“And Gwennie? She’d be okay?”
Kathryn returned her eyes to the screen where a sepia-toned Judy Garland in a gingham dress was running away from the audience up a rough, dirt path. Kathryn whispered, “I believe her words were, ‘I wish those two would just leave already. Neither of them is going to hear a word of this picture.’”
Marcus turned his head and looked squarely at Ramon until he had his attention. Ramon looked at Marcus and raised his eyebrows. Marcus tilted his head toward the main exit at the back of the cinema. Ramon smiled and held up three fingers. He folded the first one down, then the second, then the third. They apologized as they made their way to the end of the row, then dashed up the aisle as fast as propriety would allow. They swung open the heavy lacquered doors leading into the foyer and were outside within seconds.
The heat of the August day still filled the air. Marcus searched the courtyard for the right place to execute the maneuver gelling in his mind. The cellophane cornstalks and the yellow brick road were still there, but the courtyard was largely deserted now. The odd movie fan still lingered, hopeful that one of the stars might make a quick getaway, but the press corps had retired to the nearest bar in a wake of spent and shattered flash bulbs.
Ramon pointed to the Roosevelt Hotel, half a block west. “We can grab a cab more quickly from there.”
“You’re probably right,” Marcus said, “but there’s something I need to do first.”
He pulled Ramon into the fake cornfield and they battled through the stiff foliage until they’d shoved past the final row to the theater’s outer wall. Marcus grabbed Ramon by his shoulders and pushed his back against the bricks. The glow of the yellow cellophane warmed Ramon’s face and a hesitance replaced the confidence in his eyes. He’d never seen Marcus act so boldly before, but his tentative smile told Marcus he liked it.
“You’d think after nine years I could wait another twenty minutes,” Marcus said with a smirk, “but I can’t. Not one more second.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth against Ramon’s. He felt the man’s body stiffen, but he steeled his nerve. Slowly, Ramon’s body slackened, his lips softened, and his arms wrapped around Marcus. Ramon pulled their chests together so tightly that Marcus could feel Ramon’s heart thudding against his ribcage.
At last, Marcus thought. The words seemed to echo around his head.
At last. At last. At last.
CHAPTER 5
Which newly arrived comet of a gent was seen emerging from a potent South Seas jungle with a dark-haired scribbler who was having trouble staying vertical in her high heels?
Kathryn had to read the blind item in the Hollywood Today gossip column twice before it registered that Sheilah Graham was talking about her. “Oh, Christ.”
She let the paper drop onto the patio table, thankful that the Garden of Allah’s pool area was deserted. Lillian Hellman’s dinner party had lasted until dawn and everyone else was still asleep, so at least she could piece together that night in solitude.
Kathryn couldn’t remember how she got home from Don the Beachcomber. As delicious as those Zombies were, they had a sneaky right hook that she didn’t feel until she was already bamboozled by Wellesian charm. The man was magnetic, and she was sloshed. Did he take her home and put the moves on her? Did she say no? Could she have cheated on Roy?
Kathryn stared at the surface of the piano-shaped swimming pool. What was Roy Quinn to her, anyway? Lover? Paramour? Inamorato? As usual, she failed to come up with anything that suited the handsomely strapping but inconveniently married man she’d been sleeping with for a number of years now. They met when they could, and conducted themselves discreetly. All in all, Kathryn was happy with her love life and her eye never strayed. But she’d never been that drunk in the overwhelming presence of a man who embodied sex on legs, so she couldn’t be sure what happened.
Sheilah’s column made her see that she needed to be. The lace gloves were off and Sheilah was aiming to form a holy trinity of Hollywood gossip columnists with Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper.
Kathryn’s hand flew to her mouth. If Welles took her back to his bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, did any of the front desk staff recognize her? And if they did, did they tell her mother?
Oh dear God, Kathryn thought, please give me a sign we came back here. Nobody would have cared if they’d seen her with him. Nobody cared much who did what with whom at the Garden of Allah, just as long as they didn’t wail through the thin walls like mating walruses. Maybe Welles did the right thing and put her in a taxi. After all, she did wake up in her own bed, albeit semi-undressed and missing her wristwatch.
That was the other clue she was reluctant to acknowledge: she’d lost her watch. And not just any watch, but her best dress watch. She’d called Don’s, but they hadn’t seen it. She searched all over the villa and through her handbags but came up empty-handed. Was it on the floor of Welles’ bungalow at the Marmont?
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite dark-haired scribbler!”
Robert Benchley, the sharp-as-tacks raconteur, sometime actor, and theater critic was the Garden’s unofficial host. It was a title he earned by guaranteeing all his neighbors a place to get plastered whenever he was in residence. The party in Benchley’s villa seemed to have gone on for the best part of a decade now. He was a father figure to Kathryn, or favored uncle, at least. Having face-to-face time with him was rare, and normally she would welcome it, but not with an opening line like that. She offered him a blank stare instead of her usual warm smile. He ignored it and set down a coffee mug the size of a small beehive next to Kathryn’s folded newspaper as he took a seat.
“I know you read Sheilah’s column. Everybody does.”
“Scribblers are screenwriters.”
“Scribblers are any sort of writer, and there is much to be read into absence of denial.” He waited for a response, but when he saw none was forthcoming, he said, “I was there that night.”
“Where?”
“Don the Beachcomber. I go there quite a lot. I miss rain,” he said wistfully, and took a long sip of coffee so strong that Kathryn could smell it from where she sat. “I associate the sound of rain on the roof with New York; I’m always more productive when I can hear it. It rains once every other millennia out here, so I go to Don’s to listen to the fake rain on his fake ceiling. Imagine my surprise when you walk in, stage a phony fight with some squirrelly guy, and then start in with my friend Orson.”
Kathryn fidgeted in her seat. “You know Orson Welles?”
Benchley nodded. “We’re both children of Broadway; our paths have been criss-crossing for years. On the way to the bar, mainly.” Kathryn watched him attempt to adjust his necktie.
She could see there was no point in pretending. She explained how she’d been on the hunt for an exclusive and confessed that she’d overdosed on amnesia-inducing Zombies.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about anything,” Benchley said. “From where I was sitting, you appeared to be fully compos mentis.”
“Did it look like he was going to make a play for me?”
“My dear, darling Kathryn, he’s Orson Welles. We can assume he did.”
Kathryn cringed. “Did I look as though I’d accept?”
Benchley shrugged. “You’re a woman.”
“It’s just that I’ve lost my best watch. If it’s sitting on the floor of Welles’ hotel room, I could fill in a blank.”
Benchley sipped his coffee without taking his eyes off her. “Why not just ask him?”
Sheilah’s article glared up at Kathryn. “I’m trying to gain his confidence and respect,” she said. “I want him to trust me, but I feel like I’m at a disadvantage now.”
“I heard from one of my old Algonquin tablemates that he wants to film Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and I’m rather keen to find out if it’s true. Perhaps we might perambulate up Sunset together and take him by surprise.”
“Are you offering to distract him while I search for
my watch?”
“Is that what you need me to do?” Benchley posed his question with a mischievous gleam in his eye.
Kathryn wasn’t sure how many people could identify her in Sheilah’s column, but she knew some would. The smart thing would be to have some ready answers when the subject came up in conversation, and the answer to the most important question might be lying on the floor of Welles’ hotel room. “Yes,” she admitted flatly, “I think I do.”
* * *
Kathryn slipped into her villa and put on a daisy-print sundress and low-heeled espadrilles. Just something casual, she decided, to make it look like she and Benchley were dropping in on a spur-of-the-moment whim.
The Chateau Marmont wasn’t far from the Garden of Allah—just a couple of blocks—but the feel was very different. It was a fancier affair, modeled on a French chateau so it radiated a classier tone. Everything at the Garden was spread out and open, but at the Marmont, things were a little more refined, a little more discreet, a little more illicit-affair-hideaway. People moved through its foyer without making a sound and spoke in hushed voices. But nobody had bothered to tell Orson Welles.
He stood at the doorway to bungalow number four with his feet planted wide apart and his hands bunched into fists on his hips. He filled the whole space. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s patootie!” he boomed. “Look at you both!”
The sight of him sent a visceral wave of euphoria through Kathryn’s body. Unsure if Orson noticed, she struggled to regain her composure. Benchley got a back-breaking bear hug, but Kathryn received a warm smile and a slow nod. “Nice to see you again, Miss Massey.”
He ushered them into a large rectangular room; the entire place had been upended. Newspapers, cigarette packs, bottles of vodka and whiskey, discarded neckties, patent leather shoes, pipes, three typewriters, and reams of paper were strewn from one end of the bungalow to the other. None of it looked familiar to Kathryn.
Orson chuckled. “I’ve asked the maids not to make up my room. I feel invaded when they come in here. Drives me to distraction. So I’ve told them not to bother and gave them each fifty dollars to remember it.”
Benchley laughed. “You’re as insane as ever, Orson. And where exactly are we supposed to sit down?”
Orson scratched his head and yawned.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Kathryn said in mock exasperation. She started pulling wads of newspaper from a sofa-shaped lump. It was littered with so many papers and clothes and bags and plates of food that she couldn’t even see its feet. Cleaning up was the perfect cover to search for her watch, even if her watch was a needle in Orson’s disaster-zone haystack. She found several copies of Heart of Darkness buried under an Everestian mound of the New York Times, and underneath the books, a pile of handwritten notes and line sketches of movie sets.
“Really, Miss Massey,” Orson said, “I don’t do well with anyone messing up my system.” Kathryn stood up and dumped a stack of newspapers back onto the sofa. Orson turned to Benchley. “I didn’t know you two were pals.”
“We’re both at the Garden of Allah,” Benchley said. “I’m surprised you didn’t check in there.”
Orson gave Kathryn a lecherous once-over. “I hear it’s very social.”
“Go make yourself presentable,” Benchley told him.
“We’re going someplace?” Orson asked.
“Sure we are!”
Orson grimaced. “I’m trying to keep a low profile for the moment. Perhaps we could just stick around here.”
“Don’t worry, Orsie-boy,” Benchley responded. “I know somewhere dim, dark and discreet.”
Silently, Benchley made a Go on, start snooping, already! motion with his hand as he followed Orson out of the room. Kathryn spotted a pile of newspaper clippings next to an abandoned assortment of neckties and orphaned argyle socks on top of the Steinway. The same name appeared on nearly every one of them: William Randolph Hearst. She glanced through the titles.
William Randolph Hearst on the foreign war debts, the war debt moratorium, financial supremacy of American dollar, and Mr. Hoover’s action in the crisis by William Randolph Hearst
Public enemy no.1: William Randolph Hearst by Nancy Hyman
William Randolph Hearst on Communism and fascism, government and business and excessive taxation by William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst’s views on NRA and freedom of the press by William Randolph Hearst
She wanted to ask Orson what was going on with the Hearst obsession, but thought better of it—Benchley’s thrice-weekly columns were in Hearst publications. The articles were in her hand when Orson burst back into the living room with Benchley on his tail.
“Whichever fine establishment you’ve got in mind, Benchley, it must possess two qualities: It won’t mind if I haven’t shaved since yesterday morning, and it must serve the best Manhattans in town.”
“It won’t, and it will.”
Orson strode over to his front door. Benchley exited first, exclaiming how still and beautiful the day was, but as Kathryn went to follow, Orson pulled her back. She found her watch dangling from his index finger.
“I assume this is what you’ve been looking for?”
A jolt went through Kathryn’s heart. She tried to tell herself it was just relief that she hadn’t lost her best watch, but as she slid it from Orson’s extended finger, she knew how long such self-deception was likely to last.
CHAPTER 6
The Carthay Circle Theater, right near the new May Company department store on Wilshire, featured a steeple-like tower, ornately carved interior walls, and plush carpeting. It felt to Gwendolyn more like a church than a movie house. She was giddy at the thought of seeing herself on the screen for the very first time in one of the biggest and grandest cinemas in Los Angeles.
That in itself would have been exciting enough, but she was in a movie made by an A-list studio, helmed by an A-list director, and starring an A-list cast. She didn’t even care that she wasn’t going to attend the official premiere. She’d been invited to the final-cut preview exclusively for the cast and crew, which was more than enough for her.
As they approached the front doors, Marcus stepped ahead of her and Kathryn and laid a hand on the ornate brass handle of the left-hand door. “Before we go in,” he said, “I just want to say this: I’m very proud of you, very excited for you, and very happy to share this moment with you.”
“We all are,” Kathryn added.
“Including me.” Ramon grabbed the other handle and the two guys made a grand scene of opening the doors together.
Gwendolyn smiled at Ramon and promised herself that before the evening was over, she’d thank him for making her dear friend so happy. Since the night he and Ramon sneaked out of the Wizard of Oz premiere, Marcus had veritably glowed with bliss. It was a joy to see.
As an usher escorted them to their seats, Gwendolyn took a moment to see if she could spot any of the models she’d shared her scene with. She managed to catch the attention of one or two of them and they waved back.
The Technicolor picture featured a fashion show, and Greta Garbo had promised to have her cast as one of the models. But even with Garbo on her side, Gwendolyn hadn’t held her breath until George Cukor was fired from Gone with the Wind and assigned to The Women. It was only a brief appearance that might, at best, see her on screen for twenty seconds, but it was the start she’d been waiting for since the day she moved to Hollywood.
As she craned her neck to spot a particular model who’d gone out of her way to show Gwendolyn how to pose, she spied a familiar figure on the far side of the theater. “Oh, look.” She nudged Kathryn. “It’s Dorothy.”
“Parker?”
“No, the countess.”
Gwendolyn had met Countess Dorothy di Frasso at Jean Harlow’s funeral a few years back and they’d become friends. She’d even done her best to help Gwendolyn’s quest to be cast as Scarlett O’Hara. Decked out as always in glittering diamonds, Dorothy paraded down the side
aisle on the arm of a black-haired man in a form-fitting tux.
Kathryn squinted. “Is she with her gangster boyfriend?”
“I don’t know,” Gwendolyn said. “I’ve never seen him. She told me he’s devilishly handsome and very enthusiastic in bed.”
Kathryn shivered. “He’s still Benjamin Siegel. I can’t believe she’s playing with such dynamite. OH! Speaking of devilishly handsome!”
George Cukor bounded down the aisle, his hands outstretched. “Gwendolyn!” He pulled her in for a kiss on each cheek. “For luck,” he told her. He said hello to the others and did a double take on Marcus and Ramon, which showed that the queer grapevine had let him down. He excused himself, saying he’d rather sit with them but was stuck with the producer, Hunt Stromberg, and his wife.
Gwendolyn took her seat between Marcus and Kathryn and removed the Alsatian fox-fur wrap she’d borrowed from Lillian Hellman, who’d been back at the Garden all summer. Gwendolyn had been half tempted to wear the gown Adrian created for her cameo, a stunning creation of emerald green silk and chiffon that everybody on set said she looked lovely in, but it had seemed a bit much for a cast-and-crew preview. “I’m going to save it,” she’d told herself, “for when I attend a real premiere to one of my movies.”
“How you doing?” Kathryn asked.
“Hot and fluttery,” she replied.
Kathryn poked a finger in her face. “Promise me that tomorrow you’ll write your brother and tell him he has to go see this movie when it opens in New York.”
“He’s working at the World’s Fair almost every day. Apparently, their recruitment drive is doing a booming business.”
“They must give him some days off.”
The lights dimmed and Gwendolyn, not usually much of a drinker, wished she’d said yes to the champagne they’d cracked open in Marcus’ villa an hour ago.
* * *
The Women was a wonderful movie: briskly paced, expertly directed, and packed with relentlessly snappy dialogue delivered with razor-sharp skill. It had the markings of a huge hit, but Gwendolyn Brick couldn’t give two hoots about it.
Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3) Page 4