CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You know, we really have to stop meeting this way,” Casey said. Nobody laughed at the joke, though Desiree smiled through her fatigue.
I think I’ve spent more time in Ben McMahon’s living room lately than I have in my own room, Casey thought. The same might be said for Neal, Straebo, and Desiree, who had all been brought together by the studio chief in the aftermath of Eve’s arrest. The light in the room seemed pale, malnourished. I wouldn’t want to spend my mornings here, Casey mused.
“I don’t think that we have time for banter this morning,” McMahon said. He had been pacing more or less non-stop since Casey had arrived. In a way, Casey took pleasure from this: it was nice to see McMahon not arrogant and in control of things for a change.
“I haven’t got much time for this,” McMahon continued, “so you’d better make it good, Desiree, Casey. Grey is waiting in the library with Eve, and I’m going to have to make a decision right now about how we and the D.A. handle this. Then there’s Hughes. He wants me to come to his offices downtown for a nine o’clock meeting. So what do you have?”
Casey looked at Jerry Straebo, who tried to glare back. Casey saw more fear than anger in the director’s eyes, though. Eve’s arrest seemed to have kicked out of him whatever fight had remained after the punch-up they’d had in Hart’s house.
“Casey thinks that Jerry had something to do with Lily’s death,” Desiree said.
“You will pay for that,” Straebo growled. “I will wreck you.”
“Feel free to do your worst,” Casey said. “Or try your worst, anyway. There’s not much you can do to hurt me, I’m thinking.
“Besides, I never said that you planned Lily’s death, much less that you acted in any way to kill her. What I said was that your actions may have contributed in a material way to her death. And I stand by that.”
“You have no right to say that. You have no justification!”
“Jerry,” McMahon said, quietly, “shut up. Haven’t you gotten yourself into enough trouble as it is?” Straebo shrank back into his chair.
“The question of justification is where we differ, I suppose,” Casey said. “If you had given up on your plan to put a saboteur into Howard Hughes’s movie when Eve Adams flunked her screen test, Straebo, none of this might have happened.”
“What?”
“Saboteur?” Neal moved as if to advance on Casey, but froze at a glance from McMahon. After a moment’s silence, Desiree gestured at Casey to continue. Her face bore that sly grin again, and Casey felt a moment of giddiness.
“I don’t pretend to know when you came up with the idea. But it must have been sometime in late summer, when everybody started talking about how much trouble Hughes was having finding a replacement for Greta Nissen. For all I know, it was Eve’s idea. She’s the one who wanted to move on to a richer contract, and there’s no doubt that Hughes has the wherewithal to make a woman a star. I gather that right now Jean Harlow is literally the only actress Hughes has under contract. There’s going to be a lot of publicity money spent on that one little girl.
“So you got in touch with a man named Buckley. He works for Hughes, and maybe you thought that would give you an advantage. Buckley gets Eve a screen test.”
Casey looked around. Everyone’s eyes were on him. Perhaps, he thought, this is what actors find so appealing about being in the movies.
“A small problem popped up, though. Not only did Eve not get signed by Hughes, she didn’t even get called back for a voice test.
“I’m thinking that by this time, Straebo, you were totally in love with the idea of putting one of your women into Hughes’s movie. By doing that you could either wreck the picture, or make him totally dependent on a woman you controlled—or thought you controlled, anyway.
“So your next plan was to put Lily Cross in the shoes that Eve couldn’t quite fill.” He looked at Straebo. “I wonder if it ever occurred to you, in your greedy arrogance, that the girl you thought you were exploiting might not have her own agenda. Because however biddable Eve might have been, Lily certainly wasn’t. While you were using her to get close to Hughes, she was using your art director and a bootlegger named McGrath to get the goods on you. Hughes kept stringing Lily along, drawing information from her. I’m pretty sure he knows all about the problems you’ve been having.”
He turned to look at McMahon. “He might even know about your scheme to destroy Richard Armstrong’s career. If he doesn’t yet, he probably will soon, because everybody in Hollywood will be talking about it.”
“That is none of your business!” Straebo spluttered.
“Do you think that MGM is going to be shocked?” McMahon smiled. “Ask Jack Gilbert about that, once you climb down from your moral soap-box.”
Casey shrugged. “What you do to yourselves is, as you say, your business. I’m just telling you what I think happened.”
“And how, exactly, do you know any of this? What are you going to give the D.A. that could possibly cause us any trouble?” McMahon stared, with the dull, icy eyes of a predator, at Casey. “A lawsuit for libel would destroy you, I’m thinking, long before it ever got to trial.”
“Oh, I doubt that you’d get that far,” Casey said, “any more than Straebo there would.” He stood, carefully, wincing at the pain.
Next Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen
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