Dangerous to Know Read online

  I could glimpse Santa Monica Bay from the street, the sight of the Lumen steeling my resolve. Malcolm Drewe’s gambling ship was the devil on my shoulder I strove to ignore. The corresponding angel apparently had Sundays off.

  I hammered on Ruehl’s door praying he wasn’t at Salka’s salon. The esteemed author answered. He’d rolled up the sleeves of yet another black turtleneck, giving the impression I’d intruded on some intense mental labors.

  “You!” He stepped onto the welcome mat, obscuring its message, and slammed the door behind him, the resulting gust of air fragrant with pipe tobacco. “Leave here at once.”

  “I want to ask a simple question, and I won’t go until I do. May we talk inside?”

  “No.” Ruehl folded his pasty white arms. “I do not admit anyone to my home, especially agents of the American government. This is my right, in this land of the free and the home of the brave. I am free to bravely refuse entry to all, including spies and assassins.”

  “I’m neither, Mr. Ruehl. A young man died and I think someone should be held accountable. One question, two at the most. Can we please talk inside?”

  Ruehl seemed more amazed than I was when he flung his door open. I trailed him into a small room stuffed with heavy oak furnishings selected in stubborn opposition to the house’s airiness. The aroma of pipe tobacco, with its hints of vanilla, reminded me of my uncle Danny, and for a moment I felt charitable toward Ruehl.

  He seized my elbow, bringing those salad seconds to a close. “Do not make yourself comfortable. Ask your question away from prying eyes and go.”

  “About those prying eyes.” I presented the newspaper to him, Peter Ames’s face circled in red. “Do you know this man? Behind the German consul Dr. Gyssling?”

  Ruehl’s eyes went wide, mouth puckering. He looked like a beached fish, stunned to be on dry land with no notion of how to get back. He was frightened. Which meant I was, too.

  “He—his name is Kaspar Biel. If you were to ask at the consulate, which I do not recommend, they would tell you he is a, a…” Ruehl fumbled for a word in his nonnative tongue. “A secretary, ja? But this is a falsehood. Biel is a foot soldier for the Reich without parallel, loyal and cunning.”

  “He’s a Nazi.”

  Ruehl snorted. “Yes, a Nazi! Born in America but raised in Germany. He returned to attend school. Princeton, I believe, in New Jersey. Then he worked at UFA, the Berlin film studio, for a time. They call him … what is your American phrase? ‘The bright penny.’ He understands both nations, so who better to watch over Germans who have fled the Reich? He is not someone you want to cross.” He peered at me from beneath his massive eyebrows as if hiding under them. “Have you crossed him?”

  “It looks that way.”

  He smiled cruelly. “I would tell you I’m glad I’m not in your position, but I am. Biel and his masters have not cared for me for some time. It’s one of the reasons why I am so dedicated to my work, work which you have interrupted. Now that you have likely brought me to Biel’s attention again, I ask you to go now. Please.” The last word was charged with anguish.

  Ruehl banished me to his doorstep, enshrouding me in tobacco one last time. As I walked to Addison’s car I spotted a man in a Buick up the block, ideally positioned to keep vigil on Ruehl’s house and note my departure. Ruehl’s fervid fears had been on the mark. Surveillance seemed a given these days. I had grown all too accustomed to being watched, and wondered if this was to be the way of the world from now on.

  * * *

  EDITH, NATURALLY, WAS still at Paramount when I telephoned with my news and my theory. I needed her to confirm the worst.

  “Jens was a Nazi spy, wasn’t he?” I asked.

  After a long pause, Edith said, “It certainly appears so. It stands to reason the Nazis would want to monitor the émigré community. The best way to accomplish that would be to have a man inside that world.”

  “A regular at Salka’s. That photo Rory Dillon took in the Fathom Club doesn’t show Jens meeting his partner in crime. He’s getting his marching orders from Kaspar Biel.”

  No more would I think of him as “Peter Ames.” I’d refer to him by his right name, one that didn’t conjure the trustworthy visage of Henry Fonda.

  “What better location for a clandestine meeting than a club where Mr. Lohse set up the cameras?” Edith said. “He was gathering information for the Nazis and decided to profit from it himself via blackmail.”

  “All this time I thought Ruehl’s surliness toward me was a persecution complex. Maybe it’s something else. What if Ruehl discovered Jens was spying for the Nazis? He already had it in for Jens because of his affair with Marthe Auerbach. Ruehl kills him only to have me turn up looking for him.”

  And you were alone with him in his cute saltbox house. I shuddered.

  “Here’s another possibility,” Edith said. “Marlene stressed Mr. Lohse’s odd behavior. Suppose the strain of his double life, informing on his fellow exiles, made him come apart. The Nazis, say this Kaspar Biel, might then kill him. They’d not only remove a liability, but implicate a prominent Jewish composer in his death.”

  “That could be why Jens was selling his information to Malcolm Drewe.” I was determined to paint a silver lining on this darkest of clouds, to salvage some shred of hope for Jens. “He wanted out from under Kaspar Biel.”

  “Then the question is why would he, as Mr. Drewe indicated, accept far less for the information than he could have received? Mr. Lohse clearly needed money on short notice for some purpose. But what?”

  “And we still don’t know where Jens’s book is.”

  “Your productive afternoon raises another concern. Didn’t Mr. Lohse volunteer for the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League?”

  “Yes, Gretchen said he … Oh dear Lord. You don’t think Jens was spying on them, too?”

  “It did occur to me.” Edith paused. “I understand they’re having a strategy session tonight at the Garden of Allah.”

  “I may stop by.”

  “Would you object to company? It’s my night off. I’ll pass along some advice acquired at the writers’ table. Eat beforehand, and a lot. Cocktails will be involved.”

  29

  STRICTLY SPEAKING, WE didn’t require a chaperone to gain entry to a Hollywood Anti-Nazi League meeting. I’d learned if you gate-crashed an affair grousing about the service and demanding champagne you’d blend into the wallpaper, while any modestly behaved nonluminary would be viewed askance. Still, given the political nature of the evening, having a friend in place seemed a wise precaution.

  “Tonight’s session is the kind where they read minutes and things,” Charlotte Hume said when I called. “But I could stand to put in an appearance. Shall I meet you there?”

  The Garden of Allah being a compound, I wanted to scout the property. I had my taxicab drop me at the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights, unaware of what a deathtrap that intersection was, particularly once night fell. Vehicles barreled out of the dark, chasing me back to the sidewalk. By my fourth aborted foray I was fighting back tears and searching for a burial plot. Either I cross Sunset or they lay me to rest on Crescent Heights Boulevard. At the next lull in traffic, I charged forward. The cacophony of car horns summoned a final burst of speed that propelled me onto the hotel grounds. Heart thundering in my ears, I let the Garden of Allah envelop me.

  The hotel began life as a mansion for silent movie queen Alla Nazimova, who christened it after herself in jest. Once she encountered career woes and transformed her estate into a hostelry, the name—now with a gratuitous H she couldn’t abide—stuck. Within a year she went bankrupt, selling out to others who made the hotel a success. The actress still lived on the grounds, suffering a quintessentially Hollywood fate: reduced to paying tenant on her former domain, her name living on after she’d been forgotten.

  The hacienda that had been Nazimova’s residence fronted on Sunset Boulevard, its windows largely lightless. The action took place in the two dozen bungalows encircli
ng a swimming pool. I moved along a cobblestone path bordered by stucco walls and shrubbery. Ice tinkled in glasses somewhere ahead, music spilled out of a cottage to my right, and from the pool emanated splashing and low laughter of both the male and female variety. The night air was fragrant with sumac, and positively fecund with disreputable possibilities.

  A bicycle bore down on me. I braced for impact, but the rider swerved at the last second, an impressive feat given he was steering with one hand. The other held a paper bag that clanked as he came to a halt. He wore a once-white jacket, and his massive blond head resembled the chewed end of one of George Burns’s cigars. “Almost made me lose my deliveries,” he drawled. “You look a mite turned around.”

  “I don’t know at which bungalow I’m meeting my friend.”

  “They’re villas. Which one did he tell you to go to?”

  “He?”

  “Come on now, missy.” The man extracted a bottle of scotch from the bag. As he twisted the cap off and helped himself to a slug, I realized his grin had been rendered permanently sidelong from sizing up angles. “The friend who told you to meet him. You ain’t blond, so that rules out villas four, seven, twelve—”

  Footsteps clattered up the path, punctuated by soft feminine cursing. Charlotte, concentrating on her footing, almost collided with a stucco wall. “She’s with me, Ben.”

  “Miz Hume. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll finish my rounds.” Ben sealed the scotch and pedaled off into the gloom.

  “His rounds,” Charlotte scoffed. “Should be fixing these blasted paths. Murder on a girl in heels. Give me a minute before we face these people, sugar.”

  The frolicking in the pool had finished for the nonce. I sidestepped a telephone extension cord snaking across the grass toward parts unknown. In her dress of silk crepe with burgundy and white checks topped by a tight-fighting burgundy jacket, Charlotte looked equally ready to demonstrate concern over global affairs or bat eyelashes over highballs. “I hadn’t planned on coming tonight,” she said. “Donald says it’s silly, being in the League. But my career has reached a stage where it’s vital for me to have an identity separate from acting—and from Donald, if we’re being honest. I want to be my own person, do you know what I mean?”

  My stomach clenched with that blue-plate special feeling. Here I was using Charlotte when I knew her husband had strayed—and she didn’t.

  Charlotte perched on a chaise longue and proceeded to make a meal of a cigarette. “So what’s your reason for being here? Anything to do with your recent escapade?”

  “Partly,” I hedged. “Hearing about what’s happening in Germany makes me want to do my bit for the fight. I’ve been burying my head in the sand long enough.”

  “Good for you. This outfit could use people with your organizational bent.”

  More footsteps, then Edith appeared poolside. “Lillian! You darted in front of my car like a deer a moment ago. I honked at you. Didn’t you hear me?”

  “I misinterpreted it. Edith Head, Charlotte Hume.”

  Charlotte was on her feet at once. “Lillian speaks of you so often I feel I know you intimately. My hope was we’d meet in your salon, you about to fit me into something divine.”

  “I look forward to that day. You’re blessed with a flair that makes every outfit elegant. Including your prison uniform in Sisters Up the River.”

  “Bless your heart. Terrible picture. Why do we never see you at Addison’s parties?”

  “Don’t blame me,” I said. “I hand deliver the invitations.”

  “And I’m always flattered. But I can seldom get away from the studio. Tonight’s a treat.”

  “I don’t know about a treat,” Charlotte said. “You’ll come to our holiday cotillion. No excuses accepted. The season is fast upon us, not that you’d know it from the way they skimp on decorations around here.”

  “You and Donald are throwing a Christmas party?” I asked.

  “With Addison laying low, someone must take up the slack. Any interest in planning it with me? I’ll sweet talk Addy into letting me borrow you.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  Charlotte nodded deliberately. Edith spoke up. “It’s always a good idea to work with new faces, expand one’s horizons. Loan-outs are a common studio practice.”

  “What’s good enough for Paramount is good enough for me. If Addison okay’s it, I’d love to.”

  “Wonderful!” Charlotte said. “I’m useless when it comes to entertaining. If our first coproduction is a success, perhaps we can poach you away and make the arrangement permanent.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Donald and I have talked about hiring someone to do what you do for Addison. We need you more than he does. We may not host as many parties, but ours are more important because Donald’s not retired. He’s still looking to land clients at the firm. And my career is finally taking flight. I have to start making an impression as a gracious hostess. I only know how to fix grits and that ain’t exactly gonna wow ol’ Louis B. Mayer. I’m just a country girl.”

  “And I’m shanty Irish.”

  “So together, we’re perfect! We’d make Marion Davies look like a dray mare!”

  I was flattered by the offer, and if Addison was serious about shrinking his social calendar I might have to consider it. Plus after the Santa breakfast debacle it was gratifying to learn I could land on my feet. Which only made the burden of knowing all was not well at Casa Hume weigh more heavily.

  Charlotte interpreted my unease as hesitation. “Think it over. Now must we see these people? The Trocadero is within walking distance.”

  “We’re here,” Edith said. “We might as well go in.”

  Charlotte snuffed out her cigarette. “I should have eaten first. Always helps to line your stomach in advance.”

  * * *

  THE GARDEN OF Allah’s management had their cheek. If what Charlotte led us into was a villa, then I was Marie of Roumania. The bungalow was congested with dark furniture and light banter, the latter courtesy of two dozen or so visitors with more tumbling into view whenever a door opened. Charlotte, unperturbed by the scene, waved at a petite woman whose smudge of a face housed impossibly dark, vibrant eyes. The woman weaved her way through the throng to us.

  “I doubted we’d see you tonight, Char,” she said in a sleepy croak, like a frog awakened from a beautiful dream. “Purely an administrative session.”

  “Yes, it all looks highly administrative, Dotty. I bring fresh meat. Lillian Frost, Addison Rice’s girl Friday. Edith Head, Paramount’s queen of costume. Meet Dorothy Parker. The League’s chief troublemaker.”

  “I’m familiar with Miss Head.” Dorothy half smiled at me. “If you can find a spare inch amongst the rabble you’re more than welcome to it.”

  When encountering someone new in Hollywood, praise always made the strongest opening gambit—but never of the expected. Declaring I’d read Dorothy’s scabrously funny poetry until my copy of Enough Rope had fallen apart or gushing over the script she’d cowritten for A Star Is Born smacked of the obvious. The trick was to single out some secondary attribute. Clothing was my standard choice but Dorothy, casually clad in tennis shoes and gray knit skirt, didn’t provide much to work with. So I improvised. “Chief troublemaker? Was it you who kept Leni Riefenstahl off the premises?”

  “Can you imagine her staying here? As a resident I couldn’t allow it. Former resident, I should say. Now I visit on a day pass most nights.” She spoke louder, addressing the room. “Fraulein Riefenstahl is on this evening’s agenda, children! I’ve heard murmurings about her movie! Tittle-tattle as well!” The room rumbled in response.

  Edith removed a bottle from her capacious handbag. “My contribution to the refreshments, Mrs. Parker. Have you ever had Fernet-Branca?”

  Across the villa, Gretchen prepared drinks behind a bar. I allowed the crowd to jostle me in her direction. Most of those in attendance fit readily in the three categories of Hollywood scriptwriter: brooder, drunkard, and
wisecracker hell-bent on topping his friends’ jokes. I overheard a few references to the war in Spain but for the most part the chatter didn’t stray from the standard subjects of preview cards and paychecks.

  Gretchen had accessorized her blue and white striped shirtwaist with the forbearance of a grieving widow. She smiled wanly at me. “I had to get out, and Jens and I normally would have volunteered tonight.” She hoisted a cocktail shaker. “This is about all I can do.”

  I watched her fix a martini and thought, Dear God, that’s too much vermouth.

  “What did Jens do to help out?” I asked.

  “Whatever put him at a typewriter. One keyboard’s just like another, he’d say. He was faster than any secretary including me. He’d run up volunteer lists, donation records, anything.”

  All valuable information he could then funnel to Kaspar Biel. Jens likely wreaked untold damage. A man snagged two martinis from Gretchen with a “Thanks, doll,” grimacing as he sipped one. Edith and a woman I didn’t recognize drifted by behind him, Edith showing me the high sign.

  “How’s by you? Anything new with Simon?” Gretchen drew out the first syllable of his name girlishly.

  The clamor and constant elbows in my side were getting to me, because I answered honestly. “There’s something fishy about him.”

  “You bet. The extra years he has on you.”

  “No, about him and Jens.”

  Gretchen slammed the cocktail shaker down, gin geysering into the air. “What do you mean?”

  “He knows more than he’s letting on. About Jens, the Auerbachs, everything. I’d look into it, but we didn’t part on good terms.” I gazed soberly at her. “Could you ask around Lodestar about him?”

  Gretchen was already nodding. “Absolutely. I’d rather do that than fix drinks for a bunch of phony crusaders.” She snagged her coat, intent on tackling the task immediately.

  I wasn’t about to stop her. “Whatever you do, don’t try crossing Sunset Boulevard,” I called after her.