Lillian and Dash

by Sam Toperoff

  ALSO BY SAM TOPEROFF

  Jimmy Dean Prepares

  Queen of Desire

  Copyright © 2013 Sam Toperoff

  Original lyrics to “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You” (this page) by Ned Washington and Bing Crosby, music composed by Victor Young, 1932.

  Production Editor: Yvonne E. Cárdenas

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. For information write to Other Press LLC, 2 Park Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10016.

  Or visit our Web site: www.otherpress.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Toperoff, Sam, 1933–

  Lillian & Dash : a novel / Sam Toperoff.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-59051-569-3

  1. Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984—Fiction. 2. Dramatists, American—20th century—Fiction. 3. Hammett, Dashiell, 1894-1961—Fiction. 4. Authors, American—20th century—Fiction. 5. Motion picture industry—Fiction. 6. Blacklisting of entertainers—United States—Fiction. 7. Blacklisting of authors—United States—Fiction. 8. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3570.O6L55 2012

  813’.54—dc22

  2012017137

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  v3.1

  To Tracy Kidder,

  at the beginning and later.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Meeting

  2. Two Ideas

  3. Missings

  4. Hatred

  5. Movie Business

  6. Junk

  7. Days to Come

  8. Working Detective

  9. Secrets

  10. Alone, Perhaps

  11. Love Again

  12. Yiddishkeit

  13. The Walk

  14. Long Shots

  15. Americans

  16. At War

  17. Shock, Aftershock

  18. Comm-a-nists

  19. Lost and Found

  20. Ends

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  . 1 .

  Meeting

  MANY YEARS LATER, here’s how Dashiell Hammett remembered it:

  The Brown Derby restaurant, not that second-rate sequel on North Vine, but the original on Wilshire, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and thirty. Darryl F. Zanuck was throwing the party because even after the Crash, Warner Bros. was having a better than good year. Hell, if you were out of work, what better place to hide than in a movie house?

  He had just bought the rights to The Maltese Falcon and told me he had lots of other interesting scripts he wanted to develop with me. With me. He’d think up the stories, I’d develop the stories, he’d write the checks. And you wonder why they call the guy a genius? A boy genius at that. He looked about eighteen.

  You couldn’t name a Warner star who wasn’t out that night. Cagney? Right up there next to George Arliss. Eddie Robinson? Holding forth like a professor between Fay Wray and Myrna Loy. Dolores Costello? Paul Muni? Sidney Blackmer? Lila Lee? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. They were all up there at a long, flowered table with Boy Zanuck and his Missus. Writers, directors, cameras, sound and lighting guys, the entire brave ensemble of acting folk, the musicians, office personnel, invited guests (read as anyone who could attract publicity and some shirkers like me), we were scattered like salt and pepper at tables all around the room.

  They put me between Eugene Pallette and Joe E. Brown. I knew them only from their movies but wasn’t the least bit surprised by the fact that their screen personas were pretty much who these guys really were, wonderfully flawed and irreverent masks of humanity. Naturally, all they talked about at first was themselves. That was to be expected. When they finally—at long last—got around to asking me what I’d been in, I told them I hadn’t been in anything. A writer, Pallette guessed. Brown asked was I a real writer or did I only write for the movies? Just for the hell of it I said, Was there a difference? Only about twenty grand a script, he said. Well, then, I guess I write for the movies. Good man, and they both slapped my back.

  Then, just for the moment, Brown got serious about writing, and said no one ever gave a shit about words before talkies but now one good word was worth a thousand pictures, and that was why the money had gotten so good. And no one appreciated the fact more than Mr. Zanuck up there, who, did I know, started out as a writer himself. Hell, he used to pull out scripts like they were taffy.

  Did I know that Zanuck wrote almost every Rin Tin Tin movie there ever was? Brown said this with the utmost respect, in spite of the fact that this “writing” was for movies before sound and starred a German shepherd. My god, was I ever going to love Hollywood. I said, Here’s to the mot juste whether human or canine, and Brown and I touched empty glasses.

  Every table had pitchers of water and glasses of every possible shape—wine, highball, martini, shot—waiting to be filled with alcoholic beverages of every sort. The Derby couldn’t serve booze officially, of course, so everyone who imbibed—and that was everyone who breathed—was required to bring his own, usually in a flask. America was still like that in 1930 and I was completely comfortable with it, even pleased by the gangster business it created. At least there would be no raid tonight—this was, after all, a Zanuck affair. Pallette didn’t want to be left out of the toast to literature; so he reached under the table, pulled out a small pail, and filled our glasses with a greenish gin. We three clicked glasses and downed our booze. Surprisingly good stuff actually. It was going to be one of those nights.

  The word starlet hadn’t been invented back then, but they were there in the delightful flesh even if the word didn’t yet serve. Pallette saw me eyeing a redhead two tables away. He whispered, Sweet meat indeed. I alluded to the well-built young man with her. Brown laughed and said, Warner pansy. The studio just hooks them up for publicity photos. Pallette asked me if I saw anything else in the room I liked, a silly question, but implying he hoped to have the redhead for himself. I looked around and said, Nope, she’s the only one here for me tonight. It wasn’t until I broke a grin that he smacked me on the back again. This here is my kind of guy, he announced to the noisy room.

  I was a much better drinker in those days, by which I mean I could drink a lot more and not get as drunk. Back in the army I drank plenty with the guys and there would even be an occasional brawl. I’d seen guys almost kill one another. Me, I’d just try to pin someone down so he couldn’t hurt me or anybody else. Even back then, the good cop.

  In spite of Pallette’s friendly request, in spite of the fact that we were drinking his very good gin, I still had my eye on the redhead. It didn’t seem to me as though I’d have any great problem edging him out unless of course there was to be some sort of fiduciary exchange. I doubt I’d be able to win a bidding war, or might not even want to. But I think we’re supposed to be talking about Lillian here, aren’t we?

  As I recall, Mike Curtiz, the director, was just about to begin a speech of gratefulness to and introduction of Mr. Zanuck when I realized it was the perfect time to stand, walk toward the redhead’s table, and touch her bare shoulder as I brushed her chair on the way to the men’s room. I down
ed my green gin and rose. As I got close, a small woman blocked my path. We stutter-stepped for a while. Lillian of course.

  I have to trust my pathetically broken memory here. I remember being struck by the fact that she wore a suit, a mustard-colored suit, and a small cloche hat with feathers. I recall thinking how out of place—this was a major Hollywood soiree and here was a gal dressed for a New York literary luncheon. But I liked her face immediately. Nature had created it. As unforgiving as Mount Rushmore, as beautiful as the Rockies. She hooked my arm, walked along with me, and quoted my line from, I think, “The Girl with the Silver Eyes.” Something like, “You beast!” she spat, and then her smile grew gentle again … I have to admit, it struck me as pretty funny. She camped in front of the men’s room, looked absolutely helpless, and waited for my line, which of course I’d forgotten but which I’ve learned from her over the years was supposed to have been, “You’re beautiful as hell!” I shouted crazily into her face, and flung her against the door. Instead I think I said something about how surprising it was to run into Bette Davis on my way to the men’s room.

  She told me how disappointed she was that I couldn’t remember my own lines. What kind of writer was I anyway?

  One who got paid by the word, I said.

  Some would call that a description of a hack, she said.

  Acerbic wench, I said.

  I am not a bitch.

  I didn’t say bitch; I said wench.

  Okay, that one I’ll buy, she said.

  Who can resist such charm? I suspected even then that talking to a very, very smart woman in Hollywood was going to be as rare as finding an honest man there. Lillian had lots of both, smart and honest.

  She came real close then, ran her hand under my jacket, up my stomach to my chest and whispered, You are not going home with that redhead. No, no, no, no. You will be going home with me. So which of us is going to tell my husband?

  As it turned out, neither of us told Arthur. She simply arranged to have a cab waiting for us when the party began to break up. I didn’t know her name until she had taken our clothes off.

  TOWARD THE END OF HER LIFE, long after Hammett had died, Lillian Hellman remembered their first meeting like this:

  The occasion? Something about Zanuck and Thanksgiving and all of us being cringingly grateful to the brothers Warner all rolled into one. I’m not sure where exactly. If you forced me to guess, gun to my head, as Dash used to say, I’d venture the Coconut Grove. Is that correct? Now I’m not so sure. Is it important? Anyway.

  At first I swear I thought he was Gary Cooper. Honestly. It couldn’t be, of course, because Cooper was at Paramount in those days. Our table was pretty far away from the action, that I do remember. I never forget where they put me. And I remember saying to Arthur, That’s not Gary Cooper? He said, No, it’s Dashiell Hammett. I said, Jesus Christ, he’s beautiful. Arthur probably knew what was coming even before I did. He made believe he didn’t care. Rather, he made believe he didn’t care as much as he really did care. It hurt him less that way, I suppose.

  I don’t remember his sitting up on the dais. Couldn’t have been, he had just signed with Warners, but he was up there pretty prominently, after all he was Hammett. As writers you could argue Hemingway and Fitzgerald. For me Hammett clearly had the better of them both. By a mile. And just look at him. Tall, graceful, self-contained, talented, not Jewish, everything I really liked in a man. I had no intention of letting him get away. To be perfectly honest, I was hoping I could get him to read one of my scripts and then maybe … You know what ambitious girls are like in Hollywood. I was young—twenty-four—although surely not a girl. And God was I ambitious. Like now, like ever. Good thing for American letters, our meeting, don’t you think?

  I studied him for a long while. He drank from a shallow glass but only a little more than moderately. Conversed a bit but mostly he was casing the joint, as the Op would say, for potential female suspects was my guess. Going home alone was not in his plans. From time to time a girl would go up to flatter him, flash the goods, ask him to dance. He’d demur. Girls, the guy who invented the ultimate tough guy, the loner dick, is never taking to the dance floor! Banter and wit, yes. Dancing, no. I watched this ritual, observed his every move, his stillness. He looked into his liquor before he drank it. He threw his head back and smiled at the ceiling when a thought pleased him or when a companion said something he liked. He rarely smiled fully with his lips. His eyes registered pleasure. Mostly, though, he tried hard to accommodate himself to being there by holding his greater self apart.

  There was, near the toilets at the Grove—if it was the Grove—as I remember, a very comfortable and very private smoking area. The sofas and seats were plush, the foliage papier-mâché, the soft lighting perfect. The setting of choice as far as I was concerned. A moment before he downed his drink and pulled his chair back, I left my table without excuse or apology. Arthur’s eyes were on me, I knew.

  There on the sofa—mauve it was, and glad I’d worn the flowered gown—I displayed a lot of leg—I’ve always had good legs—and propped the rest of me up to best advantage. He didn’t show for a while, probably chatting his way here, although it did occur to me he may already have arranged to leave early with some Kewpie doll. Gloves were de rigueur as accessories then, and I slapped them on my knees in time to the Latin music from the ballroom.

  I swear I saw a backlit halo on him when he came toward me. This was some beautiful man. If I were writing the scene, it would read like this:

  “Please sit down, Mr. Hammett.”

  “Have we met?”

  “That’s what’s happening right now. Sit down, I have a small bone to pick with you.”

  “God. Only a small bone? I’m disappointed. And you would be?” He spoke slowly with a faint drawl.

  I adjusted my own drawl to his. “Names aren’t important. But what I’ve got to say might be. I’m a really smart woman and a very close reader who hasn’t the foggiest idea what the fucking plot of Red Harvest is all about … that’s what’s important.”

  Hammett sat down. If you’ve ever read that miscarriage or seen the movie they finally made of it at Paramount, you’ll know how preposterous the plot is, especially when the goddamned narrator—the Continental Op—cannot even remember if he killed Dinah Brand with an ice pick. I put my hand on Hammett’s knee: “Imagine. Your main character doesn’t even know if he’s a murderer! Come on.”

  “The poor man was hopped up. Ever tried gin and laudanum?”

  “Every morning with my Corn Flakes. And then you expect us to believe his fingerprints got on the ice pick because he touched it by mistake. Mistake! He’s the goddamned detective! That’s an even worse ‘come on’ … And has anyone ever totaled up all the murders in that book? I gave up after thirty-five. What the hell are you writing, medieval revenges?”

  “That’s exactly what pulp is, my dear. You give ’em gore and then you give ’em a lot more gore.”

  “I can do without the patronizing, my dear. I shouldn’t have to remind you, you’re the same guy who wrote a hundred lines this good: Play with murder enough and it gets you one of two ways. It makes you sick or you get to like it. So I ask you, Why does that same writer settle for crapola?”

  “Oh. Now I get it. You want to reform me. Save me from myself. Make me into a literary gent.”

  “You are a literary gent who thinks he has to be so damned tough all the time he’s afraid to open his fists.”

  “Sweetheart, the world already has too many literary gents and too much litter-a-toor. Maybe some other time you can tell me what else is wrong with the story. And what did you say your name was?”

  “Dinah Brand, and don’t you dare touch that ice pick.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “Another thing I don’t get is, you create this incredibly interesting and sexy woman and your Op not only doesn’t shtup her, he never even thinks about shtupping her. And I’m really worried that the same thing might be happening right now.
”

  “Stoop?”

  “Not ‘stoop,’ you dope. Shtup. ‘She Shtups to Conquer.’ It’s Yiddish, but that’s not the point.”

  Eventually Hammett learned lots of Yiddish, but that night we sat in the lounge and talked and drank and talked some more until everyone had left and they finally threw us out. All exit stage left. We went to his place, I think, a real dump as I recall.

  EVEN THOUGH HAMMETT was twelve years older with hair already flecked with gray, the two were compatible and easy with each other from the get-go. Both were children of the South—Hammett from rural Maryland, Lillian from an Alabama and Louisiana childhood before moving north—and their ease with the gentle accents of their youth allowed them to blend comfortably, even when they were teasing each other. Especially when they were teasing each other.

  Lillian did not work at Warner Bros. She had just started a job in the script department at Paramount as a reader, but her husband, Arthur Kober, who had published some stories in the New Yorker, had already done some script work for Zanuck. A New Yorker writer had a cachet with a man like Zanuck. Jack Warner, on the other hand, wouldn’t know the New Yorker from the New Republic.

  Arthur Kober was Lillian’s entrée that night. Although Hammett had indeed sold the rights to The Maltese Falcon to Zanuck, he had not yet been paid, and he had not as yet become a studio writer under contract. That was likely to happen soon, which was why he had been invited to the party.

  The most important thing that happened at the Brown Derby that night was that Lillian Hellman met Dashiell Hammett and they would know one another, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, for thirty years. The undisputed star of the evening, however, was Darryl F. Zanuck. Yes, he was the genius behind the incredible financial success of the Rin Tin Tin movies. And, yes, young Zanuck had played a major part in The Jazz Singer’s astounding success. He spent a good deal of his time at Warners urging the brothers to commit completely to sound. But they did not see the future for sound quite as clearly as he did. They did not—or would not—acknowledge that spoken words required very good writers, that movie music now demanded very good lyricists and composers. How many times had Zanuck told Jack Warner about scrimping on talent, “You get what you pay for.” And how many times had Jack Warner said, “When they need the work, they’ll give you their best for peanuts.”