Reds in the Beds

by Martin Turnbull

  “I didn’t say it was your tax bill.”

  Kathryn dropped her eyes to the paper in Hoover’s hand. Marcus and Gwendolyn both used Kathryn’s rigorously boring accountant. Hoover passed the paper to her with an achingly slow flourish. She ran her eyes down the page. The guilty party wasn’t named until the halfway mark.

  Francine Massey.

  “My mother is a telephone operator. There is no chance that she could owe the IRS this much.”

  Hoover made a show of sucking something out from between his teeth before he said, “According to my investigation, your mother has never paid her personal income tax.”

  Kathryn heard a soft gasp behind her. It was the first indication she had that Hoyt was still in the room.

  “Never?” Kathryn scoffed, knowing how hollow it sounded.

  He extended one of his pudgy index fingers and pushed the paper until it was back in front of Kathryn. “I have instructed the IRS to hold off bringing charges.” He jutted his double chin toward the bill, his dark eyes bowling-ball hard. “You should know that I have the power to make that disappear.”

  * * *

  Kathryn left Hoyt floundering in her wake until they reached the Liberty Street corner. “I want to hear the words coming out of your measly little mouth.”

  “What words?” he asked

  “Tell me you had no idea of the ambush you were leading me into.”

  “I only half knew.”

  “What a crock!”

  She dashed across the intersection and went half a block before it dawned on her she was going in entirely the wrong direction, just like the last time she’d seen him in the alley behind his father’s store when he jumped her with that kiss. She’d tried not to think of it, but once in a lonely while she found herself reliving how soft his lips were, and how her whole body had reacted to its touch. But then she’d swat the memory away.

  The first she knew that Hoyt had followed her across Liberty Street was when he grabbed her by the wrist from behind. “He’s desperate to collar Siegel.”

  His hold was disturbingly firm.

  “How did my mother even enter the picture?”

  “He wanted leverage, and asked for a full report on you detailing every fact in my possession. When he read it, his first question was, ‘What about the mother?’ I told him she’s just a telephone operator so there was no leverage to be had, but he said, ‘We’ll see about that.’”

  Her heart gave a yip of hope. “So that tax bill, it’s bogus?”

  Hoyt shook his head soberly and let go of her wrist.

  Kathryn stood on the busy sidewalk, too flummoxed to speak, while locals and divorcées dodged around them. Eventually she said, “What is Hoover even doing here? Surely he didn’t come all the way to Reno just to see me.”

  Hoyt flicked the brim of his homburg toward the back of his head. “He did. Which should indicate how desperate he is to get Siegel. You need to take this seriously.”

  She felt weak at the knees. A little farther down the street, she spotted a bus stop and headed for it. She sat down on the bench and closed her eyes, unsure what to say, or even how to feel.

  “You ought to consider yourself lucky,” he said.

  “How do you figure?”

  “He talked about strong-arming you into pressing your husband into service.”

  “Marcus? Squealing for the FBI?”

  “He’s a man of some influence and position in the movie industry, and not without his—skeletons?”

  Kathryn opened her eyes to narrow slits and looked at him askance. “Jesus, you people stop at nothing.”

  “But I talked him out of it.”

  “So you say.”

  “Did you know he was light in the loafers when you married him?”

  How come there’s never a ten-pound brick around when you need one? “Why? Did you?”

  “No.” He ignored the disdain in her voice. “Not until the night of the . . . Mandeville Canyon incident.”

  The way he paused for the briefest split-second before he said “Mandeville Canyon incident” made Kathryn’s antenna quiver. “What?”

  “The desk sergeant at that station is a college buddy of mine. We get on the horn once in a while to shoot the breeze. We were yakking away one night when a bunch of queers got hauled in. In case there was anything I could use, I got him to read out the list of names. When he got to Marcus Adler, I asked him to do me a favor and let him go, as well as anybody with him.”

  Kathryn felt a cool breeze waft off the Truckee River a few blocks north of them. It was the first hint of the winter to come and it afforded a brief, albeit fleeting, respite from the heat of the desert that lay just beyond the city limits. “Why would you do that?” she asked him quietly.

  “Because I’m the bad guy, remember?”

  She let his sarcasm float past her. “Whatever your motives were, thank you.”

  “What do you think my motives were?”

  “Quite honestly, you confound me beyond all comprehension.”

  She was thankful when he said nothing further. They let the traffic jostle past them—cars, buses, bicycles, even a horse or two. Eventually, she asked, “Do you think Hoover meant it when he said that if I come up with the goods, he’ll let me go?” When Hoyt didn’t respond, she pressed him. “Well, do you?”

  He scowled. “I didn’t hear him give you any choice.”

  The two of them sat there, knee brushing knee, saying nothing. His scowl softened into something less officious, more contemplative. She watched the way his eyes roamed her face, as though memorizing every detail.

  He’s going to kiss me again. Isn’t he? He is. No, he’s wavering. He wants to. I want him to. He knows he shouldn’t. Not with Hoover so close. Not with anyone so close. And yet. There’s something there. Let’s stop pretending there isn’t.

  Abruptly, he shot to his feet. Tipping his hat to her, he pivoted on his heel and charged back the way he came. She watched him retreat down Liberty Street until he turned a corner and disappeared without once looking over his shoulder.

  CHAPTER 27

  Gwendolyn was shocked when Howard Hughes called to say that his doctors had given him the go-ahead to start piloting again. A couple of months back, when she and Kathryn visited him with Lana Turner, she thought it’d be a miracle if the man could reach the bathroom by himself before Christmas. But there he was on the line telling her he had a quick business trip to Guadalajara planned for the second week of November, and it’d be his pleasure to drop her off at Mazatlán on the way down and pick her up the following day.

  She arrived at the Hughes Aircraft hangar and found he walked with a hesitancy that gave her pause, but he ran through his preflight checklists as though there’d never been a horrific crash three months earlier.

  When they climbed into the silver S-43, Hughes offered her either a passenger seat in the main cabin or the copilot seat up front. Kathryn had told her that if he offered her a chance to sit in the cockpit, she must take it, promising, “You’ll never see the world in the same way again!” So Gwendolyn chose the cockpit . . . and regretted it the moment they took off.

  Her stomach cartwheeled as the ground dropped away at an alarming rate. The endlessness of the Pacific to her right seemed to want to surge up and swallow her whole. And when an air pocket shook them around like lifeless dummies at Bullocks, she snapped shut her eyes and kept them that way until Hughes told her she was missing the best part.

  He was right.

  The sight of the ragged coastline far outstripped her expectations. It even exceeded Kathryn’s promise that she’d be overwhelmed so much that she was happy to pass the rest of the flight in silence.

  Hours later, armed with only a postcard and a snapshot inside her overnight bag, Gwendolyn alighted from the plane repeating the phrase Howard had taught her: Estoy buscando. I’m looking for.

  * * *

  Plazuela República was a medium-sized plaza half the size of Pershing Square, dominate
d by the Cathedral of Mazatlán. Its twin spires pointed toward a cloudless sky dominated by a bright sun that burned hotter than it did in LA. Even the wide-brimmed straw hat she’d grabbed at the last minute offered scant protection, so she took refuge under the shade trees surrounding the central rotunda.

  She pulled out Linc’s photograph and used it to fan herself while she repeated, “Estoy buscando . . . estoy buscando . . .”

  “You spent ten years approaching strangers at the Cocoanut Grove,” she told herself. “This should be a piece of cake.” When a middle-aged gent in a white linen suit entered the square and started heading toward her, she put on her professional cigarette-girl smile.

  “Hola!” She held up Linc’s photo. “Estoy busca—no, es—estoy bucansca—oh, crap!” The man cut a wide arc around her and was thirty feet away before she got it right. “Estoy buscando!” But he was already beyond earshot.

  The next passerby was an elderly woman loaded with half a dozen bundles tied together with string. She looked at Gwendolyn as though to say, Oh honey, you’ve caught me on such a bad day.

  A pair of giggling teenage girls just shook their heads. A nurse about her own age in starched white cotton and sensible shoes didn’t even break her stride. The burden of hopelessness pressed on her.

  But then a trio of nuns barely scraping five feet tall and dressed in black habits stopped when she held up Linc’s photograph.

  “Estoy buscando,” she said, pointing at the snapshot.

  “Es muy apuesto,” one of them said, nodding her head in approval.

  “Have you seen him?”

  The three women looked at her blankly. She felt her underarms go damp.

  The name on the back of the lighthouse photo popped into Gwendolyn’s mind. “Emilio Barragán?”

  “Sí,” they chorused. “Emilio Barragán. Sí.”

  Gwendolyn threw out her hands. “Where? Where? Where is Emilio Barragán?”

  A glimmer of recognition sparked in the face of the oldest woman. “El tejedor americano,” she said to the other women, and they all started nodding.

  “Ah! Sí, sí. El tejedor americano.”

  The oldest nun took her by the hand, her skin rough as sandpaper. She tugged at Gwendolyn, beckoning her into the oppressive heat. Skirting down one of the streets bordering the cathedral, they came to the rear where Gwendolyn saw a line of taxicabs, all of them battered Fords punctured with rust.

  The nun marched Gwendolyn to the driver lounging against the door of the cab at the front of the line. She launched into a stern speech in rapid Spanish. Gwendolyn caught the words americano and Emilio Barragán, but that was all. The harangue ended with a pointed finger directed toward the church. “Jesucristo!” The driver leapt away from his cab and pulled open the door, motioning for Gwendolyn to step inside.

  * * *

  The one-story adobe reminded Gwendolyn of the houses around Olvera Street in downtown LA. With its fresh coat of cream paint and its fire engine red flower box filled with bright purple geraniums, it certainly had its charm. But was it Linc’s?

  The wooden door was the same color as the flower box, with a wrought iron handle fashioned into the shape of a feather. Gwendolyn took off her sun hat, wondering if she looked like a wilted daffodil. Had her lipstick worn off? Were her underarms stained?”

  “Stop procrastinating,” she told herself, and knocked before her nerve deserted her.

  She heard the sound of a wooden chair dragging along tile.

  “Un momento, por favor.”

  There was no mistaking Linc’s voice. She put the hat back on, then took it off in an attempt to look as though she just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought she’d drop in. She quickly realized how ridiculous that looked, so she jammed it back on her head, only to realize she’d put it on backwards when the door flew open.

  Linc was astonishingly tan. She’d been used to his Black Irish pale skin and dark, dark hair, but this bronzed version brought out the deep blue in his eyes. But more than that, she’d never seen him so gosh-darned relaxed. The worry lines accumulated from fifty-hour working weeks and the puffy bags from marathon Mocambo nights were erased. Instead, a clear-eyed, beaming Lincoln Tattler stood before her.

  You haven’t come all this way to collect your money, she realized. You’re here to understand why he took it.

  “Gwendolyn!” He stretched his arms out wide and enveloped her in a lung-crushing hug. “My darling girl!” He released her and grabbed her hand. “I never imagined—! Come in, come in. That sun today is gruesome!”

  The house was just one big sparely furnished space—living room on the left, kitchen and dining area to the right. At the rear, a double bed was pushed up against the wall, and to its left was a worktable covered with long, thin brown reeds. The walls were all painted terracotta with a dark green trim.

  Gwendolyn took off her hat and held it to occupy her jittery hands.

  “You sure know how to surprise a guy,” Linc said, still beaming. He headed into the kitchen area and opened a small icebox to pull out a blue glass jug. “I just made lemonade.”

  She waited until he’d filled two glasses before she said, “You’re not easy to find.”

  But all he said was “Gosh, it’s good to see you!” while he handed her a drink. She took a sip. It was just the right balance of tangy and tart. And deliciously cool.

  He led her to the sofa and sat down next to her, so close she could smell the salt in his hair. He looked into her eyes unblinkingly. “You always were a resourceful little dickens. I’m flattered. And surprised. Shocked, even.” He took her hand; she wanted to pull it away, but it felt so nice to feel his skin again. “I’ve often wondered if I should let you know where I was, but I was concerned others might get wind of my location. But now that you’re here in front of me, I can see I should have told you. We might’ve spent the last year and a half living in this paradise. Well, you’re here now.”

  “LINC!” Gwendolyn pulled her hand away. There was no coffee table so she set the lemonade on the tiled floor. Even his bare feet were tan. “Aren’t you curious about why I tracked you down?”

  As he glanced at the small overnight bag she’d left at the door, she saw the gears of his mind grind to a halt. “Gwennie, I—”

  “How could you do that to me?” she yelled. “You knew how hard I worked to get that money. I was saving every penny to open my store. I was so damned close, but then you decided to go on the lam. I guess you had your reasons, but did you have to steal my money, too?”

  “WHOA!” he cut in. “Your money? Went missing?” He sat upright. “And you think I took it? Why the hell would you think that?”

  She fell back into the sofa and crossed her arms. “I flew all the way from LA to find out. I’m not leaving until I do.”

  He stopped pacing and jammed his fists onto his hips. “The last time I saw your money, it was in that ratty pillowcase inside Bertie’s safe. I’m sorry, Gwennie, but I don’t know where your dough is.”

  His eyes darted back and forth between hers. He took her hand again; this time she didn’t want to pull away. “Now I really wish I’d told you where I went, if only to stop you from spending a year and a half wanting to stab me in the throat.”

  Gwendolyn stroked the tops of his long fingers. “You are telling me the truth, aren’t you? ’Cause if you did, now’s the time to come clean, even if you’ve spent it.”

  “Do you know how far three grand can go down here? I could live on that in style for years.” He jutted his head behind him. “I live in a shack. It’s hardly the life of Riley I’m leading here.”

  Gwendolyn felt her body sag as she tilted her head against his shoulder. It wasn’t him. Linc isn’t a thief. He didn’t go on the lam and take my money, my hopes, and my future with him. He’s the decent guy I always thought he was. I’m not such a terrible judge of character, after all.

  His hand stroked the back of her head until she sat up and wiped her cheeks clean of tear track
s she hadn’t been aware she was making. “Your shack is charming.”

  “Now that I’ve plastered and painted the whole thing, laid this tile, and put in running water and electricity. You should have seen it a year ago—to call it a hovel would’ve been generous.”

  “It’s a far cry from Beverly Hills.”

  “The farther, the better,” Linc replied darkly.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  “But why did you up and leave like that?”

  “I left a note.”

  “You mean the one where my sackful of money should have been? It was hardly self-explanatory, Linc. All you said was something about Ben Siegel and the O’Roarkes. Linc, honey, I’ve come all this way to hear why you left. I want an explanation.”

  “No, Gwennie, you really don’t.”

  “How bad can it be?”

  He nodded as though it hurt, and pointed to her overnight bag. “Any American cigarettes in there?”

  “Chesterfields. Four packs.” She watched him lick his lips. “You’re welcome to them. If.”

  “All right.” Linc let out a long, raggedy breath. “Remember that theory I had, about the O’Roarkes laundering their money through my dad’s company? I spent weeks looking for proof. I’m not the world’s smartest accountant, but I’m no muttonhead either. I knew what to look for, but those bastards covered their tracks well, and I didn’t find much.” His eyes lost their focus. “I got so frustrated that I snuck over to the O’Roarke’s house one night and started going through their trash cans.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Nothing. But while I was pawing through their stinky garbage, I heard them starting to argue. And let me tell you, when Leilah and Clem O’Roarke have a fight, the Marquess of Queensberry rules do not apply. They go at it with flying brandy snifters, face slapping, and cuss words to make a sailor blush. Those two do not hold back.”

  “What were they fighting about?”

  “One of those little metal boxes that hold filing cards. They couldn’t find it and were each accusing the other one of hiding it. Oh boy, were they ever both blowing a gasket. I sat in the dirt listening to them going at it for a while, and finally they convinced each other this precious box wasn’t anywhere in the house. So they both jumped into Clem’s Oldsmobile and roared off. They didn’t even bother to lock their window, so once they were out of sight, I climbed in and took a look around.”