The Devil May Dance

by Tapper, Jake

  “It’s going to be a hellish day,” LeGrue told Margaret at the security gate after the cab dropped her off. She was holding a clipboard in one hand and had a raven sitting on her shoulder; it cawed a strange hello at Margaret.

  “‘Quoth the raven,’” Margaret said.

  “This is Archie,” said LeGrue. “He absolutely loathes Rod Taylor, so I’m keeping watch on him today. He happens to love me and does anything I say.”

  “What do you mean, he loathes him?” Margaret said, slowly reaching out to pet the bird. “Is he dangerous?”

  “Only to Rod, and none of us can figure out why,” LeGrue said. “I mean, The Time Machine wasn’t that bad. Follow me.”

  Margaret laughed as the two walked past industrial soundstages so enormous they could have been housing cattle or hogs, though without the aroma. The Universal lot was immaculate and professional: Men and women walked briskly to various studios, carrying food or props, often dressed in costume. Policemen, soldiers from myriad armies, a barbershop quartet, gladiators, Greek goddesses, waitresses, and flappers all passed them by. A teenage boy dressed as a cowboy rode a magnificent white horse past them, clip-clop, clip-clop. Four young women in swimsuits walked behind the horse; they couldn’t have been out of high school. They reminded Margaret of Violet, and she tried to chase that discomfort from her mind immediately.

  “So why is today going to be hellish?” Margaret asked.

  “We’re shooting this scene where Tippi—that’s the lead, she’s a new girl, quite nice, Tippi Hedren—she goes up to a bedroom all alone and is ferociously attacked by a flock of ravens.”

  “A conspiracy,” Margaret corrected her. “It’s a conspiracy of ravens, not a flock.”

  LeGrue playfully rolled her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “You’re one of those.” Margaret laughed. “Yes, I know, it’s a conspiracy of ravens. Or an unkindness of ravens. I confess I’ve dropped those fits of fancy—men out here look at me cross-eyed as it is. The Hollywood Mensa chapter is rather small, Margaret.”

  “Fair enough.” Margaret smiled. “I know what it’s like for a man to look at you like you’re speaking Khoikhoi.”

  “But I assure you I know all of them!” LeGrue said. “A ballet of swans, a bind of sandpipers. On land or water, it’s a gaggle of geese, but in the air it’s a chevron. A water dance of grebes!”

  “Okay, okay.” Margaret laughed.

  “Anyway,” LeGrue continued, “Hitch had told Tippi they would all be mechanical ravens. You need to understand—this might be the most horrific part of the whole movie, like the shower scene in Psycho. The birds will be relentless and almost kill her.”

  “Sounds ugly but manageable, no?”

  “No,” said LeGrue. “The mechanical birds aren’t working. So we have to use live ones.”

  “Ugh,” said Margaret. She knew just how uncontrollable and vicious scavengers could get, having once seen a turkey vulture behead a baby squirrel.

  “Here we are,” said LeGrue, pointing to a blue building.

  Inside, in the center of the long room and against the far wall, an attic bedroom had been constructed, with a hole torn in the roof and, off camera, a giant cage built around a side door, stage right. Margaret and LeGrue stood behind the cage as burly men wearing blue polyester jackets that read BERWICK ANIMAL HANDLERS gently hauled cartons of ravens, doves, and pigeons into its confines. Once the birds were freed from the cartons, they quietly grasped the metal stands and awaited their cues. They shared their cage with three prop men, all of whom wore thick rubber gloves.

  “Birds have never looked less exotic to me than they do right now,” Margaret said. “And I live in Manhattan, where we have fifty pigeons per person.”

  “Yeah, this looks like an infestation,” LeGrue allowed. “That’s kind of the point. This is Hitchcock, not Audubon.”

  The stagehands’ heads turned as a pretty, lean blond woman sporting a beehive hairdo and a lime-green suit walked onto the set rubbing her arms, clearly nervous.

  “That’s Tippi,” LeGrue whispered.

  “Never heard of her,” whispered Margaret.

  “No one has; this is her big break. She already had one mishap on set, with phone-booth glass breaking on her face. She’s going to freak out during this scene. No one wants to work with these birds. Last week we had a dozen crew members in the hospital from bites and scratches. From just one day of shooting! Birds are dangerous. Seagulls deliberately go for your eyes.”

  A stagehand helped Hedren up onto the set and she walked behind the faux door to the attic bedroom. Hitchcock waddled in from wherever he’d been, presumably hiding to avoid any of Hedren’s complaints. “There she is,” he boomed with his familiar working-class London drawl. A hush fell over the soundstage; it was quiet except for some minor stirring of the birds. “Too skinny still, but we will continue to get some curves on that road.” Some of the assistant directors and crew members laughed; Hitchcock looked at them, soaking in their approval. “Blondes do make the best victims, do they not?” he asked. “They’re like virgin snow showing off the bloody footprints.” Guffaws erupted from the crew. A slight wrinkle in the middle of Hedren’s forehead was the only indication of her discomfort, though she maintained a placid smile.

  “Is everything meeting with your approval, Mr. Ridge?” the director asked a man near the cage.

  “All good, sir,” said a man with horn-rimmed glasses.

  “That’s the guy with the American Humane Association,” whispered LeGrue. “He looks out for the birds.”

  “Who looks out for Tippi?” Margaret whispered back.

  Hitchcock approached his director’s chair and Margaret wondered if he was going to try to sit on it, which seemed like a risky venture. He did not. Margaret watched as the director stared at Hedren, eyeballing her as if she were a juicy steak. He licked his lips, which gave Margaret the shivers.

  “Places, everyone,” the director said.

  A chubby male assistant stepped in front of the camera with the clapboard and slammed it down. The three prop men in the cage grabbed ravens, one in each rubber-gloved hand. An assistant director began shouting out the familiar orders as lights blazed, and through a bullhorn, someone called, “Action.”

  Hedren slowly opened the door to the attic and looked up at the hole in the roof as she walked in. She gasped and lifted her flashlight as the three prop men began throwing live birds at her. First a raven flew at Hedren; it turned away at the last second. It was followed by a seagull that was propelled into her hair before it could get its bearings and flap away. The stagehands pummeled Hedren with one bird after another. After each bird flew off, whether it had hit the actress or not, it continued circling around the attic in a frenzy, a tornado of feathers filling the room. Hedren was gasping, crying out; Margaret couldn’t tell what was acting and what was real and she didn’t know if Hedren could either. Margaret looked at LeGrue, who was as still as an oak, her eyes on what the prop men were doing, seemingly professional and focused on the task at hand because to contemplate anything beyond that would be its own sort of psychological horror.

  Even later that day, on the set of Manchurian Candidate, watching Charlie trudge up the hill to light Sinatra’s cigarette, Hedren was all Margaret could think about.

  After Hitchcock yelled, “Cut,” it was clear that she’d been largely uninjured, though she was hyperventilating. Cary Grant—visiting from a nearby soundstage—declared her the bravest lady he’d ever met.

  “I don’t know if that’s the word for it,” Hedren had replied. And indeed, to Margaret, Hedren’s plight was all about sheer survival.

  The survival of his marriage, meanwhile, was all Charlie could think about as he climbed the hill. Should he tell Margaret about the photograph of him and Lola? Surely she would believe him when he told her he’d immediately gotten out of the hot tub. He was an honorable man and had never strayed in sixteen years of marriage. He expected that she would be more likely to focus on his recklessness an
d stupidity. She already knew that they were in a world where he didn’t belong, and now he was a murder suspect. Yes, he would have to tell her.

  Reaching the top of the hill in Franklin Canyon, Charlie withdrew the lighter he’d had since the war, one he’d taken from a dead Jerry. He gently tossed it underhand to Sinatra, who caught it and lit his cigarette in one graceful motion, as if they’d rehearsed the move several times.

  “Boyo, I’ll tell ya, this is one of the weirdest flicks I’ve ever been a part of,” Sinatra said.

  “It’s going to be great,” said Charlie.

  “You really think so?” Sinatra asked.

  “I do,” said Charlie. “I think it’s going to be important. It’s a compelling thriller, but it’s also subversive.”

  “Go on,” Sinatra said.

  “So in the movie, the crusade against Communists is secretly led by Communists,” Charlie explained. “Those who doubt the conspiracy are killed by the conspirators. Medals of Honor are awarded under the least honorable circumstances imaginable. It’s all a brilliant metaphor for the Cold War.”

  Sinatra took a drag from his cigarette and stared thoughtfully across the canyon before he turned to Charlie with a wry smile.

  “Kinda like Joe Kennedy asking me to enlist made guys to help his son win and then after he does, Bobby goes after those same guys,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Charlie. “Kinda like that.”

  Sinatra took one last drag then snuffed out the butt of his Winston under his army boot. “Do we look authentic to you, soldier?” he asked.

  “Uniforms are too clean,” Charlie observed.

  “Yeah, no one stays clean in war, do they, Charlie?” Sinatra said with a knowing glance. He took another cigarette out of the pack. In the distance, car horns blared, then stopped as quickly as they’d begun. A soft breeze provided the waiting actors with a brief moment of balm.

  “So who do you think did it, Charlie?” Sinatra asked. He was squinting and as serious as a surgeon. He put a cigarette in his mouth as if it were a lollipop and Charlie dutifully lit it for him. “Lola,” he added.

  “I don’t know, Frank,” he said. “Someone who wanted to destroy me, is all I know. I’ve had folks try to pull similar schemes on me in the past, but that was blackmail.”

  “This wasn’t that, kid.”

  “I know. They obviously wanted me to be found with her in the car.”

  “When was the last time you’d opened the trunk before that?”

  “No idea,” Charlie said. “You don’t know anyone who’s mad at me, do you, Frank?”

  Sinatra didn’t answer right away, and Charlie wondered if he was trying to decide whether to be offended. Just then, Frankenheimer joined them, a clipboard in hand. “Everything okay?”

  “Swell, Johnny,” Sinatra said. “Charlie just explained to me how brilliant your picture is.”

  Frankenheimer paused, apparently not sure how to take Sinatra’s remark. Then he must have decided, for any number of reasons, to act as if it were a sincere compliment because he smiled and spread his arms, welcoming the praise. “Well, like everyone else in this town, I’m always happy to hear about my underappreciated genius,” he said. “This scene reminding you at all of your time in the service?”

  “Not really,” Charlie said, looking at Sinatra’s fellow actors. “These guys look fresh from the beauty salon.”

  “We could have ’em roll around in the dirt, but it’s a night scene,” Frankenheimer said. “It wouldn’t show up.”

  Sinatra took a drag and watched the smoke float to the sky as he exhaled. “You’re going to be in New York with us, right?” he asked. The climax of the film would take place in Madison Square Garden during a political convention; Sinatra’s character would attempt to stop a brainwashed soldier from assassinating a presidential nominee.

  “You bet,” said Charlie. “Can’t wait to see my kids and sleep in my own bed.”

  “Charlie!” yelled Margaret from the bottom of the hill. “Come down here!”

  “What is it?” he yelled back.

  “People in New York are desperately trying to reach us!” she shouted. “The studio just sent a messenger.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your dad!” she yelled. “He’s taken a turn for the worse, and the warden says we need to get on the next plane to New York!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  New York City

  February 1962

  “You shoulda been here yesterday, Charlie,” Sinatra said. “I fished Laurence Harvey outta the lake in Central Park.”

  Charlie grimaced as a gust of cold wind prompted him to tighten his coat against the morning chill.

  “It was like twenty-five degrees out,” Sinatra said, packing tobacco into a pipe. “Colder than today. They had to clear three inches of ice off the lake before he jumped in!”

  “No business like show business,” Charlie said, coughing softly as morning rush-hour traffic spewed exhaust fumes on Eighth Avenue.

  They were leaning against the stone wall near the entrance to Madison Square Garden, patriotic semicircled political bunting hanging from the marquee above their heads. Hundreds of extras dressed in summer clothes streamed past them into the arena, carrying signs and umbrellas for candidates “Big” John Iselin and Benjamin K. Arthur. Sinatra, taking a smoke break, was in full army uniform as Bennett Marco, complete with his service cap, a poor substitute for the crooner’s signature fedora. Standing on the dirty street, braving the cold, he looked every bit a man of the people—but the police, private bodyguards, and yellow wooden barriers keeping gawking crowds at a safe distance told the real story.

  Sinatra’s entourage continued its excessive doting; Brownie approached him to take his tobacco pouch so as to avoid a bulge in his pressed military jacket.

  “How you holdin’ up, boss?” Brownie asked. “You take any bites outta the Big Apple last night?”

  “I’ve often gone to bed at seven a.m. here,” Sinatra said. “This is the first time I’ve gotten up at seven a.m.”

  Brownie smiled, then jumped onto the sidewalk after a garbage truck honked at a taxicab.

  The actor took a long drag from his pipe. “The acting in this one is a challenge, Charlie,” Sinatra said. “What with Marco having been brainwashed. I’m not a trained actor, so it takes a lot of doing. I hope it comes out all right.”

  Charlie nodded. “I’m sure it will be great,” he said.

  “You saw that the White House announced the California trip,” Sinatra said. “It was in the papers.”

  “I saw,” said Charlie.

  “Secret Service came to Rancho Mirage the other day to do an inspection,” he said, then added wistfully, “but they said they were looking at several properties, including something else in the neighborhood and even High-Anus Port.”

  Manny Fontaine emerged from the nearby arena door with urgency, looking out of place on the gray New York street with his deep tan and bright blue sport coat. “Mr. Sinatra, I come bearing wonderful news,” he said, beaming, as he approached. “The Oscar noms are out and you’re up for best song!”

  “That’s fantastic, Frank!” Charlie said, slapping him on the back.

  “Who else?” Sinatra asked.

  Fontaine pulled a list from his inner pocket. “Best Picture: West Side Story, Guns of Navarone, The Hustler—”

  “No, no, no, Manny, who am I up against for Best Song?” Sinatra asked.

  “Um, um…here it is: ‘Moon River,’ ‘Town Without Pity,’ ‘Pocketful of Miracles,’ and ‘Bachelor in Paradise.’”

  “You can beat them,” said Charlie.

  “‘Moon River’ will be tough,” said Sinatra. “Let me see that list, Manny.”

  “Judgment at Nuremberg and West Side Story are nominated for eleven Oscars each,” Fontaine said. “Nine for Hustler.” He passed the list to Sinatra and shivered. “Jesus, you two, it’s colder than a witch’s tit—how does anybody live in this place?”

 
; “Oh, good, Monty is up for Best Supporting,” Sinatra said. “And so is Judy!” Charlie assumed he was referring to his From Here to Eternity costar Montgomery Clift and one of Sinatra’s many former paramours, Judy Garland. While Sinatra perused the list, Fontaine blew warm air into his fists and crossed his arms tightly across his chest. He turned to Charlie.

  “Congressman,” he said in low voice, “I just want you to know, at the behest of Les Wolff, I spoke with the proper folks at the LAPD about the, uh, incident the other night at Forest Lawn. And we’re on top of it. The studio is cooperating with the investigation, and we will do everything we can to keep your name out of it.”

  Charlie looked at Fontaine. Shit. He hadn’t known word had spread. “Thank you,” he finally said.

  Sinatra cleared his throat and looked at Charlie. “I talked to our friend about Lola. He says he doesn’t know anyone who would do such a thing.” It took Charlie a second before he realized Sinatra was likely referring to Giancana. Fontaine looked pointedly up at the sky, the very picture of a man who hadn’t heard what he’d just heard.

  Charlie nodded and took a deep breath, inhaling the pipe smoke Sinatra blew his way. It reminded him of his father’s pipe tobacco, of scotch and his dad’s dimly lit study, and of how badly, despite the early hour, Charlie wanted a drink. His jitters were getting worse. He couldn’t quite see his way out. His dad was lying in a bare-bones hospital ward in federal prison, his niece was still missing, and yet with all this angst, he couldn’t allow himself an ounce of self-pity for being so reckless with Lola. Such a photograph could end his political career in a second.

  “I mean, that girl got around,” Sinatra said. “Not saying she had it coming. Just that who knows who she upset.”

  “Speaking of which, Frank, I caught Beans phoning a florist in North Dakota,” Fontaine said.