Charlie said he’d take care of it and signed off with an admonition to keep him informed of my progress.
Irving Greenberg’s office was on the top floor of a three-story, plain-brick building on the corner of Sunset and Hayworth. A most unimpressive-looking place. For some reason I had expected one of those shiny new high rises like you see in New York, all glass and steel, with pretty secretaries and powerful men making big deals. Instead, the air smelled close and dusty when I reached the landing. I considered the wooden door and its frosted glass. The words “Greenberg Talent Agency” stretched across the window in black letters. I could hear typing through the open transom above.
I knocked, dislodging some flakes of paint from the door. A voice called out for me to enter. Inside I was greeted by a middle-aged woman at a desk in the dark reception area. Her hands rested on an old typewriter. A simple black phone sat on the desk next to a nameplate that read Mrs. Zelda Weitz.
“Yes?” she asked, looking me up and down.
“I called earlier. I’m here to see Mr. Greenberg.”
She pursed her lips and continued to study me top to bottom. “Sweetheart, you’re a pretty girl,” she said at length, shaking her head. “But you’re not Hollywood pretty.”
“I-I beg your pardon?”
She assumed a softer expression. “It’s tough to make it in this town. A girl’s got to have something really special to catch the eye of a casting director or a producer. You’re cute, no doubt. But you’ve got to manage your expectations, dear.”
I must have looked crestfallen. As a point of fact, I was insulted.
“Now don’t despair. You seem like a nice girl,” she continued. “You might be good for a plain-Jane secretary. A school teacher, perhaps. Or the mousy best friend. Maybe Mr. Greenberg can find something for you.”
I finally found the breath to explain that I wasn’t an actress, that I was a reporter wanting to speak to Mr. Greenberg about Tony Eberle.
“Well, thank God for that,” she said, a little too relieved for my taste. “I was afraid you were going to have your heart broken and dreams shattered.”
“Nice of you to let me down easy,” I said. “Now, is Mr. Greenberg free?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, miss,” said Irving Greenberg from behind a huge, cluttered mahogany desk.
His inner office had two sash windows for light and air, but they did little to brighten the general atmosphere of sadness and decay that blanketed the room. Framed clippings on the wall proclaimed successes, hits, deals, and even some weddings. All had been torn from the trades or Life magazine or one of the Los Angeles papers, and few bore names or movies that I recognized. The same was true for the dozens of headshots that shared space on the wall with the clippings. They were decades old, and the only stars I knew were Janet Gaynor, Ramon Navarro, a very young Judy Garland, and Louise Brooks.
I couldn’t say for sure how old Irving Greenberg was, but if he had ten years left in the tank, he was playing with house money. He sat low in his chair, a little lopsided too, making him appear shorter than he was. He spoke in a voice that was a mite too loud for the close confines of his office, probably due to his failing hearing. That, along with his poor eyesight, gave the impression of decrepitude. He insisted that I call him Irv.
“Hedy Lamar called me Irv,” he said. “And Dick Powell and little Judy Garland. I once represented them, you know. Before they made it big.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“So you can call me Irv, too, young lady.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And you can call me Ellie.”
In truth, I don’t believe he heard me or gave a hang what I wanted him to call me. He stuck with “miss” and “young lady” for the balance of our interview.
“As I was saying before,” he continued, “I can’t help you find Tony because I don’t know where he is myself.”
“But isn’t it strange that he would disappear just as he landed his first break?”
He cupped a hand to his ear, and I repeated the question louder. Then a third time, louder still.
Irv nodded. “Very strange. He always seemed like a nice boy. He was going to go places. I was sure he could help me with my comeback.”
“So what do you think happened?” (Practically yelling.)
He shrugged. “Who knows? I got a call this morning at seven thirty from a production assistant at Paramount asking where he was. Then some secretary a few minutes later. I was in the toilet.” He huffed his indignation. “Ten minutes after that, the director, Archie Stemple, was screaming at me over the phone. I told them I didn’t have any idea where Tony was. But I said I had an actor who could fill in for him if they needed someone.”
“And what did he say?”
“I can’t repeat it in polite company, young lady. That Archie Stemple is an unpleasant man. You’d think I was the one who didn’t show up.”
“Did you try to reach Tony?”
“Of course. But there was no answer at his place.”
“It’s too bad,” I said, thinking of my story and Tony’s career.
Irv agreed. He shook his head in woe. “He was perfect for the role, too. So perfect the producer himself wanted him for the part.”
“Bertram Wallis?”
“His name is Bertram Wallis,” said Irv, who’d clearly not heard me despite my best efforts. “A real kelev she-beklovim, pardon my French.”
I asked how Wallis had come to know Tony. Irv wasn’t sure.
“I’ve met him a few times,” he said. “A schmuck. And a pervert. People want to give him a free pass because he’s British and has a posh accent. I’ve got an accent, and no one thinks I’m fancy. They say he’s some kind of genius. But I can tell you that he’s never made anything but rotten beach pictures and lightweight teenage opfal. A genius, my foot. Yech!”
“Did you negotiate the contract with Wallis?”
Irv waved a hand. “He sent over the contract. No negotiations. Said he’d find someone else if we didn’t take it as is. To tell the truth, I was just glad to get the commission. Things have been a little slow recently.”
“Has Mr. Wallis contacted you since Tony disappeared?”
“No. And I won’t take his call if he does. Let him try to get his money back.” He laughed himself into a coughing fit.
I asked him for Bertram Wallis’s phone number and address, and he bellowed to Mrs. Weitz in the next room to look up the information for me.
“What else can you tell me about Tony Eberle?” I boomed.
“Like I said, a nice boy,” he muttered, his drooping face and hunched shoulders betraying a crushing disappointment. “He reminded me of our Shabbos goy when I was a kid in Brooklyn.” He allowed himself a moment of fond recollection before returning to the subject at hand. “Tony was going to go far. But now? Feh! He’s finished.”
CHAPTER THREE
The cab rolled to a stop opposite 1859 North Wilton. It was a modest, five-story apartment building with a fire-escape ladder zigzagging down the front, ending just above the entrance to the underground garage. In the doorway, a sign advertised a bachelor apartment for rent. This was the address on the back of the headshot that Dorothy Fetterman had given me. This was Tony Eberle’s apartment.
I asked the cabbie to wait. He leaned against the steering wheel, puffing on his cigarette, and nodded. I retrieved my Leica from my purse and snapped three shots of the exterior of the building before crossing the street and approaching the door. Scanning the directory in the entrance, I located Eberle/Harper in apartment 101 on the ground floor. A roommate. Maybe this Harper person could tell me where to find Tony.
The front door was ajar, so I let myself in. Apartment 101 was the first door on the right. I knocked three times to no effect. Then the door to apartment 102 cracked open, and a woman peered into the corridor. Somewhere in her mid-thirties, she was decked out in a pair of what looked like men’s wool trousers and an Arrow shirt unbuttoned at the neck. A cigare
tte, fastened to the end of a long ebony holder, dangled from her right hand. Her hair was dyed black and cut short in a bob, the way Louise Brooks used to wear it back in the twenties.
“They’re not home,” she said, eyeing me with suspicion. Or perhaps with interest.
I cleared my throat and asked if she knew where they’d gone. She shook her head.
“Have you seen Mr. Eberle recently? Tony Eberle?”
“Who wants to know?”
I showed her my press card from a few feet away and explained that I was a reporter from New Holland, New York. She said she couldn’t see it without her eyeglasses. When I offered to bring it closer, she waved me off, saying she’d take my word on it.
“I don’t suppose anyone would lie about being a reporter from New Belgium, New York,” she said.
“New Holland.”
She took a drag of her cigarette and, clenching the end of the holder between her teeth in a playful manner, told me she was just having some fun with me. “You should get yourself a sense of humor, angel.”
She introduced herself as the super, Evelyn Maynard, and offered her hand for me to shake. The formalities concluded, she said that her two neighbors seemed like nice, quiet boys. She didn’t know them well enough to give a character reference, but she volunteered that they were often behind in the rent. In fact, Mickey Harper had just paid up six weeks’ of arrears a day earlier. I wondered why she was telling me this. She seemed to like to talk.
“They’ve been late before, but they always manage to come up with the money. That’s the way it is for these young actors. They all have big dreams and empty pocketbooks. It’s a constant struggle to make ends meet.”
“Have you seen Tony Eberle recently?” I repeated.
She tapped her ash onto the floor in the hallway. I must have made a face of some kind because she told me not to worry; she’d sweep it up later.
“I saw him yesterday morning as he was heading out somewhere. Told me he had a part in a movie with Bobby Renfro. Bobby Renfro, if you can believe it.” She shook her head and grunted a short laugh. “I thought he was dead.”
“What about the other fellow? Harper.”
“He’s quiet. Pretty much keeps to himself. Not sure where he got the money for the rent. Some of these actors work as waiters. Or figure models.”
“Is Harper an actor too?”
Evelyn Maynard shrugged and took another drag of her cigarette. “I assume so.”
I churned through my purse, looking for a calling card. I scribbled the address and phone number of the McCadden Hotel on the back.
“If you see either one of them, please give me a call. I’m in room two-F,” I said, handing it to her.
She stashed it in the breast pocket of her shirt and considered me from the corner of her eye.
“If I didn’t know better,” she said, “and I do—I’d swear you were making a pass at me.”
I suppose I should have suspected something like that, but I’d become quite provincial in New Belgium, unable to recognize sarcasm when it smacked me on the forehead or a lesbian when she was flirting with me. I stammered an inadequate response.
“Don’t sweat it, angel. I won’t bite.” She paused, studying my face as I tried to hide my discomfort. “Unless you want me to.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said.
I can’t know for certain what reaction my face betrayed, but it must have crushed her. There was no other explanation for the sudden gloom that enveloped her. She attempted one last smile, but it collapsed before it had a chance to shine. Her heart was no longer in it. She excused herself, disappeared inside, and closed the door softly behind her.
I drifted back out to the street where, disquieted, I reflected on what had just happened. Of course I knew there were people like Evelyn Maynard in the world. A girl in my study group at Barnard had been that way. But I hadn’t had much direct contact with any lesbians since. And I couldn’t recall a woman ever having flirted with me. The situation left me feeling uncomfortable. Sophisticate that I considered myself to be, I wanted to brush it off, flick it off my sleeve like a piece of lint. But somehow I couldn’t let it go. I wasn’t one to cast stones for what people did behind closed doors—my own behavior in that regard wouldn’t have won me any comportment prizes—but the idea of turning sex on its head, questioning every urge I’d ever felt for a man, every impulse that had ever caused me to lust or love, struck me as queer. Yes, queer. Perhaps that’s where the term had originated. But at the same time, I felt like a fake, all too aware of my own hypocrisy and close-mindedness. I had always prided myself on my enlightened, generous views of the world. Try as I might to push it out of my mind, the image of Evelyn Maynard’s embarrassment wouldn’t leave me. I’d seen pain in her eyes, and I was the one who’d provoked it.
My cab driver was still waiting across the street. He’d thrown his head back and looked to be snoring while the meter ran. As I paced on the stoop, smoking a bitter cigarette, I considered my options and debated whether to go back inside and knock on 102 to apologize. But before I could make up my mind, a small young man in a lightweight jacket, checked shirt, and brown trousers approached the building at a brisk pace. He clutched a green paper bag of groceries under his left arm and a folded umbrella in his right hand. Nose to the ground, he made straight for the front door, lifting his eyes to regard me only after he’d seen my shoes—and by extension me—blocking the way. His eyes caught mine, and I stepped aside, muttering an apology.
He was a striking creature, truly remarkable-looking. Not handsome. Not even cute, as an adolescent might be. This young man was pretty. No mistaking him for a girl, of course, but he was attractive in the way girls are. Fine features, graceful lines, and delicate, hairless hands. Nothing rugged or coarse in his face, no beard or lantern jaw. Barely an Adam’s apple visible above his open collar. With his long eyelashes, smooth skin, and soft black hair, he looked fresh out of high school. He stepped around me, diverted his eyes again, and let himself into the building. I watched him through the glass as he fumbled for his keys just inside the door. Then he opened 101. Harper.
I tossed my cigarette, pushed my way into the lobby, and called out to him before he could close the apartment door. Startled, he turned to face me. I could see now that his right cheek showed a bluish bruise under the eye. His upper lip, too, betrayed the barest hint of swelling and a scratch that he’d tried to conceal with makeup or pimple cream.
“Excuse me. I’m looking for Tony Eberle.”
“He’s not here,” he said. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday. What do you want with him anyway?”
“Are you Mr. Harper?” I asked, avoiding his question for the moment.
He hesitated, probably wary of strangers approaching him and asking for his name, even innocent-looking young women like me. I might have been there to serve a summons, after all. Maybe I was a religious nut or a fresh-faced thief with a gun in my purse. At length he must have concluded I posed no threat because he nodded and said he was Mickey Harper. Then he asked again what I wanted with Tony.
“My name is Eleonora Stone. Ellie Stone,” I explained. Why did I insist on introducing myself as Eleonora in such situations? I hated that name. “I’m a reporter from Tony’s hometown newspaper,” I continued. “I was supposed to interview him this morning at the studio, but he never showed up. Do you have any idea where I might find him?”
He shook his head. “I told you I haven’t seen him since yesterday. I was at a party with friends last night. I didn’t get home until after one. He must have been asleep. Or out.”
I could see over Mickey Harper’s shoulder. The apartment looked like a bachelor to me, what we called a studio in New York, and I doubted there were any bedrooms.
“So you’re not sure if he was here or not when you got in last night?”
“Might have been. I didn’t see him.”
Still holding his bag of groceries tight to his chest, Mickey gazed at me with deep,
brown, inscrutable eyes. No more than five feet three, slim and timid, he was—as already noted—a beautiful boy. And, standing before me, he was shrinking with each passing moment. I didn’t quite tower over him, but in my heels, I had an inch or two advantage.
I had loads of questions for him, including how he and Tony had met. Were they close friends now? I certainly hadn’t formed that impression from speaking to Mickey. And why didn’t he seem concerned that his roommate was missing? I also wondered if he was an actor like Tony. Not many roles for men his size, no matter how beautiful. Perhaps he could play a part in one of Bertram Wallis’s teenage movies. The ones Irv Greenberg had disparaged as opfal.
“If I may say, you don’t seem surprised that Tony’s missing.”
“He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
“He lost his role in the picture they’re shooting. Any reaction to that?”
He shrugged. “He’ll find another, I guess.”
“I suppose you two aren’t that close,” I offered, trying to get some kind of rise out of him.
“Not really.”
“Would you mind if I quoted you for my article?” I asked.
That got his attention. Mickey nearly dropped his groceries.
“No, you can’t quote me. And don’t use my name. This has nothing to do with me. I told you I don’t know where he is.”
“All right. I won’t mention you. But may I ask you a couple of more questions?”
He shook his head and reached for the door, intending to close it in my face.
“You must be concerned for Tony,” I said, blocking the door with my left foot and forearm. “Even if you’re not close. He pays half the rent, doesn’t he?”
“He’ll be fine.”
“He might be in trouble. Just two questions. Please.”
Mickey relented but wasn’t about to invite me in for a cup of tea.
“Does Tony have any friends you know of? People who might know where he’s gone?”
“He has a girlfriend. April something. She might know.”
Cast the First Stone Page 3