I sat up. “What? What did you say?”
“Well, Lydia, I guess a little out of it, told Nell that she’d gone to the apartment to see Carisa. Old roommate, you know, though they hadn’t talked in a while, some sort of fight. But I guess they started talking again. Anyway, Lydia told Nell they argued about Jimmy. Lydia was jealous. Lydia was angry at Carisa.”
“I’m not following this.”
“Lydia interpreted those letters Carisa was writing to Jimmy as a personal affront. A slap at her. Carisa, she told Nell, was old news, so she should leave her Jimmy alone. Lydia resented the baby threat. Lydia said
she
was the new girl and thought Carisa’s letters were a ploy to get Jimmy back. Nell told me she told Lydia—but now
you’re
the old girl. He’s got Ursula Andress. Lydia went nuts. Yelled at Nell. Scared her.”
“Would Nell actually tell Lydia that to her face?”
“Why not? Nell can’t stand Lydia now that I’ve made her see the light.”
I drummed my fingers on the table. “Jimmy has to come clean about a lot of things.”
Tansi spoke in a soft voice. “What does that mean?”
“Jimmy hasn’t been forthright with the police.” I was thinking of Jimmy’s newly discovered letter.
“Oh, I’m sure there’s a reason, Edna.”
“You don’t lie to the police.”
“He wouldn’t lie. Maybe he forgets things.”
“No, Tansi, stop this. I like Jimmy. I do, despite some of his childish behavior. And I don’t believe he’d kill anyone. But if we’re to help him, we have to be realistic. Your idealizing him into junior-grade God is touching, but one of the dangers of elevating men to godhood is that, well, we’re forced to stare at them up there. Sometimes, when the light hits the statue, you see the pock marks, the blemishes, the…”
“I’m not a giggly bobby-soxer, Edna,” she said, hurt, bewildered, near tears.
“I know you’re not, Tansi. And I know you are an intelligent woman. But your protestation of Jimmy’s innocence smacks of unexamined devotion.”
Tansi stood up, not happy. “Jimmy is the future of Warner Bros.,” she said. “And he’s a
good
boy.”
“He’s not a boy. He’s a man.”
“You know what I mean. He’s decent and…and…”
“Then work with me to prove he’s innocent.”
“How?” Tansi breathed in. “I
want
to.”
I shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
“He is innocent,” Tansi pleaded. “He
has
to be. Maybe Nell is right. Maybe it was Lydia.”
“You can’t just say that, Tansi, without proof.”
“How can anybody prove that? But Nell’s convinced Lydia killed Carisa in a fit of anger. They had nasty fights, really. A number of them. And do you know what Nell told me? She says Carisa probably had it coming.”
I sat with Detective Cotton the next morning in my suite at the Ambassador. I’d reached him at the precinct the previous afternoon and related Tansi’s story of Nell and Lydia, and the accusation of murder. My information wasn’t news to him, it seemed. Though I considered the information of little value, I decided to create a bond with him: a mutual sharing. I was convinced he’d held back crucial bits of information, and his candid talk with me was a conscious ploy. Before he hung up, he asked if he could stop by in the morning. Of course I said yes.
I served him coffee, and I noticed he didn’t slurp it noisily nor did he overload the hot brew with excessive sugar cubes. I smiled.
“Nice place,” he said.
“I don’t own it.”
“Whenever I stay in a hotel, it’s one room.” He looked around. “Not a half dozen.”
“I sleepwalk and the management is trying to avoid lawsuits.”
“Then they should have put you on the ground floor.” He smiled.
“You’re obviously curious about something. Otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“In fact, yes. For one thing, your obsession with James Dean’s innocence.”
“It’s not an obsession, sir. I’ve never obsessed about a single thing in my life. But in my scant dealings with him, I sense…well, I sense a certain truth in him.”
“My gut tells me he’s dirty.”
“Proof?”
He shrugged. “Slow train through the alleys of L.A.”
“Sounds like a line from an old Wobbly protest song.”
He looked baffled, but didn’t ask me to explain. “But I’ve come to believe we’re on the same side of the law here…”
“Of course.”
“Though your intent is more narrowly defined. And I trust you, Miss Ferber. I asked around about you, even called a cop I know in New York City. He never heard of you. And that can be a good thing. But hereabouts you have a reputation for, well, decency.”
I nodded. Thank you.
“So I believe anything
you
uncover that is relevant will come my way.”
“Hence my phone call to you yesterday.”
“That struck me as a little self-serving.”
“Like your being here this morning?”
He nodded.
“Tell me something.” He put down the cup he’d been holding. “What do you see in this James Dean? I’ve talked to him a bunch of times lately, when he’s found or available, and he’s moody, evasive, downright rude. On top of that he hadn’t bathed when we spoke.”
“Please, sir.” I was munching on a soda cracker.
“Sorry. But I just don’t
see
the attraction. They’re telling me he’s the wave of the future. Clark Gable is passé, and Brando and Dean and Clift are in—people who talk with stones in their mouths and who thumb their noses at…at everything.” He looked angry.
“Detective Cotton, I sense you’re a well-intended man. I also sense that you were probably happy when Clark Gable was tossing Vivian Leigh around like a sack of potatoes—
that
Hollywood. You have about you a hint of Ronald Coleman.”
“I don’t like what the Second World War did to America.”
“You’re blaming this on a war?”
“A slippage of morals. Everything’s turned upside down. Teenage drag racing. Rock ‘n’ roll. Thank God for McCarthy and his ferreting out Commies.”
“I don’t choose to discuss domestic totalitarianism and rearguard politics with you this morning, sir. It’ll only give me indigestion.”
“So be it,” he conceded. “So be it. But I’m curious. Are you writing a book?”
“I
wrote
a book. It’s called
Giant
.”
He glanced to the side, as though unwilling to face me. “I mean, you seem to be
intent
on this murder case.” Stressing the word.
“Intent?”
“Don’t you think it’s odd for a little old lady to venture into one of the most depraved parts of L.A., especially at night, looking for a woman she’s never met?”
I waited, watched him with cold, cold eyes. When I spoke I knew my tone was peevish, which I despised in myself. “Sir, I didn’t get to be a famous and rich writer sitting in a comfortable drawing room sipping tea with pretentious social lionizers.” I took a breath. “If you read my work, you’ll notice I have written about lumber camps in the wilds of Wisconsin, and truck farms in Connecticut and in Chicago, and interracial love on the Mississippi…”
He held up his hand. “Okay, okay. I just asked a question.”
“And, I hope you realize, I have walked streets filled with derelicts, villages where every eye on me is hostile, shacks where depraved girls…” I stopped. I was surprised by the trace of a smile, a genuine one, not the snickering, insulting facial gestures he’d offered earlier. “What?”
“I appreciate honesty,” he said. “I almost never encounter it any more.”
“Perhaps you need to be honest with yourself first?”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re convinced Jimmy is the killer, a bias you’ve allowed to set in concrete.”
“You misread me, Miss Ferber.”
“I don’t think I do, sir.”
“I gather evidence, but I do start with a premise. And my premise, given the scant evidence to date, is that your darling boy is the culprit.” He kept going, even though he noticed I was ready to speak. “And the fact that he didn’t mention this threatening letter to Carisa is one more piece of bad news for him.”
“Bad character, perhaps; faulty judgment, definitely. But not necessarily an indictment of murder.”
“I’ve found that behind most murderers is, oddly, bad character.”
“But not all bad or questionable character leads to murder.”
“Granted.”
“Tell me, Detective Cotton, what was all this foolishness about fingerprints? You’ve sent everyone into a tizzy.”
“We really didn’t think there would be any surprises. The apartment is filled with undocumented prints, but I was curious to see who of the Warner’s crowd went there—more in terms of print frequency than anything else.”
“And you learned?”
“Not much. The usual suspects. What I expected.” Again, the sardonic grin. “Lydia Plummer, ex-friend. And I might add, fellow drug abuser big time. There’s a secret for you, which everyone freely tells me. And Josh. Even Sal Mineo. James Dean, of course. Indeed, the most telling: there was a thumbprint on the Aztec statue, but it was a gift from him to her. And its base has a bunch of smudges, unreadable, blurry prints. Maybe the killer rubbed the statue quickly with a handkerchief.”
“Other prints?”
“Nothing of your Miss McCambridge, even though she said she was in the apartment. She claims she visited once, sat on the sofa and then left, taking Carisa off somewhere. Tansi Rowland, nothing. Oddly, Jake Geyser, all over, excessive, though he claims he dropped off papers one time. And another surprise. Tommy Dwyer was there though he says he stopped in with Dean. His prints were on an unwashed glass. Dean says no, that Tommy did not go with him. His girlfriend Polly: no prints. What also surprises me is that Lydia’s roommate, the script girl…ah…Nell Meyers, who’s actually
accused
Lydia, was there.”
“But only Jimmy admits to being there that night.”
“And he claims she was alive when he left.” A pause. “Couldn’t you have gotten there earlier, Miss Ferber?”
“Then you’d have had to solve more than one murder.”
“Who left the cocktail party early?”
I hesitated. “Well, Jimmy, as you know. Mercy and I. Lydia slipped out early. Jake left. Not everyone was there.” Tommy and Polly, I thought. Josh. Nell.
“So we’ve learned. You know, so many people floated in and out of the apartment of a young girl everyone says was a crazy, a drug user. Lydia hated her, they fought, yet she visits, one time with Josh MacDowell. Josh first denied knowing Lydia, then said it was because Lydia did heroin and he didn’t want to be tainted. Nell says that Lydia and Josh talked on the phone a lot. Seemed to be plotting revenge against Jimmy because he dumped them both. Somehow, she thinks, they would
use
Carisa to exact revenge against Jimmy.”
“But killing Carisa to implicate Jimmy is rather extreme.”
He held up his hand, palms forward, then interlaced his fingers. “Welcome to Hollywood.”
“You’re being very candid with me, Detective Cotton.”
“At this point, I have nothing to lose.”
Surprisingly, I noted, he’d seemed to change during our talk, as he abandoned his crusty shell, his testy manner. Sitting with him over coffee, I thought him a curious anachronism, some fugitive from a Charles Laughton movie, cool and aloof. Once he knew his cast of characters, he could soften the edges a little, like a dramatist who, having hammered out her characters, then relaxes, comfortable in the knowledge that her creations will behave as expected.
Detective Cotton was readying to leave, standing up and stretching.
“Detective Cotton.” I looked up at him. “There’s a danger here that I might start to like you.”
“Don’t count on it,” he said, buttoning his sports jacket. “You’d be one more woman I’ve failed in my life.”
“You’re talking like a character in a Dashiell Hammett novel.”
“I’ve got to get my lines from somewhere.”
***
I could hardly keep my wits about me during a noontime lunch with George Stevens, anxious to get my opinion on some script changes for the penultimate banquet scene with Jett Rink. My mind kept drifting to James Dean and Xavier Cotton and Carisa Krausse. Leaving the meeting, I met Jake and Tansi, sent by Jack Warner himself, the two tugging at my sleeves like I was a coveted chicken wishbone. I dismissed both but, on the spur of the moment, asked Tansi to meet me at the Smoke House at four. I was having coffee with Mercy. Tansi seemed grateful, Jake miffed. But walked to the Blue Room by a chatty Tansi, I immediately regretted my kindness. Full of news, a Homeric Hedda Hopper, Tansi kept up a breezy but tiresome flow of conversation. I did learn that Nell had moved out of the Studio Club, much to Lydia’s consternation.
“Nell told me Lydia started screaming at her,” Tansi said. “They were having lunch, and Nell waited to the end to tell her. Lydia lost it. She’d just told Nell that she’d had another row with Jimmy, who told her to keep away from him. According to Nell, Jimmy kept saying to her, Lydia, you know I left you weeks ago. Like it was old news.”
“Where did Nell go?” I asked.
“I thought I told you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“She has nowhere to go, really. She makes almost no money at Warner’s. So I told her she could stay with me until she gets on her feet. I have that spare room.”
“Tansi, is that a good idea?”
“She’s a friend, Edna. I had no choice. I’m the one who persuaded her to get away from Lydia.”
“But, Tansi…”
“I don’t want her to face Lydia’s temper. I’ve
seen
it. In Marfa one night, she and Jimmy got into it, and I was down the hall. It was ugly the things she said to him. Well, him to her, too.”
I started to warn Tansi to stay out of peoples’ lives, but stopped. I said nothing.
Later, at the Smoke House, sitting with Mercy and Tansi, I was startled to see Sal Mineo and Josh MacDowell walk in, both nodding at us but striding past, taking seats far away. Moments later, to my horror, Max Kohl stormed in, looking beefy and furious in a worn leather motorcycle jacket, with boots and sunglasses, barreling in, scanning the room, then approaching Josh and Sal. We fell silent. Then Tansi, too loudly, said what I was thinking. “Why is Max here?”
“What’s going on?” Mercy whispered.
I shrugged it off. “Why is everyone surprised? We all know Max was a friend of Carisa’s, dated her–—and knew the others. Josh was her old friend and Jimmy’s drinking buddy. Maybe Josh rode bikes with Jimmy.”
Tansi shook her head. “Max is in a
different
world from Josh and Sal.”
“They all have Jimmy in common.”
Mercy laughed. “We all have Jimmy in common.”
Tansi leaned in. “Such a good-looking man, Max is, but too mean.”
“And now Max is seeing Lydia?” I asked.
Tansi nodded. “Supposedly. After Jimmy dumped her. After he dumped Carisa. But Lydia still calls Jimmy. Come back, please.”
“It’s incestuous,” Mercy said, “A small-knit group of young folks—bit players—who go from one to another, looking for love.”
“They experiment.”
I looked at Tansi. “That’s curious. Both Tommy and Josh said that about Jimmy—that he experiments with people. He uses them up.”
Mercy added, “Well, in Hollywood people move into your life and then disappear, especially the penny-ante contract players.”
I stared at the three men. Sal Mineo, boyish, dark, pretty, always nervous, and a little weary; looking as though he were biding his time, waiting for direction; hanging with friends he’d gladly dismiss when others—livelier, more thrilling—came his way. Josh, effete and pale, as long as a string bean and as supple, eyes darting around the room, searching, resting back possessively on Sal and then, unhappily, on Max. Josh, now smiling through brilliant teeth, then biting a ridge of nail, anxious. And Max Kohl, hairy, bulky, a blunt crew cut; sweaty, undeniably good looking; sensual, fleshy nighttime biker, in love with speed and darkness. Carisa’s ex-boyfriend. Lydia’s current flame, maybe. A man who, straddling a chair, seemed to be telling Josh and Sal a mesmerizing story, one they weren’t happy to hear, because they were rigid, attentive. Then, as abruptly as he entered, Max left, but not before rapping on the table with his knuckles, emphasizing a point. Heads turned to watch the swagger and thrust of his body as it moved out the door.
“Well,” I said, finally. “Not happy, that one.”
Tansi looked puzzled. “I wonder what…”
Suddenly Josh and Sal were leaving. Mercy spoke up. “Max looked like he was threatening you two.”
Sal’s voice was breathy. “Scary man. I don’t know him.”
Josh cleared his throat. “I do, through Carisa. I
warned
her about him. But she liked him. Jimmy liked him. Jimmy didn’t
know
him. He just likes anybody who rides a bike.”
“What was that all about?” Tansi asked Josh.
Josh was antsy now. “Somehow he heard that I, he says it was me, told the cops he supplied Carisa and Lydia with heroin. Everyone knows about the drugs. I wasn’t the only one who knew that. But he thinks Cotton will pin Carisa’s murder on him.”