The two men reached the Sahara Room’s heavy wooden doors just as Taggert and Hoppy arrived, already half tanked on a previous party’s offerings. Marcus had invited them to tonight’s celebration, but Taggert was noncommittal. The thought that Oliver might guillotine their relationship at any minute left Marcus apprehensive, so he was glad the two men had appeared. Taggert held up a bottle of whiskey. “You’re leaving?”
“It was getting too loud and crowded in there.” As though to prove Marcus’ point, a shriek of laughter exploded from inside the room. A second wave followed closely, spilling out into the hotel foyer.
Hoppy ducked inside to borrow some glasses while the others found a quiet nook to settle in for a round or two. Taggert eyed Oliver’s stern face. “I gotta say, Trenton, it’s unnerving to fraternize with the Breen Office. I never know if I can speak freely around you.”
Marcus nudged Oliver’s knee and tried his friendliest smile. “Maybe you should give him your ‘working from the inside’ speech?”
Oliver’s face remained inert. He said nothing, looked at nobody, until Hoppy joined them with a quartet of shot glasses. He aimed a dark look at Marcus. “Who is Edwin Marr?”
Marcus held out his shot glass for Hoppy to fill. “Do you remember me talking about one of our screenwriters, Hugo?”
“The one who shot himself?”
“Edwin is his father. Why are you asking?”
“A few weeks ago, I was at a meeting of the Motion Picture Alliance.”
“You mean ‘For the Preservation of American Ideals?’” Taggert asked. He and Hoppy looked like they wanted to throw their drinks in Oliver’s face.
Inside the bar, someone had flipped on a radio and the brass section of Glenn Miller’s band burst into “Tuxedo Junction” in tribute to the bulletins that Miller’s plane had been reported missing over the English Channel.
“Listen, buddy.” Taggert jabbed a finger in Oliver’s face. “When Marcus told me about you, I had my reservations. You’re the Breen Office and you know how that plays at the studios. I was prepared to loathe you, but then I met you, and you seemed like a regular guy, so I was happy to give you the benefit of the doubt. But those Motion Picture Alliance crackpots are a bunch of jingoistic—” He shook his head and lobbed Marcus a chilling glare. “Jesus Christ.”
Marcus didn’t know what to make of this news. Oliver had never even hinted that his political inclinations leaned rightward. How can we have so much in common if you’re an archconservative? “You haven’t mentioned attending any Alliance meetings.”
“Can you blame me?” Oliver retorted. “The first time I mention it, look at the reaction I get.”
“So why were you there?”
“The Alliance is running around screaming into the faces of anyone who’ll listen that Hollywood is packed with Commies, and that some are screenwriters who are trying to sneak the Communist message into their scripts. Mr. Breen decided that somebody from the office should attend the meetings and report back.”
“But why you?” Hoppy asked.
“It was a case of ‘the guy who isn’t in the room gets the job.’”
“What are they like?” Hoppy asked.
“You should hear the blowhard rhetoric! It’s enough to give me ulcers. At the end of each meeting, I’m the first one out the door.” He laid his hand on top of Marcus.’ “I’m not there because I want to be. But as studio screenwriters, you guys need to start taking those so-called crackpots seriously. They have no intention of stopping when the war is over.”
“But what does this have to do with Edwin Marr?” Marcus asked.
Oliver bugged his hazel eyes out while he chugged some whiskey. “At the last meeting they were in the middle of a discussion about lobbying the House un-American Activities Committee—”
“The HUAC is supposed to be rooting out Nazi sympathizers, not Communists.”
“Not if the Alliance has anything to do with it. Anyhow, they were discussing it, and this old codger bursts into the room and announces he has a list of people he thinks the Alliance should investigate.”
“Was he sober?” Marcus asked.
“Did anyone take him seriously?” Taggert added.
“He seemed quite sober, and he was preaching to the choir, so yes, they took him seriously.”
“Who was on his list?” Marcus asked.
Inside the Sahara Room, somebody turned up the radio just as the Andrews Sisters started singing, “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t?” The roar of approval that followed had a ragged edge to it, and Marcus wondered how many of them would still be upright by midnight.
“I was so thrown by the first name he read out that I didn’t hear any of the others.”
“Whose name was it?”
Oliver faced Marcus. “Yours.”
The word punched Marcus in the gut. He took Free Leningrad! as evidence that Edwin’s campaign against him had failed. It never occurred to him that Edwin would widen his crusade past the MGM gates. “It’s not true,” Marcus told his lover. “You do know that, don’t you?”
Oliver’s response was the warmest and most genuine smile Marcus had seen in weeks.
“Tell me something,” Taggert said. “Do these screwballs know what you do for a living?”
Oliver nodded. “I’m starting to wish I hadn’t been quite so open about it. Some of them are trying to use my influence inside the office to get their pictures through.”
Marcus resisted the urge to look at Taggert.
“This list of suspects,” Taggert said. “Was it written down?”
“Yep.”
“Did you see him give it to anyone?”
“He gave it to James McGuinness.” This time, Marcus stared right at Taggert; McGuinness was a producer at MGM. “He was taking the notes that night. Edwin insisted his list be entered into the minutes.” Marcus pulled at his collar, wishing he could loosen his tie.
None of the four men said anything, letting the roar of the party on the other side of the wall buffer the awkward silence.
Taggert shook his empty bottle. “After news like that, I reckon we’re going to need some more of this.” He pulled at Hoppy’s elbow and led him back into the Sahara Room.
Oliver waited until they were gone before he took Marcus’ hands in his. “I know I’ve been distant lately.” He paused, but not long enough to give Marcus a chance to reply. “It’s because of what I witnessed at that meeting.”
“But you must know that I’m not—”
Oliver hushed him. “Here’s the thing: at work I pretend to agree with the Production Code’s ethics, and at those horrible Alliance meetings, I have to pretend I’m a conservative. To nearly everyone else, I have to pretend I’m some bachelor who just hasn’t met the right girl yet. Everywhere I go, I have to pretend to be something I’m not.”
Oliver was never one easily given to tears, but Marcus could see his eyes tear up. “What are you saying?”
“It’s taken me a month to work up the courage, and maybe it’s this damn fine whiskey we’re drinking, but I’m ready to ask you now.”
Marcus felt Oliver’s hands squeeze his. “Ask me what?”
“I’m asking if I can move in with you. Here. At the Garden of Allah.”
CHAPTER 36
When Gwendolyn opened the door to her villa, she was still bewildered. She didn’t notice Kathryn sitting in their easy chair reading until Kathryn said, “You’re both back early. I figured you’d stick around for some dinner and dancing.”
“Ritchie didn’t show,” Linc said, removing his overcoat.
Kathryn cast aside her copy of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”
Ever since Bugsy Siegel muscled in on Linc and Gwendolyn’s operation, Kathryn and Gwendolyn had implicitly agreed that Kathryn should distance herself. Kathryn no longer asked what was happening, and Gwendolyn volunteered no information.
Gwendolyn slung her cashmere wrap over the back of the sofa and sat down. “Mr. Sieg
el is awfully fond of his money. Ritchie wouldn’t dare not keep our appointment.”
Siegel’s initial cut of thirty percent only lasted a few months, then he raised it to forty. Two months ago he jacked it up to fifty. Any higher and it would hardly be worth their while at all. But getting out of the game wasn’t an option. She kept telling herself she should be thankful that she wasn’t leading the life of second-rate gun molls and bloodstained drapes she’d envisioned that day at Virginia Hill’s house. In fact, it had all been quite civil.
On the first Monday of each month, Ritchie placed a classified ad in the Hollywood Citizen News telling them where they were to hand over Siegel’s cut. It was never down some back alley or skid row hotel room, but always surrounded by masses of people. Gwendolyn didn’t understand Linc’s “hiding in plain sight” explanation, but it seemed to work. Last month, they met at Union Station, and the month before that, at Earl Carroll’s on Sunset, where they handed over six hundred dollars in front of thirty beautiful showgirls. Tonight it was a lively bar called La Conga on Vine Street. Even though Ritchie was always prompt, they stayed an hour past their agreed time, but no Ritchie.
“Maybe he had car trouble?” Linc suggested.
Gwendolyn threw her roommate an unconvinced look and started fidgeting with the fingers of her gloves. “You really think Ritchie went to Siegel and said, ‘Sorry, boss, I couldn’t make the drop-off. I had trouble with my carburetor.”
“You’re right,” Kathryn conceded, “but if you look in the Times tomorrow, I can guarantee you’ll see an ad telling you where and when to meet him tomorrow night.” She glanced at the clock above the sink; it was going on eight thirty. “I still have yesterday’s coffee grounds. If I add one fresh scoop, I could probably make a halfway decent pot.” She got up to walk toward the kitchen. “If I add some Sanka, it might not taste like dirt.”
Gwendolyn nodded absently and stared at a spot on the wall opposite her, trying to tell herself not to fret over Ritchie. There were a hundred possible explanations for why he failed to show. She paid no attention when the telephone rang.
“Gwennie, that was the front desk,” Kathryn said, hanging up. “A visitor asked for you by name, so he sent him up here.”
“Old guy?” Linc said, standing. “When the old mobsters get too ripe to shoot straight, they turn them into messenger boys.”
“I don’t think so.” Kathryn sounded puzzled. “Manny said he was some old geezer with no jacket, no tie, and no hat. No mobster would be caught dead in public without putting on the Ritz.”
Just then, there was a knock on the door. Linc made a gesture, offering to open it for her, but Gwendolyn shook her head. When she pulled open the door, she found a lanky fellow, well into his sixties, unshaven and hunched over and looking for all the world like Walter Huston’s older brother.
“Gwendolyn Brick?” he asked. “I was Ritchie Pugh’s landlord.” He looked down at the envelope in his hand before he thrust it toward her.
Gwendolyn took it and read the shaky handwriting on the front.
Please deliver this to Miss Gwendolyn Brick at the Garden of Allah Hotel in the event of my death.
“Oh, God!” She lurched a step backward into Linc. He wrapped an arm around her chest.
She lifted the envelope and felt Linc’s body jolt. She closed her hand around his and heard Kathryn say, “Won’t you please come in?”
The man seemed reluctant, but Kathryn gently insisted he join them on the sofa.
“You’re Ritchie’s landlord?” she prompted.
The man’s wizened expression turned wary as he studied their faces one by one. Gwendolyn held her breath. He let out a quiet groan. “Like I said, I’m—was—just his landlord, so I never went stickin’ my nose into his business. He seemed like a good lad, but kinda on the secretive side. Never knew what to make of him. ’Bout a month ago, he knocked on my door—just like that, outta the blue—and he says, ‘If anything should happen to me, do what you like with my stuff, but there’s an old metal saltine cracker box in back of the cupboard next to the stove.’ He told me there were some odds and ends and instructions on what to do with them if it came to that.” He gestured to the envelope in Kathryn’s hand. Gwendolyn didn’t remember letting it go. “So when the cops came and told me they’d identified Ritchie as the body all the papers’ve been talking about—”
All week, the appearance of a body in the foothills of Mandeville Canyon near the Pacific Palisades end of Sunset Boulevard had kicked news of the war from the front page. Playing up the fact that the murder had been “gangland style”—a clean shot directly between the eyes from a close distance—ensured the story had gripped the city.
Gwendolyn pressed her hands to her eyes. And all this time it was poor, poor Ritchie. She felt Kathryn’s arm slide around her shoulders and press their heads together. “Ritchie was one of the good ones,” Kathryn told the man. “He didn’t deserve to go like this.”
“Nobody does,” Linc said.
“I’m sure sorry to have been the one to bring such sad tidings.”
The man was on his feet now, so Gwendolyn rose to shake his hand. “Thank you.” Her voice was barely above a croak. “I appreciate you going out of your way to deliver this to me.”
The guy mumbled, “You’re welcome, miss,” and followed Linc to the door.
The three of them listened to him shuffle down the stairs and up the flagstone path to the main house. Eventually, Linc asked, “You want me to read it?”
Gwendolyn shook her head and opened the envelope. As she pulled out the folded paper, her hands started to shake. She rested them on her knees as she opened Ritchie’s letter.
“You sure you want to read this out loud?” Kathryn asked.
Gwendolyn cleared her throat.
“Dear Gwendolyn, I’m writing this letter in the hopes that you’ll never have to read it. But these days nothing’s for certain and life is cheap, especially when you hang out with tough guys. And lately I’ve been getting the impression that certain tough guys are trusting me less and less. It’s just a feeling, but it ain’t a good feeling so I want to set this down in writing in case I don’t get the chance to tell you.
“I’ve gotten pretty good at eavesdropping, and yesterday I was outside S’s office and I overheard S and C talking about you two. I’ve heard him call you his ‘one that got away’ and how much he’s always wanted to get you into the sack but knew that you were different from the usual broads he bangs, and so he’s had to tread more careful. Be more respectful and say all the right things. And that he wasn’t going to stop trying until he got you.
“I always assumed that this whole thing about S taking over your operation was more about the fact that S wanted you but never got you. But turns out this whole black-market business was only an excuse. You’re just a bystander in all this. It’s your boyfriend they want.”
Gwendolyn looked up at Linc, who was staring at her, slack-jawed.
“What do they want with you?” Kathryn asked; a mite too sternly, Gwendolyn thought.
“I—I dunno!” Linc said. “Before that day at his house, I never met the guy. And I’ve never spoken to him since.”
Gwendolyn returned to Ritchie’s letter. “It’s all about a set of three brothels up the hill, off the Sunset Strip.” She looked up at Linc again.
He was slowly turning red. “I know of them,” he admitted, “but that’s it. I’ve never actually been to them. Or any brothel,” he added quickly. “Not ever. I swear!”
Gwendolyn wanted to believe him, but that was a discussion for another time. She went back to Ritchie’s letter.
“They’re real classy, professionally run, and very profitable. The guys know that when the war ends, the black market will dry up so they’re looking for another moneymaker. From what I can gather, they think Linc runs them.”
“JESUS!” Linc started pacing the room, running his fingers through his hair. “This is nuts. Me? Run a brothel?”
“
A chain of brothels, apparently,” Kathryn said, crossing her arms.
“Linc,” Gwendolyn asked quietly, “why would they think that?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
“I’m not accusing you, I’m just posing a question. Why would the mob think you run brothels?”
Linc joined Gwendolyn on the sofa and took her right hand. “I swear to you I have no idea. This has come from way out in left field.” He jutted his chin toward Ritchie’s letter. “Keep going. Maybe there’s a clue.”
Gwendolyn lifted the paper. “If I learn more, I’ll add it to this letter, but if not, just remember, these guys play for keeps. Getting away from them ain’t easy. They’re always looking for bigger fish to fry and from what I can see, they’re greasing up their frying pan for your beau. Take care of yourself Gwendolyn. You and Kathryn have always meant a lot to me. Sincerely, your friend, Ritchie.”
Gwendolyn laid Ritchie’s letter on the table in front of her and let out a long breath.
“Screw the coffee,” Kathryn announced. “I’m having a drink. Anyone want to join me?”
No one responded. Gwendolyn and Linc looked silently into each others’ faces while Kathryn busied herself in the kitchen. Suddenly Linc grabbed Gwendolyn’s hand and pulled her onto the landing outside. He closed the door and turned to her, his pale face silver in the moonlight.
“Have you ever wondered why I’ve been bothering?” he asked. “With the black market, I mean?”
“I figured you had your reasons, and if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me.”
“I’m telling you now.”
Gwendolyn wrapped her fingers around Linc’s arm to show him she was listening.
“I think my father’s been laundering money through the business.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s more of a hunch. Whenever I look at the books, the figures all balance, but I’ll be damned if something doesn’t sit right. I’m no accounting expert, but the whole thing’s made me feel uneasy. So just in case everything falls into a heap and I was left with nothing, I started making money separate from anything my dad’s involved with.”
Searchlights and Shadows (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 4) Page 26