The brink of fame, p.11
The Brink of Fame, page 11
Once a month McHenry hobnobbed with the women of Krotona. Every Wednesday evening he had a social engagement with friends in town. (Could that have been bathhouse night?) Three times a week he exercised at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Every evening at six o’clock he became noticeably ill, unless he was able to retire to his bedroom and restore himself.
“How do you mean, noticeably ill?”
“Pale; shaky; vomiting.”
“Good heavens.”
“Perhaps it was his heart. There was medicine he took.”
The hypodermic syringe. The tablets. “I see. So, tell me, what are you going to do now that he’s gone?”
“Firstly I find someplace else to live,” Boris said, brushing the loose powder off his face with a rabbit’s foot. “If I get a part in this movie I can do that more easily, I think.” He reached for the trousers of his rajah costume. “Landlords prefer their tenants to have the regular income.”
“I hope you get the part,” she said. “But to get back to the man who visited him on Fridays. Have you any idea who that might have—?”
The door burst open; on the threshold stood Holbert Bruns. Suddenly Emily was embarrassed to be seen alone with Boris in his underwear. Ridiculous, no? And yet here was Bruns glaring at her like a jealous lover. In the doorway behind Holbert Bruns stood Carl Laemmle’s nephew, calling to Boris that they were ready for him.
Ignoring Bruns, Boris got into his wardrobe tunic, did up his pants, and fastened the jeweled belt around himself. He took a last glance in the mirror. What he saw seemed to please him.
“I know you’ll be great,” Emily said. She patted his shoulder.
“Yes,” Boris said. “I am great. But will they recognize my greatness?” Away he went with the nephew, to stand or fall by his merits.
As soon as Boris was out of sight an icy chill settled over the dressing room. Bruns sat down in front of the makeup mirror and began to poke in Boris’s kit. “I hope you realize, Miss Daggett, that you’ve talked Mr. Laemmle into hiring Ross McHenry’s murderer to take his place in the movie.” He took out a stick of greasepaint and sniffed it. “I don’t know how you feel about that, but to me it seems unjust.”
That Holbert Bruns would consider the concept of justice seemed strange to Emily. Weren’t they trying to solve the case in order to let the murderer go free, for the good of the studio? Where was the justice in that? Something else was troubling Bruns, surely not injustice. “Boris Levin had no reason to murder Ross McHenry. It’s not as though he had any idea he might get McHenry’s part in this picture.” It was true that Boris had seemed quite cross at Mr. McHenry, and had gone so far as to call him a rotten bastard two or three times in Emily’s hearing. Still, it seemed to her unlikely that he would do that if he had already taken the man’s life.
Bruns put the greasepaint back in the kit and picked up the metal tray that held it. What did he expect to find underneath? The murder weapon? A written confession? “Miss Daggett, your new star is a murderous Bolshevik fruit. He and McHenry were lovers. Of course he killed him.”
“I don’t follow your logic, Mr. Bruns. Besides, it was my understanding from things Mr. Levin said to me that Mr. McHenry never enjoyed his favors. To me it seems far more likely that the mystery man who came to see him every Friday night is the guilty party.”
“What mystery man?”
“Boris says he met some man every Friday, when Boris had the night off.”
“Boris says. Of course we take his word for it, this person with whom you are inordinately, I might say, indecently, friendly.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, what am I to think? I come in here and the man is putting his clothes back on.”
Emily sighed. “Mr. Bruns, I know you are a person of enormous worldliness and sophistication, but you’re not familiar with the habits of stage folks. Naked, clothed, it’s all the same to us. Our bodies are mere instruments.”
He put a handful of brushes back in the makeup kit and closed it with a bang. “I’m learning fast. You people are as loony as those Theosophists.” Boris’s broad-brimmed hat attracted his attention next. He poked under the hatband, his nose wrinkled with distaste. “I must confess I’m at a loss to understand what you see in this fellow.”
“I don’t see anything in him. I certainly don’t see him murdering his employer.”
“Why are you so determined to defend him?”
“He’s an actor. I like actors, even though they tend to be—”
“Defective human beings.”
“I was going to say, unconscious of what’s really going on around them. They wrap themselves up in fantasies. I’ve never known a real actor to kill anyone.”
“And you are certainly a woman of broad experience.”
“I talk to Boris because Boris knows a lot about Ross McHenry. In his dizzy way he seems to have kept a close eye on him. He told me a great deal about his habits.”
“You like him as a source. I can understand that. But why do you want him working for Carl Laemmle?”
Could Bruns have forgotten that Emily came to Hollywood to direct moving pictures? Patiently, she explained: “If Boris doesn’t take over Ross McHenry’s role in Dark Star of India, Mr. Laemmle may never finish the picture, and the studio may never go on to make Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. If that happens I’ll have no movie to direct. I need Jinks.”
“What for?”
“For one thing, I just hired four actresses for it. If they don’t get the work, they’ll starve.”
“You really want to direct pictures.”
“Well, yes.”
So there he sat, staring at the toes of his boots, evidently trying to understand why Emily would want to be anything other than a detective, until Boris came back from his screen test and began to peel off his Indian prince costume. Then Bruns shifted his gaze to Emily and raised his eyebrows expectantly. What could she do? She left the room. It was the only decent thing.
TWELVE
The screen test was sufficiently successful for Mr. Laemmle to offer Boris a contract on the strength of it. With Dark Star of India proceeding on schedule Emily dared to hope that the studio would soon be ready to film Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines.
Holbert Bruns was still unhappy with this arrangement when Mr. Laemmle told him of it at their regular morning meeting. “Before you sign Boris Levin to a contract, there’s something you may want to consider, Mr. Laemmle,” he said. “Levin might have murdered Ross McHenry.”
“Is there any evidence of this?”
“He was working as McHenry’s yard boy; he makes no secret of the fact that he hated him; naturally—”
“Not naturally. What you say is nonsense, Mr. Bruns. I am not paying you to spout nonsense. The talent of Boris Levin is essential to finishing Dark Star of India. Because we have him, we will save close to a million dollars in losses. How can he be guilty of murder? It’s not possible.”
“But motive, opportunity, everything points—”
“Furthermore Marilyn Slater has expressed a great fondness for this man. A studio romance. The box office potential is stupendous.”
“Can I hire some actresses for Jinks now?” Emily said, stepping forward. “These girls are lovely, clever young persons with experience in the stage production. They need money right away.” In fact they were waiting in the commissary.
“No. Not until Dark Star of India is finished and the scandal with McHenry dies down.”
“But that could be—”
“It is way too soon to hire actresses.”
“But—”
“I’ll tell you what you can do, Miss Daggett, to hasten this process. You can go out to the Glendale Sanitarium this afternoon and see Miss de Long. Woman to woman. Tell her about the picture.”
“So we’re actually waiting for her to recover? Wouldn’t it make more sense to hire another—”
“No, no. Our Little Babs can handle it. She’ll be up and around in no time at all. Get Eddie to drive you out to Glendale this afternoon. I’ll call the sanitarium and tell them you’re coming. Give her a nice pep talk. Cheer her up. Tell her the part is waiting for her. Tell her to get well soon.”
“Yes, sir.” Emily doubted that anything she would be able to deliver in the way of a pep talk would have much effect on the girl, not if she were as badly off as Bruns thought. Still, she would at least get to talk to her. Ever since Flagstaff she had wanted to talk to her. Or listen to her. Some story worth hearing was behind those haunted eyes.
“And no more from either one of you about murder. Ross McHenry was not murdered.”
“Yes, sir,” they said.
* * *
The girls still waited in the commissary, looking hungry, goggling at all the film stars, and twittering among themselves.
“Did you see that, Etta? It was King Baggot.”
“He winked at you, Wanda.”
“He never. Did he?”
“Are these your actresses?” Holbert Bruns said.
“They’re really extremely steady girls.”
“You’d better tell them, then.”
Emily made introductions: “Etta Sweet, Wanda Rose, Gertrude Canty, this is Holbert Bruns, my boss.”
“Not Baby Wanda Rose?” Bruns said.
“Tell us what?” Gertrude said.
“Do I look like a baby to you?” Wanda said.
“Tell us what?” Gertrude repeated.
“Mr. Laemmle won’t let you have screen tests yet,” Emily said. “Production of Jinks has been postponed.”
“Well, darn. What are we going to do for lunch?” Gertrude said. “They won’t feed us at the boardinghouse until suppertime.”
“You’re staying in a boardinghouse now?” Emily said.
“You know Millie, Mr. Laemmle’s receptionist? She got her landlady to rent us a room,” Wanda said.
“It’s quite nice,” Etta said. “If a bit small for the three of us.”
“We told the old lady we were going to get paid today,” Wanda said. “I guess we lied.”
Emily took Bruns aside. “You once told me a woman could go places you couldn’t go,” she said.
“True.”
“Three women can go three places you can’t go.”
“I can’t argue with that, Miss Daggett.” He stared at the actresses, rubbing his chin, pursing his lips. “Are you ladies sober and industrious?” he said finally.
Gertrude spoke up. “If it will get us lunch.”
“Mr. Bruns is going to buy you lunch. Isn’t that so, Mr. Bruns? And then he’s going to put you on the payroll as confidential operatives.”
Etta was outraged. “Oh, no, you don’t. If I wanted that kind of life I could have stayed in Flagstaff with the cowboys.”
“No, no. Nothing like that. We’re investigating a murder. Don’t mention it to a soul. You’re all going to be detectives now, the Vine Street Irregulars.” Etta and Wanda exchanged suspicious glances. “It’s a literary allusion,” Emily said.
Bruns insisted on a training session before he would call them his employees. “You, too, Miss Daggett. You’re carrying around a gun that you don’t know how to shoot.” He took them to the IMP back lot, a scruffy, weed-grown yard, where he made them all fire at a tomato can he set up on a pile of hay bales.
Emily, the first to try, used Billie Burke’s little pearl-handled five-shooter with the disappearing trigger. Even though she had only the vaguest idea of how it worked, she felt a curious intimacy with the thing. She was expecting the recoil, having shot a gun once before—the time she blasted Grogan in the foot—but she was surprised at how easy it was to aim it using the gun sight. Hitting a tomato can dead center was effortless, even at forty feet; she simply thought of Adam and drew a bead. Sometimes she imagined Agnes Gelert’s face. Too bad there were only five shots.
The other girls took their turns, using the Browning automatic that Bruns kept holstered against his chest. Whether it was her particular firearm or some innate skill she had, Emily proved to be the best shot of all of them. After the shooting was over Bruns showed her how to clean her gun safely and gave her a new box of ammunition.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Had it around. Thirty-two caliber rimfire, same as mine.”
He kept a set of lock picks in his jacket pocket. They took turns using it on the back door of the studio. Gertrude learned the lock picks faster than any of them, so fast that Emily had a moment of wondering what she used to do for a living before she became an actress. The others weren’t bad either, with their dexterous little hands, nor was Emily when her turn came, though none of the women was as quick as Bruns at popping the lock open.
Etta was the last to finish; she was perspiring profusely. “Do we get certificates now?”
“You won’t need them,” Bruns said. “You’ll be real detectives when you can keep your eyes and ears open, lie like rugs, and run like thieves. That’s all you need.”
“When do we get paid?” Gertrude said.
“Right now.” He gave them each five dollars, an awful lot of money.
“And what do we have to do for this?” Gertrude said.
“Get on the Vine Street Red Car and go up to Krotona. Miss Daggett can’t do that anymore; they know her.”
“To look for what?” Gertrude said.
“Ross McHenry’s killer. But keep quiet about it.”
Etta shook her head. “I thought they said he—”
“As far as the public knows his death was an accident. Mr. Laemmle wants them to continue to believe this. But Ross McHenry was gunned down in his bedroom, probably on the night of April twenty-fourth, by a person or persons unknown.”
“Well, but how can we—”
“I want you to go up to the street where he lived and talk to his neighbors. Find out whether anyone saw or heard anything suspicious that night. Or at any other time. But don’t tip them off about the murder. You’re smart girls. Go on up there and be clever. And be careful. Anyone you talk to could be a killer.”
“Don’t we need guns, then?” Etta said.
“I shouldn’t think so. Stay where people can see you. If you don’t look threatening you should be fine.” He told them the address of McHenry’s house on Temple Hill Drive.
“No guns,” Etta said, crestfallen, as the Irregulars filed out the door.
His new assistants gone, Holbert Bruns stared thoughtfully at Emily. Clearly it was time for her to leave, but before she could make her escape Bruns sat down on the hay bale, pushing the battered tomato can aside, and patted the spot next to himself. “Have a seat, Miss Daggett. You and your actress friends did very well today.”
“Thank you,” she said, and settled her bottom on the prickly hay.
“Very well indeed. You particularly. I never would have figured you for a markswoman.”
“Must be the pistol,” she said. “It feels very … I don’t know … friendly in my hand.”
“You can make better friends than that.” He took out his pipe and performed his slow ritual of lighting it, putting the match out with care so as not to set the hay on fire. “I don’t know whether I’ve told you how pleased I am to have you working with me on this case. A girl of your intelligence and nerve can have any sort of life she wants here in California. I hope you’re aware of that.”
“The life I want is in pictures. I can have that in California or back east in New Jersey, the way I used to.”
“You might reconsider,” he said. “The future of the private investigation business is wide open in Los Angeles. There’s no limit to what an energetic detective agency can achieve here.”
“The Energetic Detective Agency,” Emily said. “Has a nice ring to it.”
“Quite seriously, Miss Daggett, it appears that I now have four operatives working for me, thanks to you, and even though they’re all women I think it’s a good beginning.”
“But what we all really want to do is to work in moving pictures.”
“You might not succeed in pictures. Sometimes people don’t. In case things don’t work out— Gertrude is a smart girl, don’t you think?”
“Gertrude is a stunning beauty and a clever actress. If she isn’t a star in six months’ time I’ll be surprised.”
“She was good with the lock picks.”
“If you’re looking for help in the detective business, Mr. Bruns, Etta is your woman. That’s my opinion, anyway. She notices things, and she shoots pretty well, too, as I’m sure you’ll agree.”
“But not you.”
“All I want to do is direct moving pictures.”
“Why?”
How to explain to a detective a desire to make art? “When you’re on a case, you have a mystery to solve, isn’t that so? You have a group of people to work with, and your work is to discover what’s in their hearts. Some will be innocent, some guilty. You find out the truth.”
“I suppose that’s the way it is, yes.”
“When I’m on a picture, the important thing is what’s in my heart. I already have the truth of things, artistically speaking, and my work is to use the actors, the cameramen, the sets, and the lighting to make images on the screen that will convey this truth to an audience.”
“I see. You’re not happy unless you’re the boss.”
“Maybe that’s it.”
“It’s a very masculine view of life.”
“Be that as it may, it’s my view.”
“But you do so well adapting to uncertain circumstances and threats of danger. No, I mean it, Miss Daggett. This is an unusual quality in a woman. Sometimes I think you’re the most valuable assistant I’ve ever had.” He took a puff of his pipe. “I’ll miss you when this case is all cleared up and you go off to be a director.”
“Well, thank you.” That old feeling of magnetism was rolling off him again. They were sitting too close. Something told her it would be good to kiss him now. She said to herself, No it wouldn’t, it would be ill-timed, problematical, and ultimately ruinous. She gathered her hat and handbag.
“In any case I hope you’ll consider my offer. I’m willing to give you all the autonomy you want. Personal and professional. Personal and professional.”
