Kathryn tried to pull her back. “It’s better if you don’t know.”
Gwendolyn wrestled herself free from Kathryn’s grip and looked down at a US Navy map of the coastline at the northern end of Long Island, pinpointing where the German U-boats were supposed to land.
“Is this what I think it is?” Gwendolyn asked.
Kathryn saw now that she should have done a better job of averting the curiosity aroused by holing up in her villa. “Uh-huh.”
“Enough to prove his innocence?”
“I think so.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to?”
“I wanted to give you plausible deniability in case the merde hits the fan.”
Gwendolyn crouched down to read an internal FBI memo that summarized Voss’s background. It was the only one that mentioned Kathryn Massey by name. Gwendolyn looked up at her with skeptical eyes. “How did you all get this?”
“It fell out of the sky.”
Gwendolyn stood up, unconvinced. “What happens now?”
“Show it to Dudley Hartman.”
“Or Nelson.”
Kathryn shook her head.
“You’re avoiding him, aren’t you?” Gwendolyn asked.
“It’s easier.”
“In the short run, maybe.” She seized Kathryn by the shoulders and pointed her toward the bedroom. “Meanwhile, we’ve got guests coming.”
* * *
Gwendolyn exited Kathryn’s villa unnerved by what she had seen. Surely the punishment for possession of FBI property was significant? As she returned to the long table where Gardenites had deposited their contributions, Gwendolyn wondered if she was now an accessory after the fact. And what did “It fell out of the sky” mean?
Monty showed up with an armful of tiki torches. Doris trailed behind, holding a bunch, too. “Did you find Kathryn?”
“You know what she’s like,” Gwendolyn replied. “Work, work, work. She’ll be out in a minute.”
In her absence, someone had added Swedish meatballs, clam-cheese on crackers, and a pineapple upside-down cake. “Did you make all this?” she asked.
Doris pointed behind Gwendolyn.
She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she’d failed to notice Bogie and Lauren sitting on the diving board, sharing a cigarette.
“You walked right past us,” Bogie noted with a mocking grin.
“Like we weren’t even here,” Lauren added.
“Sorry!” Gwendolyn greeted them with a hug. “We’re not quite as organized as I would like. I didn’t even think about dessert, so thank you for the cake.”
“It’s not like you to be in disarray.”
“It’s all my fault! I fumbled the ball!” Kathryn hurried up the gravel path. “My plate’s been even more full than usual lately. Can I make martinis?” She turned to Gwendolyn. Do we have gin?
Gwendolyn pointed out the patio table she’d designated as the bar where she’d set up an array of rum and mixers. “We’re doing Mai Tais, but tonight they’re called Bette’s Bitch.”
By the time Kathryn had made a batch of Bette’s Bitch in the glass pitcher Gwendolyn had filched from Marcus’s belongings stored in the basement, Monty had lit the torches, and Clark had arrived with the ice. Quentin Luckett showed up with a couple of friends from Paramount, one of whom had worked boom mics at Warners during Bette’s 1930s and 40s heyday. Charles LeMaire arrived with his wife before Bette made her entrance through the French doors of the Garden’s bar.
“Ta-da!”
Conversation halted as everybody took in the sight of Bette Davis in an orange pleated skirt, matching three-quarter-sleeved jacket, and zebra-striped blouse. But nobody was looking at what she wore because Bette Davis had shaved her head.
“Didn’t anyone tell you people that it’s rude to stare?” The flames of Monty’s torches reflected in her pink skin, licking the sides of her scalp. “Think it’ll catch on?”
Bogie asked the question that everybody was thinking. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”
Bette pointed to the cocktail in his hand. “I don’t suppose there’s a spare one for me.”
Gwendolyn hijacked Kathryn’s and brought it to her. Bette took a long, theatrical sip. “I’m playing Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen.”
“I never figured you for a Stanislavski girl,” Lauren commented.
“When I did Elizabeth and Essex, I shaved off two inches from my hairline, but growing it back again was a nightmare. So I decided to get rid of the whole lot, figuring that once we were done, it would all sprout back uniformly.” Bette bowed her head down. “Go on,” she told Gwendolyn. “You can touch it if you like.”
Gwendolyn ran her fingertips over Bette’s disconcertingly smooth skin.
“It’s like a baby’s bottom, isn’t it?”
Over Bette’s shoulder a figure appeared on the gravel path that led to the parking lot. He stood outside the patches of flaming lights, but from his hands-in-pockets slouch, Gwendolyn knew who it was.
She caught Kathryn’s attention and flicked a sly glance in the guy’s direction.
* * *
Kathryn sidled up to Nelson Hoyt with a party-ready smile plastered on her face. “What are you doing here?”
“Call it a hunch.”
She waved to Charles LeMaire, who’d just arrived with his wife. Charles had been tasked with designing Bette’s ornate Elizabethan gowns, so it seemed appropriate that they invite him. But now that everyone was gathering disturbingly close to her living room, Kathryn wished she had suggested the back room at Chasen’s for this party instead.
“A hunch about what?” she asked.
“According to Leo, you and Harrison drove around and talked after he lost us in traffic.”
“You and Leo talk often?”
“The next morning, the papers were full of your uncle’s snapped neck at the Ambassador. And then complete radio silence from you. Leo told me that he’s barely seen you since that night.”
“What else do you and Leo talk about?”
“So I say to myself, Hmm. I’ve got all the puzzle pieces: Kathryn, Voss, Harrison. Winchell must be in there somewhere, but nothing’s adding up. I figure she’ll be ready to talk sooner or later, but it’s been two weeks, so the mountain has come to Mohammed.”
“Sorry, but Miss Mohammed is hosting a party—”
“Where’s Leo?”
“You tell me.”
“You don’t know where your fiancé is?”
Kathryn felt her face redden. She told Nelson to follow her, and took off toward her villa. Two minutes later, they were standing in front of the grid of papers.
“Did you push Voss out the window?”
The shock of his question jettisoned her reply before she had a chance to temper it. “It was an accident. There were these bed sheets—on the floor—silky ones—slippery—he fell out.” Nelson didn’t need to know that she was the one who had opened the window. “I swear!”
“And I believe you.”
He wrapped his arms around her and she let her head fall against his chest. “God, it was awful.”
He began to stroke her hair. She felt safe, protected. She caught the tang of freshly applied shaving cream. Had he cleaned himself up on the off-chance he’d find her at home? She was flattered, but none of this was right. She might not know where Leo was, but he was still her fiancé. Pulling away from him, she waved her hand over the arrangement. “I’m no legal expert but I think it’s enough. So what now?”
“If you trust me with all this—”
“Of course I do. More than you probably know.”
He smiled for the first time. “That means more to me than you probably know.” The longing gaze returned, but a squeal of laughter near the pool broke the mood. “Here’s the thing: only Governor Sheehan can pardon Danford. However, he benefited from your father’s misfortune, so let’s not count on him coming to the rescue.”
“What about Danford’s lawyer?
”
“This is stolen evidence.”
“He was already a goner. I simply picked it up as I left the room.”
“It’s inadmissible in court. This stuff needs to go back where it came from. And we need you-know-who’s help.”
“It was hard enough to trust Winchell in the first place. Now I have to trust him to get it back in the FBI vaults?” Kathryn slumped onto the doorjamb separating her living room from her foyer. The party noise outside felt so incongruous with what she was feeling. “All right, let’s do that.”
“We can’t.”
“We don’t even have that option?”
“Hoover and Winchell have had a bitter falling-out and now Winchell won’t have anything to do with him, or the FBI, especially if it means they could take the credit.”
“Does that leave us with anybody?”
“Just one.”
“Who?”
“Hoover himself.”
Before Kathryn could gather her thoughts, Nelson leaned in.
* * *
Gwendolyn spotted Kathryn reemerging from her villa as the conversation shifted to one of Fox’s big summer hopes, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, which would start filming next month. Bogie’s new picture, The Left Hand of God, was due to go into production around the same time, and the month after that, Gable’s The Tall Men.
“With all that going on,” Bette exclaimed, “plus my Virgin Queen and Billy Wilder’s Seven Year Itch in the summer, it looks like Fox has taken MGM’s place at the top of the heap. Zanuck must feel like he’s king of the world.”
“He barely even cares.”
Bella Darvi stood next to a huge mask of a Polynesian god called Ku. She wore a figure-hugging sheath in layered vermillion silk that Gwendolyn had made for her European press junket. At the time she hadn’t been sure the outfit worked, but with Darvi standing with Ku on one side and a flaming torch on the other, it certainly made its mark.
Earlier that month, The Racers—in which Kirk Douglas played an Italian racing car driver to Bella’s improbable ballerina—had bombed at the box office. Despite her implacably indifferent façade, Gwendolyn could tell Bella was despondent, so she had invited her to the party, never thinking she’d show up.
“I ain’t buying it,” Clark responded. “That guy lives, sleeps, and breathes Hollywood.”
Bella shrugged. “He’s getting sick of the day-to-day grind of churning out movie after movie. He wants to run away to Europe with me. Perhaps not tomorrow, but some day.”
“Has he shared with you his idea of a possible replacement?” Kathryn asked.
“Buddy Adler.”
Buddy was the producer on Soldier of Fortune and Bogie’s Left Hand of God, as well as Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.
“Trust me,” Bella said with a smug smile, “he’s dropping the ball on many fronts. He thinks of himself as Mister Movie Mogul and refuses to see that television production is a lucrative form of income. Even I know that, and I don’t give two hoots about such things.”
This revelation—that Zanuck might soon be leaving Twentieth Century-Fox as the studio was approaching its long-nurtured zenith—was the sort of news that could tip the balance of power within the entire industry.
Clark looked around. “Bogie needs to hear this. Where is he?”
Gwendolyn knew exactly where Bogie was: sitting with Kathryn in what looked like a confidential powwow behind the mask of Kahoalii, god of the underworld.
* * *
Kathryn didn’t know where to begin. With everything that had been going on, she’d forgotten about Marcus’s request. She felt like the world’s most horrible friend when she saw Bogie and realized she’d done nothing.
“If I’d known you were going to take this long to talk,” he said, “I’d have refilled my Bette’s Bitch.” He tried to loosen her up with a grin, but he only succeeded in looking like every gangster he’d played on the screen. “Who was that guy I saw you sneaking into your place with? The shifty-looking one. Handsome, though, in an offbeat sort of way. You’re not stepping out on Leo, are you?” He lifted his hands. “Not that it’s my business. When things started up with wife number four, I was still with number three, so . . .”
Things were complicated enough, but did Nelson have to plant that kiss? Telling her she needed to approach Hoover was like a left hook, but the kiss that followed was a one-two punch.
When Nelson had apologized, she’d told him it was only the high emotions running rampant. When he apologized again, she admitted that she enjoyed it, which prompted him to kiss her a third time. After they’d broken apart, she’d smoothed her hair while he adjusted the bulge in his pants. She told him to collect up the papers in order and let himself out and then left a little breathless.
“It’s about Marcus.”
Bogie pressed his pockets for cigarettes. “I thought I’d see him tonight.”
“He’s still in Rome—but not by choice.”
Kathryn filled Bogie in on the saga of Marcus and his passport. When Bogie asked what the hell Marcus was going to do, she said, “That’s where you come in.”
Kathryn sensed a shift of mood in the party. She looked across the pool to see an arresting figure dressed in bright red standing alone, backlit by tiki flames. She was too far away to be sure, but if it was Bella Darvi, then Bette wasn’t going to be happy about losing the spotlight to the stacked brunette currently bedding the boss of half the people at this party. She had to make this quick before the contents of Pandora’s box were unleashed.
“It concerns the Holmby Hills Rat Pack.”
“Does it also concern Ingrid Bergman? I got a letter from her the other day.”
“Did she tell you how Sinatra exacted revenge by using his mafia connections to get Marcus’s passport confiscated? And how we need you to prevail on him to use those same connections to undo what he’s done?”
Bogie lit a match. The light flared in his face, revealing a wariness in his eyes. “That’s pretty much the size of it.”
“Will you talk to him?”
“From what I understand, Frank’s already tried. And besides, we’re talking the Italian mafia here, so I’m not sure what good will—”
“Ask Frank about what happened when he and DiMaggio went after Marilyn with a baseball bat.”
“Christ on a cracker, do I even want to know about that?”
“I do.”
Lauren Bacall stepped out from behind the Kahoalii mask and sat beside her husband. “Frank’s our friend,” she told Bogie, crossing her arms. “If he’s committed an act of idiocy and we can help him undo it, we will. And sometimes a woman can get through to a man better than a man can.”
“Oh, really?” Bogie sneered, half in jest, but only half.
She told him to shut up, then turned to Kathryn. “I’ve heard rumors but I want to know the whole story. I felt protective of Marilyn when we were filming How to Marry a Millionaire, so if she’s suffered at the hands of one of our friends, I want to help put that right, too. What’s the point of having a Rat Pack if we don’t have each other’s backs?” She fixed Kathryn with a very Bacall stare. “Tell me everything.”
* * *
“You know,” Monty said, holding the plate of Swedish meatballs skewered with toothpicks, “maybe this explains why Zanuck hasn’t nailed down the screen option rights for On the Deck of the Missouri.”
Clark shot a quizzical look at Gwendolyn, who returned it with a this-is-news-to-me shrug. “What do you mean?”
Monty plucked a meatball off the platter and brandished it toward Bella. “This here gal is saying how Zanuck is starting to check out of the movie game, so I’m thinking maybe he’s dropped the ball on the contract he’s been promising ’cause I ain’t seen hide nor hair of it.”
Zanuck had launched his best charm offensive on Clark in an effort to get him to sign on for the movie version of Monty’s memoir. He’d dangled the name of John Ford as a possible director knowing that Ford had directed
Clark in Mogambo, his biggest hit since the war.
But Clark had been reluctant to sign on without reading the book first, so Monty had given him his author galleys. It was probably against the rules because the book wasn’t due out for another month, but as Monty told Gwendolyn, “If I can trust the guy not to punch my brains out, I guess I can trust him with a book.”
It was a shrewd move—Clark saw the book’s screen potential and with Clark’s name in the mix, Monty could jack up the price. Gwendolyn assumed that the deal was in place, but she could see from the blank look on Clark’s face that nothing had happened yet.
“Let me get this straight,” Gwendolyn said to her brother. “Zanuck hasn’t ever made you an offer to buy the rights to On the Deck of the Missouri?”
“Nope.”
“Written, verbal, or otherwise?” Clark asked.
“Not even on a banana peel.”
Gwendolyn plucked a meatball off Monty’s platter and turned to Clark. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
CHAPTER 39
The main dining room of the Café de Paris on Via Veneto bubbled with the chatter of Romans who’d performed their weekly penance of attending Sunday services and were now free to commit as many of the seven deadly sins as their urges dictated.
The menus were black with a line drawing of a large rooster in blue, yellow, and red. Marcus didn’t dare peek over it. “Are they there yet?”
Domenico stole a glance. “The table’s still empty.”
“But it’s past one o’clock.”
“I hate to ask,” Trevor said with a laugh fueled by a trail of Negronis that Marcus suspected led back to mid-morning, “but are you sure Ingrid Bergman can be counted on? I mean, you’ve already mailed those photos; what’s in it for her?”
“She’ll hold up her end of the bargain.”
“She did help Marcus steal that monsignor cassock,” Domenico pointed out.
The costume had become a point of friction as soon as he’d discovered it in Marcus’s closet. Domenico’s asking about the stolen vestment confronted Marcus with the reality that this also meant saying goodbye, and now he wasn’t so sure he wanted to.
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