Make Believe (18 page)

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.”

“Thugs,” she thundered.

Frank sat up, his face red, his voice booming. “Screw you, darling.”

It was, frankly, a horrendous moment, the pathetic curse flying across the room like a sudden slap, so abrupt that I jumped and toppled over an empty champagne glass. It crashed to the floor and shattered.

Ava searched my face. “Francis won’t
do
anything.”

“Can it, Ava. Christ Almighty. I thought we’d agreed to shut up about it.”

“All I’m saying is…”

He yelled, “I know what you’re saying.” His foot pounded the floor.

“I told you I talked to Dore Schary. Metro wants a meeting with you. Maybe they’ll take you back.”

Frank looked at me, disgusted. “I wanna get out of here.”

Ava pleaded. “Edna, I love a man who wants to see his whole life fall apart.”

Frank fumed. He tried to light a cigarette but his hand shook. The match and cigarette dropped to the table.

“Perhaps now is not the place to…” I began.

“Help us, Edna.”

Frank stood up abruptly. “I don’t need help. Ava. Old maids need boy scouts to help them across the wide boulevards of L.A. I’m not a boy scout.”

Ava stammered, “Francis, how dare you!”

Frank avoided looking at me.

“Ava,” I said brightly, “why are you so sure Frank did not kill Max?”

“Tell her, Francis.” Ava looked up at Frank who was shuffling from one foot to the other.

Frank moved toward the closed door. “I wonder why I let you talk me into these evenings, Ava.”

Ava stood, grabbed at the sleeve of his sports jacket. He twisted out of her grip, and sputtered, “Christ, Ava. Leave me some dignity.”

“You didn’t do it, did you, Francis? I called you that night, but you weren’t home. You told me you’d be back in Palm Springs.”

“I told you already, Ava. I’ve told everybody. I went for a ride out into the desert. By myself. I do that a lot. With broads like you, a guy has to get away sometimes.”

The look on Ava’s face startled me. Perhaps I expected a belligerent yet hopeful trust in what he was saying to her—a trust that a man who lied to her so many times would not, this time around, lie again. She wanted some black-and-white resolution to this dilemma…to convince herself that her instincts were on target.

But what I saw in that beautiful face now was confusion, doubt, and with it an abundance of pain. Conflicted, torn, she glanced back at me, as though I held an answer for her. Though I immediately regretted it, I closed up my face and stared, steely-eyed, at a helpless Ava.

Now Ava whispered at Frank, who had his back to her. I could see his neck muscles tighten, swell. “Your bodyguard said you left in a fit. You were angry.”

He swung back to face her. A vein on his left temple throbbed, his eyes so dark now they could be black instead of that deep-sea blue. “You interrogated Angie? You questioned him?”

Ava slumped back in the chair. “We were talking.”

“Christ.”

Frank opened the door and kicked it back against the wall. From where I sat I could see the upturned heads of a few diners, suddenly startled by the movement. “Another pleasant evening, Ava,” he sneered. “Miss Ferber, a real delight.” He sailed through and slammed the door behind him.

I tried to smile at her. “That went well.”

Ava stared at the slammed door. When she reached for a cigarette, her hand shook so much she had to give up.

Chapter Fifteen

Ava’s words.
You know the answer, Edna
. Ava’s panicked response to the accusations against Frank. Ava’s declaration that…that night held the answers we all sought. That night, and the assembled cast of this sad drama. I couldn’t escape thinking about her words. In the middle of the night, suddenly awake and sitting up in bed, I played with her words. The night of the murder. Put the pieces together, Edna. Block out the scene. Stage the performance. Place the characters. Lift the curtain. Roll the cameras. Lights, camera…inaction.

Lorena Marr seemed surprised to hear my voice on the phone. “Edna, my word. Has something happened?”

“No, Lorena, I haven’t spoken to you since Sol’s funeral.”

There was hesitation in her voice. “I know. I’ve been in hiding. Ethan called me early yesterday morning and told me Frank was mad at Tony. I guess Tony mouthed off at Ava’s house.”

“Yes, not pretty.”

“It’s amazing how Ethan checks in with me now more than when we were married.”

“What did he say?”

“Just that Tony made a fool of himself.”

“He did that, certainly, but I don’t think he knows how to behave anymore. He’s wading in quicksand.” I waited a second. “He hates Frank, doesn’t he?”

Long silence, the dead space of a phone conversation. “Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s obvious. He resents Frank’s success the way a poor family member hates the crumbs a wealthy relative tosses his way.”

“No one wants to face that.”

“I do.” I waited. “And Ethan himself was not the picture of decorum that night.”

Surprise in her voice, a chuckle. “He didn’t share
that
information with me.”

“Doubtless.”

Lorena spoke matter-of-factly. “Ethan keeps his emotions hidden.” I could hear her lighting a cigarette, the striking of a match. “Ethan is troubled, I guess, because Frank was ice cold on the ride back into town.”

“Well, they said some unflattering things to him.” Now I warmed up. “I gather Ethan refers to them as Adam and Ava. The lost souls of paradise.”

“He doesn’t mean anything by that. Ethan is hard to read sometimes.”

“You make excuses for him, Lorena. Patient Griselda, home waiting for her man.”

“That’s not fair, Edna. We
were
in love.”

“Past tense?”

A pause as she changed her mind. “I’m lying to you, Edna. It does mean something. With Frank losing favor these days, he’s shoving the boys aside, particularly Tony. He’s…impatient. It’s hard to
like
Tony, loyalty to Hoboken notwithstanding. Some of us remember the quiet, funny guy—before Lenny died. I suppose Tony
does
resent Frank’s stupendous success, even though he’s been riding his coat tails freely.”

“I sensed that.” I waited a second. “What about Ethan? How does he view Frank?”

“Well,” Lorena breathed in slowly, and I could hear the intake of a cigarette, “lately he’s told me he doesn’t like Frank’s mockery of Tony.”

“But that’s so much sport these days. The lost drunk. Tony’s out of control and you’re all watching him as though he’s a scene in a movie you don’t care for.”

“You know, Edna, out here in gaga land, everyone is surprised when they realize they haven’t become rich and famous over night.”

“That’s Ethan?”

“A little bit. Back when. But I was thinking more of Tony.”

“Sometimes I think that he’s never so drunk as he acts. Even smashed, he’s watching everyone.”

A long silence. “God, Edna. I don’t think so. He gets hammered and passes out.”

“True, but at the Paradise, under Ethan’s watch. But I sense a bit of the actor in him. A bad one, yes, but I detect cleverness in him. Acting the fall-down drunk allows him to get away with things. Oh, poor Tony, the sad drunk on Saturday night. Poor Liz, putting up with him. Poor Ethan, the guardian angel. Well, what can you expect from a drunk?”

Again, the hesitation. “Well, maybe.”

“Ethan mentioned that he and Tony are headed back to New Jersey.”

Now she laughed out loud. “Ethan has been threatening to do that for a while. He claims to be sick of L.A., that he is saving Tony from a drunk tank and death. God, back in Hoboken he’d disappear into a package store and never come out. But L.A. is in Ethan’s blood. Go to the movies with him sometime—he’s like a little kid, all revved up, almost giddy. ‘They make movies
her
e
!’
he once chirped at me. Imagine!”

There was a rush of voices behind her. “You’re busy.” But I added, hurriedly, “I called for a reason. Do you have Liz Grable’s phone number?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’d like to talk to her.”

A long pause. “Liz?”

I stammered. “I told her we’d have a talk.”

“Really?”

My request puzzled Lorena, though she gave me Liz’s number as well as that of her hair salon.

“Call me, Edna. Before you leave.”

“We’ll talk, Lorena. I promise.”

“No, no,” she insisted. “Call me. Do you know how rare it is in L.A. to talk to someone who listens to you?”

***

When Liz Grable was called to the phone in the hair salon, she began talking immediately, her voice loud, angry. “You were supposed to call this morning, Tony. I want my goddamn key.”

I broke in. “Miss Grable, I’m afraid…it’s Edna Ferber calling.”

Silence, heavy breathing. In the background women’s high-pitched voices, a lazy voice on the radio. Finally, Liz spoke into the receiver, her words clipped, wary. “Miss Ferber? What do you want?”

“We haven’t spoken…”

“I’m at work. I’m busy.” She repeated, “What do you want?”

Good question, I reflected: what
did
I want? Ava’s comments had me mulling over the circumstances of the murder, prodding me to dwell on the night of the murder and the people—the players—involved. Who was where that fateful night? And, of course, missing from the equation was Liz Grable. Tony admitted to calling her from the Paradise Bar & Grill, but claimed she wasn’t at home.

“I was wondering if you’d join me for lunch.”

She didn’t answer at first. Someone nearby called her name. “What?”

I repeated my invitation. “I thought it would be nice…”

Bluntly, her mouth too close to the receiver. “Why?”

“Liz, we barely had time to talk at Ava’s when we met.”

She gave out a false tinny laugh. “I wonder why.” Her voice had a whiny, hollow tone, as annoying as grit in your eye, and it baffled me that she believed she could be an actress. Perhaps in silent pictures, one more fledgling actress tied to the railroad tracks with the locomotive barreling down at her.
The Maiden’s Mistake; or, How Lizzie Caught the Train
.

A deep breath. “I’m curious about something.”

“Like what?”

“Your…perspective on the murder.”

“Max?”

“Yes.”

A heartbeat. A whisper. “I have nothing to say.”

“A short conversation.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” A slight, phony laugh.

“People don’t let you talk, Liz,” I began. “Tony and Ethan dominate, and Frank…well…”

“Is a bastard,” she finished for me.

“It’s unfair to you, Liz.”

“You said it.”

“That’s why I thought…well, you must have ideas. You’ve been around…”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know.”

Exhausting, this disingenuous probing on my part. Liz, the unfriendly witness—to use that sickening and destructive phrase so happily employed by the HUAC in Washington.
Are you now or have you ever been
…?

“I’d like to hear you.”

“I don’t think so.”

I shifted gears, so blatant a move I expected her to slam down the phone. “We started talking about
Cimarron
that night. You mentioned my heroine Sabra Cravat, the land rush, your family settling there. The Sooners. Your family in Oklahoma.”

The abrupt shift in my words startled, but I had little time for the diplomatic niceties of journalistic interviews. The train was coming down the track. Excitedly, Liz told me, “My grandpa was late for the land grab then, so we missed out, but he had some wild stories.”

“I wish he’d been someone I’d interviewed when I was there.”

She
tsk
ed. “Too bad. Yeah, but you’d have to talk to the dead.” She considered her line funny because she chuckled.

“That’s a problem I have when I research the past.”

“A killer, no?” Another sigh. She covered the receiver and her muffled voice addressed someone nearby. She came back on the line. “All right, Miss Ferber, I can get out of here early afternoon. Say one o’clock?”

I agreed to meet her at Jack’s Luncheonette two blocks over on Hollywood. “One o’clock,” I stressed.

“I know how to tell time.”

When the taxi dropped me off at Jack’s, she was already standing in the doorway. Nervously, she shook my hand, a quick, blustery gesture, and then mumbled something about almost changing her mind. As the waitress seated us. Liz told me over her shoulder, “I’m not one to talk about people, you know.”

“Neither am I, Liz.”

She eyed me suspiciously. “Hey, you make living talking about people.”

I grinned. “But they’re not real. I make them up.”

“I wouldn’t be too happy seeing myself in one of your books.”

“Why not?”

She tilted her head and rubbed an ear. She held up the menu in front of her face, shielding her mouth. “I’m the dumb blonde who’s got dreams that get her nowhere. That picture is all over the movie screen now, that kind of broad, and it ain’t the real me. I ain’t daffy.”

I made eye contact with her. “You shouldn’t let other folks tell you what you are, Liz. That’s a secret most women don’t know. Invent yourself, and stick with it.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Nobody believes that I got a brain. I mean, Tony thinks
he’s
smarter than me.”

I assumed my Magnolia Ravenal Southern-belle voice. “Get out of here!”

For the first time she laughed out loud. I joined her.

We ordered sandwiches and coffee. “I like your dress,” she said. “It goes great with your white hair.”

She sat back, relaxed. The waitress filled water glasses and Liz frowned at her retreating back. “A girl that skinny should never wear her hair like that.”

I hadn’t noticed. “Tell me something, Liz.” I put down my glass. “You were the one who knocked on Max’s door the night he died, right?”

The question, hurled so brutally at her, stunned her.

She’d been sipping water, a gingerly movement she’d obviously appropriated from some Jean Harlow movie, but my words made her sputter. Water dribbled down the side of the glass, and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes darkened, scared. For a second, she reached up to check on her puffed platinum hairdo, as though she feared it had collapsed like a surprised soufflé.

“How did you know?” she whispered.

“A guess, and not a very clever one, Liz. Someone visited Max that evening. You didn’t answer when Tony called you from the Paradise, which surprised him. No witness has come forward to the police, so far as I know, and, frankly, you’re one of the few players unaccounted for that evening. I had the feeling that Tony was suspicious when you weren’t home. As I say, a guess.”

She grinned. “A good one.”

“Tell me.”

“Nothing really to tell, though I don’t want anyone to know. I mean, like Max got killed right after that visit. So I can’t go to the police…”

I cut her off. “Of course, you can. You have to.”

She shook her head. “God, no. They’ll think I…”

“Tell me what you know. Liz.”

She sat back, folded her arms across her chest, glanced around the crowded room. She leaned in and seemed to be weighing her words, time for intimate confession. “I’m sick of it all, Miss Ferber. I’m sick of Tony. Of Ethan. Of Frank. All of them. I stayed too long at the fair, as they say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve
had
it. You gotta know that I told Tony he had to get out of my place now that he’s lost that dumb job in the valley. Yeah, quite the job! A measly few dollars a week, lost on the ride back home. Drinks and poker. I mean, I sort of love the slob— I mean the
old
Tony who made me laugh, who bought me cheap trinkets on Sunset, who promised me the moon.” She sighed. “Before everything fell apart. The drinking. You know, I won’t allow
that
in my apartment. I don’t even wanna be around him then—like that night at Ava’s when we showed up there with Frank and Ava was having that cocktail party. I told them I didn’t wanna go. I know how those nights end, for God’s sake.”

“So he drinks at the Paradise.”

“Yeah, that sleazy gin mill.” She bit the corner of a nail. Red enamel flecked off. “You know, I started thinking about
m
y life.
My
career. I was dumb enough to believe that Tony had some influence—with Frank and Ava. But they’re in their own pretty little worlds. Frank’s
mean
to me. Ava is sweet but only looking at Frank. Ethan thought I’d be good for Tony—he
pushed
the relationship on me, paid for everything. He planned it like a military operation. He didn’t know how to handle Tony—once Tony became this…you know, different guy. Get Tony out of his hair once and for all. But Ethan’s a jerk, too. ‘Are you going out looking like that?’ ‘Why would someone your size wear a dress like that?’ That’s how he talks to me. I know style, Miss Ferber. I got a chinchilla fall jacket with a velveteen collar. High style. Look at Ethan. Mr. Neat Freak…ooh ooh ooh, I got me a button loose. Help me! Ooh ooh, somebody scuffed my shoe.” She paused, out of breath.

“Don’t let people be mean to you, Liz.”

She nodded, eyes wide. “Anyway, I decided to back off, cut my losses, you know. Especially now. It’s annoying how one day you wake up and there it is slamming you in the face: time is going by, lickety-split, and I’m wasting it with a bunch of creeps. Tony is the dirt road to nowhere. I’d thought I’d get
parts
by now.”

“You got Max as your agent through Tony, right?”

She rolled her eyeballs and grunted. “That’s funny. I had this here agent—at least he had a
card
that said that—when I met Tony. Ethan introduced us. Max was Tony’s agent. Tony started out okay, a decent stand-up comic making fun of himself. Real likeable. He ain’t as stupid as…well, he lets on like he is. It made for a funny act onstage. But he got fat and drank and started wearing those sequined tuxedo jackets with wide lapels with bells and whistles all over them, and he practiced insulting old ladies in the grocery store. Real clever, no?”