‘I don’t know how you sleep at night, Olsen. I really—’ It had taken a second or three to register. ‘Hang on. Back up a second,’ Tom said. ‘What do you mean, they’re only interested in Normand? Why would the Lasky guys have anything to say about Normand at all?’
Olsen’s lips flickered fractionally and his eyes locked and glinted. There was a lot going on behind them. He sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. ‘You know, I had a feeling you’d be grabbed by that.’
For Tom, it felt like falling into a trap, only he wasn’t sure what kind. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
Olsen’s smile broadened. ‘Oh, just a hunch. I’ve been in this game long enough to spot a ringer. I saw the way you were looking at Normand back there.’
‘Wasn’t everybody?’
‘Yeah, but not everybody sneaked in the back of the building after her. I was tempted to follow you but I had to finish the job and grab a few workable quotes from the famous folk. Gotta keep the boss happy or I’ll be shown the door myself.’ Olsen paused for dramatic effect. ‘I figured maybe you’re working for Normand.’
‘Don’t be crazy.’
‘Because, you know, I’d be real eager to hear about it if you are.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not how it is.’
Olsen wasn’t so much dissuaded as wholly skeptical. ‘Now I know why a handsome guy like you never made it the other side of the camera, Collins. You’re one lousy actor. C’mon, what’re you doing for her? Tell me. I could maybe give you somethin’ that you want to know.’
Tom laughed out loud to cover his unease. This conversation was way out of control, but he was intrigued as all hell by it. ‘What makes you think I want to know anything from you?’
Olsen grinned, his sure sense of a story evident in the flush blooming on his cheeks. ‘OK, Tom, quid pro quo, yeah? I spill, you spill. We got a deal?’
‘Depends on what you got,’ Tom shrugged.
‘I can tell you why Normand’s coming in for so much stick and how it’s being engineered. I can give you a name.’
‘Are you saying someone at Lasky is running some kind of smear campaign against her?’
‘Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Do we have a deal?’
Tom hesitated. Sennett was convinced somebody was out to get Normand. Confirmation of that, and a name, might get him off his back. It had to be worth a shot.
‘OK,’ Tom said, ‘but you didn’t hear any of this from me. Agreed?’
‘Sure thing,’ Olsen nodded encouragingly.
‘Right. I’m not working for Normand, but somebody asked me to look into her involvement in the Taylor case.’
‘With a view to what?
‘With a view to exonerating her.’
‘Who hired you?’
‘A friend.’
‘Who? Sennett? Mickey Neilan?’
Tom showed him the flats of his palms. ‘Wait. First tell me about the smears. Who’s running them?’
‘Ain’t it obvious? All these stories coming out of the woodwork about her; nothing about Minter. Who would have access to all that information about her and Taylor in the first place? Who’s most concerned to divert attention away from rumors about Taylor’s involvement with Minter? Go on, you figure it out; it’s not so hard.’
He was right. It wasn’t. ‘Eyton? All this is coming from him?’
‘Eyton, Jesse Lasky, J.J. Fine in the publicity office, whoever.’
‘You’re certain of this?’
‘Not a hundred percent. I’d only stake the one year’s salary on it, no more.’ Olsen held his palms out at the obviousness of it. ‘It could be Eyton or even Zukor who’s behind it, but it’s definitely coming from the studio. The Lasky press boys have been working flat out – and it ain’t because they’ve got any good movies premiering next week. It’s a smoke screen. I got three calls yesterday giving me juicy little nuggets about Normand and Taylor’s love trysts. I know other guys on my paper, at the Times and Examiner as well, all getting the same. Supposed to be anonymous but, you know, these publicity guys we speak to most days of the week. We know their voices.’
‘So what did Normand do to bring this on?’
‘You’re missing the point, brother. It’s not about who they’re trying to hurt; it’s what they’re trying to protect. You of all people should know how jittery everyone at Lasky is since this Arbuckle debacle. I’m told you have painful personal experience of how ruthlessly they protect their assets – when it suits them.’
Tom’s eyes must have widened at that remark, as the curl on Olsen’s lips tightened in response. But there was no way Olsen could have knowledge of what had happened between himself and Fay, or the deal they had been forced to do with Eyton. Was there?
‘So enlighten me.’ He said it cautiously. ‘Who are they trying to protect?’
‘I already told you.’ Olsen laughed as if he’d got one over on Tom, then leaned in towards him, his voice dropping lower. ‘Minter, of course. You know Zukor put millions into her. Sure, so he was wrong about her being the new Pickford, but she still does great box office. He can’t afford to have that tainted. But it’s not just her. This Taylor thing, coming so soon after all the bad juice about Arbuckle? Lasky’s is drawing all the heat. Think how much there is at stake: jobs, reputations, big money. You think they would overlook a ready-made headline-grabbing distraction to draw attention away from their door? What better than a dope-fiend crowd-puller from a rival studio who’s been jumping in and outta the sack with the murdered man. She’s a gift to them, brother. No way are they gonna pass on that.’
TWENTY-TWO
The traffic on Sunset was all snarled up, so a block west of Gower he swung the Dodge into the curb and walked the rest of the way. His route took him past a cluster of small independent studios, a general hubbub outside. Throngs of extras and bit-parters milled about, lining up at the cheap food stalls that spring up like weeds outside all studio walls – a hallucinatory mix of war-bonneted Navajos, raven-haired juanitas and bow-legged buckaroo boys fresh off the latest horse operas. Chow time in Gower Gulch.
It was all too tantalising. Crossing the intersection, he bought a couple of soft, spicy tacos and iced sodas from a stand run by a Mexican boy at the entrance to the Steiner building. Heady aromas of garlic, cilantro and peppers wafted from the warm wax-paper wrappers. He was most of the way through the first by the time he reached the top floor and shouldered through a door with Efficiency Secretarial etched into the frosted glass. Inside, a brunette with spectacles and a frown of intense concentration was barely visible behind a desk stacked high with mail and paperwork. The clatter of typewriter keys ceased as she jumped up, adding no more than nine inches to her height and revealing little more than a good string of pearls and the shapely upper portion of a pale blue tweed jacket.
‘Don’t you go spilling food on my floor, you big Irish ape.’ Her voice was more redolent of Brooklyn’s smoke-clogged avenues than the cool, clean air of the City of Angels. ‘The mop’s still recovering from the last time you were here.’
Tom sucked a teetering drop of salsa from the end of his taco. ‘Good to see you, too, Betty. Here, I got one for you. And a soda.’
Betty removed her glasses and emerged from behind the desk. ‘This what you meant by buyin’ me lunch? Well, thanks, I ate already. But I won’t say no to the soda.’
She ushered Tom the few steps towards a small table and chairs by the side wall of the office. ‘Sit here. It’s all I managed to clear today. Wait a sec …’
She pulled the table out an inch or so from the wall before setting the soda down and motioning Tom to be seated. The telephone rang. She gave it a dismissive wave and sat herself down.
‘Busy?’
She directed her brown eyes heavenwards. ‘The stupid lunk’s only gone and taken on another eight clients. Can you believe it? I keep on saying, “Paulie, I can’t cope with the ones we got already.” But it’s like I’m not even in the
room with him for all the attention he pays. Maybe I’ll join a union one of these days.’
‘A one-woman strike?’ Tom laughed. ‘He wouldn’t last a day without you.’
She reached across and squeezed his wrist. ‘’Cept for special clients of course. The rest of them, they can drop dead for all I care. He’ll soon get the message when the checks stop coming.’
‘I always said that man doesn’t deserve you,’ Tom said, starting in on the second taco.
Betty shot a coy glance back at him, fanning her neck with a hand. ‘Ooh, Mr Collins. If only I wuz unencumbered.’ Her East Coast drawl crossed more than a continent and wrapped the final vowel in a veil of smoky sensuality it was never intended to bear. Tom held her eyes for just a little longer than he should. Another image of her, high on a flickering screen, drifted into his mind – a close-up in a Fairbanks costumer, high point of her brief career in motion pictures. Now this.
He looked away, unsure of what was being unsaid, and nodded towards the paper stacks. ‘So is there anything for me? Any calls?’
‘Well, nobody could say you weren’t getting value for money from us, honey. There’s a stack of mail, and the telephone’s been ringing off the hook for you all morning. Your beloved Mrs Parker was after you, more than once.’
His pained expression caused one of Betty’s tweezer-thinned eyebrows to rise, ever hopeful for a crumb of gossip. The truth was more prosaic. He had called Fay first thing but her maid rebuffed him saying she was asleep. Doubtless exhausted by the three-day journey. He hadn’t had a chance to try again since.
‘And that awful Mack Sennett,’ Betty breezed on, since he wasn’t elaborating. ‘Jeez, but he’s an unpleasant man. You can tell him from me, I ain’t never going to watch none of his stupid movies again.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He didn’t say. Just keeps calling to “apprise” you of his whereabouts. This may be a small town, but that man sure knows how to get around every inch of it. Last I heard, a half-hour ago, he was over in the Hollywood Hotel and wanted you there too. Fast.’
‘I better get on, then. Before he busts a gut.’ Tom gulped back the last of his soda and stood, pulling on his coat.
Betty rose too, a hand unconsciously kneading the small of her back as she walked to her desk. ‘Need any typing?’
Tom shook his head and she handed him a small stack of mail and handwritten messages. Taking them, he gave her hands a squeeze and pulled her towards him. There was no resistance as her body curved into his, her lips opening a fraction as he bent and sidestepped at the last moment, his lips just shy of her ear.
‘There is one thing you could do for me.’ He laughed then and nodded towards the telephone on her desk.
She stiffened in his arms, feigned a look of disappointment and put a hand round her back, untangling herself from his clasp. ‘You’re such a dope, Tom Collins. I don’t know why I let you get away with it.’
Slipping on her shoes, she reached across the desk for her purse and gloves, and headed for the door. ‘Ten minutes, no more. And you be sure you hang up proper this time when you’re done.’
TWENTY-THREE
‘William was called away on urgent business for the bank,’ Fay yawned, happy. ‘He insisted I take the private car with him to Chicago. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to come back early. And in such comfort. I grabbed it.’
Her voice had a breathy energy that never failed to ensnare him. It was the first thing he had known of her, other than an imperious tap on his shoulder, interrupting a deep-and-meaningful he was having with Al Krexler about whether radio would ever be powerful enough to relay big fights all the way across America. Like it had the Dempsey–Carpentier bout in Jersey the week before to a handful of cities on the East Coast.
‘Mr Collins?’
Was it that tap on his shoulder or the elegance of her voice that had run through him like electric shock? At the time – July the previous year – he was working for Lasky. He knew who she was, and had been expecting her. Fay Parker – Mrs, not Miss, he’d been warned. A small but promising splash in a surprise hit out of Zukor’s New York operation had seen her sent West to take a more prominent role in a new DeMille costumer. She wasn’t getting the royal treatment – Lasky himself, or DeMille at a pinch, would have been at the railhead for that. Even so, she was having it better than most, with Tom deputed to show her the studio ropes, see her settled in and iron out any problems. He had seen the reel that made her name and thought she looked pretty good up on screen, if no more than that. Which is why he was unprepared for the jolt of raw want that struck him square in his chest when he turned and saw her.
‘You’re looking at him.’
Something kicked in her, too, because she took a step back and flicked her clear green eyes away from his. Later, she claimed it was to stop herself laughing at the stupid expression on his face, but he knew he’d turned with his usual confident smile. Knew, too, without arrogance or expectation, that since that moment something animal bound them together.
It wasn’t so much her beauty, although in a town awash with good looks she had no trouble holding her own. That wasn’t what he saw, or felt. Or what asserted itself in the hours that followed. He took one of the best studio cars, a big McFarlan Six, and gave her the tour, out around the lots, up to the viewing spot above the Cahuenga Pass, the whole of Los Angeles spread out before them. By the time he was to drop her off at the Garden Court Apartments where the studio had boarded her, they knew they would be spending the night together. So he drove on, to his place, away from the whispering spotlight of Hollywood.
He had never been with anyone like her before – bright, funny, glamorous, at ease in any company, charming everyone she met. Lying together in the gathering light of dawn that first time, she answered his questions about what she was doing in Los Angeles plainly, simply. Her husband, William Parker, was a charming man who had confessed, after a not especially unhappy first three years of marriage, that he had come to the realization that he preferred to share his bed with men. His social standing, his position on the board of a venerable New York banking firm, ruled out divorce or scandal. However, he did not want Fay’s life ruined as a result either, and wished her to pursue her own interests and ambitions, and to repay her discretion in any way he could. She spent money for a period until she found it didn’t satisfy her, opened a jazz club, then returned to her career on stage – although more selectively than before. She was visited backstage one evening by an associate of Mr Zukor who invited her to test for the screen. She found she liked it. William tolerated it. Hollywood beckoned. She was happy with the freedom the arrangement gave her, more than any she had previously experienced in life. It also meant Tom’s unresolved marital status bothered her not one whit. If anything, it drew them closer together.
The months that followed had been for Tom among the busiest, and happiest, of his life. His work at Lasky was going well. He heard whispers Eyton was considering him for promotion. Fay made three movies with DeMille, and although she hadn’t quite taken with the public, Zukor remained convinced of her talent and determined to find more suitable material for her. Meanwhile, with an energy as seemingly inexhaustible as her funds, she set up the Oasis, a small supper and dance club at the western end of Sunset, to keep herself occupied and, two or three nights a week, display the one talent she couldn’t get across on screen – her singing. Tom never felt he was in her shadow, and what it was she saw in him, apart from a total contrast with herself and her past, he didn’t care to wonder about. For him, this was what Hollywood was all about. Nobody cared about the old hierarchies. You made your own way and were judged by what you had to show for it.
Which was fine, as long as you were on the up.
Now, holding the mouthpiece close to his chest, he realized just how much he longed to see her again, to hold her close. Over the telephone, he always struggled for an intimacy to match hers. The words would never come to him. So he asked her how her jou
rney coast to coast had been, and she told him how much she loved that second leg out of Chicago, rattling through countless miles of sagebrush, desert, mountain, rock and range – the iron-heavy heat, the beauty so epic in scale.
‘I don’t think I could ever be bored by it,’ she said. ‘Especially with so much to look forward to this end. I thought we could celebrate by doing something nice tonight.’
‘Great. You don’t need to be at the club?’
‘They’re doing fine without me. How about supper at the Palm Court?’
‘Sounds good.’
‘I reserved a table for seven. For two, I should say, at seven.’
‘Thanks for the clarification. I was worried.’ He laughed. ‘So you’re not mad at me?’
‘Mad?’
‘About the girl? Colleen. She said you called.’
The pause was minimal. ‘No, I’m not. I mean, I have just come back from visiting my husband in New York. And she’s your niece, right? Strange how you never mentioned this family you have stashed away in Idaho. Or was it Ohio?’ Her laugh was so knowing, so self-assured. ‘Especially as she’s such a pretty little thing.’
‘Smart with it, I reckon—’ He stalled, had to reel it back a foot or two. ‘Pretty?’
‘Yes, very. I had to be downtown this morning, so I stopped by yours on the way back, to see if you were home. Well, like you say, she’s smart for sure. Didn’t bat an eyelid. Invited me straight in, said I was welcome to wait. Seems you told her all about me. Once we got talking, she confessed what had happened. What you did for her.’
‘Right,’ he said, unsure how much Coleen would have told her. ‘She’s a good kid, I think. Just needs a push in the right direction. I thought maybe you could help. You’re always on the lookout for table staff at the Oasis. Or you could introduce her to Delores Tamlin and get her a place at that rooming house of hers. Be a start for her, wouldn’t it?’
The Long Silence Page 13
