Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3)

by Martin Turnbull

  The B Hive was a squat building hidden behind a forest of potted plants, shrubs, ferns, and flowers known as The Jungle. It was an open-plan office loaded with desks, books, papers, files, typewriters—too much crap and not enough room. The desks were occupied by half a dozen crumpled writers, each one of them with a cigarette hanging from his mouth like frozen drool.

  “I was told to report to Mr. Cohn,” Marcus said to the guy nearest the door. “My name is Adler.”

  He replied with a noncommittal “Uh huh” and nodded behind him to a guy seated at a broad desk at the end of the room. In contrast to the abominable mess surrounding him, this one’s desk was neat and orderly. His papers and files, folders and stacks of newspaper clippings were in careful bundles.

  “Oh, yeah.” Cohn squinted at him. “The new guy.”

  Marcus squashed a rising tide of resentment. “Not new, exactly. I worked—”

  “Up at the big house, huh?”

  Cohn was in his early fifties, balding, and looked like he carried the weight of the world’s disappointments on his sloping shoulders.

  “The thing is,” Marcus replied, “I’ve been working on William Tell and—”

  “Hold it right there.” Cohn leaned to the right and yelled past Marcus to the others in the room. “Hey, fellas, William Tell’s arrived.”

  The men started applauding. Three of them pulled bills out of their wallets and paid the fourth one, an overweight, sweaty man who approached Cohn’s desk and slapped down a pile of bills. “You just cost me my next month’s poker money.” He blew a lungful of acrid cigar smoke in Marcus’ face.

  “How did I do that?” Marcus asked.

  Cohn snatched up a memo and read it out loud. “Dear Joe, next Monday, Marcus Adler will be reporting to you for work. Prior to the staff cuts, Mr. Adler was working out of the writers’ building. His most recent assignment was William Tell, which is to be one of MGM’s finer motion pictures for this year’s holiday season. Subsequently, I decided that your unit would greatly benefit from his skill and experience. I am sure you will join me in welcoming him home. Signed, LB Mayer.”

  Cohn looked up from the memo and smiled at Marcus with all the sincerity of a Borgia at midnight. “We placed bets on how long it would take you to mention William Tell.”

  “Welcome home, Adler!” The chunky guy with the cigar let out a braying laugh that filled the room. Marcus looked at the mess around him.

  If I’d known this was where I was headed, he decided, I’d have bet against me, too.

  “Here’s your first assignment,” Cohn said. He took the top file off a stack of twenty scripts sitting at the edge of his desk. “Jack and Jill.” He dumped the script in front of Marcus. “Take this, keep the basic plot, change the setting. Hey, Jerry!” Cohn addressed a wire-thin guy with large tortoiseshell glasses. “We ain’t done a horse picture in a while, have we?”

  Jerry shook his head. “A year, maybe.”

  “Okay, so change it to a racetrack setting,” Cohn told Marcus. “Nothing big like the Kentucky Derby. Keep it generic. Make the brother a jockey and the sister, I dunno, maybe a debutante? Anything where she don’t fit in. Or you could make the brother a real snotburger Society Sam and the sister one of those horse-mad-type girls. One of them fits in, the other one doesn’t; one of them meets a love interest and the other one saves the day. Blah de blah blah.”

  More than a bit bewildered, Marcus picked up the script and thumbed through it. It was a fully written, ready-to-shoot script. “Why not just film this as is?”

  “Because you’re in the B Hive now, hot shot.” It had never occurred to Marcus that the guys working inside the B Hive used the term; outside this glorified shed, it was a term of derision. Cohn pointed to the pile on the desk. “What we have here are about two dozen basic scripts. Comedies, murder mysteries, dramas, some teenager pictures, whatever. What we B-Hivers do is take the next script off the top, change the setting to someplace we ain’t used in a while, swap a few things around, and bingo, new script.”

  He sucked a long drag from one of the two lit cigarettes in his ashtray. “Lemme give you a for-instance. The one you have in your hand there? Last year it was called The Big Smoke. Amateur detective and runaway bride. The time before that it was A Heck of a Wallop. Prizefighter and scrappy girl reporter writing sports to prove something to daddy, the famous baseball announcer. Before that? Sundaes on Sunday. Brother and sister inherit their dead pop’s ice cream parlor and find a gold brick stashed at the bottom of the peppermint ice cream tub. Of course, if Arthur Freed had written it, it coulda made a perfect musical for Garland and Rooney. But it only got churned out of the B Hive, so nobody gave a good goddamn. Anyways, you get the idea. So, Friday at noon?”

  “What happens Friday at noon?” Marcus asked.

  “Each Friday at noon is when I need you to turn your script in.”

  A week to write a whole script? Marcus was used to having months, and this guy wanted it in a week? Marcus felt himself break into a cold sweat. This job was better than no job at all, but only marginally.

  Cohn looked at him as if to say What’s the big deal? “There’s really nothing to it. Change the names, change the setting, switcheroo a few of the details, and bingo, Sundaes on Sunday becomes Horses for Courses.” Cohn bit on his red pencil and thought for a moment. “I like it. Horses for Courses. There’s your title right there. Now all you gotta do is twist the story. Nothing too fancy or complicated. Cute is good, but not essential.”

  Cohn directed Marcus to an empty desk near the door. When Marcus got there, he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped off the layer of dust. He opened the script and hadn’t finished the first page when he noticed Jerry, the thin guy with the glasses, studying him. He leaned in with a leering sort of smile.

  “This ain’t Hades; it just smells like it.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Kathryn paid her taxi driver and hurried toward the mobs of people jamming Sunset Boulevard for a block in each direction. She’d heard from her photographer, Lenny, that seventy-five hundred people were expected to show up tonight. It looked like they’d all arrived at the same time and were making for the front doors. Tuxedoed men and ermine-wrapped women jostled her aside until she was pushed to the western end of the brightly lit marquee. She looked up at the foot-high lettering.

  PREMIERE OPENING

  TONIGHT

  TOMMY DORSEY & HIS ORCHESTRA

  The word PALLADIUM was spelled out vertically in white neon that flashed on and off while a half dozen giant search lights on the south side of Sunset projected tall white poles into the October sky. The roar of the crowd was so loud Kathryn could feel it vibrate through her chest.

  An hour earlier, when she was two minutes from running out the door back at home, Tallulah ambushed her with Agnes in tow, the actress friend who was with Tallulah that night at Ciro’s. Before Kathryn could tell them she was on her way out, Tallulah dropped her bombshell.

  “Darling, this movie Orson Welles just finished wrapping at RKO,” Tallulah said.

  “You mean American? What about it?”

  “Oh, no, darling, they’ve changed the name. He’s calling it Citizen Kane now. Agnes here has a pivotal part in it. You’ll never guess what it’s about.”

  All of Hollywood knew that principle photography was completed on Orson’s picture, but not a soul outside of the cast and crew knew its plot. This Agnes woman was the first person Kathryn knew who’d had anything to do with the production. “All right,” she said. “I’m biting.”

  Tallulah helped herself to Kathryn’s gin while Agnes spoke. “It’s about a guy with a fortune who builds up an enormous newspaper empire, marries an entertainer, and constructs a huge castle on top of a hill.”

  “Hmmm!” Tallulah dropped an ice cube into her drink. “Who does that sound like?”

  * * *

  The Hollywood Palladium was an ambitious new ballroom on Sunset Boulevard right near the CBS radio studios. It was a three-story
building with the clean, smooth lines of Streamline Moderne architecture, which was replacing Art Deco more and more these days. Its dance floor was reported to hold up to two thousand couples. Kathryn couldn’t imagine where they all might fit until she saw it for herself. The floor was so vast it could have been a football field.

  The Hollywood Reporter table was on the edge of the dance floor and afforded Kathryn a wide-angle view of the whole place. Wilkerson was already there with his new wife, his fifth, Estelle. His face was a picture of thunderclouds.

  Kathryn took her seat. “Something wrong?”

  Estelle strained a smile. “I spotted Orson Welles as we were coming in, so he’s tossing up about what he should say if they bump into each other.”

  Wilkerson’s torrent of anti-Welles editorials had grown more virulent over the past months, and his was hardly the lone voice. As far as Hollywood’s landed gentry were concerned, it was bad enough Orson was handed the sort of carte blanche contract the rest of them could only dream about. But once filming got underway, he wouldn’t let anyone—press, RKO brass, not even friends—anywhere near the set. Now that Kathryn knew what he was up to, it made sense. She needed to get the facts from his own grinning mouth, and it looked like she’d have to get it right in front of her fuming boss.

  Kathryn surveyed the chattering crowd clustered around the tables and on the dance floor. “I really wouldn’t worry about it,” she said as airily as she could muster. “I hear there’ll be seven thousand people here tonight. What are the chances—”

  She spotted Orson four tables away, sitting next to a dark-haired woman in a backless silver lamé gown studded with baby-pink rhinestones. Kathryn couldn’t see her face, but she knew it had to be Delores del Río. Though married to Cedric Gibbons, the powerful production designer at MGM, del Río had been seen out and about with Orson. However, this was the first time Kathryn had personally seen them together.

  The pair leaned into each other, their arms almost touching. The actress never took her eyes off Orson as he trailed his finger up and down her bare arm.

  Kathryn knew how delicious that felt; every time he’d done it to her, it fired a sprinkling of tingles down her back. Now, watching him do it to another woman, she felt a cascade of minor emotions, but mainly relief.

  Orson Welles, she saw now, was exactly the right sort of person to have a passionate affair with. The raw vitality he exuded overwhelmed her at times, but he wasn’t right for her in the long run. She knew now that she needed someone she could count on, and wanted someone she could trust emotionally. Someone, she finally admitted, like Roy.

  The irony that he was a lying adulterer wasn’t lost on her. In theory, he was exactly the sort of man she’d warn someone like Gwendolyn to steer clear of. So why do my thoughts turn so often to him? she contemplated amid the hubbub. Because marital status aside, he’s a good man with a good heart, she told herself—not for the first time.

  Orson was holding court with an elaborate story he punctuated with hands and arms poking and jabbing all over the place. It appeared to have something to do with the bright orange blossom pinned to his lapel. His right hand kept returning to it while a Cuban cigar the size of a small cannon bobbed between the fingers of his left.

  Kathryn knew the man well enough to know that even in a room jammed with seven thousand party-hungry people, all objects floating into his peripheral vision were noticed, cross-checked, and cataloged. She watched him, willing him to see her. Finally, abruptly, he stopped his story and for the briefest of split seconds, his eyes met hers.

  She smiled coyly at him, but he didn’t permit her to register.

  Tommy Dorsey brought the music to an end and turned to his microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present a recent find all the way from Hoboken, New Jersey. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the exciting new singing sensation, Mr. Frank Sinatra.”

  A skinny guy appeared on stage looking like he hadn’t had a square meal since the stock market crash. Mrs. Wilkerson said, “He’s the crooner we’ve been hearing about?” But then he started in with a song called “Our Love” with a deep voice so surprisingly smooth it caused Estelle to respond, “Oh, I see what they mean.”

  Kathryn glanced at Orson’s table, but he refused to acknowledge her.

  Oh, Orson, she thought, what can you possibly be thinking? A movie about Hearst? Of all people! Never mind the fact that you’ve denied it within my earshot.

  Sinatra launched into his next song. Kathryn didn’t know it, but it was romantic and dreamy. Orson made his way toward the dance floor with Delores.

  Kathryn turned to her boss. “You want to do a couple of laps?”

  Gwendolyn had outdone herself for Kathryn tonight. She’d created a paprika-red, calf-length gown of silk jersey that flowed around her legs like sea spray. It was gathered across her right shoulder, leaving her left one bare; an attached drape gathered around her neck and hung down her back. It was the first time Kathryn had ever appeared in public without a bra and she felt scandalously outré.

  If this thing doesn’t grab Orson’s attention, she thought, nothing will.

  They arrived on the dance floor along with five hundred other couples, so it wasn’t easy to find Orson. When she eventually did, she led Wilkerson toward him. But before she could maneuver her boss into place, Sinatra ended his song. While everybody applauded, Orson whispered something into Delores’ ear and they left the dance floor. Sinatra started up another love song, this one a bit faster, and Wilkerson insisted they couldn’t stop now. Halfway through the song, Kathryn saw a hand tap Wilkerson’s shoulder. It was Mayer.

  “Mind if I cut in?”

  Wilkerson graciously stepped aside and Mayer scooped her up in his arms, barely missing a beat.

  “Quite the turnout,” he commented blithely.

  Kathryn kept her eyes on the crowd and nodded. “This Sinatra guy’s pretty good,” she said. “If he can act, I suggest you snap him up.”

  “Maybe I will.” They glided around the floor for a few bars before Mayer said, “Orson’s here.”

  “It’s a good thing Cedric isn’t. Although it’s hard to be sure.”

  “Most people think that when I dance, I’m concentrating so hard on my feet, I see nothing else.”

  Kathryn redirected her gaze to her dance partner but his eyes gave nothing away. “Mr. Mayer, have you something to say?”

  “You’ve been trying so hard to catch Welles’ attention, I started to feel sorry for you.” He swung her smoothly into a dip, held her there for a full three seconds, and pulled her back into the waltz without fumbling a beat. “It got me wondering. Why is Orson Welles ignoring Kathryn Massey so doggedly?”

  Kathryn turned her face to the sea of dancing couples in an attempt to cover her beating heart. She spotted Joan Crawford dancing with Peter Lorre, an odd couple if ever she saw one. “And did you come up with an answer?”

  “No, but I did cut in just now with a proposition.”

  A proposition from Mayer sounded intriguing, but also a bit dangerous. She waved at Joan. “Oh?”

  “What if I sent Welles a note to meet me for a cigar on the private balcony on the eastern side of the building, say at eleven thirty?”

  “And what if you did?”

  “If you turned up there in my place, you’d have him cornered.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  Kathryn gave off a playful laugh that achieved its purpose of making Mayer smile. “Oh, Mr. Mayer, I’m sure you have more than one.”

  “No, no. Just the one,” Mayer admitted. “I’ll send Welles the note if you’ll answer my question. Deal?”

  Mayer’s fingernails gleamed in the lights. It always amazed Kathryn that titans of industry got their nails buffed and polished. She had a theory: it was their attention to detail that got them where they were. “What’s the question?”

  “I insist on an honest answer. Look out if I find yo
u’ve been lying to me.”

  Kathryn took mental stock of the possible binds she could get herself into and decided her closet was relatively empty of skeletons. “Okay. Shoot.”

  Mayer licked his teeth and eyed her like a jackal. “Did you really just happen to be at the Fox Theater in Riverside that night of the Gone with the Wind preview?”

  Kathryn double-taked before she could stop herself, then quickly worried how it must have looked. The smile in Mayer’s eyes had evaporated. Of all the questions she might have guessed Mayer would ask, that one was a very long way down the list.

  “I do believe you’ve shocked me!” she exclaimed, slightly panicked. “With everything going on right now—Orson Welles not being the least of it—you want to know about a preview that happened a year ago?”

  “Your friend. The one you went to see Beau Geste with. Hilary van Hoss. Tell me about her.”

  Again with the Hilary van Hoss question? Kathryn thought. Whatever his reason, this can’t be good. The man was trying to catch her out in a lie, but it was such an innocuous lie—important at the time, but a whole year had passed since then. She knew she’d figure out his motive sooner or later, but for now, she had to answer his question.

  “I’ve known Hilary since I did the rounds of the studios as a would-be child actor. She lives in Riverside and I was visiting her because her dog, Pepper, had just died. She needed cheering up, so I treated her to an early dinner and a movie, because she is the biggest Gary Cooper fan this side of a Cooper family reunion.”

  Mayer studied her face for a few moments, his mouth bent into a bemused smile. “Eleven thirty. East balcony.”

  * * *

  Kathryn excused herself from the table on a powder-my-nose pretext and arrived at the balcony at twenty-five minutes past. She found Orson already there, studying the shafts of light prodding the sky while threading an unlit Cuban through his fingers.

  She stepped out of the shadows. “Are you trying to avoid me?”