When Kathryn brought up the idea of getting on The Pepsodent Show, Wilkerson loved it. But when she suggested he might pull a few strings with his high-falutin’ radio network exec pals, he admitted glumly that at a recent radio convention at the Ambassador, he’d gotten blackout drunk and ended up telling the network heads they were all “cheap-ass whoremongers who worked in radio because they were too damn ugly to work in pictures.” While Kathryn resisted the urge to stub out her cigarette in her boss’ face, he declared, “It’s only me they hate, not the Reporter. They know how important my paper is to their standing in Hollywood. They wouldn’t dare pull their advertising. You’ll need to go door-knocking on your own, but be smart about it. Be a lady.”
“So,” she told Errol, “I’m hoping to talk my way onto the show as their resident Hollywood reporter.”
“Pepsodent, huh?” he said. “They were after me last year for a magazine campaign to coincide with They Died With Their Boots On.”
Kathryn couldn’t recall seeing any ads featuring Errol in a Civil War getup while holding a tube of toothpaste. “Didn’t work out?”
Errol chuckled. “They were real gung ho until they learned I played General Custer. They tried to hit the brakes, but I had a pay-or-play contract. It was the easiest twenty grand I ever made.”
“Any pointers on who I should target?”
“You’re wasting your time with the network boys. You need to go after the sponsors. The guy you want is Pepsodent’s West Coast VP, Leo Presnell. He took me out on epic drunken sprees. Lord love a duck! Half the time, I didn’t even remember getting home.”
“Big drinker, then, huh?”
“He’s a big everythinger. Big expense account, big appetite, big wardrobe, big thirst.”
After living at the Garden of Allah for fifteen years, Kathryn was no stranger to heavy drinkers, but her experience was largely with writers and actors. Thirsty business executives were a whole different bottle of bourbon. “The executive sleazeball type, huh?”
“Quite the opposite. We’re talking strictly Ivy League.”
“Any fatal flaws I can use as a foot in the door?”
“He’s a smooth one, I’ll give him that. If there’s a fatal flaw lurking in the shadows, you’ll have to dig deep.”
A classy executive? Kathryn’s pulse quickened. She might be able to pull off this plan after all.
“Wilkerson needs to boost circulation?” Errol yawned. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“I heard he was going broke.”
Kathryn sat up in her chair. “Where did you hear that?”
“More like overheard it. Greg Bautzer’s office.”
Bautzer was her boss’ lawyer. “What did you hear?”
“I was running early that day—very unlike me, as you can imagine. I was cooling my heels in reception when an argument erupted in Greg’s office. It got very, very heated, very, very fast. They started yelling about a night at the Clover Club when a poker table got upturned. That’s when my ears really pricked up.”
“Why?”
“I was there that night. Your Mr. Wilkerson was flinging down hundred-dollar bills like they were Kleenex. He got so sore at one point that he turned over the poker table. You should have heard the cussing.”
“Drunk, I suppose?”
“Drunker than I’d ever seen him. So anyway, I’m sitting in Bautzer’s outer office listening to Wilkerson yell at Bautzer that he had no right to tell him how to live, and Bautzer yelling back that he couldn’t afford to go on living like this, not when he was four hundred grand in debt.”
Kathryn stared out into the perfumed darkness and listened to a bee buzzing through the air.
“There’s four hundred grand, and then there’s four hundred grand,” Errol stated, with a logic that only made sense to someone who earned two and a half thousand a week. “If he owes that kind of dough to his poker buddies, that’s okay. But if he owes it to his bank? They’re not quite so understanding.”
“This argument you overheard, I don’t suppose they mentioned Selznick? Or Zanuck? Or Hughes?”
“Not unless one of those guys recently changed his name to the Bank of America. Listen,” Errol said, his voice softer now, “you might want to brace yourself for layoffs.”
The honeybee’s droning stopped suddenly. “We’ve already had those.”
“I’m talking about a second round. And pay cuts.” When she shot him a look of alarm, he raised his hands. “I’m only telling you what I heard.”
Suddenly, the scent of the jasmine felt suffocating. Kathryn got to her feet. “This Presnell guy, what did you say his first name was?”
“Leo.”
“How will I know him?”
“Just look for the most expensive suit in the room.”
“Thanks. And I’m sorry to hear about you and Lili.”
Errol shrugged. “Bound to happen sooner or later.”
Kathryn leaned over the patio table and stuck her face close to Errol’s. “Harry Winston. Necklace, ring, brooch, just as long as you don’t go cheap.”
CHAPTER 9
It turned out that sleeping with the guy from Paramount was more of a bed-half-full pleasure than the bed-half-empty chore Marcus expected. Quentin Luckett was a bit more pale and freckly than Marcus would have liked, but he was trim from twice-weekly swims, and his skin proved buttery smooth. He was a good kisser too, and took his time running his hands over Marcus, alternating between strong, tender, passionate, and gentle.
At first, there’d been some awkward button fumbling and twitchy eyeballs not knowing where to look. But after clothes were shed and covers flung, getting down to business quickly lost its morally dubious motivation, and an unexpected chemistry saw things to a satisfactory conclusion.
And Quentin was true to his word. Later that week, he couriered William Tell to Marcus, who then pitched it to Jim Taggert with a beefed-up romance angle: the love interest was now the daughter of the villain. By the time Marcus got his linens back from the Chinese laundry, Mayer had approved William Tell as an A-list movie.
But when a missive on “Q.L.” monogrammed notepaper arrived nearly three months later asking Marcus to meet with him, Marcus didn’t know what to make of it.
The Retake Room was a small neighborhood bar downwind from MGM. Weekdays, it was packed with stars and workers unwinding after a long day of conjuring dreams and spinning fantasies. But on a weekend? Marcus didn’t know what to expect.
On that Sunday afternoon, the place was a skeletal incarnation of its midweek self. The door from Washington Boulevard opened on the diagonal to a square room with a dozen tables arranged checkerboard-style on black-and-white tiles. Barely a quarter of the tables were filled, and three booths along the south wall were empty. In one corner stood a battered upright piano on the edge of a dance floor with room for a half dozen slow-dancing couples. Along the eastern wall were seven dusty posters of MGM movies: Another Thin Man, Strange Cargo, Love Finds Andy Hardy, San Francisco, A Tale Of Two Cities, Camille, and Forty Acres And A Mule. Marcus stared at the last one. A huge hit during MGM’s pre-talkie era, Forty Acres And A Mule had been directed by Edwin Marr, Hugo’s tyrannical father.
A flash of daylight filled the bar as the front door swung open, and Quentin circumnavigated his way around the tables. He thrust out his hand as he approached. “Nice to see you again.” He motioned toward the bartender for a beer, removed his homburg, and sat down. He pulled out a pack of Camels and offered Marcus one.
Marcus already had a cigarette going. He picked it up from the glass ashtray and took a drag. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
Quentin ducked his head from side to side. “Fact is, I kind of need you.”
“It’s nice to be needed,” Marcus replied evenly. This guy had helped him get his career on track, but a growing suspicion that he was being used made Marcus squirm.
“I believe congratulations are in order. William Tell is in pr
eproduction.”
Projects in preproduction were movies not yet officially announced to the industry. They were treated like military secrets lest a rival studio get the jump and announce a similar project.
“You must have a very good source.”
Quentin bared a knowing smile. “Everybody knows somebody.”
Marcus nodded silently while the bartender deposited their drinks on the table. Quentin braced himself with a swig of beer; a rather large swig, Marcus noted. “Here’s the thing. The other day, my boss asked me about a certain treatment he’d seen around the office.”
“But you told me—”
“I know, I know.”
“What did you say?”
“I scratched my head like an absentminded professor and made a bunch of noncommittal noises until he lost patience and told me to go find it.”
“You think one of the higher-ups has been asking for it?”
“I’m thinking that whoever was paying Hugo to spy for them remembered your treatment and wanted to see it.”
“But—”
“But all of this goes away when MGM announces their own William Tell. Once MGM goes public, Paramount will abandon the idea and everything’s hunky dory.” Quentin leaned in conspiratorially. “So we need to nudge this one along.”
There’s always some loose end waiting to trip you up.
Marcus realized they might have more in common than he first suspected. Like Marcus, the guy sitting opposite him was keen to get ahead, and evidently willing to partake in whatever horse trading it took to put him within reach of the next rung. “Are we here because you’ve already formulated a plan?” Marcus asked.
“The key is casting,” Quentin said in a low voice. “When a studio secures the perfect person for a role, the publicity department gets involved, stories get planted in magazines, and the train pulls out of the station.”
Marcus crossed his arms. “You have someone in mind.”
Quentin nodded like a kid with his hand caught in the jellybean jar. “You won’t believe how perfect this guy is. Ever heard of Trevor Bergin?”
“Should I have?”
“For the past six straight years he’s been the US champion.”
“Of what?” A cuckoo clock chimed inside Marcus’ head. “You mean archery, don’t you?”
“You should see what this guy can do with a bow and arrow. It’s astounding.”
“But can he act? Does he even want to?”
“Yes and yes.”
“He’s actually told you that?”
“We sort of run around in overlapping social circles.”
“What sort of social circles would they be?”
Quentin grinned his jellybean grin again. “The fruity kind.”
“He’s queer?”
“Yuh-huh.”
“How does he come across?”
“Straight as one of his arrows.”
“Good-looking?”
Quentin gave a low wolf-whistle. “And how.”
Over the loudspeakers, a symphonic movement—the sort of arrangement usually heard playing in the background of a Gable-Crawford love scene—filled the place.
“Tell me something,” Marcus said. “When you found my William Tell in your slush pile, why didn’t you just keep it?”
For the first time, Marcus saw Quentin’s unassailable confidence take a dive. “Studio politics. You know how that can be.”
“I want to know why you didn’t keep William Tell,” Marcus said flatly, “and I don’t want any bullshit.”
Quentin paused, appearing to turn conflicting agendas over in his mind. “Ever come across Anderson McCrae?”
The name tripped a wire, but Marcus couldn’t place it. “Sounds familiar.”
“He used to run the casting department at RKO before he jumped ship to join us.”
Ah, yes. Marcus remembered now. Anderson McCrae was the guy Gwendolyn once threw herself at in the effort to get a job, only to discover he was queer and not the slightest bit swayed by her ample charms. “What of him?”
“Late last year, things got hot and heavy between us. I didn’t see it coming but boy, when it arrived, ker-pow! But then an ex-flame of mine landed in town and asked me to meet him for a drink to chew over old times. One beer led to a whole bunch, which led to him suggesting we go upstairs for old times’ sake. The guy’s about to go off to war, so I figured this could be his last hayride.”
“So you did?”
“And had a mighty fine time, too. It never occurred to me that Andy would have a problem with that, but brother! You should have seen the stink he kicked up. I didn’t get it. Still don’t. The whole thing blew up into a screaming yelling fighting punching brawl that lasted all afternoon, and ended up costing me a side table, a rocking chair, and three of my best brandy snifters.”
“Ouch.”
Quentin winced. “I really wanted to help Trevor get the role, but obviously any casting influence I might have had at Paramount is out the window. I’d almost given up and then your William Tell landed in my lap. So, what we need to do is—”
“Whoa, Nellie,” Marcus interrupted. “You’re right: casting is everything, but we lowly writers—”
The bar’s front door let in a flare of daylight. Quentin shot his hand into the smoky air above their table and waved. “Brace yourself,” he murmured, and vaulted to his feet.
Marcus felt compelled to stand, and soon found himself shaking hands with a man so handsome that it vaporized his ability to form a coherent sentence.
The guy stood six foot three and held himself with the ramrod posture of a ballet dancer. Topped with a thatch of brown hair so dark it was almost black, his face was defined with the type of chiseled jawline that studio lighting guys waited their whole careers for. Marcus could already see this face projected onscreen amid a chorus of lovelorn sighs radiating from the balcony of every movie house in the country. Trevor thrust out his hand toward Marcus, offering a smile as warm as a summer bonfire.
Marcus took the hand and almost wilted under its strength.
Quentin ordered a round of bourbon. Marcus and Quentin retook their seats and Trevor grabbed the one facing the door.
It was obvious to Marcus what was going on here: Quentin wanted to land this guy between the sheets and the best way to do that was to land him in the movies. Marcus smiled to himself. You must have cracked an instant hard-on the moment you came across William Tell.
“So,” Quentin said, “Floyd Forrester. You know him?”
“I know of him,” Marcus replied. “He’s MGM’s casting director in charge of pirates, conquistadors, vestal virgins, Egyptian high priestesses—anything historical.”
“Including Swiss bowmen from the Middle Ages?” Trevor asked.
“Sure,” Marcus replied. “Why?”
Quentin lowered his voice. “Because—and don’t look around—he’s sitting in one of the booths right now.”
After Trevor’s entrance, Marcus hadn’t noticed the flares of sunlight that lit the bar whenever someone walked in. He must have missed Forrester’s entrance while he was gazing into the dreamy face of MGM’s soon-to-be New Exciting Find.
“So-o-o-o,” Quentin purred, “why don’t you pop over there and introduce yourself. Then find a way to weave into the conversation that the perfect person for the role of William Tell is sitting just a few feet away, and is very keen to meet him.”
Trevor’s smile made it quite clear that this ambush had been planned. “And,” Trevor added, “is willing to do whatever it takes to get an audition.”
Marcus glanced at Quentin, then back at Trevor. “Including . . . ?”
Trevor nodded. “You don’t get to be the US champion for six years in any sport without being prepared to do whatever is necessary. You can quote me on that to Mr. Forrester.”
“And remember,” Quentin put in, “we need to get this project going before any more questions get asked back at Paramount.”
As a screenplay writer
, Marcus’ stock in trade was characters: what they looked like and how they thought and behaved. He wended his way around the checkerboard tables to Forrester’s booth and tried to surreptitiously snatch glances of the guy in an attempt to assess who he was dealing with. But the light in the Retake Room was too murky for Marcus to get a firm grip on his prey. Gingerly, he approached Forrester’s booth.
“Excuse me, but you’re Floyd Forrester, aren’t you?”
Forrester looked up from his Hollywood Citizen News. It was opened at the story Marcus had read that morning about the sixty-two bars deemed officially off-limits to all personnel. Unofficially, they were known as H&H bars: hookers and homos. Forrester regarded Marcus’ outstretched hand with a measure of curiosity before shaking it limply.
“My name is Marcus Adler and—”
“I know who you are.” Forrester motioned to the other side of the booth. “Take a seat.”
As Forrester lit a fresh Gitanes cigarette from the end of the one he’d just finished, he studied Marcus with amusement. “William Tell is going to make a hell of a picture,” he said. “A fine feather in your cap, I must say.”
Marcus nodded appreciatively and watched the guy suck in such a deep lungful of smoke that it burned through half his cigarette. His vest buttons strained against a heft they weren’t designed to contain and a second chin swelled against the collar of his white shirt, sitting on the knot of his lavender tie like a Christmas goose. For all his wheezing bulk, Forrester looked like he had the personality of an ice pick. He lifted a tumbler of bright yellow liquid to his lips.
Marcus smelled aniseed. “What’s that you’re drinking?”
“A French liqueur, Pernod. I’d offer you a glass but Europe’s going up in flames, so it might be years before I can get my hands on another bottle.” He ran his eyes over Marcus. “It’s one of my few remaining pleasures in life, and it’s about to become as scarce as edelweiss in the Sahara.”
Searchlights and Shadows (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 4) Page 6
