Girl About Town

by Adam Shankman

  “I didn’t . . .”

  “Shut up! It’s too late for a confession. Do you know what they’re going to do to a pretty little thing like you in the pen?” He whispered something in her ear, and she shuddered. “You’ll be broken when you come out. A broken little toy for any man to sweep up.”

  She tried to wriggle away from him, but he held her tightly, bruisingly.

  “Why is this happening to me?” she whimpered.

  She turned her head this way and that, trying to escape, from him, from all of it, but she could still feel his hot breath on her face.

  Suddenly, the door of her interrogation chamber opened.

  “Let her go!” a man’s voice commanded.

  In seconds, the brute was gone. When Lulu was tenderly folded into strong masculine arms, she was beyond caring that they belonged to Salvatore Benedetto.

  “Don’t worry, doll face. I’ve got you now. It’s gonna be all right. I’ll take care of everything.”

  NINETEEN

  Minutes later Lulu found herself in a private room in the police station, her handcuffs off, curled on a sofa with Sal’s jacket around her shoulders.

  “I’m a businessman, not a romantic,” Sal said bluntly once they were alone. “I didn’t come to Los Angeles just for you, but, baby, you’re pretty damn high on my list. When I first met you, I thought you were a hell of a broad, full of spunk and smarts, and yeah, you’re a real looker, too. But you were still a nobody, see, and Sal can’t have a nobody on his arm. So I watched you. I made sure you had all the right chances to become somebody. And now you’re shining, a star, a diamond—one I want to own. I made you, Lucille. . . .”

  “I made myself,” she said staunchly. He sat down next to her, and she cringed away but managed to hold his gaze. “And I’m not Lucille anymore. I’m Lulu. I did that—for myself. Not you.”

  He looked at her indulgently and snickered. “Words, Lu—just cheap words. Lucky for you, I like a girl with a mouth on her. Listen: You got a murder rap. I can square that—for a price.”

  Lulu gulped, feeling sick, but she listened.

  “New York is taking care of itself. California’s where the future is. I’m setting up shop out here, and I want you by my side.”

  “Why?” she asked, frankly curious. “There are a million beautiful women out here, and most of them would say yes to you. Why me?”

  He took her hand, and she didn’t quite have the courage to pull away. “You’re not just any girl, Lucille. Not every frail can look down the barrel of a gun and then tell a straight story to the cops afterward. Not every girl can look like an angel on the witness stand, knowing she has a signed contract with the devil in her pocketbook all the while. You’re like me, doll face.” He smiled smugly.

  Lulu jumped to her feet, Sal’s jacket pooling at her feet. “I’m nothing like you!” she shouted. But in her heart, she had her doubts. You’ll both do anything to get ahead, a little voice whispered inside of her.

  No, that’s not true, she told herself. I just did one thing, once, that’s all. Maybe it was a mistake, but that’s behind me. I’ve repented. I’ve been saved.

  “I’m not like that,” she said, hanging her head miserably. “I’m a good girl.”

  Sal captured her hand again. “Yeah, you’re that, too. Maybe that’s really why I want you.” His voice had softened from its demanding tone, and he stroked her palm with his thumb. There was something so compelling about him, the mix of brutality and tenderness. He wouldn’t be brutal to me, she thought, comparing him with the man in the pin-striped suit who’d slapped and threatened her so terrifyingly. If her only choice was between a man like him in the penal system or a man like Sal in the free world, wasn’t the answer obvious? If a bad man is good to the person he loves . . .

  “I wasn’t supposed to be a gangster,” Sal said suddenly, pulling her back down to the sofa and speaking earnestly in her ear. “My pop, he didn’t want me to be like him. For most of my life, I didn’t even know what he did. Oh, I knew he was rich and powerful and that everyone respected him, but he said he was a businessman. I believed him. I wanted to be just like him. He was my hero. He was . . . my pop.”

  To her amazement, she saw tears in his eyes. He turned away for a moment, and when he looked at her again, they were gone.

  “So I studied hard—math and accounting, law, trade, everything I could learn about Wall Street. I wanted to be as good a businessman as he was. When I was fifteen, he gave me my first business. It was a failing movie house. I swear, that place was so full of rats I thought maybe I should just make it a cat emporium. No one would pay to see a movie there.”

  “What did you do?” Lulu asked.

  He gave a little shrug, but she could tell he was proud of himself. “I stopped charging for movies. I hired a couple of broads off the streets. You know, girls who will do anything. Then I charged triple prices for cocktails and cigarettes and served them right in the movie seats. You should have seen those floozies wiggling down the aisles.”

  “Those poor girls,” Lulu whispered, thinking, It could have been me, or my sisters, if I hadn’t come to Hollywood.

  “Are you kidding me? Those frails were deep in the clover. They were better deal makers than I could ever be. Every night they negotiated top dollar with a dozen men, got them boiled beyond recognition, and were paid in advance for services never rendered. They made out like bandits. Before long I had a dozen girls.”

  “So you turned a movie theater into a whorehouse?” Lulu said incredulously.

  “Everyone was happy, and profits were through the roof. And we still showed movies. I got a guy running it now as a speakeasy, and now that films have sound, we have the best sound system. A talkie speak! A talk-easy!”

  He laughed at his own joke, and Lulu smiled wanly. She was trapped. Sal or prison. He could get her out of the frying pan easily enough, but there was no doubt he was just another kind of fire.

  He spelled it out clearly, just in case she had any lingering uncertainty. “I want you, Lucille. I want you by my side. I’m gonna be the biggest thing to hit this town. I’ve already made arrangements with some of the hotshots out here—your guy Niederman, for one. I’ve got the connections, and the money’s gonna come rolling in. I’ll be at every party. My picture will be in every magazine.”

  Lulu’s eyebrows twitched upward at this.

  “Oh, Lucille, you’re thinking of the old days. Crooks are celebrities now. Haven’t you seen Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, Scarface? People love gangsters. And thanks to my business training, my graft looks so legit, no one can touch me.”

  He pulled her closer and took her face in his big hands. So strong, she thought. Not safe, but safer than the alternative.

  Her eyes half closed. All you have to do is say yes. Just like you did when he told you to lie for him. Saying that little word will save you. Because even if you get acquitted and don’t go to jail, a murder trial will ruin you. You’ll have nothing. Your family will be on the streets.

  He was looking into her eyes, searching with a peculiarly childlike hope. She couldn’t say yes. But if she said nothing, he’d assume, and take what he wanted. It was easier that way.

  He moved closer, his full, curving lips brushing hers lightly.

  “Lucille . . . ,” he murmured, and kissed her.

  Lucille! He still called her that, but no one, not even her mother, ever used her old name anymore. She’d legally changed it within weeks of signing her contract. Her identification said Lulu Kelly. That was the only name the police could possibly have for her.

  Yet that monster in the pin-striped suit who’d slapped her and whispered those vile things in her ear, the one who’d made her believe that anything—even Sal—was better than the fate that awaited her in the courts and jail . . . he’d called her Lucille.

  He was one of Sal’s thugs.

  Sal had set all of this up! Lulu was certain of it. The real bullets weren’t in the gun by accident. Sal had put them
there, or paid someone to put them there, just to get her into the kind of trouble only he could dig her out of. And when the cops on his payroll weren’t getting results, he told his own henchman to work her over, to make her so desperately afraid that she’d have no choice but to accept Sal’s offer.

  She jerked away from him, her breath coming shallow and fast.

  He wasn’t her savior. He was the devil who tried to trick her into worshipping him.

  And he’d almost succeeded.

  But she was still just as trapped as ever. Ruby had still been shot by a gun Lulu had fired. Sal or prison. Sal or scandal. Sal or poverty.

  Lulu didn’t think she was strong enough to make the right choice.

  Before she could say a word, the door burst open and in strode a man in a uniform decorated with an impressive array of brass stars and embroidered stripes, his chest jingling with medals and a golden badge that declared in black letters: CHIEF OF POLICE.

  Behind him were Veronica Imrie, David Mandel, and, still in his painted-on grime and splashes of all-too-real blood, Freddie Van.

  TWENTY

  What the hell is she doing here?” bellowed Walter Finnegan, the chief of police. “I come back from my day off to find that this girl’s been illegally held overnight, without so much as a phone call. There ain’t even been a proper arrest report. And who the hell are you?” He glared at Sal. “Jesus! Never mind. I’ll get to the bottom of that part later. What a goddamn mess!” Sal looked calmly back at Finnegan, as if this official, too, was just a healthy bribe away from being in his pocket.

  Finnegan turned to Lulu. “Meanwhile, miss, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you’ve been caused and hope that when you talk to the brass at Lux you point out how very swiftly I corrected the matter once it was brought to my attention. Mary and Joseph!” he muttered to himself as he strode away, rubbing a headache from his temples. “Can’t a guy even take a night off for his daughter’s birthday party without the whole precinct going to hell?”

  Lulu, scrambling to her feet, called after him, “You mean I’m not a suspect?”

  “Sure you are,” the chief said, his voice receding down the hallway. “But so are about a dozen other people, including God. As in ‘act of’ on the insurance reports. So don’t go leaving the country, or even the county. Got an aspirin?” he shouted to someone Lulu couldn’t see. Then he was gone.

  “Come on, Lulu,” Veronica said, holding out her hand. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”

  Lulu tottered across the room, almost falling when she reached her publicist. But Veronica was stronger than she looked and propped Lulu up. “No photos, please,” Veronica whispered wryly.

  Lulu stepped in measured paces away from Sal, trembling with the certainty of small, tasty prey that he would not let her go, that he would pounce, digging his claws into her until there was no escape. But Sal did nothing. When she reached the doorway, she couldn’t help casting a glance over her shoulder.

  He smiled at her, smug and supremely confident.

  “I’ll be seeing you, Lu.”

  It sounded like a threat.

  But there, lingering just within sight, was the man who had already saved her once before. Rocco was a puppy compared to Sal, but Freddie had taken care of him neatly enough. She heard an excited yip, and the little terrier bounded up to her and put his paws gently on her knees, giving her a canine grin. “Easy there,” Freddie said when the dog almost knocked her down. Charlie retreated and looked adoringly up at her. Why was Freddie here? To save her again?

  The door closed behind them, and she was swept up in David’s and Veronica’s chatter and hugs. Within a few seconds, it was almost as if her whole terrible ordeal had never happened. Almost. I’ll be seeing you, Lu.

  David and Veronica each had one of Lulu’s arms. Freddie and Charlie trailed behind as they left the station.

  “You poor dear. You look a fright.”

  “No, she doesn’t, Veronica,” David insisted staunchly. “Lulu couldn’t look bad if she tried.”

  “I know, and isn’t it grand I’m not the jealous type? Oh, Lulu, I had such a time getting in to see you! Do you know how much Lux donates to the chief to be cooperative about studio matters? No one should have laid a hand on you—a contracted employee! A star! Oy vey!”

  “See, she converted while you were in the chokey.”

  “And his mother still won’t meet me.” Veronica shrugged. “C’est la vie. But, Lu, it’s a crime. No, not what you did. Did you . . . ? No, never mind. Of course you didn’t, and even if you did, you still didn’t, in my book. I know which side my bread is buttered on. I mean a crime that they locked you away and interrogated you without so much as a mink to toss over your shoulders.” She rubbed Lulu’s goose-bumped arm briskly. “What ought to have happened is that the deputy chief of police should have come, hat in hand, to make an appointment. Then, in maybe a week, he could have stopped by for tea and asked the Lux lawyers a few gentle questions while you sipped oolong in the background. Then someone would write Ruby a big fat check, or her mother if, God forbid, and that would be that.”

  “She’s still alive?” Lulu asked.

  “For now,” Veronica answered. “The doctors aren’t saying much, but I get the impression it’s a matter of wait and see. They don’t sound all that hopeful, though. The bullet nicked her heart.”

  David pushed the door open, and there they were in the morning sunlight—free. The brightness made Lulu’s eyes water.

  “But for some reason, the police decided to ignore all prior arrangements and lock you away. What happened to you in there? And who was that dreamy he-man pitching the woo your way? I flirted with half the officers in this city and threatened the other half, and no one would let me in to see you. David here tried to use his muscle, but even that didn’t work.”

  “Aw, Veronica,” David said. Veronica leaned across Lulu and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  “Then around dawn this mug saunters up, still in the same old glad rags from the set, and starts talking like the love child of a Supreme Court justice.” She jerked her chin at Freddie, who was still trailing behind. He smiled modestly. “He goes on about habeas corpus and I don’t know what, until those coppers were quaking in their size twelves. This guy’s got acting chops in spades. I could almost believe he was a millionaire with a horde of lawyers on his side. Is he on loan from another studio? Now, here we are,” she said, as if all Lulu’s troubles were neatly tied up.

  David opened the door of a little two-seater, officially company property, though he had all but commandeered it as his star in the agency remained on the ascendant. The little dog jumped onto the driver’s seat, tongue lolling, and placed one paw on the wheel. “Is this fella yours, Lulu? Max gave him to Veronica and told her to take care of him.”

  “He’s not mine, exactly . . . ,” Lulu began, then gave up once and for all. It looked like she was stuck with a dog.

  “Shoot, I don’t think we’ll all fit, at least not comfortably.”

  “I can always sit on your lap, Mandelbrot, but I doubt these two want to get so lovey-dovey.”

  Freddie spoke up at last. “We can get a cab,” he said, and offered his arm to Lulu. She took it.

  Veronica gave them a look. “Or maybe they do.”

  Freddie almost hadn’t come. After the ambulance had carried Ruby away, bloody and unconscious, he had started walking. The terrier tried to follow him, but Freddie handed him over to Max and fled while the little dog whined and barked and dug his paws into the floor, trying desperately to pull away.

  A passerby told him it was about twenty miles to the Port of Los Angeles. Freddie had made a quick calculation. Five hours of brisk walking would take him to a harbor where he could go anywhere in the world. Surely he could talk his way into passage. He’d take any job, accept any destination.

  By dusk he could smell the salt water, and by nightfall he was at the port. Seagulls wheeled overhead, and from out at sea came the mour
nful bovine lowing of ship horns as they navigated around the breakwater. Freddie had never seen the Pacific, but he felt so at home on the water. The cargo ships were ugly, utilitarian things, but they called out to him. Come away with us! Make a new life across the sea in some exotic place where your father can never find you and the sins of your family won’t haunt you. He could farm sheep in New Zealand, teach English to merchants’ sons in China. Here, at this port, the world was open to him in a way it never had been when he’d lived in a mansion with millions in the bank.

  It was the right time to go, too. His father was getting closer. He could feel it. There had been another article about him in the newspaper, just a few column inches, but it ran his picture. That had never been a problem before. He was a far cry from the sleek and satisfied young man he’d been a year ago, in his white tie and tails, with his devil-may-care grin. No one would recognize the dirty ragamuffin they saw today as the scion of one of the world’s richest families.

  This time, though, they’d been clever enough to use a different picture. It had been taken a few months before he’d run away. Some visiting young English aristocrats had persuaded their American brethren to attempt a game of rugby. It had been violent fun, dirty and thrillingly vicious. When it was over, someone’s girlfriend had taken a photo of them all, disheveled and muddy. They’d agreed to look as tough as possible, mugging hooligan faces for the camera.

  That was the photo they ran this time. Freddie’s hair was sticking up at odd angles, and dirt was smeared across his face. He looked hard and grim. Very much, he imagined, like he did at this very moment. Anyone could recognize him. Beside the photo was the reward: $500,000. A sum that would have people around the country scanning every face they passed, hoping against hope that they might be the ones to hit the jackpot.

  Freddie passed a hobo hunkered in a doorway, a hat made of folded newspaper shading his face from the sun. Everyone in America, even the poorest, had access to a newspaper. Any one of them might become his captor. And then . . . what? Couldn’t he just run away again? His father couldn’t keep him a prisoner.