by George Baxt
Carole clucked her tongue. “Poor Julius, trying so hard to shield his aching heart. Oh my God! Those poor boys!”
“What poor boys?” asked Herb.
“Our bodyguards!” said Carole brightly. “Roy and Sammy. They’re sitting outside protecting the desk sergeant. Well, we’ll show them a good time at the party.”
Clark froze where he was standing. “What party?”
“Miriam’s. Have you forgotten? How could you forget? Miriam doesn’t give parties very often. She’s always too broke. Now she has a new contract at Warner Brothers and this one’s by way of celebration.”
“Miriam Hopkins?” asked Gable.
Hands on hips, Carole said, “Well the only other Miriam I know is Miriam Rabinowitz, the masseuse. And she’s not doing so hot these days because she’s started to rub people the wrong way. Bye, Herb. Bye, Jim. If you boys get any fresh leads, be sure to tell us. Hazel, you coming or staying?”
“I need a word with Herb.” Herb’s eyes crossed.
“So long, kids,” said Clark, and he hurried Carole out of Villon’s office.
Hazel shut the door after them and said to the detectives, “Now how about that Loretta Lynton story?”
“You’re not going to try and sell it?” queried Herb ominously.
“Of course not,” said Hazel, “I can’t think of who might buy it. Now you listen to me, Herb Villon, you haven’t forgotten you’re taking me to the Hopkins party.”
“I didn’t say positively!”
“Well, I did, and Jim is my witness.”
“To what?” asked Jim, feeling slightly addled. Hazel always moved too fast for him and at the moment he was not about to get himself into one of their imbroglios.
Hazel said, “I’m going home to change and I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Hazel!” Herb yelled her name. “I’m not sure I can go!”
“Well, be sure by the time I get back!” She put her notebook in her handbag and left.
Herb leaned back in his chair and exhaled.
Jim asked, “You going to the party?”
“Probably.”
“Can I come too?”
“Sure, Jim. There’s bound to be lots of pretty girls for you to flirt with. But you never get serious about any of them.”
“Sure I do. But the ones I like are never available.”
“You should be grateful for that. I’ve seen a lot of the ones you like.” Jim didn’t remonstrate. Herb shuffled some papers on his desk. “I hope he doesn’t.”
Jim, perplexed, asked, “I hope who doesn’t what?”
“Gable. I hope he doesn’t knock Lombard around.”
“She’d beat the crap out of him!” said Jim heatedly. Why, the very thought of anyone laying a hand on one of the many actresses he secretly loved and idolized was enough to send him charging into battle with a fixed bayonet.
“Ida Lupino didn’t beat the crap out of him.”
“Come on, Herb. He didn’t beat up Lupino!”
“It was pathetic. They were having a very quiet romance, never appearing in public together. He was afraid Ria would find out. Don’t look at me like you suspect I’m betraying my country.”
“I like Gable. Now you’re making me not like him. You’re making it up.”
“No, that’s straight from the horse’s mouth—Hazel.”
“There was never anything about it in the papers.”
“For once Hazel decided to keep a civil tongue in her typewriter. Gable’s the king and you’re asking for trouble when you try to dethrone a king. Lupino’s mother told Hazel because she wanted Hazel to do something about it. Hazel went straight to Gable. Bearded the lion in his den. He didn’t deny it but he also warned her to squelch the item. His boss is Louis B. Mayer and Louis thinks very little of destroying anybody who crosses him. He wrecked John Gilbert, Francis X. Bushman, and Mae Murray, to name a chosen few. Clark warned Hazel that Mayer would think nothing of having her erased.” He drew an index finger across his throat and Mallory felt his mouth go dry. “So Hazel pigeonholed the story until she decides to write her tell-all book.”
Herb sat back in his chair. “Hazel called on Lupino to get her side of the story. It wasn’t pleasant. Lupino was sitting and staring at her phone, her fingers twisting a handkerchief, bruises on her face, one eye blackened. And when Hazel asked her, ‘What about Gable?’ her eyes never left the phone. When she finally spoke, Hazel said it spooked her. The voice wasn’t Lupino’s, not the Lupino voice that Hazel was familiar with. Lupino said, ‘He doesn’t phone, he doesn’t write…’ and burst into tears. “Damn it!” Herb exploded. “Ain’t some women something?” He was lighting a cigarette while staring at Jim, who looked as though he had just discovered his parish priest was a Nazi spy.
“Jim,” said Villon softly. Jim looked at him. “Kid, there are a lot of closets in Hollywood, and they’re all filled with skeletons. I’ve seen a lot of those skeletons. Gable is still playing around. He has a harem at Metro. Lana Turner, Virginia Grey, Judy Garland … yeah, yeah, yeah … he’s been over her rainbow too.”
Jim gulped and said, “I guess that’s why she sang ‘Dear Mr. Gable.’”
“She was paid for doing that one. Enough of this, let’s get back to our missing people. Seven Japanese, three Caucasians and Lydia Austin.” He tapped on the desk with a pencil. “Nathan Taft fascinates me.”
“Export and import is fascinating?”
“It is when he zeroes in on an innocent little Eskimo tootsie. Except I don’t think she’s all that innocent.”
“She chews blubber.”
“That’s just a filthy habit as far as I’m concerned. I think she knows more than she’s been telling.”
“Herb.”
“What?”
“Nathan Taft zeroed in on Nell Corday. It was Takameshuga who dated the Eskimo. Funny you should get them mixed up.”
Herb looked at the notes he had written down after interviewing the three girls. “Funny, I’ve got Mala Anouk written down next to Nathan Taft. Now why the hell did I do that?”
“Maybe you were suspecting the Anouk kid had also played around with Taft.”
“And none of them mentioned Oscar Nolan, the third missing man.” He got out of his chair and started pacing, hands laced together behind his back, a frown on his face. “Nana Lewis seems smarter than all of them. I’d like to talk to her alone.” He unlaced his hands and folded his arms in front of him, briefly the picture of a stern headmaster. “Jim, phone Nana Lewis and invite her to Miriam Hopkins’ beach party.”
“But I’m not even invited!”
“I invited you. And you decided to bring a date. And that date is Nana Lewis. You’ve got the phone number.”
Jim brought out the pad on which he scribbled notes and found the number. He crossed to his desk, sat, and dialed. It rang five times and Jim was about to hang up when he heard “Hello?” and recognized Nana Lewis’s voice. He cleared his throat and responded.
“Hello? Nana Lewis?”
“Yes?”
“Er … this is Detective Mallory. Jim Mallory.”
“Oh sure.” She was reclining on the couch, wearing shorts and a halter, a sexual vision it’s just as well Jim couldn’t see. “Should I be glad to hear from you or not?”
“I’m not calling on official business. This is a social call.”
“Oh yes? Well, there’s social and there’s social.” She was being careful. She was suspicious and wondering what he was after.
Jim cleared his throat again. Herb was amused at the way he was floundering. Jim said, “Well, it’s like this. Herb Villon, my partner, and I were just invited to a cocktail party Miriam Hopkins is throwing on the beach at Malibu. You see, she has this house in Malibu and Herb’s girlfriend is Hazel Dickson, who knows all the stars, and I said to Herb I don’t have a date and he said why don’t you ask one of Carole’s girls and I thought about you and here I am.”
Nana Lewis smiled. Both detectives were attr
active. She’d had the opportunity to size them up; if she had her druthers she’d select Herb Villon, but his liaison with Hazel Dickson was a Hollywood legend and one of these days she might need Hazel Dickson, so she wasn’t about to step where angels fear. On the other hand, Jim Mallory was handsome and healthy, she assumed, and why not? She spoke into the phone, “You know, it’s very funny. When you phoned I was doing my yoga lesson, and frankly, I was hoping some nice guy would phone and ask me out to dinner.”
Jim said hastily, “Oh yes! Dinner too!”
Villon was thinking, Smart girl, Miss Lewis. If I was Carole Lombard, I’d put my money on her.
“I need some time to get ready,” said Nana. “Why don’t you pick me up in about an hour. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the way here?”
“I haven’t forgotten. I’ll be there in an hour. See you.” He hung up and there was a silly grin on his face. “That was too easy.”
“You handled her beautifully,” said Herb. “Hazel knows the girls. Carole got her to interview them, so while Nana Lewis will come as a bit of a surprise to her, she won’t be a shock.”
Jim said, “Nana was hoping for a date while she was practicing her yoga.”
Herb’s shoulders slumped. “One of those. We had a case once where some broad practicing yoga was raped in the lotus position.”
“What’s that?” asked Mallory.
“Convenient.”
* * *
“I wish you wouldn’t sulk when you’re driving,” Clark said to Carole.
“I’m not sulking. I’m thinking about the girls. Call it intuition, call it a hunch, but I think they know more about Lydia’s disappearance than they’re telling. When four young kids are living together under one roof it isn’t easy to keep many secrets. I knew Mala Anouk was dating Takameshuga and Nell Corday was dating Nathan Taft. I wonder if they ever double-dated.” She bore down on the horn as a DeSoto went whizzing past and then cut in front of her. She lowered her window and let loose a stream of oaths that the driver of the DeSoto couldn’t hear but which gave her satisfaction.
“One of these days I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap,” said Clark.
“I wouldn’t try it, Pappy, not unless you want a certain appendage shortened, which it can ill afford.”
“One of these days I might decide to wallop you.”
“Don’t even think about it,” she warned him. “Bill Powell once took a swipe at me and I kicked him where he lived.” She chuckled. “He didn’t have much savoir-faire while he was screaming and holding his crotch.” She raised her window and said, “Pappy? If I was kidnapped, how much ransom would you offer to pay?”
“The studio would offer the ransom.”
“And you wouldn’t offer any?”
“Louis B. Mayer loves me. He hates Wally Beery but he loves me.”
“He hates Wally Beery? Why does he hate him? His pictures bring in as much money as yours.”
“The hell they do!”
“The hell they don’t. We have the same accountant and he tells me how much everybody makes and he also tells me which stars are hygienically unsanitary. Hee hee hee!”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You better. John Barrymore takes a bath maybe once a month, if even that much. When I did Twentieth Century with him, by the fifth day of shooting I couldn’t stand the smell and I went to Harry Cohn and read him the riot act, Harry had three of his hoodlums throw Barrymore into a bath and they rubbed his skin raw. Poor bastard. Look at him now. So pissed out of his skin he never knows what day it is and that Elaine Barrie and her mother bleeding him dry. I’d invite him over but I don’t think I can face it.” She remembered someone else. “And what about Crawford?”
Gable stormed, “What about her?”
Carole rose to the challenge. “When she first came to Metro, the wardrobe women would pick up her clothes with a stick, they were so filthy.”
“Now that’s nasty!”
Carole agreed. “That’s why they used a stick. Come on, Pappy, admit it. Weren’t there times when you banged her she smelled a little ripe?”
“She perspires a lot!”
“So do we all, but we’ve heard of deodorants. Oh, the hell with Crawford! I want to talk about Lydia Austin. Did she really look like Loretta Lynton or were you just making that up?”
He said softly, “Loretta Lynton wasn’t someone you made up. She was a living, breathing creature who could take your breath away.”
“And how often did she take yours?”
“There you go again!” he raged.
“Come off it, Pappy. When you talked about her in Herb’s office, clearly you were describing a woman you once went batty over. It wasn’t a description, it was a eulogy. Don’t get mad. I’m not jealous. I mean if she were still alive I’d track her down and kick the shit out of her, but she’s dead and I don’t believe in competing with the dead. I hope she’s resting in peace.” Afterthought, “Unless there’s an afterlife and she still gets horny. Hee hee hee hee!”
Clark slumped in his seat, folded his arms, and said, “I don’t want an afterlife. This one’s been tough enough.”
“I know, sweetheart,” said Carole sympathetically, “all those old ladies you screwed to try and get someplace.”
He jumped up with a fist clenched. “You’re asking for it!”
Carole said threateningly, “Get rid of that fist or I smash into that truck coming in the opposite direction. Oh look! Riding horseback! It’s Margaret Lindsay and Janet Gaynor! I thought that affair was finished.”
“Maybe they meet once a week to reminisce.” He was back to slumping in his seat.
“Now that’s funny, Pappy. Meeting once a week to reminisce, hee hee hee. I’ll have to tell that one to my mother.”
“For crying out loud, it’s not all that funny!”
“Pappy, believe me, coming from you it’s funny. And not many funny things come from you. You’re dear and loving and comforting, but face it, witty you ain’t.” She laughed and freed one hand from the steering wheel to chuck him under the chin. “You’re so adorable when you’re mad.” She mouthed a kiss at him and he smiled weakly. She sure knew how to handle him, bless her heart. None of the others even tried. His first wife wanted him to be a star and his second wife thrived on his celebrity. And now, thank God, Carole.
Carole had gone back to Lydia Austin. If Carole was anything, thought Clark, she’s tenacious. Why didn’t he fall in love with her back in 1932 when they made No Man of Her Own? He gave voice to the question and Carole put Lydia Austin to one side, albeit reluctantly.
“I was still in love with Bill Powell and you were making believe you were in love with Ria. Anyway, I thought you were having it off with Dorothy Mackaill.” Mackaill, a former star at Warner Brothers, was on the skids, but she had saved her money and invested wisely and now occupied the penthouse of a hotel in Honolulu. She gladly accepted the second lead to Lombard in No Man of Her Own, thinking it would lead to better roles in secondary films—a very wise decision that kept her in the spotlight until 1935 when she went to England for some films there.
Clark pooh-poohed the idea of an affair with Mackaill, who was at the time too busy with her affair with Lothar Mendes, a second-rate director who was now largely forgotten. “Dotty’s a nice gal,” said Carole. “And so was Lydia Austin. And…” She went silent.
“What?” asked Gable.
“It just came over me. I think she’s dead.” She pulled up to the side of the road and turned in her seat to Gable. “It’s weird, but I think she’s dead. Dear God, I hope not. It would kill her mother. She dotes on Lydia. The family has no money and they’re betting all their hopes on Lydia. That’s why I was so pleased Oscar Levitt decided to star her in the movie.”
Clark could see her on the verge of sinking into a Lombard depression. Her depressions were famous. She would mope about for days on end and then strangely enough turn to the Bible. He remembered the first time he asked her if
she read the Bible and she said, “Yes I read the Bible. It needs work.”
“Who would want to murder Lydia?” Gable’s brows were knitted and he truly could not understand why Lydia would be a target for murder. “She’s a nice girl. She keeps her nose clean.” Carole was now seated face forward staring through the windshield at the lush San Fernando Valley greenery. It was so placid, so peaceful, so beautiful. How could thoughts of murder dare intrude on this sylvan setting?
Carole finally spoke. Her voice was now soft but insistent. “She was Mike Lynton’s girl before Groucho.”
“So we’re back to Mike Lynton.”
“Yes. It seems that lots of roads lead to Mike Lynton and yet I still don’t think he’s capable of murder. He’s got too good a sense of humor to be a murderer.”
Oh? And how many murderers have you been familiar with?”
“Only Lansing Brown that I know of. And he was a gloomy Gus if ever I knew one. Russ and I were always laughing while Lansing clucked his tongue in disapproval. That bullet hit the wrong man.” She switched on the ignition and headed the car toward their ranch.
“You okay, baby?”
“I wish we could skip Miriam’s. I want to sit and think.”
“You can think at the party.”
“Sure.” Carole brightened. “Sure I can. I like Miriam a lot. She’s all surface but that’s what I think I like about her. She’s sincerely superficial. Like when she disappeared to Palm Desert for four months and returned with a baby she said she had adopted.”
“Meow.”
Carole hee-hee’d. “Well, that’s what she said. I even played along and gave her a baby shower. Oh God!” she howled as she turned into the road that led to their house. “Who the hell had it in for Lydia? I bet Herb Villon is asking himself the same question.”
* * *
Little did Carole realize how prescient she was. Herb wondered aloud in his office, “Why would anybody want to kill Lydia Austin?”
“I wish I knew,” said Jim Mallory. “Then we’d have our murderer.”