City of Myths

by Martin Turnbull

  Life in Rome wasn’t so bad: his pensione was comfortable; he had no trouble getting magazine work; the wine was delicious; the food was to die for; and Domenico was everything he’d always wanted in a boyfriend. Why would I leave this?

  “It’s my just-in-case plan,” he told Domenico. “Regardless of what happens, I need my passport back. Without proper identification, I feel like a ghost. How about we focus on one issue at a time?”

  “Wasn’t Ingrid denounced in the Senate a few years ago?” Melody asked.

  Marcus glared at her: You’re not helping. She disappeared behind her menu.

  “Look lively,” Trevor whispered. “Incoming.”

  Marcus moved his menu aside enough to see Napoleon and Emilio Conti stride into the restaurant like they were Julius Caesar and Marc Antony invading Gaul. The maître d’ led them to a four-top table set for three.

  A waiter appeared beside Marcus and asked if they were ready. They weren’t, but this was the most popular restaurant in Rome on their busiest day of the week. They couldn’t sit there indefinitely. He ordered another round of Negronis and told the guy they would order lunch soon.

  “What’s happening?” Melody asked. “These damned sunglasses are so dark.”

  “The coast is disconcertingly clear,” Marcus reported. Now that Gwendolyn’s put your photos in front of Zanuck, please don’t bail on me. Don’t be a flake. Don’t abandon me. He ran his eye down the menu but took in none of the choices.

  Ingrid Bergman appeared at the front doors in a tea dress of gold sateen that flared out in sunray pleats. It swirled around her legs as she weaved around the tables. Around her shoulders was a gauzy wrap appliquéd with a pattern of gold petals.

  The Conti brothers scrambled to their feet and greeted her with a kiss on the hand. They gallantly waited for her to be seated at their table. Napoleon called the headwaiter with a finger snap and loudly ordered a bottle of Moët et Chandon. It arrived at their table within seconds. The Contis let fly with a patently phony laugh designed to draw attention to their table. Not that it was necessary—all eyes were already on them.

  The Negronis arrived. Marcus ordered a plate of bruschetta and another of prosciutto and figs. He trusted Ingrid’s sense of timing, but it seemed to take forever. Finally, she removed her sparkling wrap and draped it on the back of her chair.

  Marcus crossed the dining room. Without waiting for an invitation, he pulled out the fourth chair and sat down. Napoleon blinked rapidly and pulled his mouth into a scowl like he was forcing down a wad of rising bile. Maybe he was. Marcus clasped his hands together and rested his elbows on the table. “It’s my understanding,” he told Napoleon, “that you’ve been asked to call off the dogs and have them release my passport.”

  He wasn’t sure what had happened back home. Kathryn’s message wasn’t clear, but someone—Kathryn? Bogie? Bacall?—had prevailed on Sinatra to try harder.

  “You what?” Emilio rose half out of his seat. Napoleon told him to calm himself and reminded him that everybody was looking, but Emilio was beyond caring. “This bastardo is a thorn in my side since he arrived!” Spittle collected at the corners of his mouth. “I want to be rid of him and yet you keep him here?”

  So Emilio really had no idea all this was his own brother’s doing? It was a twist Marcus hadn’t seen coming, but he couldn’t afford to be distracted.

  “When can I expect my—?”

  Napoleon pulled out an American passport from his inside breast pocket and started to fan himself with it. Until Marcus got a look inside, he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t from the studio prop department. He made a grab for it; Napoleon pulled away.

  “But why?” Emilio spluttered.

  “Because this little bastardo cheated us out of ten thousand American dollars and I wasn’t going to let him leave the country without getting it back.”

  “That ten grand was mine fair and square,” Marcus said.

  Napoleon waved the passport again. “You wrote a story twenty years ago that nobody wanted. Anything more than three hundred was greed. So I forced you to stay in my country until I can get my money back.”

  “Metropolitana was one of your biggest hits,” Marcus countered. “You got your money back a hundred-fold.”

  Napoleon sucked at his teeth. “Listen to me, you little americano parvenu, nobody takes advantage of Napoleon Conti!”

  Ingrid brought her hands together and smiled. “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” she said softly, “Everybody is watching us like we’re the circus freak show. This encounter will soon be the talk of Rome, and not favorably. With so many people watching, Signore Conti, I would suggest you think twice before making a rash move.”

  Marcus thanked him for bringing his passport and went to take it, but Napoleon kept it out of Marcus’s reach. In his other hand appeared a platinum cigarette lighter with the Fratelli di Conti logo engraved on the side.

  “What are you going to do?” Marcus asked. “Burn it? Right here in front of everybody? The US embassy will issue me a new one now that it’s been released.”

  Napoleon narrowed his eyes. “Unfortunately for you, the Immigration department does not know it has been released. As far as they’re concerned, it is officially still under seizure. That means your embassy cannot issue a replacement. And this is why I carry it with me whenever I leave the house. I trust nobody.”

  “Mr. Conti,” Ingrid maintained her sweetest smile, “what would it take for you to return Marcus’s passport to him?”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  “But you did very well out of Metropolitana. So tell me, what else?”

  Napoleon started slapping Marcus’s passport into the palm of his hand with a measured rhythm. Nearly a minute went by without him saying a word.

  “Perhaps I can make a suggestion,” Ingrid prompted. “Let’s talk about The Gates of Rome.”

  All three men at the table sat upright at the mention of the Fratelli di Conti’s hottest new property about a woman who returns to Rome after having fled the city during the war. Napoleon had taken a leaf out of David O. Selznick’s book and had turned the casting of the lead role into a Scarlett O’Hara–type search.

  “This character,” Ingrid said, “she and I are the same age, no?”

  Everybody in this restaurant knew that the Conti brothers would sacrifice their grandmother to cast Ingrid Bergman. While Napoleon launched himself into a flowery speech designed to convince Ingrid to do what she had no intention of doing, Marcus angled his shoulders away from the table.

  “You’d better convince your brother to hand over my passport,” he told Emilio.

  “Otherwise what?”

  “Did you see the table where I was sitting?”

  Trevor picked up a large envelope and drew from it one of the photos Marcus had taken the night he followed Emilio to the queer bar. They had come out surprisingly well, and showed Emilio sitting intimately close to the redheaded guy. Trevor left it visible long enough for Emilio to recognize himself. Marcus had no intention of sharing those photos with anyone, but it was the best way he could think of to get Emilio’s attention.

  Torment and divided loyalties battled it out on Emilio’s face in twitches and pained grunts. “I beg you.”

  “To immigrate to the US, you need a sponsor.” Marcus wasn’t sure if a non-relative or non-employer would qualify, but Emilio was desperate to escape to America, so if anything could get Emilio on his side, this might do it. “I’d be willing.”

  “After everything I’ve done to you?”

  “I know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in. We have more in common than either of us wants to admit.”

  He turned to look at Domenico, then back at Marcus, comprehension dawning on his face. He slapped the table. “Hand over the passport and let’s be rid of this foreigner.”

  Napoleon glared at Marcus. “What did you say to my brother to convince him to go against the family?”

  “The family?” Emilio cried out.
r />   “Family comes first.”

  “My whole life I am Emilio the afterthought. Emilio the unwanted. Emilio the embarrassment.”

  “As long as I am the head of our family, you will not speak to me in such a way. You will give me the respect I deserve.”

  When Marcus smelled Gwendolyn’s Sunset Boulevard perfume, he knew Melody had picked up her cue.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Napoleon, stop being so dramatic.”

  Napoleon’s face drooped when she slowly pulled away her billboard-sized sunglasses with one hand and her hat with the other.

  The buzz around the Café de Paris changed to people crying out, “La Speranza! La Speranza!”

  “You’re going to hand over Marcus’s passport,” Melody told Napoleon, “and you’re going to do it right now. Otherwise, I’m making a certain announcement to that crowd of scattini on the sidewalk.”

  The muscles at the corners of Napoleon’s steel-cut jawline visibly clenched. He flicked open his cigarette lighter. The bright orange flame lit up his face as he brought it close enough to almost lick the bottom of Marcus’s passport.

  “I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you that in our new movie I play a female scattino,” she told him. “I guess that’d make me a scattina, wouldn’t it? At any rate, I’ve become their mascot.”

  The flame stayed where it was, not close enough to set the passport alight, but not moving away either.

  Marcus cleared his throat. “Whoever reaches the press first controls the story.” He extended his right arm, flattening his palm so it was six inches from his passport.

  When Napoleon tossed it to Marcus, everything that followed was a blur. Marcus vaulted to his feet; Melody laughed; Ingrid yelled “Screw you!”; a flash bulb went off; a second one; somebody screamed; Trevor’s face appeared; Domenico pulled Marcus through the restaurant; everybody was shouting; a cork popped; a wine glass shattered.

  Out in the street, the traffic seemed louder. Horns were blasting; men were shouting; the wind howling along Via Veneto had a colder bite to it. The scattini hovered and darted around each other like bees.

  “I’ll hold them off,” Melody told Marcus.

  Marcus, Ingrid, Domenico, and Trevor dashed up the street in a huddle and turned a corner into a side alley that stank like three-week-old garbage.

  “Well!” Trevor exclaimed, laughing. “That was an adventure!”

  “The passport?” Ingrid pressed her hands to her chest in an attempt to catch her breath. “Please tell me you’ve got it.”

  Marcus held it up.

  “But is it yours?” Domenico’s question cut a somber note through the uproar.

  Marcus turned it over in his hand. The gold eagle emblem stamped into the teal leather looked genuine enough. He opened it.

  “I’d forgotten how unflattering my photo was.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Gwendolyn walked into the foyer of the Moulin Rouge nightclub. Immediately, she felt the tension choking the air.

  “Jeez!” Monty exclaimed beside her. “I thought the Emmy Awards would be a big ol’ party, but this feels like a court martial.”

  Gwendolyn pointed out an NBC television camera parked inside the glass doors. “It’s the first time the ceremony is being televised. I’d imagine everybody feels like they’re on show.”

  “Aren’t show people always on show?”

  A surge of excitement ran around the crowd.

  Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz arrived amid a barrage of flashbulbs and applause. Lucille’s red hair seemed to catch on fire in the portable spotlights. She shielded her eyes with her hand and pressed through the mob.

  “She’s looking for refuge.” Kathryn waved, beckoning them toward her.

  “Thank you,” Lucille said as she approached. “Once we got inside, I panicked. Where do we go now? Who do we talk to?”

  “It’s the price you pay for being the most-nominated show tonight.”

  Lucille scrutinized Gwendolyn. “You’re the gal who does Loretta’s dresses, aren’t you? I saw her coming in. She looked a bit awestruck.”

  “She’s flattered to be nominated for Best Actress, but she’s up against you, Gracie Allen, and Eve Arden, so she rates her chances very low.”

  In truth, the real reason for Loretta’s nervousness stemmed from clinging to the perception that she belonged in feature films, and how she’d be considered “just a TV personality now” amid the sea of film people invited to tonight’s ceremony. NBC was keen to get high ratings for the broadcast, so they’d lured as many celebrities as the Moulin Rouge would fit, which was how Gwendolyn and Clark had swayed Zanuck into attending.

  Clark had told Zanuck, “I’ll go if you go,” knowing he would view film people attending the Emmys as slumming it. However, Clark also knew that Zanuck was anxious to keep him at Fox. Once Zanuck had capitulated, he decreed that the stars currently at Fox were commanded to accept the Television Academy’s invitation—and that included Bette Davis, who arrived behind Lucille and Desi with her current director, Henry Koster.

  Gwendolyn waved them over.

  “Are we all here?” Bette asked.

  “Waiting for the two main players.”

  Koster frowned at his date. “What does that mean?”

  Bette told him, “Private joke,” and pointed to the front door. “Look! It’s Zanuck and his wife Virginia.”

  “With Gable behind him,” Koster said. “But who’s his date?”

  The four of them emerged from the lightning storm of press photographers and into the foyer.

  It had taken two weeks, a pack of broken needles, seven Band-Aids, three pounds of paillette sequins, and thirty yards of silk-backed lamé the color of lava, but Bella’s strapless extravaganza with the plunging neckline and the mermaid silhouette was the most exciting dress Gwendolyn had ever created.

  “Virginia and Bella in the same limo?” Lucille murmured. “Must have been a hell of a ride.”

  Gwendolyn caught Clark’s eye as Lucille and Desi’s production team beckoned them away. He charged across the foyer like Pecos Bill, forcing poor Bella to trail behind him.

  “GREAT TO SEE YOU!” He greeted Kathryn and Gwendolyn with a bear hug, and Monty with a two-fisted handshake, then whispered, “Is he watching?”

  Zanuck was used to playing kingpin to an audience of sycophantic brown-nosers, but these TV people were strangers. His smile was strained, and he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands.

  Gwendolyn waved at him and smiled. Relieved, Zanuck stampeded through the crowd as Clark had done.

  “Well, well, well!” he exclaimed. “This looks like the fun group.”

  Gwendolyn did what introductions were necessary, saving Monty for last.

  “Ah!” Bette exclaimed. “You’re the remarkable memoirist I keep hearing about. A friend of mine at The Saturday Evening Post told me they’re hoping to serialize On the Deck of the Missouri and what a marvelous picture it would make. I assume some clever producer has snapped up the rights?”

  “Gee, Miss Davis, I’m awfully sorry.” On the drive over, Gwendolyn had instructed Monty to pretend he was Jimmy Stewart, circa Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Her suggestion had meant nothing to him, so she told him to play it hayseed. “None of the rights to my book have been secured.”

  Zanuck perked up. “Except the screen rights, of course.”

  “I have to contradict you there, Mr. Zanuck. My agent is still fielding offers from the studios.”

  “WHAT?” Clark wheeled around to square off with Zanuck. “You’ve been lying to me?” Confused, Zanuck started stumbling over half-syllables like Elmer Fudd. “You’ve been dangling this juicy carrot in front of me but you don’t even hold the rights? Christ almighty! How the hell am I supposed to trust anything you say? I’ve got choices now that I’ve left MGM, and I’ll be damned if I’m forced to work with anyone I can’t trust.”

  He draped his arm around Bella, landing a hand near the top of her right breast. He hauled her off i
nto the rubbernecking onlookers, who parted like rehearsed movie extras.

  * * *

  “Thank you!” Steve Allen boomed. “You’ve been a marvelous audience.” He looked into the camera in front of him. “And that goes for you lovely people at home, too. I hope you’ve enjoyed our broadcast, but it’s time for me to say good night and God bless.” He froze until the house lights came on.

  “What a shocking evening,” Kathryn remarked. “I Love Lucy goes home empty-handed and Loretta wins Best Actress.”

  People were starting to circulate in the aisles and drift toward the foyer, congratulating, commiserating, schmoozing, gossiping. But no Zanuck.

  Gwendolyn joined Kathryn in the aisle. “He left early?”

  “I’m not sure what upset him more: realizing that he didn’t hold the rights to Monty’s memoir, or that his mistress was Clark Gable’s date.”

  Virginia Zanuck battled against the tide of people ambling up the aisle. It was a good sign—if she was still here, her husband probably was, too.

  Though reasonably attractive in her actress youth, Zanuck’s wife looked ten years older than her fifty-three years. She was unfailingly pleasant, though, and nobody’s fool.

  “My husband needs to see you,” she told Gwendolyn. “Immediately if not sooner, to quote him verbatim.”

  She followed Virginia to a side exit, which led to a corridor. Zanuck stood in the doorway that Gwendolyn guessed opened onto the wings. The end of his fat Montecristo glowed bright orange in the semi-dark.

  “Your brother’s memoirs—are they really still up for grabs?”

  “The other day he commented on how surprised he was that movie negotiations took so long, especially considering you’re going to have to deal with him if you want the navy’s cooperation.’”

  “I thought we’d locked down the rights months ago. I don’t know what happened.”

  What happened is that you’re losing your grip.