Sheri Cobb South (17 page)

“Oh, thank you!” Frankie was so relieved to know she’d come to the right place, she didn’t bother to correct his assumption that she was one of Dr. Winston’s patients. “You’ve been very kind.”

She paid her fare along with as generous a tip as she could spare, then turned and walked up the sidewalk to the green-painted door.

Her first impression upon entering Dr. Winston’s waiting room was that it was the gloomiest place she had ever seen. Not that the furnishings were unwelcoming; in fact, the colorful rag rugs and floral chintz upholstered sofas had more in common with a cozy living room than a doctor’s office. There were none of the institutional whitewashed walls and bare linoleum floors usually found in medical establishments, and only the faintest odor of Lysol to betray the building’s true purpose.

The doctor’s patients, however, were another thing entirely. Exclusively female, they ranged in age from the late teens to the middle thirties, and while none of them looked precisely ill, neither did any of them look happy to be there. One, an ethereal blonde who didn’t look a day over sixteen, appeared to be puffy-eyed from crying. Another, this one a beautiful brunette, plucked at the folds of her skirt and stared fixedly at the floor. A tight-lipped redhead was apparently seeing the doctor for a stomach ailment, for she kept her hand pressed tightly to her abdomen. In the far corner of the room, a long-legged blonde wore dark glasses even though the curtains at the windows were tightly drawn. Something about her looked vaguely familiar, although Frankie couldn’t place her.

Frankie signed in at the desk, then sank into one of the overstuffed sofas and picked up a magazine from the low table
.
A few moments later, an inner door opened and a nurse in a starched white dress consulted the chart in her hand.

“Mary Smith.”

A movement in the far corner of the room caught Frankie’s eye as the woman in the dark glasses rose in answer to the nurse’s summons. Suddenly Frankie realized where she had seen the woman before. She had starred as Marie Antoinette in Worldwide Picture’s remake of their silent film
Madame Guillotine
. The set of her jaw and her resolute tread as she crossed the doctor’s waiting room was exactly the same as that of her royal persona as she approached the guillotine on screen. And while Frankie couldn’t quite recall the actress’s name, she was quite certain it was not Mary Smith.

As the women were called one by one, Frankie gradually became aware that there seemed to be a preponderance of Smiths, Joneses, and even one Jane Doe. She also became aware that none of the young women came back. She supposed there must be a rear door and wondered if this arrangement, like the false names and Marie Antoinette’s dark glasses, was an effort to protect the actresses from the gossip columnists. After all, if Hedda Hopper saw a young starlet entering or leaving a doctor’s office, the next installment of “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood” might have her dying of cancer.

Eventually Frankie’s name was called, and she followed the nurse down a hallway to a small examining room furnished with a padded table, a single straight chair, and a glass-fronted cabinet containing an assortment of ominous-looking metal instruments. She was puzzling over the lack of diplomas on the wall—in her admittedly limited experience, doctors seemed to take great pride in the number of framed diplomas adorning the walls—when the door opened to admit the doctor. Doctor Winston was a well-fed man with an ingratiating smile that showed too many teeth. Frankie found herself uncomfortable in his presence without quite knowing why. Certainly there was nothing inherently frightening in his comportment; in fact, the man practically oozed bedside manner.

“Miss Foster, is it?” he asked, taking her hand and pressing it warmly. “Such a pretty young thing! Never fear, my dear, we’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

“Oh, I’m not here as a patient,” Frankie objected, gently but firmly withdrawing her hand from his clasp. “I would just like to ask you a few questions about—”

“Of course, of course.” Nodding reassuringly, he motioned her toward the chair. “I’ll be glad to tell you anything you need to know. Although you must be aware that time is of the essence in these cases.”

“Oh, I quite agree!” Frankie exclaimed in some surprise, wondering how much he had guessed about the purpose of her visit.

“Now, when did you first realize you were,” he paused significantly, “in trouble?”

“As soon as I saw Mr. Cohen keel over dead,” Frankie said, shuddering at the memory.

“Then he had not as yet referred you to me?” the doctor asked, jotting noted on a pad as he spoke.

“No. I got your telephone number from his office, and his wife had mentioned your name.”

“Had she, now? Well, that’s very generous of her, but then I suppose she’s used to it by this time. Whatever his faults—and I’m sure they were inevitable, surrounded as he was by beautiful and ambitious young women such as yourself—he always took care of his girls. He has referred numerous young women to me over the years, and I have always done what I can to offer them a way out of their difficulties. His death has not changed that. The bill for my services will be sent to the studio, as usual, so the matter of money need not concern you.”

Frankie’s eyes had grown steadily wider during this speech. Suddenly it all made a horrible sort of sense: the discreet location, the unseen back entrance, and, worst of all, the frightened, desperate women in the waiting room.

“Then you are not—” Frankie groped for words, unwilling to accept the evidence of her own eyes. “—Not Mr. Cohen’s personal physician?”

 Dr. Winston chuckled, his belly shaking beneath his white lab coat. “My dear girl, Mr. Cohen must have found your innocence charming! No, my clientele is limited to young women with certain—” again that significant pause, “—female problems. Now, if you will lie down on the table, I will attempt to determine how much time we have until you begin to show. Beyond that point, I’m afraid the procedure is considerably more difficult.”

Frankie’s worse fears were confirmed. This was no ordinary doctor’s office, but a terrible place, a place where unspeakable things happened. She leaped up from the chair and ran from the room, through the waiting room and out the door into the brilliant sunlight.

Chapter 13

Damsel in Distress (1937)

Directed by George Stevens

Starring Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine, George Burns, and Gracie Allen

While Frankie sat in Dr. Winston’s waiting room, Mitch set out on the twenty-five mile drive to Arcadia and the thoroughbred racetrack at Santa Anita Park. Opened a mere two years earlier, it was already a popular haunt of the Hollywood set, and given the late producer’s self-professed weakness for horseracing, Mitch thought it highly likely that Arthur Cohen had spent a significant amount of time—and money—there. Today was not a race day, so the parking lot in front of the grandstand entrance was nearly empty. He parked his car in the shade of a cluster of palm trees near the imposing turquoise-blue façade and went inside.

After a morning spent in the brilliant California sunshine, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light within. The grandstand area was as empty as the parking lot and Mitch’s footsteps echoed in the stillness as he walked through the building and out on the other side, where it opened onto the racetrack itself and the view of the San Gabriel Mountains beyond. Here, at last, were signs of life: on the far side of the mile-long track a jockey leaned over the neck of a beautiful chestnut thoroughbred while two men watched from the railing nearby. One held a stopwatch in his hand, obviously timing the practice laps, while the other watched the horse and rider through a pair of binoculars.

It seemed as good a place as any to start. Conscious of a few butterflies in his stomach, Mitch dug in his pocket for the pack of Lucky Strikes that Frankie had so deplored. He felt a certain grudging admiration for the way she plunged headlong into this sort of situation without, apparently, a second thought. Well, if she could do it, so could he. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag, then headed toward the two men standing along the railing.

“ ‘Morning.” He lifted one hand in a careless wave. “I’m looking for Arthur Cohen. I’ve heard he’s a regular here. Know anything about his whereabouts?”

The two men stared at Mitch as if he’d just sprouted horns.

“Have you been living under a rock for the past week?” asked the man with the binoculars. “He’s dead—had a heart attack, or maybe it was a stroke, on the movie set and died instantly, from what I hear.”

“Damn!” Mitch pounded the rail with his fist. “He owes me two hundred dollars!”

“Join the club,” recommended the timekeeper. “You want your money back, you’ll have to petition his estate.”

“What about his wife?” Mitch had to raise his voice as the horse thundered past, clumps of dirt flying from its hooves. “Wasn’t she a big film star back in the day? Seems to me she ought to be loaded.”

“Oh, she ought to be,” agreed the first man, turning back to the track to follow the horse’s progress. “But whether the old man left her anything is another matter. Rumor has it he’d already been selling off her mementos to cover his debts. Unless you can prove a legitimate claim, you’re not likely to see a dime.”

“Just my luck,” muttered Mitch, trying not to sound pleased that he’d just confirmed Frankie’s theory.

“If you want to recoup some of your losses, here’s a tip: Jazz Baby in the Saturday two-thirty,” recommended the timekeeper, gesturing toward the horse rounding the far end of the oval.

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Mitch promised, then turned and walked away, trying to look like a man who had just lost two hundred dollars.

* * * *

The sun was low in the sky by the time Mitch parked his car next to the curb in front of the Hollywood Studio Club and marched up the sidewalk with a spring in his step. Between his “date” the previous night and today’s trip to Santa Anita, he had picked up a tidbit or two that Frankie might find interesting. Now, as he pressed the bell beside the front door, he looked forward to claiming his reward.

It was, to put it mildly, not what he expected. The door flew open to reveal the red-haired Roxie glaring at him with blood in her eye. “Oh, so it’s you,” she said in a voice that would freeze water.

“Hello to you, too,” he said, puzzled by her hostile reception. He gave her what he hoped was a disarming smile. “Is Frankie in?”

For an answer, Roxie balled her fist and let fly, landing a solid punch to the left side of his nose.

“Hey!” Mitch staggered backwards, rubbing his abused face. “D’you mind telling me what
that
was all about?”

“As if you didn’t know! Frankie is
in
, all right:
in
trouble,
in
the family way, and
in
over her head, all because of you!” She advanced on him again, waving her fists menacingly.

“Whoa!” Mitch protested, grasping her flailing arms and holding them at a safe distance. “Hold your horses! Where’d you get an idea like that?”

“She told me herself she had an appointment today with Dr. Henry Winston.”

“Is she sick or something?” asked Mitch, all at sea.

Roxie rolled her eyes. “Dr. Henry Winston, in case you didn’t know, is one of the best-known abortionists in Hollywood.”

Mitch had taken many hard hits on the gridiron over the years, but never before had mere words made him feel like he’d been kicked in the solar plexus, gasping for breath and unable to think straight. He almost wished Roxie had hit him again instead; it would have been less painful.

“And you think that
I
—that she—that we—”

“Who else would it be? Unless you’re implying that she’s the sort of girl who gets around, in which case I’ll have to punch you again.” She took a step closer, prepared to suit the word to the deed.

“I’m not the guy, Roxie, I swear. In fact, I can’t imagine who—” But even as he said the words, he knew they weren’t true. He could imagine who, all right. The one man who had the power to give Frankie what she wanted most of all. The same man who had then gotten himself killed, leaving her not only bereft of her dream, but forced to face the consequences alone. In that moment, Mitch fervently wished Arthur Cohen were still alive, just so he could have the pleasure of killing him himself, with his bare hands
.

“Mitch, are you okay?” Roxie asked
,
all traces of anger vanished. “You look sort of strange.”

“I feel sort of strange.” He gave a shaky little laugh with no trace of humor in it. “After all, it isn’t every day a guy finds out—”

“I’m sorry, Mitch, I really am. Honestly, I thought you knew.” Roxie shook herself, and her voice became businesslike. “You’d better go home and get some ice on that bruise, or you’re going to have a black eye by morning.”

Mitch nodded absently. A black eye. If only that were the worst of his problems. He staggered back to his car and spent most of the evening driving aimlessly around Hollywood, not knowing or caring where he was going
.

Frankie—
his
Frankie, the Snowy Soap Flake girl—was pregnant by a man old enough to be her father. Was that the real reason behind her determined search for justice? Poor Frankie! Even if she could bring Arthur Cohen back from the dead, he would never marry her. Mitch recalled that day in the library, when he’d had to explain to her what an abortifacient was. Had she known of her pregnancy then? Had he unwittingly offered a solution to her dilemma? While he’d been driving to Santa Anita, had she been lying on Dr. Winston’s operating table while the blood of her unborn child—

No, he wouldn’t think of it. Women sometimes died from such procedures, or were permanently scarred. There had to be a better way, and he would help her find it.

By that night, he knew what he had to do. He would marry Frankie himself and take her to Nevada with him, where no one would know her shameful secret. He would raise the child as his own and never utter a word of reproach. And if she should happen to give birth to a cigar-chomping, herbal tea-swilling brat in a pin-striped suit, well, he would love it if it killed him.