Gotcha

At around four thirty in the morning, Hop found himself in front of Frannie Adair’s house again. The thought of going home to his empty apartment was unbearable, especially remembering that Midge had been there hours before. Everything would smell like her. So he kept driving until he was at Frannie’s, like he was stuck in a loop and ready for more drunken confessions at the feet of the russet-haired maiden. Only he wasn’t drunk and was determined to keep his mouth shut. He leaned back in his seat to think about what he might say, and before he knew it, he was asleep.

He awoke, crick-necked and cotton-mouthed, to the sound of Frannie’s front door slamming. There she was, in a sober navy dress, flitting down the steps and over to the car parked in her driveway.

Hop slid down and waited until her car was halfway down the block before turning his ignition.

He followed her along Alvarado to Beverly. Traffic picked up and he nearly lost her a few times. He squinted at his watch and saw that it was nine o’clock, awfully early on a Sunday. And she wasn’t headed toward the Examiner.

As he drove, he began to remember a dream he’d had, was still having when Frannie’s front door jarred him awake.

He was at Earl Carroll’s, back when Midge still worked there, taking photographs of patrons and bringing in as much as a hundred dollars in tips on a given Saturday evening. In the dream, he was walking toward the hatcheck room with its ornate cutout window. The hatcheck girl was turned with her back to him, adjusting a coat on a hanger. As he came closer, he began to feel funny, like he wished the girl wouldn’t turn around—and what might happen if she did? He fixed his eyes firmly on the half dozen rows of neat, dark curls coiled around the nape of her neck and tried to will her to remain still.

He knew who it was. He thought, I’ll just leave my hat on the counter and walk right past. I’ll just walk right past and not even look. But as he reached up to take off his hat, he realized he wasn’t wearing one. He looked down, as if to find it on the floor.

When he looked up again, the girl had turned around and the amber spot above the window hit her face and there she was. Jean Spongler, pearly, iridescent skin skimming out of a green dress edged with sable. Dimples to cut glass. And she was leaning forward, her breasts nearly curling out of the bodice. And she was waving a hatcheck ticket in one long-fingered hand.

“Hey there,” she sang, and her voice was low and thick, almost vibrating. “Lose something?” Just as he was about to speak, he was blinded by the flash of a camera clattering to life.

He squinted, trying to regain his vision, and when he did, he saw Midge standing before him. She was wearing her old photog outfit, the one with the bare midriff and short sequined skirt.

“Gotcha,” she said, turning her silvery head to Jean and laughing. They both laughed, and the sounds of their laughter gathered together and then—

Frannie’s door squeaked open and shuddered shut, swallowing the laughter and bringing a feeling of relief so intense that Hop almost crossed himself, which he hadn’t done since catechism school when he was eight.

He kept pace as Frannie streamed along the near empty lanes of Third Street, through Hancock Park, and for a minute, he wondered if they were going to Beverly Hills. But as they approached the enormous new apartment complexes of Park La Brea, she made a sharp turn. He could see her looking for a number on the string of town houses that had been growing like crabgrass since the end of the war. It was at this point that Hop began to get a strange feeling.

He watched as Frannie parked the car on Colgate Avenue in front of one of the complex’s many buildings. She got out of her car and began to walk toward one of the garden apartments.

It was like something charged and electric vibrating in him, sending sparks up his spine, along his temples.

He’d been here before. Not just nearby, but here. In one of these buildings. He’d definitely been here before. The feeling—it was like dreaming he was having sex with a script girl and waking up in the middle of sex with his wife.

Before he knew what he was doing, he opened his car door, slid out, and bounded across the street and up the slope of the lawn, nearly colliding with a sparse new peppermint tree as he did so.

Hearing his approach, Frannie Adair turned, startled, her mouth a small o. “Thought I’d join you,” he said breathlessly.

“You really know how to give a girl the rush,” Frannie said, touching her hand to her hair, unconsciously slipping a strand back in place under her small blue hat. “How did you …”

“Listen, where are we?” Hop said, his voice breaking a little. Was he still dreaming?

It was at that moment that the door opened.

“Peggy Spangler?” Frannie was saying. “I’m Miss Adair. We spoke on the phone.”

Hop wasn’t sure which happened first. He noticed the small geranium pot on the porch and suddenly flashed to nearly tipping it over with his foot in the dark and trying to upright it, dirt coating his hands. In the same moment, he caught sight of the woman standing in the open door, white-blonde hair, flushed cheeks, round shoulders, even—he guessed it was there and then confirmed it—a small beauty mark popping out from the top of her fawn-colored housedress.

Miss Hotcha.

“I hope I’m not too early.”

“No,” Miss Hotcha was saying. “I was expecting you.” Those flat

Midwestern tones.

“… and I appreciate your willingness to talk about your cousin.”

“Please come in.”

At that moment, Miss Hotcha looked over at Hop. Her eyes fixed on him. And there was some kind of crackling mix of recognition, resentment, and panic. It was a look Hop knew well. Women had been giving it to him half his life.

Hop smiled. “Good morning. I’m a colleague of Miss Adair’s.”

Frannie shot him a look, which Hop ignored. He was wondering what Miss Hotcha —Peggy Spangler—fuck, Jean Spangler’s kissing cousin—would do.

She looked him up and down, trying to regain something. Then,

“What, like a photographer with no camera.”

Aha. Smart girl. Or at least smart enough.

Hop laughed. “Something like that. May we come in?”

She avoided Hop’s eyes as she let them pass in front of her. They walked into the small living room, stuffed with a large radio cabinet, hardy sofa set, and heavy fringed curtains.

Frannie sat down and Peggy Spangler took a seat in a chair across from her, folding her hands on her knees. Hop began walking around the room, trying to see if he recalled anything. But all he remembered was the bedroom and not much of that beyond twin beds and the doily-edged lamp he’d knocked down. His mind raced: What had Peggy Spangler been up to that night? And what was her idea now?

“I want to thank you for all the time you gave me on the phone yesterday.”

“I’m just glad someone’s still out there trying. Sometimes Mama Spangler and I feel like we’re the only ones left who care, Miss Adair.”

“Call me Frannie.”

“Frannie. As I told you, it’s been almost a year since I’ve seen Jean’s little girl—that’s Christine …” She picked a large, gilt-edged photograph from the side table. Angel-faced four-or five-year-old in starched organdy. “Mama and Jean’s ex-husband are in a custody dispute. Christine was Jean’s darling but mine, too. I took care of her every day.”

Hop watched her as she spoke. He was not particularly impressed by the performance. Low-rent Olivia de Havilland. Peggy Spangler was practically wringing her hands. He wasn’t sure if he would have bought it even if he hadn’t recognized her.

“Jean’s mother thought a boyfriend was involved in her disappearance,” Frannie said, looking at her notes.

“Yeah—yes. She thought it was the movie actor Kirk Douglas, on account of the letter. Jean went on a few dates with him. But she

dated a lot of showbiz types.”

“You didn’t buy the theory, then?”

“No.” She shook her head, glancing fleetingly at Hop as she did so.

“Those fellows didn’t scare her. She had them sized up.”

“You told the papers you didn’t believe her when she said she was going to work that night.”

Peggy smiled. “It’s not that she was lying. It’s just Christine was there when she said good-bye.”

“So she didn’t want her daughter to know where she was going. Where was she going?”

Hop watched her wrap her ankles around each other, adjusting her dress and stalling for time. What was her game?

Then, Peggy looked up suddenly with big blank blue eyes. “She

was with child, Miss Adair.”

“She told you that?”

Something roused in Peggy’s face and her voice sped up, lost its maidenly poise. “She went to take care of it and some sweaty-palmed SOB cut her the wrong way and killed her. I think her boyfriend— that sharpie Davy Ogul, probably, like I told you yesterday—hooked her to a bad doc, maybe knowing she wouldn’t come out alive.”

“And the note?” Frannie asked.

“My guess? She tells another fellow that she’s knocked up, thinking he might make it right. When he drops the ball, she decides to go ahead with the operation and starts to write a note to him.

Something interrupts her or she changes her mind about telling him. Maybe she figures she can get more jack from him if he doesn’t know another fellow already anted up.”

Hop wanted to laugh. In this brief analysis the thin veneer of respectability and refinement Peggy Spangler had put on fell away. Closer to Miss Hotcha after all, he thought. Leave her to her own devices and she reveals herself. He tried to catch Frannie’s eye to see if she saw it, too.

“Quite a picture you paint of your cousin,” he found himself saying. Then he stopped himself. For fuck’s sake, Hop, who do you think you’re working for, anyway?

Peggy looked at him, eyebrows tangling, her face stuck in arrested motion. Wouldn’t she love to squawk at him now? But she won’t. Hop wasn’t sure why, but he knew she wouldn’t fess up to a thing.

The Q&A went around for a good half hour. Peggy detailing Jean’s wild ways, her constant stream of dates with unreliable and questionable men. Boy, does she hate her missing, probably-dead cousin, Hop thought. He looked at Peggy’s tired face, the dyed and curled hair and the pressed dress, the full makeup and the round legs growing thick. A girl who was running out of time. In a few years, that kind of country-turned-city mouse beauty can turn frowsy and sad. She was watching her chances fall away each day.

“Thank you for your time,” Frannie said, rising.

“Hope to see you again, Mrs. Spangler,” Hop added, tipping his hat toward her.

She said, with a nervous wave of the hand, “I don’t know what more I can tell you.”

He said, “Maybe we’ll have some things to tell you,” and smiled hard at her.

Frannie and Hop walked to her car. Then, at a safe distance, Frannie turned to him.

“Listen, are you just going to follow me around from place to place? Is that the plan?”

“Hey, last night at the Eight Ball was a happy coincidence, remember?”

“And this morning?”

“Thought maybe I could help

She gave him a look. “Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s working. No one’s talking about Sutton and Merrel above a wink. Not even their driver, the busboys at the Eight Ball. Locked shut. Like clams, I tell you. I can’t get a soul to place them at the Eight Ball except you. And even my broadsheet won’t let me roll with that-—’cause I’m guessing you won’t go on the record.”

Hop just smiled lightly. His head hurt. His mouth felt like a dried-out sump. He tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling of sweat cleaving to his shirt. The prickle on the back of his neck assured him Miss Hotcha was looking at him from her apartment window.

“And Peggy Spangler,” Frannie chattered on, “she knows zip. She’s either dumb as a short plank or she knows when to keep her mouth shut.”

She seems like just a simple kid. Who can say, though?”

“Still, I don’t give up so easy. The way you’re on my tail I guess I’m beginning to think I’m onto something.” She moved closer toward him and pointed her finger at his head. “I can almost see the tiniest little bead of sweat on your left temple.”

“Rough night.” Hop smiled. ‘You should have taken me home with you to keep me out of trouble.” He leaned toward her. They were close enough now that he became conscious of the fact that he’d slept in his car. And that he’d never showered after his storage-room rendezvous with what’s-her-name. “Listen, Frannie. Sure, I want to keep my nose clean. But I also want to try to help or else why would

I have laid it on the line for you to begin with?”

“A fifth of bourbon laid it on the line for me.”

“The bourbon was the courage, sure: But I was still trying to make

things right the best way I could without losing my shirt. That’s all you can do.”

“You even talk like a press release.”

“Well, here’s one in all caps: Jean Spangler is probably dead. Slipshod abortion. The cousin told you as much.”

“And Sutton and Merrel?”

“One last sad fling for a party girl who’d had one too many.”

“That doesn’t end the story. If it was a butcher job, I’m going to find out who the butcher was. I’m talking to some girls who work the clubs on the Strip,” she said. “But here’s where we part ways, cowboy.”

Hop opened her door for her. Then, as she slipped by him, grazing his arm, he said, “You’re not going to phone my wife again, are you?”

Frannie stopped halfway into her car and turned. “So she told you.”

“In four-letter words—all caps.”

She looked a half shade redder. She sat down in the front seat and, focusing on fitting her keys in the ignition, said, “I’m just doing my job.”

“That’s what I always told her,” Hop said. “And now I know how lousy it sounds.”

Hop got in his car and drove around the complex a few times. Then he parked on Fairfax and walked back to the Spangler apartment. Peggy was sitting on the front steps, a hand over her mouth.

“You were a lot nicer the night we met,” she said as he walked across the lawn toward her.

“I’ve lost a lot of niceness in the last few days,” he said as she rose and opened the front door. They walked inside. Hop turned to her, her powdery face, the white-blonde eyebrows raised high in expectation. The mouth. He felt something rotten charge forth from his belly and end up in his wrists, temples. Had she laid for him that night to keep him away from the real story?

“Listen, what’s your angle?” he said, walking so quickly toward her that she backed up, nearly stumbling on the carpet edge.

She straightened her shoulders and took a breath. With an attempt at a smile, she said, “You want something to drink?”

He folded his arms and took a breath, too. Stay calm, kid. Nothing’s ever gained from getting hot. “How about ten gallons of black coffee?”

He followed her into the kitchen. As she worked the percolator, he peered across the hallway into the bedroom. Doily lamp. Twin pictures of ballerinas.

“Scene of the crime,” Peggy said, almost smiling, then cringing at the bad joke.

What’s your angle?” he repeated.

The percolator began to bubble.

“My angle?” she almost barked. “I’m a war widow from the Midwest. I admit it: I got tangled up in this because of my own vanity. I wanted to have a little fun.”

“Fun, huh? Fun for your beloved cousin to take a flying leap into nowhere?”

This time, she did flinch. “How did I know? And how is it my fault? I went along that night to enjoy myself for once. I figured, why should Jean get all the good times? My figure’s just as fine.” She ran a hand along the tops of her breasts. “I can laugh and dance and, well, other things, too. You know.” She nodded her head toward the bedroom.

Hop didn’t smile. For the first time he could recall, he passed on a cue.

Abashed, she dropped her arms to her sides. “I wanted to join her on one of her nights. Is that so awful?”

“So you were playacting?” Hop felt worn through with patience. “The country-cousin routine, huh? Okay, got it. Now, Mrs. Spangler, what I need to know is what the hell your game is.”

She visibly bristled, even backing up a little.

“I’ve got no game, Mr. Hopkins,” she said. “Oh, yes, I remembered your name.”

“Because I actually gave you mine, Miss Hotcha.”

Peggy touched her cheek, slightly red, with the back of her hand. “That was Jean’s idea of a joke. In her own way, she was full of jokes.”

“What about Iolene?”

“Who?” She looked at him.

“Iolene. The colored girl. Jean’s friend.”

“Oh, her. I don’t know. Never saw her before that night. Or after.

Jean didn’t mix us, her family, in any of that.”

“Any of what?”

“Showbiz. Whatever biz.”

“It’s funny because I really don’t believe you.”

“That’s not my problem,” she said briskly. Then she began looking at him closely, setting out two cups and saucers. This one’s raw and ready, Hop thought. She’s running out of chances to play this card and she knows it.

“So I know her,” she blurted out. “Iolene. She called a few times after Jean disappeared. Wanted some long green.”

“For what?”

“How should I know? I told her she was barking up the wrong war widow.”

“When was the last time you heard from her?”

“I don’t know. A while ago.”

Hop squirmed in his chair with irritation. “Listen, I’m losing my patience. I never lose my patience. Do you want to join me in seeing what it looks like?”

“She was mixed up in some schemes with Jean, okay? She was getting Jean involved in some things Jean had no business in.”

“Like what?”

“What else? Parties. Good times.” Peggy paused, then added, “Photographs.”

“Photographs?”

‘Yeah, photos.”

“Blackmail.”

“Yeah, yeah. Can this be new to you, Mr. Hopkins? You seemed to know Iolene.”

“Not really.”

Well, she’s bad news. You should just count your lucky stars. It looks like she’s beat town.”

How do you know she’s beat town?”

“I’m guessing that’s why I stopped hearing from her,” Peggy said waveringly.

“You might think about this, Miss Hotcha. Iolene was awfully scared last time I saw her. Scared enough to run. Hope whoever she’s scared of isn’t thinking of you next.”

She crumpled into a chair. Looking up at him, eyes turning pink, she poured Hop a cup of coffee and one for herself. He could see it all in her face. He could see it happening to her as she told it to him. The whole sad affair. She told him everything. All those evenings stuck in that apartment, watching her twenties pass by. So when Jean called home to check on Christine, Peggy tricked Jean into giving her the number of where she was, in case of emergency. Since Jean’s mom was in Kentucky visiting family, Peggy got the next-door neighbor, Beryl, to look after Christine. She put on one of Jean’s dresses, a pair of her stockings, even her perfume. She took a bus as far as she could and then hitched a ride to the Eight Ball, her heart pounding the whole way.

“And you,” Peggy told Hop, not quite looking him in the eye. “You with your shiny hair and the way you talked to me close. As soon as I got there, Jean whispered to me, ‘He’s all yours, sweetie. Eat him up.’ I thought you were an actor.”

‘You must have been disappointed.”

She shrugged, still not looking him in the eye.

“So you don’t know anything about what happened to them after

we left?”

“Sure I do. Iolene told me. She said Sutton and Merrel put Jean in a room and things got wild. Iolene snapped photos of them. The two men, they took turns on her. I think there are even pictures of both of ‘em taking her at once.”

My, she’s a cold one, Hop thought. Tells me this like she’s telling me what she had for lunch. “For their private delectation?” he said.

She stared at him blankly. He tried again. “For kicks?”

“I guess. But Iolene’s no fool.”

“What do you mean?”

“What, you think she’s the heroine of this little story? Those fellas can’t even control themselves enough to know that whatever jollies they get from the snapshots aren’t worth having those pictures fall into someone else’s hands.”

“Iolene peddled these pictures?”

“Sure, kid, sure. She wasn’t about to let the game end with Jean’s disappearing act.”

Hop looked at her, trying to see if, or how much, she was lying. “Sutton and Merrel paid?” he asked.

“I don’t know how it played out, Mr. Hopkins. Iolene played it long, far as I could tell. She’s a confident one,” Peggy said.

“Did you see the pictures?”

“No. No, I never did. But… but from what Iolene said, those pictures…” Her eyes unfocused. For the first time, Hop thought he saw something happening. Something Peggy hadn’t copied from the Saturday matinee. She paused for a moment. “They tied a leather strap around her mouth,” she said, voice trembling. “The pictures, they must be awful. Iolene, she said she couldn’t get them out of her head. She wanted to get rid of them. They were starting to get to her. She said she kept seeing them in her sleep. She said they were in all her dreams.”

Her eyes turned red. Neither of them said anything for a minute. Then she looked up at him and there was a fierceness in her eyes.

Fleetingly, he thought of Midge.

‘You still working for the movie magazines?” she asked.

“Sure,” Hop lied.

“Then you must be looking to make some sugar yourself.” There

was something unloosed in her face. It was unspooling and unspooling.

“Who isn’t?”

“I know where the golden egg is. A stash even hotter than this big names in what they call compromising positions. You and me,” she said, setting her hand over the top of her coffee cup, the steam turning her fingers pink. “We could go partners.”

“Oh yeah? If it’s so hot, what do you need me for?”

“Connections. Muscle—”

“How much muscle you see on me, Ace?”

“Enough,” she said, releasing her hand and pressing it on the counter. “I figure you can peddle ‘em. To the studios. The chancier gossip rags. Split the take. Get me the hell out of this four-square for good. I’ve served my fifty-two months. Life’s rough all over. Why should Iolene get all the honey?”

“That’s your angle, huh?”

“Could be.”

“I’ll bite. Where’s the stash?”