Reds in the Beds

by Martin Turnbull

When she rounded the corner, she saw the glow of lights flashing red-blue-red-blue in the branches of the Raywood Ash tree overhanging the sidewalk. It took her a moment to make sense of the black-and-whites that looked like fat hippos wallowing in the moonlight. It was the LAPD. Half a dozen cars. At least twenty officers. Ambulance. Fire truck. A sprinkling of nosey neighbors lingering behind fences.

  She kept walking until a young officer stopped her. The silver shield on his cap glowed in the headlights. “Sorry ma’am, but I’ll have to ask you to come no further.”

  “What’s happened?” Kathryn asked.

  “This is an active crime scene. We’re still investigating.”

  She pointed behind her. “I have my press pass, but I left it in the car.”

  The officer looked her up and down. “Ain’t you Kathryn Massey? I listen to you all the time.”

  Kathryn threw her shoulders back and lifted her chin to steady her voice. “Can you tell me what happened here, Officer?”

  “There’s been a shooting. Bugsy Siegel.” He pronounced the name with an almost hushed reverence.

  “Dead?” She felt like she might pass out.

  “Right between the eyes.”

  Kathryn felt the tension ebb from her body, leaving her weak and shaky. “Thank you, Officer.”

  “You’re the first press on the scene,” he said. “I could have a word with the sarge. You know, get the scoop and all.”

  She struggled to offer him a smile. “I appreciate that, but crime isn’t my beat.” The guy looked disappointed.

  She headed back up the sidewalk. For some reason, it seemed important not to step on the cracks. She set one foot carefully in front of the other on the way back to the car.

  He’s gone. He’s dead. He’s gone. He’s dead. He’s gone. He’s dead.

  She looked up when she was ten feet away. Marcus and Gwendolyn were leaning against the hood. They hadn’t even moved the car yet.

  “That didn’t take long,” Gwendolyn said. “Wasn’t he home?”

  Her own voice sounded distant and foreign when she said, “Someone shot him.”

  “Siegel?”

  “Right between the eyes.”

  Gwendolyn and Marcus surrounded her, their arms a cocoon, asking questions she had no answers to. They hustled her into the back of the DeSoto and slammed the door. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the engine rumble to life as Marcus swung into a U-turn. By the time they hit Sunset, her whole body was numb.

  CHAPTER 41

  The way Hollywood reacted to the news of Bugsy Siegel’s death reminded Marcus of that scene in The Wizard of Oz when word of the Wicked Witch of the East’s demise started to spread and the munchkins emerged from their thatched cottages. It was like the whole city breathed a sigh of relief and called for a round of drinks.

  Lucius Beebe dubbed the Garden’s revelry the “Bye-Bye Bugs Bash.” It lasted until six the next morning—and even then only because both the Sahara Room and Schwab’s had run out of ice, scotch, tonic water, and lemons.

  Marcus spent most of that night watching Kathryn romp around like she’d shrugged an entire flock of dead albatrosses off her shoulders. She Charlestoned on the diving board, drank champagne from anybody’s glass, and flirted with every male in sight, regardless of marital status or sexual proclivity. Marcus sensed a measure of forced hysteria, but given how close she’d come to a sticky end, he hardly begrudged it.

  But the more he thought of their conversation in the car, the more it ate at him. A romantic attachment to that FBI agent? Wasn’t he the root of all her misery? In the two weeks that followed, he struggled to put it out of his mind. Kathryn was the most levelheaded woman he knew, so he tried to rationalize her behavior. Pursuing a relationship with an FBI agent was so out of character that he decided she must have her reasons.

  The thing about the Mandeville raid was to Nelson’s credit, but the fact that he hadn’t bugged her apartment hardly merited a cheering squad. Marcus needed to know why she was doing what she was doing, but since Wilkerson returned from Paris, she never seemed to be home. She was always out at one of his restaurants, or covering some swanky soirée or other.

  When a letter from Marcus’ sister arrived over the Fourth of July weekend, he really started to worry. Doris had visited him in LA during the war and kept in touch afterwards, writing to catch him up on life back home in McKeesport, and to ask for insider Hollywood gossip to impress her friends. She was always chipper, and her small-town news was refreshing and sweet. He’d forgotten what it was like to live where everybody was content to play the part they’d been given at birth.

  But this letter was different. After three pages of news about the high school football team’s last victory and the town hall’s new paint job, she closed with uncharacteristic ambiguity.

  I suspect Mom is suffering from her old trouble, but you’d never know it. That old Pennsylvania Dutch thing about keeping your trap shut and just getting on with life kicks in and nobody’s the wiser. But I know her pretty good. She turns sixty this year, so her best years are behind her, as far as that sort of thing is concerned. I’m worried about her but bringing it up will cause no end of squabbling.

  Marcus slipped the letter into his inside pocket as he dressed for a Kraft Music Hall broadcast. The producers had signed a new host: Al Jolson. His debut sparked new interest in the show and its ratings were stronger than ever, which was good news for Kathryn, considering the fact that Hedda Hopper’s radio show, This is Hollywood, aired its final episode the last week of June.

  After the show, Marcus met Kathryn at the stage door and they walked up Vine Street to the Brown Derby. It was as busy as ever, with all four rows of booths packed with a late crowd of chattering diners.

  After they sat and ordered drinks, Kathryn said, “I’m glad you suggested this. I haven’t seen you since—” She finished her sentence with a light sigh.

  Marcus pulled out Doris’ letter and tugged it free of the envelope. He unfolded the three sheets and handed her the final one, pointing to the last paragraph.

  When she’d finished reading it, she looked up. “What sort of old trouble?”

  Marcus took the letter back. “I thought you might be able to tell me, being a woman and all.”

  “You mean ‘the change’? That’d be a new problem, not an old one, like from your childhood, maybe? What was she like when you were a kid?”

  Marcus hadn’t seen his mother in twenty years. He remembered that her hair was light brown, easily bleached by the sun, and tied up in a loose knot, Ma Kettle style. But other than that, the specifics had grown hazy.

  “She was always cooking, mending, shopping, cleaning,” he said. “If she had a health problem, she hid it well.”

  Kathryn shrugged. “Doris is pretty vague. It could be anything.”

  He tucked the letter back into his pocket. “And speaking of cleaning, we have some of our own to do.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly. “We need to talk about what happened that night in the car. About you and—him.”

  She looked relieved. “We should have addressed it before now.”

  “It’s been hard to pin you down.”

  She slid a finger around the rim of her highball. “Trouble is, I don’t quite know what to say.”

  “Of all people, you had to choose him?”

  “I didn’t choose him. I didn’t even like him. At first. But things change, Marcus. I didn’t go looking for it, it just—” She broke off, her eyes darting around the room.

  They both took long sips from their drinks. There was so much Marcus wanted to say, but he was no longer sure he could say it without coming across like some judgmental old fogey. Before he could begin, Kathryn grabbed his arm.

  “We need to go,” she said very softly. “Right now.”

  She slid out of the booth, leaving him to pay the check.

  Vine was starting to empty of traffic and pedestrians. Streetlamps punctuated the night with pools of light every hundred feet.
>
  Kathryn looked wildly around. “Where did you park?”

  “Oliver needed my car tonight. I walked here. Why? What did—?”

  “Of all nights!” She jaywalked him across Vine, peering over her shoulder again as they passed ABC’s studios. They didn’t stop until the Sunset-Vine corner outside Wallichs Music City.

  “Not a taxi in sight!”

  She grabbed his hand and started heading along Sunset. They’d scurried a whole block before Marcus could ask what they were running from.

  “Last week, I was at a press conference at Columbia for their new Rita Hayworth picture, Down to Earth. Larry Parks was there, pleasant as can be, answering every inane question put to him. Then, just as things were winding up, some guy popped up out of nowhere and served Larry with a subpoena. And you know what that means.”

  After the death of Bugsy Siegel became yesterday’s news, the next subject to consume Angelenos was the subpoenas being served around town. Hollywood was on official notice: the HUAC was serious in its campaign to investigate the Communistic influence in motion pictures.

  As the subpoenas proliferated, accusations started flying. The victims weren’t just screenwriters like MGM’s Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner Jr. over at Fox, but also directors. Lewis Milestone at Paramount and Edward Dmytryk at RKO were collared, as well as producer Adrian Scott. The question now asked at every cocktail bar and dinner party was, “Were you there when so-and-so got served?”

  Hollywood was aflame with outrage at this bald infringement on its First Amendment rights, but not unanimously. Some people welcomed the HUAC with hosannas and palm fronds, especially members of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, not the least of whom was Billy Wilkerson. It took him less than a week to return from Paris, and instead of recognizing his narrow escape, he seemed to think he was invincible. He applauded the HUAC in his “TradeView” column.

  “The guy who subpoenaed Larry Parks was eyeballing us from the bar,” Kathryn explained. “Or more specifically, you. The guy in the gray suit with the porkpie.”

  Marcus snuck a look. The process server was a block and a half away. “Aren’t we just delaying the inevitable? If he’s got something to serve me, he’s not going to stop.”

  “Maybe,” Kathryn conceded, “but I heard that if you’re served at work, the company has to foot the legal bill.”

  “Maybe it’s not me he wants.”

  Kathryn suddenly stumbled over her own feet. “You really think they’re after me?”

  “I signed MGM’s loyalty oath so I wouldn’t be called.”

  As they reached the Crossroads of the World, Kathryn sped up. “Do you think Wilkerson knows about this? He’s been a tiger in the press, but with me personally, he’s been a teddy bear.”

  Suddenly, she hissed, “IN HERE!” and pulled open the door to a lamp store. She herded Marcus inside, slammed it shut, then spun the OPEN sign around.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Marcus said. “You can’t just—”

  “Kathryn? Is that you?”

  A kindly gent in his sixties emerged from the rear of the store. His face was a little crinkly around the edges, but Marcus could see he had been handsome in his day—strong jaw line, cheeks that hinted at dimples, lively gray-blue eyes.

  Kathryn pulled her hand away from the sign. “Sorry to intrude, but we’re in the biggest rush.” The old guy looked at Marcus expectedly. “Oh, yes, sorry. This is Marcus Adler. Marcus, this is Wesley.” She went to say the man’s last name, but stopped, as though it slipped her mind. “Someone’s following us. I was hoping we might cut through your store to the back alley. It’ll take us through to Highland, right?”

  This Wesley guy had an apprehensive look on his face that Kathryn wasn’t seeing. Marcus caught her elbow and jutted his chin toward him.

  “Is something wrong?” Kathryn asked. When Wesley flickered an unsure eye over Marcus, she added, “It’s okay. This is my ex-husband.”

  “Have you heard from Nelson lately?”

  “Not in a few weeks. Why?”

  “You won’t be,” he said darkly.

  “Won’t be what? Hearing from—?” Kathryn sucked in a gasp of air. “W-why not?”

  “He’s been”—Wesley jammed his hands into his pockets in what struck Marcus as an obvious attempt to camouflage his emotions— “transferred.”

  Kathryn sighed. “I thought you were going to tell me . . .”

  Wesley started playing with the little brass pull-chain on a desk lamp sitting just to his right. “I know what my son does for a living, but he shares little in the way of details.”

  “The less you know, the better?” Marcus offered.

  “Precisely. He came to me a few nights ago. Two o’clock in the morning, it was. Damned near scared the next ten years out of me.”

  “He got himself into trouble?”

  Wesley looked at Kathryn coolly. “Nelson was drunk, and therefore somewhat more voluble than usual. I learned that he and Mr. Hoover had a serious difference of opinion over something he was ordered to do.”

  “Did he tell you what it was?”

  “It seems Hoover wanted Nelson to pull you out of hiding and hand you over to Bugsy Siegel ‘like a prized spit-roast pig,’ to quote Hoover’s words.”

  Kathryn gave a stifled yelp. “And he refused?”

  “He did more than that, Miss Massey. He told Hoover where to go and what to do when he got there.”

  “I can’t imagine Hoover took that very well.”

  “To say the least.” He gave the pull-chain one final flick. “My son fell on his sword for you. And as a result, he’s been transferred.”

  “Where to? Did he tell you?”

  “In a roundabout sort of way. Hoover has a history of punishing wayward agents. If he decides they’re guilty of serious misconduct, they’re liable to be relocated to one of the Bureau’s far-flung outposts. Some one-mule dead-end back-of-beyond where nothing happens. The graver the crime, the more desolate the station. Our little joke was that the worst of the lot was a place we called Zanzibar.”

  “Isn’t that off the coast of Africa?” Marcus asked.

  “That’s right. Of course, the Bureau doesn’t have an office there, but I’d say wherever he’s gone, life is about as much fun as it is on the real Zanzibar.”

  “So when you say ‘transferred,’ you really mean ‘banished,’ don’t you?” Kathryn asked. “And we have no way of tracking him down?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Because of me?”

  “I said pretty much the same thing to him, and he told me, ‘No, Dad, I’m being punished because of a severe disagreement in philosophy. Miss Massey is the reason I grew a backbone and stood up for what I believe. She gave me the courage to speak my convictions, and I’d do it again.’”

  “He actually said that?”

  “His exact words.”

  Marcus pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and pressed it into Kathryn’s trembling fingers. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he said to Mr. Hoyt, “Thank you. I think we ought to be going. The alley is through that door?”

  “It is, but the city’s repaving it. It’s a god-awful mess back there.”

  “Come on,” Marcus whispered into Kathryn’s ear as he guided her through the store. “The walk home will do you good, and there’s a stiff drink at the end of it for you. Maybe several.”

  The little bell above the front door tinkled as he opened it. The sun hung low over Sunset. If this were a movie, a taxi would appear right now. But the taxi failed to make its cue. They’d barely taken three or four paces when someone stepped in their path.

  “Marcus Adler?”

  The porkpie hat held out a folded piece of paper. Without thinking, Marcus took it, realizing too late what he’d done.

  CHAPTER 42

  As Gwendolyn waited for Cary Grant’s butler to open the door, she eyed the check in her hand and felt her resolve start
to wane. She wished she’d given herself a moment before knocking, just to be sure.

  The door swung open and Gwendolyn was taken aback to find Grant stand there—and he was even more attractive in person. It made her think of that scene from Notorious when he and Ingrid Bergman got around the Breen Office’s “No screen kiss shall last longer than three seconds” edict by kissing and nibbling and hesitating and succumbing again for the three-minute scene that had everyone talking.

  “Oh,” she said, momentarily lost for words, “I was expecting the butler.”

  “He’s upstairs dealing with a recalcitrant window, so for this morning’s performance, the part of the butler will be played by yours truly.” Grant opened the door wider to reveal that he was dressed in exactly the sort of thing every girl in America would expect: a black velvet smoking jacket with wide, quilted lapels and matching cuffs the color of dark cranberries. “You must be—Guinevere, is it?”

  “Gwendolyn.”

  “My mistake. Howard does tend to mumble. You’ll find him out in the guesthouse.”

  He led her to a spacious sunroom that looked out over the pool and the guesthouse. Just as he was about to open the door for her, he stopped. “Can you do me a favor?”

  She wondered if any woman in the past fifteen years had said no to that question, then noticed him fidgeting with the buttons of his smoking jacket. Oh my goodness, does Cary Grant actually get nervous? “Surely.”

  “Howard and I are very good friends, but he has three other places in LA he can go to. Enough is enough.”

  She winked at him. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  When she stepped onto the tiled patio, the front door of the guesthouse slid open and Hughes emerged into the late-summer sun. His face had filled out and he’d managed to develop something resembling a tan. He offered her a seat.

  “I came to return this.” She pushed the check across the glass tabletop between them.

  He pushed it back toward her. “I have a strict no-refund policy.”

  “Listen,” Gwendolyn said, “I’m bowled over by your generosity, but I can’t—”