Reds in the Beds

by Martin Turnbull

  “I doubt that a surplus Jeep is going to enhance my standing at the studio,” Marcus said.

  “They’re going for cheap, they’re reliable as hell, you can get them painted in any color you want, and now they’re putting on these retractable roofs. Can you imagine rolling up the coast to Malibu or even Santa Barbara with the wind in our faces? How much fun would that be? And besides, there’s a homicidal maniac out there. I don’t want you taking the streetcar late at night.”

  Marcus had never had anyone worry about him the way Oliver did, and the concern etching Oliver’s face touched him deeply. Sure, Kathryn and Gwendolyn had always had his back, but it was different with Oliver. “Thank you.” He pressed his forehead against Oliver’s and kissed his nose. “But it seems this killer has a thing for marginally pretty, tarted-up tramps.”

  The late morning sun peeked over the roof of Lucius Beebe’s villa and streamed through the window, filling Oliver’s face with a shaft of light more typically seen in Renaissance paintings of religious ecstasy. Oliver glanced at the paper sprawled at their feet. “That Elizabeth Short woman could have been any arbitrary stranger unlucky enough to be the next passerby. LA’s not as safe as it used to be.”

  Deadly Bedfellows still lay crumpled at the foot of Marcus’ dresser. “You can say that again.” He drained his glass. “How about we finish these off and head on out to whoever is peddling these Jeep Willys?”

  A volley of sharp knocks against Marcus’ door slayed their romantic spell.

  “MARCUS!” It was Bertie. “IF YOU’RE HOME, OPEN UP!”

  Marcus wrapped himself in his robe as he padded over to the door. He opened it to find Bertie in a surprisingly tasteful two-piece suit of navy blue with a matching fastener hat that struggled to restrain her chaotic mop.

  “What is it?” Marcus asked.

  “I’ve just come from a job interview—”

  “On a Sunday?”

  “I stopped off at Schwab’s for eggs, and who should I see that Wardell rat!”

  Marcus slumped against the doorjamb. “Bertie, everybody in this entire city has probably sat at a Schwab’s booth at least half a dozen times—”

  “He was sitting with Anson Purvis.”

  Marcus stood up straight. “How do you know that?”

  “Buzz cut? Walks with a slight limp? Nods when the guy in the next booth says, ‘Say, ain’t you Leonard Purvis’ youngest?’”

  Marcus reflexively shifted his focus past Bertie’s shoulder to the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset and thought of what Purvis told him that day he showed up unannounced.

  “You think they’re still there?”

  Bertie nodded so hard her fastener slipped off the back of her head, propelling her curls into a frenzy. “They’d just ordered burgers when I vamoosed.”

  Marcus sensed Oliver behind him. He was already dressed.

  * * *

  The rattle of cutlery and crockery vied with the burble of spirited gossipmongering. Schwab’s rarely had a slow time, but late Sunday mornings were especially crowded with hungover Angelenos recovering from the aftereffects of a boisterous Saturday night.

  Marcus searched the faces until he spotted Wardell and Purvis, and headed straight for them. Purvis caught sight of him and alerted Wardell with a jut of his head.

  “Well, now,” Marcus goaded, “isn’t this a fine sight? Niccolò Machiavelli sitting down to break eggs with Benedict Arnold.”

  If Wardell was surprised to see Marcus, he hid it well, taking his time to sink his yellow teeth into a cheeseburger. “Lemme guess. You’ve read Deadly Bedfellows. I’ve heard it’s one of those books you can’t put down.”

  “What did I ever do to you?” Marcus demanded. “This can’t be all about that time at George Cukor’s party.”

  “Oh, it couldn’t, huh?”

  Marcus ignored the stares of the people around him. “You were a yellow muckraker who snuck into a private party with every intention of exposing the private lives of decent and talented people whose only crime was—” He faltered when he realized he’d painted himself into a corner.

  “Was what?” Wardell asked. “Getting married to cover up their perverted inclinations? I’ve got a newsflash: It’s not about you.”

  “The hell it isn’t!” Marcus could feel half a bottle of French courage pumping through his heart. “Mathias Addison? Could you be any more obvious?”

  “It’s about every last prissy fag, and loudmouthed lesbo, and Commie-loving traitor who thinks his puke don’t stink because he earns a thou a week and got nominated for an Oscar. You and everybody like you make me wanna heave. Reds and Bedfellows aren’t about you, Adler; you’re just the sap I chose to represent everything I hate in this swamp of a town.”

  “Then why don’t you just go crawl back into whatever hellhole you slithered out of?”

  Purvis chose this moment to release a snort of laughter.

  “Last I heard, you thought this jerk was an A-1, first-class schmuck,” Marcus barked. “Your very words, as I recall.”

  Purvis wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth. “Since then, I got to know him better.”

  “And when did that happen?

  “Last month’s meeting of the MPA.”

  Marcus had half-forgotten that Oliver and Bertie had followed him until he heard Oliver’s explosion over his left shoulder. “You belong to the Motion Picture Alliance?”

  Purvis looked at Wardell and jerked his head toward Oliver. “Who’s this?”

  “I wouldn’t swear to it in front of the HUAC,” Wardell said, “but I suspect this one and Adler are . . . you know.”

  “You’re not going to be happy until I get hauled up in front of Congress, are you?!”

  “Sir?” Marcus swung around to the twitching face of a Schwab’s waitress. “If you don’t lower your voice, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “I’m going.” He swung back to Purvis. “I don’t know the first thing about the Communist Party, but even at their worst, they’d have to be a darn sight better than the hate-peddling chumps at the MPA. Falling for their jingoistic bullshit makes you the worst kind of fool.”

  Purvis propelled himself out of the booth and drew himself up to his full six foot three. “I’ve decked men for saying less.”

  “And I’ve fired men for less,” Marcus spat back.

  “Then I suggest we take this outside and settle it man to man.”

  Marcus shouldered through the crowd and stepped out onto the sidewalk along Sunset. He let three cars roar past, then spun around. Before him stood Wardell, pudgy and pale, looking like he hadn’t exercised since high school phys ed. After the surprise right hook outside the brothel, Marcus knew he shouldn’t underestimate the guy. But next to Wardell loomed a tower of lean Scandinavian muscle with fists clenched like hunks of raw beef. Behind them, the two long windows of Schwab’s Pharmacy filled with dozens of expectant faces.

  “Mr. Purvis.” Oliver stepped between them, his voice low and controlled. “In the heat of the moment, all this may seem justified, but someone needs to remind you of the imprudence of slugging your boss.”

  Marcus gently nudged Oliver aside. This was his fight to win or lose.

  “Do you know what Wardell did?” Purvis shook his head. “He’s got a new book coming out. Deadly Bedfellows. And he’s got this character, a returning war hero who becomes a screenwriter. This guy is referred to only by his nickname, Amp. Short for Amputee.”

  Purvis side-eyed Wardell. “You used me as inspiration for a character?” Marcus couldn’t tell if he was impressed or repulsed.

  “You know what he has Amp do?” Marcus pushed. “He drowns his boss, the studio writing department head, in a vat of red ink. Yeah, real classy. Is that how you want people to see you?”

  “Just ’cause he’s your boss,” Wardell said, “doesn’t give him the right to belittle you in public.”

  “And don’t let this weasel tell you what to think,” Marcus told Purvis. “He invited
you to join the MPA, didn’t he? What did he say? Just come along to a meeting and see what happens? I’ll tell you what happens. Unless you keep your smarts about you, you’ll get hoodwinked into thinking their brand of narrow-minded intolerance makes sense.”

  “I can make up my own mind.” Purvis raised his fists.

  “You’re not at work now, Anson.” Wardell’s upper lip curled back. “This is just a couple of guys settling a difference of opinion on a public street. Don’t let him call you an idiot.”

  “The law for assault and battery is quite clear,” Oliver warned. “The party who throws the first punch—”

  “Shut up!” Purvis’s fist missed Oliver’s chin and instead connected with his nose.

  Oliver staggered backwards into Schwab’s front window. Blood ran down his neck in wide streams, dripping onto the pavement.

  Marcus felt the twin stallions of outrage and adrenaline stampede through his veins. “You can take a poke at me if you want,” Marcus shouted, “but nobody hits him and gets away with it.”

  Purvis rapped on his wooden leg. “Don’t let this stop you.”

  Marcus flew at Purvis, who had fourteen years on him, not to mention fifty pounds, and landed a punch dead center in his sternum. It didn’t wind the guy, but it made him totter backwards a step or two. Marcus’ knuckles burned, but he stepped forward, thrusting an uppercut into the guy’s diaphragm. Purvis rotated just enough to avoid the blow.

  Marcus saw a fist as big as a T-bone shoot toward him. He didn’t even feel the pain when it connected with the midpoint between his eyes. Instead, he felt the disorientation of the sidewalk rushing toward him before he blacked out.

  CHAPTER 34

  Kathryn knew she was taking an awful chance asking Nelson Hoyt to meet her at the Midnight Frolics.

  Its patrons had made Gwendolyn their darling, and last time Kathryn was there, someone said to her, “Miss Gwendolyn makes us look as glamorous as we’ve always dreamed.” They’d be horrified to know that an FBI agent was in their midst.

  And there was no way of telling how Hoyt would react when he realized he was sitting among perverts. Not that Kathryn saw the Frolics crowd as perverts, but Hoyt might. The last thing anybody wants is to be near a guy blowing a fuse when he’s within arm’s reach of a gun.

  The last time Kathryn saw Hoyt was the previous December when he kissed her at the Ambassador. Afterwards, anxiety and indecision compelled her to keep him at a distance, but then a couple of things transpired that could only be dealt with face to face. “Pick somewhere out of the way,” he’d told her. “Someplace unexpected.”

  She strummed her fingers on the table, chain-smoking Chesterfields while she watched Gwendolyn work the room with her boss, Mr. Dewberry. The regulars liked to call this joint The Licks and referred to themselves as Licketysplitters. As soon as she and Gwendolyn walked in, the Licketysplitters gathered around her like gazelles at a watering hole. Does this color suit my complexion? What are your thoughts on diagonal stripes? Could you make me a copy of that black-and-white number Gene Tierney wore in Leave Her to Heaven?

  After Gwennie’s disappointments about Linc, her money stash, and her store, it warmed Kathryn’s heart to see she had found her niche. It wasn’t one she could tell many people about, but it paid well, and her clients adored her.

  Kathryn went to light another cigarette, but realized it would be her fifth inside ten minutes, so she slid it back inside the pack. She glanced at the entrance. It wasn’t like him to be late. She pulled the cigarette out again and tapped it on the table. Were my instructions not clear enough? Did the door guy send him away? Maybe he already knows this is a cross-dresser bar.

  The drumming of a microphone pounded through the loudspeakers. Onstage stood Miss Julie, the Midnight Frolics manager, a gangly Charlotte Greenwood type. “We have a hell of a treat tonight,” he announced. “Miss Vilma is back in town from his six-month stint at the Brooklyn Navy Yard”—he paused to let the Licketysplitters wolf-whistle their appreciation— “and is here to entertain us with a few songs.”

  Miss Vilma made a passably attractive woman. With a sun-ripened olive complexion accentuated with dark red lipstick and a hint of eye shadow, he took the stage in a gauzy floor-length gown of apricot chiffon that Kathryn immediately recognized as a Gwendolyn original. He launched into “I Could Write a Book” with a purring, gravelly voice, and was barely sixteen bars in when Hoyt plopped himself on the chair next to her.

  “Sorry I’m late, but this Black Dahlia thing has us working overtime since we ID’d the body with fingerprints.” He fished out a cigarette and asked the approaching waitress for a bourbon on the rocks, then studied him more closely as he wound his way back to the bar.

  Over Hoyt’s shoulder, Miss Julie pointed to Hoyt and mouthed Is that him? Kathryn had felt it only fair to secure the manager’s okay to bring an FBI agent into the club. Understandably, Miss Julie almost imploded with horror, until Kathryn pointed out that a vice squad raid was not an altogether unlikely event for a cross-dresser bar, so if push ever came to shove, it might be handy to have an FBI agent in his corner.

  Hoyt wrested his attention from Miss Vilma’s song styling. “You look pretty tonight.”

  Part of her stirred. Having spent so long in the company of a head-turner like Gwendolyn, she had convinced herself that she was perfectly fine with not being the center of attention. Then this guy comes along and pitches a compliment like that in her direction, and suddenly she was a sixteen-year-old virgin.

  “How’s your father?” she deflected, then wished she had stuck to a less personal topic.

  He ducked his head. “Not so great, actually. He came back from the Great War with TB, which is why we moved out West. It flares up every now and then. This one is particularly bad.”

  He didn’t look at her in his usual direct way, but averted his gaze to a blank spot on the wall. She could see the worry in his eyes as he shifted in his seat. “But you didn’t ask me here because of dear ol’ dad.”

  Kathryn straightened her spine, all business now. “I’ve come across some information that you and your boss will find interesting.”

  Kathryn related Gwendolyn’s conversation with Leilah O’Roarke at the Florentine Gardens, when Leilah admitted that she and Clem had sold blocks of land to fund Bugsy Siegel. Gwendolyn wisely cautioned Kathryn against bringing this news to Hoyt without some independent verification, so Kathryn sent her freelance snooper to Las Vegas to do some nosing around. Lenny didn’t strike gold, but he struck silver in the form of an upturn in real estate sales along the Los Angeles Highway, where the Flamingo now stood. According to his calculations, the total sales came to $989,600. When he dug for names, he was stonewalled, but Kathryn figured she had enough information to take to Hoyt, and that he’d have the resources to uncover the missing pieces.

  “So what do you think?” Kathryn pressed. “Is it enough to cut me loose?”

  “If all this checks out, you’ve given us more than enough to lasso Siegel and the operators of the most profitable brothels in California. They all kick back to the LAPD to allow them to stay open, but the O’Roarkes don’t.”

  “How the hell do they get away with that?”

  “Our theory is they’ve got bigger muscle behind them.”

  “The mob?” Kathryn whispered.

  Hoyt nodded. “But we’ve never had any proof of a link. Until now.”

  Kathryn started to feel lightheaded. She tried to tell herself not to count her chickens, but it was hard to keep a lid on the excitement rising in her chest.

  Hoyt accepted his bourbon and lit a Viceroy. “Mr. Hoover is a lot of things, some of them unsavory, but he is a man of his word. When I told him your mother’s tax bill had been paid in full, he laughed.”

  “What kind of laugh?”

  “The touché, well played kind.”

  While Miss Vilma brought his sultry rendition of “I’ve Heard That Song Before” to a close, Nelson surveyed the crowd. “What sor
t of club is this? Not one of those private lodges with nutty initiation rites, is it?”

  He watched some more. A group of four couples walked through the arched entryway. Half of them were dressed in tuxedoes tailored to look like something Marlene Dietrich used to shock audiences with; the other half wore identical ball gowns of silver lamé tipped with white fox fur. Hoyt scrutinized them as they waved and kissed their way through the thicket of tables until they found their seats.

  When Miss Vilma made a big finish, his spotlight went out, and the Licketysplitters filled the room with the thunder of their applause. From the way Nelson chewed his lower lip, it was clear Kathryn had succeeded in throwing him. She wondered how many people had managed to pull that off.

  He looked away from the Dietrich-tuxedoed quartet and flashed an impish Errol Flynn type grin. “Why do I get the feeling I’m being tested?”

  Because you are. On paper, you’re quite a catch. Good-looking, dresses well, speaks nicely, treats his father with respect, has a real job, and a set of principles I can’t help but admire the more I get to know you.

  “We have another item on the agenda,” Kathryn prompted. “That post office box I asked you to look into.” She watched Hoyt’s wall of G-man neutrality rise between them. “Did you get anywhere?”

  One of the things this guy had going for him was his sense of humor, which he managed to maintain regardless of what was going on. She watched it drain from his face, and was shocked at how different he looked.

  “I want to know why you asked me to look into it,” he said.

  She shifted in her seat so their faces were closer together. Not that anybody could hear them over Miss Vilma’s “Summertime.”

  “There was an impromptu gathering at the Florentine Gardens the night the Flamingo opened.”

  “I knew you’d find a way to get out of that.”