by Rex Baron
The stout little man took the flask out of Paulo's hand and helped himself to a swallow. “I have an idea of somewhere we can go to liven up this party.”
“Where?” Lucy asked suspiciously.
“I see I'm not totally trusted, unlike your friend Mr. Taylor. It's a lovely spot near the sea, actually. We couldn't have a better night for a drive to the ocean if I'd conjured it myself. What do you say?” He patted Paulo's cheek. “You look particularly disappointed, as if the evening didn't turn out the way you'd hoped. Oh well, since we can't always have what we want, how about consoling ourselves with that little trip to the beach?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
1922 Los Angeles’ Hills
They rode in Claxton's car, a long pretentious Duisenberg manufactured for aristocracy of all kind, a category the new breed of filmed celebrity tenuously fitted in by merit of their seemingly bottomless bank accounts.
The ride was cold and damp, as they left the lights of the city and steered along the unpopulated stretch that led to the coast.
Lucy was tired and a bit surprised to find herself in the company of strangers, speeding toward a promised destination, which in its description had seemed vague enough and was vaguer still in the fog. She wondered why Paulo had agreed to go along with the others instead of making the most of their time alone together.
“Where is this place we are going?” Paulo asked.
“Up the coast’s highway,” Claxton answered. “Relax, my boy, it's still early. The night is beautiful and crisp, and we're cozily paired off, on our way to a salvation of sorts, like the chosen brood of Mister Noah's Biblical Ark.”
Helen laughed and linked her arm through that of the cynical driver.
Lucy watched her. She was not a friend. There was something almost sinister about the way she had appeared only that morning, and now, mere hours later, was immersing herself into Lucy's circle with a semblance of intimacy, which Lucy had no intention of granting.
She was clever, this girl, and shrewd in the casual way she had of attaching herself. She had only just met Claxton, yet she whispered to him and appeared to share a confidence that much older friends would be loath to display. Perhaps it was the way that young actresses furthered their career in this strange talentless place. Paulo had told her that there was no necessity of training for these silent pictures, only the possession of a face that the camera could understand and translate into silvery light for the big screen. One’s fate depended on personal charm and beauty, combined in a packaging that showed itself to the studio heads to be exciting as well as profitable.
Helen possessed just such a charm and seemed smart enough to understand that by association with Paulo and Lucy, and most assuredly Claxton, her future would be made.
“Are you cold back there?” Helen asked, as if elevated to the position of hostess by her association with an older movie star. “I have a wrap up here, if you need it.”
“No thanks,” Lucy answered shivering. She inched closer to Paulo and felt the warmth of his arm close around her. He smiled down at her. She was relieved to have him near. A squeak of alarm pierced her brain as she thought of being taken into the night by this strange little man and this clever girl, who held a name that was, apparently, indelibly inscribed in her destiny.
She took Paulo's hand in hers and wished that they were alone, but they were not. This moment of intimacy in the back of the auto, as disappointing as it was, would have to do.
The sea lay just ahead, a dark field of glowing embers, alive with mystery and movement. The car turned north along a windswept twist of road and went through the all-encompassing darkness, guided by the full moon, perpetually up ahead.
“Do people come out here often?” Paulo asked.
“Claxton says there are a couple of speaks out along this road, and even a place where they gamble. Isn't that exciting?” Helen grinned at him from the front seat, not expecting a reply.
“Is gambling legal?” Lucy asked soberly.
“No,” Claxton answered. “But then, neither is drinking. That's why you have to come all the way out here, to the veritable end of the earth, away from the righteous lights of the pompous little town, to these dark shores. Here, one is free to mingle with the night creatures that crawl onto the sand under cover of deceitful and merciful darkness to engage in a godless orgy of wanton pleasures.”
“Isn't he the best?” Helen chuckled, stroking Claxton's arm. “He can make the most ordinary thing sound as if it were forbidden and wicked.”
“I forbid no one anything,” Claxton said. “There is a pantheon filled with gods, my dear. We each secretly worship our own... money, alcohol, power. What you're insinuating is sex, hardly a god, only the bait, the lure that draws the eye of the god in your direction. So be careful to whom you pray.”
“Nonsense,” Lucy said to herself, hearing Celia's voice of judgment. This kind of aimless talk was pointless and only meant to be titillating and upsetting. She looked up at Paulo's face to see his reaction, but she found none. He stared off into the blackness, reflecting the formless sadness in his expression.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I was thinking about William and the troubles he has with that girl, Mary.”
“It was horrible the way her mother stormed in like that,” Lucy said, taking up his sorrows. “That poor girl looked so lost.”
“Yes, William is trying to help her, but they hate him for interfering. I worry for him,” Paulo said with a heavy sigh.
Lucy could not help but resent his distance, his lack of attention to her.
“It is good of you to be concerned for your friend,” she said, drawing herself closer to his side.
“Yes,” he said, avoiding her eyes.
In the distance, a spot of light appeared. They drove toward it, a fixed star for navigation to another world. As they approached, the light separated into a string of lanterns colourfully draped across the peeling facade of an old transit station. Fragments of painted advertisements for cigars and hair tonic were still discernible amidst the flaking paint. Alongside the main building stood a row of what had once been guest cottages, intended for the weary traveler as an overnight haven in the middle of the grueling drive to Santa Barbara.
“We're here,” Claxton said, gliding to a stop and pulling on the handbrake.
“It looks wicked, just as promised,” Helen said.
He led them to the door, announced himself through a small window at its center, and was admitted along with his friends.
What opened before them was a huge elaborate room, decorated in the most modern and lavish way, totally belying the humility of the exterior. Men in smoking jackets and women in evening dresses hunched over gambling tables, rolling dice to the wild shouts of enthusiasm from the excited onlookers. Others, soberly planted around a poker table, puffed cigars and played out their hands with rock steady determination.
“I've never heard of this place being here,” Helen stated with wide-eyed astonishment.
“It's been here for a while,” Claxton answered. “But this isn't where I'm taking you, unless you have a yen to lose all your money.”
“Where are we going then?” Helen asked with a note of disappointment in her voice.
“I've just stopped in here to get a key. I have quite another surprise for you all.”
Claxton spoke to a strange, diminutive man and returned a moment later. “We're all set. Follow me.”
He led them back outside, around where the guest cottages lay in ruin. At the end of an overgrown walk they came to a long low building that appeared to house large kegs of beer or wine. He opened the narrow door with the key and guided them into a steep passage down below the surface of the earth.
Lucy stumbled in the darkness, catching her heel on the uneven stairs. She squinted toward the hazy light at the end of the path, straining to acclimate her eyes to the gloom and the smoky air.
When they reached th
e end, they were met by a man in a black duster. He accepted money from Claxton and pointed directions to him in a hushed whisper, then disappeared back into the darkness.
They were alone in the narrow hallway but all around, they could hear the faint sounds of movement, a whispered word, a moan from an unseen corner of the room, or the clatter of some small metallic object on the stone floor. As their eyes adjusted to the dim light, it became clearer. They were in a walkway, a narrow maze that led down a corridor of cubicles, each filled with some dark and secret soul.
It was like a graveyard for the living, Lucy thought, each airless space a mausoleum for some godless creature that could not be granted the mercy of death.
“It's horrible here,” she said to Paulo, seeking refuge in his embrace. “I wish I hadn't come.”
“Claxton,” Paulo's voice echoed in the morbid silence. “What is the meaning of bringing us here. Is this some kind of joke?”
A glint of Claxton's smile was visible in the smoky atmosphere. He opened the door to a small enclosure and waved for them to enter and take a seat along the bunk-like benches that lined the walls.
“It's like a prison,” Helen said, disappointed.
“A tomb,” Lucy snapped.
“I promised you a good time and I guarantee it,” their host answered coolly.
After a while, the door opened and the man in the black duster reappeared, carrying two pipes and a small silver box. He placed them on the floor in the center of the room and left without a word.
“A pipe of pleasure, to be shared by each couple,” Claxton said, handing one of the long-stemmed pipes to Paulo.
It was a white clay pipe of the sort Lucy had seen before only in paintings by Rembrandt or Frans Hals. The painters had depicted such pipes smoked by kindly grandfathers around the family hearth, hoary-headed old men, like Father Christmases, full of comfort and jovial kindness. It was not a pipe for this place of fearful groans and unnatural sleep.
Claxton lit his pipe and offered the mouthpiece to Helen. The girl willingly took in a deep breath of smoke, savored it and held it in her lungs.
“What is it?” she asked, coughing out the blue smoke.
“Opium,” Claxton answered, shooting a curious eye to Paulo and Lucy.
Lucy felt the muscles of resistance tightening in her body. She watched in silent terror as Paulo complacently struck a match and lit the foul-smelling stuff in his pipe.
Without a word, he took a long drag and mechanically offered the pipe to Lucy. She took it in her hand, never taking her eyes from his face. He stared blankly into the corner, wanting to be lost in darkness, as he had been outside motoring in the night. She saw that he was unhappy and worried, perhaps about William, perhaps fearing that one day, like pitiful little Mary, he would be tricked and humiliated, lured to his ruin.
He had a deep unquenchable sadness, the tearless eyes of sorrow that did not see her, nor the wretchedness of where they were. She lay next to him in the dark, aware of the others only when a match was struck to reignite their pipe.
She lay still and listened to Paulo's intervals of breath. She wanted to be with him, to feel his body next to hers. She knew she could not penetrate his misery. There were no words that could offer him a future, when he knew in his soul that his days were short.
She reached up and pulled his lips toward hers. She kissed him, then brought the comforting Dutch pipe to her own lips.
She took in the dark sweet smoke, feeling it fill her body and held it in her burning lungs until she felt a lightness in her brain, as if a window had opened, letting in a spring breeze. The blackness of the foul place no longer mattered, but only that she was with Paulo. She found his face with her hands and pressed her lips to his. They were unresponsive at first, like someone awaking from a deep sleep, but after a moment, they came alive, whispering words of love as they sought out the white skin of her neck and shoulders and breasts.
His body pushed against hers as his unseen fingers tore at the hem of her dress, and fought their way through the twisted fabric of her underclothes. She was pinned under his weight as his body writhed over her in his private passion. He whispered her name as he tore into her flesh. She tried to cry out, but his lips had sealed her mouth in an endless suffocating kiss.
The opium burned in her chest, a frightening, deathly pain, only surpassed by the pain of him thrusting inside her. She was lost in the blackness, drowning in the heat and closeness of the airless chamber, like one trapped in a sunken shipwreck at the bottom of the sea.
After a time, it was over. The crashing waves of pain receded into the steady ebb and flow of normal breathing. He moved away but still held her in his arms. She had not seen the glamour of the silver-skinned idol or the flashing cruel smile with which he had conquered her in her dream, but he had made love to her and lay in her embrace.
She recognized the gentle sounds of him sleeping, and was glad that she alone had been able to make him forget his pain. She pulled her clothing into order and thought about the sweetness of the smoke still hanging heavily over her head.
She lay in the shadows, unable to join him in sleep, and listened to the indiscernible whispers from across the tiny room.
Helen sniggered as Claxton nuzzled her ear with his tongue. She pushed him away, unconcerned.
“How ironic that you would find your way into the business with Faust as your first project, or should I use the word coincidental,” Claxton whispered, moving closer.
“Yes, ironic I suppose. It was a terrible accident,” Helen answered, breathing out the thick smoke.
“Ah, but a timely and useful one,” he said, taking the pipe. “Do you believe in magic, or that one can sell their Soul to the devil for special favours, like our old friend Doctor Faustus?”
Helen shifted her weight and pulled her shoulder away from the heat of Claxton's breath.
“I believe one should use the talents one comes by naturally and acquire any others needed along the way to get what she wants,” Helen replied coolly. “Sometimes that involves buying, sometimes selling.”
“I know what I want,” Claxton said, pressing his lips to her neck. “Smart women always understand the value of a good bargain.”
Claxton's breath came heavily as he pinned her against the wall of the compartment with his body.
“I can help you. Not only with who I know, but with what I know about them.”
“I think I'm doing all right on my own for my first day in the business,” Helen chuckled in quiet derision.
“You wouldn't be here tonight if it weren't for me,” he hissed. “Don't fool yourself that meeting Bill Taylor will do anything for you. You haven't got the talent he's looking for.”
Helen did not answer. Her eyes burned at him out of the gloom.
“I can teach you. We’re two of a kind... made of the same stuff,” Claxton whispered, with a sinister smirk. “I know everything there is to know about this town.”
“I didn’t get to where I am on my good looks,” he sniggered at his own irony. “I've had to rely on using what they confide in me to my own advantage, and sometimes... on the odd, perfectly contrived accident, like yours today.”
Claxton, once again, pressed his lips to her throat and slipped the strap of her evening dress down over her arm.
There, on her left shoulder, a small mark was visible, a scar, as if she had been bitten by an animal or a playmate in some long forgotten childhood game. The scars made by teeth were clearly visible even in the dim light.
Claxton filled the compartment with laughter and it spilled out over the top of the partition wall into the darkness beyond, a hideous reverberating cackle that echoed through the near silent chambers of this black and loveless place. It was a cacophony of triumph, a laugh that surely filtered up from underground, outside along the strip of sunless beach, to raise the hairs on the neck of some hapless passerby. It was the laughter of the god of the underworld, Mephistopheles, claim
ing his prize.
“You have the birthmark... the mark of Satan,” he whispered close to Helen’s ear. “I knew the minute I saw you that you were one of us. When I saw your ring I was sure.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1922 Los Angeles
The palm trees lined the avenue like jolly little umbrellas, keeping the sun from our complexions.
Celia crossed out the last sentence and glowered at the page in her journal.
“What are you grumbling about over there?” David asked from across the drawing room of the villa.
“Oh nothing. Something I'm working on is not coming out quite like I expected, that's all.”
“You've been scribbling in that binder for weeks. Don't tell me you're keeping track of all of us to blackmail us later, as your revenge for this little escapade out here in the wilderness.”
Celia's reply was pre-empted by the telephone ringing in the entryway.
“Where is that girl?” Celia said, as if the irritation in her voice would produce a pair of willing hands.
“Ellen is Lucy's dresser, not our housekeeper,” David reminded her.
“Then where is the housekeeper?”
David gave Celia a well-studied blank and helpless look.
“All right, I'll get it,” she said. “It's probably someone looking for Lucy. The phone never stops ringing.”
Celia walked into the hallway and picked up the telephone. A woman's voice was on the line. She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and called into the drawing room.
“David, it's for you, a trunk call from New York.”
When he reached the apparatus, Celia was already halfway up the stairs.
“I'll go and change for lunch,” she said.
David pressed the receiver to his ear.
“David, is that you?” the woman's voice asked.
