Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

isle.
    Smiling, Willa stood up and exchanged hugs with the publicity man. “Hal, darling,” she said in her drawling British accent. “So wonderful to see you. Are you going to be taking the Super Chief?”
    “Right, kid. I’m tagging along with Manheim and Dian Bowers.”
    “I’ve heard the girl is marvelous,” said Willa.
    “That’s putting it mildly,” said Arneson, grinning.

Five
    H and in hand, Jane and I approached Union Station through the oncoming night. It glowed up ahead of us, a large, sprawling structure of tinted stucco and red-tile roofs, dominated by a clock tower. Built at the cost of over ten million bucks, it looked like the result of an uneasy collaboration between Father Junipero Serra and Cecil B. DeMille.
    The pillared art deco lamps out front were on, lending a Hollywood glow to the sidewalk and the decorative palm trees along Alameda Boulevard. As we approached the entrance to the vast waiting room, two yellow cabs pulled up to the curb. A half-dozen or so buoyant young people came bouncing out, laughing, chattering, and unloading an assortment of suitcases. Two Red Cap porters hurried over with luggage carts. From out of the trunk of the rear cab the driver tugged a battered trunk that had “STEP RIGHT UP” freshly lettered on the side in whitewash.
    “Pretty girls,” I mentioned.
    “Pretty boys, too,” said Jane.
    “Dancers, maybe?”
    “Yep. Step Right Up is a new musical that’s trying out in Chicago before, maybe, opening on Broadway,” said Jane. “With a cast of Hollywood hopefuls.”
    “More information obtained from Johnny Whistler?”
    “Louella Parsons in this case.” We entered the vast, high-ceilinged
waiting room. “Bear in mind, dear, that I have to keep up-to-date with goings-on in movie land. Background stuff for Hollywood Molly . It’s not that I’m addicted to show business gossip.”
    “I’m a Hollywood hopeful myself at the moment,” I mentioned. “If only I could dance better, I might join this show.”
    “First thing to do is improve your fox trot, then work up from there.”
    The waiting room still had a brand-new smell to it. You got the feeling you’d entered a huge, new, and affluent Beverly Hills church and that the rows of leather settees were pews. The high-hanging chandeliers were made of gold-tinted glass and added a soft, expensive glow to everything.
    Midway into the big vaulted room, at the edge of the pastel-tiled walkway leading to the access tunnel for the train platforms, was gathered a small crowd of people. Reporters, photographers, curious passengers. I spotted Larry Shell, using his camera, and Dan Bockman from the LA Times . Also Norm Lenzer of the Herald-Examiner, Gil Lumbard of the Hollywood Citizen-News, a fat guy who worked, I think, for the San Diego Union, and an attractive blonde I was pretty sure was Sheilah Graham. They were all circling a smiling Daniel K. Manheim and an obviously nervous Dian Bowers. The producer was a large, heavyset man in his early forties, his thick wavy hair already a silvery white. He was wearing a well-tailored—all things considered—dark grey suit and had his right arm protectively around the slim shoulders of the slim, dark-haired young actress. She was pretty, but not in a glamour-girl way, and her hair was still worn in the short cropped style that portraying Joan of Arc had called for. Standing nearby, in a soldier-at-ease position, was the burly Hal Arneson.
    “Want to stop and listen?” I asked Jane.
    She shrugged her left shoulder. “Might as well. We’ve still got about twenty minutes before the train starts.”
    “ … weren’t you in the movies before, Dian?” Lenzer was asking.
    “Norm, Miss Bowers is a brand-new, freshly minted motion picture
star,” Manheim answered for her in his deep chesty voice. “As bright and new as this railway station. Saint Joan, which will have its world premiere in New York City late next week, is Dian Bowers’s very first movie. I’m