by Susan Kandel
“So now you want to be friends?” I supposed I could have one Necco wafer. Just to be sociable. And to postpone the inevitable.
“Nah.” He moved a seven of clubs on top of an eight of hearts, then moved the whole pile over to the left. Then he waved me away.
Back in the room, I thought of a million things I’d rather do than make a call to Ben McAllister.
Eat crap candy with Roy.
Spear trash along the highway.
Walk through a graveyard at midnight.
Steeling myself, I picked up the Chinese menu he’d scrawled his number onto. It had been sitting in the glove compartment of my car for almost a week.
“Hello?”
I gave a start at the sound of his voice. “Ben. It’s Cece. Don’t hang up.”
He took a deep breath, then exhaled. “It’s late. What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to apologize for the other night.”
“Apology accepted. Good night.”
“Wait! Please. I can explain.”
“There’s no need.”
“Yes, there is. There’s no excuse for how I behaved.”
He waited.
“I haven’t been myself these days,” I said. “But I guess that’s an excuse.”
“Sounds like one.”
“It’s just that I’m so confused. I broke off my engagement a couple of weeks ago, and I know I’m not ready to get involved with anyone right now, but I can’t help myself.” I felt my stomach turn. “Being with you—I don’t know. I guess the way you make me feel scares me.”
“Go on.”
Greedy bastard. “I want to see you, Ben.”
“When?”
The room was stifling. I cracked open the window. “As soon as possible.”
“How about tomorrow?” He had to attend an auction at Bonhams & Butterfields in Hollywood. One of his clients had put something up for sale. It was an obligation he couldn’t get out of. I was going to meet him there, and then we were going to have dinner somewhere quiet, where we could talk.
That was perfect.
Because B is for Ben is a good talker.
And I am a good listener.
Chapter 38
I was packed and showered before the housekeeper showed up the next morning. Including the tip I left her, the grand total for my two-night stay at the E-Z Nights came to just under two hundred dollars, which is about the same amount of money it would’ve cost me to buy the Maud Frizon black silk peau de soie pumps with the pleated indigo bows I’d been eyeing at Bridget’s for two months. Not that I was keeping track.
On the way out of town, operating on the premise that it would be a long time before I returned to Kern County, I decided to check out the giant white shoe at the corner of Chester and Tenth, former home of Deschwander’s Shoe Repair, which opened in 1947, the same year as the first UFO sightings over the U.S. I’d read an article in the Bakotopia listing the area’s top ten sights. The giant white shoe was #1. And deservedly so. #2 was a ten-foot-tall man made out of air-conditioning ductwork standing in front of American Air, Heating and Air Conditioning, and #3 was a giant Native American with arrows poking out of his head who used to stand guard over the Big O tire shop. I couldn’t find either of them. I did, however, manage to locate Yolanda’s (#5), home of the three-foot churro, but they were closed for Halloween. I considered making a detour to Kingsburg, home of the Swedish Coffee Pot (#6), which is five hundred times larger than its real-life counterpart, however Kingsburg was almost to Fresno, and that seemed excessive. The last place James Dean stopped for gas (#8) was not far from Wasco, but I was hungry now.
I stopped at an In-N-Out Burger halfway down Highway 5. There was a long wait, so I had plenty of time to map out my strategy.
Tonight I was going to ensnare Ben. First I’d hang on him a little, giving him a false sense of security. He liked to play the tough guy. Then I’d ambush him. Once we were seated in our chairs at Bonhams & Butterfields, that is, and there were hundreds of people around. He wouldn’t dare try anything with hundreds of people around.
I’d accused him once before, but I hadn’t had the facts. Now I did (more or less). There was Anita’s list. Dorothy’s story. The hot pink cell phone. And then there was Kansas. As Gambino liked to say, it wasn’t enough to hang him, but it was enough to get a warrant.
There were six hours until seven o’clock, however, and I couldn’t exactly go home. Anybody could be watching. Detectives McQueen and Collins, for example. Officers Lavery and Bell. The SWAT team, perhaps. It wasn’t like my neighbors Lois and Marlene could be counted upon for discretion. They had noses like bloodhounds. The minute they got a whiff of me, they’d be on the phone to the local news, primping for their close-ups.
I was pumping mustard in a little paper cup when they called my number.
Burger and fries in hand, I hopped back into the car.
I could always go to the movies. Or go shopping. I still had over a thousand dollars in my purse. Or how was this for a novel idea? I could work on my Hitchcock book. No actual writing, of course. That would require ideas, organization, a beginning, a middle, and an end. But I could go on a little research expedition. Do some field work.
I finished my burger, then eased onto the 405 South.
After exiting in Westwood, I headed straight for the Wilshire Palms.
The year was 1939. Producer David O. Selznick had wooed them relentlessly. And they’d finally given in.
The Hitchcocks were coming to America.
Hitch was, of course, already a success in his native England. He’d directed such hits as The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. But he wanted more. The Brits saw him as a fat, unglamorous young man from Essex who’d learned how to work around the British film industry’s technological limitations to churn out winning entertainments. But they didn’t consider him an artist.
Hitch wanted to be taken seriously. And Selznick knew just what to say.
The studio rented the director, his wife, Alma, and their eleven-year-old daughter, Pat, a three-bedroom apartment in the Wilshire Palms, a new high-rise with views of the mountains and ocean located just ten minutes away from Selznick International in Culver City. It was a chic address: Franchot Tone, recently divorced from Joan Crawford, was shacking up there. Mickey Rooney and Ava Gardner moved in as newlyweds three years later.
The apartment was all white: white draperies, white carpet, white furniture, white walls. Pat said it reminded her of a snowstorm. Alma told her daughter it would be a long time before they saw bad weather again. But she hadn’t foreseen the trouble with Selznick. Rebecca was their first collaboration, and Selznick wanted everybody to know who was boss.
Take the script, based upon the novel by Daphne du Maurier. After the final draft was submitted, Selznick responded with a memo that Hitch joked would make a very good film: “The Longest Story Ever Told.”
Then there was the casting. Selznick had a crush on Joan Fontaine, so she got the female lead, as the tormented second Mrs. de Winter. For the part of Maxim de Winter, Selznick chose Laurence Olivier, mostly to placate Olivier’s lover, Vivien Leigh, whom Selznick was holding hostage in Hollywood for postproduction work on Gone With the Wind.
Oh. Here we were.
I slowed down and squinted at the numbers. I was looking for 10331.
Number 10531 was the Mama Royale, or maybe the something-else Royale. I couldn’t tell because of all the curlicues.
Next door to that was a deserted pumpkin patch. Guess everybody who wanted a jack-o’-lantern already had one.
Next door to that was a moody chateauesque number with turrets and spires and gables. I couldn’t see an address, but this had to be it.
I parked just up the street and walked back.
The place reminded me of Manderley, the mansion Hitch said was the true star of Rebecca. It was dripping with atmosphere. And foliage. There were probably a lot of spiders in there.
I approached with trepidation. You never knew
who might be lurking in the shadows. Mrs. Danvers, the sadistic housekeeper obsessed with the first Mrs. de Winter, was a first-class lurker. She was also my favorite character in the movie. I loved the part when she forced the poor, pathetic second Mrs. de Winter into wearing Rebecca’s ruffled white ball gown. Mrs. Danvers understood the mystical allure of the right dress. She had a lot in common with Bridget.
But no, I suddenly realized, this couldn’t be 10331. The Wilshire Palms was a high-rise. Was it this hideous beige twenty-story condo next door? I hoped not. I couldn’t commune with Hitch’s spirit in a beige condo. It looked too new, anyway. They must’ve torn down the Wilshire Palms. These things are known to happen in Los Angeles.
I got back into the car and headed up Beverly Glen.
Bel Air was just on the other side of Sunset Boulevard.
That was where the Hitchcocks moved next, to a cozy, English-style cottage they’d visited when Carole Lombard was living there. The couple had befriended the blond comedienne soon after they’d arrived in Hollywood. She’d shared Hitch’s taste for practical jokes. When they’d worked together on Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Lombard had installed a miniature cattle pen on the set complete with three young heifers wearing banners emblazoned with the names of the three stars of the film (herself, Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond), her comeback to the director’s infamous quip that all actors were cattle. When Lombard decided to move into boyfriend Clark Gable’s ranch house in Encino, Hitch and Alma jumped at the chance to take over her lease.
I was at Sunset now. All I had to do was remember Carole Lombard’s address.
Was it Saint Pierre Road?
St. Bertrand?
St. Peter Claver? No, that was my parish church in Asbury Park.
I waited for the green light and turned right, then slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting a Bride of Frankenstein who’d plowed through the red light going seventy. An early reveler, I supposed. What was her hurry? Ah. She was buying a map to the stars’ homes. There were hand-painted wooden signs advertising them propped all along Sunset between Westwood and Beverly Hills.
I wondered.
Would Carole Lombard’s address be listed on one of those maps?
Carole Lombard died in a plane crash in 1942, but I doubted they updated those things regularly. I slowed down a little so I could peer down the next side street. Sure enough, there was a guy sitting in a lawn chair in front of somebody’s massive Tudor mansion. He had a pile of maps by his side.
I put on my turn signal. And that was when I saw them in my rearview mirror.
The dreaded flashing red lights.
Known to make the innocent feel guilty, and the guilty play innocent.
I couldn’t say exactly where I fell in the continuum.
But some might find it telling that as I pulled over, my first thought was that I only had fifteen hundred and forty three dollars left for bail.
Chapter 39
The policeman got out of his car and walked around to my window.
I rolled it down, terror washing over me. “How are you, today, Officer?” If he asked for my license, I was done for.
He didn’t take off his sunglasses. They were that cop kind, dark and opaque. “Not good.”
Might as well get it over with. “What’s up?”
“What’s up,” he repeated. “Five years I’m on the job, never had anybody ask me what was up.”
I laughed nervously.
Now he took off his glasses. “It’s not funny.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“You were going twenty-five in a forty-five-mile-per-hour zone. That’s illegal.”
“Was I really?” I batted my eyelashes.
“Stop that.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, embarrassed. “I was just trying to turn onto this street here to buy a map to the stars’ homes.” I pointed to the guy sitting on the lawn chair, who gave me a little wave.
“Not too many stars in your neck of the woods,” the cop said.
“Excuse me?”
“Arizona. There’s Jenna Jameson, the porn actress, of course. Her father was a cop. She lives in Scottsdale.”
“I’m from Phoenix.”
“Those pornmeisters are into all sorts of illegal activities. Drugs. Guns. Gambling. She must’ve broken her dad’s heart.”
I nodded, thankful he wasn’t reading me my rights.
“It’s a slippery slope,” he said. “You start small, but things can snowball—excuse me.” He’d received a call on his radio. “314 on Rodeo Drive,” he said. “Right away.”
He leaned into the window again. “Duty calls. Indecent exposure at Gucci. I’m letting you off with a warning this time.”
“Thank you, Officer.”
He put his shades back on. “Drive safe, Miss. And welcome to Bel Air.”
The guy with the maps wanted to hear the whole story, but I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He was. Before I could stop him, he recounted the entire history of the star map industry, which began in 1936 when a man named Wesley Lake parked himself at the corner of Baroda Drive and Sunset to sell his maps to sightseers eager to meet their matinee idols. His daughter Vivienne took over the family business in the mid-fifties. She was so beloved that Glen Campbell, who lived up the street, used to have her over regularly for tea. Nonetheless, in 1973 she was charged with violating the law by conducting her business along the roadside. It went all the way to the California Supreme Court, which in a landmark decision affirmed Vivienne’s right to free speech. “She was Beverly Hills’s own Patrick Henry,” the guy said, waving an arm in the air. “You know, give me liberty or give me death?”
It was a hell of a sales pitch. I handed him a twenty and took the map.
Sure enough, there was Carole Lombard. 609 Saint Cloud. Also on Saint Cloud were Louis B. Mayer, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and the Fresh Prince. Small world.
With the map spread out on my lap, I followed the red arrows into the verdant, faux-gated paradise that is Bel Air. The “faux” means the gates don’t actually close. They’re there to remind you that you don’t belong. The topography reiterates the message. Houses are hidden from view by looming hedges and high walls. Streets wind around one another like pretzels, meaning if you don’t have a chauffeur you might as well forget it. Not to mention there are no sidewalks. In fact I didn’t see anybody around except gardeners, pool men, and security guys in vaguely menacing white cars.
Considering the neighborhood, 609 was a dump.
I wasn’t sure anybody was even living there anymore. The driveway was strewn with leaves and yellowed newspapers. The gate stretching across it was covered with brown canvas so you couldn’t see in. However, somebody had cut a little hole at the bottom. Someone with an avid interest in the former residents, perhaps. Or maybe it was for the dog. Claustrophobia is common among animals. If I accidentally close Buster into the bedroom, I pay for it, believe me.
I got down on all fours and peered through the hole.
The Hitchcocks’s former home was brick, modestly sized, and shrouded by overgrown trees and bushes—eucalyptus, yucca, eugenia. The bottlebrush was enormous, with fuchsia blossoms rather than the usual red. I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to imagine myself pulling into the driveway in my Studebaker (or whatever the 1940s equivalent to a Camry was), wearing my periwinkle silk doupioni cocktail dress with the pleated bodice that wraps around the front obi-style, for one of Hitch’s famous blue dinners, where he served blue soup, blue venison, and blue ice cream.
I opened my eyes again. Then I rubbed them. Then I screamed.
There was an arm in the bushes at the far end of the driveway, by the trash can.
Mottled but still pinkish.
With a hand at the end.
I spun around.
On the other side of the street four gardeners in green coveralls were pruning some gorgeous climbing roses.
“Hello!” I yelled. “¡Hola!”
“Beverly Hillbillies and Barry Mani
low?” one of them asked, putting down his clippers. “Go straight.”
“No, no!” I dashed across the street. The place where they were working looked like the White House. “There’s an emergency!”
They gathered around, murmuring to one another in Spanish.
“Elizabeth Taylor,” said a younger one. He had a crew cut and spoke excellent English. “On Nimes. That is the same street as Mac Davis.”
“You don’t understand. I’m talking something awful. A disembodied arm!”
They looked puzzled
“Does anybody live in that house?” I pointed to 609.
They went into a huddle.
“No,” said the crew cut.
The first guy said something to him in Spanish.
The crew cut turned back to me. “My dad says there were some people here yesterday, but just visiting.”
“Where there’s an arm,” I cried, “there’s bound to be other body parts!”
They had nothing to say to that. I ran my finger across my throat. “Dead. Muerto?”
The fourth gardener, who had a double chin and braces, reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. The others followed me across the street.
I crouched down in front of the peephole. “Look.”
I moved out of the way, and the crew cut kneeled down. Then he turned to me and said, “Dummy.”
“That’s not very nice,” I said.
“It’s a dummy, Miss. Maniqui,” he said to the others.
“That’s impossible,” I said, pushing him out of the way. I peered in again, then felt my cheeks get hot.
That arm sure did look plastic. Kind of shiny and all.
Just then, I heard a car screeching to a halt and a door slamming.
Not the police, thank God. Bel Air Patrol. Piece of cake.
The patrolman had John Wayne fantasies. You could tell by the way he walked, like he had a saddle between his legs. “What seems to be the trouble?”