But the following morning I wasn’t so sure. I had a theory, a reasonable idea of what happened, but the corners of my conclusions were ragged, shifting. I lingered over coffee, bit into the cinnamon toast I’d ordered, popped a strawberry into my mouth. I needed to talk to Mercy, who knew these people. No-not these people-this world. Hollywood beliefs, the cock-eyed value structure, hermetic and glass-enclosed, that conditioned these movie folk to move to dark and ugly extremes. Worlds on celluloid: worlds in real life. Blurring perhaps? Overlapping?
James Dean, his words to me one night. We come to believe what they write about us, and then we force the others around us to genuflect in agreement.
I got confused. The strawberries were tart to the taste, and I grimaced. How is it California, perpetual sunshine and acres of lush fields, can produce such bitterness out of brilliant light and bracing air and a paintbox blue sky?
Quite simply, it does.
I dialed Mercy’s number and caught her at home. “Can we meet later to talk?”
“Edna, you sound so serious.”
“I am. I have an idea.”
I heard Mercy breathe in. “About the murder?”
“Yes.”
I found a phone book in the desk drawer, leafed through it, and found what I was looking for. I dialed the number.
“Good morning,” a deep, firm voice answered.
“Mr. Vega,” I said. “I have more questions.”
“Yes?”
“But not of you. I have a request.” I wanted to talk to his granddaughter Connie.
“But she is not here, only weekends, you know. I believe I told you that. During the week she stays with her mother.”
“Could you give her my number?”
Again, the hesitation. “My daughter works. And, well, it’s summer. Connie stays with her cousins, the beach, the outdoors, friends…”
“I’d like to try.”
“I need to reach my daughter first.”
“Of course.”
Fifteen minutes later, still sitting there, the phone rang, and I answered it on the first ring. Vega said his daughter, reached at work, deferred to his judgment. And he agreed. There was no guarantee Connie was home, though it was still early morning. Chances are she would still be in bed. “You know how young people are,” Vega said. “And it’s a hot summer.”
Connie, groggily answering the phone, had already been awakened by her mother, who told her I would be calling. The girl seemed wary, perhaps unused to conversations with older strangers. A good thing, that I approved. Much of contemporary child rearing alarmed me; children in the post-war era were coddled, indulged, foolishly flattered. They would become insolent, demanding adults in a day soon after my death. They would be, the thought did not please me, James Dean.
Connie and I spoke for a few minutes, my questions this time more directed, less diffuse. Now, truly, I had a clearer vision of what I needed to know. So we reviewed the same story, and Connie seemed irritated when I brought up the woman she had seen waiting outside Carisa’s apartment, the woman she thought was waiting for Jimmy/Tommy as he ran out of her building. I wanted Connie to describe the car. Not surprisingly, Connie was filled with details now. I smiled. Young folks know cars, especially in the car culture world of California. They might not look closely at people, perhaps, but at objects of desire, yes, indeed.
I thanked her and hung up.
Later on, sitting in the commissary waiting for Mercy, I fiddled with a napkin, jotting down words in a list, methodical, the way I take notes for my novels. My quick, inquisitive eye, scanning library archives, historical tracts, yellowing newspapers in dim, dust-choked rooms. I know how to grasp the salient point, that gold nugget of anecdote, some revelation of character. Now, pensive, I listed what I considered a concise rationale for my theory. Yes, I thought. Well, maybe.
Mercy surprised me, and I jumped. “Edna, the studio will provide you with reams of wonderful writing stationery,” she said, grinning. “A napkin?”
“There was a time when I could remember the minutest details. These days, well…”
Mercy slipped into a chair. “I have gossip for you, Edna. I was weaving my way through the Byzantine maze of the back lot and there was little Nell Meyers, probably still with echoes of African chants in her ears and the resounding boom of Tansi’s lovely slap against Tommy’s face. And she’s walking with a quaint cardboard box, prettily tied with a red string. Nell, it seems, is leaving her job. Today.”
I started. “What? Why would she do that so suddenly?”
“I asked about that. She said she’d actually resigned two days ago, told her boss, but didn’t tell us at Jimmy’s.”
“And why not? It seems the natural thing to do-to tell your friends.”
“She said she wants to go away quietly. I guess Carisa and Lydia dying spooked her. She told me Hollywood’s not right for her. She’s going to a small hamlet in Pennsylvania, where her mom’s from, I gather.” She stopped. “Edna, what’s that look on your face?”
I had blanched, shifted in the seat. “This is not good news, her leaving.” Nell, fleeing with a cardboard box and a Greyhound ticket to some dirt road corner of civilization. Speaking rapidly, I outlined my ideas to Mercy, who turned pale, but added, finally, a caveat. “Edna, these are random bits of information, compelling, I have to admit. But this notion about Nell. Well, isn’t that a stretch?”
“What else have we got?” I asked. “We have to stop her. I mean, she’s not leaving today, is she?”
Mercy nodded. “That’s what I find strange. Yes, she is. Ticket in hand.”
“We need to do two things,” I said, staring at the ragged napkin before me, frayed and crumpled. “One, you find Nell. If need be, stall her from leaving. And I need to run this by Detective Cotton. I need his advice here. And,” I added, eyebrows rising, “we may need him to get to Nell.”
While I phoned Detective Cotton, Mercy went looking for Nell, who seemed to be making a sentimental round of goodbyes to people who scarcely knew her. Bustling down a hallway, I spotted Mercy. She shook her head as I approached, nodding toward a doorway where Nell lingered. She was with a make-up artist, chatting away, her cardboard box resting at her ankles. Nell said a hearty goodbye to the woman, and the woman looked annoyed. Nell, however, was smiling. “I will miss you people.”
Mercy mumbled to me. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Could I have a minute of your time?” I said to her as she turned from the doorway, but Nell closed up, the smile gone. She looked nervous. “Why?”
“About Lydia.”
Nell shook her head. “No. Don’t you see? I don’t want to be part of this any more.”
But I persisted. Mercy joined in, speaking softly and even smiling, and Nell found herself sitting across from us in the commissary. I sat there, iron-willed, jaw set, eyes sharp and focused.
“Nell, I just need to ask you something.”
Nell looked frightened. “Yes?”
“You probably knew Lydia better than most,” I began. Nell nodded, nonstop. “But there is something I have to know. Mercy and I have been talking about the letters.”
“The letters?” Nell actually gulped.
“You know, the letters. Not so much Carisa’s stream of anger to Jimmy and Warner, but letters to Carisa.”
“Jimmy never told me about his letter to her until later.”
I made a clucking sound. “He didn’t seem to tell anyone until he had to.” I waited a second. “But no, Lydia’s letter to Carisa.”
“What about it?”
“You knew about it? You knew Lydia wrote a threatening letter to her?”
Nell waited a second, seemed to be thinking it through. “Not when she actually wrote it. I mean, I remember her, and even the others, bitching that they couldn’t reach Carisa a lot of the time. She didn’t answer the phone and even if you went there, as I did with Lydia once or twice, there was no guarantee she’d let you in. So I guess if you had to reach her, you, well, dropped her a note. It was…” She waved her hand.
“What?”
“Easier, I guess. But, you know, later on, after Carisa’s death, that’s when I learned about it. She told me she’d been hoping no one found out because it threatened her.”
“But she was found out, no? Once the letter was found.”
“Of course. And it scared her. She went nuts over it. She thought it would mean Detective Cotton would think she killed Carisa.”
I timed my response. “But Detective Cotton never found that letter.”
Her eyes got wide. “Of course he did.”
“No.”
Nell shuddered, looked around, nervous. “I mean, she said he…I assumed…”
“What did you assume?”
“Lydia said…I think she said…well, she was crying a lot…no, that was later…she…”
“Nell, I want you to tell me everything. You hear me. Step by step. Think back. Put things in order, please.”
Nell looked around, again. The commissary was filling up with people, and getting noisy. She half-stood, as though ready to flee, then her arm hit the cardboard box she’d placed on a chair, and the string unraveled. The box toppled to the floor. Personal items-a photo in a cheap frame, a coffee mug, a Warner Bros. Studio paperweight, papers bound with elastic bands-spilled out, and, clumsily, frantically, she pushed everything into the box, and then closed the flaps.
Quietly: “This is important, Nell,” I said.
She nodded.
An hour later, in Mercy’s dressing room, we sat with Detective Cotton. The detective listened to my terse summary, sitting there impassive and largely unblinking. He cleared his throat. “Not bad.”
“Not bad?” I expected more. Backslapping, accolades, hip-hip-hurrahs.
“It makes sense…”
I broke in, impatient with his manner. “Of course it makes sense.” You bumbling fool, I added, hopefully to myself.
Detective Cotton smiled, and I realized he was a man used to condescending to women-a man whose world-a downtown precinct of testosterone-jumpy cops-was a sanctified male preserve. A man who, had he the misfortune to be married, most likely treated the little missus like chattel, some Doris Doormat to do his bidding. I was very familiar with his ilk, frankly. And yet I’d thought him decent, a good cop. A man who seemed to entertain the idea that I might contribute to the investigation.
“You’re a tough bird to read,” I remarked.
“Why so?”
“I don’t know if you value the ideas of women.”
“I value a good idea.”
“That’s not answering my statement.”
“I don’t answer statements. I answer questions.”
“You’re playing games, sir.”
“So, Miss Ferber, I do think you may be on to something here, and I’ll not fault you for that. But I’ve been conducting my own investigation, you know, and this morning, finally, I convinced a judge-actually I convinced Jack Warner through his boy Jake Geyser-that the matter needs to go before a grand jury. It’s time. And my case, I’ll tell you frankly, is against James Dean. Warner isn’t happy, and Dean has been forewarned. It’s going to get messy, but this now has to leave the studio and go downtown. The case has languished too long…”
I felt my heart in my throat. “So you’re going to name Jimmy as murderer.”
“We’re going to name him as number one suspect-not murderer. We’ll couch the arrest in language the studio will tolerate. Means the same thing, just delays the inevitable.”
“Give me twenty-four hours,” I demanded, sharply.
“What?”
“I want to test my theory.”
“I can’t do that.” He shook his head.
“Of course you can.”
He looked surprised. “True, I can but…”
“If I’m right, I could save you some embarrassment.”
“And if you’re wrong, I seem the procrastinator.”
“It’s less embarrassing than mud in your face. Detective Cotton, you may be the detective in this case…”
“I’m glad you noticed.”
“But it seems to me it’s my detecting we’re entertaining now.”
“An amateur’s luck.”
“Sir, a veteran writer’s keen eye.”
“Miss Ferber…”
“Detective Cotton.”
He had trouble smiling. All right, he nodded. “You have till midnight tonight.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll be in bed by ten, sir.”
A short time later, as Mercy and I were leaving the dressing room, I spotted Jimmy. He wasn’t happy-agitated, jumpy, constantly pushing his eyeglasses up the bridge of his nose. “That goddamn Cotton,” he yelled. “He’s here, and I said…you know what he said?…he…said…ah…don’t leave town…like…”
“Jimmy.” I took his arm. “Stop. Don’t let this get to you this way.”
He looked at me, almost uncomprehending, and then walked away. “Jimmy,” I called after him, but he kept going.
Much later, walking out of the building, Mercy and I stopped, transfixed by an odd tableau on the sidewalk by the front gate: Jimmy, in animated conversation with Tommy and Polly, with Nell standing some ten feet away, nodding, that infernal cardboard box at her heels. For a minute the two women watched as Tommy seemed to become more and more agitated, swaying his body, still unfortunately clad in that red jacket, and spitting words at Jimmy. Jimmy, himself antsy, cupped his eyes, staring through the blinding sunshine at his friend. When we got near, the talk shifted, as Polly moved between the two men. “Stop this,” she pleaded, one of her hands on Tommy’s chest.
Tommy’s face got closer, and a purplish color spread across his features. “You used Polly,” he screamed.
Jimmy looked at Polly, tucked between them like a swaying lamppost, a woman taller than both men. She stepped back and held her hands up in the air. “Stop this.”
Jimmy said nothing.
“You used Polly.”
Jimmy looked at Nell, standing apart. “You told him?”
“I didn’t know it was a secret.”
Jimmy shook his head, grinned. “That was a bedroom confession, Nell.”
Nell, filled with the confidence of a Greyhound ticket in her bag, yelled back, “What kind of man tells a girl he’s sleeping with that he enjoyed sleeping with his good friend’s girlfriend. Crowing about it.”
Jimmy stared at her, confused. “I gotta stop getting drunk,” he mumbled to himself. “I fall into bed with strangers.”
Nell seemed ready to leave, twisting her body away, but at that moment she caught my eye. She folded her arms over her chest, reminding me of a sullen Buddha, and the look in her eyes was hard, deliberate. “I’m not sorry,” she said, bluntly.
Jimmy spun around, looking helpless. He took a few steps back, glancing back at the studio entrance, then looked toward the parking lot. I realized he wanted to get away. He didn’t want to be here, not because he disliked drama, certainly, but because this somehow no longer mattered to him. He’d already moved past this. Past Tommy. Past Polly.
“You don’t deserve…” Tommy faltered. Then, in a swaggering gesture, he indicated the building behind him. “This.”
Jimmy, quiet, swung his head around, following the direction of Tommy’s arm, and started to walk back to the studio. But his face registered alarm, and I looked. There, in the doorway, stood Detective Cotton, watching. Jimmy’s face got beet red, and he faced Tommy. “You’re a small man, Tommy.”
Polly reacted. “Jimmy, stop it.”
“I mean it,” Jimmy sputtered. “Small.” And he actually laughed. “And that’s the problem here. You know, you’re tiny inside.” He caught his breath, intoxicated with the new word. “Tiny.” He stressed the word. Said, the word hung in the air like a curse, awful but true. I noticed him glance back at Cotton, and the look was different now: triumphant, sure.
Tommy’s body shook. Jimmy stepped closer, waiting. Nell muttered something-to me it sounded like a grunt-and Tommy suddenly lunged forward, socked Jimmy in the jaw. Jimmy reddened, fell back, but then rushed forward, shoving Tommy back a few steps. In seconds the two were grappling with each other, wild, off balance; and with one calculated and powerful thrust of his muscled arm, Jimmy hit Tommy squarely on the side of his head. Tommy slumped to the ground and lay there, gasping for breath. Jimmy rubbed his still-clenched fist, contemplated his bruised knuckles, and, spotting Mercy and me, forced a thin, what-can-I-do smile, and walked away. Then he stopped, turned to face Cotton, who hadn’t moved from the doorway. Facing the detective, he mumbled, “If I felt I belonged someplace.”
Slowly, almost jauntily, he walked away.
Mystified, I looked to Mercy, who whispered, “His character in Rebel says that . Big scene, climax, really.”
I shook my head. Hollywood: the place where people speak in someone else’s lines.
Nell looked like she was going to follow Jimmy but then thought better of it. She saw me looking at her with censorious eyes, and, throwing back her shoulders in an arrogant gesture, grabbed her meager cardboard box, cradled it in her arms like a heavy child, and walked toward the parking lot.
I turned to Mercy, “Now that’s an exit worthy of De Mille.”
Stretched out on the ground, Tommy was moaning. Polly knelt down and cradled his head in her lap. She whispered, “You don’t need him, Tommy. We’ll leave Hollywood. He’s always used you-us. He used me, too. You know that. He uses any girl. You know how he is. It didn’t mean anything to me, what he did. It’s you and me…” On and on, still cradling his head and rubbing his temples with her fingertips. She looked shattered, pale as dust; and she swayed back and forth, rocking Tommy.
I turned to walk away, and Mercy followed. Mercy whispered, “I’ll never understand that relationship.”
I muttered, “What relationship?”
When I glanced back, Polly was still holding onto a whimpering Tommy, whose eyes were closed now, but Polly was staring down toward the end of the lot. I followed her gaze. Jimmy stood there, leaning against a car, smoking a cigarette, his body rigid. From a distance, he could have been a young Jett Rink, surveying his worthless Texas acres, his Little Reata, God’s forlorn land.
I looked back at Polly. She was rocking the sullen, immobile Tommy now, but she was looking at Jimmy-not with disgust or hated or even pique. No, I realized, the look was one of desperate longing.