Something Gorgeous

By Junior Burke

A fictional exploration of the background and history surrounding the most iconic novel of the Jazz Age. According to the UK's Historical Novels Review: "Junior Burke's narrative is compelling... even purist Fitzgerald fans can enjoy it."

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781624886430

Book preview

Gatsby

PROLOGUE

JUDITH EALING ADLER sat in her private compartment, the pulse of the train above the rails, steady and sure. She looked out the window at the swarming blue sky and beige sand. Judith had taken this ride over forty years before, in 1919. It had been summer then, sweltering. The war had just been won and people were on the move; Judith, like so many other Americans, alive with possibilities. Same line, same direction, except now it was the fall of 1964 and Judith was sixty-three years old, with possibilities as arid as the desert beyond the glass.

While to most, the autumnal shift meant a chilling of the atmosphere, she had always regarded it as an emerging crispness that invigorated the senses. Not so, this season. The pain she carried all the time would not loosen its grip and was pressing, not only from within, but from some phantom place without. She glanced at the gold Tiffany watch she had bought herself for her sixtieth birthday. Not time for another pain pill yet, not for two disquieting hours. She leaned back and closed her eyes. The pain had settled into her shoulder for now, like some fist-sized, jagged cinder. Maybe if she pushed further into the sand and heat, autumn would not give way to winter, time and conditions would be miraculously reversed. No, there was no turning anything back; she had learned that long ago. The seemingly endless land would run out; time itself, deceptive and penurious, would run out. She would be in Los Angeles in the morning.

THE AMBASSADOR HOTEL,

4:03 P.M.

IN THE GLOWING haze of L.A.’s waning afternoon, Carr Nichols steered his ’62 Chrysler toward the Ambassador. He admired the hotel’s handsome facade, peach-toned and palm-shaded, sprawling back from Wilshire Boulevard on sculpted grounds. After leaving the car with the valet, he stepped into the lobby. Lively Latin music was bouncing from the Coconut Grove ballroom, probably a band warming up for some function that evening. He lifted the house phone. Halfway through the third ring, she answered.

Carr.

Uh, hello, Judith. I’m downstairs.

A moment. Why don’t you come up? Room four-twenty-three.

What Carr had in mind was a quick drink for old times’ sake. There’s a nice bar down here.

We can have a drink in the room. It will be more private.

Was this all a mistake? He hadn’t been there two minutes and old times’ sake already had him mildly discomfited. He took the elevator up to four-twenty-three and knocked lightly.

The woman who opened the door had finely cut, ash-shaded hair, and skin that held evidence of years in the sun. Her still trim figure fitted nicely into a rose-shaded dress. Low, ivory-toned heels. The striking gray eyes still sparkled as they roved his face.

Well, Judith, aren’t you going to let me in?

I need to make sure it’s really you, she said with a smile.

It’s been forty years, give a guy a break.

Carr held his hand out and she grasped it. Touching her, he flashed upon another hotel room, another city, another lifetime.

She turned and led him into the suite. Over her shoulder she said, I was afraid you wouldn’t come.

You caught me off guard, I’ll admit. I can’t think of a call that could have come more out of the blue.

Judith stopped beside a pair of chairs and a small table in the center of the room. I’ll have them bring something. They have an impressive wine list.

Wine gives me a headache. How about a Heineken?

It was the beer for those who had tasted something of the world. Carr recalled Hemingway — bare-chested, stretched out at pool side — hoisting a bottle in the Saturday Evening Post. Carr had met the Great Man at a party once, when Hemingway came to Hollywood to raise money for the Spanish Republicans opposing Franco. Scott had been there that night, pallid and reserved. It was the last time Carr, not to mention Hemingway, would see him. As Judith ordered two Heinekens and a ginger ale, Carr picked up the Life Magazine on the table. The Warren Commission had just published their official findings regarding the President’s murder the year before.

Wasn’t this a hell of a thing, he said. One crazy bastard changing everything like that?

Judith glanced at the magazine, then took it from him and walked it over to a table beside the bed. You can bet somebody knows the truth and I guarantee you it’s not in here. We may not know what really happened for fifty years… if it’s ever known at all. But it won’t be our concern then, will it?

Carr was annoyed by her condescension. What makes you so sure it isn’t the truth, Judith?

Think we ever know the truth about anything, Carr?

Her reply took him aback.

She deftly turned and smiled. You said on the phone you ended up writing for television….

Yes, Judith, I fell way short of becoming the artistic conscience of our generation but I have an Olympic-size pool and a grass tennis court….

So you were successful.

Not at first, but I was persistent. I came out here two years into the Great Depression. It wasn’t all that great though, was it? My shining moment was the horse opera I co-wrote in ’44.

Carr continued to feel uneasy. This woman, virtually a stranger, surely hadn’t taken a train from Indiana to discuss his career in show business. But in the face of not knowing what to say, he soldiered on. Television saved me, specifically the Warner Brothers westerns. I called it quits when they gave my parking space to an eighteen-year-old actress under contract.

Judith looked like she was about to say something but didn’t. His discomfort growing, Carr clung to the small talk. What about your husband? That last day Carr had seen her, when she had effectively written him off forever, she told him she was getting married.

What happens to any old woman’s husband? Death or divorce. In my case, I divorced him, then he died. We were blessed with not having children. And you?

Widower and grandfather. They’re all up in Morro Bay.

Judith simply nodded. Silence ensued and Carr’s uneasiness crossed into palpable agitation. He had never liked not knowing what someone was really after. Judith, just twenty-one when he knew her, had been confounding and manipulative. He hadn’t liked it then and he didn’t like it now. What are you doing here, Judith?

She smiled and, like the ones she had dispensed before, it held something other than warmth. It implied a private, secretive moment she was somehow enjoying. I came to see you, she declared.

Room service arrived. Judith signed for the drinks; Carr gratefully lifted one of the green bottles of beer from the linen-covered silver tray. He looked at the age spots on his hand as he poured. At the moment, they deeply troubled him. Seventy-two years old, how in the world did it happen? He had never been one to live in the past and here he was in the room with it. Judith coolly poured herself a ginger ale over ice, then moved to the dresser. I brought this bottle, so that you and I could have a drink.

We’re having one.

This is a very special bottle, the last of its kind. She strode back and handed it to him. Read the label.

Carr reluctantly reached into the breast pocket of his olive tweed sport jacket for his bifocals. He read aloud. The only bourbon made outside the United States with real Kentucky ingredients.

Judith took the bottle back to the dresser where she had set a pair of shot glasses. I brought you one just like it during Prohibition when you were living in Great Neck.

Though it seemed vaguely familiar, Carr didn’t respond.

I didn’t tell you at the time, but I made that slogan up while working for Harold Meyerstein.

Carr gave a nervous laugh. There’s a piece of history. I never dreamed you knew Meyerstein, much less worked for him.

Judith cracked the seal and carefully poured the first shot. She poured another and handed it to him. An oak-tinted scent rose from the glass.

Do you ever think about him? she asked.

Who? He knew damn well who….

Ritz.

Carr sighed. I buried him, Judith, he uttered as he recalled a drizzly image from the grim, barren inconsequence that was a man’s funeral. At least he died young. Wistfully, Carr added, I can’t picture Ritz being old anyway. He had a young man’s dreams. He took a sip of beer. After the sharpness of the whiskey, it tasted vague.

You didn’t bury him, Carr. You froze him in time and romanticized him.

At least he believed in something back then.

You only knew as much as he wanted you to know.

And you thought so damn much of him you didn’t even make the funeral.

Think I appreciated the slant you handed your friend Scott, portrayed like that in a book, for all the world to read, after you’d tossed me on the fire with the rest of the heathens?

Carr sighed. I’d just run into Buck Thomason on the street. Seeing that bastard brought up all the anger…. At the Oak Bar in the Plaza, I got totally sloshed and told Scott about that summer. Carr shook his head. I knew I’d never write it myself and said so. You’ve got to admit, it’s a masterpiece.

Oh, it’s a great story, all right.

Judith poured some bourbon into her ginger ale.

Is that what you came for, Judith — to tell me what your friend Faye spilled out some teary-eyed night — her rationalization about what happened? He set his glass down. I don’t need to hear it. I know what happened. I was the last one to talk with Ritz and he told me everything then. C’mon, Judith. I was there, remember?

Ritz lied to everybody. The man elevated deception to an art form.

Carr took a long sip of beer. Now Judith was at the window, gazing out toward Wilshire. It was fully dark. There were two lamps burning but the room was dim.

Carr felt a kind of inevitability as resignation settled over him like a heavy cloak. She was the Ancient Mariner and he was the Wedding Guest. He considered himself a gracious man and there was no way to make a graceful departure, short of sprinting to the door and slamming it behind him. Okay, so do you want to tell me more about Ritz and Faye’s fairy tale love affair back in Louisville?

Judith turned as though coming out of a trance, then walked back and sat in the chair facing him. The story doesn’t start there, she said.

BOOK ONE

UNDER THE RED,

WHITE AND BLUE

CHAPTER ONE

SPRING, 1917

RITZ WAS IN Puerto Cabello, on the beach at dawn, wearing the chilling realization that there were powerful people within miles of where he was sitting who wanted him dead. He had really fixed himself this time. It started simply enough, when he landed in Venezuela only five days before. A beach party, that first night. The girl had sleek black hair and brown silky skin and talked and laughed freely. They danced at midnight and shared wet rum kisses, then screwed deliriously by a huge leaping fire. Somebody, probably more than one person, saw them. His friend Pablo told him the next day that the girl’s parents stayed up late fretting about her, discovered she was drunk, suspected she’d been with a man, and forced her to confess the details. Had Ritz known she was a general’s daughter, he would have thought hard about it. Had he known she was sixteen, he still would have thought about it, then turned and run. But rum muddles the blood and lust muddles the brain. And so Ritz was penniless in a foreign country with brutal forces swearing vengeance on him. Pablo, undoubtedly the most promising of his scant resources, was bounding up the desolate beach in the hazy glare to report on the plans to end Ritz’s existence.

Pablo was tall and lanky, wearing a blue flowered shirt, dark curly hair in perpetual disarray. His eyes were hooded, but not in a hostile way, more like in a constant state of sleepiness. Ritz had met him years before, the first of three times he sailed here with Daniels. Back then, Pablo was teaching himself English in order to be even more effective at separating the yanquis from their posesiónes. After Daniels died, Ritz returned on his own and he and Pablo signed on together as shipmates. One afternoon on deck, Pablo put his palm on Ritz’s leg and declared intently: There is gold in you. Not just in your hair of course, but somehow in your blue eyes and in your skin. Gold shines out of you.

Ritz had figured that was how Pablo was and now it was out in the open. He gently but firmly removed the young man’s hand from where it was resting, saying, You’re my brother, Pablo. That has to be enough.

Pablo had smiled a smile Ritz knew only too well. The world was filled with things you wanted and would never attain.

For three days now, Pablo had been trying to find a solution that would spirit his friend safely out of the country.

It is very tight, very troublesome, he reported. You are not on the official list yet but you will be soon and they will have a detailed description. Your best hope is to go inland and try for an undetected border crossing.

This was what Ritz was expecting. He would get lost or killed in the dense, unfamiliar countryside. He needed to go now. Isn’t there any other choice?

Pablo grimaced as he squatted to pick up a pale blue shell from the sand. There is one thing. But I was not going to bring it up because it is far too dangerous. I would not risk it myself.

Tell me.

Pablo put the shell in his pocket and nodded his bushy head. There are some pearls, exquisite ones, to be delivered to a buyer in America. They are part of the estate of a landowner who died this year. President Gomez does not want these jewels to leave the country. He considers them a national treasure, but probably just wants them for himself. He is prepared to do almost anything to keep them from leaving port. Anyone the least bit suspicious will be thoroughly searched. If they find them on you, you will not live to see another sunrise.

How long has this been in the air?

Six weeks and no one will touch it. I turned the job down twice…. And there is a time concern. If they do not arrive on schedule, there will be consequences.

As Pablo provided more details, Ritz was weighing the elements, trying to find that glint of light, that one foolproof way to work it. It was floating nearby. He could taste it, smell it, sharp in the salt air.

Another thing about this job, Ritz….

What’s that?

You will be provided with expense money in advance, but your payment will not be made until delivery when you will receive a small percentage but of a very big number…. If I have recruited you and anything goes wrong, the ones controlling the sale from here will have me killed.

Ritz looked down at Pablo whose eyes were at that moment not hidden like usual but gleaming brown as he continued.

If anyone can find a way, it is you, my friend…. Of course you are honorable and will send me a generous fee.

Ritz extended his hand and pulled the other man to his feet. They gripped each other’s hands for a long moment, sealing their bond.

RITZ TOLD PABLO he needed a doctor who could provide more than medical services. As usual, Pablo had just the man and he owed Pablo a favor. Doctor Contreras was known to sew up knife wounds and remove bullets for those who did not want to involve the authorities in their misfortunes. He would provide narcotics for a hungry habit. He would perform abortions. It was whispered that had even performed one on a nun.

The next morning Ritz had Pablo send an anonymous message to the Port Authority saying that the man attempting to carry the pearls out of the country would be an American in his twenties, his arm in a plaster cast. The man would be strolling boldly through the checkpoint at the main pier, a little before noon. Inside the cast would be the strand of pearls.

Ritz arrived at Contreras’ office at the appointed time. Contreras was short but his shoulders and arms and torso were thick and muscled. He had taught anatomy in Buenos Aires, and was said to know the intricate workings of every human component. What do you need? he asked.

I want you to break my arm.

The doctor’s eyebrows jumped in response. I am usually paid to mend limbs, not shatter them.

Ritz scarcely heard him.

I want you to break it thoroughly, so I’ll need to be anesthetized. This afternoon, I’ll come back and have you do something else before setting it again.

"Something else?"

Let’s just get it over with.

Another of Pablo’s crazy friends, Contreras muttered in Spanish as he stepped over to his wooden cabinet and chose a syringe. Infusing it with anesthetic, he asked, Left or right?

Ritz offered his left arm and the doctor dabbed alcohol-soaked cotton onto a patch of skin covering the primary vein. He took time with the injection, making sure that every drop found its way in. Once the shot was delivered, he stepped over to the water basin to wash his hands.

We will wait until it takes full effect.

Contreras left the room and Ritz sat on the wooden bench, his arm growing numb. In a few moments there was nothing but dead weight from his left shoulder to his left wrist. Light-headed, he wondered if death, no matter how painful, didn’t come like that, numbness spreading until there was nowhere left to spread.

Contreras was back. You are ready?

The doctor took Ritz’s arm, one hand gripping the wrist, the other the elbow. He steadied the forearm across his knee and without any prelude brought all the strength of his upper body down, snapping the bone the way a woodsman snaps a branch.

When Ritz stopped screaming, he looked at his arm, dangling from the break a couple of inches above the wrist. The skin was turning crimson and swelling before his eyes.

Contreras lit a cigarette. Before setting it, I will inject some more pain-killer.

Ritz nodded, eyes filled with tears.

Whatever you are doing this for, said the doctor, I hope to hell it is worth it.

Ritz sat, mildly in shock, telling himself: Yes it’s worth it. I’m getting out of here alive. I’m gonna get to someplace where I can start all over.

THE SEAPORT WAS crowded with merchants and seamen and dock workers, loading and unloading cargo onto a number of vessels. Women were buying fresh fruits and vegetables while children ran freely in the sunlight. Chickens clucked in cages. Pigs snorted. Dogs sniffed the ground. Ritz had booked passage on a ship setting off for Havana before going on to New Orleans. His seaman’s bag that held his paltry possessions was slung over his shoulder. It was all he could do to remain upright from the trauma he’d just endured. His rational self was wondering whether his plan was too extreme. But he had to make it look real and indeed, it was. His left arm, freshly cast in plaster, was thrust upward at a peculiar angle. The throb from it was steady and severe and seemed to be dictating the rhythm of his heart. Phwud! Phwud! He could feel the blood resounding in his temples.

The custom officials spotted him immediately, waiting until he was in line at the declaration booth to impose themselves on either side of him.

Come with us, one said in Spanish.

Ritz followed them for fifty yards to a wooden shed whose white paint was faded and peeling, beside the base of the pier. Inside, it was damp and gloomy, in contrast to the glaring light of the seaport. There were two others at the desk, one fat and olive-skinned, puffed up in his military uniform behind a long table.

You are American, yes? he said, in English. We have information that you are carrying an item of great value.

Ritz forced a smile at the harsh set of faces. Whatever I’m carrying is only of value to me.

The officer made a sound in his throat. We will see about that…. What happened to your arm?

I slipped on deck.

At the officer’s signal, the pair who had walked him in leaped upon Ritz and wrestled him to the floor. While one pressed his full weight on Ritz’s chest, the other set upon his cast, cutting it open with a huge pair of shears.

Ritz howled even louder than when the bone had been snapped. As he struggled to keep from blacking out, he glimpsed the mask-like face of the uniformed official while choking on spasms of blinding agony.

The one with the shears shouted in Spanish, Nothing here — there is nothing here!

The uniform stood. There must be — look harder!

Nothing! He yanked off a handful of plaster. Not a damn thing!

The one holding Ritz down eased his grip. Ritz remained on his back, listening to bursts of Spanish concerning the failure to find anything concealed in the cast. His arm was about to explode.

"The bastard’s arm really is broken! shouted the officer. Look at it — the bone is split in half!"

But we were told — the one with the shears insisted.

Let go of him! The officer looked down at Ritz and said in English: Get out of here! You are free to go!

Ritz stumbled out of the shed, into the blazing sunlight, the world swirling around him. He pointed himself toward the American consulate, housed in a bleached wooden structure on the main commercial street.

You want to see the consul? asked the smooth young man in the reception area. Do you have an appointment?

Ritz was breathing severely. With his healthy arm, he pushed his well-worn passport toward the haughty face. Bearing down on the pain, Ritz uttered: I am an American citizen and I’ve just had the shit shaken out of me by Venezuelan bastards…. He told enough of the incident to be admitted to the big breezy office down the hall.

The consul was a ghostly fellow named Maher whose pallor was sickly copper, as though he was coming down with, or just getting over, jaundice. He winced at the sight of Ritz’s swollen arm, but listened without comment before saying: We’re at a very crucial juncture with this country’s government. They don’t want any unfortunate incidents and we don’t either. What sort of support are you looking for, short of official action?

Ritz spoke forcefully. I just want to get the hell out of this hole and back to the land of the free.

Maher studied him, then nodded. A U.S. vessel, the Crescent, sails at sixteen-hundred hours directly for New Orleans. Present yourself at the port a half-hour before. I’ll arrange for security in the form of one of our Marine guards to escort you to a private cabin. And I suggest you get yourself to a doctor before getting on board.

I intend to.

The consul briskly assembled a set of papers and stamped the top sheet.

Ritz met Pablo in the alley behind Contreras’ office where he was slipped the pearl necklace. He pulled the other man to him. I won’t forget you, my brother.

When you have set your mind, there is nothing you will not risk, Pablo uttered with a laugh.

Ritz smiled, then went back in and told the doctor to put a fresh cast on his arm, this time with the pearls tucked inside.

Contreras gave him another injection and enough codeine capsules for the crossing. I hope these drugs do not make you sick while you are at sea.

Ritz offered his right hand to the doctor.

He appeared at the dock where a young Marine showed him to his quarters.

Ritz went up on deck a few minutes after they lifted anchor. With the foreign shore receding behind him, ahead lay vast, shimmering openness; an empty canvas upon which to render the fresh watercolor of his new life. After ten years of floating, he had a desperate longing for one country, one woman, one bed. Although he didn’t know exactly where it was, Ritz needed to get home.

CHAPTER TWO

What am I doing here? thought sixteen-year-old Judith Ealing, as she sat behind Nita Lindsay’s exquisite Colonial estate. She was part of a group of Kentucky’s most genteel young ladies on this splendid Friday afternoon in May, the day before the Derby. All week long, shiny trains and motor cars and even a few airplanes made their way to central Kentucky to take part in what was establishing itself as a national event. The dour, silver-haired woman standing beside Mrs. Lindsay was firm evidence of that.

This is Mrs. Grant Sweet, Nita Lindsay breezily declared, and I am turning over my home to her tonight, just as all of Louisville are hosting fine people from all points of this nation. I feel assured that if there were to be a tremendous thoroughbred race up Park Avenue, Mrs. Sweet would show us the same courtesy.

The young women smiled. All but the younger Judith were high school seniors skipping school that day. Most would be attending college in the East in the fall, and being in proximity to such a renowned and elegant hostess as Mrs. Sweet would be superb preparation for the parlors of Park Avenue and Boston and Philadelphia.

I know I don’t need to refresh you on any conduct nor form of protocol, as every one of you comes from an impeccable Southern household where your mama raised you just right.

Regardless of that remark, Judith was aware that Nita Lindsay had resisted having her among her hostesses. Even though Judith’s father was head of the city’s foremost Episcopal congregation, she could not be considered part of the upper-crust of Louisville. But Faye Kingsley, reputedly the most popular girl in Kentucky and maybe even Tennessee, was sitting beside Judith, having insisted that her friend be included, and Faye invariably got what she wanted.

Kentucky had not been officially part of the Confederacy but Judith knew that of those present, with the exception of herself and Mrs. Sweet, there was not a Yankee among them. That would change before the sun went down, with the arrival of one-hundred-twenty guests, half of them from states beyond Kentucky. It was a stunning day, all green and blue and white and golden. The crew, mostly black, vigorously pounded stakes into the ground, set up buffet tables, and unrolled the bright yellow canvas that would serve as a canopy. They unloaded horse-drawn wagons, which supported huge blocks of ice and cases of bourbon, bottles of table wine and mineral water, smoked salmon and oysters, artichokes and onions and mushrooms, cakes and jams, and gallons of ice cream. A bandstand was constructed and colored lights strung in all the bushes and trees. Swans floated in the pool, in part for decoration, but also to discourage anybody from taking a plunge.

Mrs. Sweet consulted a typewritten list of instructions as she told the group of hostesses how the evening would unfold. Judith, hands clasped dutifully in her lap as she sat beside Faye, said under her breath: But when do we get to smoke?

Faye giggled. Judith was her newest, and therefore closest, friend. They had met at the country club on the first day of spring. Judith’s membership had been arranged by Owen Parnell, who was counting on her to win the Women’s National Amateur Golf Tournament. It was assumed she would turn professional in two years upon graduating from high school, and it would be good for Louisville and the club to be represented on the Women’s National Tour. The way she was coming along, Judith could be a champion for years. Although Judith was distinguishing herself, she knew that Faye’s regard for her sprang in a large part from the fact that Judith couldn’t help but worship her, already emulating her style of dress and a few of the more distinctive of her dizzying array of mannerisms. Judith even fantasized about darkening her yellow hair to the lustrous black of Faye’s, but that would have been too obvious. Nor did she dare imitate the virtuosity of Faye’s voice, which could be at once playful and riveting. Faye had as many friends as she cared to collect and Judith had only Faye. Although Judith projected a carefully cultivated air of confidence, even aloofness, she was keenly aware that Faye went through clothes, pastimes and people as though another closet, stuffed with everything she would ever need, was standing untouched, a few steps away. To Judith, the precariousness with which they were sculpting a friendship made it all the more appealing. She lived for challenges and was bored with the rest.

Mrs. Sweet’s orientation was concluded by two-thirty, and the young women were granted some personal time until four o’clock, when they would rehearse their greetings and reception of wraps and valuables for when the guests began arriving at six.

Faye strolled away from the house, toward the stables set among acres of flawless rolling hills. Judith fell in step, pulling out a pack of Chesterfields and handing one to Faye.

I shouldn’t smoke too much tonight, Judith said. Guy has taken to having me blow my breath at him if I come in late.

Guy was her father. When she didn’t refer to him by his first name, Judith would call him Rev. She actually felt a deeper bond to him than she let on. Her mother died four years before, back when the family had been living in Indianapolis. Unlike Faye, who had a quartet of older brothers, Judith was an only child. When she was old enough to consider it, she questioned why her parents had not had other children. The perennial answer was: It just worked out that way. This made her wonder whether she might have been adopted, but was assured she had not been.

I hope you remembered matches this time, said Faye.

Better than that, my dearest. Judith pulled a handsome, silver lighter from the pocket of her blouse and handed it to her friend.

Where on God’s earth did you get this?

They