Reds in the Beds

by Martin Turnbull

  “She’s going to miss Bench more than any of us.” Marcus was by her side with the cake he perfected during the war. Although the one-egg-a-week ration was a thing of the past, Gardenites had come to expect him to bring his dense, moist, no-butter-no-eggs-no-milk Marcus Cake. He deposited it onto the table along with a bowl of popcorn.

  “Weren’t you doing deviled eggs, too?” Kathryn asked.

  Marcus pouted. “You remember that special plate I had? The light blue one with the individual scoops to place the eggs in? I can’t find it. So I thought, Screw it, and made popcorn instead.” He ran a fingertip down her arm. “Who’d have guessed we’d lose him at fifty-six?”

  Harpo Marx arrived with Humphrey Bogart—an odd pairing by Hollywood’s standards, but not at the Garden of Allah. They’d both been residents at one point or another, as well as recipients of Benchley’s boundless hospitality.

  Robert Benchley had been the Garden’s social hub. His door was always open and his bar perpetually stocked with every conceivable variety of hooch. A man of infinite kindness and genuine warmth, he’d had few equals in Hollywood.

  Kathryn gazed across the crowd clustered around the pool. Its haze of cheerlessness reminded Kathryn of the day everyone assembled at the radio to listen to Roosevelt’s funeral procession.

  Don Stewart, a screenwriter Marcus worked with at MGM who was an usher at Benchley’s wedding, sat on the diving board chatting somberly with Bertie on one side of him and Oliver on the other. Kay Thompson and her husband, Bill Spier, were huddled with Bogie. Kathryn hoped Bill wasn’t trying to interest Bogie in his new radio show, The Adventures of Sam Spade. This was a gathering to remember their dear friend, not a chance to talk shop.

  Marcus pressed his head against Kathryn’s. “After a few drinks, I bet the stories will come tumbling out.”

  “It’s like you can read my mind,” she told him.

  “I am your husband.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment, then started to giggle. “It’s still so strange to hear,” she said.

  “That you have a husband, or that your husband is me?”

  “Both! I never thought I’d get married.”

  He frowned at her in genuine surprise. “Never?”

  “My romantic track record is hardly inspiration for the next Hollywood happy ending. Still, the marriage has done wonders for our social life. All those dinners and bridge parties we get invited to now. I feel so damned respectable.”

  Marcus took off his glasses and polished them on his tie. “I don’t know how much longer it’ll last. Have you finished reading that book?”

  Reds in the Beds had consumed Hollywood like a Santa Ana forest fire. The inside flap proclaimed that it “told the story of an imaginary Hollywood infiltrated with treacherous Communists and their Pinko sympathizers.” Anyone who read it—which now seemed like everyone Kathryn knew from the Pacific shore to the Nevada border—could see the hateful book was a roman à clef veiled in the sheerest possible gauze of fiction. The only game played around Hollywood now was guessing who was really who in Reds in the Beds.

  This was especially true at the Garden of Allah. Much of the book’s action took place in the Divine Oasis, a residential hotel just off the Sunset Strip filled with fellow travelers who worked to sneak the Communist creed into every movie they wrote, directed, produced, or acted in. The Garden’s residents had taken to referring to their home as “the simply divine oasis” in an attempt to deflect the poisoned arrows. However, Kathryn sensed a hardened shell of “Don’t look at me!” defensiveness every time it came up. And it was starting to come up a lot.

  Instead of Twentieth Century-Fox there was New Century-Wolf, instead of Paramount Pictures there was Tantamount Films, and instead of MGM, there was NJN. The head of NJN’s writing department was an especially devious conniver married to a gossip columnist for the Hollywood Correspondent newspaper. The hateful novel devoted many pages to describing the marriage between Eugene Markham and Beatrice Kahn as a loveless union of convenience arranged to help ingratiate the pair into Hollywood’s social merry-go-round.

  “I have finished it, and—” Kathryn blew a wet raspberry. “Whoever this Julian Caesar cretin is, I hope there’s a special circle of hell reserved just for him.”

  “You know that couple is supposed to be us, don’t you?” Marcus asked.

  The wave of nausea that kicked Kathryn in the stomach when she read that chapter rolled forth again. “Helen Keller could tell it’s us. Has Mayer read it yet?”

  “Nobody’s mentioned anything. What about Wilkerson?”

  Kathryn let fly an apprehensive laugh. “I never thought I’d be thankful for his obsession with that grand folly of his.”

  Kathryn’s disapproval of her boss’ plan to build a luxury casino in the middle of the Nevada desert had been a source of considerable friction around the office. Like so many of Hollywood’s high rollers, Wilkerson was reckless with his money, often gambling more in one afternoon at Santa Anita than most people earned in a year. Kathryn felt that putting a chronic gambler in charge of a casino was like locking a ten-year-old inside a chocolate store.

  “He’s going ahead with it?”

  “I’ve given up asking.”

  Bogart’s voice fired across the crowd. “Well, if it ain’t the fifth Warner brother!”

  Bette Davis strode out of the main building swathed in a silver-tipped fox fur to ward off the November chill. “Hello, everyone!” She approached the subdued crowd with all the confidence of the characters she played on the screen. As far as Kathryn knew, Bette had never been to the Garden before, and she certainly wasn’t part of the Algonquin Round Table contingent, like Edna Ferber and Lillian Hellman.

  “Goodness gracious!” she exclaimed. “When I heard there was a wake going on for Robert Benchley at the Garden of Allah, I thought to myself, Now that’s a wake I want to be a part of. I’m sure there are a number of people here who knew Bench better than I, but I have no doubt he’d want his sendoff to be a much gayer affair than this!”

  “Bette!” Kathryn greeted the star with a kiss to the cheek. “You knew Benchley?”

  “He volunteered at the Canteen at least once a week. He’d often help me close up for the night. We spent a number of evenings afterhours chatting on that office sofa about life, work, Hollywood—and especially death.”

  Dottie Parker appeared. “Whose?”

  “He seemed haunted by the possibility that he’d somehow failed to live up to his potential.”

  A glimmer of knowing flickered in Dottie’s eyes. “I’m familiar with that conversation.” She smiled halfheartedly, then lifted her martini glass as though in toast, failing to notice it was empty. “Welcome to the wake of our dearest lost comrade.”

  Bette accepted a highball from Harpo, and barked out a laugh. “Comrade? I’m surprised anybody would dare use a word like that here at the—what does that dreadful book call this place? The Divine . . . Sanctuary?”

  Bette’s comment flipped a switch, rallying the mourners into a madly chattering congress, eager to chirp their own pet theories over who had written Reds in the Beds, who he’d based his characters on, and his motives for publishing such a salacious piece of trash.

  Dottie thought Louella Parsons wrote it. Bogie declared that the whole thing stunk of Louella’s boss, William Randolph Hearst—a theory that garnered widespread appeal until Don Stewart pointed out that Hedda Hopper’s LA Times column was inching further and further to the right.

  While the scotch and bourbon, gin and champagne poured like Prohibition was about to return, names of other likely suspects were bandied about. Kay Thompson suspected it was Joseph Breen, head censor of the Hays Office. Her husband suggested it could be someone connected with the right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, which was increasingly vocal in its criticism of Hollywood’s liberal leanings. In the middle of this uproar, Lillian Hellman arrived with Edna Ferber, who immediately pointed ou
t that until her recent success with The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand had been a script reader for the studios.

  As the sun began to set, the crowd lit the dozens of candles Kathryn passed around until the Garden glowed with a light as gentle as Robert Benchley’s nature. Around midnight, Bette grabbed Kathryn’s elbow and led her over to the edge of the patio.

  “I’ve been thinking about you,” Bette said, pulling her fur closer around her against the night air. “That malarkey you told me about the FBI.”

  A wave of panic reeled through Kathryn. They were more frequent lately and were starting to take their toll on her sleep. She kept jumping to wild conclusions, like maybe it was someone at the Garden who’d written Reds, someone they’d all snubbed who was intent on revenge. “You didn’t mention it to anybody, did you?”

  “Of course not.” Bette’s smile bordered on demure. “I think you’re a straight-shooter like me, and a career gal. Marriage and men and lovers are all very well, but they’re not what stoke my furnace. Nor yours, I suspect.” Bette pulled out a cigarette. “Hollywood is really just a giant game. Learn the rules, when to play by them, and when to break them.” She offered her pack to Kathryn.

  Kathryn lit one with Bette’s struck match. “Are you referring to my marriage?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Jack Warner and I are constantly at loggerheads, but we both want the same thing: what’s best for the studio. I hear that you and your boss don’t agree about this Flamingo Club he’s building.”

  “A reckless gambler building a casino is my definition of insanity.”

  “I know all about difficult bosses and can sympathize entirely.” She paused for a moment, her gimlet eyes trained on Kathryn. “Now, about your FBI situation. Have you considered asking Howard Hughes?”

  “No.” But it’s interesting that you did. Bette had an affair with Hughes before the war, while she was rebounding from an intense relationship with her Jezebel director, William Wyler. “Have you seen him recently?”

  “He sent me a telegram after the wedding, and it got me thinking. Howard has connections you and I can barely dream of.”

  And a grudge against Hoyt. A couple of months before the war ended, Wilkerson drafted Kathryn into a lunch with him and Hughes. While Wilkerson was away from the table glad-handing the newly married Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli, Hughes admitted to a situation back in the days of Prohibition when Hoyt got the better of him.

  Bette smiled. “I see a light going on.”

  Kathryn killed her cigarette. “Let’s get back before they start accusing us of writing Reds in the Beds.”

  CHAPTER 5

  With a coffee pot in one hand, a paper tablet and pencils in the other, and her purse jammed under her arm, Gwendolyn shouldered the door to the Garden of Allah’s bar and held the door open for Marcus as he headed toward the nearest table with a platter of sliced fruitcake.

  He stopped short when he saw every light ablaze. “How come it’s so blinding in here?”

  The Sahara Room was infamously dark. Its miniature table lamps typically cloaked the Sunset Strip’s extramarital encounters in muddy shadows, but not today. An amber stain in the gray carpet caught Gwendolyn’s eye. It wasn’t the only blotch of booze she could see—just the biggest.

  “I want people to take this meeting seriously,” she said, “so I told management to turn on every light in the joint.”

  Oliver walked in, loaded down with plates and dessert forks. “I could run over to Schwab’s for some beer?”

  “Not at eleven o’clock in the morning,” Gwendolyn said. “I want people sober. Help me push these tables together. I need everybody gathered in one spot, not scattered all over the bar.”

  Everyone was on guard after a string of petty thefts at the Garden. First it was Marcus’ missing deviled eggs platter. Then shortly after, New York columnist Lucius Beebe checked into the Garden with his lover, Charles. Gwendolyn liked having Lucius around. He had the well-fed look of a prosperous man-about-town and lent an air of sophistication to the Garden. He could match wits with even the Algonquin contingent. But then a set of tea towels had vanished from the clothesline in their courtyard, and Gwendolyn could tell they were wondering if they’d chosen the right place to call home.

  That same week, Trevor Bergin and Melody Hope moved in. Everybody knew the MGM stars had been asked to leave their Garden Court apartment on Hollywood Boulevard, and now that Bogie had divorced his third wife and settled down with Lauren Bacall, Trevor and Melody were Hollywood’s rowdiest couple. On their fourth night, Melody threw all of Trevor’s cufflinks out the window in a pique of fury; the next morning, all but one pair were recovered.

  But it was a missing silk scarf that prompted Gwendolyn to call this meeting. It had been a present from Madame Nazimova to Gwendolyn’s neighbor, Bertie Kreuger, a beer heiress who’d moved in during the war.

  Oliver pushed a table against the one at the center of the room, which skidded across the carpet and banged into its neighbor, knocking Gwendolyn’s handbag to the floor. Oliver dropped to his knees and collected the scattered contents before standing up with Linc’s picture postcard in his hand.

  “What is this?”

  Gwendolyn looked up. “Mr. Tattler gave it to me. The writing on the back is Linc’s; it might be a clue to his whereabouts.”

  “El faro,” Oliver said pensively. “That means ‘lighthouse.’”

  “You speak Spanish?”

  Oliver jutted his head from side to side. “I think I’ve seen this lighthouse before.”

  “You have?!”

  “Maybe when I was doing missionary work.”

  “Excuse me?” Marcus butted in. “You did missionary work?”

  “When I was in junior high, my father and his buddy took a sabbatical to do missionary work for a year. My mother refused to be left behind, so both families hit the road. We spent four months apiece in Mexico, Guatemala, and Cuba.” Oliver jiggled the postcard in his hand. “Much of that trip is a blur, but one of the sons from the other family was a good ten years older than me—”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Cincinnati. He’s high up at the Catholic Legion of Decency. Perhaps if I took a photograph of this and sent it to him?”

  “Could you?” Gwendolyn said, feeling a glimmer of hope. It’s a slim chance, but it’s all you’ve got.

  “Of course.” He slipped Linc’s postcard into his jacket pocket.

  Kathryn and Bertie appeared in the doorway. “Good God!” Kathryn cried out, shielding her eyes with her hands. “Are you trying to blind us?

  Gwendolyn was thanking them for showing up early when Trevor and Melody walked in with John Carradine and his wife, Sonia. He’d just hit it big in Captain Kidd and was hoping to make the leap to meatier roles.

  As everyone pushed the rest of the tables together, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett walked in. They lived at the Garden when they were penning Thin Man movies before the war, but they’d decamped back to New York, where they felt more welcome, until Frank Capra lured them westward again to write his next movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. Friends were reuniting among a flurry of introductions when Gwendolyn took her place at the head of the tables.

  “Thank you, everyone, for coming.”

  “And thank you for calling this meeting,” Bertie said. “A couple of tchotchkes going missing is one thing, but it’s been one after another.”

  “I must say,” Lucius pouted, “if I’d known that we were moving into a den of thieves—”

  “Please don’t think that,” Gwendolyn said. “Some of us have been here since the Garden opened, and we’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Don’t mind Lucius,” Charles said. “He loves a touch of mystery.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if they were your favorite cufflinks,” Trevor said.

  Melody elbowed him in the ribs.

  “If it was just some random stranger on a pilf
ering spree, all those things would have vanished on the same night,” Gwendolyn insisted. “But this has been going on for a while now.”

  “It sounds like you suspect one of the residents.” Sonia Carradine said. “And if this is a new problem, are you saying it must be one of the new residents?”

  The door swung open and Kay Thompson, a vision in a white pantsuit and matching nails, burst into the Sahara Room, her arms raised like Christ on the cross. She cut a stark contrast to the shadowy foyer behind her. “Sorry we’re so late! Last-minute do-overs on Harvey Girls kept me until the wee hours.” She spun around, scanning the room. “What happened to Bill?” She flicked her wrists and a throng of silver bangles jangled like wind chimes. “Ah! Coffee!” She poured a cup and fell onto the nearest chair, then reached for cake. “Now, what were we talking about?”

  “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the Garden of Allah seems to have a thief,” Gwendolyn said, “so we’re here to see if we can prevent further pilfering or identify the culprit.”

  “Well,” Kay sniffed, “apparently all you have to do is read Reds in the Beds.

  “In that case, let’s start with you,” Melody said, pointing to Kay. “I think we can all assume you’re NJN’s choir mistress, Dee-Dee Grifter. And we all know what a grifter is, don’t we?”

  “What the hell do you know, you low-rent Garland?” Kay’s husband said from the doorway.

  The gathering gasped in unison, as though on cue. Bill Spier was usually the reserved, circumspect half of the Spier-Thompson marriage, so an outburst like this caught everybody in the room by surprise. They all knew Melody campaigned for Judy’s role in The Harvey Girls, even after Judy had it and was habitually showing up late. In the end, Judy got it together and Melody’s machinations were revealed. All eyes were now on her.

  Melody poked her husband in the arm. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

  Trevor remained inert. “Pipe down, Nellie Burch.”