Bit Player

by Janet Dawson

  “I kept a lot of the letters,” Caro told me. “Mostly the letters Mom and Dad wrote to each other when he was overseas during World War Two. She kept his, of course, and Dad carried a packet of her letters with him all through the war. I thought that was so romantic.”

  What we keep and what we throw away. It was logical that Caro would preserve her parents’ wartime correspondence. And just as logical that she would winnow out what looked like chaff, the letters from people who were not family members. These days we’re drowning in paper and clutter. We can’t keep everything. So we make those choices of what to keep and what to throw away.

  I wondered what this would mean to future historians, the people who rely on personal correspondence to reveal the lives and characters of historic figures. Somehow scrolling through e-mails doesn’t have the same cachet. And electronic communication is so easily disposed of, gone in the click of a mouse, dumped into a symbolic trash can.

  “She could have mentioned her roommates in those letters to Grandpa,” I said.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Caro said. “Mom wrote really newsy letters. I enjoy reading them. They’re such a time machine, back to the United States of the forties. Come on up to Santa Rosa. You’re welcome to look through them.”

  I looked at my calendar and Caro looked at hers. We set a date for getting together, the following Saturday. We were about to end the call when Caro said, “You should go see Aunt Dulcie, too. She and Mom were always close. They wrote each other lots of letters and I did keep some of those. But I know Dulcie keeps everything. After Uncle Fred died and Pat moved Dulcie in with her and Bruce, I remember Pat saying her mother refused to throw out any of her letters. I’ll bet Dulcie remembers things from Mom’s Hollywood days. And her letters would be a treasure trove.”

  “That’s a great idea.” My grandmother was one of four siblings. Her older brother, Woodrow, stayed in Jackson and became a mining engineer. Her younger brother, Jacob, had been a Central Valley farmer. Dulcie, the youngest, had also been a Rosie, working at the Kaiser Shipyard. On a blind date she met a guy in the Army Air Forces, Fred Pedroza, home on leave before going overseas. One thing led to another, letters were exchanged, and when the boys came marching home from that war, Dulcie and Fred got married and began contributing to the postwar baby boom. Fred decided to stay in the Army. Then in 1947 the Army Air Forces became the Air Force, a separate branch of the service. Fred spent thirty years in the service, moving his family all over the United States, Europe and Asia. Great-uncle Fred’s last duty station had been Hamilton Air Force Base, in Novato, at the northern end of Marin County. He and Great-aunt Dulcie had retired there, surrounded by children and grandchildren.

  When Fred died, Dulcie stayed in her house for several years, then age and medical problems led to her decision to stop driving and change her living situation. She’d moved in with her daughter and son-in-law in Graton, in western Sonoma County.

  Caro was right. Aunt Dulcie would be a great resource. I looked up the number and reached for the phone. A few seconds later my cousin Pat answered. When I explained my mission, she said, “Come on up. We’d love to see you. How about brunch on Saturday?”

  Chapter 4

  Other work, the kind that paid the bills, kept me busy in Oakland on Monday. I did take the time to search the Alameda County online database for fictitious business names, looking for the particulars on Matinee, the movie memorabilia shop on Central Avenue. The names on the business license were Charles Lowell Makellar and Raina Simms Makellar. Was Charles the man who had sold me the title cards? Or did the old man just work there? Either way, he was the one who started me on this quest, when he brought up Ralph Tarrant’s murder and mentioned my grandmother’s supposed connection to it.

  Further investigation into the shop revealed that the Makellars had leased the space in March. The man behind the counter at Matinee had told me the shop opened the first week in May. So it had taken the Makellars two months to ready the interior—painting, buying or leasing the fixtures that displayed the merchandise, and setting up the shop. The owners had access to a large stock of movie memorabilia; the business card I’d picked up at the shop listed a website and I had already checked that out, browsing through the online searchable inventory. Some of the items for sale were vintage, even rare. I didn’t know much about the movie memorabilia business, but there appeared to be a lot of money involved in these collectibles. How did the Makellars acquire such items? From the studios themselves? From collectors?

  I set the wheels in motion to find out more about the Makellars. My background search didn’t take long to bear fruit. They were husband and wife, former residents of Los Angeles, married just five years. Charles was forty-six, nine years older than Raina, his spouse, who was thirty-seven. So Charles was too young to be the man behind the counter, who had to be past eighty. As the old man had dangled the story about the murdered actor Ralph Tarrant and my grandmother, he’d looked as though he himself had been in Hollywood in 1942. I dug deeper and learned that the Makellars had previously owned a movie memorabilia shop in Hollywood, along with a man named Wallace Simms, presumably, due to the last name, a relative of Raina Simms Makellar. Was the old man in the shop Raina’s father or uncle? But Wallace could have been a brother or a cousin, and his name wasn’t on the business license of the Alameda shop. The old man was an employee, then. Or did he have another connection to the Makellars and their memorabilia business?

  The Makellars had two vehicles, a brown Ford SUV registered to Charles and a maroon Lexus sedan registered to Raina, with vanity plates that read RNAMAK. They were renting a house in Alameda. Late Tuesday afternoon, I drove past the house, located near the corner of Lafayette Street and Central Avenue, walking distance to the shop. It was a one-story stucco bungalow on a deep, narrow lot. I peered up the driveway and saw that the detached garage had been turned into an apartment.

  I checked my watch. It was five-thirty. The business card I’d picked up earlier indicated the shop was open from ten A.M. until six P.M. I circled back to downtown Alameda, parked near the shop, and waited. At six o’clock the elderly man closed and locked the front door. Then he set off on foot, carrying a canvas bag with shoulder straps. He stopped at the produce market on the corner of Oak Street and Central Avenue and purchased a few items, placing them in the bag. He continued walking up Central Avenue, moving briskly for a man of his age. I started my car, pulled out of the curbside parking space and followed him at a discreet distance. At Lafayette Street he turned left. Then he walked up the driveway of the Makellars’ house, unlocked the apartment door, and went inside.

  On Wednesday morning I checked the telephone and utility records and discovered that all the services for both the house and the apartment were in the Makellars’ names. The man behind the counter must be more than an employee, if the Makellars were providing him with a place to live and paying his expenses, though he could be paying rent. During my visit to the shop on Saturday, I’d asked the man for his name. He had avoided answering the question. At the time I’d thought he might not have heard me. Now I wasn’t so sure. I needed his name in order to run a background check.

  I went back to the shop on Wednesday afternoon. The old man wasn’t there. Someone else was behind the counter, working at the computer. I went inside and took a good look at the woman I guessed was Raina Makellar. She was medium height and slender, with blue eyes in a round face and full red lips. Her black hair was sleek and straight, showing a few threads of silver at the temples, in a stylish chin-length cut. She wore a deep purple blouse, setting off the heavy silver chain around her neck and the silver hoops in her pierced ears. I strolled to the shelves arrayed on the left wall, scanning the titles of the books displayed there. She glanced up from the computer and smiled. “Good afternoon. Please let me know if there’s anything I can help you find.”

  “Just looking, thanks.” I reached for a fat hardback biography of Cecil B. DeMille and leafed through the pages, reading
passages about the director amid photographs from his movies. I set the book back on the shelf and examined the cover of another, this one about Hollywood tough guy George Raft. Then I picked up a biography of Grandma’s favorite actress, Norma Shearer. The book was used, in good condition. I decided to buy it, not only because I wanted to read it, but also as a way of engaging Raina Makellar in conversation. I took a step toward the counter. Then the bell above the door rang. I detoured to one of the bins on the opposite side of the shop and flipped through plastic-covered lobby cards. The man who’d just entered wore a U.S. Postal Service uniform. He had a bag slung over his shoulder and a bundle of mail in his hand.

  “Afternoon, Ms. Makellar,” the carrier said. “Where’s Mr. Calhoun today?”

  “He’s taking a few days off,” Raina Makellar said.

  Now I had a name for the man who was usually behind the counter. Mr. Calhoun.

  The mail carrier handed the bundle to Raina Makellar and departed. She removed the rubber band and glanced at the envelopes, then stepped through the doorway to the back of the shop, where I saw her deposit the mail on a desk. As she returned to the counter, the front door opened again, admitting a short, frizzy-haired woman in a green dress, carrying a cardboard box containing two disposable cups and a paper sack. “Hey, Raina. Here’s your afternoon pick-me-up, direct from Peet’s Coffee. A latte with a double shot of espresso for you, and a mocha with extra whipped cream for me.”

  “Oh, thank you, Marge,” Raina said. She reached for the cup marked with an L, took a sip of her latte and sighed contentedly. “I really need my caffeine fix in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “I couldn’t resist getting a caramel chocolate bar.” Marge tore open the sack. “Want to split it with me?”

  “It looks positively decadent.” Raina examined the treat. “I shouldn’t. Oh, what the hell, I’ll have a bite.”

  Marge broke the bar in half. Raina took a napkin and picked up one piece, nibbling at the end. “I was surprised to see you in the shop alone,” Marge said, around a mouthful of crumbs. “Where’s Henry?”

  Henry Calhoun. Now that I had his full name, I could do a background check. I edged closer to the counter, eavesdropping on the conversation between the two women.

  Raina sipped her latte. “I’ll be working here for next few days. Chaz and Henry are making the rounds, talking to prospects. Chaz found out someone in Placer County has a big collection of posters and lobby cards from musicals of the forties and fifties. And Henry says there’s another collection up in Sonoma County that sounds interesting, with lots of Hitchcock memorabilia.”

  “So they’re buying merchandise?” Marge asked. She drank some of her mocha and the whipped cream left a trail on her lip.

  Raina shrugged. “Making contacts, handing out business cards, and just maybe buying merchandise. It would be great to get some items from either collection. Musicals are always good sellers. I understand this particular collection has lots of Judy Garland stuff. There’s always a market for Garland. And Hitchcock. But not everyone wants to sell. Collectors like to have things that reflect their passion. That’s why they accumulate the stuff.”

  “So they collect just to have it?” Marge asked.

  “That’s right,” Raina said. “Just for the joy of collecting, which means that often collectors don’t want to let go of it. Or they won’t sell if they know how valuable items are. Or maybe they will sell, but they want an inflated price. Collectors can be quite knowledgeable about what they have and what it’s worth. Chaz is great at bargaining, though. And Henry has a nose for locating merchandise. He worked for my father for years when we were down in LA. So Chaz and Henry make a good team. They’ve had some good luck in Sonoma County. Earlier this year Henry heard about a great collection up there. The elderly woman who owned wasn’t interested in selling. Later she died and Henry saw her obituary. So Chaz went looking for her heirs. There was a son, and he didn’t know or care about the value of the collection. He just wanted to get rid of her things so he could sell his mother’s house. Chaz gave him a lowball offer to take it off his hands. Maybe that sounds opportunistic.”

  Marge brushed her hands together, shaking off the pastry crumbs. “No, it just sounds like good business. So you’re settling in a little better.”

  “I guess so.” Raina sounded unconvinced. “Alameda seems like such a small town after Los Angeles.”

  “It’s not small,” Marge protested. “The population’s seventy-five thousand plus, I think. And the whole Bay Area is huge.”

  “I know, I know.” Raina rolled her eyes. “But it feels like a small town to me after LA. And it feels so different. I’m a lifelong Angeleno. I practically grew up in Hollywood, helping my father with his shop on Melrose. My aunt worked in publicity at the studios. They’d throw the posters and lobby cards away, and she’d grab the stuff for Dad’s shop. I really wanted to stay in LA. But after Dad died, the landlord raised the rent on the shop so high that we couldn’t afford it. So we had to relocate anyway. Chaz wanted to get out of Southern California, come up here and make a fresh start. But it’s all so new. Oh, don’t mind me. I’m feeling a little lonesome, that’s all.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Marge said. “It takes time to adjust after you move. Once you get used to it you’ll like Alameda as much as I do. And you’ll meet people. Anyway, I’d better get back to my shop.” She picked up her cup and left Matinee.

  Raina used the napkin to sweep a few errant crumbs from the counter. Then she looked up, as though she’d forgotten I was there. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been ignoring you. You said you were browsing. Is there a particular actor or picture that interests you?”

  I said the first name that came to mind. “George Raft. I’ve always liked him. Do you have any lobby cards from his movies?”

  “Let me check our inventory,” she said, turning to the computer.

  I left the bin of lobby cards I’d been examining and walked to the counter. “The last time I was here, there was an elderly man behind the counter. Your father?”

  “Oh, no.” She smiled. “My father’s gone. Henry’s a friend. He just works here.”

  He was more than a friend, and scout, if he was living on the Makellars’ dime. “He was very knowledgeable about old Hollywood.”

  “That’s why we hired him.” She glanced up from the computer screen. “We do have a few lobby cards from George Raft movies—Johnny Allegro, Race Street, and Rogue Cop.”

  I shook my head. “No, thank you. Nocturne is the movie I’m interested in. That, or They Drive by Night.”

  She smiled. “Sorry, nothing right now. I can keep an eye out for some memorabilia from those two, if you like.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll just check the store from time to time.” I turned to leave. Then I remembered the Norma Shearer biography I’d left on top of a bin of lobby cards. I picked it up and returned to the counter. “I will take this, though.”

  I paid cash for the book, for anonymity. Then I left the shop, mulling over the few facts I’d gleaned. The man I’d spoken with on Saturday was Henry Calhoun, and he’d worked for Raina Makellar’s father in a similar business in Los Angeles. In addition to working behind the counter at the shop, he also seemed to function as a scout, locating merchandise. I wanted to get a closer look at him, and Charles Makellar as well.

  My background check kicked out some more information on Thursday. I learned that Raina Makellar’s father, Wallace Simms, had died a year earlier, leaving the inventory of the shop on Melrose Avenue to Raina, not to Charles. I found that interesting. Even more interesting was information that Charles Makellar, aka Chaz, had a police record. Back in his early twenties he’d passed some bad checks, resulting in a conviction and probation. Another arrest for petty theft in his late twenties led to some jail time. These incidents had occurred more than twenty years back. Had he been a law-abiding citizen ever since? Or did he still have a streak of larceny combined with more skill at eluding the law?r />
  Chaz had been sued twice. The first lawsuit dated back seven years and involved plans to open a restaurant in Hollywood. That venture had gone awry in a dispute between the partners. That could happen to anyone, I thought. But the most recent lawsuit, two years ago, involved a collector alleging fraud over some memorabilia he’d purchased from Chaz Makellar. Both lawsuits had been settled out of court. But it made me wonder. What had led the Makellars to leave Hollywood and come north to the Bay Area? Was there a need for Chaz Makellar to get out of town?

  As for Henry Calhoun, my background check hadn’t found much of a past at all. It was as though Calhoun didn’t exist before the 1980s. That set off alarm bells in my head. A man as old as that ought to leave a much longer record of his passage through life. Unless Calhoun wasn’t his real name. I suspected that was the case. Henry Calhoun, or whoever he was, must be hiding his past.

  On Friday afternoon I went back to Alameda. I grabbed a parking space a few doors down from the shop, got out of my car, and dropped coins into a meter. Then I saw Henry Calhoun on the sidewalk in front of the shop, dressed casually in khaki pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt that must have been warm on this June afternoon. He was feeding coins into a parking meter as a brown Ford SUV backed into the parking space.

  Just under the SUV’s rearview mirror, affixed to the windshield, I saw a Fas Trak device, the toll tag that would be read by the electronic toll collection system on the various Bay Area bridges. The driver—I guessed he was Chaz Makellar—straightened the wheel, cut the engine and got out of the vehicle. He was tall, over six feet, with an angular frame in khaki pants and a red T-shirt. His face was long and narrow, and his brown hair, streaked liberally with gray, was worn long, curling around his ears and touching his collar.

  Chaz walked to the back of the SUV and opened the door. I had taken up a position in front of the restaurant next to the shop, pretending to examine the menu displayed in the window as I flipped open my cell phone and hit the button that activated the device’s camera. I took a photo of Raina standing in the shop doorway, then the old man standing near the SUV. Inside the vehicle were some medium-sized boxes and several large flat items covered with a stained beige blanket. Chaz pushed the blanket aside and grabbed one end of a framed one-sheet poster from The Pirate, a movie musical with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. Henry took the other end of the poster. Raina held open the door as the two men carried the poster into the shop. Then she moved to the back of the SUV and opened one of the boxes, peering inside. “What else did you buy?” Raina asked when the two men came out to the sidewalk.