“This shouldn’t take long,” she told Gwendolyn. “Just tell them I got unavoidably detained.”
She watched Gwendolyn cross Vine Street, then spun around. “What the hell was that?”
“I think she appreciated the information—”
“I know, I know, you’re Mister Special Insider Information. You made that quite clear when you came up with my father’s name.” He winced, then looked away, and she realized she’d hit a nerve. But somehow she didn’t feel like she’d scored a point. “Not that I’m not grateful,” she was curiously compelled to add. “In fact, I was thinking that perhaps when things settle down after the war, I might look into his whereab—”
“Don’t bother,” he snapped, and pressed his lips into a thin line.
“Hey, I didn’t ask you to track my father down. You’re the one who opened that door, and now you’re telling me to close it?”
“It was my job to woo you.” Hoyt met her gaze, glare for glare. “Persuade you to join us in our fight against Communism. I figured if I did you a favor and tracked down information you wouldn’t normally have access to, then you’d trust me. That didn’t seem to work. So I dug further and eventually found him.”
Kathryn’s heart jolted. “You found my father? How . . . ? Where . . . ?”
He raised his hands as though to push her away. “I know you won’t want to, but on this, you have to trust me. This is not something you want to take any further. Drop it, okay?”
FBI be damned! “I think I’ve had all I can take,” she hissed. “You come barging into my life, just about blackmail me to snoop on my friends, you try and worm your way into my good books by using my dearest friend’s brother, and then to top it all off, you dangle my father’s identity in front of me, then whip it away like it’s some cheap little sparkly bracelet. What kind of person are you?”
“Miss Massey, you’re a public figure, you’re known coast to coast. You don’t want this skeleton escaping the closet—”
Her heart jolted a second time. “It’s that bad?”
“Sing Sing.”
“My father is—”
“In prison. Now will you drop it?”
Kathryn’s mind fogged over. Through the roar of traffic, she heard him say, “Can we please now focus on the issue at hand?”
“What issue is that?”
“Humphrey Bogart.”
“Yes,” she said, facing him more squarely now, “let’s talk about Humphrey Bogart.” I’ve given you what you wanted, so I assume this is where we bid each other sayonara.”
“I’m afraid it’s not,” he replied coolly.
“Don’t you dare welsh on me now.” Kathryn pulled her elbows in to cloak her shaking.
“Our deal was for you to provide us with accurate information on Bogart’s whereabouts on the night in question.”
“Which I did.”
“February twenty-ninth was also the final night of the Clover Club. I’m surprised you weren’t there. Lots of celebrities. And photographers. Taking photographs. Of celebrities. Like Peter Lorre.”
Kathryn stepped back until she felt the wall of the NBC studios against her back. The afternoon sun had heated the bricks, and it now seeped through her clothes.
Hoyt said, “And while I’m glad to know that Bogart considers Lorre the best pal a guy could ask for, I must question whose side he’s on.”
Kathryn saw only one path left: go on the offensive. “What the hell did you expect?” she demanded. “You asked me to spy on my friends, my colleagues, my neighbors.”
“You agreed to—”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree. As far as Bogart is concerned, you’re not even in the right forest.”
“Your job was to bring me the evidence, not analyze it.”
“So what if he got Peter Lorre to cover for him?” She pushed herself off the brick wall. “The point is, he wasn’t at your damned Communist meeting, he was—”
Something shifted inside Kathryn’s head, like a half-forgotten dream falling into place. “Peter Lorre is the best pal a guy could ask for? That’s what Bogie said when we were in his living room.” She stepped forward, within slapping distance. “You quoted him word for word.”
“Miss Massey! It is you, isn’t it?” A pair of middle-aged women approached her. From the conservative cut of their lacy outfits, Kathryn guessed them to be Pasadena society matrons.
“We were in the audience just now,” the nearer one said. “My daughter is such a fan of yours. Works for Universal. Just the typing pool, but she has ambition.” She thrust her audience ticket toward Kathryn, along with a fountain pen. “Would you mind?”
Kathryn could barely see three inches in front of her. You FBI sons of bitches bugged Bogie’s villa. You were listening to us the whole time. She uttered some inane platitude of thanks. If they bugged Bogie, have they bugged other people? She waved the women goodbye.
“Why even rope me into this whole ugly business if you were just going to bug Bogie anyway?”
“I didn’t know about the bug until afterwards.” An involuntary tic started twitching Hoyt’s right cheek. It was the first chink she’d seen in the guy’s armor. “Hoover sent the order without telling me.”
“What about my place?” she threw back. Oh my God! All those conversations about Gwendolyn’s black-market business! “You got that bugged too?”
“No, just Bo—”
“Who’s to say you cretins haven’t broken into every villa in the Garden of Allah and—”
“I promise you, Miss Massey, only Bogart’s—”
“Promise me? HA!” She slapped Hoyt across the face with every last scrap of strength she could muster. Her palm landed flat against his cheek, the thwack ringing louder than she expected. It caught him off guard and sent him stumbling across the sidewalk. “Your promises aren’t worth spitting on.” She went to cross Sunset, but he jerked her back from the curb.
“You were right about Bogart,” he said. “He’s not the Commie we suspected him to be. But his was only one of many names on our list. We have every reason to believe that the reestablishment of peace will give rise to a deliberate attack on our democratic process from Communist influences.” She wished she could summon up a gob of spit, even just a few drops, but her mouth was like parchment.
“We’re going to need your services after the war has ended. Mr. Hoover instructed me to let you know that if you refuse to cooperate with us, a lot may be accomplished with a whisper campaign.”
Kathryn watched the traffic—motorcars, bicycles, delivery vans, pedestrians—make its way along Sunset and up Vine. She envied the people and their untroubled lives while hers was sinking into quicksand. “Whisper campaign?”
“Remember that lesbian thing we talked about?”
He let go of her hand, then tipped his hat. She closed her eyes to pull herself together. By the time she opened them again, he was gone.
* * *
Kathryn’s innards felt like a cement mixer, churning anger with fear, outrage with frustration, disappointment with bitterness. Danford . . . Sing Sing . . . Bogart . . . Okinawa . . . bugs . . .
She stood in front of the Canteen’s cloakroom mirror and found she needed an overhaul. Her lipstick was all but gone, blotched mascara sat in tiny puddles under bleary eyes, and her hair was sticking out like broken sticks of cactus. She was already late for her shift, so a patch job would have to do.
She dove into her purse and pulled out the stub of her last good lipstick. You must know somebody who can pull strings or lean on— She paused to stare at herself. And just who do you think you’re going to find to lean on J. Edgar Hoover? Even the president’s scared of that jackass.
Her eye caught the hand-lettered sign above the mirror. Bette Davis had written it herself the day the Canteen opened.
WHATEVER TROUBLES YOU MAY HAVE, LEAVE THEM AT THE DOOR.
YOU ARE HERE FOR THE BOYS.
SMILE, LAUGH, DANCE, AND BE GAY.
GIVE THEM
A MEMORY TO LAST THEIR WHOLE LIVES,
HOWEVER LONG THAT MAY BE.
She dropped her lipstick back into her purse, swiped away the smudged mascara, and ran a quick brush through her hair. When she walked into the main room, she sensed an intense hum permeating the crowd.
Dozens of men, excited to be on shore leave and eager for female company, always kept the Canteen contagiously buoyant. But tonight the enthusiasm seemed to border on manic. On stage, Gene Krupa’s orchestra was hammering out “No Name Jive.” Kathryn had seen them perform often through the war, but this night they were playing louder, faster. The couples on the floor danced with rousing frenzy, their arms and legs reduced to flickering blurs.
Kathryn walked to the coffee station and joined Alexis Smith. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Alexis replied. “This crowd needs cold drinks tonight.”
Kathryn jacked a thumb toward the dance floor. “What gives? Did someone drop Benzedrine in their soda pop?”
Alexis smiled. “Word’s out among the troops that Japan’s made an offer of surrender. They’re saying the announcement’s just a matter of time.” She grabbed Kathryn by the arm. “We’re nearly there.”
Kathryn watched the couples hurl each other around the dance floor. In the center was Betty Hutton, her golden hair glowing in the lights. She wore a full skirt, black and studded with jet beads, and was dancing with a muscular, sandy-haired sailor who resembled Monty so much it gave Kathryn a start. Monty’s on the USS Iowa somewhere off the coast of Japan. What a manipulative ploy. She felt a hand on her back.
“You didn’t tell me he was so attractive!” Gwendolyn said.
Kathryn planted her hands on her hips. “You know what that devious little fink just admitted to me? They snuck in and planted a bug in Bogie’s villa. They were listening in on our conversation. They know we made it all up!”
“They didn’t!” Gwendolyn exclaimed. “Do you think we’ve all been bugged?”
Onstage, Krupa launched into a prolonged drum solo to the cheers of a hundred sweaty bodies.
“He said no, but screw him if he thinks I’m going to take his word for it.” She thwacked the coffee table with her hand. “Oh, and because I lied to him with my Bogie and Peter Lorre story, he says I violated our agreement, so they will continue to require my services after the war.”
“Can they make you do that?”
“If I don’t cooperate, Hoover himself plans on starting a whisper campaign to spread the word that I’m a lesbian.” Kathryn watched the implications filter through Gwennie’s mind. “Sweetie,” she said, “I think it’s time we each got our own place.”
“I always assumed we’d be roomies until one of us got married, or die there a couple of cantankerous old biddies.” Gwendolyn’s voice sounded thin.
“I feel like I’m being dragged deeper into something that I don’t want you to get caught up in.”
Gwendolyn winced.
“And don’t forget Leilah,” Kathryn persisted.
The girls were still recovering from Marcus’ news about Leilah’s brothels. They had concluded it must have something to do with Linc’s disappearance, and that Linc had discovered the O’Roarkes had used Tattler’s business to launder their brothel money in order to buy up land around Las Vegas. It would explain why he took off with his and Gwendolyn’s money before O’Roarke or Siegel got their hands on it. But they’d never know until Linc resurfaced, if he ever did.
But it was also possible Linc’s Mexico story was a red herring. Who’s to say he was even there? He could be in Timbuktu for all they knew. The night Marcus revealed Taggert’s news about Leilah, Gwendolyn declared that she’d written Linc off as “a casualty of war” and needed to move on.
Kathryn asked, “Do you really want the FBI to discover a direct connection between you and someone who runs a bunch of brothels?”
Gwendolyn shook her head.
“We can talk about all this later.”
“Speaking of talking, Bette sent me to fetch you. She’s in the back.”
Kathryn wound her way to the office, where she found the boss at her desk. As usual, it was littered with bills and correspondence.
Kathryn knocked on the doorjamb. “Sorry I was late. We taped a special show tonight and—”
Bette came around from behind her desk. “There’s something I want to ask you. Something personal.”
“Does this have anything to do with my being a lesbian?” The question spilled out of her like yolk from a broken egg.
Bette stared at her, open-mouthed. “I was going to ask you what your relationship with L.B. Mayer was these days. I know you and he used to go dancing, and I’ve been having problems with Melody Hope. She’s become so unreliable and—”
“Do you think I’m one? A lesbian, I mean? Because I’m not, you know.”
Bette blinked with heavy-lidded deliberation. “Oh?”
Her “Oh?” had a ring of surprise around it. Kathryn sank into one of the two chairs facing Bette’s desk. “IS that how I come across?”
“I’m a tough-minded broad trying to stake my claim in a man-centered world. You think I haven’t weathered my fair share of accusations?” Bette let out a chuckle. “If I had a dollar for every time ‘that Davis dyke’ is said out loud in this town, I could finance this Canteen single-handedly—and buy a beach house in Malibu with the change.”
“You really thought I was a dyke?”
“I shouldn’t speak for everyone, but I suspect it’s safe to say most people have made the same assumption.”
“THEY HAVE?”
“My dear, you’re in your, what, mid thirties? And you aren’t married. Apart from those Orson Welles rumors a while back, you’ve never been publicly linked to anyone. And you’ve lived at the Garden of Allah with the same—”
“I’m not that way. And neither is Gwendolyn.”
“Oh, Kathryn,” Bette said, more tenderly now, “I don’t really care one way or the other.”
“I just wanted you to know, in case it ever came up.”
“Why is it coming up now?”
Those huge Bette Davis eyes pierced her. Kathryn was starting to feel more than a little foolish and wished she’d clamped down her big fat mouth. “Somebody recently brought all this circumstantial evidence to my attention. You and I don’t know each other terribly well, so I was just curious to see what you thought.”
“Okay then,” Bette said, suddenly sounding like one of her take-charge characters, “why don’t you just start dating around? LA’s simply swarming with men. Get out there and sample the buffet until you’re fit to burst.”
Kathryn shook her head. “That’s not really my style. I can barely juggle one man, let alone a whole battalion. At any rate, I just wanted you to know—”
Bette waved away the rest of Kathryn’s sentence. “My dear, it’s quite immaterial to me who you—” Her telephone jangled to life. “That blasted thing never stops!” She reached over and picked up the receiver.
What if the FBI is serious? One whisper into the ears of those hard-core right-wingers at the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and my life could go to blazes.
Kathryn became aware that Bette was sitting quite still, barely breathing. She tried to say something but her voice had disintegrated into a raw croak. The telephone receiver lay dead in Bette’s hand.
“Who was that?” Kathryn asked.
“My contact at the war department. Truman was just on the radio. Japan has accepted the terms of surrender.” She dropped the telephone and gripped Kathryn by the shoulders. “It’s over! Oh my God, Kathryn. It’s all over!”
They hugged each other tightly, spattering each other’s shoulders with tears until Kathryn was shaking. Bette pushed her away to arms’ length. “I don’t know what to do first!”
Kathryn pointed toward the stage. “You get yourself in front of that microphone, and you tell everybody in the room the greatest news they will ev
er hear.”
Out in the packed barn, Bette shouldered her way through the dancers, then climbed the steps to the stage. By the time Kathryn rejoined Gwendolyn at the coffee table, Bette had interrupted the band and was gripping the microphone stand with both hands to steady herself.
“Sailors, soldiers, marines, all you wonderful, brave boys! And all my marvelous volunteers, I have an announcement. President Truman has announced that Japan has surrendered. THE WAR IS OVER!”
A deafening cheer erupted and military caps and hats flew into the air. Kathryn turned to find Gwendolyn weeping into her hands, repeating Monty’s name over and over. Kathryn wrapped her arm over Gwendolyn’s shoulder. “Monty’s made it through,” she shouted over the tumult. “We’re all going to be okay.” Gwendolyn nodded. They stayed huddled together until other arms pulled them apart, needing hugs of their own.
The next hour hurtled by in a blur: a tumultuous, unrestrained chaos of tears and Tarzan yells; a carnival of navy blues and army greens; kisses to the cheek, the forehead, the lips; bear hugs and singing, conga lines and wolf whistles. The place emptied fast—booze wasn’t served at the Hollywood Canteen, and these men needed something stronger than coffee and pop. The volunteers had families and friends to celebrate with, so Bette closed the Canteen, declaring, “We can clean up tomorrow!”
It was six o’clock when Gwendolyn and Kathryn hit the streets and found the same scene playing out along the length and breadth of Sunset Boulevard. Radios blared from open windows—“Happy Days Are Here Again,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive.” Paper streamers rainbowed the air, strangers danced, and lovers loved.
The girls could hear the party at the Garden of Allah from half a block away. Artie Shaw’s clarinet was unmistakable.
The two dashed through the main building and burst into the pool area. Paper lanterns of red, white, and blue dotted the trees like patriotic fireflies. The communal booze table was twice its usual size, piled with every type of hooch: from whiskey to wine, beer to Dottie’s punch. Dozens of bright orange and green balloons bounced over the heads of the crowd; every now and then one burst from a cigarette butt.
Searchlights and Shadows (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 4) Page 34
