Getting Garbo (24 page)

I know those lines, but from where? Suddenly I've got it. Mother's doing Joan Crawford in
Mildred Pierce.
Life imitating art. Could you die? But to non-movie fan Vallenzuega, it's a premiere.

“If there's some way you people can find it in your hearts to forgive her, I guarantee it'll never happen again. She's never been in trouble before. She's a good girl,” she repeats.

Vallenzuega has been watching her. Not blinking, mouth half-open, not wanting to miss a second. Maybe he doesn't go to the movies but he can spot a performance when he sees one. Now he nods, as if he's been persuaded by her impassioned plea. “I believe you, ma'am. Reva and I have been having a good talk and I think the best thing for everybody is if I release her—into your care.”

Mother smiles gratefully and dabs at her eyes with the matching pink hankie she has tucked up her sleeve. I glare at Vallenzuega, who gives me a covert wink.

“Watch out for all those movies,” he says to me.

“I know,” I say, “they'll rot my mind.”

We go down the stairs together, Mother and I, hand-in-hand, am I dreaming? Vallenzuega at the top of the staircase, waving goodbye, wishing me luck. “Don't let me see you back here, kid.”

“I'm not a kid,” I call back to him.

As soon as we're out of the building and around the corner, heading for our car, Mother stops and turns on me. No more Eleanor Roosevelt. Lizzie Borden's back in town. “You little cunt, do you know I could lose my job at the bank because of you and your crazy shit?”

She slaps me very hard across the face. I can feel each of her fingers outlined on my cheek, but I don't cry. I never cry in front of her.

“Stealing stupid photos of Roy Darnell—didn't I warn you, again and again, that he's bad news for you? It's in your chart, Reva, and the stars don't lie!” I'm not sure if she's talking movies or astrology.

Mother navigates like a Destruction Derby driver through the rush hour traffic back to our apartment with hardly another word, which is fine with me. If she thinks she's punishing me with her silence, well, do it some more.

We clump up the stairs. Home sweet home, “Want something to eat?” I shake my head, I haven't eaten all day, but suddenly I'm too exhausted to even think of food. I go into my room and leave the lights off and just fall into bed. I sleep straight through to the morning and still wake up tired, not knowing what to do, but then I read the obituary page of the
L.A. Times,
and at least I know where I have to go.

• • •

Now I'm at Addie's funeral. I wasn't successful in getting close enough when Roy arrived in his limo for him to see me. The jam of photographers and curiosity-seekers were in the way. The service has begun inside the chapel, and we can already hear the minister's platitudes floating out over the P.A. system. Killer Lomax arrives, shouldering his way through toward the entrance. We're maybe fifty, sixty feet apart, with people jammed between us, but somehow our eyes meet—and he looks away fast. Then he's at the closed door where they aren't letting anyone else in, except it opens a crack and Merle Heifetz, the studio flack, recognizes Killer and lets him in, even though Killer doesn't work for Roy anymore. For auld lang syne, I guess.

At the sight of Killer, I feel bad all over again. I don't know exactly what I've done to deserve the feeling, except let the guy jump my bones, for which he can't even bear to look at me. Well, screw him!

But then all thoughts of Killer Lomax are banished as Roy begins to speak. Through the glass front of the chapel I can see him way inside, though he's as indistinct as he was on the night he was on stage at the Hollywood Bowl. But I can hear the terrible pain in his voice, and his choked remembrances of the good times with Addie make me want to cry. Suddenly I'm certain that I've done the right thing. His voice has always been the clearest indicator of what's going on inside of him. I could always read it. And listening to him—it's like an oral lie detector test—I know beyond a doubt that whatever tangled events might have happened last Sunday night, Roy didn't kill Addie. I'm so relieved.

The chapel ceremony is finished, and I'm part of the crowd watching the burial from the road. It's over now, I can see Roy in the distance, moving to his limo. I push closer to the edge of the road and I'm in luck, because just as the limo passes me I see that Roy has spotted me and I give him a sad smile to let him know that my heart is with him and I touch the locket around my neck. I'm so glad I decided to wear it this morning.

None of the other collectors are interested in going over, but I persuade Podolsky to drive me to Roy's house, where the wake is being held. We stand around outside for a while, but then Podolsky has to take off to go to work at Music City. Guests are leaving now, but I keep waiting. Maybe if they all go, I can just walk up to the front door and knock and tell Roy that everything's okay. I feel like Jack Havoc, looking out for someone in trouble, and I'm the only one who can help him. Now it's getting dark and the next-to-last car drives off, but I recognize the only car that's left. It belongs to Killer Lomax, and those two can drink away the whole night together, and besides I have to go to work. So I walk up to Sunset Boulevard and wait for the Santa Monica bus.

The gambler's shuttle from Las Vegas swoops down like a bat out of the night sky onto the runway at Burbank Airport. Arzy Marshak watches as the prop plane taxis to a stop in front of arrival gate number three. He spots his partner, Harry Tigner, among the first passengers clambering down the metal staircase. Actually, it's Harry's horse-blanket sports coat that stands out in the darkness. Arzy has tried to steer Harry toward a classier wardrobe, but some things Harry just can't hear.

“How was your funeral?” Harry asks him. He's carrying a briefcase and an overnighter.

“Celeb City. The great and the not-so-great.”

“And how'd our boy do?”

“Showstopper. He made 'em laugh, he made 'em cry, he made 'em wet their pants. Roy's a star, what can I tell you?”

The unmarked cop car is parked in the red at the curb outside Burbank's main terminal. Windshield visor turned down to reveal the police decal that fends off parking tickets.

“We got to make a stop,” Arzy says as he gets behind the wheel.

Harry settles beside him, looks at him questioningly. Arzy shrugs.

“You're not the only one who works nights.”

• • •

“So how was Vegas?” Arzy is racing up over Laurel Canyon toward Hollywood.

“Wanna hear? Last night went to see Sinatra at the Sands, nobody can get in, but remember Rick Caulk, used to work Robbery-Homicide in Hollenbeck? He's in charge of security now at the Sands, so we have a primo booth on the main floor. Sinatra comes out, starts singing, you can see right away he's in a crappy mood, does six bars of ‘The Lady Is A Tramp,' cuts off the band with an afongoo gesture, starts ‘I've Got The World On A String,' lasts three bars on that one, I figure we're about to see the world's shortest nightclub appearance.”

“Over and out?”

“Looks like. But then somethin' happens. Sinatra looks out into the audience and who does he glom but his kid, Frank Jr., who's there with a bunch of his schoolmates. It's a surprise to Ol' Blue Eyes. He comes to the front of the stage, talks to the kid with all of us listenin'. ‘Hey, Junior, y'do your homework? Okay, then you can stay up late with the grownups.' And now he's happy, and I'm tellin you, Arzy, it's like whatchacallit, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Sinatra proceeds to do a fantastic show, sings his heart out.”

“So that's how Vegas was?”

“Did I say that's the end of the story? Afterward, Caulk and me, we go into the lounge, it's Jam City, but for us they got a table. Table with a view of the throne. The booth where Sinatra and his party are holding forth. They've wheeled a piano up next to the booth and Sammy Cahn, you know, the songwriter, ‘Three Coins In The Fountain' and all that, Sammy Cahn is sittin' at the piano, playing a medley of the hits he wrote for Sinatra, while there's a Meat Parade goin' on. Every good-lookin' broad in the whole town is finding an excuse to strut back and forth past Sinatra's booth in hopes of catchin' his eye or his fly, but Sinatra, he don't even seem to notice.”

“Because his kid's there.”

“Nah, the kid's gone off with his friends. It's just like the king or the emperor—he's fuckin' jaded, Frank, I mean, if you've had Ava Gardner, maybe everything else is chopped liver. So you get bored. So what he does, 'cuz he's bored, is he gives a little wave of his hand and they wheel away the piano with Sammy Cahn still on it, they're goin' so fast he can't even get off it.”

“You're kidding.”

“No shit, I saw it. I mean, Cahn got off eventually and came back…”

Arzy laughs. He gets a kick out of Harry. “So the point you're making is?”

“These so-called stars of yours—they think they're so fuckin' entitled, they think they can get away with anything.”

“Hey, you wouldn't be talking that way if Sinatra'd given you some of his sloppy seconds.”

Harry laughs. Arzy is the only man he allows to poke fun at him. “Maybe not.”

“So that's how Vegas was?”

Harry shrugs. “Roy's pal Lomax panned out, I pushed at it real hard, but he was definitely there while Addie was getting bumped here.”

“Figured we couldn't get that lucky, a guy nicknamed Killer turns out to be the killer.”

“Maybe Roy's got other friends. Anything new around here?”

“I stopped by the Santa Monica courthouse. Picked up a transcript of the divorce stuff. It's like that guy in the sleaze sheet wrote, she got everything—but she expired just before it went into effect. So all bets are off. Roy keeps everything.”

“We definitely call that motive.”

“Or lucky coincidence. For him. Let's see what we got here.”

Arzy has turned right onto the Sunset Strip and almost immediately gone right again, up a narrow road leading past the quaint old Château Marmont Hotel to a residential street overlooking the lights of the city. There are several police vehicles already parked in and around the driveway of an expensive cantilevered house.

The front door is open and the two detectives walk in. Another plainclothesman, Joe Leary, is talking to the affluent couple who own the house. The husband is wearing a tux, his wife a designer dress and important jewelry. They're both ashen beneath their tennis court tans.

“We just feel so violated,” the husband says. His wife, hands quivering, nods emphatically. Noticing Marshak and Tigner, Leary excuses himself and saunters over to them. “Harry, thought you were in Vegas.”

“Just got back.”

“Not bad. I once got to go to Cucamonga on the company's dime.”

“What's the score here?” Arzy asks Leary.

“The usual. Couple went to dinner, he's a record producer, there's some kinda awards dinner at the Ambassador, and when they came home they discovered our pal the Hollywood Hills crash-and-basher had paid them a visit. They're providing us a list of what's gone. He's at the point of remembering Nikon cameras and other goodies they probably never had but the insurance'll pay off on.”

“How'd the perp get in?” Harry asks.

“How's he always get in? This time he jimmied the kitchen door. Go see.”

As they walk to the kitchen, Arzy raises a meaningful eyebrow at Harry. “The
usual.
Like Addie's house and the half dozen knockovers before that.”

“Maybe so.”

“Which would indicate that the cat burglar is our guy—and could be we're just spinning our wheels with Roy.”

“Could be.”

The techs are crawling all over the place, examining, photographing, sampling, but Arzy and Harry go to watch Gil Andrus, the ancient, irritable fingerprint specialist, working meticulously at the kitchen door.

“Pickin' up anything good?” Harry says.

“Nah, he never leaves prints.”

“That's what you said about Leopold and Loeb,” Arzy says.

“I'm not
that
fuckin' old, kiddo.”

Harry peers at the gouge marks on the door frame.

“Usual pry tool, looks like,” Andrus says. “He's gonna wear that sucker out.”

Harry turns to Arzy. Their eyes meet, they both get the same idea at the same time. It's often like that with partners.

“Andrus, can I borrow that measuring thing of yours?”

“My
what?
” He glares at Harry. “I got a lot of measuring devices.”

“You know, the one with the two points.”

“You mean the calipers.”

“Yeah, right.”

Andrus digs in his black equipment bag and brings out a device similar to a draftsman's compass. “Now what're you gonna do with it?”

Harry measures the widths of the gouge marks on the frame and Arzy jots the measurements in his pad. “Mind if we hold onto the calipers for a while, get 'em back to you tomorrow?”

“Be my guest,” Andrus says. “But you lose 'em, you gotta buy me another pair.”

• • •

The house on Kings Road is dark and deserted and there's police tape across the front door. Arzy and Harry rip it loose, unlock the door and go in. They move through the house, switch on the lights in the den where Addie died and continue over to the sliding door leading to the patio. They open it and step out onto the patio, close the door and gaze at the signs of forced entry. Harry takes out the calipers and measures each of the gouge marks. Arzy jots down the measurements, and when he's done they compare the results with the numbers just taken at the other house.

“
Not
the usual,” Harry says.

“These are narrower,” Arzy agrees. “Two different tools.”

“I'm betting this place is the exception. And all the others match.”

“Wanna go past the office and check the file?” Arzy asks.

“Yeah, but first—let's give a sniff around here.”

They check the drawers in the bar and find nothing, but in the kitchen they hit pay dirt. Opening a cabinet drawer, they find some tools—a hammer, pliers, a screwdriver, and a small wrench. Harry picks up the screwdriver with his handkerchief and they go back to the patio door. The screwdriver fits exactly into the gouge marks. They look even closer and notice a slight flaw on the blade of the screwdriver. It matches a slight flaw on each of the gouges. They go back into the kitchen and carefully empty the drawer where they found the screwdriver. There is a tiny metal shaving on the bottom of the drawer that seems to match the sliding door in the den. They bag it as possible evidence.

• • •

Harry stirs the third heaping spoonful of sugar into his coffee cup. He's a die-hard sugar freak. “So what've we got?”

“Just barely enough to make the D.A.'s office snicker at us.”

“How about you? Enough to make you change your vote on Roy?”

“I'm teetering pretty good,” Arzy says.

They're occupying a booth in the coffee shop section at Schwab's Drugstore on Sunset Boulevard at Crescent Heights. It's a place made famous by gossip columnist and hypochondriac Sidney Skolsky, who maintains a desk and a medicine chest in the rear of the store. Out-of-work Hollywoodites sip coffee and swap lies all day long at Schwab's and, on occasion, Marlon Brando stops by for a lotion to dispose of crabs, or Marilyn Monroe drops in to reload on mascara and cry on Skolsky's shoulder about her love life. Local cops eat and drink here for free.

“Does the screwdriver make it an inside job?” Harry speculates.

“Feels more like a coverup. After the fact. Make a murder look like a burglary.”

“So the killer just hitchhiked on the fact that a cat burglar is working the neighborhood.”

“If the killer was even aware of that. That coulda been a piece of luck.”

“So Addie opened the door and let the killer in.”

“See how easy it is—now all we have to figure out is who actually did the deed.” Arzy sips his black coffee and ignores the cheese Danish on the table between them. “Let's divvy what we've got. What do you want?”

“Cherchez la femme,”
Harry mumbles through a mouthful of Danish. “I'll track the broad, the one who framed Roy and then dated him. Sounds like an interesting relationship.”

“I'll go see if I can poke any holes in Roy's alibi.”