CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Richard Armstrong lived in a mock-Arab atrocity perched in the dry, dusty hills overlooking Lake Hollywood. The only good thing about visiting the place, Casey decided, was the twisty nature of the Mulholland Highway he drove to reach Armstrong’s place: the road was an appropriate challenge to his driving skills and to the big Bentley’s stability.
Armstrong’s house was freshly painted on the outside, and the lawns green and carefully trimmed. Nobody answered the door when Casey rang, though, and after waiting several minutes he let himself in. Inside, the place was a foul-smelling wreck, strewn with newspapers, takeout Chinese-food containers and unwashed plates. Whatever domestic staff Armstrong had employed had obviously departed some time ago. Given the man’s behavior on the set, when he was supposedly at his best, Casey had no trouble figuring out why it might have been hard for Armstrong to hold onto the help.
Casey guessed, by the direction from which the loud voices seemed to be coming, that Armstrong was in his kitchen—with someone else. Casey had phoned ahead to invite himself over, so it was hard to see this lack of hospitality as anything but a direct insult.
“Well, hot socks,” Armstrong said as Casey walked into the kitchen. The medicinal reek of bad gin assaulted Casey’s nostrils; Armstrong and the woman were leaning on counters, very nearly too drunk to stand. “Look at Joe Toth here.”
“Somebody oughta tell Wardrobe,” the woman beside him said, her voice nearly tripping over the last word. “He’s gone and stole somebody’s costume.”
He had bought the suit this afternoon after his return to Hollywood from Santa Monica. “These are my own clothes,” Casey said. “Why would you think that I don’t know how to dress myself? Or do you just assume that, because you’re all wearing costumes, everybody is?”
“Go to hell, fly-boy.”
“In my time, Mr. Armstrong. Not just yet, though. Since I’ve gone to the trouble of finding your place and letting myself in, could I ask you something?”
“No.”
“What were you and Lily fighting about last Saturday?”
“This is what you said was so goddamned important?” Armstrong said. “Well, it’s none of your goddamn business. Why the hell should you care?”
“Curiosity, mostly. I don’t think that Hal Telford killed Lily. At least, I don’t think he was the only one involved.”
“What, you’re saying I killed her? You tin-pot bastard—I ought to—”
The tumbler that smashed against Armstrong’s skull didn’t shatter, but it did send him to the floor in a heap. “You shit!” the woman screamed. “You goddamn ass! You were with her?”
Casey pulled her away before she could do any real damage. After a frightening few seconds, Armstrong sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “Baby,” he said quietly, “why’d you do that?”
“Why were you with that slut?” Tears, stained black by makeup, ran down the woman’s face. “You and me, you said. That’s what mattered. And now I find that you were making her too.”
“Thanks a lot, fly-boy,” Armstrong said. He turned to the woman. “Belinda, I didn’t have anything to do with her. We were fighting about you.”
Belinda, Casey thought. Where have I heard that name? “Now I hear she’s blotto all the time.” Wasn’t that what Lily Cross had said, the night Casey met her?
“You’re Belinda Moore,” Casey said.
“I was Belinda Moore. Now I’m—nothing. Nobody. And I don’t need your futzing sympathy!” she shouted, seeing the expression on Casey’s face. Belinda staggered; then, as if exhausted by the effort her anger required of her, slumped down beside Armstrong. Flopping her face onto Armstrong’s shoulder, she began crying, loud blubbery sobs quickly subsiding into a muffled whine.
Casey stepped back, unsure and uncomfortable. He was painfully aware of how ill-equipped he was to deal with this sort of emotional storm. Survival at a front-line squadron had demanded the suppression—or the ignoring—of excessive emotion. His work since the war had kept him either solitary or in the company of fellow pilots, all of whom would rather have crashed to their deaths than betray any sort of emotion.
He nonetheless felt compelled to say something, anything, to help. Or just to stop this, he thought. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this,” he said to Armstrong. “But you’re being sabotaged by your director.”
“Of course I know that!” Armstrong said. He spoke with such vehemence that he joggled the almost-limp woman leaning on his shoulder. “What do you mean?” he added after a second’s pause.
“I mean that I have overheard Straebo discussing your performance with the sound-man. Your voice records perfectly well, according to that chap. Why Straebo is accusing you of having a poor voice I don’t know for sure. It could be that he and his boss want to cut your salary. Or maybe Straebo’s just afraid of you and this is how he tries to cut you down to size. But whatever the reason for doing it, the accusation’s false. You should be able to fight it.”
“What the hell do you know about fighting?” Armstrong said bitterly. Then he seemed to realize what it was he’d said and to whom he’d said it. He looked away for a minute.
“Look, I appreciate that,” he said when he turned to look at Casey again. “But I don’t think I can fight it. Sure, I can have other voice tests done. I can get a hundred tests done. But all McMahon has to do is plant a couple of stories in the papers and the fan mags, and I’ll be in the same boat Belinda here is in.”
“The same boat a lot of you are in, I guess,” Casey said. “Think of Greta Nissen. Do you think Miss Nissen is going to be able to find picture work again, now that Hughes has replaced her with Miss Harlow? Who, Conrad Hart tells me, is going to be at his party tonight.”
“Hah,” Belinda burbled from within the folds of Armstrong’s jacket. “Glad Harlow got the job. Better her than that Dumb Dora, Adams.”
“Excuse me?” Casey had a sudden flash of memory, hearing Jeff Cunningham talking about Eve Adams’s desperate desire for a big-time contract. “Eve Adams was up for the role Harlow got?”
“Sure she was,” Belinda said. “Every blond in Hollywood was.”
“Including our own virgin queen,” Armstrong said. “Boy, did she turn into a bearcat when she found out Hughes didn’t want her. Didn’t even call her back for a sound test.”
“Wait a minute. Did Straebo know that Eve had auditioned for this role?”
“How the hell should I know?” Armstrong said. “But since he’s sleeping with her—along with just about every other skirt in Hollywood—how could he not have known?”
Casey leaned back against one of the kitchen counters. “I would have thought,” he said, slowly, “that a man who hates Howard Hughes as much as Straebo does would go berserk if he thought that one of his actresses was auditioning for work with the enemy.” Unless it was his idea in the first place. “When did Eve audition?”
“Back in September,” Belinda said. “It was supposed to be a secret. But I caught her with some guy that works for Hughes in a speak in Chinatown. She thought she was being so clever.”
Michael Buckley, thought Casey. “And you told Armstrong about it.”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“Don’t go off your nuts,” Casey said. “I’m just thinking this through. So Belinda tells you that Eve Adams is secretly testing with Hughes. I suppose you mentioned this to Straebo. Say, while you were fighting about something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I—oh, wait. Yeah, I suppose I did say something. I was plenty mad enough.”
“And I’d be willing to bet,” Casey said, “that your real problems on the set started shortly after you shot your mouth off about his mistress auditioning for Howard Hughes.”
“Gee, thanks,” Armstrong said. “And I should be taking advice from you why, exactly?”
“You’re right,” Casey said, turning to leave. “What could I possibly have to offer somebody who’s doing such a marvellous job of managing his career so far?”
Armstrong’s response was scatological, but Casey ignored it and let himself out of the house; the argument between Armstrong and Moore resumed, sloppily, as he walked away. I should be talking with Desiree about this, he thought. She knows more about these people than I do. Before he could see Desiree, though, he had more inquiries to make. And some breaking and entering to do.
Next Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven
No comments:
Post a Comment