The Song Is You Read online

  “Jesus, Iolene,” Hop blurted out. “What did I ever do to you?”

  She looked at him. She was thinking hard. Weighing things.

  “Listen, did you want the police at your door?” Hop said. “I kept your name out of it.”

  “Don’t pretend you did it for anybody but Gil Hopkins,” she snarled.

  “Listen,” he said coolly, “I don’t know what you think I know, but it’s nada, baby. Remember, I left. You didn’t. You got more to account for than me.”

  She didn’t say anything for a minute. He could see her eyes working. The hostility began to sink visibly from her face and turned into something else. Something like resignation.

  “I didn’t see anything,” she said, looking down at the place mat, the damp spot where her drink sat. “Not really.”

  “We saw nothing, you saw nothing. So what are we talking about here then, Iolene?”

  “Should have guessed the way things would go,” she whispered, almost as if to herself.

  Something in her voice told Hop to summon the waiter and raise the stakes. “Rye,” she said, not even looking up. Hop signaled for him to make it two.

  When the drinks came, she tucked into the corner of the booth and laid it out for him. And it was like this:

  After Hop left the club with Miss Hotcha, Iolene could see that the song-and-dance men, Sutton and Merrel, the stars, were working something. Were hot on Jean. Iolene slid over in the booth, wanting to take Jean aside, let her know. But Jean said, Don’t worry, and her eyes were wide, pulsing a little from the jump she’d taken. Jean, you have enough trouble without getting into it with them, Iolene had said. You got more trouble than you can handle now. Those fellows are bad business. I heard stories.

  Jean grinned broadly at her, a grin that split her face in two, eerie like a ventriloquist’s dummy, dark on a stage. She grinned broadly and in that grin she told Iolene, All the stories in the world and I wouldn’t pass this up—I’ve seen bad things enough to shake the word “bad” loose from its roots. I can go to the far end of nothing with the best of them. I can pull the pin and roll. At least that’s what Iolene saw in the grin. She saw it and she shrugged and she figured, Her funeral, but she didn’t mean it like that. Not like that. She just decided Jean, all colt legs and showgirl grit, could handle herself, was a big enough girl to know the danger signs and beat it, time come and things turn wicked.

  So she and Jean agreed when Bix Noonan invited them to come along to a hot club down by the docks.

  So they went to the Red Lily, an awful, awful place. A place women shouldn’t be. And things began to happen. Gene Merrel just hung in the corner, smoking brown cigarillos and twisting his cufflinks. Sometimes he’d smirk a little or take a sip from his scotch, but he wasn’t the one in the center of things. That night, no crooning plantation ballads, no strumming jumpy songs on his ukulele or launching into a vaudeville softshoe. He watched as pretty-faced Marv Sutton, all pomaded pompadour and dark-eyed Jew looks that drive the girls crazy, poured champagne and, when the champagne ran out, white creme de menthe, all along Jean’s now bare, golden legs. Everyone watched as Marv, who rarely shifted out of slow motion in their movies, who had nary a crease in his suit or a spot of shine on his tanned face on-screen, now walked on his knees on the sawdust floor, nudging along like a crab, sliding a dark pink tongue along every curve and shoot in Jean’s endless gams. You couldn’t take your eyes off the show because it gave the promise of the kind of group debauch always in the Hollywood rumor mill but rarely available right before your eyes.

  Bix Noonan asked Iolene if she wanted to leave the trio alone in a private room and go play cards. She agreed. She agreed.

  Hop listened. It wasn’t so much new information as a new way of telling it. Should he have stayed with them? Don’t go, he remembered Iolene saying to him, hand wrapped around his arm, first time, the only time she’d ever touched him.

  But there was Miss Hotcha, silvery purple satin pressed tight against her silvery skin, a long whisper-thread of blue vein running from the beginning of her jumbled cleavage to the flutter of her neck. And there was, after all, no heat or promise in Iolene’s grasp. She just didn’t want to be a third wheel, a set extra in the evening. Was he really supposed to give up the cancan girl to sit out the action chastely with this cross-legged champagne pearl? How could he have known? A million nights like this in Hollywood, every night in Hollywood, and only a few turn out like this.

  “Hop,” Iolene was saying to him now. “Listen. Bix offered to drive me home. But I didn’t want to leave her with those two. I knocked on the door to that back room to try to get Jean to leave with me. I waited and waited at that door, Hop. Then Jean said through the door, ‘Go on, honey,’ she said. ‘Go on.’ So I did.”

  She looked up at him, eyes glassy, spun toffee.

  “So, angel face, what’s the sin there?” Hop said warmly. Maybe, after all, she just wanted reassurance. He could give her that in spades. That he could do. That he did all day long.

  “Bix said, ‘You know what things people say about those two.’ And Merrel—he had a habit. Bix said he’d been kicking the gong all day. Bix said he was crazy. They were going to do her up, Hop. But I left. I did.” Her voice shook and she couldn’t meet Hop’s eyes, which was fine with him.

  “And the next day you see she’s missing,” Hop said. “But it’s not your fault. Not by a long shot.”

  “I’ve known that girl forever,” she said, barely listening. “One of the most beautiful girls in the world. They should have written that for her.”

  Hop looked at her. “What?”

  She shook her head. “Never mind. You never got it.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong,” Hop repeated, more firmly. You gotta put it behind you. It’s over.” He could see the rye was hitting her. Things could get bleak. Someone had to end this or he’d find himself at St. Catherine’s, knees on the floor.

  “Listen, I gotta get back to the grind, but we’ll have dinner sometime,” he said, setting some bills down and putting on his hat. “Catch up for real, beautiful. You’re one of the most beautiful girls in the world.” As he repeated it back, it rung in his head for a second, then shuttered into silence.

  As he saw her face, struck and unmoving, watching him as he turned to walk out the door, he felt something tighten inside him and then drop away.

  And her voice: “You think you can forget.”

  Hop pretended he didn’t hear and he didn’t look back as he made his way to the exit. He resisted the urge to walk quickly, like someone discreetly leaving the scene of a crime. He hadn’t done anything. She couldn’t make him feel guilty for something that he didn’t, wouldn’t do.

  “You think you can forget.” A second time, like the refrain in a torch song. Like a warning.

  Hop walked back to work, taking the long way, picking up a sandwich at the commissary. As he moved through the lot, he thought about it all. Tried to piece it together.

  What did she expect from him? He wasn’t a cop, a detective. If he honestly thought those guys, or anyone else, had anything to do with the girl’s disappearance … a girl like that, come on, was always finding herself tangled up with rough stuff. Girls with legs like that and loaded up on ambition—hell, it was surprising that more of them didn’t go missing—skip town, run away with a fella, maybe a married guy, or, sometimes, sure, just know too much, simply too, too much.

  Even more common than that, of course: these girls often ended up bleeding their insides out in some shady MD’s rundown office on Olive Street. There was a whole stretch tucked deep in Griffith Park —not so far from where the girl’s purse was found—rumored to be a doc dumping ground for such unhappy accidents. Lovers’ Lane, they called it, with a nasty wink.

  What did Iolene want him to do about that? If her idea was to tap him, she wasn’t going to get very far. Even if he did feel cornered, he was going to be dropping whatever pocket change he had on the divorce. There’d be nothing lef
t. And if that wasn’t her idea, if she was on the up-and-up and wanted his help, why … why did she think he was the kind of guy who would care? Was he?

  Fuck, maybe he was.

  He thought for a long thirty seconds about his part in the drama. He’d kept his mouth shut. And lied to a few cops. Really, who doesn’t lie to cops? What else are cops for? All he did was make sure a few names never found their way into the papers or to the police. And to take care of that, sure, he made the girl’s name disappear from the studio logs just to be safe. And then dropped a few hints to a few cops and maybe a reporter that the girl was known to keep company with some less-than-reputable boys about town. The purse with the broken strap in Griffith Park only helped, gave more likely reasons for the girl to fade to black. The unhappy coincidence (or not) of the name Kirk in the note found in her purse and Kirk Douglas, whose movie Young Man with a Horn Jean Spangler had worked on, was easily taken care of. A few calls and no whiff of ugliness ever clung to Douglas’s fine suit.

  Even if he hadn’t lied, would the outcome be any different? Sure, Sutton and Merrel, for all their on-screen geniality and grace, were maybe into some sick stuff, but nothing he hadn’t seen before—at least in part. Besides, girls like that know what they’re getting into. You roll the dice, you take your chances.

  Still, the thought kept returning: What if he’d stayed? Would it have made a difference? Why’d he have to go off with Miss Hotcha, trying to make her? Did he end up making her? For a second, he couldn’t be sure. Then he remembered—a quick, warm flash of a creamy belly arched against his cheek. Oh, yes, right.

  Remembering that, he remembered something else, too. He remembered how, after leaving Miss Hotcha that night, after driving home, he’d stood in his own doorway for a moment, reminding himself no one was waiting for him, the wife gone visiting her mother in Ohio. Iolene and Jean had been sitting there on his couch just a few hours before. He could almost see them there. Funny, even with, or maybe because of, the faint crease on the chintz cushion on which they’d sat, even with the smell of smoke and pungent honeysuckle still in the air, the apartment—his apartment, their apartment—had never felt so empty.

  He was always lonely.

  Girl Reporter

  Leaving work that night, Hop called Jerry at the Examiner to see if he’d meet him for a quick nip. After some mutual job griping, Hop feigned casual:

  “Hey, Jer, remember, oh, fuck, over a year ago, closer to two, that story about that missing starlet? The one whose handbag they found in Griffith Park?”

  “You’re kidding, right? Of course I remember. Spangler, Jean. We covered it for a week. Thought it might be Daughter of Black Dahlia. But those stories come once in a newsman’s life, right? That’s what the managing editor told me. We were sure they’d find her body, hopefully split in two. Or maybe split in four, raise the stakes a little,” Jerry said, in full-blown burnt-out city editor mode. He curled his hand around his chin and looked wearily at his friend.

  “But they never did. Find the body,” Hop said.

  “Nope. My guess is one of those defrocked docs downtown putted her—probably accidentally—and buried her in one of those old caves.” He lit his cigarette, then tilted his head, as if reflecting. “If we hadn’t had those delectable eight-by-ten studio glossies to stretch across the front page, I don’t think we’d have given it day two.”

  Hop almost smiled before realizing he wasn’t meant to. Jerry shook

  his glass, as if trying to knock loose a few last drops.

  “You know,” Hop said. “I met her once.”

  “Did you now, Hoppy boy?” Jerry took a long, thoughtful drag on

  his cigarette. “Were you the poppa?”

  “I said I met her.” He grabbed one of Jerry’s cigarettes. “Didn’t say I met her.”

  “Knowing you, you can see where I’d get confused,” Jerry said, with a flicker of a smile. “So why the sudden interest?”

  “No interest. Someone came to see me. The girl who introduced

  me to her.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She seemed a little scared. Even now.”

  “Well, I remember there were rumors that Jeannie with the Dark Brown Hair—that’s what they wanted to call her if we’d gone another week with the story—was bed hopping with a couple of toughs, Mickey Cohen’s boys, so I’m not surprised she’s scared.”

  “But you never thought it was a mob deal? Her disappearance.”

  “Could be. Is that what this girl thought?”

  “I don’t know. Who … Do you remember the reporter who worked

  the story for you?”

  “Jim Mackie. You know him?”

  “Sure, I think I met him— “

  “But didn’t meet him, eh?” Hop grinned. “Gentlemen never tell, Jerry. You know that.” Jerry winked at him and Hop felt, suddenly and simultaneous with

  the first flush of the gin, the reassuring warmth of his oldest friend, dearest pal, cracking a sad-eyed smile. He resisted the urge to shove him, press his fist encouragingly into his friend’s arm.

  “So how’s my wife, handsome?” he said instead.

  “Hell on wheels, Hop,” Jerry replied, not batting an eye. “You

  oughta know.”

  Hop cocked his head and nodded.

  “After all,” Jerry continued, “she learned it all from you.” Taking a

  quick belt, he added, with a glimmer in his eye, “But, when she feels like it, so nice to come home to.”

  “Really?” Hop said, then added, with a shrug, “I don’t remember that.”

  After Jerry left, Hop took a seat in a phone booth. Gotta get to the bottom of this. Why speculate? Not the kind of thing to let fester. He called Central Casting. They had a number for Iolene Harper and the exchange was Lincoln Heights. He dialed.

  “I’m trying to reach Iolene.”

  “She ain’t here,” a man’s voice said.

  “When’s she due back?”

  “Man, she ain’t coming back.”

  Hop felt something unstick inside his chest.

  “What do you mean? Where’d she go?”

  “Where they all go,” he said, and then laughed without a hint of

  mirth. It was either sad or cruel. Hop couldn’t tell.

  “What does that mean?”

  The man sighed and it sounded like a far-off whistle. “Look, pal,

  she’s gone. Long gone, know what I’m saying?”

  “But I just saw her.” Hop was surprised at the strange pitch in his own voice. Suddenly, things felt more urgent.

  “She was here yesterday. She’s gone today, greenhorn. Guess you lost your chance.”

  Hop felt his throat go dry. What did he mean “lost your chance”?

  Did this man know who he was? He hadn’t said, had he?

  “Who is this, anyway?” Hop asked.

  The man laughed again, even more hollowly. Abruptly, Hop could half see, as if right before his eyes, the dark room, the browned bottle of Old Crow, the pulled shades and open dresser drawers. The sinking aftermath of a hasty exit. A man in a chair with a pint or two of bourbon in him. A man seeing everything shattered in a stroke.

  “Buddy,” he said, voice blurred. “You had your chance.”

  The click in Hop’s ear felt like it came from his own gut. What had just happened? And what did it have to do with him?

  Running over to a post-premiere party at the Ambassador that night, shuttling around high-strung actresses, each with the same shade of Forever Amber No. 2 rinse and the same Dior dress, and dragging the male lead from the back kitchen, where he was giving a starry ingenue her first taste of cocaine, Hop was all smiles and shiny hair and sweet nothings. But everywhere he turned, he half expected to see Iolene standing there, eyes low-lidded, sexy, filled with disgust. It was you, Hop. Never miss a chance to climb, you knew what a little palm greasing would get you, didn’t you? You showed them what you were made of, pulling curtain after curtain across that
night, across Jean Spangler, until no one could see a thing. A magician without the ta-da. And magicians never reveal their secrets.

  The next morning, Hop woke up with Iolene’s voice strumming through his head, accusing him, beseeching him, trying to hook him into her fear, her guilt, that weight in her eyes. If she’d left town, why? What was she so afraid of? What could the danger be now? And could it touch him somehow?

  Hop called the Examiner office, trying to get Jim Mackie on the phone.

  “He’s not here. Try the courthouse or Moran’s or the precinct house or …”

  He finally found Jim Mackie at the Pantry on Figueroa and Ninth, reading the Mirror while shoving a plate of waffles into his mouth.

  “Is this where you hide out to read the competition?”

  “Fucking Hop of the World. As I live and breathe. Didn’t think you’d darken the doorstep of this joint again. Don’t you slum exclusively at Romanoff’s these days?”

  “You got some syrup on your chin, Mack. And neck.”

  “Fucking purple shirt you’re wearing.”

  “Lilac, chump.”

  “Pardon moi, motherfucker.”

  “I’m not here just to flirt, Mack,” Hop said, sitting down at the counter next to him. “Can you help me out? You chased the Jean Spangler story back in ‘49, am I right?”

  “Spangler… Spangler…” He took a long gulp of coffee with cream. “Call girl? No, the actress who took a dive out a window at the Biltmore?”

  “No, no. The one they never found. Just her purse strap and a note in Griffith Park.”

  “Fuck me, I remember. The one with the ten-foot-long gams. Ogul’s girl.”

  “Ogul?” Hop remembered the name. Little Davy, they called him. A hood in Mickey Cohen’s crew. One of his so-called Seven Dwarves.

  “Yep. Right before he took a one-way ticket to oblivion. He was going up on conspiracy charges and beat town or beat the devil not long after Spangler evaporated.”

  “That so?” Hop rubbed his face with his hand. What was he getting himself into? Cohen may have just been sent up the river for tax evasion, but did Hop really want to go fishing in those waters?