“Wasn’t that supposed to be a double wedding with Garbo and Gilbert, only Garbo didn’t show?”
Horton blinked at her.
“And later, Mayer found Gilbert crying his heart out, and told him to sleep with Garbo but don’t marry her, so Gilbert punched Mayer in the face, and Mayer yelled, ‘I will destroy you!’ That’s the wedding you’re mooning over?”
He kicked a pebble off the sidewalk and onto the road. “Mooning is an overstatement.”
“It’s not worth romanticizing.” She hooked arms with him. “I’m taking you to lunch. Your choice, but it has to be close.” She lifted a foot to show her three-inch heel.
* * *
A line of brown leather booths ran down the middle of Nate ’n Al’s delicatessen, with counter service along the side and a glass takeout display filled with cream cheese, tuna salad, and blintzes. The whole place smelled of pickles, brisket, and short ribs.
Gwendolyn and Horton ordered pastrami with the works from the middle-aged waitress in an unflattering red-checked uniform. An abandoned Los Angeles Examiner in the booth next door caught Horton’s eye. He pointed to it. “Did you see the big news?”
MISTER MADAM HANGS HIMSELF IN JAIL
Gwendolyn craned forward to see the photo. “That’s Clem O’Roarke!”
“Tore his bed sheet into strips and tied a noose. Good riddance, I say.”
“I assumed he was out on bail.”
“My neighbor runs the mail room at Warners. He told me that studio’s a rat’s nest of rumors lately. You know those client cards everybody’s been in a flap over? When they didn’t surface, Leilah went to the DA.” He ran his thumbnail across his neck.
“She double-crossed her own husband?”
“Musta been quite a pile of goods she had on him. That guy’s every bit as crooked as the LAPD.”
The waitress arrived with a bowl of miniature pickles. Gwendolyn selected a pale yellow one and bit into it. “You don’t know what some people are capable of until they’re cornered, huh?”
“I was reading the Hollywood Reporter the other day.”
“You still read the trades?”
“When I’m feeling nostalgic,” Horton admitted. “I see they’ve got a new columnist.”
“Yes, and Kathryn’s none too happy about it.”
“Nor should she be. I wouldn’t want Otis Courtland’s daughter within a hundred miles of me.”
“You know Ruby’s father?”
Horton’s mouth curdled into a scowl. “He started a tailoring business on the Lower East Side around the same time I did. I came west when The Jazz Singer hit big, but he stayed and cultivated the swanky trade. It was the twenties, so everybody had plenty of dough to throw around on three-piece suits and tuxes. By the time the stock market crashed, he had fifteen stores over the tri-state area. He was smart with his money, all cash, no credit, so he survived the Depression better than most. By the time the war came along, he was in the best position to contract with the military to make uniforms.”
“Isn’t that what you did?”
Their pastrami sandwiches arrived, steaming. Horton stared at his. “He amassed the fortune I should’ve made by hogging all the high-quality cotton and wool, leaving people like me with the shoddy stuff. It gave my product a second-rate reputation, so the military went to him more and more. I had the same setup costs but had to be thankful for a fraction of the business.”
“So if he’d played fair—”
“It was called the war effort. We were supposed to be all pulling together to beat the Nazis, remember? Otis was only in it for himself.” Horton bit into his pastrami like a snarling dog would a postman. “The heartless bastard lowballed me on my machinery after I was forced into bankruptcy. Pennies on the dollar. Goddamned heartless son of a bitch in heat.”
Gwendolyn had never heard Horton swear. “So what can you tell me about his daughter, Ruby?”
“You mean apart from the fact she’s a cheap slut with a thing for colored men in uniform?”
Gwendolyn laid her chin on her left palm. Her days at the Cocoanut Grove had come into her thoughts more and more often lately. Every night she’d observe the behavior of some of the richest men in the country. They’d be all charm and savoir-faire when they walked in, but pour half a dozen scotches down their gullets, and they’d turn into letches. And now she owned a store where their wives shopped with I’m-sorry-please-forgive-me money.
“The ways of the well-heeled often astound me,” she told Horton. “Why do they think the rules don’t apply to them?”
“Ah, but that turned out to be his undoing.”
“Is this a comeuppance story?”
“By the end of the war, Courtland was richer than Solomon, so of course his daughter became spoiled—and loose. Some dowager died and her enormous apartment came on the market. Walter Winchell was desperate for it, but Courtland was, too. So they set him up.”
“Setting up Winchell takes chutzpah.”
“As daddy was closing the deal, Little Miss Chip Off the Old Block was entertaining him at the Algonquin.”
“I bet he went to town in his column.”
“That’s where they miscalculated. They figured he couldn’t say anything considering he was married, but they never figured Walt was happy to bide his time.”
“Walt? You sound like you know him.”
“He was a big client of mine back in the day. Not for the formal stuff, but most of his casual wear.”
“So you’re friends?”
“In a way.” Horton pushed strands of pastrami around with his fork. “If I’m going to judge someone, I’ll do it by their actions. Walt’s one of the few people who hasn’t treated me any differently since my luck went kaput. We had drinks just the other day. He’s in town for the big wedding.”
Gwendolyn wished Kathryn was hearing all this. “There’s something you ought to know.”
He looked up.
“Those client cards of Leilah O’Roarke that everyone’s talking about? She forced Winchell to help her track them down.”
“Nobody forces Walt to do anything he doesn’t want to.”
“His name was on one of them.”
Horton seemed to roll the news around in his head like a pair of dice. “How would you know that?”
“Remember the box of Linc’s stuff you brought to me? Leilah’s cards were hidden inside.”
“Wait, so my son had them?”
“He did, and Leilah had her suspicions. She tried to bully me into handing them over, only I didn’t know I had them at the time. So then she arranged for my store and then my home to be burgled.”
Horton stared at Gwendolyn for a moment, then wiped his paper napkin across his face. “My place has been broken into as well.”
Gwendolyn glanced around to see if anybody was paying attention. “I suspect her goons were watching the day you delivered that box to my store.”
“Oh, my dear, I’m so very sorry you got dragged into all this. I just assumed Linc sent you a bunch of mementos. I had no idea—”
“Neither did I, but Leilah’s trial is coming up. She’s double-crossed her own husband, for crying out loud.”
“How can I help?”
“Do you think maybe Winchell might be willing to do you a favor?”
“He might. But what’s in it for him?”
“What if I gave him his card?”
Horton gave a weary snort. “Leilah must have put the fear of God into him.”
An idea started to bloom. “What if we sweeten the pie by taking down Ruby Courtland, too?”
“Now you’re talking.”
“How often does Winchell come to LA?”
“More than he used to.” Horton raised his eyebrows comically high. “Between you and me, he’s been worrying about Kathryn ever since her show hit it big.” Much had been made in the trade press when Window on Hollywood broke into the top ten prime-time radio shows. “A couple of years back, he wouldn’t have traveled o
ut here for a wedding. Katharine Hepburn or Greer Garson, perhaps, but never for some starlet.”
“And now?”
“It’s only May and this is his third trip.”
Gwendolyn signaled the waitress for their check. “If we can find a way to be rid of both Leilah and Ruby—”
“Killing two birds with one stone is Walter Winchell’s favorite blood sport.”
CHAPTER 40
Kathryn stood on the wings of NBC stage number two and felt the tingle of nervousness kick in. She turned to Fanny Brice.
“Do you get nervous before going on?”
“Used to.” Fanny pulled at the enormous ribbon in her hair until she was satisfied. She’d shown up for her special-guest spot in costume: soft pink baby-doll dress with tiny white polka dots, matching oversized hair bow, black Mary Janes and white ankle socks. “But then it dawned on me that I knew what I was doing. I told myself, ‘You’re a professional, so what are you panicking for?’ After that, meh.”
“You go all out to stay in character, don’t you?”
Fanny pulled the sides of her dress wide apart. “Studio audiences expect to see Snooks, but if I show up as myself, they don’t laugh so much. I lose the flow, and that ain’t so good. I put on the getup and everybody’s happy—me, the audience, the sponsors.” She nudged Kathryn with an elbow. “But you’ve been at this radio thing long enough to know that it’s all for show. I may be the one in a goofy dress, but I’m sure you have a character.”
“I try to be myself. I think audiences appreciate authen—”
“Authenticity, yeah, yeah, I know. But there must be a version of Kathryn Massey that’s just for your audience. You gotta hold back, otherwise that well’s gonna run dry as the Mojave. And besides, it’s all showbiz. Ain’t we all putting on an act when we step outside our front door?”
This wasn’t the sort of conversation Kathryn liked to have before going on air. She preferred to keep the atmosphere light and bubbly so that when she walked out onstage, the champagne ambiance flowed into the show. And she especially needed someone to buoy her spirits right now. After learning that her last sponsor knew of her father’s incarceration, she decided it was only fair that her current one should know, too. Especially seeing as how she was sleeping with him.
It was inevitable, really. He was handsome, stylish, well read, and not at all the man she took him for years ago. Sleeping with her sponsor was hardly the most ethical thing to do, but she could count on one hand the number of genuinely decent, romantically available guys she had met in Hollywood. As far as she was concerned, there was a lot to be said for a guy who could mend his ways when he realized life was slapping him across the face.
Plus, he was pretty damn good in the sack. He took his time; he was considerate of her needs over his; and he curled up with her afterwards. A guy like that deserved to know about Thomas Danford, but telling him was a tall order. Kathryn planned to lower the boom tonight after the show, but meanwhile, it was fifty minutes to airtime. There’d be enough time later to get nervous about that.
“Sorry I’m late!” Humphrey Bogart was sweaty and his tie was askew. “I know you said call time was one hour, but Junior started puking—”
Kathryn waved him quiet. “We’ve still got fifty minutes. Have you met Baby Snooks?”
Fanny did a little-girl curtsy and grabbed Bogie’s necktie and straightened it. “How did your missus let you outta thuh house looking like that?”
Bogie glanced at Kathryn. “Speaking of the missus, I’ve got a scoop for you. Warners is letting her out of her contract.”
“I bet that’ll cost a pretty penny,” Kathryn said.
“Fifty grand. They’re taking half her future earnings until she pays it off.”
Last month MGM let Judy Garland go, and this month Warners was releasing Lauren Bacall. It was like they were all being put out to pasture.
Animated chatter began to fill the auditorium as the audience took their seats. Kathryn let Bogie and Fanny run through the skit Fanny had written in which Bogie played Snooks’ father, a vindictive screenwriter. The joke was that he’d played one in his latest movie, In a Lonely Place. Ordinarily, Bogie wouldn’t parody a movie that hadn’t fared well at the box office, but Kathryn knew he was proud of his work in it.
She scanned the audience for three specific members; she’d decided it was time to introduce her mother to Leo. She knew enough about men to know that introducing them to family was a good litmus test. She was prepared for him to start backing off, but he was all for it. “Mothers love me!” Just in case, she’d asked Gwendolyn to come along. Francine had always approved of her, especially now that she was a successful businesswoman. If Leo passed the mother test, she’d tell him about Thomas Danford and Sing Sing.
Kathryn found Gwennie and Francine in the fifth row, half a dozen seats in from the right. She was still looking for Leo when her stage manager tapped her elbow and told her fifteen minutes to air.
Spirited applause greeted her when she walked out on stage. Although the lights blinded her to everything beyond the first few rows, she acted as though she could see everyone. She put on her professional smile and waved at the audience. Maybe Fanny’s right—we’re all acting.
She stepped in front of her microphone. “Hello, everyone! And welcome! Now, listen up, ladies and gentlemen. You need to be extra nice to me this evening because my mom’s in the audience. If you start throwing tomatoes at me, you’ll have to answer to her!”
This brought a huge laugh.
“And now I want to introduce my first guest. She’s a shy little tyke, so you’re going to have to clap extra loudly to coax her out here. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Baby Snooks!”
* * *
Fanny and Bogie landed every joke to booming laughter. When Bogie lost his place in the middle of their sketch, the crowd lapped it up. Afterwards, when he said yes to Kathryn’s offer of a post-show drink in her dressing room, he was as relaxed and charming as she hoped he’d be when Gwendolyn and Francine walked in. When Kathryn introduced her mother, Francine beamed.
By the time he left, Francine was giddy as a sophomore at her first school dance, so when Leo proposed the four of them go out for dinner, Francine accepted immediately. Kathryn suggested Nickodell a few blocks away, and the four of them piled into his Cadillac.
Although Kathryn made out like she’d randomly selected Nickodell, Gwennie knew her choice was deliberate.
Several weeks after the Taylor-Hilton wedding, Horton called Gwendolyn to tell her Winchell was very interested to hear that Leilah’s cards still existed, but was cagey about his next visit to Los Angeles. When Horton pressed him for specifics, Winchell admitted that he was getting together with Jack Webb in early July, adding how Webb liked to down a few post-show drinks at Nickodell.
It stood across the street from Paramount and RKO, extending nearly a whole block. It was notorious as a place where studio personnel could swill as many stiff drinks as it took to get them through an afternoon of endless retakes.
The maître d’ showed them to the last open table. Like most steakhouses, Nickodell was fitted out with brown leather booths whose low backs facilitated the Hollywood institutions of table-hopping, schmoozing, and flirting.
Their waiter was dropping off a second round when a tremor of anticipation circulated down the long dining hall. Kathryn sensed a celebrity-spotting, but she had her back to the entrance.
“Kathryn, honey?” Gwendolyn swirled the ice cubes in her gin fizz while she made with the Clara Bow eyes, directing them toward the bar.
“It’s Walter Winchell!” Francine exclaimed. “But who’s that with him? The one without the hat.”
“Jack Webb,” Gwendolyn said. “He stars in Dragnet.”
Francine looked unimpressed. Kathryn swallowed her excitement.
Leo tilted forward. “Dragnet delivers a huge audience to your daughter’s show. It’s one of the reasons Window on Hollywood is such a success.”
“I
’d have thought my daughter was the reason for her show’s success.”
Francine seldom praised her daughter, and Kathryn savored this rare moment. She turned to Leo. All right, Mister Mothers Love Me, show us what you’ve got.
“I said it’s one of the reasons; all the others have everything to do with your remarkable daughter. Sponsoring her program is the best decision we could have made.”
Francine’s pressed lips softened into a mollified smile. As far as Kathryn was concerned, that counted as a victory. She ached to turn around. “I’ve only met Jack once—the night my show kicked off. He’s usually on stage when I’m leaving the studio. I really ought to go up and say hello.”
“I’d love a chance to meet him,” Gwendolyn said.
Kathryn turned to her mother. “We’ll make it quick.”
Leo slid out of the booth to make way for Kathryn. “Don’t worry about us,” he said. “I’ve got a hundred questions for this lovely lady.”
Yes, but is she going to blab about my father before I get a chance?
Kathryn and Gwendolyn picked their way to the bar where the golden boy of radio gossip and the golden boy of radio drama pretended not to notice that half the eyes in the place were trained on them. They sat at the bar like a couple of regular Joes knocking back a round of stingers after a day at the savings and loan.
Halfway there, Gwendolyn tugged at Kathryn’s wrist.
“Just to be clear, you still need me to be a decoy, right? You want me to distract Webb while you drill Winchell?”
Kathryn waved to Ann Miller, who was filming Two Tickets to Broadway at RKO. “I owe you for this,” she told Gwendolyn through a controlled smile. Look at me—acting again. “If you’re stuck for conversation, tell Webb you saw a preview of Sunset Boulevard and you thought he was great as Artie. Okay? Chin up, chest out.”
Gwendolyn complied. Kathryn was impressed; her new push-up bra from Fredrick’s of Hollywood enhanced her clingy dress and plunging neckline.
The men feigned surprise when the women stepped into their periphery. A round of introductions was followed by a perfunctory exchange of professional admiration. When Gwennie angled away from Winchell, Kathryn took her cue. But before she could say anything, Winchell cut her off.
Twisted Boulevard: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 6) Page 27