The Last Embrace (5 page)

A
t eleven-thirty p.m., Lily joined Red, Jinx, and Beverly as they trooped down to Sunset Boulevard. The cobalt sky draped impossibly huge over the desert air. Clouds moved overhead like some great oceanic migration, but the night was mild, gusts of warm wind plucking at their waved hair.

“Ooh, I hate these Santa Anas,” Beverly said as they passed an empty lot, the wind sending a beer bottle clanging over gravel. “They make my skin itch and my blood boil.”

The hair along Lily’s nape stood up and static crackled her dress. She thought the winds made the nightscape dramatic, as if anything might happen. She’d come to L.A. to find Kitty, not to have fun. But as she’d changed into her cornflower-blue dress and her sable-trimmed wool coat, she realized she’d learn more going out with the girls tonight than sitting alone in her room.

When they arrived, Red checked with her friend. Sinatra was running late, so they waited in a huddle on the gusty boulevard, smoking cigarettes and telling jokes, shivering like excited puppies, the winds whipping up dried leaves and the odd, stray cigarette pack. Waiting for Frank.

At one in the morning a black Cadillac pulled up and there he was, hat pulled low over those brilliant blue eyes, emerging from the backseat, surrounded by unsmiling men in dark suits. Red and Beverly called, “Yoo-hoo, we love you, Frank!” and he looked up and his face creased into that million-watt smile and he waved back.

“C’mon in, girls,” he said. “I hope you like ice cream.”

They shrieked and Lily found herself shrieking too, some indescribable primal release that left her throat and spiraled up to the constellations.

A small, slick-looking man with reddish-brown hair appeared behind Sinatra’s entourage. Lily saw him scanning her roommates with feral intensity.

“Where’s Kitty tonight?” he asked at last.

Jinx snapped her gum. “We thought
you
might know.”

The little man looked like he wanted to deck her. He would have needed to climb a ladder.

Jinx’s bravado crumpled. “She hasn’t been home in four days. You think she went back to the desert?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “She should stay away from there.”

“Why?” Lily said, stepping up.

The man regarded her like a wolf sizing up a rabbit.

“Who’s the looker?” he asked.

“Li—” Beverly began.

“Linda,” Lily interjected, not wanting the predatory little man to know her real name. “Linda Desmond. Pleased to meet you. And you are?”

From inside came the excited squeal of female voices, then the tootle of a horn warming up. “Showtime,” the man said, hurrying inside.

Lily tried to follow, but two girls in tight sweaters rushed past, blocking her path. Lily turned back to Kitty’s roommates. “Who was that creepy man?”

“I don’t know his name,” Jinx said. “He was here the last time Frank played, flirting madly with Kitty.” She lowered her voice. “I think he may be a gangster.”

“Did she go out with him?”

Red clucked her tongue. “She could have. Kitty didn’t tell us everything.”

“If she thought we wouldn’t approve,” added Jinx.

“Now, now, ladies,” said peacemaker Beverly, holding the door. “Let’s go inside before we miss the show.”

They trooped in. The musicians were yawning and drinking coffee and smoking Chesterfields as they warmed up. They all had day jobs and were beat, but no one turned down an opportunity to work with Sinatra.

Jinx waved at a guitarist she knew named Al Viola, natty in a white suit and mustache. Two college boys uncorked a bottle of champagne they’d smuggled in, sending it fizzing to the floor. The smell reminded Lily of Wiesbaden, Germany, where she’d helped set up files for an OSS office in a champagne factory. The year was 1945, and there weren’t many buildings left standing, so they’d made the best of it, working amid pungent winey fumes that left everyone light-headed.

Lily scanned the studio for the unpleasant man and found him on the sidelines, deep in conversation with a larger man who kept mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. Then Sinatra got up and everything went quiet. With his sheet music on the stand, he began to sing, the orchestra backing him all the way.

Lily gave a languid sigh and tried to surrender to the music, vowing to find the little man at the break. It was a waking dream to be here, something she’d tell her grandchildren one day. So what if he’d lost the bobbysoxer crowd and the papers said he was washed up. He’d always have her heart. She swayed with pleasure, losing herself in the melody, mesmerized by the slim, handsome man crooning at the mike, the swoop and dip of his voice, that unique phrasing that made her go all funny inside. Between songs, he joked with them and others who slipped in as the night wore on, solemn as churchgoers, heads bowed before a deity. Lily felt how their presence energized Sinatra, the exhilaration flowing back and forth across the stage. He fed off their adoration, needed it as much as they needed him. He was singing to them, and, if she wanted to fantasize, directly to her, Lily Kessler from the farmlands of Mar Vista.

Lily imagined Kitty coming to Hollywood and getting a taste of this life, the hunger it would awaken in a naïve midwestern girl. Had Joseph’s sister met a gangster on a night like tonight and started seeing him? Had something happened? But just as Lily got hold of a theory, it escaped down the maze of her mind, twisting out of reach as Sinatra hit a particularly sweet note.

Finally the spell broke and Sinatra called a break. Lily saw the little man making his way through the crowd. With a murmur about needing the powder room, she slipped after him. She was about to hail him when he turned into a hallway, following the larger fellow, who gripped a third, frightened-looking man by the arm. The big guy stopped, opened a door into what looked like the back alley, and jerked his captive so violently that his hat fell off. With a sharp intake of breath, Lily drew back into the shadows. The little man gave a low chuckle, stooped to pick up the hat, then followed the pair outside. The pneumatic door sighed shut.

Behind her, two men came up, jostling her elbow. Lily jumped, then saw with relief that they were musicians. “Whoa, there, little lady, you all right?” one of them asked, seeing her frozen face.

“Fine,” Lily said, nodding. “It’s just that…” She searched for words.

“Frank has that effect on the ladies,” one said, misconstruing her speechlessness. He clapped his pal on the back. Laughing uproariously, they moved down the hall.

Lily got hold of herself.
What would you have done in your old life?
She looked around. Beyond the bathroom was a sign that said
STAIRS
. Lily ran over, threw open the door, and tiptoed up, making sure her heels didn’t clang on the metal steps. On the third landing, she opened the door and stepped into an office, deserted and eerie in the reflected neon light of Sunset Boulevard. She found the emergency exit, opened it soundlessly, and climbed onto the fire escape above the alley. She was three floors up, but sound carried. Crouching, she looked down. The little man was punching the man who’d been dragged outside while the big thug held his arms pinioned back. The little man grunted softly as he landed blows, but the victim made no sound at all, which seemed deeply sinister to Lily. Why didn’t he call for help?

Then it was over. The little man took out a handkerchief and wiped his hand clean of blood and mucus.

“When you gonna have it, Jimmy?” the little man said. “The boss is tired of your worthless promises.”

Jimmy sagged against the big thug, then fell to the ground and crouched on all fours like an animal.

“I swear, you’ll get it next week,” he wheezed.

“By next week you’ll owe double.”

“No.” The man on the asphalt writhed. “I can’t…It’s too…Don’t,” he pleaded, as the big thug aimed a kick at his kidneys. “I’ll tell ya…I saw…something you might…About that star…”

“I’ll make you see stars,” the big man vowed.

The little thug tugged on his partner’s shoulder. “Ease up, will ya, Monty? Let’s hear what he has to say.”

The beaten man scrambled to his feet. “It’s about that missing actress you been asking about.”

“Fer chrissakes, keep it down,” the little man said, glancing about the alley in alarm. Lily shrank back into the building’s shadows, but the thugs, intent on their business, never looked up.

There followed a whispered conversation that Lily, despite ears sharpened by years of surveillance, could not quite overhear.

Letting the door snick quietly shut behind her, she ran down the stairs and made her way past the audience. She slipped through the lobby, hurrying down the street and around to the alley, where she flattened herself against the brick wall and peered around. Except for two drunks approaching from a block away, singing at the top of their lungs, the alley was empty. They must have scared off her quarry. Lily swore, then walked back inside, scanning the crowd, who were drifting back to their seats. But Jimmy, Monty, and the little thug had disappeared.

“There you are,” said Beverly, her big eyes tight with concern. “We thought you’d gone AWOL.”

She clasped Lily’s arm in a friendly manner and the other girls crowded around, giddy and giggly from flirting with the musicians and eating ice cream. Jinx still clutched a silver dish of orange sherbet. Lily blinked, transported from the brutal world of the alley to one of sugared breath and sweet perfume. Part of her wanted to blurt out what she’d seen. Then her training took over. She needed to learn what the girls knew about Kitty’s romantic entanglements.

“I took a walk to clear my head,” she said.

Just then Frank strolled back up to the mike and a collective intake of breath rippled through the audience. Uneasy, Lily gave up and surrendered to Sinatra’s magic. Wherever Joseph’s sister was, there was nothing more she could do tonight.

They tore themselves reluctantly away at dawn, yawning and stretching, humming snatches of song, their bellies full of vanilla-chocolate-strawberry-pistachio ice cream and sloshing with hot coffee, the bushy fronds of the palm trees along Sunset Boulevard sweeping the ashy night from the sky.

Lily wondered if she’d hallucinated the scene in the alley. In the gray light of dawn, as birds trilled and the first rays of sun rose to illuminate the Hollywood sign, it seemed like a nightmare born of sleep deprivation. Yet the fear that still pulsed in her nerve endings seemed very real.

The buses were filled with commuters, and Lily rejoiced privately that she didn’t have a job to go to. All day Red and Beverly and Jinx would slump sleepily at work, trying to catch an hour on their lunch breaks, but they swore that no matter what, it was worth it, because Frank was a dreamboat and he’d joked with them and sung just to them, that’s the kind of town it was. Lily wanted to grab a bite of breakfast before the evening’s high wore off, then tumble into Kitty’s bed and sleep for several hours. She’d start her search right after that.

October 12, 1949

H
ot enough for ya, Mildred?” Harry Jack asked his favorite waitress, settling into a seat at the drugstore counter.

“These Santa Anas get any hotter and the eggs out back are going to hatch into chicks,” Mildred said. She sauntered over with her pot, slapped down a doily and a cup, and poured coffee.

Harry was a news photographer. He’d honed his skills during the war, pointing and shooting a camera while others aimed more lethal weapons. Four years after the Allied victory, the world was headed for another showdown, but Harry tried not to think about atomic annihilation; his biggest concern was landing a staff job at one of the big city dailies. For now he was freelance, selling snaps one at a time, which meant cruising the streets with his radio tuned to the KMA367 police frequency, looking for action.

It was only a matter of time, with the turf wars heating up between Mickey Cohen and Jack Dragna as they fought for the spoils left open by Bugsy Siegel’s murder two years back. Rumor had it there was a contract out on the dapper Jewish gangster and now even the cops were following Mickey around to protect him. Harry knew one of Cohen’s henchmen from Boyle Heights, where they’d grown up together. Maybe he should track him down. If a gang battle erupted and he got it on film, he’d be a cinch for a staff job.

Harry spread out his paper but found his gaze drifting to a pretty gal in a cornflower-blue dress who was eating breakfast and reading her own paper, though she slumped over it like a wilted flower. She had big brown eyes, an upturned nose, a sprinkling of freckles, trim hips, and a nice swell in the bosom department. A gal like that could go far in this town. He pictured her in a grassy backyard, laughing and pushing a toddler on a swing as he came home from work. She’d have lamb chops and mashed potatoes on the table, and later after they put the kid to bed…

“You can pop your eyes back in now,” Mildred said, putting down his breakfast special.

“I can look, can’t I?” Harry examined his over-easy eggs. “Glad you found a couple that haven’t pecked their way out yet. Leastwise I don’t see any beaks.”

“Get away with you,” she said with a laugh.

Harry ate, sopping up the last of his yolk with a crust of bread. Leaving Mildred her tip, he sauntered over to the cornflower girl.

“Hello, miss,” he said. “Didn’t I meet you last February at Sammy’s wedding?”

The girl tensed. Her eyes danced nervously.

“I’m sure you’re mistaken.” She played with her napkin. “I just got into Los Angeles yesterday.”

“Newcomer, eh?” Harry smiled and rocked on the balls of his feet. “Maybe you’d like someone to show you around. I’m a news photographer. I know all the hot spots.”

The girl examined him like he was a stud racehorse she might consider plunking down good money for.

“Do you know any gangster hangouts?” she asked.

“Sure I do. It’s part of my job. But why would a nice…You think they’re glamorous? Is that it?” Harry hoped it wasn’t a new trend. How could a regular guy compete? “You’re one of them gals that likes a little danger, a little roughing up?”

The girl threw her head back and laughed. “Heavens, no! I went through enough danger in the war to last a dozen lifetimes.”

Harry wondered if she’d been a WAC or a WAVE. She had that confident, can-do aura.

The gal smiled mysteriously. “I’m…doing research for a script, that’s all, Mr….?” She let the word wobble and her voice rose flirtatiously.

“Harry. Harry Jack.”

“And I’m…” she bit her lip and seemed to decide something. “I’m Lily Kessler. Pleased to meet you.”

Harry found his hand caught in a grip that could have cracked Brazil nuts. His gaze fell on Lily Kessler’s watch, which said eight-thirty. An involuntary gasp went through him.

“Come on, Mr. Jack, I didn’t squeeze that hard.”

Harry explained that he had a job interview at the
L.A. Times
at nine a.m. It was a reactionary rag, but a job was a job and he didn’t want to be late. He asked for her number and was thrilled when she scribbled it on a napkin.

Harry drove downtown in an exalted haze. His luck had changed. Suddenly he had the possibility of a staff job and romance too. By nine-fifteen,
L.A. Times
photo editor Richard Sykes was leafing through his portfolio, praising shots he liked, and Harry got a hopeful feeling.

One of the managing editors walked in, an obstreperous, florid-faced man named Didrickson.

“Who’s the kid?” Didrickson asked Sykes, inclining his chin.

“This here is Harry Jack. A fine photographer. He’s looking for a job.”

Didrickson took a long look at Harry.

“You a kike?” the man asked.

Harry got to his feet in a hurry. “What’s it to you?”

“A Jew. That’s what you are.”

Harry noted the half pint in the back of Didrickson’s pants, the smell of spirits on his breath. He felt the blood pounding at his temples as he packed up his portfolio.

“’Cause the
Times
don’t hire Jews. Probably a Red, to boot. Sykes here ought to have saved you the trouble.”

“Didrickson, you’re an asshole,” Sykes said. “Get the fuck out of my photo lab. Don’t you have any copy to mangle?”

Harry tried to look down his nose at Didrickson, which was difficult, since the red-faced editor towered above him and outweighed him twice over. “Never mind, Mr. Sykes. The man’s a bigot and a bully. Someone ought to strap him down and read him his own paper’s coverage of the Nuremburg Trials. Maybe then he’d understand what this leads to. Didrickson, I wouldn’t take a job at your pig-swill paper if you offered it to me on a platter.”

Didrickson didn’t wait for Harry to finish before he swung. The punch missed wildly. Harry stepped in and hit him in the jaw and the big man fell back and landed on his backside.

There was the sound of breaking glass, then a piercing shriek as Didrickson levitated off the floor, cupping his posterior and screaming, “My ass!”

His shrieks brought the
Times
security goons at a fast clip. By the time they finished roughing up Harry and threw him and his portfolio onto the sidewalk, his left eye was already swelling up and one leg throbbed. But Harry was more worried about his precious photos, which now lay scattered along Second Avenue. Training his good eye to the ground like a cyclops, he ran to collect them while the guards jeered. Down the street, two ladies dressed in black negligees leaned out the third-floor window enjoying a break before the lunch rush of reporters, cops, politicians, and businessmen.

“Yoo-hoo, you missed one over there,” one called, pointing down at the street. “By the fire hydrant. Quick, before the car runs it over.”

A grubby kid picked a photo out of the gutter and plucked off a dried bit of leaf.

“Hey,” Harry called. “That there’s private property. Hand it over.”

The kid froze and Harry cursed Didrickson, the guards, his sore leg, and his bad eye. The kid gave him the photo.

“Thanks. You can move along now.”

Instead, the kid picked up another photo and held it out.

“I don’t need your help. So beat it.”

Just then Harry saw a city bus bearing down on one of his best photos—Mayor Fletcher Bowron, tie loosened, hat askew, celebrating his latest election win. He lunged for it, but invisible arms yanked him back.

“Why, you…” he said, arms flailing. His dander up, the guards’ laughter ringing in his ears, the managing editor’s insults still smarting his pride, he turned and swung. An absurdly light figure landed with a limp flop on the sidewalk. Too late, Harry realized he’d coldcocked the kid. As he squinted to inspect the damage, a black car whooshed past. He hadn’t seen it coming because of his bad eye. Just then the bus arrived, destroying his prize photo.

Harry groaned. “Kid,” he said, shaking the inert form. “You okay, kid? Jesus, I’m sorry.”

He looked up and beckoned the guards.

A uniformed man stepped out of his box and spat. “What do you think this is, the Union Rescue Mission?”

Cursing, Harry scooped up the kid and stalked back to the twenty-five-cent auto-pay lot where he’d left his car. He removed the kid’s knapsack and dumped the unconscious body in the backseat. Light as a puppy, with a musty smell and gray skin. Twelve years old, tops, Harry figured, as he placed a thumb against the inside of the twiglike wrist, feeling for a pulse.

Harry’s police radio crackled. The body of a young woman had been found in a ravine below the Hollywood sign. Holy shit, that would bring every news photog in town running. What if the Dahlia’s killer had struck again? That sicko had never been caught. If Harry managed to get off some good shots, he’d have every paper in the country screaming for those photos.

Harry cursed some more. He knew he should take the kid to a hospital. But then he’d miss the shot.

“I’m sorry, junior, but I gotta do this.”

Jumping into the driver’s seat, Harry hauled ass across town, ear cocked to the radio for more details. When he hit Hollywood, Harry turned north and nosed the car up the narrow windy streets of Whitley Heights that the movie stars liked so much. When he saw an LAPD Crime Lab truck and a coroner’s van, he pulled over. The crew was unloading equipment.

In the backseat, Harry saw the kid’s narrow chest moving up and down. Grabbing his camera, he ran after the tech men. The fifty-foot letters towered white against the sun-scorched hillside. Harry could see the scaffolding behind the sign, heard the structure creak in the breeze. On the hillside, men were loading something onto a gurney. Damn. She was covered up. A uniformed officer appeared. He flipped his baton sideways and stood, chest thrust out in a belligerent manner.

“You need to wait here.”

Harry said okay and snapped a few photos, even though the forensics guys were too far away for him to see much.
Hurry,
he thought, checking over his shoulder for the newshounds he knew would arrive any minute.

The grim procession wound its way up the ravine, past the gnarled grace of manzanita and creosote, the metallic blue of long-tongued century plants, until they reached Harry. After several snaps of the bundled body, he stepped back respectfully. One of the pallbearers was a tech guy Harry knew from the police bars he patronized.

“Hey, Mack, wouldja mind…?” Harry pantomimed pulling the sheet back.

“Not gonna happen right now. Sorry,” Mack said. Harry dropped to his knees and took a few more shots, then followed the cortege along the fire road to the coroner’s vehicle, back doors open to receive the body.

By this time, reporters had arrived.

“We got a jumper or a homicide?” one called out.

“If she took a dive,” said a KNX reporter, “then my money’s on the
D
.
Nice and roomy up there. Who’ll give me twenty-five dollars on the
D
?”

“The
Y
,” another voice said. “Thirty on the
Y
.”

The techs began loading the body and a cry went up, all bets momentarily forgotten.

“No fair. C’mon, fellas, give us a peek.”

The techs stopped and turned to the commanding officer.

“All right,” the LAPD sergeant said. “Let’s hold it right there a minute.”

The techs put the stretcher down and lit up cigarettes. The sergeant counted the waiting journalists.

“Ten dollars apiece and she’s yours,” he announced. “Smithy will bring around the collection plate.”

A patrol officer upended his police hat and circulated among the flacks, who grumbled but stuffed in bills. Then the unveiling took place, with so many cameras going off at once that Harry got a prickly, panicky feeling in his scalp that he was back in the war.

The vic’s face and neck were grotesquely swollen, bloodied, and scraped, her head crooked at an unnatural angle. The chestnut hair was matted with dirt and leaves, her clothes torn, bits of brush embedded in the fabric. Decomposition was well under way, and the body gave off a sickening odor. Even so, Harry could see this had been a pretty girl, with a smart figure and a lush mouth that even now was faintly outlined in red lipstick.

“Got an ID for us, Sarge?” he called out.

“She’s Jane Doe Number Fifteen for now, boys,” the sergeant said, covering the dead girl to provide a semblance of dignity. But he yanked the shroud too high over her head, exposing her legs.

“Wait a minute. Would you look at that shoe,” someone yelled.

Harry followed the long coltlike legs down—the girl’s skirt was hiked above the knee—and saw a dirt-streaked, high-heeled red patent leather shoe still strapped to one foot, which swelled over the ankle strap like a loaf of rising bread. The other foot was bare.

“Where’s the other shoe, Sarge?” came a voice from the crowd.

“Your guess is as good as mine, boys.”

“Not already bagged and tagged?”

“Negative.”

“You’ve canvassed the area?”

“Affirmative.”

There was a hum of excitement as the full import hit them—here was the detail that would send papers flying off the newsstands.