Lillian and Dash (12 page)

She rarely discussed Arthur with Hammett, but he always remembered her most telling criticism. It was while smoking and drinking in bed right after they had met. Hammett asked Lilly about her sexual preferences with Arthur and immediately wished he hadn’t.

“
Preferences
, hah. Arthur is a man afraid. Arthur will always be a man afraid. Afraid to take, even afraid to ask. He apologized even for wanting. He apologized before, during, and after we made love. Even when he wasn’t apologizing, he apologized. So how could he be any good to anyone?” Hammett lit a cigarette. Lilly continued: “Of course he was great for my career. He knew everyone. Everyone. So he wasn’t a great lover, big deal. Who couldn’t live with that?”

“Apparently you couldn’t.”

Lillian could have been glib and dismissive on the subject of Arthur just then. But even though they had just met, this Hammett was a man she was actually going to try to love, so she chose to explain: “There’s a certain kind of Jewish man—you wouldn’t know about this—who is so fucking fearful of everything in a world that is not Jewish he doesn’t even believe he has a right to breathe its air. He apologizes for his very existence on the planet. For any shadow he casts.”

“A for instance.”

“For instance, let’s say you’re invited to lunch by rich old Episcopalians. Your hostess offers you some lemonade. It’s hot as hell and you’re dying for lemonade. If you’re Arthur, you say, ‘No thank you, I’m not thirsty,’ because you don’t even have the right to be thirsty in front of Episcopalians. Don’t make waves, don’t cause trouble, be very nice and make people like you and maybe they’ll think, ‘You know, those Kikes might not be such a bad lot after all.’ ”

Hammett brought his fingers to her nipple. “These Kikes
are
already extremely likable.” He pinched.

She smacked his fingers away. “Who can stand someone who can’t be a man because he’s a Jew? It’s crazy.”

“Come on, Lilly, there’s a history there. It’s the way people cope and survive. My old man learned how to be
not
nice, it comes to the same thing.”

“No it doesn’t. I’m talking about a timidity that threatens the future of an entire race of people.”

“I look at Max and I don’t see any Arthur in him.”

“Thank God for Jews like Max Hellman.” She put his hand back on her breast.

Producer and director Shumlin had reserved a large room downstairs at Sardi’s. A combo—piano, bass, drums—was playing Gershwin to a large crowd of cast, friends, backers, well-wishers, and disguised ill-wishers. The mood was brave and gay. Not a confident gaiety, not a
We showed those bastards, so let’s tear the place up
celebration. Rather an exhausted
We all rowed like hell for the other shore
 … 
and we made it. Imagine, we actually made it
.

When Lillian entered, the music jumped to “That’s Why the Lady Is a Tramp.” Applause built to a rumble. There were loud shouts of “Bravo” and “Author.” Lilly raised an arm above her head like Jack Dempsey, her face beaming. She was pleasantly surprised and a bit undone by the welcome. These were believers who really had no idea what was coming in just a couple of hours. She picked out the older actors—the “players,” as
Hammett called them—and was again touched by the courage of their choice of lives, their Broadway commitment. She remembered Ned Wever, Joe Sweeney, and Don Smith from some failed Hollywood projects and felt a new responsibility to get them more work. The younger ones—Florence Eldridge in particular—caught her eye; they couldn’t be happier. Here they were, on Broadway actually living their dreams.

As Lillian passed through the room kissing and being kissed, hugging and being hugged, complimenting and being complimented back, wisecracking and laughing and sipping and smoking and performing beautifully, she began to take heart. This was the world of the theater; this was her dream world too. It had its own atmosphere, its own gravity, its own inhabitants. It was, she realized, populated with people she admired. This was exactly where she wanted to be this night.

She was on her second martini when she finally got to Florence Eldridge, who called her “Miss Hellman.”

“
Miss Hellman
? I’m not the schoolmarm, dear.
Lilly
.”

“I just wanted to tell you, Miss Hellman, what a privilege it was to be allowed to be your ‘Julie’ and to …”

“And I just want to tell you, Miss Eldridge, what a brilliant future you have on the …”

It was now impossible to be heard amid the noise in the room, which was growing to a roar, but the two women had indeed said what they had to. The boisterous crowd was overflowing with freeloaders and awash in hubbub.

After one a.m., though, the crowd had thinned considerably, even some of the backers and cast members had left. The musicians were packing. Smoke clouded the ceiling. A few gray heads rested on scattered tables.

Twelve reviewers, one from each of the daily newspapers, the same bunch that had given her ten thumbs up for
The Children’s Hour
, would again be calling the tune. The bar would be set higher for this one because the author would be expected to outdo herself, having already proven her bona fides as a Broadway playwright. Also because a second success is more deeply resented than a first.

Four of the reviews mattered more than the others—the
Times
, the
Herald Tribune
, the
Daily News
, the
Mirror—
morning papers that would hit the streets in a matter of hours and set the tone. The
Times
and the
Trib
were most important because some of the people who read their reviews actually bought theater tickets.

The
Mirror
review arrived at Sardi’s first, around two-thirty. The kid who ran it over might have read it in the cab but he knew enough to deadpan it as he handed a warm tabloid to Herman Shumlin.

Shumlin opened it to the exact page and began reading aloud: “Blah, blah, blah, ah, here … 
which opened at the Vanderbilt Theatre
 … blah, blah, blah … 
Just to relieve the suspense immediately: No, dear reader, it did not—lightning rarely does—and it certainly did not strike a second time on Broadway last night, even though all the ballyhoo for
Days
to Come
promised thunder and lightning. Unfortunately for theatergoers that rare atmospheric phenomenon did not occur on the stage where playwright Lillian Hellman and director Herman Shumlin attempted to repeat the crashing success they created on Broadway two years ago with
The Children’s Hour …” Shumlin stopped, took off his glasses, and pinched his eyes.

Lillian took the review from him and continued: “… 
the play’s main action—none of which we ever get to see—takes place offstage and attempts to capture the human suffering and strife created during a labor dispute at an Ohio manufacturing plant. Bravely, the highly accomplished cast—let me single out the fine Ned Wever as Henry Elliot and lovely Florence Eldridge as Julie Rodman as just two among an excellent ensemble. No, we cannot blame the actors for this
 …” Lillian looked up and said, “Thanks from the bottom of my heart to all and each of you. You were the
lightning
tonight.”

She went back to the newspaper and found her place: “… 
accomplished cast struggled mightily to make believable a Midwestern world which Miss Hellman, who is from New Orleans, clearly knows absolutely nothing about
.” Here Lillian raised her eyes and addressed her small audience. She put on a British upper-class accent: “Notice, students, I chose to end that previous sentence with a preposition. I could have said, ‘… about which the author, from New Orleans, knows absolutely nothing,’ but that would smack a bit too much of erudition, too much of the
Times
. It would be, in fact, highly literate. So, no, no, no, we must say ‘absolutely nothing about.’
Next thing you know I’ll be dangling my fucking modifier for everyone to see …”

She continued reading with the same strained accent:
“This, of course, is the sort of artificial drama that is produced when the playwright’s politics and not her artistry—which we suspect she may possess—determine her narrative and characterization. All the characters in
Days to Come
are moved around like checker pieces, mostly red ones, wooden and circumscribed”—
she read it as
circumsized—“by ideology, unfortunately not their own but Miss Hellman’s. This work is yet another example of the political claptrap we are beginning to see too often on Broadway these days. When Odets offers it up, we invest ourselves even if we feel a bit uncomfortable. Miss Hellman, on the other hand, had better quickly return to a world she knows, and that is most assuredly not small-town Ohio
.

“
If these are indeed ‘The Days to Come,’ I’d suggest you sleep through them. That is, as a matter of fact, what I saw a number of audience members doing
 …” Lillian stopped and spoke softly, normally: “There’s more, folks, and it’s not funny anymore. I let you all down. I’m very sorry.” Then she stood and said over her shoulder, “Forgive me if I don’t wait around for the rest of them.”

As she neared the steps, Ned Wever called out, “We love you to pieces, Lilly.”

She was crying when the cold air on Forty-fifth Street struck her face. She didn’t remember Arthur being there when she left; she didn’t remember him saying goodbye either. Why
was she thinking of Kober—spineless, irrelevant Arthur—when the events of the evening were so painful?

Lilly intended to call Hammett from her bed in her hotel room after a long bath, but she fell asleep in the tub. She awoke to Manhattan’s thin, spare sunlight.
I’m not dead
was her first thought.
I didn’t dream it either
, was her second.

Days to Come
played seven performances.

H
AMMETT HAD BEEN AWAKENED
from a stupefying sleep that could only have been—he tried to see the clock—a couple of hours. “Dash. It’s Myra.”

“Myra?” His voice didn’t work right.

“Ewbank.”

“Of course. Myra.”

“I’m really sorry to bother you like this …”

“Just tell me.” He masked impatience with concern.

“I got a call from Phil. A friend of ours is dead. Phil wonders if you’d come down and look things over.” There was a pause on the line, which Hammett heard as a plea.

“Sure. Give me the information.”

The essential information came from Myra as this:
Jerry Waxman, mid-fifties. Staying at the Regency Arms, 450 West Figeroa, Apartment 10-B
. Hammett said the information back slowly to Myra Ewbank and she confirmed it. Phil Edmunds would be there waiting for him.

“What day is this?”

“Sunday.”

“I’ll have to double my expenses.” Death had for so long been a commonplace in his life that Hammett did not give it the weight other people did. He sensed Myra’s irritation and said, “Sorry.”

There were two police cars parked on Figeroa. Hammett put the Packard a block away and walked through the bungalow complex. Day was breaking and warming. He saw Phil Edmunds talking to an older cop in front of 10-B. Hammett caught his eye and shook his head, indicating he did not want to be recognized by or introduced to the policeman. Edmunds nodded and let Hammett walk behind him up to an open door barred by an even older cop. Two men appeared to be moving about inside the darkened apartment. Hammett ambled up to the guard, flipped his wallet, and said, “Hammond,
L.A. Times
.”

“Go chase stray dogs.”

“Why? When I have me a homicide scoop right here.”

“Homicide? Some guy kicks off getting it off. And not even working too hard at it ’cause she’s sitting on top. That’s no homicide.”

Hammett crossed himself: “Let’s hope his eyes were watching God, bless him. Still, of all the ways to go …”

“You got that right.”

“Body still in there?”

“Gone hours ago”

“That fast? Still, can I get a look around inside?”

The cop’s face reflected just how preposterous the request was.

“Who’s in charge?”

“Lieutenant Donegan.”

Hammett saluted and sauntered around the grounds, eventually making his way to the rear, where access was undeterred. Through the bathroom window he saw clearly into the lighted bedroom, to the rumpled unmade bed, to the night table still illuminated. The table held some books, two drink glasses, an ashtray, fountain pen, eyeglasses, a hairbrush, the normal stuff of a man on an out-of-town stopover. On a second bed, still made, there was a suitcase opened and neatly packed. A lipstick case sat on a wallet near the pillow. The lipstick and the wallet seemed to confirm the cop’s tale of a dalliance and a payment.

Hammett had seen enough to tell him something here was not right. A talk with Donegan, if possible; a longer talk with Phil Edmunds on Waxman’s background and he might be able to tell where the not right feeling was coming from. And, of course, if he could get to the girl. The French had it right in situations like this.
Cherchez la femme
.

He waited at the front door for Lieutenant Donegan and one of the medical examiners to emerge. He waited quite a while. He smoked and offered one to the cop. “The girl, she’s in custody?”

“No reason. No homicide.”

“When did soliciting stop being a crime in L.A.?”

“Come on.”

“Donegan take her story?”

“Hers and everyone else’s.”

Lieutenant Donegan then came out of 10-B, a chunky fullback of a man in a brown suit with a matching brown crew cut. Donegan remembered Hammett from a police testimonial dinner and seemed flattered by meeting him again. Hammett remembered the lieutenant.

Donegan extended his hand: “… seeing you here. Did you know the guy?”

“Friend of a friend.”

“Well. Looks straightforward enough. I’ve got this Waxman picking up a girl downtown in a cab. The cabdriver checked out. They come back here. They conduct their business. He starts gasping, then kicks off. She’s scared shitless and calls the front desk. The desk calls us. We take everyone’s story. Everything checks out. Like I said, straightforward.”