“1906,” Handsome said. “And she couldn’t have—”
“She was very polite to us,” Bingo said. Somehow he had to regain the few inches of height he felt he’d lost. “Handsome, when you meet a lady like that, a mature lady, who is trying very hard not to look mature, it’s always polite to make like she was getting away with it, which I did.” The inches were beginning to come back. “Why, as soon as I spotted those false eyelashes the night we registered—”
“Gee, Bingo,” Handsome said admiringly. “And I thought she had you fooled!”
The inches were all back in place again, every last one of them.
Handsome swung the convertible west on Sunset Boulevard. Bingo sat up and said, “Drive a little easy. See, on the left there, that’s Schwab’s drugstore.” He glanced at the guidebook. “It says you frequently see a star or two at the counter.” He considered suggesting they stop for a quick malt, but by that time they were a block past. A moment later he said, “There’s the Garden of Allah.”
Handsome peered quickly and said, “It looks like a nice motel, too, Bingo.”
Bingo refrained from comment. He refrained, too, when Handsome remained unimpressed by Sunset Towers and even Ciro’s. He purposely kept quiet as they passed the Lou Costello Building and the Mocambo, but he did indicate the Bing Crosby Building and told Handsome again to slow down, peering intently as they drove past.
“He’s probably away playing golf some place,” Handsome said.
“You don’t think I expected to see him come walking out the door,” Bingo said indignantly. He consulted the book again. “Here are located the Finlandia Baths, where the top stars go for massage.” He didn’t read that out loud, but he made a mental note that as soon as they were settled and organized and doing well, that would be one of his first investments. And well worth while, too. “Look, there’s the Beverly Hills Hotel—”
This, he told himself again, was living.
“You know, Handsome,” he said dreamily, “when we buy a house—” He paused. Naturally they’d buy a house, soon as things got really moving. “What we’re going to get is a movie star’s mansion. The real article.”
“If you say so, Bingo,” Handsome said, with that same serene confidence.
“One that belonged to somebody big, and important,” he went on, half to himself. “So we can say to people, ‘Y’know, this house used to belong to so-and-so.’” He’d say it modestly, of course. “Houses must be being sold all the time. People get divorced, or move, or go to live in Spain or Paris, or Mexico, or some place. I’m always reading about it in the columns. It’s just a question of finding the right place and the right time.” He added mentally, “And the right money.” But that would come.
Sunset Boulevard curved into what the guidebook described as “the truly magnificent part of the city where most of the stars live—” A little way beyond, Bingo spotted a tiny stand, nothing more than a table and a few yards of bunting, with a pennant reading: GET YOUR GUIDE TO MOVIE STARS’ HOMES RIGHT HERE — $1.00.
“That’s the place Mrs. DeLee told us about,” Bingo said. “Pull up, Handsome.”
A plump middle-aged woman in slacks was perched on a stool behind the stand, which was heaped with folded maps. A man was leaning on the stand, apparently idly chatting. He looked up as the convertible came to a stop, said to the woman, “Don’t get up, Florence,” walked over to the convertible and beamed amiably.
“Want to see the movie stars’ homes, h’m? You came to the right place. Tourists?”
“We’re moving our business out here,” Bingo said. He tried to say it curtly, doing his best to feel irritated and just a bit insulted but there was no resisting the stranger’s smile. He reached in his wallet, took out a card of the International Foto, Motion Picture and Television Corporation of America: New York and Hollywood, and handed it over.
“Glad to know you,” the stranger said. “I’m Courtney Budlong. Dabble in real estate, though I keep talking about retiring.” He scrutinized the card, and Bingo suddenly was glad he’d gone to the expense of having them engraved. “Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place. Cigarette?”
“Thanks,” Bingo said, glowing.
“Oh, your map,” Courtney Budlong said. He took Bingo’s dollar and turned back to the stand.
Bingo looked him over curiously. He was a plumpish man of medium height, with silvery gray hair — a trifle thin, bright blue eyes, a round, pink face, and a smile that somehow reminded Bingo of the smiles on the Santa Clauses who used to visit the orphanage where he’d lived until his Uncle Herman took him out at the age of twelve. It was a warm smile, a friendly smile, one that asked nothing in return except, perhaps, another smile. Later, Handsome remarked that he reminded him of the second husband of his Aunt Sophie, the one who lived in Scranton and owned the grocery store.
He wore a conservative, but still natty, light tan suit, just slightly and informally wrinkled but looking as though it had been pressed that morning, a white shirt with a button-down collar, a necktie striped in two soft shades of blue, and a Panama hat, the first hat Bingo had seen in three days. His gold cuff links and tie pin were initialed, chastely, C.B.
“Here you are, boys,” he said cordially, leaning an elbow on the car door. He nodded toward the stand. “Like to drop by here now and then and pass the time of day with old Florence. She’s a character, boys, a real true character. Been here fifty years, and what she can’t tell you about this town!” He clucked deprecatingly and shook his head. “Knows just everything that goes on, believe me!” He winked as one successful businessman to another. “Tips me off to some smart real estate deals, too.”
From Courtney Budlong’s clothes, appearance and manner, Bingo was sure the deals had paid off well.
“First trip to the coast?” Courtney Budlong asked, sounding as though he’d been appointed as a one-man greeters’ committee.
Bingo was tempted to make some casual quick reference to “flying business trips but never any time to look around,” but checked himself firmly. “First trip,” he said, and he said it with enthusiasm.
“Well!” Courtney Budlong said. “If you don’t love it here already, you’ll learn to. Say—” A sudden thought lighted up his round, friendly face. “How about my showing you around this little neck of the woods? I know it like I know my old mother’s face! Why, I can tell you things the boys who write the guidebooks never even dreamed of! You won’t need that map — but don’t take it back, Florence needs the buck.”
“That’s nice of you, mister,” Handsome said, warmth in his voice. “But—”
“We wouldn’t dream of taking up your time like that,” Bingo said, hoping he’d be overruled.
He promptly was. “Stuff and nonsense,” their new friend said. “I don’t have a thing to do all afternoon, not one thing. That’s why I was down fanning the breeze with my old friend Florence. Have to be at a dinner down at the Biltmore tonight, but that’s not till six-thirty. It would be a real pleasure to me, believe me, boys.”
“Well—” Handsome said.
“We’d enjoy it,” Bingo said, putting it mildly.
“Fine, boys!” Courtney Budlong said. “Fine, fine. Shall we take your car, or mine?”
He nodded toward a driveway about twenty feet up the boulevard, where a handsome Continental Mark II was parked.
“Still,” he said as an afterthought, “might as well take yours, and let you get the hang of driving around these tricky little streets. You may be living on one of them yourselves one of these days.” He climbed in beside Bingo, crowding them very slightly, and slammed the door.
“As a matter of fact,” Bingo said, “we plan to.” Well, that was the honest truth. He just didn’t say when they planned to. “To tell the truth about it—” Under Courtney Budlong’s warm friendliness he felt himself unfolding. “When we do buy a house,” he confided, “I want to buy one that once belonged to a movie star. That may sound childish to you, but it’s an old boyhood ambition of mine.”