Dead to Me

by Mary McCoy

  “So you came here,” I said.

  Gabrielle nodded. “I can’t get close to her room, though. There’s police everywhere.”

  “Conrad’s looking for you. They all are,” I said. “And Annie still hasn’t woken up.”

  Gabrielle said, “But you’re here now.”

  I rubbed my temples, wincing in pain.

  “I don’t see how that does us any good. I’m stuck in here just like you are.”

  Gabrielle was insistent. “Annie told me about you. She said you were smart, that if I didn’t have anywhere else to go, I could go to you.”

  Really? I thought. Why would Annie tell Gabrielle a thing like that, steering her away from older, smarter people who might have helped her?

  “Me?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know where else to turn,” Gabrielle said, hugging her knees to her chest.

  Well, that made two of us.

  While I nursed my ether hangover, Gabrielle told me everything that had happened. Everything.

  She’d only had a few seconds to hide before she heard the door open. It had been Ruth, and she’d run straight for the bedroom. A minute later, Rex came running after her. She knew they’d be looking for whatever Millie had hidden in the lockbox under Irma’s bed, saw her chance, and bolted out the door and down the hall to the fire escape.

  Millie had shown her the spot where the boards came up the first night Gabrielle stayed there. It was two nights after she met Irma, one month after the day she met Rex, and sixty-four days after the afternoon her mother threw all her clothes onto the front lawn and told her not to bother bringing them back inside.

  “I lived at the YWCA until I ran out of money. After that, I stayed at a hotel and got a job doing dishes, but the whole place was infested with rats and cockroaches. I used to sleep with my shoe in my hand so I could whack them with it if they got too close.”

  When she saw the ad for the modeling agency, she’d answered it, and when the man on the phone asked when she could come in, she’d said now. The man on the phone met her at the agency, told her his name was Rex. He offered her a seat and a glass of lemonade with vodka in it, and told her she was cute enough to eat. Gabrielle let him take her picture.

  “He was creepy, but he wasn’t the worst one. He looked me in the eye when he talked and he didn’t touch me except to shake my hand,” she said.

  The third night, Rex said she was pretty enough to be in the movies. Gabrielle had her doubts. She was gawky and skinny-legged, with unruly hair and feet so big she had to have her shoes specially made. But then he showed her the pictures he’d taken the day before, and they almost took her breath away. Rex had somehow caught all the flaws in her face and turned them into her best points. Her pointy chin looked striking, her too-big eyes were hypnotizing, even her messy hair fell around her face like one of the maidens in a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

  “I showed some of these around,” he’d said. “People liked your face, but they said you looked too young.”

  Since Gabrielle had been out on her own, she’d noticed that there was always a moment in conversations with people who wanted something from you. And up to that moment, you could walk away whenever you wanted without feeling as though you’d been rude or stuck-up or led someone on. And after that moment, it became almost impossible to walk away at all, no matter how badly you wanted to. After that moment, it was too late.

  She’d had moments like that since being on her own. There had been a man at the bus stop who chatted with her about the weather and the movies. One day, he asked where she lived, and when she told him the name of a neighborhood, he asked for a street. And when she wouldn’t say, he said it was only because he wanted to walk her home sometime, that he didn’t mean any harm. That was the moment when she started waiting at a different bus stop.

  The moment Rex said she looked too young was the moment she should have found another modeling ad to answer. But instead, she turned to him and said, “I can look older.”

  A couple of nights later, he gave her another drink, but this time there was something else in it that made her feel giddy and foggy at the same time. He gave her a wig and a makeup kit and a bag full of lacy bras and garters, and took her to have her picture taken again.

  The next morning she woke up in one of the bungalows at Stratford Arms with a horrible headache, and Ruth was standing over her with a glass of seltzer water and an aspirin.

  “She told me that no matter where I came from, I should go back because it was better than this. I told her I wouldn’t go back and she couldn’t tell me what to do,” Gabrielle said.

  “What did Ruth say?” I asked.

  “That I was right. She couldn’t make me go back.”

  A few nights later, Rex came back. This time, he brought a pretty yellow chiffon dress for her to wear, put her in his car, and drove her to a party unlike any she’d been to before. It was just like the movies—there was music and champagne and handsome men lined up to talk to her, to freshen her drink, to ask her to dance. There was one man she liked right away. He had a nice smile and said she was the cutest girl in the whole room, but after a few minutes of talking to her, a strange look crossed his face.

  “Sweetie, are you sure you’re in the right place?”

  I had no problem imagining it. The same thing had happened to me before at my parents’ cocktail parties, and I was sure it had happened to Annie, too. A man would be talking to me, and then something would change as he realized the young woman he was flirting with was really a young girl. He’d cross to the other side of the room in a hurry muttering about jailbait, and for reasons I didn’t completely understand, I’d wind up being the one who felt like I’d done something wrong.

  “I should have said something,” Gabrielle told me. “Instead, I just drank more champagne and told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “At first, it hurt my feelings, but there were lots of other men who wanted to talk to me. There was more champagne. There was dancing, and then suddenly, Conrad Donahue was standing right there in front of me. Everybody else who was hanging around me went away, and pretty soon, it was just the two of us.”

  He’d pulled her onto his lap, and whispered funny things about the other people at the party into her ear. The man in the pinstripe suit was bald as a boiled egg under his hairpiece. And the sour-faced man who drank sidecar after sidecar still lived with his wife but hadn’t spoken to her since Pearl Harbor.

  He’d pointed to a man in light-blue suspenders standing in the corner, a fedora pulled down over his eyes at a rakish angle. “And that tough old screw? He’s nothing but a dirty old cop.”

  “Why did you invite a cop to your party?” Gabrielle asked.

  “Because he’s my cop,” Conrad said. “Like a pet. Watch.”

  He looked across the room and snapped his fingers, and the man came to attention. Lithe as an eel, he threaded himself between the bodies massed on the dance floor and around the bar, and before Gabrielle could say a thing, he was there. He didn’t speak, but stood like he was waiting for orders.

  “Get me a car,” Conrad said to him. “We’re leaving.”

  He chucked Gabrielle under the chin and smiled at her. “Don’t look so sad, sweetheart. You’re coming, too.”

  The police officer left and was just as suddenly replaced by two older girls, one at each of Conrad’s elbows. One had blond hair and dramatically arched eyebrows. She whispered something in Conrad’s ear, while the pale dark-haired one wrapped an arm around Gabrielle’s shoulder as though they were school chums.

  She wriggled out of the girl’s grasp, but as she did, the girl leaned down and whispered in her ear.

  “I’m Irma. Stay with us, and everything will be okay.”

  “Everything is okay,” Gabrielle hissed back, but Irma acted like she hadn’t heard. Instead, she threw her head back and let out a peal of laughter, as though Gabrielle had just said something uproariously funny.

  “I’d had Conrad al
l to myself, and then these other girls show up, acting like they own him. I’d seen the blond one somewhere before, but it was hard to tell since she had her tongue in Conrad’s ear.”

  Millie, I thought.

  “They were trying to protect you from him,” I told Gabrielle.

  She shook her hair in front of her eyes and covered her face with her hands.

  “I know that now,” she whispered.

  It was a long time before she spoke again.

  More girls had trickled up to Conrad and had their picture taken with him, and Gabrielle had fallen back to the edges. Then a man with shiny black hair and a neatly trimmed mustache materialized in the middle of the group. He seemed more like a host or a waiter than a guest at the party, constantly bustling around and smoothing things over, but never staying in one place for very long.

  “Is everything all right here, Conrad?” he asked, twisting his hands in front of him.

  “Actually, Nicky, we were just leaving.”

  The man with the mustache extended his hand to Gabrielle and said, “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting formally, but Rex has told me so much about you. He says you’re a promising new talent.”

  When Gabrielle said that, my body tensed. If what she was saying was true, then that was the moment the Los Angeles Times photographer had snapped, the one that had shown up on the same page as Hedda Hopper’s column. Not only had she met my father, they’d had a conversation, and even then, he hadn’t helped her. No, he’d tried to recruit her for his stable of party girls.

  “Are you okay, Alice?” Gabrielle asked.

  “I’m okay,” I said, fighting the urge to be sick. “I think it’s just the ether.”

  Gabrielle folded her knees up to her chest and continued her story.

  Conrad had said, “Give him your number. Nicky’s always looking for new faces. And he’ll get you better work than Rex, I guarantee you that.”

  “I don’t have anything to write on,” Gabrielle said. The blond woman stared at her with open hostility.

  Conrad reached a hand into his pocket and came out with a matchbook and a pen, and wrote down the number that Gabrielle gave him.

  The man with the mustache put the matchbook in his pocket and said, “I hope we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”

  Conrad put an arm around Gabrielle and the blond girl, and said, “Come on, ladies,” and they all left. Irma too. He took them out the back door, and a moment later, his car pulled up.

  The blond pushed her way forward to claim the front seat with Conrad. Gabrielle still couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d seen her somewhere before. Those penciled-on eyebrows, those angular features.

  “Hey,” she said, placing her at last. “You’re Camille Grabo.”

  The girl tossed her head and laughed. “I get that all the time.”

  Conrad took a step back and held her at arm’s length, studying her face.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he said. “It is Camille Grabo. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  As he spoke, the boyish smile faded from his lips and a snarl replaced it. “Sweetie, don’t even think about getting in my car. The last thing I need is a swarm of Tell-Tale! reporters peeking over my fence.”

  Camille Grabo smiled and tried to purr something in Conrad’s ear, but he shoved her away roughly.

  “She was either really drunk, or Conrad pushed her really hard. She fell over backward into the trash cans. Conrad laughed about it, but Irma didn’t. She looked worried.”

  Conrad leaned inside the car and whispered something to the cop, who threw on the parking brake and gave up his seat behind the wheel. Conrad took his place and called to Irma, patting the seat next to him.

  “Hey, honey, we haven’t had a chance to talk yet. Why don’t you climb up here with me?”

  As Irma got into the car, Gabrielle watched the cop help Camille Grabo to her feet and lead her back inside the club with her hair askew and the back of her dress stained with wet bar trash.

  “Are you girls ready for the real party?” Conrad asked. Gabrielle wasn’t sure what he’d meant, but Irma giggled, so she did, too. “Where to?”

  “Your place?” Irma suggested.

  “That’s boring. I want to have some fun,” he said, turning around and smiling at Gabrielle. “You look like you know how to have fun. Where do you want to go?”

  Gabrielle thought about it for a moment, trying to imagine what Conrad’s idea of fun might be.

  “The beach?” she suggested timidly.

  Conrad’s smile brightened. “I like the way you think.”

  Gabrielle thought she saw something like worry flicker across Irma’s face, but she said nothing, and they were on their way. Conrad chatted constantly as he drove, regaling them with tales of directors he’d worked with, who was a genius, who was a stand-up guy, which actresses were swell dames, and which ones were too full of themselves. As he talked, he put his arm around Irma’s shoulder and pulled her across the bench seat until they were hip to hip and she was nestled in the crook of his arm.

  They drove up Highway 1, through Santa Monica and Malibu, leaving the city farther and farther behind until its lights were just a faint glow in the rearview mirror. Finally, Conrad pulled onto a narrow dirt road that wound through a forest of dense brush before emerging on a perfectly empty, perfectly gorgeous beach.

  Gabrielle rolled down her window to take in the waves, the air that left a salty, sandy film on her skin, the night sky so dark you could almost make out the stars. She’d hardly ever been to the ocean before, and never at night. It was all she could do not to throw open the car door, kick off her shoes, and run right into the waves.

  She hardly even cared that Conrad had his arms around Irma, or that she was whispering in his ear. They parted, and Gabrielle watched as Conrad peeled a few bills out of his wallet. He made as if to hand them to Irma, but pulled them away at the last minute. When she reached after them, he slapped the back of her hand.

  “Not so fast,” he said, reaching across her lap and plucking her purse from the car seat. He opened the clasp and made a big show of putting the bills inside, though not before he’d pawed through its contents.

  “What have we here?” he said, pulling a small silver vial out of the purse. “Naughty, naughty.”

  Conrad unscrewed its lid and filled the tiny spoon that was attached to it with a rounded scoop of white powder. He snorted it up, then filled the spoon again and put it up his other nostril.

  “I don’t have that much left,” Irma said, a note of panic in her voice.

  Conrad ignored her, and scooped out another spoonful of powder, passing it across the backseat to Gabrielle. She shook her head and wrinkled up her nose in what she hoped was a cute, girlish expression. He scowled and shoved the spoon toward her face.

  “Take it,” he said.

  Irma reached for his hand. “It’s okay. She doesn’t have to.”

  As she touched his wrist, Conrad’s hand jerked back and the contents of the spoon drifted to the floorboards of the Rolls-Royce. Irma shrank back into the seat, and for a moment, Gabrielle was sure that he was going to hit her. But instead, he dropped his hand down and a slow smile spread across his face.

  “For a second there, I forgot it was your dope.”

  He chuckled heartily at that, and Irma laughed, too, a short, choked laugh that sounded more like a cough. But then he tossed the vial to her and she snorted some of it, and soon everyone was all smiles again, the bad moment forgotten.

  Then Conrad said that he wanted to take a walk on the beach, so the three of them went down to the water together. By that time, though, he was only paying attention to Irma. Gabrielle might as well not have even been there, so she split off from the pair and went the other way down the beach until she came to a rock that hung out over the ocean. She climbed up on top of it and dangled her feet out over the edge.

  She found a handhold in the rock and gripped it just to be safe, but quickly eno
ugh she lost interest in being safe. The air was so fresh, the night so clear, the ocean so impossibly big, that it all almost made her forget how she’d gotten there.

  She looked down the beach and saw Conrad’s and Irma’s figures like miniatures in the distance. But not so miniature that she couldn’t tell what they were doing. Gabrielle looked away, blushing. After another minute or two, she got down from her rock and walked back to the car to wait for them. By the time she climbed into the backseat, she could see them wading into the water, their clothes in two small piles just beyond the reach of the waves.

  From where Gabrielle sat, it looked like they were having fun. Irma squealed that the water was too cold. Conrad splashed her and waded in up to his waist. She followed after him, laughing and splashing him back. Then he picked her up by the waist and threw her over his shoulder like a bag of laundry. She screamed and kicked her legs and slapped at his back with her fists, and Conrad dunked her under the water, still holding her over his shoulder.

  “They stayed under for a long time, and when they came back up again, Conrad was laughing. Irma wasn’t, though,” Gabrielle said.

  Conrad had taken a deep breath before going under. Irma hadn’t, and she emerged from the water struggling in Conrad’s arms and gasping in heaving, panicked breaths, her hair matted across her eyes.

  “Take it easy,” Gabrielle heard him say. “I was just fooling around.”

  But Irma’s survival instincts had kicked in as Conrad held her underwater, and she was all flailing limbs and adrenaline. One of her knees caught Conrad in the stomach, then her elbow flew out and caught him in the temple, and even from the distance of the car, Gabrielle could see the thoughtless, instinctive rage flare on his face, the way it had in the car when he’d spilled the spoonful of cocaine. Except this time, he didn’t catch himself. This time, he didn’t freeze in place and burst out laughing as though his terrifying anger was all one big joke.

  Instead, he held her around the waist and pushed her face into the water, holding her down with one hand on the back of her head.

  Gabrielle watched in horror as Irma’s arms pinwheeled uselessly, then convulsed, then went limp. As he held her down, the rage gradually faded from Conrad’s face, and a stony calm replaced it. He looked almost businesslike as he drowned her.