The Devil You Know (3 page)

She
stood that way for several seconds, holding her breath without meaning to in a
desire to remain unobtrusive, frozen by indecision. Finally, she laid her hand
on the back of the pew and cleared her throat. The man’s head shot up in an
instant, a look of shame and fear on his face. Marie knew immediately she had
made a mistake, that she should have let him be, and blurted out, “I’m so
sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Without
saying a word, the man wiped at his eyes and began to stand. As he fumbled for
a jacket he had laid on the pew beside him, Marie saw that his left forearm was
heavily bandaged. Jacket in hand, he turned and began to exit the pew, toward
the stained glass windows and away from the center aisle.

Seeing
that she had effectively chased him off, Marie pleaded with him. “Please don’t.
I was just leaving. I can get Father Harris for you.” But the man was already
halfway up the aisle, walking rapidly toward the back of the church without a
backward glance. “Or I could just leave you be,” she said, her voice just above
a whisper now, as she knew it would do no good.

Seconds
later, the closing of the doors echoed through the chapel, and Marie looked
down with shame and regret. “Damn it,” she said, thinking neither about how the
words bounced off the windows nor the large wooden crucifix above the altar.
With a sigh, she moved on to the back of the church. Outside in the small
parking lot, she could hear the fading sound of a car engine, and promised
herself to mind her own business from now on as she walked slowly to her car.

* * * * * * * *

Fifteen
minutes later, Marie parked her car in front of a modest house off of Melrose
Avenue just a few blocks east of her own. She had lit a cigarette halfway to
Elise’s and put it out now before she gathered her garment bag from the back seat,
and walked quickly to Elise’s front door. Her friend answered the door in her
slip and ushered Marie inside. “Thank you so much for doing this,” she said,
and gave Marie a quick hug. “Just put your things over there.” She waved
vaguely in the direction of her tiny living room and darted back to her
bedroom, leaving Marie to wonder just where she was supposed to set anything.
The living room was a shambles with dresses in a myriad of colors and styles
draped over every bit of furniture, and shoes scattered across the floor.

“You’re
just in time to zip me,” Elise said, as she came back out in a long, blue dress
that gathered tightly at the waist and dipped low in the neckline.

“You
look beautiful,” Marie told her as she pulled the zipper up the back, careful
not to catch Elise’s long red hair in the teeth.

“Thanks,
sweetie,” Elise said, turning and smoothing the material across her stomach.
“Now let’s get you started. What’d you bring?”

After
only a glance at the green dress Marie pulled out of her bag, Elise shook her
head. “Too country club,” she said. “That the best you had?”

Marie
raised an eyebrow, but before she could speak, Elise continued.

“Don’t
worry yourself. We’re about the same size. One of mine should work.”

Twenty
minutes later, Marie stood before the full-length mirror in Elise’s bedroom,
admiring the way she looked in a bright red dress that shimmered when she
moved. She had been dressing the part of a church secretary for close to two
years now, rarely wearing things that accentuated her figure, and now felt both
embarrassed and excited by the way the dress made her look; it hugged her hips
and bust and made her feel truly glamorous for the first time since her wedding
day. Her auburn hair hung to just below her shoulders, and the curl at the end
of it tickled the skin left exposed by the low-backed dress. The image in the
mirror took her back to a time when she had dressed more provocatively, before
the war, before her widowhood, and before she had gotten out of the habit of
trying to raise men’s eyebrows. Seeing herself this way again made her feel
good, feminine and confident—almost powerful in the same way she had felt
after killing the snake.

“I
don’t know,” Elise said. She stepped back to appraise Marie. “I shouldn’t be
seen next to you looking like that.”

“You’ll
do just fine. I’m staying in the background tonight.” Elise had never been shy
about her hopes to make it in Hollywood, and tonight was part of that plan. The
two had met at Lockheed, but Elise had left not long after Marie for a job in
the wardrobe department at Piedmont Pictures. Finally she had managed to
wrangle an invitation to a party at the Piedmont mansion high in the Hollywood
Hills. It had taken only a bit of cajoling to convince Marie to accompany her
and keep her from feeling all alone among the movie stars who would doubtless
be there.

“That’s
the plan.” Elise nodded. She gave Marie one more approving look. “Okay, then.
Make-up and hair.” She paused, holding up Marie’s left hand. “And jewelry.”

“What
do you mean?”

Elise
tapped the simple wedding band Marie still wore. “This needs to go.”

“Elise!”

“Just
for tonight.”

“But
why?” Marie asked. “What does it matter? We’re not going there for me. It’s you
who’s—” She stopped short, recalling how insistently Elise had wanted her
at the party. Elise was not nervous about going; she was the sort of person who
could start a conversation with anyone. “You’re hoping I’ll meet somebody,”
Marie said resignedly.

Elise
smiled. “Well, I’m hoping I meet someone, too.” When Marie did not return the
smile, she added, “Come on. It’s just one evening, one party. Here.” She took a
gold chain from her jewelry box. “Put your ring on this. You keep it close to
your heart that way, okay?”

Her
smile turned tender now, and Marie bravely returned it. Without second-guessing
herself, she tugged at her wedding ring and had to twist it around her finger
several times. The skin pulled around the knuckle painfully for a moment before
the ring came loose. Aside from the physical discomfort, taking off her wedding
ring did not feel as awful as she had imagined, which she took as a sign that
she really was ready to do this, in spite of her reluctance. With only a bit of
resignation, she put the ring onto the gold chain and let Elise fasten it
around her neck. Then she slipped the ring past the neckline of the red dress
and let it rest against the pale skin of her bosom.

“Okay?”
Elise asked. When Marie nodded and smiled bravely, she said, “Good. Now we’ve
got to do something with your hair. Clark Gable could be there, for all you
know.”

“Gable’s
ears are too big,” Marie said. “I’m more partial to Errol Flynn.”

“Well,
he might be there, too. But don’t put Gable down. You know what they say about
men with big ears.”

Marie
laughed. “That’s big feet, genius.”

“Feet,
ears, who cares? I just need to get my hands on a man with a Beverly Hills
address.”

“And
if he gets his hands on you?”

“So
much the better,” said Elise.

Chapter Two

Marie
felt the evening air on her back as soon as she stepped out of Elise’s car. A
cloud passed before the moon, and moisture from the ocean had blown in as the
sun had gone down. Her skin felt damp as she followed Elise across the wide
lawn, her heels sinking in with every step as she threaded her way among the
dozens of cars parked haphazardly on the grounds. Most looked expensive with
the moonlight reflected in their chrome grilles and the bright paint of their
big fenders, but a few were the average sort of cars that could be found in the
valley below, and one or two looked more shabby than Elise’s tired old Ford.

Like
all the other mansions they had passed while working their way up into the
hills above Hollywood, the Piedmont home was immense, a multi-winged
Spanish-style that appeared both elegant and audacious. Even in the dark of
evening, the house practically glowed, lights blazing from every window.
Laughter and swing music poured from it, drawing Elise and Marie across the
lawn.

The
front door sat within a small, gated courtyard, and a tall, dark-skinned man
with angular features and slightly sunken eyes stood at the entrance to receive
invitations. Marie held her breath as Elise handed him her invitation, half
expecting him to reject them. But he returned it with a small bow, and she let
herself breathe again, relieved. As they walked into the house side by side,
she felt Elise reach for her hand and give it a squeeze. They exchanged quick
grins and then moved into the party.

Marie
tried not to gape. Beyond the entryway was a large room with red wallpaper and
lit by chandeliers. It would have looked sinister had it not been so lively.
The young and beautiful of Beverly Hills filled the room, all with drinks in
their hands and smiles on their faces. Gowns of blue, green and lavender hugged
tight to women’s figures as they fluttered around the room like caged
butterflies. Most of the men wore tuxedos and would have looked staid and dower
had they not all been laughing and joking. At the far end, straight across from
the entrance, several couples danced to a six-piece jazz band. It seemed that
everyone not dancing had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Members of the wait staff moved about discreetly, carrying full trays of food
and champagne. Marie and Elise each scooped up glasses as quickly as they could
and stood together beside a fireplace that looked bigger than Marie’s bathroom.
They whispered and giggled with each other, neither quite sure of what to do
now that they had made it inside.

To
the left and right of the entryway, two circular staircases wound up to a
corridor on the second floor, and down one of these now came a group of men,
all in tuxedos, all smiling broadly. Several partygoers rushed past Marie and
Elise to be at the bottom of the stairs when the men reached the ground floor.
Marie had never seen Julian Piedmont before, but needed only a quick glance to
tell which man was the host. He did not move at the head of the group, but
rather let the others surrounded him; he wasn’t tall, but nevertheless exuded a
commanding air, with a confident smile and his wavy hair combed back from his
forehead. He nodded to the partygoers with a blend of pleasure and
indifference, the effect of which was to make people clamor for him all the
more.

Among
the men around Piedmont, the ones who led the way seemed similarly
self-assured, but not nearly as charismatic. But Marie’s gaze lit on this first
row only a moment; she focused on the five men behind them almost immediately,
and had a hard time not staring. When Elise nudged her, Marie knew her friend
had noticed them as well. They were gorgeous, and any one of them could have
rivaled Hollywood’s top stars. Each was tall and broad shouldered, their bodies
tapering to slim waists; and amazingly each bore a strange, uncanny resemblance
to men Marie was used to seeing on movie screens. It was clear these were not
the celebrities themselves, but in some way they actually looked better than
the real thing. Clearly they were handsome, confident, and connected enough to
be movie stars, but they weren’t—at least not yet—making them all
the more intriguing.

One
looked remarkably like Clark Gable, but not the Gable the newsreels had shown
in his war uniform; he more closely resembled the Gable from ten or twelve
years ago, the one who had taken off his shirt in
It Happened One Night
and made Marie swoon as a teenager. She
watched him come down the stairs, wishing in spite of herself that he would
notice her, make eye contact somehow. If he did, she knew she would smile in a
way she had not smiled at anyone since Ryan. Her earlier protests forgotten,
she pictured herself in his arms and felt herself tilting her head back to be
kissed.

“Do
you see what I see?” Elise said, speaking just above a whisper. “I feel like a
kid in a candy shop.”

“I’m
beginning to be glad you brought me,” Marie murmured, feeling gleefully
self-indulgent as she did.

The
cluster of men reached the bottom of the staircase and dispersed among the
crowd. The man who looked like Gable breezed past Marie and Elise, moving
toward a vivacious blonde in a pink strapless gown, and Marie felt as though a
spell had been broken. The flood of desire she’d been feeling just faded away,
leaving her momentarily disoriented. She had borrowed a clutch purse from Elise
and reached into it now for her cigarettes, unsteadily offering one to her
friend as they ventured away from the fireplace. After a deep drag, she began
to feel more herself again and watched with cautious curiosity as the little
cadre of handsome men blended into the party.

She
noticed that another of the men, a handsome devil with wavy hair and light blue
eyes, seemed to have turned Elise’s head. He made Marie think a bit of James
Cagney, and her gaze shifted from the little cluster of women he held court
over to Elise, whose eyes were constantly pulled in his direction.

They
ended up in another corner of the room, and Marie deftly set their empty
champagne glasses on a passing tray. A crystal ashtray was on a table beside
them, and Marie put her cigarette out before saying, “I won’t mind if you want
to go over there.”

“What?”
Elise said, clearly taken aback.

Marie
shook her head and smiled. “Don’t try to deny it. You haven’t taken your eyes
off that bit of candy for ten seconds since we’ve been here.”

Elise
returned the smile and looked down at the floor. “Sorry,” she said.

 
“No, no. It’s okay.” She gave Elise an
exaggeratedly patronizing nod. “You’re like the boy who brought his sister to
the dance and then sees the girl of his dreams. It would be cruel to make you
stay with me.”

“No,
Marie!” Elise protested. “It’s not like that at all. I’m sorry if I’ve been
fawning over him. Let’s move to a different room or something, find some bored
old executives to dance with us.”

“I
insist,” Marie said. She gave Elise a little shove in the direction of the man.
He was lighting another woman’s cigarette now. “Go now, before you lose your
chance.”

Elise
took a step in the direction she’d been pushed. “What about you?”

“Don’t
worry about me. I’m a big girl. Go on.”

* * * * * * * *

Marie
took a deep breath and fished out another cigarette as she looked out the
enormous windows that dominated this side of the room. The house was built on
the slope of a hill, so that what seemed like the first floor on one side was
high up on the other. The windows before her boasted a magnificent view of the
thousand twinkling lights of Los Angeles and Hollywood, as well as a sprawling
concrete deck directly below her, complete with kidney-shaped swimming pool.
So this is how the other half lives
, she
thought as she drew deeply on her cigarette and exhaled sharply through pursed
lips. She had no doubt that the wee hours of the morning would find drunken
guests in the pool, probably with very little clothing on; with a smile, she
remembered more modest parties from before the war that had ended not so
differently.
How I’ve changed
, she
thought as she put out her cigarette and looked at her watch. It was getting
late, and the idea of being at home with a good story to read was suddenly far
more attractive to her than the prospect of waiting for Elise to either get
lucky or lose out to a starlet with better connections. If she couldn’t talk
Elise out of her romantic pursuits, Marie told herself, then she would call for
a cab and trust Elise to behave herself.

During
the time she had been on her own at the party, she had amused herself by
watching the faces of other partygoers. Some she made nicknames for:
Dress-Too-Tight, Gray-Haired-Letch, The Cackler, Almost-Over-The-Hill. As she
began searching for Elise, she spotted all of these again but saw neither Elise
nor the man she had been angling for. Following a hunch, she found a stairway
that led down to the patio, where several revelers now lounged loudly around
the pool, empty champagne bottles in planters and floating in the water. Elise
was nowhere.

Back
upstairs and a little out of breath, she found herself at the bottom of the
curving staircase that Piedmont had descended earlier. About to walk past it to
scan the main room once more for Elise, she glanced up to see Elise’s James
Cagney look-alike coming downstairs toward her. She expected to see Elise
coming down behind him, but when he reached the bottom, Elise still hadn’t
appeared.

“Excuse
me,” Marie said, approaching him and putting her hand out. She almost touched
his forearm, but stopped short. Being this close to him, she immediately knew
what Elise had seen in him. His wide eyes were deep and blue, and the wavy hair
just begged for her to run her fingers through it. She felt her heart flutter
just a little at the thought, forgetting for the moment that her best friend
had staked this one as her own, had just been upstairs with him doing God knew
what.

He
had been looking distantly toward the crowd when she had stepped up to him,
like he was looking for someone in particular. When Marie caught his attention,
his expression changed completely, and she saw his gaze move from her face to
her bust to her hips and legs, and then back up again. She blushed as he smiled
slyly at her now, the look on his face making him seem literally hungry for
her. At any other time, Marie would have felt repulsed at being so obviously
ogled, but there was something disarming about him that made her feel flattered
now. For a second, she almost forgot why she had stopped him, but when he
spoke, he broke the spell. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes,”
she said, achingly aware that she was blushing. Her voice came out weakly and
higher pitched than usual. “I was looking for my friend.” When he simply
smiled, she added, “Elise.”

The
man shook his head. “I’m not sure I know who you mean. But I’d be glad to help
you find her.” He reached a hand out for hers, and she felt how easy it would
be to take it and let him lead her wherever he wanted.

Marie
pulled her hand in close and grabbed it with the other, making it clear she was
not going anywhere with him. “You’ve been with her most of the night,” she
said. “Tall redhead. Blue dress.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Sounds
lovely,” he said, but then shook his head. “But I…” He smiled at her again and
quickly repeated his appraisal from head to toe. “I’m thinking more about red
dresses now.”

Stunned,
Marie mumbled, “Excuse me,” and rushed past him, almost running up the stairs.
Sure the man had been lying about Elise, Marie began to feel panicked as she
bolted up to the next floor. But by the time she got to the landing, her heart
was racing, not just because of the stairs or her irrational fears, but also
because she found herself strongly desiring the man, horrid though he was.

His
comment about her dress resonated in her mind, and she could not stop thinking
about the way he had looked at her. She had never slapped a man for getting
fresh, but had it been any other time or any other man, she would have done
exactly that. Not this man, though. A bit ashamed to admit it, she recognized
that his gaze and comments had filled her with a strange longing unlike
anything she had ever experienced with Ryan or anyone else. The thought
thrilled and scared her, and she stood there for a few minutes collecting
herself. She knew she should move on down the hallway, but also wondered if the
man at the bottom of the stairs might be following her up even now—and
what she would do if he was.

It
took several moments for her to feel in control again; even then, she moved
haltingly away from the landing, a bit unsteady on her feet. It was the
champagne, she told herself, but another part of her knew it was more. The
carpet she walked on was ornately patterned in red and orange, creating a soft
glow on the white walls. No less than a dozen oak doors opened off the hallway,
all to her right, opposite three giant windows that looked out on the black
night. Stopping at the first of these, Marie looked down to see the tree-lined
grounds at the front of the estate and the dozens of cars parked on the grass.
Elise’s car was one of them. She wished now that they had never left it to come
into the party.

She
had no doubt that the doors along the hallway opened onto bedrooms, and was
certain that Elise’s new friend had brought her here and then left her when
they had completed their tryst. Marie had never known Elise to do anything like
this, but it didn’t totally surprise her. She hoped that one of the doors would
open any second and that Elise would emerge, a bit shame-faced but all right,
and that they could just head down the stairs and out to the car without having
to see or talk to anyone else. If Elise didn’t want to talk about it, so be it,
Marie thought.