“Were you watching last Monday night?” I asked.
“I watch every night. What else is there to do up here?”
“Read a book, maybe?”
“That’s no fun. I enjoy the show. And, by the way, your friends Lucia and Nelson, bless their hearts, they try their best to accommodate me. But the angles aren’t right. I can’t see them unless they’re pressed up against the glass.” She looked off into the distance, eyes a-twinkle, in appreciation of her neighbors. “Truth be told, I’d much rather watch them than Wallis’s orgies. Lucia is a beauty. She gives me thrills, that one.”
No, no, no. I didn’t want to hear this.
“Did you notice anything at Wallis’s place last Monday?” I asked. “I understand that the party went quite late and there were lots of guests.”
She mugged ignorance. “No hanky-panky going on that night. Just drinking and laughing and dancing.”
“Nothing else? Nothing out of the ordinary?”
She shook her head. Okay, I’d heard enough. Nothing more to learn from Trudy Hirshland. I had to pick up my film and wire it back to Charlie in New Holland. And I had to check on Mickey. I prayed he’d had the sense to disappear again. The press would be mounting a frontal assault on his door by now.
“I’ll be going,” I said. “Thank you for the tea and the . . . conversation.”
“Wait. There was that car.”
“Car?”
“The car that knocked over my garbage cans,” she said. “Son of a gun ran over both of them and just drove off down the hill. I heard the tires squealing and the cans rolling.”
“When was that?”
“Maybe three thirty. Quarter to four? I was in bed. Had to get up and go out into the road to pick up the trash.”
I examined the trash cans on my way out to my car. Both had been dented badly, then kicked back into some semblance of their original shape, presumably by Trudy Hirshland. Too bad the license plate hadn’t fallen off in the collision. Maybe it was nothing, but I would have liked to talk to the driver.
By two I’d collected my telegram from Charlie at the hotel and my film from Thelan’s. Following the wire’s instructions, I drove to the AP office on First Street downtown, not far from city hall, and delivered the prints to a man named Washburn. He assured me he’d received the order to send the photos to Charlie Reese at the Republic.
“Do you know Charlie?” I asked.
The balding man in a short-sleeved shirt stubbed out his cigarette and stared me down. “Now how would I know Charlie?” he asked. “I don’t know anybody in Holland.”
“No, it’s New Holland. In New York State,” I corrected. “Please don’t send these photos to Holland.”
As I’d feared, Harvey Dunnolt’s indelicate question to Sergeant Millard had the unintended result of siccing the boys of the press on Tony Eberle. I doubted they’d find Tony anywhere near his apartment, but I wasn’t so sure about Mickey. As I pulled to a stop in front of 1859 Wilton Place, a crowd of reporters was jamming the door, stoop, and sidewalk in front of the building. Evelyn Maynard was defending the entrance like a hockey goalie, brandishing a baseball bat in case any of the reporters came too close.
I pushed my way through the throng and came face-to-face with her. I think she was relieved to see me, if whewing and wiping one’s perspired brow meant what I thought it did. She lifted her bat like a drawbridge to allow me past, and the men roared their displeasure. Once behind Evelyn in the doorway, I turned to face the angry mob. I spotted Harvey Dunnolt squashed somewhere in the middle. Andy, too, was there.
“Tony Eberle isn’t here,” I yelled. “He disappeared a week ago and hasn’t been back since.”
“No offense, sister, but you’re a little too cozy with the cops and Stan Musial, here,” said one of the guys in front.
Evelyn seemed to appreciate the Stan Musial crack.
“Don’t believe me then,” I said. “I notice one of you from earlier today is missing.”
A chorus of “Who?” followed.
“Duerson,” said Andy from the edge of the crowd. “Where’s Gene?”
I couldn’t have asked for a better cue. Maybe Andy was sharper than I’d thought.
“Gene Duerson is smart enough not to hang around here,” I said.
“So where is he?” asked a couple of the men.
I exchanged a glance with Andy, whose lips betrayed the slightest of smiles. Oh, God. If I went ahead with this, I’d end up a pariah with these reporters. Figuring it was the best way to give Gene a fighting chance of selling his story to the Times or a wire service, I screwed up my nerve and plunged in headfirst.
“Tony Eberle’s got a girlfriend,” I said. “She has a place here in town, but she’s run back to Barstow where she’s from. Eberle is with her.”
A general brouhaha erupted among the reporters. Some wanted to drive to Barstow right away. Others remained skeptical.
“What’s the girl’s name?” asked the man in front.
“Kincaid,” I said, wondering if I was mad, putting April in jeopardy, or pulling off the perfect distraction. “I don’t know the address.”
First, several men at the back of the crush peeled off and made for their cars at a run. Then more took the hint. Finally, the last holdouts jumped into their cars and drove off. The only reporter left was Andy. Even Harvey Dunnolt had swallowed the bait.
Evelyn smiled. “Nice work, Ellie.”
“Don’t forget Andy, here,” I said. “You should be an actor,” I told him.
He grinned and waved a hand at me. “I kind of figured you’d want to help Gene, so I played along.”
I explained to Evelyn how our friend Gene needed a little head start if he hoped to sell his story.
“And Barstow?” she asked.
“It’s true that Tony’s girlfriend has a place in Barstow. But they won’t be there. That should give Gene six hours at least with the exclusive.”
“Tony has a girlfriend?” asked Evelyn. “You’re kidding, right?”
I didn’t know what to believe. First Trudy Hirshland had suggested Tony was queer—though, in fairness, she didn’t even know who he was—and now Evelyn was maintaining the same thing.
“It’s just something you know,” she said, puffing on a cigarette at the end of her long holder. Andy and I were in her apartment, enjoying a cup of tea as we discussed the near riot she’d fended off out on the stoop. “You just know who is and isn’t one of us.”
“That would hardly stand up in court,” I said.
Evelyn shrugged. “Doesn’t have to, does it? It only matters to people who are this way.”
“It gives me the heebie-jeebies,” said Andy with a frisson. I fired a glare at him. “Sorry, but that’s how I was raised back in Iowa. It’s not natural doing those things with another man. Or two women. It’s a disease, isn’t it? That’s what they say.”
“Andy, would you please shut it?”
“It’s okay, Ellie,” said Evelyn. “I hear that kind of talk all the time. It may seem unnatural to you, Andy. But, the funny thing is, it’s the only thing that feels natural to me.”
Andy mumbled a lukewarm apology—one of those “sorry if your feelings were hurt,” ostensibly laying the blame for her offense at her feet.
Evelyn was magnanimous under the circumstances. We were in her apartment, after all, drinking her tea. But I saw her jaw tighten as she clenched the tip of the cigarette holder between her teeth. Even the clueless Andy took notice, and a couple of minutes later, he predictably remembered an appointment.
“Do you want to have that coffee now, Ellie?” he asked. “I’ve got a couple of minutes.”
I begged off, saying the tea would do for now. And, I told him pointedly, I wanted to visit with Evelyn for a bit. After a pathetic sigh that won him no points, Andy made his excuses and dragged himself out the door.
“I have a favor to ask,” I said to Evelyn once we were alone. “It’s a lot to ask.”
“What
is it?”
“I’d like to have a look inside Tony and Mickey’s apartment.”
It didn’t take much convincing to get Evelyn to unlock the door. She told me Mickey had complained about a dripping faucet a week earlier. This was as good a time as any to fix it.
“What are you looking for anyway?” she asked.
“I’ve got to find out where they’ve gone. I’m hoping there’s some clue, a friend’s phone number, something. Anything to point me in the right direction.”
“Why do you even care? You’ve got your story, don’t you?”
“Not really. There’s a big payoff at the end of this mess, I’m sure of it. It would mean a lot for my career if I could find Tony.”
“What if it turns out he’s guilty?”
“I always let the chips fall where they may. If he killed Bertram Wallis, I’ll turn him in myself.”
Evelyn opened up apartment 101. This was my second visit, but this time was different. I was going to search the place. What I was doing might have been illegal, but I didn’t think it was wrong. My intention was to find Tony in order to help him. I’d believed Mickey when he told me that Tony had nothing to do with Wallis’s murder. Even if Mickey and April had done nothing but lie to me from the moment I’d met them. How I might help Tony once I found him was another question altogether. Did I really think I could get him his job back?
Evelyn monkeyed with the faucet while I went to work rifling through Tony’s meager possessions. Starting with the large chest against the wall, I found some clothes, both Tony’s and Mickey’s, in different drawers. In the top drawer I flipped through some papers, bills, and scripts that Tony must have studied or auditioned for. There were some of his headshots, too, and a telephone directory, but little else that might point to where the trio had fled. I searched the rollaway and lowered the Murphy bed on the off chance he’d dropped a postcard or an address in his haste to leave. There was nothing. A shoebox under the sink was filled with some old snapshots. Photos from Tony’s childhood, and not germane to my search.
“Almost done?” asked Evelyn, who seemed to have fixed the drip.
“I suppose so. Those two boys sure know how to vanish without a trace.”
My search had left my hands feeling dusty, so I washed them in the small kitchen sink.
“You’d think they’d leave some clue about their lives,” I said to Evelyn. “But, no.”
I reached for the washcloth hanging next to the sink but, on closer inspection, thought better of it. I dried my hands on my skirt instead.
Evelyn worked a new cigarette into her holder. “I left my lighter across the hall,” she said. “Hand me those matches, will you, angel?”
On the shelf above the hotplate, I spied a yellow book of matches. I grabbed it and passed it to Evelyn. She struck a light and tossed the book back to me. That was when I turned it over and saw the cover:
The Wind Up
5151½ Melrose Ave. LA 38
HO2 4841
“Do you know this place?” I asked, holding the matches out for her inspection.
She smiled. “Sure. And that just goes to prove I was right about these two.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s a gay bar. What your friend Andy would call a fairy bar.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Evelyn said she couldn’t take me to the Wind Up because unaccompanied women were not welcome there.
“But don’t you all stick together?” I asked.
“Not really. Mostly the boys have their places, and the girls have theirs. The Wind Up is one of theirs.”
“How can I get inside, then?”
Evelyn shrugged. “Do you know any queers?”
I told her I might know one. She said that things wouldn’t get interesting until after nine. Ten would be even better. And she warned me to dress conservatively. I asked what that meant. She looked me up and down, puffing on her cigarette, and finally said to dress the way I always did.
“It’s kind of a rough neighborhood. You don’t want to be mistaken for a lady of loose morals. Plus, that place tries to maintain an air of normalcy,” she explained. “The owner’s a grandmother, I hear. One of your kind. But she enjoys the company of her gay boys. The one thing she doesn’t go for is swishing, flitting. The obvious fairies. Thinks that’ll attract the cops.”
“The cops?”
“Vice squad. They get their kicks harassing and beating up queers.”
Before I could visit my first gay bar, I had work to do. It was only just after four when I left Evelyn Maynard to return to the hotel. I wanted a nap after my sleepless night, but there really wasn’t time for that. I also needed something to eat. Marty fetched me an egg salad sandwich from Hody’s, and I tipped him a quarter.
To get inside the Wind Up, I’d need a suitable escort. I made a phone call and, lucky for me, succeeded in finding a willing victim. Once I’d made the arrangements, I worked on a follow-up article for Charlie, this time concentrating on the Barstow angle. Still no Tony in my story, of course, but it showed a trail that the police and press were now following. And I figured it might still Artie Short’s trigger finger for another day. The last thing I needed was George Walsh underfoot.
I had nearly dozed off on my bed when the telephone rang. It was Mr. Cromartie from the reception desk downstairs. He told me I had a call and patched it through.
“Miss Stone?” came the voice from the other end. “Is this Ellie?”
“Dot,” I said, though it felt awkward.
“I need to see you. It’s urgent.”
Dorothy Fetterman asked me to come to her apartment on Rossmore Avenue in a neighborhood called Hancock Park, not far from the studio. I got the impression she wanted to keep our talk a secret from the people at Paramount.
I arrived at the address she’d given me a little past six. The El Royale was a soaring white-stone structure, with palm trees outside, high-arched entryway, marble floors, and a magnificent vaulted ceiling in the lobby. The building’s only sour note was the huge green neon sign on the roof that would have looked more at home above a motel. Nevertheless, I had to stifle the urge to gasp when I entered Dorothy’s apartment on the fifth floor. I’d assumed Dorothy was an important employee at the studio, but now I realized I’d underestimated just how important. She had to be pulling down a large salary to afford such luxury.
She met me at the door, still in her work attire, and led me through the foyer into a large parlor with multicolored tiled floors, dotted with several Oriental rugs of varying designs, sizes, and colors. The furniture consisted of mismatched pieces. I was no expert but thought they were Scandinavian modern. Chairs and sofas made of wood, some functional with neat cushions and others oddly shaped in bright colors, had probably been acquired in different places at different times. Everything looked expensive. And there were exactly three paintings on the walls: small, colorful abstract futurist pieces featuring airplanes. I should have been able to hazard a better guess given my late mother’s expertise as an art dealer, but I’d always been more an observer than a student of art.
“Have a seat, Ellie,” said Dorothy. “May I offer you a cocktail?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
“I believe you drink Scotch whiskey. Dewar’s White Label.”
How did she know that? I felt a twinge of embarrassment; surely Dorothy Fetterman was used to better drink than my humble and gentle Dewar’s.
“Don’t fret about it,” she said, handing me a tumbler of Scotch and ice. “A host should serve guests what they enjoy.”
She poured herself some pastis and added a splash of water. Then she settled into a green chair opposite me. We sipped our drinks in silence for a long moment. Dorothy may have liked to serve her guests what they liked, but she was also damn good at making them feel ill at ease.
“Was there something you wanted to discuss?” I asked finally.
She smiled softly, took another sip of the milky-yellow pastis, and
moistened her lips to speak.
“We’ve come to a crucial point.” She paused, and I thought she was searching for the right words to say. “I need your help. I’m asking for your help.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My job is to make problems disappear. I’ve defused crises for the studio, for actors, directors, executives, bigwigs. I’ve done it for years, often and well.”
She took another tiny sip of her pastis, stared at the floor, and permitted herself a private smile. “Yes, I’ve done it well,” she said. “But now I’m facing the prospect of failure for the first time in my career.”
Dorothy fixed me with her gaze. Her eyes were dry, but I sensed a roiling under the placid surface. She just stared at me. Stared for thirty seconds, piercing me, reaching into my soul, it seemed. I wondered if she were reading my mind or trying to hypnotize me. Or begging for my help.
“I work for a powerful man,” she continued. “He demands results. He doesn’t care a lick if I’ve done well in the past. If last week I saved him a million dollars and public embarrassment for the studio.” She finished off her pastis and placed the empty glass on the Lucite and chrome table to the right of her chair. “What he cares about is today. The newest assignment, the latest trash to dispose of. The moment I cannot deliver, I become PNG.”
“PNG?” I asked.
“Persona non grata.”
“But this apartment . . .”
“At the pleasure of the king. My position affords me many advantages, Ellie. But there’s no security beyond today. Oh, I have savings, but not enough to maintain this kind of life. Not for long, at any rate. I have to achieve results or I become unnecessary to my employer.”
Cast the First Stone Page 18
