get into this war?”
“You want to live in a world with Hitler on one side of us and T?oj?o on the other?” I asked.
A two-column yarn in the lower left corner of the front page described a near riot caused by America Firsters, pacifists who were against America getting into the war, and a group of American Legionnaires. There was a photo of angry men in overseas caps yelling at a group of businessmen carrying signs that said lindbergh says stay out of europe, and an ugly cartoon of a leering Roosevelt with Death swinging a scythe behind him and a caption that read roosevelt the warmonger.
“Now there’s an irony. A bunch of business types on a picket line calling Roosevelt a warmonger, and the British and Nazis are blowing each other up in the North Sea.”
“Corned beef and cabbage is the special,” Harry said, to loosen up the tension. “I musta had a premonition you were coming, Zee.”
“Sounds good to me,” Millie said, and handed him her menu.
“On two, with draft beer,” I said.
“Splendid,” Harry said, and rushed off to the kitchen to get our dinner.
Millie shuddered. “Every day it’s something awful,” she said, turning her attention back to a war which couldn’t be too far away. “My heart stops every time I see that photograph of the Nazis marching past the Eiffel Tower.” She paused, and added, “You think we’ll get into it, don’t you?”
“Just a question of time.” I nodded.
“Will you have to go?” she asked me.
I shrugged, trying to brush it off.
“Do you remember the war?” she asked.
Did I remember it? Oh, yeah.
“I was nine years old when my father went off to France,” I told her. “I had a poster in my room. Uncle Sam without his top hat and coat. An angry Uncle Sam pointing straight at me and saying ‘I Want You.’ It scared me to look at it. Every day was a dread, every time the telegraph kid came down the street on his bicycle, we prayed it wouldn’t stop at our house. I’d lie in bed at night and cry. I cried every night because I didn’t think it was possible for my father to survive.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching across the table and taking my hand. “Did he?”
“What was left of him,” I said.
I didn’t tell her about the day my dad came home. My dad was a big guy with a crazy Irish sense of humor. The man who got off the train was like a shadow of that man. He had been gassed and it had reduced him to a wraith with sunken eyes who had seen a thousand horrors. His hands shook and he coughed a lot. He couldn’t hold a job. He wouldn’t talk about the war. I know now my dad had been dying. It took him twelve years, but each day he died a little more, until his lungs finally gave out. My mother died along with him. She lasted three years longer, the last two in such misery I still try to block it out of my mind.
This war, when it came, would be worse.
So I just said, “Sometimes I think it would be worse to wait at home than be in the middle of it.”
“I’ve already lost someone in Europe,” she said, staring blankly at the newspaper.
“When?”
“Nineteen forty. My cousin Hugh. Crazy cousin Hugh.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was always crazy about airplanes. Learned to fly when he was a kid. When they formed the Eagle Squadron he raced off to London and joined up. I got a card from him after his first flight. He had shot down a Messerschmitt his first time out and he was so proud. Two days later he went down over France.”
“I’m sorry.” It sounded pitifully inadequate. I decided to lighten things up.
“I saw his picture in the living room. ‘Mill the Pill’?”
It got a laugh out of her.
“That’s what he called me. Hugh was the hell-raiser in the family and I was Miss Proper. Growing up we fought like brother and sister, but when I was a teenager going to school back East he took me in hand.”
“So you turned into a hell-raiser, too?”
“I’m still trying.”
“And what’s the most audacious thing you ever did?”
She thought about it for a full minute.
“I sneaked over the wall at Miss Brownington’s School for Girls and went to see King Kong at the Radio City Music Hall.”
I faked surprise. “Wow!” I said.
“That was a major step for me, sir,” she said haughtily. “I could have been expelled.”
Not likely, I thought. Not when your father owns half of Montana.
The marquee said “Special Preview Tonight” and there was a long line at Grauman’s Theater when we got there, plus the usual crowd of tourists looking at the wide walkway leading to the ticket booth with all the hand- and footprints of the stars immortalized in concrete. Frank was standing in the entrance in his tuxedo, smiling as the paying customers streamed in. He waved us over and led us into an almost full house. There were three rows toward the back roped off in velvet for the special guests.
Most of those seated in the “velvet rows” were studio execs. Producers, flacks, and their friends. The stars, if they showed up, would come in when the house lights dimmed.
Hedy Lamarr came in as the lights lowered, tall, dressed in a white hooded dress, her jet-black hair framing porcelain features. The ice princess, aloof, unreachable, the epitome of a Hollywood glamour queen. Frank unhooked the velvet rope and she took the aisle seat. Her escort, whom nobody noticed, stepped past her and sat down.
Jackie Cooper came in next, accompanied by an older woman I assumed was his mother. I hadn’t seen Cooper in a movie since he was a kid. Now he looked to be about fifteen. Judy Garland came in last, and sat with a small, strange-looking man with bug eyes. The studio people nervously awaited the audience reaction to what was obviously one of their major pictures of the year. James Stewart, Lana Turner, Lamarr, and Garland were the stars. It was terrific. Three young singers and dancers make it big in the Ziegfeld Follies. There was a spectacular Busby Berkeley dance number, but Garland stole the show with a heartbreaking rendition of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.” The picture got a big hand from the audience and the stars slipped out while the cast credits were still rolling.
We stopped to thank Frank and then ran through the first drops of rain to the Phaeton. Big drops began to fall, splattering against the windshield as we got in the car.
“How about a nightcap?” I asked.
She leaned over close to me and said, “That would be very nice.”
Maury’s C-Note was on Santa Monica near Moreland, on the edge of Beverly Hills. Maury Castellano had started the club with a one-hundred-dollar tip from Victor Mature, which he’d gotten when he was maitre d’ at Robie’s Nightclub on Vine, a popular hangout for the movie set. He had used the C-Note to option a large garage and raised money from friends to remodel it. It was a comfortable supper club with pretty good food and a piano bar. The walls were lined with photos of Hollywood’s greats and near-greats.
I let Millie out at the door, parked the car, and ran through the rain to join her.
Maury held down the corner of the main bar and got up to jiggle my elbow when we entered. He did not like to shake hands.
“Hey, Zee, long time no see.” He grinned.
“I’ve been fighting crime,” I said with as straight a face as I could muster, and introduced him to Millie.
He bowed low, made a pass at kissing her hand, and said to me, “The Bucket?” I nodded.
The attraction for aficionados was the back room, where a bass player named Chuck Graves held nightly jam sessions with musician friends. The room had become a spot for big-name musicians to stop by and sit in with Graves’s trio. Chuck’s daytime job was as a studio musician, playing in the orchestra at Columbia Pictures.
The room, located in the rear of the club behind closed doors, was small, a mecca for true jazz lovers who cared more about music than decor and comfort. It seated about fifty people, on bridge chairs. The tables were just big enough to hold a couple of drinks and an ashtray. The place didn’t really get jumping until around midnight but things were lively enough when we entered.
