Hollywood and LeVine

P R O L O G U E

The postwar years were great for private detectives. Never better, before or since. You would not believe how many soldiers contacted shamuses, strictly on the q.t., to find out what their little women had been doing to keep busy during the big war. The saloons of New York were packed with GIs day and night, big shots for a year, telling watery-eyed Paddy how the French girls had frenched them, the German girls had blitzed them, and the English girls had squeezed out their tea bags. Then they would leave the saloons and call up guys like me, suddenly fearful that their wives and fiancées, like they, had used the war to sample some of the local talent.

I charged twenty-five bucks to run a check and could have gotten double that, that’s how desperate these guys were, how hungry for reassurance. And reassurance is what they generally got. Keep this under your hat, but half the time I didn’t actually investigate. What for? Either the marriage held up or it didn’t. Why cripple the guy’s ego and sense of well-being? He had problems enough readjusting to the States. And what is infidelity in such a situation? Frankie is overseas, his picture is on the bureau, and Millie pines away, looking at the clock and wondering what time it is in Bastogne. Is Frankie getting the hotfoot from the Nazis or maybe the Lucky Pierre from a couple of local milkmaids? And it’s Christmas Eve and the doorbell rings and who’s there but Jerry, Frankie’s 4-F pal from the old neighborhood, standing in the doorway with a friendly smile, a fresh haircut, and a bottle of scotch wrapped up bright and ribbony for the holidays. His coat smells fresh and cold from the outside and he’s such a good friend. So they talk about things—hear from Frankie?—and pretty soon come the tears and more scotch and then comforting hugs, leading to some tentative then ferocious, leg-twisting necking, and finally a round of miserable sex. More tears, the evening ends, and Millie has been, at least officially, unfaithful. But if that’s infidelity then I’m Dana Andrews.

I’m not. I’m Jack LeVine, a private dick with the wise and forgiving heart of a Talmudic sage. So when the war ends and Frankie calls up, asking me to check on Millie and please don’t tell anyone, I do absolutely nothing. Two days later I call him back and tell him that Millie is a girl to be proud of. Welcome home, soldier, job well done, your wife’s twat is cobwebbed with disuse. Nobody’s hurt, everybody breathes easier, sleeps better, and steps livelier, and I’ve made another easy twenty-five.

By 1947, however, the soldiers were working out their own problems and my bank account was shrinking back to normal. I dug into my wall safe one afternoon and came out with a fistful of dust, rusting paper clips, and small American and Canadian change. The party was over and it wasn’t any fun because it looked to me like the rest of New York was dancing cheek to cheek and tipping the maestro to play another. For reasons intimately connected to life, death, and feelings of immortality occasioned by the simple act of walking unaided off a troop ship, a binge was in progress. Everything was crowds, lines, and short-ages, yet people continued to choke the streets, looking for ways to spend their money. New York being what it is, they were not disappointed.

Day life, night life, morning life, whatever; all were marked by crowds straining against barricades. The monkeys who held the red velvet ropes at the Copa and Latin Quarter were making more money than Truman; getting a decent table required signing over your house, life insurance, and matched luggage. Good and bad restaurants were filled and smoky all the time and you couldn’t get near the Stadium no matter who the Yankees were playing.

Apartments were not to be found anywhere, but if you managed to spot one, it meant stuffing the superintendent’s pockets with gold bullion and treasury notes just to get a look-see. I know people who bought the early editions, scanned the obituaries, and then hailed cabs directly to the deceased’s apartment building. Before the relatives had even found a comfortable place to sit shiva, strangers were wandering through the rooms and poking around in closets. It was gruesome, it was terrible, yet even the mourners understood. Life was transitory, but apartments were forever; the fortresses that bordered Central Park and West End and Park avenues were built for a thousand years.

The apartment shortage was like a lot of shortages rolled into one. There was a shortage of roots, a shortage of stability, a shortage of knowing what the hell to do with your life. All the drinking and shouting and pushing your way into the Stork Club didn’t fool LeVine: the end of the war wasn’t a relief, it was a big goddamn letdown. After the soldiers combed the confetti out of their hair, they sat down and commenced to brood. People had no time for heroes after the first couple of months of parades and Sunday spreads. But the heroes had time by the clock-load. They were unprepared for this peace, for its lack of majesty. Face it, working and riding the subways were just nothing at all after chasing Hitler and Tojo around the world, after liberating villages in flower-strewn jeeps. With the enemy vanquished, what was left to give purpose to a life? The GIs became displaced persons.

So crowded taxis headed for crowded bars and the GIs stood six deep around the rail and told lies to each other. Sometimes I listened. They were confused, they had schemes, they were optimists, they were hurt. They had seen too many dead and reeking bodies to ever really become civilians again. Their notions of making a living were grandiose and laced with get-rich-quick; their speech was filled with remembered pain and booze-soaked visions of the future as a perfect, glistening soap bubble.

It was pretty innocent thinking, but it looks good to me now. At least the war was over and it had been won. I can’t think, offhand, of what we’ve won since. And that time, right after the war, was the last really optimistic period for a good long while. In February of 1947, my fondness for that period and its eccentricities came to an end. It went all sour and wrong for me.

Enter Walter Adrian, screenwriter.

1

Walter Adrian had been nominated for Academy Awards in 1937 and 1942, for two pictures you’ve probably heard of—Three-Star Extra and Beloved Heart. The first of the two was a funny and noisy film about an ace reporter busting open a crime ring and getting himself a fat raise and a paid vacation. There was a lot of shooting and fast cars and dumb cops: my kind of picture. Beloved Heart was about a beautiful young school teacher dying of a dread and nameless disease, the kind that manifests itself in very white skin and very long speeches. I saw it at the Roxy, amid so much sobbing I thought I had wandered into a funeral, a funeral that had been unaccountably preceded by a stage show. I hated the picture, hated Walter for writing it, and hated myself for paying to see it. It treated death like something you see in an Easter egg and death isn’t like that; it’s nasty and inconvenient and enormous.

Anyhow, Walter had gotten the nominations but not the actual Oscars. He didn’t really deserve to. His other distinction was that he had been my classmate and friend at the City College of New York, and unlike myself, had gone on to graduate. He became a newspaper reporter and then a scenario writer. I became a guy who lived in Sunnyside, Queens. And now, in 1947, on Valentine’s Day, we hooked up professionally because Walter Adrian thought he was being followed.

It had been years since Adrian and I had last spoken. There was no rift, nothing that dramatic, just the inevitable drifting apart of friends living completely different kinds of lives. I left school in 1927 and Walter got his diploma in ’28. He worked for the Daily News for four years, during which time we frequently had lunch at the Old Seidelburg, on Third Avenue, a newsman’s hangout. In 1932, he sold a story to Paramount Pictures and took a train out West to see what Hollywood was all about. He saw and never took the train back. We corresponded irregularly, then not at all. In 1940, I ran into Adrian on Fifth Avenue. He was wearing a camel’s-hair coat and a tweed cap, looking well-barbered and content and every inch the successful young writer. The woman he was with wasn’t half-bad either, but I don’t think she was in the literary line. Adrian had hugged me and pounded my back; he asked for my number and said we’d have to get together soon, to down some dark beer and talk about the old days.

Seven years later we got together. It was late afternoon of Valentine’s Day and I sat in my Broadway office typing a dreary report on the tailing of an Argentinian importer named Carlos Teitelbaum. I heard the outer office door open and close and looked up to see Adrian standing uncertainly in the reception area, holding a gray fedora in his hands.

Jack? he said tentatively. Then he grinned. Hey, Baldy.

Well, Walter of Hollywood, I called out. Come in, take a number.

Adrian walked shyly into the inner office and I rose to greet him. He didn’t pound my back this time, just shook my hand and sank wearily into the overstuffed chair that faces my desk. He looked pretty awful. His thin, angular face was drawn and gray, the blue eyes had gone glassy, his slightly oversized mouth was slack and glum. Walter was wearing his black hair long; it curled around his ears and reached his shirt collar. He caught me looking and smoothed the hair back with his hands.

Don’t say it. I look lousy.

You look lousy. How come?

He shrugged. Events. You haven’t changed a bit though, Jack. Honestly, you’re looking wonderful. When did we last see each other, before the war?

1940. On Fifth Avenue, in front of Saks. It was Christmas and you had a bunch of packages, including a blond one. Very nice, I remember.

Adrian didn’t. 1940? It came to him. "Oh, her. He smiled to himself, well-satisfied. A starlet."

I figured.

It was after my first marriage. I’m married again, you know. To an incredible girl, Helen. She’s almost ten years younger than I am, thirty-one, but so much wiser. Talking about her brought some color back to his face. Weren’t you married when I saw you?

Kind of. But no more.

What happened?

I didn’t feel like telling him, or hearing it myself. Being married to a private dick is no fun; it’s dangerous and the money stinks. It starts with bickering, then it gets worse than that.

Events, I said.

Okay. Just curious.

It’s not all that interesting. Your basic falling-apart. Coffee?

He said he’d love some, then lit up some kind of foreign cigarette with an aroma akin to what you might get off a weight lifter’s jockstrap. He puffed on it and yawned. I poured out two cups of Java, handed him his, and drew a Lucky out of my shirt pocket. We sipped and puffed in silence, as if paying our respects to the memory of our friendship. It was a strained moment: we really didn’t know each other anymore.

Walter must have been thinking the same thing.

Long time, huh, Jack?

Long time, Walter. I stared out my window, across the airshaft. The clerks at Fidelity Insurance stood at the files, eyes on the clock, winding down another day of pointless employment. I spun back around in my chair.

You going to tell me what the problem is, Walter, or am I supposed to tease it out of you?

Adrian blinked and looked annoyed, not at me, I think, but at the fact that he had a problem at all. He leaned forward and tapped his cigarette into an ashtray I had stolen from El Morocco.

I’m being followed, Jack. All over New York. He raised his head from the ashtray. What do you make of that?

A pair of socks. What do you mean, what I do make of it? Nothing. I’ve got to have a little background. The pertinent questions are for how long, why, and by whom?

Adrian sat back in the chair and shook his head. I wish I could answer you, Jack. Who and why I draw a complete blank on; how long is about four days.

When did you get into town?

A week ago. He remembered his etiquette. I meant to call you, Jack, socially. For dinner …

I held up my hand.

Spare me, Walter. This is a business call.

Business—friendship. I came to you because you know me and I know you. We can level with each other. We can trust each other.

Check. We’re both great guys. Why are you in New York?

He crossed his legs; the right one started jiggling. "I wrote a play, Destiny’s Stepson. He smiled before I could say a word. I know the title stinks, but it’s a good play. Returning soldier confronts family. Obviously, I want to get it produced here. I’ve been meeting with some money men. So far, no dice."

No dice? For a hotshot screenwriter? That’s hard to believe.

It’s not so unusual. Theater people in the East look down on screenwriters. They resent the kind of money we make and take it out on us professionally. They claim we can’t write seriously, that we’ve been compromised forever.

And that’s why you can’t find a backer for your play?

Adrian shifted in his seat, looking glum. It’s the only reason that makes any sense to me, he said, knitting his fingers together.

How about some reasons that don’t make any sense, I said. You got any of those?

No. It was a cold and final no, the kind that generally precedes trespassing.

Fair enough, I told Adrian. The hell with it, there was no sense pushing him. What do you want from me?

Find out why I’m being followed.

You don’t have a clue?

None whatsoever, he said flatly.

Ex-wife, anything like that? Think hard, Walter. I’m not trying to be nosey, it’s just that a tail can have its source in something you might think trivial or forgotten.

He pretended to think about it, then shook his head vigorously.

Nope, Jack. As for my ex-wife, she got alimony, and plenty of it, for three years. Then she remarried. No reason for her to have any interest in my affairs.

I beat out a little Krupa time on the top of my desk. Adrian was as communicative as a toilet seat, but I didn’t think he was holding out on me for any malicious reason. That’s what bothered me: it’s the ones with good intentions who get you pushed off the tops of buildings.

What you’re basically asking from me, then, is to tail the guy who’s tailing you, find out who’s paying him, and why.

That sounds about right, Walter said vaguely. He was thinking about something else as he said it, then stood up abruptly. You busy tonight, Jack?

No.

How about dinner at Lindy’s, six-thirty? I just want to get back to the hotel and take a shower. His eyes were pleading for a yes so I gave it to him.

Six-thirty it is.

I walked Adrian to the door. He opened it and suddenly gripped my upper arm.

Jack, if I made a big mistake, would you still go to bat for me?

Depends on the mistake and on the bat.

He smiled and his eyes relaxed. For the first time since he had arrived, Adrian was in the same room with me.

I knew you would, he said, and left.

I went back to my desk and stuck my feet up on the windowsill. The clerks at Fidelity were getting their coats and lining up at the time clock. I felt a familiar pang and wished for nothing more complicated than to punch out with them and ride the subway home to the wife, kids, and leaping pooch. Dinner, the sports pages, radio, yell at the kids a little, and bed down with my gentle and obliging missus. Not big demands, just impossible ones.

I watched the clerks file out and wondered about the possible dimensions of Walter Adrian’s mistake, pretty sure that I was getting into another ungodly mess.

Adrian had gotten there ahead of me and was waiting in front of Lindy’s, taller than most of the people who swept past him into the restaurant. It was a surprising night for February, mild and wet and gusty; the screenwriter’s hair was blowing about wildly and he stood tightly wrapped in his raincoat like a ship’s captain in an epic storm.

Why didn’t you wait inside? I asked him.

Adrian just shrugged and we pushed through the revolving doors into the brightly lit interior. Lindy’s was a famous hangout for show business types, gamblers, and dress manufacturers who thought they fit into the first two categories. The cheesecake was legendary, but I did not really like Lindy’s at all; it was full of comedians, professional and amateur, who belittled each other and pretended it was done out of affection. The camaraderie and warmth was as genuine as an electric hearth.

We got a booth near the back and ordered a couple of drinks. Adrian looked better, having shaved, changed, and freshened up.

Where did you leave him? I asked.

Leave who?

The tail.

Our drinks arrived. The fat gray-haired waiter wanted to know if we were ready to order. When we said no, he grunted and walked away.

We clinked glasses.

To old friendship renewed, said Adrian, his eyes glittering. He seemed very happy.

To crime, I replied, delicately sipping my iced bourbon. The tail, Walter, where did you leave him?

There isn’t any tail, Jack. I made that up before.

He opened up his menu and studied it.

No tail, I said quietly, as if to confirm it. I was surprised and not surprised. You want to explain why you told me you were being followed, Walter?

Adrian wouldn’t lift his eyes from the menu.

Don’t be angry, Jack. I do need your help. He finally looked up. But I couldn’t just come in off the street and spill. I had to see how I felt with you, had to chat and get comfortable. Trust is very important in something like this.

Like what?

"Like what I need you for. When you asked what the problem was, I said the first thing that sounded plausible. Being followed sprang to mind. I used it in Murder Street. He smiled. Fooled you."

That’s not so hard.

The waiter returned and wouldn’t leave until we ordered. Walter and I both opted for the brisket. The waiter tore the menus from our hands and departed.

"Okay, Walter, for real