City of Myths

by Martin Turnbull

  “Unexpected news.” She folded the cable back into the envelope and collected up her pocketbook.

  She ought to have been driving along Sunset right now, but Harlan McNamara and the girls would have to wait. She hurried up the corridor and into the boss’s office.

  Billy Wilkerson was at his desk proofing a four-page spread that he, Kathryn, and Mike had worked on for the upcoming release of On the Waterfront. It was getting the royal treatment because the movie was a Columbia picture and because, the previous weekend, Wilkerson had lost a substantial poker game to Columbia head Harry Cohn and this was how he repaid the debt without Mrs. Wilkerson knowing.

  “You still working on that?” Kathryn asked.

  Wilkerson nodded. “What’s up?”

  Kathryn showed Wilkerson the cable.

  “Yikes.”

  “Do you know someone at the State Department?”

  Wilkerson pulled the reading glasses from his face. “No, but a few telephone calls might change that. Shouldn’t you be over at Hollywood and Vine by now?”

  Kathryn thanked her boss as she flew out the door and toward the stairs that led down to the lobby. She reached her car in under a minute, cranked the engine to life, and swung into traffic. She hadn’t gone a block when she regretted telling Wilkerson.

  What if Marcus had inadvertently committed a major crime? He wasn’t in jail, so it couldn’t have been that bad. Or did it mean they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him yet?

  Thoughts of evidence caused Kathryn’s mind to turn toward Winchell. It had been five weeks since her encounter with Zanuck at Perino’s, and three months since she had nervously confided in Winchell at Gable’s party. She had attempted to contact him via telephone, telegrams, letters, and cards, but he hadn’t returned a single one. On his radio show, he’d announced a three-week trip to London. But he was back from that now and still nothing.

  Instinct told her that he’d tracked down Thomas Danford’s FBI file, but what was he doing with the information? And had he shared it with anyone? She’d already told him that he could have all the credit, so what was with this silent treatment?

  She arrived at the Taft Building. If she’d had the time, she would have dropped in on Monty’s office. She had planned on stopping by to see how his landlubber job was going, but she was twenty minutes late, so she’d have to do that another day.

  She rode the elevator to Harlan McNamara’s photographic studio on the top floor. Today was her first photo shoot with Adelaide Hawley and Betty Furness for the Sunbeam – Betty Crocker – Westinghouse blitz. A three-way advertising campaign had never previously been attempted, so negotiations over the sharing of costs, expenses, and scheduling had become unexpectedly complicated. But now the contracts had been signed, the paperwork filed, and the corporate lawyers paid, so it was time to start posing.

  Adelaide and Betty were more experienced than Kathryn with this sort of photo shoot: “Hold straight, hold smile, hold cake, hold pose.” In the company of such pros, Kathryn was glad she had Harlan to guide her through today’s session. Although short on stature, he was long on the charming knack of putting people at ease.

  “Sorry I’m so late,” she announced to the group, pulling off her hat and gloves. “It’s been one of those days.”

  A long kitchen counter, shiny with faux-marble Formica, was strewn with a range of cooking utensils, most of which Kathryn couldn’t even name, let alone use. At one end was a triple-layered chocolate cake bigger than the wicker birdcage her mother kept in the corner of her living room. It sat next to a Mixmaster and in front of a Westinghouse refrigerator that dwarfed anything installed at the Garden of Allah.

  “We took bets on you,” Harlan said.

  “How late I would be?”

  “Whether you would show up at all,” Adelaide replied, with a laugh.

  “Is my reputation that bad?”

  “Haven’t you heard yet?” Betty asked. “About Sheldon Voss?”

  “What about him?”

  “It came over the radio just now. He’s turned up.”

  “Alive?” Kathryn was drawn between hoping the bastard was dead and praying he was chained down somewhere so that she could drill him like a sadistic cop.

  “Some poor janitor discovered him passed out in a cut-rate vacation apartment at Laguna Beach,” Harlan said. “They managed to bring him around, but he’s claiming amnesia.”

  “What?!”

  “Says he doesn’t remember anything of the past twenty years.”

  Kathryn jammed her fists onto her hips. “That’s awfully convenient, I must say. And where is he now?”

  Harlan started switching on the lights placed strategically around the kitchen set. “They transferred him to LA General but they’ve put him in isolation due to his—ahem—delicate state of mind.”

  Kathryn rummaged around her pocketbook for a last-minute lipstick repair. We’ll see about that.

  * * *

  Los Angeles County General Hospital was a snow-white monolith that looked like a Howard Roark design from The Fountainhead. It was fifteen stories tall, with wings buttressing into the stark California sunshine and more entrances than Kathryn could count.

  The information-desk volunteer directed her to the top floor of a wing that looked out over a hundred acres of railway tracks. The circular nurses’ station stood to the left past an open waiting area filled with the mingled droning of men’s voices. Kathryn approached the nurse behind the desk. A trace of recognition twinkled in the woman’s eyes—sometimes it helped to be high profile.

  “Miss Massey,” the woman said, rising to her feet, “I was a big fan of your radio show. I miss hearing you on the air each week.”

  “Thank you—” Kathryn checked the nametag. “—Nurse Foster. I miss being on the air each week, too.”

  “May I assume that Sheldon Voss brings you to our floor?”

  “I was hoping to see him.”

  “You and a thousand others.”

  “What number in the line am I?”

  “There is no line. Doctor’s orders are stricter than a Catholic boarding school. Nobody but family.”

  Kathryn was tempted to confide in this nurse, but the fewer people who knew, the better. “Is his doctor here right now?”

  “Yes, but I have my orders—”

  “I want half a minute of his time and not one second more.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The doctor supervising Voss’s case was a beanpole of a man who had the sharp-eyed wariness of someone who’d heard every type of sob story. The only ace in Kathryn’s hand was the truth—or as little of it as she could get away with.

  “I understand that you’re only allowing family members to see Sheldon Voss.”

  “That’s correct. So please understand that it’s impossible—”

  Kathryn angled her body away from the nurses’ station. “The thing is, doctor—and I’m placing my trust in you to show the utmost discretion because it’s not widely known—but I’m his niece.” He went to make an objection, but she cut him off. “I’m very aware of how far-fetched it sounds, especially in view of your waiting room packed with bloodthirsty press. Nevertheless, it’s true, and all I have to offer is my word.”

  She maintained her most modest smile as Doctor Beanpole chewed over the options available to him. “Take a seat, but modify your expectations.”

  Kathryn counted seventeen reporters lounging around the waiting room, ties loosened, ashtrays filled, and all out of small talk. She took a seat in the corner where the clanking of trains reverberated through the open window.

  A copy of Look dangled in the tired paws of a shabby journalist who hadn’t shaved in at least two days. By his sallow complexion, it seemed unlikely that he’d eaten anything more substantial than an apple danish during that time, either. Normally she would avoid catching the eye of someone like that, but the magazine’s cover story made it impossible to look away.

  OPERATION PASTORIUSr />
  A DOZEN YEARS LATER.

  WE REVISIT THE SCARY NIGHT

  THAT CHANGED THE

  TOWN OF AMAGANSETT

  Below the headline, a photograph showed gentle waves lapping onto a windswept beach hemmed in by a long strip of knee-high grass. The idyllic scene looked like the last place that anybody could spend a scary night.

  Zanuck’s voice from that day at Perino’s came back to her: You ever been to a place called Amagansett? And the name of the guy who sounded like a Roman general—wasn’t it Pastorius?

  The reporter took an agonizing hour to finish the magazine and cast it aside. Kathryn scooped it up and dived back to her seat. She rustled the pages until she came to the cover story and forced herself to read each word in case she inadvertently skipped over an important fact she might need later.

  Operation Pastorius, she learned, was a German plan to sabotage a dozen strategic targets during the summer of 1942. It was the unfortunate fate of Amagansett, a town near the eastern end of Long Island, to be the spot where the Nazis chose to land their first U-boat. When one of the saboteurs decided to betray the mission, he alerted the FBI and the campaign ended disastrously. But it did bring the German navy uncomfortably close to New York, as well as a national spotlight on an otherwise sleepy hamlet.

  If this was the “Amagansett” and “Pastorius” that Winchell had referred to during his drunken rant to Zanuck, it confirmed he’d had read through Danford’s FBI file.

  She shoved the magazine into her pocketbook and went to the window to watch Union Pacific engines shunt around Piggyback Yard. The article failed to mention Thomas Danford by name, so what did all this have to do with him?

  “Miss Massey?” Nurse Foster kept her voice to a whisper. “If you will please follow me.”

  Kathryn trailed her down a long corridor until they arrived at the final room on the right. The nurse pulled at a ring of keys attached to her belt and selected one. “The doctor has authorized five minutes.”

  “Thank you. I’m very—”

  “The patient is non-responsive, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

  Don’t tell me you people are buying this cockamamie act? “Does he know I’m here?”

  “No. However, the doctor is hopeful that the shock of seeing someone familiar might serve as a catalyst.”

  It’ll serve as something, all right.

  The nurse opened the door. “Mister Voss?” she called in a light sing-song. “You have a visitor.” She motioned for Kathryn to follow her in.

  The room was painted white and contained only a narrow bed along one wall and a metal toilet behind the door. At the far end of the room, a narrow window let in sunlight but a grille of bars muted the effect.

  Voss stood with his forehead pressed against the glass, gazing vacantly over the railway yards. Very slowly, he turned his head toward Kathryn. Had she not been watching carefully, she might have missed the slight flaring of his eyelids.

  He turned back to the window. “I prefer to be alone.”

  “But Mr. Voss,” the nurse said gently, “this lady is family. Why don’t you sit together on the bed? You never know what may pop up.”

  Kathryn sat down and patted the mattress. It was lumpy and sagged in the middle. “Come, Sheldon, let’s have a chat.”

  Voss lifted his upper lip to suggest a snarl; it was the only movement he made.

  Kathryn turned to the nurse. “Perhaps if you could leave us alone?”

  “Sorry. Doctor’s orders. You’ve been allowed five minutes and—” she consulted the watch pinned to her bosom “—you’ve got three and a half left.”

  Kathryn wasn’t going to get the full confession that she wanted, certainly not in less than three minutes. But maybe she could get proof that all this was an elaborate hoax.

  “Francine?” she asked. “Philadelphia? Boston? Sea to Shining Sea? Voss Vanguard? Quarter Cans?” None of these elicited the response she needed. Nor would they, she realized. They were all too obvious and had probably already been tried on him.

  Kathryn reached into her pocketbook and pulled out her pilfered magazine. She held it up folded in half so he couldn’t see the cover. “Uncle Sheldon?” she asked, sweet as treacle. She unfolded the cover to reveal the shot of the beach and held it out so that only he could read the headline.

  His jaw muscles tensed as he swallowed hard.

  “Remember that summer during the war?” Kathryn pushed. “The one we spent on Long Island? The cute little village called Amagansett? Oh, and that German bakery. The one with those delicious pastries. Do you recall the name? Pastorius Bakery, wasn’t it? Does any of this ring a bell, Uncle Sheldon?”

  He hadn’t blinked once during her whole speech but remained glued to the cover of Look. “No,” he said flatly.

  “Your time is up.” The nurse stepped to the door.

  While her back was turned, Kathryn looked at Voss. “See you real soon I hope, Uncle Shel.”

  He closed his left hand into a fist and slowly lifted his middle finger.

  CHAPTER 23

  The strip of chrome under Gwendolyn’s elbow caught the morning light as Judy Lewis turned off Sunset and onto Doheny. “This is new, isn’t it?” Gwendolyn asked.

  “What?”

  “Your car.” She ran her hand across the dashboard. “It has that fresh-out-of-the-factory smell.”

  Judy smiled, but it was a grim effort.

  “A Chevrolet Bel Air, right?” Gwendolyn persisted. “It certainly is a real smooth ride.”

  Silence.

  “Aqua blue is such a pretty color. I made a gown this shade for Alfred Hitchcock’s wife. She said it reminded her of the sea at Saint Tropez where they used to vacation each summer.”

  Judy kept her eyes on the road as it dipped into Beverly Hills. “Uh-huh.”

  “You ever been? To Europe, I mean.”

  “No.”

  The morning peak-hour drive from the Garden of Allah to Twentieth Century-Fox was starting to take longer and longer, but this stony silence made the trip insufferable. If Gwendolyn had known Judy was going to be like this, she wouldn’t have accepted the offer to drive her around until her ankle healed.

  The x-ray showed that it wasn’t broken but had sustained a serious sprain, so the doctor ordered Gwendolyn to stay off it for three weeks “regardless of what your boss insists to the contrary.” The orthopedist had assumed he was talking about Darryl Zanuck, but it was Loretta Young whom Gwendolyn had to deal with.

  The new season of Loretta’s show called for thirty-five episodes, which meant building thirty-five gowns from scratch. Loretta could have gotten someone else to do them, but she remained loyal to Gwendolyn.

  “Of course she is,” Kathryn had told her over pumpkin soup. “She knows class when she sees it.”

  Stuck at home, Gwendolyn became dependent on Kathryn, Doris, and Arlene to rotate mealtimes. Doris and Arlene always made their contributions themselves, but Kathryn preferred to stop in at Greenblatt’s or Schwab’s. Considering she was on the precipice of becoming America’s new domestic queen, the irony was lost on neither of them.

  “That dramatic entrance through the doors at the top of every episode? I thought it was just a gimmick,” Kathryn had said, “but what a winner it’s turned out to be. Everyone’s tuning in to see what she’ll be wearing when she flings open those doors. And that’s because of you, my dear. Time to ask for a raise.”

  Kathryn was probably right, but with a messed-up ankle, Gwendolyn was thankful that Loretta hadn’t pushed her under the bus and hired somebody else. In fact, she had outdone herself: she had conscripted her daughter into ferrying the designs, material swatches, and gowns between the studio and the Garden where Gwendolyn worked with her ankle up.

  Consequently, Gwendolyn saw a lot of Judy, who would often linger for a chat or make them a sandwich. She was more relaxed away from her mother’s watchful gaze. She chatted with girlish enthusiasm about the smorgasbord of possibilities that l
ay ahead for a fun-loving nineteen-year-old.

  But today she was a different girl.

  “Judy,” Gwendolyn asked, “are you okay?”

  “I have something I want to ask you but it’s harder than I thought it would be.” Judy ran a red light, realized what she’d done, and slowed down as the tall, white studio walls came into view. “How long have you known Clark Gable?”

  Gwendolyn sorted through the various reasons why the girl would ask this particular question. In all their chats over tuna salad sandwiches or bolts of chiffon, they’d never talked about that night at Ciro’s.

  Gwendolyn pressed a hand to her chest. “Do any of us remember a time when we didn’t know him?” The silence in the car evolved from stony to anxious. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because he’s going to be working at the studio soon.”

  The last time Gwendolyn had spoken to Clark was when she’d put in her dutiful phone call suggesting he might want to hear what Zanuck had to say. Not long after that, Zanuck had called Kathryn with the scoop that they’d made a two-picture deal and that Soldier of Fortune was due to start filming in November—two months away.

  Judy slowed her Chevrolet to a crawl. “Did I ever tell you about the day I got home from school and he was sitting in Mother’s living room?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I walked through the door and there he was! It’s not like I’d never met movie stars before, but this was Clark Gable! Waiting to meet me!” Judy panted as she marshaled the strength to push the words out. “But that night at Ciro’s, I noticed him staring at me. He wasn’t being rude or anything. It was like when you see someone who reminds you of someone else, but you can’t put your finger on who. At one point I waved at him, but he pretended not to see me.”

  “Maybe he didn’t.”

  “He saw me, all right. Soon after that, I saw the two of you on the dance floor and—I dunno . . . I thought I’d ask. It’s been playing on my mind but just forget I said anything. Sorry to come across so cranky.”