Getting Garbo

by Jerry Ludwig

  “Are you having the cabinets painted?” Arzy asks. Trying to make sense of it.

  “No, the cabinets are full, too. I just hate to be running out to the supermarket every ten minutes for something or other. Would you like a drink?”

  “Thanks, but I’m still on the clock. About Reva—”

  “It’s this craziness with the autographs. It was cute when she was a little girl in New York,” she’s pouring herself three fingers of Jack Daniels. “I thought it’d build up her self-esteem, but it’s all she lives for.”

  “Hobbies can get pretty intense. Actually, that is what I wanted to ask her about. I understand she was at the Academy Theater the other night and saw Roy Darnell there—”

  “Is that what this is about? That poor woman, killed in her own home. But what’s Reva got to do with that?”

  “Nothing that I know of. I just wanted to ask her to show me one of her autograph books, I think the kids call it a crumb book—”

  “Those aren’t kids, they’re freaks, scum.”

  “Do you know where Reva keeps her autograph books?”

  “In there, in her room.” Mrs. Hess gestures with the tumbler of Jack Daniels at one of the two doors leading to the bedrooms. The one with the padlock on the doorjamb. “I’m not permitted in there, isn’t that a disgrace? Her own mother. But you’re a police officer, you can go in, I give you permission, so you don’t need a search warrant, I’ll give you a screwdriver or a crowbar and—”

  Arzy doesn’t want to get in the middle of this. Unless he has to. “Where’s Reva now? Will she be home soon?”

  “She’s at work. She works late tonight.”

  “Does she carry the autograph books she’s using now with her?”

  “You bet she does. Doesn’t go to the toilet without them. Might run into a star.”

  “Where does she work, Mrs. Hess?”

  29

  Reva

  As soon as the last movie goes on at the Aero, I start tallying up the night’s receipts, because usually no one else shows up. Occasionally there’ve been exceptions. Like the night we were running a James Cagney Festival and Elvis Presley and his posse of Memphis homeboys appeared five minutes after Angels With Dirty Faces went on. Farley, who tears the tickets, and Gloria, at the candy counter, not to mention Hal, the usher, all went crazy. I was cool, and, of course, I didn’t ask Elvis for an autograph ’cuz I don’t think it’s right to mix business and pleasure, and besides I had Elvis already. But I did hang around to the end of the show after midnight, and let me tell you it was a kick to see the sleepy audience’s surprise at seeing Elvis unexpectedly strut out into the lobby doing the famous Cagney hitching-his-pants-up-with-his-elbows shtick and shouting, “You dirty rat!”

  Tonight’s quiet and I’m halfway through filling out the tally sheet when I hear footsteps. I look up and there’s this guy standing in front of my glass booth. Snappy dresser, hair slicked back, smile as toothy as Chester Morris.

  “Reva?” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say. With no idea how he knows my name.

  “I’m Sergeant Marshak.” And he shows me an LAPD badge, just like the one they fill the screen with behind the credits for Dragnet. “I’d like to talk to you a little, okay?”

  “I—I’m working,” I say.

  “Uh-huh. I understand. I’ll step aside for the customers, all right?”

  Somehow I know it’s about Roy. I’m fingering the locket, better stop doing that. The cop keeps smiling at me. I’m scared.

  “Nothing to be scared of,” he says.

  Like a mind reader. I better keep my mind blank.

  • • •

  Before he walked up, I’d been thinking about Tom Drake. Podolsky and me getting him today at the Ford car dealership felt like finishing off a piece of personal business. Three years ago, Tom Drake was passing through New York, just for one day, on his way to some MGM location in Maine, and he was staying at the Trianon Hotel on Park Avenue at 58th. Most of the group got him at lunch at “21” except for Podolsky and me and Freddie Tripp. So we three converge at the Trianon and Freddie makes the phone call from the pay phone in the Chock Full o’ Nuts around the corner. Tom Drake himself answers and Freddie tells him we’d like his autograph and asks when’s he coming out of the hotel. Tom Drake says, “It’s such a cold day, why don’t you guys just come upstairs now?”

  So we’re saying to each other, “What a nice guy, just like the guys he plays in the movies,” and we walk into the lobby of the Trianon Hotel, which is one of those places we can’t sneak into because the front desk is right next to the elevators. We’ve got the room number, so we’re heading for the elevator, when the clerk at the desk calls out, “Excuse me, where’re you going?”

  “To Mr. Drake’s room,” I tell him. Loud and clear.

  “Is he expecting you?” The clerk has seen us waiting outside on other occasions. This is a favorite lodging spot for MGM stars.

  “Uh-huh. He told us to come up.”

  The clerk gestures us over to the desk and nods at the bellman to keep an eye on us while he checks the registry—“It’s 1535,” I tell him, helpfully—and he frowns at me, checks anyway, then dials 1535 and asks Tom Drake about us, and his tone tells you he knows we’re lying, but then he listens and hangs up and he’s not happy, but what can he do?

  “Very well,” he says, “you can go up.”

  We start for the elevator, but he calls after us.

  “Except for you,” he says. Pointing at tall, skinny, sweet-natured Freddie Tripp, who happens to be dressed better than Podolsky and me, because he’s wearing a new blue topcoat. But he also happens to be a light-skinned Negro. I never think of him as anything but Freddie Tripp, but obviously the clerk sees only black.

  “You’ll have to use the freight elevator. The bell captain will show you where it is. You two others can go up on the main elevator.”

  We stand there frozen for a second. I mean, this isn’t some movie like Home Of The Brave or Pinky, this is for real, this is racial prejudice happening right here. And to tell the truth I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. But Freddie Tripp does.

  “You guys go up,” Freddie says to me and Podolsky. “I’ll wait for you.”

  He turns and walks away from the bell captain. Into the revolving door. Out of the hotel.

  “Isn’t that rotten?” I whisper to Podolsky.

  Podolsky nods. “Absolutely shitty. C’mon, let’s get it over with.”

  He starts walking for the elevator bank. Ready to go up. I realize I’m not moving. He stops and looks back at me. Then he comes back close. Hisses in my ear.

  “Reva, this doesn’t have anything to do with us, c’mon before the clerk changes his mind. I mean, Tom Drake’s here for only one day!”

  “I know. So you go,” I hear myself saying. “I’ll wait outside with Freddie.”

  I walk out of the hotel. Freddie Tripp is standing on the sidewalk, stamping his feet against the cold. He glances at me.

  “I didn’t feel like going up,” I say.

  I stand near him. We don’t say anything, and in a few seconds the revolving door turns. Podolsky comes out. Looking sheepish. “Screw Tom Drake,” he says, “who needs him?”

  We told the others in the group that Tom Drake checked out before we got there. We never told them how the clerk tried to make Freddie Tripp feel ashamed of being black, but all he accomplished was making me feel ashamed of being white like him.

  Don’t get me started on the subject of shame. It’s a feeling every seasoned autograph collector is familiar with. Not comfortable. Just familiar. When you first start collecting, when you’re a little kid, it’s a badge of distinction. You show the autographs to your schoolmates and they make a fuss and ask what the stars are really like in person. But as you get older, you’re aware that people think it’s kin
da weird, systematically chasing after actors to get them to sign their names on pieces of paper.

  So you talk about it less and show the autographs to fewer and fewer people. It becomes a kind of dirty secret. Eventually you’re really at ease showing your book only to other collectors, like, “Look, I got Sterling Hayden and you didn’t.” And that’s when the element of shame begins to take hold. When you’re waiting outside hotels and restaurants or covering plays, you’re always looking over your shoulder in case you run into someone from work or from your neighborhood and you duck if you see them first because you don’t want to have to explain what you’re doing there. Shame. But you can’t stop. It’s like an addiction. Collecting time is the only time you really feel alive. The older you get, the greater the feeling of shame. And the dread of what lies ahead.

  Back in New York there was an old biddy, skin like leather, always dressed in black, carrying a huge handbag. Her name was Mildred—Old Mildred we always called her—and they said she’d been collecting autographs since before Rudolph Valentino could tango, but she always told the stars she was asking for their signatures “for the children at the library.” That was the shame talking. And I think the longer we all collected, the more scared we were that we’d wind up like Old Mildred.

  • • •

  So now through the glass of my movie theater’s booth I’m facing a total stranger who’s very interested in my adventures as an autograph collector.

  “When you saw Roy Darnell getting out of his car, was he alone?” Sgt. Marshak asks.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What happened then?”

  “We walked to the movie house together.”

  “Did you see him meet anyone when you got there?”

  “He said hello to a lot of people.”

  “But was he with anybody?”

  “Look, he’s my favorite and all, but I didn’t keep my eye on him all the time. I was covering the screening for other celebs, too.”

  “So for all you know, he might have been at A Star Is Born alone?”

  I shrug. The less said, the better.

  “There’s a woman who goes to the Academy with him sometimes.”

  It’s not a question, so I don’t say anything.

  “Was she there the other night?”

  “Who?”

  “The woman he’s with sometimes. Hey, you know, Reva. Your friends told me you got her autograph recently, was it the other night?”

  I shake my head no. My armpits are getting sweaty.

  “And you took a picture of the two of them, was it when the Hitchcock movies were playing?”

  I nod yes. “But the photos didn’t come out. Whole roll got spoiled.”

  “What’s the woman’s name?”

  I’m fingering the locket, gotta stop doing that. “I don’t remember. She was nobody.”

  He sighs. Frustrated. Tough on him. “Can I see your autograph book?”

  I stare at him. Does he have the right to ask that? Doesn’t he need a warrant or something? But if I make a big deal of this, it’ll only make it worse. Okay, let’s try it this way. While I fish around in my purse, he comes around to the back of the booth. I bring out my autograph book and open the door a crack and hold it out.

  But he doesn’t take it.

  “Nice looking album,” he says. “But I’d like to see your crumb book.”

  How’s he know about crumb books? Those big-mouth kids! If I show him that one, then he’s gonna identify her for sure. In my good book every signer is a star and there’s a little photo of them pasted on the page so there’s no need to write their names. But in my crumb book, photos often aren’t available and so I draw a line with a ruler on the bottom of the page and print each name. So I won’t forget who they are. And besides, Kim Rafferty has very legible handwriting.

  I take back my good book, drop it into my purse, and pretend to dig around for my crumb book, playing for time, knowing that when I hand it to the cop it’s an act of betrayal. This man has come to hurt Roy and I don’t want to help him in any way, but I have no choice. He’s gathering information that’ll enable him to close in on Roy and he wants me to be his Judas. My fingers are touching the crumb book, Sgt. Marshak is impatiently holding his hand out, almost snapping his fingers, and I’m about to give it to him when a car screeches up to the curb in front of us, and I do mean screeches. There’s a red police light perched on the roof. Flashing. A big guy with a walrus mustache behind the wheel and he leans across and yells:

  “Arzy! Get in! Quick!”

  “Hold on a minute, Harry, I’ll be right with you.”

  “Now, dammit, we ain’t got a minute!”

  “I’ll see you later, Reva,” Sgt. Marshak tosses to me, but he’s already on the run, jumping into the car. They race off. I don’t know where they’re going, but I’m glad he’s gone. It feels like maybe I’ve bought Roy some time.

  30

  Arzy & Harry

  The G-force of Harry Tigner’s takeoff jams Arzy back against the seat. Like all mobile cops, Arzy has long since mastered the art of carrying on a conversation while simultaneously listening to police radio calls. Decoding despite the static. Digesting almost subconsciously.

  “Where’s the blaze?” Arzy asks.

  Hearing the crackling reports of a high-speed chase in progress.

  “They’ve got him on the run,” Harry says.

  “Who?”

  “That remains to be seen. But it sounds like the Hollywood Hills Burglar has spread his wings west to Beverly Hills.”

  Crackle-crackle. Subject heading west on Sunset. All available cars respond.

  Harry careens up through Brentwood to Sunset Boulevard.

  “Sounds like the same M.O. as our guy. Broke into a house in Holmby Hills. Tripped the silent alarm. Security company rent-a-cop got there first. Spooked the perp. Who took off—in a little black T-Bird.”

  Harry takes his eyes off the road an instant to register Arzy’s reaction.

  “You think—?”

  “We should be so lucky.”

  Crackle-crackle. Suspect has turned north into Beverly Glen.

  “Go for the Bel Air west gate,” Arzy shouts.

  “You got it,” Harry agrees. He takes the turn north on two wheels.

  “Doesn’t make sense for it to be Roy. We’ve been figuring him as a hitchhiker, riding on the real burglar’s rep.”

  “Diversion maybe?”

  “Doesn’t feel like his style.”

  “Hey, we catch him, we’ll ask him.” Harry grins wolfishly as he negotiates the curves up through the mountain streets like he’s at Le Mans. “C’mon, Arzy, bad guys aren’t always logical. Could be Roy’s in a panic.”

  “I thought he was in a T-Bird.”

  He gets a laugh from Harry. Rare thing.

  Crackle-crackle. Suspect car approaching Mulholland.

  “Hey, Arz. What was so special back there at the movies? Dispatch said where you were but not why.”

  “That kid in the booth, I think she can give us a line on a gal Darnell was dating. Even before the murder. An actress.”

  “Named Kim Rafferty,” Harry says. “I got all that. I was coming out to get you so we could grab a cup of coffee and compare notes. When the burglary call sounded.”

  “We talking about the same gal? She’s—”

  “She’s the one who set up Roy for the transom photos. Sleazo P.I. gave me copies, they’re in the back seat. Same face is on a billboard on the Strip. I just came from interviewing her at her apartment.”

  “And?”

  “Definitely strange bedfellows. Roy started seriously dating her after the sting. How’s that for an acquired taste? Took her to the Trapeze premiere, where they had a hassle with Addie. But she backs up Roy’s alibi a hundred percent. She was sitting with h
im all through the movie the other night at the Academy.”

  “And?”

  “And she’s fuckin’ lying.” He tosses another wolfish grin. “Love’ll make you do that sometimes.”

  They’re at the crest of the mountain, and Harry takes the right turn onto Mulholland in a sliding power glide. Going east. There’s hardly any traffic on the narrow road. The police radio is telling them that the suspect car is on Mulholland. Going west. Headlights appear around the curve in the road. Coming closer. Long enough to register the red gumball flashing on Harry’s roof. The car makes a screeching U-turn and races away. With Harry in hot pursuit. Arzy calling it in on the radio.

  “Mud on the license plates,” Harry says. “But it’s a black Bird.”

  “Half the phonies in Southern California are driving black T-Birds,” Arzy says. “But that’s a great paint job. Could be him.”

  The T-Bird has more power than the police Chevy, but the winding road cuts down his advantage. There are steep mountainous drops on both sides of Mulholland, covered by brush, with occasional boulders jutting upward. Far below, the lights of the San Fernando Valley floor stretch out into the distance. Now both cars hit a straightaway. The T-Bird speeds up, widening the gap.

  But up ahead, there’s a police roadblock. The T-Bird spots it and veers to go down onto a dirt road, but he’s going too fast and takes the turn too wide. He misses the dirt road. The T-Bird hurtles off the asphalt, out into space, arcs downward, crashing and bouncing off rocks as it rolls over and over, coming to a stop against a boulder midway down the hillside.

  Harry and Arzy brake to a halt, jump out of their car. Harry grabs a fire extinguisher and Arzy a nightstick-size flashlight as they begin to scamper, slide, and tumble down toward the destroyed T-Bird, resting on its roof. Above them, other cops arrive at the crest of the hill, stand watching, and the scream of more approaching sirens is heard.