Reds in the Beds

by Martin Turnbull

  Melody had risen to fame in The Pistol from Pittsburgh, a biopic of nineteenth-century journalist Nellie Bly. In Reds in the Beds, Nellie Burch was a tart-tongued harridan movie star, hooked on dope and drinking her way into obscurity.

  “You son of a bitch!” Melody snatched up a slice of cake and pitched it at Trevor, then sneered at everyone around her. “I don’t know who’s stealing your crappy shit, but as far as I’m concerned, you all deserve it.”

  “That’s ironic,” Bertie said, “because all this time, my money’s been on YOU!”

  Melody threw another slice at Bertie, but she caught it and hurled it back, catching Melody on the ear. Bertie leaned her fleshy elbows on the table. “You know the scene where Nellie Burch has a fit on the set of Versailles and ends up throwing all of Marie Antoinette’s cakes at the director?” She made a sweeping gesture at Marcus’ cake platter. “Is this art imitating life, or life imitating art? Sometimes the line gets so blurred.”

  “I hate to say this,” Lucius sniffed, “but that title really is quite clever.”

  “How do you figure?” Melody demanded.

  He raised a shoulder. “All the tabloids have us thinking ‘Reds under the bed!’ but this book ratchets it all up a notch by telling us the Reds aren’t under the bed at all—they’re in bed with us, screwing us nine ways to Sunday. Whoever this Julian Caesar is, he’s made sure that if we weren’t paranoid about Communism before, we sure are now.”

  “Please, everyone!” Gwendolyn clapped her hands. “Can we talk about the thefts? Management thinks we should get a house detective.”

  “We came back to the Garden specifically because it’s one of the few hotels without a detective,” Frances said. “The minute one appears is the minute Albert and I check out.”

  “We all feel the same way.” Gwendolyn said.

  “Yeah,” Melody snorted. “Name one person in this room who doesn’t have a secret.”

  “Please, Miss Hope,” Albert Hackett said. “If you can’t contribute something positive to this discussion, perhaps it might be better if you just stayed quiet.”

  Melody snatched up another slice of Marcus’ fruitcake and lobbed it at Albert. It caught him square in the face, knocking his glasses askew.

  “ALL RIGHT, MELODY! THAT’S ENOUGH!” Trevor shouted.

  “Shut up, August Vail,” Melody hissed. August Vail was the biggest action hero in Caesar’s fictional Tantamount Films—and a secret kleptomaniac called Pinky the Pinko for his fondness for pretty lace panties.

  Trevor’s wife leapt to her feet. “Okay, a few things have gone missing. Big whoop! That pile of trash is making us all out to be Commies and subversives and criminals, and Washington is starting to take it seriously. So shouldn’t we, too? If you all think some egg platter is more important than our reputations, you’re all screwed up.” She bolted from the room.

  “I hate to admit it, but she’s right,” Oliver said. “When I first read that damned book, I thought it’d be a tempest in a teacup, but the New York Times said yesterday it was mentioned in Congress. Something to do with the House Un-American Activities Committee.”

  “Aren’t they just concerned with rooting out Nazis?”

  “Not any longer.” He picked up Gwendolyn’s postcard and studied the picture. They need a new boogieman, or they have nothing to attack.”

  CHAPTER 6

  By February 1946, Marcus had been in charge for six months and was enjoying guiding his writers through the troughs of apprehension and around potholes of doubt more than he’d expected to. But nothing revved his engine more than coming up with an idea and knowing how to make it work.

  The previous weekend, George Cukor invited him and Kathryn to his house for a screening of old silent shorts by one of Hollywood’s great silent-era directors. George was talking it up as a celebration of D.W. Griffith’s work, but it was obviously a charity fundraiser for someone who’d failed to keep up with the times and was now living at the Knickerbocker Hotel off Hollywood Boulevard. Still, the industry owed a debt to the innovations Griffith introduced, so the crowd of directors, producers, and technicians were happy to pony up.

  By contemporary standards, many of Griffith’s films were clunky and choppy, the storytelling heavy-handed, the acting overwrought, and the pathos laid on thicker than glue. But a few gems gleamed from the dreck. The final film George screened that evening made Marcus sit up straight.

  New York Hat starred Mary Pickford as a girl whose dying mother bequeaths some money to buy a fancy hat more elegant than her miserly father would allow. The whole story was over in sixteen minutes, but not before Marcus grasped its potential as a full-length musical—and not just a musical, but one starring an up-and-comer whose charms had attracted the eye of Louis B. Mayer.

  An ambitious hoofer named Ann Miller had set her sights on becoming MGM’s next musical leading lady, and to that end, she wasn’t opposed to ingratiating herself with Mayer. Nor was Mayer resistant to her sway. The girl could tap like a machine gunner jacked up on a fistful of bennies, but she was under contract at Columbia. It wasn’t unheard of for one studio to buy out a rival’s contract, but negotiations were smoother if the new studio had a movie lined up. Mayer had sent out word that he wanted a project for Miss Miller. Before New York Hat’s credits hit George’s screen, Marcus knew he had the perfect idea. He begged Kathryn to leave early so he could get it down on paper before it evaporated.

  Ideas for scenes, characters, plot twists, and musical numbers tumbled out of him, and he was up until two filling page after page. The next day he got to work early, his briefcase jammed with scribbled notes, and started banging away at his typewriter before anyone else arrived. Some time later, Dierdre opened his office door with a goofy grin splitting her freckled face. “It’s not every day we turn forty!”

  He sat back in his chair and pressed his lips into a smile. He was now the same age his father was when he ran Marcus out of town. Adler senior was always so fully in control of his life that Marcus longed to feel that same way. As he sat at his desk with his receptionist smiling at him and his notes for New York Hat spread out across his desk, Marcus suspected maybe he finally did.

  “How’d you know today was my birthday?”

  “I’m pals with Mannix’s secretary. She told me he asked her to call personnel and check.”

  “Why would he check that?”

  Dierdre’s sly grin returned. “You know about the tradition, don’t you?” She took in his blank face. “Oh my! You are in for a surprise!”

  * * *

  The back seat of Eddie Mannix’s silver limousine was already filled with expensive Cuban cigar smoke when Marcus climbed in a couple of minutes past six. Mannix, a craggy-faced ex-bouncer who’d made good and was now Louis B. Mayer’s right-hand man—the second most powerful guy at MGM—offered up a knowing smile along with a Romeo y Julieta cigar. He leaned back on his soft black leather upholstery and breathed out a pungent cloud.

  “It almost makes turning forty worthwhile, doesn’t it, Adler?”

  Marcus wasn’t much of a cigar man; they made him dizzy and a little on the nauseous side. He knocked back Mannix’s offer and breathed lightly.

  As the car headed east on Washington, he glanced back at the five identical vehicles trailing behind them. Wherever they were going, he hoped they’d be done well before eight. Kathryn and Gwendolyn had put a lot of work into the party they were throwing for him back at the Garden.

  “There’s only one rule,” Mannix said. “The bastard who’s turning forty gets first pick.” He spat a flake of tobacco on the carpet between them.

  As the chauffeur reached La Cienega and headed north, Marcus ran through the list of possible destinations. Restaurant? Casino? Nightclub? Where the hell were they going, and how come he didn’t know? It wasn’t until they turned off the Strip and started cruising up the steeper inclines of the Hollywood Hills that Marcus’ stomach grew heavy with dread.

  “I appreciate the gesture and al
l,” Marcus’ tongue was sandpaper, “but I’m recently married.”

  “So?”

  “Going to a brothel, it just doesn’t sit right with me.” Marcus longed for a stiff belt of bourbon. “How about you let me out at the next corner? I can leg it home from here. But you guys go on, have a great time, enjoy yourselves.”

  The car pulled to a stop in front of an unremarkable two-story house that was painted two different shades of brown. It had a semicircular front porch and a bay window on each side, both upstairs and down, a big shady elm tree, and a row of daisies along the low brick fence that jutted up against the sidewalk.

  This is what they look like? Marcus thought.

  “You’re one of us now, Adler. Think of it as a rite of passage. All senior MGM guys go through it. The only one who turned it down was—queer.” He bit the word off like a chunk of sour fruit and Marcus’ stomach turned.

  Is this his way of finding out if I’m Eugene Markham?

  * * *

  Marcus and Mannix waited on the porch until eight men in respectable blue suits and ties their wives had probably picked out joined them.

  When Mannix rapped the bronze knocker, the door opened, revealing exactly the sort of Louisiana bordello Marcus had been picturing. He ran his eyes around the foyer, which was papered in gold-striped, burgundy-flocked wallpaper. An ornate crystal lamp sat on an intricately carved teak table next to a well-preserved middle-aged woman he didn’t want to make eye contact with.

  “Gentlemen!” she proclaimed. As she gestured to her left, the sleeve of her gauzy black kaftan swirled like mist.

  The men filed into a large, deep, thickly carpeted room that was papered waist-high with the burgundy flock and paneled from there to the ceiling in ivy-patterned pressed tin. Along one wall a table was laid with oysters, olives, caviar, figs, and chocolate-dipped cherries. A sprinkling of Tiffany lamps with rose-and-thorn designs gave the room a muted glow. String orchestrations—the type usually heard behind a tender Hollywood love scene—played through speakers Marcus couldn’t locate. As his eyes adjusted, he made out an array of exquisite girls draped with rehearsed nonchalance on sofas, easy chairs, footstools, and against the walls.

  The woman in the black kaftan greeted Mannix with a kiss to the cheek, her languid eyes trained on Marcus. “Your newest recruit?”

  Mannix slid an arm around her waist. “It is.”

  She wafted another hand in a theatrical arc. “The buffet is open.”

  Sweet Jesus, I’m going to have to do this.

  The girls on offer were as striking as any actress on the screen. Their clothes flattered their figures without resorting to overt exposure, and their smiles gleaming in the lamplight seemed sincere, like they were genuinely pleased to see him. But he wasn’t looking for the most attractive of the bunch; he was seeking out the one who seemed most likely to keep his secret.

  He spotted a fresh-faced debutant; sort of a Jane Powell type, but with strawberry blonde hair framing her face in soft curls.

  “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  She floated to her feet. “Opal.”

  He could see her smile tremble around the edges—not obviously, but enough to give her away. “So what happens now, Opal?”

  Before the girl could respond, the knot of executives at the far end of the room erupted into applause, and started dispersing toward their choices.

  “You follow me.” Opal guided him through a door that led to a staircase. He followed her to the top, then down a narrow corridor until they arrived at the end. She opened the door. “Gentlemen first.”

  The room was small, with enough space to fit a single bed, a side table, and a ceramic basin stenciled with yellow calla lilies. When the girl closed the door, the music playing throughout the house faded away, leaving them in silence.

  He was about to launch into his “You don’t have to do this” speech when he spotted a narrow desk on the far wall. On it stood a late-model Remington typewriter, similar to the one Marcus used at the office. He chuckled.

  The girl threw a red tasseled shawl over it. “You’re not supposed to see that.”

  “Even ladies of the evening are budding screenwriters?”

  “Heavens, no!” she giggled. “When Madame Eloise learned that I type sixty-five words a minute—”

  “Sixty-five? That’s impressive.”

  “Top of my class—oh, but you didn’t come here to talk about typewriters.” She gestured toward a hook attached to the wall next to the bed. “If you’d like to hang your jacket up so it doesn’t wrinkle. You studio guys get real particular about that, I’ve noticed.”

  Now that he had a chance to study her more closely, he could see why he picked her: she reminded him of his sister. She was younger than Doris by maybe five or six years, but she had Doris’ cheeky smile. He suddenly remembered that he owed her a letter.

  He took Opal by the hand and led her to the bed, where he sat them both down. “How did a girl who can type sixty-five words a minute end up working in a place like this?”

  Opal’s blue eyes widened and stayed fully open until a wave of understanding washed through them. “Oh, I see,” she said, “You don’t want to—? You’re not interested in—? Because you don’t—?”

  “Can I trust you to keep this to yourself?” Marcus asked evenly.

  “If anybody asks, we screwed like rabbits.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” Marcus felt the lump in his stomach start to dissipate. He nodded toward her desk. “Sixty-five, huh?”

  Opal acknowledged him with a crooked smile. “Until a few months ago, I was in legal secretary school. And doing very well, too. But then both my folks fell ill. They came out here for their lungs. Tuberculosis and all that. But they ignored every doctor who told them to give up smoking. Then last winter they came down with TB again. Real bad. Fatal, as it turned out. They died within weeks of each other.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, it was pretty bad. But even worse, they put all their assets in my name after some shyster of a lawyer tried to bilk them out of their money. Daddy did well making those lights the studios use, key lights and what-have-you. Their illnesses dragged on so long that their medical bills stacked up and they died horribly in debt. And as all the assets were in my name, their debts became my debts.”

  “So you dropped out of secretarial school?”

  Opal’s debutant veneer evaporated. “If you know of another way a single girl can make a pile of dough in a hurry, then you be sure and let me know.”

  “And the typewriter?”

  “The woman who owns this place found out about my skills, and in exchange for not having to—you know, she gives me office work.”

  Marcus pictured the woman in the front room, all black gauze and carefully applied mascara. “Madame Eloise has paperwork?”

  Opal giggled just like Doris. “No, not her. The one who owns this place. Talk about a dynamo. That woman is a force of nature,” she whispered. “She owns three different brothels. Can you imagine the money she makes?”

  A woman . . . force of nature . . . owns three brothels? How many people in Los Angeles could fit that description? He kept his eyes on the hook in the wall. “Are you talking about Leilah O’Roarke?”

  Opal clapped a hand to her mouth, her face suddenly white.

  Marcus said, “Your secret is safe with me if mine is safe with you.”

  She let out a long, jagged breath. “Thank you. If she knew I’d blabbed—”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Your real name.”

  The debutant smile reemerged. “Arlene.”

  “That’s a lovely name. It suits you. Tell me, Arlene, exactly how deep in debt are you? And by that, I mean how long will you have to work here until you’re free to re-enroll in secretarial school and get your diploma?”

  Arlene fidgeted with the tassel on her robe. “Six months, maybe. Why?”

&nbs
p; As the controversy over Reds in the Beds had swelled from a “Guess Who’s Who” parlor game to a storm that threatened to topple reputations, it had dawned on Marcus that it might benefit him to develop a contact inside MGM’s legal department who could warn him if any proverbial shit was in danger of hitting any proverbial fans.

  “What if I were to advance you the money you need to get back into school?”

  Arlene pressed her hands to her chest. “Why would you do that?”

  “And when you graduate, what if I put in a good word with the legal department at MGM?”

  The trembling smile resurfaced; her eyes glassed over with the effort to restrain her tears. “You don’t even know me.”

  “You don’t belong here anymore than I do.”

  “And in return?” She flicked a finger at him. “I know how this town works. Everyone has a motive, even the nice guys.”

  Marcus played a hunch. “While you’re helping Mrs. O’Roarke with her paperwork, I’d be grateful if you could keep your eyes open.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly.”

  “That’s not much help.”

  “I know.” He crossed to the narrow desk and wrote Marcus Adler, Villa 14, Garden of Allah Hotel, Sunset Boulevard on a sheet of paper. He looked at his watch: twenty of eight. Just enough time to get home. “Is there a back way out of this place?”

  “The door at the end of the hallway leads to a fire escape in the alley.”

  She yanked his tie askew. “If it’s too neat, they’ll suspect.”

  His hand lay on the doorknob, then he looked over his shoulder. “A movie character’s name has to be just right, otherwise the whole thing doesn’t hang together. There’s one I’m working on, but I couldn’t find one that fitted. Until now. Arlene suits this character. It’s perfect.”

  “You mean there’s going to be an MGM movie about a girl called Arlene?”

  “You will be in touch, won’t you?”

  She waved the paper in front of her face.

  When Marcus closed the door with a click, he paused for a moment to memorize the details. He had a hell of a story to tell everyone back at the Garden, and wanted to get it just right.