“This whole Red Scare, it’s a dung heap on top of a shit hole on top of a cesspit.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you, but I’ve been through this before. It kills me to say it, but those dung beetles on top of the shit hole? They’ve won.”
Marcus found it heartening to see the conflict in Chertok’s eye, but he waited for the skirmish to evolve into indignation, and then sag into resignation. He raised his hand to shake Marcus’ with a firm grip. “I’m sorry, Adler. I wish there was a way around it.”
Marcus thanked him and returned to his car. Through the gap in a pair of cypress pines, the lights of the San Fernando Valley glinted like fireflies.
That’s the problem with this place. Klieg lights, searchlights, neon lights, sunlight, key lights. He pulled onto Mulholland, then turned left onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard, where the road banked steeply down and down and down. So much damned light. It’s enough to blind a person.
CHAPTER 42
When Winchell’s black limo pulled up outside the Garden of Allah, it took Gwendolyn a moment to realize that neither he nor his chauffeur had any intention of doing the gentlemanly thing.
She opened the door herself and climbed in.
Winchell was dressed in a cream linen suit, with a crimson carnation boutonniere and a meticulously matched silk tie. He nodded hello and told the driver to turn up Laurel Canyon.
“You have the cards with you?” he asked.
Gwendolyn tapped her purse. “Right here.”
“And what about mine?”
She pulled it out and placed it in his palm. He slid it into his jacket and kept his gaze on the passing view.
Gwendolyn wasn’t sure if she should attempt idle chitchat. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be back at the Garden working on Kathryn’s gown for Bette’s All About Eve premiere. Sewing its six petticoats required the whole weekend, but then last night Kathryn twisted her ankle dancing with Gene Kelly at a party for Summer Stock. So now Kathryn was at home with her leg up, and Gwendolyn was sitting in a limo next to Walter Winchell.
As the driver rounded the corner onto Wonderland Avenue, she couldn’t bear the silence any longer. “Horton tells me you and he go way back.”
“We’ve had some fun times—especially during Prohibition.” He flicked on the cabin light. “Let me see the rest of those cards.”
They were taking a huge chance tonight. Leilah’s trial was set to commence after the weekend. If those cards were going to do any good at all, there were only a couple of days left.
Kathryn had spent the day making up a stack of fake cards, imitating Leilah’s handwriting as best she could, making up a bunch of names, throwing in a few people who had passed away, and sprinkling it with the likes of Errol Flynn and Harry Cohn, who Winchell would expect to see.
He flipped through the cards, grunted, then handed them back. “Are you sure Ruby’ll take the bait?”
“Kathryn thinks so.”
The driver pulled into a tight curve.
“Have you ever met Walter Plunkett?” Gwendolyn asked.
“He did all those Gone with the Wind costumes, right?”
“I doubt I’ll be able to corner him for more than a moment or two, but if I can, oh boy do I have some questions.”
“You’re not going to act like a teenaged movie fan, I hope.”
The driver pulled up at 8715 Wonderland Avenue. Gwendolyn did a last-minute lipstick check before they mounted the stone steps to the open front door. The unmistakable voice of Judy Garland beckoned from somewhere deep inside.
* * *
Of all the costumers Gwendolyn admired—Adrian, Orry-Kelly, Irene Lentz, Dolly Tree, Helen Rose—the two at the top of her list were Edith Head and Walter Plunkett, and they couldn’t have been more different.
Gwendolyn revered Edith’s clean lines and her less-is-more approach to character-led design. However, she adored Plunkett’s work for the opposite reasons. The detail! The fabric! The buttons and bows and feathers and lace! He designed an autumn-leaf dress for Elizabeth Taylor in Little Women that Gwendolyn went back a second time just to see again.
And now I’m in his house! So close! With so many questions!
She had the perfect conversation starter. The owner of the Trocadero had hired her to wear his Scarlett barbeque dress to Gone with the Wind’s post-premiere party. Fainting on the sidewalk was a moment she decided to keep to herself.
Plunkett had decorated his postcolonial home in pastels: pale green swirl in the carpet, billowy drapes in light mauve, pastoral prints and still lifes filling the walls, lamps on corner tables and sideboards. The windows were bracketed with white shutters that were all open to let in the late summer air perfumed with bougainvillea.
To the right, pairs of loveseats arranged for intimate conversation dotted a sunken living room. At the far end, Harold Arlen was seated at a glossy Steinway. To his left stood Judy Garland singing “You Wonderful You.”
Gwendolyn was surprised to see her there. Over the summer, Mayer had taken Judy off Royal Wedding, precipitating an attempted suicide that birthed speculation that Judy was washed up at twenty-eight. But then Summer Stock opened to huge crowds, proving her detractors wrong. When she hit her final note, it came out clear and strong, and her halo of admirers gushed with applause.
Gwendolyn couldn’t see Plunkett anywhere. She turned to leave the room when she felt Winchell’s hand on her arm. “Where are you going?”
“It’s polite to say hello to the host.”
“And tell him how much you admire his work?” For the most listened-to man in the country, you really are a toad. “We have a job to do. Let’s circulate.”
Gwendolyn poked her head into Plunkett’s office. It had the agreeable hint of expensive pipe tobacco. Two walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases; a pair of French doors opened onto a patio paved with broad flagstones.
“There he is.”
She was halfway through the office when Ruby came into view. She had engaged Plunkett in a one-sided conversation and was oblivious to the futility of her cleavage.
Everyone knows he doesn’t swing that way, you little nitwit.
At forty-eight, the rakish Plunkett was on the precipice of going gray. He had the cultured face of an English literature professor. When Winchell distracted him with a broad wave, he turned from Ruby and held out his hand.
“Mister Winchell!” he exclaimed. “Welcome!”
The two men shook hands. “May I present Miss Gwendolyn Brick?”
Plunkett turned toward Ruby. “Allow me to introduce—”
“Ruby!” Winchell exclaimed. “Delighted to see you again.” He landed a kiss on her right cheek.
His charade was convincing, but Ruby’s eyes were wary with alarm.
“Plunky!” June Allyson’s raspy voice rang out across the patio from the French doors. “Judy has a special song she wants to sing in your honor.”
Plunkett swung back to them. “There’s a buffet in the dining room; please help yourself.” He headed inside.
As soon as he was gone, Ruby threw off her smile.
So did Winchell. “I’m glad we’ve bumped into you. I have a hatchet I wish to bury—and not in your back.”
Ruby gave him a once-over, then Gwendolyn. “Oh yeah?”
“That wretched business about the apartment.”
“Mmm.”
“I want you to know that I don’t hold anything against you or your father for the way that whole situation unspooled.”
“You don’t, huh?”
“Oh sure, I was mad as hell when I found out you’d snapped it up, but it wouldn’t have suited me. Geographically it was all wrong, and the place I bought is perfect for my needs. In a way, you did me a huge favor, and I want to thank you.”
He let out a hearty laugh that caused several guests around Plunkett’s landscaped patio to glance in their direction.
“I’m glad to hear it.” The caginess in Ruby’s eyes waned.<
br />
A waiter with a tray of champagne appeared; they each took a glass.
“A toast!” Winchell beamed a mouthful of surprisingly strong white teeth that showed no signs of the late-night drinking and chain-smoking that he was famous for. “To your father!”
“My dad?”
“I miss the old cuss!” He turned to Gwendolyn. “Otis and I go way back. So many people are intimidated by my reputation, and most of the time it works in my favor. But with Ruby’s paterfamilias, I could always just be me. No putting on the Winch costume. I miss that and I want to rebuild the bridges by telling you that the biggest scoop of your career is right here.”
Ruby stiffened and cast her eyes around at the guests wandering in and out of the patio. Gwendolyn played along and looked around as well, but she wasn’t prepared to see Zap stepping through the French doors with an exceptionally pretty girl on his arm.
She was at least fifteen years Gwendolyn’s junior and wore her blonde hair in cascades around her shoulders. She had a neat little figure and wore a deep blue dress designed to show it off in a way that advertised it was available to the right guy. The way she gazed at Zap made it clear that he was that right guy.
He could have turned her around and retreated back into the house, but to his credit, he didn’t break his stride.
“Hello, Zap.” His timing was terrible, but there was nothing she could do about that. At least you have the decency to look embarrassed.
“May I introduce you to Graziella Lombardi?”
Italian? Now, there’s a shocker. I’m guessing she’s a highly appropriate twenty-two, twenty-three at most.
Zap looked taken aback at meeting Winchell, but Graziella barely noticed him.
“I know you,” she told Gwendolyn. “Well, I don’t know you know you, but I was there that night at Romanoff’s.”
“Which night was that?”
“Or Mocambo?” She pressed a hand to her cheek. “New Year’s Eve. Not the last one, the one before. Remember? Humphrey Bogart asked you to dance. Then later you yelled at that madam.” She elbowed Zap in the ribs. “The one that everybody’s talking about.”
Oh my God, Zap, she’s dumb as dirt.
“You marched over to her like you were General MacArthur!” the girl continued. “It was a better floor show than what’s-his-name Nougat.”
“Xavier Cugat?”
“Yeah, him. So how do you and Zappy know each other?”
Zappy, is it? How adorable.
Zap studied the contents of his drink. “I designed a perfume bottle for her.”
“He’s so talented, isn’t he?” Oh, just you wait. You’ll find Zappy is talented in so many ways. If you haven’t already. “Hold the presses! Are you the gal with the boutique up on the Strip? Très something?”
“Chez Gwendolyn.”
“Yeah! You sell that perfume. What’s it called? Hollywood Boulevard?”
Gwendolyn could feel the heat of Winchell’s glare. “Did you hear Judy Garland?” She pointed to the French doors. “If you hurry, you can catch her singing live in person.”
Zap wasted no time in wrapping his arm around the ninny’s irritatingly slender waist and pulling her away.
“You were saying?” Ruby said. “The scoop of my career?”
Winchell turned to Gwendolyn. “Show her.”
Gwendolyn popped open her purse and pulled out the fake cards.
“I knew it!” Ruby hissed. “Leilah’s been wailing on my shoulder, convinced you’d torched ’em, but I told her you wouldn’t dare.”
“You and Leilah are chums?” Winchell asked.
“I’ve been visiting her in lock-up.” Her eyes narrowed, bleeding suspicion. “Why are you telling me this? And why are you coming forward with only two days till Leilah’s trial?”
“I had them all along, but I didn’t know it,” Gwendolyn said. “They were hidden inside a copy of Magnificent Obsession like some Hitchcock movie.” Kathryn told her to throw in that detail if Ruby wasn’t swallowing her story. “Yesterday I was looking for something to read but instead I got the shock of my life.”
“What did Kathryn say when you showed them to her?”
“I didn’t.”
“Hogwash!”
Gwendolyn pursed her lips at Winchell. “I told you she wouldn’t believe me.”
Ruby’s eyes were glued to the cards. Gwendolyn raised her hand so Ruby could see them better. “These men deserve to be publicly humiliated.”
“So expose them.”
“I don’t have the access to the media that you do.”
“Kathryn does.”
“I don’t want her to be caught up in a scandal like this.”
“But you don’t mind if I am.”
“You’re not afraid to get down and get dirty, and you’re not the type to shy away from standing your moral ground.” She pushed the cards into Ruby’s chest.
Ruby took them and jiggled them as though gauging their weight for a carnival prize. “Is Wilkerson’s name here?”
Gwendolyn and Kathryn had had a long discussion over whether or not to include it. Gwendolyn won the debate, arguing that it lent authenticity. She nodded.
“Do you have any objection to my taking it from the pile? Mister Wilkerson’s been real good to me.”
“They’re yours to do with what you will.”
“I could hand them over to Leilah.”
Gwendolyn could see the greed and glory ignite behind Ruby’s eyes. “An exposé like this will be the making of your career.”
“What’s the catch?” Ruby asked.
“If there’s a catch at all, it’s that you can’t use my name, or Kathryn’s.”
Winchell flicked the cards with a finger. “If you don’t want them, I’ll be more than happy to take—”
Ruby yanked them beyond his reach. “I’ve already started writing the article in my head.” She shoved them into her pocketbook and closed it with a sharp click.
Gwendolyn watched her walk inside. “She could’ve at least thanked me.”
“Bitches like her never thank anybody for a damned thing.” Winchell deposited his glass on the tray of a passing waiter. “We can go now.”
Gwendolyn wondered where Plunkett was. Surely they could do one circuit of the house, even if it meant bumping into Zap.
“But you must know plenty of people here.”
Winchell jammed his hands in his pockets. “Near as I can figure it, this swelegant soirée is filled with daft doxies without a brain between them, refugees from the Girls’ Friendly Society without a friend between them, and MGM fags who’ve never had a girl between them. We’re leaving.”
She had no choice but to trail behind. She searched for Plunkett but neither saw nor heard any sign of him. When Winchell stepped out onto the front porch, he stopped.
Gwendolyn almost collided with his back. “Change your mind?”
“The way you handled yourself back there, you were very good.”
“Thank you.”
“Ruby Courtland is a cunning little vixen but you convinced her.” Something drew his attention. “Oh, Jesus.”
It was Zap, this time without Little Miss Whoever That Was. He wore a pale, sheepish Can we please talk? face.
“I’m sorry,” Gwendolyn told Winchell, “this won’t take long.” She joined Zap at the bottom of the stone steps leading to the driveway.
“Who was that you were with?” Zap asked.
“How could you not recognize Walter Winchell?”
“Not him, the girl.”
“Speaking of girls, who was that on your arm? Let me guess—she’s the daughter of your dad’s second cousin because your parents took one look at me and immediately found someone far more suitable.”
“Can we forget about Graziella? She’s nothing.”
“Did you see the way she looked at you, Zappy?”
He bunched his hands into fists and pressed them together like a prizefighter about to pray. “That girl with Winch
ell, it wasn’t Ruby Courtland, was it?”
The way he bit down on his lower lip made Gwendolyn see he was far more concerned about Ruby than Miss Nougat. “It was.”
Zap started to rub his forehead like it was punishment. “I’ve done a very bad thing. Get ready to punch me. I deserve it.”
“Just tell me what you did.”
“A few weeks ago, I got invited to an advance screening of Sunset Boulevard—”
“Did you take what’s-her-name?”
“Forget the girl. She’s just a favor to my folks. Afterwards, Billy Wilder hosted a party at Musso and Frank’s. And you know how strong they pour their drinks.”
“So you got drunk.”
“And I got to chatting with some girl I didn’t know from a bottle of Bromo-Seltzer. She was all giggly and flirty and—I don’t know, I found myself trying to impress her.”
“You look like you’re about to hang yourself.”
“Because—because I’m the one who told her about Kathryn’s father being in Sing Sing.” The words came out in one long string.
“Are you telling me that the girl at Musso and Frank’s was Ruby Courtland?”
“I was drunk! She has this way of wheedling information out of a guy. I feel terrible. I’m such a stinker.”
Gwendolyn stepped forward until their faces were almost touching. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“I’d give anything for a do-over.”
“They only happen in Capra movies. What you’ve done is unfixable.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Goodbye, Zap.” She turned to go, but he pulled her back.
“That sounded final.”
“It was meant to.”
Zap looked like he was about to burst into tears. “Jesus! I’m the worst person in the world!”
The whole time Gwendolyn was looking at the girl on Zap’s arm, she couldn’t understand why she kept thinking of Hilda Saperstein. It wasn’t like she resembled Hilda in the least. But looking at Zap with his stricken don’t-hate-me face, she now understood why.
“That business with Ruby is unforgiveable,” Gwendolyn told him, “but seeing you with Grenada—”
Twisted Boulevard: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 6) Page 29