by Rex Baron
He led her onto the dance floor of the Coconut Grove.
William Desmond Taylor had decided he would help Paulo entertain his friends from New York, and had invited the Montagues and Lucy for an evening at the Ambassador Hotel.
The new nightclub of the hotel was the length of a city block, filled with a forest of potted palms, adorned with cleverly fashioned little monkeys made from coconut shells. Above the dark green leather banquettes, famous faces, photographed in glamorous attitudes, stared back from oversized portraits along the Moorish tiled walls, while an intricate floral carpet design, mingling exotic birds of paradise with banana leaves, seemed to stretch out endlessly.
It was truly a place to see as much as to be seen in. Handsome young faces lined the balcony rail over the marble dance floor, an ideal vantage point to view the modern young girls, who kicked up their legs to the new syncopated music, showing off their boyish bodies, honed flat with exercise and brown from the sun.
These were the children of the sun, or so they liked to call themselves, the worshipers of Apollo and Dionysus, rivaling the fortunate few amongst them who dominated the night and were adoringly referred to by those far below as Stars. They were gathered to break every convention. A madcap combination of tuxedos and silk pajamas, carefully combined to offend as well as amuse, mingled with easy, youthful charm amongst breathtaking gowns of tulle and lace.
It was a weekly Bacchanal, without the wine. The Prohibition Act had taken care of that, and yet there was plenty of liquor of varying qualities to be had. All one had to do was hum a few bars of a popular song, as a password to the washroom attendant, and a quart of gin or even Canadian whiskey could be had for a five dollar bill.
Lucy and Paulo danced a neat little two-step out in the center of the dance floor.
“I hope David and Celia are having a good time,” Paulo said, asking for her reassurance.
“I'm sure they are. It was very agreeable of your friend William to invite us here tonight.”
“Yes,” Paulo replied. “He is my first friend here in California, and he is very kind.”
“You told me that he helped you with your career?”
“Yes, he put me in my first picture. He produced it. It was called A Siege of Love. I suppose you never saw it,” Paulo laughed.
“No,” Lucy answered, anxious to change the subject.
“Is he married?” she asked. “It's only that he came alone, without escorting someone, and I thought perhaps his wife was away.”
“He has a wife back East I think, at least he sometimes speaks of a daughter, but neither of them live here. I think he sends them money,” Paulo added as if to clarify the situation.
William Desmond Taylor was seldom alone. There was any number of the young women present who could have convincingly passed for an escort or even a lover. An indiscreet girl with bleached hair came up to him and whispered in his ear. She caught her laughter in her hand, as if it too had to remain one of their secrets.
Lucy recognized Claxton and the young stand-in, Helen, from the afternoon shooting, as they approached Bill Taylor. Even on the dance floor, surrounded by people, Lucy was aware of being under the scrutiny of the young actress. She felt the dark piercing eyes on her wherever she went.
It was far from an act of rudeness, but rather as if she was being studied. When Lucy met her gaze, the girl didn't even pretend to look away, but boldly confronted her and stared.
Lucy had long ago learned to recognize admiration, or even envy, but this expression was neither. It had in it the unperturbed confidence of a cat, pinning its victim with a casual claw, watching dispassionately as the creature struggled under its weight.
“Do you know that girl talking to your friend William, the one who came in with Claxton?” Lucy asked.
Paulo danced her around for a better look.
“No, I don't know her. Is she working on your picture?”
“Yes, she replaced the girl who fell.”
“Terrible that,” Paulo sniffed indifferently.
“It's odd,” Lucy mused more to herself than to him. “That other girl, the first one, didn't fall at all. It was as if she had been pushed, but there was no one up there but the three of us. The girl actually struggled before she fell, then almost immediately, this Helen appeared out of nowhere and took her part.”
“It’s only a small part, not as if she was asked to take over for a lead.”
“That's just it,” Lucy pressed the point, “She just appeared this afternoon, out of nowhere, and here she is tonight, escorted by Claxton and being introduced to William Taylor and everyone else. It's as if she were an instant success.”
“You will see that it's the way it is in this business, not like the theater, where you must have talent. Someone can take a liking to you, and suddenly you're starring in your first picture.”
“Like William did for you?” she asked.
“I suppose so,” Paulo answered... a bit wounded by the comparison. “Why are you so interested in this girl?”
“I'm not,” Lucy laughed. “It's only that she stares so. I wonder what she's thinking.”
“I'm sure she's thinking how beautiful you are. Everyone else thinks so. Why should she be any different from them, or me?”
Lucy squeezed his shoulder and pulled him closer as they danced.
“I've got someone here who is willing to flatter me until I turn diabetic, just so I'll introduce her to you,” Claxton said, placing Helen's hand into William's.
“It's just that I don't know anyone here except for Claxton, and we just met today,” Helen said in a timid and charming way. “I'm not very good at parties. To be honest, I feel a little out of my league.”
“I'm sure you'll fit right in,” William said kindly. “I'm told you're working on the Faust picture. I hope it will open things up for you.”
“How did you know? I just started today,” Helen asked, wide-eyed.
“It's surprising how word gets around. That's why I hope you'll take my advice and be careful who you hook up with. There is an old saying from my prep school days that maintains you spend the first year getting rid of the people you met in the first week.”
Claxton brought his hand up to his nostrils.
“Am I bleeding?” he asked. “I just got the distinct impression I've been punched in the nose.”
“I do want to meet the right people, but my judgment isn't the best, I'm afraid,” Helen said plaintively.
Claxton patted her shoulder.
“I'm sure if you ask nicely, Mr. Taylor would be willing to show you the ropes, as the expression goes. Although in my experience, when someone has literally shown me the ropes, I found myself bound hand and foot and knew they were exactly the kind of person one ought to steer clear of. This town can get a bit kinky, or so they tell me.”
Having intentionally set a tone of intimacy, Claxton trotted off in search of a drink, leaving Helen in Taylor’s capable and fatherly hands.
“You're very pretty,” William said, ignoring the comment passed by the dry little actor, “and I'm sure you'll do very well for yourself.”
“I respect your opinion,” Helen replied soberly, never taking her eyes from her new acquaintance.
“I don't in the least,” Mary Miles Minter said, coming up behind him and giving him a hug. “I'm far too mad for Bill to ever listen to a thing he says.”
William introduced the two young woman, polar opposites in colouring and intensity.
Mary had escaped the admiration of the young Dixon boy, and overcome by curiosity of who might be talking to her Bill, charged into the polite conversation to take her rightful place as the focus of his attentions.
“Mary, you are being very silly,” the older man scolded. “You'll be compromising both of us with your game of possessiveness. What would people say if they began to take these foolish proclamations of yours seriously?”
“But I am serious, everyone already knows
that I'm mad about you,” she said with a babyish pout.
“Nonsense,” William snorted, peeling her arms from around his neck. “Why don't you find your young man and dance? You know you have to be home early or Charlotte will skin you.”
Mary stopped a child's giggle with her hand pressed over her mouth.
“She doesn't know I'm out. I'm supposed to be home with a headache. She went out to meet some people. Besides, it was beastly of her to expect me to stay home alone in the first place.”
“Dance... go and dance,” William instructed with annoyance.
Mary was unaffected by his scolding.
“I'll not dance. I'm going to the ladies room.”
Helen volunteered to accompany her. The lavish powder room was still equipped with fainting couches and eggs made of glass or marble to cool the palm of the hand to an indifferent, ladylike temperature. But these remnants of a grander time went unused in their intended way by the modern youngsters. Instead, the couches were littered with girls, straightening their glistening silk stockings and gossiping as they borrowed cigarettes from one another. The marble eggs were seen as souvenirs to be purloined from under the watchful eye of the dark-skinned little attendant.
“He's wonderful isn't he?” Mary chatted to Helen, without pulling her face away from the mirror. “William I mean.”
“He seems fond of you.”
“God yes. Bill was one of the first to help me. I was fifteen when I started. I'm nineteen now.”
“You've got a head start on me,” Helen said. “We're almost the same age, but I've just got my first on-camera close-up, and you're already the biggest star at Paramount since Pickford left.”
“Mother would like it if I followed in Pickford's footsteps. She's got her own company and can do whatever films she likes. I'm sure you don't have a mother like mine,” Mary sighed, glancing at Helen for traces of sympathy. “When I was eleven, we went to Chicago so that I could be in a play, The Little Rebel. The Gerry Society, that protects children, wanted to pull me out and make me go to a real school. They said that I was too old to be schooled at home. So, you know what Charlotte did?”
Helen shook her head. Mary did not notice the focused look in her eyes.
“She went all the way back to Louisiana to borrow the birth certificate of my cousin who died. She would have been eight years old. So suddenly, I stopped being Juliet Shelby, got three years younger, overnight, and woke up Mary Miles Minter. What a horrid name. I've been working ever since.”
“It must be wonderful for you,” Helen said without interest.
“It's hard work. We make a picture about every three weeks. It hasn't been so bad for me lately, since Jenny be Good. I've been doing fewer leads. I think my career is slipping, but no one will tell me so. They're always looking for younger and younger girls, or some other type. I came in to replace Pickford when she decided to stop being a big baby with these silly blonde curls. I wish I had lovely dark hair like Mabel Normand's, or like yours. I'd be almost glad if I stopped making movies, then maybe Charlotte would let me grow up. I could go out with men. I could stop being so god damned innocent.”
Mary began to powder her face from a small gold compact.
“Your hands are trembling,” Helen remarked. “You're upset. Would you like a drink? I'm sure one of the boys has a flask.”
“No, I hate the taste of spirits. Besides, if mother smelled it on me, she would make certain I'd never get out again.”
Helen produced a small flat container from her bag, not unlike the one Mary held in her hand. She flipped open the lid.
“Try this,” she said, offering the compact.
Mary dipped the corner of her powder puff into the white powder and began dabbing it on her cheek. Helen scoffed.
“No, not like that. I don't think that's really the best way to get the full effect. You put a bit on your thumb and inhale it up your nose. It'll make you feel better. You won't even think about your career for a while.”
Mary followed Helen's example, then touched up her face and rejoined the party.
She danced with several young men, but retreated often to the powder room, accompanied by Helen, for another dose of what she called forgetful dust.
She was dancing wildly, unable to stop laughing, when William tapped her partner on the shoulder and cut in. She was covered in sweat when he took her in his arms, her long blonde curls glued with moisture to the back of her neck. The overpowering smell of baby powder rose into his nostrils.
“You had better calm yourself,” he said. “You'll make yourself sick with this sort of abandon.”
She threw her head back and roared, dropping helplessly in his arms. She simply hung there in his embrace and laughed until the tears started down her face.
“I feel horrid,” she said. “I wanted to have a good time, but I seem to be all nervous. I think I'm going mad and I feel like my heart is going to burst. Oh Bill, I do love you, and I'm afraid.” She pressed her wet lips against his cheek.
“Take your hands off of her, or I swear I'll destroy you.”
William turned to see Charlotte Shelby, the girl's mother. Her eyes glowered at him from under the brim of a hat. Her mouth twisted as she spit the words at him.
“How dare you ruin this child? Isn't it bad enough that you destroy her career by not working with her for your last ten pictures, humiliating her, turning her into a has-been before she's even seventeen. But to drag her out of her own home, to get her to lie about meeting you is unforgivable.”
She tore Mary from William's arms and slapped her hard across the face. The stunned girl reeled and fell backwards over a chair onto the floor.
“You've turned my daughter into a liar and worse. Look at her,” she said, pointing a finger at the whimpering girl. “She's nothing but a drunken little slut, and you're to blame. It's all been your fault from the start. You have no business with a child her age, you defiler, you filthy pervert.”
She opened her handbag and exposed just enough of a chromium revolver for William to get a glimpse, all the while stating silently her intentions toward him.
“You stay away from her, or so help me, you'll be sorry,” she whispered with a venomous hiss.
She snatched Mary to her feet and dragged the stupefied girl from the ballroom.
The music had stopped. All eyes were on William, who stood as straight and dignified as before. He carried a burden of sorrow in his posture, the weight of confidences and knowledge of secrets bearing down on him. He was like a great General, suffering under the burden of his rank.
Paulo approached and took him by the arm.
“Come on, you need a drink. I've got a flask with me. Let's go out and get some air.”
The music started again as they walked through the French door out into the back garden, lush with date and coconut palms.
William breathed in the cool night air and let out a plaintive sigh.
“Why didn't you say anything?” Paulo asked. “You were only helping the girl. She was clearly out of control, drunk probably before she even got here.”
“No,” William insisted, “Mary is only a child. She's been pushed too far too fast, and now no one wants her anymore. Charlotte's right. I did help destroy her. I can't work with her. The studio won't allow it anymore. She doesn't make money for them.”
“That's terrible. I didn't know.”
William took out a cigarette case and lit two, handing one to Paulo. In return, he accepted a silver flask and took a long breathless swallow.
“I wouldn't be surprised if one of those goons from the studio had given her something, so that she'd make a fool of herself. They're everywhere, those people. They're supposed to be your friends but...”
“You mean they drugged her?” Paulo asked in disbelief.
“She wouldn't be the first one they got hooked on drugs to get rid of, to break their contract. Look at Wally Reid, and now it's poor little Mabel Norma
nd.”
“Mabel?” Paulo repeated the name.
William smiled and patted his friend's cheek.
“You have been away, my dear boy, haven't you? She's box-office poison. The days of Mack Sennett and the bathing beauties will never come back. The audiences are getting too sophisticated for that foolish stuff, so, she's out, on her way out at least. You'd think they'd have the decency to just buy them out. They don't have to kill them. It's like the goose that laid the golden egg, but they take the eggs and kill the goose all the same.”
Paulo's eyes became frightened. He was popular at the moment, but what if that changed. What could he do? He could never go back to packaging jelly. He took the flask from William's hand and took a hard drink. It was as if his friend read his mind.
“Don't look so alarmed. This doesn't affect you, especially since you've taken up with that German opera singer,” he reassured him. “It puts you on top, my friend, just where you belong.”
Paulo placed his hand on the tall man’s arm, but did not speak.
“I have to give you credit for it,” William continued. “I wasn't sure you would be able to go the distance, but obviously you have. Congratulations. Now, if you could only get her to marry you, you'd have your future set as well. And when your time goes to go under the axe, you can tell the studios to go to Hell.”
“She is a wonderful woman. I'm sure you will like her very much,” Paulo said earnestly.
William nodded his head in agreement. He saw Lucy approaching out of the corner of his eye.
“I'm tired,” he said. “I'm going home, like the General leaving the battlefield. I've heard enough secrets and seen enough of humanity's failings for one night.” He waved his hand in a weary gesture and started toward his car.
Claxton stood in the lighted doorway to the ballroom, holding Helen by the hand. Lucy linked her arm inside Paulo's and stood quietly as he watched his friend depart.
“Eulogies for Mr. Taylor, or is it little Mary we're shoveling under out here,” Claxton said. “It's a shame that two such pretty faces as yours should look so glum.”
