Make Believe (9 page)

She got no further. Another coarse grunt as Frank’s fist flew out, a missile, and slammed hard into Max’s jaw. The crack of bone on bone. Max’s head revolved like a puppet’s head unhinged. A spurt of purple blood splattered on the white tablecloth.

Alice screamed. She started to stand but slipped back into her seat.

Surprised and wounded, Max toppled backwards, the chair crashing onto the floor and spilling him onto the carpet. He lay in an ungainly heap, doubled over, his hands cupping the bleeding jaw. He hunched there, looking up at Frank who rocked back and forth, his eyes flashing, his hard blue eyes now brilliant purple. He hadn’t unclenched his fist, smeared now with blood.

“I never liked you,” Frank sputtered.

Max opened his mouth to speak but he dissolved into a fit of nonsense giggling. Blood oozed through his fingers, down his neck, onto his shirt. “Thump thump thump,” he burbled. I had no idea what that meant. He gave a drunkard’s idiotic smile. “Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me.”

Thump thump thump
.

Giggling.

Alice and Ava crouched on the floor next to him. Whimpering, Alice cradled his head in her lap while Ava dabbed the blood with a linen napkin. Ava’s fingertips glistened with Max’s blood.

“Damn you, Francis.” She looked up at him.

Silence in the restaurant.

Someone screamed, a woman, hysterical.

Frank looked around, his eyes zooming in on the screaming woman.

He looked down at Max.

“I could kill you in a heartbeat.”

“Francis…”

“A goddamn heartbeat.”

He stormed away.

At the nearby table the anonymous woman screamed and screamed. And Louella Parsons smiled.

Chapter Six

My day began, of course, with Louella Parsons’ insidious but tremendously entertaining column.

The gossip queen devoted her entire column to our sad escapade, given the fact that she had a front-row seat and, to use her words, “was close enough to see spittle at the corners of Frank’s mouth.” Obviously she’d been dizzy with delight, fueled by her own intake of zombies, tottering to her typewriter minutes after Frank’s outburst, her column probably delivered by midnight to the yellow journalistic presses. Her prose dripped with giddiness, though she loaded her paragraphs with
tut-tut
phraseology—“ignominious shame,” “truly a sad spectacle,” “a waste of talent,” a “wanton disregard of civilized behavior,” “a low point in Hollywood history.”

On and on, an endless and platitudinous array of admonishment. “And then, while we all watched, Frank threatened
to kill
the hapless man.” She italicized the infinitive.

But in her stream of consciousness narrative, she most likely rued her use of the word “hapless,” for in the next paragraph she described Max Jeffries as a “lamentable pinko” who “defends the indefensible.” Oddly, her easy condemnation of Frank, though over the top with venom, then paled by comparison to her depiction of Max, whose treasonous behavior clearly trumped Frank’s gangland fisticuffs.

Louella Parsons, I realized, carelessly assigned folks to various rungs of her own perversely conceived hell. She knew who should suffer the most heat in Hades. Like Dante, she buried the traitors at the bottom.

My phone never stopped ringing, yet I never answered. Slips of paper in my cubbyhole mailbox downstairs identified the writers as reporters from the
Los Angeles
Times
, the
Examiner
, and even, to my horror, the
New York Times
. Someone provided me with clippings from the
Examiner
. My name was mentioned, which surprised me. I was labeled the activist writer, some latter-day Upton Sinclair or Ida Tarbell. “Edna Ferber, whose
Show Boat
is to be premiered July 17, is an intimate of Max Jeffries.”

Hmmm, I considered: MGM just shuddered. Walls shook. All of it made very little sense.

I hid away.

When I called, Alice informed me that Max was nestled in bed, sipping orange juice. His doctor had patched him up, and would be returning shortly. Max, whimpering, kept asking for more pain medication. He was, she insisted, impossible to be with. Lorena Marr, checking in, invited her out and Max, overhearing the invitation, insisted Alice leave him be. He’d hole up with the radio on—“
Burns and Allen
,” she said, “will shut him up”—and drift into a hazy, drug-induced slumber. Girl’s night out. Alice consented, though Ava begged off. She wanted no limelight this evening, secluded in her Nichols Canyon home where, she told Alice, Francis knew he was not wanted.

“Lorena has convinced me to go out,” Alice told me.

“Good idea,” I told her. “Men who are ill believe the earth’s rotation must immediately be adjusted to suit their desires.”

She laughed. “Oh, I know. Poor Max. I love him dearly, but…” She stopped. “We’re catching a movie. Please join us, Edna,” Alice pleaded. “An early dinner at the Paradise. You can see it from your hotel. A movie. The three of us.”

So I found myself strolling a half-block up from the Ambassador and opening the doors of the Paradise Bar & Grill: Steaks and Chops! A modest eatery with the capitalized “d” of “Paradise” blacked out on the neon sign. The “i” of “Grill” flickered madly. PARA ISE. Lorena and Alice were already there, and waved me over.

“Everything is free,” Lorena announced. “I own the place. Well,
we
own the place. My ex-husband Ethan and I. We’ve yet to make a penny off the place and I’m intent on unloading it.”

Alice looked sheepish. “I haven’t been here since my marriage.” She looked around. “I didn’t really want to come here. Ethan and Tony don’t want me here…”

Lorena broke in. “Look here, Alice. I own
half
of this place. You’re my good friend.” Then she laughed. “As I say, the food and drinks are
free
.”

But I noticed Alice looking around, uncomfortable. The apple-dumpling widow of Lenny Pannis, accused of murder by Ethan and Tony, now back behind enemy lines.

Anyone looking for paradise would not locate it in that dimly lit dining room with red-and-white checkered tablecloths on wobbly tables, circled by wrought-iron ice-cream parlor chairs. A line of booths hugged the kitchen wall. At the back an old walnut-stained bar with red-leather-and-chrome stools. As we settled in, a burly waiter placed a bud vase on each table. Each one contained a white carnation tied with a red ribbon. A red wicker-covered bottle held a lit candle.

The Paradise Bar & Grill was one step up from the Automat. Archie and Veronica holding hands over a New York strip steak, medium rare. Which, of course, was what I ordered, and it was surprisingly good—toothsome, robust, tender, though served with canned green peas and onions, alongside a baked potato unnaturally titanic, stuffed with chives and slathered in sour cream. Alice, I noticed, barely picked at her grilled Catalina swordfish. Lorena ordered an avocado salad, the turkey club, and a pitcher of martinis.

Lorena had brought five clippings of Louella’s nasty column. She bubbled over, and in seconds she had Alice and me laughing, though I’d resisted. Last night’s melee at the Beachcomber still upset me…Max’s bloody jaw and Frank’s feral eyes. Lorena glibly termed it the “Mai tai Massacre.” A natural mimic, she assumed a haughty, imperious tone last heard, I supposed, from the throat of stuffy Margaret Dumont in the Marx brothers’ films. She arched her back, trilled her r’s, imagined a pince-nez slipping off an aggressive Roman nose, and oozed condescension. I laughed like a schoolgirl on holiday.

Yes, Lorena kept saying, she felt sorry for the poor bruised Max. Yes, as she patted Alice’s wrist, she was happy he was on the mend, luckily nothing broken, just an ego sorely compromised, a man who now insisted it (and everyone) go away.

“Thank God Max can’t hear us carrying on,” Alice said. Then, smiling, she mimicked Max with affection: “‘Please leave me alone to lick my wounds.’”

Lorena raised her voice. “Poor Louella. Tsk, tsk. It was all very sad for her to witness. Wasn’t Frank Sinatra a downright thug and a bounder? She worked herself into a Victorian lather over the blood-splattered white napkin—‘An affront to the refined Polynesian eatery, an elegant watering hole.’” Lorena’s voice cracked, and we all erupted into gales of silly hilarity.

She’d underlined the particularly enlightening phrases and insisted on reading aloud. “She saved the
coup de grace
for the last paragraph,” Lorena added, even though I’d already read the tripe more times than I cared to acknowledge. In her Margaret Dumont operatic singsong, “‘I had to
witness
this travesty. I’m used to sophisticated dining, with candlelight and crystal, not gladiator bloodletting and profane language. Dear Reader, I now draw a discreet Edwardian curtain over that crude farce.’” Lorena raised a glass. “To Louella, the best show in town.”

Alice bit her lip and confided in a low tone, “You know, Frank carries a gun on him.”

A chill swept up my spine. “What?”

“It’s hidden.”

“But why?”

“Ava told me.”

“But he sometimes travels with a bodyguard.” I thought of the gentle giant I’d met, the dapper thug in a double-breasted suit, gun hidden.

“Yeah, that same bodyguard threatened to kill a photographer unless he handed over the film in his camera. But Frank likes his own gun. No one knows.”

I whispered. “Has he ever used it?”

Alice shrugged. “He’s shot it off a few times. He likes to play cowboy. Once, in New York, when he and Ava battled, he called Ava to say he was killing himself, and then fired two shots into a mattress, holding the phone close. She came running, hysterical. And in Indio, outside L.A., Frank and Ava, both drunk as skunks, shot up the town’s streetlights with two .38 caliber Smith & Wessons, his guns, and…Frank grazed this man and…”

I raised my hand. “Enough. No more. This is frontier out here, no man’s land. Barbaric.”

“Welcome to the wild west, Edna,” Lorena quipped.

I looked at Alice. “So Max is all right?”

“Right now he’s sleeping like a baby. What the doctor ordered.”

“Poor Max.” But I smiled. Poor Max, that performance so out of character last night. Well, a man who could still surprise me.

“He should never have kissed Ava,” Alice whispered. Then she grinned. “I didn’t like the drinking, of course, but I’ve never seen him so…frivolous, flirtatious. It was…delightful. Until the end.”

Lorena chuckled. “I used to hope Ethan would do something spontaneous. During the three years of our fragmented marriage, even his husbandly kisses seemed measured out, charted on a military map. It was
maddening
. A drunk with a slide rule.” She leaned into Alice. “I didn’t tell you that I called your home a little while ago. To make sure you were coming.”

“I decided to walk over.” Alice looked perplexed. “Max answered?”

“Yes, but he said he was feeling queasy and was headed for bed. He said you’d just left.” A pause. “He told me something interesting. He mentioned that he’d heard through the grapevine that Tony lost his stand-up job at Poncho’s. Lord, I just heard about it late last night. Ethan called me. But just like Max to worry about others! He told me he’ll get Tony a job.”

“Sounds like Max,” Alice said. “Turn the other cheek. Did you tell Tony?”

Lorena nodded. “I was calling just as Ethan and Tony came in. Ethan whispered to me that Tony started drinking early this afternoon—he’s so depressed. When I told Tony about Max’s kindness, he refused to believe it—said Max was playing a game. Imagine! God, you can’t please him. But a few minutes later I saw Tony on the phone, so I thought he was calling Max. No, he told me when he hung up, he was calling Liz to tell her what Max was up to.”

“How did she react?”

“She wasn’t home, which bothered him. Ethan told me—‘What does it matter?’ he said. ‘He’ll only lose that one, too.’”

Alice looked pleased. “Max’ll do what he says.”

“Ethan is right—Tony will lose another job.” Lorena tilted her head to the side. “You know, Max didn’t hang on the phone. He said someone was knocking at the door.”

Alice looked worried. “What? He wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“He thought it might be his doctor.”

Alice glanced toward the pay phone near the entrance. “Well, maybe…”

“It’s all right, Alice,” Lorena assured her. “He’s probably asleep now.” She pointed across the room. “Well, speak of the devil-may-care. The co-owner of Paradise. Adam is here…with, of course, the sequined snake.”

We watched Ethan and Tony Pannis walk in from the kitchen, settle into the corner booth near the kitchen. Ethan spotted us, nodded formally to me, but avoided looking at Alice. He purposely turned his back on us. Tony seemed lost in his own world, leaning into his brother and blubbering about something.

Lorena whispered a little too loudly. “I feel for Ethan, frankly. This is gonna be a long evening, I mean, with Tony/Tiny fired from that club. He’s already soused. It was just a matter of time. Lately he’s only been filling in a couple nights a week. He’s lost his steam, really. That, and the fact that he is just not funny.”

Alice fidgeted. “Ethan is not happy I’m here, Lorena.”

Lorena lit a cigarette and blew sloppy rings in the air. “Who cares? You’re my friend. He’s begrudgingly accepted that fact.”

“Still…”

“Forget it, dear.”

Lorena leaned into me, confidentially. “On nights like this, Ethan’s sole purpose is to keep Tony from getting too drunk and staggering crazily down Wilshire Boulevard. Ethan works on his account books and plots out his burgeoning real estate empire while Tony drinks and gets loud and unruly. Then Ethan drives him home to Liz Grable’s waiting arms. A sad spectacle. Ethan doesn’t know what to do, I guess.”

Alice broke in. “Tony seems to be getting worse, no?”

Lorena bit her lip. “A shame, really. Two or three times a week he’s here getting plastered. It never was like that before. Liz won’t be around him when he’s drunk, so Ethan takes over.”

“Brotherly love?” Alice offered.

She smirked. “Yes, loyalty to a dead brother.”

Alice whispered, “Lenny.”

The name hung in the air, filled the room, explosive.

Lorena eyed her. “Sorry, honey…didn’t mean to bring
that
up.”

“I don’t understand the power of Lenny’s ghost over everyone.” I glanced at Alice, who wasn’t happy.

Lorena also glanced at Alice but answered me. “You see, Ethan, well,
created
the problem. Sorry, Alice, but I want Edna to understand. When Lenny died—the so-called murder at the hands of the lovely Alice”—she reached out and caressed Alice’s hand—“one chapter of the universe ended. Ethan was a drunk who got slapped awake. Lenny had said he’d be divorcing Alice here and bringing the boys into the business. Whatever that meant. Untold riches. Tony was a decent comic, mildly funny with his offbeat humor, endearing at times, a little dumb but cagey enough about his career. Sarcasm and dumbness sometimes go hand in hand. A social drinker, that’s all.”

Alice spoke up. “I remember Tony as a cheerful sort, a jokester.” She glanced toward Tony. “And quiet.”

Lorena went on. “A nice guy. But somehow, maybe inadvertently, Ethan played Dr. Frankenstein and created the monster we have before us. Ethan hammered on and on about the murder, the money, the power they were now deprived of. The Hollywood triptych: gold, glory, clout. Lost now. Tony, depressed, started eating and drinking. Now he’s a mess—and sad.”

“And the insult comic was born,” Alice added.

“Tony stopped being the bumbling, goofy comic onstage, so Ethan talked him into becoming an insult comic. The chubby guy in the sequined outfits attacking his audience.”

“And a drinker,” Alice said.

“In here, mostly,” Lorena insisted. “Guarded by Ethan who, I suspect, feels guilty for his creation. His cookie-cutter mind can’t deal with the new and vastly deteriorated version of a harmless brother. Ethan is afraid because Tony—now Tiny Sparks—has these spurts of anger, out of control. So he plays…warden at the prison he built.”