The Last Embrace

by Denise Hamilton

  Shorty Lagonzola, Harry thought, gripping his camera tighter. A face he hadn’t seen in years. A face that brought back childhood memories of Boyle Heights, a place where neighborhood loyalty was bred in the bone and maintained each week with your fists.

  Harry was ten and newly arrived to the Heights when he was befriended by a kid whose skinny frame and reddish hair gave him the look of a raggedy lit match. Shorty didn’t have a father and he pretty much did what he wanted. By fifth grade, he was already skipping school, hanging out at the pool hall, and mixing up juniper juice and raw alcohol in the back rooms of pharmacies with his brothers, only teenagers themselves but already deep in the rackets with local gangster Mickey Cohen.

  Harry would have jumped at the chance to join them, but Shorty steered his friend clear of that world, telling him he couldn’t disappoint his law-abiding mom and pops.

  Now the policeman was walking toward him. Harry’s hand went to his Leica.

  “Damn it all to hell,” he said, as the copper reached him. “There’s something wrong with my camera. Sorry, Officer, I accidentally exposed the film.”

  Harry trudged back to his apartment with Gadge.

  “What a lousy break,” the kid said. “The papers would’ve paid good money for those pics.”

  Harry wasn’t much of a drinking man, but now he poured himself two fingers of rye, sat at the table, and downed it in one gulp. His hand was still curled around the empty glass when there was a knock at the door.

  “Harry?” a man’s voice rasped. Something familiar about it. The second time in seven years.

  Harry opened the door and saw a figure in a coat and hat, the brim pulled low. Pulling him inside, he said, “You’re taking a big chance coming back here.”

  When Shorty was settled in an armchair with his own glass, Harry asked him how the heck he’d found out where he lived and why he’d come back.

  “I owe you for what you did back there,” Shorty said.

  “How the hell do you know what I did?”

  Shorty waved a hand like he was brushing off flies. “One of my boys saw.”

  “I’ve owed you for a long time,” Harry said, unable to forget how Shorty’s older brothers had stopped local hoodlums from killing his grocer father after his pop refused to pay protection money.

  “We’re even, then. What happened to your eye? Do I need to beat up somebody else?”

  “Naw, I’m okay.”

  Shorty glanced at Gadge. “Got a kid, I see. Nice little place. Where’s the wife?”

  “No wife. Not my kid either.”

  Harry saw Shorty’s look of alarm. “Don’t worry, he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

  “I don’t know, Harry, maybe you better…” Shorty made a shooing motion.

  “Kid’s got his own reasons for not talking to coppers.”

  Shorty nodded. “If the badge boys had gotten hold of those pics, they would have indicted the lot of us. But hell, Harry, ain’t you gonna ask me what we was doing?”

  Harry shrugged. “Figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

  “I’m ready. We was beating up the pervert that owns the building and runs that repair shop. Uses his key to walk in on tenants, especially ones of the female persuasion that…” Shorty’s hands carved a voluptuous form in the air. “Mayor Bowron’s daughter lives there and that schmuck let himself in, got a good look at her in brassiere and panties. He needed to be taught a lesson.”

  Harry snorted. “When did you start wearing a cape and avenging the honor of maidens?”

  “Mickey sent us out after receiving a personal request from Hizzoner.”

  “But you beat that man within an inch of his life,” Harry said.

  “Wanted to make sure he got the point.”

  Shorty grinned. He’d taken off his coat, and underneath he wore an expensive suit, the effect somewhat ruined by sleeves that hit the first knuckle of each hand. The pants had been taken up. A homburg perched on his head. Harry’s practiced eye saw a bump at Shorty’s right ankle and the straps of a shoulder holster.

  “You’re looking good,” Harry said. “Life treating you well?”

  “’S okay.”

  “Fancy threads. Never figured you for a clotheshorse.”

  “Mickey’s a generous man. Never wears a suit more than a few times before he hands it down. So you pursued that photography stuff?”

  “It bit me hard. And when I got drafted, Uncle Sam put me to work taking pictures on battlefields all over Europe. How about you? Were you over there?”

  Shorty squinted at the wall and looked embarrassed. “I’ve got problems with my feet. It kept me out.”

  Harry remembered Shorty running away from the neighborhood beat cop just fine. But he probably had a record, which would have disqualified him. Or else money had changed hands.

  “I’m trying my damndest right now to get on with one of the daily papers.”

  “Maybe Mickey can help.”

  Harry considered. But he needed to get there on his own merits, not as a favor to a mob boss. And he knew the invisible skeins that Mickey wove around everyone he helped.

  “Shorty, you’ve helped me out more than a guy has a right to. I’ll never forget what you did for the old man. Never thanked you properly for that. Guess I was embarrassed.”

  “No need. We all admired your pops for sticking to his guns. Even if it was stupid. Maybe I wished I had a dad.”

  “He was a good man. I thank the Lord he didn’t live to see what Hitler done. Died in 1939 and my moms sold the store to the Takahashis. Remember them? Fumiko Takahashi, cute little thing with bangs and dimples, was in our class?”

  “You know I was never much for school.”

  “After the war, they come back long enough to sell the store. We lost track when I moved to Larchmont.”

  Harry still went back to Boyle Heights to take pictures of the neighborhood. Most of the Japanese were gone. The Jews were leaving too, moving west. He’d heard one of the Canter brothers had opened a deli on Fairfax Avenue and the other two might follow. What a sacrilege. Harry couldn’t imagine Brooklyn Avenue without its landmark deli. The war had shaken people loose, busted up the old ways. Whole cities were rising on the outskirts, with cleaner air and backyards. Who could blame folks for leaving? Even Hollenbeck Park had been sliced up to build a freeway.

  “So,” Shorty said at last. “What you been taking pictures of lately? Besides our brawl?”

  “I guess you don’t read the papers. The Mirror bannered my shot of that murdered girl they found below the Hollywood sign yesterday.”

  Shorty’s antenna went up.

  “The Scarlet Sandal?”

  “Yeah. And Gadge here has got something that’s going to make me the hottest news photographer in town come tomorrow.”

  Shorty’s small eyes flickered over Gadge.

  “The kid has her other shoe. Found it in a Hollywood side street.”

  A fountain of rye sprayed out of Shorty’s mouth. He grabbed a napkin and dabbed his mouth.

  “What’s it to you, Shorty?” Harry said.

  “It’s a dirty business. The bulls won’t hear it from me, but the boss knew her.”

  Harry shook his head in disbelief. “You’re mixed up in this!”

  “We didn’t do her,” Shorty said. “But Mickey wants to know who did. She was supposed to be at Slapsie Maxie’s on Tuesday but she didn’t show.”

  “Why does Mickey care about a dead starlet?”

  “On account of she was hanging around with him and some of the boys. Little Davey Ogul and Frank Niccoli. Mickey’s a gentleman and he feels a responsibility.”

  “Like hell,” said Harry.

  Shorty screwed up his face. “Well, here’s the thing. Li’l Dave and Frank have disappeared off the face of the earth. At first Mickey thought the three of them might have gone down to Mexico. Then the girl turns up dead. So he figures once we find the girl’s killer, we can put the screws to him, see what he knows abo
ut the boys. You know Dragna’s been trying to get Mickey ever since Benny Siegel was killed. He could be picking off our people one by one.”

  Shorty said nothing about the other angle he was investigating. What Jimmy had told him in the alley the night they’d watched Sinatra rehearse. It was too sensitive, and he didn’t know enough yet.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier for Dragna just to kill Mickey?” Harry asked.

  The gangster shook his head. “Mickey’s got the coppers guarding him now, the wolf guarding the fox and to hell with the hen-house.” Shorty snickered. “But he’s sweating. Dave and Frankie were fighting a rap, see, and Mickey bailed ’em out of jail, which means he forfeits the bond if they don’t show for the trial. But if he can prove they’re dead, he’s off the hook.”

  “How much is it?”

  “Seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  “Piece of cake.”

  Shorty shook his head. “It’s cash. Even for Mickey, that would hurt.”

  “Dragna wouldn’t kill an innocent girl, would he?” Harry asked, trying to remember what he’d heard last night at the craps game.

  He’d run into a gossipy RKO operator named Edith Blyton who told him the dead starlet ran with a rough crowd and got a lot of calls from someone at Warner’s. Detectives had spent several hours at RKO interviewing a special effects wizard who’d been in unrequited love with the girl. Max Vranizan had a volatile temper due to some shrapnel he’d taken in his head during the war, but Edith said he was brilliant, he’d been Ray Harryhausen’s right-hand man on several films and the studio hoped to groom him into a hit-making machine.

  “Maybe the three of them disappearing is just a coincidence,” Harry told Shorty now.

  “How so?”

  “I heard the cops are looking at one of them whiz-bangs at RKO. Special effects. He worked on Mighty Joe Young and had the hots for her. Maybe she led him on one too many times and he snapped.”

  “Yeah?” Shorty asked casually. “What’s his name?”

  Harry got a flush of nervous sweat under his arms.

  “I don’t know,” he lied.

  That’s okay, thought Shorty. I can find out.

  CHAPTER 12

  After taking dictation for nearly five hours, Lily staggered out. Everything had to be typed up by four p.m. The producer hadn’t mentioned Kitty’s murder, but that didn’t surprise Lily. She hoped to have a quick snoop through the files before she left. Then she’d go find Max Vranizan. Lily fed a carbon and two pages of stationery into the typewriter and started to transcribe.

  She was halfway through when a man appeared at her desk so silently that she jumped. He wore a good suit that draped to hide his girth. He had sloped shoulders and sallow skin. His eyes were set deep in their sockets and filled with a probing animal curiosity.

  “Where’s Myra?” he said.

  “Pardon me, sir, but I don’t know,” Lily said. “I’m filling in from the agency.”

  “Myra’s always here.”

  “Well, sir, she’s not here now.” Lily put on her most formal voice. “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Selznick?”

  “Myra never goes anywhere,” the man said mournfully. “She’s like Cerberus, guarding the entrance to the Underworld. Not,” he added quickly, “that I am implying in any way, shape, or form that Mr. Selznick’s domain is remotely like Hades. You can quote me on that.” He snapped his fingers and winked unpleasantly. “Tell him Frank is here.”

  “Frank who?”

  “He’ll know.”

  When Lily knocked and announced Selznick’s visitor, a shadow fell over the producer’s big fleshy face and he said he’d be free in a minute.

  Frank waited, jiggled one foot, whistling a show tune and reading a newspaper clipping. When Lily saw it was about Kitty’s murder, she tried to hide her interest, but he noticed immediately.

  “Is something wrong, Miss…” He stretched it out, angling for her name.

  “Lily Kessler,” she said automatically. “And it’s just that…I noticed…”

  “You sound flustered, Miss Kessler.”

  “Not at all, I…”

  “Maybe you knew this unfortunate young woman? From around the studio?”

  The words were offered up casually, but his foot had stopped jiggling and his eyes were watchful.

  “Sir,” Lily said firmly. “I am not employed by this studio on a regular basis. But a murder like that frightens all women. It might have been any of us.”

  The man looked pensive. “Perhaps. But we’re all born with choice. Some people make bad choices.”

  In that moment, Lily realized there were people in Hollywood whom Kitty hadn’t charmed and placed under her spell. Maybe her efforts had only made these people resent her all the more. She imagined such resentment gathering like a cold oceanic wave to crash down on all the starlets and factory girls who’d grown cocky and independent during the war.

  “I’m sure Kitty Hayden was an upstanding young woman. You’ve no right, sir, to speak that way of the dead.”

  The man got up, walked around the desk, hands clasped behind him.

  “Don’t speak of things you know nothing about,” he said.

  A moment later Selznick rang and asked Lily to bring in his visitor. Frank approached the mogul’s desk, already hunching into a servile posture as the door closed.

  Lily went back to her desk, waited, then walked over and stood by the door, trying to listen.

  “Frank,” Selznick’s voice boomed, “you’ve done a fine job so far, but I need an update.”

  Frank’s response was too low for her to hear. Could they be talking about Kitty? Was that why he’d clipped out the story? Oh, to be a fly on the wall!

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Lily jumped as Myra marched up. She looked like an angry dog now, not a horse. In fact, with her jowls quivering, she looked just like Cerberus.

  “Admiring the wood grain on this door,” Lily said, stroking it. “Is it cherrywood?”

  “I have no idea. And you’re not paid to admire wood grain. Now hurry and finish those letters or you’ll never work on this lot again.”

  “Glad to see you back on the job, Myra,” Frank said when he emerged five minutes later.

  “Work, work, work,” the secretary simpered.

  Lily was dying to know who this man was. As soon as he left, she asked.

  “And what business is that of yours?” Myra snapped.

  “If he’s important, I shouldn’t keep him waiting. If he’s not, then I shouldn’t interrupt Mr. Selznick.”

  Myra looked as though she smelled a rat but couldn’t put a finger on where the rat was.

  “Like what?” Lily offered her most innocuous smile.

  “Never you mind. But make sure to let Mr. Selznick know immediately if he calls.”

  Lily typed for a few moments, then said, “Myra, I’m dying to ask, did you know that RKO actress they found yesterday under the Hollywood sign?”

  The secretary shot her a suspicious look. “No. Why?”

  “Just wondering.” Lily rolled a pencil. “You never saw her at the commissary?”

  “I eat lunch at my desk,” Myra sniffed.

  “Of course, how silly of me. By the way, where do they do special effects for movies like Mighty Joe Young?”

  “She wasn’t in that one,” Myra said immediately.

  “I thought you didn’t know her.”

  “I don’t.” Myra grabbed a manila file and walked briskly to the cabinet. “And unlike some people, I’ve got a lot to do before quitting time.”

  Like sharpening your tongue, Lily thought.

  “You want to be an actress, Ms. Kessler, I recommend the usual route. Get an agent, head shots, that kind of thing.”

  “An actress?” Lily snorted. “That’s the last thing I want.”

  Myra regarded her. “I see you’ve already got a head start. Your outrage sounds almost sincere.”

  Lily bit her tongue and ben
t her head. As soon as Myra took the letters in for Selznick’s signature, she dialed the operator and asked to be put through to Max Vranizan. When a voice answered, “Special Effects,” she asked where they were located, saying she had a delivery. The man gave her directions.

  At five p.m., Myra said she’d need her again tomorrow. Lily said good-bye and smiled as she hurried off to the Special Effects building.

  Ten minutes later, Lily was looking around a cavernous space. Industrial lights hung from the ceiling. Lathes, drills, worktables, painting easels, and sawhorses filled the room. A man with tools dangling from a work belt walked by and gave her a huge wink. A set painter observed her curiously from behind a desert landscape he was finishing. Sprawled on a beat-up couch, an unshaven man snored.

  The hangar smelled of glue and machine oil, turpentine and wood shavings. The wood floor was splattered with paint of every color. Lily walked to a table and inspected models of spaceships, dinosaurs, and monsters. Some were fashioned of clay. Others were skeletons assembled from bits of metal.

  In a corner, two men were inspecting what looked like a miniature stuffed wolf. One was about sixty, with a kind, sad face. The other was tall and skinny, about thirty, with the stooped shoulders of someone who spends his days tinkering over a worktable. His tie was tucked inside his collared shirt and his chestnut hair was an unruly mass that rose up from his forehead like a cresting wave.

  As Lily drew closer, she noticed the wolf’s ragged fur, humped back, fangs, and bloodshot eyes. A werewolf.

  “I know how it gets ahold of you,” the older man said. “Used to stay up all night myself. Now I need my beauty sleep. See you in the morning.”

  “G’night, Obie,” the young man said with affection.

  When the older man had gone, Lily said, “I’m looking for Max Vranizan.”

  The man stroked the werewolf. “That’s me.”

  “My name is Lily Kessler and I’m a friend of the Hayden family in Illinois. Kitty’s mother asked me to find out what I could. She’s desperate for information and the police aren’t saying much. So I’d like to talk to you, if I might.”

  Something in Max Vranizan’s face withdrew to a great distance, then peered out.