“The light’s changed,” she said.
I turned my attention back to the road and drove off, resigned to make the rest of the trip to Malibu without another word. But Dorothy resumed our conversation as if nothing had happened.
“How did you track down Tony’s friends when my boys couldn’t?” she asked.
“Maybe I worked twice as hard as they did. Or I’m twice as smart.”
“Maybe. But how did you find them?”
“I found a matchbook in Tony’s apartment.”
“You got into his apartment?” she asked. This was the first real surprise I’d managed to provoke in her. “How?”
“A girl has to have some secrets,” I said.
“Fine. Tell me about this matchbook.”
“It was from a small place called the Wind Up. On Melrose near Wilton.”
“But . . . that’s a queer bar, isn’t it?”
“A gay bar, yes.”
“But Tony’s not queer. Why would he have a matchbook from such a place?”
“His roommate, Mickey Harper,” I said. “He used to frequent the place until they threw him out. They claimed he was soliciting.”
“So how did the gay bar lead you to Malibu?”
“I met a man there who knew Mickey. He put me in touch with another man—an actor—who was mixed up in the same racket as Mickey. And he’s in Malibu.”
Dorothy seemed to be putting the information in order in her head. Her mien darkened as she considered what I’d just told her.
“What’s the name of this actor?” she asked.
Perhaps she was worried it was one of Paramount’s young up-and-comers involved in a potential sex scandal. I knew that wasn’t the case. Bo Hanson had a dim future in the movies, so I gave her his name.
“Never heard of him.” She seemed relieved. One problem she wouldn’t have to fix.
“He’s heard of you,” I said. “And he wants a part in one of Archie Stemple’s pictures.”
“Twistin’ on the Beach was canned yesterday. It was cursed. Once Bertie died, it was just a matter of time.”
“Really? That’s too bad,” I said, feigning surprise. I hesitated before telling her a slightly modified version of my meeting with the surfer. “And I might have told Bo Hanson that I worked for you when I saw him this morning.”
“Bo Hanson?” she asked. “I think I know him after all. Is he that muscle-head beach bum? Blond, good-looking, but oh so dumb?”
“That’s him. Straight out of central casting.”
“Don’t say that. Nobody says ‘central casting.’ Still, I suppose I must congratulate you on getting as far as you have. My boys turned up a boarding house where Tony stayed last year and a couple of unpaid dry-cleaning bills. Nothing helpful. And for what I pay them . . .”
“Tony’s girlfriend, April, and his roommate, Mickey, both spent last night with this Bo Hanson in Malibu,” I explained, relishing my little victory. “I believe Tony slept there as well.”
“Have you considered that maybe this Mickey met a rich old man and scraped together some pocket change? Enough to get Tony to Mexico?”
Not with a broken nose and two black eyes. I thought it more likely that the trio was waiting for the dust to clear so they could slip away somewhere safe.
“If you think I’m wrong, I can turn around and take you back,” I said, dusting off some bravado.
She told me to carry on. But as I drove into the heart of Beverly Hills, doubts began to eat into my confidence. I tried to disguise my concerns from Dorothy, but she wasn’t watching me anyway. She simply stared out the windshield and plotted her silent machinations. What if I was wrong and Tony was in Ensenada at that very moment working his way down to the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle? In my professional life, I’d always found it better to brag about being right only once you’d proven it.
We made our way through Westwood and onto San Vicente Boulevard in silence, except when Dorothy gave me directions. Once we reached Santa Monica, she asked me if I didn’t want to listen to the radio to pass the time. Emboldened by the success achieved when I’d stood my ground, I told her I preferred silence or conversation to the disposable music of Rockin’ Johnny Bristol.
“You know he had a small part in Twistin’ on the Beach,” she said with just a touch of amusement in her voice. “Before we pulled the plug, that is.”
“Yes, I know. I had a long chat with him and Bobby Renfro the other day.”
“You met Bobby Renfro?” she asked.
I explained that both Bobby Renfro and Rockin’ Johnny had been helpful. “Bobby told me he’d been to a party with Tony in the hills. I thought that was a coincidence. But he also lied to me about how many times he’d been to Wallis’s house.”
“I’m going to ask you to tread carefully,” said Dorothy.
I’d come to understand that in all her dealings with me, she’d stuck to a strategy that aimed to sap my self-assurance. She’d gained and maintained the upper hand that way. The confrontational, dismissive tone she’d been employing to keep me off-balance—the one that questioned my competence and cleverness—had vanished, replaced now by a warning.
“Bobby Renfro may not be the brightest star in the galaxy,” she continued, “but we have plans for him. I don’t want to have to squelch some filthy gossip about him. And I will squelch it. Make no mistake.”
“I believe you. But I’m not interested in Bobby Renfro. Unless he’s mixed up somehow in this whole thing.”
“Then we understand each other?”
“Provided our interests don’t conflict.”
I turned onto Pacific Coast Highway and pointed the car toward Malibu. Traffic was light.
“You know, Ellie,” said Dorothy after a short pause, “you have an uncanny knack of sneaking into places where you don’t belong, and gaining access to people you have no business talking to. It’s annoying.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Being a nuisance is hardly a virtue.”
Fifteen minutes later, I eased into the left lane, pumped the brakes twice, and turned off the highway.
“Paradise Cove?” asked Dorothy. “I might have guessed. Your Bo Hanson is a surfer, after all.”
I parked a safe distance from Bo’s Airstream trailer. It was just seven thirty, and I didn’t want to alert Tony—assuming he was there—with blazing headlights through the parlor window. I switched off the engine, and all went silent except for the tumbling surf on the beach below.
“Shall we?” said Dorothy, popping open her door.
We trudged up the path and wound around a couple of trailers before reaching Bo’s place. Cars rushed by on the highway above, their tires humming different notes against the asphalt as they passed. There was a light inside the trailer, and some Miles Davis playing loud enough for us to hear. As my guest, Dorothy deferred to me for the green light. This was my moment, after all. I nodded, and we approached the door in lockstep.
I rapped on the aluminum. No response. I knocked again, this time producing the desired results. The door opened, and Bo Hanson appeared, smiling broadly with a bottle of beer in his hand. The distinct order of marijuana wafted past him on the night breeze. His eyes focused on me, then on Dorothy. A short moment passed before he recognized me. I doubt he had any clue of who Dorothy might be, but his first instinct upon finding his wits was to slam the door in our faces. A commotion ensued inside, and the trailer rocked on its moorings. A phonograph needle screeched across Miles Davis, and the night went quiet. Dorothy took charge, stepping up to the trailer and tapping three polite knocks. Her calm stood in contrast to the panic taking place on the other side of the door. Frantic whispering, clattering, and scrambling. It sounded like a rodeo going on inside a tin can. I counted at least three voices—though I was betting there were four. There was no exit, save through the door Dorothy and I were blocking, unless the occupants were willing to stuff themselves through a porthole in the rear. Dorothy knocked again
.
The tumult inside abruptly ceased, and, after a hushed exchange that we could hear but not quite make out, the door cracked open again. This time it was April. She slipped through the opening, pausing on the top step, and closed the door again behind her.
“What do you want now?” she asked me.
“I want to speak to Tony,” I said. “I know he’s here.”
April seemed to gauge the plausibility of a denial as her gaze shifted from me to Dorothy and back. Sure, she could insist he wasn’t there, but we all knew that the best proof of that would be to open up and let us have a peek inside. And she wasn’t about to do that.
“Who’s she?” she asked, nodding to my companion.
“She’s the woman who can save Tony’s career,” I said.
“My name is Dorothy Fetterman. Open the door and tell Tony to come out. I want to speak to him.”
April stood her ground for another moment until the door moved behind her. She tried to hold it closed, but the person on the other side had the advantage. April nearly tumbled headfirst off the steps, but managed a safe landing in the mud before us just as the door swung open. There in the doorframe, unshaven, hair mussed, with an expression wavering between hopeful uncertainty and terrified resignation, stood Tony Eberle.
“Hello, Tony,” said Dorothy.
He practically swallowed his tongue. “Hello, Dot.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dorothy wanted to speak to Tony alone, but that hadn’t been part of our deal. I insisted on keeping them on a short leash. With a sigh, she acceded, and the three of us took a stroll through the salt air down to the wharf. No one spoke until we’d reached the very end. Dorothy, head bowed, tented her fingers, touching them to her perfectly painted lips as she considered how to open the conversation with the handsome young actor she’d all but denied even knowing, the man who somehow knew her as “Dot.” At length, perhaps realizing there was no escaping me, she threw a vexed glance in my direction then began.
“How did you get yourself into this mess, Tony?”
He exhaled two lungfuls of air and hung his head. He mumbled something about everything was ruined. Everything was over.
Tony and I hadn’t been formally introduced, but he must have known who I was. April and Mickey had surely warned him about the nosy girl reporter from New Holland who’d been making their lives miserable for the past week. I wasn’t sure if he’d speak to me, but I hadn’t come this far just to admire a moody seascape on a cool February evening.
“Did you kill Bertram Wallis?” I asked, dragging him out of his self-pity and gloom and back into the moment.
He stared at me, bemused, in the pale light of a waxing moon. Maybe he didn’t know who I was after all. But then he spoke.
“You’re going to write terrible things about me, aren’t you?”
His eyes sparkled in the dark, not from tears but from the glassy clarity, the clean, fresh youth of God-given beauty. I’d seen many photographs of the would-be heartthrob. His yearbook portrait, candid shots from his high school acting performances, and even his headshot. The one with Irv Greenberg’s phone number on the back. But now I gazed at him for a long moment, taking the time to consider the living, breathing Tony Eberle. Gone was the artifice, the practiced poses, and the coiffed hair. No more makeup, beauty dishes, or touch-ups. This was the real McCoy standing before me. A man in crisis, at a turning point in his career and his life. He was disheveled, shirt untucked, with his hair blowing wildly in the wind. And he was just about the handsomest man I’d ever seen.
“I’m trying to help you, Tony,” I said. “But I can’t do that if you don’t tell me the truth about what happened. Mickey and April have done nothing but lie to me from the start. I need you to be straight with me. Did you have anything to do with Bertram Wallis’s death?”
“How can you help me? Why would you help me?”
“Our interests are the same. You need a happy ending, and so do I. If I report that you shoved Wallis over the railing, we both lose. You go to jail, and I’m the reporter who took down the local hero and broke a town’s heart. But if you become a star . . .”
“I didn’t push Bertie off that terrace,” said Tony. Then he repeated it—with feeling—to Dorothy, as if auditioning for a part. In a way, I suppose he was doing just that.
Dorothy took a step forward, settling in front of him, just inches from his chest, her nose on a level with his chin. She gazed up into his eyes and willed him to be calm. The silent, almost magnetic harmony of their postures betrayed an intimacy that was impossible to ignore. I studied the two standing before me, hoping to gain some insight into the bond they shared. Tony appeared distressed, but that was due to the situation, not any discomfort with Dorothy. For her part, Dorothy was solicitous, gentle, and kinder than I’d ever seen her. They didn’t speak for nearly a minute, and I had to scold myself for fluttering like an adolescent girl who’d just stumbled upon some juicy gossip. Twenty-four-year-old Tony Eberle and forty-something Dorothy Fetterman shared a tender secret. They were lovers. There was no doubt in my mind.
I wondered how much April knew about the relationship between Tony and the powerful studio executive. Was Tony just playing the game? Making friends with a woman who could help him advance his career? Or was there something more? And what about Dorothy? Should I begrudge her a little harmless naughtiness with a handsome young actor? They were both adults, after all. I didn’t care what they did where or with whom; I lived by the same code in my own life. But then I reconsidered. Perhaps Dorothy’s behavior wasn’t as harmless as all that. Maybe she made a habit of extracting favors from the stable of ambitious young actors at her disposition. How was that any different from what Bertram Wallis and countless casting directors had been doing?
“I swear he was alive when I left him,” Tony said to Dorothy.
She held his hands and soothed him, whispering in his ear. I felt extraneous to the proceedings, but they seemed to have forgotten that I was there. At length, Tony drew back and sighed deeply as he contemplated the night sky.
“Did you remove anything from Bertie’s place?” asked Dorothy so softly I barely heard her.
Tony shook his head. “What would I take?”
“Photographs.”
“Of course not,” he said. “I argued with him at the party, and some of his friends threw me out. Then I went back there after two, had a shouting match with Bertie, and I slugged him. Decked him. Right there, flat on his back on the floor, he wiped his bloody lip and told me I was fired from the picture.”
“And that’s it?”
Tony rubbed his head. “No. I was so mad I wanted to kill him, Dot. I really did. But that annoying dog of his was barking and running back and forth, confusing me. I tried to kick him real hard, but I missed and knocked myself down.”
“Oh, Tony,” whispered Dorothy.
I pictured Tony, whiffing completely on his swing at the pug, hoisting himself off the ground with the acquired momentum of his pendulating right leg before falling back to earth on his duff. Equilibrium, if not dignity, restored.
“Then I left,” continued Tony. “Bertie was swearing and frothing at the mouth. He was drunk and couldn’t pick his fat self up off the floor. He actually called to me to give him a hand just before he threw up on himself.”
Now I had to contend with the image of a rabid Bertram Wallis spewing—rather barfing—orders at Tony. I turned away to hide my snorting laughter. Dorothy glared at me in disapproval.
“Were you two alone?” she asked Tony. “Were there any witnesses?”
He frowned and shook his head, his expression troubled by some memory. “I didn’t see anyone, but . . . But Bertie said there was someone in the next room. He said they were discussing business. His next picture, I think.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t see anyone? No one saw you?”
“Just the dog, yapping.”
My fit of laughter had passed.
“Why did you hi
t Wallis?” I asked. “Why were you two arguing?”
Tony reeled around as if I’d surprised the two of them kissing, as if I hadn’t been there all along.
“Tony,” said Dorothy. “Remember she’s a reporter.”
“I didn’t kill him. I wanted to but I didn’t. April can back me up. I just knocked him down.”
“You said there were no witnesses. But April was there?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “No one else.”
“Why did you knock him down?” I asked again. “Why did you want to kill him?”
Tony looked to Dorothy for advice. She just held his hand and gazed at him, perhaps wanting to know the answer as well.
“Because of what he did to Mickey,” he said, his voice trembling.
Tony dropped Dorothy’s hand, punched his leg, and turned away from us both. He struggled to speak, the words catching in his throat, choking him until he finally managed to spit them out.
“Mickey. My friend Mickey. He used him for his perversions, humiliated him. He did unspeakable things to him, then shared him with his friends. His rich, disgusting friends. And one of those bastards beat him up just to show what a tough guy he was. To prove he wasn’t a queer even though he’d just . . . Even though he was a damn faggot. Yeah, I wanted to kill Bertie, all right. Him and all his sick, perverted friends.” He paused in his rant, heaving for breath, his cheeks wet with tears. “But I didn’t. April stopped me.”
Dorothy said nothing. She just rubbed Tony’s arm up and down, soothing him as a mother might. He wiped his eyes and his face and stared out at the black sea beyond the end of the wharf. After a while, he strolled partway back to shore and leaned against a pile where he continued his miserable contemplation of the night.
“Do you think he was telling the truth about the photographs?” I asked Dorothy.
Cast the First Stone Page 23
