But, I’d just file a simple hit and run report. The Buick had no license number, and with only a sketchy description of the goons the cops couldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t do anything, anyway. They’d just file the report and that would be that. So why spend half the morning in the Newton Street station answering questions that I couldn’t answer?
On the way back to Downey from the police station, I thought of something. I pulled off the freeway and called Rita’s apartment from a payphone.
“Hey, Rita, did you find anything out about Sue Harvey? She came to L.A. to break into the movies. Maybe she had something going at MGM.” I’d been thinking about Vera’s call to the studio.
“No, Jimmy, there’s no record of her ever being in a movie, but I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. I want to show you something important I found out about Sue.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you at the office in twenty minutes.”
“It’s almost lunchtime. Want me to bring you a snack? I can whip up a veggie plate.”
That’s all I needed, on top of everything else, a veggie plate. “Not hungry, Rita, but thanks anyway. Hey, I’d love a cup of your coffee, though.”
Rita stood fussing at the coffee bar when I walked in. She turned and her eyes grew large. Before she could comment about the bruise on my face I said, “It’s a long story. Don’t ask.”
She kept staring at me angrily, and I knew she wouldn’t drop it. So I told her how some hothead had rear-ended my Vette. Then when I got out of the car to talk it over he became angry and took a punch at me. The lie was so weak even I wouldn’t have bought it. But, I figured, if I told Rita the truth about the thugs she’d just worry, and what good would that do?
Finally, she shook her head slowly and turned back to Mr. Coffee. She filled a cup and handed it to me. “Let go sit at your desk. I have something to show you. Might help us find Sue Harvey.”
She picked up her briefcase and we walked into my office. I sat behind my desk and she sat in the client chair. She produced several sheets of papers, stapled at the corner.
“I spent most of yesterday at the Central Library downtown. I checked the 1945 Los Angeles phonebooks, of course, looking for a Sue Harvey. Lots of Harveys but no one named Sue. Then I went through a motion picture directory that listed everyone who had a cast member credit for movies made in 1945 and ’46; nothing there either.”
“Not even a bit part in a movie made by MGM?” I asked, thinking of the phone call again.
“Not that I could find. But L.A. is a movie town, so they have a large collection of motion picture memorabilia, including fan magazines that go way back to the twenties. I figured if Sue got her foot in the door at a studio, maybe the promotion department planted a story about her. It was a long shot but I thought I’d give it a try. They did that for starlets back in those days, even before the girls were actually in a film.”
I took a sip of coffee. “They still do it today. Testing the waters, I guess.”
“That’s right, and I looked through a dozen or so movie magazines from 1945, Silver Screen, Motion Picture, Movie Star Parade, and so on. But look what I found in the July issue of Photoplay.”
Rita leaned forward and handed me what appeared to a Xerox copy of a magazine article. A black and white photo took up a quarter of the first page.
As I glanced at the document, she said, “They wouldn’t let me take the magazine out of the library, but they have a copy center. The article’s not important. But take a look at the picture and read the caption.”
I stared at the photo of a man and a woman all decked out in evening clothes sitting at a table in Ciro’s, a high-end nightclub located on the Sunset Strip. Several glasses of partially consumed drinks, a small lamp with the nightclub’s logo on the shade, and two ashtrays rested on the linen-draped cocktail table.
The man pinched a cigarette holder between his two fingers, the smoke from the cigarette wafting in front of his long face. He had dark wavy hair plastered back with a razor sharp crease on the left side of his head, and he had long slender hands, almost effeminate. Though rather small, he had the look of a distinguished gentleman. I guessed his age to be in the mid-forties. Other than the cigarette holder, he didn’t look like a movie star. He looked more like a guy who made a movie star’s funeral arrangements. The woman sitting next to him had her hands folded politely on the table. The picture was taken in 1945 and the couple’s clothes reflected the period. The man wore a formal tux and the woman, in her twenties, had on a dark evening gown, low cut with spaghetti straps. Some kind of big flower was pinned in her long blonde hair.
I focused on the woman-beautiful face, full lips, and pencil-line eyelashes arching over her bright eyes. With her blonde hair, I imagined her eyes must have been blue.
The caption under the photograph said the woman’s name was Sue Harvey. She was out on the town with the A-list movie star, Francis Q. Jerome, her fiance.
No wonder Roberts spent all that time hitching rides across the country to be with her. Sue Harvey was stunning.
I looked up at Rita. “Did this magazine happen to have Lauren Bacall’s face on the cover?”
“Yeah, it did. How’d you know?”
CHAPTER 13
An hour later Rita and I were driving north on the Ventura Freeway, heading for the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills.
Rita had called a number of talent agencies until she reached an old guy who’d been involved “in the business since day one,” as he’d said. The octogenarian knew Francis Q. Jerome. He told her that the actor, now in his seventies, lived alone at one of the Country House cottages. Jerome hadn’t made a movie in years, he added, but in his heyday he’d been nominated for an Oscar as a result of his starring role in a big-budget swashbuckler from the late 1930s. But somewhere along the line “his ballet with the bottle” took over and he was now somewhat senile. Rita also found out that his marriage to Sue Harvey had lasted only six weeks.
The Motion Picture and Television Fund, which controls the forty-acre facility, was established in the 1920s by the hallowed stars of the golden age of Hollywood. Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks, D.W Griffith, and Charlie Chaplin among others had realized the need for a retirement home for those who had labored in the entertainment industry and had fallen on hard times. The list of people who lived there included not only actors, but also producers and directors, and behind-the-scenes people-grips, electricians, and camera operators-as well. The monthly rental tab for a cottage on the campus, as the grounds were referred to, was based on one’s ability to pay.
We entered the campus via an entrance off Mulholland Drive and drove up a curved driveway through lush grounds heading toward the administration building.
“I doubt they let just anyone walk in and bother the residents, Rita. So follow my lead,” I said as we walked along a red tile pathway that went from the parking area to the entrance of the mission-style single-story building.
We entered the lobby and approached a middle-aged woman seated behind a plain, rough-hewed antique desk. She stood to greet us.
“Good afternoon, I’m Mrs. Wardley, the concierge, but you may call me Bess.” She extended her hand. “Now how can I help you?”