Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3)

by Martin Turnbull

  “Those are pretty swanky duds for a cartoon matinee,” Gwendolyn commented.

  Hugo stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’m taking him to see it at the Loew’s State downtown, then we’re going all fancy-schmancy at the Paris Inn. Ever been there? They do a real nice dinner for two fifty.”

  “I love your jacket,” Kathryn said. “Wherever did you get it?”

  Hugo rushed around the table to let Kathryn feel how soft it was. “Just up the street from here, at Silverwoods,” Hugo said. “I was browsing around when I saw it on a mannequin. Fortunately, I had just enough cash on me to pay for it, otherwise I don’t know what I would have done. Stolen it, probably!” He stretched out an arm for Alice to feel. “What do you think?”

  From under the sleeve, the platinum cufflink he’d worn at the Gone with the Wind party peeked out. The engraved M flashed brighter than a flare.

  “Hugo, what are you doing here?” Marcus asked.

  Hugo laughed. “I’ve tried to get Ramon on the line, but nobody’s answering. Could you tell him from me that I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to make it tonight?”

  Marcus’ heart went black as coal. “Ramon invited you?”

  Last week, when Ramon asked him over to dinner and told him to “be sure to wear something nice,” Marcus had spent days dreaming of candlelit dinners, violins on the phonograph, and some after-dinner funtime. He’d even gone down to Silverwoods to buy something new. He was sure Ramon would love the jacket as much as he did. It hadn’t occurred to Marcus that anybody else would be there.

  You’re such a dope, he told himself. It’s about time you faced facts: you don’t fill Ramon’s heart the same way he fills yours. Marcus forced himself to look at Hugo’s jacket. It almost felt like a punishment for committing felonious stupidity. A welt of anger broke out across his chest.

  * * *

  Ramon’s house on Valley Oak Drive in the classy Hollywoodland development featured soaring, stark-white walls and boxy windows that took in a commanding view of the Hollywood Hills. Marcus paid the taxi driver and walked up to the front door that stood flush against the road. He knocked three times and held his hands behind his back to stop them from shaking. Maybe, just maybe, he told himself for the thousandth time, Hugo had misunderstood Ramon’s invitation.

  Ramon answered the door in a white dress shirt, black bow tie, and dark cinnamon velvet smoking robe. “Come in,” he said. “Everybody else is here.”

  The words “everybody else” delivered the body blow. Marcus fought the urge to run screaming into the hills and swallowed the ball of humiliation swelling in his throat. He stepped inside a square foyer with twelve-inch tobacco-brown tiles and followed Ramon into the living room, where four men Marcus had met several times were lounging on black leather loveseats arranged in a square. In each corner of the room, lamps with translucent amber damask shades gave off a gentle, warm light.

  Cesar Romero and Tyrone Power were there, as well as Billy Haines, the ex-MGM star who told Louis B. Mayer to go to hell when Mayer ordered him to marry a woman. Billy was sitting next to his long-term lover, Jimmy, whom Marcus had met at George Cukor’s Sunday brunches. All of them were perfect gentlemen: friendly, witty, and welcoming, and under different circumstances, Marcus would have relished an evening with them. But not this evening.

  Marcus groaned to himself. Pretend time is over.

  “We’re already on our second martini,” Cesar proclaimed, holding up a near-empty glass. “You need to catch up.”

  Marcus had never been much of a vermouth fan, so martinis weren’t really his thing. But he said yes to be nice, and hoped he could swallow it without wincing. A thought then struck him: everyone was in a tuxedo, and here he was in a jacket and slacks. He felt another William Tell arrow pierce his pride. Ramon hadn’t even thought to tell him how to dress appropriately.

  He looked up when he heard a woman say, “Finally, someone who chooses not to dress like a penguin.” Then she did a double take. “Oh! It’s you!”

  Greta Garbo sauntered toward him in a flowing coppery-caramel gown that had to have been created by Adrian, Garbo’s costume designer at MGM. The drape expertly flattered her boyish figure.

  Garbo extended her hand. “My savior,” she said warmly.

  “Marcus is your savior?” Ramon handed him a martini.

  Marcus felt the cool poise of Garbo’s gaze as she addressed the gathering. “Remember the time when they had those gambling boats anchored three miles off shore?” she said. “I was on one when it sank. Marcus here gallantly gave up the last seat on the last lifeboat.”

  “You didn’t!” Billy exclaimed. “A real life hero.” He raised his martini. “Here’s to you! But how did you get back to shore?”

  None of these people looked like they were leaving any time soon. Marcus wanted to scream GET OUT! so he could be alone with Ramon, but he replied, “I’m a strong swimmer.”

  “You swam three miles to shore?” Tyrone Power let out a long, low whistle and gazed at Marcus with a twinkle in his eye the camera never picked up—at least not that Marcus had ever noticed. Marcus wondered if he had arrived with Cesar Romero. “Let’s drink to stamina!”

  Ramon mixed up another batch of martinis, and the conversation flowed onto who had been to Billy Wilkerson’s new nightclub, Ciro’s, and how he’d raised the standard for Sunset Strip glamour. Marcus sat down next to Garbo and tried to keep from drowning in a pit of disappointment. His attention faded in and out of the conversation and before he knew it, it had somehow turned to Cesar’s recent—and failed—attempts to master the sport of archery for a new Cisco Kid movie he’d been shooting at Twentieth Century Fox.

  “Oh, boy,” Cesar laughed, “are they ever going to have to work hard to fake this one!”

  “Speaking of bows and arrows,” Garbo turned to Marcus, “I heard you are writing our next big action adventure, William Tell.”

  Marcus nodded. “My first screen credit.”

  “Your first credit is an A-list picture?” Garbo asked. “Congratulations.”

  When Marcus saw Ramon slip quietly into the kitchen, he realized it might be his only opportunity to snare him alone. He thanked Garbo, made a hurried excuse, and disappeared through the swinging door to find Ramon filling a green glass platter with smoked Gouda on squares of toasted rye.

  “William Tell, huh?” Ramon asked. “Sounds like a big production. I’m very happy for you, mi Marcusito.”

  “I thought this was going to be a dinner,” Marcus blurted out.

  Ramon studied his platter. “I have more than just this.”

  “No, I mean—just us.”

  Ramon responded with a long “Oh . . .”

  Marcus couldn’t help but read That was rather silly of you in just one syllable.

  Ramon picked up the platter just as Marcus went to grab him by the shoulder, but he missed and ended up connecting with Ramon’s elbow. The platter slipped from Ramon’s hand and smashed against the white Mexican tiles. “Marcus, I—what is wrong?”

  The kitchen door swung open and Billy Haines poked his head through the door. “We heard something go smash.”

  “It’s okay,” Ramon said. “Nothing irreplaceable.”

  “We’re heading out now,” Billy said.

  Ramon made for the swing door and looked at Marcus as if to say it would be rude not to follow him. Marcus took a moment to collect himself and followed Ramon out of the kitchen. He found Billy and Jimmy hugging Garbo goodbye.

  “We’re taking Greta to the Goetz’s party,” Cesar told Marcus.

  “But he’s at Fox,” Marcus said.

  Billy explained, “William Goetz may well be a VP at Fox, but his father-in-law is the Grand Poobah of MGM, where Greta’s contract is soon to be negotiated.”

  “So King Louis is trying everything to keep her happy. Ninotchka was very successful and they don’t want to lose one of their biggest stars at the top of her game.”

  “But doesn’t he realize that Greta doesn
’t like a crowd?” Billy gave a rhetorical shrug.

  Garbo shrugged. “It is all a silly game, is it not? Every now and then even I must play. I’d rather stay here and eat the rest of your cheese.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Ramon told her with a laugh, “Marcus and I just dropped it all over the floor.”

  “You mop your floor, don’t you?” Garbo asked, seemingly without irony.

  “Give Louis B. Merde a good swift kick up the ass from me, will you?” Billy said to Cesar. “We’re off to Cranberry’s place. You’d be surprised how many Saturday nights someone like Joan Crawford sits at home alone. Nobody thinks to invite the world’s most gorgeous women; they all assume someone else has beaten them to it.”

  Marcus wondered if this cocktail party had just been camouflage after all. He felt his hopes begin to swell as he waved goodbye and lingered in the living room.

  Ramon closed the door with a gentle click, then slipped off his smoking jacket and hung it in the foyer closet. When he pulled off his bow tie and unbuttoned his collar, a sprig of chest hair peeked out. He turned to look at Marcus. “So what do you want?”

  Marcus felt a jumble of panic and anticipation ripple up from his stomach. He braced himself but Ramon walked past him, back through the living room. “Preferably not something involving the dairy cabinet.” Ramon shouldered the swinging door and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Marcus stood alone in Ramon’s living room and felt something fracture inside him. He strode toward the kitchen and slapped open the door. “What I want is to understand what’s going on between us.”

  “What is going on between us?” Ramon asked.

  “Damned if I can figure it out.” Marcus’ voice came out ragged. “When we’re together, it’s all hot and passionate and everything I want. We spend the night wrapped around each other, and I wake up in the morning to the sound of your breathing and it fills me with such contentment. Then I don’t hear from you for two weeks. And when I do, you invite me to dinner, which is lovely, but I never know if it’s just dinner, or is it dinner and—more. I don’t know where I stand with you, Ramon. You run so hot and cold. Hugo says it’s because you Latins are—”

  “Well!” Ramon leaned against the kitchen counter, his arms folded across his chest. With the end of his shoe, he pushed around a spiky shard of shattered platter. “Of course that is what Hugo would say. He is very good with words, yes?”

  Marcus watched Ramon toy with the chunk of glass. “What do you mean?”

  Ramon let out a bitter grunt. “So, you and Hugo?” he asked. “Are you two finished at last?”

  Marcus stepped forward and a fragment of glass cracked under his shoe into half a dozen pieces. “There is no me and Hugo.”

  “He told me all about it,” Ramon said quietly.

  “How could he when there’s nothing to tell you?”

  Ramon smiled at Marcus indulgently, almost patronizingly.

  Marcus bunched his hand into fists. “Hugo and I, we’re just friends. Not lovers. You must have misunderstood him.” As he said the words, he thought of the morning in Taggert’s breakfast nook.

  Ramon stepped close enough for Marcus to smell his citrusy cologne. “I long to be with you. I want to be yours and for you to be mine. But not if you are involved with someone else.” Marcus tried to speak, but Ramon pushed a finger against his lips. “If I seem to run hot and cold, it is because I find it hard to keep away from you. I resist and I resist until I can restrain myself no longer. Then I am wracked with guilt for going behind Hugo’s back. Hugo is good and decent; you know this. He does not deserve all this sneaking.”

  Marcus tried to speak again, but Ramon shushed him.

  “You both must sort out your feelings,” he said. “If you decide you are together, then I am very happy for you and I wish you both well. Jealously, but sincerely. And if not, I am here. Always patiently waiting. Although I shall be waiting in Italy. I’ve been offered the lead in two movies there. I leave on Monday for Europe.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Marcus shook his head with frustration. “You’re going back?! Don’t you read the papers? Europe’s descending into all-out war.”

  “Not yet, it hasn’t.”

  “You think this Hitler guy is going to stop at Austria and Poland?”

  “All I know is that in Europe they love me and offer me work. I am an actor. A gypsy! I go where the work is, and it is in Europe. Maybe war or no maybe war.”

  Marcus grabbed Ramon’s hand. “I promise you. There is no Hugo and me. Hugo is—I don’t know why he said all that, but—”

  Ramon pulled his hand away. “I am picking up all my hot-and-cold Latin passions and I am taking them to Europe. It should give you and Hugo all the space you need.”

  Marcus felt his shoulders squeeze up in anger, and he made no effort to force them back. The shards of green glass looked like fallen soldiers of a scattered army. One of them was shaped like an arrow from William Tell’s quiver. He picked it up and as he turned it over in his hand, it glinted in the light. He slipped the shard inside his pocket and walked out the door into the chilly evening air.

  CHAPTER 18

  Kathryn needed an excuse to get into Paramount. She’d left message after message for Roy at the Hopalong Cassidy production office, but he hadn’t returned any of them. When she read a press announcement that the studio was teaming Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in a new picture called Road to Singapore, she saw her opportunity.

  The love interest in the picture was played by Dorothy Lamour, whom Kathryn had met at the opening of Ciro’s. They’d shared a good laugh when Kathryn noticed they were wearing the same pair of earrings; Kathryn’s were only paste but Dorothy’s were from Harry Winston’s.

  Getting an on-set interview with Dorothy Lamour was the easy part; the hard part was shaking Paramount’s PR flunky, an eager beaver called Tipper who attached herself to Kathryn like a prickleberry on a cashmere sweater. The poor thing was all horse teeth and acne scars.

  It was a pleasant enough interview. Yes, Lamour had a fun time making the movie with Bing and Bob. Yes, the boys discovered they had good chemistry. Yes, there was always the possibility they might do a sequel if this one was successful.

  When the interview came to a close, Tipper steered Kathryn toward the main gate. Opportunity was slipping through Kathryn’s hands.

  “Would you mind if we made a pit stop to powder my nose?” she asked.

  “The commissary is real close.”

  Kathryn promised Tipper she’d only be a moment. Inside the ladies’ room, Kathryn waited a few seconds, cracked open the door, and peeked out. She spotted the girl talking to Barbara Stanwyck, although Stanwyck seemed to be doing most of the talking, quizzing Tipper with the intense stare she usually saved for her movies. Kathryn slinked the long way around the commissary to avoid Tipper’s peripheral vision.

  She was almost at the exit when she bumped into Robert Benchley. His cheeks were starting to take on the red-tinged pall of heavy drinkers.

  “I’m back at the salt mines,” Benchley told her, rolling his eyes, “making my latest epic, The Trouble with Husbands.”

  “Do you know Tipper from publicity?”

  “Horsegirl?”

  “Is she still over near the soups, talking to Stanwyck?”

  Benchley stole a glance and shook his head. “Heading straight here. Trying to lose her?” Kathryn nodded. He gave her a theatrical wink. “As soon as I start talking, head out and don’t look back.”

  Benchley boomed out, “Tipper! What does a gentleman have to do to get your undivided attention?”

  Kathryn slipped out of the commissary unhindered. She wandered between soundstages until she spotted a group of cowboys and followed them to the back lot’s Wild West Street, which in reality was just a dirt track lined with artificially aged facades. She asked the first extra she encountered if this was the Hopalong Cassidy crew, but he told her they’d moved into one of the sound stages and he didn’t know whic
h one.

  Kathryn was still standing in the middle of the dirt road when a voice through a megaphone called the extras to their places. She was trying to decide what to do next when she heard Tipper call her name. Suddenly, high-pitched screams filled the air.

  Kathryn and Tipper turned around to see three piebald stallions rear up at the end of the street. One of the riders fell out of his saddle, another made a desperate grab at the reins, and the third horse thundered toward Kathryn.

  An assistant director yelled into his megaphone. “STAND CLEAR!”

  Tipper and Kathryn staggered backwards to opposite sides of the road to let the horses stampede past. Kathryn ducked inside a fake saloon and ran the length of the façade to a door at the other end. She hurried away from Wild West Street toward the sound stages, checking the blackboards for the title of Roy’s film.

  A hot and fruitless hour later, she turned a corner and ran smack dab into a guy so big that she bounced off him like a tennis ball and fell onto her behind. She heard a familiar chuckle that had the deep and resonant timbre of a classically trained actor.

  “Orson?”

  She took his offered hand and allowed him to haul her to her feet.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Oh, you know,” she said, “the usual sort of—” She didn’t like the bemused smile on his face. “What?”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Did I overlook something? An anniversary, perhaps? A birthday?”

  Kathryn bent down and brushed nonexistent dirt from her skirt in an attempt to buy some time.

  Since the day of the Hollywood Women’s Press Club’s Christmas luncheon, Kathryn had seen Orson through a clearer prism. Despite his unblinking denials, she was far from convinced that a movie based on the life of Hearst wasn’t gestating in some well-watered corner of his fertile imagination. The man had an ego the size of the Boulder Dam, and Kathryn wouldn’t put it past him to think he could get away with it.