“Follow me.”
She led him away from Delores’ hawkish eyes to the small chamber where staff could exhibit lingerie for customers on one of the in-house models. The walls were decorated in salmon-pink flocked wallpaper, and the lighting was set to a muted glow designed to replicate a bedroom.
Gwendolyn locked the door and pulled the cravat away from his neck.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” he panted, pulling off his jacket.
“I’ve got a fair idea.” She guided his hand under her dress.
He breathed in sharply. “Oh, my sweet baby.”
She turned around to face the wall and splayed her hand across the wallpaper. “Unzip me.”
As he unhooked the top of her dress and ran the zipper down past her waist, he started to kiss her neck, lightly at first, but harder as his fervor intensified. “Why has this taken us so long?”
Her dress slipped down her body. He reached from behind and cupped her breasts and started kneading them gently. He let out a husky groan each time he thrust his swelling hard-on against her. His mouth found hers and he kissed her every bit as deeply, urgently, and passionately as she’d imagined. Then suddenly he pulled away.
“I’m going to the Oscars tomorrow night,” he said.
She froze, disoriented.
“I want you to go with me.” His mouth was on her ear, his breath heavy and rasping. “Be my date and blow every other woman out of the water.”
“I—er, I just—”
“Pick out anything you need: dress, shoes, handbag, fur. You can charge it to my store account.”
Gwendolyn turned around so that she could see Errol’s eyes. “Are you telling me that the day before the Academy Awards, Errol Flynn doesn’t have a date?”
His hazel eyes crinkled up as a smile broke out across his face. “I do now, don’t I?”
The remaining air in Gwendolyn’s lungs escaped in a whoosh. Errol took it for a “Yes!” and hitched her up onto his hips.
CHAPTER 7
Marcus strummed the dark wood tabletop and wondered if perhaps he should have chosen a booth closer to the door.
The Garden of Allah’s Sahara Room was one of the most dimly lit bars on Sunset Boulevard. The management liked it that way: it encouraged clandestine tête-à-têtes between people who ought not be tête-à-tête-ing. If the couple decided they needed a room for the night—or just an hour—the hotel could kill two birds with one cocktail shaker.
But Marcus wasn’t there for that sort of meeting. He wasn’t even sure what the guy looked like. He might arrive, peer into the gloom, not see him and walk out. Marcus picked up his cigarettes and lighter and moved to a booth closer to the doors. Six booths of dark wood and even darker burgundy upholstery lined the west wall, and ten tables formed two columns leading up to the bar. Booths felt more private somehow; not that it mattered. None of the booths nor any of the tables were occupied.
Marcus pulled out a cigarette and found it was his last. He slid out of the booth and approached the bar. “Hey, Seamus, you got any Chesterfields?”
The bartender set the last of five bottles onto the glass shelf behind the bar, all of them Glenfiddich single malt whiskey imported from Scotland. It was top-of-the-line stuff, and as far as Marcus knew, the Sahara Room had never stocked it. Those five bottles represented nearly fifty dollars’ worth. “What’s with the Glenfiddich?”
Though American by birth, Seamus considered himself a Scot down to the marrow. He had the palest skin of anyone Marcus knew, and a thatch of copper hair, bright as a new penny and cropped military short. The guy’s jaw was set into an uncharacteristic frown. “Both my sons, one of my nephews, and my cousin’s two lads all signed up last week. Three for the army, two for the navy.” He jutted his head toward the bottles. “I told them that when each of them comes back, we’ll break open one of these babies to celebrate.” He dropped his eyes, but only for a moment. “And if they don’t, it’ll be a hell of a wake.”
Marcus pushed his glasses back up his nose while he thought of an appropriate response. “I’m sure they’ll all come through it okay.”
“God willing.” Seamus pulled a pack of Chesterfields from underneath the counter. “I could start a tab if you’re planning on spending all night here.”
“Not sure,” Marcus said. “I’m meeting someone and I—”
“Is that him?”
A slim figure in a three-piece suit hesitated in the doorway, hat in hand and wavering like a stalk of corn.
Marcus walked down the line of empty tables. “Quentin Luckett?” He extended his hand and introduced himself. It wasn’t until they’d settled into the booth and ordered drinks that Marcus could take stock of the man with whom he was about to take an unnerving gamble.
Kathryn’s downstairs neighbor, the assistant director for Preston Sturges, had been more than happy to furnish her with Luckett’s name. The fact that Luckett so readily agreed to meet Marcus without knowing why seemed too good to be true, and Marcus had learned long ago that when things seemed too good to be true, they usually were.
Marcus smiled. “Thanks for coming.”
Luckett was one of those baby-faced guys whose age was hard to peg. Marcus guessed anywhere between early twenties and late forties. He had the unlined skin of someone who spent too much time indoors reading. He narrowed his eyes and lit a Camel without looking at his hands. “Why, exactly, am I here?”
Marcus clasped his hands together and pressed the knuckles of his thumbs to his chin. “I have something I need to talk to you about. A matter of some delicacy.”
“Sounds juicy.”
“I’m a screenwriter at MGM—”
“I know,” Luckett admitted. “I did my homework.”
“Did you ever meet a guy by the name of Hugo Marr?”
Luckett shook his head. “Heard about him, though. We’re talking about the one who offed himself right in front of some poor sap, right?”
Seamus arrived with their drinks. Marcus waited until he receded into the shadows again.
“Yeah, well, that sap was me.”
Luckett nearly choked on his bourbon. “That must have been—how was that?”
“Let’s just say it’s nothing like how we show it in the movies.” Marcus let the image of Hugo shooting himself settle into Luckett’s mind. “Did you know that Paramount was paying Hugo to spy on MGM?”
Luckett’s eyes flared like a lit match. “I did not.”
“But that’s not why I asked to meet with you.” Marcus kept his voice steady, his words low and even. “There’s a particular project—”
Luckett’s eyes flared again. “William Tell?”
Until this moment, Marcus wasn’t completely sure that Hugo had stolen William Tell, or that Hugo’s spy story was even true. He grasped now that he’d been giving Hugo the benefit of a doubt he didn’t deserve.
“You’ve seen it?”
Luckett swirled the bourbon in his glass. “We have a system. Scripts, outlines, synopses—they each have their own format. So this outline lands on my desk and right away I see something’s not quite right about it. I figured someone was slacking off, but now that you tell me about Marr—”
“Where is it now?”
Luckett shunted the little brass lamp with the dark green shade to one side, casting half his face into shadow. “Sitting on my desk at work.”
He pulled out another Camel, so Marcus picked up his lighter—the one with the brushed chrome and the fancy French insignia. He used it if he wanted to impress someone, and even in this low light, it was hard to miss Luckett’s double take as he leaned in to ignite his cigarette.
“I get it.” Luckett was nodding now. “You want me to slip your William Tell out from behind the people who pay me, and give it to you so MGM can go produce what has all the markings of a great movie.”
“So you think it’s good?” Marcus countered.
“It’s one of the best outlines I’ve read in a long time.”<
br />
“If it was yours, wouldn’t you fight for it?”
Luckett didn’t respond. His eyes fell to Marcus’ chrome lighter. Marcus decided to change tack.
“You work for Clifford Wardell, don’t you?” Luckett nodded. “Has he seen my outline?”
“Who do you think gave it to me?”
Dammit.
“Mind you,” Luckett sniffed, “Wardell seeing it and Wardell reading it are two different things. Picking gems from over the transom is my specialty.”
“The whole picture is in the title,” Marcus pointed out. “Surely he at least saw that.”
“If it was on top, maybe. But it was in the middle, so probably not.”
Inwardly, Marcus started applauding. “What would it take for you to remove William Tell from the pile altogether?”
Luckett studied Marcus, apparently weighing his options while he hung onto the cigarette smoke in his lungs, then let it out slowly, smoothly, before he spoke. “And why would I do that?”
Marcus ached to pound the table and yell. Because I wrote Strange Cargo, one of MGM’s biggest pictures last year! I should be writing A Yank At Eton for Rooney or Mrs. Miniver for Garson, but instead I’m stuck on Tarzan’s New York Adventure. I came up with William Tell and I deserve to have it back!
But instead he said, “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Luckett acknowledged Marcus with a nod, but said nothing more.
“Look,” Marcus pressed, “there are two ways I could have gone here. I could’ve told my boss about the theft. They would take it to Mayer, who’d explode like a firebomb. There would be lawsuits and counter suits flying all over Hollywood, and in the end everybody would be suspicious of everybody else, and nobody would trust anybody anymore about anything. That’s not good for Hollywood, especially at a time when we’re all expected to pull together for the war.”
“Excellent point.”
“But I chose instead to talk to you, writer to writer, and see if we could find a way to resolve this situation among ourselves.”
Luckett fell back against the upholstery and withdrew his lighter from a pocket. It was the exact same brushed-chrome lighter Marcus had.
“You get that at Maxim’s on Hollywood Boulevard?” Marcus asked casually.
“Uh-huh.” A faint smile slipped out between Luckett’s lips.
Ah, we have arrived at common ground. “I’ve always found they have a fine selection,” Marcus said.
“One of the best haberdashers in the city.”
“Did you ever treat yourself to a hot-towel shave in the barber shop down the back?”
“With Jean-Jules, he of the famous gentle hands?” Luckett arched an eyebrow. “You should try his foot massage.”
“I have,” Marcus replied. “Mr. Luckett—”
“Call me Quentin.”
Marcus let out a long breath. “So, Quentin, how about it? Will you help me get my William back?”
“I could do that.”
“Without your boss knowing?”
Quentin let out a pfft. “I’m just waiting for Wardell to hang from his own noose so I can nab his job. The half-wit can go screw himself, as far as I’m concerned.”
Marcus wanted to jump up and do a back flip. “I can meet you anywhere, any time. Or you could mail it.” He grabbed a matchbook and reached inside his jacket for a pen.
“Hold on there, cowboy,” Quentin said. “This isn’t charity. It’s a quid pro quo type situation.”
Of course it is. Why would it be anything else?
“What did you have in mind?”
Quentin didn’t reply straightaway. Instead, he leaned an elbow on the table and rested his chin in the palm of his hand. “You’re real cute.” He let his eyes wander down one side of Marcus and up the other. “The kind of cute who doesn’t know how cute he really is.”
Marcus blinked with the deliberation of a safecracker. “I thought only pretty actresses were subjected to the casting couch.”
“I’ve got something you want, and you’ve got something I want.”
“So . . . ” Marcus took his time finishing his drink, “in order to get William Tell back, I have to sleep with you?”
The question hung between them like a snowflake until Quentin said, “Hooray for Hollywood.”
CHAPTER 8
Orange and pink fingers of dusk were just beginning to stretch across the sky over the Garden of Allah as Kathryn screwed a pair of pearl earrings into place. She picked up her handbag and gloves and made her way downstairs as a burst of booze-fueled laughter reached her from across the pool. Robert Benchley was back in town and holding his usual all-night cocktail party.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs next to a tangle of blooming jasmine whose scent was so powerful it almost made her giddy and put on her gloves, glancing through Benchley’s living room window. It was the typical crowd: Algonquin Round Table refugees, down-on-their-luck actors, and a theater critic or two. At the center of the room stood Dorothy Parker—in town for the premiere of Saboteur, the new Hitchcock she cowrote—with her arms raised like a double-barreled Statue of Liberty. Kathryn had participated in enough rounds of Benchley Charades to recognize when one had gone awry, and this had all the earmarks: everybody laughing to the point of crying and Dorothy stamping her foot in frustration.
“They’ve been playing for two solid hours.”
Errol Flynn stepped out of the shadows and into the fading light, wearing a casual shirt with no tie and too many buttons undone. His hair was mussed and he hadn’t shaved for a few days. On the patio table behind him, she spotted a whiskey bottle and two tumblers, both empty.
“I hadn’t heard you were back—” She caught herself. “Nor do I care. I’m not talking to you.”
“Join the club,” he sighed, and leaned up against a cedar tree.
“Lili giving you a hard time again?” Kathryn asked, but before he could answer, she cut him off. “Whatever reason your wife has for kicking you out this time, you probably deserve it.”
He threw her a pained look. “You women are going to be the death of me.” He inflicted expensive cigar breath on her, spoiling the scent of the jasmine. “Can I at least ask why you’re not talking to me?”
“Because of Gwendolyn.”
Errol seemed genuinely surprised. “You mean that day at Bullocks? I don’t know what her version of the story was, but let me tell you, I didn’t have to convince her to do anything.”
“I’m not talking about that.” When Gwendolyn came home from work that day, she’d been breathless and giggly. By all accounts, Mr. Flynn lived up to his roguish reputation—and then some. But Gwendolyn was thrilled to the point of feverishness at the thought of attending an Oscar ceremony. “Do you remember what you promised her that day?”
“Promised?”
Kathryn planted her hands on her hips. “The Oscars . . . ?”
Errol got as far as drawing breath to make his denial, then gulped. “Oh, shit.”
She stepped forward into the light spilling out through Errol’s window, and jabbed him in the chest. “Yes, Errol. Oh, shit. Do you know how much trouble she went to that night? You want to take a guess at how long she sat there and waited, and waited, and waited for you to show up?”
“I—what can I say? I got caught up in the heat of the moment.”
“And then?”
He threw out his arms like Jesus on the cross. “And then forgot.”
“You don’t ask a girl to escort you to the Academy Awards and then not show up!” She slapped his shoulder with her purse. “How could you have been with so many women and still not know how to treat them?”
The violins of a gloomy Russian melody floated over them from Alla’s place a couple of doors away.
Errol returned to the patio table and helped himself to a couple of fingers of booze. “I feel terrible, just terrible.”
“You should.” When Kathryn came home that evening, Gwendolyn was still sitting at home in
her pale magenta gown. Errol hadn’t put in an appearance at the ceremony, or he and Kathryn would have had this conversation in the middle of the Biltmore Bowl with all of Hollywood’s heavy hitters looking on. “You need to do the right thing and make it up to her.”
“With perfume? Roses?”
“Jewelry!” Gwendolyn could thank her later. “You can’t go wrong with Harry Winston.”
Errol nodded thoughtfully, his eyes on his drink. “Bracelet? Necklace? Brooch?”
Kathryn sat down on one of the patio chairs and held out the other tumbler for Errol to fill. “If it comes in a Harry Winston box, all will be forgiven.”
Another explosion of laughter burst from Robert Benchley’s villa, but it didn’t seem to register with Errol. He played with the dead cigar in the ashtray next to his whiskey. “Lili and I hit a brick wall this week. She’s suing for divorce.”
Kathryn had never seen him this serious. The last of the violet dusk left the evening sky and the only light now came from the lamp in his window. Even in this half light, Kathryn could see he was struggling to keep his head above the emotional tide washing over him. “It’s probably for the best,” he said finally.
“You two did fight an awful lot,” Kathryn pointed out.
“But making up was always so magnificent!”
Kathryn waved away his rationalization. “That sort of thing is fine for affairs, but I’ve yet to see a marriage survive that sort of battleground. Just ask Humphrey Bogart.” Over the past few years, Bogie and his wife, Mayo Methot, had earned their nickname, “the Battling Bogarts,” by erupting into drunken brawls in nearly every bar and restaurant across Los Angeles.
“You’re probably right. You usually are. I admire that about you, and yet at the same time, find it thoroughly annoying.” He said nothing more, and Kathryn began to lose herself in a rabbit hole of thoughts about Roy. She tried not to think of him anymore, but every now and then he let himself in through the back door and sat around for a while.
“So how come you’re not over at Benchley’s charade-a-thon?” Errol asked.
Kathryn glanced at her wristwatch and thrust her glass toward him. “I’m off to a broadcast of The Pepsodent Show. My boss has got himself all riled up over increasing circulation. Told me it would benefit the paper greatly if I found a way to raise my national profile, but it’s my problem to figure out how.”
Searchlights and Shadows (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 4) Page 5