Her Leading Man (30 page)

Too astonished at first by the news contained in
the telegram to
answer Lovejoy’s question, Martin
only glanced from the telegram to his
friend and back
again several times. He swallowed and shook his
head—which was now
covered with jet black hair
cropped and curled to resemble the hair on
Pablo
Orozco’s head. “They’ve been arrested.”

Lovejoy’s eyes narrowed, and he squinted at Martin
as if he weren’t
sure the dark-haired man seated
across from him was anyone he knew. He
popped
another bite of sausage into his mouth before
asking,
“Who’s been arrested? Not another drug
overdose or
alcoholic fit of mayhem
perpetrated by some blasted
actor, I hope?”

“
Urn,
no. No, it’s not that.”

“
Well,
then, what is it?”

The faint trace of annoyance in his friend and
business
partner’s voice jarred Martin out of his scandalized
stupor. He pushed
his chair back and stood
abruptly. “Christina.”

Lovejoy’s eyebrows shot up like larks soaring.
“Christina
?
Christina Mayhew? The star of this
picture?
Good
God, what’s she done?”

“
She’s been arrested.” Martin, who had been
going
to rush off and rescue her, caught his breath and
tried
to halt
his stampeding heart from carrying his emotions—and
him
—
away with it. “She and her
grandmother.”

“
Her grandmother! Don’t tell me she’s a
dipsomaniac,
too!”

Martin peered at Lovejoy over the yello
w
paper
in
his hand,
puzzled. “A dipsomaniac? Who’s a dipsomaniac?”
Enlightenment struck, and his
eyebrows
soared, too. “Good God, Phin! It’s not that!”

Lovejoy heaved a huge sigh and took a big bite
of toast. “Thank
God. That’s a mercy
anyhow. But
it’s not good when our stars get arrested, Martin.
Please tell me
what
happened
and that we can bribe
a police department or somebody else in power
to
keep it
quiet.”

Realizing at last that
running
around maniacally
would do no good in this present
circumstance
, Martin
sank back down into his chair. His appetite
had
fled,
however, and he pushed his breakfast plate away
from him. “There was a big march
for women’s
suffrage
in Los Angeles yesterday. Hundreds of women
blocked the entrance
to the courthouse, and seventy
-
five of
them were arrested.” He flapped the telegram
in front of his friend.
“Christina and her grandmother
were two of the arrestees. That’s
all I
know.”

“
Good God.” Lovejoy snatched the telegram
from
Martin’s numb fingers. His brow furrowed as he read
it. “This isn’t
good, Martin.”

“
There’s an understatement for you.” Martin
managed
a grin, but it was a
corrosive, twisted one.

“
What are we going to do? We have to get
them
out of there. At least we have to get Christina out
of there. She’s got
to be here tomorrow so we can
start shooting
again. We’re already behind
schedule,
thanks to that blasted Orozco.” He politely
refrained
from mentioning the part Martin’s unusual antics had
played in the
shooting delays.

Standing again, Martin spoke distractedly. “I’ll
drive to L.A. and
bail them out
.”

Lovejoy
eyed him doubtfully. “Are they bailable?”

The notion that they might not be subject to bond
hadn’t occurred to
Martin until Lovejoy mentioned
it. He stared at him in alarm
.
“They
have to be!”
He took a deep breath and told himself not to
panic
.

“
They’d better be,” Lovejoy agreed. “We can’t
afford
to lose any more shooting days, and I really
don’t want to have
to find another actress.”

“
Right.” It hadn’t been the
Egyptian
Idyll
schedule
that had troubled Martin initially,
although he
grabbed it as he might grab a
lifeline. He was worried
about Christina;
the shooting schedule be
hanged.

Lovejoy went on thoughtfully, “I’m sure she’ll be
let out on bail.
After all, it’s not like
she committed
murder or robbed a bank or perpetrated a
crime while
drunk and disorderly
or anything.”

“
Right.”

“
Did you say she was arrested with her
grandmother?”
Lovejoy frowned. “What kind of a family
does that woman come from,
anyway?”

It was probably the only thing his friend could
have said that could
jerk Martin out of his befuddlement.
In fact, the question startled a genuine
lau
gh
from him. “A very different kind of family,” he
said.
“A very
different kind.”

Lovejoy, who was smart and capable and every
inch a conservative
businessman, went back to concentrating
on his breakfast after murmuring,
“I
should say
so.”

The drive to Los Angeles seemed to take forever.
Martin was worried
that he might not arrive there
until too late to get Christina out of jail. After
all,
it was
Sunday. Could people even get bail on Sundays?
Never having had anything to do
with the
criminal-apprehension system—he left bribes of
police
officers and politicians to another contingent
of
the
Peerless organization—he couldn’t imagine.

At least he wouldn’t have to go through a bail
bondsman, since he
had plenty of
money of his own
to use. The thought of Christina in a bleak,
dank
prison
cell made
his
heart freeze up and his blood
run cold.
Not that it would be especially dank, he
supposed.
The weather
in Los Angeles
wasn’t anywhere near
as hot as that in the
Indio area, but it was still full
summer
and hotter than
blazes.
Still, t
he mere notion of
Christina
suffering made him
want to fly to her aid.

An image of what Grandmother Mayhew would
s
ay if he tried to do any such thing made him laugh
even as
he worried. The
Mayhew females weren’t the
sorts to seek rescue from men. They liked to
think
they
could take care of themselves.

And they could, although Martin had been
experiencing
terrible urges to be of assistance to Christina
almost from the
moment he’d seen her. He admired
her spirit. And he admired her beauty. And
he thought
she was totally splendid even if she did harbor the
possibly insane
notion that she, a woman, could become
a physician.

Still, the urge to shower gifts upon her plagued
h
im. He wanted to take any
burdens from her shoulders
and heft them onto
his own. He wanted to help
her in any way, to make her life’s path
smooth.

Hell, he’d even vote for woman’s suffrage if it
would please
Christina
.
Martin guessed women had
as much right to
vote as men; he didn’t expect
women could be much more foolish than men
were.
They
might even bring a dose of honor to a
dishonorable
profession.

He snorted. It was far more likely that politics
would corrupt women
than that women would clean
up politics.

Still, he didn’t care about that. If Christina
wanted
to
vote, Martin would gladly drive her to the polls.
He’d even drive her
obstreperous grandmother along
with her.
He mostly just wanted to get her out of jail.
And
into his
arms again.

Christina sat hunched on her cot, her chin in her
hands, her elbows
propped on her knees. She felt
very glum and not a little guilty. After all, she
was
supposed
to be starring in a motion picture. It wasn’t
fair to Peerless, who was paying
her a good deal of
money, for her to get arrested.

The police had been polite, all things considered.
They’d herded the
marchers without undo jostling.
Christina had read about suffrage marches
in other
parts of the country, where arrests hadn’t been
handled
so
gently. She’d even read
descriptions of
women going on hunger strikes and being
force-fed.
She shuddered, trying to imagine what it must be
like to have someone
hold you down while someone
else thrust a tube down your throat and dripped
food
into
you. She wished she didn’t have such a good
imagination.

At any rate, the march had been peaceful. Not too
many people had
jeered at them. In fact, some folks
had called out encouraging comments. A
couple of
young
ladies who had been walking nearby on the
street had joined
them right then and
there. Christina
peered at them now and noticed they appeared to
be
as gloomy
as she felt.

It didn’t seem fair that the two newcomers should
have been picked up
with the rest of them, really.
They weren’t the ones who had planned the
rally.
The
organizers of the march had explained to all the
marchers before they
started out that civil disobedience
was in the offing and that there was a
strong
possibility that they’d all be arrested. Christina
hadn’t
really
believed it, although now she couldn’t ima
gine
why
she hadn’t. Women got arrested every day for
demanding their God-given
rights.

So here she was. In an extremely crowded room
with a cold stone
floor and ugly blank walls, along
with too many other women who had been
picked
up
with her and Gran. Eyeing her grandmother, who
sat straight as an iron rod on
another cot and held
her cane rather like a scepter, she sighed.

“
Stop it,” Gran commanded, frowning at her. Several
of the other women grinned at her and Christina.
It never took Gran
long to establish her reputation.

“
I wish you hadn’t hit that man with your
cane.”‘
Christina muttered. Not that it would do any good
to complain; Gran
was absolutely right about that.
The deed was done, they were in the clink,
and God
alone
knew what Martin would think about this
escapade.

“
He
deserved it,” Gran declared.

“
Hear,
hear. Bean ‘em all, I say.”

The slurred words came from an elderly female
who had been thrust
into another holding cell opposite
the one housing Christina, Grandmother
Mayhew,
and
several other
suffragists
. Her crime had also been
disorderly conduct, but for another reason
entirely.
The
poor woman stank like a distillery. Christina
could smell her from across the
hall. She tried not
to
wrinkle
her nose, but couldn’t seem to help
herself
.
Gran gave the inebriated woman a glacial
stare.

“
My good woman, I do not advocate violence as
a
rule. I was, however, provoked.”

Right, Christina thought. That bad old policeman
had provoked Gran by
offering her an arm to assist
her in climbing into the paddy wagon.
Christina
guessed she ought to have warned him not to be
chivalrous.
Gran always took chivalry amiss.