“And was the party by any chance somewhere in Nichols Canyon?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ve never been to a party up there. It was somewhere in Santa Monica, I think.”
“May I call you tomorrow to see if you can remember anything else? Maybe you could contact a friend or two who might have been there too?”
He turned white, looked cornered.
“I wouldn’t ask, but we’re worried that something terrible has happened to Tony. Please, won’t you help me?”
“If you must. I work during the day. You can meet me at my place at six.”
He wrote down the address in a Wind Up matchbook and handed it to me just as the front door burst open. Four uniformed policemen and a plainclothes detective strode in like Elliot Ness and the Untouchables raiding a speakeasy. But they were actually there to bully and intimidate a bunch of “fairies” and a silver-haired grandmother. A few quick-thinking men, including Phillip Lowrie, got out the side door before the cops blocked it. Everyone else was trapped. The plainclothes detective, a stocky man in a pinstriped suit and short tie, swaggered around the room, calling patrons various ugly names. Faggot, pansy, fairy, and homo. Then he noticed me, the only female in the place besides the bartender, Helen.
“What do we have here?” he said, sidling up to me and hitching up his pants. “You must be lost, miss. This here is one of those fairy bars. The only folks allowed in here are perverts, pederasts, and inverts. Are you one of those?”
“She came in here by mistake,” said Helen. “With her boyfriend over there.” She pointed to Nelson.
I didn’t know what to say. If I kept quiet, the police would surely let me and Nelson go. It felt cowardly to take the get-out-of-jail-free pass. I wanted to stand up to the bullies and say I was there as a free citizen, as were the other patrons. But that would put poor Nelson in peril. He was only there, of course, because I’d cajoled him into escorting me. I couldn’t very well send him off to jail.
“All right,” said the cop, wiping his sweaty brush cut with a handkerchief. “You and Mr. Ed over there, get going before we drag you downtown with these Girl Scouts.”
“These people aren’t doing anything wrong,” I said. “They’re just enjoying a few drinks and some pool. They haven’t broken the law.”
“Get out already,” said Helen. Then to the cop, “I was just telling them to get lost when you boys broke my door down.”
Nelson took me by the elbow and urged me toward the side door. I looked back just as one of the uniformed cops slugged one of the patrons on the jaw with no provocation. The man—little more than a skinny boy really—crumpled to the floor like a boxer down for the count. Then I heard the detective asking the older gentleman Nelson had spoken to at the bar where he worked.
“Come, Ellie,” said Nelson, tugging on my arm. “Before that brute changes his mind.”
“Where do you work, Mary?” the detective repeated, punctuating his question with a punch in the ribs. The man doubled over, and the last thing I remember was the roar of laughter from the cops.
Nelson floored it. The Jaguar sprang from a standstill and out of the gas station like a thoroughbred from the starting gate. He glanced in the rearview to see if the police were following us.
“That was a close call,” he said, glancing at me. Then he pulled over to the side of the road and yanked the handbrake. “Ellie, my dear. Are you all right?”
I couldn’t answer him for the better part of a minute. I was struggling for air and sobbing into my hands.
My breakdown surprised me as much as it worried Nelson Blanchard. I could barely breathe for the tightness in my chest and throat, and for a few moments, Nelson thought I was suffering a heart attack. He tried to soothe me, reassure me, hold my heaving shoulders in an awkward, comforting hug. But I needed the fit to pass in its own time. Afterward I reflected on the powerful emotions that had provoked the intense weeping. Escaping a potentially disastrous arrest, complicated by the guilt and genuine sorrow I felt for the men caught in the dragnet, had certainly fueled my outburst. But it was also the fury exploding from inside my chest. Anger at the injustice, disbelief at the inhumanity of it, and maddening helplessness at having been unable to do anything to stop it. They’d punched those two defenseless men for no reason. All of it swirled in my head, clogged my lungs, and summoned my bile. My throat was tingling, my eyes raw red by the time I’d settled down enough to tell Nelson he could stop stroking my head and whispering “there, there” in my ear. I was okay.
“What happened back there?” I asked as we sat idling curbside.
“Alas, it’s something that occurs all too frequently,” he said. “The police break in every so often to remind the poor fellows that they are perverts and degenerates. They bust a few heads, take names, and sometimes arrest them. And, of course, they extract bribes. Why do you think they booted us out of there so happily? They didn’t want any witnesses who weren’t trying to protect their own secrecy.”
“I can’t believe this goes on in this day and age.” I was about to ask where were the police when you needed them, but then I realized the irony. I opted for the ACLU instead.
“I seem to recall the ACLU fighting against this kind of thing several years ago,” said Nelson. “But the police still carry out the raids. Who’s going to risk his job and reputation to accuse the cops of breaking the law? This kind of law.”
“How do you mean?” I asked, dabbing my nose with a handkerchief from my purse.
“Did you hear that policeman asking that fellow where he worked?”
I nodded.
“Well, that’s because he’s going to inform the man’s employer of his subversive activities. He’ll be out of work tomorrow if he doesn’t pony up a hefty bribe.”
I felt like crying all over again.
“The boys have to put up with the harassment unless they’re brave enough to come clean publicly about their ‘disease.’”
“Do you believe it’s a disease? Being that way?”
He stared long into my eyes before answering with a sad smile. “No, my dear. I believe it’s just the way they are. And I wish people could accept that, but I’m no babe in the woods. We’re nowhere near that point. Not for a hundred years. If ever.”
“Who are they hurting?” I asked. “Even if you don’t understand it or don’t like it. Why search them out just to harass them?”
Nelson shrugged. “Some people are obsessed by perversion. I know Lucia and I enjoy it very much. But in a healthy, participatory manner.” He winked at me. “Those bullies back there only find joy in attacking what they don’t understand. Or maybe they experience those queer feelings from time to time and are repulsed. So they beat up some poor ‘fairies’ to prove to themselves and their pals that they’re not that way.”
“You and Lucia have the right approach,” I said.
“Any time you’d like to join us, perversion awaits.”
I sat up straight in my seat, wiped my eyes, and blew my nose. I patted Nelson on the arm and promised him that if ever I decided to try it, they would be first in line.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1962
The streets were dry for the first time in a week. I gazed out the window for a moment before checking the door for the paper. I retrieved the Times, yawned, and flipped open the paper. There on the lower left of the front page was the headline, “Producer Murder Suspect on the Run.”
It was the story Gene and I had written. A knot tightened in my chest. I read on. And there it was. The byline.
“Eugene Duerson and E. Stone.”
He’d shared the credit even though I’d asked him not to. Sure, he’d left out my first name. But no one was going to be fooled by that. If anyone back in New Holland got wind of it, my time at the Republic would be finished.
I climbed back into bed and piled a pillow over my head. Darkness and silence. I slept hard for hours, waking up several times but willing myself back to sleep.
On cold, gray days like that one, I wanted nothing but soft warmth and quiet. I wanted to be alone, no food, no drink, and no dead bodies. I put my responsibilities second to my comfort. I wallowed, lazed, snoozed, and dreamt. But I didn’t cry.
I washed out some unmentionables and hung them to dry in the bathroom. Then I asked Marty to take some clothes to the dry cleaners for me. I tipped him a quarter.
My laundry out of the way, I dressed and headed down to my car. It was already past three when I reached Santa Monica. I had no prospects or appointments until six that evening, when I planned on visiting Phillip Lowrie. I felt different that day. A little frightened and insecure after the police raid and my breakdown in Nelson’s car. I’d lost all direction, and my subject had succeeded in avoiding me for an entire week. For the first time, I began to think I’d blown it. Lost the trail that might lead to Tony Eberle. Or at least to Mickey Harper. And without either of them, I had no hope of finishing what I’d started. And that would probably mean my job.
I stood barefoot in the wet sand of the beach in Santa Monica. My first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, if you didn’t count the plane’s approach a week earlier that had taken us out over the sea for a moment before landing. This was the edge of the continent, I thought as I dipped my toes into the cold water. My trip to sunny California was a bust. No Tony, no story, no sunshine. Then I thought that China was possibly the next landmass in my line of sight, albeit around several curves of the earth’s surface. Unless Hawaii happened to be on my course. I smiled at the thought. Maybe Hawaii was cold and gray, too. Why not visit the fiftieth state?
I knew why not. Because I had to find Tony Eberle and finish my story. I needed to talk to Mickey in order to do that. And that meant Phillip Lowrie at six. I knew I had to do all those things, because I wanted to know what had happened and I wanted to know why. I wanted to ask all three of them what it was like to be that way. The pain of being that way. The way they were. Shunned, ridiculed, pitied, hated, and bullied. Shamed and ashamed. I wanted to know if my own brother, Elijah, had felt that anguish before he died. Because what I’d suspected for many years about my dear, late brother was that he, like the men I’d seen at the Wind Up the night before—like Mickey Harper and possibly even Tony Eberle—like Bertram Wallis and Evelyn Maynard; like all of those, he, too, had been that way.
The boxy building on North Martel Avenue was only a couple of years old. Surrounded by modest family homes, it was the only apartment building on the street. I lit a cigarette from the matchbook Phillip Lowrie had given me at the Wind Up, just before the brownshirts broke in to raid the bar. Rereading the address, written in a stylized hand, I confirmed I’d reached my destination. I waited, smoking as the chilly air filtered through the open window of my car. After about five minutes, a thin young man in an overcoat appeared carrying a briefcase. He turned into the walkway and retrieved his keys from his pocket. I stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray, jumped out of my car, and joined him before he’d opened the gate.
“My God, you frightened me,” he said.
“We met last night, remember? I’m Tony Eberle’s sister, Ellie.”
“I’d rather forget about last night.”
“You managed to get out. It was lucky you were close to the door.”
He frowned but said nothing.
“I don’t blame you for running. No one would. The cops let me and my friend go, too. I felt terribly guilty about it.”
“Yeah, guilt is one thing I feel.” He stared at me for a long moment before inviting me inside.
“The humiliation is bad enough,” he said, once we were seated on a sofa in his apartment. He’d poured us each a glass of Chianti. “But the threats and insults are just too much. All I want is to be normal. Normal like anybody else.”
“But don’t you . . . enjoy being who you are?”
“You must be kidding. Nobody wants to be like this. It’s a nightmare.”
“My friend from last night, he says he likes who he is.”
“He’s respectable,” said Phillip. “I saw him. Rich, and he likes women besides. He can pass.”
“But you can pass,” I said before realizing. “I mean you don’t seem . . .”
“No, I’m not a swish. It would be professional suicide, for one thing. And I don’t need the harassment from construction workers as I sashay down the street.”
“You said you wished you were normal. But haven’t you found friends like you? What about the people at the bar?”
He sighed and admitted that helped. But it was no substitute for family, a wife and children.
“My parents don’t know about me,” he said. “I can’t tell them. They’d be so ashamed.”
“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t find anything else to say.
After a second glass of wine and some canapés he’d warmed in the oven, Phillip switched on the radio: Sam Cooke. “When a Boy Falls in Love.” He relaxed.
“Can you tell me about Tony’s friend?” I asked tentatively.
“I couldn’t say anything last night, but I remember Mickey very well. We were chummy for a while last summer. Nice kid. And beautiful. Boy, did the older men go for him.”
“What older men?”
Phillip shifted in his seat and took a sip of wine. His lips had gone purple. “I work in an advertising agency,” he said. “I’ve been there six months now. It’s a good job. The boss likes me. Doesn’t know what I am, of course, or I’d be out on my duff.”
“Is your boss one of the older men who liked Mickey?”
“God, no. Mr. Reynolds is a nice, ordinary, normal guy. I envy him his regularness.”
“Then what’s he got to do with Mickey?”
“I don’t want to go back to doing that,” he said. He was on the verge of tears. “It was a mistake and the worst thing I could have ever done to myself.”
I moved closer to this man I barely knew and put a warm arm around him. He struggled with his emotions for a minute before getting a grip. He apologized but continued to say he could never go back to that.
“Go back to what?” I asked. “Did it have anything to do with Mickey Harper?”
He stared me in the eye, blinked slowly, then looked away. “I took money for . . . Money from men.”
I considered my words carefully. I wanted to comfort him, but I couldn’t shake the image of my host buggering or—let’s face it—more likely being buggered by some rich old man. A man who was probably respectable and wealthy, married with children, possibly even famous. This was Hollywood, after all. I couldn’t deny the sense of shock in the pit of my stomach. I pitied the man. So respectable on the surface, but tortured by past sins just under the skin. He was miserable.
“And you knew Mickey from those days?” I asked as gently as I knew how.
Phillip nodded, sniffled, and wiped his nose with a napkin. “I met a man. A nice enough fellow, handsome and really charming. Skip Barnes. A former sailor. I was on the skids at that time. No job, few friends, and far from my family who had no idea what kind of things I was up to. They’re Methodists. Illinois. God, they’d disown me if they knew.”
“And this Skip fellow said he could help you?”
“He helped lots of fellows like me. Young homophiles in need of funds. And girls, too. Anyone who was willing to do things for money. But only young and good-looking people, he said. That’s why he does so much business with actors and actresses.”
“Who are his clients?”
“He has connections with rich folks. Mostly people in the movie business. A lot of actors. Really famous people. You wouldn’t believe some of the names.”
“And Mickey was one of the young boys in need of funds?”
Phillip nodded slowly. “Poor kid. Totally broke. No education, not very bright, and no prospects. At least I have a college degree. But Mickey was beautiful and nothing else. All he had was a cherubic face and one other remarkable attribute. . . . Well, you can guess.”
Phillip blushed, and I probably
did too.
“We never did anything together,” he said, as if that were the worst thing he’d told me so far. “Not with each other. We were just friendly for a couple months last summer.”
“So Mickey found a way to make some cash?”
“Skip got him lots of dates with powerful men. Mickey was popular. Some guys like to dominate the skinny effeminate queers like Mickey. It makes them feel like big shots. And the straights take out their own homo shame on the weaker ones. Sometimes they beat them up or just screw them so hard they have to go to the hospital.”
He apologized for his language.
“My God, that’s awful. And Tony?”
“I met him with Mickey for lunch once. And we had coffee another time. But mostly, it was just Mickey telling me about him. Tony was going to be a star, he used to say. Tony was so handsome. Tony was his oldest friend in the world.”
“And he was in love with Tony?”
Phillip thought about it a moment. “You don’t mind talking about your brother this way?”
I’d nearly forgotten my lie. My detachment must have seemed strange to Phillip. “It’s okay. I’ve always suspected he was that way.”
“I asked Mickey once if Tony was queer, and he said no. He was adamant about it. But I thought he might have been protecting him. Yes, I think he was in love with your brother.”
“So Mickey was supporting Tony until he could get his first big break?”
“That’s how I figured things were. It was kind of sad for Mickey. If Tony was interested in Mickey, he sure didn’t show it in public.”
We digested that thought for a long while, sipping wine and smoking. The radio was playing rubbish, and Phillip switched it off.
“Did Mickey have any other friends?” I asked at length. “Anyone else in Los Angeles?”
“There was a guy he met through Skip. Always smoking marijuana. Very handsome. His name was Bo something. I don’t know his last name. Another struggling actor. I assume he’s still struggling since I haven’t seen him in any movies.”
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