The Devil's Due Page 10

  Thorn was a smooth talker and attractive enough, if the silky smooth snaky sort was your type. But really, Simon's reaction to him was odd. She was just about to ask him about it when Alan came out of the building and hurried down the stairs to meet them.

  “I'm afraid, I've got to dash to rushes. I'll see you in the commissary in an hour or so. The writer's building is that dilapidated one over there. See a man named Miller and he'll get you studio passes and then you can do what writers do,” Grant added as he started to walk away.

  “Write?” Elizabeth asked. “I don't know how to write.”

  “Have you read the script for latest film? Hasn't stopped them. Have fun!” he waved over his shoulder and was gone.

  They didn't need the job, but having a studio pass that would allow them access to the lot could be valuable. They agreed to put in an appearance and pray they weren't given an assignment.

  The writers' building was just across the lawn, but unlike the main building with Roth's offices, it had no pretense. It barely had paint. A group of men played dice in the hallway and Simon had to help Elizabeth step around them. It felt more like a frat house than an office building.

  “Miller?” Simon asked.

  One of the men on the floor jabbed a thumb toward the ceiling. “Third floor.”

  Elizabeth looked for the elevator, but didn't find one. There was, however, a broad open staircase. As she looked up, two men and a tiny woman with short dark hair were deep in conversation as they walked down the last flight.

  Elizabeth's elbow jabbed Simon in the stomach so hard he let out a yelp. “What on earth—”

  “Dorothy Parker,” she whispered, pointing at the woman's back.

  Simon turned to try to catch a glimpse of her, but a boy with a stack of papers leapt down the stairs and nearly collided with him. “Sorry, mister,” the boy said and ran down the hall.

  Elizabeth mouthed a “wow” and squelched a delighted giggle. Simon gestured for her to start up the stairs.

  Miller's office was a jungle of paper. Piles of scripts teetered on the edge of toppling over. An attractive, busty woman in a tight skirt and even tighter sweater sat perched on the desk filing her nails. Her platinum blonde hair was nearly blinding. She popped her gum and stared at them blankly. Two cigarettes burned in the ashtray next to her.

  Standing behind the desk was a tall man, or one who would have been if he ever straightened, but he seemed permanently bent. His graying hair was in disarray, his suit as rumpled as his face.

  “Are you Miller? Simon asked.

  The man squinted.

  “Roth sent us,” Elizabeth supplied. “We're writers.”

  Miller didn't look so sure. “Scenarists or dialogue?” he asked using his cigarette like an index finger, punctuating each question with a stab of it. “Are you funny? Can you tell me a joke? Tell me a joke.”

  Elizabeth looked anxiously at Simon. Although she would have paid good money to see Simon tell a joke, she cleared her throat, spread her feet to shoulder width and started. “A guy walks into a bar with a duck on his head-”

  Miller waved it away. “You'll do.”

  He narrowed his eyes at Simon. “You a team?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said excitedly. She knew they weren't actually going to write anything, but it was still thrilling.

  “Does it talk or is it just through you?”

  “I'm quite capable of speaking for myself,” Simon said.

  “English,” Miller said with a sour face. “That's all I need. All right, I got plenty of crap that needs punching up. What about that jungle thing with Grant, that uhm—”

  “Through the Dark Continent?” Elizabeth answered. That was exciting and a little troubling. Through the Dark Continent was the last movie Grant ever made. After it, he just dropped off the map. The movie was unfinished and never released.

  Miller slammed his hand down on the desk and frowned in distaste. “That's the one. Do something with it. Fix it.”

  Elizabeth was stunned. “Really?”

  “We were told we'd need studio passes. Where do we procure those?” Simon asked, bringing her back on point.

  “Procure them?” Miller said and then looked up to his ceiling. “Why'd it have to be an Englishman?” He glared at Elizabeth. “You're American, right?”

  “Texan.”

  “Close enough. Now get out.”

  He waved them away. The woman on the desk smiled amiably at them, handed them a few wrinkled forms and blew a bubble with her gum. “Downstairs. 201,” she said with another loud pop of her gum.

  After wandering through the halls, they found room 201 and the main writers' room. It wasn't that hard actually, thanks to the sound of a dozen or so Underwood typewriters banging away and the rumble of loud voices. Half a dozen desks held a dozen men and a few women. Some worked away hunched over their typewriters, others were talking animatedly and one was throwing a rubber ball against the wall. A cloud of smoke hovered above them almost obscuring the pincushion ceiling where dozens of pencils dangled down.

  Simon introduced himself and Elizabeth to the haggard-looking man who seemed to be in charge, if anyone could have said to have been. He took the papers Simon had, crumpled them into balls and threw them into an enormous pile of balled up paper in the corner. He gave Simon fresh paperwork to fill out and Elizabeth used the opportunity to see what she could find out about Ruby or Roth.

  Most people were in heated arguments or busy working. One man was asleep on his desk, curled up like a small child between his pencil sharpener and typewriter.

  “I wouldn’t get too close,” a man said from behind her. He looked like a fox. His nose was long and sharp, his eyes small and dark; he even had tawny hair. “It’s better upwind.”

  He escorted Elizabeth away from the sleeping man toward his desk. Another writer, with owlish glasses and a round face looked up from his work, which Elizabeth realized was blacking out teeth on movie star headshots. “Ohh, a girl,” he said with a grin, forgetting his drawings. “Show me your legs.”

  “Charlie,” said Mr. Fox.

  “What? I miss my wife. She’s been gone to Florida for two weeks. Just a little leg? An ankle?”

  Elizabeth liked him; she liked them both, the owl and the fox. She put one leg out and inched up the hem to show off her calf. Wolf whistles came from men who weren’t even looking. She could feel the heat of Simon’s glare from across the room.

  Charlie shook his head. “Nothing like my wife’s.”

  Mr. Fox lifted his pant leg to reveal a pale hairy calf.

  “Now that looks like my wife!”

  Elizabeth laughed, much to the delight of both Charlie and Mr. Fox, who held out a chair for her.

  “Thank you.” As she sat down, she noticed today’s issue of Variety on Charlie’s desk.

  “Pretty shocking about that girl, isn't it?” she said.

  “Ruby?” Charlie picked up the paper and then tossed it aside. “Yeah.” There was a decided lack of surprise in his voice.

  “Or not so shocking?” she asked.

  “It’s a shame and all; she was pretty, even had a little talent, but there was just somethin’ about that dame.”

  Mr. Fox picked up the paper. “You just don’t like Benny Roth.”

  “He waters down his gin!” Charlie said indignantly and then shrugged it off. “I don’t know. One day, she’s a nobody; the next day the whole town can’t fall over themselves fast enough to give her the world on a silver platter. Heard maybe she had something going with Roth on the side.”

  “Sam?” Mr. Fox said. “The only thing he likes to make love to is his money.”

  Simon joined them and Elizabeth introduced him to Charlie and Mr. Fox.

  “They were just telling me about Sam Roth,” Elizabeth said.

  Simon sat down on the edge of the desk. “Were those actual wooly mammoth tusks in his office?”

  “The real McCoy,” Charlie said. “Story is he found them himself, when he wa
s looking for oil.”

  “Oil?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Studios don’t come cheap ya know,” Charlie said. “That's how Roth got his money. Another overnight sensation you might say.”

  “How so?” Simon prompted.

  “Story is, he came here, what 30 years ago, young kid from the East coast looking for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Found it at Wilshire Boulevard.”

  “The La Brea Tar Pits,” Elizabeth said more to herself than the men. She'd visited them the last time she'd come to LA — huge pools of tar or asphalt bubbling up from enormous deposits of crude oil. That explained all of the oil derricks they'd seen downtown.

  “Right,” Charlie said. “Supposedly, he hooked up with Thorn and they somehow managed to beat Standard Oil and the rest of them out of one of the richest oil fields in California.”

  “And he found the mammoth tusks in a tar pit above the oil,” Simon reasoned. “Hence the name Mammoth Studios.”

  Charlie touched his nose. “Give that man a cheroot. Thorn stayed a silent partner and Roth founded the studio. And here we are wasting his not-so-hard earned money.”

  “Gets ya right here,” Mr. Fox said touching his heart. “And a little down here,” he added touching his stomach and pretending to belch.

  ~~~

  Life didn't give out second chances very often. Jack had been lucky enough to have more than his fair share. The fact that he was alive and kicking was testament to that. It was unnerving to think of the number of times he could have and should have died. If Simon and Elizabeth hadn't literally pulled his bacon out of the fire in 1942, his story would have ended, like so many others, at the point of the German bomb. And now, life had given him yet another go. He'd be damned if he was going to let it pass him by.

  Jack paid the taxi driver and walked the last block west toward the setting sun. He'd managed to convince Betty to meet him for dinner. It had taken some doing. Even this younger, hopeful version of Betty was a bit of a cynic — a funny, wonderful, heart beneath the armor of a cynic. Hollywood taught you that people who wore their hearts on their sleeves didn't survive. By the time Jack had met Betty in 1938 and fallen head over heels for her, she'd learned that the hard way. But this Betty didn't look at him and see the shadow of the man who'd hurt her. For the first time, she could look at him and just see him.

  Of course, he thought, the real him was using a fake name and couldn't tell her who he really was or why he was really here. Starting off with a fistful of lies was far from ideal, but he'd learned in the spy game that circumstances were never ideal, and you did the best with what you had. He'd also learned to focus on today and not tomorrow. Tomorrow was never guaranteed. And, for Jack, today meant a second chance with the woman who stole his heart and that was all that mattered.

  He saw her leaning against the fence that lined the bluffs above the Roosevelt Highway and the Pacific Ocean below. God, she was beautiful. The light from the setting sun cast a golden hue across everything it touched. It seemed to linger just a little bit longer on her, touching her hair, caressing her cheek.

  She turned and gave him a small wave. His heart pounded in his chest. He felt like a teenage boy on his first date. It was horrifying. And it was wonderful.

  “I hope you haven't been waiting long,” he said.

  She smiled and shook her head. “No,” she said turning back to watch the sunset. “I forget how beautiful the ocean is. I'm still not used to seeing it.”

  He moved next to her and leaned forward, resting his elbows on top of the fence. “Not a native then?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  She laughed. “Is anyone? Nope, I'm from Fort Wayne, Indiana.”

  “You're a long way from home.”

  Betty looked out at the sun dipping beneath the far horizon. “Yeah. A long way.”

  Jack searched her face for a clue to the sadness he heard in her voice. “Homesick?”

  She held out her hand, thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “A little.”

  Jack shifted his weight onto his left elbow and turned toward her. “You know what does wonders for homesickness?”

  She gave him a skeptical smile.

  “Ice cream.”

  She laughed, but he continued, “It's a scientific fact. There's a great place just down on the pier.”

  “We haven't even had dinner yet.”

  He shrugged. “After dinner then? For medicinal purposes only, of course.”

  She smiled. “I am feeling pretty homesick. I might need a double.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  Dinner at Luigi's went past in a blur. Betty was a strange and wonderful mixture of things - smart and funny and ready to sock the world right in the kisser with one hand and pull it to her with the other. The years he'd spent dreaming about her, wondering where she was, if she was happy, if she had children now, fell back into the dark in their candle-lit corner booth. His memory had painted gauzy pictures of the past. But no memory, not even ones that had kept him going during some of the darkest nights of the war, compared to this, to being with her again. It seemed impossible, but she was even lovelier than he'd remembered.

  He knew it was foolish. He knew it couldn't be. And yet, he couldn't stop himself from dreaming, from hoping against hope there was a way to stay together. If she'd even have him, he realized. He loved her, had always loved her, but to Betty he was a stranger. Maybe she'd send him away and that would be that. All he knew was, he had to find out if she could, if she would love him. And if she did, he would find a way. There was always a way.

  After dinner, they walked along a busy Ocean Park enjoying the warm spring evening. Even the wind coming in off the ocean was gentle and warm. They fell in with the crowd and headed down the long sloping entrance that led to the mouth of the Santa Monica Pier. In the distance the sound of a band organ playing something vaguely circus-like came ashore with the wind.

  At the base of the long ramp, a large two-story red and yellow building stood where the pier met the end of the bluff. Tall Spanish Colonial spires jutted out over arched Byzantine windows in a strange menagerie of styles. As they walked closer to the open archways that spread across the first floor, the music grew louder and was joined with bright flashes of light.

  Jack nodded toward the carousel asking if she wanted to ride. She smiled and shook her head. They contented themselves with watching others climb aboard the colorful hand-carved horses. Mothers held on to their children, men held on to their dates and some held on to their lunches as the enormous carousel started up again. After a few minutes, Jack put his hand on the small of Betty's back and led her out back into the night air and further down the pier.

  He maneuvered them through the crowd to a small storefront. “Your medicine,” he said, gesturing to the blackboard with today's special ice cream flavors.

  They both opted for a single scoop cone of chocolate and then found an out-of-the-way bench and sat. As they worked on their cones in contented silence, they watched the crowd pass by.

  “You've got a little…” Betty said pointing at Jack's face.

  He wiped his chin with a paper napkin, but she shook her head. He tried again only to have her laugh and reach toward him. With the pad of her thumb, she gently rubbed a spot just under his lower lip. Her eyes focused on his mouth; her own lips slightly parted as she wiped away the errant drop of chocolate. It was completely innocent and yet it made the blood rush out of his brain. Once she'd finished, she sat back against the bench and he continued to stare at her like some escapee. He sat there slack-jawed, aching to kiss her and knowing he couldn't.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, narrowing her eyes with concern.

  “Dancing?” he said before his brain had started fully functioning again. “Me.”

  She cocked her head to the side and then spoke to him like he was a backwards child. She pointed at the bench. “Sitting. Dancing different.”

  He laughed. “Right. I mean, do you dance?” It wa
s another cheat. He knew the answer. She loved to dance.

  She hesitated.

  He knew that look in her eyes; he'd seen it so many times. She was teetering on the edge of saying yes and just one more little nudge would do it. “If you're a little clumsy, that's okay. I don't mind if you step on my feet.”

  “Oh, you don't mind?” There was a tinge to her voice that meant she was winding up.

  “Well, you do have pretty big feet for a girl.” He pointed down at her perfectly normal feet.

  “I do not!” She was about to lay into him when she realized he was joking. Her pique melted into an embarrassed smile.

  He stood and held out his hand to help her up. She looked at it warily for a minute before accepting. They walked a little further down the pier to the La Monica Ballroom. It was enormous and spread out across the width of the double pier. It was another mishmash of styles that seemed to find a home in LA. The outside was Spanish-style stucco with a dozen twenty-foot minarets dotting the perimeter. Each minaret top, like something out of Ali Baba, was lit by hundreds of tiny fairy lights and made the whole building look like some insane magic palace that had floated across both oceans and time and plopped down right in the middle of the pier.

  Betty, who had never been to La Monica's, stopped outside and stared at the building. “That makes no sense.”

  Jack put her arm through his. “Sense is overrated.”

  The interior was equally bizarre and wonderful. The cavernous 15,000 square foot ballroom had entrances from every side and was ringed by a large open promenade with a café and fountain. There was even an upper level mezzanine with plush upholstered chairs and divans.

  Jack bought them both tickets, just a dime these days. Back when Jack had first come, it was a dime for each dance and men with ropes would herd off each set of dancers when the music was over to make way to for the next set of paying customers. But, the Depression didn't spare anyone and La Monica cut its rates and even started offering dance marathons as a way to make enough money to keep the doors open.