Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“That’s what I’d like to find out.”

“You look quite nice. You seem to have taken on a new persona. It’s funny how Hollywood can transform an individual.”

“I need to talk to your goddamn husband, Mrs. Wiseheart.”

“You are a little potty mouth, aren’t you? Follow me out to the terrace. Jerry is here. So is another gentleman. Let me know what you think of him.”

Clara Wiseheart walked ahead of her through the dining room and opened the French doors onto the terrace. It was lit by gas flares and warmed by electric heaters placed on the flagstones. Steaks two inches thick were smoking on a grill. Roy and Jerry Fallon were having drinks at a round redwood table with a third man Linda Gail thought she had seen before. Was it at the Shamrock? Or a party in Beverly Hills?

The third man was half reclining in his chair, his legs extended in front of him, a highball in one hand, his thick lips wrapped around a cigar. His graying hair was cut tight, his eyes as devoid of light as charcoal. “This is Mr. Carbo,” Clara said.

“Frankie Carbo?” Linda Gail said.

“That’s me. I’m pleased to meet you,” he said. He didn’t rise from the chair. The accent was adenoidal, Brooklyn or Rhode Island. “We met before?”

“I saw you at a hotel opening.”

“At the Shamrock? Yeah, I was there. I bet you know who I was with. I can see it in your face.”

“I’m sorry, my memory doesn’t serve me well sometimes.”

“I was with Benjamin and Virginia. She could have had a Hollywood career, too. I think being with Benjamin hurt her.”

“You’re talking about Bugsy Siegel and Virginia Hill?” she said.

“I never called him by that name. We grew up together. Virginia and him both looked like stars. The studio gave him a screen test, but they didn’t want him around. It’s like that out there.”

Like what? she thought. She didn’t want to ask. She couldn’t believe she was having a conversation with a man who had been a suspect in a half dozen murders. Jerry Fallon was smiling at her, his face warm from either alcohol or the red glow of the space heater. Was he telling her something? Not to say any more?

“People out in L.A. are worried about you,” Jerry said. “We can’t go off schedule, love. There’s only one unforgivable sin in the industry. You don’t lose other people’s money.”

“Don’t start picking on her,” Roy said. His julep glass was wrapped with a cloth napkin, the shaved ice dark with bourbon, a sprig of mint stuck in it. His face was dilated and oily, like that of a heavily medicated man working his way through an illness, his knees close together, pointed away from Carbo.

“I need to get some information from you, Roy,” she said.

But he wasn’t finished talking with Jerry. As always, his words were necessary to define the discussion, to complete a thought, to close down a particular moment, to leave his signature at the bottom of the last paragraph hanging in the air. “She’s a good girl. You all don’t deserve her,” he said. He stood up from his chair. “Have a seat, Linda Gail. Don’t pay attention to these guys.”

“Two policemen almost killed Hershel,” she said. “They locked him in a car trunk. Hershel can’t stand to be trapped in tight spaces. He almost suffocated inside a rubber sheet when he was a baby.”

“Which policemen?” Roy said.

“One of them is named Slakely.”

“That doesn’t ring any bells.”

“You know the police. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I’ve never heard of this fellow. We’ll straighten him out, though. Please sit down.” He glanced once at Clara, then back at Linda Gail.

“I wouldn’t talk about a police officer like that,” Carbo said. “You say something careless, and a rumor starts. You call a lawyer. That’s how you handle it. That’s why lawyers were invented.”

“Sit down by the heater, Linda Gail,” Roy said. “Clara made some eggnog.”

“Yeah, sit down,” Carbo said. “I hear you’re working for Mr. Warner. Benjamin lived right next door to him. He saw an empire in the Nevada desert. There’s a word for that. Visionary? I think that’s why he was killed. He was shot four times in the face. The bullets blew his eye out on the rug.”

Linda Gail’s knees felt weak. From the corner of her eye, she could see Clara Wiseheart obviously taking pleasure in her embarrassment and discomfort.

“I had better go now,” Linda Gail said. She waited for Roy to speak.