So who was he really?
“Nice uniform,” he said. “Interesting colour. Is that what they call puce?”
“It has the added benefit that if a customer throws up on you, it doesn’t show.”
“You see, that’s thinking ahead. You must have a very smart boss.”
“He’s Greek and he keeps trying to feel me up in the kitchen. Have you come here to gloat?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know.”
He just smiled and stood there, doing a good impression of the most charming man I’d ever met. I tried not to look too eager, but if he’d gone to the trouble of tracking me down then I supposed there must still be hope for us after all.
Or perhaps there had been, until now. The last time he had seen me I looked like Jackie Kennedy. I was wearing the diamond necklace Angel had given me and every man in the bar had turned his head to stare at me. Now I was dressed for yet another diner and I had on hardly any make-up. I was just out of the shower and my hair was a mess. He must be regretting that he went to so much trouble.
“I heard you want to be an actress.”
“I’m starring in my own movie at the moment. “Uppity Princess Gets Lesson in Humility From Life.””
“Catchy title. But I think you need something shorter, it will never fit on a poster.”
I checked my watch. I’d missed the bus.
“Running late?”
“Reyes, let me lay it out for you if you haven’t already guessed: I have no money, I have no prospect of making any, and my only hope of survival is the job I have at a diner about five miles from here across town. I just missed my bus, and my boss told me if I was ever late again, he’d fire me.”
“Well I can’t let you lose a job that lets you wear such great clothes. Let me give you a lift.”
There was a red and white Roadster parked out the front. He held the door for me. “Nice car,” I said.
“You’re going to get a little windswept.”
He jumped in behind the wheel and we headed out towards the Santa Monica Boulevard.
“So why did you leave Miami?” he said.
“Well, after Papi died, there was no more reason to stay.”
“What about Angel?”
“He was helping me. I’m not in love with him anymore, Reyes, despite what you think.”
“That day at the Fontainebleau, when he said jump, you said how high.”
“That wasn’t love, Reyes.”
He kept his eyes on the road. I wondered what he was thinking.
“What did he say about me?”
“He said you stole all the money out of Papi’s safe after we left Havana.”
I expected an outraged denial. Instead he just looked amused. “Is that the best he could do?”
“Did you?”
“I heard the villa got ransacked; I went round there to take a look. I guessed there would be a safe, so I took a gentleman with me who knows about these things.”
I held my breath. If Reyes had stolen my father’s money, I was going to get out of the car right here on the freeway. “And?”
“We got the money, fifty thousand pesos. But the Beards found out about it and raided my apartment. I had to hand it over. They gave me a receipt. Do you want it?”
“What did you plan to do with the money?”
He took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at me. “Give it back to your father. It was his.”
“Why would you do that?”
“A personal favour.”
“To him?”
“To you.”
I wanted to believe him and I could see why Angel would lie about it. And anyway he was right, even if he did take it, there was nothing he could do with fifty thousand Cuban pesos except paper the walls with them.
“Why didn’t you look for me when you came back to America?”
“I’m not going to chase a woman who wants someone else.”
“But I didn’t want someone else, I wanted you.”
I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. I waited for his reaction. There wasn’t one. I guess he didn’t believe me.
“That night of the wedding…when you saw us together. It wasn’t how it seemed.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“Or maybe it does.”
I couldn’t be plainer than that. I wasn’t going to beg.
“So how’s life as an actress?”
“I wouldn’t know, I can’t even get an agent.”
“It’s a tough town.”
“I’ve come full circle; back waiting tables in another diner. I’ve thought about maybe doing some modelling. That’s how Monroe got her start--a producer saw her pictures in a magazine.”
“There’s lots of models looking for work in Hollywood, just as many as there are waitresses.”
“But they don’t get guys pinching their butts every five minutes.”
“Sure they do, but they own a magazine instead of a diner. It’s just a lot more glamorous.”
“I don’t even know if I can act,” I said. “I guess I’m just making a fool of myself.”
“I believe you can do anything you set your mind on. Besides, you’ve been acting your entire life.”
“Do you know something? You’re the first person who hasn’t smiled when I told them I wanted to be an actress.”
We talked about Cuba, and then the talk got back to Miami and some of the things I’d seen and heard while I was with Angel. He knew all about Resorts International. He said everyone from Howard Hughes to Richard Nixon was on the board, but it belonged to Bobbo Salvatore. He was trying to get gambling rights on Martinique and the Virgin Islands, and the mob guys were trying to find themselves another Havana.
I told him about the man Angel called Mo and what he’d said about Sinatra and the Kennedys. It occurred to me for the first time that it was perhaps why Reyes had come looking for me. He just wanted information.
“Mo is Sam Giancana,” Reyes said. “He’s the big Mob boss in Chicago. Bobby Kennedy’s been making his life hell with this anti-corruption commission.”
“Why is that Sinatra’s fault?”
“Frank went to Sam and asked him for help getting Kennedy elected.”
“Frank Sinatra is in the mafia?”
“He’d like to be. He knows all those guys, likes to hang out with them. Anyway, Sam delivered Chicago, and without Giancana, Kennedy wouldn’t have won. After he got in the White House, Sam was expecting to call in the favour. Instead Jack let his kid brother loose on him and the rest of the Mob.”
“So they feel betrayed?”
“Sure they do.”
“But Angel told me he was going to kill Fidel, that it was his patriotic duty, that he was getting his orders straight from Kennedy.”
Reyes liked that. “Yeah, his patriotic duty is self-interest, the rest is just bullshit. After Bay of Pigs, Kennedy wants Fidel dead. So do Bobbo Salvatore and Lansky and the rest of them, but for different reasons. Kennedy doesn’t want to get his hands dirty so he told the Agency to get it done, and they went to the mob like they always do when they got a problem they can’t fix themselves.”
“So that was why you were in Miami?”
“I was trying to talk my people out of getting involved. I felt we were giving guys like Bobbo and Angel too much power inside the Agency. I thought Fidel was less of a threat than they were. They didn’t want to listen to me so I told them I was going back to California. I should have quit after the Bay of Pigs.”
“You were part of that?”
“No, I hated the idea. Any invasion needs air cover, and Kennedy backed out at the last minute, he was scared of the Russians. I knew he would--for the same reason he doesn’t want to kill Fidel, but he doesn’t mind if someone else does it for him.”
I stared at him. He made it all sound soprosaic; it was like he knew the backstories of everything I had seen on the news every night since we’d arrived in Mia
mi.
We stopped in front of the diner where I worked, under a big neon sign advertising French dip and pastrami.
He handed me the copy of Variety. “This is for you,” he said.
“I’m overwhelmed. I was expecting diamonds, but this is too much.”
He pointed to a name of a film producer he had ringed with a pen. “He’s expecting your call,” he said.
“What for?”
“He’s casting for a new film with Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra. It’s not much of a part, you’ll have maybe a couple of lines, but it’s a screen credit and if you don’t screw it up it could lead to other things.”
“Do I have to sleep with him?”
He seemed amused. “You can try, if that’s what you want.”
He drove off. I realized I didn’t have his number and I didn’t know where he lived. That’s the way he probably wanted it. I guess if he wanted to see me again, he would find me.
Chapter 18
There was a payphone just outside the motel. I was too nervous to make the call. I walked up and down with a dime in my hand, spent maybe half an hour staring at that phone and trying to think what to say. Half a dozen times I dialled the number and hung up again before I finally let it ring through.
Finally: “Is that Shel Lachter?”
“Speaking. Who’s this?”
“My name’s Magdalena Fuentes. I’m a friend of Reyes Garcia, and I...”
“Yeah, he said you’d call. Can you come over in the morning?”
“Tomorrow? Yes, sure. What time?”
“Just not before eleven, sweetheart. We don’t do early mornings.”
He gave me the address and hung up. No, this just seemed too easy. I remembered the last time I went to see a film producer and I just hoped this time he wasn’t going to come to the door in just a towel.
I think the cab driver thought I was a hooker. Why else was a good looking woman going to a mansion in Laurel Canyon in a cab? After he dropped me off, I stood outside the security gates and peered in. It was a big two-storey home with white colonnades out front, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Scarlett O’Hara sitting there with Cap'n Butler. It looked so outlandish it could have been left here in the heart of the Hollywood Hills by a rogue tornado.
There were two Filipino gardeners at work in the gardens, one was trimming the topiary, the other was mowing the lawn.
I rang the bell and was buzzed in.
A middle-aged man with a mass of silver chest hair opened the door. He was wearing nothing but a towel.
Shel Lachter put on a pair of owlish spectacles and looked me up and down. “Well don’t just stand there with your mouth open, sweetheart, come on in.”
I almost changed my mind about the whole thing. If that towel drops, I thought, I’ll kick him in the cojones and run.
“So you’re the girl he was talking about. I see what Reyes meant.”
Another man trailed through the hall from the swimming pool out back, trailing wet footprints on the marble. He took a cigarette from a silver box on the antique hall table and put it in an ivory holder. He gave me a look of utter distaste. “Shel, you said you weren’t going to work today.”
“I won’t be long, munchkin. Pour me a drink, I’ll be straight out. This is the girl Reyes was telling us about. What do you think?”
“Tits are too small,” he said, lit his cigarette and went back to the pool.
“Don’t mind him,” Shel said. “It’s his time of the month.”
Now I knew what Reyes meant: you can try if that’s what you want.
“Do you drink?”
“Just water for now.”
“No, I don’t mean do you want a drink, I said, do you drink. Do you have a problem with alcohol?”
“No, of course not.”
“Do you take drugs?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s a promising start.” He went to the table, picked up a pile of scripts and chose one. He rifled through it, found the page he was looking for and held it out to me.
It was Maggie’s monologue from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: “You know, Brick. You know what’s wrong with us...?”
“Read.”
“Here?”
“I know it’s not Broadway, dear heart, but it will have to do for now.”
I knew the speech, I loved the play--I’d read it through half a dozen times. But my mouth was so dry I could hardly speak. Lachter waited, one hand on his hip.
I cleared my throat and I started reading. I’d only read five lines when he stopped me. “That’s enough,” he said, and he went back to the table and found a pad and a pen.
I thought that was it, it was my big chance and I’d blown it.
He wrote something on the pad, tore off the slip of paper and handed it to me. “There you are, sweetheart, see you Wednesday.”
“What’s this?”
“It’s the address of the studios in Culver City. Ever been there?”
I shook my head, numb.
“Tell the guard at the gate you have a screen test with Mister Lachter and he’ll let you through. Two thirty. Don’t be late.”
“I passed the audition?”
“Look, I owe your friend Mister Garcia a favour, so there was never really much of a doubt.”
“But...do you think I’m any good?”
“Any good?” He stared at me and laughed. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, to me.” I gave him the script but he handed it straight back. “Keep it, I want you to learn that monologue for the screen test.” He took my arm and led me to the door. “Have you ever seen Laurence Olivier on screen, sweetheart? He may be a living god in the theatre, but on film I could get more out of one of the tea boys. You’re not going to ruin the picture with half a dozen lines, and if the camera likes you, who knows? Look at Monroe.” He opened the door and propelled me outside. “Screen test Wednesday, sweetheart, don’t be late.”
It was over so fast I thought I must have imagined it.
But that Wednesday I took another cab out to the 20th Century Fox lot at Culver City and found myself on the set of the new Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse movie, Something’s Got to Give. I read the same monologue again, this time the whole way through. I gave it everything I had.
“... we may be gettin” by now, but you can be young with money. But you can’t be old without it! We can’t be old without it!
I was on my knees and there were tears in my eyes when I’d done. I waited for applause from the crew--even just one word of encouragement would have been something. Nothing. Shel and his assistant were staring into the viewfinder.
Finally Shel looked up. “The camera loves you,” he said.
“Do I have the part?”
“Filming starts in two weeks. Don’t get too excited, we’ll probably only need you for a day. I’ll send the contract to your agent.”
“I don’t have an agent.”
“All right, I’ll give it to Reyes, he’ll sort out the rest. And word to the wise, try to think of a new name.”
“What’s wrong with my name?”
“Are you kidding me? Magdalena Fuentes? No one will be able to pronounce it, never mind remember it. Magdalena is Spanish, yes? Anglicize it, you want my advice. Use Madeleine. And you need something catchy, like Marilyn Monroe. What about Madeleine Montes?”
I walked out in a daze. I wasn’t a star yet, I didn’t even have more than two lines. But I was no longer a failed princess working in a diner. I finally had a life of my own, even though it was in some other girl’s name.
Chapter 19
He was sitting outside the diner in his Roadster, reading the Los Angeles Times. He waved to me as I came out, leaned over and held open the door.
“I didn’t know if I’d see you again,” I said as I got in.
“You’ll always see me again.” He jumped behind the wheel. “They tell me the audition went well.”
“It wasn’t a stretch. He wanted to know if I had two
arms and legs and if I could speak English. What is this movie anyway?”
“It’s called A Hot Day in Winter. Wilder’s going to direct it, it’s a vehicle for Monroe to reprise her Some Like It Hot role and for Frank to sing a couple of numbers that Sammy Cahn wrote for him. So, you think you can pull it off?”
“I have three lines and I have to wiggle my ass a lot. I think I can do it.”
“That’s how Monroe started.”
I settled back in the seat and closed my eyes. I had been prepared for a fifty-minute ride home on the bus. This was luxury.
“What was the favour?”
“What favour?”
“Lachter said I got the part because he owed you a favour.”
“He wasn’t supposed to tell you about that.”
“This is going to be one of the biggest movies of the year, Reyes and I got a screen test because I didn’t have a serious drug problem. Is that so hard?”
“Well this is Los Angeles.”
“What did you do, help him beat a murder rap?”
We passed the hardware stores and five and dimes on Rodeo Drive. I turned to stare at a blonde goddess riding her palomino down the gravel bridle path in the middle of the road. Only in California.
“I just helped him make a problem go away.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Someone was blackmailing him.”
“Because he’s homosexual?”
“Exactly. I made the problem go away.”
“How?”
“Some guy had some photographs of him in unflattering poses with a young actor and had been trying to milk him for cash. I persuaded the guy to accept a more reasonable figure to disappear. I also put him on notice that if he ever thought to blackmail any of my friends again, I would terminate his photographic career with extreme prejudice.”
““Extreme prejudice?” Reyes, what kind of language is that?”
“Well, he seemed to understand. I look after my friends, princess.”
“Why are we taking the freeway?”
“I have to go to the airport.”
I stared at him. The wind was in his air and he looked as relaxed as if he was going on a month’s vacation, and gloriously handsome. I could not keep this man, I had to keep reminding myself this guy is not your future.
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