Twisted Boulevard Page 5

  Marcus emerged from the back room. “You were telling her the truth, weren’t you?”

  “If her rotten old client box still exists, it’s somebody else’s problem now.”

  “You think?”

  They returned to their corned beef sandwiches. “Do I even want to know what you’re hinting at?” she asked.

  “I could be wrong.”

  “But?”

  “But if she had Horton tailed, and he led her to you. And if she thinks you still have the box, or could lead her to it, what’s to say she won’t have you followed, too?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Kathryn had passed the Hollywood Masonic Temple on Hollywood Boulevard a million times, but she’d never been inside. Its ionic concrete columns were purely ornamental, but they lent the flat-roofed building a measure of solemnity, which was probably why it was chosen for D.W. Griffith’s memorial service. It hardly mattered, though. Almost no one showed up. No one of note, that is.

  D.W. Griffith practically invented Hollywood filmmaking. His In Old California was the first film shot in Hollywood; Birth of a Nation was one of its first this-changes-everything blockbusters; and he co-founded United Artists with Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks.

  When he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the Knickerbocker Hotel, alone and ignored, he made the front page of the newspapers for the first time since before the movies learned to talk. Kathryn had expected to find a sea of celebrated faces, but the mugs gathered inside were as anonymous as the gawkers on the sidewalk.

  By the time the congregation filed out of the building to a boys’ choir singing “Abide with Me,” the crowd had disbursed, leaving Hollywood Boulevard to its everyday bustle.

  “Well, that was depressing,” Kathryn said to Marcus.

  “It was a memorial service. You were expecting maybe ticker tape and a clown called Whacko?”

  “He was the one who came up with close-ups and fade-outs,” she snapped back. “Where would cinema be without him?”

  “Sounds to me like someone has already started to write tomorrow’s column.” Marcus raised his hands in mock surrender. “And it promises to be a lulu.”

  “Someone should take all those missing people to task.”

  “Are you headed back to the office now?”

  Kathryn was too keyed up to sit at her desk. An industry titan like Griffith shouldn’t have squandered his life in a fusty hotel room.

  “In that case . . .” He slid his arm across her shoulder and nudged her eastward.

  “Where are we going?”

  “What’s really bugging you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You never even met the guy. Yeah, yeah, you’re quite right. He practically created a whole new art form, then got kicked to the curb when he couldn’t keep producing the hits. But isn’t that the story of the movie business?”

  They passed the Kress five-and-dime, glancing in the windows at the new The Voice of Frank Sinatra LPs.

  Marcus tapped Kathryn’s chin. “You’ve been wearing that pout since the day you bought your car. Didn’t you enjoy your birthday party?”

  When Kathryn returned home with her new car, the Garden of Allah had been transformed into an Arabian harem. The theme was Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and someone had borrowed props from an Yvonne De Carlo picture called Casbah: Persian rugs, scimitars, ceramic urns the size of prepubescent slave girls, and a papier mâché palm tree possibly pilfered from the Cocoanut Grove.

  “Are you kidding?” Kathryn replied. “It was fantastic. I had a great time!”

  “Did something happen when you were shopping for cars?”

  “Bette read me the riot act.”

  “She’d be good at that.”

  Kathryn shot Marcus a rueful eye. “It’s just that I’ve become so indecisive. Bette thinks it’s all about turning forty.”

  “I have an alternate theory.”

  They were at the corner of Ivar Street now. Kathryn looked north toward the Knickerbocker. The lights changed and they continued to weave their way through the throngs cramming the sidewalk.

  “Nelson Hoyt,” he said.

  Kathryn hated the way that name could still jab her like a wasp.

  Hoyt had been the FBI agent tasked with recruiting her as an informant during the war. She’d resented and railed against the maneuvering, but somewhere in the thick of all that, Kathryn and Nelson had fallen for each other. But J. Edgar Hoover transferred him to some backwater post where mail was probably parachuted in once a month from a bi-plane that didn’t bother to stop.

  The whole subject of her thwarted relationship had been a tender issue between Kathryn and Marcus; she was surprised he’d even brought it up.

  “That’s quite a theory you’ve got there,” she told him.

  “I reckon I can see a Hoyt-shaped dent in your self-confidence. You haven’t quite been the same since he exited stage right. Are you feeling like time is slipping away from you? Because, you know, forty is the start of middle—”

  She backslapped him across the chest. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Griffith did nothing for the last third of his life.” He folded her hand over his arm and led her across Vine Street. “You’re not D.W. Griffith, you know.”

  “He was in his seventies, you little bastard!”

  “I meant metaphorically.”

  Across the street at the Pantages Theatre, a movie called Cry of the City was playing. Kathryn hadn’t seen it yet and wondered briefly if a film noir potboiler might take her mind off things, but decided it was too bleak for her present mood. She sighed. “I know what you meant.”

  “I’m just saying if that’s what you’re feeling, it’s completely understandable.”

  “What about you? You turned forty before I did.”

  He swiped his hand through the air as though to say, Are you kidding? “I was head of writing at MGM; I had a huge say in what movies the studio put into production, making tons of dough—”

  “But what about now?”

  “I don’t care if I never go back to work!”

  Gwennie’s right. He does say that a lot. She thought about how often she’d returned home from the office and had barely unpinned her hat before Marcus materialized with a shaker of martinis. Is he drinking his afternoons away?

  Marcus said, “Here we are!”

  Kathryn looked around the jostling corner of Hollywood and Vine. “We’re where?”

  He jacked a thumb behind him. The Taft building was a twelve-story skyscraper, home to all sorts of film-related businesses, including the Motion Picture Academy. He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “Fifth floor, Suite 502. Someone by the name of Harly.”

  “How do you know about him?”

  “Oliver got tickets to a sneak preview for June Bride, but he had to work late that night so I went by myself. Afterwards, I was standing around having a smoke and your pal Bette approached me. She told me that she’d given you the name of this Harly guy, and that he’s got an in with Max Factor, but you hadn’t done anything about pitching them.”

  Bette had sent her the guy’s card. It was in her purse right now, where it’d been for three weeks.

  “The Kathryn I’ve known for twenty years wouldn’t have wasted any time jumping on the horn.” He pushed the paper into her hand and nudged her toward the arched stone doorway that led into the foyer. His warm breath filled her ear. “Go get ’em.”

  * * *

  Harly was a tiny squib of a guy—barely five foot four—who had a pleasantly open face and a ready smile. “Bette told me to expect you, but that was ages ago.”

  Kathryn blushed. “Stuff got in the way. Are you free now?”

  He led her into an expanse that stretched the length of the building. At one end, stacks of papers arranged with military precision covered a teak desk. At the other lay a photography studio with a loveseat and a fainting couch, half a dozen chairs, and a rack of backdrops from tapestries and leopard p
rint to plain white and black cotton sheets.

  He pointed to a chair in front of his desk. As they sat down, Kathryn smoothed her gloves across her handbag. “Did Bette mention what I’m after?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  She cleared her throat. “Lauren Bacall told me that Max Factor is planning on making Pan-Stik available to the general public.”

  “It’s a big deal for them.”

  “It’s such a big deal that they’re thinking of launching it by sponsoring a new radio show, and I want a chance to pitch the idea of having me host it.”

  Harly studied her somewhat enigmatically. “The Kathryn Massey Show. That’s got quite a ring to it.”

  “When I mentioned the idea to Bette, she said you do all the advertising glamour shots, so you might know someone who knows someone.”

  “She did, huh?” He tilted his head in surprise. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. I have an agent who the advertising monkeys contact when they want to book me for a layout. Most of the time it’s just me and the movie star. Every now and then a PR flunky tags along, but it’s an exception.”

  That’ll teach me to procrastinate for months and get my hopes up for nothing. Kathryn stood up. “In that case, I won’t take up any more of your time.” She hooked her handbag over her elbow and fanned herself with her gloves. He started to walk her to the door, but she told him she could see herself out.

  The elevator doors slid open onto an empty car. She stepped inside, but as they began to close, a voice rang down the corridor. “HOLD ON!”

  Harly arrived at the elevator slightly out of breath. “You’re a friend of Gwendolyn Brick’s, aren’t you?”

  “I am.” Kathryn stepped into the corridor. “Have we met?”

  He smiled his easy smile again. “Remember that Warner Brothers contest a number of years back, Face of the Forties?”

  It was a huge publicity campaign the studio ran throughout most of 1939 to find the girl who could exemplify the dawning decade. Gwendolyn won the contest, in no small part because of the exquisite photographs taken of her by—

  “You’re Harlan McNamara!”

  “My friends call me Harly.”

  “I did not put that together.”

  “You didn’t see my name on the door?”

  “I was distracted and—never mind.”

  “Face of the Forties was a while back,” he conceded.

  “Everything before the war seems like a long time ago.”

  “If I hadn’t made the connection, it never would have occurred to me.”

  Kathryn pulled her hand away from the elevator call button. “Oh?”

  “After Gwendolyn won Face of the Forties, Jack Warner made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I grudgingly accepted his obscene paychecks for as long as my conscience could stand it. After three years, I returned to freelance work and they promoted my assistant. He was competent enough with the camera but better at layout. Last I heard, he went to Young and Rubicam.”

  “The advertising agency?”

  “They have the Max Factor account. Mind you, this was a while ago. I don’t know if he’s still there.”

  “A telephone call would solve that mystery.” Kathryn unclipped her purse and pulled out a business card. “In case you get lucky,” she told him, and pressed the button. It dinged almost instantly; the brass doors slid open.

  “Wow,” he exclaimed, “that elevator usually takes forever!”

  “Let’s take that as a sign, shall we?”

  “Let’s.”

  He was still smiling when the door slid closed between them.

  CHAPTER 9

  Marcus and Oliver were halfway down Cesar Romero’s driveway when Oliver grabbed Marcus’ car keys.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “You’re in no condition to drive.” He headed toward the DeSoto that was parked a block down Saltair Avenue under a steeply leaning eucalyptus.

  “Okay, so maybe I’m not stone cold sober,” Marcus conceded, “but you’ve hardly been Tommy Temperance this afternoon. I saw all those Mai Tais.”

  “I’d never had one before. I wanted to see what everyone’s talking about.”

  “You were knocking ’em back like club soda.”

  Oliver spun around, catching Marcus off guard. “Do you blame me? The way you were flirting with Cesar’s pool boy, Taco, or whatever his name was.”

  “It’s Paco, and I wasn’t flirting—oh my God, were you jealous?” Oliver didn’t get worked up very often, but when he did, his neck broke out in patches. Marcus could see a whole mottled palette of pinks and reds. “I’m flattered!”

  Oliver cast him a look that Marcus found hard to interpret. Perhaps seven bourbons ago he could have, but his head was starting to spin. “I need to sit.” He landed his butt on the concrete curb.

  “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in the car?”

  Marcus ignored Oliver’s pissy attitude. “I need a breeze. Musta cracked a hundred today.” He patted the curb next to him. “Come here. Sit with me.”

  Oliver let out a theatrical sigh, lingered at the car for a moment or two, then joined him.

  Marcus felt his pockets for a crushed pack of Camels. There were two left; bent, but smokable. He lit them and handed one to Oliver. “Am I in for some more silent treatment?”

  The first cool gust of the day swathed them in a cloud of pungent eucalyptus.

  Abruptly, Oliver said, “It’s hard for me to stand by and watch you fritter your life away.”

  Marcus’ head jolted up. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “You spend your mornings swimming, your afternoons reading the paper, and your evenings drinking. Did I forget anything?”

  “I spent years working my guts out at MGM; I think I deserve a break.”

  “You’ve been at home for nearly a year,” Oliver said. “Don’t you miss being useful?”

  He jerked his shoulder with a dismissive shrug. “I don’t care if I never go back to work!”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Oliver ground his half-smoked Camel into the asphalt. “I’ve got to say, Marcus, reading the Times and swimming laps isn’t much of a contribution to society.” The blotches on Oliver’s neck grew more prominent the snider he became. “Isn’t there anything you want to do?”

  “Yes, there is,” Marcus lobbed back, “but you shot me down.”

  “Not that crazy Russia plan again!” He stood up and twirled Marcus’ car keys around his finger. “Get in the car. We’re going home.” Marcus didn’t budge. “Or you could walk. Good luck finding a cab on Labor Day.”

  He unlocked the DeSoto and slid into the driver’s seat, waited a moment or two, then turned the engine over.

  Marcus swayed to his feet and slumped into the passenger side. “I’ve done more research,” he said.

  “Not listening.” Oliver pulled onto the road.

  “Do you know how much it costs to hire a car and driver in Turkey?”

  “Don’t care.”

  “One dollar per day. We can hire a driver in Istanbul to take us to a place called Sinop. It’s on the northern coast. Then we hire a boat to take us directly to Adler. It’s only two hundred nautical miles; we could get there and back in a day and no border crossing to deal with. It’s much easier than you’d exp—”

  “Is this what you do all day?” Oliver swung onto San Vicente Boulevard. The holiday traffic was light so he picked up speed. “Pore over your maps concocting a plan to sabotage your chances of getting hired again?”

  The lights ahead turned amber. Oliver floored the gas pedal and rounded the hairpin bend onto Wilshire.

  “Jesus!” Marcus cried out. “We took that on two wheels.”

  “I asked you what you do all day.”

  “You know what I do. I swim, I read the papers, and then I spend the afternoons making huge contributions to the betterment of society.”

  “And how often do you park your car outside MGM?”

  Jesus. How d
oes he know that? “Are you having me followed?”

  Oliver careered along Wilshire for several blocks before he answered. “About a month ago, Mister Breen and I were called to an emergency meeting with Mayer and your replacement, Anson Purvis. There were a number of issues over Little Women and it was easier for us to come to them.”

  “How could Little Women have Hays Code issues?” Marcus scoffed. “It’s the squeakiest, cleanest story ever written.”

  “You didn’t see the script they bought from Selznick. At any rate, when we were leaving the lot, I spotted your car parked across the street. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t see me.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know what sort of car Joseph Breen drives?” Marcus’ brave thrust at bravado came out flaccid as a used rubber.

  “I happened to be back there a week later to discuss Madame Bovary.”

  “Since when does the Breen Office go to a studio?”

  “Mister Breen’s highest concern is the health of the motion picture industry, and your old studio is in trouble. So he helped out by promising to send someone from our office to deliver the approved script. I volunteered.”

  “To check up on me?”

  “In a way, I guess. And there you were, parked in the same place, staring at those columns.” The traffic lights on Beverly Glen Boulevard changed to red; Oliver slammed on the brakes, plunging them forward. “What the hell’s going on with you?”

  Marcus fell back in his seat. On his days down at the beach, instead of driving home back up Sunset, he had started to point his car toward Washington Boulevard—almost like he had no choice. Invariably, he’d end up at MGM’s famous ten-column entrance at Jasmine Avenue.

  This urge started when MGM announced a financial loss for the 1947-48 year. Such a declaration ten years ago—or even five—or, hell, just two years—would have been unimaginable. The Tiffany of movie studios, with more stars than there were in heaven, posting a loss?

  It was hardly a surprise to Marcus, though. They only had one movie in the top five box-office earners for 1947, scraping in at an embarrassing number five with Green Dolphin Street. And that one barely earned a profit.