His Girl Hollywood

Chapter 8

Don should’ve gone straight from the studio to the cruddy little hotel. Practiced some steps with Eddie and gone off to bed. But he’d been feeling sorry for himself, and the Frolic Room was around the corner, so he’d sat in there instead, nursing a beer for several hours and avoiding dirty looks from the bartender. He could only afford one drink, so he’d needed to make it last. It was past midnight now that he was finally making his way back to his room, where he was certain he’d lie under the moth-eaten comforter and struggle to sleep.

He usually fumbled with the key to his hotel room. He was pretty sure the last person to rent it had gotten something stuck in the keyhole because he had to jiggle it just right to get the doorknob to turn. So, he was immediately suspicious to find that the doorknob rotated easily in his hand. It was as if it wasn’t locked at all. But he was positive he’d shut it up tight this morning before taking the jalopy he and Eddie were sharing to the studio.

The room was dark. He slid through the door, careful to let the smallest sliver of the hall light into the space, and he reached for the lamp he knew was on the small desk to the right of the door. He strained his ears and heard something in the bathroom. The sound of the toilet flushing and running water. That wasn’t a rat. Though he wouldn’t have been surprised at this place. There was someone else here. He crept along the perimeter of the room and stood waiting next to the bathroom door, raising the lamp he’d grabbed above his head, ready to pounce on the intruder. Shit, he’d been here all of three days. Was Frankie already getting wise to his plans and sending thugs after him?

The door swung open and the intruder was backlit. As Don was about to bring the lamp crashing down on the shadowy figure’s head, she let out a bloodcurdling scream and stepped backwards. He dropped the lamp and stumbled, the force of the blow he had failed to land pulling his weight forward. The intruder was now fully illuminated, the harsh light of the bathroom casting her in a greenish-yellow pallor. But Don knew that platinum hair and its distinctive curl anywhere.

“Eleanor, what the hell are you doing here?” He had a sinking feeling he knew the answer. Frankie hadn’t bothered to send one of his boys. He’d sent Eleanor instead. How very typical of the mobster turned manager.

She reached for the sink, leaning against it to steady herself. “Why were you trying to kill me with a lamp?”

“I don’t usually expect to encounter uninvited guests in my bedroom.”

“Aw, lighten up, Donnie. Sometimes uninvited guests in your bedroom are the most fun.” She smirked. The sass and bravado of her Jersey accent filtered back into her voice, which had gone raspy with her scream of fear.

“Not when they’re burglarizing my room.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and harrumphed. “Can’t a girl visit her dance partner without being accused of petty theft?”

“I hardly think breaking and entering qualifies as merely petty.”

“With you, it’s always petty.”

He barked out a laugh at that one. “You’re right. I deserved that. But what the hell are you doing in my hotel room after midnight?”

“Well, if you hadn’t been out half the night, you’d have known I’ve been here since about eight thirty. But you never came home.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling, searching for some kind of celestial guidance he was certain would not come. “Look, you want to come out of the bathroom, tell me what’s going on?”

“Sure, my pleasure. You’re the one who cornered me in here.” Eleanor was a phenomenal dancer—and a phenomenal pain in his ass.

He moved aside and gestured for her to sit on the bed. There really wasn’t anywhere else comfortable in the room. “Just tell me why you’re here. Did Frankie send you to check up on me? To talk me into getting you a part in the movies too? Move the act to Hollywood… Is that his idea?”

She glared at him as she walked past him and flipped the switch to turn on the light. Now that he wasn’t trying to wrap his head around who was in his room in the late hours of the night, he noticed that she looked more haggard than he’d ever seen her. There were bags under her eyes and she was shockingly pale, her usually alluring cotton-candy-pink blush a stark contrast to the sickly color of her face. She seemed weary, not just from waiting for him the last few hours, but in a way that was bone-deep. She finally softened and released a heavy sigh. “I’m here because I need your help.”

He leaned back against the wall and studied her. Things must be pretty dire if she was coming to him. They’d sold out Broadway houses and European concert halls together, but offstage, there was no love lost between them. Eleanor had already been in Frankie’s pocket when Don was paired off with her. He had told Eleanor repeatedly he wasn’t interested. That their relationship was for show and that’s all it would ever be. He’d thought dating Mabel would make that clear to her. But instead, Eleanor had eliminated what she saw as her primary obstacle. Now, she suddenly needed his help? The whole thing seemed suspect. “Look, Eleanor, I don’t know if I’m even coming back to New York after this. Whatever it is, you’re going to have to ask Frankie.”

“Goddamn it, Don, it’s not about you or New York or the act.” She looked on the verge of tears now. “I don’t care about our partnership. I want out too.”

It was lucky he was already pressing his weight into the wall or he would’ve fallen over. Dance was Eleanor’s life. And she’d always had far fewer qualms about the cost of their success. “But, why? You’re Frankie’s girl through and through.” He said the last part bitterly, almost spitting the words at her. He’d always resented her for the way she preened for their bully of a manager. Don had chafed against his leash, but Eleanor had closed the door to their cage herself on more than one occasion.

“If you’d paid a lick of attention to someone besides yourself and your goddamn career, you would’ve noticed I haven’t been Frankie’s girl for a long time now.” The pronouncement shocked him. But it was a welcome one. Because if Eleanor wasn’t Frankie’s girl, she wasn’t here to do his bidding. “I don’t want nothing to do with Frankie Martino no more. I want a normal life. You remember that architect I met at the Stork Club, Robert, the one from upstate?”

Don nodded his head yes. “Well, he wants to marry me.” Eleanor extended her arm and Don caught a glimpse of the ring on her left hand. He didn’t know how he’d missed it; it was the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.

“Many happy returns. I don’t see where I enter into this.” He wanted Eleanor to go. He needed to catch a couple hours’ sleep before he had to be on set, or he wouldn’t be in top form.

“It’s Frankie.”

The words stopped him cold. He should’ve known. A shiver ran down his spine and he thought of Mabel. The horrible scars on her face after Frankie’s boys had finished with her. Eleanor had helped put them there, but that didn’t mean that this innocent architect who’d fallen for her deserved a similar fate. “Eleanor, he didn’t hurt Robert, did he?”

Eleanor shook her head. “No, not yet anyway. I wouldn’t have come to you except, well, you’ve been through this before. With Mabel.”

Don swallowed the lump in his throat that rose immediately at the sound of her name. He suppressed a burst of anger at Eleanor for even daring to say Mabel’s name after what she’d done. “Yeah, I’m the fountain of wisdom on that front. Worked out real well for her.”

Eleanor gave him a look of such pity that it pierced his heart. “You couldn’t have known Frankie would do that.”

“Sure, I could have,” he spat out bitterly. “Why I expected anything less is what eats me up. The idea that Frankie—or you—would really let me be happy with someone outside his organization. I should’ve known better.”

The memories of that night washed over him and he felt sick. He grabbed for the chair by the window, feeling light-headed as he remembered the heaving hulk of a man who had brushed against them as they danced at the Carousel Club. The way Mabel had squeaked, grabbing at Don for protection. How the man had pulled something from his coat and, before Don knew what was happening, thrown it at Mabel. It had been lye, and it had badly burned the entire left side of her face. She’d lost her sight entirely in the eye that it had splashed into.

All because he’d had the audacity to want to date her, to go public with their relationship and end the ruse of his romance with Eleanor. Mabel had been a model, had signed a contract with Elizabeth Arden only a few days before the attack. A contract that had been rendered null and void the second they’d caught sight of her damaged visage. Don had wanted to kill Frankie for it, then find Eleanor and wring her neck. But he couldn’t. Because the man owned his soul. And at that time, he had no power as a solo artist. He danced with Eleanor or he didn’t dance at all. There had been nothing he could do about the attack. Except return to Eleanor and their pathetic relationship with his tail between his legs. Last he’d heard, Mabel had moved back home to Allentown with her parents.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Eleanor whispered.

“No, it wasn’t. It was yours.” Eleanor gasped at the accusation. The nerve of this dame. He’d held his tongue as long as he could stand it. She wanted to talk about Mabel? Fine. It was high time they talk about what really led to that night. “You told Frankie about her. You were jealous, you couldn’t stand the idea that I never wanted our relationship to be real. That I was ready to end the whole damned charade.”

Eleanor scoffed and sat down on the bed. “I didn’t even know about Mabel. You weren’t exactly my bosom friend. Eight years dancing together, Don, and I still know nothing about you. You’ve never told me anything about your parents, where you grew up, nothin’. Anything I knew about you I knew because Frankie told me. How could I have told Frankie about Mabel when I didn’t know she existed?”

“Then how did he find out if you didn’t tell him?”

Eleanor shrugged. “He put a tail on us constantly. Or didn’t you ever notice?”

The words lanced his heart. Memories flooded back to him. The sound of footsteps behind him on a late night. The same black car following his cab. The stranger in the gray fedora who always got on and off at the same subway stops he did. How had he never realized? He thought he’d been discreet. Hell, Mabel had almost broken up with him after their first three dates had been at the same picture show where no one could see them in the dark.

But his caution had been no use. Frankie had known all along. Had been following him. Tracking his every move. That still didn’t explain why Eleanor had been so eager to please the monster who owned their contract. Why she’d doubled her efforts to seduce Don after Mabel was out of the picture. “Fine, you didn’t tell Frankie about us. But you still egged Frankie on. Convinced him that Mabel would hurt our act. Begged him to do something about us. Frankie told me so.” Eleanor tried to interrupt, but Don barreled ahead. “Oh, he’d never admit one of his lackeys did the job. But Frankie maintained it was a blessing in disguise. To keep us atop the heap. That you had come to him in tears, worried that I was going to mess everything up. That you thought we wouldn’t last as a double act if people knew I was romancing some other dame. He said that when you heard the news about Mabel, you were relieved. Because it meant she was out of the picture and our act was safe.”

Eleanor gave him a sad look. “You believed that? You’re dumber than I thought, Donnie. What have I ever said or done to convince you I’d be capable of that? That I would want to see an innocent girl hurt because of me?”

He had spent the last several years resenting Eleanor for this. It was why he had sought out Pal’ing Around . Being around Eleanor all day, every day… He couldn’t stomach it any longer. Every time he looked at Eleanor, all he saw was Mabel’s disfigured face. “Don’t act like you never did nothing, Eleanor. You laid it on even thicker after Mabel moved out of the city. You kept trying to kiss me whenever there was a camera in our face. You started wearing a phony engagement ring until I told you to knock it off.”

“Because Frankie told me too! He said the papers thought our act was wearing thin and we needed to convince them our love was for real. Haven’t you ever heard of self-preservation?” She stared at him with such naked honesty on her face that it burned in its intensity. He buried his face in his hands and swallowed back tears. Had he been wrong all this time? Had Eleanor Lester never really been Frankie’s girl? Was she merely a scared hoofer, looking for any way to make good, the same as him?

He thought about the illegal speakeasies and night clubs that Frankie had forced them to perform at, free of charge, during Prohibition. Because Frankie owed the clubs’ owners a debt. The raids they’d narrowly escaped time and again. The way he and Eleanor had pretended to be fun and fancy-free, a couple of wealthy, good-looking swells painting the town red. All so no one would ever know that Frankie Martino was a two-bit cheat and a fraud. God, the lies he and Eleanor had told. The things they had swallowed. All to stay in Frankie Martino’s good graces. This was why he was here. To end this, to make sure Frankie could never do this to him or anyone he loved ever again.

“So, what, you decided keeping Frankie happy doesn’t matter anymore? That love is more important.” He regretted the words the moment he’d said them. How harsh they were. But he was angry still. For Mabel. For himself. Hell, even for Eleanor.

“I’m pregnant.” This pronouncement sent Eleanor into heaving sobs, and she flung herself onto the bedspread. Don had made a point of not touching that thing except to crawl under it and keep the sheet between him and the quilted fabric. The suspicious smell that emanated from it and the dark, dodgy stains across it were enough to convince him he didn’t want to cuddle up to it. Eleanor might have blindsided him with this visit, but she didn’t need to add diphtheria to her list of problems. “Eleanor, I don’t think you should—”

But his advice was interrupted by another wail. He knew by now that the only way to deal with Eleanor when she was in this state was to let her go until the tank was empty. So, he listened to her cry for another few minutes until she sniffed and sat up.

“Better?” She nodded her head yes, then shook it no. “Well, which is it?”

She fished a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed at her eyes. She shrugged, not seeming to know the answer.

A thought occurred to him. Frankie had helped Eleanor out of a tight spot a few times before. She had never discussed it with Don. He’d only known because there had been the occasional canceled show when she was “under the weather.” Frankie had told Don one night what that really meant. Don had been asking for a favor and Frankie had thrown Eleanor’s abortions in his face. Told Don that Eleanor was willing to give up everything, even a baby, for their act. Maybe that was still the case. But if so, Don didn’t see how he could help. He was done giving things up for Lamont and Lester, the dancing duo. “You don’t want the baby, is that it?”

Eleanor shook her head fiercely. “No, I want this baby. I want this baby more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But Frankie is angry that I want to quit the act. He told Robert that the baby was yours. That you’d come to Hollywood because you were so jealous of me and Robert that you had to get away. He told Robert that since you’d abandoned me for Hollywood, I was trying to saddle Robert with another man’s child.”

“But that’s ridiculous!”

“I know that and you know that, but Robert doesn’t.” She started crying again. “He believed Frankie and went back upstate without me. Told me he needed some space. That I wasn’t the girl he thought I was.”

Boy, you sure aren’t the girl I thought you were either, Don thought. But he didn’t think speaking that thought aloud would be helpful right now. Instead, he kneeled in front of her by the bed and took her hands in his. “Why would he believe that, sugar? There’s nothing between us. There never has been.”

She looked down at him, her big blue eyes swimming in her tears. “Only us and Frankie know that’s the truth for real. Frankie spent a lot of time planting blind items about our hot dates and how we were crazy for each other, so what’s Robert supposed to believe?”

“I don’t know, he could try believing the woman he says he loves.” He squeezed her hand, trying to convey he was here for her. Until a few minutes ago, he’d believed Eleanor to be little better than a gangster’s moll and complicit in the attack on Mabel. Even knowing that wasn’t true, he still found her a royal pain in the ass. But that didn’t mean he wanted her trapped in Frankie’s clutches any more than he wanted to be stuck there himself. “Doesn’t Robert understand that by leaving you alone, he’s putting you and the baby in danger? That Frankie could hurt you, have one of his guys push you down a flight of stairs or something. Why would he leave you alone at a time like this?”

“Robert doesn’t know Frankie’s a gangster.”

Don gave her a disbelieving look. “The pin-striped suits and the crowd of tall guys with broken noses that surrounds Frankie at all times didn’t make Robert even a little bit suspicious?”

Eleanor looked peeved at Don’s attempt at levity. “You have to understand, Don, Robert doesn’t know any other show people. Hell, the night we met was the first and last time he went to the Stork Club. It’s what I love about him. He wants a simple life—a wife, a kid, and lots of acres of land to build his dream house on. But now he says that maybe I am just too wild for him. That’s why he needs time to think.”

Don stood up and scratched the back of his head, going to look out the tiny, filthy window of his room. All that was below him was an alley, shadowy in the moonlight. He surveyed as much as he could from end to end, feeling jumpy. What if one of Frankie’s guys had tailed Eleanor? What if someone was waiting in the lobby for him right now? If Eleanor had found him so easily, how hard could it be? If Frankie figured out that Don wasn’t staying at the Chateau Marmont, what other pieces might he put together? Eleanor had put them both in danger coming here like this. “So, why did you come to Hollywood? To me? Instead of going to Robert and trying to convince him he’s got it wrong. Surely, this doesn’t help your case.”

“I panicked.” Well, at least she was being honest. That was refreshing from anyone in Frankie’s orbit. “I know you hate Frankie as much as I do. Maybe more. I don’t know. Who else is gonna help me out of this mess?”

She did have a point. Part of Don still didn’t believe Eleanor wasn’t sent here on an errand from Frankie. Even if she was on the level, he wasn’t really sure how he could help her. If he got involved, it would only call attention to them both. He was trying to lie low right now. “I don’t know what I can do about it, Eleanor. Robert isn’t any more likely to believe me than he is you.”

“So, you won’t help me?” Her bottom lip extended, and he could tell she was on the verge of another crying jag.

“I didn’t say I won’t. I just said I don’t know if I can. But you have to promise me something.”

“What?” She raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical of his quid pro quo.

“You can’t tell Frankie you saw me at this hotel. How’d you find me here anyway?”

“I called the studio and asked.”

He was going to have to talk to someone about giving out his information so freely. “Well, if Frankie asks, tell him you visited me at the Chateau Marmont, okay?”

“What, why?”

“I can’t tell you why. But if you want my help, you have to promise, Eleanor.” Nuts, there went that lip again, sticking out even further. He didn’t want her to cry. They both wanted the same thing after all—to be free of Frankie. Wasn’t there some way he could help them both?

If he jumped ship, Eleanor wasn’t much use to Frankie. If Don agreed to help Eleanor, he could keep an eye on her, make sure she didn’t slip up and say the wrong thing to Frankie about what was really happening out here in Hollywood. Plus it had been a long time since he’d done the right thing, the noble thing. Hell, he wasn’t sure he ever had. Helping Eleanor seemed like a good place to start. Particularly if it also kept his plan on track. “If you promise not to tell Frankie where I am, then we’ll find a way to fix this. A promise for a promise.”

She leapt up and grasped him in a hug that felt more like an iron lung than an embrace. “Oh, I promise, I promise. Thank you, Donnie, thank you, thank you, thank you. You won’t regret it.”

But as he was being slowly squeezed to death, like prey to the most perfectly coiffed boa constrictor, he was absolutely certain he would.