“I’m famous, but only in my own mind,” he had dutifully replied.
And she still had her picture taken with him and would go back to wherever to tell everyone about her once-in-a-lifetime encounter with someone who was so famous he denied being so.
He downed his weakened whiskey and thought, Only in this town.
He got up once and peered into the Grove and watched as self-important tuxedoed men sat around in their wicker chairs ignoring their meals and their powdered and primped wives and girlfriends while looking for fresh, if wildly impossible, female prospects. For their part, the wives and girlfriends smiled regally and tried to rise above it all, while really wanting to strangle their gents.
Despite the flow from an air-conditioning system, sweaty waiters carried trays piled with steaks rare, oceans of mushrooms, and mountains of fried onion rings. A live orchestra played away, while lithe and limber dancing girls helped to boogie-woogie and tango in the new year. Ingots of golden light illuminated the show to such a bright degree that Archer eyed several patrons who had donned sunglasses.
When Callahan circled back to him later, he said, none too happily, “See who you needed to see, or do I have to sit here hydrating with more water than whiskey, while you make another pass through the chow line?”
She stroked his cheek in apology. “I know, Archer, it gets me down, too.”
He got her a drink because she looked like she needed it. “Is it really worth it?”
“I don’t know. Yet. And look at you.”
“Look at me what?”
“You’re right here in the thick of it in wild and woolly LA. Must be a reason.”
“Maybe I just like to be close to you,” he said, eyeing her over his tumbler of whiskey.
“Right. When you work down here the only ones you’re close to are your clients and whoever ends up dead. And you’re thinking about Ellie Lamb. I know that look.”
“I admit she interests me.”
“Why?”
“She’s holding back. Clients who lie to you are always interesting.”
“What makes you think she’s lying?”
“Just call it a professional hunch. She may not know who’s doing these things to her, but I think she has an idea why they are.”
“If she does, why won’t she tell you?”
“And therein lies the interesting part.”
Chapter 6
They entered the hotel’s lobby and took the automatic elevator up to the top floor. Callahan presented her engraved invitation to the petite young woman with a Dutch boy haircut who was checking the guests in. She obviously knew Callahan and was a little starstruck.
“Oh, Miss Callahan,” she squeaked. “Everyone here wants to meet you.”
Callahan said, “Donna, you’re cute. Go get a drink and enjoy yourself.”
“But I have to make sure nobody crashes the party,” she squeaked again.
“Trust me, honey, they want people to crash it. That’s how you know you’re really having a party worth going to in this town.”
While Callahan went to powder her nose, Archer walked around. There was an odd mixture of black oak paneling in one room, cloister-vaulted ceilings in another space, and bleached-wood floors in the library. And then there was a waxed ceramic tile floor arrayed in a complex geometric pattern in the living room. Anyone drunk looking down at that was going to toss their cookies and leave their own pattern, Archer concluded.
Positioned everywhere were mammoth bright blue chesterfields paired with painfully straight-back Spanish-style wooden chairs. Bowls of cigarettes and mints and nuts were on every low table. On every high table was booze. Archer spotted what he thought was an original Rembrandt on the wall. It was something to consider that the painting was worth far more than he would make in his entire life.
There was a circular mirror on the ceiling in the large dining room, which was filled with massive Baroque pieces that would have looked dated in the twenties. He did wonder if the ceiling-mirror theme was repeated in the master bedroom.
A platoon of waiters with slicked-back hair and white dinner jackets was handing out trays of champagne and canapes. The more serious male drinkers were lined up at the portable bars looking like a stiff one or four was exactly what was needed to propel them to 1953.
A lavish blond wood radio, phonograph, and television console with curved lines was set against one wall, partnered with a tall glass-doored record cabinet. When Archer took a look at the record collection he found far more jazz and R&B than crooners and classical music. He picked out one record and looked at the label.
“That’s Ray Charles, he’s blind,” said a voice behind him.
He turned to see an auburn-haired woman with a Veronica Lake peekaboo standing there with a drink in one hand and a long-barreled cigarette in the other. She was around forty and flavored with an exotic perfume; the woman’s high-slitted Saks dress fit her figure like a hot wax mold. High-heeled gilt slippers graced her small feet. The pale, freckled skin of her upper thigh arrayed against the emerald-green dress looked marvelous to Archer. Her small, red-lipsticked mouth looked like trouble, though, and her amber eyes matched the mouth. She looked expensive and no doubt was. These were the times when Archer was thrilled he was poor.
“Is that right?”
She bit down on her porcelain cigarette holder. “I think he’s going to be really big.”
“Good for him. I can’t carry a tune with a shovel.”
She put out a hand. “I’m Gloria Mars.”
He shook it. “Archer.”
Mars was the Roman god of war, and she struck him as gladiator-like. Her features were hard-edged, her manner was swaggering and confident, and her lean frame portended strength. In his mind he dubbed her Warrior.
“I saw you come in with Liberty Callahan. She’s in my husband’s next picture. It’s a piece of crap, but I’m sure Liberty’s already told you that. Danny just likes swords and shields, fight scenes, and busty women in see-through garments. She’s wasting her talents with this one.”
“She’d be glad to hear that.”
“Oh, I already told her. You look like you need a drink. What’s your poison?”
“Can you do a White Russian, or will that get me up before Joe McCarthy’s committee?”
“You hang around long enough, Archer, you’ll find I can do anything. And screw McCarthy. You mark my words on him, too, that son of a bitch’s on the way out.”
She left him and went in search of a mixer man to orchestrate his drink. When she came back with it in an old-fashioned tumbler, they clinked glasses and he took a sip.
“You like?” she asked, her eyes glistening like they had been splashed with tonic.
“Yes I do. I hear you come from back east. You like LA?”
“Some days. Most days I want to shoot everyone in it, and I don’t mean with a camera.”
I get that, Warrior, thought Archer. “Nice place you have here.”
“Danny tells everybody that it’s his. It’s not. We have a prenuptial agreement. This isn’t my first rodeo. When we go our separate ways he can find someplace else to live.”
“Not betting on going the distance with him?”
“I play the odds, just like I do with the ponies.”
“So why’d you marry him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I do mind, but I’ll tell you anyway. He used to be really great in bed.” The eyes ran down him like an X-ray machine. “It’s not like Danny is going to thrill me with his culture. He grew up on a farm in Oregon. Came here in the twenties to get away from cow shit.”