by George Baxt
“I hope so. They’ve got some big-timers in Hollywood worried and we have to pay attention to them because Roosevelt pays attention to them. He needs their very valuable support.”
“So he’s going to run for a third term.”
“You got it.”
“What about Nathan Taft? He was dating a young actress named Nell Corday.” Herb filled him in on Carole’s four protégées and what he knew of their extracurricular activities. “Taft took Corday to a party at Pola Negri’s.”
“All their social circles overlap,” said Arden knowledgeably. “In Europe our boys go near berserk trying to figure out who knows who and who’s doing what to who and they end up in Switzerland for whatever cure the Swiss offer. Well, I don’t want to keep you from your party. You can spread the word there’s no phantom kidnapping gang on the loose and put a lot of bodyguards out of work. You can step up your search for the missing lady—”
“Lydia Austin.”
“Right, Lydia Austin.”
“She was Groucho Marx’s girl, and before that a gambler named Mike Lynton. And somewhere she found time and space for W. C. Fields.”
“Likes the fatherly types. Especially funny fatherly types. You know Lynton?”
“Pretty well. I like him. He’s a square shooter. If you want some words on him, Clark Gable’s the man to see. He goes back to the twenties with Lynton.”
Carl Arden was deep in thought for a few moments while Herb wished he would get a move on so Herb could get to Malibu Beach. He was even looking forward to Hazel but more important he was looking forward to a nice cold vodka martini on the rocks. Arden asked, “Will Mike Lynton be at the party?”
“Possibly. Probably if he holds any markers on Hopkins. He seems to hold them on everybody in this town. Herb paused. “Ever been to a Hollywood party?”
“No. They don’t give them in D.C.”
“Want to go to this one? Come on. The beach is big. The party can sprawl out.”
“Lots of beauties and lots of ‘moom pitcher’ stars?” Arden laughed. “I have an eight-year-old daughter. She’s stuck on ‘moom pitcher’ stars. When I told her I was going on assignment to Hollywood, she begged me to try and get Clark Gable’s autograph and to shoot Deanna Durbin. She can’t stand her. Professional rivalry. Sybil—that’s my daughter—also sings. Not too bad at that. My wife’s a professional. A few months back she left on a tour of a new Shubert production of The Student Prince. Haven’t seen her since. The Shuberts think they’re lost someplace in Greenland. The Shuberts are always losing touring companies. Last season they misplaced Maytime.” He laughed. “That look on your face kills me, Herb. Sybil and I are used to my wife’s disappearances. She’ll turn up sooner or later. There’s no rush. Sybil’s staying with my sister Ethel and her family. Ethel’s into the occult.” Herb, refreshing himself at the office sink, wondered if Carl was pulling his leg. He hadn’t had a good leg pull in a long time. “Sybil loves to stay with her aunt Ethel. She conducts a séance every night of the week. Now Sybil’s on speaking terms with Rudolph Valentino but she has a hard time understanding him. Very thick Italian accent. He sings to her too. Usually ‘Pale Hands I Love Beside the Shalimar.’ Sometimes when he’s in a really good mood he sings a tarantella. He’s been teaching Sybil how to tango.”
Herb couldn’t resist asking, “When she’s dancing with a ghost, who leads?”
“Oh, Sybil always leads. She’s a control freak.”
* * *
Jim Mallory offered to put the top of the convertible up but Nana Lewis, to his surprise, preferred it down. “I love the wind in my hair,” she said lightly. “It’s so balmy out and you’re my first convertible in weeks.” Jim was dying to know who owned her last convertible, someone like Cary Grant or some hotshot producer like Hunt Stromberg, but he didn’t like the idea of her comparing him to them. Grant had lots of class and Stromberg had lots of money and Jim didn’t feel their equal on either score. “Oscar Levitt has a convertible. We drove out to Marina del Rey for brunch one Sunday. Very charming, very well mannered for a big hunk like him. You must have met him. Unfortunately he’s got this gambling sickness.”
“I hear he’s in to Mike Lynton for a lot of markers.”
“Probably. I know he doesn’t dare set foot south of the border. He owes a bundle in Tijuana. And don’t correct me,” she cautioned him. “It’s Tijuana, not Tia Juana, which means Aunt Jane.”
“You speak many languages?” Jim asked innocently.
“My Spanish is very hazy and my French equally so.” After a pause she asked, “You guys think Lydia’s dead.” It wasn’t a question. It was a positive statement, as though she had a direct line to Herb’s office.
Jim said, “You sound as though you know she’s dead for a fact.”
“If she’s alive, we would have heard something by now. Lydia’s clever, very clever.”
Jim got the uneasy feeling Nana Lewis wasn’t very fond of the missing Lydia and said so.
“It’s not easy to be fond of Lydia. She’s so competitive.”
She’s also won the part you were after and will get if Lydia turns up dead, that is if Oscar Levitt holds to his promise. And if he took her out to Marina del Rey for brunch, thought Jim, he’ll hold to his promise. Lots of motels en route to Marina del Rey and Nana wondered why Jim was blushing. He cleared his throat and asked, “Don’t you girls all get along?”
“Sure we do,” said Nana. “We take turns cooking and washing dishes. Lydia’s specialty is corned beef hash, straight out of the can. She remembers to top it with an egg fried sunny side up. So tell me, old pal, are we three ladies under suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Lydia?”
“To tell the truth, we haven’t considered that possibility.” Jim glanced sideways at Nana. Her hands were holding her hair back to keep it from flying in her eyes and he asked her again if she’d like the top up and again she said she preferred it down.
“I’ll bet you boys have.”
“You’ll bet we boys have what?”
“Considered we three might have ganged up on Lydia.”
“Do Mala and Nell have a reason to kill Lydia? You’re the only one who would profit. You’re next in line for the lead in Levitt’s picture.”
Nana said with a small laugh, “The next one up in the succession to the throne.” She stretched her arms above her head and asked, “Why do we do it?”
“Do what?” asked Jim.
“Make asses of ourselves struggling for a break in films.”
“You’ve got a toehold. You seem to work fairly often at Columbia.”
“I’ve got a stock contract. Seventy-five bucks a week. I’m on call to do everything except scrub floors and I keep waiting for the day when I’ll be handed a mop and a pail and directed to a ladies’ room. And you know, I’m one of the lucky ones. My contract has three more months to go so I’m assured of a weekly check until then.” She lowered her arms. “Who knows. Maybe I’ll stay lucky. Maybe they’ll renew me for another six months. Christ!” She practically spit the name. “More Three Stooges comedies. Probably another Charles Starrett western. At least he’s good to look at. Say! I’ll bet you don’t know I tested for Gone With the Wind.”
Jim didn’t want to be cruel and remind her that the only female who didn’t test for the movie was Eleanor Roosevelt. And for all he knew maybe she did, sub rosa, the way it was rumored Dietrich did as a possible Belle Watling. He could hear her saying “Wet Butler” and strangled a giggle.
Nana said, “That was the week Selznick was thinking of casting an out-and-out unknown and to hell with names. I hope I’m not shocking you when I tell you Selznick expected me to go down on him.” The words emerged so blasé, you might have thought Selznick had asked for a chocolate malted. Jim knew she was eyeing him and he hoped to God he wasn’t blushing again. He blushed easily. It was a family trait. His father told him his mother blushed throughout their honeymoon. Every time he saw a Mae West movie he blushed. Nana continued unfazed.
“I reminded David O. that that was Paulette Goddard’s specialty. You should have seen the look of absolute bliss on his face. Obviously he had experienced her specialty. Then I remembered she had the second lead in his The Young in Heart. Cute picture. Don’t you have a steady girl?”
He almost drove off the road. “Sorry. My hands slipped.” Sure, thought Nana. The palms are sweating with embarrassment. Jim Mallory. Good-looking if you liked them clean cut and unblemished, tall without stooping his shoulders, and could probably burst into tears at the slightest provocation. She repeated the question.
“No steady girl,” he said, and then added lightly, “and no unsteady one.”
My heavens, thought Nana, he’s getting frivolous.
* * *
About half a mile ahead of them, driving one of his three Model-T Fords with the top down, was W. C. Fields. He sported a straw boater that threatened to disappear in the wind, except that the left hand of his live-in lover, Carlotta Monterey, was holding it down. Carlotta was a pretty, self-styled actress of extremely limited talent who found a much needed meal ticket when Fields found her. She worked her behind off to hold on to that meal ticket. In her right hand she held a parasol above her head. Her hat was a Mr. Frederick original and her dress was a charming pink organdy trimmed with fake roses, daisies, petunias and, as Fields described it, “one stinking hollyhock.”
Between her and Fields on the seat rested a doctor’s bag. It held what Fields called his plasma. Scotch plasma, gin plasma, vodka plasma. Fields was a lousy driver even when sober. Every other car on the road was a challenge that he was eager to meet. He fancied himself behind the wheel as Don Quixote tilting at windmills, Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill, General Meade leading his men into the decisive battle at Gettysburg. He muttered as he drove, “You forgot to pack chasers.”
Carlotta reminded him there was no room for chasers. They’d been displaced by a large carafe of rum. Fields said with unusual assurance, “Miriam will have chasers. I was at her house once when all she served was chasers. She was on the wagon so she didn’t stock any booze. These women who yield so easily to temptation. That one time I went on the wagon I kept a wide variety of bootleg booze in the apartment. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t tempted. I was in a coma for six days but that was because of the medicine I was taking for a head cold. Brutal affliction, a head cold. Carlotta, you never seem to get a head cold.”
She didn’t attempt to answer him. He didn’t expect her to try. Monologues were his specialty and she actually enjoyed them. She expected to outlive him, hoped he would leave her something to remember him by, and prayed it would be cash and not the rhinestone-studded truss given to him as a gift by comedienne Fanny Brice one very damp Christmas a decade ago. She would then write her reminiscences of her life with William Claude Fields.
She knew somewhere there was a Mrs. Fields and a W.C. Junior and she had no idea if they were divorced or still married. Fields referred to them with studious infrequency and when he did called them his “familial impedimenta.” She sometimes had a feeling Bill wasn’t sure if he was divorced or still married but she knew he mailed a check diligently every month. She admired him for living up to his responsibility. Many was the time he admonished Carlotta, “You must never submerge in a sea of debts, Carlotta. Never! Buy only the best and never buy on time and always demand fifth row center when buying seats for the theater. I think of going back to the theater from time to time. Maybe I’ll revive Poppy. Or maybe I’ve done it too often. I did it as a silent called Sally of the Sawdust. Sally was Carol Dempster. I called her Carol Dumpster. Couldn’t act for beans but she was D. W. Griffith’s girlfriend. Also in the cast was a young Alfred Lunt. I forget whose girlfriend he was at the time. I just did Poppy in 1936 for Paramount, those scumbag blackguards. Fie on them for dropping my option with a thud heard round the world.” And then came the non sequitur. “Do you suppose she’s dead?”
“Lydia Austin?”
He cast a suspicious look at her. “Are you a mind reader? How do you know I meant Lydia Austin? I could have been alluding to Amelia Earhart.”
“You’ve been talking about Lydia Austin ever since she disappeared.”
“Why shouldn’t I talk about her? It’s a free country. Lydia was a pretty tootsie. The apple of her mother’s eye, though I remember Lydia saying her mother wasn’t partial to apples. Chomping down on them made too much noise and unnerved her.” He looked up at the parasol. “It’s getting cloudy.” Then, “Damn David O. Selznick and full speed ahead. I just found out Gone With the Wind is finished and here I spent an hour demanding he test me for Rhett Butler.” He bristled for approximately thirty seconds and then reached into his inside jacket pocket for a cigar. Thus began the familiar production of opening the cigar case with only one hand off the wheel, biting off an end, and spitting it out the window into the wind, which swiftly carried the cigar end back into Fields’ eye. Fields did imaginary battle with the cigar end while Carlotta’s hand abandoned the straw boater and grabbed the wheel. He slapped her hand. “Get that appendage off my wheel. I’m driving this car, not you.”
“You’ll kill us both!” shouted Carlotta.
Fields said softly, “Why, my little red corpuscle, I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind when I shuffle off this mortal coil.” He started singing “Coil of My Dreams, I Love You” and Carlotta realized he needed a drink. He had lighted the cigar and his hands were back on the wheel. Carlotta had opened the doctor’s bag while Fields trumpeted, “My raspberry popsicle, since when have you taken to drink?”
Carlotta rattled off, “Scotch? Gin? Vodka? Rye? Rum?”
“You sound like we’re in a department store elevator! I’ll have a little of each.”
“Now really, Bill!”
“Aha! Not up to the challenge!” Carlotta fished a paper cup out of the doctor’s bag and determinedly met the challenge. She measured out equal portions of the liquors until she had a concoction of no recognizable color. He took the paper cup from her with a trembling hand, but as always succeeded in not spilling a drop. He downed the liquid in one long swig and then said sadly, “We lack two objects I would most like to see. A ginger ale chaser and a ginger peachy Lydia Austin. Don’t be jealous. We didn’t have an affair. I liked to hear her read me the Sunday comics. Her ‘Dick Tracy’ was a wow. A wow, I tell you, a wow!”
“And tell me, beloved. How else did she wow you?”
“Your tone of voice abrades my senses. One of these days, my hapless courtesan, I shall beat you!”
“At what?”
* * *
The Gable and Lombard Cadillac was the only impressive motor car on Sunset Boulevard, heading in the direction of Malibu Beach. Clark now handled the wheel while Carole, seated next to him, worked on her fingernails with an emery board. “You boys okay back there?” Little did Roy and Sammy suspect this would be their last day as bodyguards. Tomorrow they’d be back posing for beefcake photos with a selection of MGM starlets.
“We’re fine, Mrs. Gable,” Roy assured her, though his swim trunks were so tight he feared strangulation.
Carole was thinking, How tender, how sweet, how courtly. Mrs. Gable. Never Miss Lombard. Such darling boys. She said to Clark, “Take the right turn dead ahead.” She lowered the window and inhaled deeply. “How delicious! Boys! Roll down your windows and smell the Pacific Ocean.” They obeyed immediately. “Pappy!” Her voice commanded attention. “Inhale, Pappy, inhale! Smell the Pacific Ocean! It’s so clean, so virginal, so out of this world.”
Unexcited by the prospect of what the Pacific’s aroma promised, Clark said, “When I was making Mutiny on the Bounty I had my fill of the Pacific Ocean. Give me the smells of horseflesh and bay—”
“And manure,” Carole interjected swiftly. She said to the boys, “Pappy dotes on manure. He can’t get enough of it.”
Gable’s eyes were narrowed as he clenched his false teeth. Does Carole ever know when she’s gone too far, or does she go too far deliberately
? He cast a glance at her. She was staring ahead, looking almost beatific. She probably wasn’t even aware she had annoyed Clark. Her mind was already at the beach. She was thinking of a day several Saturdays ago when she accompanied Oscar Levitt and the four girls for publicity shots, which she had offered to stage and supervise. She had done all that bathing beauty posing for Mack Sennett, she and another aspiring actress named Madalynne Fields, who was destined to become her best friend, confidante, and private secretary. Carole called her Fieldsie. Fieldsie was now the wife of the celebrated Twentieth Century–Fox director Walter Lang but whenever Carole sent her a signal Fieldsie hurried to her side.
That Saturday Fieldsie was on hand with the four girls and helped the photographer set his lights. Despite the glorious sunshine, the photographer insisted they needed the lights.
Carole remembered Fieldsie saying to her, “Lydia doesn’t need more lights. She has enough of a glow all her own. Egad she is beautiful. What’s that mess the Eskimo is chewing on?”
“Blubber.”
“What the hell’s blubber?”
“Whale fat.”
Fieldsie had paled. “I just may throw up.”
“Well, if you do, keep it out of the wind.”
Oscar Levitt sauntered over to Carole while the girls bounced a beach ball and the photographer took some candid shots. “God, but these babes are knockouts.” He was also a cigar smoker, and was working on one that Carole thought looked like a miniature baseball bat. “How’d you find them?”
“I had all my casting director friends on the lookout. It was tough picking these four out of what turned up. There’s so much young beauty available in this town. It’s almost sacrilegious. Think of all the beauties who will never make it. They’ll grow frustrated and then bitter and get swallowed up in disappointments and then they’re old and unwanted…”
Oscar said, “You’re a barrel of joy, Carole.”
“I know how I felt when I was disfigured in the automobile accident. I thought my world had come to an end. No future, no money, no hope. Until that blessed saint of a plastic surgeon smiled at me and said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t let you go to waste.’” Her eyes were misting and Oscar put an arm around her shoulders. Carole sniffed and asked with the notorious Lombard voice of suspicion, “What are you after, Oscar?”
