INGRID DOWS - AN ALTERNATE STORY PART 2 - THE JET AGE by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

6925 Hollywood Boulevard

Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

‘’So, girls, how did you like the movie?’ asked in a happy tone Howard Hughes as he walked out of the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre with Ingrid, Hedy Lamarr and Katharine Hepburn, holding the arms of both Hedy and Ingrid while Katharine walked close to one side of the trio. It was Hedy who answered him first.

‘’Any movie with Clark Gable in it is a good movie, Howard.’

‘’I second that!’ added Katharine Hepburn. As their group walked towards the boulevard passing in front of the theatre, the amateur and professional photographers who routinely hung around the entrance of the theatre, which was famous for often attracting celebrities, clicked away with gusto, not believing their luck. The two policemen posted in front of the cinema had to urge the photographers back to let the cinema viewers come out.

‘’So, can my moustache compare with that of Clark Gable, girls?’’ playful y said Howard as they waited for their limousine to come forward from its parking spot.

‘’We like you equal y with or without a moustache, Howard.’ answered diplomatically Ingrid, making the billionaire grin as photographers around them kept clicking away.

‘’Quite a diplomatic answer I must say, Ingrid. Ha! I see our limousine approaching.’

As the four of them watched the big limousine approach, another car, a grey sedan circulating in the opposite direction, slowed down as it came in front of the theatre.

Ingrid put that down to a desire by the occupant or occupants of that car to look at the four celebrities, until she saw a cylindrical object stick out from the rear left side window: that object was pointed directly at her! Her combat reflexes immediately kicked in and she pushed away both Howard and Katharine while shouting a warning.

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‘’GUN! GET DOWN!’

Katharine, an athletic woman, avid hunter and skeet shooter, reacted commendably fast to her warning, immediately taking two quick steps and crouching down. As for Howard and Hedy, they were much slower to react, with Howard also trying to move in front of Hedy to provide her some protection with his body. As Ingrid crouched down and reached for her compact GLOCK 26 9mm pistol, held in an ankle holster hidden by the long dress she was wearing, the loud staccato of a submachine gun fired from the grey sedan spread panic among the crowd of movie goers and photographers, who dispersed at a run while screaming in fear. Ingrid was about to pull out her pistol with her right hand when she felt an impact on her left arm, accompanied by a sharp pain. She couldn’t help push a short shout of pain while falling down on her ass but managed to point her pistol and fire it repeatedly before the gunman could readjust his aim and fire another burst. One of the two policemen who had been trying to control the photographers around her group then added the fire from his revolver, aiming at the shooter inside the car. A total of fourteen bullets, eight of them fired by Ingrid, hit the sedan in multiple spots along its left side, killing the shooter and also hitting the driver before the latter could accelerate away. The grey sedan, out of control, then slammed into a parked car and came to a full stop. What Ingrid couldn’t see at once was that one bullet had pierced the gas tank of the sedan, creating a fuel leak which then touched the hot muffler under it. Two seconds after crashing against the parked car, the grey sedan then erupted into a large fireball, which spread more panic around the bystanders to the shooting. Now assured that there was no more possible threat coming from the grey sedan, Ingrid, grimacing with the pain from her wounded left arm, quickly looked at her friends to see if they were safe. Katharine, to her right, was apparently intact and alert, so Ingrid then looked to her left, where Howard and Hedy had been. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw that Howard was lying inert on the sidewalk, pinning down Hedy with his body. The second policeman on the scene was also inert on the sidewalk, just in front of Hedy and Howard.

‘’Howard? HOWARD?’’

Gravely worried for her friends and doing her best to ignore the pain from her wound, Ingrid holstered back her pistol, then slowly got back up and went to Howard and Hedy.

While Hedy seemed to be unhurt and was trying to pul herself from under Howard’s body, the billionaire was completely inert. Ingrid then saw that his eyes were wide open

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and unmoving, while a large red stain was growing on his shirt, in the general area of the heart.

‘’My God! Howard, NOO!’

Going down on her knees next to Howard’s body, Ingrid then checked him out for a pulse, still hoping against the odds that he was still alive. Tears came out of her eyes when she couldn’t find one.

‘’Not you, Howard, please!’’

Katharine, who had also gotten back on her feet and had approached Ingrid, also started crying then but quickly helped a shaken Hedy get out from under the dead billionaire.

Once free to move, Hedy bent over Howard and kissed his forehead while crying, then looked up at Ingrid and Katharine.

‘’He...he stepped in front of me to protect me. That cop also tried to shield me.’

That prompted Ingrid to go check that downed policeman, who was being checked by his partner. The intact police officer gave a haggard look at Ingrid when she knelt beside him.

‘’Frank is dead, miss. We can’t do anything for him now. Are your friends okay?’’

‘’My two female friends are intact but Howard Hughes is dead, with a bullet in the heart area.’

That was when the policeman looked down at her left arm and saw her heavily bleeding wound.

‘’You’ve been hit and are losing a lot of blood, miss. Let me treat you.’

Taking a handkerchief from one pocket, he then cautiously applied it over her wound, making her wince with pain.

‘’I am sorry about that, miss. Could you hold this handkerchief in place while I call for an ambulance?’

‘’Go right ahead, Officer: I’m an ex-soldier and know how to do first aid.’’

The policeman then got up on his feet and ran to his patrol car, parked nearby, where he used the car’s radio to call his police dispatcher. As he was doing that, Ingrid returned to Howard’s body and looked down sadly at it. A series of flashes around her then made her look in anger at the photographers who had approached her group and were now taking pictures of the dead billionaire from up close.

‘’WILL YOU BACK OFF, YOU BUNCH OF VULTURES? I SAID, BACK OFF, NOW!’

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Katharine joined her at that moment and started physically pushing away the photographers and being brutal about it.

‘’YOU HEARD HER! BACK OFF BEFORE I START THROWING PUNCHES

AND BREAKING YOUR CAMERAS.’’

That last part of her warning actually had the most effect on the photographers, who did back away by a few meters but then continued to take pictures from a distance. Giving up on chasing them completely away, Katharine returned to Ingrid and examined quickly her wounded arm.

‘’It’s a through-and-through bullet wound. Thankfully, it appears to have missed the bone. Still, you are losing a lot of blood, Ingrid. You will definitely need to go to the hospital, and quickly.’

She then threw a hateful look at the burning grey sedan some thirty meters away, across the street.

‘’Why? Why did these bastards attack us?’

‘’They were probably after me, Katharine. That gunman was aiming directly at me before I pushed you away. As for who they were, your guess is as good as mine. I made a lot of enemies during the war, both foreign and domestic, and I also know a lot of things which makes me someone needing to be silenced. Unfortunately, poor Howard got hit as well while protecting Hedy. God, what a loss for all of us.’’

The intact policeman then ran back to their group and looked down at Hughes’ body before looking up at Ingrid.

‘’An ambulance is on its way, along with reinforcements and a van, miss. The van will take care of picking up your dead friend and my dead colleague. I know that you were acting in self-defense but I must ask this: is your pistol a legal one and do you have a carrying permit for it?’’

‘’I can show you my possession and carrying permits, Officer. Katharine, could you grab my purse and take my wallet out of it?’’

‘’Sure!’ answered the ex-actress before going to pick up Ingrid’s purse, which lay a few steps away on the sidewalk. Searching in it, she then opened the wallet she found inside it and extracted two small cards from it before offering them to the policeman, who examined them for a moment before handing them back to Katharine.

‘’Thank you, miss. Would you by chance have any idea of who those bastards were and why they attacked you and your friends, Miss Dows?’’

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‘’Who they were is anyone’s guess at this time, Officer. As for the why, both me and Howard Hughes made plenty of potential enemies while climbing the success ladder, me in the military and Howard in the business and financial world. Maybe the examination of that car and the bodies inside wil tell us more, once it stops burning.’

‘’Right, miss! I am...’’

A loud detonation, quickly followed by a string of similar detonations coming from the burning car, then interrupted the policeman, making him and Ingrid jerk nervously. Ingrid understood quickly what was happening and shouted out a warning.

‘’THE REMAINING AMMUNITION IN THE CAR IS STARTING TO COOK OFF!

WE ALL NEED TO TAKE OUR DISTANCES, QUICKLY. HEDY, KATHARINE, BACK

OFF ALL THE WAY TO THE THEATRE’S ENTRANCE!’

She herself withdrew, still holding with her right hand the bloody handkerchief covering her wound, while the policeman urged those still around to leave at once. Ingrid then counted at least a hundred detonations during the next minute before things quieted down.

‘’Damn! These bastards came with a full load of ammunition for their M3

submachine gun.’’

‘’Uh, how could you know what that shooter was using, Ingrid?’’ asked a surprised Hedy Lamarr.

‘’By its noise and very slow rate of fire, Hedy. The M3 ‘Grease Gun’ is basically a low-cost, low-quality weapon with a very slow rate of fire for a submachine gun. While it was basically junk, tons of them ended up as war surplus, making them quite easy to get for those who knew where to go.’’

‘’Oh, I see! Shouldn’t we return close to Howard, to keep those damn photographers away and to hide his body from them?’’

‘’Yes! Let’s do this!’

‘’Hold it there, Ingrid, and sit down!’’ then said Katharine while blocking Ingrid’s path. ‘’You have already lost quite a lot of blood and you need to sit down before you keel over. Me and Hedy will cover Howard’s body. First, let me help you to that nearby bench.’

Katharine had time to help her to the bench and to make Ingrid sit down before they started hearing the sirens of approaching police cars and of one ambulance. Two minutes later, three police cruisers, one police van, one ambulance and two fire trucks

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were stopping in front of the Chinese Theatre. The two medics who came out of the ambulance were then directed to Ingrid by the policeman who had been with her. The senior medic needed only a few seconds before declaring that she would need to see a doctor right away. As she was helped towards the ambulance, Ingrid shouted to Hedy and Katharine.

‘’STAY WITH HOWARD, GIRLS.’

‘’WE WILL!’ answered Katharine. As she was being put on a medical gurney, Ingrid saw two policemen put Howard’s body in a black body bag, while another pair of policemen took care of their dead colleague, with photographers coming back to take multiple pictures of the scene. Ingrid then felt immense sadness as she contemplated how huge the loss of a man like Howard Hughes was, and not only for herself or her two friends. She then started wondering who could have wanted to kill her.

04:42 (California Time)

Sunday, September 26, 1948 ‘C’