‘It’s all an optical illusion,’ he’d said. ‘It all is. The folks in the seats never really understand that we’re forcing their point of view. If you stand exactly here, it’ll look like this … Like those anamorphic peep-boxes Renaissance painters used to make, or those portraits that look like nothing but a slur of lines unless you look at them with a curved mirror.’
‘Father took me to see half a dozen of those in Oxford,’ agreed Emma with a smile. ‘After King Charles I was executed, you know, his supporters would have anamorphics painted of him, to hang in their houses, to honor his memory without getting into trouble themselves. I was always fascinated by how they could do that.’
And she smiled at the memory. There’d been something both delightful and eerie, seeing those loops and streamers of light and dark paint suddenly meld into the sad features of the doomed king.
He was there all along, her father had said, to Emma’s delighted ten-year-old squeals. Like everything, you just need to look at it differently. You just need to know the secret.
‘It’s easier if you’ve got a camera.’ Zal led her, and the dogs, along the edge of the trench that would lie between his camera and the path, where galvanized trashcans stood, ready filled with chunks of wood and bushels of crumpled newspapers. Emma glimpsed Kitty’s picture on one of them as they passed.
On the path itself Madge stood, feet apart, beefy arms folded, watching with narrowed eyes as Kitty – clothed in a simple skirt and sweater – practiced tripping, and the shirt-sleeved Praetorians thundered up behind waving their spears and swords.
‘It’s Madge’s job, and Kitty’s job, and my job, to make them not realize that what they’re seeing, isn’t what’s really going on at all.’
As Emma walked back to Kitty’s base camp – now pitched at the foot of the slope on which Rome was built and incorporating, as well as a beach umbrella, a tent that had clearly done service in an epic of the Crusades – she saw the massive dark bulk of Frank Pugh, standing on the path that led back to the main lot. Like Madge he stood with arms folded, and like Madge, seemed to be watching Kitty.
But whether in admiration, adoration, or bleak suspicion, Emma was too far off to tell. And by the time she’d reached the little cluster of chairs and make-up table, gramophone and vases (orchids today – from God alone knew who! – and a glorious exultation of yellow lilies), like Jim, the big man was gone.
‘This is gonna be the greatest fire since Chicago!’ exulted Madge, when she and Kitty returned to the camp and Ned Bergen’s myrmidons moved in with the firehose wagons, to soak the dirt that surrounded the sprawl of columns and walls and ‘abandoned’ carts and market-baskets. There were, in fact, four ‘burn’ sets, this one and three smaller clusters of ruins at a respectful distance, against which Zal would film terrified extras fleeing, screaming, and falling under what looked like showers of flaming debris that in fact landed in pits of water eight or ten feet from their ‘victims’, while Kitty and Mr Crain sipped champagne at the Hotel Del Coronado.
And they’ll come back, thought Emma, on Monday for the special hearing …
And on Wednesday, Aunt Estelle and Uncle David would arrive in San Pedro, and – Emma guessed – telephone the studio and ask her where she would like to meet them, and if she was packed to go.
And I’ll tell them what?
She felt as if she’d barely had two minutes undistracted, to make up her mind.
What if the judge at the hearing remands Kitty for trial? What if her defense of: ‘I got a note from a friend who was in trouble and went to meet that friend, who never showed up …’ only increases Mr Pugh’s suspicions – surely inflamed, by that time, by a feeble excuse of being sick over the weekend?
What kind of testimony would he give, regarding the gun, and who could gain access to Kitty’s dressing room and under what circumstances?
And – perhaps most disquieting of all – how safe would Kitty be after that?
Always supposing he doesn’t simply withdraw studio support and inform the judge that justice might take its course for all he cared.
He wouldn’t endanger the picture …
But will he consider a star’s tragic death as much of a publicity coup as the title of Goddess of the Silver Screen?
Why couldn’t Aunt have written last October? When all this seemed so strange and uncomfortable, when I still thought Kitty was little more than a self-absorbed featherbrain? When I barely knew Zal?
Emma drew a deep breath, and went into the tent to get her own thermos of tea, Kitty’s of coffee laced with rum, and the packet of sandwiches she’d prepared that morning. Leashed to the tent-poles, Chang Ming and Black Jasmine leaped to their feet, tails threshing. The leash leading into Buttercreme’s box moved a little, as the tiny dog retreated further in disapproval of the entire process. Let’s wait and see what happens, before we make any decisions, Emma told herself.
Kitty’s costume hung from a portable rack, shimmering black and gold. Necklaces, earrings, rings glittered on a folding table. Outside, Emma heard Herr Volmort’s slippery, reptilian voice greeting Madge and Kitty. ‘Are you ready, Miss de la Rose?’
And she smiled, because he invariably sounded like the Grand Inquisitor politely steering his victim into the torture chamber. The kindest and most scholarly of men, his voice combined with that Middle-European accent would have made ‘Mary had a little lamb’ sound sinister.
And Kitty: ‘Darling, can you bring me a robe from in there?’
Can I leave her, not knowing?
She didn’t know.
At least, she reflected, gathering up the light cotton garment that would swathe Kitty for make-up, she wouldn’t have to worry about the Praetorian Guards.
She’d gone over to Wardrobe early that afternoon, as soon as she and Kitty had arrived on the lot, and had confided in Millie Katz that she feared that whoever had shot Mr Festraw might have designs on Kitty as well. ‘I know it’s probably foolish,’ she’d said, with a self-deprecating gesture. ‘But I’ve heard some … some quite unbelievable stories about … well, about obsessed fans. Like that woman the other day who climbed over the wall of Mr Valentino’s house and dove nude into his swimming pool …’
‘Honeybunch,’ Millie had sighed, ‘compared to the stunts other women have pulled – and men! – that particular little mermaid was riding in the Sane and Respectable car with Grace Coolidge. Whatcha need?’
‘I’d just like to make sure that you know who all the extras will be, during the burn filming tonight.’
Millie had checked. There were fifteen Praetorians and all their names were familiar to her, men who’d waltzed in ballrooms for Lubitsch or bled on DeMille’s battlefields. ‘This ain’t a scene where anybody wants to be breaking in a new boy.’
One thing I don’t have to worry about.
Two, actually, Emma reflected, as Kitty settled into her chair and closed her eyes for the little German to cold-cream her face. A call had come in for her to Kitty’s dressing room shortly after their arrival on the lot, and Tony Cornero’s unmistakable voice had said, ‘Mrs Blackstone? I got somethin’ for you that may help you, if you care to come by the club tomorrow at about four.’
She’d smiled a little at the young man’s careful circumlocution – he clearly suspected that his telephone was tapped – but had thanked him, doubly glad that at least she’d have some better idea about Sid Gross’s movements before going down to San Diego Saturday. There would be time, she reflected, while Kitty and Mr Crain were having their little seaside idyll for her to look over the list for anything that looked familiar, in terms of times and places …
And if worst came to worst, she could telephone Zal, and take the train back to Los Angeles if necessary.
Darkness stole over the hills, into the sky. When Ned Bergen walked past, Kitty asked, ‘Can I set the fire?’ and her dark eyes danced like an eager child’s. A child who lives for the moment when she can set off a firecracker, and see the glory of its apotheosis.
Bergen glanced at Madge, who rolled her eyes.
‘It’ll take about ten minutes for everything to get cooking, once the fuses are lit.’ The prop chief spoke like an indulgent father.
‘You take Little Ned with you,’ ordered Madge resignedly, ‘and you get back here on the double. Heinrich’s got to spray your face with sweat before you go.’
The fire was terrifying. Fourteen men were standing around with hoses just out of shot-line and the ground was saturated for yards in every direction. Nevertheless Emma struggled against a sense of panic, as if the blaze were a live thing, live and seeking a way to break free. The heat that streamed over her had an oily feel to it; the noise seemed to beat on her head, an uncontrolled animal roar. Her heart was in her throat as she watched Kitty flee along the path, stumbling in her torn rags of black and golden gauze, half-turning to gaze over her shoulder like a frightened beast. Emma had rewritten the scenario she’d been given last month as a melodrama of comeuppance. The Harlot of Babylon, immortalized in Revelations, had sent hundreds of Christians (and a few perfectly innocent and virtuous pagans) to their deaths, had had poor blameless little Philomela flogged in the arena and had made the noble Demetrius watch the deaths of his mother and sisters after he had given in to her lusts to save them …
This was the pay-off. The moment that God showed the evil Valerna what it felt like, to be pursued, to be terrified, to be alone.
She had pictured it differently while she was writing it, and wished that the fire wasn’t so close to those fluttering tags of silk. (A week later, watching the dailies, she was aghast at how close the blaze appeared with Zal’s forced perspective.) The third take, from a different angle with the infuriated Praetorians pounding along the path behind her, made Emma shiver, remembering that Sid Gross had walked about the lot in that armor with absolute impunity. It wouldn’t take but a moment for one of them to spring forward, hurl Kitty into the blaze …
Stop it. Millie knows them all …
Three of them were very definitely Extra-Large …
STOP IT! Everything will be fine …
And everything was. Madge took different shots from different angles, Herr Volmort meticulously patted Kitty’s face dry between takes, renewed her make-up with precise speed, dusted her with powder and then sprayed her with photogenic sweat, though by the end of each take her face dripped unattractively with the real thing. The director was determined to take full advantage of the burn – four times the size of the sets arranged for the close-ups with the extras – and it was nearly eleven before she scanned the crumbling inferno and ruled, ‘That’s it.’
‘About fucking time.’ Kitty accepted the thermos of orange juice that Emma had brought to her between takes – with a straw in it, so as not to disarray the battered and terrified empress’s immaculate lipstick. Standing with Kitty and Madge at the head of the path, Emma looked along that crooked track that Kitty had run, staggered, stumbled down a dozen times (and then another score for close-ups). It was a good ten feet wide and its sides glistened like amber oil where the flamelight caught the water that Ned’s crew had sprayed between takes.
Emma still wasn’t certain she’d have had the nerve to run down that slot between the flames.
Is that, too, part of ‘It’?
She wondered if Kitty would have nightmares about it.
‘Thank you, honey.’ Kitty held out her hand to Madge. ‘That couldn’t have gone better! None of it could.’ She smiled, warm as sunlight. ‘What a shoot, hunh? Can I come tomorrow and see the dailies?’
‘They won’t be ready til Friday.’ And, seeing Kitty’s face fall, she added, ‘You going out of town with Frank for a day or two, honey? I sure would,’ she added, a schoolboy grin suddenly transforming the habitual grimness of her face. ‘You tell me when, and I’ll put on a special show for you.’ Behind them, the strategically placed kliegs were going down. Ned and his minions were hosing the ruins, clouds of smoke billowing gray in the reflected glare of the work-lights, into the star-splattered sky.
Surrounded by tired Praetorians, Emma and Kitty followed the path back to the studio.
Claudite am rivos, pueri, Virgil had said, of the farmers finishing a day’s hard work. Close the sluices, boys. The fields have drunk enough.
More lights were extinguished behind them, as if the night came closer, and followed them home.
SEVENTEEN
Kitty slept late Friday morning, though Emma had instructions to wake her at noon. Her manicurist, Pearl, would arrive at two.
Emma herself was waked, as usual, by the gentle clatter of Pekinese toenails on the floor of her bedroom, at seven, the dogs having long ago learned who was in charge of the icebox. With the Pekes orbiting her feet, she washed, dressed, and descended to the kitchen, to mince up the cold chicken she’d cooked on Tuesday for precisely this purpose and mix it with biscuit cakes – Kitty had heard that canned meat for dogs was being sold but had reservations about what was actually in it.
As usual, Chang Ming and Black Jasmine wolfed down their rations and sat – trembling with impatience under Emma’s watchful eye – while Buttercreme picked at the contents of her own dish at the opposite end of the kitchen.
What sort of arrangements would be on offer, Emma wondered, at the Hotel Del Coronado? The kitchen staff could certainly be bribed into storing shredded meat and dog biscuit, and presumably the Pekes would sleep in her room rather than in the suite shared by Kitty and Mr Crain.
I’ll miss them. She shivered a little, remembering Mr Pugh standing on the pathway yesterday afternoon, watching Kitty rehearse without making a move to go to her.
Of course he wouldn’t want to derail preparations for a scene that’s costing I don’t know how many thousands of dollars, and that can only be shot once …
With any luck, thought Emma, as she opened the kitchen door and carried Black Jasmine and Buttercreme down the tall steps to the yard below, there would be something in whatever Mr Cornero would give her this afternoon, which would prove who Mr Gross had met with. (Surely there wouldn’t be a description of a clandestine rendezvous with Gloria Swanson after all?) It might well be that it had nothing whatsoever to do with Mr Pugh, and she could turn the information over to Zal, and return to Oxford with a clear heart.
If return to Oxford is what I want to do. And for a moment, instead of the uneven line of The Myrtles’ roof, the glimmer of its windows in the dusk, she saw the sinking moon over the night-black Pacific. Heard the grind of tires following the sea-road north.
And for a moment it seemed to her – there in the twilight on Holywell Street – she glimpsed Jim in the gloaming behind her, lifting his hand to wave to her and then walking away into the dusk. And she knew there was someone else waiting for her, in the shadows of the porch.
When the three dogs had thoroughly explored the long grass around the scrubby orange trees, and pattered over to bid old Mrs Shang good-morning, Emma carried them back up to the service porch beside the kitchen and brushed them, which at this season involved almost a cupful of foxtails and clumps of shed undercoat the size of baby rabbits. Then, feeling a bit guilty because she knew she’d neglected her next project, she got out her stack of composition books, and for two hours, while birds chirped outside the open back door and now and then Mr Shang’s clippers made a sword-like snick as he trimmed the bushes around the garage, she sank into the world of wild parties, social marriages, agonizing jealousies and passionate kisses – all freely cribbed from Manon Lescaut, with an occasional dash of Suetonius.
I’ll have to turn this scenario over to Sam, she reflected. In between pouring drinks for ivory poachers and dodging German patrols in the Red Sea, had the scenarist ever heard of either Manon Lescaut or The Lives of the Twelve Caesars? Well, he DOES quote a good deal of Shakespeare when he gets drunk …
She knew she shouldn’t really care whether Frank Pugh was left high and dry for a scenario or not. If he’d had Rex Festraw murdered, and had paid Mr Gross to try
to murder her and Zal, it would serve him right …
But she couldn’t bring herself to walk out on a project. And whether Mr Pugh had anything to do with these events or not, it wasn’t fair to Kitty, or Madge, or whoever else was going to be connected with Hot Potato. (Can I REALLY tell Aunt Estelle that my first professional work was an epic with that title?)
At three, leaving Kitty in the hands of the birdlike little manicurist, Emma walked down Ivarene Street to Vine, to take the bus and then the streetcar along Sunset, to meet with Tony Cornero.
The Bel Giardino was quiet when she tapped at its door. It was opened by the enormous doorman, neatly buttoned into his burgundy uniform but with his cap askew. He bowed a trifle awkwardly, touched his cap, and said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Blackstone,’ in the slangy radio-Brooklynese that seemed to have come, factory-installed, on all of Mr Cornero’s henchmen. Locking the door behind her, he led her upstairs. The big room itself was shadowy and nearly empty, save for a charwoman running an immense electric vacuum-cleaner over the snowy carpet that bordered the dancefloor, and the low mutter of a radio announcer’s voice rattling off the narration for what sounded like a race of some kind. Horses? Dogs?
Pigs, perhaps? She’d have to ask Zal the details about that …
And where was Fresno?
‘Mrs Blackstone.’ Tony Cornero – and another man with his same sturdy build, and the suggestion of kinship in his chin and nose – rose from a corner table.
The other man said, ‘I’ll be down the cellar, Tony,’ and bowed again to Emma before he left. Cornero held Emma’s chair for her as she sat.
Scandal in Babylon Page 21
