Murder among the Stars Read online

  “But you said . . . ,” Docky began.

  Marion laughed. “Oh, I get it now! She never said she would crack three eggs over your head—just that if she did, she’d pay you a hundred dollars. Oh, it’s too funny. Docky, you look an absolute fright! I’ve never seen such a mess. And the dark horse takes the lead! What’s your name, kid?”

  “Juliette Claire,” she replied, her eyes big and innocent, looking like she had no idea what everyone was laughing at.

  Marion’s face instantly darkened when she heard the name, and she turned away. Lulu guessed that Mrs. Mortimer had shared the cruel, catty things she’d overheard Juliette say.

  Docky sputtered and fumed, his face going from red to purple in his rage. Lulu saw him clench his fists and take a step toward Juliette. Lolly put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Why don’t you go and clean up, Docky,” she said. “Here, I’ll help you.”

  “Exit, pursued by a bear,” Lulu murmured, which might have earned her comedy points if anyone present had read The Winter’s Tale.

  “Has anyone told you that you look ravishing tonight?” a low voice whispered in her ear. Lulu shivered, and turned to find Freddie. She shook her head. “Good, because I’d have to beat him silly.”

  “Did you find out why you’re here?”

  He guided her farther away from the others. “Not a word to anyone, but . . . blackmail! Hearst got a letter purporting to know something terrible he did thirteen years ago and demanding money.”

  “How very mysterious!” Lulu said, her eyes lighting up at the thought of a mystery. They’d worked so well together uncovering Ruby Godfrey’s plot. It would be fun if she could help him on something like this.

  Before she could offer her help, they heard Hearst sputter from across the room. He was mopping his face with a linen handkerchief that seemed dwarfed by his hand. Someone had unleashed that old comedic standby, the squirting boutonniere, on their host.

  “What the hell is going on?” he thundered. All of the actresses avoided eye contact, and the whole room fell silent. “You!” He jabbed his finger at the pretty little actress with baby-doll curls still clutching her trick flower. “Why is everyone acting like a lunatic? I demand an explanation!”

  “B-because we all want the part!” she squeaked.

  “What?” Hearst bellowed.

  The little actress quailed, and Lulu felt sorry for her. She stepped up to take the harsh, frightening focus onto herself and said, “Because we were all told that making you and Marion laugh would get us the part.” She held Hearst’s steely gaze.

  Hearst looked around the room. “You ladies think that squirting water in my face and breaking eggs on a fellow’s head is the way to get the finest role Cosmopolitan Pictures has ever offered?” He frowned, looking to Lulu like a sulky, overgrown child, though his millions seemed to stand behind him like a child-king’s personal army, making him incredibly intimidating. “You should know that practical jokes are the lowest form of comedy,” he said witheringly. “You better start taking your craft more seriously if you want to get ahead in this business . . . and at the Ranch. After all, you only have one chance to make a first impression. So far, very few of you have impressed me favorably.” Lulu was almost certain his small blue eyes flickered her way.

  The actresses all looked abashed, and Marion pushed her way in front of Hearst, pulling a funny face to chase away his ire. She clinked her cocktail glass with a backgammon piece and called everyone to attention.

  “Thank you so much for coming to our humble abode,” she said, making a little curtsy. “I’m sorry to have kept you all in the dark about the nature of this party. Oh, who am I kidding? I loved keeping all of you in suspense!” She laughed merrily. “Now, I’ve heard the rumor that’s going around. Whoever can make me laugh gets the coconut, right? Wrong! But oh, what a show you girls have put on so far! You know how I love a good chortle. Juliette, that egg joke was . . .”

  Hearst flashed her a quick scowl, and Marion’s face grew a shade more serious. “You saw that the party invitations said we’d reveal your true character this week. Well, that’s exactly what we plan to do. WR and I have come up with an absolutely revolutionary new way of making a grand film. Instead of finding a story, writing a script, and casting an actress who fits the part—or more likely, one who the public is already mad for—we’re flip-flopping the whole tedious affair. Look at how fascinating all of you girls are! Some of you I know well, and some of you absolutely intrigue me already.” She winked maliciously at Juliette.

  “You are all being judged this week,” Hearst said. “By the end of the party, Marion and I will have chosen the actress who interests us the most, upon whom to base my friend Anita Loos’s next screenplay. Ably assisted by her husband and a brilliant new writer we just discovered, Mr. Paul Raleigh, Anita will write something the likes of which the world has never seen. Art will imitate life as it never has before. One lucky girl will not only be the star of the biggest Cosmopolitan Pictures hit—she will be a muse. She will be a goddess, with the story molded to her in every way. She will ennoble great cinema with her most radiant virtues . . . and her terrible secrets!”

  Around her, Lulu heard the actresses gasping. Lulu gasped too, but not, she thought, for the same reason. The other girls were awestruck that a movie might be custom-tailored to their unique personality. Lulu was for a moment horror-struck. Though she strove every moment of every day to be a good person, her past haunted her. She knew that her secrets were far too grisly to be revealed. They could end her. Permanently. She always suspected that deep down she was flawed. Why else would she have lied to protect a gangster and advance herself?

  When she sat in the witness stand and swore that Salvatore Benedetto had not shot the man who killed his father, she had betrayed everything her mother taught her and everything she knew was right. She knew she probably would have been killed if she hadn’t played along with Sal’s demands. And look what it had gotten her! A soaring career, fame, love, enough money to pull her family out of abject poverty. But she was always left with a sick feeling of her own moral failure. However good, however kind, however brave she might be now, she had folded when it mattered most.

  No, Lulu thought, I don’t have the kind of character worthy of a movie heroine.

  “In four days,” Marion went on, her words more than a bit slurred, “we will hold a talent competition. And you thought you were all above such nonsense, didn’t you!” She shot a look straight to Joan Crawford, whose square jaw set tightly just as one eyebrow arched skyward. “The winner will get the part. Simple, right? Wrong!”

  She downed her cocktail. “The talent show will only be the—what was that fancy word you used, ’Nita? Culmination! Long before that, though, you will all be judged.” She dropped her voice to an ominous modulation. “And sadly, some of you will be found wanting. Every night two of you will be bundled into Daimlers and whisked away home. An honor to be nominated and all that, right? The lucky ones who remain in four days’ time will grace us with their artistry in the final competition, and a winner will be chosen by myself, WR, Anita, Emerson, and Paul.” She turned to Hearst. “Darling, where is Paul?”

  Hearst shrugged, but Lulu, within earshot, heard his private secretary murmur into his ear that Paul Raleigh had called, saying he was unavoidably delayed and hoped to arrive before dinner.

  Lulu felt warm breath on her neck and turned, letting her cheek brush against Freddie’s. “What do you say you commit an unpardonable faux pas and get kicked out, I quit my job, and we spend the rest of the weekend fooling around on the beach?”

  “Tempting, but Veronica would never forgive me. Hell hath no fury like a publicist scorned.”

  They wandered toward a dark nook, and might have managed to avoid dinner entirely if Veronica hadn’t spied them and tried to hustle Lulu back into the social circle. “You’re not doing yourself any good being a wallflower,” she said.

  “We’re just trying to get some time tog
ether,” Lulu said. “I have several days to be thrilling and inspirational.”

  “You have to focus on the competition first.”

  “Just let me have a little while with Freddie, and I promise tomorrow I’ll pull out all the stops.”

  “Oh, very well,” Veronica grumbled. “Just turn on a couple of lights, will you? Hearst will think you’re up to no good.”

  “Don’t we wish!” Lulu said with a dramatic sigh.

  Veronica turned the switch on an unlit nearby lamp—and screamed.

  The bright bulb illuminated the silhouettes of half a dozen huge roaches clinging to the underside of the lampshade. Veronica jerked away, knocking the lamp down with a crash. One of the insects seemed to fly through the air, landing at Lulu’s feet. She managed not to cry out—after all, roaches were a familiar sight in her slum childhood—but she backed hurriedly away.

  Juliette, who had been deep in an animated conversation with John Emerson, gave a grunt of distaste and said, “You simpering namby-pambies make me sick!” With that, she stomped on the roach.

  “That would have done it in for sure,” Freddie said, picking it for inspection, “if it hadn’t been made out of paper.” He upended the lampshade, showing the cleverly cut-out figures of bugs designed to show up alarmingly when the lamp was lit. “Just another practical joke, left over from when they were still all the rage a quarter hour ago.”

  Marion laughed, along with everyone else, and gave Toshia a hug when she took credit for the prank. Only Hearst was manifestly displeased.

  “I don’t allow anyone to hurt animals in my house or on my land,” he said ominously.

  Juliette snickered, then saw that he was serious. “But . . . it isn’t even real! And even if it was, who cares about a disgusting roach?”

  Marion came up behind him and slipped under his arm. “Ladies, when we had a mouse in the house, this man caught it in his hat, made a nest for it, and fed it for three days.” She looked up at Hearst. “Not everyone feels the same way you do about animals, Pops.”

  “True,” he said, still angry. “But they have to respect my wishes in my house.”

  He looked to Lulu like a cross between a domineering company president and a petulant child.

  “Oh, please don’t be a grump when I’m having such a good time, WR,” Marion pleaded.

  Hearst looked down at his treasured mistress, then slowly to Juliette, his eyes narrowing. “Tell you what we’ll do,” Hearst told Juliette. “Take it outside and give it a decent burial. Then we’ll be square.”

  Juliette looked at Hearst like he was nuts.

  “But it’s paper,” she said again. Hearst stared icily down at her. “Okay, fine. But this is dingy, I tell ya!” She snatched the paper roach out of Freddie’s hand and stomped out the door.

  A servant came a little while later and summoned Hearst on some newspaper business.

  “Now, where were we?” Lulu asked Freddie, edging closer.

  But almost as soon as their hands touched, Mr. Waters called Freddie away. Lulu closed her eyes and sighed. Would she never get any time alone with Freddie? She didn’t care what they did, as long as they could be together.

  “There you are,” Boots said, dragging Eleanor and Toshia behind her. “We have a plan to take Juliette down a notch or two. Are you in?”

  “I don’t know,” Lulu said. “What do my odds look like?”

  Boots pulled out a little notebook. “Ten to one right now, alas. Jean and Joan pulled ahead, and stand at three to one each. Juliette, darn her, is at five to one thanks to that egg stunt. She knows her audience, in Marion at least. Not so much in Hearst, though.”

  The look of mischief in Boots’s eyes made Lulu think she’d better pass.

  “Have you seen Honey or Dolores?” Boots asked. Those were the other two girls sharing Casa del Mar. “They might want to help.”

  Dolores was busy looking sultry in a corner while an up-and-coming young artist praised her figure. Adorable, black-eyed Honey, though, was nowhere to be found.

  “Well, the three of us ought to be strong enough to manage,” Boots said mysteriously.

  “Heavens!” Lulu gasped. “What are you planning to do to Juliette?”

  “Come with us if you want to know,” Boots said deviously. “No? Well, you’ll find out soon enough. Suffice it to say that a good scare might be enough to make Juliette quit this game for good.”

  The three young actresses slipped out of the room on their secret mission.

  Left alone, Lulu looked around the Assembly Room for someone to talk to. Marion saw her at loose ends and pounced. She took her arm and said, “I didn’t get a chance to thank you earlier for showing Patricia such a good time. The poor girl is absolutely dying for some fun, and nobody pays much attention to her. You’re the first person to make such an effort.”

  “Your niece is an interesting girl,” Lulu began.

  “Oh Lord!” Marion said, smacking her forehead. “Interesting? That means crazy, doesn’t it? That’s one of those backhanded insults clever people do. A critic once walked out of my premiere, and when I asked what he thought, he smiled and said ‘words fail me.’ Boy oh boy, words didn’t fail him in the next morning’s review! Ouch!”

  “I didn’t mean . . . ,” Lulu began.

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. And it is a pretty little head. You remind me of someone. Who could it be? Oh yes, me!” Marion threw back her head and laughed. “Seriously, I’m so grateful to you for dancing with my niece. She said she met you earlier with your little dog, Charlie. Why not have him stay in Casa Grande so he can pal around with my dogs? You’ll be here twenty hours out of the day, anyway. Have you met everyone yet?”

  She walked Lulu up to Anita. “This is ’Nita, my bosom friend. At least, I think she is. Most of the stuff that comes out of her mouth is so clever I can’t understand it, so she might be insulting me all the time, for all I know. Have you read Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I haven’t. I didn’t have many books growing up.”

  Anita moaned. “Growing up, she says. These kids make me feel ancient. She was an infant when the book came out.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Marion said. “This week I want to be forever seventeen. Oh, you should have seen me at seventeen! WR would buy two seats in the front row just to stare at me at the Follies—one seat for him, one for his hat.” She looked around the room. “Where did our fellows get off to? I wonder.”

  “Yours is doing that mysterious thing called business,” Anita said. “Mine isn’t being mysterious at all. This is his day off. Just figure out which starlet is missing, and that’s what—or who—he’s doing.”

  “How do you mean, day off?” Marion asked.

  “Never mind,” Anita said lightly. “I’m starving! Someone ring the dinner gong.”

  Three

  The missing guests began to filter back in. Boots, Toshia, and Eleanor reappeared looking like the cat that ate the canary. Honey slipped in a moment later, distinctly tumbled, and John Emerson came in by another door, looking smooth and crisp as ever.

  “You changed your suit,” Anita observed dryly.

  Docky and Louella came in, whispering heatedly. Lulu wondered if they were having an affair. She didn’t know anything about the gossip columnist’s personal life. Louella thrived on other people’s secrets but was a cipher herself.

  Freddie entered without Lulu seeing him, and managed to startle her by whispering from behind, “I was on a secret mission.”

  She jumped. “What were you up to?”

  “Hearst needed to talk to Waters some more, but again I wasn’t privy to it. I guess mere assistants aren’t to be trusted with state secrets. I had to wait in the hallway, which gave me ample time to sneak away and change the place cards in the dining room. They had us miles apart. Wait until you see the dining room. My father would turn pea green and explode with envy, which makes me think I should arrange for an invitation. That would be
a sight I’d rather enjoy.” Lulu would have laughed had she not felt a chill at the mention of Freddie’s monster of a father. How very far the apple had fallen from that tree.

  “Now we’re right next to each other. I know it’s terribly gauche to seat couples together, but what does a former hobo know about good manners?” He snuck a light kiss on her cheek, making a swooning sound like Groucho Marx.

  Hearst returned last of all, slightly out of breath and with a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Sorry, folks. Life of a publishing magnate.” Now that he was there, dinner could begin.

  Lulu stopped dead in her tracks when she entered the palatial dining room, known as the Refectory. “Where’s Henry the Eighth?” she asked in a breathless whisper, gazing at the royal magnificence.

  Veronica, coming up beside her, gestured to Hearst. “So watch your head.”

  The Refectory looked like it belonged in a medieval castle. The scale was cavernous, at least three stories high. Figures in bas-relief looked down from the ceiling. Lulu couldn’t tell if they were saints or goddesses or Hearst’s old girlfriends, but they made her feel disturbingly like she was standing wrong way around and might fall from floor to ceiling any moment.

  There were banners flying, and feudal tapestries of hunting scenes hung on the walls, deer getting elegantly slaughtered in centuries-old thread. In the center of the room was a huge banquet table with fifty or more chairs. Footmen were already seating Hearst and Marion in the middle, directly across from each other.

  “Yoo-hoo, Lulu!” Marion called, wiggling her hand at Lulu. “Some sap put you at the end of the table, so I switched your place card to be closer to the action. Perks of being the hostess.”

  Lulu cast a despairing glance at Freddie.

  Hearst protested that the change would mean men and women didn’t alternate like they should, so there was a last-minute shuffle as cards were exchanged, to everyone’s annoyance, until Hearst was satisfied.