Gwendolyn fingered the diamond bracelet on her wrist, grasping for a way to introduce it into the conversation and beat a hasty exit. She could feel Siegel’s eyes on her fingers every time she touched it, so she began to play with it more, running her nail along the dozens of pinpoint diamonds, hoping he’d bring it up. But somehow the conversation veered away from The Maltese Falcon to the view from the Hollywoodland sign.
“Let’s go there!” Alice exclaimed. “I’ve never seen it up close. It’s such a clear night; I bet we can see right across LA. We’ll be there and back in a jiffy.”
Raft protested, but Alice started pouting about how tonight was supposed to be her celebration and surely she should get to do what she wanted on her night. “Besides, it’s getting too damn warm and stuffy in here. Come on!” She lurched to her feet.
Mickey Cohen appeared with car keys. Apart from Gwendolyn, he was the only one sober enough to drive, and before anyone could talk Alice out of it, Gwendolyn found herself piling into Siegel’s crimson Duesenberg. The leather upholstery was butter soft and the powerful engine purred like a caged lion.
As they rolled past the Buick, Gwendolyn risked a glance but couldn’t see anyone inside. Were Kathryn and Roy crouching down? Gwendolyn felt very alone and fought the urge to look back through the rear window.
Cohen took the curves around the unpaved roads coiling the Hollywood Hills at a speed that made Gwendolyn squirm. Siegel pressed his hip against hers. She felt something hard and cold through the folds of her dress. The gun was in his jacket, so what was this? A knife? Brass knuckles?
It was surprising how much light a half moon could shed. It shone on the back of the Hollywoodland sign in bright silver as the Duesenberg hit the dirt track leading off Mt. Lee Road. Cohen parked the car behind the sign and they all got out. The wood looked terribly weathered and the paint was peeling off in large flakes. The long support beams holding up each letter were starting to split and warp. It was a wonder the whole thing hadn’t tumbled down the canyon long before now.
Alice announced she was going to climb up the H to see what Peg Entwistle saw.
“Who’s Peg Entwistle?” Siegel asked.
“She was the first person to jump to her death here,” Gwendolyn told him, keeping her eyes on Alice and wondering if the girl was drunk enough to be stupid, or stupid enough to be brave.
Raft made a grab for her. “Come on, honey, this ain’t such a hot idea.”
Especially in that dress, Gwendolyn thought. In the moonlight, Alice’s outfit looked more like the burnished bronze of a neglected candlestick. She felt Siegel’s arm brush against hers.
Alice grabbed a couple of horizontal planks, kicked off her mules, and found toeholds with her stocking feet. She hauled herself up, plank by plank, giving out little grunts as she scaled the rickety letter with surprising agility. It creaked and rasped under her weight.
“She gonna be all right?” Raft asked. “These letters must be fifty feet high.”
Each of the guys called out to her, telling her to come down, but she ignored them until she was standing on a crossbeam, holding onto the top of the letter.
“The view up here is a peach!” Alice yelled. “I wish I had my Brownie; I could take a picture.”
“All right, sugarpie,” Raft called up to her. “You’ve had your fun. You’re making the rest of us sweat, and I don’t like to sweat . . . unless I’m, well, you know.”
Alice called them all stuffed shirts, but when she started her descent, the structure began to wobble. A grating moan echoed around the walls of the canyon; Alice froze up in fear.
“Mickey, go up and get her.”
But Raft pointed out that Cohen was a beefy guy.
“He’ll tip this thing over,” Alice screamed, “and I’ll be the new Peg Entwistle.”
“Relax, sugarpie,” Raft called up. “Just put one foot under the other, exactly the way you got up.”
“SCREW YOU!” Alice yelled. “If I could, don’t you think I would, ya big fathead? This thing’s going to collapse under me, I just know it.”
Siegel turned to Gwendolyn. “You can’t be more than, what, a hundred twenty pounds? You have to go up and get her.”
“Me?” Gwendolyn said. After what that bitch has done to sabotage every break I ever got? Fat chance. Let her drop.
A strong gust of wind blew up from the bottom of the canyon and the top of the H swayed more than a foot. Alice’s piercing screech shot across the hills.
“If she falls off and breaks her goddamned neck . . .” Siegel muttered.
Gwendolyn could see the apprehension in his eyes but she couldn’t tell if he was genuinely concerned for Alice’s safety, or if it was more about how Alice’s screaming might attract attention. Gwendolyn didn’t give a hoot about the preservation of Alice’s neck, but when another gust of wind blew up and they all heard her scream at them to do something, Gwendolyn felt opportunity tapping her shoulder. She faced Siegel. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“I don’t make deals,” he snapped. “I dictate them.”
Gwendolyn shrugged and turned away. Then she heard Siegel clear his throat. “I’m listening.”
Gwendolyn kept her eyes on Alice. She knew he’d appreciate direct eye contact, but she didn’t have the nerve. “I’ll go up there and get her for you.” Siegel remained silent and waited for Gwendolyn’s quid pro quo. “And in return, I want you to back off.” She could almost hear his gears turning over. Then she added, “Same goes for my pals.”
“The columnist and the screenwriter?” His voice was dagger sharp.
Gwendolyn swallowed hard. The guy had done his homework. She thought about the steel-hard lump she’d felt against her hip on the drive over. She nodded and glanced over to Raft and Cohen. Both of them were gaping at her, and even in this twilight it wasn’t hard to figure out what they were thinking. She decided to soften her message, and took a half step closer to him. His aftershave was scented with lavender.
“Look,” she said, offering him a soft, girlish smile, “it’s not that I think you’re unattractive. As a matter of fact, you’re a real looker. You got a way about you, but the thing is, my heart beats for someone else. I just can’t—you know.”
For a long moment, Siegel’s face was frozen in indecision. Gwendolyn could feel her chest rising and falling. She covered it by reaching up and adjusting her hair.
“Okay,” he said.
“Do I have your word?” Gwendolyn asked.
His sly smile wasn’t hard to decipher. I’m a ruthless gangster and a heartless killer. I could give you my word, but how much is it worth? But it was all she had. Siegel nodded. “Go get her.”
Gwendolyn began the climb. She was nearly within reach of Alice when another gust rocked the H. Scraping sounds sawed through Gwendolyn’s ears. The end of one of the horizontal planks across the giant letter came loose and swung down in a low arc. Alice screamed again as it swayed back and hit her in the elbow.
Gwendolyn climbed another couple of feet. “It’s going to be okay,” she told Alice. She extended her hand. “Just grab a hold.”
Alice went to clutch her hand, but Gwendolyn pulled it back. “But before you do, there’s something you should know.”
Wild-eyed and white with panic, Alice said, “Can’t it wait, for crying out loud?” Another gust blew across them and she screamed.
“I know about the Scarlett O’Hara screen test,” Gwendolyn said.
“The what?” Alice scanned the ground fifty feet below them.
“My hoop dress? Your matches? I know what you did.”
Alice reeled back, her mouth gaping in the cool evening breeze. “You came up here to tell me that?”
“I just need you to know that I see through you,” Gwendolyn spat back. “You may think you’ve got everybody fooled—even that chump, Raft, down there—but you don’t. Take my hand.” Alice’s hand was cold and clammy and slippery with sweat. “You’re going to have to trust me,” Gwendolyn said. “No
w, there’s a sloping beam right under you. Eight, nine inches, maybe. Just drop your left foot down and put your weight on it.”
Alice did as she was told and lowered herself onto the beam, then followed Gwendolyn’s instructions hand by hand, foot by foot, rung by rung.
They were about halfway down when Alice sank her bare foot into a wayward nail and screamed again. “Just get us down. Don’t push me! Oh, God, don’t push me!” She shook her foot and droplets of blood that shone silver in the moonlight flicked across Gwendolyn’s dress. The wind picked up, blowing Alice’s hair into her face.
Gwendolyn made a grab for Alice’s foot. Alice squealed like a banshee caught in a bear trap and kicked away Gwendolyn’s hold. But the momentum unbalanced her. As Gwendolyn toppled free from the wobbly structure, her hand caught the hem of Alice’s metallic dress and without thinking, she bunched it around her fist.
Together they landed on the dirt with a sickening thump.
CHAPTER 37
The summer of 1941 finally arrived at the point every Angeleno summer eventually reaches: wake up hot, stay hot, go to bed hot.
Marcus was already sticky-sweaty before he arrived at the studio. It was not the time of year the B Hive hacks looked forward to, because they knew that as hot as it got outside, it was barely any cooler in their makeshift hot-box.
Marcus blotted his face with a handkerchief as he walked in and said hello to Jerry, the wire-thin writer he sat next to and the only one with whom he had anything in common. Word puzzles, mainly. Jerry was rifling through an assortment of cardboard boxes. Marcus asked him what he was looking for but the guy only let out a grunt.
The boss, Joe Cohn, said, “He’s looking for a script we used to use when even we couldn’t find a way of regurgitating any of the standards.”
“Damnit!” Jerry slammed the lid on a fifth box and started in on the sixth.
“Hey!” another of the writers called out, “maybe it’s better than you remember, and it’s in the morgue.”
“What morgue?” Marcus repeated.
The clattering of four typewriters ceased as though on cue.
“How long you worked at MGM?” Cohn asked.
“Ten years, on and off.”
“And you never heard of the Remington Morgue?”
“Maybe we had a different name for it?” Marcus offered.
Cohn looked as though he were about to divulge how the American military planned to bring an end to the Battle of Britain currently raging over England. “It’s where the go-nowhere scripts are sent. Abandoned stuff, like the one MGM planned to do about Florence Nightingale.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Warners beat us to it by eight months. Bam, into the Remington Morgue it goes. Ditto the one about the Wright Brothers—United Artists jumped us there. Not to forget my personal favorite: Panama!—exclamation point.”
“Tyrone Power, right?” Marcus asked.
“That was Suez. Panama!—exclamation point—was going to be a musical. But even the A-list geniuses couldn’t find a way to dance through 30,000 deaths from malaria and yellow fever. And another great idea slides right into the Remington Morgue.” He pointed a finger at Marcus. “But you never heard about it from us.”
“What’s with all the secrecy?”
“Industrial espionage.” It wasn’t like Cohn to be so hatchet-faced. “This business is all about ideas; some work, some don’t. The studio prefers to hold on to those that don’t rather than let the idea slip out to some other studio who might figure a way to make it work. Mayer is nothing short of paranoid over it. Even I don’t get a key.”
Later, in the commissary, Marcus bumped into Dierdre, the receptionist up at the writers’ department. He took her aside near the desserts. “You ever heard of something called the Remington Morgue?”
Dierdre paused. “How do you know about that?”
“I overheard a conversation. Can you take me down there sometime?”
“Fat chance. There’s only one key and Taggert has it on a hook inside a locked drawer. He gives me exactly fifteen minutes to get down there, do my filing, and then get the key back to him.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why? What’s down there you need to see so badly?”
Marcus eyed the strawberry shortcake. “Just curious.”
* * *
The B Hive’s huge round clock struck six. A shadow loomed across Marcus’ typewriter. “Whatever it is you think needs more work, it doesn’t. You do get the fact that nobody cares what we do here, don’t you? We’re just here to make the folks in the picture houses think they’re getting two movies for the price of one.”
“Yeah, I know,” Marcus told Cohn. “I’ve almost finished this one, and I’d rather get it done now.”
“Come on, Adler, it’s knock-off time. I’ll buy you a beer.”
Marcus picked up his hat and followed his boss to the Retake Room, a twelve-stool bar opposite the studio where thirsty employees often gathered to wet their whistles. One beer led to three, and by the time Joe decided he ought to get home to the missus, Marcus was a bit woozier on his feet than he’d planned to be. He headed back to the studio through a side gate, where he knew a security guard by the name of Hooley was stationed. The grizzly old bastard was a terrible insomniac these days and spent his nights wide awake in the little booth filling in crossword puzzles to pass the time.
It was coming up to nine o’clock when Marcus got to Hooley’s guard house. The guy was setting up a mammoth hoagie sandwich filled with roast beef, tomato, onion, hot peppers, and plenty of oregano. Marcus hadn’t had a decent hoagie since he left Pennsylvania; the monster in front of Hooley smelled delicious. The Examiner was opened at the crossword. Hooley looked up from his sandwich, and before Marcus could say anything, he said, “Nine letters, fitful.”
Marcus pretended to think for a moment. “Spasmodic.”
Hooley counted out the boxes and wrote the word in. “What are you doing here this time of night?”
“I was wondering if you had some sort of passkey.”
Hooley eyed Marcus momentarily, then returned to his paper. “I got several, but I can’t give them to you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m just after one in particular.”
“Which one?”
“Do you know what the Remington Morgue is?”
“Sonny, I’ve been working here since 1915.” Hooley took a surprisingly dainty bite of hoagie. “There’s a reason why they keep it under lock and key.”
“Here’s the thing. Before I got shafted down to the B Hive, I was working on a script that was shaping up to be pretty damn good. I strongly suspect it got locked down there and I want to get it back.”
“So how come you can’t just ask Jim Taggert?”
“Office politics. It’s gotten complicated and this seemed the easiest solution.”
Hooley picked a twig of oregano out of his teeth. “What’s in it for me?”
“My eternal gratitude?”
“What else you got?”
“Okay, I get it. How much did you have in mind?”
Hooley shot him a stink eye and let out a snort. “I’ve seen what money does to people. They come in here all fresh-faced and eager, and they leave broken-down has-beens with egos the size of Death Valley and a drinking problem to match. Enough money I’ve got; more money I don’t need.”
“So what do you need?”
“Make me an offer.”
Marcus grabbed at mental straws, but came up empty. “I guess I’m going to have to think about it,” he said eventually.
“I guess you just might.”
Marcus was twenty yards down the street when he realized what he could offer Hooley that nobody else had.
* * *
The Remington Morgue was a long basement underneath the carpentry shop. Its bare concrete floors were lit by fluorescent tube lights hanging from a low ceiling; they gave off just enough light to see by. Dark metal filing cabinets lined three of the
walls, but none of them were labeled. It had an odd smell to it. Something sour, maybe. It occurred to Marcus that perhaps this was what wholesale rejection smelled like.
Marcus pulled open the first cabinet he came to, but there didn’t appear to be any logical system for the scripts—neither alphabetical nor chronological. He was just going to have to go through each cabinet one by one.
It was past two o’clock in the morning when he found William Tell crammed in between a script called Plenty Past Midnight and something from the twenties entitled The Third of July. Marcus pulled William Tell out of the filing cabinet and opened the folder. His outline was completely untouched. Every picture synopsis Marcus had ever seen was plastered with the scribble of every buttinski with a bright idea.
Stapled to it was a memo to Taggert in which Hugo stated he’d been unable to fashion a workable screenplay from the outline, and to put any more effort into it would be a waste of time. There was no mention of the other six writers Hugo claimed had worked so fruitlessly on it, nor any of their drafts, notes, corrections, suggestions, or ideas. Taggert’s approval to relegate it to the Remington Morgue duly appeared at the top, however the signature on William Tell didn’t look anything like the one he’d seen tonight on the other rejects. It had clearly been forged, and by the same pen Hugo had used to sign his name.
Marcus stared at the dirty concrete, absorbing the reality that all his worst suspicions had been justified. Hugo, he thought, is my very own personal Alice Moore.
CHAPTER 38
Kathryn glanced at her wristwatch for the umpteenth time. “Come on, come on,” she fretted. It was almost six thirty, and Roy was due to come through the front doors of the Biltmore Hotel in less than half an hour.
Things hadn’t been going very well with Roy since the night they were supposed to be keeping watch outside Siegel’s place for Gwendolyn to emerge. They’d been enjoying a delicious chicken and champagne picnic and listening to the Andrews Sisters on Benny Goodman’s radio show when the subject of Louella’s poisonous item about her came up. Roy should have known she was awfully touchy about it, but he blundered on until she got so mad that she lacerated him with a thesaurus of curses and stormed off.
Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3) Page 26
