Dead Extra Page 14

  After a minute or so, the butler opened the door. “Mr. Chesley,” he said. “Miss Bell is not currently here. Her father, Mr. Leslie Bell, would like to see you.”

  Jack nodded. He followed the butler into the foyer, across the soft Turkish throw rugs, and into a small dining room where a man sat peeling a hardboiled egg. The butler pointed to the empty, high-backed chair across from the man at the table. Jack sat down. The butler walked to the edge of the fireplace and stood against the wall, still as a palace guard.

  Jack watched the man peel his hardboiled egg. The man had thick gray hair in a horseshoe around his head. He was bald on top, the skin smooth and delicate, as if he’d never left the house without a hat on. He wore a worsted brown suit and a wide tie that was mostly lost under the matching vest. His focus locked on the egg until it was peeled. He set the egg on a bone china plate and said, “So, you’re looking for my daughter.”

  “Yes, sir. I am.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “A young woman died prematurely two years ago. Now her husband has returned from the European theater and he’s looking to collect on her death. I’m investigating the nature of the death. My sources claim that your daughter was friends with the deceased. I’m hoping she can help me understand some of the circumstances surrounding the final days of the young woman who passed,” Jack said.

  “Who’s the chippy?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The chippy? Who’s the dead broad?”

  Jack couldn’t tell if this whole scene was for real or not. He looked at the egg, white on a white plate, then up at the man, his furry gray eyebrows, his dark, close-set eyes. What kind of guy lives in a museum like this and calls a young woman a chippy? Everything about Bell felt like a performance, like a director had told him where to sit and what to do, like a screenwriter had fed him lines. Jack kept his face neutral and said, “Wilma Greene.”

  “Sure. Wilma Greene. Took a face plant in a bathtub a couple three years ago. I remember.” Bell spun the egg with his manicured fingers. “What’s to investigate?”

  “Accidental-death policies tend to pay up to three times more than homicides. There has been some suggestion of homicide in this case.”

  Bell nodded. “Could be, what with the circles she ran in.”

  Jack rested his elbows on the heavy mahogany table and leaned closer to Bell. “What circles would that be?”

  “Oh, you know. Hollywood folks get to playing gangsters in pictures and come to think they can act like one in real life. And you never know what you can run into in the bughouse.”

  “The bughouse, sir?”

  “Sure. The dame spent a couple months in Camarillo. Wrote a book about it and everything.”

  “And you read the book?” Jack asked.

  “Renny did.” Bell pointed a thumb at the butler. “Isn’t that right, Reynaldo?”

  The butler didn’t move. His stare remained fixed on a curtain rod behind Jack and to the left. Bell said again, in a louder voice, “Isn’t that right, Reynaldo?”

  “Excuse me?” the butler said.

  “We’re talking about the bughouse book. I’m telling Mr. Chesley you read it.”

  “A fine book,” the butler said. “Quite illuminating.”

  “So there’s the lay.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, sir, your daughter was in the facility at Camarillo at the same time Miss Greene was. Though, in what capacity, I don’t know. Based on your social standing, I’m assuming Miss Bell was a volunteer at the hospital.”

  Bell sat straight up in his chair. He popped the whole egg in his mouth. Jack watched him chew. All the money in the world, and this guy would send his daughter for a state-sponsored stay at Camarillo. It didn’t make sense to Jack. Nothing about this guy did. He must have had a first-rate boarding school education but he talked like a lug. He could’ve snacked on caviar but he chewed on a hardboiled egg. Still, he lived in a museum and wore bespoke suits around the house. And, though Jack hadn’t seen it, this butler was surely packing a roscoe somewhere under those tails.

  Bell finished chewing the egg. He pulled a decanter close, poured a drink, and threw it down in a lump. Not that Jack wanted a brandy on the heels of his most recent bender, but it would’ve been nice to have an offer he could turn down.

  Bell said, “Now, about my daughter. She’s an interesting case. Her mother raised her to be a real debutante. Piano lessons. Finishing school. The works. The kid had no interest in any of it. Then I got the big idea to take her out to an airfield and up in my little twin Jenny. The kid was hooked. I taught her to fly. After a while, I picked up an old Jenny from a Canuck in Alta Loma and gave it to Lottie. Nothing too fancy; just a trainer. Next thing I know, the boys at the airfield are coming to me with stories about stunt flying and wing walking. So there’s Lottie in a nutshell.”

  “A daredevil?” Jack asked.

  “A spoiled brat is more like it. I give her the moon and she builds a cottage on the dark side.”

  “And that’s where she is now? Living on the dark side of the moon?”

  “On the nose, shamus.” Bell poured a second brandy and dumped it down his throat. “That’s why I let you in here. I want you to find her for me. Bring her back to the warm bosom of her mother and me.” He stood from the table, dug a kidskin wallet from his back pocket, and peeled out five crisp Jacksons. “This ought to get you started. Drag her ass back here within the week, I’ll throw a Franklin on top.”

  Jack folded the bills and tucked them into his pocket before Bell changed his mind. It seemed like a sucker deal. Jack was going to find Carlotta, anyway. Bell didn’t have to pony up anything. Before Bell could realize this, Jack said, “I’ll find your daughter for you, sir.”

  Bell wrinkled his brow. “Find her?” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not paying you to find her, chump. Finding her is easy. I’m paying you to bring her back.”

  Jack stood to shake on the deal.

  Bell waved away Jack’s hand and said to Renny, “Make sure you write out a receipt.”

  Reynaldo nodded.

  Bell walked out of the room, his soft alligator wingtips gliding over a carpet worth more than the house Jack had inherited. Reynaldo took his seat across from Jack. “To the best of our knowledge, she’s living on West Adams, near the university. You might begin your search there. But be careful. She’s cohabiting with a jazz musician who shot at the last man her father sent to retrieve her.”

  GERTIE, 1943

  THE TWINS HATCHED a plan to keep Wilma out of the Hitching Post. It was the same one that got them through tough tests in high school and out of bad relationships in their teens: they switched places. Gertie moved into Wilma’s bungalow. She rigged all the windows and doors with cowbells. If anyone should try to sneak in while she slept at night, he’d sound like Bessy clomping through the pasture. When she wasn’t sleeping, Gertie steered clear of the bungalow and Highland Park. Her shooting schedule kept her on the lot for long hours that month, anyway. The director lived in South Pasadena. He was happy to drive Gertie to and fro. It got him an extra forty minutes of free Gertie labor a day.

  Wilma, for her part, holed up in Gertie’s room at the Studio Club in Hollywood. The matron—hired by Will Hays himself—made sure no men got beyond the courtyard of the dormitory. Wilma spent her days inside the room, typing a new version of her bughouse story. She left the soapbox and the first draft in her bungalow. The new version had a sense of humor to it. If Hammond’s visit had taught Wilma anything, it was that no one cared about the problems of women in this world. A fiery tale of a woman wrongfully committed wouldn’t change anyone’s mind. And if the popularity of her bughouse ballad had taught her anything, it was that people were best reached through humor. The more gallows, the better. So she spent her days in Gertie’s room turning two of the hardest months of her life into a comedy.

  Five weeks passed.

  Gertie stepped out of the afternoon sunlight and into the foyer of the S
tudio Club. Two women sat in the high-backed chairs in front of the large windows overlooking the courtyard. Both women appeared to be reading, but Gertie couldn’t be sure. Since the chairs faced the courtyard and not the front door, Gertie could only see the platinum crowns of their heads angled down. Neither of the women were Wilma despite the fact that Wilma promised to be sitting there waiting for Gertie. The matron behind the reception window to Gertie’s right said, “Hey, Wilma. What’s the good word?”

  “Hey, Virginia,” Gertie said.

  She’d greeted Virginia nearly every day for nine months prior to pulling the switcheroo with Wilma. Gertie wondered if Virginia knew the score. Surely, she could tell the sisters apart. They may have been identical coming out of the womb, but twenty-five years stamp a lot of individual characteristics on a person. They weren’t identical anymore.

  “Your sister’s taking a break from typing up Gone with the Wind. She’s in the courtyard with Rhett and Scarlet.”

  “Thanks, doll,” Gertie said. Virginia winked at her.

  Gertie felt like she wasn’t fooling anyone. She headed outside.

  The Studio Club was a fortress in the middle of Hollywood, a rectangle of brick walls lining the streets, imposing and seemingly impenetrable for any swashbuckling types who might wish to corrupt the chaste studio girls living within. All of the windows and most of the activity were geared toward the long courtyard in the center of the rectangle. Women sunbathed along the second floor verandas and lounged about on the soft green grass. On sunny, early-summer days like this one, the dorm rooms emptied out and the courtyard filled. Gertie meandered through the lawn chairs, over women napping on blankets, past a card game, through a low-lying cloud of gossip, and over to the fountain, where Wilma liked to catch the afternoon shade.

  Wilma sat beside the fountain with her two new Studio Club friends, Meta and Bill. Meta was a script girl over at Columbia. Bill was a novelist when he was in Mississippi and a screenwriter when he was in California. He had a wife and daughter back there, and he had Meta out here. Their affair was one of the more open secrets in town. When Gertie first moved into the Studio Club, Meta gave her one of Bill’s books to read. Gertie couldn’t get through it. It was too Southern. The sentences went on forever. All the characters were men except for one woman for who, Gertie just knew, it was going to end poorly. She told Meta how wonderful it was and let the book gather dust in the back of her closet. When Wilma moved in, she found it and fell in love. The girl, Wilma told Gertie, ends up at a party she never should’ve gone to and gets raped. “Lovely,” Gertie had said. “I’m sorry I put that down.”

  “No, no. There’s more. She redeems herself at the end.”

  Redemption seemed like the wrong idea entirely. From Gertie’s perspective, Wilma didn’t need to redeem herself for anything. Gertie kept these thoughts to herself. She let Wilma work through problems in her own way.

  Meta, Bill, and Wilma were talking about writing when Gertie came up. Bill had just started outlining a new novel. Meta and Wilma argued over who’d get to read it first. “I can offer you a trade,” Wilma said. “My bughouse book for your new one.”

  A reticent smile crept out from under Bill’s narrow mustache.

  “Don’t you even entertain the thought of giving that manuscript to anyone but me, Bill. You know who butters your biscuits,” Meta said.

  Well, don’t give it to me, Gertie thought. I don’t have all day to read one goddamn sentence. She kept the sentiment to herself, said hello and goodbye to the couple in short order, and dragged Wilma off with her. They weaved back out of the courtyard, through the foyer, and onto Lodi, where they started walking south toward Santa Monica Boulevard.

  “No one is fooled by our ruse, are they?” Gertie asked.

  “Well, I had to tell Bill and Meta. They’ve been so much help with my writing.”

  “You should pull Bill’s trick and just have Meta write the whole damn thing for you,” Gertie said.

  Wilma stopped walking. A breeze sputtered down Lodi Place. Gertie could feel it creeping up under her long printed skirt. Wilma grabbed Gertie’s wrist. “That’s not true, is it?”

  Gertie shrugged. “It’s a rumor, kid. Believe what you want.”

  “But Meta isn’t a writer, is she?”

  “What do you think a script girl does?”

  “I don’t know. Get coffee for the director. Pass out scripts.”

  Gertie rolled her eyes, yanked her arm away from Wilma’s grasp, and stormed down the street.

  Wilma hurried after her. “Come on, Gertie. Take it easy.”

  “How long have I been at this?” Gertie didn’t look over her shoulder to see Wilma’s response. Wilma knew good and goddamn well. Seven years. Gertie had been working in pictures for seven years. She’d gone to the studios right out of high school, started in the typing pool, and was there for only a couple of months when a producer noticed that she’d been revising more than typing, actually sprucing up the dialogue, and, well, changing a scene or two that needed it. Pretty soon, she’d been bumped up to rewriting entire screenplays before they went to production and making changes on the fly once filming started. She explained all this to Wilma.

  Wilma cocked a hand on her hip. “I know all that, Sis. I’m teasing you.”

  Gertie stared at her twin. In a low, growling voice, she said, “It’s not funny.”

  Before Gertie could see it coming, Wilma wrapped her into a hug. It was another old trick from childhood: the hug to end the fight. Gertie felt the tension in her back and shoulders unwind.

  “Okay, kid,” she said. “Truce.”

  The twins started walking again.

  Herbert Parker sat waiting for them at the back table of a café on Santa Monica Boulevard. He was easy to spot, even in the shadows. He wore a canary yellow, wide-shouldered suit with a green silk shirt and an orange tie. A matching yellow fedora sat on the table next to him. His dark hair was slicked back.

  He stood when the twins approached the table. The thick soles of his roach killers were just enough to make him the tallest of the three. He kissed Gertie on the cheek, then stretched his hand out to Wilma. “You’re the sister in trouble, eh?”

  Wilma nodded. She scanned Herbert’s suit and said, “Christ, where does a man get that much wool in wartime?”

  “It’s the same amount of wool as a tall man’s suit. Just cut in different places.” He swept his hand in the direction of the two empty chairs at the table. “Please.”

  The twins picked chairs and sat. Gertie said, “Dish.”

  Herbert got right down to business. “I sent one of my boys up to Oxnard to find what he could about the Hitching Post.”

  “One of your boys?” Wilma asked.

  “Yeah. Problem?” Herbert asked.

  “You don’t do your own investigations, Mr. Parker?”

  Herbert lifted a sweaty glass of iced tea to his lips. He drank it down to the ice, showed the empty glass to the waitress, and held up three fingers. “Mrs. Chesley, your sister can’t afford my rates. I kicked it down to contract work.”

  Wilma looked at Gertie. Gertie nodded.

  Herbert said, “It’s like this. The Hitching Post is untouchable. They pay out to the local police department. They’re tied in with the mental hospital, as you know. And all the power in that county goes through the cops and the nuthouse. A broad who goes by the name of Ma Breedlove runs the joint. Her real name is Myrna Laurie. She’s from an old money Oxnard family. Her father owned all that farmland out there when he was young, lost it all by the time Myrna was out of high school. She came down here and started running with a wild crowd. Remember Bambina Delmont?”

  Gertie shook her head. Wilma said, “Sure. The tart who framed Fatty Arbuckle.”

  “Exactly. Well, she and Myrna were boon companions.”

  The waitress approached the table with three iced teas. She passed them around. Wilma took a sip, scrunched her face, and dumped sugar into it. She stirred the sugar in a futi
le attempt to get it to dissolve in the cold tea. The tinkling of ice and her spoon against the glass provided the soundtrack for Herbert to continue his story.

  “So Myrna learned to hustle. Blackmail was her specialty. She ran a little scam in the twenties where she’d hire Bambina and a few other girls to have sex with married men. She’d pop out of the closet in the middle of the grunting and snap photos. Got so prolific at it that married men were scared to cheat on their wives for most of the fall of ’21.

  “Then she catches a fellow named Leslie Bell with his trousers around his ankles and his ass in the air. Only Bell goes one better than paying off the blackmail. He recognizes a certain kind of fearlessness and entrepreneurial air about young Myrna. He offers to back her in a whorehouse. Myrna says, ‘No. Too risky to have it all in one place.’ Bell says, ‘Easy. I’ll send my boy to pay off the law.’ Turns out he works with your pal Dave Hammond there in the LAPD. Hammond goes up to Ventura County, gets the sheriff on the payroll. Everything’s jake.”

  Gertie let out such a heavy breath that it stopped Herbert’s story. How the hell was she supposed to blackmail these fuckers to leave Wilma alone if all their crimes were paid for and protected by police departments in two counties? She said, “I can’t use any of this.”

  “You could use the scam,” Wilma said. “Hire a hooker to fuck Hammond and snap a picture.”

  Herbert shook his head. “You can’t touch Hammond. He’s too big.”

  “Damn it,” Gertie said. “He’s the smallest of the three.”

  “We need a new plan,” Wilma said.

  “Only one way I see out of this,” Herbert said.

  Gertie finished the thought for him. “Go to Ma Breedlove and pay her.”

  Herbert nodded.

  Wilma threw her glass at the empty plaster wall of the café. Tea splattered across the white paint. The glass dented the plaster and fell on the hardwood floor without breaking. The five or six patrons and employees in the front of the café turned to look at the back table. Gertie and Herbert didn’t react. Wilma muttered, “This is bullshit.”