Genteel Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (19 page)

Curious, I asked, “Did this place come with all three houses on it already, or did Monty have to buy three separate properties
and
tack
them together
?”

“Oh, no. He bought up the old
Hollis place.
In the old days, it
was sort of a compound, where old man Hollis kept his family corralled. Or
as much of
the family
as
he could tolerate, anyhow.”

“Ah. Wasn’t
Charles
Hollis in partnership with
Henry
Castleton?”

“Yes. They owned the railroad together and made millions.
”

“On the backs of all those poor Chinamen,” I muttered, remembering a conversation I’d had with Mr. Castleton’s daughter a few months earlier.

Harold shot me a grin. “Don’t forget the
backs of the
Irish and a bunch of other poor immigrants who laid out those tracks
and died for the privilege of doing so
.”

“Yeah, but nobody ever says someone has an Irishman’s chance. It’s always a Chinaman’s chance,” I reminded Harold. Which, in turn
, reminded me about how unfair F
ate is to everyone
with total impartialit
y. Fate hadn’t dug its vicious claws only into Billy and me. I heaved a huge sigh.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?”

Good old Harold; back to being his own
lovable
self again. I was glad for it. “Nothing, really. I was just thinking about how unfair life is sometimes.”

“Oh, Lord, don’t start in on that, or I might begin to feel guilty.”
Harold had come from a very wealthy family.

“You have nothing to feel guilty about,” I said staunchly. “Your father might have been a croo
k and your sister
might be
a witch
, but you’re
neither of those things
.”

My sentiments might have been pure, but I
could
have phrased my
opinion
better. However, it didn’t matter. Harold threw his head back and roared with laughter, so I guess he didn’t mind.
Well, I knew he didn’t mind. We’d been over this ground before. Not physically. I mean we’d talked about our families together. The Winkworth place was new
, to me
at least.

“I’m glad you’re my friend, Daisy,” he said when he stopped laughing
and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand
.

“I’m glad you’re my friend, too, Harold.” For some stupid reason, I felt like crying again. Shoot. To cover it up and change the subject, I said, “I don’t suppose Monty’s received any more ugly letters, has he?”

“Not yet, b
ut t
he day’s young.”

His good mood had fled, and I felt a little bad about that until I realized the path upon which we
walked
had bent, and the dressing-room house loomed ahead, looking like an enormous marble tomb in the sunlight. Gaggles of people stood about outside of it, I presume waiting for Lola to get over her temperament so they could all start working.
Watching all those
folks
waiting for one silly woman to stop being stupid and start to work irked me. “Are all of those people waiting for Lola?”

“Yes,” said Harold grimly. “They’re all awaiting her majesty’s pleasure. Damn her.”

“Good heavens. Is she really worth everyone’s time?”

“Of course, she isn’t!” He practically snarled it. “But she’s in this picture,
under
contract
,
she’s the damned star, and nobody can do anything until you can calm her down.”

Oh, goody.
Lucky me.
I said weakly, “Lead on, Harold.”

Chapter Ten

Harold hadn’
t
been exaggerating the state of Lola’s hysteria. I could hear her wailing long before we got near the first bunch of people, from
which
broke away Gladys Pennywhistle
, Sam Rotondo and John Bohnert
as soon as they spotted us. They hurried
over
. To me, naturally.

“She’s really in a state this morning, according to Harold,” I said before Gladys
or
John could both regale me with separate accounts of Lola’s antics.

John wiped a handkerchief across his brow. “This is going to kill the picture! We
have
to get that woman to do her job, or we’re all sunk.”

“Can’t you
fire her and
call in another actress?” I asked, honestly curious. “I mean, filming hasn’t started yet, has it? How much trouble would it be to replace her?” Of course, if they replaced her, I’d be out of a job, but it was
n’t
a job I liked a whole lot.

“Sounds like a smart plan to me,” grumbled Sam, who didn’t care for women throwing tantrums on his watch. Not that I’d ever thrown a tantrum in front of him, mind you, because I didn’t do stuff like that. But I’d listened to enough of his stories around the di
nner table to know how little he cared for hysterical females
.

“It sounds like a brilliant plan,” snarled John. “But the producers want Lola. Besides,
she’s under contract and
she’d sue us if we fired her.”

“But she’s not fulfilling her contract,” said Gladys. She
would
point that out. Practical. That was Gladys. “How could she sue you?
Isn’t there some kind of clause in her contract that requires her to do her job in a timely manner?
”

“Anyone can sue anyone,” said Sam. His voice carried a trace of cynicism, and I remember hearing a diatribe or two from him about lawyers around the dinner table, too. “She might not win a suit, but it could cost the studio a bundle.”

“Precisely,” said John.
“It would cost the studio more money and publicity than it would
be worth
, providing we can get the bitch to do her job at all.”

I was a little surprised he’d used the B-word with ladies present, but I guess he’d come to the end of his rope.

He turned to me. “Can you
please
do something with her, Daisy? Everybody else has tried and failed.”

Feeling
poorly equipped
for the task before me, I nevertheless said, “I’ll do my best.”

“She’s going to put a spell on her dressing room,” said Harold drily. “In the meantime, will you get the carpenters to get a stout lo
ck installed on the damned door?
And put someone there overnight to watch the place, too, will you?”

“Why do you need anyone to watch the room?” Sam’s keen gaze flipped from Harold to me and back again.

Oh, dear. Nobody was supposed to know about those stupid letters.
I’d have to remind Harold in private that Sam w
as a lot smarter than he looked, and
that
he’d better watch what he said in front of him if he didn’t want Sam finding out about them.

Fortunately for us, Harold was a quick thinker. “Lola thinks
some spirit or ghost has
been rummaging around in her dressing room. So Daisy offered to put a spell on it to keep out evildoers
from beyond this pale
. But I figure a new lock and a guard would help, too
. Something she can see, don’t you know
.”

“Huh,” said Sam, sounding far from convinced. Darn him. I guess this is what comes from being in a profession like his for so long. He never believed anything anyone ever said to him without proof.

With a deep and heartfelt sigh, I decided not to stick in my two cents, since that would only deepen Sam’s mistrust. Rather, I said to Gladys, “Will you please lead me to the lady?”
My voice, I fear, conveyed my reluctance.

Gladys gave an indignant sniff. “I don’t know how much of a lady she is. She certainly doesn’t act like any lady I’ve ever known.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” said I. I remembered my handbag, but decided it couldn’t come to any harm in the Chevrolet. There was no money in it, after all
, and I didn’t expect I’d need my tarot cards for this. Lola was in no state to sit still and be foretold to
.

As ever, Gladys was garbed sensibly. She wore a plain brown-and-white striped skirt along with a plain white shirtwaist. Eyeing her from behind, I decided the skirt was probably part of a suit, the jacket of which Gladys had opted not to wear due to the heat. Smart girl, Gladys. Naturally, she wore sensible, lace-up shoes with cotton stockings. I still thought that,
providing
neither she nor Homer Fellowes was the nutty letter-writer, they’d be perfect together.

That thought, as well as any others that might have been floating around in my brain, flew out of it as soon as we approached the front parlor of the marble house. I cast a beseeching glance
at
the ceiling, hoping God would see me and take pity upon me, although I didn’t expect much from that quarter. I’m sure God had his attention on bigger, more important things.

“No, no, no, no,
no
!” screeched the voice of Lola de la Monica. Even though she was supposed to be hysterical, I noticed she was keeping her
pseudo-Spanish
accent in place. “I can’t do it! There’s
evil
there!”

“But you don’t need to go there
at all this morning
, Miss de la Monica.” Homer Fellowes. Trying to reason with her, which, under these circumstances
,
might b
e likened to someone trying to reason with a tornado. Lola was wound up and spinning out of control, and it was going to take more than mere reason
ed persuasion
to get her calmed down.

Gladys gave a peremptory rap on the open door, and we entered the room. Homer glanced up, saw me, and his relief was almost palpable. “Oh, good.” Turning back to a weeping Lola, who’d flung her white-clad self on the crushed-velvet sofa again, he said, “Mrs. Majesty is here, Miss de la Monica. I’m sure she’ll be able to . . . um, do something for you.”

Completely disregarding Homer’s tentative hands, which were hovering over her—I guess he didn’t have the nerve to put them on her writhing form—Lola nearly upended him as she leaped up from the sofa. “Daisy! Oh, my God! Daisy! I
need
you!”

Because I anticipated her next move, I braced myself so that we both
didn’t
fall over backwards when she flung herself at me
; she only managed to spin me around so that I was facing the other direction
. “There, there,” I said, patting her on the back. I felt like paddling a different part of her anatomy. Hard. As she sobbed onto my shoulder—thank God I’d worn a lightweight, washable cotton frock that day—I glanced over her
heaving back and saw a line of men glaring at the spectacle, all with their hands fisted and planted firmly at their waists. I rolled my eyes at them.

Sam looked the most disgusted of the lineup.

Harold shook his head.
He appeared pretty disgusted, too.

John Bohnert said, “Can you do something about her?” as if Lola were a troublesome pest in need of an exterminator.
He was probably right.

Lola lifted her head and shrieked, her voice right, smack next to my ear and nearly deafening me, “
Do
something about
me
? I’m in psychical
torment
, you horrid beast!” And she recommenced sobbing onto my shoulder.

After heaving a heavy sigh, I said, “Why don’t you gentlemen w
ait outside for a moment or two?
I’ll take care of this.”

Sam said, “Huh.”

Harold said, “Good.”

John Bohnert snapped, “Be quick about it.” He looked at his wristwatch as he turned and marched out of the room
, his knickerbockers flapping in the wind he made. The man was definitely tense
.

“Get hold of you
rself, Lola,” I said in
a
firm but soothing
spiritualist voice. I’d had tons of practice soothing Mrs. Pinkerton when she was hysterical, although I
have
to admit that M
r
s. Pinkerton wasn’t nearly as physical in her
frantic
fits as Lola. “This will never do. If you need my help, you must calm down at once.”

I led her to the sofa across from the crushed-red-velvet one. The beige one. I figured it would be difficult for darned near anyone to carry on effectively against a beige background. Firmly but gently, I pressed her down. Then I sat next to her quickly, just in case she decided to try flinging herself
flat in spite of the dull background. Taking her hands, I said, “Tell me why you’re in this state this morning. Surely you haven’t received another letter. Have you?”
I hoped she hadn’t. She was difficult to deal with even without real threats to complicate matters.