Dream Town

Chapter 3

Archer drove them over to West Hollywood and valeted the Delahaye. The slender uniformed man who took the key and gave him a ticket in return scratched his head when he saw the positioning of the steering wheel.

“I can park it myself,” Archer said off this look. “Only questions are, how much do I charge, and are you a good tipper?”

“Ain’t a problem, sir. Mr. Cary Grant’s got him a right-hand-drive Rolls. Jimmy over there knows how to handle the thing.”

“Good for ‘Over There Jimmy.’ Now, except for the bullet hole on the windscreen post, there’s not a scratch on her now, and you’ll make sure there won’t be another scratch when I get her back, right?”

“Bullet hole?” the man said, his jaw going slack.

“Just a misunderstanding. But not another scratch. Capiche?”

“You’re the boss.”

Archer passed him a buck to seal the deal.

They walked in under the long awning to find the place in full swing. A lot of the big stars had their own booths here, and many of them had turned out in the tuxedoed-and-gowned flesh to welcome in 1953 with steak and asparagus dripping with hollandaise sauce, coconut cream pie, and the best cocktails on Beverly Boulevard.

When they got inside he watched as Callahan looked around at all the legendary stars partying there. Her manner at first became subdued, as though she was as overwhelmed by this as any out-of-towner would have been. But then her expression changed to one of sheer excitement to be in their company.

“Don’t look now, but omigosh there’s Frank Sinatra, and Groucho Marx,” whispered Callahan.

Archer eyed those two gents and their substantial entourages along with Bob Hope, Milton Berle, and James Cagney, all in various states of sobriety. In a back booth surrounded by male admirers was the woman who was just beginning to take the town by storm. Archer thought if there was a lady to give Callahan a run for her money in the come-hither department it was Marilyn Monroe. An old-looking Clark Gable outfitted in a tailored sharkskin suit and loosened burgundy tie was downing shots at the bar like a man who had been thirsty his whole life. Word was he’d never recovered from his wife Carole Lombard’s going down in that plane a decade before.

They were escorted to a table by a guy in a striped linen suit that was far nicer than Archer’s, with a fresh gardenia in his buttonhole, expensive shoes on his wide feet, and a quarter-size rock on his finger. Archer had always heard the tips at Chasen’s were the best in town. He was very happy that Callahan had insisted on paying.

They sat and had their menus delivered by a gal in a tight blue skirt, with a yellow rose pinned to her white blouse. They ordered drinks from her, a whiskey highball for Archer and a sidecar for Callahan.

While they waited for their cocktails, Callahan looked around. “I still can’t believe I’m part of this world, Archer.”

“Don’t you come here for dinner all the time?” he said, smiling.

“I’m just a working girl. In fact, I’ve only been to Chasen’s with you, mister!”

A few moments after their drinks came and they tapped glasses, a voice called out, “LC? Is that you? Is that really you?”

Archer looked up to see a slip of a woman around forty, all sharp angles and energetic intensity and with straight black hair, approach their table. Through tortoise-shell specs, her green eyes looked like round frog’s eggs. Her skin seemed like it had never finished forming, leaving bare the bony emotional edges underneath. Archer figured if she was an actress, that would be one nifty element for the camera to capture.

“Ellie?” said Callahan, looking as surprised as the other woman. “Is that you?”

She fingered her dark, slack hair. “Got tired of being a bottle blonde who slept on curler rolls. Too many blondes in this town. I don’t mean you, LC.”

“Sure, I know. It’s a swell look on you. Pull up a seat and have a drink. This is my friend, Archer. Archer, Ellie, well, Eleanor Lamb.”

They shook hands. As she gave the waitress her drink order he ran his eye over her again. She was barely five-two, and the scales would never get to three figures with her. Everything about her, from the cheekbones to the chin to the elbows to the knees, was knifelike. It appeared you could cut yourself in innumerable ways on this lady.

Her dress was a fluffy crimson number with a line of ruffles at odd places; the sleeves ended before the elbows and the hemline before the bony knees. The stockings were black silk that made her skinny legs look more robust. It somehow all sort of worked.

For her part, Callahan was housed in a simple, form-fitting red dress that plugged every curve she had like a four-inch headline in the LA Times. Around her shoulders was a fringy black wrap, and down below long, stockinged legs that constantly drew men’s attention.

“LC?” Archer said.

“Some people refer to me by my initials,” explained Callahan. “Ellie is a screenwriter. The first movie I worked on here was one of her scripts. It was a United Artists film. Where are you now?”

“Same independent production company as before. We were hired to do the UA screenplay.” She took a moment to light up a Chesterfield from a silver cigarette case she slid from her handbag. Archer noticed her hand shook a bit as she took a drag on the Chesterfield, propelling out the smoke from both barrels of her nose. She shot him a glance before looking away. “I’m working on a script for Columbia as a comeback vehicle for Bette Davis.” She tapped her smoke into the glass ashtray at their table.

Archer gave her a puzzled look. “Wait, Bette Davis needs a comeback film?”

Callahan said, “You stay in this town long enough, everybody needs a comeback film.”

“And All About Eve was two years ago,” interjected Lamb. “Which is twenty years in Hollywood time, at least for women.”

Archer glanced at Callahan, who appeared to take this comment hard. The rest of her sidecar disappeared down her throat.

“I’m actually working on the project with Danny Mars.”

Callahan looked startled. “The director of the B-movie I’m on is doing Bette Davis’s comeback film?”

“Well, he’s attached, for now. Davis will have final approval on the director, of course.”

“Who are you here with, Ellie?”

“Some guy who failed to show up. I don’t think you have that problem.”

The waitress presented Lamb with her glass of sherry and bitters with a curlicue orange peel apparently for window dressing. Archer didn’t know anyone who really drank sherry unless they had to, but he thought he might just be hanging out with the wrong crowd.

“Archer is an old friend from Bay Town, just up the coast. He put his detective work aside for one night to ring in the new year with me.”

Lamb swiveled around and laid a look on Archer that he had seen plenty of times before, just not in that particular shade of jarring green wrapped with framed portholes.

“You’re a detective? A real one?” This almost came out as one word.

“A private one.”

“Private is what I need.”

Callahan said, “Ellie, why in the world do you need a private eye?”

The frog eyes turned on her with steadfast urgency. “Because I think someone might be trying to kill me.”