Earl Carroll’s topped them all, starkly modern in its geometric grace, no pillars for this pastel green palace, rather vertical shafts of white neon. Like Grauman’s Chinese, movie star autographs in cement were on display, not at your feet, but right in front of you, on the outer wall, CARY GRANT, GINGER ROGERS, BOB HOPE, JIMMY STEWART, ROSALIND RUSSELL, dozens more, stretching to the sky, where to their right a haunting electric visage loomed, the face of a beautiful woman, a graceful Art Moderne rendition, ivory neon brushstrokes against the building’s jade, her head tilted enigmatically above the impresario’s neon name, the arc of her chapeau outlined with the blue-electric words THROUGH THESE PORTALS PASS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE WORLD. I ushered my beautiful woman under the blush of pink and blue and yellow lighting and through the chrome entryway, into a foyer that wasn’t much—just a black patent-leather ceiling, columns of pastel light, a gilded streamlined statue of a nude goddess, and a staircase so wide and grand it might have risen to heaven, not the men’s and ladies’ rooms.
The rose plush-carpeted dining room/auditorium, its walls green satin-draped, wasn’t any larger than a couple airplane hangars, seating for a thousand on half a dozen terraced areas with pink table settings and matching chairs under a ceiling that appeared at first to undulate with gracefully curving fringed curtains but on closer look consisted of thin tubular stripes of blue and gold neon fluorescence, which seemed to lead into a similar curving curtain of fringed light above the stage, feeding into thirty-foot light columns on either side.
Margot and I sat alone at a table for four, with only a row of banquet-size tables between us and the footlights. The apparel for men ranged from my own fairly casual white linens to tuxedos, though most of the women wore fancy evening wear, wanting to compete as best they could in a theater whose stage show, Broadway to Hollywood, starred nary a Cantor nor a Jolson, but “60 of the Most Beautiful Women in the World.” The joint was packed, though our terrace nearest the stage was perhaps only two-thirds full.
“Members of the Lifetime Cover Charge Club are always guaranteed a seat in the inner circle,” Margot explained, sipping another stinger.
We’d finished dinner, which—despite a menu courtesy of Chef Felix Ganio “of the Waldorf-Astoria”—was just adequate. But how could a mere filet mignon measure up to thousands of feet of neon and the promise of sixty showgirls?
“What do they pay for that privilege?” I asked.
“A thousand dollars…. Mr. Dimity’s status here has been very handy, wining and dining potential Foundation members.”
We had both already broken our promise, several times, not to discuss the Amelia Earhart Foundation. We had also established that Margot was between boyfriends and that she was having the time of her life, hobnobbing with famous people and helping Amelia’s “cause.”
Actually, quite a few famous people were seated around us: Mantz’s charter customers Gable and Lombard, Tyrone Power and Sonja Henie, Jack Benny and his wife, Mary Livingston, Edgar Bergen without Charlie McCarthy (but with a lovely blonde), all seated at various tables of larger parties otherwise consisting of people I didn’t recognize.
Okay, I was a little impressed. But famous folk occasionally wandered through the cowtown I called home, and I’d done a job for Robert Montgomery out here last year, an impressive, classy guy; but most movie actors were, like George Raft, smaller than you’d think, with off-screen dialogue that didn’t exactly sparkle.
What even a thick-headed former cop like yours truly was starting to figure out was that I, too, was being wined and dined for the Foundation’s cause; and I was starting to wonder if cute, curvy Margot was part of the package. And if you think any of that would stir indignation in my breast, you haven’t been paying attention.
A nattily attired, almost skeletally thin, delicately handsome gent who might have been Fred Astaire but wasn’t was winding through the inner-circle crowd, smiling, joking, shaking hands with the celebrities who seemed delighted, even honored, by his attention.
“Who is that?” I asked Margot.
“That’s Earl Carroll himself,” she said.
Carroll and his Vanities, of course, had been the chief rival to Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies in its Broadway heyday. The Vanities had gone nuder than the Follies, and showman Carroll was frequently in trouble with the law; he was notorious and flamboyant in a fashion that explained the admiration flowing from the Hollywood royalty at his tables.
“He’s coming this way,” Margot whispered.
“You’re Nate Heller!” he said, as if I were a celebrity too, his smile as dazzling as it was insincere.
“Mr. Carroll,” I said, and we shook hands, “nice little hole in the wall you got here.”
His strong-jawed face had a surprising sensitivity, his cheekbones high, gray-blue eyes piercing, his dark, slightly graying hair combed way back; he smelled of lilac water, smelled better than a lot of showgirls I’d dated.
He sat next to me, leaned in chummily. “We make Broadway look provincial, don’t you think? Got anything in Chicago that compares?”
“Not sober. How long you been open?”
He looked up at his glittering neon ceiling. “Year and a half. You know, I was on the verge of bankruptcy when I called every last one of my markers in, to make this place a reality. Now I’m back on top.”
“Well, congratulations. How is it you happen to know who the hell I am?”
A tiny smile drifted across his lips. “You’re sitting in my inner circle, aren’t you? Listen, I just wanted to make sure you and your lady friend have a good time this evening. I wanted you to know you’re welcome…”
And he slipped his arm around me.
“…and if this little morsel you’re with doesn’t work out,” he whispered into my dainty ear, “just let me know if you see something in the show that appeals to you…and it’s always good to have a second choice if an item is sold out.”
He rose with a sly wink, handing me his card; I slipped it in my pocket, as he continued along his glad-handing way. What was this son of a bitch, my guardian angel?
Margot, smiling like a pixie, leaned across the table and touched my hand with a gloved one. “What did that devil whisper to you?”
“He was hoping I could talk you into trying out for the chorus,” I said.
She blushed; it was legendary that Carroll’s showgirls had to audition in the nude. “No, really….”
I ducked the question with my own: “Carroll wouldn’t happen to be a member of the Foundation, would he?”
Her eyelashes fluttered. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, he’s a flier, isn’t he? A pilot.”
“How do you know that?”
“Remember when he landed a plane in the middle of New York? It was in all the papers.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, as if having to recall, “he landed in Central Park, in the middle of winter.”
“That publicity hound makes G. P. look subtle.”
“Mr. Carroll is a great admirer of Amelia’s,” she admitted, somewhat embarrassed.