City of Myths

by Martin Turnbull

  A single tear oozed out of the corner of Gwendolyn’s eye. “You’ll be living here? In LA? Full time?”

  Monty laughed. She’d forgotten how deep his laughter was—like a roll of thunder. “It’s a five-year appointment.”

  “Oh, Monty!” Gwendolyn wished she could leap up and squeeze every last molecule of salty air from her brother’s lungs.

  Kathryn dropped her handbag and gloves on Gwendolyn’s tray table. “You’re not going to believe this!” She pointed to Monty, who straightened to his full six foot four. “Your brother is the new liaison officer between the navy and the studios.”

  Monty bowed stiffly. “I wanted to tell you in person but when I socked DiMaggio, studio security appeared like Aladdin’s genie and hustled me out.”

  “But Mo-Mo,” Gwendolyn said, “how did this happen? I mean, why you?”

  “About a year ago, I was on overnight radar duty with our newest recruit. To keep each other awake, we took turns talking. I told him about my experiences during the war when I was serving under Admiral Halsey, and during Typhoon Connie, and the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay on the USS Missouri. When I finished, this guy says I should write it down, like in a memoir, because his brother-in-law is one of those literary agents. I told him I’m not the writing type. He says to me, ‘You got some better way to fill in these long navy voyages?’”

  Gwendolyn peered into Monty’s earnest face. “You’ve written a memoir?”

  “Yeah! He sent it to his in-law, who loved it. A while after that, I get a letter saying he’s sold it to Simon and Schuster.”

  “What?!” All this news coming at once made Gwendolyn’s head spin. It might also have been the dose of painkillers the nurse had just fed her. “When does it come out?”

  “It takes forever so who the heck knows? But about a month ago, I got hauled in front of the head of navy public relations who tells me recruitment is on the decrease since the war in Korea ain’t going so good. They need to improve P.R. and figure my memoir might be it. Before you can say ‘kamikaze,’ I’m the new navy liaison officer!”

  The fresh fog of painkillers drifted through Gwendolyn. She felt like she was lying on a bed of cotton candy nestled in a drifting cloud. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “My office is in the Taft Building. D’you know where that is?”

  “Corner of Hollywood and Vine,” Kathryn said. “The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have their offices there.”

  “Is it near the Garden of Allah?” Monty asked.

  “Easy drive down Sunset. You thinking of moving in?”

  “Got room on your sofa till they get a vacancy?”

  “Better yet,” Kathryn said, “Marcus’s place is empty. God knows when he’ll be back, so why don’t you just move in there? I’m sure he won’t mind, especially if you take over the rent.”

  Beyond the capability of producing sound now, Gwendolyn managed to nod her head before slipping into a dreamy netherworld of cashmere, eiderdown, and angels.

  CHAPTER 21

  When Rossano Brazzi returned from Los Angeles, one of his first calls was to Marcus. Rossano thought he’d impressed Katharine Hepburn enough to consider him for the lead in Summertime, but much of the sophisticated chatter between Hepburn and Cukor escaped him.

  “I must not be in the same situation again!” he told Marcus. “I want to increase my English lessons to three times a week, plus one extra day to remove my accent.”

  Marcus pointed out that if Fox was promoting him as “Europe’s New Screen Romeo” he should sound like he was “from Italy, not Inglewood,” but conceded that a softened accent might make him more comprehensible to American audiences.

  The Rome premiere of Three Coins in the Fountain was approaching, followed by The Barefoot Contessa in the fall. Every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, Marcus walked across Rome to Brazzi’s apartment near the Victor Emmanuel II monument. Romans detested it, but it reminded Marcus of the more extravagant sets in Hollywood movies such as Intolerance, Ben-Hur, and Citizen Kane, and now that Hollywood had gone widescreen, The Robe.

  Rossano lived on the top floor of a five-story building, far enough removed from the chaotic piazza to dim the traffic noise. The place had no elevator, so by the time Marcus reached the apartment, he needed to catch his breath. With no Garden of Allah pool to keep him in shape, it was a daily reminder that Rome’s chianti-and-pasta lifestyle could take its toll on his waistline if he wasn’t careful.

  He rapped the doorknocker twice, paused, then twice again. It was their secret knock, alerting Rossano that it was Marcus and not an intrepid scattino or emboldened fan.

  “COME!”

  Marcus walked down the long corridor lined with Brazzi family portraits of long-past generations and into the spacious living room that smelled of freshly cut flowers, olive oil, red wine, and ancient history. The furniture had been pushed aside to make room for five matching traveling trunks in black leather and polished brass arranged in a semicircle; each of them was angled open. Rossano stood at the middle one, a tangle of neckties gathered in his hand.

  “What’s all this?” Marcus asked.

  “Lydia and I are going to Florence for a law-school reunion. It will last the whole weekend with many parties.” He rapped his knuckles on the trunk in front of him. “This is mine. The others are for Lydia. She is staying for one month.”

  Marcus inspected the trunk at the end. Its innards were a beautifully designed arrangement of drawers upholstered in red Chinese silk featuring a stork motif. Instead of handles, each one had a small crystal ball. “These are pretty.”

  Rossano pointed at it. “What are they called in English?”

  “I’d probably call it a knob.”

  “Nob?”

  “With a ‘k.’”

  Rossano rolled his eyes. “The infamous silent k. You have a ridiculous language.”

  Marcus ran his fingers down the spine of the trunk until he got to a large hinge at the top. “What do we call these?”

  Rossano tried to force out the word like a cough. He gave up.

  “It’s a hinge.”

  “Hinge,” he repeated thoughtfully.

  “Use it in a sentence.”

  “My trahveling troonk has a large hinge.”

  “’Traveling’ is with a short a, as in ‘cat,’ and ‘trunk’ is a short u, as in ‘cut.’ Say it again.”

  In the weeks they’d been working together, Rossano’s English had improved but his accent stubbornly fought correction. He repeated the sentence, sharpening his vowels. The progress was marginal, so Marcus got him to repeat the sentence until he grew bored with it and joined him at the trunk.

  He squatted onto his knees and pulled the ball attached to the lowest drawer. It glided out noiselessly. He flicked his wrist and a box upholstered in the same red silk dropped into his hand. He lifted it out. “I cannot think of the English word for this.”

  It was about the size of a cigar box. Marcus turned it over in his hand. “Where did this come from?”

  “There is a little space hidden with a trigger. Clever, no?”

  “Very. We call this a secret compartment.”

  Rossano forced back a mordant smile. “My wife, she is in love with expensive jewelry. What she cannot wear, we hide in these secret compartments.”

  “There is more than one?”

  “Si. Three in each trunk. Lydia is like all women. Everything that—mmm, brilla.”

  “Sparkles.”

  Rossano turned to his neckties and started hanging them from a mahogany rod. “Sparkles. I like how this word jumps around the mouth.”

  Marcus pressed his hand to the black leather as his mind started churning. “Where can I get luggage like this?”

  “From a luggage maker near the Vatican. He has helped refugee aristocracy and runaway fascists and banished clergy for many years.” Rossano hooked his neckties into his trunk and crossed his arms. “You have something to smuggle out of Italy?”
/>   Marcus nodded.

  “Before the war, many people with assets to hide, they used trunks like these. But now customs officials know all the tricks. They search every trunk. If they find many monies, they seize it and charge a heavy fine. Until it is paid, they do not allow you to leave the country, and sometimes put you in jail.”

  Oh well, it seemed like a good idea.

  “However.”

  A yelp of hope caught in Marcus’s throat. “Yes?”

  “First, you convert the money to gold bullion. Small bricks, the size of your finger. You have your tailor sew them into the lining and pockets of your clothes. I can send you to the same tailor that King Farouk uses.”

  The last king of Egypt was now a permanent fixture in the café society culture springing up around Rome. The guy was richer than Solomon, so his tailor probably charged accordingly. Still, if it let Marcus get his money out of Italy . . .

  “This tailor,” Marcus said. “Is he as discreet as your luggage maker?”

  “He will sew the tiny bricks into your suit so that nobody will notice the bulge or hear them clink together.”

  “But if the customs officials are onto all the tricks, won’t they know about the gold-in-the-hem scam?”

  “In the main ports like Rome, Genoa, or Venice, yes. But if you travel alone with a small suitcase to Sicily, you can catch a freighter from Palermo to Casablanca, where I know a man who will buy your bullion in American dollars. From there, you sail to the Canary Islands. A Portuguese shipping company has regular voyages from Tenerife to the Azores, and then Puerto Rico.”

  Marcus could see now that he should have been thinking more like Orson Welles’ Harry Lime in The Third Man. “I need to write this down.”

  * * *

  Domenico squirmed in his seat at a Napolitano restaurant near the Castel Sant’Angelo as Marcus related Rossano’s solution. By the time Marcus finished, he had burned through two Nazionale cigarettes. He crushed the butt of the second one into the ashtray and motioned to the waiter for a third round of prosecco. “Smuggle gold out of the country? If that is the kind of lawyer he was, I understand why he is now an actor.”

  Domenico’s joie de vivre was one of his most appealing attributes. The whole time they’d known each other, Marcus had never heard anything remotely scornful come out of his mouth.

  It was evening now. Lights bathed the circular castle in a buttery luster. “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money.”

  Domenico snorted a begrudging agreement. “So King Farouk’s tailor fill your suit with little gold bricks and you sail to America via a hundred stops?”

  “It’s not as bad—”

  “Tell me again the route.”

  “Rome to Palermo to Casablanca, where I’d catch a boat to the Canary Islands. And from there the Azores—”

  “Do you know where are the Azores?”

  “In the middle of the Atlantic.”

  “So you are in the middle of nowhere, and then?”

  “Another boat to Puerto Rico, which is near Cuba, which is off the coast of Florida. And from there I’m practically home.”

  As he said it out loud, Rossano’s solution sounded fraught with places where it could go horribly wrong. “Okay,” he conceded. “I see your point.”

  “I said nothing.”

  “I know when you’re upset.”

  The waiter placed their freshened glasses of prosecco in front of them, bubbles pushing to the surface.

  “Si, Marcus, I am upset, but not for the reason you believe.”

  “You’re right. It’s a crazy plan. I could get robbed or stabbed anywhere along the route. It sounds like a B movie that George Raft rejected ten years ago. Let’s forget it.”

  “The crazy plan of Rossano Brazzi is not why I am unhappy.”

  Marcus was glad that they were two and a half glasses into this conversation. “Say what you need to say.”

  “I think you are not ready to leave Rome.”

  A passing priest tossed a heel of bread at a flock of seagulls. They squawked and shrieked, fighting for a chance to nip at the crust. Except one, smaller than the others. He dragged behind him a wing bent at a graceless angle. Another seagull joined him on the rough cobblestones. Together they watched the rest of the flock tussle for scraps.

  “Domenico,” he said gently, “you and I weren’t meant to last forever. I told you when we met that I was never going to be—”

  “You talk in your sleep.”

  “Since when?”

  “More and more. You do not mumble. You are very clear.”

  Marcus lit the last of the Camels Kathryn had given Rossano to carry back to Rome. “What do I talk about?”

  “Oliver.”

  The name dropped on Marcus like a felled sequoia.

  I should have seen this coming. God knows, Oliver has been popping up in my dreams enough.

  In his first few weeks in Rome, Marcus had thought of Oliver whenever he wore his lucky purple tie, or the cufflink he’d had made to duplicate the one he’d lost in the Trevi Fountain, or when he saw Oliver’s favorite wine on a menu. But as the weeks had dissolved into months and Domenico had taken Oliver’s place in Marcus’s bed and his heart, thoughts of his former boyfriend had grown less frequent.

  But in his dream life, Oliver still came calling. Often he’d be standing in the distance watching Marcus eat dinner with Kathryn or Gwendolyn, usually at Mama Weiss’s Hungarian Restaurant on Beverly Drive. More often, he’d be sitting around the pool at the Garden, knowing that Oliver lurked behind the elephant palms. Sometimes the pool was transformed into the Trevi Fountain and Marcus would find himself wading in the freezing water, looking for that blasted cufflink.

  “I see.”

  They finished their meal in silence.

  During the stroll back to Marcus’s place, the air of uneasiness grew more awkward with every passing block. By the time they arrived at Signora Scatena’s front door, Marcus knew Domenico wouldn’t be joining him upstairs.

  Signora Scatena threw open her door. “Signore!” She had her hands clasped together as though beseeching the Good Lord above. “Two men were here looking for you,” she told him in machine-gun Italian. “They asked me questions: What sort of person are you? How long have you lived at my pensione? I answered their questions, but they were not satisfied and said they would return at ten o’clock this evening.”

  It was nearly that time now. Marcus thanked Signora Scatena and sent her inside. “You should go now,” he told Domenico.

  “Nothing good happens at this time of night. I will stay.”

  * * *

  Three sharp knocks on the door set Marcus’s nerves on edge. At his landing stood two middle-aged men in careworn suits, no hats, and shiny ties. They held badges identifying them as officials of the Immigration department.

  The older, pudgier of the two asked Marcus to identify himself. When Marcus did so, he said, “We are here to seize your passport.”

  “What for?”

  “There have been allegations that you are planning to smuggle a large amount of money out of the country.”

  “Allegations from who?”

  Signore Pudgy stuck out his hand. “Until we are able to make a full investigation, we command you to surrender your passport.

  “Do they have the right?” Marcus asked Domenico, who nodded silently.

  Careful not to show his heart pounding in his chest, Marcus retrieved his passport from its hiding place in the bookshelf and handed it over. Signore Pudgy’s partner wrote out a receipt and told him they would be in contact.

  Marcus closed the door behind them, then slumped against it with his face pressed to the wood.

  “What was he talking about?” Domenico asked.

  “I’ve been buying a hundred dollars’ worth of American Express travelers cheques three times a week.”

  Marcus felt Domenico’s hot, anxious breath on the back of his neck. “Do you go to the same counter?”

  “I d
on’t even go to the same office. I rotate them.”

  “For how long have you done this?”

  “Couple of months. The first time I walked past the American Express office was the day I got my MGM check, and I was hurrying to the bank to deposit it. I walked past their bureau on Piazza di Spagna. It was the day when—SHIT!” Marcus walloped the door with the palm of his hand.

  “Shit what?” Domenico asked.

  “That was the day I punched Emilio Conti to the ground.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Kathryn typed the period on the final sentence of her next column and reread what she considered one of her best efforts in nearly twenty years.

  On the day she had seen Warner Bros.’ latest addition to the “atomic blasts give rise to mutant bugs” genre, Senator Joe McCarthy had self-destructed at the hands of army counsel Joseph Welsh during the nationally televised hearings.

  When she heard that she had missed Welsh demand of McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”, she’d set about conflating the thin plot of Them!, in which giant man-eating ants threatened civilization, with the threat that the bloated egomania of a morally bankrupt US senator represented to the American way of life.

  She pulled the paper from her typewriter. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

  “Kathryn Massey?”

  The Western Union delivery boy looked at least forty-five but had the weathered complexion of a sixty-year-old. He thrust an enveloped cable into her hand and asked her to sign his receipt.

  She should already have been halfway to the Taft Building. She tore open the envelope and read the originating station.

  Rome! Is he coming back at last?

  PASSPORT CONFISCATED STOP NOT SURE WHY STOP

  BIG MYSTERY STOP KNOW ANYONE IN THE STATE DEPT?

  What did he do? Rob the Italian Fort Knox? Do they even have a Fort Knox?

  “That’s not a happy face.”

  When Mike Connolly had joined the Hollywood Reporter a couple of years ago, Kathryn’s gut told her to mistrust the guy. Though clever with words and well connected, he was also glib, opinionated, smug, and an ugly drunk. However, when push came to shove the night of Voss’s MacArthur Park broadcast, he hadn’t hesitated to help Kathryn expose the guy as the phony he was.