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

just a few short weeks we met Giancana, Rosselli, and some guy named Wassy Handelman.”

“Button man for Rosselli,” White said.

“The publicity guy at the studio wondered if the Mob killed Chris Powell to help Frank,” Charlie said. “They were romantic rivals, and Powell was some rising star. But we’ve seen zero evidence of that and frankly, if they were going to start killing off Sinatra rivals, Hollywood would become Stalingrad.”

“The Mob killing Powell seems a real stretch,” White said. “Where’d you get that from?”

“Manny Fontaine,” said Margaret. “United Artists’ publicist. Picture a gentile Sammy Glick.”

White nodded.

“He thinks Frank does this a lot,” said Charlie. “He told us the Mob muscled Tommy Dorsey to release Frank from his contract. And that Frank was supposed to costar with Powell in some new picture—”

“Come Blow Your Horn,” said Margaret.

“The Neil Simon play,” said White.

“Right,” said Charlie, “but Frank didn’t want Powell to costar. And now the problem’s solved.”

“Hard to believe he’d have him whacked for that,” said White. “He has enough juice in Hollywood to get a no-name pushed off a picture.”

“True,” said Margaret. “We heard some other things about Powell that might be relevant to his murder. Or not.”

“Apparently he was joining some trendy new self-help religion,” Charlie said.

“From the Dianetics guy,” added Margaret, then clammed up as the waitress appeared to refill their coffees.

White put down his coffee cup and took out a notepad. Charlie watched him jot down Hubbard Dianetics Powell.

“The Scientologists,” White said.

“Yeah, that’s them,” said Charlie.

“That’s interesting,” White said. “They’re wired. Their first church was built on primo real estate in DC.”

White offered them a quick overview. The founder of the Church of Scientology, a charismatic science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard, came to prominence with his bestselling book Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science, the latest of many self-help books for a nation wounded by World War II and rattled by Cold War fears of a pending nuclear apocalypse.

“He writes to us a lot,” White said. “To the FBI specifically. For about a decade now.”

“Why?” asked Margaret.

“Hubbard’s a staunch anti-Communist and, candidly, something of a loon.”

“What does he write you about?” asked Margaret.

“In his first letter, he accused more than a dozen members of his Dianetics foundations—including his own wife—of being Communists,” White recalled.

“Completely normal,” said Charlie sarcastically.

“Yes, and like any stable person, he accuses his critics of being enemies of America,” White said. “He keeps writing us, calling people who criticize the ‘religion’ he founded Communist-connected personnel. That’s the term he uses, over and over.”

“Are they?” asked Charlie.

“No.”

“Cuck-oo,” chimed Margaret.

“It gets weirder,” said White. “We received two sketchy pamphlets in the mail, and we immediately suspected Hubbard of sending them. One summarized Russian brainwashing techniques. The other was supposedly written by a nuclear physicist who claimed that a vitamin-supplement concoction called Dianazene could be used to combat radiation sickness. Guess what comes next?”

“Hubbard hawking Dianazene?” Margaret guessed.

“Yep,” said White. “The FDA confiscated more than twenty thousand Dianazene tablets from a company with ties to Hubbard. Guy’s a grifter.” He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.

“And?” Margaret finally said.

“So?” Charlie added.

White grinned mysteriously, clearly pleased with his power. “We can’t ask you to go investigate a church,” he said. “Constitutional issues. But needless to say, the attorney general is grateful for any information that comes his way, and he will take all assistance into consideration.”

“Got it,” said Margaret as Charlie fought the urge to slap the smile off Addington White’s face.

“So, listen,” Charlie said. “We have a couple questions for you.”

“Oh?” asked White.

“We ran into my niece Violet Greeley while we were out there,” Margaret explained. “She ran away from home six months ago; she’s sixteen.”

“Right,” White said in an annoyed, almost bored tone. Margaret wondered how often he heard stories like this.

“She was with this disgusting studio exec,” Charlie said.

“Itchy Meyer,” said Margaret. “MGM.”

“We’re just wondering if you could help us track her down,” Charlie said. “We’ve called MGM but Meyer won’t talk to us. The staff of the bar where we saw her, the Daisy, say they’d never seen her before. We need to find her. She’s a kid.”

“I know it’s low priority,” Margaret said. “Young woman lost in Hollywood. But it would mean a lot to us. To me. Please.”

White looked in Margaret’s eyes, nodded noncommittally, then wrote down the relevant details in his notepad.

“I’ll see what I can do,” White said. “But to be honest, you’re not really in a place to be asking anything of us. We need you to get back to work.”

“We will,” Margaret said. “If you agree to help, that will allow me to focus entirely on the task at hand. Charlie is one hundred percent on the Sinatra case, of course.”

“Though, I have to say, we’re also really worried about my dad,” Charlie said, staring into White’s eyes, searching for some human connection. “He’s old and frail—he hasn’t been the same since Mom died. We would really love to see him. Any chance I can before we head back to LA?”

White responded with a shake of his head. “Not a chance.” He looked at his watch. “I gotta go. It’s on me,” he said and waved for the check.

Three days later, they boarded a nine a.m. flight to Los Angeles.

“Excited for my big undercover mission,” Margaret said quietly to her husband. Feeling guilty about leaving the kids again, she reminded herself that she needed to help Winston and, in a different way, Charlie.

“What undercover mission?” Charlie asked.

“Scientology,” she said. “Hubbard.”

“You’re not going on any mission in that weird church, Betsy,” Charlie said. “That’s crazy.”

“Ah, but the Lord will be with me,” she said.

“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” Charlie said.

They argued—quietly, politely—for most of the flight. Ultimately, they agreed that she could go if she brought along a trusted friend. Street had flown back east, so that left Charlie’s former intern Sheryl Ann Gold.

Margaret kept her eyes on the snowy road. She remembered the first time she’d met Sheryl Ann Gold—well, Sheryl Ann Bernstein