Playland

by John Gregory Dunne

  A: Correction. The joint was no longer called Playland.

  Q: Explain, Mr. Ledbetter.

  A: Well, when Jake gets back from New York, the first thing he does is take down the old sign that says PLAYLAND and put up a new one that says KING’S PLAYLAND. I thought he’d gone nuts. His whacker—

  Q: For the record, explain whacker, Mr. Ledbetter.

  A: His shooter. Bang, bang. It’s a word the guys use. Whacker.

  Q: For the record then, whacker means designated killer, would that be fair to say?

  A: Yeah. I suppose. Whacker just sounds nicer. The guys know what it means.

  Q: And you, too.

  A: It’s a word I hear. Where was I?

  Q: Mr. King had just returned from New York and the first thing he did was change the name of the hotel from Playland to King’s Playland. At which point, his designated killer, or whacker, as you so colorfully put it, said … what is this whacker’s name by the way?

  A: Eddie something. I don’t even like to look at him, I mean he looks like if he hurts someone he won’t lose much sleep over it.

  Q: Your Honor, this will be the last interruption, but let the record reflect that Mr. King’s alleged whacker has variously been identified as Eddie Binhoff or Eddie Binyon, and there is a possibility that he has also been known as Allie Lazar. We have been unable to locate him so we could serve a subpoena. You can continue, Mr. Ledbetter.

  A: Okay. So anyway Jake takes down the old sign and puts up the new one, KING’S PLAYLAND, and this Eddie says to him, Jake, I hope you know what you’re doing, Morris has had guys hit for less than that …

  Q: For the record, Morris is Morris Lefkowitz of Lefkowitz For Furs in New York City. Now let’s get back to Jackie Heller. Where was he?

  A: Making scarce. He’d done something to piss Jake off, excuse my language, Your Honor, Jackie said it was nothing, just a misunderstanding, but this Eddie guy mentioned he’d like to rip Jackie’s tongue out and have it for a sandwich, and Jake says they only do that in B-pictures, Eddie. I mean, you want to know what kind of guy this Eddie was, Jackie was no day at the beach, he killed a guy once in Jersey with his bare hands, and messing with Eddie was not on his agenda. What I hear is that Eddie once cut off some guy’s hands in New Jersey, but that’s only something I hear. Eventually, Jackie and Jake make up, because he goes back to work at Playland, I think if he doesn’t, he thinks he’ll get whacked himself, and so everything seems to be going all right, two shifts a day.

  Q: Then progress was being made at the hotel?

  A: When I’m there, yes. There’s this decorator, he’s a … let’s just say he’s a little light on his feet, he wears a polka dot bandanna around his neck, he calls everyone by a girl’s name. Like he calls Eddie the whacker Edna. Not to his face, he’s not that dumb. And he’s showing swatches to Jake for the main showroom. Your Honor, can I say this in my own words, I hope the members of the jury won’t be offended, you know what I mean?

  THE COURT: I’ll tell you when you’re out of order, Mr. Ledbetter.

  A: Okay. He says, this decorator, What I’m thinking, Mr. King, is a carpet in ecclesiastical red and the ceiling in persimmon. And Jake says, I wanted a whorehouse, I don’t need some fageleh that’s never been in one to tell me what it looks like. Scratch the ecclesiastical red, scratch the other one too, try peach, I always liked peach. And things are coming along so good, his entertainment director’s interviewing showgirls for the line. It’s the little things, Lyle, he says to me, I’ve got to know him by now, he calls me Lyle, I call him Jake, he’s okay, I never saw the bad side people talk about so much. It’s the little things, he says, take that chick over there, the one that says she worked at the Chez in Chicago and the Copa in New York, she’s a human mattress, for Christ’s sake, and he says to her, Honey, I bet the last place you worked had a carpet in ecclesiastical red. He’s got this guy working for him, a vice cop from L.A. doing some free-lance, Crotty I think his name was, and Crotty’s checking the girls out, and Jake tells this guy Crotty anyone with a vice conviction is out.

  Q: A class operation.

  A: Definitely. There was one other thing.

  Q: Do tell us, Mr. Ledbetter.

  A: This is late in the game. Jackie tells him a cat got caught in the swimming pool pump, caused the water in the pool to drain out. Like somebody pulled the plug in a bathtub. I’d like to tear that cat’s heart out, Jackie says, we got to rip out the plumbing in the pool and start all over again. And Jake says, How long’s it going to take, and Jackie says, Four days and it’s going to cost a bundle. And Jake says, Two days, and one thing, Jackie, I want you to let the cat go, it’s bad luck for a gambler to touch a cat.

  Q: And?

  A: Just at that moment, one of the construction guys comes out from the drain, he’s holding the cat in his hand, and he’d strangled it.

  XVIII

  Where was blue all this time?

  In L.A., Arthur French said. Preparing Broadway Babe.

  Recording the score.

  She said she hated to lip-sync.

  It was a way of keeping her busy, Jack. To keep her mind on things.

  And off Jacob.

  I suppose you could say that.

  Were you seeing her, Arthur?

  Yes.

  Sleeping with her?

  That’s a cad’s question.

  You’re the only person I know who’d use the word cad, Arthur. What finally made her go over to Vegas?

  Not what, who.

  Who then?

  Rita.

  Another polo Sunday.

  Lilo Kusack was on the telephone. “All right, Jimmy.” He was speaking softly, not watching the match, admiring Blue, who was wandering through the crowd, hidden behind oversized sunglasses and a huge straw hat, sipping a piña colada. It’s like she’s giving the straw head, Lilo thought. Advertising her availability. Poor Arthur. In her life he would always be a utility player. In the starting lineup only until someone better showed up. She was not wearing a brassiere either. Lilo could tell. Tits like concrete. They didn’t move when she walked. “Wherever Morris says,” Lilo said after a moment. He had always been able to think about women and business at the same time. “He’s an old man. I understand. But you understand, too. It’s time. Okay? So let me know.” He hung up the telephone. “I get old, I get soft,” he said to Rita Lewis, “do me a favor, shoot me.”

  “I could arrange that,” Rita Lewis said. “No trouble. I imagine there’s a couple of guys out there would do me that favor.” She took a lipstick and touched up her lips. She knew Lilo was on the verge of dumping her, but she would land on her feet, or on her back, she always did. Maybe she should do the dumping. It would be more flattering to her ego. Lilo was a good and steady fuck, but a fuck was just a fuck. Anyway, however it broke, she still had her nest egg. A little here, a little there, a bauble or two in the safe deposit box, her furs, the odd tip on the market, a boat race at Hollywood Park, a bonus for carrying packages and never asking what was in them, it added up after a while. Especially with the number of men who had passed through her life, and the kind of men they were. Jake had paid her back, as she knew he would. Jake would cheat a man, but never a woman. It was matter of vanity. And he had not tried to discount the amount, as she knew Lilo would have tried to do if he had been in Jake’s situation. But of course Lilo would never be caught in Jake’s situation. He arranged situations, he did not get caught in them. Lilo was a picker-up of pieces, many of which he had caused to be broken in the first place. “So tell me, Lilo, what do you mean, it’s time.”

  “I mean, it’s time you minded your own business for a change,” Lilo said. “And in case you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, forget it. I told it to Benny once, the dumb fuck, and I’ll tell it to you, I’m an officer of the court. Funny stuff I want nothing to do with.”

  Rita knew she had pushed this particular button as long as it could be pushed, but if she was on the way out anyway, one more pu
sh couldn’t hurt much. “What you’re saying is, they don’t play polo at Folsom.”

  She moved away from Lilo and sat down next to Blue Tyler, who for a moment did not acknowledge her presence. Blue sucked up the last of her piña colada, a great slurping noise, then held out the glass to a maid. “Why do horses go poo-poo so much, Rita?” Blue said. “Arthur falls off so often, I’m afraid he’s going to fall into a pile of horse poo.”

  “I haven’t given it all that much thought,” Rita said. She knows everything there is to know about fucking and cock-sucking and camera angles, Rita thought, but nothing at all about the world, and how it works. Because of her Jake had cut his ties to the only organization he had ever known, and sooner or later it was going to get him killed, for as much as he might want to be a part of her world, he brought too much baggage to it, and it had no place for him. She wondered if Jake knew this, and she thought he probably did. He was never dumb, he just did dumb things. Lilo said the emerald earrings and the other jewelry that Jake had given Blue were paid for out of the Playland account, and Lilo said that’s a no-no. She did not know if this was true, or whether Lilo was just saying it, trying it out on her before he tried it out on Jimmy Riordan, and once he told Jimmy, Jimmy of course would tell Morris.

  “You read the rewrite on Broadway Babe yet? We used some of your back story, the part about you and the ginney gangster from Chicago. We didn’t make him a ginney, though. Moe wants to call him Bo Lamarr.”

  Rita looked at Blue, all sunglasses and straw hat and boobs that didn’t jiggle, and for the first time she felt old. In her whole life she had never been as young or as unwary or as protected as Blue Tyler. You could spell it out for her, but Blue would never be able to comprehend that she was Jake’s only chance. Her presence would put him in a kind of protective custody, because she was too valuable and too visible to have anything bad happen to her, and if it did, too many questions would have to be asked, too many scores would have to be settled. But that wasn’t in any script Blue had ever read, any picture she had ever seen. For Blue everything always worked out in the last reel, and Al Capone was called Bo Lamarr. “You’ve never worked without a net, have you, Blue?”

  “I’ve worked since I was four. Which is more than you can say.”

  “I mean, you’ve always had Arthur. And his father. And the studio. On your side.” She paused, certain that Blue did not understand. “Jake’s over there with nobody on his side.” His name caused an almost imperceptible shudder. “Some people are saying he got in over his head because of you.”

  Blue ostentatiously pretended not to listen, and clapped loudly as Arthur hammered a ball downfield.

  “It’s real life, Blue,” Rita said, moving close to her. “No directors. No writers. No makeup, no wardrobe, no script. Just one man out there, walking a tightrope for you, and all the guys on both coasts making book on when he falls off. Not if he falls off. When he falls off. Because he will. And when he does, you know what I bet you’ll do?”

  Blue whirled around. “The only reason you even care about him is because you used to fuck him,” she said savagely. Suddenly there were tears at the corners of her eyes. Rita remembered Chuckie saying that she only cried on cue. Maybe, maybe not. “What’ll I do?” Blue said.

  “What you’ll do is, you’ll go out to dinner,” Rita said gently. It occurred to her, a bad moment, that she was probably old enough to be Blue Tyler’s mother. “With the polo player. And his father. Like you’ve done once a week since you were four years old.”

  What happened over there, Arthur?

  She never talked about it.

  Never?

  Ever.

  We hold on Blue at the polo match, Sydney Allen said, no dialogue, the match going on behind her, the sound fading and her face slowly filling the screen, blotting everything else out, then we dissolve off her face into the desert, and we pick up a piece of music …

  EXT. PLAYLAND NIGHT

  THE LIGHTS of a LIMOUSINE on the desert highway.

  ANOTHER ANGLE—JACOB KING

  aware of the approaching lights, ever watchful.

  THE LIMOUSINE

  pulls to a halt in the parking light. Its lights remain on.

  ANGLE ON JACOB KING

  shielded by his car, his hand going close to his gun. BLUE TYLER steps from the limo and stops when she sees Jacob.

  BLUE

  You still want me out here?

  CUT TO:

  INT. PLAYLAND SHOWROOM NIGHT

  BLUE TYLER

  alone onstage in the unfinished showroom. She is barefoot, in jeans and a sweatshirt, holding a champagne glass as a make believe microphone as she sings “I See Your Face Before Me.”

  ANGLE ON JACOB KING

  alone, at what will be the premier table in the vast empty showroom, watching Blue.

  THE SOUND OF BLUE’S VOICE

  fades but music carries over the next scenes.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  INT. PLAYLAND CASINO NIGHT

  JACOB KING AND BLUE TYLER

  dancing, alone among the empty tables, as Blue slowly begins to undress Jacob, dropping his tie on a crap table. MUSIC carries over.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  His suite was only half-decorated, with tarpaulins and sanders and sawhorses and paint cans stacked in a corner of the living room, and paint samples on the sheetrock walls, different hues of peach, none quite right, the peach had to be right. Set against one wall, unhung and unframed, was the still-unfinished portrait of Jacob in riding clothes. He liked it unfinished, it had a roughness to it, maybe that’s the way he would hang it. And without a frame either. Every window looked out at the sign, KING’S PLAYLAND, ablaze in neon. In his bedroom, he kept the curtains open all night, the sign illuminating his face and helping him sleep. His bed was round, six feet in diameter, a mistake, he had concluded, it was difficult to get comfortable in a round bed stationed in the center of the room, he always felt as if he was going to fall out of it. During his stay, he had fucked three or four of the girls he had picked for the chorus line, none more than once, his heart didn’t seem in it, one of the girls had said, only his dick, and he didn’t want them there in the morning.

  Of course Blue liked the round bed, it was her first time in that configuration, “Let’s box the compass,” she said.

  “What does that mean?” Jacob King said. He was brushing his damp hair with the pair of silver brushes she had brought with her from Los Angeles, a peace offering. “For afterwards,” she said. A cigarette hung from his lips.

  “I don’t know.” She yawned and stretched, and rolled away from the wet spot, then back on top of it. His spunk made her feel closer to him. She did not want to take a shower, she liked the smell of his come on her. “I heard it in that Erroll Flynn picture Mike Curtiz directed at Warner’s. The one about the pirate. Captain Something.”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “I bet you never even saw a picture of mine before you met me.”

  Jacob sat beside her on the bed. “You could make money on that bet,” he said, smiling.

  Blue took the cigarette from his lips and drew on it. She let her head and shoulders hang over the edge of the bed and began to blow smoke rings, knees raised, legs apart, her buttocks providing purchase. Her breasts flattened out against her chest until only her nipples seemed to protrude. Jacob leaned over and removed the cigarette from her mouth, then crushed it out in an ashtray. “The first time I ever saw you, Arthur took a butt out of your mouth. At the Copa. He didn’t want you photographed smoking.”

  “You remember that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You ever think we’d end up this way?”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “I remember, too.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “That you knew this was what I looked like with my clothes off.”

  Jacob King smiled. “Well, I wasn’t surprised.”

  “Jacob, I never want to get old.”

&
nbsp; A shadow passed over his face, a shadow he hoped she did not see. Morris wants you to be old, too. I want you to be old. Believe me. “Yes, you do.”

  “Will you get old with me, then?”

  How could he promise that? “I am old.”

  “No, you’re not.” She heaved herself upright, in perfect shape, a dancer’s motion, as if she was doing a sit-up.

  “Twice as old as you are. And more.”

  “Well, you act young.”

  He stacked the brushes and put them on the bed.

  “Are you still lucky, Jacob?”

  “I hope as lucky as you are,” he said quietly. “I think about that plane a lot lately. And you missing it.”

  She wondered if she should tell him. She hated secrets, she could never keep them, as much as she always promised she would, but this was one she had kept for more than five years. It made her feel guilty sometimes that she had lived and Carole and the others had died, but there it was. “Jacob,” she said. Her voice was grave. “It wasn’t just luck.”

  He heard the hesitant note and said nothing. Better not to ask questions. Questions might make her retreat. Nor did he touch her. She was naked on his bed, and she smelled of him, and there might be a moment to reach for her, but that moment was not now.

  “Actually, how I happened to miss the plane was because I was with Mr. French.” She took a deep breath. “Moe.” There. It was out. She had thought that if she ever told, the words would come bursting forth, and that she would cry as she did when she was younger and had thought about it, but she held back. She was an actress after all, nineteen now and not fourteen, a fourteen-year-old would behave differently. “He’d been getting some kind of award in Chicago, from the B’nai B’rith, I think, and he’d stopped off here in Vegas on the way home. He came here to gamble sometimes. He’d checked the studio to see where I was, and when he found out our plane was stopping over here, he left me a message at the airport to meet him at the Fremont, and so I went into town.” She looked directly at Jacob. “He made me go down on him.” It was the first time she had ever performed fellatio, but she saw no reason to mention that. Or that it was easy to learn. Or that she called him Mr. French throughout, and Moe called her “little girl, nice little girl,” and had not removed his trousers, that was later, when they were in bed, listening to the radio, KVEG, the voice of southern Nevada, music and news. Vaughn Monroe was singing “Racing to the Moon,” when there was an interruption for a news bulletin, a plane carrying Carole Lombard and Blue Tyler had crashed outside Las Vegas, and there appeared to be no survivors. Blue began to cry and then to scream. J. F. French slapped her hard across the face and said if she screamed once more she would never work for Cosmo again, and except for intermittent sobs, she stopped crying. As Moe quickly got dressed, she noticed how old he seemed and how the fleshy folds and wrinkles in his stomach made him look like a melting candle. He would die before she did, and that was a comforting thought. Wait here, he said, don’t move, don’t make a sound, then he went down to the lobby and reserved a room for “Wanda Nash,” the name she was always registered as when she was on location or doing P.A.s, and it was to Wanda Nash’s room in the Fremont that she was hustled the night Carole Lombard’s flight flew into Potosi Mountain near Table Rock, Nevada. “That’s how come I missed the plane.”