A minor flap of activity, and Clara looked up to see that Mr. Pearce had arrived. Bannon’s face tightened as she watched the head of the studio cross the set to talk with Howard Hawks.
“Our fearless leader,” said Bannon. There was a glimmer of something behind her eyes. Clara caught it, and then it was gone. “He’ll be glad to know we’re ahead of schedule. I’ve been doing my own stand-in work—to make a point, I guess.” Her voice hardened. “It makes them quicker at setting the lights, that’s for sure.”
“Who’s the director of photography?” asked Clara, thinking back to Lloyd’s suggestion that it had been the DP who had made Connie dye her hair.
“Michelangelo over there.” Bannon pointed to a bearded man wearing a cravat and holding up a light meter.
“Is he a real perfectionist?” said Clara.
“He says he paints with light.” Bannon sighed. “More like watching paint dry, the time it takes him to light the set.”
Now that they were chatting, Clara pushed herself to ask a more direct question. “Have the police got any new leads?” she said carefully.
Bannon gave her a sideways glance. “Those cops are useless. They don’t have a snowball’s chance of solving a crossword puzzle, let alone a murder. They keep asking if I have any enemies, harping on about someone holding a grudge.” She rolled her eyes. “I asked Detective Ireland: ‘How long do you have?’ ”
“Aren’t you worried, though?” said Clara, leaning closer. She caught the scent of perfume. “If the killer was after you—what if he tries again?”
Bannon jutted her chin out. “I can take care of myself.” That defiance again. She was a Hawksian woman, all right.
There was a loud squawk, and Clara looked up to see that the assistant director was addressing the crew through a bullhorn. “Picture up. Last touch-ups, please.”
The clock was ticking. Clara had to find out something before Bannon went on set.
Bannon’s makeup artist appeared and dusted some powder onto her nose. She waved him away. Then the hairstylist smoothed a few stray hairs back into place. “That’s enough, Frank.”
Thinking back to the “dead ringer” theory, Clara pulled on a strand of her own mousey blond hair. “I wish my hair was a nicer color.” Her tone was confiding, and like an adoring fan, she threw a furtive glance at Bannon’s blond tresses. It was a long shot, but it might spark something.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Babe whispered. “This ain’t natural.” She tossed her hair back and barked a laugh.
“Your hairstylist, Frank, is it? He does a great job.” Clara cringed at her own fawning.
“Frank?” Bannon looked incredulous. “You think I’d trust the studio hair department with my color? Never.” She raised an eyebrow. “I always go to my girl Rosa on Beverly—she’s been doing my color for years. It’s never brassy.” Clara filed away this piece of information. “If it were up to the hair department,” Bannon went on, “I’d be looking like Barbara Stanwyk in Double Indemnity. Did you see that wig? My God, it was appalling!” She laughed again and got out of her chair.
The assistant director approached. “Ready for you on the set, Miss Bannon.”
“Take care, kid.” She swept away.
Chapter Fourteen
Ash-Blonde
CLARA WAS SITTING ON a mint-green barber’s chair, facing a large oval mirror; copies of Life magazine and the Saturday Evening Post spilled from a rack on the wall; shelves of hair products and brushes were on display near the cash register. Babe Bannon’s hairdresser was still with a customer. Clara had called three salons on Beverly, asking for Rosa, before she’d found the right one. After she’d given Sam the vague excuse of “an appointment,” he’d let her go early. She’d promised she would make up the time.
It’s a fact universally acknowledged that women talk to their hairdressers. Since her first haircut in Los Angeles, Clara had overheard a fair number of secrets spilled at beauty salons, and if Connie had indeed gotten her hair done here—as was Clara’s hunch—this was her angle to find out who insisted she dye her hair and why. The doppelgänger idea was still niggling her.
A few more minutes dragged past. Clara got up and helped herself to the nearest magazine. As she sat back down, she caught her reflection in the mirror, and a memory surfaced.
“Don’t wiggle, sweetie.” Klara’s first American haircut at a salon in Los Feliz. Rain pummeled the awning, the windows were fogged, and she could hear car tires rhythmically swishing through puddles. “That’s right, keep still.” The hairdresser steadied the blunt edge of her scissors against Klara’s forehead as she trimmed the girl’s bangs. Klara was hot underneath the synthetic cape, and she was itching to shift her legs, which were stuck to the vinyl seat. “Wiggle.” Klara didn’t recognize the verb (it sounded comical), and yet she knew she wasn’t supposed to move. Then it struck her—like dialing the tuner on a radio, the static had cleared—Klara understood English.
The hairdresser combed her bangs, checking the length. “Almost finished.” Klara gazed up at her in awe. The fortysomething redhead with sun-speckled arms was a messenger from another realm. She had broken through, made contact, and for a brief moment the veil of confusion between Klara and the English language had fallen away.
The woman put down her scissors and appraised Klara in the mirror. “All done. Cute as a button.” She dusted a soft brush over Klara’s nose, neck, and caped shoulders. Then she worked the pedal on the barber chair, and Klara watched her own reflection slide jerkily down the mirror. Like a royal attendant, the hairdresser removed the cape in one swift motion. The ceremony was over. Klara studied her own reflection. It wasn’t just the new bangs. She was a different person now—she was American.
The hairdresser turned to Klara’s mother, who was flicking through a magazine. “She’s all finished, Mom. You can pay Suzy at the cash register.”
Inge looked up from her House Beautiful as though caught in headlights. How was it possible that even her mother’s facial expressions were awkward. Klara abruptly peeled herself off the seat. The skin on the backs of her thighs smarted, which underscored her annoyance.
Her mother ran a hand over her daughter’s new haircut. “Sehr schön, Klara.” Klara shrank from her mother’s touch, noticing the foreign words register on the faces of the other customers.
The light bulb moment of comprehension at the hairdresser’s didn’t last. Klara finally started school in February, a couple of grades lower than in Berlin. Learning English was a constant back-and-forth between clarity and confusion. Life in a foreign language was like bumbling around an unfamiliar house, grasping for a nonexistent light switch; bashing knees on ill-placed table legs; trying to force a key into a sticking lock. She was embarrassed at the artifice of it all, forcing her mouth to work itself around the new sounds. At the end of the day, Klara was left feeling bruised and frustrated. Speaking German at home came as a relief.
On these bad days she resented English. As a language it was straightforward, direct—logical to the point of being dull. But it didn’t truly translate. There was no narrative, no history to the words. Where her native tongue conjured images, American English sanitized; it lacked contour, shape, and texture. It simply was. English words were as tasteless and meaningless as American bread—uniform cotton wool, pre-sliced, no bite. “Brot” couldn’t possibly translate to “bread.” The term “bread” was merely an approximation, a stand-in for the real thing.
With her parents’ imminent return to Germany, this wasn’t the first time Clara’s memories of her first weeks in America were surfacing. Her eleven-year-old self was ever-present.
“Clara?”
She turned, and Babe Bannon’s hairdresser was sweeping up locks of hair at the next chair. She was petite with olive skin, black hair streaked with gray, and eyes as dark as cherries.
“Hi.” Clar
a put down her magazine. “Miss Bannon recommended you. I work with her at the studio.” The “with her” was a stretch, but Clara managed to get the words out without blinking. “She said you’re the only one she trusts to do her color.”
Rosa handed the broom to an underling and came over. “Miss Bannon’s been coming to me for years.” Rosa smiled and stood behind Clara, addressing her reflection. “The studio hair department.” Rosa made a face. “A bunch of old men.”
Clara laughed. “What shade is she?”
“Miss Bannon is a light ash-blond—it’s a cool tone.” She fingered the ends of Clara’s hair. “You’re a darker blond. We could lighten it up, bring out the tones in your natural highlights.”
Clara took a breath. “What about her stand-in? What color was Connie’s hair?”
Rosa rested her hands on Clara’s shoulders. “That poor girl.” She shuddered. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw her face in the papers. It wasn’t even a month ago when she came here, maybe a few weeks.” Clara’s hunch was right.
Rosa went to a drawer and took out a card with color pictures of different shades. “Connie had a warmer tone than Miss Bannon—honey.” She pointed to a natural shade of blond. “Something closer to this.”
Clara took the card and studied it—a catalogue of blonds. “Did the new color suit her?”
“I thought she looked real good. It was very close to Miss Bannon’s shade, which is what she asked for, but”—Rosa shook her head—“she didn’t seem excited about it.”
“Oh?” said Clara.
“The color was right, so I asked her if it was the cut. I mean, I only took an inch off to even it out. It wasn’t drastic.”
Clara watched her carefully in the mirror. “What did Connie say?”
Rosa shrugged. “She said it was fine. Kept repeating that. But she got real quiet, closed up.” The hairdresser folded her arms and thought about it. “It was strange. I felt terrible, but I only did what she asked.”
“Did she say why she was getting her hair done? Was it for the movie?”
“I assumed so.” Rosa thought for a second. “It was Miss Bannon who called and made the appointment.”
This didn’t sound quite right to Clara—Barbara Bannon making Connie’s hair appointment? Wasn’t that beneath her?
The hairdresser put a hand on her hip. “Why all the questions? I thought you wanted your hair colored?”
Clara thought on her feet. “Actually, Connie Milligan was a friend,” she said, looking down. The lie was easy because Clara almost believed it. It came as easily as breathing. This tricky habit had started as a form of self-protection back in high school, to avoid her inconvenient German past. But it had soon become second nature—in certain situations—like the time when Mr. Brackett had assumed her surname was Swedish and Clara had never corrected him.
Rosa squeezed her arm. “I’m so sorry, pobre chica.”
“Did Connie say where she was going after—another appointment, a date, perhaps? With her hair done, I just wondered.” Clara was pushing a little, her tone a bit desperate, but it sounded right if Connie was a friend.
Rosa swept a strand of hair from Clara’s cheek. She smiled apologetically and shook her head. “Sorry, honey. She never said.”
After Clara left the salon—her hair set with a new wave—she walked a few blocks to mull over what Rosa had said. She tried to play devil’s advocate. So Connie hadn’t loved her new hair color. Was it as simple as that? Had it just been a standard request for the film shoot—or had Connie done it for someone else? Why had Bannon made the appointment? She hardly knew Connie. That could be innocent enough, and yet Babe didn’t strike Clara as someone who would go out of her way for someone else. She was a movie star, not a PA.
Clara tried to imagine Connie’s reaction at the salon—staring at her reflection, looking more like the movie star with her hair done. And yet, something had been troubling her—but what?
Chapter Fifteen
The Formosa Café
IT WAS BEFORE SIX p.m., and the neon lights of the Formosa Café weren’t switched on yet. Clara could have powered them herself, from all the electric energy buzzing inside her. All the unanswered questions about Connie were on a loop in her brain. Gil was leaning on the bar when she walked in, his hand loosely wrapped around a beer. He looked up, and Clara felt her insides do a somersault, which was daft. It was just the same old Gil, a different setting was all. The place was quiet; it was midweek and still early. Clara ordered the cocktail special of the day, a whiskey sour. It came overdressed, with frothy egg white, a twist of orange, and a maraschino cherry skewered by an umbrella. She sipped through the straw—aware of how silly it looked for a casual Wednesday evening, next to Gil’s beer.
After they moved from the bar to a table, Clara caught Gil scrutinizing her. “You do something to your hair?”
Clara cringed inwardly. It probably looked like she’d had it done especially. “Research,” she said, trying to play it down. And after Gil’s quizzical reaction, she gave him the rundown of what she had discovered at the salon on Beverly Boulevard.
Gil’s brow was furrowed. “You’re following up on leads, you’re doing police work?” He shook his head and gave a small laugh.
It wasn’t the reaction she had expected. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing or disapproving—she had hoped he might be more impressed. “It was just a hunch,” said Clara, trying to dismiss it.
“But isn’t that the deal, for the stand-in to resemble the actress?” said Gil. “Why the red flag?”
“It’s probably nothing. But there are all these small things that don’t add up. It’s a black-and-white movie. Does a shade of blond really matter for setting the lights? And Barbara Bannon making the appointment—I don’t buy it. And then Connie’s lackluster reaction. Something is definitely off.”
Gil worked a fingernail under the edge of his beer label, mulling it over. “Roger and I have to hash out this kind of logic all the time. If I’m thinking of it like a scene in a script, I might come up with something like this: Connie gets her hair done to match the movie star, takes a look in the mirror and realizes she’s still the bridesmaid, never the bride, that she’ll never be in the big leagues.” Clara liked it when Gil was in his writer mode. His eyes twinkled when he was on a roll. “She’s never going to get a speaking part or even be seen in so much as a frame of film. She’s the stand-in. Even with Bannon’s beauty salon making her up like the star, she’ll never have Bannon’s career.”
“Maybe,” Clara conceded with a smile. “That doesn’t explain Bannon making the appointment.”
He batted his hand like that was no big deal. “Come on, what else you got?”
“What, so you can knock down all my theories?” she said playfully. “Fine, so forget the hair—even though something is still off about it.” Clara sat up taller in her chair. “I have three questions,” she said, listing them on her fingers. “Number one: How did Connie get the stand-in gig? Everyone who gets a job on the lot knows someone—that’s how it works. Max got me in. What about you?”
Gil nodded vaguely. “Yeah, an army buddy.”
“Two,” said Clara. The cocktail had loosened her tongue, and she was enjoying herself. “Was there some weird or sinister vibe on the Argentan set?” Gil gave her a puzzled look. Clara explained the backstory of Connie’s friendship with Lloyd. “He said that something changed in her once she started working on the movie. He chalked it up to something bad on set. And three: How did the killer get the vault combination? Which brings me full circle back to Lloyd because he’s the only one I know who carries a cheat sheet with the codes. I think we can rule out Miss Simkin as a suspect.”
Gil raised his eyebrows, faintly amused. “You done?” He laughed softly and shook his head. “Go easy on this stuff, Clara. There’s not much you can do.” His eyes drifted to another
table.
Clara thought she was being clever. She didn’t want him laughing at her. Suddenly annoyed at herself, she wished she could switch off her brain, but the case was prodding at her. And now she was ruining their date by talking nonstop about the murder.
She leaned her elbows on the table. “How was your day?” she said brightly. Maybe they could start over and talk about something else.
He gave a noncommittal grunt. “Saw the cops—had to sign my written statement.” He took a sip of beer. “Everyone on the lot that night had to do the same thing. The detectives have an office in the costume shop. Otherwise, just rewrites.” He sighed. “Hawks came up with dialogue changes last minute. The usual.”
“Wait—with the cops, did you tell them where you were, on the battle set?”
He threw her an incredulous smile. “No. Are you kidding?”
“But what if—”
He shook his head. “It’s irrelevant.”
“But what if you saw something or someone?” said Clara. “You don’t know where the investigation is going, what might be important.”
He gave a small shrug. “Look, I didn’t see anyone. Besides, you don’t admit that you lied to the cops. They’ll hound you for it.” She must have looked unconvinced. He went on, “I had a CO like that Ireland guy. Loved to throw his weight around. Best thing you could do was keep out of his way. I’m not looking for trouble.”
“Gil, it’s unwise—lying to the cops.”
“This isn’t Nancy Drew. Everyone with a badge isn’t a good guy.” He laughed. “Come on, it’s no big deal. I told them I was in my office, and I’m sticking to it.” He leaned back in his chair.
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