Dream Town

Chapter 63

Archer knocked on the door of the penthouse, and a few moments later the same young maid answered. She eyed him cautiously.

“Hi, I’m Archer. I was here yesterday.”

“Yes, sir,” said the woman, who did not open the door any farther.

“I’m here to see Mrs. Mars again. Can you let her know I’m here?”

“She is not seeing anyone today.”

“So she is here?”

The woman looked uncomfortable. “She does not want to see you.”

Archer took out his notebook and a pen and wrote two words on the sheet of paper. He ripped it out, folded it over, and said, “Show this to her. But don’t peek.”

“No, sir, I won’t. Please wait.”

“Oh, I will.”

A few minutes passed before the door was flung open with such force that it slammed into the wall. Gloria Mars stood there outfitted in a light blue dressing gown with a sheer lacy robe over it. Her hair was down and her hackles were up. She had a drink in one hand and Archer’s note in the other.

She flapped the note in his face. “What the hell is this?”

“Can I come in, or do you want everybody to hear?”

She stood there silently for so long that Archer wasn’t sure what her answer would be. Then he wondered if she had a gun hidden in the lace.

She finally stepped back and waved him in.

“Nice day clothes,” he noted, glimpsing her exposed cleavage before she pulled her robe tighter.

“I was fighting a headache and I was almost there and then you and your damn note showed up.”

“Where do you want to talk?”

She led him into a small room off the dining room that didn’t have a bed or liquor cabinet in sight. Mars settled herself primly in one chair while he sat in another. She held up the slip of paper.

“Explain this,” she ordered, and it was clearly a command.

“Karl Marx. He was a German political writer.”

“That’s like saying Michelangelo was a house painter.” She balled the paper up and threw it at him. “What did you mean by it?”

“You have Marx’s collected works, three books about Lenin, and one by Trotsky.”

“They were in a locked armoire, you fink!”

“You know what we PIs are like. Just can’t trust us.”

Mars let out a soft groan and drained her drink. “I was afraid that might come back to haunt me.”

“Not from me it won’t.”

She shot him a glance. “Okay. Then why are you here if not to blackmail me?”

“I’m not the blackmailing type, Gloria. I’m here to tell you that Joe McCarthy is speaking at the Ambassador Hotel tonight at seven.”

She looked at him blankly. “You must be joking.”

“Nope. There’s a sign in the lobby and a helpful cop told me this town is full of reds. And that made me think about what you told me about Joe McCarthy when I met you the first time. You said the SOB’s time was running out, something to that effect. You’re clearly not a fan.”

“I don’t like wannabe authoritarians who lie in order to destroy people who disagree with them. In that regard, I despise Stalin, too. Are you a fan of McCarthy’s? Or are you not political? So many people aren’t in this town. They apparently don’t have the guts.”

“I don’t like stuffed shirts who wave little lists around without ever showing what’s on them. And I thought this country was about letting people say, think, and believe what they wanted. If not, then how are we different from Stalin’s world?”

She glanced at him with a fresh look. “Did I misjudge you?”

“We’ll leave that for another time. And what I’m about to ask you might decide it one way or another.”

“Oh, great. Fire away,” she added wearily, rubbing her temple.

“Were you a member of the Communist Party at Wellesley?” She looked shaken by the question. “I need another drink.” She started to rise.

He said, “Just so you know, I don’t give a damn one way or another.”

She sat back down. “Then why did you ask me?”

“I asked you because I need to know if someone was blackmailing you because you were a communist.”

She stared at him with a resigned expression. “When did you figure that one out?”

He tapped his head. “It’s been percolating up here for a while. But I didn’t assemble enough pieces until about ten minutes ago. And then you said you thought I was here to blackmail you over the very same thing.” He paused. “Seventy-two thousand, five hundred bucks sound about right?”

She stiffened and then slowly nodded. “Yes, exactly.”

“When did Eleanor Lamb put the squeeze on you?”

“You’re smarter than I thought, Archer.”

“You mentioned that Lamb might have come into some money before. Only you knew she had. Yours.”

“She came to me when she decided to move to Malibu and needed the dough.”

“And you had all those trust funds handy and all.”

“That was one reason I started looking at alternative political theories in college, Archer. I didn’t lift a finger for all that money. I was just lucky enough to be born into the right family.”

“You could give it away.”

“I give what I can. But my grandfather tied up what I can do with it pretty tightly. I think he might have guessed how I was going to turn out. No trust-fund preening capitalist am I.”

Archer looked around. “Okay, but you don’t have to live like this, either.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Which shows that I’m much weaker than I think. And the draw of all that money is far stronger.”

“You still a card-carrying member?”

“It doesn’t matter if I am or not. If my history came out I’d be ruined. They’d probably find a way to take all my money away. And Danny’s career would be ruined, of course. They’d assume he was a communist and he’d be blackballed. So many already have been.”

“I didn’t think you cared all that much about his career.”

“Talk is cheap and I’m the queen of it. Sure I spoke ill of Danny with you. But it wasn’t because of his work, really. Okay, he’s no Frank Capra or Howard Hawks, but then who is? He did bust his ass to get out of poverty, something I never had to do. And then he had to bust his ass to make it in this town. Again, something I never had to do. I just came here and bought the penthouse. I actually admire my husband’s work ethic. His hustle. What I don’t admire is his cheating on me with every big-breasted skirt that comes within range of his pecker. Do you blame me?”

“Can’t say that I do. And his gambling?”

“Yes, I had to take care of that, and I did. And he’s now got a limit and the casinos know anything over that limit is his problem, not mine. And Danny knows it, too, so he’s a good boy. He wants to make films and chase women, not end up in the ocean with fish for friends.”

“How did Lamb get her hooks into you?”

She drew a cigarette from a bowl on a table and let Archer light it for her.

“Ellie was always smart, cunning, observant. I lied to you before. We did know each other. See, I was a political science major, too, and our friendship deepened in the Agora Society. She made me believe that she thought as I did. That she cared about the things I cared about. We... were very close. I liked her... very much.”

She stopped speaking and her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

Watching her closely, Archer said, “Were you more than just... friends? I’m just asking because when we talked before you seemed worried that she might have been killed.”

She fiercely brushed the tears away. “Ellie didn’t love me, if that’s what you want to know. She was using me, biding her time. She broke my heart because it turned out she fell in love with a man.”

“Do you know the man’s name?”

“No.”

“Then what happened?”

“The years passed. I didn’t even know she was in LA when I got here. But she obviously found out I was here. Because one morning I got a special delivery letter.”

“What was in it?”

“Copies of certain documents with my signature on them. Pictures of me at events and with people who... are on certain government lists now. And a letter addressed to me.”

“When did you know it was Lamb?”

“Oh, she made no attempt to hide her identity, Archer. The letter told me to meet at a certain place and time. And there she was. I don’t know where she got all the stuff, but she had the goods on me, all right. She hadn’t really changed, other than her hair was black and straight. She was naturally blond and curly in college.”

“So she made the blackmail pitch and you bit on it.”

“What else could I do? I had plenty of money.”

“And you weren’t afraid she’d come back for more?”

“That was the thing with Ellie — with all her faults, when she told you she was going to do something, she did it. The reverse was also true. She told me that would be the only touch. And she never came back for more. And she returned all the original documents and the negatives of the photos.”

“And the times you dropped by her place in Malibu that you mentioned, other than the dinner with the Greens? It wasn’t to take script notes, was it?”

Mars closed her eyes again, and Archer watched as her jaw trembled, but in a way that was probably jarring to her soul, the difference between feeling an earthquake tremor a hundred miles away and being at the epicenter of an entire undulating city. She didn’t look like a warrior now, he thought. She just looked human, like everybody else.

She put a hand to her face as if that would force the earthquake to stop. Eyes still closed she said quietly, “I know it sounds crazy. I mean, the woman did blackmail me. But... I... I hoped we might see each other again. She wasn’t seeing anyone, or so I thought...”

“But that was a no-go?”

“There... is apparently somebody else in her life now.”

“Do you know who?”

“No.”

Archer thought he knew who that person was, but he wasn’t going to tell Mars. The woman was hurting enough as it was. “I heard she bought the house in Malibu because she had a friend there.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your husband, right here on New Year’s Eve.”

She regained her composure and blew out smoke. “I don’t know anything about that. And I don’t know why Danny would know.”

“Have you ever met Peter or Bernadette Bonham?”

“Never heard of them.”

“Okay. Where do you think Lamb is?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at a wall and seemingly beyond it. “I hope she’s okay. I’ve never wished her ill.”

“Most people would not wish their blackmailers well.”

“I’d like to think I can rise above such things. And I have a lot that I didn’t deserve.”

“Despite your wealth, you didn’t deserve to be blackmailed. So stop beating yourself up over it. Did you know Mallory Green owns a plane?”

“No, I believe Bart owns it.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Does it matter?”

“Everything matters, Gloria.” He rose. “And thank you for your frankness. I know it was hard, but you’ve helped me a lot.”

“Do you think you can find Ellie?”

“I think I’m going to have to.”

She walked him to the door.

“I take it you won’t be attending the McCarthy event tonight,” he said.

“On the contrary, I’ll be right there in the front row, with the biggest, fattest tomatoes I can find. And I have a helluvan arm.”

“Remember to take pictures.”

She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Archer.”

“For what?”

“For being a nice guy. They’re a lot rarer than you might think, as every woman out there can tell you.”

As Archer walked out he again envisioned Mars as a warrior, only this time armed with tomatoes instead of a sword, to do battle against the forces of evil.

He thought Uncle Joe might truly meet his match tonight.