Chapter Twenty-Six

The Plot Thickens

I lost my footing. I would have crumpled onto the floor if David hadn’t caught me. “Are you all right, Mitzi?”

Seeing Nussbaum’s face had taken the air out me. “Thank you, I’m okay, just shocked. The fellow in the corner was the reason we left New York. Leah and I thought we’d never see his ugly puss again.”

Buster and David both hovered over me, while Ida stared at the photograph in silence. Mr. Roth spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Your sister told us he went by the name Joseph Nussbaum. We knew him as Jacob Neuberger. Later, we found out the cops wanted him for arson, larceny, battery, and murder, under the name Joshua Noll.”

The monster didn’t even have to change the monogram on his handkerchiefs.

Ida stood in front of the photo, transfixed. “Leah told us Nussbaum, or whatever his name is, killed his wife. His copper friends in the New York police force must have helped him get away with it. The bastard came to Los Angeles, changed his name, then worked as a bodyguard for Ben’s father. After the fire, we searched for that son of a bitch everywhere—Mexico, Cuba, New York. We heard he’d died. I guess he was too smart for us.”

Mr. Roth slumped on the settee. “That son-of-a-bitch robbed my father blind, so I threw him out on the streets like the dog he was. When he picked himself up, he said, ‘Ben, I know what you value most, and I’ll take it away.’ He did.”

I couldn’t imagine what he meant. “What did he do?”

Ida answered. “He started the fire all those years ago.”

What? “But I thought Clarice’s mother started it.”

Mr. Roth turned his ice-blue eyes on Ida, silencing her before she answered me. “I’m going back to the hotel. I have phone calls to make.”

Mr. Roth planned to return to the hotel after this? “But Mr. Roth, my Uncle Baron—”

He shushed me with a look. “There’s a lot to do. You and your sister come back to the hotel with me.”

By then my tears were flowing. “What about Zisel, my other sister? She’s in New York and has no idea he started that fire.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “Call her long distance. Tell her we’ll take care of her.”

Would he take care of Zisel the same way he had Clarice and Uncle Baron? I had so many questions and things to discover. I’d find out everything, no matter what.

Mr. Roth barked out a final order as I walked out the door. “Mitzi, don’t think about that animal.”

How could I not?

****

We returned to the Casa the next day with the knowledge Nussbaum had killed Uncle Baron. Since he was on the loose, the threat remained. The hotel’s switchboard had attempted to contact Zisel, to no avail. Ida promised to send a telegram, but we were on the telephone to Zisel as soon as we arrived. Tension permeated the living room as we attempted our first coast-to-coast telephone connection. The line crackled with static, the operators failed on the early tries, but after two hours, Leah finally reached Zisel.

“Zisel, it’s me, Leah. What? Hang the expense. I’m calling because we’ve discovered something horrible and I wanted to warn you. Can you believe it? Nussbaum is not really Nussbaum. His name is Jacob Neuberger and he’s a murderer.”

My eldest sister’s scream flew across the wires. Leah winced and moved the receiver away from her ear. “Thank you, Zisel, for making me deaf. Nussbaum started the fire that killed our Baron.”

Zisel’s voice bellowed from the phone again. “My dear sister, if you don’t calm down, I’ll need a hearing aid. What? No! You can’t talk like that. No, no, no, please, Zisel, you can’t.”

Leah turned to Omar. “You won’t believe the oaths coming from Zisel’s lips. She wants to kill Nussbaum.”

Then it was Leah’s turn to scream into the phone. “Stay away from him, Zisel. No, Zisel, no. You can’t deal with it. No, no, no. You won’t buy a gun. Mr. Roth is handling it. Stay away from him. How about a nice vacation? We’ll pay for a ticket. Huh? You’ll come here, of course. No, Zisel, you can’t talk like that. What? Oh. Very well, if you won’t come here, then it will have to be the Catskills. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yes, she’s in the room. I’ll put her on.”

She handed the telephone receiver to me. My hands shook since I’d never spoken coast-to-coast. Leah encouraged me with a nod.

“Hello, Zisel.”

The connection wasn’t the best, but I made out her every word. “Mitzi, please act calm so as not to alarm Leah. I have information on the best authority, namely that fat buttinsky, Mrs. Gorshem. Nussbaum saw one of your movies and talked about you day and night. Nobody’s seen Nussbaum for days. It’s as if the bastard has disappeared from the planet. I’m sure he’s hiding his ugly face in shame. Tell Leah I love you both and not to worry. Goodbye, my darling.”

With that, she hung up.

No one said a word at dinner. I kissed Leah goodnight, then went to my room. I had already hit the hay when I heard Leah tiptoeing out the door. I knew Omar awaited her. He’d found love, and maybe I would too if only Chick would wise up.

I thought of that night in Chick’s room and how he would have kissed me if only that schmo, David Stein, hadn’t stuck his nose in. After tossing and turning, I floated to New York and my last day at Barnard. It had rained overnight, and the floors were sodden with the footprints of a hundred pairs of galoshes. Hundreds of open umbrellas lined up at the entry to Barnard Hall like a grove of monstrous black tulips.

A man came out of the shadows, pulled me into his arms, and held me close. We tangoed in the rain. I looked up into my partner’s face and stared into David Stein’s green eyes. What the heck was wrong with me? I didn’t even know how to tango.

****

When I returned to the Regal lot the next week, folks treated me like a queen. Everyone—grips, extras, and even established actors—waved and smiled at me as if I were somebody.

Kids on the Lam didn’t turn out to be the dark tale of the times David had envisioned. He ignored Breen all right, kept the naked girls and the saucy language, but, at Mr. Roth’s insistence, added music. Chick played the ukulele, I sang, and Buster did a little shuffle. Sure, the songs may have been sappy, but I loved working with Chick. I pretended it was just the two of us and ignored Willy, Buster, an army of grips, and a battery of lighting technicians, set decorators, sound engineers, and everyone else. Sometimes, Chick looked at me as if he wanted to continue our little chat.

“Uh, Chick, were you going to say something?”

He looked around and shrugged. “Nah, baby, this isn’t the time or the place.”

Everything was ducky until a certain blonde floozy showed up on set and plopped her ass in a chair next to the script girl. I refused to let her get my goat because I knew everything would work out. The police would apprehend Mr. Nussbaum, Clarice’s mother would tell me where she buried Uncle Baron, and Chick would realize that he couldn’t live without me.

The final shots went off without a hitch and I thought things were going great until Betty managed to slip away from Jill and snuck into my dressing room after the last shot. “I don’t have much time. Miss Carpenter is having lunch with Mr. Hagan and will be screaming for me soon. I wanted to warn you about her. I know she comes off as a high-hat bitch, but she ain’t as bad a person as you think. Only thing is, she don’t like you because of that Chick fellow. Be careful, miss.” She looked toward the commissary. “I better be on my way.”

With that, she rushed off.

Ida called me to the publicity department the next week. I moved through the massive chamber, past the drone of worker bees, to Ida’s office.

“Mitzi, my little pearl, have you heard the news? You and Chick Hagan are now the uncrowned prince and princess of Regal Pictures. David sat down at a Moviola with one of the negative cutters and whittled out a dandy flick. Adding a couple of songs and a bit of comedy did the trick. The public will flock to it. Look at these. Aren’t they fabulous?”

My publicity stills covered her desk, me in the infamous torn camisole, me posed on a chaise in a ripped slip. Me, draped in a fox stole and nothing else. Me, lounging on a polar bear rug in my scanties. Some would call them tawdry and salacious, but if a girl could look glamorous half-naked, I did.

Everything was aces—that is, until…

Ida placed a motherly arm around my shoulder. “Kid, I have to talk to you. There’s been a bit of unsavory gossip about Chick’s behavior in Carlisle.”

Aha! Someone must have spilled the beans about the “Turkish” cigarettes. Still, marijuana was legal, after all, so there shouldn’t be a problem.

Ida’s demeanor suddenly changed from jolly to grave. “Mitzi, I’ve got to give it to you straight. Chick may be dashing, but he’s not the fellow for you. We can’t have an innocent undone by a rogue.”

Not her too. Was everyone against me being with Chick? She took my hands in hers. “I’m afraid Ben is concerned, Mitzi dear.”

I wanted to run out of the room screaming, Stay out of it. It’s my life!

She continued the lecture. “Ben has taken a fatherly interest in you and doesn’t want to see you compromised in any way.”

“Some father. He didn’t seem concerned about me walking around his studio half naked.” Once again my future with Chick dissolved before my eyes. “Tell Mr. Roth not to worry. Chick would never give me a tumble.”

Ida fiddled with her cigarette holder. “Not according to the grapevine. The guy has expressed, shall we say, an earthy interest in you.”

“He has? Honest?”

Her expression told me that my response didn’t thrill her. “Watch your step, Mitzi. I know you think I’m an old fuddy-duddy and I don’t know a thing about love, but I do. I assure you, you’d rather hear it from me than from Ben.”

“Ida, Mr. Roth doesn’t own me.”

“Oh, yes, he does. You belong to him, body and soul. He’s a benign master, and you could do a lot worse, but remember, you are the property of Regal Pictures.”

Time to take a powder. “I have to go, Ida.”

I had made it halfway out the door when she called out to me. “Mitzi, while you were in Carlisle, a British fellow phoned here from the Hotel Hollywood. He said they found an envelope addressed to a ‘Miss Vanderbilt.’ The guy didn’t know where to locate you until he recognized you from the screen. He assured my secretary you’d be interested.”

****

My heart raced like crazy when I reached the Red Car tracks. A British fellow phoned from the Hotel Hollywood, and I’d discover what old Clyde had found. A trolley heading east toward Hollywood stopped, but before I climbed on board, I heard a horn honking.

“Mitzi, get in.”

David sat behind the wheel of his Cadillac. From the way he scowled at me when I slid next to him, you’d think I’d done something wrong. “Dollface, what are you doing on the streetcar?”

Golly, he could be obtuse. “I always take the streetcar. That’s how I get around.”

He looked at me as if I had three heads. “You have an auto, don’t you?”

Honestly, someone needed to set the guy straight. “Yes, I do. It’s called the Red Car, it’s on a track, and the chauffeur rings the bell, ‘ding, ding.’ I ride it like everybody else in Los Angeles.”

He shook his head. “Well, that won’t do, not for an up-and-comer like you. You need a snappy little roadster that will turn heads. You know how to drive, don’t you?”

David would bring up a sore spot. “Yes, of course I can drive. Well, sort of. I learned on one of those old tin lizzies, the kind you have to crank up. I almost broke my wrist starting the engine. But, if you must know, I haven’t mastered the art of shifting and talking at the same time.”

He snorted. I saw a hint of a smile and didn’t like it. “If you’re going to laugh at me, drop me off at the next corner, please.”

The smile disappeared. “No laughing, I promise. I’d be honored to take you wherever you want to go.”

Since he already knew about Uncle Baron, I gave him the lowdown on our way to Hollywood Boulevard. “Well, I’m heading to the Hotel Hollywood. Uncle Baron once lived there. When Leah and I first came to Los Angeles, I went there looking for information.”

“I’m impressed, Miss Schector. In addition to being a great singer, musician, and actress, you’re also a regular Nancy Drew.”

He may have been able to talk and drive at the same time, a real talent as far as I was concerned, but I found his Nancy Drew analogy exasperating. “Thank you for comparing me to a girl sleuth in a children’s book, Mr. Stein. It might interest you to know I’ve read all of Conan Doyle, and I know a thing or two about deductive reasoning.”

Not even a flicker of a smile from him, so I continued talking.

“I went to the hotel and met an old fellow who’d worked there since Moses wore short pants. He knew Uncle Baron and had even met Pops. The old guy said the previous owner had hidden some papers before she passed away, and he knew where they were. Then he phoned to say I’d be interested in something he dug up, only—”

He turned onto Hollywood Boulevard, and the Chinese Theater loomed in the distance. “Only what? What, Mitzi?”

Just thinking about Clyde made me want to start bawling. “He was a sick old bird and kicked the bucket before he could give me whatever he’d found. I thought I’d lost everything forever, but now it seems I haven’t.”

We were fast approaching the hotel, and I remembered my disguise. “There’s something else, and it’s very important. If the desk clerk calls me Miss Vanderbilt, don’t blink an eye. I was incognito.”

The fink started laughing. I chose to ignore him.

****

David and I entered the lobby just as the string quartet ripped into “The Blue Danube Waltz.” Two little girls, graceful in organdy summer dresses, danced together. The English desk clerk stood at the front desk, and his face lit up the moment I walked up to him.

“Miss Charles, how wonderful to see you again!”

How fascinating that a modicum of fame had changed his tune. He nearly swooned when we got to the desk. He was still oily, but now he behaved like a fawning toady.

“Miss Charles, or should I say, Miss Vanderbilt? From the moment you walked in that day, I knew you were a young lady of breeding.”

He looked up at David and simpered, “And this young gentleman is?”

David smiled, extended his hand, and spoke like a real New York aristocrat. “I’m Miss Vanderbilt’s fiancée. The name’s Rockefeller.”

The desk clerk pumped David’s hand so enthusiastically I feared he’d break it.

“Mr. Rockefeller, I am so honored, sir!”

He handed me a large envelope with “Miss Vanderbilt” scrawled on it, and then slid an embossed leather book toward us. “I wonder if you both would be good enough to sign my autograph album.”

David and I had great fun playing two goy swells to the hilt. Smiles frozen on our faces, we posed for photographs with the staff. Once we got back to David’s motorcar, however, my hands shook so violently that I couldn’t open the envelope. I handed it to him.

“I can’t. Please, David, tell me what’s in it.”

He tore it open, pulled out an official-looking document, and I watched as he read it. Minutes went by before he slumped against the running board. “Wow. You have to take a gander at this.” David shoved the certificate into my hands.

I’m sure my jaw dropped to the garage floor, but somehow I managed to speak. “It says Clarice Dumont, age nineteen, married Baron Meyer Schector, age nineteen, on the tenth of April 1923. Ben and Samuel Roth were witnesses. Clarice Dumont was my aunt?”

“Yes.”

He opened the Caddie’s door, and I slipped in next to him. He didn’t fire up the engine right away.

“I could use your help, David.”

The crumb feigned surprise. “You want my help? Will wonders never cease?”

“Sarcasm is unnecessary and quite unbecoming, Mr. Stein. You can be difficult, but you’re a man of the world and you know about these things. Ida took us to the cemetery where they buried Clarice. Her mother brings flowers to her grave on the twenty-fifth of every month, maybe because Clarice died on April twenty-fifth. I want to talk to her. Would you come with me when I do? Carlotta Dumont might have been a witch and Nussbaum’s pal, but I’ve got to find out what happened to my uncle’s body.”

He shook his head. “Mitzi, I don’t know, a woman like that probably wouldn’t talk.”

“But maybe she’d listen if I told her how much my family has suffered all these years. My bubbe died grieving over Uncle Baron’s death. Pops went to his grave wondering where his brother’s final resting place was. If I begged her on bended knee, don’t you think she might tell me where he’s buried?”

I couldn’t keep the tears away and bawled like a baby. David pulled out a fancy monogrammed handkerchief and wiped my eyes. At that moment, I knew the Icebox had died.

“Doll, if you ask her like that, she can’t turn you away. It would be my honor to come with you. Do we have a date for next month, Mitzi?”

Maybe he could be a cold fish, but I knew he was a man of his word.

“Yes, only don’t tell Leah. She’ll worry if she knows. Promise you won’t.”

“I promise, baby, cross my heart and hope to die.”

Just hearing him say the words made me feel a million times better.

“Thank you for all you did today, David. Well, I guess we should go home now.” For once, he’d been a brick, and I had to make it up to him. “Say, if you don’t have plans for this evening, maybe you’d like to break bread with us. Leah is always happy to see you and so is Omar. If we’re lucky, he might play his saxophone. He used to play in a jazz band.”

He looked me square in the face. “What about you? Would you be happy to see me too?”

“I invited you, didn’t I?”

For the first time I noticed the golden flecks in his eyes. David Stein was one handsome fellow.