Orson looked startled for half a second, but recovered quickly. “I feel awkward seeing you here but being with someone else.”
It was a nice line, not that Kathryn bought it. She took a couple of steps closer to him and pulled a cigarette out of her purse. She held it up for him to light. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
He pulled out a shiny gold lighter. The light flared in his face and Kathryn could see he hadn’t given himself the best of shaves; there were several nicks on his neck. He lit her cigarette, then his cigar. “I find myself missing you at the strangest times,” he confessed.
Kathryn bugged her eyes in mock surprise. “What? Even with Miss del Río in tow?” she said, then immediately wished she hadn’t. She’d met Delores at Mickey Rooney’s Christmas party a few years back. She seemed very nice, and not a bit like the usual empty-headed ornamentals who decorated Hollywood parties.
But Orson didn’t laugh, or even smile. Instead, he leaned in close enough for her to smell the unusual fruity scent of the orange flower in his lapel. “I don’t think many people understand me. Not really. But you do.”
Kathryn was taken aback. She tried to hide it by taking a long drag of her cigarette. The same thought had struck her, but she was shocked that it had occurred to a monumental egotist like Orson. “I’m flattered.” The sudden turmoil in her heart reminded her of the raw power the man generated. “So why have you been ignoring me tonight?”
The smile in Orson’s eyes spread out onto his whole face. “I do apologize. It was very rude of me to snub you.”
“Please don’t tell me it’s true,” Kathryn blurted out.
“What do you want me to say? I’m with Delores now, and—”
She grabbed him by the forearm and gripped it as hard as she could muster. “Your movie. I know you’re now calling it Citizen Kane, and I know who it’s about.”
Orson pulled away from her and turned to the traffic on Sunset. His face took on an ambiguous grimace.
“I can only assume you want to invite trouble into your life,” she insisted.
He shrugged but didn’t say anything beyond a scoffing sound.
“Okay. Have it your way,” Kathryn continued. “But let me say that when—not if, but when—Hearst destroys your reputation, your career, and your entire future over one lousy movie, I reserve the right to say I told you so.”
The self-deprecating smile fell from Orson’s face in the space of an eye-blink. “Who said anything about my movie being lousy?”
She stared at him, unable to conjure a sound. And there we have it, she thought. Confirmation that Orson Welles has the biggest set of balls outside a bull farm.
“I’d better get back inside,” he said. “Delores can be the jealous type if I don’t play her right.”
Kathryn listened to his footsteps retreat as she gripped the balustrade. What is he thinking? What is he thinking?
“What are you thinking?”
Roy’s voice took Kathryn by surprise. She spun around, glancing at the door. “If you’re thinking—Orson and I aren’t—any longer—”
Roy nodded. “I could tell.”
He stood six or seven feet from her, dressed in white tie and tails. It fitted him well, hugging his chest and following the V-line down to his waist. The old excitement she used to feel just being near him filled her like helium.
But then the vision of him driving up to Bugsy Siegel’s castle in the Hollywood Hills in his bright yellow Packard crowded her mind.
She planted her fists on her hips and hollered, “Are you completely nuts?” He reared back and she took a step forward. “What the HELL are you doing hanging around with the likes of Ben Siegel?”
“What makes you think—wait, where did that come from?”
“You’re driving a yellow Packard these days, aren’t you? I was onto a hot lead for a story and was staking out Siegel’s place—”
“You were on a stakeout?” His blue-grey eyes laughed at her.
“Imagine my surprise when I watched you pull up out front.” His eyes stopped laughing. Kathryn thought of Ritchie. “What are you doing, Roy? How deep in debt are you?”
“Debt?” Roy scoffed. “What makes you think I’m in debt?”
“It’s bad enough the guy’s a murderer, and a grafter and a money launderer—”
“Kathryn, please. He was the money man behind some movies I’ve worked on. Turns out he’s a big fan of westerns so we struck up a friendship of sorts.”
“Nobody just strikes up a ‘friendship of sorts’ with a mobster.”
“Okay, so maybe ‘friendship’ is too strong a word. The guy just wants a bunch of regular fellas to go to the movies with. That’s all we do.” Roy crossed his heart. “I swear, Kathryn.”
But she was far from convinced. “You have heard of Murder, Inc., haven’t you? The guy is a killer. Who just goes to the movies with a killer?” She pushed down on the knot of frustration surging up through her chest.
“Kathryn, I promise you,” Roy’s voice was calm and quiet now. “He’s never asked me to place bets for him, or transport or hide anything for him. He’s never bought me anything or asked me to purchase anything for him. All we do is go to the movies, and maybe have a drink beforehand.”
Kathryn crossed her arms. “But you’ve been to his house.”
Roy nodded. “Yes, but only the once. He was having a New Year’s Day party and they ran out of ice so he called me to pick him up some.”
“Why would he call you, Mr. Once In A Blue Moon Go To The Movies?”
“I was the seventh person they called. It wasn’t even him, it was his lieutenant, Mickey Cohen. I happened to be the first one they called who was at home. So I picked up some ice, drove it to his place and dropped it off.”
“You didn’t stay?”
Roy shook his head. “Wasn’t invited to. Wouldn’t have wanted to. I handed the ice over to some beanpole and left. The end.”
The orange tinge to the street lighting along Sunset gave Roy a healthy glow. Oh, boy, she thought, you just get more and more handsome. They stood in the semidarkness of the Palladium’s balcony and stared at each other for a long succession of silent moments.
“So?” his hands on his hips, “are we done playing Twenty Questions? Can I come over now and kiss the life out of you?”
CHAPTER 26
It took the LAPD nine months to build a case, but in August 1940 they finally had enough proof to arrest Bugsy Siegel for the murder of Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg. The remarkable social cache Siegel had built up with Countess Dorothy di Frasso started to dissipate when the two of them broke up—Dorothy had described it to Gwendolyn as being “as gut-wrenching as it was necessary”—and along with the arrest, any hope he and the mob had of making the Trocadero a thriving concern died virtually overnight. There’d been rumors that bandleader Eddie LeBaron was trying to purchase it, but by fall, its doors were still closed and whatever business the Troc had stolen away from the Cocoanut Grove no longer worried Gwendolyn’s boss.
But now there was Ciro’s up on the Sunset Strip, which set a new standard in sophisticated nightclub entertainment. Along with the Earl Carroll Theater, a lavish supper club with a parade of beauties dressed according to the legal minimum requirement, there was also now the Hollywood Palladium’s gargantuan dance floor. The three of them seemed intent on siphoning off as much of the Cocoanut Grove’s patrons as it could. By November, the Grove was still pulling in a decent crowd, but business seemed to be on the wane.
But Gwendolyn hardly cared. The months following her Face of the Forties win had been an exciting time. For a whole week, Angelenos couldn’t open a newspaper without seeing her picture planted somewhere. Harlan McNamara did her six-page layout in Photoplay—it was as classy as all get-out, with furs and hats and greyhounds for props. And oh heavens, that day-long shopping expedition at Bullock’s Wilshire was a breathtaking blur. The clothes she came home with still made her swoon, and the jewelry was so spectac
ular, it was almost enough to induce a coma.
She’d even been interviewed on KFWB, Warner Bros. radio station on Hollywood Boulevard. Maybe because Kathryn went with her, she wasn’t terribly nervous, and afterwards the interviewer told her she did “real swell” and wished her the best of luck with her movie career.
What goddamned movie career?
She still hadn’t heard anything about what she was looking forward to the most: a part in a Warner movie. Bill Brockton told her that they could fulfill their promise with a walk-on nothing role, but didn’t she want something more substantial? Sure, she told him, but she’d like it before she checked into an old folks’ home.
She leaned up against one of the Cocoanut Grove’s papier mâché palm trees and let out a silent sigh. She thought she’d be done with this place, one way or another, and yet here she still was, hawking cigarettes to people who actually had a career.
“Over here!”
Gwendolyn spotted a hand sticking out of a tuxedo sleeve with a folded bill pressed between two fingertips. He was a boulder-shouldered Neanderthal, probably not unhandsome in his day, but he looked like the ex-boxer type now with a punched-in right ear and a couple of missing teeth. He probably had a fading hula girl tattooed on his chest.
It wasn’t until Gwendolyn was at the table that she recognized the guy sitting next to him. She tried to disguise the way her mouth fell open by pretending to smooth out her lipstick, but she knew she wouldn’t fool someone as sharp-eyed as Benjamin Siegel.
The police had made such a big song-and-dance about finally collaring him on murder charges, and yet here he sat. Gwendolyn figured the mobster’s lawyers must have spun themselves into one heck of a fancy-pants legal cha-cha to spring him on bail.
Next to Siegel sat George Raft, a cigar in one hand and a platinum blonde in the other, and next to her was poor Ritchie. Gwendolyn hadn’t seen him since that New Year’s Day party, and he still wore the sheepish look of a high school boy caught out for underage drinking. He tried to squeeze out a casual smile but only managed to look constipated.
“You got any of those Montecristos, baby?” the boxer asked. Gwendolyn nodded. “Give me six. No, make it ten.”
She kept her eyes averted but as she handed over the cigars, Raft piped up. “Say, ain’t you the disappearing dame from New Year’s Day? Hey Benjy, remember? Your party up at the house. One minute she was there, the next, poof! Gone like she was Aladdin’s genie, or su’um.”
Gwendolyn laid out ten cigars in front of the boxer and took his money. She could feel her skin goosebump under Siegel’s cool gaze.
“My little Scarlett O’Hara,” he said. “Last thing I remember was you saying you were coming right on back.”
“It was my friend,” Gwendolyn said. “She took ill. She needed a night in bed with a hot water bottle, so I had to take her home.”
The platinum blonde on Raft’s arm pointed her long cigarette holder at Gwendolyn. “I know you. You’re that Face of the Forties gal, right?” She nudged Raft. “You remember, Georgie. I showed you her picture in Photoplay. They gave you a hell of a spread, honey. Real tasteful layout. Impressive.”
Gwendolyn could feel Siegel staring at her, inhaling her the way rich guys did.
“So did you get your part yet in a Warner Brothers picture?” the blonde persisted.
Gwendolyn looked at the girl properly now. She had that pretty-but-cheap Alice-Moore look about her. She was wearing a shiny silver dress with gold jewelry; she even had Alice’s fashion sense.
Staring at the girl, something occurred to Gwendolyn for the first time. Perhaps Alice had somehow seen to it that the call from Warner’s casting department was never going to come. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to hate Alice after all.
“Warners?” George Raft sat up. “You got a part in one of our movies, honey?”
Gwendolyn offered them a perfunctory smile. “They’re working on it.”
She tried to walk away but Siegel stopped her with a loud “Hey!” She returned to the table. “Georgie, you got some pal in the publicity department. You should talk to him.”
“Oh, no, please don’t go to any sort of trouble—”
“Trouble, nothing!” Raft pointed to a nearby table of six guys, all about forty and dressed in similar dark-blue suits. “He’s sitting right over there.”
“It’s after hours,” Gwendolyn told Raft. “Nobody wants to talk shop when they’re off the clock.”
“Are you kidding?” The blonde let out a barking laugh. “Talking shop is all these fellas do.”
Raft stuck his fingers into his mouth and blew hard, shooting a sharp whistle across the nightclub. Already unnerved by Siegel’s unblinking stare, Gwendolyn bolted from the table and flew to the back bar where Chuck was refilling his fancy chrome ice bucket. She felt ridiculously damsel-in-distress as she prattled on about how she’d managed to get herself caught up in the outer edges of Bugsy Siegel’s web and didn’t know how to pull herself clear.
“You’d better figure out something,” Chuck said, “because one of them is coming over.” Gwendolyn didn’t want to turn around. “Although I gotta say, he doesn’t look like much of a gangster to me.”
It was Ritchie, looking more hesitant than a roller skater on a gangplank.
“Why isn’t he locked up?” Gwendolyn asked Ritchie. “They got him on first-degree murder, for crying out loud.”
Ritchie raised his eyebrows. “You’ll read about it in tomorrow’s papers. A big brouhaha about the jailers turning a blind eye to special privileges some of the prisoners were getting. He got out this afternoon and insisted we come here tonight to celebrate.”
Gwendolyn glanced over at Siegel’s table. None of them were looking in their direction. “Ritchie, honey, you’ve got to get away from these people!”
“This isn’t the time or place for that conversation.”
“There must be another way to work off these debts of yours. You can’t—”
“Please, Gwendolyn, I’m here to deliver a message, then I have to get back.”
“What message?”
“Warners will be in touch about your role in one of their features.”
Gwendolyn shook her head. “Go back and tell them I don’t want it.”
“What?” Chuck broke in. “Are you nuts? This is what you’ve been trying for the whole time I’ve known you. To say nothing of the fact that it was part of your prize.”
“Not anymore, it isn’t. He’s turned this into me owing him a favor. Chuck, it’s Ben Siegel. He’s probably committed more murders than you’ve had champagne cocktails.”
“Exactly,” Ritchie said quietly. “These are not the type of guys you say no to. Especially when they’ve just gone out of their way to do you a favor.”
“I don’t want them to do me any favors.”
Ritchie winced. “You don’t get to choose.”
Gwendolyn watched Ritchie make his way through the forest of fake palm trees. As he sat down, Siegel asked him something and Ritchie replied, nodding. Siegel turned his head and eyed Gwendolyn.
She felt like a doe on the opening day of deer season.
CHAPTER 27
The embers of resentment had burned in the back of Marcus’ mind for so long he’d grown used to them. They sat there like glowering gargoyles, muttering, “Wait till I get my hands on that lying bastard. I’ll tear shreds off him so badly he’ll be nothing but bone and sinew.”
Christmas was approaching and Hugo and Ramon had been gone from Marcus’ life for most of 1940. A part of him thought the passing of time would allow the embers to cool to the point where he could confront Hugo without it ending with Marcus’ hands around Hugo’s throat. But the embers sat there, week after week, month after month, glowing, pulsing, waiting.
Choking the truth out of Hugo was the last thing on Marcus’ mind when he and Kathryn decided to throw Gwendolyn a thirtieth birthday party. The girl needed cheering up. Like everyone else, Marcus assumed her Face of the Fort
ies win would open all sorts of doors. But she’d won the title six months ago, and despite Ben Siegel’s big promise that Warner Bros. would be in touch, she had nothing to show for it. So he and Kathryn decided their best buddy needed a pick-me-up, and a birthday party seemed just the ticket. Even though Gwendolyn’s reaction to the idea was halfhearted, Marcus and Kathryn insisted a big party was what she needed, and a big party was what she was going to get.
Marcus enlisted Donnie Ogden Stewart to help him string up dozens of bright red and green Chinese paper lanterns in the trees around the pool. They reminded him of the very first time he stepped into the Garden of Allah and found himself in the middle of the opening party. Back then, he was filled with such hope and optimism that things would work out . . . and now he was trapped in the B Hive. Things hadn’t really worked out the way he’d hoped. But lighting each lantern felt like igniting a little beacon of faith: the race wasn’t over. Each one held a votive candle, which the guy in the props department at MGM told Marcus were good for at least six hours.
Dorothy Parker, who now lived on Bedford Drive over in Beverly Hills, was still a recurring face around the Garden, and she supplied much of the booze. Artie Shaw, freshly divorced from Lana Turner, was back at the Garden and told Kathryn to leave the music to him. Kathryn made up batches of appetizers—smoked salmon on rainbow rye, celery stalks stuffed with crabmeat, deviled eggs—and was starting to feel overwhelmed until Sheilah Graham offered to help out. Her boyfriend, Scott Fitzgerald, was no longer living at the Garden, but both he and Sheilah had taken separate apartments just a few blocks away and were always invited to the bashes.
By nine o’clock, the party had escalated to a convivial roar. Artie’s impromptu quartet—clarinet, trumpet, bass, and violin—filled the pool area with Artie’s first big hit, an instrumental slow rhumba called “Begin the Beguine,” and Dorothy Parker’s Pineapple Punch Surprise (“There’s only four types of hooch in this. Surprise!”) helped propel the willing crowd toward inevitable stupor. Kathryn invited Ginger Rogers not knowing if she’d show up, but she did—with her husband, Lew Ayers, who was riding high these days from his series of Dr. Kildare movies at MGM. It was a credit to Lew that he was able to keep up with Ginger on the dance floor beside the diving board.
Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3) Page 19