laced his drawn-out words. “I know you like stories. You make your living at it, no?”
“And a good one, I assure you.”
“I had to be in New York earlier this year. Some work at the Metro offices in Times Square. Frankie happened to be playing a date there. He’d performed somewhere in the city to a half-empty house, which made him depressed as all get out. So one night I went with him out to Hoboken, some rinky-dink piss-water joint where he sang as a favor to some local hood. Well, that night he had no voice, scratchy, off-key. Nothing comes out. A blank. The audience booed and hissed and drove him off the stage.”
Tony interrupted. “Nobody got class there.”
Ethan squinted his eyes. “In Hoboken? Anyway, Frankie, he’s down in the dumps. So that night, back in the city, the two of us are walking through Times Square. A cold March night, snow showers, nippy. Suddenly there’s crowds of screaming, hysterical girls, a wild scene, these girls pushing against a police barricade. Dumbfounded, we stood there. I looked at Frankie and he looked at me. ‘What the hell?’ he asked. And then we looked up at the marquee and you know what it said?”
I shook my head.
“Eddie Fisher. It said Eddie goddamn Fisher. Some new headliner on the block. Fresh-scrubbed, brand-new. I’d never heard of him.”
“And Frank?”
“Frankie got drunk and smashed his fist through a hotel wall. I had to call a doctor.”
“It’s because of Ava,” Tony stammered. “They want that small-town boy who’s wholesome in the tux and bow tie, the boy next store, married to the good Catholic girl. Not a slut who breaks up marriages.”
I rolled my tongue into the corner of my mouth. “Ava is a plain, simple girl right off the farm. At heart.”
“A Jezebel,” Tony thundered. “I used to
“Shut up, Tony,” Ethan said.
“It’s a shame you missed my act at Poncho’s in the Valley, Miss Ferber. My stand-up show. I was damn good.”
Ethan was frowning. “I doubt that Miss Ferber would be entertained by your brand of humor.”
Tony bristled. “
“Tiny, in my social circle I’m the one who delivers the insults. It’s never the other way around.”
Chapter Ten
Desmond Peake stood outside the MGM town car like a ramrod sentry, heels together, arms locked at his side, mirrored sunglasses shielding his eyes. A black double-breasted suit and a shirt so laundry-day white it dazzled. He reminded me of a Prussian extra in an old von Stroheim silent movie-some robotic underling. I feared he’d salute me as I hurried toward the door opened by the Negro chauffeur.
Mr. Peake greeted me with a facile nod, muttered my name, and ushered me into the back seat where he handed me a sheaf of typed sheets, including a publicity release for
He’d called last night to confirm that I’d be at the scheduled private showing of
He’d grumbled and didn’t answer.
“I’m Desmond Peake,” he announced now. “Metro liaison.”
“I know.”
A tall string bean of a man, all joint and angle, pale worm-white skin, splotchy with patches of sickly red. Large, flinty gray eyes, magnified behind enormous black-framed eyeglasses which replaced the sunglasses as he slid into the seat next to me. A thin Clark Gable mustache incongruously plastered to his weak upper lip gave his Ichabod Crane physiognomy a rarefied comic touch. But there was nothing funny about Desmond Peake. Officious, Metro’s gatekeeper for scandal and misdeed. Or so Max had warned me.
“He’s the studio’s favorite interference man, a passionless henchman, a founding member of America First, a watchdog group of right-wing fanatics dedicated to policing Hollywood. He lives and breathes Metro. In fact, when he walked me out of the studio and confiscated my I.D., he did so without speaking more than a few words, a sardonic smile on his face.” He’d chuckled. “You’ll enjoy his company, Edna.”
As the Lincoln town car buzzed down Wilshire Boulevard, sped across white concrete pavement, everything pasty yellow under an early-morning sun, even the ragged palm trees seemed props from a desert melodrama. Unnatural city, imagined, temporary, built up to be torn down. Everyone seemed to change one’s mind a moment later in L.A.
In New York folks believed they got things right the first time. I liked that in a city.
The town car slid out of downtown, headed out to Culver City, Metro’s hundred-acre sprawling world of soundstages, cottages, sandstone buildings, commissaries, imposing walls and gates, fantasy backdrops, a self- contained world of wondrous and gripping story-telling.
“Mr. Peale,” I began, “have you seen
“No.”
“Then you don’t know if it’s good or bad.”
“It’s good.”
I smiled. “Are you certain?”
“Metro makes musicals. The best. And MGM has more stars than there are in heaven.” A mechanical wind-up toy, though one in need of oil.
“I’ve heard that phrase before.”
“I didn’t make it up.”
“Max Jeffries was my good friend.”
“I know.”
“You knew him, right? His name has been taken off the movie. And then someone murdered him.”
Silence for a time, Desmond examining the cut of a particular fingernail, absorbed in the expensive manicure. The corners of his mouth twitched, though he turned his head away.
I cleared my throat. “How well did you know Max?”
A heartbeat passed, awkward. Then that granite head swiveled, his tongue rolling across his lower lip. “Not well.”
“What did you think of his being blacklisted by Metro?”
Another pause. “I think ‘blacklist’ is a harsh and unnecessary word. Too extreme. There is no blacklist in Hollywood.”
Annoyance laced my words. “What would you call it?”
Desmond clicked his tongue. “I wouldn’t call it anything. It’s not my job.”
“Knowing Max, his touch is all over this new
“That may be.”
“And yet he was barred from showing his face in Culver City. By you.”
“Not my decision, Miss Ferber.” He gazed out the window, trying to close off further talk.
I wouldn’t have it. “When a man does work, he should receive credit for that job. His legacy now, his last movie. A man who touched every movie version of
He didn’t answer. Then, a surprising anger in his tone, he faced me. “You don’t understand the climate out here.”
“Meaning?”
“Moscow has tentacles that reach out and grab and…”
“Nonsense. Max was a good American.”
“Good Americans can be duped, manipulated, deceived. Soviet police agents, firebrands.”