Make Believe

Frank, Ava, and I approached the landmark I mocked its garish exterior: that Stan Laurel derby perched atop a building already fashioned after a derby. I was sitting in the rear seat of Frank’s Cadillac convertible and had insisted he put the top up. I was in no mood for a breezy joyride.

Frank turned back to me and laughed. “Edna, people travel across America to eat this expensive food.”

To which I replied, “Must we be part of that mindless herd?”

Inside the eatery, snuggled into a small room where we could still hear the hum of diners nearby, I noticed the decor was merely a hiccough of the larger room: the worn red banquettes, the glittery crystal chandeliers, walls covered with caricatures of the famous and not-so-famous-anymore celebrities.

When we were alone, Ava reached over and grasped my hand. “I can’t believe you’re leaving so soon, Edna. I’ve come to rely on you.”

“You’ll have to visit me in New York, Ava.”

She nodded. “Of course. You know, I’m still afraid to stop in to see Alice. Whenever I turn around, there’s a photographer lurking nearby.”

Frank sat with his hands resting on the table, his eyes focused on Ava. He spoke quietly. “I’ve told her not to go.”

Ava narrowed her eyes. “I’ll do what I want, Francis.” But she pulled back. “I don’t want cameras flashing around Alice. She has enough to deal with.” She shuddered and said, strangely, “Max is not supposed to be dead.”

We stopped talking as a waiter knocked, entered, bowed deeply to us as he was walking in. I thought of movie scenes in which the royal factotum salaamed his way before the king, then backed out, apologizing, groveling. No eye contact. Well, this bronzed young man didn’t approach that caricature but he did warrant an Oscar nomination for servile flattery. Each menu was dispensed quickly but with a flourish. “Miss Gardner.” A Prussian bow. “Mr. Sinatra.” A similar bow. Then a short, barely perceptible pause. “Madam…” A pause, then, “Ah, Miss…Ferber.” Well trained and briefed. I like that in a man.

But the only one he looked at was Ava Gardner.

And I didn’t blame him. Tonight she was dressed in a strapless ivory and gold silk cocktail dress, with a cut- jade silver necklace. Quite striking, indeed. My simple black dress with the three strands of pearls and the modest onyx brooch made no statement at all that registered on Hollywood’s glitter meter.

Ava was in a mood to reminisce about Max, and she shared some stories I’d not heard before: how he appeared as an extra in the background in Jungle Book in 1942, dragged in for a crowd scene at the last moment by director Zoltan Korda, a reluctant Max who looked very unhappy holding a basket cradled against his chest. He’d worked on the soundtrack for the Kipling adaptation. She recalled being with Max in a Montgomery Ward in Fresno where the saleslady kept saying, “You don’t look like Ava Gardner.” Late one night Max appeared at her Nichols Canyon home because he dreamed she was in trouble and she wasn’t answering her phone.

Another time he showed up at Ava and her sister Bappie’s apartment, surprising Ava on her Christmas Eve birthday with an autographed photograph of Clark Gable, Ava’s long-time hero. This was long before she was famous, of course-when she was a fifty-dollar-a-week starlet living in a cheap hotel, the Hollywood Wilcox. Max had personally knocked on Gable’s dressing room door. The joke, realized later, was that Gable, in a hurry, had signed the photo “To Eva,” which Max didn’t realize until back in his office. Ava, of course, cherished the error.

“Bappie and I grilled hamburgers, played rummy, and listened to the radio. I was in bed by nine because I had to catch three buses out to Culver City.” Her eyes got moist. “Max warned me about Hollywood, especially the old lechers like Mayer who groped the girls, even little girls like Judy Garland. He told me-just slap them. They only understand violence.”

Frank said nothing the entire time Ava rambled on, a monologue punctuated now and then by my occasional interjection. Obviously she needed to do this…this beautiful ramble, heartfelt, and finally, her eyes closed, she stopped, slumped in her seat.

Frank poured from the bottle of champagne the waiter delivered and seemed to be waiting for something to happen. At last, Ava smiled thinly at me, a wistful smile, and sipped her drink. We ordered Cobb salads because that’s what you ordered there, in the eatery where it was first created.

As we ate, I noticed Ava got more and more agitated, picking up her fork, putting it down, leaning forward toward me, drawing back, jittery. “What, Ava?”

She shook her head and her eyes got dreamy.

“Something is going on,” I insisted.

When I looked at Frank, he was sitting back in his seat, arms wrapped around his chest, rocking his body. He didn’t take his eyes off her. What he doubtless saw was what I was seeing now: that beautiful face trembling.

Finally Frank looked at me. “Ava is going nuts over Lee Mortimer’s column in the Mirror. The tide seems to be turning against me.”

“But there’s no proof,” I protested.

She shook her head vigorously. “Does it matter out here?” She swung around and looked into his emotionless face. “Francis did not kill Max.” A deep intake of breath. “He didn’t murder my friend.” She reached for a cigarette and lit it with a shaking hand. I wondered why Frank didn’t light it for her, the gentlemanly gesture. But he seemed frozen in that chair, save for the maddening tapping of an index finger against his chest.

“They’re rumors, Ava.”

“This afternoon at Metro, in my dressing room after I saw you, I was leafing through a pile of clippings Publicity sent over, like ads for Lustre Creme Shampoo.” A fuzzy grin. “‘Ava Gardner of Show Boat uses Lux soap.’ Really insipid stuff. It piles up. Fan magazine hype-‘Trying to De-Glamorize Ava Gardner, Hollywood’s Toughest Job.’ Nonsense like that. They send it over, and I file it all away. But under that pile someone had maliciously slipped Mortimer’s vicious column.” She shook her head back and forth. “And someone scribbled on it: ‘Frankie Boy is a killer, you witch.’”

Frank said nothing, just picked at his salad.

“Lord,” I said. “Such mean-spirited folks.”

“I don’t like where this is heading. I always felt safe in my dressing room.”

“Ignore it, Ava.”

Frantic, “I can’t.”

“You can’t stop people from being vile or sneaky.”

Her eyes got wide, saucer-like, moons in that stunning face. “I didn’t ask for any of this.” She paused. “But what if the rumors don’t stop…poor Francis.”

Frank made a grunting sound, unpleasant.

Ava touched his sleeve but he didn’t move. It was as if he wanted to be invisible, away from there, perhaps out in the night desert, driving, driving.

It now struck me that Frank had said little during Ava’s lament for a lost Max, as well as her frenzied recounting of the circulating rumors. Just that one sentence. He sat there, leaning forward to sip his champagne, and watched, quietly, sullenly. A curious passivity, as though this had nothing to do with him.

I looked at Frank. “Well, you did threaten to kill him.”

Casually, “I threaten to kill a lot of people. Mostly photographers. And I did knock Lee Mortimer around at Ciro’s one night. Since then, he’s always had it in for me.”

“Perhaps you should stop, Frank.”

“People bring out the worst in me. They make me mean.” He chuckled and reached for his drink.

Ava hurriedly said, “Francis, be serious. This is serious.”

“I didn’t kill him. I had nothing against Max. End of story.”

“But the world”-she actually pointed at the closed door, beyond which we could hear the murmur of voices-“thinks differently, Francis.” Now she turned to me. “Mortimer talked about underworld gangland shootings. Lenny Pannis and his goons.”

“My brother.”

“A thug.”

Frank bristled. “Hey, you’re talking about me as though I’m not here. I happen to like them. They’re brothers.”