“I ordered a Vicious Virgin for me and a Zombie for you.” Lenny had the rail-thin physique of a chain-smoker and the ruddy complexion of a chain-drinker; Kathryn doubted this was his first time here.
The waiter brought the drinks; Kathryn took a sip of her Zombie. Ordinarily, she wasn’t much of a rum fan, but this concoction was sweetened with peach brandy and sharpened with lime and pineapple. It was really quite delicious and—more importantly—well-iced. This place was a might too steamy for a girl in a corset.
“Ready?” she said.
Lenny rolled his eyes and made a be my guest motion with his hand. Kathryn took another long swill of her cocktail and thumped it down on the table. “You scumbag!”
Lenny gaped at her. “Overstating things a little, aren’t you?”
“If we weren’t in public, you’d be hearing a whole lot worse.” A few people at the other tables looked around at her, but not Welles. “You’ve completely screwed things up.” She took another slug.
“God, you’re a drama queen. You should be up on the screen; you’d sure give Stanwyck a run for her money.” Lenny took another mouthful of his Vicious Virgin and showed her a grin filled with teeth yellowed by cigarettes and cynicism.
They haggled back and forth until the waiter came over and asked if they wanted another round. Welles still hadn’t shown any interest, so Kathryn brought out the bull’s-eye. She hadn’t been able to believe her luck when Lenny had mentioned a few days ago that he was dating the assistant to the secretary of RKO’s President George Schaefer. Over a drunken game of cribbage, the girl had blabbed to Lenny the unprecedented deal RKO was planning to make with Welles.
“How the hell is George Schaefer going to trust me now?” Kathryn paused and listened to the patter of fake raindrops on the corrugated iron roof. “I’m so sick of you doing a half-assed job.”
Lenny walloped the wooden table. “I do the best I can with the information you give me.”
“I’ve got one word for you, buddy: Kenosha. You didn’t even know which state it’s in.”
“You tracked it down, didn’t you?”
“No thanks to you, and all thanks to a tall glass of class at Schwab’s. Without him, I would still be dancing around the hall of records.”
The waiter appeared with a fresh round of drinks and they each took a swig.
“I’m sick of your sloppiness, and I’m sick of your attitude. But most of all I’m just plain sick of you.” She poked a finger in Lenny’s face. “You’ve messed up my relationship with Schaefer just like you nearly messed up my relationship with—” Kathryn’s mind went blank. “You know who I mean. And you’ve done it for the last time. You’re fired.”
“Screw you!” Lenny grabbed his brown homburg and stormed out of the bar.
Kathryn didn’t dare look in Welles’ direction. Instead, she stared down into her Zombie. Barely ten seconds ticked by before she heard his deep voice.
“Excuse me.”
She counted to three before looking up at him. “Yeah?” She paused a moment, then, “Oh! You again?” She looked around the joint. “Hey! Are you following me?”
Welles arched an eyebrow. “Considering that both times we’ve bumped into each other, I’ve been here first, I ought to be the one asking that question.” He flashed a stomach-dissolving grin.
Kathryn smiled as the booze buzzed around her brain like frenzied wasps. Focus, she told herself. Focus. She pressed her right hand to her cheek. “Did you hear all that?”
“You called me a glass of class, so I’m hardly going to complain.”
Welles invited her to join him and picked up her drink before she could decline. He brushed aside his papers onto one of the empty bar stools and said, “How well do you know George Shaefer?”
Kathryn decided it was better to answer his question with a question than to start out lying to the guy. “You ever met him?”
“I’m currently in negotiations with him.”
“You are? For what?” Kathryn felt her foundation garment chaff against her hips. She pulled the fresh cocktail toward her and took another sip. No wonder they call these things Zombies.
“A movie deal.” Welles was a study in nonchalance.
Kathryn planted an elbow on the table and waved her hand like a fan. “Holy Toledo! If I’m not the world’s biggest dummy. You’re Orson Welles, aren’t you?”
Welles flashed an easy grin. “Would it be such a terrible thing if I were?”
She pretended to study him anew, then moved her head closer to his and lowered her voice. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Schaefer’s secretary told me—no, no. It wouldn’t be fair.”
Welles started to idly stroke the back of Kathryn’s hand with his middle finger. It caressed her skin like silk and sent a wave of tingling up her arm. “Wouldn’t be fair to whom?” He let his lips fall subtly open and his eyelids droop sleepily.
She pretended to struggle with her conscience while he tilted his head toward her. “RKO is willing to offer you complete creative control,” she said. “Two-picture deal, approval of script, cast, crew, and final cut. But they’ll only play that card as a last resort.”
Welles’ grin widened. “I’m very glad to have met you, Miss . . . er . . . ?”
“Miss Kathryn Massey. How d’you do?”
“Fine. Just fine.”
A parrot squawked. “Do you think there’s an actual parrot in this bar?” Kathryn asked, watching Welles lean in toward her. “Or is it fake like the rain?”
She closed her eyes as Orson Welles pressed his lips against hers. He smelled of tobacco, whiskey, and sex.
CHAPTER 4
Marcus fumbled with the ends of his black silk bowtie for another moment before he gave up and combed back a lock of pomaded hair instead. He heard the door to his villa squeak open.
“Helloo-oo?” It was Kathryn.
“Are y’all decent?” And Gwendolyn, too.
Oh God no, he thought. Already? “Come on in.”
The pair of them—Kathryn in a burgundy suit with a silver fox-fur collar, and Gwendolyn in a shimmering dress of cream lamé—appeared at his bathroom door.
“Almost?” Kathryn asked with a tsk-tsk in her voice. “He’ll be here any second and you still haven’t done your tie?”
Marcus turned back to the mirror. “This rotten material. It’s so slippery and—damn it!”
Kathryn deposited her handbag on the edge of Marcus’ bathtub and stepped behind him. As she reached over his shoulders and started twisting his bowtie into shape, her rose-scented perfume helped settle him down.
Gwendolyn took him by the hand. “Nervous, huh?”
“I’ve never been on a date before.”
“This isn’t really a date, though, is it?” Gwendolyn said. “And anyway, do two men even go on dates together?”
“Oh, Gwennie!” Kathryn admonished, “how can you have lived at the Garden for twelve years and still be so naïve? Of course men go on dates, they just have to be careful, is all. For appearances’ sake. We’re what’s known as beards.” She kissed the back of Marcus’ neck. “It’s only natural to be nervous.” She hummed “Cheek to Cheek” while she gave the two ends a final tug.
Marcus let his head drop forward. “What if I read the signals wrong?”
Gwendolyn let out a peal of bubbly laughter. “You mean when Ramon landed on your doorstep and French-kissed you?” She gave his face a tender stroke. “Oh, darlin’, there’s only one way to read that signal.”
Kathryn grabbed the tuxedo jacket suspended from a hanger hooked over his bedroom door and helped him into it. “He’ll take one look at you and the poor sap won’t stand a chance.”
Three sharp knocks on the front door drained two double whiskeys’ worth of Dutch courage out of him. He’d been waiting for this moment all week—for nearly ten years—but suddenly he wasn’t ready.
“What are you waiting for?” Kathryn whispered. “Your butler?” She nudged him toward the door.
Marcus swallowed hard. “Come in, please.”
Ramon glided smoothly into the dining room, and his face lit up when he saw Kathryn and Gwendolyn. “Ah! Our charming dates.”
“Ramon,” Marcus said, “this is Kathryn Massey.”
“Encantado.” Ramon took Kathryn’s hand and kissed it.
“And this is Gwendolyn Brick.”
He did the same with Gwendolyn, then stood up straight. “And which of you two lovely ladies is to be my official date at tonight’s premiere?”
Marcus resisted the urge to slap his head. The hours he’d spent thinking and planning and dreaming about this night, fussing over every detail, trying to anticipate everything that might go wrong, and he hadn’t thought about something as basic as that.
“When Kathryn and I realized we’d both scored invitations to Grauman’s tonight—” A knock on the door sliced into the room.
“Marcus?” It was Jake, the bellboy. “Your ride’s here.”
Marcus drew a long-overdue breath and turned to Ramon. “Shall we?”
* * *
It was just after seven o’clock when their driver drew up to the curb in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The shiny black limousine with a white polished roof that Marcus had hired for the night wasn’t as roomy on the inside as it looked on the outside, but he didn’t care. It meant he got to sit closer to Ramon than he’d reckoned. Gwendolyn pressed her face against the window. “They really went all out with this one, huh?”
The forecourt of the Chinese Theatre was about as wide as a Beverly Hills mansion and paved with rectangular sections of concrete, where ten years’ worth of stars’ footprints and handprints had been immortalized. Banks of bleachers ten rows deep were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with fans on both sides of Hollywood Boulevard. Off to the right, an electric sign stood two stories high like a neon Great Wall of China. Dozens of white light bulbs spelled out the words:
MGM’S AMAZING
‘THE WIZARD OF OZ’
IN TECHNICOLOR
“This extra hoopla is all about Judy Garland,” Marcus said. “She has another movie coming out later this year, Babes in Arms. MGM has high hopes for her.”
Ramon leaned toward the window. Marcus loved the way the light from the neon sign glowed in his handsome face. “The Garland girl is bursting with talent.” Ramon smiled wistfully, leaving Marcus to wonder if he was recalling the time when he was on the receiving end of the same treatment. It had been five or six years since he’d starred in anything substantial. He had a second career now as a singer, but didn’t play to crowds this size.
The driver got out, ran around to the curb, and pulled open the door. The movie fans roared from the bleachers.
“They’re going to be awfully disappointed when they find it’s just us,” Gwendolyn laughed and took the chauffeur’s offered hand.
Gargantuan spotlights raked the night sky with fingers of blinding light, and a bank of photographers crowded the right-hand side. When the four of them stepped out of the limousine, a burst of flash blinded Marcus. The pop of thirty bulbs exploding with light was followed by the splintering of glass on concrete as the photographers tossed the bulbs aside. The fans boomed. Marcus felt Ramon’s hot breath in his ear.
“You get used to it,” he said. “The flash bulbs, the screaming fans, the adoration. Then one day you find they’ve all gone away. Everyone goes away eventually.”
Marcus met Ramon’s unblinking stare. “Not everyone.”
A paper cornfield crowded with six-foot stalks filled the left-hand side of the courtyard, and instead of a red carpet, MGM’s PR geniuses had laid out a yellow brick road from the sidewalk to the theater’s front door. Ahead of Marcus strolled a group of midgets who’d spent a series of well-publicized weeks in Culver City playing the Munchkins. They were decked out in vivid costumes of bright greens and reds, with extra-tall top hats and weirdly curled helmets of gold and silver. The crowd erupted again and Marcus looked back to see Hedy Lamarr waving toward the bleachers. The woman was as breathtaking in person as she was on screen, and Marcus hoped for the chance to write a picture for her.
A teenage usherette in a red and gold uniform handed them programs and led them into the auditorium. Her outfit matched the red velvet upholstery on the seats and the thick curtain covering the screen. Overhead, an enormous chandelier hung at the center of an intricately carved ceiling that was ambiguously Chinese with Art Deco flourishes, and all in gold leaf. Marcus had been here more times than he could count, but on the night of a big Hollywood premiere, it seemed to glow extra brightly. The usherette led them to their assigned seats in the sixteenth row.
“You fellas don’t mind if us girls sit together, do you?” Kathryn shepherded Gwendolyn in front of her, forcing Marcus and Ramon to sit together.
The program, as big as a magazine, featured a cover with an elaborate collage of scenes around an illustration of the five stars and a little black terrier. Marcus had barely opened his when a murmur rippled through the audience. Louis B. Mayer and his phalanx of virtually identical flunkies showboated down the center aisle like a multi-headed centipede. Marcus watched Ramon’s eyes follow the mogul’s progress, then he felt the heat of Ramon’s left leg pressed against his right.
Ramon kept his eyes on Mayer as he leaned toward Marcus. “Do you often use your friends as camouflage?”
“I wouldn’t call them camouflage.” Marcus hated the quiver in his voice.
“But that’s what they are, no?”
“We could hardly go to something like this together.”
“I was hoping I would not have to share you with a thousand people.”
“I wanted to—”
“Impress me?” Ramon looked at Marcus mockingly; the message was clear. I was once MGM’s biggest star. I have been to a hundred of these things.
“You impressed me that very first time we met,” Ramon said, “when you were a Western Union messenger and appeared on my set with a telegram. Remember?”
How could I forget, Marcus thought. My knees were like Jell-O for a week.
“I was impressed enough to take you to my secret hideaway under Pershing Square.”
That kiss was six years ago and Ramon had never forgotten it. The tremor of a thrill shivered through Marcus’ body. But why, then, Marcus wondered, has it taken us so long to have this conversation? And in front of all these people? Marcus decided he didn’t care. It was enough that they were having it. “Shame about the earthquake, huh?” he said, straining for levity.
Ramon didn’t smile. “And I was impressed enough to arrive on your doorstep unannounced the other day. I was hoping for more, but did not expect to see Hoppy.”
“Obviously.”
Ramon’s voice turned warm. “I was glad to see you with Hoppy. He’s a good man. High quality. It can be a rare trait in this town.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“I think about you a lot. I was passing by the Garden of Allah, I knew you still lived there—”
“Oh, I see!” Marcus was still striving to keep the tone light, in case snooping ears were listening in. “Keeping tabs on me, huh?”
“I have,” Ramon admitted.
Marcus felt his heart skip a beat. Under the cover of the programs in their laps, Marcus felt Ramon’s fingers grope for his until their palms lay together. The two of them looked at each other, without blinking, without breathing, without moving.
For nine years Marcus had lusted after this man, fantasized about him, held imaginary conversations with him, invented no end of scenarios in which they’d bump into each other, catch sight of each other across a crowded party or busy intersection. Sure, Ramon had indicated he might be interested—the memory of that pre-e
arthquake kiss under Pershing Square had kept Marcus awake deep into many a night— but the thought that Ramon felt the same way rendered Marcus light-headed.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Ramon asked.
Marcus reared back. “The show’s about to start.”
Ramon lifted his left shoulder in a so-what-of-it? shrug.
“But we can’t leave the girls in the lurch like this. Maybe we can drop them off before the party and make a getaway?”
The lights in the auditorium lowered, the red curtains parted, and the MGM Ars Gratia Artis logo with Leo the Lion appeared in sepia. The audience applauded, but Marcus felt his heart sink as Ramon’s fingers withdrew beneath the programs.
The words “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents” appeared in front of ominously dark clouds and the title “The Wizard of Oz” filled the screen, but the images barely registered in Marcus’ mind. As an orchestral arrangement of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” arched across the crowd, Marcus felt Kathryn pinch the lapel of his jacket and pull him toward her.
“For the record,” she said, “Gwennie and I are perfectly happy to take the limo to the party if it turns out you now have somewhere else you need to be.”
“You heard what we were saying?” Marcus asked, alarmed. If Kathryn had caught their conversation, maybe the people in front of them had, too, or the nearby pair of slick young guys Marcus had recognized from the studio’s PR department.
“No,” Kathryn replied over the swelling overture. “Just a word here and there. But enough to get the gist.”
“We can’t leave you,” Marcus whispered back. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“You know what’s not right? Waiting nine years for someone who’s clearly going to say yes.”
Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3) Page 3