by George Baxt
Herb said flat out, “I get the feeling you’re one of the few who doesn’t.”
“Now look, when Carole brought us together I filed it under ‘Too Good to Be True.’ But I was wrong. Carole’s the genuine article. She brought us to inspect this house. It was a hell of a lot better than where we were each living.”
Nana Lewis said, “Lydia had a beautiful place on Beverly Drive. Don’t ask me how she could afford it. Ask her.”
“I’d like to. I’d really like to.” He asked Mala Anouk, “Why do I get the feeling you know some of the missing Japanese?”
“You’re very clever. There is the ectoplasm floating over your head.” Jim Mallory didn’t notice a thing over Herb’s head except the ceiling.
Herb seemed to know what she was alluding to. “Is it good ectoplasm or evil?”
“Oh, not evil at all. It is good ectoplasm.” She explained to the others, “We all have ectoplasm. It comes from the spirit world. My grandmother was a respected soothsayer. Hers was a very popular igloo. Actually, I am too modest. It is the most popular igloo in the settlement, the only one with a Sears Roebuck calendar.”
Herb said, “I can’t tell if your grandmother is alive or dead.”
“Neither can we.” Mala giggled. “Sometimes she goes into a trance. When she does my father says, ‘There goes Grandma.’ She sometimes talks when she is in this trance, but the voice is not her own.”
Mallory suggested, “Maybe there’s a ventriloquist in the igloo.”
“Oh, you hush up,” admonished Mala, sounding as though she came from south of the Arctic Circle. “Grandma is terrific. She told us Roosevelt would be elected for a second term and we hadn’t even heard of Roosevelt. Ha ha ha. I wish she was here and she could maybe tell us where Lydia is.” She turned to Herb. “I knew Ito Takameshuga. He’s the only one I knew. I met him at a party in Malibu. I was hired to do the tea ritual by a lady who heard about me from my hairdresser. Takameshuga was very polite and respectful. But he was also very nervous.”
“You mean he fidgeted a lot?” asked Herb.
“Oh no, nothing that simple. He had what I guess you would call a twitch.” She jerked her shoulders as though demonstrating the Brazilian samba. “You see what I mean?”
“Very provocative,” said Herb.
“Very mysterious. He looked upon everyone with suspicion. Except me. He said I was as cute as a cherry blossom. I thanked him even though I have never seen a cherry blossom.”
“You saw him again after the party?”
“Several times. He was always very proper. We ate a lot at Nate and Al’s Jewish delicatessen. He said they’d never heard of pastrami in Japan. I told him blubber was better.”
“What did you learn about Takameshuga?”
She was quiet. She was thinking very hard. Finally she seemed to think of something worth telling Villon. “He missed Japan. He wanted very much to go back. His family is there. His wife and his sons. Two sons.” She thought again. “Yes, two sons. He thought he soon would be going home. He burned a lot of incense to convince the gods to send him home. Though he had two grown sons—yes, they were grown—he did not seem terribly old.”
“You do not have to be terribly old to have two grown sons,” said Villon.
“Oh no? You should see my father. I have three brothers and my father is all shrunken, and his skin is shriveled. I send him jars of cold cream.”
Herb studied her. She came across as a misplaced innocent, brought from her element into a world that would very probably ruin her, destroy the innocence.
Mala asked, “Why do you stare at me like that?”
“I’m sorry.” He spoke with honesty. “I was thinking, you don’t belong here.”
“In this house?”
“In this city.”
Mala was amazed. “But I do belong here. There is so much opportunity for me. Look around. Look at this house. Believe me, it’s no igloo. Oh, how I love Carole Lombard. How I thank her. She is in my prayers every night.”
Nell Corday spoke up. “Mala is terribly generous. I don’t think she thinks ill of anyone.”
Mala had a sweet smile on her face and Herb expected a halo to appear over her head but none materialized.
“I guess this does it,” said Herb to Jim. “Thanks, girls. If you think of anything that might be useful to us, here’s my card. Give me a ring at the precinct.”
Nell Corday took the card and looked at it. “Why, Mr. Villon, are you possibly descended from the French poet François Villon?”
“I don’t think so,” said Herb, adding that he did admire his poetry.
“Ah yes! His poetry!” said Nell. And she quoted with passion, “‘If I were king, the stars would be your pearls upon a string…’”
“Oh, how sweet,” said Mala Anouk.
Nell told them, “I’m directly descended from Charlotte Corday. You know, the woman who stabbed Marat to death in his bathtub.”
Herb said, “I’m very cautious in my bathtub.”
* * *
“Jim!”
“What? What?” He had fallen asleep. His eyes opened and he saw Herb bending over him and beyond Herb, Mike Lynton at the bar replenishing his Drambuie. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s so warm in here.” Lynton left the bar to open a window.
As he did so, Lynton said, “Nana Lewis is the smartest one of the four of them. Maybe she won’t become a big star, but once she makes it, she’ll last a lot longer than the others playing supporting roles.
“You don’t remember Nathan Taft at all?”
“I remember Nana being here with some guy, but if that was Taft, he’s just a blur to me.”
“That’s a hell of an epitaph,” said Herb.
Mike Lynton said, “You know how many people come to this place in a night? You think I can remember all of them? Taft doesn’t strike a bell. And as for this Takawhatever the hell his name is, we don’t get much Oriental trade here at all.”
“That’s surprising. They’re big gamblers,” said Herb. “Maybe you should advertise in the Oriental papers.”
Mike laughed. “I’m doing just fine without them. How’s Gable and Lombard? I don’t see them anymore. I miss them. They’re lovely people.”
* * *
Carole’s face was aglow. “Did Mike really say that? Did he really? Did you hear that, Pappy? Mike Lynton said we’re lovely people.” She glared at Hazel, who was taking notes. “Damn it, Hazel, do you have to write down everything?”
“My memory’s not all that good,” explained Hazel. “So I try to write down everything and in the morning I sift through my notes looking for the nuggets. Like Nana Lewis met Nathan Taft and Mala Anouk knew that Japanese.”
“Takameshuga,” Herb Villon said.
“You don’t have to tell me. I’ve got it written down at home.”
Carole was pacing the small office. She asked Groucho, “Did you see Lydia the night she disappeared?”
“If I had I’d have told Herb. In fact I will tell Herb, she stood me up. I was expecting her at my house for a quiet evening of dinner and then a game of gin. Then I chase Lydia around the room. She called to say she’d be late. She apologized and frankly, I was suspicious she was having a drink with another guy. Actually, I was grateful she’d be late as I’d had a tough day rehearsing some scenes with Margaret Dumont. You know we test some of our routines in vaudeville houses and Margaret’s getting a little old, she’s having memory problems.”
Carole said, “Don’t you dare drop her for somebody else!”
“Drop her? I can’t even lift her!”
Carole said, “Don’t be mean, Groucho. She’s as important to you as your brothers. Even more important. Her timing is better than theirs.”
“You keep your mitts off my brothers’ timing. The only person in this business who can time a laugh better than my brothers can is Bill Fields. In fact he never seems to know he’s timing a laugh. It’s all instinctive with him. I’m thinking of killing him. Except there�
�s no point in bothering. He’s half shot from too many shots. He’s been begging us to do another version of Robin Hood with me as Robin and Bill as Friar Tuck. Can you see Margaret as Maid Marian? Of course you can’t. Who can? She can play Marian if Marian was triplets.” He grabbed Carole’s hand and kissed it, moving up to her wrist and then to her elbow, of which he commented, “This is one of my favorite joints.” Carole pushed him away because the look on Clark’s face was one of complete displeasure. Imagine anybody being jealous of Groucho. But on the other hand, he had stolen Lydia away from Mike Lynton. And what about Mike Lynton? She asked Herb Villon, “What about Mike Lynton?”
“I told you we had a session with him.”
“I know. But something’s missing. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who lets anything slip through his fingers, let alone Lydia Austin. Groucho, didn’t he even threaten you?”
“The only Marx he can threaten is Chico who’s into him for a fistful of markers. Chico places bets on numbers that have yet to be invented. And then there’s Karl Marx.”
Carole squeaked, “You’re not related to Karl Marx!”
“Of course I’m not. Don’t we boys have enough trouble? Has anyone checked to see if Lynton has a record? Maybe one by Bing Crosby? The Andrews Sisters? Kate Smith? Now I positively could never pick up Kate Smith.”
Herb Villon said, while wishing Groucho would find some excuse for a quick exit, “We know he has the mayor and the D.A. in his pocket, but he doesn’t seem to lean on them too often. Clark, did you know him in New York back in the twenties?”
“Oh sure. We all knew Mike, all the Broadway gang I hung out with. We used to play cards a lot, shoot craps…” When you weren’t in bed with the ladies, thought Carole. “Take a flutter on the ponies. Mike Lynton was barely in his twenties when I met him. He was well heeled, a slick dresser, always a different girl on his arm. His people were upper class but they didn’t approve of him. I think his father was a corporation lawyer. I met his family once, at the opening night of Sophie Treadwell’s play Machinal. I co-starred with Zita Johann.”
Carole asked sweetly, “How did she rate in bed?”
“I don’t think she did much rating in bed, she just slept. Ask her husband. He’s John Housman. He’s out here with the boy wonder, Orson Welles.” And he added, glaring at Carole, “and I don’t know how he rates in bed either.”
“He wants me to do Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie with him. I don’t think it’ll ever get done. Too raunchy. Did you know the character of Sister Carrie is based on Louise Dresser?” asked Carole.
Hazel’s eyes widened. “Our Louise Dresser? Who’s done pictures with Will Rogers, to name a few?”
Carole was pleased she could on occasion one-up Hazel. “Dreiser’s brother was a writer of popular songs like ‘My Gal Sal.’ He was Paul Dresser. Louise was his girlfriend, to be polite about it, and she took his last name. I suppose he gave her permission.” Hazel was swiftly taking notes and wondering what other obscure show biz tidbits Carole harbored.
Clark asked with an edge to his voice, “Why don’t we get back to Mike Lynton?” Carole caught the look he flashed her. She had somehow displeased him but Clark’s displeasures had a tendency to disappear when she withheld her favors.
“Everybody! We’re going back to Mike Lynton,” Carole announced. “Now where did we leave him? Oh yes. Opening night of Machinal.” She said to Gable, “Am I right in assuming he was there with his mother and father?” She was rewarded with another ferocious look from her husband. “Who else was in the party, Pappy?” She’d be damned if she’d call him “darling” with all those threatening looks he was giving her.
“Mike’s kid sister.”
“Hallelujah; He has a sister!” cried Carole.
“Had a sister,” said Clark. “Her name was Loretta.”
“‘Had’? ‘Was’?” Carole held Clark in her gaze. “It sounds like she’s dead.”
“She’s dead,” said Clark. “She committed suicide in October of ’29, at about the time the stock market crashed. And when she killed herself, Mike crashed. He cared a lot about Loretta and she did for him.”
“If you’ve got something sick to tell us,” said Carole, “I don’t want to hear it.”
Four
“It was Loretta who was sick,” said Clark. “She had a slight touch of nymphomania. The family booked her with an alienist but he couldn’t help her. Mike thought she didn’t want any help. She wanted to screw to hell and gone. She had an occasional steady, but they soon bored her. I won’t say any more because it’s a very unpleasant story. Her death was very unpleasant. She drank lye and it didn’t kill her instantly.”
“Christ,” whispered Carole and wondered how Hazel could continue taking notes so matter-of-factly. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Matter of fact, she looked like Lydia Austin,” said Clark.
Groucho folded his hands in his lap and stared at them.
“I went to the funeral,” said Clark. “It was a big, fancy affair in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. Everybody was there from Mayor Jimmy Walker to Jack Dempsey and Walter Winchell.” Carole assumed Loretta had been to bed with all of them and then hated herself for what she was thinking.
Groucho said huskily, “That must be her picture on the sideboard in Mike’s office.”
“That’s Loretta,” said Clark.
“And I always thought it was Lydia. And if Lydia and Loretta were look-alikes, I’m harboring a very sick thought. Anybody interested in sailing into the harbor?”
Hazel said animatedly, “I hope you’re not thinking he kidnapped Lydia because she looked like Loretta.”
“I’ve heard of crazier motives,” said Groucho.
“Well, you can scrub this one,” said Carole. “Mike Lynton’s no kidnapper! Or murderer! Or anything else like that. He’s a nice, sweet gangster, and that’s that, so there.” She turned to Herb Villon. “You’ve got some smart instincts, Herb, what’s your guess?”
“My guess is that a guy who owns a gambling casino wouldn’t go in for anything so risky as kidnapping. Especially Mike Lynton, who I’m sure doesn’t need the money and would most certainly not take the risk.”
“You see!” cried Carole triumphantly.
Clark asked with a soupçon of suspicion, “Why all this championing of Mike Lynton?”
“Because you’ve been trying to put him in the hot seat and I know how it feels to get your behind singed in that situation,” said Carole.
Groucho said staunchly, “Anyone who singes your behind will have to answer to me!”
Carole resumed, “It’s not pleasant in any situation but in this town it’s just plain awful. When Lansing Brown shot Russ—”
“—by accident,” interjected Hazel.
“Bullshit.” Carole spat the word. “He killed Russ because Russ wanted to marry me and Lansing wasn’t about to give up Russ. The studio, with the help of the cops, if you’ll forgive me, Herb…”
“Forgiven.”
“… cooked up the story of the boys examining an antique gun they didn’t know was loaded. Lansing knew every gun in his collection. He was worse about them than any girl with a collection of dolls. But for a while there, the buzz was that I was in the house with them and I blew my top when I realized the boys were lovers. Realized! Ha! You had to be deaf, dumb, and blond not to know what was going on.” She sighed. “I thought it was rather sweet. Russ was too young to die. Why just think of it! He might have been sitting here with us!”
“Or kidnapped,” suggested Hazel.
“Oh, go sharpen a pencil,” snapped Carole.
“Well, Oscar Levitt is certainly getting a lot of mileage out of Lydia’s disappearance,” said Hazel. “A day doesn’t go by that Darkness in Hollywood doesn’t get a mention in the papers.”
Clark asked wisely, “But has it gotten him a distributor?” Independent producers were always scrambling for a studio to distribute their product. The more fortu
nate ones, such as Walter Wanger, Hal Roach, and Edward Small, were under the umbrella United Artists provided. But it wasn’t that easy for a Johnny-come-lately like Oscar Levitt, who had yet to land some sort of star name to decorate his marquee.
Carole said, “Why do I suspect Oscar has offered Mike Lynton a piece of the action if he’ll put up the money to pay a couple of half-assed names?”
“Don’t be rude, honey,” cautioned Clark. “One of these days we may be listed among the half-assed.”
“Not me!” insisted Carole. “Not me ever. I rose from the ranks of the half-assed and I have no intention of ever returning. My God, Pappy, doesn’t it just kill you when you’re doing a party scene and among the extras are once-famous names grateful for a day’s pay when once they earned millions? Oh, this is such a cruel business!” Her eyes misted and she yelled at Gable, “Well, the least you can do is offer me your handkerchief.”
“I forgot to bring one.” Hazel handed Carole a tissue.
“No handkerchief! No gun! Honest to God, Pappy, what’s happening to you?”
And I don’t have a ham and cheese on me, so?”
“You old poop!” sniffled Carole as she dried her eyes, blew her nose, and then asked Hazel if she wanted the tissue back.
“No thanks,” said Hazel, suppressing a shudder. “I have more in my handbag.”
Clark asked Villon and Mallory, “When are you guys going to go hunting with us?”
Villon fixed him with a stony stare. “What do you think we’re doing now?”
Carole snapped, “Put that in your pipe.”
Groucho said, “He also forgot to bring a pipe. Gable, you’re hopeless.”
“You lay off Pappy!” said Carole angrily.
Villon said firmly, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not upset that you have to leave now.”
Carole said, “Herb, you’ve been a dear. It was nice of you to let us take up so much of your time.”
Groucho said to Herb, “Come on over to my place and take up some of my time. Because my time is your time and your time is my time and whatever became of Rudy Vallee? That cheapskate! Do you know he has a pay telephone in his living room? If you need to use it you have to have a nickel. I have fed it many a slug in my time. So hello, I must be going!” He went gliding out of the office.