Sheri Cobb South

by Babes in Tinseltown

  Frankie followed the receptionist’s directions and soon found herself in a large room filled with actors and actresses of all ages, all of whom had apparently seen the same magazine article that she had. Glancing around the room, she recognized several cast members from The Virgin Queen. Seated along the opposite wall—and looking strangely out of character in a modern double-breasted suit and gray fedora—was the actor who had played William Cecil, and who had pronounced Arthur Cohen dead. In the far corner lurked two of her fellow serving wenches. They looked up at her entrance, then averted their eyes as if they had been caught in some shameful act.

  A second door flew open, and a tall, powerfully built man regarded the company with a sneer.

  “Take a look at this, Herb,” he called over his shoulder. “Rats every one of ‘em, rats deserting a sinking ship.”

  Toying with the gold chain of his pocket watch, he strolled forward to stand before William Cecil.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Jim! Where were you when I wanted you to play Cardinal Wolsey? Your agent wouldn’t even return my calls six months ago.”

  “As I told you at the time, I was under contract to Monumental,” the actor replied with quiet dignity.

  “And yet here you are. Contracts aren’t what they used to be, are they?” The producer shook his head in mock disbelief.

  “The future of the picture is still in doubt. Even if Maury decides to continue filming, I would still be available to work for you, since most of my scenes are already in the can.”

  “How convenient for you.” He scanned the rest of the company. “What about the rest of you?”

  “We’ve got to find some way to make a living!” cried one of the serving wenches, close to tears. “How will I pay my rent?”

  “Honey, you can peddle it in the street, for all I care. Old Artie knew I had an Elizabethan picture in the pipeline when he bought the script to The Virgin Queen. If he chose to work himself into an early grave trying to rush his film into theaters first, that’s his problem. I don’t feel any obligation to hire his castoffs—whether or not they had a contract.”

  With this pronouncement, he left the room through the same door he had entered it, shutting it behind him with enough force to rattle the windows. The members of the Monumental cast sat there for a moment in dispirited silence, then rose to their feet and shuffled toward the exit. As Frankie reached the front door, one of her fellow serving wenches fell into step beside her.

  “You’re an extra in the tavern scene, aren’t you? I thought I recognized you. My name is Patsy Miller. There’s another one of us here, too, Melinda Buford. Here she comes now.”

  Introductions were made all around, then Frankie and her fellow serving wenches plodded down the sidewalk to the nearest bus stop.

  “Well,” Melinda declared brightly, “I thought that sounded pretty promising, didn’t you?”

  The other two girls stared at her in disbelief.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Patsy said, “but I seem to recall that he recommended you give prostitution a try.”

  “Yes, but I’m sure he didn’t mean that,” she insisted with what Frankie felt was unwarranted optimism. “But the fact that he thought of sex at all just goes to show that he found me attractive, and that’s half the battle, right?”

  Patsy shrugged. “If you say so. It looks like I’ll be going back to taxi dancing for awhile.”

  “What’s that?” asked Frankie.

  “You’ve never heard of taxi dancing? You know—ten cents a dance?”

  Frankie’s eyes grew wide. “You dance with men for money?”

  “You make it sound like something dirty! It’s nothing of the kind. In fact, there are bouncers on hand if the fellows cause any trouble.” Seeing Frankie was not convinced, she added, “The pay is pretty good, especially on the weekends, and since I only work in the evenings, it leaves my days free for auditions. The Starlight Ballroom is looking for dancers, if you’re interested.”

  Frankie shouldn’t have even considered it. Mama would be appalled at the very idea, and Daddy probably wouldn’t be wild about it, either. But her cash supply seemed to be dwindling at an alarming rate, and who knew when—or even if—filming on The Virgin Queen would resume.

  She took a deep breath. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.”

  * * * *

  Which explained how, at nine o’clock that evening, Frankie found herself being dragged around the dance floor in the enthusiastic, if not entirely sober, embrace of a sailor on shore leave. And to think she’d worried that her puff-sleeved, pink satin frock—a relic from her high school prom—might appear unsophisticated to the point of gaucherie among these cosmopolitan Californians. Cosmopolitan! She doubted if her partner would have noticed if she’d danced naked on the table. The same would not have been true of his predecessors, a boisterous trio of undergraduates from UCLA, who had descended upon the club flashing a wad of bills and paying rowdy court to all the prettiest girls until George the bouncer had threatened to toss them into the street. But even they had been an improvement over the sad sack who’d expounded at great length on how his wife didn’t understand him, while trying to stroke Frankie’s derriere, all to the tune of “Embraceable You.”

  In fact, the only thing that made the evening endurable was the pleasant weight of the coins in her tiny beaded evening bag. She hadn’t had a chance to count these yet; she was proving to be very popular as a partner, and wasn’t quite sure whether to feel flattered or insulted by this discovery.

  At last the fruity tenor at the microphone warbled to a close, and Frankie took a hasty step backwards, out of her partner’s embrace.

  “That wash—was swell,” he said, enunciating carefully. “Want to give it another go?”

  “Thanks, but I’d better sit down and rest for a minute.” She wouldn’t get paid for sitting one out, but Frankie was almost certain she was rubbing a blister on her toe.

  “I’ll go see if I can scare us up something to drink,” offered her partner, jerking his thumb in the direction of the bar.

  “That would be lovely.”

  Privately, Frankie thought he’d had quite enough to drink already, but if she was lucky, maybe he would forget where he’d left her. She waited until he disappeared into the throng of dancers (mostly male) headed for the bar, then found a vacant spot at one of the small tables ringing the dance floor. The light cast by big rotating mirrored ball scarcely reached the dim perimeter, and Frankie took advantage of the relative privacy to pull off her silver sandal and rub her aching foot. Yes, there was definitely a raw spot beginning to form on her little toe.

  “What’s up, Frankie?” asked Patsy, emerging from the darkness in a shimmery ice blue number that made Frankie despise her virginal pink all the more. “Popeye the Sailor Man stepping on your feet?”

  “No, I have to acquit him of that much,” Frankie said, giving credit where credit was due. “He might even be a pretty good dancer if he was sober. But I rubbed a blister on my toe. All I want to do is sit here and rest my feet.”

  “Better not get too comfortable,” Patsy said with a grin. “A fellow was asking for you earlier.”

  “For me? He asked for me by name?”

  “Mm-hmm. He wasn’t bad looking, either.”

  It could only mean one thing: Mitch had found out about her new job. Frankie hadn’t told him, since she still wasn’t entirely convinced that it was as respectable as Patsy claimed. One of the girls at the Studio Club must have told him where to find her—Kathleen, maybe, or Roxie. Or Pauline. The thought of the Studio Club’s resident femme fatale knowing about her new job made Frankie cringe. Would Mitch tease her about it, or would he decide she was not a nice girl after all, and try to take liberties? Frankie wasn’t quite sure what sort of liberties boys took with bad girls, but they must be truly dreadful, if they couldn’t even be spoken of. And yet it sometimes seemed to Frankie that bad girls had more fun than their nicer counterparts. Take Pauline, for inst
ance. The other girls at the Studio Club hinted that Pauline was not a nice girl, and yet she had more dates and fancier dresses than anyone else there.

  “Here he comes now,” Patsy said, looking at someone over Frankie’s shoulder. “Introduce me, why don’t you?”

  Frankie turned, but the figure emerging through the haze of candlelight and cigarette smoke was not Mitch. In fact, she didn’t recognize the young man in the dark double-breasted suit until he reached her table.

  “Officer Kincaid, is that you?” She held out her hand in greeting. “I almost didn’t recognize you out of uniform.”

  He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Call me Russ, remember? As for the suit, well, joints like this aren’t exactly crazy about having cops hanging around. Not that I know of anything illegal going on at the Starlight,” he added quickly, seeing her alarmed expression. “It makes ‘em nervous, though—a holdover from Prohibition, I guess.”

  “Are you on duty, then?”

  “Not strictly speaking. I had some information for you, though, and one of the girls at your boarding house said I’d find you here.”

  Frankie was dying to find out what Russ had to say, but a sharp poke in the ribs reminded her of her social obligations. “Patsy, I’d like you to meet Russ Kincaid one of L.A.’s finest. Russ, this is Patsy Miller. She and I are both extras at Monumental.”

  “Another actress, huh?” Russ observed, eyeing Patsy admiringly. “Maybe when I’ve finished talking to Miss Foster, you’d care to dance with me?”

  “Ooo, I’d be afraid to say no to a policeman.” She gave Russ a wink, then moved off in search of paying partners.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Frankie said, gesturing toward one of the fragile bentwood chairs. “You said you had information for me?”

  He sat down in the chair she indicated, but drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment before speaking. “It’s about those stains on Arthur Cohen’s shirt. The lab report came back.”

  “And?” Frankie prompted, leaning closer.

  “And they turned out to be pennyroyal.”

  “Pennyroyal?” She had been hoping for arsenic or cyanide. Disappointed, she sagged in her chair. “What’s that?”

  “It’s an herb. It has certain medicinal uses, but an overdose can kill.”

  “Then I was right!” she cried, all eagerness once more. “He was poisoned!”

  “Whoa, whoa, hold your horses!” Russ protested, holding up a restraining hand. “You were right in that Arthur Cohen probably didn’t die of a stroke or a heart attack, but it’s a big jump to say he was murdered. You said yourself that he drank some herbal concoction to settle his stomach, didn’t you? Who’s to say he didn’t brew it too strong and accidentally overdose?”

  Frankie considered the possibility, her brow furrowed in concentration. “But that doesn’t make sense. If he drank that concoction every day, surely he knew just how much to use, or he would have accidentally poisoned himself years ago.”

  “Maybe he was distracted. You said yourself he was arguing with his brother. A moment’s inattention is all it would take.”

  “But—”

  “But enough about Arthur Cohen,” Russ said firmly, giving her a disarming smile. “This place is a dance hall, isn’t it? What do you say we dance?”

  “What’s the matter, Frankie? Is this fellow bothering you?”

  Frankie looked over her shoulder to find Mitch standing there wearing a dark suit and an expression like that of a bulldog guarding a bone. “Hi, Mitch. You remember Officer Kincaid. He was just bringing me the latest news on Arthur Cohen.”

  The two young men shook hands, scowling at each other with mutual dislike.

  “And having finished that,” Russ added, “I was just asking Miss Foster to dance.”

  “I’m afraid you’re too late,” Mitch said. “All her dances are taken.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Frankie gestured toward the roll of tickets she wore around her wrist like a bangle. “I’ve still got plenty of—”

  “Not anymore.” Mitch slapped a bill down on the table. Abraham Lincoln gazed serenely up at them from the sleekly polished surface.

  “Five dollars?” Frankie squeaked. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Not yet,” Mitch answered cryptically, pulling out her chair as the orchestra struck up the opening bars of “Stardust.” His hand at her waist, he steered her toward a vacant spot along the edge of the crowded dance floor.

  “So,” Frankie began, trying to ignore the little shiver that ran through her as he took her in his arms, “do you come here often?”

  Mitch grinned. “Only when I’m looking for you. That redhead back at the Studio Club—what’s her name?”

  “Roxie?”

  “Yeah, she’s the one. She told me I’d find you here. Frankie, what gives? This doesn’t seem like the kind of job you would go for.”

  “It pays the rent,” she said defensively, thankful to have something to take her mind off the warmth of his hand against the small of her back. “I’ve got to do something while Maurice is making up his mind whether to finish shooting the film.”

  “If you’re short on funds, I could loan you—”

  “No!” Mama had always said a lady shouldn’t take money from a man, hinting that the man in question would expect some vague yet terrible repayment. Frankie couldn’t see Mitch making inappropriate demands, but she suspected her mother was right in principle. “It’s sweet of you to offer,” she added in a more moderate tone, “but I don’t need it. I’ll pay my own way, or go back home to Georgia.”

  Mitch gave her a skeptical look. “Maybe so, but—a dime-a-dance girl? I don’t like it.”

  Frankie didn’t particularly like it, either, but she wasn’t about to admit as much to Mitch, especially when it was all too tempting to dump her problems on his broad shoulders. “Well, who asked you, anyway? You’re not my father!”

  “I’m well aware of that, thank you.”

  “It’s not that bad, really. The pay is better than waiting tables, and working at night leaves my days free for auditions.” The argument had sounded perfectly logical when Patsy had made it, yet Frankie found it hard to meet Mitch’s disapproving gaze. “If you’re worried about the men, you shouldn’t be. They’re not allowed to get fresh.”

  “And if they try anything, Dick Tracy there will give ‘em a knuckle sandwich,” Mitch said dryly, jerking his head toward the table where Russ sat talking to Patsy.

  “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of Russ!”

  “Me? Jealous of him? Don’t make me laugh,” Mitch scoffed, even as his arm tightened possessively about her waist. “He just doesn’t strike me as the kind of fellow who would hang out in a joint like this.”

  “He’s not. He came to tell me the results of the lab tests on Arthur Cohen’s shirt.”

  “Yeah?” Mitch’s eyebrows rose. “What did they find?”

  “Pennyroyal!” announced Frankie with some satisfaction.

  “Who’s she?”

  “Not who, silly! What! It’s some kind of plant.”

  Before she could elaborate, she was interrupted by a smattering of applause as the band played the final bars. Frankie stepped backwards out of Mitch’s arms, but his fingers closed around her wrist.

  “Hey, where are you going? I’m sure you’re a swell dancer, but surely you don’t think that was worth five bucks.”

  Now it was Frankie’s turn to be surprised. “Surely you didn’t really want to buy five dollars worth of dances! At ten cents a dance, that’s—that’s—” Doing math in her head was never Frankie’s strong suit, and with Mitch standing so near, she found it impossible.

  “Fifty dances,” the recent engineering graduate informed her.

  “We’ll still be here dancing at closing time,” she complained.

  “Yeah.” Mitch grinned crookedly. “That’s the idea.”

  Frankie wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of devoting her dances exclusively to
Mitch. In fact, she had a nagging feeling that she was coming to rely too much on him, and in that doing so she might be flirting with the very fate she had traveled three thousand miles to avoid. She only had to look to her two older sisters’ examples to know that moonlight and roses eventually turned into daylight and dishes. Nothing could be more fatal to a budding Hollywood career than a jealous boyfriend—and Mitch did not strike Frankie as the type who would accept with equanimity the idea of his girl shooting love scenes with another man. But for now, the night was young and the music was mellow, and Mitch seemed a far better alternative than any of the other men, most of them in various stages of intoxication, scoping out the girls in the hopes of snagging a partner for the next number.

  Frankie squared her shoulders. “All right. Let’s dance.”

  And so they did. They danced until the candles sputtered and the flowers wilted, until one by one the male clients all called it a night and went home. They danced as a sultry blonde in a low-cut black sequined gown cooed “You Made Me Love You,” and an exhausted Frankie drooped bonelessly against her partner’s broad chest. Mitch, never slow to seize his opportunity, put his hand on the crown of Frankie’s head and tipped it forward onto his shoulder. She made no protest, but closed her eyes and made a little noise reminiscent of a kitten purring. They were still dancing when the clean-up crew began clearing the tables and the night manager announced closing time.

  “How are you getting home?” Mitch asked, following Frankie as she limped from the ballroom.

  She blinked like someone coming out of a trance. “What?”

  “Home,” Mitch repeated. He would have liked to take the credit for her bemused state, but he suspected it owed more to exhaustion than to his animal magnetism. “The Studio Club, where you live. How are you getting back there?”

  “Oh,” said Frankie, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I guess I’ll call a cab.”

  Mitch frowned. “I think I’d better give you a lift instead. It’s mighty late for a girl to be out on her own.”