Lone Star (22 page)

He stopped. Tansi began to move, and she was furious. She stood in front of Tommy. “This is a crock and you know it. How dare you call Jimmy one of…one of those people.”

Tommy rolled his head back and forth. “I’m sorry to offend the head cheerleader of his fan club…”

He didn’t finish because Tansi had slapped him full in the face.

***

Weary, I stepped into the hotel lobby, after a mournful goodbye to Mercy whose parting words were, “Edna, you do know how to show a girl a good time.” I smiled wistfully. On the drive back no one said a word, with Tansi and Nell silent in the back seat, Tansi still shaking and a little embarrassed. Neither she nor Nell said goodbye, just rushed out of the car.

Jimmy was sitting in the lobby. “Edna,” he called to me. And I started. He’d never used just my first name before. Always Miss Edna. “I’ve been waiting.”

I smiled. “For me? You could have found me where you left me. At your home.”

“I had to get out of there. Everything got wrong there. I had things I wanted to share with you, but Tommy ruined everything.”

“It’s late.”

“Can I talk to you in your room?”

“Not tonight. I’m tired.”

“I…”

“Jimmy.” I was irritated. “You’ll just spend the time talking about yourself—your sad, hapless vision of your sad, hapless life.”

“That’s not fair,” he said, loudly.

“I don’t know what’s fair with you. Just what are the rules? They’re
your
rules in
your
universe. Meanwhile a young woman has been murdered…”

“And you think I don’t care, that I’m
that
selfish?”

“Yes.”

“I…” He stopped.

I sat down in a chair facing him and spoke quietly. “Tommy said some nasty things about you. About your life…your…” I stopped.

“I know, I know. I’ve heard it all before. Tommy gets drunk and always says the same old story. He thinks I’m supposed to be that hayseed kid on a tractor in Fairmount, the two of us ambling past the cemetery and stealing crab apples up the road. You know, I
wasn’t
his friend in Fairmount.”

“He’s your shadow.”

“And that’s driving me crazy. Everybody is driving me crazy.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Leave him behind. I have to.” He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, then put them back on, pushing them up his nose. He looked around. “Yeah, I’ve done a lot of strange things. Hey, what can I say? It’s me. But Tommy makes up a lot of it. You know, I tried to get him bigger roles in
Giant
and
Rebel
. But he’s wooden, phony. He
acts
. It ain’t my fault. He resents me. And I know when he’s drunk it all comes out.”

I stood, turned to go. “Good night, Jimmy.”

“Wait.” He reached into his pocket. “I wanted to give you this book.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not James Whitcomb Riley, all that frost on the pumpkin and jingle, jingle bells and clippity clop, clop…”

He grinned. “No.” He handed me Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s
The Little Prince
. “My favorite book. I give copies to everyone I respect.” I took the volume from him. I’d read it a decade before, vaguely liked it—was oddly not surprised that he was attracted to it.

“It’s a lovely story,” I said.

He touched my sleeve. “It’s me, Edna. A man is stranded in the Sahara after a plane crash, you know, and he meets this alien, the little prince who comes from a planet the size of a home, come to earth to find the secret of life. When I first read it, I found the greatest line: ‘It is only with the heart that one can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’ Think about it, Edna. That’s how to see the world: caring, love—all there inside you. You know, if you ever meet a little man with golden hair, he’s the one, Edna. The little prince. Don’t you see? The beautiful golden-haired prince has come onto Earth for a short time, the blink of an eye, and then…is gone. Don’t you see, Edna? Briefly, and then gone.”

I drew in my breath. “Jimmy.”

“Me, Edna. Me.”

I looked at him. Behind his thick eyeglasses those myopic eyes glistened with wetness.

***

Late at night, alone in my rooms, I sat by the window staring into L.A. nighttime. One boulevard after another of shattered lifetimes, fragile lives silhouetted against spotlighted palm trees. The slender paperback of
The Little Prince
lay nearby, a talisman of supernatural power. Taken from Jimmy’s hand, it seemed to possess energy. How foolish I am! A pleasant enough book, enchanting, really, but too simplistic, too ethereal. Nothing of the nuts-and-bolts of real people, my forte.

Unable to sleep, I’d ordered a pitcher of martinis, though I intended to sip but one. I sat there, the martini glass sweaty, and I made mental notes. The murder. The murder. The murder. Carisa and Lydia and Josh and Sal and Tommy and Polly and Nell and…and…Bit players suddenly writ large.

I thought about Jimmy and his gift of
The Little Prince
. Well, a step up from that Hoosier hack. But then I recalled Jimmy’s recitation of that pivotal, theatrical line: “It is always in the heart that one can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Essential. Invisible to the eye. The heart. What was invisible to the eye here? What needed to be made visible, translated into the stuff of evidence? What compels a murderer? What? What?

I sipped my martini, finding it too warm now. I put down the glass and stared across the room at
The Little Prince
. James Dean. JD, the monogram of the disenchanted. Juvenile delinquent. The little prince. Lost star in the heavens. Lone star in the Marfa desert.

I reached over and extracted the last of the cigarettes I’d taken from Jake Geyser, idly flipped open the matchbook I’d stuck under the cellophane—My God! I’m imitating Jimmy now—struck a match and watched it burn against the black window before me, the heat touching my fingers. I finally lit the cigarette. The last in Jake’s pack, the king-sized Chesterfields, so I crumpled and tossed it into the basket nearby. I sat there then, smoking, barely inhaling because I rarely did that anymore, and my mind suddenly focused, like reversing binoculars and seeing everything up close, etched, vivid; the distant almost invisible world now as big as a sun star. And there it was.

At that moment I knew.

Chapter 20

But the following morning I wasn’t so sure. I had a theory, a reasonable idea of what happened, but the corners of my conclusions were ragged, shifting. I lingered over coffee, bit into the cinnamon toast I’d ordered, popped a strawberry into my mouth. I needed to talk to Mercy, who knew these people. No—not these people—this
world
. Hollywood beliefs, the cock-eyed value structure, hermetic and glass-enclosed, that conditioned these movie folk to move to dark and ugly extremes. Worlds on celluloid: worlds in real life. Blurring perhaps? Overlapping?

James Dean, his words to me one night. We come to believe what they write about us, and then we force the others around us to genuflect in agreement.

I got confused. The strawberries were tart to the taste, and I grimaced. How is it California, perpetual sunshine and acres of lush fields, can produce such bitterness out of brilliant light and bracing air and a paintbox blue sky?

Quite simply, it does.

I dialed Mercy’s number and caught her at home. “Can we meet later to talk?”

“Edna, you sound so serious.”

“I am. I have an idea.”

I heard Mercy breathe in. “About the murder?”

“Yes.”

I found a phone book in the desk drawer, leafed through it, and found what I was looking for. I dialed the number.

“Good morning,” a deep, firm voice answered.

“Mr. Vega,” I said. “I have more questions.”

“Yes?”

“But not of you. I have a request.” I wanted to talk to his granddaughter Connie.

“But she is not here, only weekends, you know. I believe I told you that. During the week she stays with her mother.”

“Could you give her my number?”

Again, the hesitation. “My daughter works. And, well, it’s summer. Connie stays with her cousins, the beach, the outdoors, friends…”

“I’d like to try.”

“I need to reach my daughter first.”

“Of course.”

Fifteen minutes later, still sitting there, the phone rang, and I answered it on the first ring. Vega said his daughter, reached at work, deferred to his judgment. And he agreed. There was no guarantee Connie was home, though it was still early morning. Chances are she would still be in bed. “You know how young people are,” Vega said. “And it’s a hot summer.”

Connie, groggily answering the phone, had already been awakened by her mother, who told her I would be calling. The girl seemed wary, perhaps unused to conversations with older strangers. A good thing, that I approved. Much of contemporary child rearing alarmed me; children in the post-war era were coddled, indulged, foolishly flattered. They would become insolent, demanding adults in a day soon after my death. They would be, the thought did not please me, James Dean.

Connie and I spoke for a few minutes, my questions this time more directed, less diffuse. Now, truly, I had a clearer vision of what I needed to know. So we reviewed the same story, and Connie seemed irritated when I brought up the woman she had seen waiting outside Carisa’s apartment, the woman she thought was waiting for Jimmy/Tommy as he ran out of her building. I wanted Connie to describe the car. Not surprisingly, Connie was filled with details now. I smiled. Young folks know cars, especially in the car culture world of California. They might not look closely at people, perhaps, but at objects of desire, yes, indeed.

I thanked her and hung up.

Later on, sitting in the commissary waiting for Mercy, I fiddled with a napkin, jotting down words in a list, methodical, the way I take notes for my novels. My quick, inquisitive eye, scanning library archives, historical tracts, yellowing newspapers in dim, dust-choked rooms. I know how to grasp the salient point, that gold nugget of anecdote, some revelation of character. Now, pensive, I listed what I considered a concise rationale for my theory. Yes, I thought. Well, maybe.

Mercy surprised me, and I jumped. “Edna, the studio will provide you with reams of wonderful writing stationery,” she said, grinning. “A napkin?”

“There was a time when I could remember the minutest details. These days, well…”

Mercy slipped into a chair. “I have gossip for you, Edna. I was weaving my way through the Byzantine maze of the back lot and there was little Nell Meyers, probably still with echoes of African chants in her ears and the resounding boom of Tansi’s lovely slap against Tommy’s face. And she’s walking with a quaint cardboard box, prettily tied with a red string. Nell, it seems, is leaving her job. Today.”

I started. “What? Why would she do that so suddenly?”

“I asked about that. She said she’d actually resigned two days ago, told her boss, but didn’t tell us at Jimmy’s.”

“And why not? It seems the natural thing to do—to tell your friends.”

“She said she wants to go away quietly. I guess Carisa and Lydia dying spooked her. She told me Hollywood’s not right for her. She’s going to a small hamlet in Pennsylvania, where her mom’s from, I gather.” She stopped. “Edna, what’s that look on your face?”

I had blanched, shifted in the seat. “This is not good news, her leaving.” Nell, fleeing with a cardboard box and a Greyhound ticket to some dirt road corner of civilization. Speaking rapidly, I outlined my ideas to Mercy, who turned pale, but added, finally, a caveat. “Edna, these are random bits of information, compelling, I have to admit. But this notion about Nell. Well, isn’t that a stretch?”

“What else have we got?” I asked. “We have to stop her. I mean, she’s not leaving
today
, is she?”

Mercy nodded. “That’s what I find strange. Yes, she is. Ticket in hand.”

“We need to do two things,” I said, staring at the ragged napkin before me, frayed and crumpled. “One, you find Nell. If need be, stall her from leaving. And I need to run this by Detective Cotton. I need his advice here. And,” I added, eyebrows rising, “we may need him to get to Nell.”

While I phoned Detective Cotton, Mercy went looking for Nell, who seemed to be making a sentimental round of goodbyes to people who scarcely knew her. Bustling down a hallway, I spotted Mercy. She shook her head as I approached, nodding toward a doorway where Nell lingered. She was with a make-up artist, chatting away, her cardboard box resting at her ankles. Nell said a hearty goodbye to the woman, and the woman looked annoyed. Nell, however, was smiling. “I will miss you people.”

Mercy mumbled to me. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Could I have a minute of your time?” I said to her as she turned from the doorway, but Nell closed up, the smile gone. She looked nervous. “Why?”

“About Lydia.”

Nell shook her head. “No. Don’t you see? I don’t want to be part of this any more.”

But I persisted. Mercy joined in, speaking softly and even smiling, and Nell found herself sitting across from us in the commissary. I sat there, iron-willed, jaw set, eyes sharp and focused.

“Nell, I just need to ask you something.”

Nell looked frightened. “Yes?”

“You probably knew Lydia better than most,” I began. Nell nodded, nonstop. “But there is something I have to know. Mercy and I have been talking about the letters.”

“The letters?” Nell actually gulped.

“You know, the letters. Not so much Carisa’s stream of anger to Jimmy and Warner, but letters
to
Carisa.”

“Jimmy never told me about his letter to her until later.”

I made a clucking sound. “He didn’t seem to tell anyone until he
had
to.” I waited a second. “But no, Lydia’s letter to Carisa.”

“What about it?”

“You knew about it? You knew Lydia wrote a threatening letter to her?”

Nell waited a second, seemed to be thinking it through. “Not when she actually
wrote
it. I mean, I remember her, and even the others, bitching that they couldn’t reach Carisa a lot of the time. She didn’t answer the phone and even if you went there, as I did with Lydia once or twice, there was no guarantee she’d let you in. So I guess if you had to reach her, you, well, dropped her a note. It was…” She waved her hand.

“What?”

“Easier, I guess. But, you know, later on, after Carisa’s death, that’s when I learned about it. She told me she’d been hoping no one found out because it threatened her.”

“But she was found out, no? Once the letter was found.”

“Of course. And it scared her. She went nuts over it. She thought it would mean Detective Cotton would think she killed Carisa.”

I timed my response. “But Detective Cotton never found that letter.”

Her eyes got wide. “Of course he did.”

“No.”

Nell shuddered, looked around, nervous. “I mean, she
said
he…I assumed…”

“What did you assume?”

“Lydia said…I think she said…well, she was crying a lot…no, that was later…she…”

“Nell, I want you to tell me everything. You hear me. Step by step. Think back. Put things in order, please.”

Nell looked around, again. The commissary was filling up with people, and getting noisy. She half-stood, as though ready to flee, then her arm hit the cardboard box she’d placed on a chair, and the string unraveled. The box toppled to the floor. Personal items—a photo in a cheap frame, a coffee mug, a Warner Bros. Studio paperweight, papers bound with elastic bands—spilled out, and, clumsily, frantically, she pushed everything into the box, and then closed the flaps.

Quietly: “This is important, Nell,” I said.

She nodded.

***

An hour later, in Mercy’s dressing room, we sat with Detective Cotton. The detective listened to my terse summary, sitting there impassive and largely unblinking. He cleared his throat. “Not bad.”

“Not bad?” I expected more. Backslapping, accolades, hip-hip-hurrahs.

“It makes sense…”

I broke in, impatient with his manner. “Of course it makes
sense
.” You bumbling fool, I added, hopefully to myself.

Detective Cotton smiled, and I realized he was a man used to condescending to women—a man whose world—a downtown precinct of testosterone-jumpy cops—was a sanctified male preserve. A man who, had he the misfortune to be married, most likely treated the little missus like chattel, some Doris Doormat to do his bidding. I was very familiar with his ilk, frankly. And yet I’d thought him decent, a good cop. A man who seemed to entertain the idea that I might contribute to the investigation.

“You’re a tough bird to read,” I remarked.

“Why so?”

“I don’t know if you value the ideas of women.”

“I value a good idea.”

“That’s not answering my statement.”

“I don’t answer statements. I answer questions.”

“You’re playing games, sir.”

“So, Miss Ferber, I do think you may be on to something here, and I’ll not fault you for that. But I’ve been conducting my own investigation, you know, and this morning, finally, I convinced a judge—actually I convinced Jack Warner through his boy Jake Geyser—that the matter needs to go before a grand jury. It’s time. And my case, I’ll tell you frankly, is against James Dean. Warner isn’t happy, and Dean has been forewarned. It’s going to get messy, but this now has to leave the studio and go downtown. The case has languished too long…”

I felt my heart in my throat. “So you’re going to name Jimmy as murderer.”

“We’re going to name him as number one suspect—not murderer. We’ll couch the arrest in language the studio will tolerate. Means the same thing, just delays the inevitable.”

“Give me twenty-four hours,” I demanded, sharply.

“What?”

“I want to test my theory.”

“I can’t do that.” He shook his head.

“Of course you can.”

He looked surprised. “True, I can but…”

“If I’m right, I could save you some embarrassment.”

“And if you’re wrong, I seem the procrastinator.”

“It’s less embarrassing than mud in your face. Detective Cotton, you may be the detective in this case…”

“I’m glad you noticed.”

“But it seems to me it’s
my
detecting we’re entertaining now.”

“An amateur’s luck.”

“Sir, a veteran writer’s keen eye.”

“Miss Ferber…”

“Detective Cotton.”

He had trouble smiling. All right, he nodded. “You have till midnight tonight.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll be in bed by ten, sir.”

***

A short time later, as Mercy and I were leaving the dressing room, I spotted Jimmy. He wasn’t happy—agitated, jumpy, constantly pushing his eyeglasses up the bridge of his nose. “That goddamn Cotton,” he yelled. “He’s here, and I said…you know what he said?…he…said…ah…don’t leave town…like…”

“Jimmy.” I took his arm. “Stop. Don’t let this get to you this way.”

He looked at me, almost uncomprehending, and then walked away. “Jimmy,” I called after him, but he kept going.

Much later, walking out of the building, Mercy and I stopped, transfixed by an odd tableau on the sidewalk by the front gate: Jimmy, in animated conversation with Tommy and Polly, with Nell standing some ten feet away, nodding, that infernal cardboard box at her heels. For a minute the two women watched as Tommy seemed to become more and more agitated, swaying his body, still unfortunately clad in that red jacket, and spitting words at Jimmy. Jimmy, himself antsy, cupped his eyes, staring through the blinding sunshine at his friend. When we got near, the talk shifted, as Polly moved between the two men. “Stop this,” she pleaded, one of her hands on Tommy’s chest.

Tommy’s face got closer, and a purplish color spread across his features. “You used Polly,” he screamed.

Jimmy looked at Polly, tucked between them like a swaying lamppost, a woman taller than both men. She stepped back and held her hands up in the air. “Stop this.”

Jimmy said nothing.

“You used Polly.”

Jimmy looked at Nell, standing apart. “You
told
him?”

“I didn’t know it was a secret.”

Jimmy shook his head, grinned. “That was a bedroom confession, Nell.”

Nell, filled with the confidence of a Greyhound ticket in her bag, yelled back, “What kind of man tells a girl he’s sleeping with that he enjoyed sleeping with his good friend’s girlfriend. Crowing about it.”

Jimmy stared at her, confused. “I gotta stop getting drunk,” he mumbled to himself. “I fall into bed with strangers.”