.
“The cameras’ll be here any moment!” Tyrone Power realized.
“I’ll have to freshen up, do my hair up, tan my legs,” Betty Grable anticipated.
“I’ll get my new red jacket!” James Dean did not stutter.
“We’ll have a funeral at Forest Lawn.” Billy Jack was inspired.
“Let’s find that crazy who wanted to be the Lady in Black!” Veronica Lake encouraged.
For a moment, Lady Star seemed to be resurrected out of a pensive mood; “Yes, darlings, we’ll—!”
Another Dead Movie Star, with a dramatic hat, stood at the door.
Lady Star said in shrill surprise, “Who the hell are you? Lena Horne? . . . You may not come in!”
Billy Jack tried to push the door back; the intruder pushed harder. Billy Jack fell spr
awled on the floor. “I am in!” said the elegant figure at the door.
Troja!
“Normalyn! Are you in here?” Troja peered into the dusk of Lady Star’s room.
Normalyn pushed back into shadows, to make Troja pay for a while for having shoved her out. But her voice said, “Yes! I’m here!” She stood up.
Troja walked in past aghast Dead Movie Stars. “Normalyn, what the hell you doin’ hangin’ around with this silly trash?”
“Trash don’t get on the cover of uh, Rolling Stone,” said James Dean.
“How did you find me?” Normalyn asked Troja, wanting it to have been difficult, very difficult.
“Easy!” said Troja. “You weren’t at the Ambassador Hotel, and you’d told me about this creepy group—”
“The nerve of the bitch!” Betty Grable smoothed her tight sweater.
Billy Jack recovered from the shove. “Do you know the TV is coming from all the stations?” he informed Troja proudly.
“Whoever this creature is—” Lady Star began.
Troja yanked at her shoulder.
“Ouch!” squealed the little girl, pulling away.
With Normalyn standing next to her, Troja said to the Dead Movie Stars, “You’re cruel little bastards, ridiculing pain. Real tragedy ain’t glamorous, it just hurts, goes on hurting—here!” She hit her own chest. “Now get out of here!” she ordered.
“This is my room.” Lady Star was indignant.
“Then you can stay, little girl,” Troja allowed.
Normalyn laughed, with relief, release—and then stopped, remembering the murder of Mary Yarrow.
The Dead Movie Stars ran out to prepare for the television and newspaper cameras already on their way to the château built by William Randolph Hearst for Marion Davies.
“Real tragedy . . .” Normalyn directed her words at Lady Star. Troja held her suddenly cold hand.
“Yes.” Lady Star touched her felt orchid. The earlier spurt of excitement had waned.
The Dead Movie Stars had celebrated tragedy and it had courted them back grotesquely. Normalyn felt sorrow for the lost girl at auditions, with only a frail identity of her own. Now Mary Yarrow was dead! These painted young people—beneath their postures and their odd clothes—what real sorrow of their own were they avoiding? Now they would get the massive publicity they had sought. But would they want this kind?