We dined at the hotel, in the timeless Polo Lounge with its dark green-and-white walls and tartan-plaid carpet, its horseshoe-shaped private booths overlooking the garden patio where lights on trees seemed to twinkle in time to the tinkling piano making background music out of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Johnny Mercer and other standard bearers.
We shared the twenty-bucks-plus Beverly Hills Salad De Luxe, a decadent concoction of crab legs, shrimp, avocado, tomato, romaine lettuce, and Thousand Island dressing. I mean to make no judgment about my female companion, but she ate most of it. I was busy recounting the encounters I’d had since seeing her a thousand years ago this morning — Fred Rubinski and Wes Grapp at the A-1, Manny Hermano at Parker Center, and Thomas Noguchi at the Boyle Heights diner.
This would be our third night together, assuming she stayed over once again. I’d learned quite a bit about her. She’d been married to a director — I inwardly cringed because my ex-wife was now married to one of that breed, although hers did film, and Nita’s TV — but she made a point of it having been over for years. She had no kids and informed me, too lightly, she was “cheerfully barren,” the result of an illegally performed abortion in her teen years.
“And now,” she said, “after a fairly successful run, even if I never did land a series... I’m at a crossroads.”
“Really? Paused for a train, or just waiting for your turn at an all-way stop?”
“Take today,” she said, dismissing my question for the smart-ass rhetorical thing that it was. “A pretty decent role. A woman with some scary symptoms that Robert Young explained away. Nice man, by the way... a little moody. Anyway, I’m just a throw-away, filler stuff, really.”
“What about ‘there are no small parts, just small actors’?”
“Stanislavski knew what he was talking about. But I’m afraid even the small parts will dry up for this small actress. Nate, I’m... going to be forty-three in a month. Tell anyone and I’ll have to kill you.”
I waved that off. “Don’t worry, honey. Knowing that, I’m not about to be seen in public again with an old bat like you.”
That made her laugh. I liked that I could make her laugh. And I liked her. She was upbeat and sad, a tougher combo to pull off than the ingredients of the Salad De Luxe. Which was excellent, by the way. She’d started talking, leaving room for me to eat, finally.
“Truth is,” she said, “I’m heading into that no-gal’s-land of ingenue roles I’m too old for and character parts I’m too young for.”
“Didn’t you say something once, about needing a sugar daddy?”
Her smile was almost a kiss. “That’s what I was hinting at.”
We laughed about that, and variations on the theme, as we kissed and petted like kids — not in the Polo Lounge, but on top of my made bed at my bungalow in the low lighting that was kind to a miserable old bastard like me and a supple not-young doll like her. I fondled and kissed her in intimate places that are none of your fucking business and she did the same with me. We undressed each other, which was sexy if awkward, and then were under the sheets.
After some quick clean-up in the bathroom, she returned in just bra and panties, neither terribly substantial, just pink fluff really, and crawled under the covers and went almost instantly asleep. I took another shower, warm not hot, got into my pajamas, black silk, and padded out in my slippers to get myself a ginger ale in the darkened living room. I preferred Coca-Cola but the caffeine was not a risk worth taking. As an afterthought, I added some vodka.
I took my glass out on the patio. The night was cool enough that the robe was a good idea. I sat at a glass-topped, white wrought-iron table. Put my right ankle on my left knee and exposed some ankle. That the patio was smallish made it feel protected. Beyond a low stone wall lay a gently rustling tropical garden whose greenery was enlivened by exotic flowers, palm trees lording over all against an unimpressed deep blue sky, its starry tiara askew.
She made me jump a little, she’d been so quiet, slipping out onto the patio in a pink Beverly Hills Hotel bathrobe. It fit her nicely, belt knotted at bellybutton, feet bare, dark brunette hair tousled, no makeup at all.
As she sat on the wrought-iron chair next to me, she was laughing lightly.
I tried out a tiny grin. “Am I that funny?”
“I was just thinking.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t remember ever being with a man who wears pajamas. Much less silk ones.”
“You, on the other hand, seem simply made for terrycloth. Luckily I had a lady’s robe handy.”
“Luckily,” she agreed. “Some past guest must have left it.”
I nodded. “Another sweet young thing who’d probably never seen an adult male in silk jammies before.”
“Except maybe in the movies.”
“Except maybe in the movies. Just how many men not in jammies have you been with, young lady?”
“Did you want a full report on my past amorous liaisons, Mr. Heller?”
“We have time, Ms. Romaine.”
“I doubt that. You think I rolled up all those TV credits without staring at a ceiling or two?”
It was all very light but there were contradictory undercurrents. Melancholy. Fondness. Regret. Loss. Possibility.
“This poking around,” she said.
“Hope you enjoyed it.”
“Not what I mean. Looking into... what you’re looking into. It sounds like I got you into something... dangerous.”
“Danger is my business. Trouble is my middle name. Granted, they laugh at my passport...”
“I mean it, Nate. This is big. Full of risk. I shouldn’t have... what I mean is... You can stop here. You can stop now. Before we can’t sit out here like this without wondering what every rustle of leaves is about.”
“Nita. That’s lovely of you to say. And you are the one who got me pulling at a string or two on the sweater. But it’s turned into a job, for a longtime client. Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought you up to speed. Perhaps you’re the one unnecessarily at risk.”
“I’d like to stay... up to speed. Help you, if I can. If it makes sense.”
We sat quietly. She reached for my drink and sipped.
“That’s more than ginger ale,” she observed.
“A hint of vodka.”
“More like a kick.”
Fronds rustled, but nobody tried to kill us.
“Before you were born,” I said, “my first job as a private investigator took me to Miami. I’d been a plainclothes detective before that, youngest on the Chicago PD, and I’d attracted some attention. Got me clients right off the bat. One of them was Anton Cermak.”
“Who?”
Maybe she was past forty, but she was still so very young.
I said, “The mayor of Chicago. He got himself in trouble with the Outfit.”
“The what?” “You’re a child. The Chicago crime syndicate. He got in bed with the wrong faction and he tried to have a man called Frank Nitti killed.”
“Him I’ve heard of. He was on The Untouchables. I did one of those.”
I decided not to tell her that Eliot Ness had been a close friend. That could wait. This wasn’t about name-dropping. Not that she’d know many.
“Anyway, young lady, if you check the history books, a little foreign guy with bushy hair and a dark complexion took a pot shot at Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who I assume you’ve heard of. This was not long after FDR won the presidency. The assassin’s name was Zangara and he had some half-assed political motive, anarchy or some such bullshit.”
“But he didn’t kill Roosevelt. That much I know.”