by George Baxt
“Once, downtown.”
“She ever show any flesh other than her face and her hands?”
“Come to think of it, no.”
“That’s right. She doesn’t show a thing. She strips. She takes things off, but while she’s stripping, she talks a blue streak. The chatter’s funny, suggestive, an absolute howl. She has the audience paralyzed with laughter and then is off the stage before the suckers realize they ain’t seen a thing, not even a flash of a tit. That’s what Bourbon taught Neon. How to fake it. Make them think he’s singing, when all the time he’s talking with the music. But don’t get me wrong, Neon was a genuinely gifted mimic. His Mae West was perfection because he was rehearsed by the genuine article. But his Dietrich and his Garbo and all the other ones he did were equally uncanny. Mae was right about one thing. She said Neon could have evolved into a great actor.”
“Instead he evolved into a corpse with a crushed skull,” Connery said staring into his glass of scotch, a strange expression on his face. Agnes hoped he wasn’t going to cry. She couldn’t stand the sight of anyone crying, let alone a man. She couldn’t remember herself ever having cried. Probably as a child there must have been occasions that called for tears, but as an adult, never. Neon Light. A crushed corpse. Only the skull was crushed, but still, Agnes saw all of the body as crushed. Crushed as a metaphor for disillusion. Could that be it? she wondered. Had a disappointing disillusion added to the killing diseases helped to hasten Neon’s departure into a hopefully better afterlife? Neon Light. What a terrible name.
She heard Connery say, “You look like you’re smelling rotten eggs.”
I’m smelling something rotten, she wanted to say, but instead she said, “I was thinking what a terrible name, Neon Light.”
Connery shrugged. “It fit the act. All lit up like a neon light. You saw it yourself. Wasn’t he a dazzler?”
“What was his real name?”
“Michael. Michael Williamson.”
“Where’s his family?”
“He was an orphan.”
“Mae said something about a brother.”
“Mickey never talked about him, except once when his brother begged him not to do the act. Ah, the hell with it! I don’t want to talk about Neon any more. He’s dead. Finished. Kaput. He’s yesterday’s news.”
“Oh, no he isn’t. Villon’s digging into his case and Villon is going to find out things somebody wishes he wouldn’t.”
“What somebody?”
“The somebody who caved in Neon’s skull.” She finally sipped her scotch. “Mmmm. Nice. Smooth. Like the line you once fed me. So tell me, Milton, got some new dirty pictures I can look at?”
The Twentieth Century Limited, the railroad train of the stars, was within twenty-four hours of Los Angeles. It was two days out of Chicago, and the passengers were buzzing with the rumor that Mae West was on board. If she was, she was taking her meals in her drawing room. She had made no appearance as yet in either the club car or the dining car. The porters were unusually circumspect about their mysterious passenger. All they would admit to was, yes, there was a certain Miss West aboard the train. And that certain Miss West kept herself busy manicuring her nails, trying on an assortment of Mae West dresses that were in surprisingly excellent condition, singing to herself in her husky, sexy voice, and spending an hour or two reading selections from the stack of magazines she’d brought on board with her. These included True Romances, Liberty, Photoplay, Screenland, Picture Play, and Strength and Health, where she oohed and aaahed over the illustrations of muscular athletes.
Now forty-eight hours of self-imposed isolation were beginning to wear on Beverly West’s nerves. It was also her frustration that her only masculine contacts were with colored porters, whom she tipped handsomely not to reveal that she was the secondary West on the train. “The hell with this,” she said to herself, “I gotta spring myself out of solitary or I’ll go bananas.” She selected a Hattie Carnegie creation that was daringly decollete. She gilded her fingers from her large assortment of paste diamond rings. She artfully positioned several feathers in her platinum-blond hair. She draped a feather boa around her shoulders, selected a fan that she maneuvered professionally, and then left the drawing room where a porter waited to guide her to the dining car. It was a journey not without its hazards. She stopped to give autographs. She graciously posed for snapshots. She peppered the air with quips and comments, and her dazzled audience was unaware that unlike her clever sister, Beverly’s quips and comments were secondhand, cribbed not only from Mae’s repertoire but from some ancient joke books given to her by an alcoholic comedian.
Arriving in the club car, there were more requests for autographs, and the club car pianist, who made the trip once a week for a barely livable stipend, dutifully played “Frankie and Johnny.” She mouthed “Thank you” to the pianist, who couldn’t wait to get back to Chicago to tell his friends that Mae West looked like an ambulatory matzo ball. Beverly settled into an easy chair and told an eager waiter she’d like a very dry sherry. A small table separated her from a fellow traveler, a middle-age gentleman who, before lighting a meerschaum pipe, asked Beverly if its smell might offend her.
“Why, heavens no,” said Beverly in her excellent Mae West drawl, “just so long you don’t grind your teeth on the stem. It’s the grind in’ of teeth I can’t tolerate. Especially when it’s someone sleepin’ next to me what’s grindin’ ‘em.”
“You are Miss West, aren’t you?”
Thank God he hadn’t asked if she was Mae West. Mae had warned her often if she ever claimed to be the star, she’d have her put behind bars. Beverly smiled and drawled, “Why yes, big boy, how’d yuh recognize me under my travelin’ disguise?”
“Miss West, there ain’t no way you could disguise yourself.”
“Sure there is,” said Beverly with shameless self-assurance, “I could put on blackface and claim I’m Louise Beavers.” Louise Beavers was a fine colored actress who had scored two years before in the screen version of the Fannie Hurst novel, Imitation of Life.
The waiter brought the dry sherry. “I think you’ll find this dry enough.”
“I hope I do,” said Beverly. “I can’t stand wet sherry just like I can’t stand wet men.” She tasted it. “Very nice.” The waiter smiled and left. “Big boy, you got me at a disadvantage. You know who I am. Now I don’t know who you are. I mean, yuh look a lot like my friend Victor McLaglen, but I know you ain’t him because he’s in Hollywood doin’ a movie with that kid Freddie Bartholomew. Whaddya say, big boy, do I get to hear yuh monicker?”
“My name is Max Collins.”
“Max Collins. Any relation to Tom Collins?”
“I don’t know any Tom Collins.”
“Tom Collins is a drink.” He looked blank. “Don’t strain yourself.”
“Are you traveling alone, Miss West?”
“Why, come to think of it, I am. I think it was Albert Einstein what said, ‘You travel faster when you travel alone,’ or somethin’ smart like that.” She took another dainty sip, restraining successfully the urge to down it in one gulp. “Are you travelin’ alone too?”
“I’m most delightedly am. Is Los Angeles your destination?”
“That’s where the train’s headin’, ain’t it?” She thought, I think I’ve landed me a dummy. He ain’t bad-lookin’ and he’s built good, but don’t he know the Twentieth Century only goes to Los Angeles?
“May I offer you another sherry?” he asked gently.
“Well, I ain’t quite finished this one, but I guess by the time another one gets here, I’ll be ready for it.” Max signaled the waiter for a new round of drinks. He was having a Manhattan cocktail and thoughtfully offered Beverly the cherry.
“No thanks, Max. I ain’t big on cherries.”
“Miss West, do I dare? Would you do me the honor? I mean, since we’re both traveling alone, would you have dinner with me?”
“Well, Max, I was thinkin’ of dinin’ in the privacy of my
drawin’ room, like I been doin’ the past two nights. It ain’t much fun, but, y’see, I don’t like people starin’ at me when I’m eatin’. I don’t suppose you been dinin’ in the privacy of your drawin’ room?”
“I don’t have one. I have a lower berth.”
“But I’m sure you’re from an upper class. You’re starin’ at me. Somethin’ wrong?”
“Honestly, I’m thinking you’re either very brave or very foolish.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t you feel the danger of traveling unaccompanied while there’s some killer out there murdering your impersonators?”
“Why, big boy, he’s in Los Angeles. He ain’t on this train.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Well, I had a hard time gettin’ myself on. Paramount Pitchers got somebody bumped so I could get my drawin’ room. So how could the killer get on?” She laughed. “Nobody except Paramount knows I’m on this train. Hey, now wait a minute, big boy? You ain’t suggestin’ you could be the killer?”
“Me? A killer?” He laughed as the waiter served the fresh drinks. Max handed him a dollar tip. A dollar tip in those depression days was abnormally generous. The waiter thanked him with the profusion of a child seeking adoption. As the man backed away obsequiously, Beverly opened the fan and waved it back and forth under her face.
“What a lovely fan,” commented Max. “Is it Spanish?”
“It’s an airloom. It was handed down from a lot of degenerations. It’s Eye-talian.”
“It is rather warm in here, come to think of it.”
“I got a fan in my room. An electric one, that is. I think it’d be fun to have dinner with you, Max, if don’t mind goin’ halfies on my solitude.”
“I’d be honored to go halfies, as you so quaintly put it, on your anything.”
“Let’s go when we finish our drinks. By the way, Max, what’s your profession?”
“I’m a professional masseur.”
Beverly’s eyes widened with delight. “Well, here’s hopin’ you don’t rub me the wrong way.”
EIGHT
IN THE LIMOUSINE RETURNING FROM HASSELSTINE’S Gym, Mae wondered aloud, “I didn’t want to ask Jake what’s with that black patch over his right eye. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings any in case that patch was covering a bad injury. You know anything about it, Jim?”
“He’s had a cataract removed.”
“Oh, so then he’ll be able to see again as good as new. You know, you’re missin’ some of the best parts if you can only see me with one eye. Well, whaddya think of my bodyguards?”
“Physically they’re superb examples of young American manhood.”
“Stop talkin’ like a politician up for re-election. You’ve gotten very pompous out here, Jim. What’s become of the Good Time Charlie you used to be? The hearty laugh, the slap on the back, the dumb jokes, the bimbos on each arm when you went to Texas Guinan’s club? Out here, Jim, you’re like a spayed cat. Still full of good intentions but no way how to use them.”
“You spayed the cat, Mae. I get older. You don’t age at all.”
“That’s because I think young. I’m keepin’ up with the times. That’s why I’m always battlin’ them sunnuva bitches at Paramount. I can go ten rounds with them anytime I like before I score the knockout. I ain’t no second-class citizen like the rest of the ladies they’ve got under contract except for maybe that Miriam Hopkins dame who screams a lot. It ain’t enough for me that I’ve got the vote, I’ve also got to let them know I’ve got the clout. Years from now the world will look back on me, especially women, and they’ll thank me for bein’ one of the first to liberate us girls. Me and my good friend Eleanor Roosevelt. I wonder if she’s ever gonna take my suggestions about gettin’ her teeth fixed. But I’m digressin’, and y’know I don’t like strayin’ from the straight and narrow.” She smiled a sly smile as she examined the fingernails of her right hand. “Although every now and then I manage to stray … and stray … and stray … Seymour!” she shouted. “Stop drivin’ so reckless. Y’know I’m a nervous passenger.”
“I’m only doing forty, for crying out loud!”
“Well, in this cemetery that’s reckless drivin’.” She returned her attention to Timony. “Jim, we can’t keep beatin’ around the bush. The leaves are failin’ off and the branches are lookin’ sick and skinny.”
“Save your breath, Mae.”
“I will if it’ll draw any interest.”
“You’ll always draw interest, Mae. You’re the eighth wonder of the world.”
“Oh, yeah? Who’s the other seven ahead of me?”
He reached over and gently held her hand. She refrained from jerking it away as she had been doing of late when he tried to make the gesture. She could tell from his soft tone of voice, the bittersweet expression on his face, that he knew their business relationship had reached the end of the line, that all that remained ahead were impassable lines. “You don’t need me anymore, Mae. And I’m not very happy out here. The oranges and the lemons are getting on my nerves. Making movies isn’t for me. I need a nickel player piano in a saloon with sawdust on the floor and some pool tables and slot machines in the back room. I need a poker game with jacks or better to open and a slug of bourbon with a beer chaser at my table. But more than that, I need a soft, feminine shoulder to lay my head on, and there’s no longer a receptive one in my immediate vicinity. I know you understand and you sympathize, and now you don’t have to talk to me through clenched teeth any longer.”
“I’m sorry for that, Jim. You know I got a few good virtues, but patience ain’t one of them. How soon are you plannin’ to leave?”
“I thought I’d better stick around until the killer is caught. If I left now, it would look as though I was running out on you in your time of need or else I’m the guilty party and taking it on the lam.”
Mae chuckled. “I’m sure many’s a time you’ve thought of provin’ I’m not immortal.”
“Oh, yes indeed, Miss West. Many, many a time.”
“When you’re ready, we’ll settle up. Now don’t say a word. For years you were as much Mae West as I am except my curves are better. I know you’ve got plenty salted away but I’ll sleep better knowin’ you’ve got more, like maybe a nice annuity that’ll give you a comfortable yearly income.”
Seymour’s ears were burning. A nice annuity. A comfortable yearly income. Me too, please God, me too.
“Now, gettin’ back to the muscle boys. I think they should be packin’ rods. Get in touch with a dealer, Jim, and let’s buy the boys shooters they can handle. Maybe we can get Villon and Mallory to have them over to the precinct a couple of hours tomorrow morning and give them a pernter or two. And another thing. My apartment house. We ain’t got no doorman. In fact, there are two things that are rare in this town, kind hearts and doormen. I want you to hire a doorman. I think a retired cop would make sense, but not too retired. Villon ought to be able to help us there. In fact, try to get three of them so we’ve got front-door protection around the clock, eight hours each. And I don’t want them hired temporary, I want these guys to know they got permanent positions, financial security, because my reputation for generosity is right on the nose.”
Seymour asked anxiously, “What about me? What do I do?”
“What you’re doin’ now, Seymour, you’re doin’ just fine, and I don’t mean drivin’ this crate. We’re home. And I’m hungry.”
Entering the apartment after kissing the mezuzah (and sternly instructing Timony and Seymour to do likewise), Mae sauntered into the kitchen where Goneril was preparing a chicken for roasting and Desdemona sat on a stool at a counter shelling peas. “Ladies, I’m hungry.”
Goneril warned her good-naturedly, “This chicken will take at least two hours before it’s roasted properly.”
“Yeah, that’s always the way with chicken. Desdemona …”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Peel me a kumquat.” She took off the picture hat, kicked
off her shoes, and sat on a chair. “Now, ladies, I want to prepare you for some changes that are being made around here as of right now.”
The sisters exchanged looks and Goneril asked with anxiety, “Ain’t you happy with us no more?”
Mae was startled. “Sure I am. What makes you think I’m dissatisfied? Why, if I was a lesbeen your lives would be in danger. Fortunately God saw to it that I ain’t. What’s the matter with you dummies? Have you forgotten there’s a madman out there possibly lookin’ to cook my goose, and he don’t need no Fanny Farmer Cookbook to tell him how. I’ve hired myself some protection. Three big boys over six feet tall each of them, and with muscles as big as billboards advertising Mae West’s available. There’s one gorgeous black brute—”
“Hallelujah!” cried Desdemona.
“Amen!” seconded Goneril.
“Why, you wicked creatures you,” said Mae as she watched Desdemona peel the kumquat with trembling hands. “He’s been hired to protect me, not himself. But from the look of him, there’s enough for everyone. Those knees of his look as though he could crush watermelons without spilling a drop. Anyway, let’s get back to bein’ serious. There’s that empty apartment next to yours. Desdemona, ain’t you finished laceratin’ that piece of fruit? Goneril, I want you to track down someplace that rents furniture. We’ll need three single beds, some dressers and bureaus where they can store their belongin’s, a refrigerator, a table and chairs, a radio, a sofa, some easy chairs, enough lamps for them to see by let alone read by although one of them, a tall redhead with a lot of freckles, looks like the readin’ type, and plenty of towels and linens. Then see they’ve got plenty of soap, stuff like that. Goneril, I assured them you’ll be doin’ their meals so for the extra work, I’m promisin’ you a nice bonus.”
“You don’t have to do that, Miss West. If they’s here to protect you then I’m more then proud to do for them.” Goneril roared with laughter. “And I promise you I’ll be doin’ my best.”
