by Donis Casey
“He’s heartsick, Bianca. He’s run himself ragged on this tour. He drinks and smokes too much and hangs around speakeasies at all hours. He’s felt rotten on this whole trip, yet he arranged a boxing match here in New York to prove his manhood after the asshole columnist at the Chicago Trib called him a pink powder puff. After the operation, I cabled Natacha in France, but she won’t come. She’s sent him a bunch of nice telegrams, though. Pola calls the hospital ten times a day. She’s on a shoot in Hollywood and the studio won’t let her leave.” He emitted a sarcastic snort. “Or so she says.”
“George, on the telephone, you told Fee…”
George interrupted. “I know what I told Fee.” He cast a glance at the guards stationed at the door and drew Bianca further down the hall, where they could not be overheard. “Rudy’s thought for weeks that someone is trying to kill him. Put ground glass in his food or something. You know what his life is like, especially when he’s on tour. He’s always surrounded by strangers. He’s tried to be careful, but he has to eat. He has to drink. He has to sign autographs and shake hands with people.”
“Did he show you the threatening notes he’s been getting?”
“Not until just before I telephoned you. I thought he was being paranoid until he let me read one. He said he showed them to you a few weeks ago, before you wrapped Grand Obsession, and that you know a private detective who could look into it.”
“I do know an op back in California. But this is New York. Do you think whoever did this could have followed him here from California?”
“He thinks so.”
“Do you believe it?”
“That someone is trying to kill him?” His nose reddened and for a moment, he couldn’t speak. “That someone has killed him?” he said finally. “Maybe. He keeps having accidents, strange ones, like that vase falling on him in Los Angeles. His horse would suddenly bolt for no apparent reason, things like that.”
George’s reaction frightened her, and her stomach lurched. “Has the doctor tested him for poison?”
“After the operation the doc took some stomach tissue for testing. But this stomach trouble of his has been going on for a long time, Bianca, months, even. He’d get so ill, then get better for a while. It’s no wonder he’s been having these ulcer flare-ups, though. He’s been driving himself like a lunatic, like he can’t stop for a moment to think. He’s so miserable. It’s like he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies.”
“What happened this time that’s different, George? If he’s been sick off and on for months, why is he suddenly so much worse?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
“Can I see him?”
“Yes, he’s anxious to talk to you.”
Rudy was ensconced in Suite Q, the most expensive suite in the hospital, two large rooms and a private bath, a huge mahogany bed and dresser, two easy chairs, plush rugs on the floor. She was shocked at Rudy’s appearance. He was gaunt, white as a ghost. His face was dotted with strange red marks. The room was miserably hot. The lone nurse at his bedside was sponging the sweat off his forehead.
He managed a smile when he caught sight of her. “Cara,” he rasped. “At last.”
Bianca swallowed the lump in her throat. “Would you leave us for a few minutes, Nurse? I’d like to talk to Mr. Valentino alone.”
In a fraction of a second, a range of emotions flashed across the young woman’s face, from Who do you think you are, Lady? to Oh, my God, it’s Bianca LaBelle. She knew her duty, however. “I’m sorry, the doctor says Mr. Valentino is not to be left alone.”
“It’s all right, Amy,” Rudy croaked. “Miss LaBelle and I have something important to discuss.”
Amy looked distressed. “But…”
“I’ll just take a minute, Amy,” Bianca assured her. “You can stand right outside the open door.”
“Well, all right, but just a minute.”
Bianca sat down in Amy’s vacated chair beside the bed and leaned close. Amy had indeed posted herself immediately outside the door. Bianca didn’t care that the nurse would be able to watch her exchange with Rudy, as long as she couldn’t hear what they said to one another.
Bianca bent over the bed, her ear close to Rudy’s mouth, listening closely as he whispered, “I’ve been poisoned, Bianca. Did George tell you?”
“Now, hon, you don’t know that for sure. We have to wait for the test results to come back.”
“Oh, I do know for sure, cara. I’ve known for a while that someone means to kill me. You saw the notes, and they are not the only reason I know. So many enemies, though, I do not know who. You must help me find out who did this.”
“Like I told George, I’m no investigator, but I’ll do anything I can to help you, Rudy. But you have to help me. Give me someplace to start, hon.”
“Where to start? Who knows? I owe so much money to so many people. So many angry husbands say their wives love me more than them. So many people hate me for such silly reasons. Even Mussolini hates me. Did you know that I have applied for American citizenship? Il Duce says I am a traitor to the patria and he will teach me a lesson. The notes, you said perhaps I had an idea who sent them. Four years ago, I get a note that says ‘pay us seven thousand dollars or we will burn down your house.’ This happens all the time in Italy, ignorant thugs. They call themselves the Black Hand. I told them to go to hell. No more blackmail notes, but now I get the death threats. But maybe you must start at the end. The night I collapsed I went to an after-party at Barclay Warburton’s apartment. I enjoyed the party, but I felt so bad afterwards. There were many people there I do not know. Talk to Barclay, ask about who he invites. Do you know him?”
“I know of him. He’s heir to the Warburton fortune.” An ironic smirk appeared. “A cake-eater. A flaming youth. One of the idle rich.”
“Now, Bianca, don’t be a snob. And don’t make me laugh. It hurts. Barclay, I have known him for years, since I come to America. I asked him to come here to the hospital, but he says to George that he is not well either. Besides, I am so tired. I forget sometimes what I am saying even as I say it. Please, cara…”
“Of course, hon. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll ask him about his guests, if there was anyone there he didn’t know, or anything he can tell me that might explain what happened to you.”
“Thank you. And maybe this man you know in California, he can help, yes? Maybe find out who has been sending threats for so long?”
“Maybe.”
He took her hand. His grip was weak. “Bianca, all these years you have been a true friend. You scold me, yes, but never have you asked anything of me and always you take my side. I tell you, cara, find your old love, the one who will love you for yourself. Now I’m tired. I think I shall not go on. But no matter what happens, remember I am your friend and I love you.”
She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it, unable to speak. When she finally stood and left the room, unshed tears left her green eyes sparkling like emeralds.
“What does he want you to do?” George demanded.
“He wants me to talk to Barclay Warburton about the guests at the party he went to that night.”
George sat down heavily on a bench against the wall of the corridor. “Yes, that’s not a bad idea. There were quite a number of odd people there. Barclay had hired this magician…” His voice trailed off. It was several seconds before he resumed. “…who stuck Rudy with a needle as one of his tricks. Stuck it completely through his arm. It wasn’t supposed to hurt.” He stood up, his gaze wandering off into the middle distance as he mentally reviewed the events of the past several days. After a long pause, he looked up at Bianca. “Ask Jean about it.”
Bianca blinked. “Jean who?”
“Jean Acker. They’ve been hitting the clubs together since he got to New York. She was with him at Barclay’s party. Beatrice and I left before the magician’s act,
but Jean saw the whole thing.”
~ The most unlikely people ~
Bianca left the hospital through the loading dock at the back entrance to avoid the horde of reporters gathered on West 50th, waiting for any scrap of news about Valentino’s condition, or for the opportunity to pounce on any famous visitor to the Sheik’s sickroom. She wasn’t so lucky at her hotel. The doorman helped her run the gauntlet from the curb to the hotel entrance through the press of reporters.
A bellhop escorted her to her suite on the twelfth floor, where she nearly collapsed into Fee’s arms as she stepped through the door.
She gave Fee an update on Rudy’s condition. “He’s sure someone is trying to kill him, Fee. He wants me to find out who. He thinks I can help because I said I know a private investigator. Bianca Dangereuse isn’t real, you know. And Bianca LaBelle is an actress, not a shamus.”
“I’m not surprised he picked you to figure it out.” Fee was standing at the drinks cart, mixing a martini, and did not turn around.
“You’re not?”
Fee thrust the drink into her hand. “You’re a smart girl, Bianca. You know people. You know Rudy’s world. You can get access to places others can’t. People trust you.”
“Yes, but…”
“Slug that down, darling. I’ll draw you a nice bath. You look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet. You can think about all this later, when you’re refreshed.”
She sipped the icy martini gratefully. “Okay, you’re right.” She took another sip as Fee started toward the bathroom. “Fee, while I’m in the bath, please telephone Jean Acker and ask her to come see me.”
Fee smiled. “You bet, honey.”
There is something about warm water that takes one out of the present and into some timeless higher plane. Bianca soaked in the long claw-foot tub, luxuriating in the scent of the perfumed bath oils that Fee had added to the water. She leaned back and let the steam float her away and her mind wander on the aromatic clouds, thoughts and memories arising from the depths as they would.
How could such a lovely person as Rudy have an enemy who hated him enough to try to kill him, and in such a backhanded, convoluted manner? Why not just shoot him? Why try so hard to make it look like an accident or a natural death?
What have you done, Rudy, and who did you do it to?
Why do you think I can help? You can hire a private investigator as easily as I can. Is it because I said I trust Oliver, and you don’t know who to trust?
Bianca sat up. The most unlikely people are the best at sniffing out secrets. Her father had said that about her mother, who poked her nose into other people’s problems, whether it was her place to do it or not. People told her mother things they would never tell the police, precisely because she was unthreatening. Or so it seemed.
“People trust you,” Fee had said. Maybe her own contacts in the motion picture world, combined with Oliver’s knowledge of the underworld, would work together to root out the truth.
Bianca emerged from her bathroom, dressed in her usual trousers and white shirt, drying her cloud of dark curls with a towel, just as the telephone in the parlor rang, and Fee answered.
“Jean Acker is here,” Fee said, replacing the receiver in the cradle. “I told the clerk to send her up.”
“That was quick.”
Actress Jean Acker was Rudy’s first wife. He had met her at a party (of course), and in a romantic haze, had married her in a quickie wedding two months later, long before either was a “name.” Unfortunately for Rudy, Jean was a lesbian and discovered on her wedding night that she really didn’t want to be anything else. After the ceremony, a lovely celebratory dinner, and dancing until dawn, she locked Rudy out of their hotel room and sobbed uncontrollably while he pounded on the door in a fury. They were married—in name only—for three years, but never lived together as husband and wife for a single day.
Jean may not have wanted to be Mrs. Rudolph Valentino, but she didn’t want anyone else to be, either. A few months before their long-delayed divorce was finalized, she had Rudy arrested for bigamy after he married Natacha Rambova in Mexico. There was a splashy trial. It was a Whole Big Thing.
But that was years ago. Natacha was history, and Rudy and Jean had decided to let bygones be bygones. That was like Rudy. He hated strife. He and Jean had been burning up the social scene together, platonically, of course, since he got to New York.
Jean was a small, neat woman with a sleek reddish bob, a second-tier actress who had never broken into the ranks of stardom. But she was colorful and amusing, and in spite of her antics, Bianca rather liked her.
Bianca padded in her bare feet to answer the knock on the door.
Jean threw her arms around Bianca’s neck. “Oh, Bianca, why won’t they let me in to see him?” she wailed.
Bianca guided her to the couch and gave Fee a discreet signal to bring on the alcohol. She sat down next to Jean and handed her a hankie.
“It’s doctor’s orders, Jean. They’re not letting anyone in right now. He needs to heal after the operation.”
“Well, they let you in.” Jean stated matter-of-factly.
News travels fast, Bianca thought, then shrugged. What made her think she could do anything on the sly these days? She might as well come clean. “He asked for me. He wants me to do something for him. And believe me, the doctors weren’t happy about it. They only let me see him for a few minutes.”
“How’d he look?”
“Pretty bad, truth be told. But he was able to talk to me, and he said he feels better. His doctor thinks that this crisis may have been set off by something that happened the night before he got sick, maybe something he ate or drank. I said I’d ask around, maybe talk to as many people as I can who were with him on the fourteenth. The doctor feels that if he knew exactly what happened, he might be able to come up with a more effective treatment.” Bianca’s eyes widened as she spoke, impressed at herself for coming up with such a plausible story on the fly. No use to say anything to Jean about the possibility of poison. Nobody wanted that getting around. “George Ullman told me that you’ve gone honky-tonking with Rudy several times since he’s been in New York, including that night.”
“I have and I did. We all went to the 300 Club after the premiere of Rudy’s movie at the Strand. Then the next night we went to a play and then to the party at Barclay Warburton’s apartment. That’s the last time I saw Rudy.”
“I heard about that party.”
“It was quite the evening. George Ullman and his wife were there, and Jimmy Quirk…”
“Jimmy Quirk from Photoplay? I didn’t know he was in town.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s been following the whole Son of the Sheik dog and pony show ever since Rudy left California.”
“Did anything interesting happen at the party? How was Rudy acting?”
Jean shook her head. “Everything was fine. It seemed fine, anyway. He was drinking too much, I remember that. And smoking. He must have smoked fifty of his special Turkish cigarettes that night. I could barely see him through the haze. Barclay had hired that magician who’s all the rage around town, this fakir from Egypt…the guy said he’s a fakir. Maybe he’s a fake. A fake fakir. Anyway, the fakir asked for a volunteer to help him with a trick and some jamoke in the crowd volunteered Rudy. He didn’t want to do it, but you know Rudy. He never could back down from a challenge. The magician said he had the power to stick Rudy with a needle and he wouldn’t feel a thing. He brought out this hatpin—I swear to God it was eight inches long—and stuck it all the way through Rudy’s arm. Rudy yelled, ‘ouch,’ but he didn’t even bleed. I thought I was going to faint. Oh, geeze, do you think there was something on that needle, poison or germs or something?”
“I don’t know, Jean. When did that happen? How long was it after Rudy got stuck that he collapsed?”
“I’m not sure. I went home from Ba
rclay’s place, and Rudy went back to the Ambassador. But it was several hours at least. If he was injected with a poison, wouldn’t it make him sick quicker than that?”
“Good question, but I’m no poison expert. What was the name of this magician?”
“He called himself the Great Rahman Bey. Real weird-looking guy, strange eyes, two different colors. He says he’s from Egypt, though he’s probably Joe Blow from Schenectady. Barclay’d know. He’s the one who hired him to entertain at the party.”
They paused to take the drinks that Fee had brought to them on a silver salver. Bianca took a healthy swig of her second dirty martini of the night and closed her eyes. Nectar of the gods. She sat the glass back down on the tray. I’m drinking too much these days, she thought. I don’t want to end up like Alma.
“Are you going to tell the doctor about the needle?” Jean said.
“Oh, yeah. I doubt if it was poisoned, but it certainly could have been contaminated somehow. Thanks, hon, that may be a crucial bit of information for the doctors.”
“Do you think so? I hope so. Do you think Rudy will be all right? Please tell me the truth. Is Rudy going to live?”
“I don’t know, Jean. George tells me he’s much improved in the past day or two.”
Jean gripped Bianca’s arm. “Can you get me in to see him? I promise I won’t stay long.”
“I can try.” Bianca gave her hand a comforting pat.
Jean sank back into the couch after draining her cocktail in a gulp. “I can’t say I still love Rudy, but I admire him so much. Who else would be willing to forgive the hell I put him through and still be my friend? I don’t know why I did it, had him arrested. He was a big star by then and I wasn’t. Maybe I was jealous. I just wanted to make trouble, I guess.”
“And draw attention to yourself.” Bianca did not mean the comment in an accusing way. If she judged everyone in the movie business who did things just for the publicity, there wouldn’t be anyone left unjudged. She’d be a hypocrite, to boot.