The Fame Thief (28 page)

“This is Waldo?” I hoisted the little dog and used one of its paws to wave at Abe Frank.

“He hates that,” Frank said. “Anything cute, he hates it.” The voice was mainly breath, pushing a smoker’s rasp in front of it. Still had a little twist of New York, after God knew how many years.

“Keep him away from mirrors,” I said. “He’ll kill himself.”

“Don’t make me laugh. Orinda will hit you with the bat.”

“Orinda is a little startling.”

He gave me an even line of false teeth. “Isn’t she? I can still pull ’em.”

The room was largely empty, just the sofa, an overstuffed armchair, a small, banged-up wooden coffee table, and the oxygen tank. One picture, an idealized print of a soft-looking pastel desert, hung very crookedly above the couch. No rug on the reddish Saltillo tiles. And the place was
cold
.

“Good air-conditioning,” I said, taking the armchair and putting Waldo on the floor. He jumped into my lap.

“Best made,” he said. “I’ve lived here seventy years and hated the heat every fucking day. I’m gonna die cool. So what’s Irwin got on his mind?”

“What happened back in 1950 to Dolores La Marr.”

“That poor girl.” Frank shook his head, and various droops wobbled. “Prettiest thing I ever saw in my life. Sweet, too. Most of the girls who gravitated to the wiseguys, well, they looked a lot better than they were. Like wax fruit. But that one, that one was good all the way down.” He looked at me and then past me. “Does Irwin think what happened back then was related to—to what happened last night?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Jesus,” he said. “I hope not. I got enough to regret in my life without that.”

I let the pause settle in the room before I broke it. “You met her how many times?”

“Who knows? Four, five, maybe more. Whenever I could, right? I interviewed her for the paper once, mostly because I wanted to see if I could put a move on her. She turned me down so nice I couldn’t even get upset.” He had been looking at the dark window, but his eyes flicked to mine. “I looked different back then.”

“You wrote a nice piece?”

“So nice Georgie thanked me, the poor lug, winding up the way he did, a trained monkey for Lansky.” He reached over and snapped a fingernail against the oxygen canister, which produced a surprising bell-tone. “I met a lot of them,” he said. “The stars, I mean. When Bugsy, the schlub, started flying them in to the Flamingo, when the other places opened. When playing Vegas was the thing to do, when an act could make more money here in a week than in a year anywhere else. I met ’em all. Some were assholes, some were drunks, some had heads so big you couldn’t figure how they got through a door. Some of ’em were okay. Georgie, he was a good guy. Jane Russell, really nice girl. Clayton Moore, the guy who played the Lone Ranger? I know, I know, you don’t think he was a real star, you probably don’t even remember him, but you shoulda seen my kid when I told him I met the Lone Ranger. And how good it felt for me to say, Yeah, Buddy, he’s a great guy.” He wiggled his shoulders and the sunken chest, trying to squeeze another degree of comfort out of the pillows. “Where was I?”

“Dolores La—”

“Yeah, yeah, Dolores La Marr. Poor baby. Not the biggest star I ever met, that was probably Elvis, but the most beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful woman I ever saw in person. And one of the nicest. I don’t know, nobody knows, how she would have
wound up. After they’d been at her for a while, after she realized she wasn’t gonna be beautiful forever. They hadn’t used her up yet. Some of those gals, they got so used up you could see right through their face, see bones and nerves and, and … mostly nerves, I guess.”

“But Dolores La Marr didn’t get to that point, did she?”

He looked stricken, but before he could answer, Orinda came in pushing a little tin trolley that made a clanking noise. “Beer for you,” she said, bringing the trolley to a stop. She picked up a bottle of Samuel Adams and said to Abe Frank, “He treating you okay?”

Abe Frank said, “Hunky dory.”

“Then you get your beer.” She handed me the bottle and an old-fashioned beer glass that widened toward the top. Then she came up with a bold blue ceramic cup and saucer, probably Mexican, and handed it to Frank. “Chamomile,” she said. “With a shot.”

“A big shot?”

“A shot. And as nice as this man is, you’re going to have to eat in about twenty minutes.” She smiled at me, not even pretending it wasn’t an excuse. “So you’d better get to it, hadn’t you? And don’t make me bring the bat. Waldo.”

The dog instantly jumped off my lap and followed her out of the room without a backward glance. I used the freedom to pour the beer.

Watching Waldo trot off, Abe Frank said, “That’s the way Dolores La Marr left after she finished turning me down. Except she kissed me on the cheek first.”

“Who was at the party?”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “You’ve seen the arrest list, right?”

“No, but I gather the guys were nobodies.”

“Yeah, well, they would be, by the time the cops came in. I know Roselli was there for a while, Eddie Israel, who got killed about a month later, Pigozzi—Bobby Pig—Tony Accardo, maybe Sam. Sam liked Dolly.”

“Sam Giancana.”

“Yeah, sure. Georgie was there earlier, too. He told me about it. Said it was a really stiff party. Sam was in a bad mood, and everybody was on tiptoe. Couple of the girls, the other girls, not Dolly, they danced some to loosen things up. Georgie said Dolly wanted to leave with him, but one of the guys said she should stay, that they had a special table over at the Rancho for Betty Grable’s show. So she stayed.”

“Which guy said that?”

“Don’t know. Georgie was just talking to me that night, before everything went bad. It didn’t mean anything then so I didn’t ask.”

“But between that time and the time the cops came through the door, all the heavyweights faded and got replaced by nobodies.”

“Bookmarks,” Abe Frank said. “That’s what Sam called them. When the big guys had something else to do, the bookmarks would keep the party going. If they went down to a show the bookmarks would sit in the big guys’ chairs until the big guys came back.”

“Uh-huh.” He was watching me like I was about to jump on him, so I did. “Your photographers were with the cops when they showed up.”

He held my eyes, and then he nodded. “I got a lot of regrets in my long, lousy life,” he said, “but that’s one of the big ones. That I was part of ruining that girl. And now, maybe.…”

“Who called you? Who requested the cameras?”

“They didn’t call me,” he said. “Called the night editor.”

“Who? Who called him?”

He licked his lips, and I recognized fear, all these years later. And, I thought, he had no idea how frightened he should be. “Roselli called,” he said. “The editor, his name was Bix Wheedon, dead now, said it was Handsome Johnny.”

“And who called you in the morning? For the shots in the jail?”

“Police department,” he said. “A lieutenant named Spivey. Bent as hell. He’s dead now, too.”

“Everybody’s dead,” I said.

Abe Frank looked back at the window, just a sheet of black by now, and heaved a sigh. “That poor, poor girl,” he said.

Senator Wheeler: Welcome back, Miss La Marr.

Miss La Marr: Let’s get to it.

Senator Durkee: Just a minute, you—

Senator Wheeler: Mr. Chairman, I believe the witness is mine at the moment.

Senator Kefauver: Wait your turn, Elliot.

Senator Wheeler: As you know, Miss La Marr, this session is being held in camera, meaning—

Miss La Marr: I know what it means.

Senator Wheeler: Meaning that the session is closed to media and all but the committee and their staff.

Miss La Marr: Meaning that you hope some people will think I agreed to come in here and tell you things that would get me killed if they were in the papers. That’s what you threatened me with when—

Senator Wheeler: Nobody threatened—

Miss La Marr: When I said I wouldn’t testify again. You said you’d subpoena me and hold the session in camera and then I could worry about what my friends thought.

Senator Wheeler: If such a conversation ever took place, I know nothing about it.

Miss La Marr: But you know what? I’m not worried. For honesty and fairness, I’ll take a bunch of hoodlums over you guys any day.

Senator Wheeler: I’m sure we’re all devastated by your value judgment. But, as you said, let’s get to it. How well do you know Irwin Dressler?

Actually, what it
said was, “How well do you know
?” This testimony, like most in-camera testimony, was supposed to have been classified, but Rina had found it and emailed it to me, and whoever allowed it to escape had redacted the names of the living. I only knew it was Dressler they were asking her about because at one point Dolores La Marr referred to him as “Winny” and it had slipped past the censor, who was probably scanning the pages, looking for “Irwin” and “Dressler.” I was lying on the bed in my hotel room, up on one elbow, reading through Rina’s attachment, mentally filling in Dressler’s name wherever it was inked out.

Miss La Marr: I’ve known him for three or four years.

Senator Wheeler: How well do you know him? Are you friends, or would you call the relationship closer than that?

Miss La Marr: We’re friends.

Senator Wheeler: Not a romantic attachment.

Miss La Marr: He’s married. As far as I know, he loves his wife.

Senator Wheeler: Then is it a business relationship? Does he take a hand in your career?

Miss La Marr: We’re friends. F-R-I-E—

Senator Wheeler: And yet, he was responsible, was he not, for getting you a contract at Universe Pictures?

Miss La Marr: My agent was responsible, not Winny.

Senator Wheeler: And he was responsible, was he not, for getting you a leading roll in the film
Hell’s Sisters
?

Miss La Marr: I was under contract. That’s what studios do with people they have under contract. They put them in films, as you say.

Senator Wheeler: We have it on good authority that Mr. Dressler personally persuaded the head of Universe, a Mr. Winterman, to put you under contract and to cast you in that film.

Miss La Marr: Mr. Winterman does what he wants. And what’s good authority?

Senator Wheeler: Do you deny, under oath, that Mr. Dressler, Mr. Irwin Dressler, was responsible for these … advancements in your career?

Miss La Marr: What a lousy, rotten question. If I say no, which is true, and you’ve got some cockeyed notion to the contrary, you bring me up on charges. That’s what I mean.

For honor, I’ll take gangsters any time.

Senator Kefauver: That’s the second time you have impugned the honorability of this committee.

Miss La Marr: I’m just getting started.

Senator Kefauver: You might want to re-think that, young lady. Contempt of Congress is not a light charge.

Miss La Marr: Can you bring charges against me for the way I feel, or just for the things I say?

Senator Kefauver: The things you say, obviously.

Miss La Marr: Fine. Then I’ll keep my contempt to myself.

My phone rang
: Rina.

“Hey, sweetie. How’d you like the house?”

“It was okay. Not as nice as ours. But old Dick really leaned on her, told her the people needed to sell or they were going to lose the place, did this song about how she could steal it. You know, buy it for practically nothing, sell ours, and have a nice new house and a lot of money in the bank.”

“What’s nothing?”

“Eight hundred fifty thousand.”

I said, “That’s quite a way from nothing.”

“It’s not that far under what they were asking, either, which was eight eighty.” Los Angeles kids have real estate in their genes. “Anyway, she made an offer, eight thirty-five, and he wrote it up right there, on those people’s coffee-table.”

“Quite a guy.”

“I wanted to cut my wrists.”

“But apparently you didn’t.”

“I was sharpening the knife—Mom lets the knives get really
dull—but about an hour ago, he called to say there was a problem with the title. He said he couldn’t—listen to this—he couldn’t,
in good conscience
, sell her the house. Can you imagine that?
Dick
? In good conscience?”