George Kaufman and playwright Mary Chase. Happily, Josephine reprised her Broadway role in the movie, garnered a Best Supporting Actress Oscar this past March, and I welcomed the chance to see the talented woman playing the sister of daffy Elwood P. Dowd, a man whose imaginary best friend is a pooka named Harvey.
Jimmy Stewart’s antics were a welcome tonic after the last couple of tense days, an antidote to the Hollywood wars I’d encountered. Weak from laughter, I realized how much I needed that diversion. I rarely went to the movies. Stage plays, yes, on the arm of George Kaufman or Noel Coward or Moss Hart. But Times Square movies held little attraction for me. I’d never seen the film version of my
Strolling out of the Wiltern, we bumped into one another, silly and giggly, malt shop girls. It felt good, that feeling: getting old somehow meant that it was too easy to forget how to laugh. A rabbit everyone was hungry to see taught me a lesson.
Not wanting the evening to end, Lorena insisted we return to the Paradise for a nightcap, but Alice was anxious about Max and begged off, waving goodbye to us. “Please, Edna,” Lorena insisted. “Join me.” So…yes, why not? One drink. A little sherry. “It will help you sleep.”
A few stragglers lounged at the bar, but all the dining tables were empty, some of the chairs upended on them. Ethan was packing away the ledgers, capping his fountain pen, but seemed glad to see us. He called out to the bartender, “Harry, tell them about Sophie.” He pushed an empty high-ball glass to the edge of the table.
Harry walked out from behind the bar, a broad smile covering his face. He placed tumblers of sherry before us. Yawning, stretching, Ethan yawned and nudged a snoring Tony, his body slumped back in the booth. Harry was a large pot-bellied man with a walrus-moustache and side-of-beef hands, and he seemed eager to share his tale. “By the time the birthday cake was lit, this woman-Sophie, Ethan told me she was-is in a huff with this other gray- haired lady, the two swearing back and forth like combat troops. And Sophie starts grunting and heaving and springs forward, and, you know, she takes her huge black pocket book and swings it over the table.” He shook his head as he demonstrated the move. “Like
Ethan stood. “Close up, Harry. Lorena, take care of the safe, okay? I gotta get Tiny Sparks home to his lovely.”
Tony opened his eyes, a wistful smile on his lips. He let out a chuckle, and I wondered whether he’d heard Harry’s story about Sophie. Harry helped Ethan hoist him out of the booth, and Tony, spotting us sipping sherry, wanted to know if we’d read what Louella Parsons had written. Or at least that is what I believed he muttered at us-a mess of syllables strung together. Harry held onto his shoulders, while Ethan secured his ledgers behind the bar.
“Yes,” Ethan told him, “they’ve read it. I have. We have. All of L.A. has. Even, I gather, Sophie has.”
“Why?” I asked Tony, who ignored me.
Harry was grinning. “You should have seen it, ladies.”
“What got her so mad?” I asked Ethan.
He started pushing Tony toward the door, his fist in the small of his brother’s back. Harry balanced him. “From what I could hear, one of her friends made a catty remark about Max making a fool of her, stringing her along. Something real foolish. All it took was the mention of Louella’s name to start the fireworks.” He shoved his brother forward. “You can walk on your own, Tony. I’m not gonna carry you.” He pulled on his sleeve. “You’re not the first person to lose a job.”
I said good night, thanks for everything, lovely, lovely, and insisted I could walk the half-block back to my hotel. Outside, my sweater pulled tight against the night chill, my clutch held securely against my side, I heard a horn blare. Ethan passed by, Tony in the passenger seat, his head thrown back in blissful sleep. I watched as Ethan waved his hand in the darkness.
At 12:05 that night, roused from by bed at the Ambassador by a call from a sputtering Sol Remnick, I heard those awful words. “Max is dead.” Then: “He was murdered.”
Chapter Seven
I sat with Alice and Sol in the living room of the bungalow. Sol had let me in and told me that Alice had asked him to call me because she wanted me there. The dark room was darker now, the burgundy curtains closed. A table lamp was switched on. From where I sat, I could see the closed door of the workroom, a Do Not Enter notice sealing it off. I shuddered but couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“Max let the person in,” Sol was saying.
“What?” I roused myself.
“The door was locked, not smashed in. The windows were all locked. The police checked. Max was in his study, probably talking to someone.”
Alice mumbled, “He was supposed to be sleeping in bed.”
“Someone knocked on his door when Lorena was talking to him. He must have let that person in then.” A pause. “Someone he knew.”
Alice was frowning. “Maybe not. He could have opened the door, and the person forced him into the workroom. They had a gun.”
No, I thought. That was impossible. Max would not allow his own execution. He was too careful after receiving death threats. Alice was thinking like a Mafia bride.
I brewed tea in the kitchen, carried it in on a tray, and handed filled cups to Alice and Sol. Sol placed his on a small end table while Alice, wrapping her fingers around the cup, sipped hers slowly. She was waking up, her eyes looking at me, red-rimmed, blank.
Sitting mutely on the sofa, she was still dressed in the frilly summer dress she’d worn last night to the movies. She’d slept in it-or maybe she hadn’t slept at all. Now it was rumpled, one sleeve slipping off her shoulder so that the strap of her slip showed. A ravaged face, tear streaked, her evening makeup splotchy on her cheeks and under her tired eyes.
“Alice, I’m so sorry,” I mumbled again.
She held out her hand and I took it. I settled in next to her, cradling her body.
She trembled, her teeth chattering, but then, facing me, she said in a mechanical voice, “They didn’t have to kill him.”
Sol jerked his head up and down. “Alice, the police will take care of this.”
Sol’s face looked haggard, his eyes moist. Every so often a shiver passed through his body, his sighs deep and scary.
“They’?” I asked her.
She gripped my wrist. “He had too many enemies. How will they know who did it?”
Sol stood and paced the floor, finally stopping in front of us. We both looked up at him, this squat bulky man who started to tremble. Something was on his mind as he rubbed his chin with an index finger.
“Alice, why did you call Larry Calhoun last night?”
An untoward question, so far as I was concerned, and it struck Alice the same way. “What?”
“When you called me last night, you told me you had tried to reach Larry, but he wasn’t home. Then you called me. I told you to call the police.” His raspy voice was oddly petulant, questioning.
She shrugged and glanced at me. “Really, I don’t know, Sol. I saw Max lying there, I dropped the gun, and I…I thought first he was sleeping and then there was that hole in his head, the clot of blood on his hair, and…I got numb…I had to reach someone.”
“But Larry?”
Alice looked perplexed. “Suddenly I couldn’t remember your number, or Larry’s, or anyone’s. I wasn’t even
