“It’s murder,” Emerson Waldie shouted. “I tell you it’s first degree murder.”
Waldie sat at his big, ornate oak desk holding his head in his hands. The cupid clock on his desk showed it was just a little after eight in the morning. On the floor where he threw it in a rage, lay an early edition of the Los Angeles Times with a picture of Jane Allen on the front page.
It wasn’t a photograph of the dewy-eyed virgin of twenty-two, the pretty little thing who’d so completely captured the heartstrings of America, but a closeup of Ice-Cream Cohen in the hard makeup and the hardened expression of a seasoned star of pornographic movies.
And along with the photo were the hard facts revealing Jane’s unsavory past and the story of how she’d successfully switched, with the help of Emerson Waldie, the head of Grove Pictures, to legitimate motion pictures.
The story, an alleged exclusive by Hedda Hopper, didn’t so much focus on Jane’s early career as it did, according to Hopper, on her betrayal of the American people who’d been so devoted to her, but more specifically, the American fighting man.
In Hopper’s words, the young manhood of America was dying on foreign battlefields so as to preserve and protect the purity of the girls and women they’d left at home, and to make sure they would never fall into the hands of those heinous rapists and murderers, the Germans and the Japanese. Jane
Allen, the article pointed out, had symbolized all those girls and women, and had become the shining beacon of hope and faith that would lead our wonderful, brave American soldiers, sailors and marines home again.
“I don’t know how our boys will take this terrible blow,” Hedda wrote. She predicted that the exposure of Jane Allen might cause vast losses of life and limb in all theatres of war due to a radically lowered military morale. Because, and again in Hopper’s words: “What will our boys feel there is left to fight for if our womanhood is so despoiled?”
Lyle Brenner, Emerson Waldie’s personal assistant looked over at his boss who was practically crying. “How could they do this to Janie?” Lyle asked. “How could they purposely set out to destroy her like this?”
“To hell with her,” Waldie roared. “What about me? What about me? How could they do this to me? How the hell did I know she used to make dirty movies?”
Not only was the scandal sure to kill Jane Allen’s career, but as far as Waldie could tell, it was also sure to bring a ton of the worst, most devastating and ruinous publicity upon Grove Pictures.
And it wasn’t the kind of publicity that was going to die down with time. The Fatty Arbuckle case was ancient history yet people in Hollywood still talked about it as if it had happened only yesterday.
“Can I get you some coffee, boss?” Lyle asked.
“With cyanide in it,” Waldie answered. Lyle wore a look on his face that was, as usual, bright and friendly. Behind it he only wished he could fulfill Waldie’s request.
“The sonofabitch, whoever he was, gave that vulture, Hopper, the story without even trying to sell it to me first. And I would have paid a mint for it.”
“So it wasn’t money that the culprits were after,” Lyle deduced.
“No, it wasn’t money, you pinhead,” Waldie said. “They just wanted to get the studio and they just about have. Now I’ll have to scrap all those new pictures that little tramp’s in, including Dive-Bomber Rendezvous and Nine Nuns in a Jeep. Who’d want to see her after this? Have you got her on the phone yet?”
“I tried several times, but she’s not home,” Lyle replied.
“Of course she’s not home,” Waldie exploded. “She’s at my house. Probably still in bed. Go up there and get her up. I don’t want her slashing her wrists on my property. That’s all I need.”
Lyle didn’t understand at first. “...She’s at your house?”
“That’s right, now get over there and fast.”
“Should I phone Mrs. Waldie in advance so as not to upset her?” Lyle asked.
“Mrs. Waldie? Mrs. Waldie’s in Palm Springs,” Waldie said, revealing the fact that Jane Allen wasn’t just a “houseguest”.
“I’ll get right over there,” Lyle said, now understanding that the rumors were true, that his boss was screwing Little Miss Purity. This was something that would shock America even more than the exposure of Jane’s sordid past, were it to be known. Lyle walked quickly to the door and then stopped as if something had suddenly occurred to him. Something had suddenly occurred to him. He slowly turned around again.
“Well go! “ Waldie demanded. “What are you standing there for?”
“What would you like me to tell Jane?”
“What would you like me to tell Jane? What would you like me to tell Jane?” Waldie mimicked. “If she hasn’t already heard the news on the radio, just show her this.” He shoved the newspaper toward Lyle.
“That’ll be quite a shock,” Lyle said.
“What the hell do you think I’ve had?” Waldie shouted. “Just get that broad out of my house and out of Hollywood before noon today. Give her a couple of hundred dollars and a Greyhound bus ticket. A one-way ticket.”
Lyle ventured an opinion. “Don’t you think that figure is kinda low, Mr. Waldie? Jane may thumb her nose at a mere few hundred dollars, especially when she realizes that she can cash in by giving the newspapers and magazines a story on how she was living it up with Emerson Waldie in his big Beverly Hills mansion while his trusting wife was out of town.”
Something in Lyle’s voice and manner made Waldie look up. Lyle, usually someone Waldie used as a doormat, now had a strange grin on his face and look in his eyes.
Unless Waldie was mistaken, which he generally was not, Lyle, whom he’d bullied and overworked for the past nine years, was making him a business proposition. He was more than certain of it.
“You know, Mr. Waldie,” Lyle said, walking slowly toward him, “I was just thinking. Considering all the inconvenience this is going to cause little Janie, the figure of a couple of hundred dollars should be revised to least ten grand, don’t you agree?”
“Ten Grand?” Waldie growled and then stopped talking for a moment. “Oh, now I get it. Five for Jane and five for you, is that it?”
“Oh no, Mr. Waldie,” Lyle said as if totally shocked by this suggestion. “About a grand for Jane and the rest for me, as well as a huge raise and an assistant of my own. And, oh yes, a change of job. I think I’d like very much to direct pictures, thank you very much.”
“You must be crazy if you think I’ll give you anything. You’re fired. Now get out.”
“Very well, Mr. Waldie,” Lyle replied. “But do you want to break the news about your friend, Miss Allen, to Mrs. Waldie and the press? Or would you like me to do it?”