“Okay, but my women’s intuition tells me this is a call you should take.”
In Jim’s office, Marcus picked up the telephone. “You won’t believe the day I’m having.”
He could hear Kathryn take a jagged breath. “Marcus, honey, you need to brace yourself. I’ve got—”
“Not right now. There’s a lot going—”
“It’s Alla; she’s had a heart attack.”
Marcus fell back in Jim’s chair, gripping the receiver as though it was a life preserver. “Is she . . . ?”
“Not last I heard. She had it at home. Glesca called for an ambulance and it took her to the Good Samaritan. That’s all we know. I’m about to jump into a taxi and pick Gwendolyn up at work.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
He couldn’t feel the homburg on his head, the carpet under his feet, or the summer sun probing through Jim’s window. All he was aware of was the sinking feeling in his chest.
* * *
The emergency department of the Good Samaritan Hospital smelled overwhelmingly of chlorine. A nurse with red hair starched more stiffly than her cap directed him to room 711.
Kathryn and Gwendolyn stood on the far side of the bed, holding hands. Glesca was on the side closest to Marcus, holding Alla’s. Alla lay between them, as pale as the bed linen tucked tautly around her and frail as a sparrow. Her hair, once thick and dark, lay in damp clumps like the fraying bristles of a scorched broom. Her eyes were closed and her breathing so light he could barely discern the rise and fall of her chest.
Glesca, almost as drawn as her companion of sixteen years, stepped back to allow Marcus near. He picked up Alla’s right hand. It felt warm but heavy, like a rock left in the sun. He stroked the back of it, his fingers navigating each distended vein. Alla opened her eyes. She looked tired and distracted. “My boy,” she whispered, “my sweet boy. I fear it’s time we said our goodbyes.”
“No, no.” Marcus choked on each syllable. A couple of weeks earlier, Alla had been taken to this same hospital for coronary thrombosis. She’d recovered, but not as well as Marcus had assumed. “You’ll be back in your Garden before you know it.” Her face blurred and distorted as tears collected in Marcus’ eyes. He bit down on his lip, determined not to buckle like an accordion.
Alla shook her head weakly. “I’m bound for a different garden.” She looked over at Kathryn and Gwendolyn. “Be good. Be strong. Be loving.” Her voice faltered on the last word, losing her breath and her focus. Her grip loosened.
“Marcus, honey?”
He looked up at Kathryn. She gestured toward Glesca. He didn’t want to let go of Alla’s hand, but it was Glesca who was losing the love of her life, not him. He laid Alla’s hand on the coarse hospital linen and joined the girls on the other side of the bed, Gwendolyn to his left, Kathryn to his right.
“Would you like us to leave you alone?” Gwendolyn asked.
Glesca shook her head. “She considers you all family.” She bent down until her lips were almost touching Alla’s ear and whispered delicate words. Marcus couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it was the same long sentence over and over. It made Alla smile. It was a fragile smile, the ends of her lips barely curling upward, but a smile nonetheless.
Then, suddenly, the smile wilted and Alla gasped. She held her breath for three, maybe five seconds, then let it out so slowly it seemed to take an eternity. Eternity came to an end, and Alla Nazimova was gone.
Marcus felt Gwendolyn and Kathryn pull themselves into him. He closed his eyes, squeezing them so tightly he saw geometric patterns kaleidoscope. Hold on, he told himself, hold on. Marcus Adler unraveled like a rag doll coming apart at the seams.
* * *
There was a time when Alla Nazimova’s star blazed so bright, the Shuberts named a Broadway theater after her. Her incandescent presence earned her more money per week than Mary Pickford, and her name conjured images of dramatic poses in elaborate costumes from the Orient, France, and Arabia. The American public had never seen anybody like her, and it adored her.
And then there was the time when she died, and barely a dozen people showed up at her funeral. It was a brief service, the preacher appropriately respectful but clearly with little idea who he was burying. His role fulfilled, he limply shook the hands of each person who’d bothered to show and made his way down the slope.
Dorothy Parker and her dark-haired husband, Alan Campbell, approached Kathryn. Robert Benchley trailed after them, unsteadily dragging his feet across the lawn. “We’re taking Glesca with us back to the Garden,” she told Kathryn. Glesca stood at Alla’s graveside with her cotton dress flapping in the breeze. Behind her, the leafy sprawl of Glendale braced itself for the baking July heat.
Marcus felt George Cukor’s hand squeeze his. “She deserved better,” George said.
“She deserved a funeral as big as Valentino’s,” Benchley announced.
“She certainly did.” Franklin Pangborn dabbed at his eyes. “I’m going to miss that old gal so very, very much.”
“Come on, Pangy,” George threw his arm around Franklin. “I’ll take you home.”
As the group made their way down the grassy slope toward a pair of cars parked against the curb, Marcus kept his eyes on the mound of newly turned sod covering Madame’s coffin. The damp earth smelled fresh, like it was bursting with potential life, an irony that Alla would have found amusing.
“I’m glad so few people showed up,” Marcus said. “If there’d been five thousand people here, I’d have walked away.” He snaked his arms around the girls’ waists and drew them close with what little strength he had left. “I feel like I just buried my mother.”
“She was mother to all us Gardenites,” Kathryn said.
“Looks like we have a straggler.” Gwendolyn pointed to a lone figure trudging up the steep hillside.
“Who shows up an hour late to someone’s funeral?” Marcus asked bitterly, not even looking.
“Is that . . . Oliver?” Gwendolyn asked.
Marcus shaded his eyes from the glare of the sun. He didn’t dare hope Gwendolyn was right until Oliver drew up to the gravesite.
“I was in Santa Fe yesterday when I heard the news.” He looked at Marcus, his eyebrows crinkling upwards. “How are you doing?”
Marcus let go of the girls and threw himself into Oliver’s arms. If he had any tears left, Marcus would have shed them now. Instead, he pressed his face into the man’s neck and breathed in his smoky aftershave balm. The two men hugged until the strength in Marcus’ arms gave out.
“Your tour of duty,” Marcus tried to fight off the early tremors of a throbbing headache. “It’s over?”
“The good folks of Albuquerque won’t be happy, but I suspected I was needed elsewhere. I’m so sorry I missed the service.”
They stood around Alla’s grave for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts.
Then Oliver said, “I have an idea.” He pointed to a late-model Chevrolet Styleline, bottle green and new-dime shiny. “Let’s go raise a toast to the great Madame Nazimova. The Sahara Room, perhaps? I’m sure Seamus could rustle up some quality Russian vodka.”
Marcus faced the girls. “Give us a minute.” He watched them head toward the Chevrolet, then ran his fingers down Oliver’s arm. “My little pen pal. I’ve enjoyed our long-distance courtship, but I’m so glad you’re back.” He stared into those hazel eyes he’d missed so much. “You are back, aren’t you? I mean, we are back, aren’t we?”
Oliver smiled and nodded. They gazed at each other for a long, quiet moment, then he gestured toward his rental car. “Shall we?”
“I’ll be right there.”
Oliver left to join the girls. Marcus knelt down beside Alla’s grave. “You told me the first time we met that it’s important to have good friends, especially when I was so far from home. You gave me a home when I had none, and you gave me friendships when I needed them most.” He picked up a handful of dirt and pressed his fingers around it, imagining she was al
ready a part of it. “Thank you.”
He let the damp, cool earth drop through his fingers as he stood up and turned to join the others.
CHAPTER 44
It was Bertie Kreuger who sent Gwendolyn, invitation in hand, heart in throat, to The Players nightclub two weeks after Nazimova’s passing.
Gwendolyn, Marcus, Kathryn, and Oliver were still in the Sahara Room after returning from Forest Lawn cemetery when Bertie pinwheeled in, shedding apologies in all directions. “I’ll never forgive myself for missing Alla’s funeral! What a dunderhead I am! Such a terrible person!”
She calmed down after Gwendolyn ordered her a double gin, and listened attentively while Marcus, Kathryn, and Gwendolyn reminisced about how over the years their friendship had deepened into something closer and dearer, and how she’d become a mother figure to them, each in different ways.
Alla was the one who pushed Marcus the hardest to write back to Doris and embrace his sister fully. It was Alla Kathryn turned to when seeking advice at how best Kathryn might pry the details of her father from a mother who preferred to leave that part of her life behind. And it was Alla Gwendolyn deferred to with questions about style and sewing when Gwendolyn realized she’d taken on a dress that was beyond her skills.
When the conversation touched on Alla’s encouragement about Chez Gwendolyn, Bertie piped up.
“If you ask me, I think you should go after Linc’s father for your money. I know the Tattlers from all those stuffy society parties, so trust me when I tell you that Tattler Senior is loaded. To you, four grand is everything, but to someone like that? Ha! He won’t even miss it.”
Gwendolyn didn’t think anything of it until Bertie appeared at her door a week later, invitation in hand. “Take this,” she insisted, “get back what’s rightfully yours, and don’t take no for an answer!”
* * *
It was a perfect Angeleno summer evening. The last of the afternoon’s warmth mingled with the jasmine and was tempered by the hint of a sea breeze drifting in from Santa Monica. Gwendolyn read the sign at The Players’ front door.
PRIVATE CHARITY FUNCTION
FOR THE EUROPEAN FOOD DROP COALITION
TO ASSIST WAR VICTIMS
SPONSORED BY TATTLER’S TUXEDOS & PRIMM VALLEY REALTY
She flashed Bertie’s invitation to the burly marine decked out in his dress blues at the door.
The Players’ foyer led directly onto its main room, whose tables had been cleared away for two hundred people gussied up in their finest: silk-lapelled dinner jackets, gold-braided military epaulettes, midnight-blue chiffon, and ocelot fur evening wraps.
Gwendolyn scanned the faces, hoping to see a familiar one. If Primm Valley Realty was cosponsoring this bash, chances were good that she’d see—bull’s eye!
She picked her way through the crowd until she moved into Leilah O’Roarke’s peripheral vision. The week before, Gwendolyn found an old reticule in a vintage clothing store downtown. She relined it with her last scraps of decent satin and stitched black and silver beads in alternating stripes across the outside. It glittered in the spotlights that dotted the ceiling, and she held it to her face now, pretending to be searching for something until she wrested Leilah’s attention.
Leilah excused herself from her conversation and took a moment to admire Gwendolyn’s blue moiré silk gown. “Don’t you pop up in the most surprising places?”
Gwendolyn leaned in for a melodramatic whisper, laying it on thick. “I’m in pursuit of a particular certain someone, and I need your help.”
“Sounds thrilling. Who’s your target?”
“Horton Tattler. My problem is I don’t know what he looks like.”
“Linc never introduced you? Very poor form, I must say.”
Gwendolyn offered up her best Men! What-can-you-do? shrug.
Leilah pointed out a stout gent standing alone at the bar, ordering a drink. Gwendolyn thanked her and beelined it before anybody else had a chance to commandeer him. “Mr. Tattler?”
The enormous handlebar moustache protruding several inches punctuated a round face; it made him look like he’d stepped out of a Dickens novel. She got over her shock in time to take in his eyes. They were Linc’s: sea-blue flecked with sky. It was disconcerting to see those eyes she knew so well on someone else.
“May I help—ah!” he exclaimed. “Miss Gwendolyn, isn’t it? Bullocks Wilshire?”
With a poorly concealed gasp, she realized he was one of her sweetiepies, the well-heeled gentlemen whose purchases for their mistresses had contributed substantially to her monthly sales totals. Moreover, he was one of her favorites. He took his time stroking the silks and satins, making observations on the quality of the lace and commenting on hues. Somewhere out there was a beautifully adorned and expensively scented young lady, and now she knew why.
Oh my heavens, Linc’s father has a mistress! The thought made her blush, which in turn made Linc’s father blush. His alarm—Holy smoke, she knows who I am!—was broadcast across his otherwise genial face.
“Isn’t it funny, the coincidences that crop up in life?” Gwendolyn laughed.
“Why, yes. I, er . . . ”
“Mr. Tattler,” she said gently, “you probably weren’t aware of this, but your son and I were dating.”
He cast an appraising eye up and down her, then broke into a twinkling smile. “How very fortunate for him.”
She thought of the nickname Linc often used: Parentasaurus Rex. She’d always imagined Linc’s father to be some wheezing old coot; part Scrooge, part Quasimodo, all horrible teeth and bleary eyes, jaundiced with disapproval. That he turned out to be this Victorian sweetiepie left Gwendolyn blindsided.
“Thank you. Now, about Linc—”
His eyes turned glum. “Miss Gwendolyn, if you’ve approached me in the hope that I shall tell you where Linc is, I’m afraid you’ve let yourself in for disappointment. My son’s disappearance has left me completely in the dark. If you have any information, I would be most grateful if you shared it with me.”
Oh, Linc, how could you up and leave without telling your father anything? “I don’t know where he went, either. All we can do is wait until he reappears.”
Tattler harrumphed. “Just wait till he does!” He squinted at Gwendolyn, suddenly suspicious. “Exactly why did you seek me out tonight?”
“Mr. Tattler, you might want to prepare yourself.” Here goes nothing. “Were you aware that your son—very successfully, I might add—dealt in the black market?”
Horton Tattler huffed at her like a blowfish. “The years I’ve put into building a sterling reputation for myself. The Tattler name means quality, perfection, class. He was set to take over the whole operation upon my retirement. Why would he risk it all for the—the—?”
“Because he doesn’t want it.” Gwendolyn softened her tone. “He wants to open an electronics store: radios, gramophones, and some newfangled thing called television.”
The handlebar moustache twitched. “The black market, of all things.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. Just nylon stockings, perfume and lipstick, and some scarves. And besides,” she flicked his lapel with her nail, “you should be very proud. Your son has quite the head for business. Okay, so maybe he was operating in a legal gray zone, but he was very, very good at it.”
Horton pulled out a Romeo y Julieta Cuban cigar. Gwendolyn used to sell them when she worked at the Cocoanut Grove, but only to the connoisseurs. “If you don’t know where my son is, can you at least tell me why he disappeared?”
Gwendolyn looked around the packed room and decided that she couldn’t count on Xavier Cugat’s music to drown out the names she was about to drop. She guided him through a labyrinth of cocktail tables and down a tiled staircase to an intimate basement bar. It held seating for maybe thirty, but it, too, was crowded with well-heeled society chatter and military bravado. So then she led him to a door painted a dark maroon, the same color as the walls. She whipped it open and prodded Linc’s
father inside. A line of sporadically spaced lightbulbs lit the corridor ahead of them like a landing strip.
“Where are we?” he demanded.
“It leads to the Chateau Marmont.”
She watched him recalibrate his assessment of her. “What you’re about to tell me can’t be good if you need to bring me in here.”
Gwendolyn leaned up against the tunnel wall. The cement was unpainted but pleasantly cool. “We came to the attention of Bugsy Siegel.” Gwendolyn waited for another wail of disappointment to burst out from under the old-fashioned handlebar, but Horton stared at her, unmoved.
“Go on.”
“We were so successful that he decided to take a large piece of our pie.”
“In exchange for what?”
Gwendolyn had never stopped to consider the specifics of turning Siegel down. “The luxury of keeping our kneecaps intact, I suppose.”
A wry smile emerged from the shadows cloaking Horton’s face. “In other words, the standard arrangement.”
It took Gwendolyn a moment to comprehend the man’s indifference to the news that his son had become entangled with the mob. “You mean—you too?”
Horton leaned up against the wall opposite Gwendolyn and pulled on his cigar. “It’s the price of doing business in this city of so-called angels,” he sighed. “The LAPD are a pack of paper tigers.”
“You have more in common with your son than you thought.”
Gwendolyn snuck a peek at Linc’s father from the corner of her eye. He wasn’t at all the Parentasaurus Rex his son made him out to be. A little behind the times, perhaps, and a tad too stern in an antiquated sort of way, but nothing like the ogre she’d been picturing.
“Tell me, Miss Brick,” Horton said. “Linc was saving for his gadget store, but what about you?”
“I’m not too shabby with a sewing machine—”
“I can see that.” He cast a seasoned eye over her outfit. “Admirable work.”
“I had plans to open a dress store. Nothing grand, but something to call my own.”
“And is that what you’ll do now?”
Gwendolyn stepped away from the wall, her resentment rising again. “No,” she replied with a curtness designed to capture his attention. “I had close to enough money to finance my store, but when Linc went on the lam, not only did he take all his money, but all of mine, too.”
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