Girl About Town

by Adam Shankman

  Suddenly there was no need to get any nearer. Vasily’s voice rose, loud enough to make conversation around him fall quiet. “I can’t!” he all but shouted. “It’s too late for that. You don’t have any idea what I’ve done.”

  He looked around, aghast at the room’s attention, and quickly pulled himself together. “And that, dear boy, is how the scene should be performed.”

  There was a smattering of applause, the producer Irving Thalberg asked Vasily for a copy of the script, and the party resumed.

  Freddie and Lulu exchanged glances. “That was odd,” Freddie said.

  But when they looked back to the dim corner, Vasily was gone, and they couldn’t find him for the rest of the night.

  All through the party, Lulu heard the whispers behind her back . . . and annoyingly, the ones to her face.

  “My dear, how too, too ghastly,” gushed Lolly, giving her a pair of air kisses and then taking Freddie’s arm in a proprietary sort of way. She led them into a large, much quieter room decorated in a Wild West motif. Appropriately, Will Rogers lounged on a rawhide sofa, while newcomer John Wayne tossed a lazy lasso at a set of bullhorns.

  In that relative privacy Lolly went on. “She had it coming, but surely, darling, you could have found a less obvious way of removing Ruby from the picture.”

  “Lolly!” Lulu gasped. “You can’t mean to say you think I put the real bullets in that gun?”

  “Oh, my dear, I believe anything—simply anything!” she shrilled in her little-girl voice. “My reputation depends on it. Didn’t you do it on purpose, then? Not even an eensy-weensy bit on purpose? Oh well. I’ll scrap that copy. Though it would make a sensational story, wouldn’t it? I could spin it so that—”

  “Lolly!”

  “Very well. It was an accident, then. You put the bullets in just to scare her, and—”

  That time, Lulu’s warning look was enough to quiet her. She hoped the cowboys weren’t taking notes.

  Freddie chimed in. “Mrs. Parsons, I noticed you were on the set when the shooting occurred.” He gave her the smile he reserved for aunts and grandmothers.

  “I certainly noticed you, you charming boy,” she simpered. Lulu rolled her eyes, but since Lolly was practically nibbling at the bait, she let Freddie continue to fish.

  “Did you see anything suspicious?”

  “Everything I see is suspicious,” she replied, pinching his cheek. He managed not to grimace. “Suspicion is my stock in trade. Max, the head of makeup, was wearing a tie that doesn’t suit him at all, so that means he’s having an affair with someone at Lux. It’s a present, you see, and a tacky one at that. He hates it, but he’s enamored of the giver, so he has to wear it because they’ll be watching. Oh, and Niederman was absent from the set. He never fails to walk by all of the occupied stages to make sure his money is being well spent, but he didn’t that entire day. Do you know why? Some people he owes money to have come collecting, and he was locked in his office, hiding from them. He lost his shirt, tie, and tails at the racetrack in the last few months. A cool million at least. Lucky he didn’t lose Lux. Best thing he could do is set the whole place on fire. He has every inch of Lux insured for a mint. Poor man, everyone taking his money. If it ain’t the horses, it’s the whores. Oh, excuse me. I came up with that one last night, but of course, I can’t print it, so I had to get it off my chest.”

  Lulu managed to interrupt the monologue. “Did you say that Niederman has insurance on Lux?”

  “Of course! And a separate policy on every new film. Every star, too.”

  “Thank you, Lolly. As soon as the police get to the bottom of the shooting and I’m cleared, I’ll make sure you get an exclusive. That’s a promise.”

  “Speaking of which,” Lolly asked as Lulu dragged Freddie away, “are you two exclusive? My readers would love to know. . . .”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Lulu took Freddie’s arm and hustled him out to the back lawn. Mary Pickford kept the grounds fairly dark, for those guests who wanted the privacy a wall of night could provide . . . and those whose faces wouldn’t hold up to the scrutiny of electric glare. The only light came from a few torches near the pool. Freddie and Lulu sheltered beneath a potted palm, and Lulu, feeling paranoid under so many watching eyes, kept the conversation low.

  “I never even thought of Niederman, because he didn’t handle the gun,” Lulu said. “But it could have been him.”

  “Sure,” Freddie agreed. “He could have paid anyone there to put the bullets in. But would he stoop so low?”

  Lulu shrugged. “I’ve heard some stories. And I’ve seen some things. Oh!” Her hand went to her mouth. “No, that wouldn’t be possible.”

  “What?” Freddie asked.

  “Well, I once saw Ruby in an, er, compromising position with Niederman. She thought she’d get a career boost afterward, but he wouldn’t help her out. If anything, I think it held her back. Poor Ruby’s ambitions seem to always lead her down the worst possible path. It’s a shame, really, because she’s a talented actress.”

  “I got the impression there was no love lost between the two of you,” Freddie said.

  “There’s not, but I can still admit she’s got the chops. She might be under contract to Lux, but she hates Niederman. She could have put the bullets in herself, just to discredit him and his studio.”

  Freddie considered for a moment. “No, she would have known that someone in that group would probably wind up shot, and it could have been her as easily as anyone else. She might have wanted to cause trouble for Niederman, but she wouldn’t have deliberately put herself in danger.”

  Lulu stroked the palm tree’s smooth trunk. “You’re right. We can cross her off the list.” She pounded the palm with her balled fist. “In fact, we can cross all of ’em off but one. This a waste of time. I already know who did it.”

  “You do?”

  She sighed and turned to lean her back against the trunk. “How did you put it? ‘The man in the suit whom Lulu is afraid of’? That about sums it up.”

  Freddie stepped closer and put a hand on her bare shoulder. It felt warm and comforting, impossibly sweet. But it was no use. “That man wants me,” she said.

  “Wants you to . . . Oh. Wants you. Who is he?”

  “Never mind. I’m just sure he set the whole thing up. He wanted me in trouble so he could swoop in and rescue me.”

  “That’s a pretty sleazy kind of knight who puts the damsel in distress on purpose.”

  “He’s more of a dragon than a knight.” She shuddered in the chilling air.

  “I saw him slip money to the first policeman on the scene. I’ll happily testify to that. If you know, then why can’t you expose him?”

  “It’s not that easy,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “You don’t know who he is.”

  “Only because you won’t tell me. Lulu, look at me.” Freddie gently took her hands in his, uncovering her face. “Let me help you.”

  “You shouldn’t. I don’t know what he’d do to you if you got in his way. Oh, Freddie! Just . . . just leave me alone. You shouldn’t be involved in this.” She gave a hysterical little laugh. “It won’t be the worst thing in the world. He’s rich. He’s powerful. He can give me a good life. At least, it would look like that to everyone else. Then someday he’ll get sick of me and I’ll be free.” She felt beaten, defeated. She expected Freddie to walk away.

  He put his arms around her. “Do you love him?”

  Her eyes flew open. “No! I hate him.”

  “Then you’d be a prisoner either way. It doesn’t matter how much money someone has, or what the rest of the world expects you to want. If there’s no love, or trust, or respect, it’s better to be a bum.” Lulu thought he sounded angry, as if this all affected him much more personally than she realized. “There are too many strong, rich men in this world, taking whatever they want. If you let him win, you’ll be nothing more than his slave. Better to go to prison than to give in to someone like him.”


  “Freddie, I can’t go to prison. I’ll lose everything. Oh, I don’t care about that for myself. I’d rather dig ditches than let him touch me. But my family will lose everything. You don’t know how it was before I made it to Hollywood. I can’t let them fall back into that.”

  Freddie thought again of his vast fortune. How easy it would be . . .

  “Come away with me,” he said impulsively, to chase off those billions of temptations.

  “What? Where?”

  “Anywhere!” He grinned fiercely, and she thought she’d never seen someone look so passionate, so free. “I almost hopped a boat to Russia the other day. We can go to Hong Kong, India—anywhere you like.”

  “Freddie, I . . . We just met.”

  “So? I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m not thinking about you that way at all.” He could have kicked himself when he saw a little light in her eyes flicker and die. “I mean, you’re right, we just met, and that would be . . . Look, that part doesn’t matter. We can still run away. Change your name, get a job, live a whole new life. You’ll be safe from him. Whatever happens next, you won’t have to worry about the law or what’s-his-face in the shiny suit.”

  “Sal,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “His name. Sal Benedetto.”

  Freddie’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh.”

  “You’ve heard of him?”

  The memory came back to him, of his father sitting in his office, smoking a cigar with a man Freddie recognized from the papers: Cosimo Benedetto. Freddie, then sixteen, had burst into his father’s sanctum to share some piece of news, a good grade, a smart new tie. His father had introduced them. He’d shaken the man’s hand, accepted his compliments and congratulations. Weeks later, he’d seen the man’s picture in the paper. “Crime Lord Cleared of Tax Fraud.” But when Freddie showed it to his father, sincerely believing he had no knowledge of this particular business partner’s shady dealings, Jacob van der Waals had explained that business was business and what one administration called illegal, another would condone. A successful man follows his own rules and waits for the laws to catch up.

  “Besides,” his father had reassured him, “you know I’d never do anything wrong.”

  In all his stupid innocence, Freddie had believed him.

  Freddie vaguely remembered reading that Cosimo had been gunned down and that his murderer had escaped. In some scrap of paper he’d used to line his slap-soled shoes, he’d seen a story on another trial, dismissed almost before it began. Cosimo’s murderer shot himself, and his son, Sal, once a suspect, was innocent, as an on-scene witness could testify. He recognized Sal’s face now. It had grinned at him smugly in black-and-white newsprint.

  “I’ve heard of him,” Freddie confirmed in a grim voice. A heartless businessman like Freddie’s own father . . . a ruthless, brutal, murdering thug like those men who had attacked him in the barn. Sal was everything Freddie hated, the worst of humanity. He would never let Lulu fall into that man’s clutches.

  With renewed determination, Freddie took Lulu’s cold hands again. “Listen to me and listen good. It doesn’t matter whether it was him or another person on our list or someone we haven’t even thought of yet. We still have to do the same thing—clear your name. We’re a team in this now, Lulu. Until the end.”

  She looked up at him, her face pale as the moon in the darkness. Something about Freddie made her feel comforted, safe . . . even, to her amazement, happy. It makes no sense, she thought, as giddy as if she’d downed three glasses of champagne. At the worst possible moment of her life, she’d fallen for this poor boy, this bum. It can’t be love, she argued with herself. I’ve only known him for two days.

  But then, in her world, a romance never took more than ninety minutes to be fully realized. Two days was a lifetime.

  He moved closer. He’s going to kiss me, Lulu thought. And it’s going to be perfect. The darkness, the torchlight, the fear and the comfort. And him. Wonderful, infuriating, glorious him.

  She tilted her face, stood on tiptoe. . . .

  Freddie glanced over her shoulder. “Well, look who’s there.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The tingling that had filled her body at the anticipation of Freddie’s kiss seemed to sink into the pit of her stomach, where it fluttered like a bird trapped in a bedroom. She followed Freddie’s gaze and saw two figures in the shadow of a marble statue of Artemis. The torchlight glinted on red-gold hair, and Lulu recognized the Lux prop master Roger King. But who was that he was talking to?

  “I know that double chin!” Lulu said. “That’s Joe Schenck, the president of United Artists.”

  “Mary Pickford’s studio, right?”

  “So that’s what Hoover’s doing to combat poverty—a free subscription of Variety to all forgotten men?” She felt Freddie close to her back, protective. She could do anything with him at her back—anything! Even tease him. “You know an awful lot about, well, everything.”

  “I keep my ears open. Why is a Lux man talking to the head of United Artists?”

  Lulu shrugged, feeling the moiré silk facings of his lapel brush her shoulder. A little shiver, novel and delightful, traced its way down her arms.

  “We can talk to Roger when he’s finished. Oh! Did you see that?” Lulu gasped.

  “They shook hands?”

  “Open your eyes, lughead. Joe just passed Roger some money. I’ve seen people make that kind of exchange a hundred times. The numbers game was big in my neighborhood. Look, he slipped it into his inside pocket.”

  “You’re a woman of hidden depths, Lulu.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” she said, adding in her head, And if I’m lucky, you never will. After the brief exchange, the pair parted. Joe went back inside, and Roger lit a cigarette. Lulu slipped away from Freddie’s delicious warmth and charged up to him, even as Freddie called softly for her to wait.

  “You have some nerve, mister!” she said, shaking her finger in Roger’s face. The flummoxed man tried to duck out of the way, but her finger stabbed him in the chest. “How much did United Artists pay you to jinx Lux? Because what I just saw could guarantee you a one-way trip to Sing Sing. Didn’t you think about the consequences? Ruby might die, and I’m set to take the fall.”

  “What are you talking about, my dear?” Roger looked like he was making some effort to keep his calm, but his voice was shaky.

  “My friend and I just saw you take money from Joe Schenck. Don’t even try to deny it. It’s your word against two witnesses. You put real bullets in the gun. You handled the gun before it went off.”

  “Not right before,” Freddie interjected, but Lulu ignored him.

  “You better tell me the truth now, mister, because I’m going to go to Niederman and the police about what I just saw, and you’re going to prison for life!”

  “Lulu,” Freddie tried again, “I don’t think Mr. Schenck could have passed him enough money to make it worthwhile. . . .”

  Lulu half heard this, and grabbed Roger by the lapels. “If you had to sell me out, you could have at least held out for a lot of money.” Freddie was right. Even if it was hundreds, it couldn’t have been a very large stack to fit so neatly into a palm and a pocket. She felt insulted that her life and future were apparently worth so little. “How much did he give you, you rat?” She fumbled at his pockets. “Aha—I found it!”

  She pulled out . . . a slip of paper.

  “What does it say? Your lighter, Freddie.”

  “Sorry. I don’t smoke.”

  “So? Neither do I, but lighting a lady’s cigarette is every man’s job. Roger, give me a light!” He mumbled something about not smoking either, ignoring the swirl of smoke coming from the coffin nail between his fingers. “Oh Lord, the things I have to do.” She reached into Roger’s pockets again and found a matchbook, black as Japanese lacquer with a gold-embossed figure of a ram’s head, the horns curling back to its shoulders. Lulu struck a match and read the faint penciled writing
on the scrap of paper.

  “Lemon Squash?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll stick with champagne,” Freddie said.

  “No, that’s what the note says.” The flame neared her fingertips, so she shook the match out and tossed the book to Freddie so he could light another.

  “Maybe it’s his shopping list,” Freddie suggested as he peered down at the paper.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Roger blurted out. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  “Not so fast, mister. Where’s the money?”

  “There is no money,” he squeaked, pointing at the scrap. “That’s all Joe gave me.”

  “What does it mean, then? No, don’t give me that baloney,” she said when he sputtered something about drink orders.

  “King,” said Freddie, stepping up, “you’re in cahoots with United Artists. What gives? I know you were involved in the shooting in some way.”

  “You better tell us,” Lulu added, “or I’m going to scream my head off and tell Lolly every last thing.” She was pleased to hear Roger gasp. “And we both know Lolly can ruin anyone she chooses.”

  This threat seemed to scare him more than telling either Niederman or the police.

  “All right already,” he whined miserably. “Just please, I’m begging you, promise you won’t tell anyone.”

  Lulu nodded, though she had no intention of keeping that promise if it saved her from a murder rap.

  “Lemon Squash is the name of a horse. He’s racing down at Agua Caliente next week. Joe just had a hot tip for me.”

  It sounded reasonable, Lulu thought. But why was Roger still so nervous? There had to be something more to it.

  “What else?” Lulu asked, unconsciously slipping into a role. She was a hardened girl, a tough cookie who would never take no for an answer. As soon as she started pretending, it came much easier. Inside, she was shaking. Outside, she shook Roger by his jacket.

  “That’s all, I swear!”

  “Lolly!” Lulu called into the flickering torchlight. “I have a scoop for you!”