Blues in the Dark

by Raymond Benson

  Karissa and Marcello shared a look. “Is he … still around?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but barely.”

  Hero, who was probably around the same age as Butch, addressed him. “How old is Ray? Gotta be ninety, at least.”

  Butch answered, “He turned ninety-four in February. He’s not in good shape. Ray’s in a nursing home. He’s had all kinds of health problems. Heart attack, stroke, a little of this and that …”

  “Is he cognizant? Would he speak to me?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose if he can speak then he might. Some days he speaks. Other days he doesn’t. I visit him when I can.”

  “Did he ever mention Blair Kendrick?” Karissa tapped the photo as Butch handed it back to her. “That’s who the woman is.”

  They all shook their heads. “Not that I recall,” Butch answered.

  As they spoke, Karissa noticed a man watching them from a bench not too far away, also smoking a cigarette. It was the same guy wearing the suit who had sat next to her during the show. He appeared to be in his forties, was moderately heavyset, and his white skin stood out from those around him under the streetlamps. He was prematurely bald on top, with brown hair on the sides. He seemed to be glancing their way.

  “When did Ray play with Hank Marley?” Marcello asked.

  “In the forties. I think he was the youngest dude in Marley’s band. Didn’t something strange happen to Hank Marley?”

  “He disappeared in 1949,” Karissa replied. “No one knows where he went.”

  “I’m sure someone does,” Hero said. “I heard Hank was killed.”

  “Murdered?”

  Hero shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know much about it.”

  “You think Ray would know?”

  “Maybe.”

  Karissa saw the man in the suit stand and walk back up Degnan toward the club. She indicated toward him and quietly asked, “Does anyone know that guy?”

  The musicians squinted; the light wasn’t too good, but no one recognized him. “Never seen him before,” Hero said. “Why?”

  “Nothing. He was at the show, and he’s been looking at us for a long time. So, where can we find Ray Webster?”

  Butch replied, “The Vernon Healthcare place, not that far from here, over by the One-Ten.”

  “Thanks.”

  “One more thing …”

  “Yes?”

  Butch made a face and rubbed his chin. “Ray left some stuff with me. A couple of boxes of papers and things. I can see if there’s anything in ’em that might be of interest.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Marcello looked at his watch. “I better get going. Angelina will crack my head wide open if I don’t make it home before midnight.”

  The others murmured other excuses. Karissa was feeling weary, too, especially after the stress she’d felt earlier that day when Willy had shown up at her door. She thanked the men, good nights were said all around, and everyone parted ways. Karissa walked up Degnan toward the parking lot across from the World Stage.

  The bald man in the suit was standing in front of the World Stage, smoking another cigarette. “Hello again,” he said to her with a smile.

  She nodded at him. “Do you work at the World Stage?”

  “No, ma’am, I just like to come here for the music.”

  She started to walk on. “Well, have a good evening.”

  Karissa got about ten feet past him when he spoke up again. “Oh, pardon me?”

  She stopped and turned. Karissa’s instincts kicked in. He liked to come for the music? The band had never seen him before.

  Now on full red alert, she stepped back. “I have to go, I—”

  “I have a message for you.”

  “What?”

  “About Blair Kendrick and Hank Marley.”

  She felt a sudden, frightening adrenaline rush. “A message? From who?”

  “Someone more important than you.”

  “What the hell is this?”

  The man said, “Forget about making the Blair Kendrick picture. Her story can’t be told because there is no story. Drop it and think of something else to do for your film project.”

  “What do you know about it? Who do you work for?”

  He held up a hand. “Friendly warning. Stop asking questions about Blair Kendrick and Hank Marley.”

  “That’s not very friendly. Go to hell.” She swung around and continued walking toward her car in the lot, deftly pulling her car keys from her purse. She dared not look back. Shaken, she remotely unlocked her Murano, opened the door, and then turned to gaze back at the World Stage.

  The man was gone.

  She scanned the street and lot.

  He was nowhere to be seen.

  Karissa got in, locked the door, and started the car. She then tried to call Marcello to tell him what had happened, but she got his voice mail. Cursing softly, she pulled out of the lot and drove home toward Sugar Hill.

  11

  THE MOVIE

  The motion picture on the screen transitions to a new montage accompanied by a reprise of the theme music as the Blair Kendrick character is seen at another Hollywood premiere. The Jazz Club brings out major stars and press. Blair emerges from a limousine, and the camera bulbs flash in her direction. She smiles and waves, and her escort—her costar in the film—leads her arm in arm into the theater. A quick shot of studio boss Eldon Hirsch, standing in the greeting line, reveals a man frowning with frustration.

  The voice-over continues. “The Jazz Club was the biggest hit in the history of Ultimate Pictures. I was the toast of—if not the town, then certainly the studio. The number of suitors who pursued me increased. Eldon Hirsch never gave up his harassment of me, and I steadfastly avoided his advances. It didn’t make him happy, but there was nothing he could do about it. I was his star.”

  Cut to Blair on a soundstage, holding a gun, speaking lines to another actor, and shooting.

  “A Dame Without Fear shot later in the year and was released in time for the Christmas holidays. Once again, my star shone brightly. By that time I had made Killer Blonde, and I was to start production on The Dark Lonely Night in early 1948. It was around this time that I decided to take the plunge and buy my own house. I had left the Hollywood Hotel months earlier and was renting a place in Santa Monica, but that was too far from Sugar Hill and Hank Marley. I deserved better, so after the New Year in ’48, I used my earnings to purchase a house on the street right behind Hank’s.”

  The Realtor phoned Blair as soon as the house became available. She went to Sugar Hill and met the man—who was white—at the beautiful Mediterranean Revival two-story home on South Harvard Boulevard. When Blair stepped out of her Oldsmobile and looked at the front of the mansion, her heart soared. She rushed up the walk to the front porch to greet him.

  “Isn’t this the same street where Hattie McDaniel lives?” Blair asked, after the initial introductions.

  He pointed to the north. “Just down the block. At the corner.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Want to look around the outside of the house first, or would you like to go on inside?”

  “Let’s go inside.”

  After the move-in was complete, Blair held a housewarming party and invited her colleagues and friends from the studio who were, of course, white. More than one of them expressed surprise that she had bought a house in Sugar Hill. Nevertheless, they came. Director Emil Winder and producer Buster Denkins were there, along with several of Blair’s costars. Other Hollywood royalty attended, such as Robert Mitchum, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and even Shirley Temple, who was not quite twenty years old. Director Jacques Tourneur was wooing Blair to star in a picture he was doing at another studio, and a hot new actor on the scene, Kirk Douglas, tried to convince her to talk to his agent about switching representation.

  Eldon Hirsch, although invited as a courtesy, didn’t show his face.

  Several of the guests commented how “unusual” the party was, for
the number of black attendees was striking. The “Negroes,” as nearly every white person referred to them, were almost the majority. Blair had gotten to know quite a few members of “Black Hollywood” over the past several months, and her door was open to them. She had also employed two servants—a husband-and-wife team of maid and butler—both black—whom she paid very well. Georgeann and Sheridan were happy to have the jobs, and they were also complicit in the clandestine affair going on between Blair and Hank, sometimes acting as spies whenever Hank attempted to visit Blair at her house and making sure the coast was clear. Blair and Hank always used the back entrances of each other’s homes, both of which were within walking distance. As there were no alleys in the neighborhood, the lovers used the narrow walkstreets, or paseos, that often existed between houses to slip from one block to the one behind. There were still small spots in which they could be seen, but if they only went at night and hurried …

  Blair had invited Hank and the members of his band to perform in the room she had dubbed the “parlor,” although it was large enough to be a ballroom. The grand piano she had purchased—but didn’t play—was really for Hank. Inviting the band to perform was her trick to get away with having other Negroes at the party.

  Through her relationship with Hank, Blair had gotten to know Hattie McDaniel, who was currently between husbands after divorcing her third a few years earlier. Louise Beavers was there with her new beau, Leroy Moore, as well as Eddie “Rochester” Anderson and his wife, Mamie. Superstar tap dancers the Nicholas Brothers were on the guest list, but only Fayad appeared with his wife, Geri. Howard, who was married to an up-and-coming actress by the name of Dorothy Dandridge, was a no-show. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was another personage who was unable to attend, but Butterfly McQueen was there with actress Frances Williams, who had been instrumental in organizing black residents of Sugar Hill to fight the restrictive, segregationist covenants in the neighborhood a few years earlier in the decade. It was turning out to be a lively evening.

  On the invitations, Blair had insisted that the party was informal. In keeping with the theme, she wore a black satin cocktail “wiggle” dress with a beaded bullet-shaped bodice and soft black tulle over the shoulders. It gathered at the hip on one side and fell in a skirt that had a small slit. The other women wore similarly occasion-appropriate gowns, while the men were dressed in suits. This wasn’t an awards show after-party. Georgeann had brought in two other women to help with the food and drinks, and the party swung for hours. Hank’s band played mostly music the white folks would appreciate—Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman hits—but they also covered popular numbers by Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Billy Eckstine.

  Blair spent most of her time entertaining in the parlor, dancing with various men from the studio, and raising eyebrows when she dragged Fayad Nicholas to the floor. The band picked up the tempo with Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,” and the couple “cut a rug,” a recently popular slang term for dancing.

  Afterward, to catch her breath, Blair went to the bar, where Sheridan served champagne to the guests. She asked for some water first, then took a flute of bubbly and downed it. As she stood and watched the festivities, she couldn’t help but notice how the white people tended to stay on one side of the room, while the Negroes kept to the other half, near the band.

  “Hello, Blair.”

  She turned to see Buster Denkins with his wife, whose name she had forgotten.

  “Hi, Buster, are you having a good time?”

  “Marvelous party, thank you.”

  She looked at the wife. “How about you, er, Carol?”

  “Cathy. It’s a beautiful home, Blair.”

  “I’m sorry, Cathy—my head is spinning. And thank you. It’s something, isn’t it?”

  “When was it built?” Denkins asked.

  “In 1918. There hasn’t been much renovation to it, either.” She nodded at the band. “The piano’s new.” She laughed.

  “Nice to see Hank Marley here. The band did a great job in The Jazz Club.”

  “Yes. That’s—that’s how I thought of them to come play at the party. They were so good in the picture.”

  “There sure are a lot of Negroes here,” Cathy Denkins said.

  “Sure,” Blair answered. “It won’t be long before Sugar Hill is primarily a black neighborhood. I’ve gotten to know so many of them. Everyone is lovely.”

  “It wasn’t always like that, was it?” Denkins asked. Blair shot him a look. “Sugar Hill, I mean,” he added.

  “No. When these houses were built, it was a white community. It was right before or during the war that movie stars like Hattie and Louise moved in. There were residents who objected and tried to get them evicted with restrictive housing covenants. Did you know there was a real estate firm called ‘White and Christian’? And those weren’t the proprietors’ names.” Blair rolled her eyes. “Disgusting way to treat human beings.”

  “The courts changed that, didn’t they?”

  “That’s right, Buster. Hattie and Louise and Ethel Waters and others who simply wanted to live here were sued, but the state court threw out the case in 1945. Now a similar case has just been heard in Washington, DC. We’re waiting on the result, but we’re hoping the Supreme Court will decide that members of the Negro race will be ‘accorded, without reservations and evasions, the full rights guaranteed them under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.’”

  “Sounds like you have that memorized.”

  “I’ve read the brief.”

  Cathy asked, “Why did you choose to live here, though?”

  Blair took a sip of champagne. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why did you choose to live here with all the colored people?”

  Blair looked from her to Denkins, who didn’t seem fazed by his wife’s question.

  “Uhm, because I like the house? And because it doesn’t matter to me. What difference does it make?”

  Cathy blinked. “Oh, I didn’t mean, well, you know …”

  “No, I don’t know. What did you not mean?”

  Denkins interrupted. “Never mind, honey, let’s have some champagne. Terrific party, Blair.” He turned his wife to the bar, only to be greeted by another black face. Sheridan smiled and asked, “Champagne, sir?”

  Stifling a laugh, Blair moved away and headed over to greet Hattie McDaniel.

  The party wound down around three in the morning. Sheridan and Georgeann cleared away the remnants of discarded glasses, food trays, and the inevitable debris that accumulates during a party. The guests had all left, save for Hank, who, along with Blair, helped the two servants put things away.

  “You don’t have to do this, Hank,” Blair said as she helped Georgeann bring champagne flutes into the kitchen for washing. He was already at the sink, carefully wiping the dishes used for hors d’oeuvres.

  “You both don’t have to do this,” Georgeann said. “Sheridan and I will take care of it. It’s our job. You two go on and relax.”

  What she meant was, you two go on and disappear upstairs.

  That was one reason why Blair liked the couple so much. They weren’t prejudiced against the idea that one of their own was seeing a white woman. Blair had found this wasn’t always the case. There were those in the Negro community who disapproved—and they had let her and Hank know it. She knew many more residents of West Adams Heights than those who had showed up at the party, residents she couldn’t have invited.

  When they were alone in Blair’s bedroom, she removed her dress and began preparing for the night. As he undid his tie and threw his jacket over the back of a chair, Hank said, “You realize it’s going to get out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You and me. Us.”

  “Not if we’re careful. We’ve been cautious.” She took off the pearl necklace and placed it in a dresser drawer. It was her favorite, the one given to her by her grandmother. She’d worn it in studio publicity photographs, and several journalists had comment
ed that Blair rarely posed for pictures without it. It had become a signature piece.

  “Too many people know about us now. Not so many white folks, but plenty of mine. We can’t guarantee everyone is going to keep quiet about it, Blair. There was a reporter here from the California Eagle.” That was one of the newspapers that catered to an all-black readership.

  She turned to him. Tired and not wanting to get into that kind of conversation, she held out her hands. “So, what do you want me to do? Stop seeing you?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Well?” She shook her head. “If it gets out, then it gets out. If anyone gives us a hard time, then maybe we’ll hire Loren Miller and he can take the case all the way to the Supreme Court the way he did with the covenant thing.”

  Hank chuckled. “I don’t think it works that way, but I do admire your positive attitude.” He took her in her arms. “You threw a wonderful party, my dear.”

  “And you played your little heart out. You fellas sounded fantastic. Everybody loved you. I couldn’t stop dancing.”

  “And I can’t stop loving you.”

  She pulled his head down and kissed him. “Come on, piano man, let’s go to bed.”

  12

  KARISSA

  Karissa parked the Murano in the tiny parking lot in front of Vernon Healthcare Center, easily spotting Marcello’s red Corvette in another space. She looked at her watch. On time. Marcello was generally always early. She got out and was surprised by how small the establishment appeared. Karissa had looked it up online and read that it held ninety-nine beds, as well as an in-house rehab unit, all fully Medicare- and Medicaid-certified. She imagined it mostly served the black community, given its proximity to downtown Los Angeles.

  Marcello was waiting inside the small, but bright, waiting room. A couple of the other chairs were occupied. A security guard was stationed by the front door and a receptionist sat behind a window. There were no white faces in sight.

  “Hey,” she said. “Where’s Butch?”

  “He couldn’t make it,” Marcello answered. “He said he left word with the staff that we wanted to see Ray.” They walked toward the receptionist’s window to register their visit.