Marat Zolner reached under the table and took her knee in a firm grip. “That is why we are going to Detroit.”
“But what of the revolution?” Fern repeated defiantly. She looked away, refusing to meet Zolner’s eye. Her own eyes fell on the smiling Jack Johnson, who was greeting a striking couple at the door.
“Look! There’s Isaac Bell.”
20
“Welcome back, Isaac. And Mrs. Bell, what a pleasure to see you again.”
Former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson — a remarkably fit-looking forty-three-year-old black man — cut a splendid figure in a dark suit with chalk-white stripes. He bowed low over Marion’s hand.
“Would it be too much to hope that you are making a new picture in New York?”
“From now on, I’m shooting all my movies in New York. Nothing in Hollywood can hold a candle to Club Deluxe.”
Johnson accepted the compliment with a hearty laugh.
“By the way, Isaac, thank you for the cigars.”
“You thanked me already, Jack. They were the least I could do.”
Johnson had served a stretch at Leavenworth — railroaded into the penitentiary on a false Mann Act charge — and Isaac Bell, like many of the great prizefighter’s admirers, had sent boxes of the finest La Aroma de Cubas to help him through the year. “I see you’re looking to fight Dempsey. Or is that just newspaper talk?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re a mighty fit forty-three and Jack Dempsey’s twenty-six.”
“I believe I could lick him. I’m feeling tip-top, in better condition than ever.”
“You look it,” said Bell.
“I don’t want to fight any second-raters and neither does Dempsey. It’ll be a heck of a battle. I’ll tell you this, though.” Jack Johnson lowered his voice. “I better win. The hoodlums are moving in on me here. I won’t own this joint much longer.”
“Who?” asked Bell.
“Some bootlegger gangster they’re about to set loose from Sing Sing. I’m told he’s planning to buy me out cheap and redecorate with ‘jungle’ stuff, palm trees and all that. I won’t have much say in it unless I want to go to war with guns and knives, and that I am too old for.”
“Which gangster?”
Jack Johnson looked out at his busy cabaret. He smiled at the sight of the packed tables, rushing waiters, and crowded dance floor. “Don’t know yet, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got some scouts in here watching me right now. Like I say, it’s time for me to go back in the ring.”
Marat Zolner recognized the man talking to Jack Johnson as the Van Dorn detective who pursued him the night he executed Johann Kozlov.
“Are you sure he never saw your face?” Fern asked.
“Absolutely.”
“But you were close enough to see him shoot Johann.”
“I said I heard the shot. I didn’t see it.”
“So it could have been someone else who killed Johann?”
“I saw no one but Bell.” And then, to steer Fern off the subject of the shooting, he asked, “Who’s the gorgeous creature on his arm?”
“His wife. Marion Morgan Bell. The movie director.”
“Director? Such a beauty should be the star.”
“Would you like me to ask Mr. Bell to introduce her to you?” Fern asked icily.
“I meant nothing to get sore about, only that at a distance, at least, she appears to be extraordinarily beautiful.”
“Such a handsome man,” Fern shot back, “deserves at least one beauty.”
She watched Isaac Bell rake the speakeasy with a probing gaze that missed nothing. His violet blue eyes settled on her and darkened in recognition even as he smiled hello.
Fern waved.
“What are you doing?” asked Zolner.
“Here’s your chance for a close-up.”
Bell and Marion made their way slowly across the crowded speakeasy, stopped repeatedly by fans jumping up to tell Marion how much they liked her moving pictures. Few directors would ever be recognized by the general public, but when Marion appeared in a movie magazine, her face was remembered.
“I’d like to stop at Fern Hawley’s table,” Bell told her.
“Who’s the man with her?”
“Let’s find out.”
The society woman’s companion rose politely when they stopped at the table. He stood with poise and grace, a trim and elegant man as tall as Bell and slightly thinner. He had an easy manner but a sharp gaze. Fern introduced him. “My old friend Prince André, late of Saint Petersburg.”
Bell and Prince André shook hands firmly. Bell introduced Marion. Pleasantries were exchanged. They agreed to sit for a moment.
Prince André engaged Marion in a technical conversation about film, drawing on the Russian model. Marion told him that she was shooting a comedy about a Russian ballet company stranded in New York.
“What will you title it?”
“Jump to New York.”
“What could be better? We should all ‘jump to New York,’ should we not, my dear?”
Fern Hawley said to Bell, “My friend is laying on the charm for your wife.”
“I’m used to it,” said Bell.
“How often does it end in fisticuffs?”
“No more than half the time.”
Fern’s grin made her eyes even more opaque. She pursed her Cupid’s bow lips to ask, “And the outcome when it does?”
“They don’t do it again. Is Prince André a recent arrival?”
“I knew him in Paris.”
“Was he a refugee then?”
“Far from it. His family had estates in France.”
“And also in America?”
“None I know of,” Fern said. “May I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” said Bell with a glance at Prince André and a private smile for Marion.
“A blunt question,” Fern said.
“Blunt away,” said Bell. “What’s on your mind?”
“When we met the first time, when you were chasing… whoever you were chasing?”
“Yes?”
“I had the impression that you could, under the right circumstances, like me very much.”
“I’ve always liked characters,” said Bell.
“Good characters or bad characters?”
“I mean, different types — nonconformists, bohemians.”
“I’m not sure I’ve been complimented.”
Bell grinned. “You’re positive you’re complimented. You love standing out.”
“So you could like me?” Fern smiled. Her almond eyes slid toward Marion. “Under the right circumstances.”
“They don’t exist,” said Bell. He turned to Prince André. “We’ve entertained you far too long, sir. Forgive the interruption.”
Marion slipped her hand into his arm and they continued across the speakeasy. “I’ve yet to meet a Russian refugee who wasn’t a prince or at least a count.”
“He’s a tough-looking prince,” said Bell.
“I thought so, too. Did you see his hands?”
“Powerful. His shake felt more American than European.”
“He told me he fought in the cavalry.”
“I hope Miss Hawley knows what she’s doing.”
Marion said, “Miss Hawley strikes me as a woman who has known what she was doing since the day she broke every heart in kindergarten. Do you find her attractive?”
“I certainly would,” said Bell, “if I weren’t with the loveliest woman in the world.”
“How would you feel if I bobbed my hair like hers?”
“I like your hair the way it is. But I’d take you bald, if it made you happy. Where do you suppose Fern Hawley found Prince André?”
“If broke aristocrats find rich American heiresses in New York the way they do in Hollywood, he would have wrangled introductions so he could show up in some place she was comfortable — a country club or an expensive restaurant.”