“Roosevelt,” I said.
Dean’s faint smile now seemed honestly amused. “Ha. Joe Schenck’s joint.”
“What do you mean?’’
“Guy at Twentieth we know,” he said, glancing at Browne, who didn’t glance back. “He owns that hotel, him and some other guys.”
Montgomery had a wry sense of humor, I’d give him that much.
“Mr. Dean?” somebody said.
I looked over and a mustached, dapper little man in evening dress was standing, almost bowing, before the booth; he seemed nervous, even frightened.
“Hello, Billy,” Dean said. The words were like two ice cubes dropping in an empty glass.
“I’m relieved to see you back at the old stand tonight,” he said. “I was afraid we’d seen the last of you for a while.”
“We’re funny people, in this day and age,” Dean said. “We believe in staying loyal to our friends.”
The man stepped closer. “Allow me to explain.”
Dean said nothing.
“For whatever mistake I have made, I stand willing to do anything you dictate, to make it up,” the man said, his voice barely audible, trying, it would seem, to keep the humiliation of this scene from being broadcast. “There was an unfortunate circumstance, caused by a new man on the desk covering union news.”
“Aren’t you the boss?” Dean said.
“I have to take responsibility for it, I know. That story got through, which to you says I broke my word. But please believe there was no intention not to take care of you, as you have of me.”
Dean said nothing.
“It was a horrible mistake,” the man continued, filling the awful silence, “and I stand willing to rectify it. Please. Command me.”
“Forget it. All is forgiven.”
The little man smiled, almost crumpling under the humiliation, and said good evening, and moved quickly away.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Billy Wilkerson,” Dean said. “He owns the joint.”
And the Hollywood Reporter. That had been about the negative piece on the IA that Montgomery mentioned had run in the Reporter yesterday. These boys did have clout.
Half an hour on the second and Browne was getting out of the booth again, saying, “Excuse.”
“Anyway, Heller,” Dean said. “You must not have a car out here. Maybe we can drop you off at your hotel?”
I didn’t think there was anything sinister in that; and, if there was, I couldn’t think of a graceful way out, so I said, “That’d be swell.”
“Maybe you’d like to show Dixie your etchings.”
Dixie, whose fingers were working in Dean’s hair, smiled at me shyly. Maybe she did have a future as an actress. As for whether or not I took Dean and Dixie up on this, I’m not going to say. You might be disappointed in me, either way.
Browne came back and settled his fat ass in the booth and said, “Willie wants to see you while you’re out here.”
I didn’t know that was directed toward me, at first; then Browne repeated it, saying he’d phoned Willie at home to say Wilkerson had eaten crow, and I said, “Bioff’s out here, too?”
“Sure,” he said. “Kind of unofficially these days, but he’s out here.”
“Willie and I go way back.”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “You hate each other’s goddamn guts.”
“I don’t hate anybody,” I said, smiling, sipping some rum. “I haven’t seen Willie in years. If he’s making good, more power to him.”
“He’s making good,” Dean said.
“Anyway,” Browne said, wiping some foam off his face, “he wants to see you.”
“Why would he want to see me?”
“I don’t know. When I called him, I mentioned we run into you. He wants you to come out to his place.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon.”
“Go out to his place at Bel Air tomorrow morning. Hell, I’ll drive you out there myself. He says to tell you it’s worth a C-note minimum.”
The thought of George Browne driving a car was a sobering thought.
But I said, “Call him back and tell him sure,” anyway.
“In half an hour I will,” Browne said, and lifted another bottle.
Browne driving was no problem: he picked me up in a chauffeured limo, a big shiny black Caddy. I tried not to make anything out of the fact that the last big shiny black car I went riding in was E. J. O’Hare’s. Besides, that was overcast, chilly Chicago and this was warm, sunny Hollywood.
There was plenty of legroom, despite the extra passenger that sat between us on the floor: a tub of ice and beer. It was ten o’clock in the morning and Browne was already at it. Maybe the tale about him putting away one hundred bottles of imported beer a day wasn’t an exaggeration; maybe it was an understatement.
Probably it was the constant drinking that did it, but he showed no signs of the night before having taken any effect; he was wearing a baggy brown suit and had a glow in his cheeks, not to mention his nose. We were on our way to Westwood, on the other side of Beverly Hills, and we had plenty of time to talk.
“You have any idea why Willie wants to see me, George?”
“Not a clue,” he said, cheerfully, bottle in hand. “But Willie always has his reasons.”
“You guys been partners a long time.”
Swigging, nodding, he said, “Long time.”