Getting Garbo (27 page)

“You wouldn't happen to remember her name?”

“I was too busy grinding away with my camera—and staring down her cleavage. But Darnell probably introduced her to Georgie Jessel. They always introduce their dates, like we're all at a party.”

“What happens to that footage?”

“We keep it on file for a while. Want me to look and see if I can find it?”

Harry says he sure would. And he waits. He's left word with police dispatch where he is, so Arzy can find him if he has to. Now he sits in the TV station's newsroom. Reading a copy of
Variety
to fill the time. It's like it's written in another language. People are “ankling to Gotham.” An actor is “giving the perf of his career.” The “web's o. and o.'s are etching record quarterly profs.” Foley returns. With regrets.

“Sorry, I checked and you're a day late. They've recycled those tapes.”

“What's recycled?”

“Reused. They don't keep much on permanent file. Makes you feel like you're creating sand castles that wash away with the tide.”

Another dead end.

Harry gets in his unmarked cop car and drives west up Sunset. Maybe he'll check out the Hotel Bel-Air where the sting took place. Maybe someone there remembers something. But, quite fortunately, Harry catches a red light on the Strip just beyond Ciro's.

• • •

Arzy Marshak is camped out on the street across from the apartment house in Santa Monica. It's dark now, and he's been listening to a salute to Sinatra on his car radio. It's Ol' Blue Eyes' birthday. Arzy wonders if he'll still be sitting here on Frank's next birthday. But now there's action.

A Nash Rambler desperately in need of a wash drives into the carport of the apartment house. A pudgy woman in her forties, dressed in a rumpled lilac-colored suit, gets out and lumbers up the stairs to the second floor landing. Either tired or blitzed. Maybe both. She enters the only unlit apartment.

Arzy follows. Up to the apartment door. He knocks. Waits. There's stirring inside. “Who is it?” the woman's voice calls.

“Mrs. Hess? I'm Detective Marshak—”

The door is yanked open. The woman looking belligerent. Suit jacket off, holding a wet towel in her hand, a red salsa dribble on her white blouse. “It's about Reva, isn't it? What's she gone and done now?”

The voice is eighty-proof margarita. Goes with the salsa. Arzy reassures her, “No, no, Reva hasn't done anything wrong, I just want to talk to her. She might be able to help me on a detail in a routine investigation.”

She invites him in. “That damn daughter of mine is out of control, I don't know what to do with her. They picked her up for shoplifting the other day in Hollywood. I had to beg to get 'em to let her go.” Absently rubbing the wet towel at the stain on her blouse, making a widening wet blotch. “What can I do? I can't watch her every minute, I have to work, and if I stop off for a cocktail after work at El Coyote with the girls from the bank, well, then I come home and here you are on my doorstep.”

Arzy hears El Coyote. Goes with the salsa and margaritas. “Why don't we both sit down, Mrs. Hess. You've had a hard day and I don't want to add to it.”

There are four chairs at the dining room table. Two of them are cluttered with piles of newspapers. The other two chairs are about the only clear space in the living room, dining room, or kitchen. Swaying stacks of magazines and cardboard boxes clutter every available surface, even along the walls. All the kitchen counters are filled to overflowing with groceries, canned goods of every description piled two and three high, boxes and boxes of breakfast cereals, spaghetti, macaroni, crackers, cookies, condiments and spices, bottles of ketchup, soda, juices, and liquor. It looks like Mrs. Hess is about to go into competition with the A&P.

“Are you having the cabinets painted?” Arzy asks. Trying to make sense of it.

“No, the cabinets are full, too. I just hate to be running out to the supermarket every ten minutes for something or other. Would you like a drink?”

“Thanks, but I'm still on the clock. About Reva—”

“It's this craziness with the autographs. It was cute when she was a little girl in New York,” she's pouring herself three fingers of Jack Daniels. “I thought it'd build up her self-esteem, but it's all she lives for.”

“Hobbies can get pretty intense. Actually, that is what I wanted to ask her about. I understand she was at the Academy Theater the other night and saw Roy Darnell there—”

“Is that what this is about? That poor woman, killed in her own home. But what's Reva got to do with that?”

“Nothing that I know of. I just wanted to ask her to show me one of her autograph books, I think the kids call it a crumb book—”

“Those aren't kids, they're freaks, scum.”

“Do you know where Reva keeps her autograph books?”

“In there, in her room.” Mrs. Hess gestures with the tumbler of Jack Daniels at one of the two doors leading to the bedrooms. The one with the padlock on the doorjamb. “I'm not permitted in there, isn't that a disgrace? Her own mother. But you're a police officer, you can go in, I give you permission, so you don't need a search warrant, I'll give you a screwdriver or a crowbar and—”

Arzy doesn't want to get in the middle of this. Unless he has to. “Where's Reva now? Will she be home soon?”

“She's at work. She works late tonight.”

“Does she carry the autograph books she's using now with her?”

“You bet she does. Doesn't go to the toilet without them. Might run into a star.”

“Where does she work, Mrs. Hess?”

As soon as the last movie goes on at the Aero, I start tallying up the night's receipts, because usually no one else shows up. Occasionally there've been exceptions. Like the night we were running a James Cagney Festival and Elvis Presley and his posse of Memphis homeboys appeared five minutes after
Angels With Dirty Faces
went on. Farley, who tears the tickets, and Gloria, at the candy counter, not to mention Hal, the usher, all went crazy. I was cool, and, of course, I didn't ask Elvis for an autograph 'cuz I don't think it's right to mix business and pleasure, and besides I had Elvis already. But I did hang around to the end of the show after midnight, and let me tell you it was a kick to see the sleepy audience's surprise at seeing Elvis unexpectedly strut out into the lobby doing the famous Cagney hitching-his-pants-up-with-his-elbows shtick and shouting, “You dirty rat!”

Tonight's quiet and I'm halfway through filling out the tally sheet when I hear footsteps. I look up and there's this guy standing in front of my glass booth. Snappy dresser, hair slicked back, smile as toothy as Chester Morris.

“Reva?” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. With no idea how he knows my name.

“I'm Sergeant Marshak.” And he shows me an LAPD badge, just like the one they fill the screen with behind the credits for
Dragnet.
“I'd like to talk to you a little, okay?”

“I—I'm working,” I say.

“Uh-huh. I understand. I'll step aside for the customers, all right?”

Somehow I know it's about Roy. I'm fingering the locket, better stop doing that. The cop keeps smiling at me. I'm scared.

“Nothing to be scared of,” he says.

Like a mind reader. I better keep my mind blank.

• • •

Before he walked up, I'd been thinking about Tom Drake. Podolsky and me getting him today at the Ford car dealership felt like finishing off a piece of personal business. Three years ago, Tom Drake was passing through New York, just for one day, on his way to some MGM location in Maine, and he was staying at the Trianon Hotel on Park Avenue at 58th. Most of the group got him at lunch at “21” except for Podolsky and me and Freddie Tripp. So we three converge at the Trianon and Freddie makes the phone call from the pay phone in the Chock Full o' Nuts around the corner. Tom Drake himself answers and Freddie tells him we'd like his autograph and asks when's he coming out of the hotel. Tom Drake says, “It's such a cold day, why don't you guys just come upstairs now?”

So we're saying to each other, “What a nice guy, just like the guys he plays in the movies,” and we walk into the lobby of the Trianon Hotel, which is one of those places we can't sneak into because the front desk is right next to the elevators. We've got the room number, so we're heading for the elevator, when the clerk at the desk calls out, “Excuse me, where're you going?”

“To Mr. Drake's room,” I tell him. Loud and clear.

“Is he expecting you?” The clerk has seen us waiting outside on other occasions. This is a favorite lodging spot for MGM stars.

“Uh-huh. He told us to come up.”

The clerk gestures us over to the desk and nods at the bellman to keep an eye on us while he checks the registry—“It's 1535,” I tell him, helpfully—and he frowns at me, checks anyway, then dials 1535 and asks Tom Drake about us, and his tone tells you he
knows
we're lying, but then he listens and hangs up and he's not happy, but what can he do?

“Very well,” he says, “you can go up.”

We start for the elevator, but he calls after us.

“Except for you,” he says. Pointing at tall, skinny, sweet-natured Freddie Tripp, who happens to be dressed better than Podolsky and me, because he's wearing a new blue topcoat. But he also happens to be a light-skinned Negro. I never think of him as anything but Freddie Tripp, but obviously the clerk sees only black.

“You'll have to use the freight elevator. The bell captain will show you where it is. You two others can go up on the main elevator.”

We stand there frozen for a second. I mean, this isn't some movie like
Home Of The Brave
or
Pinky,
this is for real, this is racial prejudice happening right here. And to tell the truth I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it. But Freddie Tripp does.

“You guys go up,” Freddie says to me and Podolsky. “I'll wait for you.”

He turns and walks away from the bell captain. Into the revolving door. Out of the hotel.

“Isn't that rotten?” I whisper to Podolsky.

Podolsky nods. “Absolutely shitty. C'mon, let's get it over with.”

He starts walking for the elevator bank. Ready to go up. I realize I'm not moving. He stops and looks back at me. Then he comes back close. Hisses in my ear.

“Reva, this doesn't have anything to do with us, c'mon before the clerk changes his mind. I mean, Tom Drake's here for only one day!”

“I know. So you go,” I hear myself saying. “I'll wait outside with Freddie.”

I walk out of the hotel. Freddie Tripp is standing on the sidewalk, stamping his feet against the cold. He glances at me.

“I didn't feel like going up,” I say.

I stand near him. We don't say anything, and in a few seconds the revolving door turns. Podolsky comes out. Looking sheepish. “Screw Tom Drake,” he says, “who needs him?”

We told the others in the group that Tom Drake checked out before we got there. We never told them how the clerk tried to make Freddie Tripp feel ashamed of being black, but all he accomplished was making me feel ashamed of being white like him.

Don't get me started on the subject of shame. It's a feeling every seasoned autograph collector is familiar with. Not comfortable. Just familiar. When you first start collecting, when you're a little kid, it's a badge of distinction. You show the autographs to your schoolmates and they make a fuss and ask what the stars are really like in person. But as you get older, you're aware that people think it's kinda weird, systematically chasing after actors to get them to sign their names on pieces of paper.

So you talk about it less and show the autographs to fewer and fewer people. It becomes a kind of dirty secret. Eventually you're really at ease showing your book only to other collectors, like, “Look, I got Sterling Hayden and you didn't.” And that's when the element of shame begins to take hold. When you're waiting outside hotels and restaurants or covering plays, you're always looking over your shoulder in case you run into someone from work or from your neighborhood and you duck if you see them first because you don't want to have to explain what you're doing there. Shame. But you can't stop. It's like an addiction. Collecting time is the only time you really feel alive. The older you get, the greater the feeling of shame. And the dread of what lies ahead.

Back in New York there was an old biddy, skin like leather, always dressed in black, carrying a huge handbag. Her name was Mildred—Old Mildred we always called her—and they said she'd been collecting autographs since before Rudolph Valentino could tango, but she always told the stars she was asking for their signatures “for the children at the library.” That was the shame talking. And I think the longer we all collected, the more scared we were that we'd wind up like Old Mildred.

• • •

So now through the glass of my movie theater's booth I'm facing a total stranger who's very interested in my adventures as an autograph collector.

“When you saw Roy Darnell getting out of his car, was he alone?” Sgt. Marshak asks.

“Uh-huh.”

“What happened then?”

“We walked to the movie house together.”

“Did you see him meet anyone when you got there?”

“He said hello to a lot of people.”

“But was he
with
anybody?”

“Look, he's my favorite and all, but I didn't keep my eye on him all the time. I was covering the screening for other celebs, too.”

“So for all you know, he might have been at
A Star Is Born
alone?”

I shrug. The less said, the better.

“There's a woman who goes to the Academy with him sometimes.”

It's not a question, so I don't say anything.

“Was she there the other night?”

“Who?”

“The woman he's with sometimes. Hey, you know, Reva. Your friends told me you got her autograph recently, was it the other night?”

I shake my head no. My armpits are getting sweaty.

“And you took a picture of the two of them, was it when the Hitchcock movies were playing?”

I nod yes. “But the photos didn't come out. Whole roll got spoiled.”

“What's the woman's name?”

I'm fingering the locket, gotta stop doing that. “I don't remember. She was nobody.”

He sighs. Frustrated. Tough on him. “Can I see your autograph book?”

I stare at him. Does he have the right to ask that? Doesn't he need a warrant or something? But if I make a big deal of this, it'll only make it worse. Okay, let's try it this way. While I fish around in my purse, he comes around to the back of the booth. I bring out my autograph book and open the door a crack and hold it out.

But he doesn't take it.

“Nice looking album,” he says. “But I'd like to see your crumb book.”

How's he know about crumb books? Those big-mouth kids! If I show him that one, then he's gonna identify her for sure. In my good book every signer is a star and there's a little photo of them pasted on the page so there's no need to write their names. But in my crumb book, photos often aren't available and so I draw a line with a ruler on the bottom of the page and print each name. So I won't forget who they are. And besides, Kim Rafferty has very legible handwriting.

I take back my good book, drop it into my purse, and pretend to dig around for my crumb book, playing for time, knowing that when I hand it to the cop it's an act of betrayal. This man has come to hurt Roy and I don't want to help him in any way, but I have no choice. He's gathering information that'll enable him to close in on Roy and he wants me to be his Judas. My fingers are touching the crumb book, Sgt. Marshak is impatiently holding his hand out, almost snapping his fingers, and I'm about to give it to him when a car screeches up to the curb in front of us, and I do mean
screeches.
There's a red police light perched on the roof. Flashing. A big guy with a walrus mustache behind the wheel and he leans across and yells:

“Arzy! Get in! Quick!”

“Hold on a minute, Harry, I'll be right with you.”

“
Now
, dammit, we ain't got a minute!”

“I'll see you later, Reva,” Sgt. Marshak tosses to me, but he's already on the run, jumping into the car. They race off. I don't know where they're going, but I'm glad he's gone. It feels like maybe I've bought Roy some time.