Die A Little Part 17

"I'm sorry," I say, because suddenly, forcefully I believe him. Something raw in his eyes amid all the polish and flash. Something I've never seen before.

"Now," he says, reaching for the bottle he'd set on the coffee table and pouring us both another drink. "Isn't it time you told me what's going on?"

I pause for a moment, but there he is, there he is. And I do it. I tell him what I know about Alice and Lois, and then I tell him about going to get Lois at the Rest E-Z Motel. And then I tell him about Edie Beauvais and Joe Avalon, and about seeing the articles in the paper and, last, about seeing Lois's body in the morgue. I tell him many things, but not everything. Without thinking, I instinctively leave out anything about what I have done and said to keep Bill's name as far out of it as possible.

Mike listens to it all, smoking a new cigarette and not speaking. When I finish, he leans forward, squinting through the billow in front of him.

"Is that everything?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"There are some things I can help you with. Some things I can tell you."

"I thought maybe."

"So why didn't you talk to me before?"

"I didn't trust you." There is no kind way to say it. And I am through with being kind.

He looks at me. "But you do now?"

"I'm not sure how much of it is trust and how much is desperation," I say, truthfully.

"n.o.body ever is," he says, stubbing out his cigarette. "Joe Avalon, that fellow, he hustles women for people in the business. I guess you figured that out. I've seen him before. In my line, he's one of the numbers you call. Some of these guys can be counted on more than others. Some end up in the blackmail business."

"Is he one of them?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Sure, I wouldn't put it past him. But I can't be positive."

"Did you know he knew Lois?"

"No."

"What else do you know about him?"

"He worked for Walter Schor a lot."

"I know." I tell him about seeing Joe Avalon coming from meeting a Mr. Schor at the studio. "Who is Schor exactly?"

"A big gun. Very high up at the studio. Avalon must be doing well for himself. He gets to skip the go-betweens. Like me," he adds. "But you can't be surprised by any of this."

"No. Is that all you can tell me? Do you think Lois worked for Joe Avalon?"

Mike rubs his eyes and pauses. Then, "Of course."

"Do you think Alice worked for Joe Avalon?"

He pauses again, eyeing me. "Of course."

I feel my torso lift suddenly, as if in shock, but I am too numb to feel shock. "Why ..."

"How else would she know a guy like that? Even if she also bought drugs from him, I'd be surprised if she hadn't worked for him at one time."

"Bought drugs?"

"He sells dope, too. They all do. Or at least he's a middleman. Don't you think he's the one who was so good at keeping Lois half bent?"

"I see," I say. "And Alice?"

"Alice used to take bennies-Benzedrine-when she worked at the studio. All kinds of pep pills. A lot of them do. I don't know if she still does."

I think about Alice, about her manic hostessing, her frenzied housework, her rabid energy, and her occasionally surging speech. And I think about her days in bed with "migraines," her disappearances from school, the thin enamel of sweat that often gleamed off her body.

"And what did Alice do for him?"

"What do you think?" He rakes a hand through his immaculate hair. "She found girls. She found all the girls, Lora. I saw her do it. She knew them all, the Girl with the Tape. She met them that way. Word was she'd pick out the ones she thought would sell. Is that what you want?"

An image flashes before my eyes: Alice on her knees, pins in her mouth, measuring Lois for her Indian Girl costume. I swallow hard and push forward. "What else?"

"Let's stop here for now." He straightens his tie and jacket. "I'll tell you a few more things on the way."

"On the way?"

"We're going to the studio."

"Why?"

"It may not be as exciting as tailing people, but old-fas.h.i.+oned bureaucratic files can do a lot of talking."

As we drive, my mind swirling, Mike talks.

"She'd call me and want to meet for lunch, and then she'd ask me if we'd slept together and what it was like, what I did and what you did. Did you know that?"

"What did you say?"

"I generally don't kiss and tell, but that rule doesn't usually apply to telling women, or women like Alice. But somehow I couldn't tell her. Somehow ... I just didn't," he says, then laughs. "Maybe some kind of press agent instinct."

"What did she want to know?"

"Everything. And she'd want to know if you would feel bad about what you'd done. And she'd want to know if you ever liked it to hurt, liked it rough, you know?"

"What did you tell her?"

He looks over at me with his lazy smile. "I lied. But I don't think she believed me."

"No," I say, feeling my face turn hot. "I guess I wouldn't either."

He grabs my hand lightly, fingertips touching my palm. It is so genuine a gesture that it startles me. I resist both the urge to pull my hand away and the urge to seize his tightly.

"D-d-does"-my mouth inexplicably tripping me up-"does my brother know about you and Alice? Your history?"

"Oh, G.o.d, no. I'm sure he doesn't. She is nothing if not careful about what your brother knows."

"I suppose that's right."

The warren of offices has an eerie silver chill at night. The sound of our shoes seems unbearably loud. Even though know I Mike is allowed to be here-this is his work, after all-I can't get past the feeling we are trespa.s.sing. I speak barely above a hush.

"You don't need to whisper yet." Mike smirks. "We're still in legit territory."

We pa.s.s through several winding corridors without seeing a soul.

"Some people are around, but not in this building. They'd be over on the soundstages-or else the writers in their building across the street. I doubt we'll see anyone."

I follow Mike into a suite of offices. SECURITY is etched in gla.s.s on the first door. We move through an outer office and up to a door marked WARREN DIXON, CHIEF OF SECURITY.

Mike reaches into his pocket and pulls out a sterling key ring.

"You have a key to his office?"

He smiles again. "It's my job, King. When that barrel-chested all-American box office champ gets caught pants around his ankles in the back room of Cafe Zombie, sharing a needle with a twelve-yearold hustler, I need to be able to fix it fast."

He unlocks the office door and pushes it open before me. "And this is the place to start."

I walk in, my feet sinking into carpet as thick as a sponge. "Here?"

He breezes past me and moves to the other side of the dim office, illuminated by large set lights across the street. As I follow, he raps his fingers on a paneled door. "Files. Secrets enough to bury an industry."

"You don't have to impress me," I say. "And if you're allowed in here, why can't we turn on the lights?"

"No need to draw extra attention." He grins, opening the door.

I was expecting a closet, but it is a large windowless room, twice as big as the office that led into it, filled with filing cabinets with mahogany fronts.

Before my eyes can adjust to the bright lights, Mike is opening a long drawer marked "Personnel-Costume-1950-52."

"I think she moved here from Universal in 'fifty-one," he says, his fingers dancing along the colored tabs.

"And there she is." He whistles, pulling out what strikes me as a disproportionately large folder marked "Steele, Alice."

As if reading my mind, Mike says, "She worked here for, what, just two years and her file is bigger than Joan Crawford's."

"May I see?" I say, tiptoeing over his arm.

"Yeah, yeah," he mutters, paging through furiously. "Just let me pull out the relevant stuff. There's a lot of administrative material we don't want to waste our time with."

"Maybe I should decide that," I say.

He stops for a second and looks at me, raising an eyebrow. "Still don't trust me, eh?"

"I trust you enough," I say.

"Enough for some things."

"Well, fasten your eyes on this." He hands me a doc.u.ment bearing the black stamp PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL. "If I got caught showing you this, I'd be on a plane back to Connecticut. That's trust, King."

It holds a copy of a police report. Alice P. Steele, 9/14/52. Suspect was arrested outside the Black Flamingo nightclub.

Pandering. Solicitation. Public drunkenness. Suspected narcotics use. a.s.saulting an officer.

"But she was never formally charged? She'd have been fired."

"She must have had friends in high places. Friends within these walls. We may take care of the talent, but costume girls don't normally rate such treatment."

"Joe Avalon and his ... clients?"

"You got it." He pulls out another doc.u.ment. "Didn't you say Alice graduated from someplace in Van Nuys?"

I remember my conversation with Princ.i.p.al Evans. "Well, that's what she said."

"According to her personnel papers, she never graduated high school."

"I guess I knew that was a lie," I say.

"A reprimand."

"Pardon?"

"This memo shows that her bosses in Costume reprimanded her for what they call 'improper conduct and questionable behavior.' I'd have to talk to Costume to find out what that was about. Could be anything from tardiness to giving head to the grips-" He stops himself and smiles at me. "Pardon me."

I pull out a cache of paper from behind the memo. Paging through, I can't find anything relating to Joe Avalon/John Davalos, Walter Schor, or Lois Slattery.

"Would Lois have a file?"

Mike returns Alice's to the drawer and walks over to a set of cabinets ent.i.tled "Extras."

"No ...," he says, shuffling through the folders.

"Try Linda Tattersal."

"Bingo."

The folder is slim. It has only a carbon copy of basic personnel information.

"The police probably took the rest," I realize.

Mike looks at me briefly, then looks back down at the form. "Not much here." I look at the form.

"Five five one seven oh six Manchester."