Hollywood Gothic

by Thomas Gifford

  Finally, in the outskirts of San Bernardino, she pulled off onto a side road and stopped.

  “Okay, can you get out?”

  “I can’t reach the door handle.” He heard her get out and open the back door. He pushed forward, struggling like an inchworm, until he’d worked his way out and onto the gravel roadbed. He staggered to his feet and smiled, followed her into the front seat.

  They drove through the cool, soft fog with a promise of more rain in the air. He smelled the Pacific. Morgan stuck the tape of Sidney Bechet into the underdash deck, and “Sweet Lorraine” filled the car. He looked at her as she drove. He was connecting the song and the woman, her level sandy eyebrows, long nose, and what now struck him as the key to her face: the wide mouth with the little steeple point in the center, the built-in impishness to the hint of smile which remained even when she was intently watching the road unwind.

  She hooked off to the south and slid on into the Fox Hills shopping center. Rain had begun to speckle the windshield. The red monolith of the May Company building loomed over them.

  “Give me your sizes,” she said, turning off the headlamps. It was dark, though it was just past noon. “I’ve got to get you some clothes so you’ll look like everybody else. A sport coat, a couple of shirts, a pair of slacks, underwear, socks, shoes, a sweater, a raincoat …”

  He gave her all the sizes, said, “I haven’t got any money—”

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to get you some cash, and I’ll charge all this stuff. You just sit here and think about what you’re going to do when I get back.”

  “Morgan,” he began, “I don’t know what to say. … You’re nuts to be doing this—”

  “Look upon yourself as research. Don’t forget my book.”

  He listened to the radio news and heard that the rescue crews from Cresta Vista and the California Highway Patrol were trying to reach the sighted wreckage of the light plane carrying blah-blah-blah … He knew the story. But they still didn’t know he was missing: as far as anyone knew, everyone in the plane was dead and accounted for. He inspected his face in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. It was quite incredible: the dark tanned face, the sandy hair and eyebrows that appeared to be sun-bleached. It was Toby Challis’ face and it wasn’t: he felt anonymous, but he also felt as if everyone passing the car was staring at him.

  She’d been gone an hour, and came back heavy-laden. He saw her coming and got out to help. She was laughing: it was a game. Rain dampened her face; he wanted to kiss her, knew he had no business entertaining such a thought. There wasn’t really time for being human: he wasn’t quite human, anyway. He was a convict. And he was newly back from the dead.

  She pulled into a gas station on Sepulveda and he changed clothes in the men’s room. A gray-herringbone-tweed jacket, a blue cotton shirt, tan straight-legged slacks, brown-and-black saddle shoes, black socks, a plain leather belt, a Burberry raincoat. He put a blue V-neck sweater, another shirt, another pair of identical slacks, some toilet articles, extra underwear and socks into one sack and ran through the pelting rain back to the car. The neon lights of the station reflected on the wet paving, in the windshield.

  She handed him a bank envelope, thick. “Here’s some mad money.”

  He opened it. “My God, this is too—”

  “Toby! Don’t be an idiot. It’s five hundred dollars in tens and twenties. It’s all you’ve got, all you can get, and you can’t use any credit cards—we went through this last night. Take it, shut up about it, and tell me where we’re going.” She pulled back onto Sepulveda, heading north.

  “The Beverly Hills Hotel,” he said.

  “And what are we going to do there? Maybe they’ll page you in the Polo Lounge.” She stopped at a red light, and an LAPD black-and-white drew alongside. The driver glanced over at Toby, who froze. The cop smiled faintly, nodded. Toby nodded back, feeling weak: he was going to have to get the hell over that. The light changed, and they moved away together.

  “Look, we are not going to do anything. You are going to drop me off and I’m going to … well, begin. Alone.”

  “I’m going to come with you. I want to help—”

  “Listen to me, Morgan. I don’t want to sound corny, but there are some things a man has to do alone.”

  “You’re right. You don’t want to sound corny, but you do anyway.”

  “I’m not kidding. I’ve got to be alone and try to figure this out. It’s my life we’re playing around with. I can’t drag you in any further. They catch me now, you’re still clear. … I can’t let you risk your own welfare—”

  “You know, Toby, you actually talk like one of your screenplays.”

  “Please don’t make this any harder for me than it is, Morgan. Please. Just leave me at the hotel—”

  “Oh, God, all right,” she said peevishly. “But I’m going to give you my address and telephone number. You never know. You might want to buy a book—you could stop by the store. Or come to the house and borrow one.” She turned right on Olympic, left on Beverly Glen, and was headed north toward Sunset. The rain swept past them, muddy in the gutters. She’d started the cassette again, and the piercing wail of Bechet’s “Laura” filled the car. Ahead of them the Bel Air gates loomed out of the rain. A light glowed in the guardhouse. Bel Air looked like a rain forest. Three Rolls-Royces stood in a row at the traffic light, waiting to make their sorties out into the real world. The first one was turquoise, and he’d never seen a turquoise Rolls-Royce before. All the Roth family drove Rolls-Royces, but none of them were turquoise. Dumb color for a Rolls.

  She maneuvered the sharp left from Sunset into the hotel driveway. Above them the rain seemed to weigh the towering palm trees down, and the pink hotel looked crummy, water-streaked. It was meant to bake in the sunshine, welcoming Elizabeth Taylor back to her customary bungalow. Looking crummy and damp, it welcomed the convicted murderer.

  She stopped at the crest of the glistening black driveway and waved the parking attendant away. She took a notepad from her purse and jotted down the address and the telephone number. Watching her, he already felt lonely. Left behind on an island full of ungodly dangers.

  “Call me,” she said. “And give me a kiss.”

  He leaned over and kissed her. Her mouth was like ice.

  “For God’s sake, be careful,” she said. She was looking straight ahead, down the driveway. He opened the door, retrieved his sack from the seat, and shut the door. He watched as the Mercedes slid off down the driveway, back toward the traffic on Sunset.

  One parking attendant was on the telephone. There were no waiting guests, no arriving cars. Another attendant was standing under the long marquee up the steps by the entrance to the lobby. Challis walked toward him, trying to catch his eye. He stopped beside him. In the lobby, logs roared in the fireplace.

  “Eddie,” Challis said. The attendant, his face blank, eyes helpful but unrecognizing, looked him head-on. Challis had never seen the place so deserted. The only sound was the rain drumming on the marquee and running off the sides. “Eddie …”

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “You don’t know me?” Challis whispered. “Come over here,” he said, tugging at his sleeve, drawing him into the wall.

  “Ah, what can I do …? Hey, wait a—”

  “Eddie, my boy, compose yourself, prepare yourself, and don’t scream or anything … it’s me, Challis.” He held Eddie’s arm tightly. “Come on, don’t give me any shit, Eddie. Look, it’s me.”

  Eddie’s face went peculiarly gray. “Who’s shitting who … whom, I mean. It is you, isn’t it?” He looked off at the driveway, doing a take. “I mean, it is, you are, aren’t you?” He looked away, looked back again. “Where the hell’s your beard?” He was whispering, too, but he was having understandable difficulty grasping what was in fact the evidence of his eyes and ears. “Anyway, you’re supposed to be in jail … holy shit, man,” awe on creeping into his voice, “You’re supposed to be dead in that plane crash!” He
was a tall, skinny kid who’d always made Challis think of the way Henry Aldrich should have looked on the old radio show. Maybe it was the way Eddie’s high voice kept losing hold of itself. Eddie was twenty-five, and Challis had gotten to know him simply because he had recognized Challis, an unusual experience for a writer. Eddie wanted to write screenplays; everyone parking cars or pumping gas or waiting tables wanted to get into the show business, and played every card dealt them. Fate had dealt Challis to Eddie, and Eddie had pursued it. One Sunday Challis had even asked Eddie and his girlfriend to stop by the place in Malibu for brunch, and the day had turned out well. The kid’s work showed some talent, and Challis’ agent, Ollie Kreisler, had said he might be willing to represent Eddie on a one-shot movie-of-the-week deal. It hadn’t panned out, but Eddie was grateful. And so, in need of transportation, it was to Eddie at the Beverly Hills Hotel that Challis had come.

  “I didn’t die,” Challis said, holding Eddie in place. “I got out of the plane. I’m here and … Stop looking at me like that, damn it, I’m a customer talking to you about my car. I’m here, and nobody knows it yet. I’ve got to do what I can to find out who killed Goldie … it’s my only hope, Eddie.”

  “Jesus, in your shoes, man, I’d try to escape, Mr. Challis. Ship out on a freighter to the Far East, y’know, or head for Mexico … you’d have a better chance, y’know what I mean?” He’d accepted Challis’ presence, just another oddball turn of events in Movieland. Nobody back in Dubuque would believe it.

  “Eddie, look, I need a car …”

  A faintly crafty expression lit Eddie’s long, permanently adolescent face: freckles, blue eyes, wide all-American mouth. “Listen, I’ll make you a deal. If, say if, you somehow beat the frame they hung on you, you have to promise, I mean swear, man, you’ll get this thing I’m working on to Maximus … to Aaron Roth himself. Promise me, and you got yourself a set of wheels. Deal?”

  “I promise, for God’s sake.” A black Stutz pulled up, but the other attendant got it. “Where’s the car?”

  “Show you the kind of pal I am, I’ll let you have mine … ’65 Mustang ragtop, dark green, needs a little work on the chrome, but—”

  “Eddie, does it have a wheel at each corner? Fine. The chrome doesn’t worry me.”

  “No, but the puke might.”

  “Puke? What puke? This is no time to play games with me.”

  “No, I’m serious, man. You know Matilda, the girl I brought out to your place? Well, we were out at Catalina around Christmas, see, and on the way back, on the seaplane, y’know? Well, Matilda got to feelin’ a little queasy …”

  “Really, it’s okay, Eddie.”

  “And she kept it down until we landed, but about five minutes after we got in the car, I had to stop for this asshole runnin’ a red light, and poor Matilda let fly with about a quart of dago red. I told her to do it out the window, but then this guy has to run the light … anyway, the dago red went straight ahead, hit the window and the dashboard and ran down inside the heating ducts on the dash. So the car can get to smell like puke, but otherwise—”

  “Eddie, for God’s sake!”

  “Come on, we’ll go get it.”

  They walked through the rain to the lot where the Mustang squatted next to a couple of sleek Mark Vs.

  “The keys are in it,” Eddie said, opening the door. “Top’s manual.”

  Challis slid in behind the wheel. Eddie was peering down at him, as if making a final identification check. “So you think it was a frame?”

  “Shit yes. Mr. Kreisler was in here during the trial—well, he’s in here all the time, of course, but he said hello, remembered me from that time you took me to his office, and we shot the breeze for a minute, he said he figured the fix was in … called it a half-assed investigation, said Hilary Durant still needed help to tie his shoes and wipe his bottom, and said it all went back to Goldie … that it was all Goldie’s fault, whatever the hell that meant.” Eddie shrugged. “So, if I can help, lemme know. But I still think you should hop a freighter to somewhere a hell of a long way from here.”

  Challis nodded. “Thanks, Eddie.”

  “Anyway, that Oscar meant too much to you. I remember how you handled it when you showed it to Matilda and me. You wouldn’t have killed her with that Oscar, no way.”

  Challis smiled. “I never even thought of that, but I hated to see it introduced as evidence. Maybe you’re right …”

  “I’m really sorry about the puke, Mr. Challis. And … shit, man, good luck. As far as I’m concerned, you’re up on the mountain dead.” He tapped on the fabric top, Challis rolled up the window, and as he swung around to leave the lot, Challis saw the gangly figure standing in the rain, watching him, shaking his head. Huck Finn wondering at the passing parade.

  Challis was hungry.

  8

  OLLIE KREISLER’S OFFICE WAS ON the top floor of a tall building at Sunset and Doheny, which was the sort of place a smart talent would want for his agent. As Ollie occasionally remarked in suitable company, you didn’t get to the penthouse by fucking up, and fucking up was something that if Ollie had ever done at all was now buried in the distant past, beneath a mountain of successful deals. Ollie was calm in an intense, dour way, a kind of immaculate calm which bespoke his Pasadena upbringing and Princeton education. He had things so carefully under control that you hated to run the risk of disturbing any part of it: there was the fear that it was the one utterly unforgivable transgression you might commit insofar as Ollie Kreisler was concerned.

  Consequently, Challis parked in the underground ramp and paved the way with a call from the lobby. He told the secretary that he was Ned Tannen, Ned Tannen personally, calling from Universal, and that if Mr. Kreisler couldn’t take his call immediately, he, Mr. Kreisler, would surely regret it for the rest of his life. Ten seconds passed, and then the familiar soothing voice came on: “Ned, old-timer, what in the world can I do for you? You have my undivided attention.”

  “What’s green and red and goes sixty miles an hour?”

  “I don’t understand that actually—Ned, is this a joke?”

  “A frog in a Waring blender. You’re not laughing, Ollie. You’re supposed to laugh when I use my best material.”

  “Ned, you baffle me. My secretary just said … Ned, are you all right? You sound as if you might have a cold. Say something, Ned, please say something.”

  “Listen, Ollie, I’m not Ned Tannen. Just don’t hang up … it’s Toby.”

  “I see. Well, now we’re getting somewhere, though a ruse of this kind is not in the best of professional taste. Toby who?”

  “How many Tobys have you got on your client list, Ollie?”

  Without missing a beat, Ollie Kreisler said, “Only one, but I would have bet rather a lot that my Toby was dead. Up until ten seconds ago.”

  “Well, you’d have lost. I’m downstairs in the lobby.”

  “Will I recognize you?”

  “I hope not.”

  “I see. Well, then, Margo won’t recognize you either. So why not come up.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I’m sure you are, old boy. I’ll do what I can. Tell Margo you’re Mr. Benson.”

  “Okay. I’m on my way.”

  “Toby?”

  “What?”

  “You do amaze me.”

  Margo was a very classy girl from an Eastern school. She looked like Phyllis Thaxter, pale and well-bred, and was a perfect representative of the Kreisler Office, as it was known, though there were three other partners. She looked at him calmly, with a remote smile that said he should be ashamed of himself. “You weren’t Mr. Tannen at all, were you? You’re Mr. Benson.” She shook her small head. Her glasses hung on a chain around her neck and rested on a flat Eastern chest. She was very pretty. Challis had known her for three years. He watched her eyes linger on his face for a fraction of a second longer than seemed necessary. “Please, follow me, Mr. Benson.”

  None of the other secretaries or assistants l
ooked up as she led him back to the corner office. Before she knocked on the door, she said in a perfectly modulated voice, “Would turkey on whole wheat be all right?”

  “Wonderful. And a beer. Any kind of beer.”

  She nodded, opened the door, and said that Mr. Benson was here. As she passed him, she caught his eye, shook her head gravely, and muttered, “Ned Tannen.” Then she astonished him with a wink and closed the door behind her.

  “My God, she smells good.”

  “She is a top-drawer girl,” Ollie said, half-sitting on the slab of glass which rested on two pink-veined marble columns and served as his desk. “Very good Park Avenue firm … family, I mean. And now,” he said, forcing himself to remain in characteristic repose, “what the fuck is going on here?” His voice rose an octave but was immediately yanked back to the lower register where it belonged. “It goes without saying that I’m glad to see you. At least, I think I am.”

  Challis began the recitation with the plane crash, the storm raging outside. As he talked, he paced the immense room with its Calder mobile and bank of windows beyond which Beverly Hills looked gray-green in the steady downpour. The trees in the office swayed gracefully in the breeze of the air changer, and Challis saw himself reflected in the steel-framed movie posters filling any wall space not already covered with dull, oiled bookcases. Kreisler’s foot, encased in a highly polished black penny loafer, swung in the space between the pink marble columns. He wore a pale gray sweater and brown gabardine slacks, and he listened without flickering a muscle.

  Challis heard himself dwelling on the woman who had come to his aid on the mountain. He didn’t want to mention her name to anyone, but he did want to make clear what a creature she was, how she’d thrown herself unequivocally into the battle. Just talking about her gave him a lift, made him think that there could be a way out.