The guy had the square-headed, square-jawed, square-shouldered look of a straight shooter, and Marcus didn’t have the heart to stick him with a project he couldn’t use.
“I’ve got to level with you. I used to head up the writing department at MGM.”
“Do you think I live with my head stuck up my ass?”
“Are you aware I appeared before the HUAC in Washington in what became a very sticky situation—”
Yates cut him off with a dismissive gesture. “Yeah, yeah, I know all that Commie bull.”
“If it comes out that you made a picture written by an accused Pinko, you’ll probably be hounded. Most likely by Hedda Hopper. She’s on a rampage and is taking no prisoners—”
“Just answer me this, Adler: Are you a Commie?”
“No, sir, I am not. But gossip and innuendo—”
“Screw that. You’re not on the blacklist, that’s all I care about. Now, give me your price.”
There was still a decent amount left in Marcus’ bank account, but it’d recently dropped from five figures to four.
“Skybound is pretty much already written in my head. I could knock out a great script in a few weeks.”
“Nah. I’ve already got more writers than I know what to do with. All I want is your outline. How does five grand sound?”
* * *
The Tahitian Restaurant—“Catering! Banquets! Luaus!”—was the first place Marcus spotted that would likely have a public telephone. He was going to wait until he got home to call Anson Purvis, but by the time he swung onto Ventura Boulevard, he knew he couldn’t. In addition to which, it seemed a sure bet that the Tahitian had a decent bar. He turned into the largely empty lot and walked inside.
It was a typical Polynesian joint: lots of bamboo, coarse rattan, and tiki gods suspended from the ceiling. At a quarter to four, it was too late for the lunch rush and too early for the pre-dinner cocktail crowd.
He found Purvis’ number in the telephone book and was relieved when the guy picked up.
“I’ve just met with Herbert Yates at Republic,” Marcus spat down the line.
“Already? Oh, shit.”
“You want to explain to me why? And how? And when? And what the hell?”
When Purvis asked where he was, Marcus read out the address from an empty matchbook on the floor of the phone booth. Purvis told him to sit tight.
Marcus hung up and headed for the bar. He was the only patron in the place, which suited him fine. Taking the barstool closest to the wall, he ordered a navy grog from the bartender and contemplated what had just happened.
I guess I’m back in the game.
He’d thought he’d be thrilled, but he found scant comfort. Three years ago he was the head of MGM’s writing department, and now he was selling outlines to a poverty-row studio for the purpose of getting into some starlet’s panties.
His drink arrived. The grapefruit bit into his tongue; the rum soothed it.
Oliver would have asked, “Why the long face, Cyrano de Bergerac? You just earned five grand for a story idea. If you split it with Melody, which you should, that’s still two and a half grand. See? Ya still got it, baby.”
Oliver had moved out of his apartment the week after he sent Marcus packing. Desperate, Marcus called the Breen Office but was told Mr. Trenton was on an extended sabbatical. A few weeks later, a picture postcard arrived from a town billing itself “The Redwood Gate to the Golden State.” On the back, Oliver scribbled, Doing okay. Don’t worry. Don’t come looking.
Marcus was on his second round when Anson Purvis pitched himself through the front doors.
When Purvis started at MGM not long after the war, he’d come at the recommendation of the devious bastard who’d penned a reprehensible roman à clef. But the guy proved to be a first-rate screenwriter so Marcus gave him a job. He’d later come to regret it when he learned that Purvis had curried favor with Mayer so effectively that when Marcus exited, Purvis replaced him.
Marcus said nothing as Purvis took the stool next to him and motioned to the bartender to have whatever Marcus was having. He was panting like he’d run the last five hundred yards.
“Yates and I only talked yesterday morning. I can’t believe he moved so fast.”
“Imagine my surprise,” Marcus said.
“I was going to call you tonight. Give you advance warning, but, well, look, I’m sorry. This isn’t the way I planned it.”
“So there was a plan?”
Over the PA, a mournful whine started singing about tears mixing with raindrops on Waikiki Beach. Purvis took a sip of his navy grog and inhaled sharply until the sting subsided.
“How did it go with Yates?” Purvis asked. “Did he like Skybound enough to buy it?”
“He did.”
“That’s terrific, right?”
“The more relevant question is: How the hell did that schlemiel end up with my outline?”
Purvis looked at Marcus blankly. “Howard Hughes,” he said, as though it were sufficient explanation.
“What about him?”
“At RKO.”
Marcus could feel his face turn the shade of the lava-red carpeting. “I know where Howard Hughes works.”
Purvis did a double take. “You didn’t even see me, did you?” When Marcus gaped mutely at him, he continued. “A couple of months back, you had a meeting with Hughes at RKO, right? You were his one o’clock, right? Well, I was his two o’clock.”
“You were there?”
“I said hello. I assumed you saw me—”
“I was pretty steamed.”
“You looked it. I figured your meeting hadn’t gone well, so when I went in to see Hughes I asked him about it. He told me about your pitch, and how he couldn’t do anything with it, so I took it off his hands. When I read it, I thought, Wow, this is classic Marcus Adler. Solid idea, terrific execution, it was all there.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t keep the idea for MGM.”
“I’m not there anymore.”
Marcus slouched over his drink, feeling the three different rums soften the coarse edges of his ego. Have I been so out of touch that I didn’t even know my replacement got replaced? “What happened?”
“You name it. Interoffice politics, monstrous egos, paranoia over the blacklist. I don’t know how you stood it. I quit the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, too, by the way.”
Back at MGM, Purvis had been one of the few hard-line right-wingers in Marcus’ life. “I’m surprised to hear it.”
“After the HUAC hearings, their heads swelled up bigger than the Lincoln Memorial. It all got too jingoistic for me. I don’t have anything to do with Clifford Wardell, either. He earned a lot of dough from Reds in the Beds and Deadly Bedfellows, and he started spending it like water, most of it on beer, broads, and blackjack in Las Vegas.”
Marcus felt pleasantly gooey but knew he wasn’t so drunk that he could be easily misled. “So you took Skybound and gave it to Yates? Why would you do that?”
A flicker of hesitation shot through the guy’s Nordic blue eyes. The sugar in his smile dissolved until a thin-lipped pucker settled in its place. “Fact is, I feel guilty.”
“About what?”
“I wanted your job and I was convinced you were a Commie playing the innocent, so I said some pretty terrible things about you to people of influence. Wardell suckered me in and preyed on my ambition. It wasn’t until much later that I realized I’d been duped. Now, of course, I know you’re nothing of the sort.” He swiped his forehead with a cocktail napkin.
“This is all about your penance?” Marcus wasn’t sure if he liked that or not.
“I hoped you might be more open to doing me a favor. You’ve got to believe me—I was going to call you tonight and lay it all out for you.”
A year ago, Marcus wouldn’t have crossed the street to piss on Purvis if he was on fire.
Purvis flagged the bartender and signaled for another round. He watched a c
ouple of booze-hardened businessmen in shiny suits take up residence at the other end of the bar. “I need you,” he admitted.
It had been a long time since anyone had told Marcus they needed him. Kathryn had her radio show, and Gwendolyn had her store. They both had budding romances and their lives were now busy and successful. Meanwhile, Oliver was MIA and might never come back.
“Need me for what?” Marcus asked.
“Have you ever watched The Lone Ranger?”
“I wouldn’t waste my time even if I did own a television set—which I don’t.”
“I used to talk about television like that. But then the Lone Ranger producer asked me to be their head of writing. It’s steady work, pays well, nice offices. My bosses are very trusting and don’t interfere much. Now I run the show on a day-to-day basis. I’m very happy.”
Marcus took the fresh glass thrust in front of him. “Then I’m happy for you. I mean that, by the way. No hard feelings.”
Purvis slid off his stool and propped an elbow on the bar. He angled his body away from the businessmen and leaned in closer to Marcus.
“I’m not asking you to write for the show.”
“But I can’t ride a horse, so . . .”
“The Lone Ranger is such a massive hit that George and Fran brought up the possibility of making a feature just when my best writer got lured to Desilu.”
“What’s Desilu?”
“Christ! You really don’t keep up, do you? I need someone who knows what he’s doing, and has the imagination to come up with fresh ideas. That poor masked son of a bitch can’t lasso the baddies over and over and over forever.”
Marcus always thought that writing for television was scraping the bottom of the barrel. But writing a stick-em-up Western television show? That was scraping the layer of crud underneath the bottom of the barrel. Fortunately, he had an out.
“Listen,” he told Purvis, “I appreciate the gesture, I do, but even if I wanted to sign on, you’re forgetting about the blacklist.”
“Trust me, nobody cares.”
“Are you kidding? Plenty of people care, especially Hedda Hopper. She cares a hell of a lot.”
“Yeah, about movies. Television flies under the radar. So what do you say?”
Marcus had never put much stock in the concept of fate. He preferred the idea that men created their own luck. But now he wasn’t so sure. First Reuben, then Hughes, and now the guy who’d slithered into his chair at MGM while it was still warm.
He swallowed his bitter drink and lowered the glass to the cardboard coaster. Knowing he couldn’t procrastinate any longer, he looked up at Purvis, but the guy was gripping the edge of the bar, knuckles straining through the skin. His teeth were clenched together, pale lips pulling at the edges of his mouth. He started emitting a strangled groan.
“What’s wrong?” Marcus asked.
“It’s my stump.” Purvis had lost a leg at Iwo Jima, but in the whole time he’d worked for Marcus, he’d never once referred to it. “Been giving me trouble,” he panted. “Not usually this bad, though.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“I’ve seen enough doctors to last me ten lifetimes.”
“But they—”
“They don’t know shit!” Another wave of pain rocketed up his leg, through his spine, to his neck.
Marcus turned to the bartender. “Call an ambulance!” He wrapped his arm around Purvis’ shoulder. “Let’s get you on the floor.”
“Great.” Purvis attempted a smile. “Flat on my back in a bar and it’s not even cocktail hour. So will you think about it?”
Marcus helped ease him onto the carpet. “About what?”
“My offer.”
“Jesus, pal, you’ve sure got a one-track mind.”
“Tell me you’ll think about it.”
The medics arrived within minutes, bundling Purvis onto a gurney and wheeling him out to the ambulance on Ventura Boulevard. Marcus pulled his car keys from his pocket, unlocked his door and dropped into the driver’s seat. By the time his engine growled to life, he knew what his answer was.
CHAPTER 36
Kathryn first heard about Bette Davis’ new movie when she bumped into Edith Head at the party Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz threw to celebrate bringing Ball’s radio series, My Favorite Husband, to television. Bette had specifically requested Edith’s services for a picture at Twentieth Century-Fox, then jumped on an airplane two days later to start shooting in San Francisco.
When Joseph Mankiewicz first announced his backstage theater movie, it was called Best Performance, and was going to star Claudette Colbert. But now it was called All About Eve, and Kathryn couldn’t imagine Bette playing anything written for Claudette. Kathryn wondered if she was getting desperate about her next paycheck. Rather like Marcus, in a way. She was still surprised he’d said yes to The Lone Ranger.
Bette had returned none of Kathryn’s messages, so she waited it out. When Bette resurfaced, she explained that the role of Margo Channing was a once-in-a-decade part. Kathryn was perplexed that it wasn’t even the title role, but Bette was unconcerned.
“I’ve got bigger fish to fry!” she declared over the phone. Her voice was deep and scratchy, like a Licketysplitter’s. “My marriage has completely fallen apart. We had the screaming match to end all screaming matches before I flew up to film my first scenes. The quack said I screamed so loud that I broke a blood vessel in my throat.”
“Mank can’t have been happy.”
“Are you kidding? He loved it and told me to keep it that way. And that isn’t everything. I’m having an affair with my costar. We’ve been screwing all over the goddamned place!”
The whole thing sounded like a shambles. “So it’s going well, then?”
“Fabulous!” Ice tinkled against glass. “Except perhaps tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Could you come to the set? We’re on Stage Eleven. Please say yes.”
Kathryn wasn’t sure she wanted to witness this train wreck, even if it’d make for a juicy item in her column. “Does it have to be tomorrow?”
“YES! We’re filming a cocktail party. All the leads will be there, plus dozens of extras. Zingers flying in all directions.”
“Won’t I be in the way?”
“I need you there for moral support,” Bette insisted. “Anne Baxter and I are getting along famously. George Sanders, too. And of course Gary and I are—well, we’re whatever we are. What I’m worried about is this blonde they’ve cast. A real knockout. She’s only got a small part, but she’s the type who can unravel me.”
“Oh, Bette, there isn’t an actress born who can throw you off your game.”
“In the past, maybe, but I’m over forty, my third marriage is kaput, I’m having an affair with a married man, and now I live from picture to picture.”
“But isn’t that what you wanted? Independence?”
“All I thought about was wriggling free. I gave absolutely no thought to what that freedom would mean.”
It was unsettling to hear Bette sound anything less than a hundred percent sure of herself. “Stage Eleven? I’ll be there.”
* * *
The set looked like the sort of penthouse apartment that Kathryn imagined rich New Yorkers called home.
A mezzanine balcony loomed on the right. A curved staircase with a wrought iron balustrade led to a split-level living room featuring an ornate mantelpiece, high-toned artwork, a crystal chandelier, and the biggest monstera Kathryn had ever seen. Or was it a philodendron? She’d killed pretty much every houseplant entrusted to her care. Either way, the thing was monstrous. Kathryn wrote down “monstrous monstera?”
She tried to stay inconspicuous among the dress extras in cocktail attire who stood around making small talk as they waited for the star.
Frankly, Kathryn was glad to be out of the office. She hated to admit it, but the Hollywood Reporter’s new columnist was starting to bamboozle her. In the two months she’d been on
staff, Ruby had presented an immaculate picture of charm and modesty.
When Senator Johnson from Colorado charged Ingrid Bergman with moral turpitude, Ruby leapt to Ingrid’s defense in the newsroom before Kathryn could open her mouth. When the Supreme Court announced its decision not to review the cases of the Hollywood Ten, Ruby didn’t bring it up, which enabled Kathryn to publish a rant blasting the court for constitutional cowardice that garnered her widespread attention.
Ruby sought her advice on everything from dressing tips to grammar, and as far as Kathryn could determine, wasn’t chasing after any of the available men at the office. Ruby Courtland had banished the sour-faced bitch Kathryn saw in the audience the night Max Factor pulled their support, and reverted to the sweet debutant from the Samson and Delilah set.
Kathryn had no hard evidence that Ruby was responsible for Max Factor dumping their sponsorship, and Ruby’s face could have been read a number of different ways. On the other hand, neither Walter Winchell nor Leo Presnell were fans.
Kathryn’s gut sensed something wasn’t quite right, but there were enough men ready to cut a girl off at the knees; the last thing a working woman needed was a female colleague helping to sharpen the blade. And if Ruby had left New York to escape her mistakes, she’d hardly be the first girl to do it.
Kathryn wasn’t sure what to think anymore. All she knew was that she needed to put some distance between the two of them.
“There you are!”
Bette approached Kathryn in an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress of heavy brown silk with sable lining the three-quarters cuffs and around the pockets. Her shoulder-length hair was parted at the side.
“Don’t you look great!” Kathryn told her. “That dress!”
Bette pursed her lips. “Poor Edith! She’s mortified at how it’s turned out.” She shimmied her shoulders. “It’s not supposed to be like this, but when I put it on just now, the whole top sagged worse than an old stripper’s G-string.”
Kathryn pictured Edith crouched in a corner somewhere, pounding her head against a wall.
“So I yanked the neckline off my shoulders and hey presto.” Bette checked herself in a full-length mirror standing just off the set. “Turned out pretty well, huh?”
Twisted Boulevard: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 6) Page 24