I'm a fool to kill you

TWENTY-TWO

After I told her what took place at the hospital she said, ‘I don’t understand why someone would want to attack you. You’re only here because of me.’

‘What I need to know now is, what’s going on with you? Before the cops came we were talking about your black out.’

She averted her eyes.

‘Do you think it was something medical? Or just brought on by the booze?’ I asked.

‘If I say it was from alcohol I’d be admitting I’m a fucking alcoholic,’ she said.

Frank had always told me that Ava was a ‘tough broad,’ so her constant profanity was no shock.

‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘It could simply mean you drank too much over a period of days and your system couldn’t handle it.’

‘What’s the difference?’ she asked. ‘I lost forty hours, during which I ended up covered in blood.’

‘What’s the last thing you remember?’

‘I was in a hotel in Madrid — with some men.’

Her discomfort kept me from asking what she was doing with those men.

‘And what’s the next thing you remember?’

‘I woke up alone in that hotel room in Chicago.’

‘Where, exactly?’

‘It was a room in the Drake,’ she said. ‘I woke up feeling sick, staggered to the bathroom. I threw up, washed my face and saw blood in the sink. When I looked in the mirror I saw the blood on my clothes, and my face and neck.’

‘What else was in the room?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean was there any luggage, yours or anyone else’s? Any room service trays, bottles, anything to indicate someone else was in the room with you, or how many people were in the room?’

‘Well, it did look there’d been a party. Trays, plates, bottles, overflowing ashtrays. .’

‘Anyone else’s clothes?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘only a suitcase of mine. The one I have with me now. It just has a few clean clothes in it, and some toiletries.’

‘Did you think about calling the police then?’

‘Why? Because I got so drunk I couldn’t remember those two days?’

‘The blood on your clothes might have given your story a bit more weight than that.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘there’d be publicity.’

‘Ava, no offense,’ I said, ‘but with some of the things you’ve pulled I never thought bad publicity was a concern of yours.’

‘I was worried,’ she said, ‘I might have done something. . bad.’

‘So you packed up and left? You didn’t check out, did you?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Was the room registered to you?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so.’

Even if it was, the cops wouldn’t be looking for her, not just for running out on a hotel bill. And if they were they would have gone to the studio.

The Studio.

MGM.

If somebody was after her for legal reasons the studio would know.

‘I’ll have to talk to someone at the studio, Ava,’ I said. ‘To find out if the police are looking for you.’

‘I don’t know how helpful that will be’ she said. ‘I haven’t made a film for them in some years. They pretty much either released or lost all their contract players in 1960. Things have changed in Hollywood.’

‘Still, if anyone — like the police — was looking for you, they’d probably go there.’

‘Well, they always covered for me, including the time in Louis Mayer’s office when I hit Howard Hughes with an ashtray and he dislocated my jaw.’

‘Howard was begging to be my fourth husband,’ she went on, ‘but that was not going to happen. We were even more volatile together than Frank and I were — or are.’

That story might have been interesting at another time.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘let’s get back to you. You left the hotel in New York and did what?’

‘Came here.’

‘Don’t you have a house here in L.A.?’

‘I didn’t want to go there,’ she said. ‘I was afraid someone would find me. I didn’t go back to Spain for the same reason.’

‘What did you do when you got here?’

‘I sat up all night, stayed hidden all day, sat up all night again, and then the next morning — yesterday — I decided to go to Vegas to ask Frank for help. I went to the airport and got on the first flight.’

‘Why not call him?’

She hesitated, then said, ‘I–I wanted to see him.’

‘So you walked into the Sands, saw him in the lobby-’

‘With Nancy and Tina.’

‘-and ran out, came back here.’

‘I was lucky there happened to be another flight back to L.A. when I got to the airport.’

‘And you came right back here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Didn’t talk to anyone?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘well, only the hotel manager, and the clerk. But no one else until you arrived.’

That meant if whoever attacked Larry was after me, they must have found out about me from the clerk, or the manager, or both.

And if they were willing to sell my name, wouldn’t they be more than willing to make some money selling Ava Gardner’s?

‘I think it’s time to get some rest,’ I said.

‘What are we going to do tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Well, I want to go to the studio and talk to somebody — maybe Mayer himself — and then I’ll come back here and get you.’

‘Get me. . to do what?’

‘I want to take you someplace safe while we try to figure out what you did during those forty hours.’

‘Someplace safe, like where?’

‘I think I should take you back to Las Vegas with me.’

‘To see Frank?’ I couldn’t tell if her tone was hopeful or not.

‘I don’t know, Ava,’ I said. ‘Right now I’m just thinkin’ about keepin’ you safe.’

‘You’re very sweet,’ she said, stroking my cheek.

She stood up and walked to the bedroom door, then turned and said to me in her most innocent tone, ‘Come to bed, Eddie.’