“I’m fine. That wasn’t Armand. It was his majordomo. Sort of a butler.”
“No, it’s not,” Kay said. “It’s the head of the household. Butler is a completely different job.”
“Is it?” Ready peered at her. “Then what’s a valet?”
“We’ll look it up later. The question is, did we find our Armand?”
“I’m sure of it,” I said. “I just can’t prove it yet.”
“Still? Did you learn anything?”
“Yes. Armand and Natalie are both travelling, and not together. In fact, they may no longer be a couple.”
“Doesn’t that make Armand an interesting figure,” Kay said.
“I thought so.” I turned to Ready. “Home, James.”
“You don’t want to go to work?” he teased.
“You’ll never make majordomo with that attitude,” I said.
12
THE STRAINS OF “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody” thundered into the hallway. Time for Mrs. Quigley’s afternoon exercises. My landlady walked the length of her parlor like she was balancing a pail of nitroglycerine on her head. A trouper through and through, Mrs. Q religiously practiced her Ziegfeld walk should she and Billie Dove be needed in the Follies once more.
She pirouetted to face me. I flinched as if the nitro were about to go, then again when I saw the rag-doll circles of rouge she’d applied to her cheeks.
“Lillian! Your caller tried twice more and still won’t leave so much as her name! You know I loathe interrupting my routine.”
Did I. “Sorry, Mrs. Q. What does this woman sound like?”
“Very breathless, very intense,” Mrs. Quigley said, evincing both qualities herself. Who else in my orbit possessed a flair for the dramatic and my telephone number?
* * *
“ISN’T IT FUNNY you should call?” Diana Galway trilled down the line. “I was just thinking about you.”
Her greeting didn’t indicate whether Lodestar Pictures’ promising new discovery and Ruby’s steady lunch partner had been dialing me like mad all day. I’d planned on telephoning Diana anyway. She was the sole entry in my slender address book who might know Armand and Natalie. A little voice chirped that I was overdue at work, but I was in no mood to tote that barge for Tremayne’s now.
“I’m still simply shattered about Ruby,” Diana said without prompting. “It was such a help to go to Mrs. Lindros’s and see some of the girls again. The poor things. I wonder where they find the strength to pound the pavement every day. To struggle.”
“You did it, too. You’re giving them hope.”
“Yes, but I had an ace in the hole. I knew better things were in store. On my fifteenth birthday, a fortune-teller told me there was a bright star in my future.” She paused expectantly, but I had no idea what she was talking about. She fed me my cue again. “A bright star…”
“Oh, Lodestar. I get it. Say, that’s a good story. You should tell that to one of the magazines.”
“I did. It’ll be in the next Photoplay. It’s so sad Ruby won’t get a chance to see it.”
“I spent the morning with the detective investigating the case.”
“Did you?” Baiting actresses was almost too easy. Diana presumably feared her reputation might be tarnished by the Alley Angel Affair. The prospect of inside information proved irresistible. “I could use a friendly ear. I don’t suppose you could come over.”
“Sure. What streetcar line are you on?”
“We’re in Beverly Hills, dear. Take a taxi. I’ll pay for it.”
I was being driven everywhere today. A girl had better not get used to this.
* * *
THE MINOTS, APPROPRIATELY, lived in a house out of a movie. Set back on the property, curved drive depositing visitors before squat marble columns. It merited a whistle from my cabdriver, at any rate.
The maid who answered the door sported a crooked nose and a shapeless uniform that made her look like a bag of bruised potatoes. Even the lascivious Laurence Minot wouldn’t be tempted. Perhaps Diana was smarter than I thought.
As I trailed the maid down the hall something reminded me of Sunday mass with Aunt Joyce. Incense, that was it. The scent became overwhelming once she showed me into a small room. Diana sat on one of several tufted red silk pillows on the floor. She wore a blue kimono, legs crossed beneath her. The incense burned in a porcelain Buddha, smiling to himself on a table off to the side. He probably thought the pillows were a hoot, too.
“I’ve taken up the ancient Eastern custom of meditation,” Diana announced, eyes squeezed shut as if warding off a migraine.
“How do you like it?”
“I hear Myrna Loy finds it relaxing but I can’t sit still for that long. I do love the clothes, though.” She untangled her legs and stood up. The robe’s blue silk was shot through with golden threads, the deep cobalt making the blue of her eyes pop.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but could you put a damper on the incense? I keep expecting an altar boy to wander in.”
“It is a bit much, isn’t it? Frankly, it doesn’t help.” She lifted the Buddha off his base and snuffed out the joss stick. “And I was so hoping to center myself today. I’ve been so distraught about Ruby I haven’t been able to study my lines.” She flung a hand at a script pup-tented on the floor. “I play a waitress in this one.”
“Weren’t you a waitress in the last one?”
“Yes, but this time I’m a waitress with a secret. You said you talked to the police about Ruby. Has … my name come up?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.” Disappointment feuded with relief in her voice, some part of her craving publicity of any stripe.
“You and Ruby were still close, weren’t you?”
“Like sisters. She was always there to listen whenever I had a problem. She knew an awful lot about men.”
“Or a lot about awful men.”
“Lillian!” Diana giggled girlishly. She did everything girlishly. That’s what Lodestar was paying her for. “Ruby would give me the best advice. Who am I going to turn to now? Who can I share my worries with, my fears?”
“What could you possibly have to be afraid of?”
“The things that always concern a woman.” She paused, then lowered her voice. “A married woman.”
“Laurence?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but at times I think he might be stepping out on me. You see, he’s something of a flirt.”
Unable to maintain a compassionate pan, I turned to the Buddha. The smoldering fat man’s smile calmed me. Maybe there was a payoff to this meditation racket. Something of a flirt? Laurence Minot sprinkled come-ons by reflex. He made Chaplin look chaste. Ruby insisted she’d seen him make a play for a woman at his own wedding reception—a woman he’d already been married to. And that had been less than a year ago. Technically, the Minots were still newlyweds.
“Ruby always told me I was being silly. Her opinion was husbands who flirt never cheat. It’s the ones who pretend not to notice other women who stray.”
“That’s an intriguing theory.”
“Theory? So you think she could have been wrong?” Diana’s mouth retracted to its tiniest size in dismay.
I’d forgotten I was auditioning for the coveted role of shoulder to cry on. “No, Ruby was right. Don’t listen to me. I’m only a window-shopper when it comes to matters of the heart. May I ask, how did Ruby dress when you two got together?”
“In the dark, it seemed to me. Grabbing the same old rags from her closet.”
“I heard she’d picked up new friends. Society types. You might know them. Armand Troncosa and Natalie Szabo? He’s from Argentina, she’s some kind of princess out of—”
Diana’s laugh cut me off. “Society types? I’d hardly know about them. I have a job just like you. Not exactly, but you understand. On the days we’re shooting I’m out of bed so early I might as well be a farmer. Can’t say I’ve heard of either of them. This Natalie is a princess, you say?”
“From Hungary.”
“Wants into pictures, I suppose.”
“If Jimmie Fidler is to be believed.”
“Oh, I always believe Jimmie.” Diana imbued the words with the sincerity of a sworn oath. She started pacing, punting pillows out of her path as she walked. “Princesses. Gold diggers, more like. Coming over here with titles and stealing our jobs and our men, all the while asking us to feel sorry for them. ‘Pity me, I’ve lost my throne.’ Got your just desserts, more likely.”
If Diana’s empathetic grasp of geopolitics were any indication, the meditation room was not having the desired effect. The lady certainly seemed to be protesting too much. I suggested we talk about her upcoming picture. Or to be precise, Diana talked while I didn’t smother her with a cushion. Her stories revolved around starlets out to sabotage her, writers whose lines were unspeakable, directors who ignored her brilliant suggestions, and photographers determined to make her look like Methuselah’s maiden aunt. While contemplating which pillow would work best for suffocation detail, it occurred to me that I had assumed Ruby’s responsibilities, listening to Diana natter about problems I’d surrender my eyeteeth to have.
“And after that I volunteered to do my own makeup if they couldn’t find a competent professional.”
I offered yet another variation on “You poor thing.”
“You’re so sensible, Lillian, not seduced by this mad Hollywood whirl. Money, clothes, parties. You and I know it’s all so much stardust.”
“Still, a sprinkle of it now and again would be nice.”
“Speaking of makeup, I should get my beauty rest.”
“Yes, and it will take me a while to get home.”
“Gracious, I had completely forgotten. Let me give you cab fare.” She flitted from the room, returning with a wad of bills that wouldn’t choke a horse but might cause minor equine digestive distress. “I have no idea how much things cost anymore. Is this enough to cover both ways?”
“Now this conversation sounds intriguing.” Laurence Minot leered from the doorway. He wore a navy suit with the merest suggestion of a pinstripe. The bruises on his face were healing nicely, now several shades lighter than his jacket.
Diana absently kissed his cheek. “I insisted Lillian keep me company so I’ve offered to pay for her taxis.”
“Permit me to run the lady home.” He crooked an elbow at me. I looked to the Buddha in the hope he’d suggest a suitable excuse but he kept silent. The smug little bastard.
* * *
LAURENCE CHATTED ABOUT the weather and the movies as he chauffeured. The director of Sing for Your Supper strongly recommended The Life of Emile Zola, “Not that they’d let me near a picture of substance like that nowadays.” Small talk depleted, he said, “You and my bride do a lot of reminiscing?”
“Diana is still grieving over Ruby.”
At the mention of Ruby’s name Laurence snorted. The sound of a bull in a ring, utterly bereft of pity.
“You didn’t like Ruby?”
“I never gave her much thought. I only met her once, at our wedding. Ruby struck me as someone who’d been in Los Angeles too long. Started to view every encounter as an opportunity and every person who’d achieved some success as an enemy. I don’t think she cared for my wife very much.”
I wanted to disagree. Too bad I couldn’t.
“I have to say I didn’t like Diana spending time with her,” he continued. “Ruby was a bad influence.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She was involved with a gangster. That hood Tommy Carpa. Diana dragged me to his dive of a club once to gawk at him. She’d come home aboil with news about Ruby’s latest set-to with him. Sturm und Drang with hackneyed dialogue. I used to dread hearing about those lunches.”
“Ruby had come up in the world lately. She’d been socializing with a better class of people. Maybe you know them. Armand Troncosa and Natalie Szabo?”
“Hmm? Sure, we’ve seen them around. He’s been on the Hollywood circuit a while. She’s new to it, I think. And Ruby was friends with them, you say? Wonder how that happened.”
We stopped at a red light and Laurence considered me, a bit too avidly for my liking. “You’ve crossed my mind more than once since the other day. You don’t act anymore, is that right?”
“Yes. To the acclaim of millions.”
“If you don’t mind my saying, that’s a shame. You have a quality. You project a particular charisma.”
“Congratulations. You’re the first person to see it.”
“That’s because it’s very contemporary. It might not show up onscreen without a capable man behind the camera.” The light changed. The car rolled forward, Laurence continuing to subject me to intense scrutiny. “Would you be interested in a screen test? Under my humble tutelage?”
Words that girls travel clear across the country to hear, and I wanted no part of them. “Thanks but no thanks. My greasepaint days are over. I’m married to my work.”
“When you change your mind, I can set up a test at Lodestar with a single phone call.” Not if, I noted, but when. Laurence was cocksure but didn’t press the matter further, undoubtedly tired after a full eight hours of pursuing chorus girls.
I barely held up my end of the conversation for the duration of the trip. I was too busy mulling over why Diana had lied about knowing Armand and Natalie, and what compelled Laurence’s transparent attempt at ingratiation by reviving my film career. Whatever the explanation, something was rotten in the state of the Minot union. Ruby had predicted it at the reception.
After bidding Laurence a hasty farewell, I let myself into my building. Mrs. Quigley had closed her door for the night but she’d left Miss Sarah Bernhardt, her elegant sable-brown Burmese, patrolling the lobby. Miss Sarah brushed against my ankle, saying hello.
“I could use a friendly ear,” I told the cat. “I don’t suppose you could come over. Take a taxi. I’ll pay for it.”
Miss Sarah seemed indifferent to the offer, which I took as assent. I scooped her up and carried her to my apartment. Miss Sarah dozed off, and I followed her lead. No sense letting a fine idea go to waste.
13
THE PHONE’S RING cut straight through my none-too-deep slumber. Even asleep, I’d been waiting for the call.
The dawn light was still in rehearsals. I staggered downstairs, almost stumbling over a spry Miss Sarah. Mrs. Quigley stirred in her chambers. I hollered that I’d take care of it. I snatched the receiver, uttered a bleary “Hello.”
After a brief silence I heard, “I am calling for Lillian Frost?” The accented female voice cooed each word, placing the tiniest emphasis on the wrong syllables.
“This is Lillian.”
“Success at last.” I realized if Miss Sarah could speak, she’d sound exactly like this woman. “You are most difficult to reach.”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“I am Natalya Szabo. Please call me Natalie. I am American now.”
Any trace of grogginess dissipated. I was bucket-of-ice-water-over-the-head awake. I inched closer to the phone so her words would have less distance to travel. “I’ve heard your name. Why are you calling?”
“Because you knew dear Ruby. You were her friend.” Natalie pushed forth a velvet sigh. “Hearing her name makes me sad. I’ve been sad for days, thinking about her.”
“Do you know what exactly happened to her?”
“What do any of us know? I can only say dear Ruby made some regrettable decisions. We all do. We women are creatures of the heart, aren’t we?”
It was too early for riddles. “I’ve been looking for you. I was at Armand Troncosa’s yesterday.”
“Ah, Armand. Silly brute.” Her words were laced with pity. She followed them with another decadent sigh, suited to eating chocolate-covered cherries in a bubble bath. “I feel as if I know you, dear Lillian, because Ruby spoke so highly of you. She told me more than once you were her one true friend. The only person she could trust.
I hope I may trust you also.”
“Of course. What can I do?”
“I know it is only a matter of time before the police seek me out. Perhaps they are already looking. I wish for you to tell them I know nothing.”
“Actually, I was going to ask you to help them.”
“This I cannot do, dear Lillian. For many reasons. I wish to cause problems for no one. All I want is … to fade away.”
She implied so much turmoil in her last words I suspected the worst. “You’re not going back to Hungary, are you?”
Her laugh could launch a thousand dueling scars. “You need have no fears for me. Now that I’ve learned how America expects me to behave, I like it here. And I intend to stay. Where no one can find me. After what was done to Ruby … our family has suffered enough.”
It took me a moment to parse her request. “Your family … are you and Ruby related?”
I heard a startled intake of breath, as if Natalie feared she had revealed too much. At that instant, an operator cut in. “Excuse me. Please deposit—”
Natalie slammed the phone down. The operator nasally repeated hello several times before breaking the connection.
I slowly replaced the receiver, then felt the wood of the table the phone rested on, brushed my thumb against the faded pad of paper alongside it. Physical sensations to confirm I hadn’t dreamed the entire conversation.
Behind me, Mrs. Quigley cleared her throat. “Was that the woman who’s been harassing us? May I assume these intrusions will cease?”
“Absolutely, Mrs. Q. Excuse me.” My fingers fumbled at the phone’s dial. Detective Morrow needed to be informed. He had to know Natalie had contacted me. More importantly, he had to know I’d been right. About Natalie and Armand, about everything.
Except Ruby. I had to face the possibility I’d been wrong about her.
You were her one true friend, Natalie told me. Ruby had used those exact words the last time I saw her, in Tremayne’s cafeteria. I assumed she’d said them to butter me up, to convince me to steal for her. But what if she’d meant them?
* * *
NATURALLY, THE GENT I’d eyebatted out of his newspaper two days ago was catching the same streetcar in. I managed to keep several other commuters between us. After leaving a message for Detective Morrow I’d dressed quickly and headed to work. I’d present myself at Tremayne’s just after sunup, sort those panties I should have dealt with last night before the first matrons hit the sales floor, and be back in Mr. Valentine’s good graces by lunchtime. Hard right into the employee’s entrance, straight to the time clock—
Design for Dying Page 9
