“Clem O’Roarke, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Hughes’ tone had turned cautious.
“What can you tell me about it?”
“What do you need to know?”
“Ever dealt with them?”
“Not directly.”
“They on the up-and-up, you think?”
Hughes selected a toothpick, but didn’t start using it right away. “Depends on what you mean by ‘up-and-up.’ We’re talking Clem O’Roarke here, so . . . ” His eyes drifted to Wilkerson’s attention-grabbing conversation with Judy and Minnelli, but Kathryn could see his mind lingered elsewhere. “What’s your interest in Primm Valley Realty?”
“Long story,” Kathryn said. “A friend of mine is involved with someone who does business with them. It all smells like last month’s garbage to me, but I want more information.”
“I can make inquiries.” Hughes turned his dark eyes back to her. “Tell me what your connection is with Nelson Hoyt?”
His question took Kathryn by such surprise that she missed her mouth with her fork by an embarrassing margin. “What makes you think—?”
“Apart from the way you stabbed yourself in the face just now? First of all, the FBI has recruited Louella and Hedda, and I assume they’ve approached you as well. Secondly, Hoyt’s at the table nearest the kitchen door. And number three: his eyeballs keep bouncing back and forth between you and Bogie.”
“How do you know Nelson Hoyt?” Kathryn asked.
Hughes finished picking his teeth, snapped the toothpick in two, and dropped it into the glass ashtray. “He and I tangled over a thorny issue back when I was remaking Hell’s Angels for sound. Prohibition and all that jazz. He got the better of me—a rare occurrence, I can assure you.” He watched Bogie and Bacall giggle over some sort of private joke. “I like Bogie. I like the kind of man he is.” He pulled his gaze away from them and looked at her expectantly.
“They think Bogie’s a Commie,” Kathryn admitted.
“Because of that idiot who testified in front of the Dies Committee?”
Kathryn nodded. “He’d be a real big catch for them. They want me to bring them verification and I want to prove them wrong.”
“How are you going to do that?”
Kathryn shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. I’m supposed to find out where Bogie was on the night a Communist Party meeting took place at the Book of the Day.”
“Your boss know about any of this?”
“Are you nuts?” Kathryn scoffed. “Have you read his editorials lately?”
Billy Wilkerson had appointed himself a mouthpiece for the fervor of anti-Communist sentiment that was gathering momentum in Hollywood. Over the past months, he’d used his “TradeView” column to expound his theory that the Screen Writers Guild was on its way to becoming a principal Communist stronghold, and had taken it upon himself to expose what he saw as a plot. Using increasingly hysterical language that suggested the Guild was only the first step in a Communist takeover of Hollywood, he’d transformed himself into a topic of water cooler conversation in studios across the city. Secretly, Kathryn suspected he was only doing it to increase circulation. She was for anything that improved her job security, but it worried her that he’d started to believe his own bluster.
“Keep him in the dark,” Hughes said, “otherwise he’ll get drunk one day and blab everything. I’m going to say yes to him, by the way.”
Kathryn felt her heart drop. “To his casino deal?”
“He’s made a success of every establishment he’s opened. Take a look around you. Now throw in the declaration of peace, the lifting of rations, and the post-war boom every economist worth his weight in rolled pennies is predicting. It’s all up from here.” She started to say something, but he cut her off. “This Primm Valley Realty has me intrigued. What kind of garbage are we talking here?”
“Possible money laundering.”
“I’ll look into it for you and let you know if I find anything. And this Book of the Day meeting? When was that?”
“Last day of February.”
“Ah, the twenty-ninth.”
Kathryn felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. How did I not make that connection before now? “Leap Year Day! Maybe my job just got a whole lot easier.”
“It certainly did,” Hughes told her. “That was the first day of shooting on To Have And Have Not. All you need do is look at those two lovebirds to know that Bogie’s going to recall what he did the first day of shooting on that picture.”
“But how do you know when shooting on that movie started?”
Hughes permitted a glint of sheepishness to flicker across his face like a moth before he caught it and brushed it away. “I’d heard about this Betty Bacall girl from Hoagy.”
“Hoagy Carmichael?” The unexpected friendships in this town never ceased to amaze her.
Hughes nodded. “He’s in the movie. Anyway, he was blathering on and on about this spectacular new skirt Bogart was going all baboon-crazy over, so I decided to go see for myself. You can’t use me as proof, but you can take this to the bank—on Leap Day last year, Humphrey Bogart wasn’t in any damned bookstore.”
CHAPTER 41
It was four in the afternoon when Gwendolyn walked into the Zephyr Room. You may not be the world’s greatest actress, she told herself, but you can pull this off. Even with a sharp tack like Ben Siegel.
The bar was decked out in white paint and chrome mirrors, curved surfaces and ornamental plaster flourishes. Not too fussy, just enough to please the eye. To her left stood a semicircular bar with padded stools spaced around it, half of them filled. None of those would do for today, she decided.
The last booth tucked away in the corner was free, but might be tricky if she needed a quick getaway. The booth next to it fell in less shadow but it’d do. She slid across the dark green upholstery and popped open her bag. She didn’t need to double-check if the map and the sailing schedule were in there, but her nerves forced her to. By the time she looked up, she found Siegel striding toward her. He wore the jacket with the large black-and-white checks he’d had on the day he coerced her and Linc inside Virginia’s house.
A waiter appeared at the table. Siegel ordered a scotch and soda; Gwendolyn asked for iced tea.
He lit up a cigarette and opened his gold case to her. Gwendolyn was dying for a smoke, but accepting one felt like giving in. She thought of Ritchie and how she was sitting next to the guy who ordered his execution, or perhaps even pulled the trigger. I’ve heard him call you his “one that got away.” She swallowed hard and shook her head.
“So,” he said, “what have you got for me?”
She prayed her hands wouldn’t shake as she pulled out her “evidence”—a schedule of ocean liners between Miami and Buenos Aires and a timetable for trains to Uruguay’s capital city, Montevideo. She’d underlined the name Allemannia and scribbled in a date, cabin number, and the fare. She pointed to the date and steeled herself. “That’s the day after the last time I saw Linc.”
Siegel nodded slowly. “What else?”
She’d purchased a map of Uruguay and spent twenty minutes folding and unfolding it, along the creases, bending it every which way, sprinkling coffee on it and throwing it on the floor. She opened it to Lago Rincón del Bonete and tapped her fingernail on a small town called San Gregorio, where she’d gotten Marcus to write Hotel Los Medanos. “I’d bet my last dime that you’ll find Linc in that hotel.”
Siegel finished his drink with his eyes glued to the map. “I knew you could do it if you put your mind to it.”
Gwendolyn wondered—again—why she was risking her neck for someone who’d stolen so much from her. But she refused to believe Linc was just a cheap thief. Whatever his reasons, she suspected they had to do with Tattler’s Tuxedos and Primm Valley Realty. Especially in light of what Howard Hughes had told Kathryn after he’d gone digging.
“So there you have it.” She snapped her purse shut. “And he can rot in hell’s
sewer as far as I’m concerned.”
Siegel eyed Gwendolyn’s untouched iced tea. “I hear it takes three weeks to get a passport, faster if you pay more.”
Look him in the eye, she told herself. Wolves can smell fear. “Going somewhere?”
He shifted his eyes to the map laid out in front of him. “One of us is taking a trip, and it ain’t me.”
Gwendolyn felt the alarm spread up from her chest. “You said, ‘Locate Linc, and our arrangement comes to an end.’ That was the deal.”
“The deal’s changed. I need him here, and you’re going to bring him back to me because you’re the only one he’ll listen to.”
It was in that moment Gwendolyn realized that she never did get away from Bugsy Siegel that night at the Hollywoodland sign, six months before Pearl Harbor. He’d just let her go for another day. These guys play for keeps.
“A gentleman doesn’t change a deal,” she told him.
Before Siegel could reply, the bartender yelled out “JESUS!” He leapt onto the circular bar and cupped his hands to his mouth. “THE HUNS JUST SURRENDERED. IT’S OVER, EVERYBODY! THE WAR IN EUROPE IS OVER!”
A primitive roar filled the place as though someone had thrown a switch. The two well-dressed ladies in the booth next to Gwendolyn hooted like owls and a trio of navy officers at the bar threw their caps into the air and started hugging each other. Everybody jumped to their feet laughing and hollering, whooping and embracing every stranger they could seize.
Gwendolyn snatched her handbag and went to slide out of the booth, but Siegel stopped her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“They just declared peace,” she yelled over the din. “You think I’m going to just sit here with you and—”
“We haven’t finished our business.”
Gwendolyn pulled her arm free and threw herself into the revelry, declining every hug and kiss as she wormed her way to the door. She kept expecting Siegel to wrench her back, but she reached, unmolested, the white swinging doors that led out to Wilshire Boulevard.
The uproar inside the Zephyr Room was magnified a hundred times outside. The traffic on Wilshire had ground to a halt. People switched off their cars and jumped onto the road, leaping and dancing with whoever happened to pull alongside them. Horns blared over and over while somewhere someone was playing “Chattanooga Choo Choo” on a trumpet. Along the sidewalk, a conga line started heading toward Gwendolyn, twenty or more people gripped hip to hip, chanting: “War is over, yeah, yeah! War is over, yeah, yeah!” Halfway down the line, a tall guy in a ridiculously outsized sombrero invited her to join in. Gwendolyn glanced behind her in time to see Siegel emerge from the bar.
She ducked across the side street and into the Brown Derby. It was bedlam in there, too. This time, however, she accepted every embrace that came her way and let the tears spill down her cheeks. The conga chant got taken up inside the Derby, too. Gwendolyn knew the war wouldn’t be over for her until Monty was back on American soil, but meanwhile, Europe was finally at peace! She could scarcely believe it.
Back at the Derby’s front door, she looked out across the mayhem choking Wilshire. Still no Siegel. She ventured outside and picked her way through the maze of stopped cars. If she could make it across the street to the Ambassador Hotel and into the Cocoanut Grove where she knew Chuck would be setting up the bar, she’d be safe.
She reached the southern side of Wilshire and was barely five steps from the Ambassador’s gates when she felt herself being whipped around. “Don’t ever do that to me again!” The chords in Siegel’s neck stood out; his face was brick red.
She stared at him. These guys play for keeps.
“I’ve pussy-footed around you too damned long,” he told her. “Enough is enough.”
I’ve heard him call you his “one that got away.”
“We’re going back to my place—” Siegel tightened his hold, “—and celebrate.”
Gwendolyn broke away from his hypnotic scrutiny. She could picture Ritchie’s words on the page—He’s always wanted to get you into the sack—and knew she had to play her sole ace.
“All this nickel and dime hooey, why are you bothering?” He gaped at her. Nobody spoke to Benjamin Siegel like this. “What if I were to tell you about something going on right under your nose that will make all this black-market nylons and perfume look like kids’ stuff?”
His eyes ran down her and up again, cool but intrigued. “Like what?”
She waited until the conga line, now more than fifty people long, chugged past.
He released her arm but his twitching fingers showed that he was ready to grab her again.
“Ever heard of a place called Las Vegas?” He shook his head cautiously. “It’s in Nevada. Billy Wilkerson plans on building a casino there. And you know what moneymakers those joints can be, especially in a state where gambling is legal.”
A trio of car horns burst to life, accompanied by a roaring cheer. Gwendolyn let them die down. “But Wilkerson’s a reckless gambler, so nobody trusts him with this idea. Except for one person: Clem O’Roarke.” The light of recognition ignited Siegel’s face. Gwendolyn silently blessed Howard Hughes for the information Bugsy Siegel was about to receive. “He’s got this company called Primm Valley Realty, and he’s using it to buy up cheap land in and around this Las Vegas place. Wilkerson’s willing to pay a bundle for the right plot, and O’Roarke’s company now owns nearly all the land from there to the state border.”
Gwendolyn prayed Kathryn would understand. After all, when Kathryn told her and Marcus what Hughes had reported, she did say, “We need to get him out of the casino business!”
“Wilkerson’s not the right person to build a casino,” Siegel said.
“But you are,” Gwendolyn prodded. “You, with all your experience. Imagine the fortune you could make if you took over.”
She took a long, slow step back and turned to face Wilshire again. The conga line had looped back onto the northern side of the boulevard, a hundred people long. Even from this distance and over the clamor of the horns, she could hear their chant. “War is over, yeah, yeah! War is over, yeah, yeah!”
“Look at that thing,” she shouted over the ruckus. “It just grows and grows.” She paused for a moment, then gauged his mood from the corner of her eye. He seemed somber and preoccupied, barely aware now of the commotion around him. “See you around,” she told him.
He nodded with a slight jut of his chin, and she blended into the pandemonium.
CHAPTER 42
When Nelson Hoyt’s note arrived, Kathryn was arguing with Artie Shaw over which song would play best when Bogie and Bacall arrived. The Garden of Allah was throwing a party for them before they headed east for their wedding, and Artie wanted “Speak Low” on account of Bacall’s deep voice, but Kathryn preferred “How Little We Know,” which Hoagy Carmichael had written for Bacall to sing in To Have And Have Not.
She didn’t recognize the handwriting on the front of the envelope: Miss Kathryn Massey, c/o the Garden of Allah Hotel, Sunset Boulevard. She told Artie to pick whichever song he thought best and retreated to her place.
Both the envelope and the note inside were made of expensive paper: thick and yet slightly translucent.
It read: Your father’s name was Thomas Danford. See? I’m not all bad. And I do keep my word. Now it’s time you kept yours.
She stared at the perfectly formed letters in dark brown ink. Thomas Danford.
“I thought you were helping to set up.” Gwendolyn stood in the doorway leading from the bedroom. “I’m glad you’re here, though. This dress is a beast to zip—what’s wrong?”
Kathryn felt like one of those actresses from the silent screen, mouth open but no sound. She held out Hoyt’s note and watched Gwendolyn’s eyes move across the page.
“So you’re really Kathryn Danford.” It felt as though Gwendolyn was talking about someone neither of them had ever met. “It does have a nice ring to it.”
“Say it again.”
“Kathryn Danford. Kathryn Danford. You sound like one of those blue-blooded ladies with permanent waves, the ones who lunch in the Bullocks Tea Room three times a week.”
“I am not Kathryn Danford.” She slid the note back into its envelope. “Kathryn Danford is someone who grew up in a nice part of Boston with doting parents, then went to Vassar or Bryn Mawr before she married a well-mannered patent attorney and joined the country club where she learned to play a thoroughly decent game of bridge.”
Kathryn needed time to understand her bitter reaction. She’d expected to feel the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle falling into place. But instead, she felt detached from the stranger in Hoyt’s note.
“Aren’t you the teensiest bit curious about who this Thomas Dan—”
“Kathryn Danford never happened. Kathryn Massey is alive and well. And besides, Mother said she didn’t even know who my father was, so how can Mister FBI come up with this sort of information? I bet he just plucked a random name out of some old Boston city directory.”
“He’s probably got some FBI tricks up his sleeve,” Gwendolyn said, “so there’s a chance this name is legit. And if it is, maybe this Hoyt guy’s not so bad after all.”
Kathryn started to grapple with Gwendolyn’s obstinate zipper. “There’s something I probably should have told you,” she said. “The FBI has a file on me.”
“If they were going to recruit you—”
“And in that file is a report about how I have lived with the same woman for eighteen years.”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
Kathryn hooked the fastener at the top of Gwendolyn’s black-and-white polkadot swing skirt and spun her around. “Not ‘shared with’ or ‘roomed with,’ but ‘lived with.’”
Gwendolyn’s mouth formed a perfect O. “You mean like Alla and Glesca?” She started to laugh. “And I always assumed the FBI was smart.”
“We’re both over thirty and neither of us have ever been married.”
Gwendolyn stopped laughing like she’d been slugged. “But that hardly makes us lesbians. Besides, I’ve been seen in public with Linc, and before him Alistair and Eldon.”
Searchlights and Shadows (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 4) Page 30
