She shook her head. “I heard this was happening and thought it might have the makings of an interesting story. I’m a journalist. My name is Marjorie Meade.” The redhead slithered her an enigmatic side-glance. “Truth be told, I have a second reason for coming today.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been asked to approach you with a proposal.” Kathryn’s intuition started flashing Danger! Danger! Marjorie angled herself away from the crowd. “I run Hollywood Research Inc. It’s the intelligence-gathering arm of Confidential.”
Kathryn wanted to tell the woman that the words “intelligence” and “Confidential” didn’t belong in the same sentence.
Meade continued, “Robert Harrison is my uncle and he wants to meet with you.” She swiped her hand through the air to silence Kathryn. “This is one meeting you’ll want to take. Tomorrow night. Eight o’clock at the Bar of Music on Beverly Boulevard.”
She disappeared into the crowd before Kathryn could tell her to take a hike.
* * *
Kathryn passed through the black lacquered doors of the Bar of Music and walked into a large room curved to resemble a grand piano. Nearly half the tables were occupied, but no one appeared to be paying attention to a quartet of dark-suited jazz musicians improvising a vaguely Cole-Porteresque melody.
Both photos that Kathryn had seen of Robert Harrison were grainy and unflattering, so she wasn’t too sure what she was looking for. She ordered a Four Roses on the rocks in the hope it would calm her nerves from the ugly fight she’d just walked out on.
She and Leo rarely quarreled, but this one had been a humdinger.
He had insisted on coming with her to meet with Harrison. She appreciated his protectiveness, but had objected to his you’re-just-a-woman tone. No, she’d told Leo. He couldn’t come because he simply wasn’t necessary.
“Not necessary?” He had thrown a sofa pillow, then his necktie. The Examiner soon followed. She’d hurled the bouquet of lilies he’d bought her and told him that surely by now he knew she wasn’t a shrinking violet. The rest of the argument had been a blur of cuss words until she’d stormed out.
The bartender placed the Four Roses in front of her. “Are you Kathryn Massey?” He pointed to a table against the south wall, where a solitary figure nursed a highball.
Robert Harrison wasn’t the outright sleaze she expected. He sported a professional shave and kept his hair carefully Brylcreemed in place. His white shirt was crisp and starched, and his dark gray silk tie with the light gray polka dots was the type of gift Kathryn might buy Marcus for Christmas.
But as soon as she sat down, she sensed the creep was greasy to the marrow.
“I thought you’d be more punctual.” Kathryn bristled at his undiplomatic opening line. “No matter; you’re here now.”
“Why am I here?”
His smile was reptilian. “Because you’re curious.”
“Your niece mentioned a proposal.”
He sipped his whiskey sour, sucking it through his teeth like it was industrial-strength mouthwash. “I want you to write for us.”
“WHAT?!” Several heads turned toward their table, except for the beatniks, who were too steeped in ennui to bother. “You can’t be serious.”
“I never joke about business.”
Kathryn knocked back a heavy slug and weighed up the pros and cons of throwing the remainder of her drink in his face.
“I want a stable of first-rate writers on my staff and I’ve long admired your work.”
“You must know what I think of yours.”
“Are you referring to that Garden of Eden article?”
“Among the hundreds of other appalling items you’ve published with no regard for truth.” She swiped up her handbag and prepared to stand.
“I’ll pay big bucks for the tips too hot for you to use.”
“What on God’s green earth makes you think—”
“I’m talking three.”
Kathryn’s handbag landed in her lap. “Three what?”
“Three grand. Per item.”
Kathryn polished off the rest of her Four Roses. “How can you possibly afford to pay so much?”
“Confidential’s newsstand sales will soon pass five million. I make approximately half a mill per issue.” He lit a Montecristo with the assurance of someone holding a royal flush. “What can I say? Scandal sells. And you can wipe that holier-than-thou look off your face. Dough like that is enough for Florabel Muir, Mike Todd, and Harry Cohn.”
“If Todd and Cohn are your tipsters, it’s because you’ve got the lowdown on them or the people who work for them, and you blackmail them into giving you dirt on someone else.”
“I can’t help it if the American public wants dirt and gossip—nor do I judge them for it. I simply report the news as I see it.
“The hell you do,” Kathryn replied. “Let’s talk about Rock Hudson.”
The bastard didn’t flinch. “What about him?”
“You bribed Jack Navaar ten thousand to spill the beans on Rock’s personal life, but Jack told Henry Willson that Confidential was after Rock. I don’t know what sort of deal Willson made with you, but I’m guessing he sacrificed some poor sap lower down the ladder.”
Kathryn had caught wind of this from Quentin at Paramount, who’d been dating a guy in Universal’s publicity department. He shouldn’t have divulged the story to her, but they were at the post-premiere party for Magnificent Obsession at the Biltmore and he had been dreadfully blotto.
“You need to recruit new tipsters, Miss Massey. Your current ones are feeding you faulty information. And besides,” Harrison waved his cigar around like it was some sort of surrender flag, “if Rock didn’t want it to be known that he’s a raging homo . . .”
Across the room, she spotted Nelson and Leo at a cocktail table.
Why the hell were the two men in her life sitting together? Who’d called whom and suggested they stake out the Bar of Music? They seemed cordial enough, but what were they talking about? Surely Nelson wouldn’t let on to Leo about their past?
Kathryn cut through Harrison’s attempt to whitewash the Rock Hudson situation. “You know where Sheldon Voss is, don’t you?”
Surprise rolled across his face, but only for a split second. “As a matter of fact I do.”
“Are the missing contents of Danford’s FBI file with him?”
He took his time grinding the cigar into an ashtray. Its pungent smoke rose above their table in a choking cloud. “A convicted politician from Massachusetts seems far removed from your gay social whirl.”
“He’s more Winchell’s interest than mine. I’m helping him out.” He blinked slowly at her, unconvinced. “I want you to take me to Voss. Right now.”
“And what’s in it for me?”
Naturally there had to be something in it for him. “A three-thousand-dollar scoop.”
“Oh?”
“For free.”
“Go on.”
“I don’t have one right at my fingertips. But the next one I get, it’s all yours.”
“You want me to take you to Voss on an IOU?”
“It’s the best I can do.” She ached to look at Leo and Nelson’s table. “Shall we go?”
Harrison’s Cadillac Eldorado glowed nicotine yellow in the sole lamplight of the Bar of Music’s parking lot. Harrison opened the passenger door.
Kathryn backed off. “I’ve got my own car. I’ll follow you.”
“If you want to see Voss . . .”
Neither Leo nor Nelson came charging out of the rear entrance.
She climbed in.
Beverly Boulevard led all the way into downtown, so Kathryn guessed Voss was holed up at some filthy dive where nobody would think to look for him. But they turned onto La Brea, then Wilshire.
Kathryn tilted her body until she had a full view in the side mirror. Two cars behind them could have been Leo’s Buick Roadmaster, but it was difficult to see among the shadows. She was comforted to know she might
not be alone, but it still unnerved her that the two men were together without her playing go-between.
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where we’re going,” she goaded cheerfully. “If I guess—WHOA!” The traffic lights ahead of them turned amber; Harrison hit the gas and roared through the intersection. “You always drive so recklessly?”
“I don’t believe in caution.”
Kathryn wanted to lecture the guy about taking other people into consideration, but this was the publisher whose recent cover headlines read, WHEN LANA TURNER SHARED A LOVER WITH AVA GARDNER and ORSON WELLES, HIS CHOCOLATE BON BON AND THE WHOOPSY WAITER.
The Ambassador Hotel had once represented the height of Hollywood chic, but had failed to keep up with the times. Ciro’s, Romanoff’s, and Mocambo had replaced the Cocoanut Grove, and the Beverly Wilshire and Beverly Hills Hotel were now the fashionable places to stay.
Harrison pulled into a deserted parking lot bordering the east wing. Paint splintered off the walls; newspaper was taped to a broken ground-floor window; the flowerbeds lay barren. Inside, the hallway carpeting frayed at the edges and smelled like a forgotten shut-in whose only companions were old cats and sepia memories.
They rode the elevator to the sixth floor, where Harrison let himself into room 617. It was an expansive suite with room for a quartet of love seats arranged in a square, and a dining area large enough for eight. Past the table, Kathryn could see a bedroom with two double beds and a blue-and-white tiled bathroom beyond that.
Sheldon Voss stood in the middle of the room wearing a dingy undershirt and baggy trousers that hung from his hips. It took him a heartbeat or two to register Kathryn’s face. “You brought this bitch here without warning me?”
“If I had telephoned ahead, would you have answered?”
Harrison crossed to a bookshelf where seven or eight different bottles of booze stood in varying stages of consumption. He helped himself to a drink without offering Kathryn one. “I told you that if need be, I would bring her back here, which is why I suggested that you might want to clean yourself up.” He dropped an empty bottle into the metal trashcan next to the desk, landing it with a loud clatter. “But finishing the Gordon’s gin was more important.”
Voss lumbered toward one of the sofas. “When I came to you—”
“When you came to me you were sober,” Harrison shot back. “Big plans spouting out like you were the Bethesda Fountain.”
Kathryn could tell this was the latest installment of an ongoing argument, but she was in no mood to stand in a room stinking of cigarettes and body odor, listening to another round.
“I’m here for the missing contents of my father’s FBI file,” she announced.
Voss thumped the back of the sofa, making a deep dent in the sun-faded upholstery. “What did you tell her?”
Harrison knocked off the rest of his drink and poured a second. “She’s a sharp piece of work, which is more than I can say about you.”
Voss pointed a trembling finger at Kathryn. “Did Little Miss Sharp Piece of Work tell you that she’s my niece? And that I’m her uncle? Thomas Danford is her father.” Voss lurched toward the bathroom, muttering about pissing himself to death.
Harrison waited until Voss kicked the door shut. “Is that true?”
He’s learned not to believe everything Voss tells him. “When was the last time you guys cracked a window around here?” Kathryn fanned herself with her handbag. It wasn’t very big and didn’t make much of a breeze. “Information came to light indicating Danford and I might be related. I got a PI to look into it but nothing added up.”
“This private eye you hired—that wouldn’t be the guy sitting with your boyfriend at the Bar of Music, would it? Dudley Hartman’s new partner? Ex-FBI, right?”
Running the red light had been a deliberate attempt to lose them, but she needed to reestablish her credibility if she was going to get her hands on those documents.
“For what it’s worth, I was more than a little mad to see them there. Like most men, Leo seems to think I need protection.”
“Louella, Hedda, Sheilah, Florabel—you’re all much savvier than your editors give you credit for. I’d rather work with you girls than all the Winchells put together.”
She would have been inclined to believe such candied words had they come from anyone but this ambulance-chasing bottom-feeder.
“Have you and Winchell had a spat?”
“It was a mutually beneficial friendship until it wasn’t. I never fully trusted him—and vice versa.”
“I assume it was Winchell who stole most of the contents of the file?”
Harrison nodded, preoccupied now.
“Are they here?”
He snapped out of his reverie with a vigorous intake of air. “Now that I know your interest in the Danford case, all this melodrama makes sense. I’m happy to give you everything—” Kathryn’s heart leapt “—but—” he headed toward the bedroom “—Sheldon has stashed it in one of the drawers of his bureau. While I’m looking for it, come up with quid pro quo. And make it useful.” He opened the door Voss had kicked shut and closed it with a quiet click.
Kathryn spotted a bottle of bourbon on the desk. It wasn’t Four Roses but it’d suffice. She splashed some into the cleanest glass she could find and gulped it down as she tried to think of a juicy morsel.
She was pouring a refill when she remembered the increasingly persistent rumors about Frank Sinatra and his mob connections. They were only hearsay, but he’d failed to fix Marcus’s passport situation, so the hell with him.
Then again, he was part of the so-called Holmby Hills Rat Pack that included a number of people she knew, like Garden of Allah’ers Bogie and Bacall, David Niven, and Robert Benchley’s son, Nathaniel, as well as Judy Garland, George Cukor, and Katharine Hepburn. She needed to think more carefully before she offered up Sinatra as a sacrificial lamb.
Something weighty thudded in the other room, followed by muffled shouting. Kathryn opened the door. The striped satin bed linen was half-tumbled onto the floor as though it had been thrown aside in a hurry. Room-service trays and dishes lay alongside half-empty bottles of booze and soda. Every ashtray was full.
The two men were tussling with an envelope similar to the one Felix Miller had delivered. Voss grew more and more red-faced and sweaty as he tried to pull it out of Harrison’s grip. “Let! It! Go!” He released a catalog of cuss words that would’ve made his radio audience faint.
“Keep it down!” Kathryn hissed. “Someone might call management.” The room stank like a city dump. “What a couple of pigs!” She opened the room’s only window.
Voss swung more and more widely, trying to twist free of Harrison’s grip, and almost managed to tip him off his balance, but the guy recovered quickly.
“I’m sick of your shit!” Harrison yelled. They reeled and scuffled all over the room. “You’re a useless! Sloppy! Drunken! Has-been!” He let out an almighty grunt as he finally wrenched the thick envelope from Voss’s grasp, causing Voss to stagger onto a satin pillowcase trailing on the floor. He skidded sideways, flinging out his hands. Kathryn caught the briefest glimpse of terror in Voss’s eyes before he pitched backward through the open window and disappeared.
She stifled the scream that rose in her throat.
Harrison looked wildly around the room. “Where did he go?”
Kathryn ran toward the window; Harrison joined her. They leaned forward and peeked out. Voss lay face down, motionless among the weeds in the neglected flowerbed five stories down.
Harrison shrank from the glass. “This evening never happened. Except for my offer. It still stands.”
He bolted from the room.
“Stop!” Kathryn whispered. “What if he’s not dead?”
He halted, his hand gripping the knob of the suite’s front door.
“If he’s still alive, who knows what he’ll say?” she pointed out. “And who he’ll say it to. We need to go down there.”
Harrison ch
ecked the corridor, then beckoned her. They said nothing as they raced down the stairwell at the end and onto the hotel’s western lawn. Winter chill had cooled the night air. As far as Kathryn could see, nobody was rubbernecking out of their hotel window. She grew breathless as they approached the body.
Voss’s arms and legs were flung out at awkward angles.
“Is he breathing? We need to be sure.”
“Do you know how to do that?” Harrison’s voice was as hoarse as hers.
“You want me to check his pulse?”
“I have an aversion to cadavers.”
“You think I’m a fan?” Kathryn looked at Harrison but he had turned away. She bent down and touched Voss’s right wrist. His skin was warm and the stench of liquor and tobacco still radiated from him. She pressed two fingers to his pulse. “He’s gone.”
“Okay, then,” Harrison said. “I’m off.”
“Shouldn’t we get our stories straight?” Kathryn asked.
“We had our meeting at the Bar of Music where I made you an offer. The end.”
“We were seen leaving together.”
“Yes, but only by your boyfriend and the private eye. You can take care of them, can’t you?”
Kathryn’s breath grew shallow. “I guess.”
“Good luck.” Harrison pulled his Homburg down and took off toward the parking lot.
Dazed with panic, Kathryn turned away from Voss’s body and considered her options. Her vehicle was back at the bar. Could she risk a taxi? Or call Leo? Or Nelson? Or Gwendolyn?
None of those options was ideal, but she couldn’t stand there all night next to a cadaver.
A realization struck her so hard she nearly buckled at the weight of it.
The FBI envelope—where was it?
Think! THINK!
The two men had been tussling over it. Harrison had yanked it out of Voss’s hands. Voss had fallen through the window. But what had Harrison done with it after that? He hadn’t had it with him when they’d bolted out of the room.
Was it somewhere in that pigsty?
Five stories up, she reentered the deserted hallway. Twenty years ago, it would have been busy with revelers starting their evening’s entertainment.
City of Myths Page 31
