“You’re lucky I’m talking to you.”
“Why is that?”
“Rossellini and Bergman were supposed to be my exclusive.”
Back in May, Kathryn scored a huge story with news that Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman were married in Mexico by proxy. Landing such a huge scoop meant there’d be ramifications. Louella and Hedda would freeze her out for a while, but she could cope with that. Winchell, on the other hand, was wholly unpredictable.
She took a leaf out of Snook’s book and tried the baby-doll approach. “Are you frightfully angry with me?”
“If you’d been in the room when I read your column, I’d have clobbered you with the heaviest frying pan that came to hand.”
“I have a hard time picturing you in anybody’s kitchen.”
The smile hinting at the edges of Winchell’s lips helped Kathryn see that he was probably quite a Dapper Dan during his salad days. He clamped the smile down fast. Ain’t we all putting on some sort of act?
“Come on!” She nudged him like a kid sister. “You’d have done the same.”
“That’s not the point. Rossellini’s agent assured me I had the exclusive.”
“Then don’t blame me if nobody told Ingrid’s agent.” She laid a placating hand on his forearm. She doubted he was the touchy-feely type, but she wanted his full attention, which was straying toward Gwendolyn’s bosom. “How about I make it up to you?” Those intense eyes darted back to her. “I believe Horton Tattler called.”
Winchell pulled a Havana from his inside pocket. He bit the end off and spat it onto the carpet. “You told me she burned those cards.”
“I made an assumption I shouldn’t have.”
Winchell tried to camouflage his interest with a slow, deliberate draw on his cigar. He drained the rest of his stinger and motioned to the bartender. “Being careless with your facts can get you into trouble.”
“Turns out she lost her nerve at the last moment.”
His eyes drifted back to Gwendolyn. “She still has ’em, then?”
Kathryn saw Spencer Tracy bee-lining in their direction. “Uh-huh.”
“Might she be willing to give them to me?”
“We had a better idea.”
In fact, it was Leo who came up with it. Make a set of fake cards, he suggested, then get word out to Ruby that they’re up for grabs. When she tells the world about them, her credibility will be shot to hell and she’ll be laughed out of town.
“Better, how?”
From the other side of the room, Ann Miller was hacking a path through the diners toward them, too. “How long will you be in town?”
“As long as I want.”
“You know Walter Plunkett, don’t you?”
“The costumer?”
“He’s giving a party the weekend before Leilah’s trial starts. I’ll be in need of an escort. There’s bound to be tons of people there you’ll know.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“Ruby Courtland.”
“WINCHELL, YOU SON OF A BITCH! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE IN TOWN?”
Spencer Tracy reached out for the edge of the bar to steady himself, but missed. Winchell caught him as he sprawled toward the floor.
Kathryn whispered, “You staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel?” Winchell nodded as he hauled Tracy to his feet and guided him toward a barstool. “I’ll be in touch. By the way, the number you want is Bradshaw 9-7071.”
“Who’s that?”
“Katharine Hepburn. She’ll be worried.”
CHAPTER 41
It was weeks before Marcus understood that his new job wasn’t quite the creative wasteland he’d assumed.
Initially, he battled to conceal his feelings of superiority toward the Lone Ranger staff. Then he felt guilty for being so arrogant, so he kept to himself. Sometime during the second week, he ventured out of his office and found that they had him on a pedestal on account of his MGM pedigree. Oliver would have told him to get off his goddamned high horse, so he did, and saw they were a decent bunch, fun in a let’s-have-drinks-after-work-on-Friday sort of way.
And just as he allowed himself to relax into the job, Anson suffered what he called a “diabetes attack.” Marcus didn’t know what that was, but it was severe enough that he asked Marcus to take over his duties until he could recover.
Marcus expected someone to object, but Anson told him, “Just walk in there like it’s a done deal, because it is.” The following Monday, Marcus called a staff meeting, told everyone what happened over the weekend, then assigned new episodes to the writers, told the crew to bring him any questions, and planned out a production schedule for the next month.
“It’s business as usual,” Marcus told them, “until Anson’s back on his feet,” then sat in his office and waited for someone to ask who’d died and made him boss.
Not one person did.
Marcus assumed Anson would return soon, but week after week sailed by without any word. So Marcus plugged away, figuring the job out as he went, happy he had the masked man to distract him from missing Oliver so much.
Meanwhile, his feature screenplay had a name now: The Lone Ranger and the Battle for Spirit Mountain. It had pretty much written itself.
“See what happens when you get back into the saddle?” Kathryn asked. “Pun intended.”
Marcus’ response was to trounce her at the game of cribbage they were playing at the time. That summer, cribbage around the pool by torchlight had become everyone’s favorite way to spend the balmy evenings.
Late in July, Marcus was playing with Doris, Kathryn, and Bertie when Kathryn peered over her cards. “I’m seeing it with my own eyes and I still don’t believe it.”
They took in the sight of Trevor Bergin and Melody Hope stepping through the French doors that opened from the back of the Garden’s main house onto the pool patio.
Melody waved like a cheerleader. “Not interrupting anything, I hope.”
Marcus rose to his feet. “This is a surprise.”
Melody smiled sardonically. “Surprised that we’re within spitting distance of each other and yet not spitting at each other?”
Kathryn laid her cards on the table. “You don’t even look drunk.”
“I haven’t touched a drop in six months,” Melody announced. “Isn’t that a miracle?”
Marcus hadn’t heard from Trevor since the night he did his midnight run, and he hadn’t seen Melody since the day he told her Hughes rejected Amelia Earhart. She’d taken it on the chin with a surprisingly genial, “That’s showbiz.”
“And you?” Kathryn asked Trevor. “You’re looking better than I’ve seen in eons.”
“How ironic.” He pulled up chairs for the two of them. “Considering.”
He flicked his eyes down to Melody’s large alligator skin purse. She pulled out a slim book. The title—Red Channels—was emblazoned across the top, then A Report of Communistic Influence in Radio and Television. Below it was a hand, gloved in red leather, reaching to grasp a microphone. Below the mike, “Published by Counterattack, the newsletter of facts to combat Communism,” then a New York address, and the price tag of one dollar.
Marcus locked his eyes on Red Channels. “Are we still not done with all that?”
Trevor handed him the book. “Not by a long shot.”
Marcus opened to the first page and read a quote by J. Edgar Hoover about how the Communist Party had stopped depending on the printed word as its medium of propaganda and had taken to the air. When he flipped through the pages, what he saw horrified him.
“Dashiell Hammett, Lena Horne, Gypsy Rose Lee, Arthur Miller, Zero Mostel, Dorothy Parker, Edward G. Robinson, Artie Shaw, Orson Welles—” He threw the book onto the table.
Trevor said, “According to this idiotic drivel, they’re all Reds and should be blacklisted along with the Hollywood Ten.”
“At least three of those people have lived here at the Garden,” Gwendolyn remarked.
Kathryn was now fli
pping through the book. “Writers, actors, singers, film, radio, television. Burl Ives? Oh, come on. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“I’m starting to suspect that’s where they’re taking their inspiration,” Melody said. “You missed a few important ones.”
“Who?”
“Trevor Bergin and Melody Hope.”
“Holy mother of God! This is terrible!”
“Yes and no,” Trevor said. “We’ve both been offered work.”
“But this booklet is tantamount to making the blacklist official,” Marcus said.
Melody shrugged as though she couldn’t care less. “Ever heard of Cinecittà?”
He shook his head.
“It’s just outside of Rome, kind of like the MGM of Italy, if you rolled MGM together with Fox, Warner, and Paramount into one huge back lot. The Fascists built it, but it got blown to smithereens during the war. It’s taken the Italians all this time to rebuild it, but now that they have, production has started up. All the studios have their pre-war profits stuck in Europe—they can’t transfer the money stateside, so the mountains have to go to Mohammed.”
“So, what, you’re moving to Italy?” Kathryn asked.
“I’m doing a movie there called The Cross of Light. It’s about the transition of the Roman Empire to Christianity under the reign of Constantine.”
“Who will you be playing?” Marcus asked.
“Constantine.”
“The lead?”
Trevor nodded.
“You’ve beaten them at their own game!” Kathryn exclaimed. “Well done!” She turned to Melody. “And you?”
“I’ll be playing a Judean queen called Berenice, who was the mistress of the Roman emperor Titus in an Italian-French coproduction about the building of the Colloseum. Apparently, it took three emperors to finish the job, but they’re squeezing it down to just one.” She clapped her hands like a gleeful toddler. “We’re both on the same flight, staying at the same hotel, working at the same studio, at the same time, and we both speak not one single solitary word of Italian!”
Kathryn announced that this called for champagne, then caught herself, declaring that offering booze to people on the wagon felt inappropriate. Melody said it was fine and to go right ahead because this was worth celebrating.
As Kathryn disappeared into her apartment, Trevor eyed Marcus. “We think you should come with us.” It was more than a suggestion.
Marcus flinched. For a moment or two, he’d envied Trevor and Melody, and their Screw you, Hollywood! second chance. But he felt like he’d finally gotten the tiniest toehold on life again.
“And do what? Stand around in a toga and yell ‘Death to the Christians!’? Besides, I’m working now and, surprisingly, it’s not bad.”
Kathryn arrived with champagne and orange juice.
As she filled the glasses, Trevor pushed Red Channels across the table toward Marcus. “Flip back to the beginning.”
Marcus read the first name. “Yardley Aaronson. I don’t know him.”
Gwendolyn let out a yip.
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer bastard,” Kathryn said. “But what’s he got to do with Nero and togas and death to the Christians?”
Trevor kept his eyes on Marcus. “Read the next name.”
MARCUS ADLER, screenwriter, MGM, William Tell, Free Leningrad! . . .
All his movies were there, even ones for which he’d received no screen credit. These Counterattack pricks had really done their homework.
Marcus tossed the book onto the table for a second time. “This is more like the French Revolution. It’s enough for someone to stand up and say, ‘J’accuse!’”
“They must have listed a hundred names,” Kathryn said. “Do these blockheads expect us to believe all these people are Commies? Well, guess what I’ll be writing about in my column tomorrow.”
Marcus loved to see the fire of indignation light Kathryn’s eyes. He saw it when she was defending Orson’s right to make Citizen Kane, and when she tried to steer her boss clear of the mob. But he feared the tide was turning.
“And I’ll certainly be talking about it on my show,” she added. “Do you know how many people tune in to me each week?”
“I do,” Marcus countered, “but you might want to run this past your sponsor.” You know, the one you’re sleeping with. He’s a nice guy, and I like him, but this is where it starts to get sticky.
“I know Leo’s politics; he’ll agree with me.”
“Yes, but he answers to a boss, who answers to a board, who answers to the stockholders. And they might not be so gung ho about the defense of free speech. Not when it comes to risking profits.”
He watched her wrestle with this prickly reality until the fight in her eyes subsided.
“What are you going to do?” Doris asked Marcus.
“I have to show this to Anson.” He looked at Trevor. “Where can I get a copy?”
“Keep it. By this time next week, I won’t give a flying duck who’s saying what about me.”
Trevor and Melody declared they had some packing to do, so they promised to write once they were settled in Rome, and left the four of them to stare at their abandoned cribbage board. Kathryn read out more names until Marcus decided he had to tell Anson before everything hit the fan.
“If I’m the one bringing it to his attention,” he told the others, “I can shape the way he gets the news.”
* * *
Anson Purvis lived in a mock Tudor house on Woodrow Wilson Drive atop the Hollywood Hills. The front porch light was on, as though Anson was expecting company. When Marcus rang the bell, the German shepherd next door started barking, but Anson didn’t respond. He pressed the bell again. The dog stopped barking just as the door swung open to reveal Jack Chertok, the Lone Ranger’s producer. Jack was older than Marcus by fifteen years. He wore the distracted smile of producers who had fingers in many different pies.
“Hello, Adler,” he said darkly.
Marcus looked past Chertok to Anson’s sparsely furnished living room. He knew Anson hadn’t lived there long, but figured he’d have made an effort to decorate. A lamp shoved in the corner was the only source of light. In the center sat a mismatched pair of occasional chairs.
Chertok opened the door wider. “I thought you were the ambulance.”
“What’s happened?”
“I’m putting together a new show and wanted Purvis’ thoughts.” He shook his head. “I was here maybe ten minutes when the guy started sweating like a pig. Then he passed out.”
He took Marcus into the bedroom where Anson was sprawled on a double bed, breathing lightly and drained of color. Marcus took his hand—it was cool to the touch. He called out Anson’s name, but the guy didn’t stir.
“I think he’s in a coma. The ambulance said they’d be—”
A siren cut the air. White and blue lights flashed through the Venetian blinds. Marcus told his boss to stay with Anson and dashed outside to guide the two men into the bedroom. They stepped back and watched as Anson was strapped onto a gurney and wheeled outside. By then, neighbors had emerged from their houses to watch the vehicle shoot away, leaving Marcus and Chertok on Anson’s front lawn.
“I’ve never seen anybody in a coma,” Chertok said. “I don’t even know what causes them.”
“Diabetes,” Marcus told him. “It’s pretty bad.”
Chertok ran his hand over the top of his head. “Cheese and crackers! He could have told me.”
“I guess he didn’t want to alarm you.”
Chertok let out a deep sigh. “Hell of a way to find out. Well, congratulations, Adler, you’ve just been promoted. Meet me in my office tomorrow. Nine o’clock.”
“Not so fast.”
Marcus led Chertok back inside and over to the solitary lamp, where he pulled Red Channels from his jacket.
Chertok leafed through it. “Arthur Miller? Edward R. Murrow? This smacks of the Motion Picture Alliance. God, what a rat’s nest.”
“Still, we can’t ignore it.”
“It’ll blow over soon enough.”
“The Spanish Inquisition lasted three hundred and fifty years,” Marcus replied. “Look at the cover. ‘A Report of Communistic Influence in Radio and Television.’ It’s no longer just the movies.”
“Goddamnit.”
“Page three, second name down.”
Chertok grunted when he saw the name listed after Aaronson.
“So,” Marcus began, but he had to stop. Two months ago, the idea of working for a hokey television show felt like the act of a desperado with no viable options. He hadn’t quite realized how much his feelings had changed until he was forced to resign. “Clearly, I cannot continue to work for you.”
Chertok slapped the book shut. Marcus expected him to say something, but he didn’t.
“You’ve got a good thing going,” Marcus told him. “You don’t want to endanger it.”
“But the Lone Ranger is as all-American hero as it gets.”
“Think about it: Red-baiters maintain that Commies all wear a mask of respectability. And what does the Lone Ranger wear across his face? These Counterattack people see connections everywhere. Why put yourself through—”
“What if there was a way to get around it?”
“How?”
“You have a contract with us, right?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose we bring a formal end to it. Nice and legal. Then you go out and start a company.”
“What sort of company?”
“I don’t care. Props. Costumes. Horses—yeah! That’s it. Horse wrangler. Give it a name that’s broad and forgettable, like Screen Animal Services. Anything’ll do. We bill you for your services but in fact we’ll be paying—”
“You’ll be leaving yourselves open to a whole mess of trouble.”
“Anson showed me the script for The Lone Ranger and the Battle for Spirit Mountain. He was vague about who wrote it, but I can see from the look on your face it was you.”
Marcus nodded.
“It’s a mighty fine piece of work, Adler.”
“Thank you, but your horse-wrangling scheme, it’s not going to work.”
Twisted Boulevard: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 6) Page 28