Gordon showed up near dawn. Diana asked for Gordon’s help, and he said nothing doing. She was MGM and not his problem. He called us all goddamned morons then he marched up to the desk sergeant. I’m sure he was armed with many envelopes of cash, suitably spread around among the undeserving. He spent a long time talking, though I couldn’t hear what was said. They released Jonathan and me to Gordon. He even got my handbag back. Diana was left alone. I felt sorry for her. I hoped MGM would come to her rescue.

Gordon had a lot more to say to us in the car, heaping abuse on our stupidity and saying how the newspapers and gossip rags were going to love this. It was full morning by now, and the bright light hurt my eyes. Hell, my whole face hurt. My whole body. Our defense about being ambushed by photographers? He didn’t want to hear it, even though he knew—everyone in our business knows—that the cops and the press were dirty-hand-in-dirty-glove, always had been, always would be. He left Jonathan off in front of Casa Fiesta in Laurel Canyon with a few choice remarks about auditioning for Fly Me to the Moon with a great big fat split lip. I started to get out too, to go to my car, but Gordon stopped me.

“Irene says you’re not driving home. She told me to bring you home with me. Oh, and by the way, Leon is furious with you.”

“He knows?”

“Of course! You think I’d let him read shit like this in the papers? I called him. He said he bailed you out when you rolled the Packard, but you’re not sixteen anymore, and if you’re going to go on making reckless choices and stupid decisions, then you should take the consequences.”

“So who paid off the cops?”

“I did. You and Jonathan can pay me back. Five hundred. Each.”

“Really? That much?”

“No, but you can just pay up and shut up. Both of you.”

“Gee, thanks, Gordon. You paid it yourself. I’m kind of surprised.”

“Irene made me do it,” he said as we pulled up the long drive to his Benedict Canyon house, where the lights were all on, and Irene opened the door and took me in her arms.

Chapter Fifteen

Gossip about the Comet Club raid and the arrests ran through the streets of Hollywood like the bulls of Pamplona. By the time the afternoon papers came out, barbs, gibes, and photographs peppered the pages, including pictures of the three of us looking like sodden criminals. “Merde!” I cried, reading the afternoon newspapers in Irene’s kitchen while swilling orange juice, wearing one of her peignoirs, and holding an ice pack over my left eye. Our names and ages and occupations were printed, and I was explicitly referred to as Leon Greene’s granddaughter.