Bending over him, Tom breathed heat into his ear. ‘You dumb ass. Don’t try to get smart with me. You got your money, now spill all you got or you’ll find your job’s the least you lose. Understand?’
Davis was still bucking like a jackrabbit when, all of a sudden, he stiffened like a spring and let out a low, unearthly wail. Unsettled, Tom loosened his grip enough to let the man turn his head. His face had turned a sickly shade of gray.
‘OK, OK,’ he whined, his voice thin and wracked with pain. ‘Go easy, will you? I can’t take this. You saw my belly; if it splits again, that’s it, I’m dead.’
It hit Tom then: the marks on his arm, the rip in his belly. The stories he had heard about war veterans; the rumors about Mabel Normand. And what it was connected them. He released Davis and stood back, putting a hand under his elbow now, helping him turn.
‘Can you stand?’ Tom asked.
Davis shook his head. Bent double, he crooked his right arm around his stomach, his face creased with pain. Tom leaned into him, taking his weight, easing him down on to the limousine’s running board, waiting as the pain subsided slowly and some dabs of color returned to Davis’s cheeks.
‘You get that in Europe? In the trenches?’
‘Argonne Forest,’ Davis gasped, trying to control his breathing, hands on his belly clenching and unclenching. ‘Shell took my whole unit out. Half my guts with it.’
Tom tried not to picture it. Too much pity in that. He pointed at the needle marks on Davis’s arms. ‘That the reason you use dope?’
Again a nod of confirmation.
‘And why Miss Normand chooses you to drive her around? You keep the stuff coming in nice and regular, so she never has to get her hands dirty? I’ll bet you know every dope dive in town, don’t you?’
Davis cast his eyes down to the rough concrete of the yard, as if he knew they would betray him. ‘Look, I don’t know anything about that, all right? What she does in her own time ain’t none of my affair. I just ferry her about.’
‘No. I don’t think so. I’d bet the bank on you knowing every move she makes, inside that apartment and out. Just like every driver and maid between ’em knows all there is to know about the boss.’
Davis breathed a long, resigned sigh. ‘So maybe I used to get her a bit of stuff sometimes. But not now, OK?’
‘You saying she’s not hooked on it?’
Tom had never seen any sign of it himself, and it sure wasn’t something you could talk to Sennett about. But he’d heard plenty of stories, and every gossip column in the country had traded on rumors of Mabel Normand’s ill-defined ‘illness’ for a couple of years now.
‘Jesus, guy, what’ya want me to say? That she’s got a yen for it? Well, yeah, like that’s not exactly news, is it? There ain’t hardly anybody in the business doesn’t know that. Just don’t drag me in. I got enough problems.’
Davis had recovered enough to start feeling sorry for himself again. Tom said nothing, just stared at him knowing the rest would come soon enough. And it did.
‘Look, so I used to get her some powder. So what? It wasn’t a regular thing. You’re wrong about her. She likes to go get it for herself. Likes that kinda thing, you know. Gets off on the seamy side of it. But that ain’t always advisable in her line. So she used to be at the studio or out on a shoot and ask me to run and get a few bindles for her, and maybe some for me, too. You think I was gonna say no to that?’
Davis lapsed into silence, his eyes blank, snagged on some memory.
‘Don’t go all misty-eyed on me,’ Tom said. ‘Sounds like a pretty nice set-up, for you. So why no more? What happened to stop it?’
‘What’ya think? She’s trying to quit, of course. Lady’s trying to kick it.’ Davis went to raise his hands in a show of mock innocence, but winced and thought better of it. ‘Like I say, none of mine. I ain’t getting in the way of that.’
‘Come on. You expect me to believe you’d say goodbye to a meal ticket that easy. Like you don’t know full well that if she does get free of it, you’re the last person she’s going to want working for her. I don’t think so.’
‘Aw, what’s the goddamn use?’ Davis dropped his shoulders with a heavy sigh. ‘Look, you want it so much. Here it is, straight down the line: it was Mr Taylor – yeah, him – he paid me not to get her more.’
‘Taylor?’ Tom’s jaw gawped. ‘What the hell did Taylor know about it?’
‘A lot more than you, pal. You think you wouldn’t know if your woman was sousing herself with powder? Gimme a break.’
‘So what’re you saying? Taylor was giving her the stuff himself?’
‘No. Why would he? Man was trying to get her to kick it. He was crazy for her. Said he’d give me a bill every week – a fifty for Chrissakes – pay for mine if I left her alone. Gave me a big speech – some garbage about friends not feeding off of each other. Sure, and look where it got him.’
‘So did you? Leave her alone, I mean?
‘What do you think? Like some rich fool wants to pay my way, and I’m gonna say no? Sure, I played along, I had nothin’ to lose. Didn’t make any difference, though. She can’t stay off it for long. I mean, she tries and all, but it’s hard, you know. You can’t imagine. Don’t know what the hell I’m going to do now.’
‘Save the sob story, brother. Tell me more about the dope. Where was she getting it if not from you or him?’
Davis shook his head again, past caring now. ‘Shorty Madden, I guess. That’s who she usually went to.’
Tom recognized the name, but as a bootlegger, a small-time liquor merchant to the stars. It was news to him that Madden dealt dope as well, but since Prohibition pretty much everything came in the same way. Booze, cocaine – it was all one.
‘You reckon maybe Taylor tried to buy him off, too?’ Tom asked.
‘More than reckon,’ Davis nodded. ‘I know it. But Madden, he didn’t like Taylor interfering with business. I mean, he really didn’t like it. Told Taylor go to hell and keep his sermons to himself.’
‘They had words?’
‘Words?’ Davis got the beginnings of a guffaw out, then stopped, holding his belly again, eyes tight with pain. He gulped hard, easing his breath back. ‘Not just words. Those two had a good ol’ rumble right here in this yard. Miss Normand near had a fit trying to drag ’em apart. Seems she made some arrangement with Madden to bring the dope to the gate, there, when Taylor turns up unannounced. I only caught the tail end cos I was inside having my supper, but with all the hollering I came out and found them trying to kick seven kinds’a hell out of each other.’
‘Was he hurt?’
‘Taylor? Nah, he was a big guy, you know, compared to Shorty. Good shape, too, for an old guy. Looked to me like he was makin’ the running. ’Course, he was fortunate Madden didn’t out with a blade and do him on the spot. Heart mustn’t have been in it that night. Soon as we got ’em apart, they flung a few more cusses at each other, then Madden turned on his heel and stomped on out of here.’
‘And that was it?’
‘Far as I know. Mr Taylor came back in, dusted himself down and had a sup of brandy while Bessie mended his jacket. Face like thunder on him. We heard him and Miss Normand arguing in the parlor. Soon as Bessie finished stitching, he stormed out.’
‘When was this?
‘Right before New Year, I guess – yeah, must’ve been cos I remember Miss Normand thanking the good Lord most of the neighbors were away for the holidays.’
‘Cops know anything about this?’
Davis gave him the skeptical look again. ‘Not from me.’
‘Do you think Normand might’ve told them?’
‘No way. She’d have to be—’
‘Crazy. Yeah, she would, wouldn’t she?’ Tom couldn’t see Mabel Normand wanting to tell the cops about any of her dirty habits. If the press got hold of it, she’d be finished, instantly. He gave Davis a long look and asked the obvious question.
‘You reckon Madden’s good for Taylor?�
��
‘How would I know?’ Davis scowled. ‘Thoughts like that, y’know, it don’t pay to have ’em.’
‘So, where can I find this Shorty Madden?’
Davis looked like he was about to swallow his tongue. ‘You don’t want to go after Shorty. Anyhow, if he had anything to do with it, he’ll be long gone.’
‘Let me be the judge of that. Where’s he operate from?’ Tom stuck his hand in his pocket again, skimmed another couple of sawbucks from his roll and held them up, rubbing them slowly between finger and thumb. ‘I’ll leave your name out of it.’
Davis’s gaze went no further than the money. He rubbed his belly where the scar met his waistband and crumbled. ‘He usually works out of that Irish place on Virgil, over on East Sunset. Hannigan’s. You know it? Used to be a saloon. Still is if you knock right. Won’t find him there yet, though – it’s nights mostly in his line …’
Davis’s voice trailed off and he was gasping again, staring into somewhere Tom was glad he didn’t have to follow. He stood up, patted the driver on the shoulder and threw the bills in his lap.
‘You’ve been real helpful, soldier.’
EIGHT
As he turned the key in the latch, Tom was still trying to settle on what to do next. In the ten minutes it took to walk back from Normand’s, all he thought of was calling Sullivan and telling him what Davis had said about Taylor’s clash with this bootlegger, Madden. It was a hot tip, and he owed it to Sullivan to pass it on. But with only Davis’s word to go on, something held him back. Handing on this nugget untested might do more harm than good. Not least for Miss Normand. If her connection with Madden got out to the press – and it would for sure once the detective squad got hold of it – that would be the end for her. Just like Arbuckle. Only worse, because she was a woman. Forget evidence. Forget the law. The way things were, every hack and reformist zealot in the country would be baying for her dope-tainted blood on every front page from Portland to New York and all points in between. And Sennett’s long association with Normand might well be enough to drag him down with her. Everyone in the business knew how parlous studio finances could be, and Sennett’s more than most. No way was Tom going to have that on his conscience. Not without hearing the whole story.
He pushed the door open and stopped. The girl was not there, but her presence was everywhere. Gone was the bundle of blankets on the couch. Gone, too, the scattering of papers, ties, books, cups, odd socks, ashtrays and other garbage that normally littered the floor. The meager stock of crockery on the dresser had been rearranged to look almost homely. The sound of a chair-leg scraping drew him in as far as the kitchen door. It was the same in there. The griddle was missing its crust of grounds, grease and egg spatter. A stack of cups and plates gleamed on the drainer. Colleen was sitting at the little bench table, jacket all buttoned up, absorbed in scribbling on a piece of paper. So pale, a few flecks of pink on her cheeks and eyes red-rimmed. Almost innocent in the daylight.
‘You do all this?’ he said, tapping on the doorframe.
She whirled around and stood too quickly, kicking the chair back with a clatter. He raised a hand to calm her, saw her hurriedly fold the paper she’d been writing on and stuff it in her jacket pocket.
‘That for me?’
Her cheeks fizzed red. ‘I wanted to say thanks for taking care of me last night and, well, you know, say goodbye and all. I didn’t think you’d want me here when you got back, so, uh … I mean, really, thank you.’
He held a hand out, thumb rubbing across his fingertips. ‘Aren’t you going to give it to me now you’ve written it?’
She fished the paper out of her pocket and handed it over. ‘I didn’t think you’d be back, so maybe I said too—’ She broke off.
‘If you want, I can read it later, the way it was intended.’
She nodded and looked relieved, so he folded the note and put it on the table.
‘I better be getting out of your hair,’ she said.
He stood aside to let her into the parlor, wondering why she was in such a rush. ‘You never did get round to telling me how it was you got to be in that place. How’d you get in a bind like that?’
She glanced around the room, looking for something to fix her eye on and spotted a small, framed picture on the wall. The only thing hanging there, it was a faded photograph of a stern, sharp-featured woman of advanced years, a high lace collar tickling her chin.
‘Is that your mother?’ she asked.
‘You think she looks like me?’ The idea made him laugh.
‘Maybe.’ She shrugged. ‘Looks kinda tough for an old lady.’
‘Sure does. I wouldn’t mind having some of that steel in my jaw. But she’s no relation of mine. Maybe Mr Sennett’s – he rents me this place. She was up there when I got here and I just let her be.’
‘And that one? She one of his girls?’ There was a defensive note of sarcasm in Colleen’s voice now. She was pointing at the studio shot of Fay on the dresser, inscribed to Tom and signed with all her love. Fay had laughed when she gave it to him, hiding her embarrassment, claiming the way her career was headed there might not be a next one to give him. But he had it framed and kept it propped there on the dresser all the same, where he could glance at it of an evening while she was away.
‘She’s a friend,’ he said, as non-committal as he could. No point telling her the whole of his business.
‘Millions’d believe you.’ She turned away. Her tone implied she wasn’t one of them.
‘You didn’t answer my question, Colleen.’
He drew her name out, not just to make it sound like a secret, but also because it fell oddly from his lips – not a girl, not any girl, as his mind translated it to and from the old tongue. But this girl, here, in front of him, now. ‘What were you doing in that place? And what’s your real name, now we’re getting so personal?’
‘Mae,’ she said, flat, as if it meant nothing to her. She dropped her gaze and tucked a lock of yellow hair behind her ear, fingertips brushing back across her cheek again. ‘I’m not proud of what I did, you know,’ she blurted. ‘I tried my best to get movie work, true as God I did. Tried four months solid but there are so many pretty girls in this town, and every one of them looking for the same.’
He knew the truth of that and told her so. No one could walk in or out of a movie studio without noticing the long lines of deluded hopefuls outside the gates every morning, hoping for a bit part, the chance to be discovered. So many, there wasn’t work for a fraction of them, and more crowding in behind every week. The lucky ones recognized straight off the crazy odds against success, when they still had the money to get on the train back to Grinnell or Hickville or wherever they came from, nursing their bruised dignity and shattered illusions. It was the ones who stayed got hurt, who believed the pap in the fan magazines about never letting anything stand in the way of their dreams, clinging to the hope of a miracle occurring just around the next corner.
‘Only had sixty-five bucks to start with,’ she said. ‘Most of that went first month, before I found a good-price rooming house. Didn’t take long for the rest to dribble away. Then a girl I met at a casting said she knew a guy who’d pay us to go to parties. Five bucks a time, and we could eat and drink all we wanted. Sounded too good to be true.’
It was, of course. He made a pot of coffee, sat her down again and let her tell her story. How she met a guy called Joe at this party, who was real nice and picked her out special with another girl to go upstairs to a room where these swells were drinking and smoking, and she would get an extra five bucks just to dance. And that was all she had to do, first few times. But soon Joe wanted more for the money. She was too embarrassed to go into detail, and he didn’t really want to hear it: how she had been exploited and abused, coerced and threatened. Didn’t tell her either that he heard it all before, seen what desperation, disappointment, hunger does to people, too many times. Sometimes it’s no solace knowing your troubles are not unique.
‘I’m real sorry,’ she snuffled. ‘It’s not your problem. But you asked and it’s been so awful these past days. I was sure I’d die if I didn’t get away from that place and, all of a sudden, there you were, like you’d been sent to me, and I …’ She buried her face in her hands, the only thing other than pride between him and her tears.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, uncomfortable now, his mind on more practical matters, like how he might help her without getting taken for a ride himself. ‘How bad are you stuck on that stuff?’
From what she told him, this Joe had been dosing her on heroin, building up her need, then demanding money when she sickened for more. Tom knew about that poison. Cocaine and morphine were more common around the studios, but it took people the same way. Got its hooks in, fought like fury to never let go.
‘They got you using a needle yet?’
She shook her head. ‘Joe tried to make me couple of nights back. Said it was cheaper than a capsule. He used it on a girl who came by in real bad shape. Tried to make me use it after, but I saw her blood in the syringe and screamed. Nothing would’ve got me to then, so he stopped. Guess he thought he’d have plenty opportunity to try again.’
Tom rubbed his eyes. What the hell was happening to this city? The most beautiful place you could ever want to be – warm sun, gentle sea, fertile land, a cast-iron land of plenty. And so many bent on dredging the depths instead.
‘You think you can shake it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m sick in my stomach now for the want of it. But I guess I don’t give in and see what happens.’
‘Good, that’s the attitude.’ He doubted it would be so easy, but he would not discourage her. ‘Now, look, you’ve got to be honest with me. Have you got a place to stay for real, or were you putting me on last night?’
She looked genuinely surprised he could ask it. ‘Sure I do. Out in Hollenbeck. It’s a good place, like I said.’
The Long Silence Page 5
