Searchlights and Shadows (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 4)

by Martin Turnbull

  Marcus took Kathryn’s hand and folded it into the crook of his arm. He caught the faint whiff of the sweet carnation corsage pinned to her jacket. It smelled like Pennsylvania to him. Or maybe Pennsylvania has been on my mind more than usual lately. “What did you think?”

  “Pretty good,” she said, “seeing as how it’s his first movie. He told me at Kay Thompson’s birthday party last week he was anxious because if he didn’t make a complete ass of himself, Mayer would approach RKO about buying out his contract. Apparently, Mayer cried when he heard Frank sing ‘Ol’ Man River.’”

  They stood on the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard and watched a streetcar rattle past them. “You want to head home?”

  Kathryn shook her head. “I’m wide awake. Let’s amble.”

  They headed west toward Highland Avenue, crossed the boulevard, and were soon passing the Hollywood Hotel.

  “Speaking of Mayer,” Kathryn said, squeezing his hand with her elbow, “how’re things at work these days? You don’t talk about it much.”

  Marcus blew a long, wet raspberry. “I always thought that in Hollywood, you were only as good as your last movie. Well, my last movie was one of the top three moneymakers for the year, so there goes that theory.”

  “Maybe you should get into the black-market business with Gwennie,” Kathryn suggested with a laugh. “She tells me she’s making buckets of cash since she teamed up with Linc.”

  They stopped to let a black Mercedes-Benz sedan pull into the driveway of the Hollywood Hotel. It was the first one Marcus had seen in a while—most German cars had quietly disappeared since America entered the war. “I campaigned for both Meet Me In St. Louis and the one we’re doing about Marie Curie, but got knocked back. Ditto that new horse picture, National Velvet. Then I really went all out for Song Of Russia, because that’s our big contribution to pro-Soviet/anti-Axis relations. I figured if I could talk my way onto that picture, it’d prove to Mayer that I’m as red-blooded as any American. But all I got was ‘nyet.’”

  “So what now?”

  “New tactic: come up with my own flag-waving, patriotism-inspiring story.” He furtively patted the letter in his breast pocket. He needed reassurance that it was still there before he showed it to Kathryn.

  She pulled them to a stop. “Let’s watch them turn off all the lights.”

  Theaters were now subject to a citywide dim-out. At ten p.m., they had to switch off every outside light. Angelenos no longer feared a surprise Japanese air attack, but until the Allied Pacific forces stormed Tokyo, everybody agreed: Why take a chance?

  Marcus and Kathryn lingered on the sidewalk as Grauman’s switched off their lights in four stages. It left them standing in a shadowy haze—the streetlights were still burning, but most stores followed suit and switched off their lighting, too. The only lit places were cafes, bars, and restaurants.

  Kathryn pointed down the street to a crowd of several dozen gathered outside C.C. Brown’s. “Something’s going on.”

  By the time they reached the ice cream parlor, the mob had whipped themselves into a feverish state. “I wonder who’s in there,” Marcus said. “Must be someone big.”

  A girl with hair braided to military precision turned around, exclaiming, “It’s Melody Hope!” in a breathless voice usually reserved for overexcited teenagers. “She’s on a date! With Trevor Bergin!” The girl pointed toward the glass windows.

  For someone who had been insecure to the point of paralysis before starting William Tell, Trevor had acquitted himself so well that MGM rushed him into a pirate movie—Storm The Spanish Main. It turned out every bit as thrilling as anything Errol Flynn was in for Warners or Fox was churning out for Tyrone Power. And Trevor was just as good playing a Flemish painter caught in the wake of Napoleon’s army in March to Waterloo. It was hard for Marcus not to feel a snip of resentment that he was good enough to write William Tell but wasn’t even considered for Trevor’s follow-up movies.

  He thought about Quentin. The last thing Marcus heard from Quentin was that he and Trevor were happily—albeit discreetly—shacking up in Quentin’s apartment halfway between MGM and Paramount. Marcus wondered what Quentin thought about this public show of simulated romance.

  A date between Trevor Bergin and Melody Hope had to be a studio thing, but Marcus couldn’t find fault in it. A month before, the LAPD conducted a raid on the Open Door, a queer bar in Hollywood. Nineteen men were thrown into lockup, fingerprinted, and ID’d before being released the following morning, and the next day their names, ages, addresses, and employers were published in both the Times and Examiner—which meant all nineteen men had lost their jobs by the end of the week. Among them were workers from all six major movie studios, including four from MGM. For Marcus, it was a jabbing reminder that while anything goes inside the Garden of Allah, outside its walls, a harsher reality existed, and if he wasn’t careful, it could sneak up and sock him in the jaw.

  The teenager with the taut braids let out a squeal. “Here they come!” She waved her autograph book over her head and called out Melody’s name as the two stars shouldered their way through the thicket of grasping hands and high-pitched squeals.

  A black Plymouth rounded the corner and pulled up at the curb just as Melody and Trevor broke through. They climbed inside and sped off, leaving a trail of fans alternating between excitement at having seen a pair of real-life movie stars and disappointment that they had slipped away so quickly. Within the space of a minute, the crowd dispersed into the encroaching darkness.

  “Got any ration coupons on you?” Kathryn asked. “We could get ourselves a sundae.”

  Marcus shook his head. “My cupboard’s bare.”

  With so few taxis around these days, hoofing it home was the best option. Outside the La Brea Market farther up Hollywood Boulevard, they came across a gathering of a different type. About a dozen people were lined up in silent, patient pairs.

  Marcus approached the two women on the end; their heads were bound up with cheap scarves and they wore no makeup. “What’s going on here?”

  “We’ve heard—”

  “From a reliable source—”

  “That they’re getting in a shipment—“

  “Of shoes!”

  Marcus’ war cake had proved that you could bake a cake without butter, eggs, or milk, and Kathryn’s rosemary lentil casserole had shown that you could go without meat if you had to. But it was the rationing of shoes that most people found hardest to cope with. There were only so many times you could take your old shoes to the cobbler.

  Tempting as it was to join the line, there was an eight-hour wait until La Brea Market opened its doors, so they moved on. Marcus was about to pull the letter from his pocket when Kathryn said, “I was just thinking the other day about war movies. They’re all about soldiers at the front, but hardly any of them deal with the war at home, showing scenes where people line up in the middle of the night on a rumor they might get some new shoes or an egg.”

  “Funny you should say that,” Marcus said. “I’ve been mulling over an idea I had a couple of weeks ago. I see it as an all-star movie about neighbors who all live on the same street, and how they each deal with the war and its effects on the home front.”

  “That’s a great idea!”

  Marcus jiggled his head from side to side. “Yeah, but I haven’t got a villain yet. The Nazis and the Japs are all five thousand miles away, not in the house next door on Main Street, USA. So I still have some figuring to do.”

  “What if you have someone come swooping into town? Maybe someone who left for New York or Hollywood, and drops in, flaunting ration books or—” She snapped her fingers. “Or black-market goods? We know someone who could give you pointers.”

  They walked on for a few steps in silence until Marcus felt the time was right. “Speaking of dropping into town.” He stepped into a pool of light from a streetlamp and pulled the letter from his jacket pocket.

  Kathryn sniffed the envelope. “Nuit de Paris, if I’
m not mistaken. Who’s it from?”

  Marcus counted to three. “Doris.”

  “WHAT?” A lone figure hurrying through the shadows on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard looked up briefly before continuing on his way. “She wrote back? What’s it been, a year?”

  “Nearly. I’d pretty much given up on her, but this came in the mail today.”

  “What did she say?”

  Marcus started fanning the letter. “She wants to come visit.”

  Kathryn pulled him into a hug. “How wonderful!”

  “Mmmm . . . ”

  She kept her grip on his shoulders but pushed him away to arm’s length. “I clearly recall a certain farewell party in which you wailed over how much you missed your family. And now your favorite sister wants to come visit and all you have to say is ‘Mmmm’?”

  Marcus shrugged himself out of Kathryn’s clasp and wrestled with the knowledge that what he was about to say might make him sound idiotic. “She’s a small-town girl, daughter of the mayor, unmarried and therefore probably a virgin—”

  “So?”

  “So she comes to LA, sees where I live, sees how I live . . . ” He let the sentence peter off.

  She ran her hand down his arm. “Are we talking about how your sweetheart isn’t a girl?”

  “The fact is I’m thirty-seven years old and never been married. Back home we used to call those fellows ‘confirmed bachelors,’ but we all knew it was just a euphemism. That rejection was hard enough to take the first time; I honestly don’t know that I could handle it again. Especially not from Doris.”

  “Then why did you write back to her at all?”

  “I thought we could get to know each other through letters. It never occurred to me she’d come all the way out here.”

  “Ever heard of the Greyhound bus?”

  “You’re not helping.” He started to walk away.

  She hurried to catch up. “I’m sorry. Let me help.”

  He kept his eyes on the empty road ahead of him.

  “Show her only as much of your life as you want to.”

  He slowed his pace, but kept his eyes trained on the sidewalk.

  “Tell her there’s a drastic shortage of accommodation because of the war—which is quite true—and that you couldn’t get her into the Garden. We’ll find her some nice place. We can take her to the Mocambo and maybe shock her a little with the floor show at Florentine Gardens. I could treat her to a facial at Elizabeth Arden, you give her a tour of MGM, arrange to bump into Melody or Judy Garland or someone. You fill her head with thrilling memories, and then put her on the Greyhound back to Pennsylvania. Fade to black. Closing credits.”

  Marcus stopped. “So just edit out the socially awkward bits?”

  “Hasn’t your work with the Mobilization taught you anything? It’s all about how the message gets put across.” She tilted her head to one side. “It’s what you’re doing with Oliver, isn’t it? He’s welcome at the Garden, but other places, you edit him out of your social life. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”

  “What does that mean?” Marcus could feel the heat rising off his face.

  “You’re an all-in kind of guy. Look at how long you held that torch for Ramon. Most people would’ve given up long before.”

  “I thought I was in love with him.”

  “All I’m saying is that you’re a very loyal person. Look at how it’s been at work for you. They’re such Indian givers: they love you, they hate you, they give you a raise, then they don’t give you any decent pictures to work on. They hint at an Oscar nomination, then they back out. But do you give up? No! You’re still in there swinging, doing your damndest to stay in the game. It’s all or nothing with you. And in a lot of situations, that’s terrific.” She reached up to wiggle his ear and didn’t react when he pulled back. “But with something like this visit from your sister, it’s okay to be selective. And if we stage-manage it right, not so hard to pull off.”

  The apprehension of voicing his fears about Doris coming to visit had been weighing on Marcus like a yoke. “What would I do without you?”

  She blew a raspberry. “You’d probably resort to hiring some frightful hooker and spend the entire week trying to explain to your virginal small-town sister why your pretend girlfriend knows every other guy she passes in the street. Now that’s the movie you ought to write, if you ask me.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Kathryn watched the rows of orange trees rush by her window. “Really,” she told her boss, “you didn’t have to come.”

  Wilkerson almost looked paternal the way he peered at her over his reading glasses. “The first time I went up, I damn near shit my pants.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Kathryn to be nervous about her first flight. Excited, yes, but not nervous.

  He returned to his newspaper. “You’ll be in a DC-3, you know.”

  A sign reading Lockheed Air Terminal—2 miles flashed past her.

  “DC-3?” Kathryn pulled out her compact and checked her lipstick, some Argentinean brand Linc had snuck into the country. So silky, so moist. “Is that bad?”

  “It’s the same sort of aircraft Carole Lombard was in.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Relax. Hundreds of DC-3s fly around this country and hardly any of them crash. Statistically speaking—”

  “UGH!” She threw the lipstick into her purse. “Why would you even bring up something like that?”

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Wilkerson insisted. “From what I heard, Lombard’s crash was human error, but Howard Hughes will be in the seat today, and he’s probably the best civilian pilot in the country.”

  Kathryn pulled at the edges of her chinchilla coat. It was sixty degrees in Los Angeles, but the weather for Seattle was predicted to hit the low forties. She sat in silence trying to banish thoughts of Carole’s plane crash.

  The chauffeur pulled onto the airport driveway. Ahead of them, a TWA plane sat on the runway, the early morning sun glinting on its unpainted silver body. A banner erected between two steel poles stood off to one side: USO TOUR in big white letters against a blue background. Along the bottom read the motto UNTIL EVERY ONE COMES HOME. The whole thing was surrounded with white stars and a bright red border.

  They parked alongside several other expensive cars. Kathryn got out and waved toward the group of people milling around the stairwell. The first to wave back was Humphrey Bogart; he came striding toward her.

  It struck Kathryn that he was more handsome in person than he was on the screen, perhaps because he always played cynical loners and world-weary heavies. Bogie smoked Chesterfields like every other guy, but on him they smelled more manly somehow, more reassuring. “Tyrone was telling me this is your first flight,” he said. “Anxious?”

  Kathryn glanced at the USO sign. Until every one comes home. She shook her head. “All ready to try my wings.”

  He stroked her chinchilla coat. “Nice,” he said sardonically. “Now that you’re this big radio star, I guess you gotta dress the part.”

  It had been nearly four months since Kathryn took over from Anita Wyndham on Kraft Music Hall, and she was still getting used to the idea that she was heard from coast to coast. Her first on-air reports were a bit shaky, but Bing had given her tips on how to steady herself: “Double-space your notes; short breath between sentences; cut out milk the day of the broadcast.”

  By the fourth week he was engaging her in banter, and two weeks later, she parried one of his good-natured digs. “Any more cracks like that, mister, and I’ll be telling Zukor your next picture should be called Road to Nowhere.” The studio audience howled with laughter, Crosby gave her the thumbs up, and she hadn’t looked back. When Marcus suggested she report on the USO’s program for entertaining the troops, she started a series that unfettered an avalanche of fan mail and resulted in the USO inviting her on tour. Wilkerson sent around an all-staff memo saying the Reporter’s circulation was up by nearly ten percent, thanks to Kathryn.

>   Bogie walked her to the plane, where Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and Danny Kaye were dancing an improvised time step to keep warm. Kathryn was thrilled to see Judy there. Rumors had been rife lately that she and her director on Meet Me In St. Louis were getting romantic. The movie had been an enormous hit, due in part, Kathryn thought, to the skillful way Vincente Minnelli guided Judy through a difficult shoot. Kathryn had only met Minnelli once and found him a quiet-spoken man of innate good taste, dripping with class. She hoped the rumors were true and sensed a big story.

  “Thank God you’re here!” Judy grabbed her arm. “I was afraid I’d be the only gal to keep these galoots in check.”

  Van Johnson protested with a stern “HEY!”

  “You know we can hear you,” Tyrone said. He looked dashing in his formfitting Marine Corps uniform. He doffed his hat and motioned toward the stairway that led up into the aircraft.

  The cabin had six rows of double seats separated by a center aisle. Kathryn had hoped for a seat next to Judy, but Judy and Gene were singing “When You Wore A Tulip And I Wore A Big Red Rose” from a long way down the stairwell. Kathryn stared at the portholes—barely one foot by one foot—and wondered if staring at the ground falling away from them was the best thing she could do to quell her nerves. She heard Bogie’s voice behind her.

  “For the first-time flyer, I suggest a room with a view.”

  She removed her fur and handed it to the blonde stewardess, then she and Humphrey clipped themselves into their seats. When Bob Hope spotted her in the front row, he broke out into a chorus of “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.” Judy threw Tyrone’s Marine Corps cap at him. “It’s Kathryn, you big dope!”

  “If she’d signed on to my radio show, I’d have gotten her name right.”

  Kathryn wondered if he knew what his sponsor’s price of admission was.

  While the rest of the passengers—the USO band and a couple of backup singers—boarded and the crew settled everyone in, Kathryn looked out the window. She spotted Wilkerson and Howard Hughes standing together on the tarmac. Dressed in a gray flying suit and no hat, Hughes was shaking his head almost as vigorously as Wilkerson was nodding. They didn’t seem to be arguing, but they weren’t in agreement, either. Abruptly, Hughes walked away. Wilkerson cupped his hands to be heard over the propellers. He was still shouting as Hughes mounted the staircase.