Design for Dying (14 page)

“You think that Paramount photographer took the picture, don't you?”

“Yes, I do. Someone needs to talk to him about that. And Gene has to ask Ruby's family about Natalie.”

“So he's Gene now.”

“That's the man's name.”

“And a fine one it is. I like that you're using it. I just wonder if he's aware of this state of affairs.”

The street door opened, saving me from having to reply. Late afternoon sunlight silhouetted a lanky figure.

“You're not one of those cowpokes who starts a fight every time he ambles into a saloon, are you?” I asked.

“No, ma'am.” Ready gave Kay a squeeze. “Not 'less they ask for it.”

I lobbied for a second round, but Kay put her foot down. “I've got to help Mrs. Lindros feed her hungry brood. Want to stay for supper?”

“Either I fill up on peanuts or take Vi's place at the table.”

“Where's Vi going to be?”

“She said she's working.”

“Tonight?” Kay shrugged, then turned to Ready. “Bring your chariot hither. Drive two ladies home.”

“Us, too,” I said.

*   *   *

I WAS ANSWERING
one of Ready's detailed questions about the fashions in
Vogues of 1938
when he turned onto Mrs. Lindros's street and dropped the brake to the floor.

“Don't go off half-cocked now, ladies,” he said.

“At what?” Kay peered through the windshield at the green Packard parked outside our destination. A car I'd ridden in a time or two.

“Tommy Carpa has come calling.” I bailed out, Ready running after me.

I beat him to the house. Tommy was perched on a wingback chair in the foyer, leafing through a month-old copy of
Liberty
. The smirk that started blooming on his face wilted at the sight of Ready filling the doorway behind me.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“You don't live here, so I'm not answering.” Tommy stood, nodded at Ready, and waited.

Kay charged in puffing with exertion and sized up the showdown. “What did I miss? Anybody throw a punch yet?”

A clatter arose on the stairs. Vi bounded down, wearing a pale yellow chiffon dress with green ovals the color of celery. The demure neckline had too many ruffles to be fashionable, but enough to make Vi happy. It looked like something a maiden aunt had run up for Vi's senior prom. “Sorry I took so long. I wanted to—” She caught sight of the tableau by the front door and blanched, knuckles whitening against the balustrade.

“No problem, doll,” Tommy said. “Got a floor show here to entertain me.”

“I do rope tricks,” Ready said. “End by hog-tying a member of the audience. Always brings down the house.”

I seized Vi's hand and tried to drag her down the stairs, but she remained planted where she was. Another tug and she surrendered, flouncing after me into the parlor.

“You said you had to work tonight. You lied to me after I bought you a ticket to the movies.”

Keeping her voice low, she addressed a mole on my clavicle. “My plans changed.”

I noticed a familiar pattern of beads in Vi's hair. She was wearing the comb Tommy had stolen from the counter at Tremayne's. Seeing that he'd made a gift of it to her enraged me. I struggled to compose my thoughts.

“What exactly are you two doing?”

“Tommy and I are going out.”

“After what he did? He threatened me, Vi.”

“He says different.”

“And you believe him and not me. Knowing even Ruby finally had enough of him.”

Vi still wouldn't meet my eye. The beads on the comb caught the light, mocking me.

“What's on tap for this big night on the town? Oysters Rockefeller and stories about Ruby 'til sunup? Seems like a strange kind of date to me.”

“You're not my mother, Lillian. And at least I'm having a date.” She seemed shocked by her own words, glancing at me briefly in horror.

I must have been lightly stunned myself, because without thinking I snatched the comb from her hair, taking a few blond strands with it. Vi gasped.

“Did Tommy give this to you?” I waved the comb in her face. “Because he stole it from the store. Right in front of me.”

“Keep it. I only wore it to be nice. It looks cheap.” Still startled by what she was saying, she returned to the foyer.

Tommy offered Vi his arm. Ready glanced at me, then blocked the door. “Hold on. I believe you've got something to say to Lillian.”

This time, Tommy's smirk blossomed fully. “I do, but Lillian doesn't want to hear it.” He shouldered Ready aside, then guided Vi through the door with all the compassion of a slaughterhouse lineman. Vi never ventured a look my way.

Kay threw an arm around my shoulder. “Vi sounded almost like Ruby there, didn't she? You okay, sweetheart?”

“Yes. No. Give me a minute.”

I walked down the hall, stopping by the house telephone near the kitchen. Vi's duplicity cut deep. It hurt to learn the girl I thought of as an impressionable little sister had only pretended to heed my advice. I could hear Kay and Ready murmuring to each other. Then Ruby piped up in my head.

You know what you do when life gets you down, mermaid? Whatever you feel like doing.

Pitching a nickel into the jar Mrs. Lindros kept on the hall table, I dialed the now familiar number for Paramount Pictures. Hearing Edith soothed me instantly.

“I hoped I'd be receiving an update today, Lillian. How have you been?”

“Busy. Do you have several moments?” She did, so she got a full report, including my abortive expedition to Armand Troncosa's house and Natalie's unexpected phone call. When I finished, she had me repeat the conversation with Natalie word for word.

“If only I hadn't asked if she and Ruby were related. It scared her off.”

“Might I suggest another possibility? This Esteban Riordan at Mr. Troncosa's home indicated that Natalie was traveling, did he not? And am I also right in saying while Natalie hung up after you asked if she and Ruby were family, it was also after the operator cut in requesting more money to continue the call?”

I said nothing, floored by what she was suggesting.

“You understand my point,” Edith said. “If you'd heard how much the operator wanted, that would have been some indication of how far Natalie had traveled. It wouldn't have given you a precise location—”

“But I'd know where to start looking. I never thought of that.”

“I'm accustomed to dealing with expenses. Natalie's call to tell you she wouldn't assist the police almost assisted the police. And it certainly sounds like Mr. Nolan may have taken that photograph of Ruby. I wish Mr. Groff hadn't so cavalierly dismissed him. A regrettable missed opportunity.”

I was fed up with being stymied. By Gene's prudence, Groff's machinations, the universe's indifference. I wanted to stir the pot. “It doesn't have to be,” I said.

Edith paused. “I couldn't possibly speak with Mr. Nolan today. These costumes for Joan Bennett have to be ready by morning.”

“Tell her I loved her in
Vogues of 1938
. And I wasn't thinking you would talk to him.”

“There's no way I'd send you to see him alone.”

“It sounds like you were prepared to see him solo, and I'm taller than you. Besides, I'll bring a cowboy with me.”

That Edith never inquired what I meant by that was one of the reasons why I loved living in Los Angeles. “I happen to have Mr. Nolan's address,” she said.

Information in hand, I yelled to Kay that I couldn't stay for dinner and needed to borrow her fiancé.

 

15

THE COMPANIONABLE SILENCE
of the drive was broken only by Ready humming snatches of Beethoven's “Ode to Joy.” Ready was a fascinating man, down to his nickname. Henry Blaylock had ridden out of Oklahoma in 1931 with the idea of seeing the ocean and no intention of joining the throng at Gower Gulch hoping to work in pictures. But his way with a horse came to the attention of a B producer at Columbia and the young cowhand found himself on the set of
Sagebrush Serenade
. The lead stuntman on the picture was Elmer Redding, known as Reddy, famed for his prowess with both beast and bottle. He and his leather kidneys were sleeping one off when a novice assistant director waded into the stuntmen, pointed at Hank, and inquired, “You Reddy?”

Hank, thinking he was being asked about his preparedness to shoot, replied, “You bet.”

Thus did Hank debut as a stuntman in a dangerous stampede scene. He performed flawlessly, commandeering Reddy's moniker and several of his jobs in short order. Or so the legend goes. Ready, when asked, would neither confirm nor deny the tale. It was the only sensible course of action.

*   *   *

KEN NOLAN'S HOUSE
in a down-at-heel stretch west of Hollywood had been blue like the neighborhood had been prosperous, a lifetime ago. The white shutters hanging askew from the front windows gave the place a cockeyed look, as if it couldn't believe the state it was in either.

“Behold there was a very stately palace before him,” Ready muttered, “the name of which was not Beautiful.”

“You got that right, bub. Maybe you should wait in the car. You might make him nervous.”

“I plan to. This feller is going to know I'm here.” He knocked on the door.

It flew wide. Ken emerged into the glare to glare. “You again. Here to gloat?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what do you want? And who the hell is that?”

“My driver.”

“And bodyguard.” Ready pitched his voice even lower than his usual rumble.

“A bodyguard? That's a tad excessive, don't you think?”

Ready took in Ken's slight frame and argyle sweater vest. “Upon reflection, yes.”

“Don't I know you?” Ken surveyed Ready with interest. “A party at George's?”

“Could very well be,” Ready answered. With a hint of the vamp, about the last thing I needed.

“It's too bright out here.” Ken sighed. “You may as well come in.”

“I'll have a smoke, if you don't mind.” Ready left it unsaid that he'd be within hollering distance.

*   *   *

THE HOUSE'S TIDY
front room was set up as a photography studio. A tripod and lamp huddled in a corner next to a large wooden cabinet. Ken gestured to a scarlet rococo love seat in the middle of the bare wood floor. “If you want to sit, it's that or the kitchen. Why are you and that redwood here? Didn't you and your pal Edith have enough fun at my expense?”

“We didn't finish our conversation. You were about to give us your impressions of Ruby when the detectives arrived.”

“Was I? Funny, all I remember about yesterday is getting the sack. Wasn't even asked a question before the ax fell. John Engstead won't take my telephone calls.”

If I didn't circumvent his self-pity, we'd never get anywhere. “You said you didn't take any photographs of Ruby. Does that include one of her all dolled up, getting the full glamour treatment?”

“No photographs means no photographs.”

Time for a calculated risk. “Then another photographer has this love seat's twin sister. With this identical woodwork.” I laid my arm along the settee's back, caressing the filigreed detailing.

Ken paled. “How…? There was only one print. Ruby swore she sent it to her mother.”

“Her mother is proud of it. Shows it to everyone. Tells them her daughter was almost a movie star.”

“Ruby looked like one that day.”

Finally.

“She showed up in that beautiful suit. She looked stunning. Or she did once I fixed her makeup. I asked why she didn't pay for a real photo session if she could afford clothes like that. That's when she told me how she got them. She promised she wouldn't use the photo to land auditions. That could get us both in trouble.” Ken chuckled. “Truth is I admired her pluck. She hadn't been at the studio a week.”

“Did she also promise she'd bring the suit back?”

“First thing in the morning. Which meant she had it overnight. She said it was a shame to leave such a lovely outfit hanging in the dark, so she was going to give it an evening on the town. She had enough money for one drink. I donated cash for a second.” He pointed toward the front door. “I watched her sashay to the Red Car stop. It was chilly that night. She was freezing, but you'd never have known it.”

“Then what?”

“She wound up in clover. She went to a hotel bar and fell in with a bunch of swells, drank all night on their dime. Never spent her own money. Never gave mine back, either.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Doesn't it just. She returned the suit and liberated a gown for her next night out. This crowd had invited her to a party, and that led to another. And another.”

“Until she was fired. And asked you to steal clothes for her.”

No denial, only a trace of petulance. “Not steal. Borrow. It was only supposed to be borrowing. I said no initially, told Ruby she was crazy. She said she'd find some other way.”

“Some other way” being me and Tremayne's extreme employee discount. I was Ruby's plan B. For some reason, the news hurt.

“What changed your mind?” I asked.

“Her relentlessness. She wore me down. It was easy for me to take items from storage and return them a day later.”

“Then how did Ruby end up with a suitcase full of Paramount wardrobe?”

“She stopped bringing the clothes back. Just stopped. Told me to live with it. That was Ruby. She didn't hesitate to change the rules in the middle of the game.”

“That sounds like her, all right.”

“You knew Ruby. That's why you're here.” When I nodded, Ken waved toward the kitchen. “Do you want a drink? I want a drink.”