Max Collins: Angel in black

“Ben’s connections,” I echoed numbly.

She shrugged a single shoulder, as if the bombshell she’d just dropped was the tiniest firecracker. “Ben owes us. He owes you and he owes me. He has more Hollywood friends than Hedda Hopper.”

“I’d rather not bring Ben back into our lives, in any fashion. Okay?”

She raised her hands in gentle surrender. “All right, bad suggestion-but your partner Fred has a black book filled with movie colony bigwigs. Isn’t that why you threw in with him-the movie studios and stars he works for, and with? It would be easy for him to line up some interviews, some auditions for me.”

“You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, I have.”

“And I’d just move out here, and what? Let Lou Sapperstein run the Chicago office?”

“Sure, and you can fly back and forth some. We could maintain two residences. We can afford it.”

I knew when Peg got up a full head of steam like this, there was no stopping her-and, frankly, I didn’t see the harm. She did have a little talent-a little-and, yes, she had the looks. She was pretty with a nice shape, and with all the Technicolor pictures they were making these days, those violet eyes would show up nice.

But the reality was, she didn’t stand a chance, even with a little string-pulling. At twenty-nine, she really was too old for this town, to be starting out, anyway. So I didn’t see the harm. Let her try, let her get her hopes dashed, and let her come running back into my arms in tears.

The second agent she tried out for signed her. I chewed Fred out, asking what the hell he thought he was doing, had he twisted this guy’s arm or what?

Fred-a small, compactly muscular, nattily dressed man in his forties with sharp dark eyes, a rumpled face, and a shiny bald head-sat behind his desk in the Bradbury Building and shrugged elaborately. “Who’d a thunk it? I didn’t ask for any favors, except to let Peg read for him. I said she was my partner’s wife and would he please humor her. He said sure, and now this!”

I was pacing. “Humor her is right. She goes out on audition at Fox tomorrow!”

“Having an agent is nothing.”

“Nothing! There’s ten thousand beautiful babes out there that would screw you silly for an in with an agent!”

“Maybe in the future I should keep that in mind.” Fred sat forward, patted the air reassuringly. “Listen, Nate, don’t worry. Roles are not that easy to come by. You think she’s gonna get the first part she reads for? No way in hell!”

Fred was right. She got the second part she read for, a bit as a waitress in a Bob Hope picture at Paramount.

She was thrilled, giddy with it, and I did my best not to be a rat, and seem happy for her.

Anyway, Peggy taking this flier at the movies didn’t bother me as much as the notion of relocating to Los Angeles; and Fred Rubinski wasn’t crazy about it, either, because he was used to running his own office. Taking me on as a partner had been predicated on my ass staying in Chicago.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” I said to him, in a booth at Sherry’s, the swanky restaurant he owned a piece of on Sunset. “I could divide my time between Chicago and here, maybe three weeks back there and one in L.A.”

“That might work,” Fred said, lighting up a cigar, pushing a plate of cheesecake crumbs aside. I was still working on my dessert, a rum and Coke.

“Trouble is,” I said, “knowing how susceptible Peggy is to this show biz baloney, I’m afraid Errol Flynn or Robert Taylor or somebody would be in her pants before I got off the plane in Chicago.”

“Nice, you got such faith in your bride.”

“Listen, I love Peggy and I think she loves me, but I got no illusions about this marriage. I got her on the boomerang and I have my work cut out, holding on to her without her flying into somebody’s else’s arms.”

“Siegel?”

“No. But somebody rich and slick and handsome.”

Fred’s rumpled face formed a lopsided smile. “Well, Nate, you may not be rich, but you’re workin’ on it, and lots of people think you’re slick, maybe too slick-and more than your share of ladies have found you handsome enough, over the years.”

“Yeah, but I’m not a movie star. Listen, Fred, if I stay out here, it’s still your office-just make me your chief investigator.”

“Jesus, Nate, you’re the president of the company!”

“That’s all right. Even back home I spend my time working cases… I just use my clout to pick and choose.”

Fred contemplated awhile, then shrugged and said, “Might work out at that. We can play this publicity angle better with the Examiner, if that comes to pass, with you doing a ‘private eye to the stars’ number. We could get nice ink out of that.”

“Maybe.”

So I had told Peggy that night, in our bungalow, that I had decided to stay in L.A. We’d rent a house and I’d work out of Fred’s office, and she could take a real stab at a career in movies.

She melted into my arms. “Oh, Nate, you’re wonderful… I love you so much…”

“Why don’t you try to think of a way to properly thank me, then?”

I cupped her small perfect behind and drew her close.

“Oh, yes, darling…” Her fingers were fiddling in my hair. “… but one thing…”

“Yeah?”

“I think we should start… you know, using something.”

“Huh?”

“I’m going to get pregnant if we don’t start using some precautions.”

Over the first weeks of our marriage, we had certainly thrown caution to the wind, with no thought of anything but good old-fashioned honeymooners’ lust. Possibly in the back of my mind had been the thought of making some little Hellers-I was older than Peg, after all, pushing forty, a returning vet seeking that idyllic postwar world, and settling down had been part of the process.

But that night I used a Sheik, like old times, and soon she was using a diaphragm. We still made love like honeymooners-well, maybe dropping back to twice or even once a day-and Peggy was constantly affectionate, grateful for the sacrifice I was making for her, and her career.

On the evening I received the phone call from Beth Short, I had noticed a certain moodiness on Peggy’s part-almost a sullenness, though she hadn’t been unpleasant or anything.

After I cradled the phone-already starting to work on the story that would allow me to slip away to a pay phone where I could call Beth back and start dealing with this mess-Peggy tossed her movie magazine on the coffee table beside red-painted toes peeking through her sandals, and said those three words again.

Not “I love you”-the three deadly ones.

“Can we talk?”

“Well, sure, honey.”

“We haven’t had dinner, you know.”

Somehow it was an accusation.

“I thought we’d just go over to the Polo Lounge,” I said. “Or maybe order room service.”

“Let’s go out.” Abruptly, she stood, smoothing her bolero slacks outfit. “I need to go out.”

So I took her to La Rue, a chic joint on the Strip owned by Billy Wilkerson, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. Unlike the nearby Ciro’s and the Trocadero, La Rue was chiefly a restaurant, not a nightclub, and the mood was relaxed-no blaring big band, just a piano playing Cole Porter. The only celebrities I spotted were Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles, sharing one of the striped booths; weren’t they divorced? Hayworth looked angry and Welles, heavy-lidded, seemed half in the bag. I knew Welles, having met him in Chicago years before, but he didn’t recognize me, or anyway acknowledge me. I got over it. We moved along to our own cozy striped booth, where we ate, conversing little. Peg had lobster newberg, which she barely touched, and I had a lamb chop, just picking at the thing.