Hollywood and Levine

by Andrew Bergman

  The shooting had stopped and I heard people running up the street outside. There was confused conversation, largely incomprehensible to me, but the gist was, what the hell’s going on, shooting? The words hardly mattered; what did matter was that I didn’t want to go out on the street and answer any questions, or be subjected to another tedious session with the law. There was, fortunately, a way to get out of the saloon without having to appear on the Western Street, a rear exit to a short alley adjacent to the Small-Town America lot. I crawled through the saloon on hands and knees, emerging dusty but pleased to have escaped, not merely alive but undetected. I slapped the grime off my clothing, returned the Colt to its designated pocket, and started back for the car, curiously pleased to have had my suspicions confirmed: I was working on a flesh-and-blood case, not merely a post-mortem.

  I had secretly hoped that John Garfield would be standing next to the Chrysler, waiting to bawl me out for stealing his space. Garfield was absent, but a half-naked young man in a feathered headdress, loincloth, and war paint was seated on the car’s back fender, studying a script.

  “Hey, Chief,” I called. “Beat it.”

  The young man was startled. “Is this your car?” he asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” A smile showed off his expensive cap job. “I got so wrapped up in this grotesque script. I don’t even have lines. I stand around and look noble, but that I do beautifully.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I sure can.” He looked me over. “Want to get a drink, handsome?”

  He slid off the fender very slowly, the loincloth riding up. Apparently some kind of Indian love call. It was at this point that I noticed a deeply tanned man getting into a very impressive black Rolls-Royce. He looked to be in a hurry. I checked out the license plates; they were under glass and read JOHNPARKER. Johnny Parker.

  “What do you say,” the Indian brave repeated, “a great big drink?”

  “Gotta run, Chief.” I trotted across the street and leaned in through the window of the long black Rolls. The tanned man was settling into the driver’s seat.

  “You Johnny Parker?”

  The man looked at me in amazement, as if the question was an unfamiliar one. His hair was coal-black and slicked back with so much Wildroot that I could see my reflection in his temples. He had watery blue eyes and a schoolboy’s snub nose. The mouth was weak and unpleasant, the chin contained a dimple. He did not look like a kind man.

  “I’m him,” he said curtly. “Who are you?”

  “Jack LeVine.”

  He started the engine.

  “I don’t know you, Mr. LeVine, and I have an appointment at six. Speak to my secretary if you wish to see me.”

  “I’m the guy who found Walter Adrian’s body here last night, Parker, and I’d like to talk to you about it.”

  He shut off the engine and stared at me.

  “Mind if I get in the front seat?” I asked. “I feel like a goddamn highway cop talking to you like this.”

  “Of course.” He leaned across the front seat and unlocked the door. I circled the car and got inside. It was quite a masterpiece. The dashboard was ebony, deeply oiled, and the seats were upholstered in what felt like kid. They were colored terra-cotta and could be raised, lowered, and do flips at the touch of a switch. Parker pressed a little button near the door and his seat reclined so that he lay back like a man enjoying a Florida sun-bath. A telephone had been installed in a raised center panel. It rang. Parker pushed the button again and the seat righted itself.

  “Yes?” he said authoritatively into the phone. Then he listened, looking from me to his watch. He was putting on a pretty good show. “No, I’m leaving,” he said. “I’m late as it is. Tell Cagney’s people we’ll talk about it tomorrow. The hell with it. Tomorrow at eleven, with Jimmy. I want him there, tell them that. Check.” He hung up and rode his seat back down again.

  “Okay, LeVine, what’s the problem?”

  “No problem at all. I just got curious about a couple of items concerning Adrian’s status here at Warner’s.”

  “Shoot.” If he had any apprehensions about speaking with me, they did not register on his face. It was as expressionless as a cheesecake.

  “Why were you out to get him?”

  “Me personally?” He shook his head to indicate disbelief. “I had nothing but admiration for him. As a writer, that is. As a person to deal with, Walter could be a royal pain in the ass. But he was a vital and creative screenwriter and his death is a terrible blow to the studio.” Parker wasn’t crude enough to feign grief; his words echoed the corporate line on Adrian’s demise.

  “Then why were you raking him over the coals on his new contract?”

  “Because that’s the name of the game, LeVine. You can’t roll over and play dead when a writer and his agent demand a thousand-dollar-a-week raise. He was demanding four thousand dollars a week. That’s a lot of money anyplace, even Hollywood.”

  “He told me thirty-five.”

  Parker shrugged.

  “Maybe that’s what he told you. From Warner Brothers he wanted four. That was too damn much and I told him so.”

  “I’ve been told that you proposed a thousand-dollar-a-week cut in pay.”

  “Bullshit,” he said firmly. “The truth, Mr. LeVine, is not to be found from the lips of agents.” He smiled. “I should know, I used to be one myself. The fact is that I told Adrian’s people that I would extend his contract for another two years, with his salary the same, twenty-five hundred a week. He was worth that much and no more.” Parker leaned toward me: the smell of cologne was strong enough to make my eyes tear. “Whatever anyone else may tell you, including his cockamaymie agent, that was the deal. The days of the five-grand-a-week writer are over, if I have any say in the matter. And I do. Let me show you something, LeVine, you strike me as a bright guy.”

  The executive leaned over and opened a briefcase, which was on the floor in the back. He removed a mimeographed report, its multicolored pages stapled together, and tossed it in my lap. The cover read “Television: Projections, 1947—1957.” I leafed through it and saw a lot of numbers.

  “This is just farina to me, Parker,” I told him.

  He flashed a grim smile. “To an outsider, it’s nothing but dry figures. To the movie industry, it’s a death sentence. That report, Mr. LeVine, projects that by the mid-1950s, something like thirty million homes, maybe more, will be equipped with television sets. And what that means is that unless we stop serving up the same tired old crap, we’re going to be in serious trouble. Television will be for free, movies cost money. It’s that simple.”

  “This is very interesting, but I’m here to talk about Walter Adrian.”

  “It’s intimately connected, LeVine. We’ve got to start cutting down on our overhead here, which means that we don’t pay writers whatever sky-high figures their agents talk them into demanding. Which is why we were haggling with Walter, not trying to persecute him. Period, end of speech. Anything else? I’ve really got to get moving.” He started fingering the ignition switch.

  “Two more questions. Quickies. First, the police think Walter killed himself because of his politics and the possibility they might be becoming unpopular, even professionally dangerous. Did Walter’s being a little on the rosy side have anything to do with the contract crunch?”

  “No,” Parker said coolly. “I’m in the movie business, not the politics business. If politics were important, Walter and a lot of other people would have been out on their butts long ago. Political leanings aren’t a big secret out here.” He smiled ruefully. “Nothing’s a big secret out here.”

  “If you say so. I’m just thinking that politics may stay constant, but their acceptability changes. But I’ll take your word for it.”

  Parker lit up a thin cigar and nodded.

  “My second question is a bit more personal,” I continued. “How come somebody just tried to kill me for nosing around the Western Street?�
��

  Parker went as white as a priest’s ass. The cigar froze to his thumb and index finger as if soldered there, and he blinked five times in rapid succession. His eyes iced over into tiny blue discs.

  “Kill you?” he managed to say. “Here on the lot?”

  “Right here in movieland. I was walking from the gallows to the jailhouse when an unidentified cowpoke started shooting at me.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t some extra fooling around with blanks?” Parker asked, trying to regain his footing. “People pull all kinds of idiot stunts around here.”

  “I’m sure of it. This was for real.”

  “Well, I’m dumbfounded, LeVine. It’s ghastly.” The blood had returned to his face and he was in the fight, jabbing and dancing, trying to stay off the ropes. “You must go to the police with this.”

  I shook my head.

  “No thanks. Police think it’s legal to shoot at private dicks.”

  “Then I’ll have studio security look into it. This can’t just be ignored.” He held out his hand. “I have to go, LeVine. If you need any help, anything at all, feel free to call my office. If I’m not available, I’m sure my secretary will be able to help. This has been a terrible event for the studio; let’s get it aired and put to rest.”

  “Thanks for the help, Parker.” I clasped his moist hand and departed from the Rolls. “Thing is, though,” I said through the window, “I can’t help feeling that maybe Walter was murdered.”

  The executive assumed the pose of a man thinking it over. “I can’t accept that, LeVine, but let’s see what you can come up with. If you find something, come straight to me.”

  He started his car and rolled through the kingdom of Warners, an earl perhaps, or a duke. And a man who probably held the key to the Adrian case.

  I watched him go and returned to my car. It was time to have dinner with Helen Adrian and persuade her to allow me to continue investigating her husband’s death. I drove into yet another dazzling and heartbreaking California sunset, aware that I was more than a little excited about seeing Mrs. Adrian, and that my reasons were not entirely professional.

  6

  She greeted me at the door in a plain black dress, tied tightly at the waist with a knotted cord, its sleeves draped like wings from her thin arms. A single strand of pearls graced her neck, and seashell earrings clung softly to her lobes. She looked wonderful, much too wonderful. Her eyes were clear and her smile radiant, as if the storm, surprisingly, had passed. Immediately following a great loss, there is a half-world of recovery, in which the survivor is amazed at how well she, let’s say, is taking the blow. The survivor does not realize that numbness has insulated her from her own feelings, that the emotional circuits have gone dead. When that numbness lifts and the circuits are restored, the pain hits very hard. I guessed that to be the case with Helen Adrian. And I was wrong. Not very wrong, but wrong enough. The lady did not fit into the predictable stages of grief.

  “It’s so good to see you, Jack.” She hugged me tightly enough for me to say hello to a fairly spectacular body.

  “Lots of visitors?”

  “Endless,” she said, taking my hat and tossing it in the closet. We walked into the living room. I turned down her offer of a drink; she contented herself with some sherry.

  “First, it was impossible to get the Arthurs out of here.” She plopped herself comfortably onto the couch and patted a cushion to indicate that I should sit beside her. I did so.

  “It was kind of them to stay, I thought, although they were both pretty loaded,” I said, moving a respectable distance from the lady, who took no notice.

  “It was very kind, yes, and they were very loaded, yes,” she said. “If they hadn’t stayed, I probably would have gone to the Words’ house. I could not have stayed here alone last night. But the problem was that the Arthurs were in worse shape than I was, drunk and terrified. This morning we all had a little breakfast: Carroll was hung over and morose, while June kept staring at me, waiting for the hysterics to begin.”

  She smiled and I smiled with her. Maybe she was a little too steady a little too quickly, but what a broad.

  “So I cleared them out as fast as possible,” she continued, kicking off her shoes and curling her feet beneath her. “But then the phone wouldn’t stop and people kept arriving, bringing enough food for the proverbial regiment. A lot of fruit baskets, but I wouldn’t accept them. Ever since my mother died when I was eleven, I’ve associated fruit baskets with death. They’re well meant but they turn a house into a funeral parlor, don’t you think?”

  “It’s a matter of taste. But I’ve never really lost anybody, not through death, that is, nobody close. My folks are still alive and well; I’m no expert on family tragedy.”

  “God, I am.” There was no bitterness in the voice, no self-pity. “My mother, cancer. I was eleven, like I said. My father remarried, to a nice lady who talks too much,” she smiled, “like me. He had a heart attack last year, hung on for a couple of weeks, long enough for me to get back to Utica and see him, then died. My older brother Steven, Steven Fletcher, got killed at Anzio. Now this.”

  A silence joined us together. Some silences separate people, others bring them closer. They fill in the blanks and the blanks mesh into an intuitive feeling for one another. It’s almost sensual.

  “You’re a strong woman, Mrs. Adrian.”

  She nodded distantly.

  “I know, but I’m tired of it.” She caressed and tousled her long red hair. “Being strong has a lot of drawbacks; everybody relies on you to be this unshakable, unbreakable thing. It’s not even human. And you feel like really collapsing, just once, just going prostrate and having someone else do the supporting. My whole marriage was like that; this is just its logical extension.” She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, as if anticipating a question about her marriage. She got one.

  “The marriage was bust?”

  “Not a bust, just poor. We probably would have gone on for a while longer. I don’t really know.” She took a hefty sip of sherry. “I didn’t want to press him, he was so moody, so fragile. That’s why no one questions his suicide; Walter was such a likely candidate. One day he’d feel invincible, the next day he’d be the low man on the Hollywood totem, an outcast. Back and forth, up and down. His insecurity affected the tone of the whole marriage, of course. And our conjugal bed was less than a triumph.”

  She searched my face for a reaction. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about the midnight failings of Walter Adrian and began to suspect that Helen Adrian had been hitting the sherry since high noon. Or maybe it was a symptom of shock: the defenses had crumbled and now all secrets were up for auction, lowest bids accepted.

  “How long were you married?”

  “Two years. We met in New York. I was working for a publisher, he came in with a manuscript, et cetera.” She did not tell the story as if recounting a fairy tale. In fact, she did not tell the story at all; instead. she smiled at me and asked if I was hungry.

  “Famished,” I said.

  That made her very happy.

  “Marvelous.” She stood up, and I with her. “I’d never know whether Walter would be voracious or wouldn’t touch a thing. Made him hard to cook for.” On this, her voice went as wobbly as a warped record and her eyes abruptly filled with tears. Mrs. Adrian grabbed onto me and wept, from woe, guilt, and too much sherry. I’m a good person to cry on: my shoulder is absorbent and my legs are strong. I can stand all day.

  The tears went on for a while, maybe five minutes. A woman in a maid’s outfit poked her head out from the kitchen. I gave her a reassuring nod and she withdrew from the room.

  “Why am I criticizing Walter?” wailed Mrs. Adrian. “There was so much pressure on the guy. And now he’s dead and I’m carping and bitching …” She couldn’t continue, but went down in the surf again.

  “You’re the one who’s under pressure now, Mrs. A.” I held her and let her cry. It is not easy to hold someone who looks like Helen A
drian without feeling emotions and physical sensations somewhat stronger than pity and consolation, but I reined myself in. She was a confusing woman, and confusing women have always been my weakness, my Achilles’ gland.

  Mrs. Adrian’s cry left her refreshed and enlivened, as if she had taken a shower. She retired to the bathroom to blot out and cosmeticize her grief, returning with the well-brushed and high-cheekboned poise of a fashion model. In a way, Helen was very much like Walter: her changes in mood were mercurial and quirky, her switches in tempo deceptive and frequent. But Walter’s tempers and humors were transparent, rooted in his need for respect. His wife was surer in her footing; the shifts in mood seemed to have their basis in changing frequencies that only she could receive. She could make you crazy.

  We sat down to a relaxed and delicious dinner, prepared by the maid, who was introduced to me as Mrs. Billy, a German woman in her fifties who cooked and cleaned for the Adrians three times a week. The menu consisted of a vichyssoise, pot roast with green beans and baked potatoes, and a green salad. I did most of the eating. Dessert followed: lemon cream, very strong coffee, and a story about a detective who got shot at while looking at a gallows. Mrs. Adrian was neither alarmed nor surprised by my tale; she nodded gravely and helped herself to cream and sugar.

  “Jack, it confirms that Walter was murdered.” She accepted my Lucky and gentlemanly light.

  “Undoubtedly, Mrs. Adrian, but where do we go from here? It has to be your decision: do we keep on investigating or get out before we get hurt?”

  She clasped my wrist with long, strong fingers. “We must see it through, Jack, for all kinds of reasons. If someone could kill Walter and attempt to kill you, it leaves me as the next target. As long as I have suspicions, I’m a threat to the killer, isn’t that so?”

  “Not necessarily. If I go back to New York, he’ll know that you’ve called it off.”