Kenneth grinned. "Just a few little tidbits that Walter and Maria dug up on Jessup. That's all."
"Like what?" asked Ben.
He shrugged. "Let's just say that Comrade Jessup has an interesting past, particularly in the middle 1930s."
I didn't like that. I said, "If I'd known—"
"That's why I didn't tell you, Nick. This is Hollywood. This is how the game is played down here."
Epilogue
633 Market Street
San Francisco, Cal.
Friday, July 22, 1955
10 in the morning
I was sitting at my desk going through my mail when Mike walked into my office with Carter behind him. They both made their way to the far end of the room. Carter took a seat on the sofa and Mike sat on one of the chairs. I stood and walked around my desk to the door. I looked at Marnie and said, "Doll, can you bring us some coffee?"
She smiled and nodded. "Sure thing, Nick."
I said, "Thanks," as I closed the door. Walking over to the sofa, I said, "How are you, Mike?"
He looked up from the loose-leaf binder he'd brought with him and said, "Fine. How are you two?"
Carter crossed his legs as I sat down next to him. He replied, "Good. We got a TV last night."
I snorted. "You got a TV. I should put a note on it that says, 'Property of Carter Woodrow Wilson Jones,' in case anyone is confused."
Ignoring me, Mike looked at Carter and asked, "How's the reception?"
"Ferdinand and I installed an antenna up on the roof so we get a pretty clear signal."
"What kind did you buy?"
"R.C.A. Bought it at City of Paris."
Mike frowned. "Why there?"
"That's where Dr. Williams suggested. They delivered it yesterday and sent a technician to install it and hook it up to the antenna. He said he'll be back when there's a color TV show on since he has to show me how to adjust the color."
I added, "It's gigantic."
Carter laughed. "It was the largest they make."
"We didn't watch TV last night," said Mike. "What was on?"
"Nothing," I replied.
Carter jabbed me in the ribs. "We watched an episode of Dragnet. After about fifteen minutes of heavy sighs, I banished Nick from the TV room to the delight of everyone else there."
Mike looked at me. "What didn't you like about it?"
"I'm not a big fan of the detectives of the L.A.P.D. these days."
Mike grinned. "OK. It's just television, after all."
Right then, Marnie walked in with three cups of coffee on a tray and put them down on the coffee table.
I looked up. "Thanks, doll. Your timing is perfect."
She looked around. "Why?"
Carter leaned in to get a cup. "Nick was complaining about TV."
Marnie put a hand on her hip. "Did you get your second one all set up?"
I looked up at Marnie. "Second one?"
She backed away slowly and said, "Oops." With that, she turned and dashed out of the office and closed the door behind her.
Mike asked, "You didn't tell Nick about the first one you bought?"
Carter was too busy sipping his coffee to reply.
Shrugging, Mike said to me, "Carter bought one for Mrs. Kopek back before Christmas. I think it's hidden in one of the cabinets at the back of your kitchen."
I looked over at Carter who was smiling weakly. I wanted to be mad, but he looked so damn cute when he was caught that I couldn't. So, instead, I just shrugged. "If everyone in that house wants their brains to melt into mush, who am I to get in their way?"
Mike looked at Carter. "Is it color?"
Carter nodded. "Yep. Not that there's any color shows to watch, really."
"OK," I said as I reached over and dropped a couple of sugar cubes in my cup. "Is this the TV update meeting or the company update meeting?"
Mike cleared his throat and looked at his notebook.
. . .
"One other thing I wanted to ask you, Mike." That was Carter.
"What's that?"
"Were you the one who talked to the Los Angeles Times?"
Mike nodded as he closed his notebook. "Yep. I figured it would be better to get ahead of the story."
I nodded. "I agree. But you gotta tell us first before you go to the papers."
Mike sighed and said, "Fine. I'll be sure to do that."
Carter asked, "You gotta problem with that?"
Mike put his notebook on the coffee table and stood. He walked over to the windows and looked down on Market Street. It was a beautiful day and Marnie had said it was supposed to be on the warm side, finally.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and then turned to look at me. "Greg thinks, and I agree with him, that you need to bring me on as a partner."
I looked at him. His electric blue eyes were just as beautiful as they'd ever been. His monster face was trying to take shape, as if he was irritated with me or the situation, but he mostly looked apprehensive and a little embarrassed.
I stood and walked up to him. I took his right hand in mine and said, "Of course." Then I laughed. "But have you seen the books? Are we a money-making concern?"
Mike shook his head. "Not yet."
Carter walked up and put his hand on Mike's shoulder. "You sure you wanna be part of something that's losing money?"
"That'll pass. It's temporary. We've expanded so fast." He ran his left hand through his hair. I was still holding his right.
Carter leaned in and kissed Mike on the cheek. I grinned. He was stealing one of my signature moves.
Mike snorted. "Nick's the only one who can get away with that, Carter, I'm sorry to tell you."
Shrugging, Carter said, "That may be, but I want you to know I love you as much as Nick does. Because I do."
Mike pulled his hand out of mine and hugged Carter. "Sorry. I love you, too, Carter."
I looked up at both of them. "You two finished?"
"Who said that?" That was Mike. He was looking right at Carter.
"I don't know. I thought I heard something."
They were doing an old routine of theirs. It was about as funny as vaudeville.
Mike grinned. "Well, if you see Nick, tell him I accept his offer."
"I will. Maybe we should get down on the carpet and see if he's around somewhere. Wouldn't wanna step on him by accident."
"Enough," I said.
Mike tousled my hair and said, "There he is."
Carter put his arm around my shoulder and said, "Yeah. Just as handsome as ever."
"By the way, I never asked you. How did they compare?" asked Mike.
"Nick wins, hands down."
I looked up at Carter. "What are you two clowns talking about now?"
Carter pulled me in tight. "You versus Errol Flynn."
I nodded. "When I'm 50, we'll see how I compare."
"When you're 90, you might look like him," replied Carter.
"Be nice to the guy. He's had a rough life."
Carter added, "And, to be fair, he gave me a lot to think about back before I met you." He paused and wiggled his eyebrows. "A lot."
"What were you? One of the band of his merry men?" asked Mike.
Carter grinned. "No. It goes back a few years before that. Captain Blood. I saw it in high school. The way I figured it was that I was one of his fellow pirates and we had to fight for the ship. In my fantasy, he would give up in a very particular way."
Mike laughed. "I bet he would."
Carter smirked. "But you should have seen Nick, though. That Mr. Flynn was one flirty bastard. I thought we were gonna have a fight for real."
I nodded and looked at Mike. "He tried to flirt with Carter, too, but it didn't take. But he gave us the first solid lead in the case. And after he apologized, he drove off. But he was awfully sad. There's no other way to put it."
Carter sighed. "He was."
Mike crossed his arms. "What about John Hodiak? Did you ever run across him?"
I shook my head but Cart
er replied, "Yes. He was at the benefit with his wife, Anne Baxter. Why?"
"Greg wanted to know. He's been in love with the guy ever since Judy Garland rode out on the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe in The Harvey Girls."
I looked up at Mike. "Didn't we see that together? I wasn't with Jeffery because he hates Judy Garland so it had to have been you."
Mike nodded. "Yeah. Mack was with us, too."
"Right." That brought up a lot of memories. Instead of letting the tears get out, I said, "I first saw John Hodiak in Lifeboat, when I was in New Guinea."
Carter said, "When I was dancing with Roz, we stopped and chatted with the two of them. He was nice enough but not too friendly. She was sweet. Not at all like Eve Harrington."
I laughed.
"What?" asked Carter.
"I was just remembering John Taylor threatening that kid. Comparing himself to Addison deWitt and the kid to Eve Harrington. I shouldn't laugh, but that's everything I hate about Hollywood."
Mike laughed. "You should talk, you brand-new Hollywood mogul. Owner of the newly reborn Monumental Studios." Mike turned serious. He looked down at me. "With those films that Ben is producing, you're going to be the new reason for people to hate Hollywood. You know that, right?"
I nodded. "Yeah." I looked up at Carter. "And it's already started."
"What has?" he asked.
"This morning, Marnie brought in a letter, special delivery, from Billy Haines."
"How is he?"
"Dunno. It was all business. He asked me to refer to the enclosed invoice for all services rendered to date and to kindly remit payment within ten days. He also regretted to inform me that his schedule of existing clients would not allow him any time for any future business. Very sincerely, et cetera, et cetera."
Carter whistled. "Damn, son."
I nodded. "So I got on the horn and tracked down Ben White. He says that Jessup has been telling anyone who would listen about the deal we made on Tuesday after the funeral. So word is out that Monumental is making trashy films."
"What about Roz?" asked Carter with a frown.
"After I hung up with Ben, I called her. She was fine. She said that it's all anyone can talk about and that most people seem to have already forgotten how it's only been a week since we 'brought down Juan Zane,' as she put it. She says that Freddie isn't quite as irked about not getting to buy into Monumental Studios as he was when we talked to him on Tuesday before we left town."
Mike shook his head. "Sorry to hear about all that Nick, but that's showbiz, kid." Carter and I both laughed as Mike walked over to the coffee table, bent over, and picked up his notebook. "So, you accept. What are the terms?" He was talking about the partnership.
Before I could reply, Carter said, "You get forty percent and we split sixty." He looked down at me and I nodded. That was exactly what I was going to propose.
Mike stood there, eyes wide open and mouth agape in surprise.
"What were you expecting?" I asked with a grin.
"Maybe twenty percent."
I said, "Whatever financial success we'll have out of this company will all be due to you. You're the one who has the head for business that neither of us is very good at. I just happened to have inherited more money than I ever thought possible."
Carter squeezed me and said, "And I just happened to marry this guy. You're the one who's made us a success."
Mike stood there, still looking shocked.
"What are you waiting for?" I asked. "Go call Greg."
And he did.
Author's Note
Thank you for buying and reading this book!
This story, like all the others involving Nick & Carter, came to me out of thin air.
Many thanks, as always, to everyone who has read, reviewed, and emailed me about the Nick & Carter books. It is deeply gratifying in ways that words will never be able to fully express. Thank you.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the California Digital Newspaper Collection, hosted by the University of California at Riverside, I was able to browse copies of the San Bernardino Sun. Among other things, this allowed me to have a good idea of what movies were in circulation on a given date. That's always been difficult to track down, for a variety of reasons.
For Los Angeles County addresses, I relied on a scanned version of the Los Angeles Street Address Directory from May of 1956, published by the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, which is hosted online by the Los Angeles Public Library.
I also verified that the fictitious locations, particularly in Beverly Hills, were indeed fictitious by relying on the Los Angeles County Property Assessment Information System.
For driving directions, I relied on the 1957 edition of Thomas Bros. Popular Atlas of Los Angeles County hosted by Historic Map Works online.
The plot device in this story, how drug pick-ups were coordinated, is an homage to one of my favorite books, Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L. Sayers. The device is updated from early 1930s London to mid 1950s Los Angeles. I hope you enjoyed it.
As always, I have to thank the wonderful Beta readers who helped me bring this book to fruition. This is the longest book I've written (so far) and it would not have been possible without their help.
Marc Echeveste, once again, very kindly helped me with the legal end of things. Any mistakes in that area are completely my own.
I really should thank Turner Classic Movies for sparking a number of ideas, including the "resurrection" of Monumental Studios and the model of American International Pictures.
Many thanks, again, to William Mann for his wonderful biography of Billy Haines and for confirming that Billy and Roz were, indeed, friends.
Finally, and once again, I want to thank my mother for the gift of storytelling. Love you!
Historical Notes
The events in this book take place between Friday, July 8, 1955, and Friday, July 22, 1955.
We were first introduced to the Hotel Riviera del Pacifico in Ensenada, Mexico, in The Amorous Attorney. Here is a slightly abbreviated version of what I noted about the hotel and its proprietor in that book:
The Hotel Riviera del Pacifico opened as the Hotel Playa de Ensenada in 1930. It didn't do well after the end of Prohibition in 1933. Marjorie King Plant, who was a Ziegfield dancer, appeared in a handful of films in the late 1920's and early 1930's, and performed on the New York stage through the 1940's, was given the hotel by her elderly boyfriend, Jerome Utley of Detroit. In order to be able to legally own the hotel under Mexican law, she married a local lawyer named Alfonso Rocha to gain Mexican citizenship.
Marjorie changed the name of the hotel to Hotel Riviera del Pacifico, renovated the building, and led it to the height of its popularity in the early 1950's.
Among the many origin stories for the invention of the Margarita cocktail, one says that it happened in 1938 at a restaurant near Tijuana. According to this story, the drink was named for Marjorie who was allergic to most liquors but not tequila. There are many other competing origin stories, my favorite being the one where it was invented at the Balinese Room in Galveston in 1948 and named for singer Peggy Lee (Margaret).
What is undisputed is that Marjorie constantly claimed that the origin story that put her at the center was the real one.
In 1956, the Governor of Baja California, one Braulio Maldonado Sández, did indeed expropriate the hotel. Maldonado served as Governor from the end of 1953 through the end of 1959. From all accounts, he was a vicious, petty dictator. He did have a group of enforcers known as Los Chemitas. Pistolero is a generic term that I preferred to use.
Part of the hotel was destroyed by the state government in 1964, but much of it is still standing in Ensenada and the building is now a cultural center and contains a historical museum. Early photos show that the hotel was initially a beachfront property but there is now a road and a marina in front.
In doing further research, I have discovered that while Marjorie (Marge is a nickname I gave her) did marry
Alfonso, it is rumored that he then had her kicked out of the country once he had title to the hotel by right of being her husband. The person who told this story was Carlos "Danny" Herrera, the owner of Rancho La Gloria restaurant and inn that was located on the road between Tijuana and Rosarita. It was recounted in the L.A. Times in 1991. In that same article, he claimed to have invented the margarita not in 1938, but in 1948.
Another version of the story (and likely the true one) is that Marjorie and Alfonso successfully ran the hotel together but that Jerome Utley, Marjorie's boyfriend and the man who gave Marjorie the hotel (he was the only remaining shareholder of the original set of owners), got wind that their marriage wasn't one of convenience, he sued both of them. Marjorie was forced to leave the country and fled back to the United States. Alfonso left in the middle of the night in 1956 in order to avoid the judgment levied against him. This is how the state of Baja California came into possession of the hotel (I like my version of illicit appropriation better).
Whatever may have been the true story, I suspect we'll come across these two again.
One thing to note is that my depiction of how Marge and Alfonso met is completely fictional although loosely based on what was reported by Danny Herrera.
Monumental Studios is a fictitious name that I borrowed from Singin' In The Rain. Its fictional location, at 11000 Culver Boulevard, is bordered by Culver Boulevard on the northwest, Sepulveda Boulevard on the southwest, Braddock Drive on the southeast, and Huron Avenue on the northeast. That puts it right in the middle of a neighborhood that was already developed per the 1957 Thomas Brothers map. It also puts the main gate at just under a mile down Culver Boulevard from M-G-M.
The episode of I Love Lucy, "Hollywood At Last," that features Lucy, Ethel, and Fred meeting Eve Arden and William Holden at the Hollywood Brown Derby on Vine Avenue first aired on CBS on Monday, February 7, 1955.
Jeremiah "J.K." Kingman is a fictitious character who is very loosely based on Jimmie Fidler. Fidler got his start in the silents with Famous-Laskey Players (the predecessor of Paramount). He began a gossip column in the early 1930s and continued through 1983. At its height, his column appeared in 187 outlets. He did commentary for Fox Movietone News. He also had a radio show and, later, a television show.
The Pitiful Player (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 14) Page 35
