Kiss Me Twice

by Thomas Gifford

  Cassidy hadn’t been to a Hollywood party since before the war when Karin had gone out to make her movies and he’d caught up with her once the football season was over. Looking across the undulating lawn from where he stood by the pool, he saw that nothing much had changed. The style was apparently permanent. C. Aubrey Smith, who had looked ninety then and looked ninety now, wearing whites and a club tie that flapped outside his blazer and a floppy sun hat, was lining up a croquet shot while Ronald Colman watched, a bored look on his finely shaped face.

  The crowd was splashed decoratively about the terraces, spots of color like party favors against the jade lawn. Mess-jacketed waiters moved here and there with trays of canapes and drinks with fruit in them. By the pool a group of several perfectly tanned, young, and hopeful contract players lounged in bathing suits, swam, and made having-fun noises. The studio had sent them over, decorating the set. Nobody would speak to them except in the never-ending search for a quick lay. It was a meat market but at least on a Sunday afternoon in Hollywood everybody’s cards were on the table and there was always the chance you could make a deal.

  Karin and Terry Leary were standing on the veranda that ran across the back of the faux hacienda. Heavy-beamed rafters projected over their heads like the guns of a battleship. Red ceramic pots of bright flowers hung from the hooks and gourds were stacked in corners like pyramids of cannonballs in the town square. They were talking to Mona Ransom and a man in a dark suit who had the look of a New York banker. Sam MacMurdo was wearing his colonel’s uniform with a chestful of medals. He was talking to an actor called John Wayne, who’d won the war more or less single-handedly on Hollywood’s backlots. Wayne seemed genuinely interested in MacMurdo’s decorations, maybe because MacMurdo was a lot bigger than he was. MacMurdo seemed genuinely interested in a young blonde in a low-cut sundress. She, however, was eyeing John Wayne, whom Cassidy had known for years as Marion Morrison. Morrison had been a football player in college on the West Coast and Paul Cassidy had brought them together for dinner one night on the basis of shared interests. It was odd how two such fine physical specimens had not wound up in the real war. Cassidy wondered fleetingly what Morrison’s excuse was.

  Back before the war Nat Olliphant had been running Monarch Pictures, but that was history, back before Nat had the big heart attack and dropped dead playing doubles on Ikey Shapiro’s court in Silver Lake. Olliphant had thrown quite a shindig for Karin and you had to hand it to him, he’d had a hell of an idea about that big swimming pool that lay at the bottom of his lawn, down three rambling flights of steps set into the earth. He naturally thought he’d fill this huge pool and freeze the water. Then he’d throw the first ever ice-skating party in Beverly Hills in the middle of August—all in honor of Karin Richter at the inception of what was sure to be a glorious film career.

  Well, it was a real Olliphant production. You had to hand it to Nat, all right, or you would have had to, but the portable refrigeration unit he’d sent over from Effects blew itself out fighting the ninety-five-degree heat. The pool wound up full of cold slush, very cold slush, you had to give Nat that much. It was tremendously cold but it definitely wasn’t ice. Nat stood there looking at the wilting peaks of slush, then he paced back and forth, short and hairy and bowlegged, then he looked up at Karin, then back at the slush. Finally he looked back at Karin. “Karin, honey, my lamb, you’re gonna tell me you can’t skate on this, right?” Through the slush you could see all the dinosaurs Nat had had painted on the walls of the pool—the brontosaurus looking back over his shoulder, the Tyrannosaurus rex with teeth bared and looking to take a bite out of somebody like Vic Mature, the triceratops, the stegosaurus. They seemed to be drowning in an Ice Age that hadn’t quite worked out.

  That party came back to Cassidy like the memory of a song, words you’d never forget. He could still see the white middy sundress with the blue piping Karin had worn, how tan she’d been, how she’d stood talking with Ruby Keeler and Fred Astaire and how Miss Keeler had taught her some tap steps beside the pool … how the slush had melted and everybody had started giving the dinosaurs names. …

  There had been a war since then and Nat Olliphant had served his last double-fault, but the dinosaurs were still there. Nat had put them there to publicize a caveman picture with Mature and some girls in skimpy mastodon hides. The picture finally got made by somebody else, but the animators from the studio had already painted the dinosaurs in the pool so they were Nat’s forever and now Nat was at Forest Lawn for the duration. Still, his dinosaurs and his pool hadn’t changed at all. But now it all belonged to Tash Benedictus.

  “We can talk now. Tash took some of his clients down to the wine cellar. He’ll show them a list of available investment possibilities. That’s what he calls them, ‘available investment possibilities.’ It’s a list of paintings.” Mona Ransom was wearing a dress with a bare midriff. “The art won’t be on view until the auction. Tash may be a wild man, but he’s not entirely crazy. Now he’s dropping hints about preemptive bids in the right ears.” They were standing in the shade of a palm, looking down at the pool where the kids from the studio were frolicking and casing the crowd.

  “Do you ever get a look at the list?”

  “It’s just names of artists … Tiepolo, Hals, Rembrandt, Raphael, Monet, Bonnard, Van Gogh. The names of the pictures or drawings mean nothing to me. What difference does it make?”

  “You never saw a listing of a piece of sculpture, did you? There’s a piece called the Ludwig Minotaur. Does that sound familiar?”

  She shook her head. The black hair shone in the sun as if it had been oiled and polished. “It’s a long list. I saw it on his desk. I didn’t pay attention. What difference does it make? You’re after a man, not a statue.” She put a cigarette to her lips and handed him a gold lighter. “Please?”

  He lit the cigarette. She was so pale she seemed almost on the point of disappearing. “Where’s Moller?”

  “Hanging about somewhere. You’ll see him. But Tash is very upset that you’re here.”

  “I’m not altogether surprised.”

  “I told him I ran into you while I was shopping with Kay Westerby. I blamed the invitation to the party on Kay. Tash said he didn’t know who he wanted to kill first, Kay or me. We can trust Kay. She’s been a good and discreet friend for years. But Tash, well, he’s going crazy, he’s got too many balls in the air at one time. If his first reaction wasn’t always to kill everyone it would be a farce—but he’s so serious. Now he’s got you turning up, he doesn’t know if it’s a coincidence or not. But he knows you were looking for the German the last time he saw you and now he’s got the German in the pantry or the greenhouse and you drop in out of the blue—he’s not a mathematical genius but he’s reasonably adept at two plus two. So, I’m scared, Tash is scared … and you should be scared, too.”

  “I’m scared, I’m scared. What are the other balls he’s juggling?”

  “Well, he’s worried about the Feds. He thinks they know. I can see it in his eyes. And he’s waiting for some damned Brit to show up and help out with the auction and he’s not here yet and Tash doesn’t know where he is. …”

  “What’s so important about this Englishman?”

  “I don’t know. Tash needs him to run the auction. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Brit is bringing in half the pictures. I mean, why else would Tash need him so desperately?”

  “I just ask the questions,” Cassidy said. “Any little tidbits about this V character?”

  She looked at him obliquely, as if she were afraid he might be outsmarting her. “What do you know that I don’t know? No, don’t answer. I don’t want to know. I just want out.”

  “I’m innocent as the egg, that’s me. Just trying to help out. I keep telling you that.” He kept trying to pick people out in the crowd, but it wasn’t easy. There were too many familiar faces but none he knew. No MacMurdo, no Terry, no Karin. Jean Arthur and Billy Wilder and Veronica Lake were talking, then Lake strolled p
ast and smiled shyly at Mona Ransom. Cassidy watched the blond star with the peek-a-boo hair wander down toward the pool.

  “You like Moronica, do you?” Mona Ransom smiled very slightly.

  “What?”

  “Moronica Lake. That’s what Tash calls her.” She blew smoke at the retreating actress. “Somehow V is connected to this Englishman. I heard him on the phone. He doesn’t even know when I’m in the room anymore. He acts like I don’t exist these days. He doesn’t have a single use for me anymore. Not one. But he can’t stand to be left alone and he knows he’ll never get another woman who’s willing to put up with him … and he knows I owe him my life. And he knows I’ll never leave him because I’m afraid—but he doesn’t know one thing about me, he doesn’t know I have enough guts to have him killed. … Oh, I know V’s name. I’ll bet you don’t.”

  “Vince? Van? Victor? How about Vulkan?”

  “How did you—”

  “But that’s a code name, you see. I’ll bet you don’t know his real name.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Well, neither do I. Now what about my German?”

  “It’s complicated. Hard to explain.”

  “Since your future depends on it—try.”

  “Well, Tash knows you’ve never seen Moller, so that calmed him down. And apparently Moller is good at disguise—”

  “He is. I have met him once. He tried to kill me. And he was someone else at the time.”

  “Yes, Tash said Moller can become many men. Isn’t it perfect, an actor moving unrecognized among a lawn full of actors? Maybe that really isn’t Charlie Laughton over there, maybe it’s your German in a padded suit. Look around you, Lew Cassidy, he could be almost anyone, anywhere.” She smiled a shade glassily. Cassidy hoped she wasn’t on anything.

  “Does Moller know my friends and I are here?”

  She shrugged her broad, square shoulders. “I don’t know … but if Tash told him, I promise you he wouldn’t hide.” She looked away quickly. “He’d want to see the hunting party.”

  Cassidy was impatient. She was getting on his nerves. She was too flighty, having too good a time. “Don’t forget our deal, Miss Ransom.”

  “Have I made a deal with the Devil? Are you the Dark One, Lew Cassidy?”

  Cassidy stared into her black eyes. Odd, hearing that expression again so soon. Karin had said it to MacMurdo.

  “It’s Moller in return for your husband. Not Charles Laughton, not Ronald Colman. It’s Moller, no one else.”

  She looked at him, shading her eyes. The sun had moved. “You know, I think you are the Devil.” She laughed bitterly. “And all these years I thought it was Tash.”

  “Just tend to business and everything will be all right. There’ll be a happy ending.”

  “Don’t be silly. That’s strictly the movies.”

  Cassidy stood near the bar that had been set up near the end of the swimming pool. The day was searingly hot, the sun bright and angry. Los Angeles lay roasting, somnolent, beyond the hedge, far below, seen through a thick, smoggy haze. It was too hot to think clearly. Unfortunately he had the feeling that clear thinking was precisely what was required. He sipped the gin and tonic and squinted up across the terrace toward the hacienda, which lay in shadows as the afternoon crested and headed down the slope.

  He didn’t want to see Tash Benedictus, for a start. He was too erratic: what if he wandered in drunk and in the mood for a scene? What if his case of nerves got the better of him and he started yelling? But so far Cassidy had been lucky.

  And what was he going to do—assuming he escaped having to deal with Benedictus—if he came up against Moller?

  He and MacMurdo and Terry Leary had hashed it through. Obviously it would have been infinitely preferable if Mona could have maneuvered him out of Tash’s reach, could literally have delivered him into their care. But you couldn’t blame her. She’d done more than her part. Because of her the game was still afoot. If, of course, she could be trusted.

  MacMurdo had wondered about that. Maybe it was all a setup. Maybe Benedictus had told her to send that wire. Maybe Moller was behind it, maybe Tash had told him that G-men, Army men, were on his trail … and maybe Moller wanted to get them out in the open.

  MacMurdo could see a hell of a lot of problems. Maybe Vulkan was behind the telegram. …

  MacMurdo was smart and he had a good mind for duplicity. He’d spent the war honing it. But Cassidy was pretty good at cutting through the bullshit himself. Sure, we want Moller. But at bottom you want Moller. Your masters in Washington—Dulles and that bunch, they want Moller. “Well, Sam,” Cassidy had said, “let’s just go get the sumbitch. What are they gonna do, Sam? Kill us? Hell, everybody dies.” This was Hollywood and where else could you talk like a movie? If only he’d felt the bravado that lay in the words.

  MacMurdo had given him a game-day smile. “You’re right, pard. This ain’t no time for the faint of heart.”

  Leary had laughed aloud at that. “You guys,” he said, “who writes this shit?”

  “You don’t like it?” MacMurdo frowned.

  “Like it? Hell, I love it!”

  “Damn good thing,” MacMurdo said. “It’s how we prove we’re not afraid.”

  “Broke what they call this sound-barrier thing. As I understand it and stop me if you’ve heard this, if I yelled ‘Fuck you!’ at Benedictus from down here poolside just as this plane, this X-l jet, flew overhead, the plane would reach him up on the veranda before my ‘Fuck you!’ Does that sound credible to you, Frank?”

  Frank Capra, the director, fingered his ascot for a moment. “I guess I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s a new world with new things in it. Glamorous Glennis he calls it.”

  “Who calls what, Frank? I don’t follow you.”

  “This Yeager guy. The pilot.”

  “Glamorous what?”

  “Glennis. It’s his wife’s name, I gather. Named the plane after her. Glennis. Odd name.”

  “Faster than sound,” the other man mused. “Progress.”

  “There’ll probably be a movie in it one day, Charlie.”

  “That’ll be the day. Hayseed flies faster than sound. Still, why not? We got a history of hayseeds. Wilbur and Orville. Maybe you’re right.”

  “Bio-pix,” Capra said and they began moving away. “Take Coop, he’s the man for the role. Or this new fella, Greg Peck. Good-looking boy. Dad’s a druggist down in San Diego.”

  Cassidy strolled among the guests, watching, waiting, wondering about the bartender or the man in the polo kit or the chap with the tennis whites, wondering if Moller was near. Terry Leary and Karin were sitting in lawn chairs in the shade. Terry waggled his fingers at him impishly. It was insane. Somehow they were no longer the hunters. The advantage had mysteriously passed from them.

  He kept overhearing bits of conversation. Someone was buying up land out in the Valley, making a good thing of it. Somebody else was quoting Groucho Marx. “Miracle Pictures. If it’s any good … it’s a Miracle!” A famous actress was having all her teeth out, prompting obscene jests. A producer was determined to make his whore a star. On a bet. “I’d say it’s a safe bet. The old fart’s done it before. Twice, actually.” That was Laughton, his jowls wobbling beneath a cigar, sweat streaking his famous ugly face. Bogart stood talking to a somewhat owlish-looking man with black hair and round horn-rimmed spectacles. Bogart was smoking a cigarette, the owlish, tweedy man a pipe. Bogart was short, compact, his eyes world-weary, and he wasn’t wearing his hair. There was something about him, hair or not. He was a star. He looked as if nothing devised by man could surprise him. The man with the pipe said something and Bogart laughed.

  Cassidy had his drink freshened. Terry Leary was gone, but MacMurdo had taken his place. C. Aubrey Smith dropped his croquet mallet and tottered off in search of strong drink. Barry Fitzgerald pointed at him and began to cackle. A beautiful dark girl handed him the mallet. Fitzgerald looked at her as if she’d presented him with a dead fish.

/>   “Don’t you hate these parties? Well, I hate the bloody things.” It was the owlish man who was looking up at him through the round horn-rims, smiling pleasantly. “I don’t know about you, but one doesn’t despise the upper classes because they take baths and have money and always want your share, too. One despises them because they are phony. And they encourage one to drink too much and stand about hoping for a spot of shade. Don’t you agree? Well, I suppose it’s all a matter of opinion.” He was still smiling gently, faintly amused. “These people … they do pass for the upper classes hereabouts, believe it or not, as you choose.”

  “Well,” Cassidy said, “you may be right.”

  “Ah, I’ve found one. Saints be praised!”

  “One what?”

  “A thinking man. Rara avis. This is no place for a man of culture. Do you pretend to culture, sir?” He’d probably had too much to drink but it didn’t seem to bother him. He blinked hazily behind the horn-rims. He calmly puffed his pipe, regarding Cassidy with good-natured curiosity.

  “No. I used to be a football player.”

  “Ah. The natives would call that typecasting. What would you say I used to be? A clue—I was not a football player.”

  “Damned if I know. Studio head? Night security man?”

  The man chuckled. “I was in oil. An oil man. Not a rich man, just a sort of glorified paper pusher. All in the long ago. What are you now, you ex-footballer?”

  “Well, just between the two of us, I’m a detective.”

  “You’re kidding me!” Delight sparkled in his eyes. “Cop?”

  “Private.”

  “Do tell, do tell. An actual shamus at a Hollywood party. Mr. Bogart would have enjoyed this. Could you be among us on a case?”

  “Just old friends.”

  “No such thing in this town. Just ins and outs, no real friends.”