The Last Embrace (4 page)

Gingerly, she touched the ape’s arm, recoiling as its elbow bent. So it had moved! This was no child’s toy, it was jointed in all the places a real ape’s body would be. Was it a studio prop? A zoological model? Its eyes seemed to follow her as she put on slacks and a blouse.

Lily went downstairs, following the voices to a kitchen where five girls sat around a Formica-topped table, smoking and drinking coffee as a phonograph crooned “Goodnight Irene.”

“We heard you scream,” said a girl with red curly hair pinned atop her head and a white blouse tucked into slim black pants. “We thought maybe you’d stumbled across Kitty’s body.”

A nervous titter went around the room.

“That’s horrible, Red,” scolded a brunette with soft features and little-girl hair who was dismantling a radio.

The girl named Red sauntered over to Lily, hand on hip.

“Mrs. Potter said we should be nice to you because you’re Kitty’s friend from Illinois and you’re tired from your trip. Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Lily muttered, annoyed at herself. “Just banged my foot.”

Red gave her a practiced once-over. “Welcome to Hollywood,” she said. “You’re especially welcome if you steer clear of my auditions. The casting directors are always looking for fresh faces and I don’t need any more competition.”

“I’m not interested in Hollywood. I’m here to find Kitty. As soon as she turns up, I’ll be on the train to New York City.”

“Well, la-di-da,” said Red.

The brunette put down her screwdriver, got a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, and placed them in front of Lily.

“Don’t mind Red,” she said, glancing sternly at the brassy girl. “She’s not a bad egg. This business makes us forget our manners. I’m Beverly. I’ll help you with anything I can.”

“Thank you,” Lily said.

The other girls introduced themselves. There was Fumiko, a lithe, slender girl with Asian features and glossy black hair that hung down her back. Jinx was tall and sylphlike, with long legs and a swan neck. Jeanne, who was eating a gooey green sandwich, was elfin, with porcelain skin, blue eyes, and curly blond hair. Louise, the one who’d sent Mrs. Croggan the cable, was working late.

“We all came out to Hollywood to get into the movies,” Beverly said. “Except for Fumiko. She was born here, though you wouldn’t guess by looking at her.”

Fumiko’s black eyes glittered. “The word is
Nisei,
Beverly. It means a second generation—I was born in America to Japanese immigrants.”

“Nigh-say,” Beverly said, butchering it. “Fumiko had a hard time of it during the war, didn’t you, dear? Whew, aren’t we glad that’s over.”

“Not me. I wish the Hollywood Canteen was still open.” Jinx rubbed her calf dreamily. “Dancing with all those gorgeous doomed boys…”

Fumiko said nothing. Lily recalled the December day in 1941 when Keiko, the Japanese girl down the street, hadn’t shown for the school bus. Their teacher Mrs. Pollard telling the class in hushed tones about the deportations, the internment in remote desert camps. Shifting uncomfortably, Lily asked Jeanne what she was eating.

“Avocado sandwich.” Jeanne gestured to a Fiestaware bowl piled high with the bumpy-skinned black fruit. “Tree’s out back. Mash ’em with a little salt and pepper, squirt of lemon, and it tides you over between paychecks.”

Lily’s mouth watered. She’d grown up on the creamy fruit but hadn’t eaten one in years.

“What made Louise decide to cable Dor—uh, Kitty’s mother?” she asked the room.

“Ever since the Dahlia murder,” Jeanne said, eyes darting, “we girls had an agreement. If one of us was spending the night away from home, we’d let the others know.”

“And Dor—er, Kitty didn’t?”

“No. And she missed an early call the next morning, which wasn’t like her, as I’m sure you know.”

“Actually, I didn’t.” Lily proceeded to explain about Joseph and the room fell silent in sympathy.

“My fiancé got blown up by a mine in the Loire,” Red said. “Just think. I could have had three squalling brats and a house in Burbank by now.”

“We girls may compete for parts and even boyfriends, but we all want Kitty back safe and sound,” Beverly said, her eyes lingering on Red, as if daring her to contradict her.

“Mrs. Potter thinks Kitty may be on some romantic rendezvous,” Lily said.

Jeanne wiped her mouth on a napkin. “It’s possible,” she said. “The night she disappeared, Kitty mentioned she had a date but wouldn’t give me any details.”

“She told
me
she was going on a night shoot,” Jinx broke in. “She was wearing her best suit. And new heels. When I complimented her, she said I could borrow them anytime. That’s the type of girl she was.”

“Mrs. Croggan couldn’t remember the name of the picture or where was it filming.”

Beverly glanced away. “We checked. The studio didn’t have anything that night.”

“Maybe she was moonlighting for another studio?”

“She was on contract at RKO. They’d fired her.”

Could that be why she was so secretive?
Lily wondered.

The colors outside ebbed to a dusky blue. Beverly went around, snipping on the lights. The room filled with a comfy air of a home, even though Lily was sure the girls viewed it as a way station they’d happily trade in for something more permanent.

They told her about a drugstore lunch counter on the Boulevard that offered a five-course meal, with spaghetti, fish, salad, a fruit cup, and coffee, for sixty-five cents. They also explained that the rooms off the kitchen door were Mrs. Potter’s domain and boarders were to keep out.

Lily learned that Kitty had been in dozens of movies, including small parts in
They Live by Night, The Farmer’s Daughter,
and
Blood on the Moon.
Since landing at RKO, she’d worked on
The Set-Up
and
The Window,
two B noir films.

Lily wandered to the window, where two giant searchlights swept the sky. Tugging on gloves and pinning hats atop their heads, Fumiko and Jeanne got ready to leave for a premiere of a movie in which Fumiko had a small role.

“I give a very nuanced performance as a Shanghai barmaid,” she said.

“But it’s great that she got a role, right?” Lily asked after they left.

“I’ve seen her do Shakespeare in Little Tokyo and bring a drama class to tears with an Ibsen monologue,” Red said. “She even started a theater troupe in Manzanar. It makes her crazy that the studios will only cast her as a maid or a prostitute.”

“Jinx and Kitty are the only ones with studio contracts,” Beverly explained. “The rest of us run around auditioning like crazy for the privilege of busting tail and making scale.”

“The camera loves Kitty,” said Jinx. “Even if she’s only on screen for five minutes, you see the vulnerability, the nakedness. It’s like you can gaze through her eyes and see her soul.”

“But Hollywood is a monster,” Red said. “If you were naked in the last film, they want you skinned in the next one.”

“That’s awful.”

Red gave the others a meaningful look. “I’m even thinking of hiking up to the Hollywood sign.”

“Why?” asked Lily.

“Kitty used to say that if everything fell through, she’d pull a Peg Entwistle rather than go home in defeat,” Red said.

“Who?”

“Peg was a blond bombshell who came out here in ’32, dreaming of stardom. Sound familiar, anyone? She landed a contract with RKO, but her picture bombed and the studio didn’t renew her contract. She couldn’t afford her rent and had to move out of her boardinghouse.” Red paused for dramatic effect. “One night soon after that, she hiked up Mount Lee, folded her coat neatly at the base of the Hollywood sign, climbed the maintenance ladder, and jumped off the
H
.
Fell three stories.”

“Did she die?”

Lily imagined how such a cautionary tale could slip into Hollywood lore, along with which producers had wandering hands and which drugstores offered all-you-can-eat specials.

“She landed in a patch of cactus, and the spines pierced her organs. Took her several days to expire. Two days later, a letter arrived from the Beverly Hills Playhouse, offering Peg the lead in a play. It was about a woman who commits suicide.”

Lily was aghast. “That’s too horrible. You don’t think Kitty…?”

“We all want to hit it big,” Red said. “All it takes is one break, so we try to keep our spirits up. We go on auditions until the soles fall off our shoes. But sometimes it’s so darn hard.”

Lily examined their pretty, wholesome faces. Most of them wouldn’t make it. They’d hang around the edges of Hollywood, wasting their youth, losing hope, their beauty receding until their faces took on a wizened simian—

“Tell me,” Lily said. “Why did Kitty keep a little ape in the back of her closet?”

“Ape?” Red and Beverly chorused.

“I’ll show you.”

Lily bounded up the stairs, grabbed the ape, and ran back down brandishing it.

Squeals came from the girls.

“How perfectly hideous!”

“Max must have given it to her.”

“No wonder she threw it in the back of her closet.”

“Poor fellow, he’s got no idea of the way to a gal’s heart.”

“What
is
this creature?” Lily asked. “And who’s Max?”

“Max Vranizan is a special effects guy for the studios,” Red said when they finally stopped tittering. “And that”—she pointed—“is Mighty Joe Young.”

“Mighty Joe Young?”

“Didn’t they have picture palaces where you were stationed?” Red asked with exasperation.

“Of course they did. Maybe it wasn’t out in Europe yet.”

“It’s been out here since July. It’s about a pet gorilla named Joe that’s brought from Africa to Hollywood and exploited by a shady promoter.” Red fitted a cigarette into a holder and lit it. “I know it’s hard to believe.” She blew out smoke. “A shady Hollywood promoter.”

“Why did Max give her the gorilla from his picture?” Lily asked.

“Because he’s sweet on her.”

This was the first useful thing Lily had heard. “Was he Kitty’s boyfriend?”

“Not hardly,” Red said.

“He’s not a nice guy?”

“Oh, he’s as sweet as a puppy dog,” Beverly said. “And just as slobbery.”

“I think those special effects guys are weird,” Jinx said. “They’re like mad scientists, locked up in their workshops, slaving over their dinosaurs and apes and monsters.”

“Could he have gotten angry that she spurned his advances?”

“We’ve wondered about that. She went to premieres with him, but they’re just friends. You see him, you’ll understand.”

“He’s no Cary Grant?”

“Not even William Demarest.”

“What studio does he work at?”

“Those guys move around. Sometimes the producers put him on a small retainer while they go hunt down the money. He’s at RKO now, getting ready for a werewolf picture.”

Lily wanted to talk to Max. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was too late to reach him at RKO. Which reminded her…she still hadn’t called Kitty’s mother.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any news yet,” she said several minutes later when Mrs. Croggan’s eager voice came on the line. Then she recapped her day and explained that she’d moved into Kitty’s room.

Hanging up, she noticed an evening paper in the hallway nook and was surprised to see a photo in the Society pages of Gene Tierney disembarking at Union Station.

Lily pulled it closer. Off to the side stood a smart-looking girl, simply dressed but elegant. With shock Lily recognized herself. She frowned. After so long in the covert life, it made her uneasy. She didn’t want her return broadcast in the evening news for estranged relatives and long-abandoned friends to see. Let the past stay buried.

When the phone rang a moment later, Lily jumped, then told herself to calm down. No one except Mrs. Croggan knew where she was staying.

Red answered, then squealed with excitement.

“I’ve got some swelligant news,” she said, hanging up. “Frank’s rehearsing tonight.”

The girls burst into excited chatter, prompting Lily to ask who Frank was.

Red said, “You’re kidding, right? Frank is only the dreamiest singer and lover boy in the whole universe. Frank Si-na-tra. Ever heard of him, Europe?”

Since when had Angelenos been on a first-name basis with stars they’d never even met?

“Do you want to come with us?” Red asked.

“They’re going to let us in?” Lily asked dubiously.

“Of course. That was my friend Lynette. She’s the receptionist.”

The offer was tantalizing. Lily had danced to “The Voice” in canteens throughout Europe. But what if they got caught? she asked.

“Don’t be silly. We’re
invited.
Frank likes an audience.” Red pirouetted. “How’s that for your first night in Hollywood?”