She was studying me, affectionately, a hand fiddling with my hair. “Why don’t we throw something on and go to the lounge?”
Polo Lounge, she meant.
Soon we were sharing one of the private booths overlooking the garden patio, the trees of which were festooned with twinkling lights. This was a week night, around eleven, and the place wasn’t all that busy. The only celebrity couple was Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who-like us-were married and seemed deeply, hopelessly in love.
Peggy-in a pink pantsuit with shoulder pads that would have done Joan Crawford proud-sipped her stinger, cherry-lipsticked lips kissing the red plastic straw, and I worked on my rum cooler, wondering what was on her mind.
Finally, she said, “Being out here has got me thinking.”
“About?”
“Giving it another try.”
“Giving what another try?”
“Acting!”
The word was like a blow to the pit of my stomach, and I probably sounded winded, echoing, “Acting?”
“You knew that was always my dream.”
“I thought we’d kinda thrown in together on a mutual dream, Peg-the white-cottage-white-picket-fence variety?”
“Nate, you don’t expect me to be just another drab little housewife, do you?”
Now I felt a black cloud settling over my head, like that shrimpy guy in L’il Abner, the one trouble followed.
Trying to be gentle, I said, “Baby, don’t be fooled by this mink-lined hellhole.”
The violet eyes glittered, looking as lovely-and as hard-as precious gems. “I know it’s a tough town. I know sooner or later I have to check out of the Beverly Hills Hotel and back into reality. But I have talent, Nate-you remember how good I was, in Winterset, at the Playhouse? Don’t you see? This could be my last chance to make something of myself.”
And here I thought she’d made something of herself becoming Mrs. Nathan Heller.
“Baby,” I said, “thousands of pretty young things flock out here to knock Lana Turner off the screen, and the only roles they get, on or off the screen, are as waitresses, salesgirls, and car hops.”
Her eyes tightened. “Are you saying I’m too old?”
“No! Hell, no, baby-”
Her whole face seemed to harden. “That I can’t compete, just because I’m almost thirty?”
I felt like a kid who’d peeked in the oven at cookies baking and got his face scorched.
“You’re the most beautiful woman in this town,” I told her, grasping her hand. And it wasn’t a lie. First of all, she was my bride and we were on our honeymoon and I loved her; and second of all, the former Peggy Hogan was a knockout. But knockouts approaching thirty were, in fact, long in the tooth for this sleazy trash heap of a town.
“I think it’s an advantage, not being some naive little beauty contest winner,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as me. “Let those little tramps try to sleep their way to the top. I have something they’ll never have.”
“Talent,” I said, nodding, going along with her.
“Well of course talent, but I was talking about connections. Your connections. My late uncle’s connections. Ben’s connections.”
It was the first time Ben Siegel had been referred to since we’d tied the knot.
“Ben’s connections,” I echoed numbly.
She shrugged a single shoulder, as if the bombshell she’d just dropped was the tiniest firecracker. “Ben owes us. He owes you and he owes me. He has more Hollywood friends than Hedda Hopper.”
“I’d rather not bring Ben back into our lives, in any fashion. Okay?”
She raised her hands in gentle surrender. “All right, bad suggestion-but your partner Fred has a black book filled with movie colony bigwigs. Isn’t that why you threw in with him-the movie studios and stars he works for, and with? It would be easy for him to line up some interviews, some auditions for me.”
“You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, I have.”
“And I’d just move out here, and what? Let Lou Sapperstein run the Chicago office?”
“Sure, and you can fly back and forth some. We could maintain two residences. We can afford it.”
I knew when Peg got up a full head of steam like this, there was no stopping her-and, frankly, I didn’t see the harm. She did have a little talent-a little-and, yes, she had the looks. She was pretty with a nice shape, and with all the Technicolor pictures they were making these days, those violet eyes would show up nice.
But the reality was, she didn’t stand a chance, even with a little string-pulling. At twenty-nine, she really was too old for this town, to be starting out, anyway. So I didn’t see the harm. Let her try, let her get her hopes dashed, and let her come running back into my arms in tears.
The second agent she tried out for signed her. I chewed Fred out, asking what the hell he thought he was doing, had he twisted this guy’s arm or what?
Fred-a small, compactly muscular, nattily dressed man in his forties with sharp dark eyes, a rumpled face, and a shiny bald head-sat behind his desk in the Bradbury Building and shrugged elaborately. “Who’d a thunk it? I didn’t ask for any favors, except to let Peg read for him. I said she was my partner’s wife and would he please humor her. He said sure, and now this!”
I was pacing. “Humor her is right. She goes out on audition at Fox tomorrow!”
“Having an agent is nothing.”
“Nothing! There’s ten thousand beautiful babes out there that would screw you silly for an in with an agent!”
“Maybe in the future I should keep that in mind.” Fred sat forward, patted the air reassuringly. “Listen, Nate, don’t worry. Roles are not that easy to come by. You think she’s gonna get the first part she reads for? No way in hell!”
Fred was right. She got the second part she read for, a bit as a waitress in a Bob Hope picture at Paramount.
She was thrilled, giddy with it, and I did my best not to be a rat, and seem happy for her.
Anyway, Peggy taking this flier at the movies didn’t bother me as much as the notion of relocating to Los Angeles; and Fred Rubinski wasn’t crazy about it, either, because he was used to running his own office. Taking me on as a partner had been predicated on my ass staying in Chicago.
“I don’t know what to do about it,” I said to him, in a booth at Sherry’s, the swanky restaurant he owned a piece of on Sunset. “I could divide my time between Chicago and here, maybe three weeks back there and one in L.A.”
“That might work,” Fred said, lighting up a cigar, pushing a plate of cheesecake crumbs aside. I was still working on my dessert, a rum and Coke.
“Trouble is,” I said, “knowing how susceptible Peggy is to this show biz baloney, I’m afraid Errol Flynn or Robert Taylor or somebody would be in her pants before I got off the plane in Chicago.”
“Nice, you got such faith in your bride.”
“Listen, I love Peggy and I think she loves me, but I got no illusions about this marriage. I got her on the boomerang and I have my work cut out, holding on to her without her flying into somebody’s else’s arms.”
“Siegel?”
“No. But somebody rich and slick and handsome.”
Fred’s rumpled face formed a lopsided smile. “Well, Nate, you may not be rich, but you’re workin’ on it, and lots of people think you’re slick, maybe too slick-and more than your share of ladies have found you handsome enough, over the years.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a movie star. Listen, Fred, if I stay out here, it’s still your office-just make me your chief investigator.”
“Jesus, Nate, you’re the president of the company!”
“That’s all right. Even back home I spend my time working cases… I just use my clout to pick and choose.”
Fred contemplated awhile, then shrugged and said, “Might work out at that. We can play this publicity angle better with the Examiner, if that comes to pass, with you doing a ‘private e
ye to the stars’ number. We could get nice ink out of that.”
“Maybe.”
So I had told Peggy that night, in our bungalow, that I had decided to stay in L.A. We’d rent a house and I’d work out of Fred’s office, and she could take a real stab at a career in movies.
She melted into my arms. “Oh, Nate, you’re wonderful… I love you so much…”
“Why don’t you try to think of a way to properly thank me, then?”
I cupped her small perfect behind and drew her close.
“Oh, yes, darling…” Her fingers were fiddling in my hair. “… but one thing…”
“Yeah?”
“I think we should start… you know, using something.”
“Huh?”
“I’m going to get pregnant if we don’t start using some precautions.”
Over the first weeks of our marriage, we had certainly thrown caution to the wind, with no thought of anything but good old-fashioned honeymooners’ lust. Possibly in the back of my mind had been the thought of making some little Hellers-I was older than Peg, after all, pushing forty, a returning vet seeking that idyllic postwar world, and settling down had been part of the process.
But that night I used a Sheik, like old times, and soon she was using a diaphragm. We still made love like honeymooners-well, maybe dropping back to twice or even once a day-and Peggy was constantly affectionate, grateful for the sacrifice I was making for her, and her career.
On the evening I received the phone call from Beth Short, I had noticed a certain moodiness on Peggy’s part-almost a sullenness, though she hadn’t been unpleasant or anything.
After I cradled the phone-already starting to work on the story that would allow me to slip away to a pay phone where I could call Beth back and start dealing with this mess-Peggy tossed her movie magazine on the coffee table beside red-painted toes peeking through her sandals, and said those three words again.
Not “I love you”-the three deadly ones.
“Can we talk?”
“Well, sure, honey.”
“We haven’t had dinner, you know.”
Somehow it was an accusation.
“I thought we’d just go over to the Polo Lounge,” I said. “Or maybe order room service.”
“Let’s go out.” Abruptly, she stood, smoothing her bolero slacks outfit. “I need to go out.”
So I took her to La Rue, a chic joint on the Strip owned by Billy Wilkerson, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. Unlike the nearby Ciro’s and the Trocadero, La Rue was chiefly a restaurant, not a nightclub, and the mood was relaxed-no blaring big band, just a piano playing Cole Porter. The only celebrities I spotted were Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles, sharing one of the striped booths; weren’t they divorced? Hayworth looked angry and Welles, heavy-lidded, seemed half in the bag. I knew Welles, having met him in Chicago years before, but he didn’t recognize me, or anyway acknowledge me. I got over it. We moved along to our own cozy striped booth, where we ate, conversing little. Peg had lobster newberg, which she barely touched, and I had a lamb chop, just picking at the thing.
We were both preoccupied-I was thinking about that phone call to the Biltmore I was supposed to make, Beth’s hour deadline having nearly elapsed; and Peggy had as yet to elaborate on those three little words: “Can we talk?”
Finally, after our plates had been cleared and the crumbs brushed from the linen tablecloth and we’d both declined dessert and ordered coffee, I asked, “How did the audition go this morning?”
“It wasn’t an audition,” she said.
“I thought it was an audition.”
“It wasn’t. It was a doctor’s appointment.”
“Doctor’s… are you all right?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
I scooched around beside her in the booth, slipped an arm around her. “Peg, what’s wrong?”
“I was late.”
“Late?”
“You know… late?”
I couldn’t be hearing this.
“And I’m never late,” she went on, her tone as light as a Noel Coward play, and as ominous as an obituary, “so I made a doctor’s appointment… just to be safe, you know? I’m pregnant, all right.”
“Well,” I said thickly, “that’s… that’s wonderful.”
“Wonderful?” The violet eyes glared at me: are you insane? “You can’t be serious. This couldn’t come at a worse time.”
She didn’t know how right she was, but I said, “It’s a great time-we’re newlyweds and we’re going to be parents. That’s great. It’s the American dream.”
“It’s a nightmare. It doesn’t fit in with our plans at all!”
“Our plans?”
“Nate, I’m going to be in a movie next week. I have an agent. My dreams are all coming true.”
“Don’t you have any dreams that involve me, and starting a family?”
She sighed impatiently, glancing away. “Of course I do… just not right now.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I think we should… consider… you know.”
“Consider what?”
“Must I say it?”
“… Getting rid of it?”
Now her manner turned businesslike. “Surely, with your connections, you know people that could… take care of this.”
My connections again.
“Peggy,” I said, scooching away a little, pawing the air, “no more discussion. You’re having this baby. We’re having this baby.”
She huffed, she puffed, she blew my house down: “I should have known you’d take that selfish attitude.”
Whatever happened to the good old days, when you knocked up a woman, she tried to talk you into getting married, and you tried to talk her into having an abortion instead?
“You’re my wife,” I said, “and I love you, and you’re going to be the mother of my… of our… child.”
“You’re impossible,” she said, and she began to cry, and when I tried to comfort her, she slapped at me and rushed off to the powder room. Other patrons glared at me, wondering what terrible thing I’d done to this poor girl.
I took the opportunity to use the pay phone to try the number at the Biltmore. I let it ring and ring and ring.
Finally a male voice answered. “This is a pay phone.”
“I know. Is there a pretty girl sitting there, waiting in the lobby? Dark hair, almost black? Real dish?”
“Yeah, I seen her, she was hangin’ around awhile. She blew, though.”
“Thanks.”
Shrugging, I hung up; what the hell-what had been her damn rush, anyway? Beth Short knew where to find me.
So I leaned against the wall outside the ladies’ powder room, nodding to Bogart and Bacall as they strolled by, heading to the bar; Bogart nodded back and Bacall bestowed a smile. Nice couple. Glad somebody was happily married.
Well, at least I could be sure of something: I might be one fertile son of a bitch, but none of the women in my life wanted to have my kid.
3
Flies were not alone in swarming around the milky-white cleaved cadaver in the weedy vacant lot on South Norton Avenue-within minutes of Bill Fowley abandoning me by driving off to make his phone call, cops and reporters and assorted rubberneckers were getting grisly glimpses.
It began slowly, with another radio patrol car pulling up, a uniformed sergeant who’d been cruising Slauson having heard the 390 call. Though he was older, and obviously experienced, the sarge whitened and shook his head and backed away from the body, mumbling, “Man oh man oh man.” Shortly thereafter a blue ’41 Ford with a press sticker on the windshield drew up, parked in the street, and a fortyish fireplug of a woman in a raincoat, her short red hair uncovered, hopped out and headed over, trailed by a photographer-a real one-loading a bulb into his Speed Graphic.
Round faced with pleasant features given an edge by her hard bright eyes and firm set jaw, Aggie Underwood might have been a schoolteacher; instead she was the first rival r
eporter to arrive at the scene. Sort of a rival, anyway: like Fowley, she worked for Hearst, just a different paper, the afternoon Herald Express.
Trouble was, Aggie knew me-we were friendly acquaintances, having met when I came to L.A. in late ’44 on the notorious Peete case; Louise Peete-currently sitting on death row-was scheduled to be the second woman in California history to be executed. Aggie was regarded by many as the best police beat reporter in L.A., with a tough-as-nails, aggressive reputation that I knew from personal experience was well deserved.
She didn’t notice me at first-I was standing off to one side-and when the younger uniformed officer, Jerry, stepped forward, holding out a traffic-cop palm, saying, “Just a minute, lady!” she brushed past him, speaking to the older cop, Mike, notepad and pencil at the ready.
“Remember me, Officer?” she said chirpily. “Underwood of the Express?” Still charging forward, she jerked a thumb back at her photographer, who was ambling up behind her. “Jack here took that swell picture of you that made page three last month-that school fire?”
“Miss Underwood, please stay back-”
“What have we got here?”
“It’s a bad one, ma’am, please prepare yourself…”
Aggie laughed at that-the thought of any crime scene bothering a tough cookie like her being simply absurd-and then the laugh caught, and Aggie froze, one foot on the sidewalk, the other on the grass, almost stepping on the corpse’s left leg. The blood drained out of Aggie’s face, leaving her complexion fish-belly white under the shock of red hair.
“Christ almighty,” she breathed. Swallowing, she said, “This poor kid’s been cut in two!”
Nice to have a reporter on hand, to spell that out for the rest of us.
And now Aggie was doing something she probably had never done before: she was moving away from a big story, walking backward till she dropped off the curb and stumbled against the nose of that first squad car. She covered her mouth, clearly queasy.
Finally she said, “What kind of sick son of a bitch would do something like this?”
Nobody bothered answering-not that anybody had an answer.
I didn’t have one, either, but I figured I better break the ice, just the same. Better I make myself known than wait to be noticed.
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