Chapter 20 Luck Has Nothing to Do with It
Luck Has Nothing to Do with It
President Roosevelt—only thirty-six hours into his presidency—shut banks down nationwide.
California, however, was already disrupted with a freeze of its own, and now people with already loose belts find themselves staring into a bleak future.
As the radio announcer lists off markets that are willing to extend credit, Frankie reminds herself that she has Nico if she runs out of money, and that the studio covers her big expenses.
It’s a comforting thought that also leaves her uneasy.
Then she hears Jack’s name from the radio.
“This, on the day of June Finney’s funeral!
A neighbor at the house where our starlet was murdered saw Jack Sawyer next to the body—wearing a bloody tux.
Wearing a bloody tux! That’s right, folks, I said blood.
But here’s the kicker: The woman says he was there all night.
Pee-yew, are we beginning to catch the stench of a lie?
It’s all in today’s paper, so be swift and find yourself a newsie. ”
Hair unbrushed, Frankie races to the nearest stand and reads the entire article while walking back to her car.
Mist swims in the air, gathering on print that smudges and smears.
The pull quote alone is damaging. Jack Sawyer was there.
The article is conjecture and speculation, but the fact that he’s linked in this way to the location and even the time of the murder is enough.
Less than an hour later, Frankie arrives at Hollywood Memorial Park.
She’s early, but craving the quiet. The walkways are empty, grass jeweled with dew.
Bags of lawn clippings line the road, and in the far distance, a groundskeeper gathers leaves into yet another pile.
Frankie readies the site, and tries to not picture Jack at home, a newspaper with Dottie’s article outside his front door.
I gave him a warning, Nico told her last night, but I don’t think he followed just how bad it could get.
Given today’s news, Frankie’s opted to rearrange the seating chart just slightly, tucking Jack off to the side so he’s less visible to the press.
Slowly, the mist burns off. The bags of grass clippings are hauled away. When people start to arrive, they bring updates: A crowd has gathered outside the studio, demanding Jack be arrested.
Frankie stands close to Nico. “All from one article without any facts. The same people loved him just yesterday.”
Nico nods a greeting to a man who walks with a cane, slow and plodding. “The only thing they’d love more than Jack being a victim is him being a killer.”
Fans are penned up just beyond the arriving limousines, held back by barricades. In the very front are three young women Frankie recognizes from outside the studio gates, each holding We love You, Jack! signs. “Lucky they came here today.”
Nico laughs. “Luck has nothing to do with it. But the studio tour I promised them might.”
White lilies are everywhere, though the studio arranged to have what looks like a waterfall of pink roses cascade down the sides of the stone mausoleum.
“Where will you go?” a man off to Frankie’s right asks his friend. Frankie thinks they’re talking about dinner until the man answers.
“Forest Lawn. Double plot, me and the missus. Plunked down a pretty penny.”
June has an entire building, it seems, while Frankie’s own mother is on Hart Island, New York City’s potter’s field, a municipal burial ground where the unclaimed and poor are buried.
Only a mile long, it’s a remote stretch of sorrow and sadness, tucked off the edge of the Bronx.
It never occurred to Frankie to wish for more.
“I hate lilies,” she says to Nico.
“Good to know.”
“She’s got room for a family of four to live inside there. Furniture, the works.”
“If you go missing, I know where to find you.”
The procession of limos continues, curved around the road in a dark gleam of grief.
Soon, everyone who’s anyone is here, and the day becomes mockingly clear and beautiful.
Knives of sunlight glint on the pond near the mausoleum.
Now, more than ever, they need to draw attention away from Jack.
A robbery gone wrong, Nico’s been saying all morning.
Each time she hears it, Frankie’s thoughts spin with guilt. “Jack’s still not here.”
Nico doesn’t look concerned. “I told him to play it safe and wait till after she’s in place.”
Frankie understands what Nico means when she spots a hearse in the distance, slowly beginning its approach. A hush falls, everyone silenced and waiting.
Pallbearers are in position. Fans push against barricades, ripples of grief overtaking them.
With the first glimpse of the casket—a shock of white—there is a loud, solitary wail.
Frankie turns in time to see Nico grasping Ida’s arm, fighting to keep her steady.
It’s too much. The bright shine of the casket, the graves of all the people who no longer draw crowds, or who maybe never drew a crowd.
All Frankie can bear to watch are the pallbearers’ shoes.
Black and shiny. One foot in front of the other.
That day in New York years ago, that afternoon when the sky split with color—that was it.
No matter how she looks at it, that was the only path to California and working for Nico.
Right there, right then. Though she can examine and chide herself for much else, nothing would’ve happened if the sky didn’t crack open that day.
She never would’ve stood on a street in Hollywood and announced that a starlet would be by herself with a valuable necklace, nor would she have suggested she stay alone and unprotected.
The more Frankie thinks about it, the further she digs herself into this hole: June might be alive if it weren’t for her.
A murmur. People turn, leaning into each other with whispers, as Jack steps out of a limo. Without looking at anyone, he heads straight to the coffin while the world around him silences. Head down, his shoulders hunch like they do when he’s holding too much in.
Nico’s suddenly at her side. “Go see to him.”
Just as she’s stepped beyond another plot, she notices a tall man in the distance, his face in his hands. About to trip, she quickly looks down, narrowly avoiding a low marker, and it’s then that she places who the man is: Tank.
She looks back up, but there’s no one by the tree. Was it really Tank?
Quickly she waves Nico over, and within seconds he’s gathered a few of his men. They spread out, long strides through the grass, while Jack stands by the coffin, a handkerchief hanging from his hand.
When she’s beside him, he keeps his head down. “She’s really in there?”
“You think it’s empty?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
The shaded reflection of clouds on the coffin’s surface shift and spread. “Me either.”
“There’s an old sailor’s tradition,” he says quietly.
“They wear earrings valuable enough to pay for a coffin, in case they die at sea and get washed to shore. Till the day he died, my father wore earrings that could’ve paid for a lot.
Rent money so I didn’t have to work as a kid.
A new roof so I didn’t need to sleep next to a pail that I had to wake up and empty.
The hospital bill when my grandmother got sick.
Before I shipped off to Europe, when he died?
First thing I did was bury him in a box with those earrings still on him. A pine box at St. Roch Cemetery.”
Frankie watches the shadowed reflection. “I don’t know what my mom got buried in. I don’t think anything.”
The problem is, it feels good to talk to Jack. It feels right, and she’s missed this. Missed it so much, she’s almost forgotten the Milton Ewing project, the one in which Jack handed over the details of her life. But the mention of her mom brings it all back.
“Where is she?” he asks. “Your mom.”
“Somewhere I can’t visit.”
Suddenly the crowd of mourners parts as Ida walks to the coffin. She looks unsteady, as if her heels are sinking into the earth with each step, despite the fact that she’s walking on a red carpet. Black feathers on the top of her hat appear slick in the sun.
Frankie tells her how sorry she is, and as she does, Jack shifts in the other direction. It’s a subtle slight, but Frankie sees Ida register it—right before the woman crumples to the ground.
Fans behind the barricade give a startled scream and every camera swings in their direction.
It takes seconds. Jack turns to see what the fuss is about and looks down at his fiancée’s sister, and already Frankie knows the photo that will be plastered on covers everywhere, and the impression it will give: Jack, the cold and uncaring actor, looking down at Ida, the devastated and dedicated sister.
Frankie drops to Ida’s side as Jack does the same, albeit more slowly. “Ida. Wake up.”
Ida’s eyelids quiver, right before she closes them even tighter.
Is she faking it? This woman loved June undeniably but also rode the coattails of her success.
She was the one at June’s bedroom door at the crack of dawn to be sure she was awake to go to work but also the reason why June didn’t get rest. She was the reason June never breached her contract but also the reason June struggled.
Ida was the voice that told June to stay in line, and who ultimately cared more about box office receipts than anything June cared about.
Something in Frankie gives. “Get up. This is your sister’s day. Not yours.”
A crease forms on Ida’s forehead, and when Frankie glances at Jack, she catches him watching her with a slight smile and a look that is so clear with adoration that her heart aches from longing and fear. Because if someone saw this look, they’d know.
Still, Ida pretends to be out cold. Sick of the charade, Frankie pinches her arm, and the woman’s eyes fly open before focusing on Frankie. But then she must spot something through the crowd, because her eyes narrow.
Guests, mourners, fans, everyone has turned toward the road.
Frankie watches, waiting as the crowd shifts, and suddenly there they are.
Police officers. At least a dozen. Their black-and-white cars parked haphazardly, their eyes scanning the crowd.
They have news, Frankie thinks, though later she isn’t sure how this thought made sense.
Nico shoulders past a group of men in suits just as one of the police officers stops in front of Jack. First, the man apologizes. He takes off his hat, and there’s remorse on his face.
And that’s when everything comes together and Frankie understands.
They are here to arrest Jack.