The Devil May Dance - Tapper, Jake (short novels in english .TXT) 📗

“I wouldn’t call the canaries and sparrows you brought us particularly trained, Symone,” Frankenheimer joked. “I gotta finish up here. You can bring that to my dressing room, Evans will show you the way.” He pointed to a young woman with a broad smile.

“I’m a zoologist,” Margaret told Symone. “Margaret Marder. I do some teaching at Barnard. You’re a bird trainer?”

“My team does all animals, but I’m mainly birds,” LeGrue said. “Right now we’re doing the new Hitchcock up in San Francisco. It’s nuts.”

Fontaine reappeared, looking noticeably less relaxed than he had a few moments earlier. He approached them, ashen-faced.

“Manny, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Margaret said.

“The police are here. One of our actors on a different picture was found dead this morning.”

“Oh my God, no,” said Charlie. “Who was it?”

Fontaine seemed almost out of breath. “Chris Powell. He was a boxer in the Elvis flick Kid Galahad they’re shooting next door.”

“Did you know him well?” Margaret asked.

“What happened?” asked LeGrue.

“I don’t know yet. I knew him a bit. He was trouble, that kid. He and Sinatra got into it a few times. Fighting over a dame. This isn’t going to be good for anyone.”

Chapter FiveBeverly Hills, California

December 1961

Flashbulbs popped as the custom-made red Ghia L6.4 approached the Daisy, a drinking club on North Rodeo Drive—private, but no secret to the photographers and reporters who scavenged nightly for scoops they could sell to the tabloids. Dusk was beginning to settle on Beverly Hills, exaggerating the artificial bursts of light.

“These goddamn shutterbugs are everywhere, like mosquitoes,” snarled Peter Lawford from the front passenger seat as his driver eased his way through the swarm. The car was one of only twenty-six built; a few had been gifted to Rat Packers for the free publicity. Margaret and Charlie exchanged a glance in the back seat—once again, DC and normal life seemed a long way away.

“Take us around the block,” Lawford instructed the driver. “Let me get myself together.” He pulled down the visor, peered at himself in the tiny mirror, took out a comb, and began tending to his thick brown locks. Charlie had noticed that Lawford seemed limited in the use of his right arm and hand, a disability he hid rather well by making pronounced and dramatic gestures with his left.

Charlie had phoned Lawford a week ago after Attorney General Kennedy, the actor’s brother-in-law, had assured him that Lawford would help Charlie and Margaret insinuate themselves into the Rat Pack. Lawford, a bridge between the two worlds ever since his marriage to Patricia Kennedy—who came between Jack and Bobby in birth order—was only too happy to assist. He’d joined them at the Miramar for brunch last Sunday, and this was their second outing.

The brunch had been fun enough. Lawford spoke with a clipped British accent and seemed on the surface to be the embodiment of class and erudition, a real-life version of Dashiell Hammett’s Nick Charles, whom Lawford played on the NBC TV series. In actuality he was, Margaret thought, probably about half as bright. He was, however, full of gossip about both Hollywood and Washington, and seemed a good entrée to Sinatra.

As the driver rounded the block, the voice of a radio newsman filled the car.

…Castro’s admission that he is a Marxist-Leninist. President Kennedy vowed the U.S. would never accept any government not chosen through free and fair elections. In local news, police say they have no leads in the death of actor Chris Powell, whose corpse was found earlier this week in a room at the Santa Monica Hotel. Powell’s role in the Elvis Presley film Kid Galahad will be recast, United Artists says. In sports—

“When we get out of the car, these bloodsuckers are going to bombard me with questions about Powell,” Lawford said.

“Did you know him?” Charlie asked. “I heard he and Frank fought about a girl.”

“It’s seldom truly about the girl,” Lawford said.

The car circled back to the entrance of the club and Lawford turned on his beaming white smile, hopped out of the car, helped Margaret out, and waved to the throng.

“One over here, Peter!” shouted a squat gray photographer. He resembled a toad, warts and all, topped by an obvious toupee. “Any comment on Powell?”

“Hi, Joey!” Lawford said, ignoring the question. “Say hi to Congressman Charlie Marder and his wife, Margaret. Charlie’s in town advising on Frank’s new picture. Charlie, this is Joey Tarantula,” he said, pronouncing it “Tah-ran-too-la.”

Tarantula snapped photographs of the three while shouting out a steady stream of questions, an accumulation of tabloid filler and innuendo: “Cops say it looks like a Mob hit. And what’s this I heard about Powell and Frank fighting over a girl?” Lawford ignored it all. “Thanks, Joey!” Lawford said, guiding Charlie and Margaret to the Daisy. The doorman nodded at Lawford and waved them in.

The Daisy, which had opened earlier that year, was the first private bar and dance club in the Greater Los Angeles area, a place for the rich and famous to drink and carouse without having to worry about gossip columnists or riffraff. The building took up a quarter of a city block, and membership was offered to a select group of Hollywood stars and power players as well as a few attractive, aspiring (and willing) young men and women carefully chosen and brought in by talent scouts.

A cocktail waitress rushed to them, took their drink orders, and practically sprinted to the bar. In the large main room of the club, oak-paneled and filled with a smog of cigarette smoke, were a well-stocked bar and a dozen small tables. At one of these, an aging Charlie Chaplin flirted with a barely adult Natalie Wood. Debbie Reynolds sat with a coterie of admirers; Kim Novak and Jayne Mansfield were at adjacent tables, each with an older man, each acting as if the other weren’t present. Standing at the bar, Tony Curtis slapped Troy Donahue on the back; near them, Sandra Dee was knee-deep in a drink that didn’t