Crime of Their Life (14 page)

“And what was I doing on board?”

“I thought you were spying on him—and me.” She took a swallow from the glass. “When I found out that Landers was a private detective and that there was a chance he might have been murdered—” She dropped her voice, satisfied herself no one was paying them any particular attention. “I was afraid maybe—"

“The captain had him killed and I was sent to pin it on him?”

A faint flush rose from the actress’s neck. “It does sound stupid when you say it like that, doesn’t it?” She dropped her eyes. “I was particularly anxious that there should be no trouble, no scandal. Captain Rose will be retiring in two more years—” She looked up. “A scandal now could ruin him. I’d do anything to prevent that. I—I’m very fond of Captain Rose.”

Liddell considered it, nodded his head. “But?”

“Must there be a but?”

Liddell grinned. “There usually is.” He turned, glanced down the bar to where Lewis Herrick was nursing a drink.

The actress’s eyes followed his, she looked from Herrick to Liddell and back. “You can’t be serious. Herrick? And me? I wouldn’t admit this to everyone, but I’m closer to being his mother than his sweetheart.”

Liddell shook his head. “Not Herrick and you. Carson and you.”

The actress stared at him slack jawed. It took her a moment to recover and the disdainful smile she worked on didn’t come off. “How did you ever arrive at that ridiculous conclusion?”

“The fact that you and Herrick belong together like vinegar and cream, yet you’re apparently inseparable. And the added fact that there’s usually a third person bringing up the rear. It’s an old institution, the beard.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s a beard?”

Liddell grinned at her. “That good an actress you’re not, Robin. The beard has been a respected Hollywood and Broadway institution for too many years for you not to know what it is. But just to refresh your memory, it’s like this—a guy is hung up on a girl and for one reason or another he can’t advertise it. So he makes sure never to be seen alone with her, always with another guy. Everybody’s supposed to believe that it’s the other guy who’s making the play. He’s the beard.”

Robin Lewis smiled ruefully. “I might have known we couldn’t fool somebody like you.” Her eyes searched his face. “You don’t think Fran has seen through it, do you?”

Liddell shook his head. “She doesn’t have the benefit of my suspicious nature.”

“She’s the reason for it, of course. Carson hasn’t seen much of her in the past few years and his conscience is hurting. He wants to be sure everything is all right with her.”

“You knew Eldridge before now?”

“Casually. He’s sailed on the
Queen
several times that I’ve been on her, but we never really got to know each other until this trip. We’re both at the captain’s table this time. Other times he preferred to stay by himself.” She drained her glass, set it down.

“Can I get you a refill?” Without waiting for an answer, Johnny flagged down Cyril, indicated the empty glass. The bartender nodded his understanding, started building a drink at the other end of the bar.

Robin brought a cigarette from her bag, screwed it into her holder. Cyril shuffled down the bar, set her drink in front of her, offered her a light. He seemed well repaid with her smile, backed away out of earshot.

Robin dropped her voice. “You can understand why I was so determined there would be no scandal connecting me with Delmar. The girl never understands.”

“Understands what?”

The actresses looked uncomfortable. “She mightn’t understand her father being hung up, as you say, on a Robin Lewis. She might think it was an insult to the memory of her mother. That’s why I need time to kind of win her respect and affection.”

Liddell nodded his understanding. “And the captain?” Robin filled her lungs with smoke, blew a feathery stream ceilingward. “Delmar would never do anything that would interfere with my happiness. But I was terrified at the thought of some unscrupulous private detective digging up dirt that would ruin everything.”

“You think Carson would walk away from it if he thought there was ever anything between you and Captain Rose. That it?”

Robin crushed out her cigarette in an ash tray, stared at the wisp of smoke that rose from the flattened butt. “I don’t think it will make any difference. I haven’t discussed it with him yet, but I will.” She looked up at Liddell, worked at a smile that didn’t quite come off. “It’s the girl I’m most concerned about right now. I’m sure that when the time comes and Carson and I talk things over that he’s a man of the world enough to understand.” The smile grew wistful, she studied Liddell’s face. “Don’t you?”

Liddell considered it. “I don’t know how much of a man of the world you’d have to be to have the woman you’re going to marry admit that she’d been playing house for years with a mutual acquaintance. Some men find it hard to understand.”

Robin took a swallow of her drink. “He knows how many years I spent in Hollywood. He can’t be naive enough to expect me to be a virgin.”

She had often wondered how many people who had never been through the Hollywood casting-couch routine could understand. In a town filled with girls who were sixteen, looked twenty-one and acted like thirty, who were ready, willing and anxious to jump into the arms of anyone who could help them get that “big break,” competition could get deadly. Beauty was so common that it was no longer a marketable commodity and the criterion of a newcomer’s ability was her versatility in bed or her ability to read her lines from the star’s dressing room ceiling during “rehearsals.”

Robin Lewis had been thrown into the Hollywood mill fresh from drama classes at the University of Southern Cal. The play had been a success, so had Robin. When she returned to her sorority house that night, the message was waiting for her. They wanted her in Hollywood. How soon could she get there?

After she had signed the standard starlet contract they held out to her that first day at the studio, she found out that starlets are creatures paid to look beautiful, be available and give visiting bigwigs something to remember the town by. The only pictures they get to make are the ones in the girlie magazines that are banned from their hometown newsstands.

She had met Pete House at one of the parties she was expected to attend to earn her $75 a week. Pete was an agent and he had connections. But he had the same idea about what makes a star that everybody else had. Looks, ability, were a must—but to get her name up on the marquee, a girl needed a certain something more. He introduced Robin around to a coterie of producers and directors and briefed her before each party how she was to act and for whom. But at the crucial moment, she had always backed out.

Pete had even found her a roommate, a veteran starlet who had worked the Hollywoods for years with no visible progress aside from a few seminude shots in man magazines. As the weeks stretched into months and Robin’s fund dwindled with her opportunities, Marla Quinn, her roommate, started staking her. Robin always protested that she would pay her back, but the weekly $75 never seemed enough for more than wardrobe and taxi fares.

One night, returning from a late date, Robin started to enter the apartment when the door was opened from the inside. A fat old man, white bristles glistening on his unshaven chin and jowls, walked out. He looked her over appreciatively, turned back to Marla who stood inside the door, her housecoat held together by her hands. “This is your roommate, huh?” His eyes traveled from the top of Robin’s head to her toes. “You’ve been holding out on me.” He twisted his slack lips into a grin at Robin, “We should know each other better, doll. I’m your landlord.” Robin stepped into the apartment, closed the door behind her. She stared at her roommate, who shrugged. “It’s better than getting put out into the street. We owe a couple month’s rent.” She turned, walked over to the small bar against the wall, held a bottle up to the light, found it empty. From two other bottles, she managed to scrape up the makings of a drink. Then she turned to face Robin. “Well, go ahead and say it.”

Robin shook her head. “I didn’t know. I can’t let you do things like that for me, Marla.”

Marla drained the glass, set it down. She smiled glumly. “I wasn’t doing it for you, kid. I was doing it for myself. I get allergic to sleeping in doorways. But just so you shouldn’t feel too bad about it, next time he comes to collect, it’s on you.” She turned, headed into her room and closed the door.

Robin walked to the phone, dialed Pete’s number. His sleepy voice answered, demanded if the caller knew what time it was, permitted himself to be placated by the news it was Robin.

“That Marc Jerome you were talking about. The big producer. When can I meet him, Pete?”

Pete sighed. “Look, honey, I can’t keep setting these things up. Sure, once it’s good for a laugh—a real honest-to-God Hollywood virgin. But these guys, they want a laugh, they tune in Bob Hope. From you they want a little action.”

“Jerome can get me some parts?”

There was a pause at the other end. “He’s a big wheel right now. He says you work, you work. But you got to cooperate, kid.” There was an apologetic note in his voice. “I don’t make the rules. It’s his studio, he makes them.”

“I want to meet him. As soon as possible.”

“Okay. But, kid—Jerome is real big. Big enough to get away with a lot of things in this town. You hang him up” —she could visualize the shrug—“he might play real rough.”

“I won’t hang him up. You make the date.” She dropped the receiver on its hook, turned to find Marla standing in the doorway to her room, leaning against the jamb.

“Now you’re making sense, kid,” she approved. “Maybe it’s not the way they do things back where you came from, but out here it’s not what you can do but who you can do it for that counts.” She looked down at herself, flattened the robe against her thickening midsection. “Me, I guess I never had it. I never got past assistant directors and a couple of publicity men.” She rolled her eyes up to Robin. “You work on that slob, Jerome, and work on him good, honey. This is your big chance. Make it pay.”

Marc Jerome had been what Robin Lewis had expected. Free with promises, fumbling in his performance, demanding. When he handed her the twenty “for cab fare” that night, he promised to get in touch with her again.

But for days she heard nothing. When she tried to reach him on the phone, he was never in. Pete was apologetic, but helpless. As an agent, he couldn’t take on one of the biggest producers in town. He offered to introduce her to other producers, directors or even assistant directors, all of whom were in a position to give her work from time to time. On the advice of the more experienced Marla Quinn, Robin held out for Marc Jerome.

It was Marla Quinn who finally broke the impasse. Two weeks after Robin’s date with Jerome, Marla picked up the telephone, dialed Magna Studios and asked for Marc Jerome. The icy voice of his secretary came across the wire, informed her that Mr. Jerome was unavailable and expected to be tied up in the foreseeable future.

“That’s too bad,” Marla cooed in an approximation of Robin’s voice. “I wanted to invite him to my birthday party. My eighteenth birthday. My lawyer and a lot of other people will be so disappointed not to be able to meet him socially.”

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Jerome doesn’t—” The icy voice broke off. “Your what?”

“My eighteenth birthday. I’ll be eighteen in a couple of weeks.”

There was a stricken note in the secretary’s voice. “I’ll try to get your message to Mr. Jerome,” she promised.

Marla dropped the receiver back on its hook, grinned at Robin.

“I’m almost twenty-one and you know it,” Robin told her.

“I know it and you know it,” the roommate told her. “But Jerome doesn’t. And he can’t take any chances. If it did turn out that you were San Quentin quail—”

“You don’t think he’ll fall for it?”

Marla checked her wristwatch. “It’s 10:30 now. You’ll hear from him before lunch.”

It was exactly 11:47 when the phone rang.

“Robin?” Marc Jerome’s voice was wheezy, as though choked by the fat of his jowls. “This is Marc Jerome.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Robin told him.

“I know, kid, I know. But I’ve been busy trying to get some things lined up for you. Big things.”

“Such as?”

“A test, for one thing. Can you be at the studio on Monday at nine? I think I have just the part to get you under way.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good.” The producer worked on sounding enthusiastic. “And about that party, kid. You’ll understand why I can’t make it? You won’t need any lawyer doing business with Magna. I’ll be watching out for your interests. Okay, kid?”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Jerome.”

The screen test was successful, and so was Robin over a period of years. But then came the day when options weren’t picked up, a couple of bad Broadway plays and a television series that never got beyond a pilot, and Robin Lewis faded from the Hollywood scene.

She had met Delmar Rose, captain of the
Queen Alexandra,
on the cruise she had taken to forget Hollywood. He had been easy to be with, found her company exciting and had invited her to his cabin.

After the fiascoes she had encountered in Hollywood bedrooms, the maleness of the captain had appealed to her. There were no apologies, no self-abasement. The captain was all man and made her feel like a woman. There were no strings attached, no empty protestations of love. It was a man and woman who understood each other and enjoyed each other. On that basis, it became a semiannual event for Robin Lewis to book passage on the
Queen.

“You’re a man of the world, Johnny. So is Delmar Rose and so is Carson Eldridge. Would my past matter that much to you?”

Liddell considered, shrugged. “What a woman did before she knew me wouldn’t count. What would count is how she handled herself after she met me.”

Robin Lewis looked relieved. “I think most real men would feel like that.”

“You can’t judge how one man will react by the way others do,” he warned. “Eldridge and I travel in different social circles. And I don’t have a daughter whose opinion has suddenly become very important to me. But I’m not worried about you, Robin. You’ll land on your feet.” The actress nodded. “I always have.” She studied Liddell’s face. “I’m not worried about me either, but I am worried about you.”