Joan Crawford and Bela Lugosi (for Halloween)

Here's a Bit from The Joan Crawford Murders (one of my fabulous novels)

Joan stomped to the limo, yelling, “Take me to Bela Lugosi's mansion!  He'll see me if I have to climb over the gate!  I don't care how high it is!”

“Oh - he lives in a tiny bungalow in the outer suburbs.  No gate.  No fence.”

Joan paused, alarmed. “Are you sure?”

“I saw it in the paper.  They were making fun of him.”

“But he's made so many pictures,” Joan argued.  “How could he not live like a king by now, with a big gate?”

“Have you seen any of his pictures?”

“Last Halloween The Devil Bat was on TV.”  Joan got in the limo.  The driver took her to Dracula’s humble abode.  “BELA!”  Joan screamed out her back window before the car was even in the narrow stub of driveway beside a small patch of dry dead grass.  “BELA!”

A thin old man's face stuck up against the inside of his window and he smiled, thinking a limo had come for him, but then when he saw Joan Crawford fly out of it like a bat out of a big budget horror movie, and saw her marching up to his front door, he stopped.

“BELA!  I’ve got a bone to pick with you!”

At the door, Bela hesitantly greeted, “Helloooo?”

“I'm Joan Crawford!”

“I know.  I loved your picture, Sudden Fear.”

Joan paused.  She smiled. “Did you?”

He said, “Yes, you looked so afraid.”

Joan smiled bigger.  “Did I?  Did you like it?  Did you?  Really?”

Bela nodded.  “You are so good at horror.”

Joan frowned.  “Balls!  It wasn't horror!  It was suspense!”

“I was trying to flatter.”

“Flattery doesn't work today!”  Joan pushed past him and made herself at home until she noticed how dirty the house was, so she retreated back to the door, screaming the whole time.  “WHERE'S MY GODDAMN MONEY AND YOUTH AND FOUNTAIN AND … ”

“Miss Crawford!” Bela shouted back, trying to get some sense out of her.  “What is it?”

“You ripped me off!”

“I have nothing of yours,” Bela insisted.  “Nothing!  What is this about?”