The Devil May Dance

by Tapper, Jake

  “Heads up, Charlie,” Sammy said from the front passenger seat. He pointed to the Rambler as Lawford pulled up alongside it.

  Charlie looked up to see Margaret running to him. His heart jumped as she opened the Ghia’s door and gave him a tight hug.

  “Guess who I found,” Charlie said. Margaret reached over to touch her niece, caress her cheek. Violet woke up and they all got out of Lawford’s car; Violet buried her face in Margaret’s shoulder and began heaving with tears.

  Charlie turned and was stunned to see Isaiah. They shook hands, Charlie so overwhelmed he was tempted to hug him, though he could muster only enough energy to add his left hand to the shake.

  Feeling no such inhibitions, Davis stepped in and gave Street the strongest embrace a person of his diminutive stature could manage.

  “Sorry about the detour; I saw some shady characters staking out the Miramar lobby,” Street said. “I called up to your room and told Margaret to sneak out the back, then we drove up the block and waited for your car to arrive so as to warn you.”

  “Who are they?” Charlie asked.

  “Dunno,” said Street. “Some fishy-looking white people. Undercover cops?”

  “Maybe the same people who have Sheryl Ann,” Margaret said.

  “What?” Charlie asked.

  “She’s been snatched,” Margaret said. “We need to find her. Now.” Charlie nodded.

  “Where were you?” Street asked.

  “Disneyland,” Charlie said. “Long story. One best not shared in a HoJo’s parking lot.”

  Davis wagged his finger. “You can tell Congressman Street, but beyond that, it’s imperative that this remain entre nous, mon ami.”

  “Absolument,” Charlie said.

  “I still cannot believe we got in and out with no real fuss other than Sammy and me serenading that crowd,” Lawford said sunnily. Charlie frowned to himself at what his coconspirators did not know. All he could hope for now was that whoever was throwing the illicit party would consider the corpse just one more unfortunate item to clean up and make disappear.

  Lawford reminded them all that the Academy Awards were that night, and they’d better go home and clean up.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Santa Monica, California

  April 1962

  Street didn’t think it was safe to go back to the Miramar, so they drove to the nearby Georgian Hotel. They took Violet to Street’s suite, where she collapsed onto the couch. Margaret phoned her sister in Ohio to give her the news and tell her to book the next flight to LA. When they hung up, Margaret spoke in hushed tones with her niece. She gave her another warm embrace, after which Violet turned onto her side and fell asleep again. Margaret grabbed a blanket from the closet and laid it gently atop her.

  Margaret, Charlie, and Street proceeded to the veranda restaurant, with its glorious view of the Palisades bluff and the Pacific. Over coffee, bacon, and eggs, they recounted the events of their nights. Margaret led with the news that Sheryl Ann had been abducted.

  “We started with one damsel in distress,” Charlie said, “and we’ve still got one. We’ve only succeeded in swapping her out.”

  “And we don’t know if it’s the same kidnappers,” Margaret added.

  “How could it not be?” asked Street. “A group of guys running a sick sex party with underage girls at Disneyland and another group of guys pursuing the documents proving these parties have been going on for years. Have to be one and the same, no?”

  Street motioned to the documents, photographs, and film Margaret had uncovered at the Hollywood sign and brought with her. After ensuring no one in the restaurant had any interest in who they were or what they were doing, Charlie and Margaret lined up the bills from costume designers beside checks from studios made out to Marie Antoinette. The amounts being charged matched. Street noted that the Disneyland costume department sent an internal invoice for $87.54 for squaw costumes, presumably the ones Charlie had seen the night before. The same amount, $87.54, was on a Disney Studios invoice to Marie Antoinette.

  “So it’s a shell corporation that funds it all?” Street said.

  “Not the most sophisticated way of hiding it,” observed Margaret.

  “No, but you wouldn’t give it a second thought, would you?” said Street. “It only makes sense as a conspiracy when you see all of these bills at once showing all the studios doing the same thing. Otherwise, who would even notice?”

  “I gotta believe there are other charges hidden in the books of the studios for much more than just costumes,” Charlie said. “This is just the one that someone leaked to the tabloid.”

  They grabbed the stack of photographs and tried to make sense of them.

  The red-carpet paparazzi snapshot suggested Powell and Lola Bridgewater had dated, as did other photos: Powell and Lola out for lunch at Taylor’s Steakhouse, frolicking in the surf, laughing and drinking at the Daisy.

  “This one is a much younger Lola,” Charlie said, turning the photo to show the other two. In the picture Lola was attempting to imitate a grown woman’s flirty glance. She was in bed, likely naked under the covers, her breasts partly exposed.

  “Jeez, she can’t be more than fourteen,” Margaret said.

  “You think this means she was caught up with the same folks from last night?” Street asked Charlie.

  “Could be,” Charlie said. “I don’t know. I mean, it seems likely, but…”

  Margaret frowned. “I appreciate my husband’s healthy skepticism,” she said, “truly I do, and let me add it’s about time. But that said, let’s at least concede that these groups are so secretive, it’s highly unlikely the two of us would independently and separately stumble on two different grand conspiracies, right?”

  “I so concede,” Charlie said.

  “So it’s the same gang, the same bad guys from Disneyland,” Street said, grabbing the invoices in the pile in front of them. “These receipts are for the costumes for these poor young girls, for these sick parties.”

  “And people at the studios are footing the bills,” Charlie said. “And hiding the costs.”

  “And that would mean the guy who killed Charlotte and tried to kill me and who snatched Sheryl Ann is also part of this,” Margaret said.

  “And theoretically,” added Street, lifting up the red-carpet photograph, “so is whoever killed Lola and Powell.”

  “Remember, Fontaine and Meehan both told us that Powell was a Mob hit, shot through the eyes,” Charlie said.

  “The Mob certainly has its hands in human trafficking, prostitution,” Street said. “But the timing doesn’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

  “He means that whoever is hunting us was onto us even before we began poking our noses into these files and the parties,” Margaret said.

  “Exactly,” said Street.

  “So they began targeting us when?” Margaret asked. “With Lola in the trunk?”

  “What about before that,” Street said, “when you were fleeing those Scientology creeps?”

  “How did you know about that?” Margaret asked.

  “Who do you think T-boned their Galaxie?” Street asked.

  Margaret smiled.

  “I told you, Ike asked me to keep an eye on you two,” Street said.

  “Would the church thugs do this?” Margaret asked. “Just because we came to them and asked about Chris Powell? That makes no sense.”

  “Not if that’s the reason,” agreed Charlie, “but what if there’s something we don’t know about?”

  Street was staring into his coffee.

  “What, Isaiah?” Margaret asked.

  “Is it hard to imagine that wholesome church crew involved in murder and prostitution?” Street asked.

  “I don’t have any problem imagining any group of men, clerical or not, involved in the unimaginable,” she said.

  “I’m just trying to picture what those clean-cut missionary-looking freaks and the skinny guy in the Haw
aiian shirt would be capable of,” Street said.

  “Skinny guy in a Hawaiian shirt?” Charlie repeated.

  “What is it, Charlie?” Margaret asked.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Street.

  Charlie took a sip of coffee. “I ran into a guy at Disneyland who matched that description.”

  “Horn-rimmed glasses?” asked Margaret.

  Charlie nodded.

  “That’s Julius from the church,” Margaret said.

  “He was…not pleasant,” Street noted, lighting a cigarette. “To be fair, I’d just plowed my car into his.”

  “So the church, or at least Julius—assuming it’s the same man—is part of this too,” Margaret said. “But how and why? This simply can’t be just because Sheryl Ann and I pretended to be Chris Powell’s sisters. There must be more to it than that. And either way, we need to figure out where Sheryl Ann is and find her before…”

  Her voice trailed off; she was unwilling to speak the unthinkable.

  Charlie picked up the 8-millimeter film canister and stared at it.

  “I think,” Charlie said, “we need to see what’s on this film.”

  Street had a list of names, numbers, and addresses—all the information he needed for this mission. Charlie perused the names: Frankenheimer, Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Giancana, Janet Leigh, Les Wolff, Manny Fontaine, and more.

  He pointed to the paper. “Why is L. Ron Hubbard’s name crossed off?” he asked.

  “He flew back to London the day after Margaret and Sheryl Ann paid him that visit,” Street said.

  Charlie handed the list back to Street and signaled for the check. They needed to make a phone call.

  Thirty minutes later they were knocking on Frankenheimer’s door. The director opened it, squinting as if he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks. He welcomed them into his abode.

  Frankenheimer was being sued for divorce by Carolyn, his second wife and mother of their two daughters. While rumors had swirled that he would end up with actress Piper Laurie, whom he had directed on Playhouse 90, he was currently living with the actress Evans Evans, who greeted the group.

  “Sorry for how the place looks—John has been editing,” Evans said. “I must look a fright!”

  Both she and the house looked lovely, of course, which Charlie and Margaret made clear after they introduced them to Street.

  “So what brings you here?” Frankenheimer asked as Evans guided them all into the living room.

  “Do you have an eight-millimeter film projector?” asked Margaret, holding up the canister. She was struggling to contain her sense of urgency, knowing that soliciting help would be more easily accomplished if she operated according to LA’s laid-back ways.

  “Of course,” he said. “Why?”

  Margaret and Street looked at Charlie.

  “Uh,” said Charlie, “this is a long and complicated story. There’s probably salacious, maybe even criminal, material in here. I wouldn’t impose if this weren’t incredibly important.”

  Frankenheimer mulled that over for a second, then led them to the edit room, a small converted bedroom, its windows covered by black sheets tacked to the wall. A giant framed poster for Birdman of Alcatraz leaned against the back wall next to a couch covered with notebooks and papers. To the side of the edit desk stood a folded-up portable movie screen.

  “Now, this is an actual fright,” Margaret said. She was trying to lighten everyone’s mood, but she remained terrified about Sheryl Ann. They needed to figure out who was behind this, then maybe they could save her.

  “It’s a Bell and Howell,” Frankenheimer said of the projector, sitting in a rickety chair in front of it. “Wish I could give you your privacy, but I don’t let anyone else operate it. They break easy.” He held out his hand and Charlie gave him the film. The director unspooled an inch or so, then loaded it in the machine. He looked at Evans, standing by the door, and she turned off the lights.

  The film flickered on a small screen, roughly eight by ten inches. Charlie and Margaret pulled folding chairs closer, while Street and Evans stood behind them all. Outside the window beyond the black cloth, finches chirped at each other.

  The first image was too bright to make out, but soon things came into focus: an industrial area, concrete and palm trees, a sunny day, a man in sunglasses and a light-colored suit walking purposefully.

  “Is that Chris Powell?” Charlie asked.

  Frankenheimer squinted. “Could be,” he said.

  The man walked upstairs into an office building.

  “Is that United Artists?” Evans asked, leaning forward.

  “Yes, it is,” Frankenheimer said.

  The film abruptly cut to another location, shot from inside a car: Chris Powell walking out of a different building and making his way down the sidewalk.

  “That’s the Church of Scientology,” Margaret said.

  Powell stopped in his tracks; someone had called his name from back at the house. He turned to see a thin man in a floral shirt and horn-rimmed glasses.

  “That’s Julius,” Margaret said.

  Charlie recognized him from Disneyland. He absorbed the news and was able to keep it clinical, intellectual. Julius had wanted to kill him; Charlie had done what he’d had to do. He had taken life before and knew that the guilt would come for him eventually, but in the thick of their continued battle—now to save Sheryl Ann Gold—he didn’t have time to indulge the anxiety he felt. And oddly, perhaps because he’d been so drunk when he killed Julius, he didn’t want a drink. He would have to soldier through.

  The film cut to evening, an outdoor café, maybe at a hotel. Bathers in swim trunks walked by tables and palm trees. The light and the more formal dress of the diners suggested dusk.

  “Where is that?” Evans asked.

  “It looks kind of like the Miramar,” Charlie said. “What other hotels have a view of the ocean?”

  “Too many to name,” said Frankenheimer.

  The camera panned to the ocean, then followed a man in a short-sleeved shirt, untucked, as he walked from the direction of the beach into the restaurant.

  “That’s that guy, what’s his name…um…Maheu. Remember him, Margaret? From Vegas? He showed up with Rosselli,” Charlie recalled. “Didn’t say much.”

  “And speak of the devil,” said Street, pointing to the right corner of the small screen. “Isn’t that Handsome Johnny?”

  Everyone squinted at the figure as Rosselli’s profile came into view. Rosselli turned to his left. Another familiar face popped up.

  “Giancana,” said Street. The Chicago mobster sported his usual thick glasses and deadpan expression as he followed Rosselli into the hotel.

  “So Maheu met up with Rosselli and Momo,” said Margaret. “So what?”

  “I agree,” said Charlie. “We know Maheu knows Rosselli, and Rosselli knows Giancana.”

  “So what are we missing?” Street asked as the film ran out and the tail end of the strip began clanging about. Frankenheimer turned the machine off.

  “Wait, John,” Evans said. “Can you roll that last scene again?”

  “Of course, darling,” he replied. He respooled the film and everyone watched Rosselli and Giancana walking backward out of the hotel, followed by Maheu traipsing backward in the opposite direction, toward the ocean. In the background the waves began in the sand and rolled toward the sea; birds flew in reverse.

  “Look,” Evans said, pointing at the ocean. “No sunset.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Frankenheimer.

  “It’s dusk but the sun isn’t setting over the ocean,” said Margaret. “This isn’t Los Angeles. This isn’t even the West Coast.”

  “But the palm trees,” said Charlie.

  “It’s Florida, Charlie,” said Evans.

  “Miami!” exclaimed Frankenheimer.

  “Darn it!” said Street. “I should have recognized it. That’s the Fontainebleau.”

  “Which means what, though?” asked Evans.

 
; “Which means the mobsters were meeting with other people too, and it had nothing to do with Hollywood,” said Margaret.

  Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll be right back,” Evans said, leaving the room.

  “Cuba,” said Charlie. He looked at Margaret, who was staring back at him. Each reached over to touch the other’s nose.

  “What’s that?” Street asked.

  “‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,’” Margaret said.

  “Orwell,” said Frankenheimer. “This is going to be one hell of a story when you finally tell me.”

  “We’re still figuring it out,” Charlie said.

  “Mobsters,” Margaret said. “Miami.”

  “It’s only slightly less plausible than the Chinese brainwashing an American war hero,” Charlie said.

  “Charlotte wanted us to see all of this,” Margaret said. “Not just Chris Powell at United and at the church, but Miami too.”

  Frankenheimer smiled and stood. “I’m going to see who’s at the door,” he said just as Evans reappeared with Manny Fontaine.

  “Manny, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Frankenheimer asked, shaking the publicist’s hand. Fontaine was impeccably dressed in a casual Sunday-brunch outfit—blazer and pocket square, open blue oxford shirt, dark sunglasses, and loafers—but he seemed nervous.

  “I need to talk to Charlie and Margaret,” he said.

  “How did you know we were here?” Charlie asked. He and Margaret were sitting on the back porch with Manny, the finches chirping and the salty sea air potent.

  “You got a call through the studio switchboard; you weren’t at your hotel,” Fontaine said. “The guy on the other end of the line insisted that the operator patch him through to someone who would convey the message.” Fontaine patted his forehead with a white handkerchief he withdrew from his pocket. “That job fell to me.”

  Charlie looked at Margaret. “That doesn’t really explain how you knew we—”