by Mary Miley
Well, it wasn’t really mine. I’d borrowed it from one of the switchboard gals. The Sheik by E.M. Hull was the scandalous book that had inspired the Paramount picture of the same name, the one that transformed Rudolph Valentino from unknown Italian immigrant to the leading man who caused women all over the world to swoon with desire. Most fathers refused to allow their daughters to watch the film and most husbands forbade their wives, but somehow, it had earned Paramount a fortune, and Valentino-of-the-smoldering-eyes was poised to make a sequel. Clearly, this was not something an eleven-year-old girl ought to be reading, but that wasn’t what troubled me. The Sheik had been on my bedside table under several magazines and a glass of water. Not only had Kit been in my room, she would have had to rummage around a good deal to have come across it.
I made excuses for her in my head: she was young; she didn’t understand the concept of privacy; she’d finished her own book and had nothing else to do; she couldn’t be expected to stay in Helen’s room and the kitchen all day – but none of those took the sting out of my annoyance. I got the notepad and pencil from the kitchen and scribbled a few lines. When she didn’t react when I approached, I tapped her on one knobby knee.
She looked up at me with eyes like the windows of a vacant house. I handed her the notepad. It read: ‘Polite people ask before borrowing another person’s belongings. In the future, please ask before you take anything from my room.’ She gave my message a dismissive sniff and, without wasting a second glance in my direction, turned the page and resumed reading. I could have slapped the little brat.
And I might have too, if Melva hadn’t called out to the house just then, ‘Anyone who wants boiled potatoes and sliced ham for dinner, speak now or forever hold your peace so I know how many potatoes to peel. And come help me peel them.’
I went inside to take out my hostility on the spuds.
By the end of the meal, I’d cooled off enough to announce to the girls that I was going to walk to the library before it closed. I wrote the message so Kit could read it, and asked if she wanted to come along and choose some books. There may have been a spark of interest in her dull eyes; in any event, she nodded.
The Cahuenga Library on Santa Monica was not far from our house, so Kit, Helen, and I headed that way as soon as we’d washed up the dinner plates. ‘I want to look at a map of Europe,’ I told Helen, ‘before someone finds out that I don’t know where Serbia is.’
‘Gosh, I don’t know where Serbia is either,’ she said, ‘but I’m terrible with geography.’
‘I know where England is,’ I said. ‘And France and Spain. The rest of Europe is somewhere to the right of those countries, but that’s as good as I can do.’ Like most vaudeville kids, I hadn’t gone to school a single day of my life, and my lack of education embarrassed me sometimes. I’d brought some thin paper with me so I could trace a copy of a map to take home.
‘Well, I don’t want to look up anything,’ said Helen. ‘I’m just happy to get outside and walk in this glorious night-time air. Hear that? An owl doing his night-time hunting. I’m sure Kit will be happy to have some new books to read. She sure gobbles up the newspaper I bring home each day.’ She heaved a great sigh. ‘Work was so tiresome today. I’m sick of selling silk lingerie to haughty WAMPAS Baby Stars … Can’t wait for Sunday when I can – oh, I wonder if Kit will want to go with me to the beach? Surely she will …’
‘Maybe her mother will be back by then.’
‘I hope so. I hope she’ll pay for the cot.’
‘Cot?’
‘Oh, you didn’t see it. I bought a canvas camp bed. Lillian and I carried it upstairs to my room earlier. Kit was afraid to sleep on the floor after she saw a spider last night. She’s very afraid of spiders. I mean, none of us likes spiders, but she’s very afraid of them. Trembling afraid. I killed the spider – it was just a little one – but that didn’t console her. She says she can’t sleep on the floor with the spiders. We don’t have a davenport, so, I went out and bought a cot.’
‘Well, it’s not a bad thing to have, in case one of us has company.’
‘Yeah, I know. I still hope Rose Ann will reimburse me.’
The next morning, I rose early to avoid the rush for the water closet. I flagged down a Red Car before eight o’clock, arriving at the studio minutes before the hour in time to grab some coffee at the canteen before heading to my desk. I had hardly reacquainted myself with my chair when I was called to the pirate set where we launched into the scene where Douglas gets his revenge for his father’s death. Morning became afternoon without even a pause for lunch. Finally at three, Director Parker gave us fifteen minutes. Exhausted, I sank to the floor in a quiet corner where I sat Indian-style, balancing a root beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other. Douglas passed by, saw me, and paused just as I took a big bite.
‘No, no, don’t get up, Jessie,’ he said when I started to rise. ‘I heard from Mildred that you’re investigating Joe’s murder.’
I swallowed. ‘If you’ve no objection.’
‘Why should I? I hope you can do something. Poor Barbara is beside herself. And speaking selfishly, her mind’s not on her work. We need her full attention. I’d rather you didn’t take any time off to do it, though. At least, not until we’re finished filming. Let me know if I can help with money.’
Not two minutes later, Barbara Petrovitch crept into my solitude.
‘Thank goodness you’re here! I mean, hello, Jessie. I was hoping you’d be here.’ She held out an unopened envelope. ‘This was returned in this morning’s mail,’ she said in a weak voice. ‘I was afraid to open it …’
I glanced at the envelope. The black-ink address had been overlaid by an official-looking, red-ink stamp that proclaimed in all capitals: ‘RETURN TO SENDER: DECEASED.’
‘Is this your husband’s handwriting?’ I asked Barbara.
‘It is. And it came back marked like that. Somebody else is dead. The person he wrote to.’ She shivered.
The bodies were piling up.
I looked more closely at the address. The dead somebody had lived in St. Louis, Missouri. His name was Aleksandar Jovanovitch. ‘Do you know this Jovanovitch person?’
‘No. But I guess Joe did.’
‘May I open it?’
Barbara cringed. Never mind that Joe had gone to his reward, the poor woman was still terrified of displeasing him. ‘I … I guess so. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that now, I guess, is there?’
‘Not a thing,’ I said, slipping my finger carefully under the flap so as not to tear the envelope. I was betting the police would want to see this. I drew out a sheet of cheap paper. The message was in Serbian, although I did recognize two American words: Los Angeles. ‘Not much we can do right now, Barbara. Let me give the police a call. We’ll ask for that same man, Officer Marks, to come translate this for us. It may be nothing. Then again …’
Carl Delaney brought Officer Steve Marks by my house after supper. A burly man of about forty, Marks looked more crook than cop, with a dark countenance, bad teeth, and a frown that persisted even when he smiled. Which was only once. Melva and Lillian were still eating dinner, so I led the men through the house onto the patio for some privacy. ‘Sorry we don’t have a parlor,’ I explained. ‘We turned the parlor and the dining room into bedrooms so we could split the rent five ways instead of three.’ Kit was there, sitting at the edge of the fishpond dropping crumbs to the goldfish. The newspaper she’d been reading was spread carelessly all over the ground. A flash of curiosity interrupted her stone-faced expression when she spotted us.
‘That’s Kit,’ I said. ‘My roommate’s cousin. She won’t bother us; she’s deaf and dumb.’
Carl waved at her and smiled as we sat at the wooden table. ‘I saw her last time I was here. She living with you gals now?’
‘She’s staying with Helen this week while her mother is out of town.’ I handed the envelope to Marks and asked how he came to know Serbian.
‘I am not Serbian,’ he
said with enough haste that I gathered it was a nationality he wanted no part of. ‘I am Macedonian.’ Thank heavens I didn’t have to fake that I knew where that country was – I had it on my newly drawn map of Europe. It was above Greece, and the librarian told me it had joined up with some other countries to become Yugoslavia. ‘In that part of the world, borders change often, and most people speak several languages.’ He opened the envelope and studied the single sheet of paper before saying, ‘It’s written by Joe Petrovitch, of course. He writes, “Have you heard about the death of our friend in New York?”’
‘Jeton Ilitch,’ said Carl. ‘The cook.’
I interrupted the translation to say, ‘I learned something about the cook yesterday from a vaudeville friend in New York. She went to the newspaper office and found the article about his death. It wasn’t just death. It was murder. He was shot at the restaurant where he worked. Something to do with gangsters, the police think. What do you make of that? Too much coincidence that two Serbian friends are shot within a few weeks of each other?’
Carl pondered this news for a moment before replying. ‘Well, they don’t seem to have been in touch with each other, so you can’t argue they were working together. Murders in the big cities have doubled or tripled in recent years thanks to the gangsters. And immigrants – especially Irish, Jews, and Italians – make up most of those gangs, so they’re the ones getting murdered. So, I guess I’m saying no, I don’t think it’s too big a coincidence for two immigrants to be murdered three thousand miles apart. Just a regular-size coincidence.’ He turned to Officer Marks. ‘So what else does Mr Petrovitch have to say?’
Marks cleared his throat. ‘He tells the man Jovanovitch that he is well. He is married.’
‘It sounds as if Joe has been out-of-touch with this friend for some years too,’ said Carl, ‘if he is just now mentioning his marriage.’
Marks refolded the paper. ‘That’s all?’ I asked him. ‘There’s more writing than that.’ I’d seen the words Los Angeles.
‘The other part is of no interest to the case.’ He looked back at the letter. ‘It says, “I work as a director for a big moving picture company in Los Angeles and have a big house” – this is not true, we know, but he says it. “I hope you are well”. That is all he says.’ His translation complete, he set the letter on the table and turned tired eyes toward Kit who was trying to catch a goldfish with her hands.
‘A man of few words, our Joe,’ said Carl. ‘What do you think, Jessie?’
‘I think Joe and his friends have had no contact in recent years, not since Joe’s marriage to Barbara, anyway, and I understand that was about four years ago, until the death of one caused this exchange of letters to start. I’m wondering when Aleksandar Jovanovitch passed away. A few weeks ago, like the cook in New York? Or a few years ago? How ’bout I check Variety and see if I know a vaudeville act playing St. Louis this week? Maybe somebody can find out the date of death for us.’
Carl stood. ‘Supposing we find out. What does that tell us?’
‘Depends. If it happened a good while ago, it’s a vote for coincidence. People die all the time.’
‘And if it happened recently?’
‘Then I want to know how he died. If it was a heart attack, I’m still a believer in coincidences. If he was murdered, I’m jumping ship.’
TEN
David was never far from my mind. Every day, I pestered Mike Allenby for news. Any progress toward bail? How were David’s spirits holding up? Had a court date been scheduled yet? Even bad news would have been better than drifting along without any information whatsoever. By now I had a first-name relationship with Veronica, a tart secretary with a nasal voice who slurped coffee while she talked on the telephone and blocked my every attempt to reach Allenby.
‘Oh, you again. Sorry, dearie, we have no information for you today. Mr Allenby will telephone as soon as he has something to report. Bye bye, hon.’
David was no better. He didn’t answer my letters, which meant he wasn’t getting them. At least, that’s what I chose to believe. And after that incident aboard the Catalina steamship, Douglas Fairbanks hadn’t mentioned David a single time. Even Kit felt sorry for me. Once when I’d slammed the telephone receiver down after Veronica had given me the sack, I turned to find Kit leaning on the doorjamb staring at me with a concerned frown. Sometimes I had the notion she understood more than we gave her credit for.
That night, as some of us girls were relaxing on the patio, Lillian came outside with a pair of scissors, a mirror, and a comb in her hands. ‘Jessie, can I bother you to trim my bangs? Any longer and I’ll start tripping over furniture.’
‘Sure. Pull up a chair.’
‘And I want to look like Louise Brooks when you’re done,’ she teased.
I have no special talent as a hair stylist, but cutting a straight line ranks up there with my better accomplishments. As I snipped, an idea came to me. I looked at Kit, who had laid aside the newspaper and was watching the operation with unusual interest. Pointing to the scissors and then to her, I mimed the question by raising my eyebrows. To my surprise, she gave an eager nod. As Lillian stood up and brushed herself off, I motioned Kit to the chair.
‘Next customer!’ I said with a flourish. Suddenly, it was a group effort with Lillian holding the mirror and the others tossing out suggestions as I combed through Kit’s tangles. In Hollywood, everyone was a director.
‘Just below the earlobe,’ said Melva.
‘Even it up on the right,’ said Lillian.
‘Another half inch on the bangs,’ said Helen. ‘This is wonderful, Jessie. She’s starting to look like a girl. Her own mother won’t recognize her.’
‘She’s really not as bad looking as you think, is she?’ mused Melva, cocking her head to one side and squinting like a portrait artist evaluating her subject. ‘I’d kill for those cheekbones. You think we can do something about those awful eyebrows?’
‘I’ll get my tweezers.’ Lillian dashed inside.
‘Have you heard anything from Rose Ann, Helen?’ I asked. ‘I hope she’s found something. Did she say what sort of job she was looking for?’
‘Not in so many words, but she’s a singer. Not vaudeville, like you, but cabarets or speakeasies. I’ve never heard her sing, but Mother says she’s always had a lovely, husky voice.’
‘Sad, when you think about it,’ said Melva. ‘Or do I mean ironic? A singer with a child who can never hear her voice. Sorta like an artist with a blind kid.’
Helen continued. ‘All Rose Ann told me was that she had some out-of-town leads to pursue. Said she needed to get out of town and find someplace new to live. And when she was settled, she’d send for Kit.’
‘Send for Kit?’ I said with genuine surprise. ‘Not come and get her? Eleven is pretty young to go traveling alone.’ And I oughta know. I’d been traveling alone since I was twelve, and there had been some pretty tense times that I wouldn’t wish on any young girl.
‘Yeah,’ said Helen, ‘and I doubt she could manage that enormous suitcase she brought. It weighed a ton. The two of us had trouble muscling it up the stairs. I don’t really remember what Rose Ann said, Jessie. I expect we’ll see her or at least hear from her this weekend.’
The next day, the postman brought a surprise, a letter from New York. Adele had sent me the newspaper clipping telling of Jeton Ilitch’s murder.
Dearest Jessie, I thought you would like to read the article in for yourself, so I batted my eyelashes at the newspaperman at the morgue until he cut it out for me which he wasn’t supposed to do so I felt quite the vamp! Then Freddie and I had a brainwave. He looked up the address of the restaurant La Terrasse where the cook was killed and what do you think? It was in the theater district not far from our own Liberty Theater. So we decided to eat dinner there and play like real detectives!!! La Terrasse is nothing special as restaurants go but the owner recognized us from the show and came over to say how honored he was, et cetera, et cetera, and would we like a nice b
ottle of real French wine? So we invited him to sit with us and have a glass, so we could give him the third degree like they do in the pictures.
I kissed the letter. Dear old Adele – she hadn’t changed a bit. Sassy and full of mischief, she’d snatched at my plea for help as if it were an invitation to an exciting adventure with Sherlock Holmes. I could picture her and Freddie going into La Terrasse – wouldn’t the owner have been thrilled to have such grand Broadway stars in his establishment? He’d have been putty in her hands – no man was immune to Adele’s charms.
He told us all about the cook’s getting shot just six weeks ago. A man had come in and ordered coq au vin and a bottle of wine. He was ordinary looking, with a heavy, dark beard and old-fashioned handlebar mustache. He ate his meal, paid for it (that’s the surprising part, I think, don’t you?), and went into the kitchen. No one thought anything about it, just that he was going to say something to the cook. Then there were three bangs. Some people screamed. (Here in gangster-land, we know what that means!) The owner came and cautiously crept toward the kitchen where a frightened woman was standing who shouted the man had gone out the back door. So the owner hurried to get a policeman who was at the corner. The policeman ran around back but too late. The shooter had gotten clean away.
The dead man worked there only a year or so. Freddie asked if anyone knew him well. No one did, not very well. They knew he’d come from Serbia about ten years ago. His English was pretty good. One of the waiters said he talked about being in the army during the Great War. Not many people came to his funeral. No wife, no kids. We can go back again if you have something else you want us to ask.