The Last Embrace (34 page)

L
ily wanted to grab one of the smartly dressed people and scream,
Help me,
but feared the shooters would just mow them both down.
Max,
she thought as her legs pumped, her mind refusing to believe it.

Who could want Max dead? Any last vestiges of suspicion she had that the animator had murdered Kitty Hayden now evaporated. Max was innocent. But he knew something. He’d told her Kitty was meeting someone named Frankie at nine p.m.
Frankie Niccoli?
Was Dragna behind it after all? Had his men killed Bernard Keck and Rhett Taylor too?

Ahead of her was a coffee shop, lit up like a beacon. If she could reach it, she’d be safe.

A flamboyantly dressed man fell into step beside her. Then another. Lily stiffened and slowed. The men slowed too. Was she imagining it? The coffee shop was only a half block away now.

She quickened her pace, decided to scream after all, and felt something hard push against her ribs. She took a step forward, and the gun moved with her.

“Easy,” one said. “Keep walking.”

Lily pretended to stumble, then jumped back and ran helter-skelter the way she’d just come. She heard an oath, the men turning around. They wouldn’t risk a shoot-out with people on the street, would they? But they were breaking into a trot. They intended to kill her.

At that moment, a bus pulled up and its doors opened, disgorging a flow of people. They poured onto the sidewalk, blocking her escape. She thought about jumping on the bus, but she’d be swimming upstream. On the other side of her was Barker Brothers Department Store. Hoping the disembarking passengers would shield her from view, she ducked inside and found herself in a furniture showroom. There had to be an exit in the back. The place was a maze of heavy wooden furniture as she threaded her way. The front door opened with a blast of air and her pursuers burst in. She ran into the back office.

A young man looked up from his typewriter and adjusted his glasses at the sight of her. He looked seventeen and wore a name tag that said
BOB.

“Is there a rear exit? Quick! There are two men after me.”

“Excuse me?”

Lily ran up and seized his lapels. “For the love of Christ, help me. They’ve got a gun.”

Her terror seemed to galvanize him. He vaulted over his desk. “Follow me.” Bob led her down a hallway.

“Gee whiz, this is pretty exciting,” he said.

“Too exciting. We’d better hurry, unless you want brains and blood splattered all over Barker Brothers’ fine furnishings.”

“Golly,” said Bob. “Are you a spy?”

She didn’t answer. They ran downstairs and Bob looked around, as if thinking of where he could hide her amid the china sets and dining tables, beds, and draperies. Then his eyes lit up. “C’mon, I’ve got just the place.”

He crossed the basement to another flight of stairs. Lily scurried after him. Above, they heard the pounding of feet and breaking glass.

“Where are you taking me? They’re going to find us like cornered rats,” Lily panted.

They were in the subbasement now, a dusty place stacked high with broken chairs, tables, and lamps with torn shades. Lily looked around in dismay.

“There’s nowhere to hide.”

“Yes, there is.” Bob picked up a flashlight atop a stack of boxes. He walked to the wood-paneled wall, stuck two fingers inside a knothole, and tugged. A hidden door swung open. Bob turned on the flashlight and played its light along a narrow, low-ceilinged passageway filled with cobwebs and crumbling plaster. “In there.”

Lily shrank back. What if Bob meant to keep her captive in some secret room off the subbasement of Barker Brothers?

“Aw,” said Bob, “you don’t trust me. I’ll go first. Come on.”

“What’s in there?”

Bob’s eyes danced. “It’s a secret passageway to the Paramount Theater next door.”

He entered, beckoned her to follow. With little choice, she did. He pulled the door shut and gave her a huge wink. “Follow me.”

She crept behind Bob the bookkeeper, down a cold passage that smelled of mice and musty air, the flashlight picking out bumps on the plaster wall, bits of straw poking out.

“Where do we end up?” she whispered.

“Just outside the theater bathroom.” He gave her an impish look. “Our custodian discovered this passage years ago. There used to be a speakeasy next door and they stored liquor here and used it as a getaway during raids. I use it to sneak into the pictures.”

Lily saw a wooden crate marked with a skull and crossbones that said
DANGER
.

“What’s that?”

“Dynamite,” Bob said. “Custodian uses it for fishing. The wife won’t let him store it at home.”

Lily was already reaching inside, comforted by the familiar heft of it, the smell.

“Hey!” said Bob. “Don’tcha know that stuff’s dangerous?”

“Not without a match, it’s not.” Lily shoved a stick in her purse and looked around. “Does he have any grenades?”

“Are you crazy?”

“Fishermen use them all the time.” Lily grinned. “Relax, big guy, it’s just a precaution.”

She gave him a push. “Go on.”

Bob hurried, eager to put distance between himself and Lily.

They reached a door, opened it, and found themselves in a hallway.

“We’ll slip into the theater and go out through the fire exit into the alley. Then you’re on your own. What exactly are you running from, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“It’s a long story. You wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

“I bet you really are a spy. You’ve got that look.”

Lily pursed her lips, as if deciding something. “I can’t lie to you,” she said. “I am a secret agent. You figured it out.”

“Jeepers.” Bob’s eyes widened.

She squeezed his hand. “But I’m on our side. Those guys chasing me are Soviet agents. You’d never guess it, but they speak perfect Russian.”

“Why are they after you?” he asked hoarsely.

Lily patted her purse. “I’ve got some documents they want. Top secret. I’d rather blow myself up than give it to them.”

“Well, please don’t do it here.”

They hurried down the darkened aisles, Lily seeing Technicolor as a giant blue arm, red dress, and yellow car flashed across the screen. Then they were in the alley.

“Should I call the police?” Bob said.

“I would,” Lily said. “One last thing. I’ll need your lighter.”

Bob looked terrified. “Just in case,” she said.

He gulped and handed over a Zippo.

“Congratulations, Bob. You’ve helped your country.”

They shook hands and Lily ran to the next street. Seeing no sign of her pursuers, she hopped on the first trolley she saw, which was heading west. She felt as if her legs might give way. She’d escaped once, but she wasn’t really safe. She wished she had a gun, instead of a lousy stick of dynamite and a lighter. When the trolley reached Hollywood, she jumped off and ran all the way to the rooming house. She didn’t see any strange cars out front. Nobody lurking. She let herself in, locking the door with a spasm of relief.

“Running away, are we?” a voice asked.

Mrs. Potter stood in the dim light of the hallway, arms crossed before her.

“Running away from what?” Lily asked.

The landlady gave a thin-lipped smile. “Your fate. It’s catching up, isn’t it, dearie?”

Lily wanted to shriek. Instead, she forced a smile. “Stop trying to spook me,” she said.

“You think you’re so high and mighty,” the landlady said. “Putting on airs, just like that other one. I see the fear in you. It’s growing, taking over. Soon you’ll—”

“Stop,” said Lily, running up the stairs to escape.

Then she turned and crept back down. She had to call Pico. Mrs. Potter was gone. Lily heard crying from the old servants’ quarters behind the kitchen. Beverly had said this was Mrs. Potter’s domain and off-limits to the girls. Lily hesitated, then pushed through the swinging door.

The hardwood floor in this hallway was scuffed, the wallpaper yellow with age. Lily came to a bedroom with plush curtains. Beverly lay on the canopied bed, sobbing next to a pile of suitcases while Mrs. Potter patted her back. There was an intimacy to their posture.

“It’s time,” Mrs. Potter said.

“But I don’t want to,” the girl answered.

Lily remembered Mrs. Potter gliding out of the girl’s room the other day.

“Leave her alone,” Lily said.

Mrs. Potter looked up in surprise, then laughed. “Isn’t that adorable, Beverly? She’s come to rescue you.”

“You’re not allowed here,” the girl said sullenly. “I told you so the first night.”

“Neither are you,” Lily said.

“My daughter has full run of the house,” said Mrs. Potter.

Lily looked from the landlady to Beverly and then back again. And she saw what had eluded her before: Mrs. Potter’s face was a poorly cast die of her pretty daughter’s. But in the landlady, meanness and resentment had burned away all fairness, leaving a crudely knit collection of angles, a flintiness outside and in.

“Beverly should have gotten that RKO contract, not Kitty,” Mrs. Potter said. “They both had screen tests that day, but Kitty’s was the one they chose. That shack trash from Illinois stole my daughter’s contract. And they’d promised it to you, hadn’t they, pet?”

Beverly sniffed in agreement.

“We’re not unhappy that she’s gone,” Mrs. Potter said. “We let nature take its course.”

Lily recalled Mrs. Potter on the back porch, watching her cat torture a mouse.

“You wanted her out of the way,” Lily said. “What did the two of you do?”

“We didn’t
do
anything. She was very useful to us, wasn’t she, Bevvy?”

“I was Kitty’s best friend,” the girl said. “She told me
everything
. She never trusted Red or Fumiko like she did me. A girl needs a confidante. I’ve got Mama, and Kitty had me.”

“I told you, Lily, that information was valuable,” Mrs. Potter nodded. “Maybe you’ll realize that when we’re gone.”

“Where are you going?”

“Beverly and I thought we’d go abroad until things cool down. Now that we’ve got the means.” She patted her handbag. “I hear the dollar goes far in Paris these days.”

“Who killed Kitty Hayden and the others?” Lily said.

“What do you have to trade? That reporter gal had cash. That’s why we did business.”

“What did you sell her?”

“A couple of—” Beverly began.

“Let’s keep the details to ourselves, shall we?” Mrs. Potter broke in sharply.

The girl bridled. “Why should you get all the credit?”

“Because a deal’s a deal and we agreed. I’ve got to call for the cab,” Mrs. Potter said.

After she left, Lily moved closer to Beverly, gave her a sympathetic look. “She bosses you around a lot, doesn’t she?”

Beverly looked resigned. “It’s always been that way, from when I was little and she’d take me to
Little Rascals
auditions. Mama wants me to make it big.” She scowled. “Just because
she
didn’t. And I don’t even like acting. I throw up before every audition.”

“Must be tough, her living through you.”

“Especially when I do all the hard work.”

Lily ran her hand along the quilted bedspread. “Like what?”

“Getting chatty with all the boarders. Convincing Kitty to confide in me, always pretending she’s my friend. Sneaking into her room to steal things.”

“I thought a phony RKO employee stole her journal.”

Beverly smiled. “Maybe so, but only another gal’s going to look inside a sanitary napkin. That’s where she’d hidden her photos of her and Kirk on the yacht.”

“Kirk Armstrong? So they
were
having an affair?”

“Kitty met him two months ago. On that movie. She fell head over heels in love.”

Lily remembered what Kitty had told the RKO makeup artist:
No, it’s not serious, Marion, but it sure is a lot of fun.

“Was he the father of her child?”

“Kitty hoped he’d marry her when he learned about the baby. She didn’t always live in the real world.”

“I thought he was already married.”

Beverly rolled her eyes. “Don’t believe everything you read. He’s separated and headed for divorce. The last thing he wants is to get hitched again, so when he found out Kitty was pregnant, he told her to get rid of it. My, how the tears flowed that night. Mama and I explained that he’s a star so she should blackmail him. Mama’s good at that. But Kitty wouldn’t go for it. The poor dope loved him.”

“Did Kirk Armstrong kill her?”

Beverly walked to the bureau and pulled out a reel-to-reel recorder. Lily remembered the girl’s mechanical aptitude with the radio the night she arrived.