Movie Palace Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Margaret Dumas

  “Hector,” I guessed. He’d probably been watching me walk around the office having a conversation with no one from his room across the street. “Wait here,” I said. “He’s probably just checking up on me.” And thinking I’d lost my mind.

  “He’s that dishy Latin Lover type, isn’t he?” Trixie dimpled. “You take all the time you want, honey. When you come back I’ll tell you about a dream I once had about Gilbert Roland.”

  I grinned at her, glad beyond words that she’d come back.

  As I loped down the balcony stairs I admitted to myself how tired I was. I had a hotel room at the Fairmont and a bed in Robbie’s guesthouse. I should pick one of them and get some sleep. And in the morning, maybe I should start looking for my own place. Because it looked like I was going to stay.

  Callie had left the lights on over the candy counter, knowing I was still upstairs. That was enough light for me to make my way across the lobby to the doors, where I saw the plywood was still in place on one and the outline of a man backlit by the streetlights was visible through the glass of the other. He waved when he saw me.

  I waved back, then entered the alarm code and opened the door. “Hector—”

  But it wasn’t Hector.

  “Babe.”

  Ted Bishop, movie star, husband, and paramour of Priya Sharma, stepped into the lobby and swept me into a cinematic embrace. He inhaled deeply, muttering in my ear in a way that sent well-remembered shivers skating down my spine. “Babe, I’ve missed you so much. I’ve been so, so stupid.”

  Ted. Here.

  What the hell was I going to do now?

  Blog Post: San Francisco

  1936

  San Francisco is set in the months leading up to the earthquake of 1906. The opening title card describes the old city as “splendid and sensuous, vulgar and magnificent.” Damn right. It still is.

  The movie is about high culture versus low, faith versus cynicism, good versus evil. There’s something approaching a “B” plot that I promise you won’t care about. There’s a rivalry between the Palace saloon and the highfalutin Opera theater, and prize money is at stake at something called the Chicken’s Ball. But it’s really only about Blackie Norton (Clark Gable), the “most godless, scoffing, and unbelieving soul in all of San Francisco” falling for the sweet opera singer Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) as she learns how to put over a number in his saloon (hint: it involves a lot of feathers and outsized arm gestures).

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. We begin on New Year’s Eve. Showgirls! Confetti! Streamers! Gable’s Blackie is king of the Barbary Coast. He owns a joint called Norton’s Palace where the swells go to have fun—not the kind of place where a preacher’s daughter should be singing. But the little lady is new in town and looking for a job. Blackie asks to see her legs before he asks to hear her sing. And when she sings, boy, she sounds just like Jeanette MacDonald. Which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your feelings about operetta. Blackie’s into it.

  Oh! I haven’t even mentioned Spencer Tracy! He’s Blackie’s childhood friend—and a priest! Father Tim Mullin, who can beat Blackie at fisticuffs. He lives for the day when Blackie will stop thinking that God is for suckers. Will the preacher’s daughter be able to get through to him? Or will Blackie succeed in corrupting her? It sure looks like it, much to Tracy’s dismay. When Gable talks MacDonald into leaving the Opera to come sing “San Francisco” at his joint (wearing a darling little military number with a capelet and spangled hot pants), Tracy is appalled, telling Gable “You can’t take a woman in marriage and then sell her immortal soul.” I mean, come on. They’re just spangled hot pants.

  It’s going to take a major act of the sucker’s God to get everybody together again. Which brings us to The Earthquake. Considering this film was made in 1936, the special effects are pretty amazing. There are a lot of quick editing cuts, which weren’t too common at that time. Brick walls collapse, an entire theater is turned to rubble, people are crushed while running for their lives, and Jeannette (unhelpfully) faints. The aftershock is even more impressive, as is the widespread fire that overtakes the city.

  With the city on fire, will Blackie finally find some faith? Okay, that’s not a fair question. But I have to say, when he’s reunited with Father Tim and Mary, even these jaded old eyes got a little misty. Mainly because of the look Tracy gives Gable. Spencer Tracy. Yes. Every time, yes.

  “We’ll build a new San Francisco!” someone shouts in the crowd. And in the final shot, as “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” morphs into the fifth version of “San Francisco” of the film, we see the smoldering wreckage of the old sinful city turning into the modern (and blessedly still sinful) city of 1936. It really is amazing what 30 years can do. I’d love to see the view from that site now.

  Don’t blink or you’ll miss it:

  Gable shirtless in high-waisted short shorts as he spars with Spencer Tracy in the boxing ring. (Tracy wears sensible leggings and a turtleneck, no fashion victim, he.)

  Where you’ll cringe:

  Oh dear. The Chicken’s Ball. The opening number looks like a minstrel show. Mercifully, we only get a glimpse of it. Another thing we glimpse is the obligatory Asian “houseboy” who exists to make chop suey for Gable upstairs at the Palace.

  Best line about my new home:

  “They call us the wickedest city in the world. And it’s a bitter shame it is, for deep down underneath all our evil and sin we’ve got right here in San Francisco the finest set of human beings that was ever rounded up on one spot. Sure, they had to have wild adventure in their hearts, and dynamite in their blood, to set out for here in the first place. That’s why they’re so full of untamed deviltry now.”

  Movies My Friends Should Watch

  Sally Lee

  THE END

  (Book #1)

  MURDER IN THE BALCONY

  A Madison Night Mystery #2

  Margaret Dumas

  Copyright

  MURDER IN THE BALCONY

  A Movie Palace Mystery

  Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

  First Edition | September 2019

  Henery Press, LLC

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2019 by Margaret Dumas

  Author photograph by Robin Clark

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-535-2

  Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-536-9

  Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-537-6

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-538-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Dolores and Marge,

  The Glamorous Salviola Sisters

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  One of the best things about writing this series is all the wonderful conversations I’ve had with people about classic movies since the first book came out. Thanks to everyone who cares enough about their favorite movie to tell me about it!

  Many thanks to the amazing team at Henery Press, especially Maria Edwards, Art Molinares, Christina Rogers, Kendel Lynn, and a bunch of people I still haven’t met who create art I could only dream of.

  Huge thanks to trusted first readers Denise Lee, Erick Vera, and Anne Dickson for your insightful comments and encouragement, to Martha Paley Francescato for your great catches, and to Claire M. Johnson and Michael J. Cooper for your let’
s-try-for-every-other-week critiques and support.

  I owe a lot to a multitude of film scholars and critics who have written brilliant books and made gorgeous documentaries about classic films. Particular thanks to Mick LaSalle, whose Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood was essential reading.

  My very first film scholars were my family. This series owes a lot to Dolores, Keith, Richard, and John. So do I.

  Author’s Note: Spoilers Ahead!

  When someone loves classic movies, and loves talking about them, they’re bound to eventually share some spoilers about them. The characters in this book are gleefully guilty of that.

  If you don’t want spoilers, you may need to avert your gaze when the following movies come up: The Divorcee, The Women, Roman Holiday, The Letter, Mildred Pierce, Born Yesterday, Mata Hari, Born to Dance, and Now, Voyager.

  Look away if you must, but you could also solve the spoiler problem by watching the movies. I’m just saying…

  “Haunted! How perfectly fascinating!”

  The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

  Chapter 1

  “I’ve been ghosted!”

  This announcement got my attention. It was hardly proclaimed with the bold theatricality of Bette Davis telling the room to buckle up for a bumpy night, but still. Coming from Callie Gee, the film student who worked for me at the Palace movie theater, it was an unexpected greeting.

  The lobby door closed behind her, cutting off the blast of chilly wet-pavement scented air coming in from outside. Her hair, normally a mass of dark tangled curls, was even wilder than usual due to the drizzling rain. Her voice was a mixture of disbelief and indignation as she made her statement, underscoring it with the implied this doesn’t happen to me.

  So, yes, it got my attention.

  It also got the ghost’s.

  Trixie’s blonde curls bounced under her jaunty little gold-trimmed cap as she switched her gaze from me to Callie and back again. “She saw a ghost? Where?”

  “That’s not what she means,” I murmured. I didn’t speak too loudly because I didn’t want to be locked up as a delusional lunatic, something that would not be out of the question if it became general knowledge that the ghost of an usherette who died in 1937 was keeping me company while I refreshed the stock of licorice whips in the candy counter.

  “What happened?” I asked Callie.

  She crossed the lobby, unwrapping herself from a lengthy scarf and shaking droplets onto the worn blue carpeting. “Warren.”

  The level of revulsion in that one word called to mind the way Humphrey Bogart had shudderingly said “leeches” in The African Queen (1951, Bogey and Katharine Hepburn.) Whatever Warren had done must have been bad.

  “He hasn’t answered a text in three days.” She tossed her scarf and backpack on the ticket-taker’s stool. “Or called or anything. I mean, how messed up is that? He gets his license and then ghosts me? I’m good enough for him while he’s a lowly intern, but now that he’s all Mister Real Estate he disappears?”

  “Ooh!” Trixie hopped off the counter and followed Callie as she went to the coffee machine beside the popcorn maker. “That makes me so mad! What kind of a fella would do something like that? And I thought he was so nice. Didn’t he seem nice?”

  This last was directed at me. Callie, of course, didn’t hear any of it, as Trixie only appeared to me.

  “He seems so nice,” I said to Callie.

  This earned me one of her more withering glances. “Seemed.” She tilted her head up and took a breath, regarding the enormous chandelier that graced the high ceiling, a glittering reminder of the long-distant glory days of the Palace. “He’s dead to me.”

  The lobby was huge, and at the moment empty except for the two (or three) of us. A grand staircase swept up to the balcony on one side, and the vintage concessions counter stretched along the back wall, entrances to the main auditorium on either side of it. The carved wooden details everywhere were ornate and original, and the gold stars that patterned the carpet were based on the theater’s 1927 designs. But on a drizzly January day, with the lights at half power to save on the electricity bill, I had to admit to a certain eau de shabby.

  I’d made some progress since I’d taken charge, but I still couldn’t describe the Palace as thriving.

  “You’ll hear from him.” I slid the counter door closed and turned my attention to the popcorn machine. I’d been managing the place for almost three months, but I still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the antique beast. “Trust me, he’ll show up with flowers and a million apologies.”

  I knew a little something about men showing up full of apologies. My wandering husband had done just that not too long ago.

  “You bet he will,” Trixie agreed. “Why, he’d be crazy not to.”

  “He better be in the hospital,” Callie mused. “Or somebody better be dead.”

  “That’s the spirit. Have you asked June?”

  June Howard was my realtor. Warren was an intern at her firm, learning the business while studying for the state exam to get his license. Callie had only met him because he’d been shadowing June when she’d come to the theater to show me some listings back around Thanksgiving. When Callie had glanced up from her phone to point the way to my office, the world had stood still. The heavens had opened, and choirs of angels had sung. Or, as Callie put it, “I died. I literally died.”

  Now she looked at me like I was deranged. “I can’t ask his boss. It’s like asking his mommy.”

  I was sure June would beg to differ, but there you go.

  “He’ll call,” I assured Callie. “Or text. The guy’s crazy about you.”

  “Right?” she said. “I mean, he quit Tinder and everything. We both did.”

  “Well, then.”

  “What’s Tinder?” Trixie asked. “Is it like reefer?”

  I laughed and turned it into a cough when Callie looked over at me.

  “Something in my throat,” I said, shooting Trixie a glance. She shrugged and hopped back on the counter again. I’d explain later.

  “Do you think he actually is in the hospital?” A tiny line appeared between Callie’s brows. “He’s been offline for days. Even his Insta.”

  “Which means he hasn’t just ghosted you,” I said. “He’s probably taking a phone break.”

  “What? Why?” She clasped her phone to her chest.

  “People do,” I told her.

  “Not normal people.” The phone in question chirped and Callie instantly focused on it.

  “I’d love to get my hands on one of those thingamajigs.” Trixie eyed Callie’s phone wistfully. “’Course, I’d like to get my hands on just about anything.” She swooshed her manicured fingertips through the top of the cash register to make her point.

  When I’d first met Trixie, after getting conked on the head by a faulty light in the balcony back in October, the whole swooshing through objects thing had admittedly freaked me out. She looked so solid, like any other young woman. Or at least, any other petite blonde bombshell in a vintage usherette’s uniform, complete with gold braid, wide-legged trousers, and row upon row of gleaming buttons. But now that I knew her better it just broke my heart a little. How frustrating it must be for her to never be able to touch anything.

  That wasn’t quite true. If she concentrated very hard and made a superhuman effort, she could occasionally knock something over or even make herself seen. I owed my life to that ability. But it took all her energy, and she couldn’t do it often.

  Callie had fallen silent. I glanced up from the popcorn maker. She was immersed in her phone.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “Nothing from my man.” She held up the screen so I could see it. “But I just got something about yours.”

  “REUNITED!” The headline blazed over a photo of my husband—ex-husband—almost ex-husband—probably
—and a woman who was not me.

  This woman was an internationally gorgeous movie star with sultry dark looks and curves for days, while I could most charitably be described as “athletic.” The only curves I had were modest and push-up assisted. At thirty-nine I was also a good decade older than her.

  I’d retreated upstairs to my office after Callie showed me the picture. The office, along with a staff break room and the projection booth, was located down a hallway accessed from a hidden door at the top of the balcony stairs. I needed a hidden refuge before I could face the article. Even Trixie tactfully disappeared.

  It was hardly an article. Just a gossipy blurb, really.

  Ted Bishop and Priya Sharma are reuniting at Sundance to promote their upcoming movie Catalyst. Last year while filming the action thriller, both stars blew up their marriages, then spectacularly split. Sharma is now linked with industry mogul Otis Hampton, and Bishop is reportedly reconciled with his wife, a former TV writer. But who knows what will happen at Sundance? It can be pretty romantic in front of a crackling fire, and friends say Sharma’s new bae won’t be on hand…

  I was the wife in question. And the reports of our reconciliation were…well, it was complicated.

  My phone rang. I didn’t need to see the caller ID to know who it was. When I hit the Answer button Robbie began talking, not even waiting for a “hello.”

  “Are you okay? I can’t believe he’s doing this. Did you know? Are you okay?”