Reds in the Beds

by Martin Turnbull

  “We’re taking a walk.”

  Without thinking, she pulled her arm up, hoping to twist herself free. He grunted, went to grab her other arm, missed it, and instead caught a finger on the sleeve of her jacket. A seam ripped. She used a hip to push him away. The maneuver caught him by surprise, giving her just enough time to bend his arm back. It worked. He let go of her wrist, which sent her hand crashing into the counter.

  Everything blurred together. A button from his jacket popped off and skittered across the floor. Her gold-plated bracelet broke loose. Her elbow brushed against something hard, then a pinprick of light hit her eye. Her elbow felt it again. A flash of metal. Something dropped to the floor. It hit the marble, dense and heavy. An explosion, deafening. The stink of gunpowder. Another sound—shattering glass. Then screaming. High-pitched, hysterical. Running feet. Someone called “Gwendolyn!” Was it Mr. Dewberry? She couldn’t be sure.

  Abruptly, both her wrists were free. She pitched back and broke into a sprint, soon passing through the Saddle Shop and into Menswear. She kept on running until she reached the wall, then jumped behind an elaborate display of neckties and slumped to the floor.

  She’d barely caught her breath when she heard her boss clear his throat.

  Herman Dewberry was a natty sort of man, particular in his grooming, loyal to the store above all else, but kindhearted. He peered at her through circular horn-rimmed spectacles.

  “My dear Miss Gwendolyn!” He knelt down beside her. “Are you hurt?”

  “Just a little shaken. Is everyone okay? That gunshot and all that shattering glass. I’m so very sorry. I didn’t ask him to come here. I’m horrified that I made such a scene.”

  “Siegel was doing all the scene-making.”

  She let Dewberry help her to her feet. “Is he still here?”

  “As soon as you started running in one direction, he headed in the other.” Dewberry held his fingertips to his lips, trying not to laugh. “The floors were polished last night. He fell flat on his hiney. He was mortified. So red in the face!”

  Gwendolyn grimaced.

  “Well, it’s nothing you have to worry about anymore.”

  “I’m fired? I swear, Mr. Dewberry, I didn’t ask him here—”

  Dewberry patted Gwendolyn’s hand and told her to hush. “I was coming to see you just as he appeared.” He smiled at her like a patient uncle. “I have some news.”

  “You do?”

  “Remember when you started here, I said that we require all our staff to work the floor before we promote them to more responsible positions?”

  Gwendolyn nodded, feeling a wave of hope.

  “We’ve had two resignations this week in Formalwear. One was a sales clerk.”

  The wave of hope ebbed. This was hardly a promotion. Same job, different floor.

  “We also need someone with superior dressmaking skills who can tailor the couture in the Louis XVI Room.”

  Gwendolyn pressed her hands together.

  “You can start tomorrow.”

  She grabbed Mr. Dewberry’s hand and shook it vigorously until he made her stop. “I could start right now!”

  CHAPTER 9

  Marcus watched the end of Oliver’s cigarette glow in the fading twilight. He listened to his boyfriend drag deeply on it, then directed his attention to the log cabin nestled among a thicket of eucalyptus trees in Mandeville Canyon. He fidgeted with the house key in his pocket to distract himself from the tension between them.

  Oliver crushed his cigarette butt into the dirt and finally broke the silence. “Damn it, Marcus, it wasn’t my fault. It was a very tense meeting. Breen was stomping around all crazy and shouting, ‘We need to regain control of this industry!’ How were we supposed to know he didn’t read that stupid book until now? You should’ve heard him. ‘We are the custodians of public morals. It is our job to protect the innocent from subversive influences. This outrageous book has undercut our work, and we must take evasive action to maintain our authority.’ Then he insisted we come up with ideas on how to counter all those insinuations.”

  Marcus whipped around. “But did you have to suggest a Production Code refresher course?”

  The Production Code was a set of “guidelines” the studios had to follow if they wanted their films approved for distribution.

  “It was the first thing that came into my head.” Oliver flung his arms wide. “And I never said anything about mandatory.”

  Earlier that afternoon, Marcus had suffered through a spit-and-fury rant while his boss shook a letter in his face informing him that MGM was to be the first studio subjected to the Breen Office refresher course. Marcus’ ears were still ringing.

  “We are all too aware of what we’re not allowed to show!” He started counting on his fingers. “No profanity. No nudity. No ridicule of the clergy. No drugs. No perversion. We don’t need to be sent back to Breen Office School.”

  At the end of the path that led to the cabin, a hand-painted sign was just barely illuminated by a low-wattage bulb: Hermit’s Hideaway. “Come on,” he told Oliver, “Quentin will already be two drinks ahead.”

  “We need to—”

  “You can join us inside, or you can stand out here and hope for a taxi. But seeing as how we’re way out in the boonies, I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Marcus waited for a moment, but heard only the forlorn hoot of a solitary owl. He trudged fifty feet up the path before he stopped.

  As he stood alone in the semidarkness hearing himself breathe through his teeth, he faced for the first time the possibility that Oliver was the thief at the Garden. Marcus’ pie tin had gone the way of his egg platter, and Gwendolyn was missing a pair of good shoes. Bertie’s childhood photo album and Trevor’s favorite cufflinks were gone, too.

  Marcus didn’t want to believe Oliver was the culprit, but things had begun to disappear when Oliver started spending more time at the Garden after the war ended. All this was circumstantial evidence, but still.

  “Aren’t you going in?” Oliver’s voice was just over Marcus’ shoulder.

  “I owe you an apology.”

  Oliver nudged him with a playful punch. “You’re a bigwig at the studio now. Jobs like that come with pressure—”

  “These thefts at the Garden of Allah, they haven’t stopped.”

  “Kay told me she left a novel out by the pool last weekend and the next morning it was gone. She all but accused me of stealing it—as if I would read Forever Amber—and said she and Bill were thinking of checking out.”

  The moonlight made Oliver’s hazel eyes paler than they actually were. “What?” he asked.

  The woods seemed unnervingly quiet; even the owl was shocked into silence.

  “Nothing,” Marcus said, turning to go.

  “I know your ‘nothing’ face, and that’s not it. You’ve got something on your mind, so tell me—wait. You think I have been stealing—”

  “No.”

  “You wanna go back to my place and look around?” Oliver demanded. “Maybe you’ll luck out and find your pie tin and Bertie’s scarf.”

  Marcus reached out, but Oliver pulled back. “It’s that book! It’s got everyone so damned paranoid. Even at the studio. Everyone’s so suspicious.”

  “I don’t care about everyone at the studio.” Oliver charged back the way they’d come.

  “Please, honey, don’t go.” Marcus debated the wisdom of running after Oliver. They fought so infrequently that he wasn’t sure if Oliver was the Let’s talk it out type, or more of a We’ll talk after I’ve calmed down. He watched Oliver disappear down the path before he headed inside.

  * * *

  Hermit’s Hideaway was the homo bar everybody had heard of but nobody had seen. So when Quentin Luckett called Marcus and asked him and Oliver to meet him there, Marcus had laughed and said it might be easier to hunt down Bigfoot. Even when Quentin sent an address with an elaborate sequence of directions, Marcus and Oliver were skeptical, but there it was, a large cabin set two hundr
ed feet off Mandeville Canyon Road.

  It was a simple rectangular room that stretched sixty feet back with a bar of roughly hewn logs running most of its length. The heads of dead animals mounted on mahogany plaques—moose, bears, coyotes, deer—stared down at the patrons with glassy eyes.

  The place threw Marcus back to the summer he was thirteen, when his family took a cabin at Yellow Creek Lake, a couple of hours east of McKeesport. His dad was intent on taking his eldest son into the woods to hunt wild turkey, ruffed grouse, and white-tailed, but Marcus was horrified at the thought of killing animals for sport. He tried hard to please his father, but the best he could do was to wing a young turkey. Looking back, things were never the same between them. Assaulted by that awful memory and unnerved by his fight with Oliver, Marcus turned back to the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  Quentin worked at Paramount, where he analyzed novels and magazine short stories for screen potential. He was the only person Marcus knew whose instincts for a successful story were sharper than his own. They’d done each other a couple of good turns during the war, and had kept up the friendship.

  Quentin came charging around the Paul Bunyan cocktail tables. “I thought you’d never get here! I don’t know how I could’ve made those instructions any clearer.”

  Marcus assured him that his directions weren’t the problem as Quentin pulled him through the crowd, which was nothing like the smartly attired writers, costumers, and set designers Marcus usually socialized with. The men at this bar were barrel-chested, sturdy-legged, mountain-man types.

  They arrived at a table where several drinks were already lined up. Quentin placed one in Marcus’ hand. As far as he could tell in the low lighting, it was a light yellow color. “What is this?” Marcus asked.

  “Smirnoff with a splash of grapefruit juice.”

  He wasn’t a big fan of grapefruit, but at that moment he was an avid devotee of anything more potent than sacrificial wine. Vodka had been around before the war, but Marcus had only ever seen it at Bublichki, the Russian restaurant a few blocks from the Garden. But then Russia became the US’ ally during the war and suddenly the name Smirnoff was everywhere.

  He downed a bracing mouthful. He was taking a second gulp when a tall gentleman approached them. He wore a full dark beard and the complacent smile of someone who knows a secret. Marcus looked at the stranger, then at Quentin, who wore a similar smile.

  The light in the bar burned mostly from wall sconces positioned at shoulder height. They were carved out of thick branches and fitted with bulbs no brighter than the one lighting the sign out front. Marcus studied the man’s face until he gasped in recognition.

  Quentin clamped a hand across Marcus’ mouth. “Zip it.”

  Trevor Bergin was one of MGM’s top male heartthrobs. His face on a magazine cover guaranteed vigorous sales; gossip columns had documented his marriage to frequent co-star Melody Hope since the day they met. MGM’s PR department made sure nobody outside the industry knew it was a sham, but even they didn’t know that Trevor’s real love was Quentin.

  Marcus touched Trevor’s beard. It scratched like a Brillo pad.

  Trevor lowered his voice to a whisper. “Not one person has recognized me!”

  Alla Nazimova had once remarked to Marcus that anonymity was the most precious thing in the world once it was gone. The only place Trevor failed to raise an eyebrow was at the Garden, which was why, Marcus guessed, he and Melody had moved in, despite the fact that they could afford a Beverly Hills mansion.

  Marcus cast around the bar, looking into the hopeful faces of the men clustered at the tables. I used to look like that. Desperate to connect with a kindred soul, if only for an hour. But then Oliver came along, and he knew those panting fumbles with nameless strangers was behind him.

  “I need to go,” he said.

  “You just got here!” Quentin protested. “And I have news. You’re going to die when I tell—”

  “Oliver and I just had a terrible fight.” Marcus gulped down his drink. Of course he’s not the thief. What was I even thinking? “I need to find him. Set things right.”

  “You’re going to want to hear this!” Trevor singsonged.

  Marcus started backing away. “I’ll call you.” He wound his way through the lingering stares. He can’t be far down the canyon. If I run, I’ll catch him before he finds a taxi.

  He was only a step or two from the door when it swung open. A flashlight flicked on and a shrill whistle scratched the air. A gruff voice barked out, “EVERYBODY FREEZE! THIS IS A RAID!”

  The only sound in the place was Dinah Shore on a radio somewhere singing “Laughing On the Outside.”

  “HANDS IN THE AIR! YOU’RE ALL UNDER ARREST!”

  Thirty pair of hands went up as seven policemen piled into the bar. Marcus was shoved backwards into a knot of men who were a dozen years older than him.

  One of them muttered, “I did not survive the Battle of the Somme, the polio epidemic, and thirteen years of Prohibition to put up with this shit.” He stepped forward. “ARRESTED?” he shouted. “THE HELL WE ARE!”

  The cop reached him in two strides. “What did you just say to me?”

  “We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, hurting nobody, and disturbing no-one.”

  In half the time it takes to draw a breath, the cop raised his billy club and struck the man with a hoarse grunt. As the veteran dropped to the floor, the cop faced the crowd. “Any other objections?”

  Marcus knelt down.

  The cop told him, “Leave him be.”

  Blood was seeping from the man’s ear into the sawdust on the floor. “He’s out cold. He may even be dead.”

  “What’s one dead faggot, more or less?”

  “He needs medical attention.”

  “You wanna join him?” The cop jabbed Marcus’ shoulder hard enough to knock him on his ass. “Listen up, ladies. This is what’s going to happen.”

  While the cop described how they’d be marched to the vice squad paddy wagons outside, Marcus groped for the man’s wrist. He found a pulse—weak, but regular. Marcus backed away when he spotted the cop raise his revolver.

  As they were herded out of the cabin and down the path toward the vehicles, Marcus heard more than one guy sob. They all knew what lay ahead. They’d be ID’d, fingerprinted, booked on some trumped-up charge, held overnight, then released in the morning to find their names and addresses in the newspaper, heralding public humiliation, eviction, and the loss of their jobs. As he climbed into a cramped wagon reeking with piss and vomit, Marcus thought of Oliver and took solace in the thought that the only man who’d ever made him feel safe had escaped what was shaping up to be a night in hell.

  * * *

  Marcus’ behind ached from the cold concrete seeping through his gabardine pants. The holding cell was bigger than Marcus expected, but with nothing to sit on, the hours crawled by.

  The only excitement had occurred outside the lockup on the west side of downtown LA when a scuffle broke out. Desperate to avoid identification, one of the men made a break for it. A fight erupted between the homos and the cops. The cops won, of course, but not before Marcus’ favorite watch disappeared.

  “What time is it now?” he whispered to Quentin.

  “Three o’clock,” Quentin replied. “How long can they keep us here?”

  “Long enough to make sure the papers spell our names right.”

  Quentin’s head sank into his hands. “I really liked my job; I’m going to miss it.”

  “Let’s not focus on that.” Marcus rolled onto his right hip and faced Quentin. “You were about to divulge some big secret.”

  Quentin’s head shot up, his mouth curled into a Cheshire cat smile. He checked the slumbering figures around them for potential eavesdroppers. “I figured out who wrote Reds in the Beds.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Quentin slanted to his right until their shoulders were touching. “Clifford Wardell.”

 
; Marcus tilted his head back as he absorbed the name. Wardell was his counterpart at Paramount, and Quentin’s boss. He was also an ex-yellow journalist Marcus had discovered snooping around an all-homo party at George Cukor’s house years and years ago. He was one of the slimiest toads Marcus had encountered in Hollywood.

  He stared at the mottled ceiling. “What did you find? A handwritten draft of the manuscript?”

  “No, but close. The first time I read it, there was something that niggled at me, but I couldn’t work it out. So I read it again until I found a phrase that the NJN studio boss says to his security chief when he finds out that August Vail takes a powder in the middle of his doughboys picture. He says, ‘I don’t care if it takes fifty-five flatfoots from Farmington Falls, get me that goddamned Commie!”

  The phrase didn’t sound familiar to Marcus, but then again, it could have come up toward the end of the book when Marcus was paying scant attention. “So?”

  “That’s what Wardell says whenever he gets mad and starts throwing his weight around. So I went snooping around his desk one night, and found a letter from his mother.”

  “Wardell has a mother? Human?”

  “Ol’ Mother Wardell hails from Farmington Falls in Maine. Turns out she’s hard up for cash and was begging her son to let her have a grand, which she knows he can afford now that he’s swimming in money on account of his—and I quote—‘recent literary success.’”

  “Jesus!” Marcus sat up. “So it is him?”

  “What I don’t get is why that cunning little prick would include a phrase he’s known for. It’s a dead giveaway.”

  Marcus slapped Quentin’s chest. “Because he wants to be found out. That slimy weasel wants the notoriety of being the mystery author of the big bestseller. When it does get out, I bet he’ll act all indignant and betrayed, but you just know he’s eating it up.” A couple of the slumbering figures stirred. “What are you going to do?”

  “I just discovered all this last night—look out!”

  A burly silhouette appeared at the steel bars. It moved to the door and shoved a key into the lock. The captives in the holding pen shifted uneasily as the door opened and the warden stepped forward. “Marcus Adler. Identify yourself.”