Girl About Town

by Adam Shankman

  Of course he could. He was ruthless. He’d never let anything valuable slip from his grasp, and Freddie was his prized possession. He’d do anything to keep me, not through love, but through pride. God forbid the other millionaires think he couldn’t handle his own son. Heaven forfend that Freddie’s flight from fortune make someone doubt the perfect system of thievery and lies Jacob van der Waals and his ilk had created for themselves.

  In the last year, nothing had managed to bind Freddie. Ben had been his only friend, and even then he’d kept wandering. Now, though, Freddie felt different. And it scared him.

  The difference was Lulu.

  Why should a girl he’d known for only a scant few hours matter to him? Sure, she was in trouble now, but was she any different from the thousand hard-luck stories he’d found on the road? Everyone had bad luck. Everyone lost their jobs. Everyone was railroaded by the law. It was bad . . . but it was a bad world. He had to look after himself.

  Which, he realized with a shock, was exactly what his father would say.

  That alone was almost enough to turn him around.

  No, she’s none of my business. Besides, she was a star. She had people on her side. They’d take care of everything. Any fool could tell she probably didn’t have anything to do with the shooting. Plenty of people had handled the gun. It could have been any one of them, or even someone he hadn’t seen. His eyes hadn’t been on the gun the whole time, and the crowd of actors had sometimes obscured his view. She’ll be fine without me. And I’ll be much better off without her.

  But that man, with his swell suit and slicked-back hair. The one Lulu was so obviously afraid of. Freddie had seen him corner the first policeman on scene. He’d witnessed money changing hands. It was a hefty stack, the kind carried by the highest level of the underworld. No one else had that kind of bankroll in their pocket. The truly rich, like Freddie’s father, never carried money at all. They had credit at every store and donated to museums rather than slipping a dollar to a beggar.

  That exchange was what made this situation so ominous. Immediately afterward, Lulu had been dragged away. No one had been questioned. No witness names had been taken. It was undeniably a setup.

  But still none of his business.

  Freddie tried to focus on finding a job that would give him passage out of the country. The first two ships he tried simply waved him away. He’d washed the blood from his hands, and the spatter on his shirt had dried to the point where, in the darkness anyway, it could easily be rusty dirt. Still, he couldn’t look too prepossessing, and apparently he didn’t pass inspection with the mates. He decided to try his luck lower down on the food chain and struck up a conversation with a stevedore loading crates of live chickens.

  “Where are those poor devils headed?” he asked the wiry bearded man whose skinny arms looked like bundled cords.

  “Vladivostok,” he said.

  “How do you keep a chicken alive across the whole Pacific Ocean?” The chickens pecked testily at their cage.

  The stevedore grinned. “We don’t. Our captain eats them. These are personal chickens.”

  “No chickens for the crew, then? What do you eat?”

  “Gruel and hash and borscht and vodka. Rye bread too.” He shrugged and loaded another crate of uselessly protesting chickens.

  “Sounds delicious,” Freddie said. “Can you use another hand? I wouldn’t mind a meal, and a trip.”

  The man looked at him skeptically.

  “I’m a hard worker. Here, let me help you. For free. You can judge for yourself.” The man might not have the power to hire him, but he could put in a good word with someone higher up. Failing that, he would know the best places for a stowaway to hide aboard ship.

  Freddie grabbed a stack of three crates and carried them across the gangplank. When he did so, he found himself eye to eye with a chicken. It regarded him accusingly. “Brr-ock! ” it said, and pecked in his direction. It couldn’t reach him through the bars.

  You’re in for a nasty ride in steerage, he thought. And then, how did they say it in The Mikado? “A short, sharp shock.”

  The hen looked at him as if she blamed him for all the world’s ills.

  There’s nothing I can do, he told himself.

  Then he remembered the other chicken and the grand proclamation he’d made after its death.

  I will be a hero, he’d sworn to himself back then. I will always, always do the right thing, no matter how hard it is. Ben’s death had driven all that out of his head. The unfairness of his friend’s unnecessary passing had made Freddie bitter and isolated. Now, it took a chicken to remind him of the right thing to do.

  He carried the crates back to the dock and unlatched the cages, one by one. By the time the stevedore noticed, the chickens had scattered to freedom and Freddie was gone.

  “How did you get me out when no one else could?” Lulu asked as Freddie slid into the backseat of the cab beside her. He adjusted himself so there was a bit more space between them. The little wire-haired terrier promptly filled it.

  “I just told the truth.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Don’t you know?” he asked, looking at her sidelong. “And here I thought you were innocent.”

  “I am. But I still don’t know who did it. What did you tell the police?”

  “I used some of those acting skills you taught me . . .”

  She made a little choking noise.

  “. . . and found out where the chief of police lived from the studio directory at the guard gate. I told him over breakfast that I was one of the studio attorneys who had taken a bit part for a lark and had witnessed the entire unfortunate event.”

  “You did what?” she asked incredulously. He just shrugged.

  “So you know who shot Ruby?” Lulu asked.

  “You did, of course. The question is who put the bullets in the gun. I told the police that I personally witnessed at least six people handle the gun immediately before it went off—including you and including myself.”

  “You!”

  He looked sheepish. “I was a little worried about you, and . . .” Lulu couldn’t help it. Her lips curled into a fetching smile. Freddie looked away. “And I don’t like guns. When I checked, the gun was definitely not loaded. But I guess technically I’m a suspect too. Anyway, after I gave the chief my statement, he charged down to the station and released you. Simple.”

  “Yeah,” she said bitterly. “So simple not a single person at Lux could manage it.” She leaned forward and gave the cabbie her address. “I can’t think straight until I’ve had a bath. Thanks for your help. Where can I . . . ?”

  She hesitated. She was going to ask where she could drop him off, but obviously he didn’t have a home. She had to reward him for his courage and kindness, but she didn’t have her pocketbook with her.

  “Would you mind coming home with me for a while?” she amended.

  Freddie raised his eyebrows. “My, that’s awfully forward. We hardly know each other. I’ve heard that things move fast in Hollywood, but . . .”

  Lulu felt her face redden. “Why, of all the insufferable . . . I just meant that you could clean yourself up, and you could tell me what you saw on the set. Stop smiling at me like that!”

  “I told you . . .”

  “You don’t know any other way to smile. I remember!”

  “You’re quoting me already? I am getting famous.”

  Frustrated, she didn’t know whether to laugh or slap him. Slapping him hadn’t gone so well before, but she was too tired and upset to have much of a sense of humor left. So she drew herself up regally in the taxi seat and slapped him verbally. “If you come to my house, I can pay you handsomely for your trouble,” she said coldly. “Or rather, my maid can see to it. I’m sure she can find some leftovers in the kitchen too. You can be done and gone by the time I finish my bath.”

  She saw his face harden slightly. “I didn’t do it for the money,” he said, just as coldly.

&nbs
p; “Everyone does it for the money,” she snapped, feeling like a heel. He deserved better than that. He was like that ridiculous little terrier, good and brave and loyal. Lulu wanted to keep him. She wanted to keep them both. But she wasn’t the kind of girl who could pick up strays.

  She looked at Freddie from the corner of her eye.

  But maybe . . .

  TWENTY-ONE

  Nice place,” Freddie said as they pulled into Lulu’s elegantly graveled circular driveway.

  “Oh, this old roost?” she said lightly. “You should see my last place in New York. Twelve stories high.” Of course, those twelve stories had two hundred families living in them. He’d spotted her accent, but she wasn’t about to give him any more ammunition. Besides, her past had spent too much time in her present. Now she wanted Lulu Kelly and her lovely made-up life to wash it all away again.

  “I’m impressed,” he answered as they entered the large redbrick home. “Most people I know only have one or two stories. Did each servant have their own floor?”

  She shot him a sideways look and called out, “Clara! Oh, blast, it’s her day off, and I was so looking forward to a hot bath. What am I going to do?”

  “Maybe what ninety-nine percent of the world—the ones without servants—do every day. Run your own bath.”

  Lulu glowered at him over her shoulder as she strode up the staircase toward her master suite, leaving him on the landing. “I know how to run my own bath. I mean that I’d planned on Clara taking care of you while I do. Follow me. The guest suite is on the left; you can freshen up there. Or will being clean make you feel too unlike yourself?” She could have pinched herself. Why am I behaving so awfully? He made her nervous . . . and giddy.

  “What a charming hostess you are! Don’t fret. I’m positively Darwinian in my ability to adapt. And I can always keep myself busy. Where’s the master bath? Through here?”

  “Wait!” she cried, running after him as he darted past her and headed down the hall toward her bathroom—and bedroom. “What are you doing? Don’t you dare!” Charlie followed blithely, sniffing the corners of what he plainly knew was his new home, no matter what Lulu might say.

  Freddie was already bent over the huge oval tub, fiddling with the faucets. “Do you prefer scalding or merely hot? I always like my baths to almost hurt at the beginning. Soothes away life’s troubles.” He began picking up various bottles of liquid and shaking pots of colored crystals. “You don’t strike me as a lavender girl. Oh, I mean woman, of course.”

  Lulu tugged at his shoulder, but it didn’t seem to have any effect . . . other than to keep her closer to Freddie than she’d intended. The steam from her bath rose around them, shrouding them in their own world of heat. He’d evidently decided on scalding.

  “Not gardenia. Too sweet. Not musk. Do you know that comes from a musk deer’s . . . ? Oh, sorry. You’re too delicately reared to hear something like that. So am I, for that matter. Hmm. I’ve got it! Neroli!”

  He picked up the bottle of pale amber oil, pulled out the stopper, and wafted it under his nose. “This is it, definitely. Distilled from the flowers of bitter oranges. Sweet and spicy and deceptively complicated. Yes, this will do perfectly.” He tipped the vial, letting the oil run into the gushing hot water. “There, Miss Kelly. Exactly what you like. Your bath is drawn, and your servant retreats to await your command.” He bowed and backed out of the room as if she were an empress.

  “You don’t have any idea what I like!” she shouted after him.

  But he did. All the other perfumes and oils and crystals had been gifts from admirers, accompanied by notes comparing her to this sweet flower or that, or else impulse purchases. Wearing those jarring scents was like acting, pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Only the neroli seemed to blend with the person she really was. She had the oil for her bath, and a light splash on her vanity. The spicy smell didn’t overpower her; it didn’t change her. It made her feel more like herself. That was hard to do in Hollywood.

  How did he know, out of all these scents, the one I love?

  Lulu closed the door and locked it. She could hear Freddie moving around on the other side. What was he doing? Going through her things? Stealing? Maybe he’d take her money and be gone by the time she was out of the bath. If he goes, good riddance, she thought, but she knew she didn’t mean it.

  Tentatively, she slipped out of her clothes. She’d shimmied in and out of costumes with half the wardrobe department, men and women, fussing over her and hardly given it a second thought. But it felt strangely intimate, somehow, to have Freddie just on the other side of the door.

  She stepped into the bath. The water held her, but she couldn’t relax in its soothing embrace.

  He saved me. Just when I thought everything was over, he saved me.

  Her eyes closed . . . then sprang open in sudden alarm.

  So what does he want in return?

  “Miss Kelly?” he called through the door. “May I liberate a few of your eggs? I make a mean omelet. Are you hungry?”

  “You bet I am!” she called back, and winced, chiding herself for not scripting a more cultured response.

  Maybe that’s all he wants, she thought, settling back into the water. Food, a better life. I owe him that much, at least. She swirled the scented oil around with her foot. She had a spare bedroom. Well, two, if you counted the one that was devoted to her clothes and shoes. He could stay for a little while, just until he got on his feet. . . .

  No. What was she thinking? That would cause a scandal, and she had enough trouble now. Besides, before long she might not even have a house, much less a spare bedroom. If she was convicted, or if this even went to trial, she would lose everything.

  Freddie could have food, clothes, all the money she had on her. But that was all. She didn’t have anything else to give.

  Charlie put his paws on the edge of the bath and woofed into the spicy-sweet bubbles. Lulu gave him a damp pat and whispered, “Stop thinking you know what I’m going to do, you mutt.” He flashed her a joyous canine smile, and Lulu grinned back, then sank completely under the water so no one, not even a dog, could ask her why she was suddenly inexplicably happy despite the threats hanging over her head.

  Freddie was ready with her eggs and toast and two pears cut into slices and fanned decoratively. He sucked in his breath when he saw her, clad in a robe of what appeared to be nothing more than white marabou, her water-sleeked head peeking out from a mass of feathers and fluff. He quickly looked down at the eggs—anything to keep from staring, to keep from wanting.

  I’m here to help her, he told himself again. I don’t want anything more.

  “You clean up nicely,” he said, still not really looking.

  “The bath is free if you like.” She waved a hand airily over her shoulder.

  “No thanks. I don’t want our food to get cold. And I know you’d be too polite to eat without waiting for me. Sit down.” He pulled out a chair for her.

  Lulu eyed the meal. “I don’t usually eat so much,” she said, but wasted no time picking up a slice of thickly buttered rye. Freddie watched her eyes close as she relished the first bite. He couldn’t imagine Violet enjoying such a simple and delicious thing as buttered bread. Peasant food, she’d call it. He’d tried to make an omelet for her one late night after her cotillion ball, and she’d just laughed and rung to wake up the cook.

  “And I hate to break it to you, but that isn’t exactly an omelet.” Lulu took a bite of the ragged eggs. “An omelet is fluffy and folded. These are scrambled at best.” But she took another bite, and another, eating with all the enthusiasm of a guttersnipe at the soup kitchen.

  “Maybe you’d prefer hard-boiled?” he asked.

  She looked up at him sharply. “Are you referring to my personality?”

  He shrugged noncommittally, still smiling. She was so easy to tease. It was like having a little sister, he told himself. A little sister naked under a cloud of marabou. He gulped and poured them each a cup of coffee
from the percolator.

  They both started talking at once.

  “When you’ve washed up . . . ,” she said.

  “When you’ve finished eating . . . ,” he said.

  They both stopped short.

  “Go on.”

  “Ladies first.”

  “Age before beauty.”

  “Pearls before swine.”

  Lulu slapped her fork down on her empty plate.

  “Oh, all right,” Freddie said, chuckling. “We can get started on the investigation. I’ve made a list of suspects. Well, people who handled the gun, at any rate.” He placed a leather-bound book on the table.

  “My diary!”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t read a word.” He ducked to avoid the napkin she threw. “Sorry. It was the only paper I could find. Look, I put your name first, just to be polite.”

  He leaned over Lulu’s shoulder while she peered down at the list. Some were names, some descriptions, written in a bold, sure hand:

  Lulu Kelly

  Freddie Van

  Ruby Godfrey

  Blake Tanner

  The acting coach

  The ginger-haired prop supervisor

  The man in the suit whom Lulu is afraid of

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked, looking up at him. Her eyes were big and luminous with unshed tears, her unpainted face a sweet pale heart.

  “It’s always helpful to start with a list,” he said quietly.

  “No. I mean why are you helping me?”

  “It didn’t seem like the cops were going to do their job. They rarely do, unless you push them. I figure if you solve this yourself, you can hand them their case on a silver platter and walk away with their thanks. If you leave it to them to investigate, things might go differently.”

  “No!” Lulu burst out, standing suddenly so that they were face to face, very close. “You don’t understand! Why are you helping me?” She laid heavy emphasis on those two words and waited.