Sheri Cobb South (13 page)

“Here he comes now,” Patsy said, looking at someone over Frankie’s shoulder. “Introduce me, why don’t you?”

Frankie turned, but the figure emerging through the haze of candlelight and cigarette smoke was not Mitch. In fact, she didn’t recognize the young man in the dark double-breasted suit until he reached her table.

“Officer Kincaid
,
is that you?” She held out her hand in greeting. “I almost didn’t recognize you out of uniform.”

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Call me Russ, remember? As for the suit, well, joints like this aren’t exactly crazy about having cops hanging around. Not that I know of anything illegal going on at the Starlight,” he added quickly, seeing her alarmed expression. “It makes ‘em nervous, though—a holdover from Prohibition, I guess.”

“Are you on duty, then?”

“Not strictly speaking. I had some information for you, though, and one of the girls at your boarding house said I’d find you here.”

Frankie was dying to find out what Russ had to say, but a sharp poke in the ribs reminded her of her social obligations. “Patsy, I’d like you to meet Russ Kincaid one of L.A.’s finest. Russ, this is Patsy Miller. She and I are both extras at Monumental.”

“Another actress, huh?” Russ observed, eyeing Patsy admiringly. “Maybe when I’ve finished talking to Miss Foster, you’d care to dance with me?”

“Ooo, I’d be afraid to say no to a policeman.” She gave Russ a wink, then moved off in search of paying partners.

“Won’t you sit down?” Frankie said, gesturing toward one of the fragile bentwood chairs. “You said you had information for me?”

He sat down in the chair she indicated, but drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment before speaking. “It’s about those stains on Arthur Cohen’s shirt. The lab report came back.”

“And?” Frankie prompted, leaning closer.

“And they turned out to be pennyroyal.”

“Pennyroyal?” She had been hoping for arsenic or cyanide. Disappointed, she sagged in her chair. “What’s that?”

“It’s an herb. It has certain medicinal uses, but an overdose can kill.”

“Then I was right!” she cried, all eagerness once more. “He was poisoned!”

“Whoa, whoa, hold your horses!” Russ protested, holding up a restraining hand. “You were right in that Arthur Cohen probably didn’t die of a stroke or a heart attack, but it’s a big jump to say he was murdered. You said yourself that he drank some herbal concoction to settle his stomach, didn’t you? Who’s to say he didn’t brew it too strong and accidentally overdose?”

Frankie considered the possibility, her brow furrowed in concentration. “But that doesn’t make sense. If he drank that concoction every day, surely he knew just how much to use, or he would have accidentally poisoned himself years ago.”

“Maybe he was distracted. You said yourself he was arguing with his brother. A moment’s inattention is all it would take.”

“But—”

“But enough about Arthur Cohen,” Russ said firmly, giving her a disarming smile. “This place is a dance hall, isn’t it? What do you say we dance?”

“What’s the matter, Frankie? Is this fellow bothering you?”

Frankie looked over her shoulder to find Mitch standing there wearing a dark suit and an expression like that of a bulldog guarding a bone. “Hi, Mitch. You remember Officer Kincaid. He was just bringing me the latest news on Arthur Cohen.”

The two young men shook hands, scowling at each other with mutual dislike.

“And having finished that,” Russ added, “I was just asking Miss Foster to dance.”

“I’m afraid you’re too late,” Mitch said. “All her dances are taken.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Frankie gestured toward the roll of tickets she wore around her wrist like a bangle. “I’ve still got plenty of—”

“Not anymore.” Mitch slapped a bill down on the table. Abraham Lincoln gazed serenely up at them from the sleekly polished surface.

“
Five dollars
?” Frankie squeaked. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Not yet,” Mitch answered cryptically, pulling out her chair as the orchestra struck up the opening bars of “Stardust.” His hand at her waist, he steered her toward a vacant spot along the edge of the crowded dance floor.

“So,” Frankie began, trying to ignore the little shiver that ran through her as he took her in his arms, “do you come here often?”

Mitch grinned. “Only when I’m looking for you. That redhead back at the Studio Club—what’s her name?”

“Roxie?”

“Yeah, she’s the one. She told me I’d find you here. Frankie, what gives? This doesn’t seem like the kind of job you would go for.”

“It pays the rent,” she said defensively, thankful to have something to take her mind off the warmth of his hand against the small of her back. “I’ve got to do
something
while Maurice is making up his mind whether to finish shooting the film.”

“If you’re short on funds, I could loan you—”

“No!” Mama had always said a lady shouldn’t take money from a man, hinting that the man in question would expect some vague yet terrible repayment. Frankie couldn’t see Mitch making inappropriate demands, but she suspected her mother was right in principle. “It’s sweet of you to offer,” she added in a more moderate tone, “but I don’t need it. I’ll pay my own way, or go back home to Georgia.”

Mitch gave her a skeptical look. “Maybe so, but—a dime-a-dance girl? I don’t like it.”

Frankie didn’t particularly like it, either, but she wasn’t about to admit as much to Mitch, especially when it was all too tempting to dump her problems on his broad shoulders. “Well, who asked you, anyway? You’re not my father!”

“I’m well aware of that, thank you.”

“It’s not that bad, really. The pay is better than waiting tables, and working at night leaves my days free for auditions.” The argument had sounded perfectly logical when Patsy had made it, yet Frankie found it hard to meet Mitch’s disapproving gaze. “If you’re worried about the men, you shouldn’t be. They’re not allowed to get fresh.”

“And if they try anything, Dick Tracy there will give ‘em a knuckle sandwich,” Mitch said dryly, jerking his head toward the table where Russ sat talking to Patsy.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous of Russ!”

“Me? Jealous of him? Don’t make me laugh,” Mitch scoffed, even as his arm tightened possessively about her waist. “He just doesn’t strike me as the kind of fellow who would hang out in a joint like this.”

“He’s not. He came to tell me the results of the lab tests on Arthur Cohen’s shirt.”

“Yeah?” Mitch’s eyebrows rose. “What did they find?”

“Pennyroyal!” announced Frankie with some satisfaction.

“Who’s she?”

“Not
who
, silly!
What
! It’s some kind of plant.”

Before she could elaborate, she was interrupted by a smattering of applause as the band played the final bars. Frankie stepped backwards out of Mitch’s arms, but his fingers closed around her wrist.

“Hey, where are you going? I’m sure you’re a swell dancer, but surely you don’t think that was worth five bucks.”

Now it was Frankie’s turn to be surprised. “Surely you didn’t really want to buy five dollars worth of dances! At ten cents a dance, that’s—that’s—” Doing math in her head was never Frankie’s strong suit, and with Mitch standing so near, she found it impossible.

“Fifty dances,” the recent engineering graduate informed her.

“We’ll still be here dancing at closing time,” she complained.

“Yeah.” Mitch grinned crookedly. “That’s the idea.”

Frankie wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of devoting her dances exclusively to Mitch. In fact, she had a nagging feeling that she was coming to rely too much on him, and in that doing so she might be flirting with the very fate she had traveled three thousand miles to avoid. She only had to look to her two older sisters’ examples to know that moonlight and roses eventually turned into daylight and dishes. Nothing could be more fatal to a budding Hollywood career than a jealous boyfriend—and Mitch did not strike Frankie as the type who would accept with equanimity the idea of his girl shooting love scenes with another man. But for now, the night was young and the music was mellow, and Mitch seemed a far better alternative than any of the other men, most of them in various stages of intoxication, scoping out the girls in the hopes of snagging a partner for the next number.

Frankie squared her shoulders. “All right. Let’s dance.”

And so they did. They danced until the candles sputtered and the flowers wilted, until one by one the male clients all called it a night and went home. They danced as a sultry blonde in a low-cut black sequined gown cooed “You Made Me Love You,” and an exhausted Frankie drooped bonelessly against her partner’s broad chest. Mitch, never slow to seize his opportunity, put his hand on the crown of Frankie’s head and tipped it forward onto his shoulder. She made no protest, but closed her eyes and made a little noise reminiscent of a kitten purring. They were still dancing when the clean-up crew began clearing the tables and the night manager announced closing time.

“How are you getting home?” Mitch asked, following Frankie as she limped from the ballroom.

She blinked like someone coming out of a trance. “What?”

“Home,” Mitch repeated. He would have liked to take the credit for her bemused state, but he suspected it owed more to exhaustion than to his animal magnetism. “The Studio Club, where you live. How are you getting back there?”

“Oh,” said Frankie, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I guess I’ll call a cab.”

Mitch frowned. “I think I’d better give you a lift instead. It’s mighty late for a girl to be out on her own.”

“Oh Mitch
,
would you? That would be swell.”

He led her out to the parking lot where he’d left his car and opened the passenger door. She collapsed onto the seat with a groan while he slid behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition.

“Self-starter,” he pointed out proudly. “No more hand cranking for me! Not if I’m going to get Cinderella home from the ball in time.”

“Don’t bother. Midnight was hours ago, and my stockings have already turned into rags. If I never have to wear high heels again, it’ll be all too soon.”

 As Mitch made the turn onto Sunset Boulevard, Frankie kicked off her shoes and propped one foot up on the dashboard to inspect the damage. Mitch had always thought he was a breast man, but he took one glance at Frankie’s bare toes poking through the runs in her ruined stockings and almost drove into a telephone pole.

“Soak them in Epsom salts,” he recommended briskly, fixing his eyes firmly ahead. “That should toughen them up.”

“My stockings?” asked Frankie, puzzled.

“No, your feet.” He nodded at them without taking his eyes from the road. “We did it all the time at A & M.”

“Oh.” Frankie wasn’t quite sure how she felt about spending over two hours held closely in a man’s arms, only to have him compare her to a linebacker.

There was hardly any traffic on the streets at this late hour, and the trip back to the Studio Club was accomplished in record time. Mitch drew up next to the curb and walked Frankie to the front door. His next move presented a dilemma. Did spending five bucks for exclusive rights to dance with one particularly troublesome female qualify as a date? Did it entitle him to claim a goodnight kiss? On the other hand, even if she wasn’t willing, she was probably too tired to fight him off. He might never get a better chance.

He steered her under the triple arches fronting the building to a darkened corner where the halo from the corner streetlight didn’t quite penetrate. His hands closed around her shoulders, and he was just about to bend his head to kiss her when the sputter of an engine broke the silence, and the twin beams of a vehicle’s headlights swung a bright arc around the corner. A moment later a milk truck drove past, the glass bottles in the back clinking together with every bump in the road.

“Mitch?” Frankie asked breathlessly.

“Yeah?”

“Will you take me to the library tomorrow?”

“I’ll take you anywhere you want to go,” he promised, and lowered his head to hers.

“Pssst!”

Mitch snapped to attention. “What the—?”

A blond head, silver in the streetlights, leaned out of a second-floor window above their heads.

“Kathleen!” Frankie exclaimed, hastily pushing Mitch away. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“Waiting for you. You can’t get in that way. The front door’s locked. You’ll have to go ‘round to the back. I slipped down and left it on the latch for you.”

“Left it on the latch?” Mitch echoed, at a loss.

“Left the back door unlocked,” Frankie translated. “She’s British, remember?”

“How could I forget?” He glared up at their chaperone, who apparently had no intention of leaving her post until Frankie was safely inside.

He followed Frankie as far as the wrought iron gate at the end of the building, but before he could make another move in her direction, she had already slipped inside.

“Goodnight, Mitch,” she said, looking back at him between the decorative iron bars. “You’re a pretty swell guy, you know that?”

He watched as she turned and stole through the shadows to the back door. “Honey,” he muttered, “you don’t know the half of it.”

Chapter 11

Another Fine Mess (1930)

Directed by Hal Roach

Starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy

True to his word, Mitch arrived at the Studio Club at ten o’clock the following morning and drove Frankie to the Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. He’d done his homework well, and had no trouble locating the building on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Ivar Street. Parking along the street in the shadow of its corner tower, he found its Mediterranean façade not unlike that of the Hollywood Studio Club, with the same arched windows and doors and roof of red clay tiles. If the ornately scrolled windows looking down from the third floor of the tower had actually offered a view of the Riviera, as their architecture suggested, it would have been a promising spot to take any girl. As it was, filling such a fanciful structure with shelves of dusty books seemed to him a bit like false advertising. He could only be glad none of his teammates from A & M were here to see him. If they knew he’d sunk to taking girls to the library, he’d never live it down.