Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Lena couldn’t concentrate all the next day. By midmorning, she was disoriented and the three cups of coffee she’d had only made her shaky.
“What about the jumpsuit?” Connie asked. They were in Lena’s office, going through Lena’s notes for Moon Crazy .
Lena said blankly, “The jumpsuit?”
“For the wolf scene at the zoo.”
Lena struggled to remember. She flipped the pages of the script in her hand. “What page is that?”
Connie frowned. “What’s wrong with you today? Your head isn’t in this. I hardly ever see you so distracted.”
“Oh, nothing.” Lena reached for her cigarettes. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Too worried?”
For a moment Lena thought Connie had somehow seen into her mind and knew about Julia’s reappearance, and she struggled to reconcile her confusion with the fact that Connie could not possibly know, and in her pause, Connie gently prodded, “About Paul and the new script changes that came in this morning?”
Lena had hardly noted the changes. She lit her cigarette and looked at her watch. She had barely fifteen minutes before she had to go meet Julia, and she still hadn’t figured out how to explain this impromptu appointment to Connie, but now was the time.
“Would you mind going through those and making a list of the changes?” she asked. “I’ve got a meeting at noon and I won’t have time. I’ve got to meet with Runyon tomorrow morning with sketches.”
“You don’t have a meeting at noon.”
“Very sudden. Just came up last night.”
“You remember you have a fitting with Claudia Mazur at four?”
Lena didn’t remember, but she nodded. “I’ll be back for it.”
“Remember, Lena, she specifically asked for you. She won’t be happy if I have to handle it.”
“I’ll be back.” Lena dragged on the cigarette, but it did nothing to calm her spate of uneasiness at the thought of actually going to this meeting with Julia.
“Lena, I don’t see how you have time—”
“I won’t miss it,” Lena said firmly. “I know. I know. Believe me. I still have to do the sketches for Medusa , and I won’t forget Claudia. I’ll be back in time.” She grabbed her purse and gave Connie as reassuring a smile as she could manage. “We’ll continue with Moon Crazy when I get back, and if you could have that list of Medusa changes for me, I would appreciate it. I’ll be here by two—I promise!”
Connie waved her off, but she didn’t look happy about it, nor reassured by Lena’s promises. But Lena would make it up to her later. Maybe she’d stop by Greenblatt’s and pick up some of those hamantaschen Connie liked. Or maybe just get her a piece of chocolate cake from Clifton’s.
The traffic made it take forever to get to the restaurant, but when Lena finally pulled up before the monstrosity of the vine-and-palm-tree-embellished exterior of Clifton’s South Seas cafeteria— Pay what you wish, Visitors Welcome —she wished she were still driving. She felt more apprehensive than ever.
Clifton’s was always crowded, and she understood why Julia had chosen it. In the noise of the cafeteria lines and the waterfall and the talk, and the lushness of its ridiculous decor of swaying fake palm trees and tiki huts and torches, they would go unnoticed.
She looked around, but didn’t see a lone woman sitting anywhere, and so Lena took a white-clothed table near a palm ringed with lights just off a thatched hut and tried to keep from staring at the entrance. The restaurant was loud with talk and the gushing water of its twelve waterfalls, the sound of which ricocheted off the volcanic rock walls and grottoes. The cafeteria line was long, as always, people swarming the carving station, the hot meals of fried chicken and fish, meatloaf, sides, desserts, bread, Jell-O, puddings, cakes, pies ... the mingled food scents mixed with the mist of the waterfalls and the perfumes and cigarette smoke of the patrons, creating a warm and heavy atmosphere set to the tune of organ music.
She didn’t see Julia in the line for food either. Lena’s tension ratcheted. She lit a cigarette and tried to look self-possessed when she felt anything but.
Twelve fifteen, and still no Julia. Twelve twenty. The busboys began to look at her strangely, and Lena grew annoyed. It felt like Termini Station all over again, that endless wait, the growing worry and irritation, the doors closing on the Venice train.
One of the hosts approached her. “Excuse me, ma’am, are you waiting for someone, or—?”
“Yes, I am,” she snapped. “They’re late.”
The man smiled and retreated, but continued watching her. Twelve thirty and no Julia. By twelve forty, Lena ran out of patience. She wasn’t hungry and she was done waiting. Danger or no danger, Paul or no Paul, she had no intention of sitting there all day. She picked up her purse and left, saying to the host as she walked out, “She must have been delayed.”
“Have a good afternoon, ma’am.”
The day was too hot, and her nerves were shot and she was beyond annoyed when she reached her car. She opened the door and got inside, rolling down the window and cursing in a long, slow grind of invective, and then she heard the click of the passenger door. When she turned, there was Julia, sliding in with a smile and a “Hello, Lena,” as if this had been the plan all along. She wore a blue linen dress with a white pleated yoke and bright pink lipstick. “I’m sorry for making you wait. I wanted to make sure no one was following you.”
“They are,” Lena said. “I suppose you have an idea who they might be?”
Julia threw her a glance. “Don’t you? I think you should drive.”
“Drive where?”
“Is Paul at home?”
Now Lena was alarmed. “You know his name?”
“I’ve been watching you for days and days, Lena. That picture of you two in the newspaper? I know everything about you. My, what you’ve made of yourself! You did even better than I imagined.”
Lena frowned. “You’ve been watching me?”
Julia exhaled heavily. “I’m not the only one. Go to his place at the Chateau. We need someplace to talk where no one will see.”
“I can’t put him in danger, Julia.”
“He’s already involved.” Julia looked out the rear window. “You should hurry, before they find us.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
Julia’s soft mouth tightened. “Just drive, Lena.”
Lena did, distracted by Julia’s constant watch out the back window. Julia said nothing more, and her obvious worry filled the space between them until Lena was seized by it too. She couldn’t keep from glancing at Julia, from trying again to define the difference in her friend. When they finally pulled up to the Chateau Marmont, it was a relief to hand the keys to the valet—George, who had seen her there many times before and had a ready smile.
“Mr. Carbone is out, Miss Taylor,” he informed her.
“I’ve just come to pick something up for him,” she said. “I won’t be long, so ...”
He nodded. Julia had already gone inside. She waited by the elevator as Lena went the few steps through the small, shabby lobby to the compact, old-fashioned front desk, where Corinne bustled about. She was middle aged and delightful, and she smiled when she saw Lena.
“Good afternoon, Miss Taylor! A beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“It is. How are you, Corinne?”
“Never better. How can I help you?”
“Paul asked me to pick up something for him—he said you’d give me the key?” Lena didn’t expect it to be a problem; still, she was relieved when Corinne did not question it. Everyone here knew by now of Lena and Paul’s engagement.
“Of course.” Corinne turned to retrieve the key and handed it over the narrow counter. “Just bring it back when you’re done.”
Lena smiled, though she felt like doing anything but, and met Julia at the elevator. Once they were inside, Julia said, “That was easy.”
“I’m here fairly often.”
“How bohemian of you.”
“We are engaged,” Lena said shortly.
The elevator door opened at Paul’s floor. Lena went down the hall to his room and unlocked the door, feeling strangely disrespectful as she did so. She’d been here alone before, but it felt different bringing Julia here, a sullying of a sacred space that belonged just to her and Paul. She didn’t like it. She wished she hadn’t done it.
But it was too late now. She watched the way Julia took in the room, her dispassionate gaze that was also somehow judgmental, though Lena couldn’t decide what Julia was judging—the eclecticism? The shabbiness? Lena bit back the impulse to explain that these were the very things that drew artists to the Chateau. It was eccentric. It was discreet. At a time when what you were or what you thought or who you loved could get you banned or exiled or jailed, the Chateau Marmont did not judge. It welcomed anyone.
Lena put down her purse and took off her gloves. Julia moved to the windows. She looked out, made a sound of satisfaction, then closed the curtains, closing out the bright light, closing them in darkness.
Lena switched on a lamp. “Why are we here, Julia? Why did you want to meet with me? What happened that day at the station? Where have you been all this time?”
“Those are many different questions.” Julia pulled off her own gloves and sat. She licked her lips nervously. “Have you something to drink?”
“Coffee? Water?”
“Vodka?”
“At noon?”
Julia looked at her watch. “It’s after one.”
“I have gin.” Lena went to the tiny kitchen and pulled out the gin and vermouth to make Julia a martini.
“You’d better make yourself one too,” Julia advised.
“Am I going to need it?” Lena asked.
A small laugh. “Oh, I think so.”
Lena didn’t like the sound of that, but she didn’t like much about this Julia, who seemed so much the same and yet so different. And it wasn’t that it was a vast difference so much as it seemed to exist at Julia’s very core. That confidence edged by something Lena couldn’t name, and that cynicism—was that what it was? The gauntness, the scar ... Where had that scar come from? But mostly it was Julia’s eyes, which were haunted—yes, that was the word Lena had been searching for. Haunted.
But she did as Julia suggested. She made herself a martini, too, but slowly, delaying. When she finally sat on the couch across from Julia, the room had already changed in tone and scope, it was no longer her refuge with Paul, but touched with an apprehension Lena knew it would be touched with forever, and God, she wished she hadn’t brought Julia there.
Julia took a drink. “Where to start?”
“Maybe with where you’ve been?”
“I don’t want to start there.” Julia met Lena’s gaze, and hers was so frank and pained that it took Lena aback. “But I suppose I will, because it will help you to understand. I’ve been in prison.”
Of all the things she could have said, it was the last thing Lena would have expected. “Prison? Where?”
Julia ignored that. “Tell me something. That day we were going to leave for Venice—did you talk to anyone that day?”
Lena frowned. “Anyone? Like who?”
“Like CIA men? Asking you questions that you were stupid enough to answer?”
“I didn’t tell them anything,” Lena protested. “They showed up out of nowhere, and they asked me about your Mr. Bon Bon, and what I knew about him, and I didn’t know anything, Julia. Just that he was dead, and he wasn’t just some businessman, was he? He was someone important, and you’d told me nothing! What was I supposed to do? They frightened me, and I had no idea what was going on!”
“You were not that innocent, Lena. You’d been couriering for me for months.”
“Cigarettes, yes. Packages ... I didn’t know what they were.”
“I see.” Again, that scathing tone. “It never occurred to you that it might not be in your best interest to tell anyone about it?”
“There were code words. I’m not a fool. Of course I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Except for the CIA.”
“Julia—” Lena’s hand shook, she had to put the martini down. “Julia, I never told them about being your courier. They didn’t ask me anything about that.”
“Then what did they ask you?”
“About ... him. Mr. Bon Bon, like I said. How I knew him. What happened that night at Club LeRoy.” A classic pill drop.
Julia’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”
“I—I hardly remember. It was so long ago.” It was only half a lie. The truth was that she didn’t want to remember.
“Try.”
Lena thought back to that day, the trattoria, the agent’s searing blue eyes, the other one’s reasonable tone, her panic and that sense that she’d been involved in something she didn’t want to be involved with.
She picked up her martini and took a long sip, letting the gin linger on her tongue before she swallowed and spoke. “They said your last name was Kovalova. They said you had a few names. I remember how surprised I was that you’d lied to me. But then”—another sip—“I suppose that’s why you were so good at coming up with another name for me, wasn’t it? You were used to it.”
Julia flinched in surprise. Lena couldn’t remember ever catching her friend off guard before, and there was something disconcerting in it, catching a mentor in a mistake and having then to question everything you’d believed before that moment.
“Is it true?” Lena asked.
Julia’s expression hardened. “It’s a name. It doesn’t matter. You told the CIA that I’d had a relationship with Terence Hall, and they ruined everything. Because that tipped off my ... I guess you’d call them my bosses. That’s how they found out that you and I were going to Venice.”
Lena struggled to understand. “So?”
“We weren’t coming back, Lena. I had tickets for Paris. We were to go there from Venice—you and me. We were suspects in Terry’s murder.”
“We weren’t coming back? But ... Cinecittà ... and I didn’t have anything to do with his death. They said ... the CIA men said something about a pill drop. ‘A classic pill drop.’ Those were their words. They implied you’d poisoned him. Did you? Did you have something to do with his death?”
“Not really.”
“That sounds equivocal.”
“I didn’t drop him any pills. I didn’t kill him, but I knew it was going to happen. That’s why I needed you to flirt with him that night. I wanted to start a fight with him, like I told you. God knows he’d never missed a chance to flirt with a pretty woman before. I wanted to make a scene—they would never have dared to poison him that night if I had. He would have been too conspicuous. Obviously he was in a mood and it didn’t work. But Terry figured out he was marked because of that little meeting. It didn’t save him, but it was a big mistake on my part. That’s why they came after us.”
“You knew he was going to be murdered?” Lena asked in horror.
Julia bowed her head in acquiescence.
The little gesture was as frightening as anything Lena had ever seen. “Who are these people, Julia? Who did you work for?”
Julia sighed. “Listen. The whole thing at Club LeRoy was a disaster. Because of me. Because I tried to save him. Which meant you and I were both marked for messing up. I made an agreement—let you take the fall, and I’d be forgiven. But I couldn’t do it, Lena, so I tried to save us both. That’s why we were going to Venice. To escape. Those men ... they’re ruthless. They would have ... anyway, you saw what happened. They found us thanks to the CIA. That shot wasn’t fatal. His aim was off, probably because he wouldn’t have shot at all if you hadn’t kicked him. Still ... I went to prison. Insubordination. I’ve been looking for you since I got out.”
Lena stiffened. “Why?”
“It wasn’t easy to find you. I’m not the only one who changed my name. Why Taylor?”
Lena said nothing.
Julia sighed. “I came to LA because you’d been at Chouinard and I knew you’d never go back to Ohio. You know how many Lenas there are in LA? Quite a few, actually. Then I wondered if maybe you’d listened to me and took my advice about becoming a costume designer. After that ... all it took was the column about Flavio’s birthday party at Ciro’s and your engagement and a little bit of research.”
“Why look for me?” Lena asked. “What do you want from me?” She waited for the answer with a tight chest, afraid of whatever Julia might say.
“Would you believe that I missed you?” Julia dangled her martini glass, staring at it contemplatively. “I missed our days in Rome together. It was fun, wasn’t it?”
Lena was startled at how she wished that was true. But she remembered the carabinieri, the insistence beneath their sympathy, and she saw that same hardness in Julia’s face now. “The carabinieri were waiting for me when I got back to the academy. They questioned me for hours and escorted me out of Rome the next morning. They didn’t believe me when I told them what happened at the station. They told me not to ask questions. I thought you were dead. I had to go into hiding. I had to stop thinking about Rome. I had to stop thinking about you.”
Julia looked at her for a long moment with an expression Lena couldn’t read. It wasn’t blank, but it gave nothing away. Then Julia said in a strangely light voice, “When you left, something of mine disappeared too. I think you took it. I want it back. I’m not the only one who wants it either.”
Lena was surprisingly disappointed. “I didn’t take anything of yours.”
“That day, you made a pickup for me. Remember?”
Lena shook her head, and then she remembered the kiosk, the boy who gave her the magazine. She’d totally forgotten about it. “Oh, yes. Piazza Fiume.”
“That’s right. What happened to it? The thing you picked up?”
“The Duke Ellington record?”
“Yes.” Julia leaned forward eagerly. “Where is it?”
“Long gone.”
“What?” Julia rose so quickly she sloshed martini on the floor. “What do you mean? Where is it?”
“Julia, it’s been forever. I gave it away.”
“The men who want it are very, very dangerous.” Julia came to stand before Lena. “Where is it? Who did you give it to?”
“A friend who liked Duke Ellington.”
“Where is this friend?”
Of course it hadn’t been just a record, but it had looked like one. It had sounded like one, albeit scratchy. But the last thing Lena was going to do was direct Julia to Harvey and Charlie, even assuming they still had it. “What’s on it?” Lena asked. “Why do these men want it?”
“It’s not just these men, it’s the CIA. They’re following me. Those notes I sent ... it was the best way I had to get in touch with you without raising their attention. I didn’t know until after I’d sent them that they’d bugged my phone at the hotel. Lena, when I said you were being watched, I meant it. They’re following you too. Do you understand?”
The words landed slowly, each one a visceral punch. “Is that what they’re looking for? They searched my apartment. Is that what they wanted?”
“You’ve talked to the CIA. Would you like to talk to them again?”
“Is it the CIA who did it? Or your bosses?”
Julia’s mouth tightened. “They’ll come here next. To the Chateau. To Paul.”
Lena went cold. “They’ll never get past the desk.”
Julia laughed. “Do you know how easy it was for me to leave that note in your office? You’ve seen these men, Lena. Do you really think they can’t get past a front desk ? And if Paul’s here ... well, they won’t believe he doesn’t know anything. Whether it’s the CIA or the other men.”
Lena rose and went for her cigarettes. She offered one to Julia, who took it, and lit them both with an unsteady hand. Lena drew on hers and said, “I need another martini.”
“I’ll make them,” Julia said.
The sounds of pouring, stirring, clinking reached Lena from what sounded a far distance. When Julia put the martini glass in her hand, Lena drank automatically, swallowing gin with smoke, Julia’s words racing through her head.
“What’s on that record really?” Lena asked again.
“You don’t need to know. Do you think this friend of yours still has it?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll offer whatever he wants.”
“It’s not that.” It was the idea of leading peril to her friends, who needed none. The CIA? Those men in Rome, Julia’s “bosses”? Julia had got Lena kicked out of Rome for ... something she didn’t yet completely understand. She wouldn’t tip off anyone to her two friends, men on the FBI watch list, homosexuals who lived in secret. Lena wouldn’t do it. “I can’t.”
“Whoever it is, he’ll return the record, believe me. And if he won’t, it will be taken care of.”
“What do you mean, ‘taken care of’?”
“Look, the sooner we get this record, the sooner I’m gone, and the sooner you can go back to your life.”
“Tell me what you mean.”
Julia exhaled heavily. “The people I work with are used to getting rid of obstructions, that’s what I mean. Like your Walter, for example.”
Her words didn’t make sense. “Walter?”
“You remember him? Your husband?”
“I don’t know what he has to do with this.”
“He has nothing to do with this. At least, not anymore. I’m sorry.” Julia pulled on her cigarette, and an awful, unsettling awareness tickled at Lena.
“Julia—”
“They thought he was in the way. A distraction.”
Lena felt sick with horror. “What did you do?”
Julia shrugged. “I had nothing to do with it, I promise you. But he was blackmailing you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but—you mean . . . your people . . .”
Julia nodded.
“But I didn’t want that! I didn’t ask for that. And now the police think I had something to do with his death!”
Julia looked painfully resigned. “You did, in a way. If not for you, he wouldn’t be dead. But that’s neither here nor there. It wasn’t what I would have done. But I told you, these people are dangerous. He was in the way. If you don’t want to meet the same fate, and you want to keep Paul from meeting it, too, you’ll help me.”
She had no choice. Still, Lena hesitated.
“You owe me, Lena. I saved your life. I nearly lost mine. Please. I can’t go back to prison and I don’t want to die. Please. ”
It was true, everything Julia said. Lena did owe her, for her life and so much more. But it was that please that troubled her, that soft desperation, and Julia must have seen it.
“Let’s go,” Julia said, and before she knew it, Lena was swallowing the rest of the martini, throwing her purse strap over her shoulder, leaving Paul’s in Julia’s dizzy wake—or maybe that was the two martinis.
She took sobering pulls on her cigarette and returned the key to Corinne at the desk, and by the time George brought the car, Lena had caught the contagion of Julia’s insistence—or no, it wasn’t that. It was fear. The last thing she wanted to do was take Julia to Harvey and Charlie. The news about Walter shook her. The danger that came with Julia shook her. She wouldn’t endanger the men who’d taken care of her for so long, but that meant she had to distract Julia for now. Pretend to take her ... somewhere. Maybe get lost.
She hadn’t driven far down Sunset Boulevard before she knew she’d made a wise decision.
Julia said, “Damn it! We’re being followed!”
“By who?” Lena peered into the rearview mirror.
“That yellow car.”
“Not very inconspicuous, is it?”
“They want us to know. Damn it. Turn here. We have to lose them.”
Lena whipped the car around the corner so hard that Julia fell into her.
“Christ!” Julia said. “You’re going to give me whiplash.”
“You said to turn.”
“I didn’t mean like a lunatic. Are they still behind us?”
Lena glanced into the mirror. “No. No—wait, yes.”
“Is there someplace we can go? Someplace close by and public?”
“La Rue? It’s not far. We’re not dressed for it, but—”
Julia nodded tersely, and Lena drove. The two-story colonial-style French restaurant was only a few blocks away. She parked and they got out quickly, hurrying inside. It was nearly empty this time of day, and the elegant pistachio-and-brown-striped booths were calmly serene.
Lena told the ma?tre d’ they were going to the bar.
“Of course, Miss Taylor.” He didn’t look approving, but neither did he stop them. The bar, red leather and ebony, held only a few other men, all of whom watched the two of them enter and sit. Lena felt like prey—a feeling she hadn’t had since she’d last been in Julia’s presence. She’d forgotten how Julia attracted men, that confidence, that bearing. Even changed, Julia drew attention.
The bartender attended them with alacrity; Julia ordered two martinis and glared at the entrance as if she were willing whoever was following them to stay out. It apparently worked, no one entered. The martinis appeared before them with magical quickness. Lena gulped hers. Julia took hold of the toothpick skewering her olive and dunked it up and down.
“So,” she said. “Are you happy?”
Lena’s pulse still raced; she turned to Julia in surprise. “What?”
“I wondered about you. All this time.”
Lena watched the slow up and down of the dunked olive. They had left Paul’s rooms so quickly that neither had put on their gloves, and Julia’s hands were still bare. Her nails were very short, almost nonexistent. For the first time Lena noticed ... were those scars crisscrossing Julia’s knuckles?
Julia caught her look and brought her martini to her lips as if to hide her hands from Lena’s gaze. Julia didn’t want questions, that was obvious, and Lena didn’t ask them. Instead she said, “What did you wonder?”
“How you were living. What you were doing with your freedom while I was locked away.”
Lena lowered her voice. “You know, it seems to me that if you’re doing something illegal you have to expect that one day you might get caught.”
Julia popped the olive into her mouth. “How is it, working in the movies?”
“I like it. I’m good at it. You were right about that. I—oh my God, what time is it?” Lena looked at her watch. It was four fifteen. She was fifteen minutes late for the fitting with Claudia Mazur. The time with Julia had gone so quickly. “I’m late.” Lena jumped off the barstool. “I have to go. I have to go right now. God, I should never have agreed to meet you today.”
“We can’t go now,” Julia protested. “They might still be outside.”
“You don’t understand. I have to go. Now.” Lena called the bartender as she fumbled in her purse for her wallet. “I have to go.”
“You can’t just leave me here.”
“Call a cab.”
“Lena, you can’t .”
The panic in Julia’s voice arrested Lena.
“You cannot leave me here,” Julia said quietly and slowly. “You have to take me back to the hotel.”
“I don’t have time for that.”
“Then at least take me with you. I can’t stay here alone.”
The fear in her eyes made Lena realize Julia wasn’t lying. She was truly afraid.
“Okay,” she said, “But I’m going straight to the studio, so don’t argue with me. I can’t lose my job over this.”
Julia laughed shortly. “It’s funny that you think it’s your job you have to worry about.”