Throwback Thursday: ‘Frankie Ray at the Gates of Monument Studios’

Setting Foot in Paradise

In Part 4 of the Monument Studios Mystery The Extra, Vancouver schoolteacher and hopeful actress Frankie Ray and her friend Connie Mooney find new dangers and mystery at Paradise Villas, a community of extras led by the powerful Loretta Desirée, veteran of King Samson’s epic movies and queen of the extras.

Enjoy this excerpt from Issue 26, Spring 2020, on sale now until September 30th.

The Extra: Frankie Ray at the Gates of Monument Studios

by Mel Anastasiou

April 1934: Paradise Garden Villas, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.

Frankie Ray and Connie Mooney stepped into the crowded courtyard area at the centre of the Paradise Gardens bungalows. Frankie had never seen anything as lovely as the scene before her: warm air, a soft starry sky, and young men and women dancing and laughing in the tiled courtyard amid cottages and palms. Somebody had set up a gramophone, and conga music sounded two large drumbeats, like soft fists against her chest.

In the middle of the courtyard, a small fountain bloomed, with coloured lights reflected in its spray. A couple of dozen young people snaked in a line around the fountain, dancing the conga. One-and-two-and-three. Kick!

She felt Connie grip her arm and hold it for a few syncopated bars, and then some fellow reached out of the cluster of dancers and dragged Connie away. Frankie was left alone on the sidelines. She moved a little to the music, wanting more than anything in the world at that moment to be dancing too but feeling just as certain that she would never really fit in here — not like Connie, who had already vanished from view on the far side of the fountain.

And then, without quite understanding how, Frankie found herself in the arms of a man she’d never seen before. She was smoothly integrated into the snaking line of dancers. One-and-two-and-three. Kick!

She lost sight of the first man almost immediately, but it didn’t seem to matter as she danced across the courtyard and around the fountain, her arms on somebody’s shoulders and another pair of hands clasped around her waist. She looked over her shoulder, but all she could see of Connie — if it was Connie at all — was a flash of copper hair.

And now they were all circling the fountain in the centre of the courtyard, where music drowned out the splash of water. She looked about for the gramophone and spotted it on a table beside an old lady dressed in black and seated in a wicker chair. The old lady’s hands lay clasped across the bosom of her black dress, and her eyes were shut. Electrical cords snaked from the phonograph around a stack of records at her feet.

Around the fountain — one-and-two-and-three. Kick! — the drumbeats pushed at Frankie, and she pushed back. The line ducked under a swinging row of Chinese lanterns.

A young man’s voice shouted in her ear from behind. “Tell me, sister, what brings you to Paradise Gardens?”

Find out what happens next, in Issue 26, Spring 2020, ON SALE now until September 30th!

Mel Anastasiou writes mysteries, including the Fairmount Manor Mysteries and the Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries available at pulpliterature.com. For her novel Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries, Mel won a Literary Titan Gold Book Award and was longlisted for the Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.