The Glamorous Dead

by Suzanne Gates

  “I was alone,” I said. “Granny left me alone in the greenroom. I was there about forty minutes, used the back door just like you said.” And came out here, and found my friend. My drunk and wonderful friend.

  Conejos climbed the couple of stairs from dirt to my friend’s body. He lifted the cape, lifted my friend’s head and twisted it side to side. “Feels like rubber in here. Joe, hand me the flash. No, don’t hand it. Point here, at her chest. See? See what I’m seeing?”

  “A bruise,” Joe said. “Could be a bruise. Hard to tell.”

  “She fell or was pushed,” Conejos said. “An argument and some hitting, she could have stepped back, been too close to the stairs and fell. Someone in the dorm might have heard arguing.”

  “I’ve never seen her on that deck until now,” I said. I couldn’t say her name, I’d folded that inside me, too. “None of us have a reason to climb the stairs. What’s there to see from the deck? Garbage at the back of these buildings? Why would she climb the stairs tonight? It’s cold out.”

  “She has that wool cape,” one of the headliners said. “We noticed the cape right off, in the bar. She was warm in the cape and talking with her imaginary friend. Maybe the friend wanted to climb to the deck.”

  Conejos looked at me.

  “No,” I said. “I am not her imaginary friend. I’m her real friend. I mean, yes, I met her in the bar and we talked for a bit—wait, Detective, let me talk—and then I looked for Granny while Madge bought us drinks. Two drinks, one for me, one for her. Granny sent me to the greenroom. Forty minutes later I ran from the stage door to the bar. Madge had already left.”

  “You were her imaginary friend after all,” Conejos said.

  “I’ve never been on that deck. She wasn’t crazy. She was drunk, but what’s odd about that? She was drunk most of the time. Why would she pick this night to climb to the deck? Joe, you were watching the Gardens. Don’t shake your head. I know you watched, you sat in your car. Did you see her leave? Who else did you see?”

  Conejos looked from me to Joe. “You watched her from your car? Who told you to watch her?”

  Joe pointed the flash at me, in my face. I heard his voice but could see only glare from the flash, so I squinted my eyes.

  “You think she was killed,” Joe said. “You could tell Detective Conejos some nutball story about how she drank too much and fell and we might buy suicide, we might, but you’re saying someone killed her.” His voice sounded different, not mean anymore but like he’d discovered something, like he was trying to understand. “You don’t know how to save yourself, do you? If Madge was killed, you’re a suspect. You know that, right? You don’t have an alibi, and you’re talking yourself right into jail again.”

  Conejos, still looking at Joe, said, “I want to know why you’re watching her.”

  “I’m tired,” I said, and I started to cry, the flash glare making my eyes hot, my face hot. My legs curled beneath me, and I sat hard on the dirt by the stair rail. My friend’s arm hung about five inches from my head. I leaned and touched her arm with my forehead, and although she was empty, I knew she was empty, I was glad to touch her that way. I made her arm rock by pushing it with my head and then pulling back. Her arm swung and hit my forehead, little smacks that woke me and made me cry. I know I can’t make people come alive again. Madge was killed and she’d stay killed, and I could rock her arm and pretend she was thumping me in the forehead. You’re stupid, she’d say. You’re fucking stupid to let me drink alone. I waited for you. All while Joe’s flash burned my eyes.

  “My coat,” Joe said. His coat wrapped my shoulders. Joe didn’t seem there, I barely heard him. I’d left the Gardens. I was with Madge, and somehow I was with my dad, too, because he’d understand why I needed to move Madge’s arm and how badly I needed her arm to hit me. I was with my dad and his little brother. As kids they’d played ball on the same team. Afternoon practice, dad at bat, brother in right field, the ball leaves the bat and shoots straight to his brother, hits him on the chest, and his brother falls before the ball hits the ground.

  Three days in the hospital, my dad held the ball in his hands and sat in a hallway. Nuns carried towels back and forth. The ball had stopped his brother’s heart. But what do you do while you’re waiting, brother’s heart confused, beating slow and then faster? Do you throw the ball out, hide it in the trash and sit with hands empty? Or do you hold the ball because, through that ball, you’re holding your brother, and the only way he’ll live is if you keep tight on the ball, not drop it, not let a nun complain and take it from you, keep holding the one thing, a baseball, that makes you guilty but frees your brother?

  Dad understood. To feel guilty is to feel alive. I’d left Madge in the bar, and I knew she waited for me. I was angry. I let her wait. She’d told a lie and blamed me for a stunt that was hers, so let her wait. Damn her. All that happened next, her leaving the bar, her climb up the stairs and her fall, blame me. I held that ball in my hands. Her arm was more alive on my forehead than I’d felt in three days, bang, her arm hit me, bang, and when Conejos knelt beside me and caught Madge’s arm, I leaned against him, I felt his hand on my dirty jail hair, and I rubbed Madge’s cold hand and kissed her arm by the inside of her elbow.

  I should tell you if my dad’s brother lived, but you probably guessed. Baseballs don’t have that much power.

  CHAPTER 28

  With unusual social implications, the picture tells of three youngsters banded together in business and friendship in a wasted country after the War.

  —Photoplay, August 1938

  Rosemary phoned me at the end of summer a few months after Dad died. I’d just seen her at Godding’s, we’d worked the same shift, and I’d see her again tomorrow, same shift, our schedules the same all week. I didn’t know why she’d call me now. I remember I stood at the telephone desk in our short hallway, more of a foyer, by the stairs, and I played with the light chain so the table lamp switched on, off, on. Each tug and the lamp gave a tiny sst of electric surprise.

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  “Where to?”

  “Inland. It’s best for Aunt Lou. She went to a doctor.”

  “You didn’t tell me. What did the doctor say?”

  “She needs drier air, the desert,” Rosemary said. “We’re too near the beach, and—”

  “Nevada is good. Arizona.”

  “—tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Pen. We’re going tomorrow. Aunt Lou sold her house.”

  I tugged harder on the light chain. The lamp rocked on the desk. “You didn’t tell me. You put up the house and never said one stinking word.”

  “You know how I am, Pen. I’d cry, then you’d cry, then Willie would have all these questions, and we’d all cry, and I can’t take it, Pen. You know I can’t.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “You can write me.” She gave me a post office box number in Pomona. “Tell me how Will does. I’ll miss him.”

  “You’re packed and everything? Did you quit your job?”

  “We’ll be gone early morning.”

  “For how long? When can Aunt Lou come home? If you sold your house, where will you live?”

  “Write me, Pen. You can tell me the news.”

  “There’s dancing this weekend. We have plans. What about your wedding? And peaches to set up. I’ll need help with the peaches. What do I tell Will?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry . . .”

  Our poor table lamp. It was old. Nobody much liked it. Rose wouldn’t say, but she was four months pregnant. I didn’t know at that point. You know those words that fall out of your mouth, like a lamp might fall, those words that have to be said and then later, maybe two years later, you think, why did I say them, why did I think them important, what if I’d just shut up?

  “Selfish,” I said. “You were born selfish. I’m sick of you. What about Will? You’re leaving without telling him? He won’t understand. What’ll
he say? Should he write? You’re making me tell him you’re leaving. You’re taking Aunt Lou, and we can’t tell her good-bye. Why Pomona, Rose? And you owe me five dollars. Fuck you, and I want my five dollars, Rose. Fuck you in Pomona.”

  I swept the tiny shards from where the light bulb smashed on the floor. I had to sweep a huge area because you know how glass flies. A few minutes later Will came in with dirt on his boots, and I swept that, too. Then Mom came home and said, “You learned to do housework? When you’re finished with that broom there’s groceries, don’t let them rot.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Then Love Came to Henry Fonda. He was 18; she was 17; and their great romance was kept alive by daily letters in which Hank excelled as a wordy wooer.

  —Photoplay, November 1940

  The day after Madge died, some girl stuck her head in my room without knocking. “A Mexican’s here. He said you’d know who he was.”

  I only knew two Mexicans well enough for them to come calling. “What time is it?”

  “I’m not a clock.” The door shut, girl gone. The mattress across from me held two lumps of Career Girls. Madge’s clock, when I found it under her clothes pile, read six a.m.

  Bumps and creaks in the hallway, then a knock on my door. In the other bed, one lump rolled and groaned. I answered the door in my nightgown. I didn’t care. I’d see either Conejos or Joe, and both knew me in feathers, an orange jail shift, a stolen, filthy tea gown.

  Joe was in the hallway. I lied before; I did care. My nightgown was clean, but ugly like any cotton nightgown, good for wearing but that’s it, no looking allowed. I closed the door on Joe.

  “I’m checking on you,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Shut up,” said a lump in the next bed.

  “Did you sleep?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Oh. Okay. I’ll just—I was—”

  “I’ll come down,” I said. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  He was dressed in his cop suit, like last night only without the dirt that he’d added from sitting with me by the stairs. I was dressed in a stolen gown, one of the simple gowns Rose must have stolen to wear in dark restaurants. This one was ivory rayon with a sash that tied in the back.

  “You’re clean,” Joe said.

  “Last night I took a cold bath without suds. It wasn’t my bath night.” Girls moved around and in front of us, eating toast and pulling out curlers. “I didn’t set my hair. I guess barrettes are okay. The main thing is the gown. I don’t want Abbott to yell at me. Today’s scenes are dinner dress.”

  “You’re going to the studio after what happened yesterday?”

  “I don’t have a choice. I mean, I do, but it’s not a fair choice. I mean, I might be fired at Paramount, but I won’t know until I get there. Are you here to arrest me?”

  “I’m here to take you to breakfast. Your call is at eight, right?”

  “You know it is. You follow me around, you know my schedule better than I do.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry you don’t like me following you. No, I take that back. I’m not sorry.”

  “I’d like pancakes and ham and a Coke. No meat loaf. Can you promise no meat loaf?”

  “No meat loaf, no handcuffs.”

  “Freedom? I’m not sure I’ll know how to act. You better set the handcuffs on our table so I feel comfortable.”

  He took me to The Grotto across from Paramount. The restaurant opened before talkies, old place, and everyone ate there—stars and everyone else—because the food was cheap, and if you wanted to split a plate with someone you could, without getting in trouble. I wouldn’t split my breakfast with Joe. I ordered my own pancakes, side of sliced ham, and a Coke. I’d eat it all. Every bite.

  “I just came from the coroner’s office.” Joe plopped eight sugar cubes in his coffee. “I saw Chippewa.”

  “Her name is Madge.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Chippewa.”

  “Come on, Penny. What’s her last name?”

  “I don’t know. She never told me. I don’t know any girl’s last name, except for Rosemary’s. And my own. Why don’t you know her last name? You know everything else.”

  “What do you mean? What do you think I know?” He lifted his spoon too fast from his cup, and coffee sprayed his shirt.

  “You’re dripping,” I said. “Coffee spots. And I think you know everything. You follow me, you work with Conejos, and when something bad happens, guess where I see you? Oh, come on, guess. Don’t bother wiping those spots. They won’t come out without vinegar. You won’t guess? I see you looking at me. Rosemary gets dug up, and where are you looking? At me. Madge vomits all over Bing Crosby’s front lawn, but who do you watch? Me. Madge falls down stairs, Stany accuses me of stealing her kid, everything that happens, you’re there, but what are you doing?”

  “Watching you?”

  “Just like right now. Why am I here? What do you want?”

  “Your dress today is nice.”

  “Stolen,” I said. A waitress set down my pancakes, and I wanted to swoon. My lips shook while I looked at those pancakes. Butter all over, syrup until it dripped off the plate. I’d been eating watery stew for three days. I stuffed my napkin in the neck of my gown.

  “There you go again,” Joe said, “acting like I’ve got something against you.”

  Pancakes, heaping, buttery mouthfuls. And here came my ham, fried and shiny.

  “Penny, how much money have you got?”

  I kept chewing.

  “Can I look in your handbag?”

  “What? No! Why, are you making me pay for breakfast? What are you doing? Hands off my handbag!”

  “Fifteen cents? That’s all you got? What if I told you that Madge had more, a lot more?”

  “You’re lying,” I said. “We’re living on apples and hard-boiled eggs. If she had money she’d tell me. Give me my handbag.” I let syrup drip on my chin like old men do.

  “Over two hundred dollars. Twenties, tens, some fives. Do you know where she’d get money like that? She bought drinks last night.”

  “But that’s just drinks. A gin fizz, a couple of whiskeys. She bought drinks, not a fur coat. She wasn’t rich. I know she wasn’t. She couldn’t afford to go home to Riverside, and she loved it there. She spent most of her money on bottles and she wore Rosemary’s clothes.”

  Joe reached out, wiped my chin, and showed me syrup drops on his finger. He rubbed his finger on a napkin, but I swear he wanted to put the finger in his mouth. I saw his lips open then close, and I knew he thought about licking the syrup. “You make it hard to believe you,” he said. “Wearing that dress, but only fifteen cents in your coin purse. If I’m watching you, it’s only because you’re suspicious. I’m around when bad things happen because of my job, but why do I see you every time? What’s your reason?”

  I finished my ham. I drank my Coke.

  “Where did Madge get two hundred dollars?”

  “I don’t know. Do you want the rest of this Coke?”

  “Where did Madge get two hundred dollars?” He reached for the Coke and I handed it to him, same time, and our fingers bumped.

  “I said I don’t know.” My stomach was full. The pancakes had exploded inside me.

  “Penny, I’ve decided I really like you. I just don’t believe you, that’s the problem.”

  “Your check,” said our waitress. She handed the bill to Joe.

  I took the napkin from my collar, dipped it in my water glass, and wiped my chin and hands. “I have to go. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave while you’re paying the bill. What time is it? Thank you for breakfast.” I already had out my studio ID and my mirror, and my handbag hung on my arm. I left Joe at our booth.

  I sound cold, don’t I? Frosty Girl. First Rose died, and next day I’m back at work. Then Madge dies, and next day same thing. Big breakfast, and I’m on time for my call. Nothing shakes me, I’m Frosty Girl.
r />   Except I wasn’t. I threw up pancakes on Marathon Street. I leaned at the curb and shook and cried and wiped my face. At the studio, nobody asked about Madge. Nobody missed her, not Abbott or anyone. I stood in a second ship with my ivory gown that had water spots from where I’d scrubbed off my breakfast, and next to me were my new fake parents, and Preston set up shots from all angles and had us watch another empty booth. The only people on set were extras and a couple of contract players; Stany and Hank had no scenes today. Just us, background shots and some staring, waiters with trays.

  Inside me I was so quiet I disappeared. I hardly remember the scenes from that morning. I missed Madge. I was angry that nobody asked where she was. I missed Rose so badly my hand ached, between thumb and finger where she’d been cut. I had to rub the spot and press hard.

  I said earlier that girls don’t make friends because what if they’re both up for a role. I had two friends, Rose and Madge. I knew Madge was a friend, and I liked her anyway. And Rose had always been my friend, my whole life. Now I had no friends, and my thumb ached. I’m not Frosty Girl. I needed my best friend, so when Preston dismissed us late morning, I went to find her.

  * * *

  After work I changed clothes, rode a bus, transferred, rode, and walked down Spring Street. My feet hurt. I skipped lunch and counted the dead: Rose, Madge. My dad. Madge tired of waiting for me. Drunk, climbing the stairs to the outside deck. Madge in a winter white cape.

  From Broadway, the Hall of Justice looked dried out, like an old sandwich. Somewhere in the top five floors sat Will, in the county jail. He wasn’t alone. Not many crooks got their own cells, so Will shared his with someone. I thought of the Mexican hookers and then of Will’s cell, and all of them together in that cell, with the red hooker gagging on Will’s finger and then mumbling Spanish at night.

  I wouldn’t visit Will. I needed the basement. I didn’t know how to reach the coroner’s office from the front, so I went in the way I did last time, with Stany, through the hearse doors. I had to wait for two hearses, but it takes a long time to unload and weigh one body, with paperwork, so when the second hearse backed in, I let the attendants pull a sheet-wrapped something out of the hearse and set it on a gurney. They hit the doors with their gurney, and I followed them inside. I saw two signs: RECEPTION AND COOLING ROOMS, with an arrow left, and CORONER’S OFFICE, with an arrow right. The gurney guys must have wanted a cooling room. I turned right.