The Last Embrace (12 page)

“You know I was never much for school.”

“After the war, they come back long enough to sell the store. We lost track when I moved to Larchmont.”

Harry still went back to Boyle Heights to take pictures of the neighborhood. Most of the Japanese were gone. The Jews were leaving too, moving west. He’d heard one of the Canter brothers had opened a deli on Fairfax Avenue and the other two might follow. What a sacrilege. Harry couldn’t imagine Brooklyn Avenue without its landmark deli. The war had shaken people loose, busted up the old ways. Whole cities were rising on the outskirts, with cleaner air and backyards. Who could blame folks for leaving? Even Hollenbeck Park had been sliced up to build a freeway.

“So,” Shorty said at last. “What you been taking pictures of lately? Besides our brawl?”

“I guess you don’t read the papers. The
Mirror
bannered my shot of that murdered girl they found below the Hollywood sign yesterday.”

Shorty’s antenna went up.

“The Scarlet Sandal?”

“Yeah. And Gadge here has got something that’s going to make me the hottest news photographer in town come tomorrow.”

Shorty’s small eyes flickered over Gadge.

“The kid has her other shoe. Found it in a Hollywood side street.”

A fountain of rye sprayed out of Shorty’s mouth. He grabbed a napkin and dabbed his mouth.

“What’s it to you, Shorty?” Harry said.

“It’s a dirty business. The bulls won’t hear it from me, but the boss knew her.”

Harry shook his head in disbelief. “You’re mixed up in this!”

“We didn’t do her,” Shorty said. “But Mickey wants to know who did. She was supposed to be at Slapsie Maxie’s on Tuesday but she didn’t show.”

“Why does Mickey care about a dead starlet?”

“On account of she was hanging around with him and some of the boys. Little Davey Ogul and Frank Niccoli. Mickey’s a gentleman and he feels a responsibility.”

“Like hell,” said Harry.

Shorty screwed up his face. “Well, here’s the thing. Li’l Dave and Frank have disappeared off the face of the earth. At first Mickey thought the three of them might have gone down to Mexico. Then the girl turns up dead. So he figures once we find the girl’s killer, we can put the screws to him, see what he knows about the boys. You know Dragna’s been trying to get Mickey ever since Benny Siegel was killed. He could be picking off our people one by one.”

Shorty said nothing about the other angle he was investigating. What Jimmy had told him in the alley the night they’d watched Sinatra rehearse. It was too sensitive, and he didn’t know enough yet.

“Wouldn’t it be easier for Dragna just to kill Mickey?” Harry asked.

The gangster shook his head. “Mickey’s got the coppers guarding him now, the wolf guarding the fox and to hell with the hen-house.” Shorty snickered. “But he’s sweating. Dave and Frankie were fighting a rap, see, and Mickey bailed ’em out of jail, which means he forfeits the bond if they don’t show for the trial. But if he can prove they’re dead, he’s off the hook.”

“How much is it?”

“Seventy-five thousand dollars.”

“Piece of cake.”

Shorty shook his head. “It’s cash. Even for Mickey, that would hurt.”

“Dragna wouldn’t kill an innocent girl, would he?” Harry asked, trying to remember what he’d heard last night at the craps game.

He’d run into a gossipy RKO operator named Edith Blyton who told him the dead starlet ran with a rough crowd and got a lot of calls from someone at Warner’s. Detectives had spent several hours at RKO interviewing a special effects wizard who’d been in unrequited love with the girl. Max Vranizan had a volatile temper due to some shrapnel he’d taken in his head during the war, but Edith said he was brilliant, he’d been Ray Harryhausen’s right-hand man on several films and the studio hoped to groom him into a hit-making machine.

“Maybe the three of them disappearing is just a coincidence,” Harry told Shorty now.

“How so?”

“I heard the cops are looking at one of them whiz-bangs at RKO. Special effects. He worked on
Mighty Joe Young
and had the hots for her. Maybe she led him on one too many times and he snapped.”

“Yeah?” Shorty asked casually. “What’s his name?”

Harry got a flush of nervous sweat under his arms.

“I don’t know,” he lied.

That’s okay,
thought Shorty.
I can find out.

A
fter taking dictation for nearly five hours, Lily staggered out. Everything had to be typed up by four p.m. The producer hadn’t mentioned Kitty’s murder, but that didn’t surprise Lily. She hoped to have a quick snoop through the files before she left. Then she’d go find Max Vranizan. Lily fed a carbon and two pages of stationery into the typewriter and started to transcribe.

She was halfway through when a man appeared at her desk so silently that she jumped. He wore a good suit that draped to hide his girth. He had sloped shoulders and sallow skin. His eyes were set deep in their sockets and filled with a probing animal curiosity.

“Where’s Myra?” he said.

“Pardon me, sir, but I don’t know,” Lily said. “I’m filling in from the agency.”

“Myra’s always here.”

“Well, sir, she’s not here now.” Lily put on her most formal voice. “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Selznick?”

“Myra never goes anywhere,” the man said mournfully. “She’s like Cerberus, guarding the entrance to the Underworld. Not,” he added quickly, “that I am implying in any way, shape, or form that Mr. Selznick’s domain is remotely like Hades. You can quote me on that.” He snapped his fingers and winked unpleasantly. “Tell him Frank is here.”

“Frank who?”

“He’ll know.”

When Lily knocked and announced Selznick’s visitor, a shadow fell over the producer’s big fleshy face and he said he’d be free in a minute.

Frank waited, jiggled one foot, whistling a show tune and reading a newspaper clipping. When Lily saw it was about Kitty’s murder, she tried to hide her interest, but he noticed immediately.

“Is something wrong, Miss…” He stretched it out, angling for her name.

“Lily Kessler,” she said automatically. “And it’s just that…I noticed…”

“You sound flustered, Miss Kessler.”

“Not at all, I…”

“Maybe you knew this unfortunate young woman? From around the studio?”

The words were offered up casually, but his foot had stopped jiggling and his eyes were watchful.

“Sir,” Lily said firmly. “I am not employed by this studio on a regular basis. But a murder like that frightens all women. It might have been any of us.”

The man looked pensive. “Perhaps. But we’re all born with choice. Some people make bad choices.”

In that moment, Lily realized there were people in Hollywood whom Kitty hadn’t charmed and placed under her spell. Maybe her efforts had only made these people resent her all the more. She imagined such resentment gathering like a cold oceanic wave to crash down on all the starlets and factory girls who’d grown cocky and independent during the war.

“I’m sure Kitty Hayden was an upstanding young woman. You’ve no right, sir, to speak that way of the dead.”

The man got up, walked around the desk, hands clasped behind him.

“Don’t speak of things you know nothing about,” he said.

A moment later Selznick rang and asked Lily to bring in his visitor. Frank approached the mogul’s desk, already hunching into a servile posture as the door closed.

Lily went back to her desk, waited, then walked over and stood by the door, trying to listen.

“Frank,” Selznick’s voice boomed, “you’ve done a fine job so far, but I need an update.”

Frank’s response was too low for her to hear. Could they be talking about Kitty? Was that why he’d clipped out the story? Oh, to be a fly on the wall!

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Lily jumped as Myra marched up. She looked like an angry dog now, not a horse. In fact, with her jowls quivering, she looked just like Cerberus.

“Admiring the wood grain on this door,” Lily said, stroking it. “Is it cherrywood?”

“I have no idea. And you’re not paid to admire wood grain. Now hurry and finish those letters or you’ll never work on this lot again.”

“Glad to see you back on the job, Myra,” Frank said when he emerged five minutes later.

“Work, work, work,” the secretary simpered.

Lily was dying to know who this man was. As soon as he left, she asked.

“And what business is that of yours?” Myra snapped.

“If he’s important, I shouldn’t keep him waiting. If he’s not, then I shouldn’t interrupt Mr. Selznick.”

Myra looked as though she smelled a rat but couldn’t put a finger on where the rat was.

“Like what?” Lily offered her most innocuous smile.

“Never you mind. But make sure to let Mr. Selznick know immediately if he calls.”

Lily typed for a few moments, then said, “Myra, I’m dying to ask, did you know that RKO actress they found yesterday under the Hollywood sign?”

The secretary shot her a suspicious look. “No. Why?”

“Just wondering.” Lily rolled a pencil. “You never saw her at the commissary?”

“I eat lunch at my desk,” Myra sniffed.

“Of course, how silly of me. By the way, where do they do special effects for movies like
Mighty Joe Young
?”

“She wasn’t in that one,” Myra said immediately.

“I thought you didn’t know her.”

“I don’t.” Myra grabbed a manila file and walked briskly to the cabinet. “And unlike some people, I’ve got a lot to do before quitting time.”

Like sharpening your tongue,
Lily thought.

“You want to be an actress, Ms. Kessler, I recommend the usual route. Get an agent, head shots, that kind of thing.”

“An actress?” Lily snorted. “That’s the last thing I want.”

Myra regarded her. “I see you’ve already got a head start. Your outrage sounds almost sincere.”

Lily bit her tongue and bent her head. As soon as Myra took the letters in for Selznick’s signature, she dialed the operator and asked to be put through to Max Vranizan. When a voice answered, “Special Effects,” she asked where they were located, saying she had a delivery. The man gave her directions.

At five p.m., Myra said she’d need her again tomorrow. Lily said good-bye and smiled as she hurried off to the Special Effects building.

Ten minutes later, Lily was looking around a cavernous space. Industrial lights hung from the ceiling. Lathes, drills, worktables, painting easels, and sawhorses filled the room. A man with tools dangling from a work belt walked by and gave her a huge wink. A set painter observed her curiously from behind a desert landscape he was finishing. Sprawled on a beat-up couch, an unshaven man snored.

The hangar smelled of glue and machine oil, turpentine and wood shavings. The wood floor was splattered with paint of every color. Lily walked to a table and inspected models of spaceships, dinosaurs, and monsters. Some were fashioned of clay. Others were skeletons assembled from bits of metal.

In a corner, two men were inspecting what looked like a miniature stuffed wolf. One was about sixty, with a kind, sad face. The other was tall and skinny, about thirty, with the stooped shoulders of someone who spends his days tinkering over a worktable. His tie was tucked inside his collared shirt and his chestnut hair was an unruly mass that rose up from his forehead like a cresting wave.

As Lily drew closer, she noticed the wolf’s ragged fur, humped back, fangs, and bloodshot eyes. A werewolf.

“I know how it gets ahold of you,” the older man said. “Used to stay up all night myself. Now I need my beauty sleep. See you in the morning.”

“G’night, Obie,” the young man said with affection.

When the older man had gone, Lily said, “I’m looking for Max Vranizan.”

The man stroked the werewolf. “That’s me.”

“My name is Lily Kessler and I’m a friend of the Hayden family in Illinois. Kitty’s mother asked me to find out what I could. She’s desperate for information and the police aren’t saying much. So I’d like to talk to you, if I might.”

Something in Max Vranizan’s face withdrew to a great distance, then peered out.

Most of the other workmen had drifted away. But several drew closer at hearing the name of the missing actress. The set painter hauled buckets of paint into a cart and rolled it to a new backdrop.

Max Vranizan picked a daub of cadmium paint from his wrist. “If you’re a friend of Kitty’s, why haven’t I met you?”

“Because I’ve been living abroad. Just got back to the good old U.S. of A.”

“The police were here yesterday.” Max frowned. “I haven’t seen her for a month, if that’s what you want to know.”

Lily found it interesting that he’d jumped the gun.

“It was Labor Day,” he said. “We drove to Santa Monica Beach and she brought a picnic lunch. We swam in the ocean. At dusk, I drove her home.”

“Did you know she’d gone missing?”

“One of the gals from the rooming house called to ask if I’d seen her.” Vranizan strode to the wooden table and adjusted the wing of a pterodactyl. He lifted it up and swooshed it through the air like a kid.

Lily followed him. “Had you?”

“I told her I hadn’t. We had words out on the beach, that last time,” he said mournfully. “I didn’t like some of the people she spent time with. She said it was none of my business.”

Max Vranizan reached out a hand and touched the fur collar of Lily’s coat.

“Sable,” he said absentmindedly.

“How did you know?” Lily asked, surprised.

He shrugged. “You get a feel for the fur after a while.”

“Interesting. So, who was Kitty spending time with?”

“People she thought could help her get places. People she’d met at nightclubs.”

“Like Mickey Cohen? The gangster?”

Max smirked. “Hollywood considers him more of a
businessman
these days. Lots of respectable people go to Slapsie Maxie’s. Movie people. Businesspeople. Politicians. Judges. Out here, we like to mix it up.”

The gaiety in his voice didn’t reach his eyes. The only thing this guy mixes up, thought Lily, is paint.

Max Vranizan slipped his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Sometimes I thought she just kept me around like a sad clown to prop up her ego.”

“How long have you been friends?”

Max told her they’d met late last year when he was at RKO making a movie about giant bats. He often had to wait to screen the daily rushes until David O. Selznick finished watching footage that had been flown in from Havana, where the producer’s inamorata, Jennifer Jones, was filming
We Were Strangers
with John Garfield. As Max hung around, he noticed a girl, a brunette with long filly legs and full lips, kibitzing with the projectionist. Max coveted her from afar the way a starving man stares through the window at a feast he’ll never be invited to. There was always someone at Kitty’s elbow, young men with money and pizzazz who wore two-tone shoes and cashmere sweaters and silk scarves and roared off the lot with her in convertible roadsters.

Max probably wouldn’t have spoken to her that December night at the Pig ’n Whistle either, he told Lily, but he’d pulled off a particularly tricky action shot that day and emerged from the studio exhilarated and filled with uncharacteristic bravado.

She’d walked into the Pig ’n Whistle just ahead of him, ignoring the hunched row of backs at the lunch counter and couples in the wooden booths up front. Her destination was the back room, where a large and boisterous crowd gathered each night to be serenaded by the best pipes in Hollywood—studio musicians and singers who could play what they wanted once they punched off the industry clock.

Located across from Grauman’s Chinese and next door to the Egyptian, the Pig ’n Whistle was a popular watering hole with a majestic organ. The farther you walked into the Pig, the more elegant it felt thanks to the beamed ceilings, stained-glass windows, and hand-carved wood. Max watched Kitty sit down at the bar, turn to the bartender, and announce more loudly than necessary, “Somebody ought to buy me a drink, don’t you think?”

“Why is that, Kitty?” the bartender asked, playing the straight guy.

Kitty looked around and gave a tight nod as Max made his way toward her, wallet in hand.

“Because I deserve it. Because I’m a poor girl in a hard town. Because all my money goes to acting classes.”

The bartender snorted. “You’re already the best actress in town, Kitty.”

Then Max was at her side.

“Why, hello.” Kitty gave him a demure smile.

“Could I buy you a drink, miss?”

“That would be lovely. I’ll have a glass of champagne.”

Max leaned against the polished wood bar. “Would you like white or pink?”

Kitty’s smile grew pained and she fiddled with the brooch at her lapel.

“She always has white,” the bartender said, already pouring the pale effervescing liquid into a long-stemmed flute.

“It’s going to be quite a night,” Max said. “Mr. DeMille’s coming in.”

“Here?” Kitty squeaked.

“I have it on good word from his secretary. He loves to play the organ, and he’s quite talented.”

Kitty gave Max her full attention.

“You know him?”