Dial H for Hitchcock (17 page)

I
leapt to my feet.

Dorothy frowned. “Everything alright, Cece?”

“Can I use your phone for a minute?” I asked. “It’s a California number.”

She was tossing the salad. “But we’re just about to eat.”

“I don’t want any croutons, Mom,” Erin whined. “They make me sick, as you very well know.”

“It’ll only take a minute,” I said impatiently. “It’s extremely important.”

“Give Cece the phone,” Dorothy said to her daughter.

Erin grudgingly handed it to me, and I dialed Annie’s number. When she picked up, I said, “It’s me.”

I could hear the relief in her voice. “Mom? Thank God. Somebody named Detective McQueen called me today. She wanted to know if I’d heard from you. Where are you? What is going on?”

I had to keep it short. “Is Vincent home?”

“Who’s Vincent?” Erin hissed.

“Quiet!” her mother commanded.

“Are you in trouble, Mom?” Annie asked.

“Everything’s going to be fine if I can just talk to Vincent. Please. Then I have to hang up.”

I heard her call him into the room.

“Cece?”

“Vincent. I have a quick question. Remember the other day when you emailed me the images that were on my phone?”

“Yeah.”

“You only sent me seven. I think there were more.”

“There were. I downloaded them onto my computer. But you only wanted the nature shots. For your Christmas cards.”

“I need all of them. Right now.” I looked at Dorothy. She wiped her hands on her apron, then scribbled her email address on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

“No problem,” Vincent said. “I’m sitting at my computer. Tell me where to send them.”

That was one of the many things I loved about my son-in-law. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. Not because he wasn’t curious, but because he respected a person’s privacy.

A minute later, the pictures turned up.

A dry hillside.

Scattered leaves.

An abandoned truck parked on the trail.

The Hollywood sign.

The Hollywood sign again.

More dead leaves.

Dirt.

Those I’d already seen.

I was looking for the two pictures I’d taken the previous night.

In the parking lot of the Orpheum, right after Bachelor Number One had rear-ended my Camry.

And here they were.

A blurred shot of the back of my car.

And a crystal-clear shot of the front of his.

There were California plates on his black Mercedes. Just what you’d expect from an agent who grew up on a cul-de-sac in Tarzana and swore he’d never been anywhere near a prairie.

But the frame surrounding the license plate told a different story.

I stared at it for a minute, just to be sure.

It wasn’t from California, the Golden State.

It was from the Sunflower State, the place Dorothy is desperate to return to after her ill-fated trip to the Land of Oz.

Dorothy wanted to go home.

Home was Kansas.

I
got back to the motel at nine. Roy was in the front office playing solitaire.

“Boo!” I said.

He looked up from his cards and glared at me.

“Just getting into the holiday spirit,” I said. “Halloween is tomorrow, after all.”

Roy pointed to a sorry-looking candy dish filled with Necco wafers, Smarties, and those unspeakable circus peanuts. “Help yourself, but watch out for razor blades.”

I gave him a look. “Key, please.”

“Have you decided when you’re checking out?” Roy put a five of hearts on top of a six of spades.

“Tomorrow. Can I get my key?”

“I heard you the first time.” He turned around and plucked the key to Room 10 off its hook.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thank you,
Roy.”

“Sorry,
Roy.”
I headed for the door.

“Anita.”

I turned around.

“You sure you wouldn’t like to stay a little longer? Just to talk?” He pulled a stick of gum out of his pocket, and folded it in half and then into quarters before popping it into his mouth.

“So now you want to be friends?” I supposed I could have one Necco wafer. Just to be sociable. And to postpone the inevitable.

“Nah.” He moved a seven of clubs on top of an eight of hearts, then moved the whole pile over to the left. Then he waved me away.

Back in the room, I thought of a million things I’d rather do than make a call to Ben McAllister.

Eat crap candy with Roy.

Spear trash along the highway.

Walk through a graveyard at midnight.

Steeling myself, I picked up the Chinese menu he’d scrawled his number onto. It had been sitting in the glove compartment of my car for almost a week.

“Hello?”

I gave a start at the sound of his voice. “Ben. It’s Cece. Don’t hang up.”

He took a deep breath, then exhaled. “It’s late. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to apologize for the other night.”

“Apology accepted. Good night.”

“Wait! Please. I can explain.”

“There’s no need.”

“Yes, there is. There’s no excuse for how I behaved.”

He waited.

“I haven’t been myself these days,” I said. “But I guess that’s an excuse.”

“Sounds like one.”

“It’s just that I’m so confused. I broke off my engagement a couple of weeks ago, and I know I’m not ready to get involved with anyone right now, but I can’t help myself.” I felt my stomach turn. “Being with you—I don’t know. I guess the way you make me feel scares me.”

“Go on.”

Greedy bastard. “I want to see you, Ben.”

“When?”

The room was stifling. I cracked open the window. “As soon as possible.”

“How about tomorrow?” He had to attend an auction at Bonhams & Butterfields in Hollywood. One of his clients had put something up for sale. It was an obligation he couldn’t get out of. I was going to meet him there, and then we were going to have dinner somewhere quiet, where we could talk.

That was perfect.

Because
B
is for Ben is a good talker.

And I am a good listener.

I
was packed and showered before the housekeeper showed up the next morning. Including the tip I left her, the grand total for my two-night stay at the E-Z Nights came to just under two hundred dollars, which is about the same amount of money it would’ve cost me to buy the Maud Frizon black silk
peau de soie
pumps with the pleated indigo bows I’d been eyeing at Bridget’s for two months. Not that I was keeping track.

On the way out of town, operating on the premise that it would be a long time before I returned to Kern County, I decided to check out the giant white shoe at the corner of Chester and Tenth, former home of Deschwander’s Shoe Repair, which opened in 1947, the same year as the first UFO sightings over the U.S. I’d read an article in the
Bakotopia
listing the area’s top ten sights. The giant white shoe was #1. And deservedly so. #2 was a ten-foot-tall man made out of air-conditioning ductwork standing in front of American Air, Heating and Air Conditioning,
and #3 was a giant Native American with arrows poking out of his head who used to stand guard over the Big O tire shop. I couldn’t find either of them. I did, however, manage to locate Yolanda’s (#5), home of the three-foot churro, but they were closed for Halloween. I considered making a detour to Kingsburg, home of the Swedish Coffee Pot (#6), which is five hundred times larger than its real-life counterpart, however Kingsburg was almost to Fresno, and that seemed excessive. The last place James Dean stopped for gas (#8) was not far from Wasco, but I was hungry now.

I stopped at an In-N-Out Burger halfway down Highway 5. There was a long wait, so I had plenty of time to map out my strategy.

Tonight I was going to ensnare Ben. First I’d hang on him a little, giving him a false sense of security. He liked to play the tough guy. Then I’d ambush him. Once we were seated in our chairs at Bonhams & Butterfields, that is, and there were hundreds of people around. He wouldn’t dare try anything with hundreds of people around.

I’d accused him once before, but I hadn’t had the facts. Now I did (more or less). There was Anita’s list. Dorothy’s story. The hot pink cell phone. And then there was Kansas. As Gambino liked to say, it wasn’t enough to hang him, but it was enough to get a warrant.

There were six hours until seven o’clock, however, and I couldn’t exactly go home. Anybody could be watching. Detectives McQueen and Collins, for example. Officers Lavery and Bell. The SWAT team, perhaps. It wasn’t like my neighbors Lois and Marlene could be counted upon for discretion. They had noses like bloodhounds. The minute they got a
whiff of me, they’d be on the phone to the local news, primping for their close-ups.

I was pumping mustard in a little paper cup when they called my number.

Burger and fries in hand, I hopped back into the car.

I could always go to the movies. Or go shopping. I still had over a thousand dollars in my purse. Or how was this for a novel idea? I could work on my Hitchcock book. No actual writing, of course. That would require ideas, organization, a beginning, a middle, and an end. But I could go on a little research expedition. Do some field work.

I finished my burger, then eased onto the 405 South.

After exiting in Westwood, I headed straight for the Wilshire Palms.

The year was 1939. Producer David O. Selznick had wooed them relentlessly. And they’d finally given in.

The Hitchcocks were coming to America.

Hitch was, of course, already a success in his native England. He’d directed such hits as
The 39 Steps
and
The Lady Vanishes.
But he wanted more. The Brits saw him as a fat, unglamorous young man from Essex who’d learned how to work around the British film industry’s technological limitations to churn out winning entertainments. But they didn’t consider him an artist.

Hitch wanted to be taken seriously. And Selznick knew just what to say.

The studio rented the director, his wife, Alma, and their eleven-year-old daughter, Pat, a three-bedroom apartment in
the Wilshire Palms, a new high-rise with views of the mountains and ocean located just ten minutes away from Selznick International in Culver City. It was a chic address: Franchot Tone, recently divorced from Joan Crawford, was shacking up there. Mickey Rooney and Ava Gardner moved in as newlyweds three years later.

The apartment was all white: white draperies, white carpet, white furniture, white walls. Pat said it reminded her of a snowstorm. Alma told her daughter it would be a long time before they saw bad weather again. But she hadn’t foreseen the trouble with Selznick.
Rebecca
was their first collaboration, and Selznick wanted everybody to know who was boss.

Take the script, based upon the novel by Daphne du Maurier. After the final draft was submitted, Selznick responded with a memo that Hitch joked would make a very good film: “The Longest Story Ever Told.”

Then there was the casting. Selznick had a crush on Joan Fontaine, so she got the female lead, as the tormented second Mrs. de Winter. For the part of Maxim de Winter, Selznick chose Laurence Olivier, mostly to placate Olivier’s lover, Vivien Leigh, whom Selznick was holding hostage in Hollywood for postproduction work on
Gone With the Wind.

Oh. Here we were.

I slowed down and squinted at the numbers. I was looking for 10331.

Number 10531 was the Mama Royale, or maybe the something-else Royale. I couldn’t tell because of all the curlicues.

Next door to that was a deserted pumpkin patch. Guess everybody who wanted a jack-o’-lantern already had one.

Next door to that was a moody chateauesque number with
turrets and spires and gables. I couldn’t see an address, but this had to be it.

I parked just up the street and walked back.

The place reminded me of Manderley, the mansion Hitch said was the true star of
Rebecca.
It was dripping with atmosphere. And foliage. There were probably a lot of spiders in there.

I approached with trepidation. You never knew who might be lurking in the shadows. Mrs. Danvers, the sadistic housekeeper obsessed with the first Mrs. de Winter, was a first-class lurker. She was also my favorite character in the movie. I loved the part when she forced the poor, pathetic second Mrs. de Winter into wearing Rebecca’s ruffled white ball gown. Mrs. Danvers understood the mystical allure of the right dress. She had a lot in common with Bridget.

But no, I suddenly realized, this couldn’t be 10331. The Wilshire Palms was a high-rise. Was it this hideous beige twenty-story condo next door? I hoped not. I couldn’t commune with Hitch’s spirit in a beige condo. It looked too new, anyway. They must’ve torn down the Wilshire Palms. These things are known to happen in Los Angeles.

I got back into the car and headed up Beverly Glen.

Bel Air was just on the other side of Sunset Boulevard.

That was where the Hitchcocks moved next, to a cozy, English-style cottage they’d visited when Carole Lombard was living there. The couple had befriended the blond comedienne soon after they’d arrived in Hollywood. She’d shared Hitch’s taste for practical jokes. When they’d worked together on
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
, Lombard had installed a miniature cattle pen on the set complete with three young heifers wearing banners
emblazoned with the names of the three stars of the film (herself, Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond), her comeback to the director’s infamous quip that all actors were cattle. When Lombard decided to move into boyfriend Clark Gable’s ranch house in Encino, Hitch and Alma jumped at the chance to take over her lease.

I was at Sunset now. All I had to do was remember Carole Lombard’s address.

Was it Saint Pierre Road?

St. Bertrand?

St. Peter Claver? No, that was my parish church in Asbury Park.

I waited for the green light and turned right, then slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting a Bride of Frankenstein who’d plowed through the red light going seventy. An early reveler, I supposed. What was her hurry? Ah. She was buying a map to the stars’ homes. There were hand-painted wooden signs advertising them propped all along Sunset between Westwood and Beverly Hills.

I wondered.

Would Carole Lombard’s address be listed on one of those maps?

Carole Lombard died in a plane crash in 1942, but I doubted they updated those things regularly. I slowed down a little so I could peer down the next side street. Sure enough, there was a guy sitting in a lawn chair in front of somebody’s massive Tudor mansion. He had a pile of maps by his side.

I put on my turn signal. And that was when I saw them in my rearview mirror.

The dreaded flashing red lights.

Known to make the innocent feel guilty, and the guilty play innocent.

I couldn’t say exactly where I fell in the continuum.

But some might find it telling that as I pulled over, my first thought was that I only had fifteen hundred and forty three dollars left for bail.