Getting Garbo (19 page)

Don't panic. Go around once more. C'mon. I feel lucky.

“Sure, sure, that's what you said before, but it didn't—” There it is. My space. About to happen. A Nash Rambler just pulling out. On Doheny. Down the block from where I parked earlier. Next to a leafy tree. Providing good, deep shadows.

See pal, gotta have faith.

I zoom into the parking spot. Hop out of the T-Bird. Got to get there before the show's over. I walk rapidly, forcing myself not to run. Don't want to draw attention. Skulk up an alley onto Melrose, cross the street. I've already figured my best vantage point: in the dark doorway of the veterinarian's office facing the theater. I get in position. Take a deep breath. Theater parking lot is still full, so the show must still be on. Then I panic. I left the car unlocked, with a back seat full of incriminating evidence. Got to go back!

Right then the front doors of the theater open. Happy Academy members and their guests come streaming out. Overflowing the sidewalk, bodies moving in every direction. Can't go back to the car, hell, stuff's on the floor, who's going to notice anyway. I stroll across to the front of the theater. Blowing my nose in my handkerchief to conceal my face, until I'm on the curb. Then I look around at the crowd. Standing tall. See and be seen. Looking for a friendly face. There's one. The ideal one.

William Wellman, the director of
A Star Is Born.
Ramrod straight as the Lafayette Escadrille fighter pilot he was during World War I. He's surrounded by back slappers. Accepting congratulations for a movie he made a generation ago. I elbow my way through to him. We've played doubles together at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club and beat all comers.

“Wild Bill,” I yell, “you've done it again!” Using the classic sneak preview critique.

“There he is—the best netman in town!”

We hug, we kibbitz. Swirl of well-wishers around us. Autograph collectors moving in to snap photos. Great! Proof positive that I'm here. I catch a glimpse of Reva among them. I wink at her, she smiles back. I invite Wellman for a drink and we stroll to Dan Tana's bar a block away. My alibi's getting better and better. We hoist a few. I tell Wellman a little about my travails with Jack Warner. He's sympathetic.

“Been there myself,” he says. That's why
A Star Is Born
was so important to him. “Salary I collected for writing and directing, that was my Fuck You Money.” He defines that as “sufficient funds so that the assholes can't make you do anything you don't want to do. Gotta have that, Roy,” he counsels.

Maybe I do. Now.

• • •

When I get back to my T-Bird, it's almost midnight. But I'm pretty sure that Addie won't be found before tomorrow morning. At the earliest. I yank the car door open, look in back, and—okay, the pillowcase is still there. But some of the contents are strewn onto the floor. Probably jostled loose in transit. I climb into the car, slam the door and turn around. Start to scoop the loose items back into the pillowcase. When I notice something on the floor among the pieces of jewelry.

A bright green jujube.

The kind of candy I haven't eaten in years.

Until tonight.

When Reva offered me some of hers.

• • •

The Safeway market on Beverly Drive at Olympic is closed for the night. Parking lot deserted. I drive around to the loading area and stop, can't be seen here from the street. Turn off the motor. Try to control my mounting sense of fear. I bring the pillowcase up front. Spill the stuff onto the passenger's seat. Stir it around. Don't know what I'm looking for. But in a moment, an idea occurs to me. A terrifying idea. I poke among Addie's trinkets and find one of her diamond earrings. Poke some more…more and more frantically…but…

The other one's not here,
Jack Havoc says.

“Yes it is!” I tell him. Showing it to him triumphantly.

Okay,
he says grudgingly,
but, hey, where's the locket?

Heart pounding. I grope through the trinkets again. But I can see he's right. The locket's gone. “For Addie, Love Forever. From Roy.”

She took it. Like when she's swiped butts from your car's ashtray.

“But she's never taken anything valuable.”

Didn't tonight either. Just a cheap little locket.

I don't say anything. Resisting what he wants me to say. But he won't let it go.

Reva found the locket here in the car. She saw the rest of the jewelry.

He waits. I still don't say anything.

She knows you moved the car. Knows you went away and came back. So she can destroy your alibi.
He's examining the jujube.
And with the locket to back her up, they'd believe her.

“Yes.” Have to admit that much.

She can put you in the gas chamber, Roy. Don't let her do that.

“I'll—I'll take care of it!”

How?

“I'll get the locket back.”

That's only half the job.
He reads my mind.
You don't have any choice.

“I know,” I say. Poor Reva.

“I have a little shadow

That goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of it

Is more than I can see.”

—Robert Louis Stevenson

Almost all the lights are dark inside the other apartments in our building as I climb the steps to the second-floor landing. The neighbors are mostly blue-collar folks who turn in early, but I see a light flickering behind the closed blinds in our living room. Gotta be the TV set, so that means Mother is inside waiting for me, but the question is whether she's awake or asleep in front of the tube.

I hope for the best and carefully unlock the front door and slip quietly into the quasi-gloom. Mother is on the sofa, stretched out facing the TV, her head propped up on a pillow, snoring softly. She's wearing her ancient green robe and her feet are bare. Her hands are clasped in the prayer position and tucked under her cheek. She looks defenseless and benign, almost like a little girl.

A black and white Abbott and Costello comedy is on TV and it's the middle of the movie so I know Mother has been in dreamland a while, because she hates Abbott and Costello and would have turned it off if she was up when it started. It's a picture I like, the one set in the Arabian desert, and the part I like best is when pudgy little Costello is locked up in a jail cell with this huge hairy guy, who starts out super-friendly because he's been alone in jail so long he's starved for companionship. Costello asks him why he's in here, and the guy tells his story, real pleasantly, but whenever he comes to the word “Constantinople,” the hairy guy flips out and goes after Costello. “Slowly I turned, step by step, I knew what I had to do…” and he grabs Costello and shakes him and chokes him until Costello calms him down, and the guy goes on with his story, and Costello tries at all costs to avoid the word “Constantinople,” but, of course, it keeps coming up, “Slowly I turned, step by step…”

Guess in a way that's the story of me and my Mother. Only I've never figured out what the trigger word is. I mean, it could be anything or nothing. But like Costello with the “Constantinople” guy, I know what I have to do: put Mother to bed. If I just leave her snoozing out here all night, she'll wake up with a crick in her neck and that'll be my fault. Thing is when I move her, she may be a purring pussycat or a clawing cougar, it could go either way.

“Mother?” I lean down and whisper. There's a sweet perfume emanating from her that I recognize as the smell of gin. I notice the empty Bombay bottle on the carpet beside the sofa. Gently, I shake her shoulder. Her eyes flutter open, she sees me and she smiles, “Hi, honey.” It's going to be a good night.

“Time to go to bed,” I say. I swing her feet down, sit her up. She grasps my arm and, with a little effort from both of us, she's standing.

“Gotta go t'bed,” she mumbles.

“I'll help you,” I say.

I put my arm around her shoulder and guide her, because her eyes aren't really open and she's none too steady on her feet, but we make it into her bedroom. I settle her down, cover her up, tuck her in. She smiles, still without opening her eyes, gives me this cute little wave, and murmurs, “G'night.”

I stand looking down at her, because it's one of the nicest moments we've had in a long time, even if she slept through it.

Without warning, my eyes get all misty. Not for Mother, but for me.

I'm remembering when I was the one who got tucked in at night, by my Daddy when I was a little girl. No matter how late he came home from work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard or how tired he was, he'd come tell me a bedtime story. It was always about the funny adventures of Psoop Psoop, this klutzy but plucky kid in Russia. He made the stories up. Maybe Daddy never got very far in school before he ran away to America, but he had a wonderful imagination. I suddenly miss him so much it aches like it used to.

Then I go to my door, unfasten the padlock, go in and bolt the door, and I'm secure. The rows of autograph books are back in their proper places on the shelves. I'm glad that the breakup between Roy and Killer Lomax that I saw at the July 4 parade seems permanent. That lout hasn't been around since, and judging by our conversation on the way to the Academy tonight, Killer didn't say anything to damage me in Roy's eyes. I'm worried about Roy, the way he looked. But what with the divorce and quitting the TV show, and now he may be leaving town, I guess he's under a lot of strain. Aren't we all, though?

I get my journal out of its safe place under the floorboard in the closet and then I sit cross-legged in front of my collection of Roy stuff. There's a gap in the centerpiece, where the torn glove from St. Paddy's used to be and then the cigarette lighter from the Bogarts took its place. It looked great alongside the Romanoff's ashtray filled with Roy's butts. Only I had to give the lighter back. I should have realized Roy would miss it, even though Killer made out like it was his. Now I've got a suitable replacement for that center spot. The locket. I take it out of my purse and carefully position it on the shelf so that the faces of Roy and Addie shine down upon the room.

Then I stare at the locket. I can remember when Addie started wearing it. In fact, I admired it one February afternoon at the
Streetcar
stage door and she gave Roy such a fabulous look and squeezed his hand and told me, “It's my Valentine's Day present,” and it's obvious what's happened now, with the divorce going on and all, she's cleaning house and dumping on him all those trinkets and bits of costume jewelry that once meant so much. I mean, how do you give back that locket? It's like pitching away a part of yourself. Roy's probably been carrying that stuff around in the back seat of his car for God knows how long, not knowing what to do with it. I'd thought of taking the glitzy pair of earrings, but they might be worth something, not like the tarnished locket that I'll keep here on the shelf to preserve the echo of the good days. A perfect piece of memorabilia.

With pen in hand, my current journal open in my lap, I continue looking up at the locket on the shelf, studying the smiling faces. Roy and Addie—the girl who laughed when the other collectors called him a “Nobody.”

“She never was right for you, was she, Roy?” Like the Fisherman and his Wife, you gave her a palace and it still wasn't enough. Maybe this new girl, Kim, she might be the one to really make you happy.

These are good thoughts, and I better get 'em down on paper before I forget, starting with our accidental encounter tonight. I start to write about when I ran into Roy on the street near the Academy where he first parked his car before the movie and he sees me and he says, “Hey, Reeve, whatcha eatin'?” and I say, “Jujubes, you want one?”

I know something's wrong. Even though I'm still half asleep. Eyes closed. Just swimming up to consciousness. Even then I know. But for an instant I can't remember exactly what it is. Just that it's bad. Real bad. Then it all comes crashing back.

Addie's dead and Reva can unravel my slim shot at an alibi.

She knows I left the screening at the Academy and came back. With Addie's jewelry in my back seat of my car. She's got that fuckin' locket, so she's got proof positive.

What I do today will determine the rest of my life.

But the thing is…I don't know what to do.

There's this pounding in my head. Won't stop. Then I realize it's not my head, it's the front door. Someone's knocking. Loud. Banging. Calling my name.

I stagger out of bed, glance at the clock. 10:16. Slept away half the morning. Whoa! The whirlies! Hung over from the bottle of brandy I killed all by my lonesome last night. In an effort to turn off the projection machine running inside my brain. Kept playing a continuous loop of the night's events. Until I passed out. Stop that fucking banging! Grab a robe, run my fingers through my hair, barefoot to the front door.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm coming.”

I swing open the front door and there are two strangers on my doorstep. Mutt and Jeff. Big guy and little guy. Not so little, really. My size. Thin as a whippet, funny smirk on his face. Sharp dresser. Wearing a Sy Devore navy blue blazer and gunmetal gray slacks. I almost bought that same blazer from Sy a few weeks ago. The big guy, he's older, with a Gable mustache and bad skin, and he's dressed in a baggy seersucker suit that's probably off the rack at Penney's. He's the one who says he's sorry to make so much noise but your bell's busted I guess, and he flashes the badge and does the honors.

“Mr. Darnell, my name's Tigner and this is my partner, Sergeant. Marshak. We're detectives with the sheriff's office.”

Dum-de-dum-dum!
It's life imitating Jack Webb. The opening scene from any episode of
Dragnet.
I want to snicker at the corny intro. But the voice inside me sounds the warning.

Shape up, dummy, this isn't
Dragnet
—it's
Candid Camera
and these two dipshits are monitoring every blink you make.

Thanks, Jack, I needed that.

I rub my eyes. Stare at them blearily, don't have to fake that. “Look, if it's about all those parking tickets, I told my accountant to pay 'em and—”

“The check is in the mail,” the little guy, Marshak, says. With a wink to go with the smirk.

“We're here about something else,” Tigner says. “Mind if we come in?”

I don't mind. Invite 'em in. Give 'em cups of coffee. Curtain going up. I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille. They're pretending they're here on some kind of routine thing, no rush to tell me exactly what. I'm acting like I don't have a care in the world. Thinking what a good thing it is that I detoured to the Santa Monica pier last night before bedtime and dropped all of Addie's jewelry in the bay. Everybody's nonchalantly studying everybody for subtext, as we actors call it. Difference between me and the cops, of course, is that when it comes to bullshitting, I'm a pro, I do it for a living. But then, of course, they're pros, too, adept at using their shit detectors. Interesting situation.

Wanna see the garden? Just a lap pool. Great little house. No, I'm just renting. Yeah, I live here alone, just got divorced. Terrific location for getting back and forth to the studio in Burbank, a straight shot over Coldwater and hang a right and—hey, what're you guys doin' around here anyway? You're County cops and this is Beverly Hills.

And Tigner tells me. He does the heavy lifting for the team, conversation-wise. There's been an incident on Kings Road, at the house you used to live in. A break-in. I'm afraid we have very bad news. Mrs. Darnell was injured.

Injured? Not dead? Okay, Tigner, good feint. “How bad? What hospital is she in—”

“Actually we just came from the house,” Tigner says. “The medical examiner pronounced her. She's dead.” How big should I play it? Drop my coffee cup?
Nah, too much,
Jack Havoc says inside me. I settle for just staring at Tigner. Focusing on his walrus mustache. While I absently tilt my cup, so coffee spills on the patio, as if I'm unaware of it.

Tigner takes the cup from my hand. “Maybe you better sit down.”

He eases me into a chaise and I give my best impression of a man going into shock. A good actor can change colors like a chameleon. Red for embarrassment, gray for despair. This calls for green for I-may-toss-my-cookies. Marshak brings me a sip of cognac. “Tell me what happened,” I say.

Tigner does his
Joe Friday
routine. Just the facts. Happened last night. Little after nine. Yeah, we're pretty certain about the time. Have to ask, sir, where were you about then? I tell him I was at the movies. Only a couple miles away, if I'd only known. Afterward? Had a few belts with an old buddy at Tana's on Santa Monica. Why, you don't think I—? He assures me. Just routine.

What he says is polite and comforting, lots of “sirs” and “Mr. Darnells,” but it all comes out vaguely challenging. Subtext. He's been jotting now and then in a spiral notebook. Makes you feel that if he doesn't jot, it's not important. Yeah, sure.

Tigner and Marshak step away to confer. I make out I'm not watching them. Finish the pony of cognac.
You done good, buddy boy,
Jack Havoc whispers. Then Tigner comes back over. “Can we ask you for a big favor, if you're feeling up to it?”

I shrug. Man in pain. “Whatever I can do.”

“Could you come back over to Kings Road with us now? We're not sure precisely what was taken. Maybe you can help us make out a list of the stolen items.”

It's the last place in the world I want to go. “Yeah, sure, be glad to help.”

• • •

We're speeding, yes, absolutely rocketing down Sunset Boulevard, heading for the Strip. Marshak is at the wheel of my T-Bird. He volunteered. “Better if you don't drive so soon after a shock like this.” Tigner has gone ahead in their unmarked Chevy. I figure this way Marshak gets to ask me more questions. But he doesn't seem interested in anything but the performance of my car. “Always wanted to take a spin in Jack Havoc's chariot,” he says.

Apparently cops don't have to stop for red lights or stop signs. Marshak gives even the busiest intersections a mere glance and punches through. Just like Jack Havoc in a high speed chase. But the other cars on the road are being driven by civilians, not stunt men. It doesn't seem to bother him.

“We've met before, y'know,” Marshak says.

“Where?”

“On the set. Over at the Van Nuys courthouse. Coupla months ago. I was in uniform, herding traffic for your production company. Off-duty cop picking up some extra shekels. We knocked back a few midnight brewskis in the prop truck, me and you, and talked about how I could become a TV writer.”

I remember him. “Arzy.” Funny, sarcastic, smart. “You had a beard then.”

“Just off an undercover assignment. Shaved it as soon as we got the convictions.”

“But Tigner said your name is Marshak.”

“R.Z. Marshak. Richard Zachary. Everybody runs the initials together. Arzy. I'm half of Hollywood's best-known robbery-homicide team. See, Tigner's first name is Harry. So all the wisenheimers at our station call us—“

“Arzy and Harry,” I laugh. “The Nelson Family. Most normal people in the western world.”

“Well, the similarity doesn't go that far.”

“So what's with your partner? He talks to me like he thinks I snatched the Lindbergh baby.”

“That's just a game we play.”

“Oh, yeah. Good cop, bad cop. And he's the bad cop.”

Arzy glances over at me. The smirk. “Got it backward, Roy. I'm the really badass cop. Listen, I took to heart what you told me. Organized some of my best police stories, maybe one of 'em is right for
Jack Havoc.
”

“I'm not gonna do that show anymore, Arzy.”

“But you'll do something else. Might fit that. We ought to get together and let me pitch you a few ideas sometime.”

“Right, we will, but—right now—”

“Hey, of course, not now, it's awful what happened to your ex-old lady, but we know who did it.”

He's making the turn up onto Kings Road. I hold my breath.

“I mean, we don't know his name and house number—but there's a cat burglar who's been hitting rich houses up in the hills. Done six in the last two months. Same M.O. as this one. Always show-business folks. Forced entry. Scoops up all the best goodies and vanishes into the night.”

We round the corner and there's the house. Various county vehicles parked, including Tigner's Chevy. An ambulance is in the driveway. The white-coated attendants have flipped open the rear door of their ambulance, and sit on the tailgate smoking and waiting. Talking with a uniform cop. They look over at us as Arzy screeches to a halt at the curb.

“So you think this break-in guy is the sonuvabitch who—”

“Gotta be. He hasn't been violent before, but I guess your Addie got unlucky and came home while he was at work.”

We get out of the T-Bird and walk toward the front entrance. In my head, Jack Havoc chuckles and whispers,
A fuckin' neighborhood cat burglar. Could you die? I mean, are we the two luckiest guys alive or what?

• • •

Arzy lets me go in first and I'm about to turn left and head for the den. But I catch myself. More information than I'm supposed to have. So I wait for him. Hint of a smirk from him. And he goes right, leads the way into the bedroom. The tossed drawers and scattered contents still strewn on the floor. There's a forensic guy dusting for prints. A police photographer snapping away. Tigner is standing in the middle of the room watching everyone work. He nods at me. Takes out his spiral notebook. Points at the empty jewel case on the floor.

“What would've been in there?”

“Mostly costume stuff. She kept the real goodies in a safe deposit box at the bank, unless she was wearing 'em someplace special.”

Arzy wanders out. Tigner asks me to recall any specific items that might have been swiped. I furrow my brow. Make out like I'm pulling it piece by piece from distant memory. Actually, I'm just reciting what I saw last night as I dumped the contents into the pillowcase. He jots. Of course, I make no mention of the locket. Why be that helpful? I tell him that's all I can think of…but then I snap my fingers. Hey, the earrings! Her favorite earrings. Diamonds, worth ten grand. Did she have 'em on?

Tigner makes a last jot and closes his notebook. Well, she was wearing earrings, we could see the indentations on her lobes, in fact, there's a couple scratch marks where the guy yanked them off. C'mon, I'll show you. He guides me into the den. The fingerprint dusters have been here already. Arzy is perched on a bar stool, near the phone, waiting for us. Addie's body is still there. On the floor. Covered with a sheet. There's a tent-like peak in the center and I know that's where the glass shard is protruding from her chest. But I don't know that, right? I don't have to fake my horror at what I'm seeing. The sunlight shining in from the backyard makes it even worse. Like the morning after a wild party. Before the maid comes in to clean up the mess. But not this time. This mess is forever. Tigner kneels and lifts a corner of the sheet. Just enough to reveal one side of Addie's face. He points at the ear lobe. There's a scratch and a few dots of blood.

“He thinks the earrings were diamonds,” Tigner says. Dropping the sheet back in place.

“Can we get a full description?” Arzy asks me.

“Insurance,” I mumble. “It was listed. The broker's got an appraisal and photos on file.” I tell him the name of the insurance broker. “Who found her?”

“Cleaning woman,” Tigner says. “Came in early, had her own key. Shrieked loud enough to scare the neighbors. They thought the Russians were landing.”

“Poor Milly, she's been with us a long time.”

“Oh. Your pal Bill Wellman says to give you his best,” Arzy says. “Thoughts and prayers are with you. Wants you to give him a call when you can.”

“You talked to Bill? Already?”

“We're quick and we're thorough, Roy. Didn't want to leave a biggie dangling. Wellman confirms your alibi. I'm sure a lot of other people will, too. Famous face in the crowd like yours. So it's official you were at the Academy Theater watching Wellman's old movie when Addie got it. Now we can move on.”

“How come you're so certain exactly when—when she died? I thought the medical examiners can only give you an educated guess.”

“We can nail this one to the minute,” Tigner says.

“Clockwork,” Arzy says. He lifts a plastic evidence bag off the bar. Shows it to me. Addie's wristwatch is in the bag. The crystal is smashed. Time stopped at 9:43. I'm stunned. I don't even remember seeing the watch on her wrist last night. I'm not sure if this is good for me or not.

“It's an expensive watch, why didn't he take it?” I don't mean to say that out loud, but I do.

Arzy is tickled. “Jack Havoc on the job. Putting the clues together for us. Did I tell you this guy's sharp, Harry?” Then back at me. “Her hand was twisted underneath her body, so he probably didn't notice the watch.” He pushes off from the bar stool. “Want to see how the fucker got in?”

Marshak goes to the patio door. Indicates the gouge marks I made last night. Behind us the ambulance guys have wheeled in a gurney and they heft Addie, sheet and all, onto it. I'm torn between looking at that and what Arzy's showing me. “He usually uses a crowbar. This is one of his neater jobs. Normally rips the shit out of the molding. If there's an alarm gonna go off, he wants to know about it right away.”