Hoodwink

by Rhonda Roberts

  I’d seen many different kinds of nineteenth century costumes since we entered MacVille Park but Honeycutt’s was the only Civil War one. I turned to ask Carole about the doorman’s reaction but she’d spotted a friend inside and was now talking animatedly to her about their choice of flowers. Her friend was dressed as a pink and white daisy.

  Just inside the door there was a cloakroom to the left, a wide corridor straight ahead and a carpeted lounge to the right filled with chatty guests sipping champagne and enjoying the view.

  Honeycutt and I crossed into the lounge to wait for Carole.

  ‘Where the hell did you get to, Dupree?’ said Honeycutt ominously. ‘I have half a mind to send you back here and now!’

  ‘Oh, cut it out, Honeycutt! There was someone next to Merlin Jones’ tomb dressed up as one of those malignant little dolls Earl’s been receiving. I would’ve told you first, but you went off to talk to the Guild vice president. What else could I do? I had to follow them.’

  He dropped his fuming back a notch. ‘Okay, Kannon, that sounds reasonable. But don’t do it again!’

  I bit down on my instinctive reaction and said as coolly as I could manage, ‘If you’re not around, Honeycutt, then I’m going to do whatever I have to do to break this case! It all finishes tomorrow night, don’t forget.’

  ‘Don’t push me, Kannon!’

  I ignored that. ‘So what happened with the vice pres’? Did you get us in?’

  ‘No. Humbolt said the Guild president was making that decision,’ he replied impatiently. ‘Now, tell me who the doll was?’

  ‘They’re called Blight Dolls. And they’re Mayan.’

  He blinked. ‘So you have been busy. Who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know, they ran off … which seems to indicate they’re the same person who’s been sending the bloody things to Earl. I ended up chasing them down into Dead Horse Canyon but lost them after that.’

  ‘That place is supposed to be haunted, isn’t it?’

  ‘So Carole gave you the spiel about Merlin Jones’ murder on the way past the turn-off?’ I said. ‘There were some very weird people down in that canyon and I think …’

  ‘Don’t try and change the subject, Kannon. I want to know why this doll-person ran away from you?’ He was starting to simmer again. ‘Are you saying they recognised you?’

  ‘Yes. They must know I’ve replaced Phyllis.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this, Kannon. Why was this lunatic near you in the first place? According to Carole, Earl should already be in the Guild ballroom, so why’s this psycho down at the cemetery shadowing you?’

  A vision of the doll scratched into my car door flashed into my mind.

  ‘I don’t know, Honeycutt,’ I snapped. ‘You’re just being paranoid.’

  His eyes narrowed.

  ‘Will you just shut up and listen to me for a minute!’ I said, trying to forestall any further questions about the doll. ‘While I was down in Dead Horse Canyon I found out that there’s going to be an alternative séance held there at the exact same time as the one in Merlin’s tomb. Carole reckons no one outside the Guild can get into the official one, so you need to talk to Selznick and find which séance Renfrow is attending. If it’s the one in Dead Horse Canyon then we’ll have no access problems at all.’

  Honeycutt looked over my shoulder. ‘Here comes Carole.’ He stared at me, hard. ‘But I think we need to have a long talk about this Blight Doll, Kannon … And why you’re lying to me!’

  Damn! He was onto me.

  Carole came up behind us. ‘Let’s go into the ballroom, we don’t want to miss anything.’

  We followed her down the black-and-white tiled corridor.

  The ballroom was spectacular: two storeys high with a fan-vaulted ceiling straight out of a Gothic cathedral. There were permanent wooden pews in stepped rows to the left and right sides of the room, suggesting that it doubled as the Guild Council’s parliament.

  But the stern Gothic particulars of the ballroom were disguised. At the far end of the room a baby-blue silk tent covered the ceiling above the dais where the band was playing. A thick layer of fluffy cotton clouds hung down from the vaulted ceiling to just above the diners seated at the tables. Each of the round dining tables had a big golden harp as a centrepiece and the waiters were all dressed as angels, with wings strapped to their backs and halos on their heads.

  Given the pièce de résistance of the night, the séance, was supposed to present proof of life after death, I was guessing the ballroom was supposed to be Heaven.

  I kept pace with Carole as she plunged into the packed dining area in the first half of the room. The noise from the tables was overlaid with swing music. Just beyond the tables, couples jived to the music played by a band dressed in white tuxedos and black ties.

  The room was so jam-packed full of people table-hopping that it was difficult to see exactly where the Selznick table could be. As we squeezed through I recognised faces that I’d seen in my files. Movie stars, Hollywood moguls, studio heads, directors and big-time producers.

  ‘There they are.’ I followed Carole’s eye-line.

  Earl Curtis and David O. Selznick were seated at a table right up the front, next to the dance floor. Selznick was dressed as a rather crumpled-looking priest and busy arguing with an odd-looking man in drag seated to his left. Earl was a Spanish grandee, navy velvet doublet, pointed black beard and all. It suited his dark hair and widow’s peak, and he knew it.

  He was smooching a woman dressed as a pink rose.

  Of course.

  As we edged our way along I asked Carole, ‘Why are there so many movie stars here? Isn’t it a bit too spiritual?’

  ‘You’d think so,’ she said, resigned. ‘But this ball is about business as much as anything else.’

  ‘But movies?’

  ‘Oh yeah. The Guild’s been involved with moving pictures ever since Hollywood started. They’ve been advising bankers and politicians from across the country ever since the last century. What stock to buy. Who to appoint to the board. Where the market is going. That list includes a few who invested in the moving picture business. One of them got sick of travelling to and from California and decided to set up his studio here in Los Angeles. That’s a big part of why Hollywood took off.’

  ‘To be close to the Guild?’

  ‘Yes, basically. Well, everyone wants certainty, don’t they? Particularly bankers.’ She nodded her head at a table on our left. ‘And not only Hollywood is here. See that table? The man wearing the Indian chief costume is Frank Shaw …’

  Eve had mentioned that name. ‘Shaw is the mayor of Los Angeles …’

  ‘Yep. Avoid him if you can — Shaw’s as corrupt and nasty as they come.’ She gave him a contemptuous glance. ‘And don’t dance with him either, if you can get out of it. He’s an octopus. Oh, and be careful of the creep sitting next to Shaw, the one in the cowboy outfit. That’s Jimmy Davis, the chief of Police.’

  The mayor caught sight of her and rose to his feet. ‘Carole, baby … you don’t return my calls …’

  She took one step backwards into the crowd but Frank Shaw was fast enough on his feet to pre-empt her escape.

  Honeycutt instinctively blocked Shaw from getting close enough to embrace her.

  ‘Frank, you came to the ball,’ said Carole, with thinly masked irritation.

  ‘Of course I did. You know I always have a table here for my special visitors.’ The mayor turned to his guests. ‘Everyone, I’d like you to meet my favourite Hollywood star … Carole Lombard.’

  The men stood while their wives and dates masked their not-so-polite envy at having some Hollywood hussy take the spotlight.

  Carole switched on her glamour and gave one and all a neon smile. ‘Good evening.’ She introduced us and then Shaw went around the table presenting his guests.

  Nearly all the men were politicians, except for the last two.

  ‘And this is Charles Gibson …’ said the mayor smugly. He preene
d himself as though we should all be honoured at the wealthy industrialist’s presence.

  Carole said, more with politeness than pleasure, ‘It’s good to see you again, Charles.’

  Charles Gibson was well over six foot tall and broad with it. He had light blond hair and the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

  They were so pale he looked blind.

  I didn’t like them and I didn’t like him.

  He surveyed us all with a bored air, as though we were merely sheep with whom he was compelled to mingle.

  And he was the only person in MacVille Park, other than Honeycutt, wearing a Civil War uniform …

  Only Gibson wore a blue Union officer’s frock coat, complete with hat and sword.

  He was a general … of course.

  Gibson examined Honeycutt’s grey Confederate corporal’s uniform in icy detail.

  There was a glint in his pale eyes, and not a particularly friendly one either. ‘Now why would you want to wear that particular costume tonight?’ he observed silkily.

  ‘You have a problem with it, Gibson?’ urged Honeycutt, his honeyed French accent completely abandoned.

  They bristled at each other, rivals at a glance.

  I elbowed Honeycutt in the ribs. I didn’t like Gibson either but this was wasting time.

  He ignored me. ‘And just who are you impersonating?’

  Gibson gave a predatory smile. ‘William Tecumseh Sherman, of course … who else?’

  The bitter Union general who’d forced Atlanta to its knees and then made the defeated South howl …

  The two big men in their enemy uniforms studied each other like prize fighters digging for a useful weakness.

  It felt like the Civil War had restarted.

  ‘Now, Charles,’ said Carole, intervening. ‘That reminds me, Clark won’t be able to go hunting with you next Sunday after all.’

  Gibson shifted his mocking pale gaze back to Carole.

  He was not pleased.

  ‘I heard some of that radio broadcast Clark Gable did with Vivien Leigh last week,’ said Mayor Shaw, butting in. ‘That was on one of your stations, wasn’t it, Charles?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Gibson. He nodded at the big beefy man next to him in yet another Abraham Lincoln costume. ‘Elden wrote a play specially for them.’

  His pal Elden made Lincoln look like a gone-to-seed wrestler. Yet the man’s heavy features seemed vaguely familiar …

  The aristocratic industrialist and his loutish employee made a strange pair.

  ‘It was a Gothic Southern murder mystery, wasn’t it?’ asked Mayor Shaw.

  Carole tutted. ‘Yes, and Elden, let me tell you, it was quite something to hear my husband play a Southern vampire.’ She laughed but it was nervous.

  ‘Yeah … though I think I’m onto a different angle now,’ said Elden, rolling his mean little eyes around the room. ‘This spiritualism crap is giving me a lot of new ideas. I think The Grave Digger might have to visit MacVille Park.’

  The Grave Digger?

  So Elden was responsible for that cheesy radio play that Otis and the gang had been listening to last night …

  ‘And how is Gone with the Wind rolling along, Carole?’ asked Shaw with sarcastic curiosity. ‘I keep hearing rumours that Selznick’s run out of money.’

  Carole almost levitated with anxiety. ‘Sorry, Frank, but we have to go …’

  We all followed her eye-line. David O. Selznick was standing at his table and waving to Carole with all the imperious frenzy of a drowning emperor.

  He wanted us over there — now.

  ‘You know the drill, Frank, when the boss calls …’ said Carole apologetically.

  Before the offended mayor could object we plunged back into the crowd.

  As we got closer to the dance floor I could see there was a long table running across the front of it. Everyone else in the room was bubbling over with high spirits and good liquor, but the people, mainly men, at the long table were as sour as cold coffee. None of them wore costumes and they were all scowling … in particular the balding little man at the head of the table. He had a pushed out chest, like a cock about to crow, and a coarse, bushy moustache that was quivering with resentment at something a tall thin man further down the table had just said.

  ‘Who are the killjoys at the long table?’ I asked.

  Carole said with disgust, ‘Oh, that’s Osgood Quincy Bumstead, the Guild president, and the council. The internal politics seem to be getting worse each year. Not everyone’s happy about the way Bumstead is handling tonight.’

  ‘Carole! Carole! Get over here!’ Selznick yelled, agitated at the delay.

  Earl, on the other hand, had obviously recovered from his hangover and was having a great time. He was swigging back a flute of champagne with one hand and feeding his date, a young brunette, a dab of caviar on his index finger with the other. She was licking it off with a highly professional amount of enthusiasm.

  Selznick stood up again in order to hustle everyone out of the way and get Honeycutt properly seated. With every second breath he berated Carole for delaying our arrival and ensuring we missed dinner.

  Carole opened her mouth to give him a serve, then thought better of it.

  Honeycutt sat next to Selznick, I sat next to Honeycutt and Carole sat opposite. Selznick clicked his fingers and an angelically dressed waiter appeared to fill our champagne glasses and give us lukewarm dinner plates.

  Then the introductions started … They were all producers and directors and their dates. Except, that is, for the man in drag seated on the other side of Selznick. He was bizarre but he still looked familiar. He was thin and dark, with big, slightly bulging eyes and a thin black moustache that made him seem like a particularly ratty pirate.

  Which was strange because he was dressed as the voodoo version of Queen Victoria.

  I knew it was her because he was wearing the British crown, had a stiff material throne tacked to the back of his costume like some kind of mutant Elizabethan collar and there was a map of the British Empire sewn across his abundant but false bosom. There were shrunken heads sitting on top of each end of the throne … they also had crowns on them.

  He was staring around him as though peeved that other people’s costumes were detracting attention from his.

  Selznick took pleasure in the introduction. ‘Daniel Devereaux, I’d like you to meet my other special guest, Alphonse Dada.’

  Ah. I knew I knew that face.

  Alphonse Dada was the French surrealist painter famous for his eerie portraits. It was his portrait of Earl that I’d seen in Ceiba House when I visited Susan.

  Hmm … interesting.

  Dada surveyed us both with a cynical interest.

  ‘Daniel,’ said Selznick, ‘I’ve been telling Alphonse about your art collection.’

  ‘A collector.’ Dada’s French accent was softer than his dark eyes. They gleamed with a too-sharp interest. ‘And a wealthy one too …’

  Before Dada could pursue possible art sales, Selznick cut him off, saying, ‘Alphonse is over here to work with me on a film project I’m developing. You may be interested, Daniel. I want to put Freud’s theories of the unconscious on the screen. Dada is going to do the art, of course.’

  ‘But, David, really …’ Dada pursed his lips. ‘We can’t use one of Freud’s own cases. They are so utterly boring … all frustrated housewives and bank clerks obsessed with their bowel movements.’ He sniffed. ‘They are so bourgeois. Why not use someone more up-to-date, a practitioner on the cutting edge of psychoanalysis?’

  Dada shot an expectant look at Earl, but he was too busy knocking back another glass of champagne to have heard.

  Miffed, the artist practically shouted, ‘I’ve heard about a Dr Murchison … who uses a revolutionary new analytical technique.’

  ‘What?’ Earl caught that. ‘Are you talking about Dr Constance Murchison?’

  ‘Is she the one who uses Regression Therapy?’ Dada twirled his pirate’s moustache with
evident glee at his target’s response.

  ‘Yes. Actually she is sitting just over there.’ Earl pointed to the Guild Council table just across from us.

  We all turned.

  ‘She’s the luscious blonde ice maiden with her hair in a French roll and the steel-framed glasses.’ Earl seemed to sink into his own private erotic fantasy as he contemplated her. ‘She’s sitting next to Bumstead.’

  So that was Earl’s psychiatrist?

  Dada gazed at Dr Murchison then back at Earl and smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. ‘Ah, she’s perfect. She looks like a steel-plated Angel of Mercy.’

  No one wanted to ask him what he meant.

  Selznick finished perusing the stern but attractive doctor, then tapped his chin. ‘Dr Murchison would certainly be more interesting to look at on the screen than Freud. Who wants to watch a movie about a short, fat Austrian?’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘Speaking of short and fat, I should get Hitchcock to direct it. He’s been seeing Dr M to help with his phobias.’

  ‘What are they?’ Dada said lasciviously. ‘Are they peculiar?’

  ‘Peculiar doesn’t come close,’ said Selznick dismissively. ‘You name it, Alfred Hitchcock’s got it. Every freak show fear you can think of.’ He snorted. ‘Someone offered him an egg sandwich last week and he nearly climbed the sound-stage walls to get away from it.’

  ‘So, Alphonse, how did you hear about the luscious Dr Murchison?’ asked Earl, intrigued. ‘She’s only been here since last year. I didn’t realise she was that famous.’ It was obvious he wanted his attractive psychiatrist to be renowned.

  ‘A friend of mine knows her … She met him when she studied at the Sorbonne. My friend suggested I meet her while I was in this …’ he scanned the room with distaste, ‘grotesque city of the angels.’

  Selznick grinned at Dada. ‘Why, Alphonse? What do you need fixed?’ He gave the Queen Victoria-on-crack outfit the once-over.

  Dada decided to ignore the insult.

  ‘Sir, I am a surrealist!’ Dada expanded his gowned arms to indicate a world of melodramatic meaning. ‘I paint the landscape of the mind. Any new technique that uncovers its geology is money in the bank for my next painting.’