Silent Murders Read Free Page A

methodically, until he had taken stock of every face. It reminded me of another man I used to know—a bootlegger—who did the same thing before entering a room. All at once a shout came from behind me, and an actor I recognized from the screen as Jack Pickford called, “Johnnie! Over here!” Only then did Johnnie descend the two steps into the living room and plunge into the party.
    Someone tapped my shoulder and there was Douglas Fairbanks in his smart midnight-blue dinner jacket, looking like he’d just stepped out of a high-society picture. “Good evening, Jessie,” he said, sipping a frosted glass of orange juice. “You’re looking lovely tonight.”
    “Thank you. I’m here with a friend, and I’d like you to meet her. This is Myrna Loy.” And for form’s sake, I added the entirely unnecessary second half of the introduction, “Myrna, this is Douglas Fairbanks.”
    Douglas made a short bow. “Charmed, I’m sure, Miss Loy.”
    Myrna stood rooted to the rug, hopelessly tongue-tied. “Gee, Mr. Fairbanks. This is such an honor. I, um—I’ve seen all your pictures.”
    “Until recently, Myrna was a dancer at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater,” I said helpfully, nudging her with my elbow.
    “Um, that’s right, I used to dance the prologue to Thief of Bagdad .” She was referring to the lavish live spectacle presented on the stage before every showing of Douglas’s most recent film, a fairy tale with astonishing special effects that had been released last year and was still playing in many theaters.
    “So you and I have shared the same stage, so to speak? Allow me to express my gratitude for your part in making my picture such a success. Ah, here she is … Mary, darling, I’ve told you about my temporary assistant. This is Jessie Beckett and her friend Myrna Loy.”
    As one of the few adults whose height matched that of “Little Mary” Pickford, I could look her straight in the eye. “I’m honored to meet you,” I began, trying not to appear overawed by her presence and hoping she couldn’t see my heart hammering beneath my frock. I’d seen her at the studio a few times, but being introduced socially almost took away my powers of speech. “I’ve learned so much from you over the years, I feel I owe whatever success I had in vaudeville to you.”
    “How very kind.” Mary Pickford looked even prettier than she did in her pictures, with wide hazel eyes and delicate lips darkened red. Her voice was higher than I had imagined and soft as a cat’s fur. For the party, she had swept her famous blond ringlets in a mass behind her head and donned a pale gold flapper dress embroidered with pearls. Hard to believe I was talking to the woman who had virtually invented film acting, the woman who had not only starred in hundreds of pictures, but who had started her own studio; the woman who could play a feisty eleven-year-old boy as convincingly as she did an old woman. I’d’ve rather met “Little Mary” than the queen of England.
    “Douglas said you played children’s roles in vaudeville?” she asked politely, sipping her orange juice and no doubt wondering why a lowly assistant script girl had been invited to this chic affair.
    I nodded. “I grew up on stage, too. Just like you. My mother was a headliner, and she managed to keep both of us working most of the time.” The truth was, things were pretty darn good while Mother was alive. It was later, after she died, that my life fell apart.
    “No father?”
    “Died.”
    Sympathy wrinkled her smooth brow. “Oh, Jessie, so did mine. And my mother took us kids—Lottie and Jack and me—on the stage and managed our careers. She still does. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I’ll bet you never went to school, either.”
    “You can’t go to school when you move to a different city every week. My mother taught me my letters and numbers, and I read every book I could lay my hands on.”
    “I learned to read from the billboards along the