“What the—?”
Marcus jabbed a finger toward Kramer. “You’re going to tell me what’s in these nasty pills of yours, and I’m not leaving till you do.”
Within seconds, Kramer had recovered. “My medications are a proprietary blend of ingredients—”
“Yeah, yeah, I read it on the label.”
Kramer picked the pill up off the floor and held it between his thumb and index finger. “Where did you get this?”
“A close friend of mine has been coming to see you.”
“Doctor-patient confidentiality precludes me from furnishing you with any details whatsoever. This conversation is now at an end.”
“I’m not budging until you tell me what’s in these things.”
Kramer kept his face dispassionate. “Do you really think I haven’t dealt with threats far more intimidating than yours?”
“You’re ruining his life,” Marcus said.
“Exactly who are we talking about, Mister Bryant?”
“Oliver Trenton.”
“Ah, the broken legs.” Kramer smoothed down his shaggy moustache. “I am not ruining Mister Trenton’s life, but saving him from a harsh existence of brutal pain.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Doctor-patient confidentiality—”
Marcus jumped to his feet. “Screw your damned confidentiality. If you bothered to care, you’d see that Oliver is unraveling.” He grabbed up the bottle. “Whatever’s in these damned pills of yours is killing him.”
Kramer came out from behind his desk and opened the door to the foyer. “I will not ask politely again.”
Marcus plucked an iron poker from the stand next to the fireplace and lunged at Kramer, brandishing it like a sword. He stopped when the tip pressed against the lapel of the blue serge jacket. He willed himself not to blink, but Kramer refused to speak. Several seconds ticked by without a word, so Marcus pressed the poker slightly harder against the man’s chest.
“If you lower your weapon, I will tell you what you wish to know.”
Marcus lowered the poker but kept his grip firm.
“Those pills,” Kramer said, “are comprised of twenty-two different constituents.”
“Just tell me the most potent ones.”
“Laudanum, cocaine, and heroin.”
The poker thudded onto the rug. “But those are all illegal. How can you—”
“Don’t be so naïve. Opioids are as illegal as alcohol was during Prohibition, and banning them makes about as much sense as the Volstead Act did. Those three are the most effective painkillers at our disposal. When used safely—”
“But they’re addictive!”
“When used safely, that is to say when prescribed by a doctor—”
“Are you even a proper doctor?”
“Harvard, class of ’28. Would you like to see my diploma?”
Marcus stared at the man, who took his silence as permission to keep talking.
“When prescribed by a doctor, in the correct ratio, and in appropriate quantities, my proprietary medications are a most effective method of containing Mister Trenton’s pain. Without them, he’d be incapacitated. He called me several weeks ago to order a fresh supply and told me he was back at work now. I call that progress.”
“When was the last time you actually saw him?”
Dr. Harvard Class of ’28 sneered. “End of last year.”
“You haven’t laid eyes on him in three months?”
“Mister Bryant, I have furnished you with the information you wanted, and now my patience is exhausted. Will you leave of your own accord, or shall I be forced to call the police?”
This guy might be Harvard-trained, but he was operating in a legal no-man’s-land. It was unlikely that he would go out of his way to have any contact with the police, but he had a point. Marcus had what he came for.
* * *
When he pulled up outside Oliver’s apartment, Marcus remembered little of the drive from Angelino Heights. He’d spent it rehearsing the lecture he would deliver when Oliver opened the door. He stomped up the building’s gravel path, but stopped at the terrazzo steps when he saw the figure at the top of the stairs.
Joseph Breen lifted his face and narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t see what business it is of yours.” Marcus took the steps two at a time and went to brush past Breen, but the man caught him by the elbow.
“I might have known it was you.”
“You might have known what was me?”
“Is that his next supply?” Breen flicked his finger at the pill bottle in Marcus’ hand. “Do you know what Oliver has been taking all this time?”
So it’s ‘Oliver’ now? “Do you?”
“There’s a chap from my congregation. He runs a commercial laboratory. I gave him one of Oliver’s pills to analyze. The results were shocking.”
“I’m still getting over it myself—”
“What kind of predator are you?!”
“Preda—what?”
“Don’t think for a minute that I don’t know what you’re about.”
“What I’m ab—? Tell me, Joe, what am I about?”
“Oliver was in your car when that accident happened. You were drunk.”
“He was—”
“Oliver’s life has fallen apart and the blame lies squarely at your feet. You and all your fellow Commie travelers prey on God’s lambs, tempting them with every trick known to Lucifer.”
Red-faced and running short of breath, Breen looked like he was gearing up to spit in Marcus’ face. “That day in Oliver’s hospital room. When I walked in on the pair of you. I saw what was going on. I saw you touch him in a way that one man isn’t supposed to touch another. You’ve seduced him into your homosexual lifestyle. Deviants like you make me sick. You’ve perverted the innocent heart of a preacher’s son. You’ve made him turn his back on God.”
“Okay, now that’s—”
“Oliver’s a broken man struggling to put his life back together. And what do you do? You turn him into a drug addict!”
“I’m not the villain—”
“Degenerates like you don’t care about anyone but themselves, just as long as they get what they want.” Breen produced one of Kramer’s pill bottles from his pocket and shook it in Marcus’ face. “Well, I won’t allow it! You hear me?”
As a studio scriptwriter, every word Marcus wrote was at the mercy of the man now standing in front of him with the fire of brimstone burning his eyes, but the last strands of patience had slipped from his fingers. This self-righteous prig no longer holds the ax over my life. He thought of his own father, too, and the confrontation that took place in the Adlers’ front parlor. If I can stand up to a bully like Roland Adler, I can sure as hell take you on.
“Who the HELL do you think you are?” Marcus planted his hands on the man’s chest and pushed him against the wrought iron balustrade. “You’re doing what people like you always do. You see one thing and you make a whole bunch of assumptions based on nothing. You talk as though you know me. You don’t have the slightest notion of who I am.”
Breen shoved Marcus’ shoulder, making Marcus stagger back to the edge of the top step. “I don’t want to know who you are, Adler, but let me tell you this.” He shook the glass bottle again. “As soon as I get back to the office, I’m telephoning Clemence Horrall.”
“The chief of police?”
“That’s right, and I’m going to get him to shut this Kramer charlatan down.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said.”
Breen blinked in surprise; his jaw quivered in thwarted anger. “I forbid you from any further contact with Oliver Trenton.”
“You can forbid all you like.”
“You will not see him, or telephone him, or contact him in any way.”
Marcus gave Breen his most contemptuous smirk and headed toward his car around the corner. Breen didn’t see him
collapse into the driver’s seat like a rag doll and press his forehead against the steering wheel until his heart stopped pounding against his temples.
CHAPTER 19
Gwendolyn had spent the morning dusting her store. Not that it needed cleaning—she’d only done it two days before—but she had to keep her mind off the doubt nipping at her since Zap called to tell her when the first shipment of Sunset Boulevard would arrive.
She hadn’t expected the process to unfold so smoothly, but within a week, Zap was back in her store with the perfected formula, a sample bottle, and a chic green-and-purple box. The very next day they went into production.
The silver bell jangled as Marcus walked in with Horton. “Are they here?”
“Is it noon yet?”
“You look nervous, but you have no reason to be.”
“I have plenty of reasons!” She twirled the feather duster.
“You mean that new store opening three doors down?” Marcus asked.
“What new store?”
“Looks like another chi-chi boutique.” He jerked his thumb eastward. “It’s called Yvette’s.”
“Not to worry,” Horton said brightly. “I know an expert arsonist who works for cheap.”
Gwendolyn stared at him.
“I’m kidding!” He grabbed her arm. “You need to loosen—” He broke off when he saw someone come through the door.
It was Miss 35-22-35.
Gwendolyn walked forward to greet her. “How nice to see you again. How are things at Columbia?”
“You remembered!” The girl pursed her perfect lips. “They dropped me in the fall, but that’s okay. I’ve got an agent now. He’s with William Morris.”
Twelve months ago, she struck Gwendolyn as being one of those girls who didn’t realize how pretty she was and simply took everybody’s word for it. The intervening year had instilled more poise but stolen most of her wide-eyed innocence. Her hair was a couple of shades lighter, too.
“William Morris?” Gwendolyn said. “That’s nothing to sneeze at.”
“A real go-getter. He told me, ‘Step one, get yourself a bunch of duds to really knock ’em out with.’” She fished in her purse, pulled out an envelope, and showed Gwendolyn its contents.
“How much do we have to play with?” Gwendolyn asked.
“Three hundred. No, make that two hundred and ninety-eight. You ever been to Parisian Florist? Down Sunset, corner of Sierra Bonita? They have the loveliest roses. I love them. They always make me think of that Anne Brontë quote: ‘He who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose.’ Really makes you think, huh?”
Gwendolyn stole a glance at Marcus. A stacked blonde who can quote Brontë? “I’ve got a bunch of things that’ll fit the bill.” She’d started to lead the girl to the cocktail dresses when the bell chimed again.
“Delivery!”
Gwendolyn directed the guy in a brown uniform and matching cap to the counter, where she signed the docket and thanked him. She ran her hand across the top of the box longingly.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Marcus murmured.
“Not when I’ve got a paying customer with nearly three hundred clams to spend.”
“You want me to open it for you?”
She nodded and returned to the girl, who was ogling a full-skirted dress in red and white with a daring décolletage that she wouldn’t have had the confidence to wear a year ago. Gwendolyn could barely concentrate as she listened to Marcus opening the box, but it was impossible to ignore Horton’s “OH MY!”
Marcus held up the six-inch box. Zap had called the shade “malachite green”—it reminded Gwendolyn of the copper tower atop Bullocks Wilshire. The edges were trimmed with purple ribbon and on the front in gold lettering:
SUNSET BOULEVARD
Chez Gwendolyn, Los Angeles
The blonde studied the box in Marcus’ hand. “What’s that?”
The door swung open and Kathryn burst into the store. “Is it here yet?” She noticed Gwendolyn’s customer and bugged her eyes. Moneybags is back!
“It’s my new fragrance,” Gwendolyn explained. “This is the first shipment, so—”
“So you’ve arrived at a very auspicious moment.” Kathryn was at the counter now, admiring the package.
“May I smell it?” the blonde asked.
Gwendolyn pulled at the purple bow. “You can be the first!” She flipped open the lid.
Zap had come up with an exquisite bottle. The final shape was not quite the S he sketched that day, but a more stylized version, “because it looks like those Sunset Boulevard curves.” The base was gold—“The sand on Santa Monica beach.”—and the top was vivid azure—“A hint of California sky.” The stopper remained exactly as it had in Zap’s original sketch: a crown of palm fronds in green glass.
“Oh, Gwennie!” Kathryn exclaimed. “It’s perfect!”
“Let’s see if it passes the schnoz test.” Gwendolyn pulled off the stopper and drifted the bottle under the blonde’s nose.
She breathed deeply, held it for a moment or two, then let it out slowly as she opened her blue eyes. “I’ve always been a Chanel No. 5 girl, but THIS!”
“So you like it?”
“I love it!”
While it was encouraging to hear that Marcus and Horton liked her fragrance, they were just men, so what did they know? Kathryn said she liked it, but best friends are supposed to say that. However, this girl didn’t know Gwendolyn from a bucket of cotton candy.
“May I smell it again?” She took the bottle from Gwendolyn and sniffed. “It reminds me of Chanel No. 5, but with a twist. I adore it! How much?”
This was the moment of reckoning. “Twenty-nine ninety-five.”
Gwendolyn was almost embarrassed to say the price out loud. A dollar for the bottle, a dollar for the packaging, and three dollars for the perfume itself meant that each unit cost Gwendolyn a little under five bucks. It was Zap who insisted, “Any fragrance retailing for under ten smackers belongs at J.J. Newberry’s. Don’t you dare sell it for anything under twenty-five. Preferably thirty.”
The blonde didn’t hesitate. “I’ll take two. What’s it called again?”
Kathryn held up the box. “Sunset Boulevard.”
“Just like Billy Wilder’s new movie? That’s clever marketing.”
Kathryn deposited the box onto the counter. “Wilder’s new movie is called A Can of Beans.”
“I had a roommate for a while. She worked in the typing pool at Paramount. Her first job was to retype the first thirty pages of the script Wilder and Brackett submitted to the head of production. She told me that everybody thought A Can of Beans was the silliest name until Billy Wilder revealed it was just a placeholder for the real title: Sunset Boulevard.”
Gwendolyn watched Kathryn force a smile. If she didn’t know about this title change, did Louella? Or Hedda? Or Sheilah? Had she just stumbled onto a scoop?
“You have somewhere to go, don’t you?” Gwendolyn asked.
Kathryn gave Gwendolyn a congratulatory peck on the cheek and hurried out of the store. Marcus and Horton took their leave, too, giving Gwendolyn and her customer the time and space they needed to play with the two hundred and forty dollars they had left . . . minus two for roses at Parisian Florist.
* * *
Gwendolyn gave no thought to the boutique Marcus had mentioned until closing time. Selling two bottles of Sunset Boulevard straight out of the box gave her the boost she needed to reconnoiter a potential rival. She locked up Chez Gwendolyn and made her way three doors down.
Planning only to peek in the window then slip away, she hadn’t bargained on Yvette herself standing in the window struggling with a mannequin too wide in the hips for the dress she was attempting to pose.
She also hadn’t expected Yvette to look familiar.
The two women stared at each other—Gwendolyn on the sidewalk looking up at the abysmal display and a shoeless, resigned Yvette.
She pointed. “I know y
ou.”
Gwendolyn nodded. But I don’t associate your face with anything pleasant.
The woman climbed out of the display and met Gwendolyn at the door. She had the hard look of someone who’d lived a life of heavy drinking and late nights without much thought for consequences. Her attempt to soften it with makeup resulted in too much rouge, lipstick too red, and pencil-thin Harlow eyebrows that hadn’t been in fashion for twenty years.
Still, her smile was friendly enough, even if her teeth had suffered.
“I’m Yvette. Where do I know you from? We have met, but a while back, though. Under contract at Fox, maybe?”
“I never got that far. Not for lack of trying though. The closest I ever got was talking to Darryl Zanuck—”
OH MY HEAVENS! IT’S YOU!
Gwendolyn couldn’t recall the exact circumstances now, but years ago, she’d managed to talk her way into being one of the kewpie dolls that high-flying gamblers liked to have around for marathon poker games. Their job was to ice drinks, hand out sandwiches, and stand around looking pretty.
One night, the party was in the back room of Chasen’s and the other kewpie doll was a stringent redhead intent on wreaking revenge on Zanuck for a love affair turned sour. She would have poisoned the mogul if Gwendolyn hadn’t intervened.
“You used to call yourself Mae,” Gwendolyn said.
“Yes, but not for years—ah! You were that sweet girl who saved Darryl from—” She suddenly blushed. “From me. I was so jealous I couldn’t think straight.” She slipped her shoes on. “I never got the chance to thank you for heading Darryl off at the pass. I could have killed him!”
“Not really. The bartender told me tippler’s bane was poisonous, but not fatal.”
“Lord, what a disaster I was back then. He deserved to kick me out on my ass.”
“It’s all in the past.” Gwendolyn turned to face the store. The place was in as much disarray as the window: boxes piled around the floor, half-dressed mannequins, formalwear mixed with daywear, and nothing up to date. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
Twisted Boulevard: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 6) Page 12