You would. You’d think, how am I special, and you’d think maybe you weren’t. Maybe it was a mistake.
CHAPTER 26
What Happened to Hepburn? Is she really different, as some say, from the hard-to-manage gal she used to be?
—Photoplay, November 1940
Marty dropped me at the Gardens. On the street, the lampposts had become Christmas trees, and I didn’t stand on Hollywood Boulevard anymore. Yesterday it had turned into Santa Claus Lane, and it would remain Santa Claus Lane until after Christmas. I was in jail and had missed the Santa Claus Lane Parade, Roy Rogers, Rudy Vallee singing, everything.
“You might make your second show,” Marty said. The second Hail the Indians show. I heard the orchestra from the Zanzibar Room as soon as I opened the car door.
“No revue on Sundays. I’m tired. Sleeping on concrete is tiring.”
“We got you out as soon as we could, but Thanksgiving—”
“I know. Thank you, Marty. I’m tired.” I swung my feet from the car to the sidewalk.
“Penny—”
“What happened to my mom?”
“Huh?”
“When I got arrested, this second time, I mean, my mom and sister were there. Where’d they go?”
“Nowhere,” Marty said. “Missy gave them a studio tour. I wasn’t there, of course. I’m repeating what she told me.”
“She had Conejos arrest me and then she took my family on a tour.” Inside the Zanzibar Room, horns bleated Paul Whiteman. Horns and a bass thumped, loud enough to make me pull my legs back inside Marty’s car and shut the door.
“She’s on your side,” Marty said. “Missy, I mean, not your mom. Sure, she’d drop you if it saved Bob, but that’s all cleared up now. You’ve got to realize how hard it is for someone like Missy. Her entire life is ruled by studios, so she’s going to protect the one thing she can control.”
“Bob.”
“Well, yes—as far as Bob and MGM will let her.”
“And in a few years you’ll handle the divorce.” The car was too dark to see Marty blush, but I hoped he did. The Christmas trees on Santa Claus Lane didn’t give as much light as before, when they were streetlamps.
“If she allows me the honor of representing her, yes, I’ll handle the divorce.”
“I mean,” I said, “you’ve handled Joan’s already, and Stany and Joan are best friends.”
“You can call her Missy,” he said. “Everyone does.”
“You’re disgusting. You’re like lice on a cow.”
He waited a bit, then: “Get out of my car, Penny. I was going to thank you for keeping your mouth shut earlier this evening. Now I realize you have no control over your mouth. Don’t slam the door. I hate door slammers.”
I shut his door. I tried not to slam it, to show him my perfect control. He gassed the car and the motor roared, then he was gone, and I saw I wasn’t alone on Santa Claus Lane with the Gardens orchestra leaking sound. Across the street, between traffic, I saw a squad car. Hollywood Division. Joe Flores in the front seat, watching me. He might have parked there for hours, waiting for me to get home.
I could have left him parked, ignored him, but I didn’t. I was tired and filthy. My hip was sore where one of the hookers had kicked me. My back hurt. I wanted to hit Joe Flores, who sat clean and awake in his squad car. He watched me until he saw me run toward him, then he faced the windshield and wouldn’t turn.
I pounded a fist on the window. I pounded two fists. I yelled, “Open this window. Roll it down. I’m not leaving until you roll it down.”
He rolled down the window about four inches, face toward the windshield, not looking.
“I hate you. Understand? I hate you following me everywhere, looking at me, thinking, She’s a killer, I’d better follow her all day. I see you at the studio. What did you find out? Am I a killer? Bastard. You’re a cop bastard.” I hit the window again and then I left him like that, staring at the windshield.
I entered the Gardens by the side door, straight into the Zebra Lounge. Two black-haired headliners drank at the bar. Other people sat in the lounge, a few at tables, nobody I recognized. I was looking for Granny or Madge. I limped from my sore hip, and my knuckles hurt from banging on Joe’s window.
“Finally,” said a city voice. Madge sat behind me, in a booth. A Career Girl sat beside her, crying. Madge wore a winter white cape from the right side of the closet. She slid out of the booth. “How is jail? Same as you left it last time?”
“Now you’re making Career Girls cry?”
“Naw. They don’t need help. Crying comes naturally to them.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’ll be dandy.”
“Where’s Granny? Do I still have a job?”
“You’re still Cree Girl, goddamn you. At least, I think so. I think Granny likes you. He must be attracted to jailbirds. However, I don’t know about your job at Paramount, because Abbott was pissed almighty when Joe dragged you off again. Even Zukor heard about it. You’d have a better chance of keeping jobs if you could time your arrests.”
“I was looking for you,” I said.
“Granny said you’d got out. I have to talk.”
“My brother took my place in jail. He confessed to the break-in at Stany’s. And my lawyer, he should have confessed. He’s a bigger thief than Will. Oh, and Stany thought Bob Taylor killed Rose.”
“Bob is it now? Bob? Sit down. I’ll kick out the Career Girl. I need that drink. Do you have any money?”
“Not a cent.”
“Goddamn cops. They probably searched your bag and took everything. Sit down, you look awful. Oh, and guess what I borrowed from Apache? A bottle of gin. It’s nearly full. We’ll have drinks here and then go to our room for real drinks. Your dress is ruined. We can try vinegar on that bloodstain, but I’ll bet it won’t work. That’s a damn shame. Who beat you up? Don’t you get baths in jail?”
“Are you sure I’m still Cree? I need to make sure. Where’s Granny? Is he around? Let me look in the Zanzibar. Get the drinks.”
“Detective Conejos was here on Thanksgiving. He searched our room.”
“He searched? What for?”
“The closet. Your side, to be exact. He tried to search my side. He said the clothes were stolen, can you believe it? I tried to tell him they’d been passed down from our good friend Rosemary.”
“Then why are you wearing the cape?”
“You’re lucky to have me,” Madge said. “Lucky I was there, able to tell him which clothes were stolen and which were mine. Rosemary didn’t steal much. A few items, a blouse and hat. I pointed them out, he took them, and the closet’s still full.” Madge pulled the hood of her cape up and over her hair. She looked like a huge moth. She looked pretty, a little mysterious, her face shadowed from the dim bar light. The two headliners at the bar had turned to watch Madge in her hood, and Madge knew they’d turned to watch her, and she loved it. She winked at me.
“Drinks,” she said. “And I need to talk.”
“Did Zukor find your parents?”
“Zukor. I hate him. I read that Nazis are releasing ten thousand French. But what about Americans? I’ve been calling Zukor all day. Have you seen him?”
“No. Just my slimy lawyer.”
“Your lawyer? Here? God, I miss Riverside. I miss my bedroom. You know how good this cape would look in my closet?” She grabbed my wrist and pulled close. “See Granny. Come back fast, okay? I’ll get rid of the Career Girl. Promise me. Come back fast.”
I left Madge in the Zebra. I promised her, and I left. I opened the connecting door between Zebra and Zanzibar and searched for Granny. He stood by the lobby door talking to a starlet I recognized from some movie—Charlie Chan, I think. She might have been cast as a victim. She wasn’t important. The victims die pretty early in Charlie Chans. Granny saw me and waved.
“Please, Granny.” I started talking before I’d made it through tables and across the room. “I need the job. I’ll be the
best Cree.”
“I didn’t fire you,” he said. “I should have.” He squeezed my arm, and I followed him away from the starlet. “Breaking into Missy’s house, what were you thinking?”
“I didn’t break in,” I said, but the orchestra began “I’ll Never Smile Again,” and Granny couldn’t hear me above the trumpets. I could barely hear him, and he was yelling.
“Missy called twice. First she told me to kick you out in the cold, no paycheck, nothing. I was quite prepared to do it, too, but she called again and said she’d changed her mind. If she weren’t Barbara Stanwyck I’d kick you out anyway, and I still might if you screw up the routine again. Madge told me you stole hairpins from the Apache headdress. Yes, she told me, no denying it now. You know how much those headdresses cost? I need more girls like Madge and a few less girls who steal and cause trouble. Come with me.”
Madge said what? We cut through the Zanzibar, through tables with diners who glanced up, watched me and my filthy dress and hair, and sawed at their roast beef. The starlet sat with whatever single man 20th Century Fox had forced her to date. She watched Granny and me cut through the room, and I watched her eat chicken and boiled potatoes. Some chicken fell from her fork, and her date said something I didn’t hear and didn’t have to hear because I knew it exactly. Is that how a star eats? Dear God, do I have to be seen with a pig? It’s what any guy would have said. The girl should stab her chicken instead of scoop it.
In the Zanzibar’s corner, Granny opened the greenroom door. “Start with the clothes rack. All those outfits need to be rehung and then alphabetized. And why the hell is Charlotte’s skirt on the floor? Get the costumes done, and then wipe the counters. I can’t walk through the room without face powder all over my suit. Why the look? You’re not pouting, are you? You want your job? You missed Thanksgiving night, huge Indian night, you should have been here. I had to dress a barmaid as Cree Girl, and she didn’t know the steps. Plus she kept burping. You know how embarrassed I was? Clean this room.”
“Madge said it was me? Madge said it?”
“Thank God I can count on her for the truth.”
He left me in the greenroom. I could have gone back to the Zebra, gotten the drinks and Madge, and then cleaned the greenroom while we drank and talked. If Madge hadn’t blamed me for the headdress, I would have gone to the Zebra and fetched her. I should have. But I was mad. I hadn’t touched Apache’s hairpins, and I knew Madge wanted to be Granny’s new niece, and being a tattletale is like a niece without sex. Madge wasn’t about to tattle on herself, so she used me. I was in trouble anyway. I’d been arrested as a murderess and thief. Therefore, I probably sabotaged the Apache headdress. Sabotage was one step worse than murder, as far as Granny was concerned. Kill my girls—I can replace them—but don’t fuck with my costumes.
I alphabetized the Indian costumes. It’s not hard to do when each tribe is sequined across the chest, Apache to Zuni. Then I wet my dress in the sink and wiped the counters with it, still wearing the dress, using the skirt as a rag. All that lovely lavender gabardine. I pulled off the gold pocket braid so the counters didn’t get scratched. I’d ruined the dress in jail. I was filthy already, and the dress made a fine dusting rag.
I worked on the greenroom for about forty minutes. Granny never came back. I’d added dust and cosmetics to my skirt and attractive sweat to the armpits, so I left by the stage door, out the back of the greenroom to a hallway, and then outside to the alley where Rose’s body was found. The dust in the greenroom had made me start wheezing, not bad but enough to notice. The chill outside made me rub my arms.
I circled the Gardens to the Zebra Lounge door again. Madge wasn’t there. She’d gone; she’d drunk both drinks and bought more, drunk them and waited for me, and waited, and then bought a shot of whiskey, then left, the bartender said. She’d walked unsteady and forgot her nice cape, the bartender said, then came back for the cape and wrapped it tight. Good thing, he said, those girls at the bar were eyeing the cape and one had moved close to it, but then Madge came back for the cape. Too bad I didn’t have a cape, he said. Cold outside at the end of November. I’d freeze in two hours the way I was dressed. I needed a blanket and coat. Didn’t girls on the street know how to get by these days?
I was wearing my Girl on the Street dress, pockets torn, slept in, collar ruined by the hooker who threw me at a wall. In the Zebra Lounge, the black-haired headliners sat at the bar and dreamed of Monte Carlo. The Career Girl was gone.
I’d find Madge and apologize. I’d wake her, and we’d drink Apache’s gin. She’d talk, because that’s what she’d wanted, to talk to me, to see me listening. After all, her parents were lost. She was homesick. And who cared about hairpins? I wasn’t mad anymore. The Zebra was still and empty, the headliners sad, bartender tired. I felt my heart knocking around for no reason. I went to the dorms.
* * *
Once, I don’t know when, the dorms had been a family house with three floors, shingled and boxy, one family living there with farmland around them instead of busy Hollywood Boulevard. They didn’t know the boulevard would run west and east along the side of their house, with the Florentine Gardens in front, so they planned their main door facing east. Their front door now faced nothing, faced the brick side of the next building. The farmhouse’s backside squeezed another building, but once, I don’t know when, it faced farmland there, too, so the family had built an outside deck off the third floor.
They could sit on warm nights and look at their farm. They could climb stairs directly from outside to the deck, to a door, so Mr. Farmer could come from the fields straight upstairs and get changed instead of tracking mud through Mrs. Farmer’s clean floors. Thoughtful of Mr. Farmer.
I tell you this so you’ll know what I saw. No night is dark on Hollywood Boulevard, not even when it’s Santa Claus Lane. The Christmas trees make the night gray, not black, and shadows are larger, and so are the dark corners where Christmas trees don’t reach. There’s always an orchestra on the other side of a door. Most evenings klieg lights pass over and about, drawing people to Hollywood to a premiere or opening, and if you’re not there, you’re nothing, you might as well leave town, that’s what the klieg lights say. Drunk flyboys sing on the boulevard, strolling from bar to bar. Long Rolls-Royces drop off fur coats with people inside them. Those people don’t know they’re on farmland. I wonder if Madge knew.
I saw her on the stairs at the back of the dorm. She faced downward, sprawled, one arm over her head and the other touching the dirt at the stairs’ base. The white cape covered her body and most of her legs. Her feet, what I could see of them, looked wrong, like she’d gotten in a fight with her feet, like she’d been headed downstairs but her feet kept going up. And her head, face to the stairs and turned enough my way to make me scream. Her mouth hung open, and all that dirty brown hair, thrown free of her wool hood by the fall, stuck to her mouth and tongue. Blood dripped out of her right eye.
I kept thinking, I wonder what crop they planted here. Was it corn or summer melon or—what did they see, those farmers, when they sat on their deck and looked west, when nights here were black and not gray, when the farmer respected his wife’s clean floors and climbed those same stairs to their bedroom? I wish I’d thought, Madge is dead. She fell down the stairs, but I didn’t. I kept thinking, Crops, what kind?
CHAPTER 27
Woman-skin owes its witchery to that tender look and feel, so different from a man’s.
—Photoplay, November 1940
“You could have pushed her,” Joe Flores said.
“We all could have. Maybe it was you.”
“You’re not crying,” Joe said. Behind him, Detective Conejos stretched a measuring tape from Madge’s feet to the top of the stairs. A cop stood on the deck with the tape end.
“I’m sorry. I’m probably too tired to cry. I tried to get teary before you got here so I’d look how I feel, but I’m dry inside. I’ll try crying tomorrow.”
“It makes you look guilty
, not crying. And now you’re sarcastic. You say you found her dead, but she’s your friend and you can’t get one tear out.”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “See me tomorrow.”
“About thirty feet,” said Conejos. “If she fell from the deck to where she landed. She might have slid or rolled down the stairs. You didn’t touch her?”
“No,” I said.
“Bartender says she was drunk.” Joe Flores was the first cop on the scene. Not hard to be first when you’re parked across the street waiting for something to happen.
“How about you two?” Conejos asked.
In the crowd of people around the stairs—most of the Gardens staff and a few revue girls—the two black-haired headliners nodded. One said, “She drank by herself in the bar. We thought she was crazy, ordering two drinks. She’d drink hers, then the one for her invisible friend.”
A laugh, agreement from the other headliner. “Her invisible friend threw her down the stairs.”
Conejos looked at me.
“No,” I said. “I am not her invisible friend.”
“She was crazy, then,” he said. “Climbs these stairs and throws herself down.”
“She was in the bar waiting for me.”
“And you were—”
“Cleaning the greenroom.” My stomach and throat folded inside me. She was my friend.
“I’ll bet you were alone,” Conejos said. “In the greenroom alone, no one to watch you, with a back door so you could sneak out, run to the dorm, throw Madge down some stairs, sneak back to the greenroom and finish cleaning. Every mess you’ve been in, you’re sneaky.”
The Glamorous Dead Page 15