Melting the Snow on Hester Street

by Daisy Waugh

  God knows (Butch knew it better than almost anyone), Max Beecham could charm himself into pretty much any room in the world, but how he got through the gates at Lionsfiel, past the receptionist, past Butch’s own secretary and right into Butch’s office without anyone stopping him, Butch could only wonder at.

  He didn’t bother to ask.

  ‘Max,’ he said pleasantly, without missing a beat. Smoothly he replaced the telephone receiver, as if his ancient foe, his one-time closest friend, with whom he’d not spoken in five years – as if such a man burst into his office at Lionsfiel every day of the week. ‘How terribly nice.’

  Max kept on walking. His eyes on Butch, he walked through the office he knew so well, between the life-size portraits of Lionsfiel stars (Eleanor included) that lined the great producer’s walls, and past the innocuous little side table, which, at the press of a hidden lever, slid back to reveal a full bar: Butch Menken’s not-so-secret Speak, to which only the prettiest girls in town gained access.

  Max had only one thing in his sight and, too late, Butch Menken calculated what it was. Max – smaller than Butch but niftier, had learned to move like lightning in another, distant life. He’d not hit out at anyone – not once, not since that afternoon eighteen years ago. But he stepped round the back of Butch’s desk, and before Butch could blink or flinch, he threw a fist into that strong, American jaw. It was something Max had been wanting to do for a long time.

  Butch reeled, stunned. And again, before Butch could blink or flinch or begin to collect himself, Max came at him a second time, and then a third. For Max, who could feel the jaw give beneath his knuckles, who could feel the pain reflected in his own damaged hand each time his knuckles made impact, the pleasure was intense. Intense. He stopped. Stood back, slightly – but not entirely – horrified by what he had done.

  He waited for Butch to recover. ‘Where is she, Butch?’

  Butch took his time. He put a hand first to his jaw, and then to his nose to see if it was bleeding. It was.

  ‘Answer me.’

  Slowly, Butch took a large, clean handkerchief from his jacket pocket, held it to his nose and away again, to examine the flow of blood. He rearranged the handkerchief, the better to soak up what was fast becoming a small torrent and, finally, without looking up, he said: ‘Where is who, my friend? Do you mean your daughter, Max – Little Isha? Or do you mean your wife?’

  Better than any punch – Max staggered slightly. He said, ‘What – what did you say?’

  From behind his handkerchief, Butch grinned at him. ‘So many secrets!’ he tutted. ‘And there was me, thinking we were such close friends. But you guys,’ he shook his head, ‘you’re certainly full of surprises.’

  ‘What daughter?’ Max muttered, pointlessly.

  Butch stopped. Why had he said it? He registered the shock on the other man’s face, and wished he hadn’t. He was still reeling from the knowledge himself – from the discovery that his two good friends could have kept such a secret for so long. He didn’t answer. Instead he leaned across the blood-spattered desk and buzzed through to his secretary. ‘Julia,’ he said, in that quiet voice of his, ‘I need security in here. Please. And I need some ice. And a couple of towels would be helpful. As soon as possible. Thank you.’

  He turned back to Max. ‘You need to leave.’

  ‘I will leave. As soon as you tell me. Where is she? Where is Eleanor?’

  ‘I have no idea. We sent a script to the house on Friday and we’ve not heard a word from her since. Is she not home?’ He didn’t wait for Max to reply. ‘I guess not, huh? Well, when you find her, tell her to call. Her contract’s up for renewal. You probably know. And Carrascosa wants to terminate … This is hardly a time for her to be playing cat and mouse. Make sure you tell her that, won’t you?’ As he finished speaking, they heard footsteps outside, a quick tap on the door. It opened and two uniformed security guards walked in.

  ‘Where is she?’ Max asked again.

  ‘If she’d wanted you to know, I presume she would have told you, Max. I can’t tell you where she is.’

  Max said, ‘Please …’

  One of the guards put a fat hand on his shoulder. ‘You want me to call the law, Mr Menken?’

  Butch ignored it. Instead, he sighed. ‘You probably won’t believe it, Max. But I was actually looking forward to working with you again. We could have made some great movies. Lost At Sea—’

  ‘I don’t give a damn about Lost At Sea.’

  Butch said: ‘Me neither. It’s not your best movie, Max. And that’s the truth.’

  Max shook his head. Broke into a laugh, and then, as abruptly, stopped. He lurched forward, but not to strike this time, only to plead, ‘Where is she, Butch? Where is Eleanor?’ The guards pulled him back. They yanked him into a double arm lock so roughly he fell to the ground.

  ‘Hey,’ Butch snapped. ‘Show the man some respect … Show him some respect,’ he said again. For the briefest moment, with Max still on the floor, both men looked at one another and forgot the present, and remembered the beginning, when the stakes were low, and they were still young, and the three of them were friends, embarking on a wonderful journey together. Butch and Max and Eleanor … and Rudolph Valentino and Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Clara Bow, D. W. Griffith …

  It was before Prohibition, when the living was easy. When the living was easy, and they used to sit together at the bar of the Alexandria Hotel, Butch and Max and Eleanor – the director, the producer, and the star - hatching their plans. They had made some great films together. The best of their careers. Butch said it again. Mumbled it. ‘Show him some respect.’

  The guards loosened the arm lock and pulled him upright.

  As they led him away, Max turned back to Butch one last time: ‘Butch, please …’

  ‘She’s out of town,’ Butch said, looking down at his desk, straightening what didn’t need to be straightened. ‘I haven’t seen her. But she’s fine. Licking her wounds. That’s all. You should take better care of her …’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Yeah, and you too. Julia!’ He raised his voice, just a little: enough for his secretary to hear him through the opening door. ‘Sweetheart, I’m going to need a fresh shirt. Could you fix that for me, please?’

  36

  Max knew it was over. He didn’t need to be told. Beating up the new hire, the golden boy of Hollywood, the executive producer of his own studio wasn’t, perhaps, quite as heinous as leaving a butt end in the wrong place, but Butch would see to it that Silverman fired him. Of course he would. He’d said as much already.

  And Max tried to care. But, after all, and to his surprise, he found that he couldn’t. He stood in the Lionsfiel parking lot, hesitating, wondering where to go next. The guards hung back, watching impatiently.

  ‘You need to get into the vehicle,’ one of them said.

  He nodded. Opened the driver door and climbed in. But he didn’t know where to drive. Where should he drive? Not to the empty house. God, no.

  He missed Eleanor. He missed her so much. Another evening stretched ahead.

  Perhaps, he thought, he should call Douglas and Mary. He had forgotten to turn up to dinner last night, but they would probably forgive him, if he apologized nicely enough. Perhaps they would allow him to come round this evening instead?

  Dinners at Pickfair were always the same. Douglas Fairbanks didn’t approve of alcohol – or not officially – so there was never enough to go around. But the company was always good. Actually, the company was legendary. Mary and Doug gave a dinner for at least ten, almost every night and, even despite the lack of drink, the people came.

  Max would call them up. See what was going on. Or maybe not. Maybe he couldn’t face company tonight. There was only one person he wanted to see. She was the only company he wanted. He remembered her light green eyes, when they smiled at him; the smell of her skin, the sound of her silence. He missed her. The bed, the house, everything felt empty. He felt emp
ty. He just needed to find Eleanor.

  There had been a message from his stockbroker waiting at his desk this morning. Three messages, actually. Max had been ignoring them all day. And he would ignore them again tomorrow, if he could. He tried to care about the stockbroker, the precarious state of the market, the tumbling price of the utilities, his imminent ruin. But, after all (and to his surprise), he found that he couldn’t. The market would stabilize. Probably. Maybe. Maybe it would stabilize. He needed to find Eleanor.

  Max had called everyone he could think of – anyone and everyone who might possibly have known where she was. But in truth, he realized, there weren’t many to call. Eleanor didn’t have many close friends. She was private, just as he was. Beneath the charm and geniality, the politeness and success, they had always kept the world at arm’s length.

  And yet she had confided in Butch.

  Max glanced up. The larger of the two Lionsfiel security guards had apparently run out of patience and was approaching the window. He needed to start the engine.

  Did Butch know the full story? In her weakness, would Eleanor have told him everything? Actually, Max doubted it. He doubted it sincerely. She loved him, he realized. He knew that, and he had always known it. Of course she loved him. She would never put him in danger.

  Max drove east, his back to the setting sun, his car pointing automatically towards the office and, beyond that, to his empty house. As lonely as he had ever been. Lost, without Eleanor. To his left, the iron arches to the Silverman lot loomed into view and, automatically, he slowed, ready to turn in.

  He should talk to Joel. He should get in there and fight for his job. He loved his work. He loved the studio. He loved Joel. There was so much to be done … He stopped the car in the middle of the road, ready to make the turn – and hesitated once again. The driver behind him honked impatiently, but Max ignored it.

  The Silverman parking lot was already three-quarters empty. But he saw the Silverman Bugatti glimmering beneath the evening sun, in its usual spot. Silverman would be at his desk then, still working. No surprises there … Perhaps, at that very moment, he was taking the call that would decide Max’s fate: listening to the hushed, clipped tones of Butch Menken, as Butch demanded Max Beecham’s head.

  Joel wouldn’t want to agree to it. Max knew that. But if Butch insisted – if Butch said: It’s Max or me (and of course it would come down to that eventually, no matter how elegantly Butch packaged it up), there was no doubt in Max’s mind which man Silverman would choose to keep.

  Butch Menken had the Midas touch. Max made some excellent movies, some good movies, and some turkeys. Plus, he destroyed his own dailies when told to re-edit. Max told himself he should turn in, drive through the damn arches, now. He should fight for his job. Silverman was fond of him. Max could turn it around. Of course he could. He only needed to …

  But he put his foot on the gas and drove straight on.

  Butch said she was out of town, but Eleanor never left town. Was Butch lying, then?

  Was she hiding out at Butch’s apartment? Probably. He should drive by. Again. For the hundredth time. Back to his spot, under the tree, where he had spent every night since she left, sleeping in his car. He would ask the porter if he’d spotted her … Again. Try to find a way to get into Butch’s apartment. Again. And this time if the man refused to give him a straight answer, he would punch his way in.

  He needed to turn the car round. He should do that – find his goddamn wife, and bring her home with him.

  But he didn’t turn the car around. He kept on driving, twenty blocks further east, and then a few blocks north, until his car pulled up opposite her window. And there she was, tapping away at her typewriter.

  She didn’t have any drapes up. She said they weren’t ‘modern’. It was dusk outside by then, and the light shone over her desk, illuminating her pretty face. He could see her: the little frown of concentration, and her mouth, shaping the words as she wrote them.

  Cute.

  She cared so much about her work. He admired her for that. He wondered – vaguely – what she was working on this evening. One day, she always said, she was going to write a screenplay. ‘And it’s going to be the best screenplay you ever read, Max Beecham. And you’re going to beg me for the rights to it, so you can direct it.’ Cute. And maybe she would do that, too. Watching her, the intensity of her concentration, it occurred to him that she probably would. One day.

  But not tonight. Tonight, he decided, she was putting her typewriter away. He was taking her out to dinner.

  They never did make it out to dinner. He stood at her door, dishevelled, with a diffidence that touched her, and which washed away all the anxiety she had been feeling about him. Blanche knew already, because it was her business to know, that his wife had gone walkabout, and that the studio was looking for her. She had heard rumours that Eleanor had been spotted in Reno, which could only mean one thing.

  Blanche also knew the Lost At Sea dailies had gone missing, too, and knowing Max as she did, she had a pretty good idea what had become of them. So much was going on in his life these past few days, and yet he had not made contact with her; and then, after the encounter last night, she suspected the worst.

  There was a smattering of blood on his shirt, which raised a few questions. More questions. She had questions of her own after what happened to her last night. There was so much she had intended to ask him.

  Once a cheat, always a cheat. That’s what her mother used to say.

  If he could cheat on his wife, he could cheat on her. And she needed to ask him.

  But not right away. He had come to her door – not to the other woman’s. If she was the other woman. Whoever the hell she was. God dammit, the bitch had lost her nerve and run away before Blanche had had a chance to ask her.

  He looked terrible, standing there, like he needed her. And she loved him, very much – of course she did – and it pulled at her heart to seem him so low. But it also disconcerted her. Just a little bit.

  She said nothing. She just smiled and held open the door and welcomed him in. She would ask him later. All the questions would have to wait. She sat him down on her velvet couch and she mixed them both cocktails, and they talked, but not all that much. She made him an omelette, which he didn’t eat. And then they took each other to bed. And Blanche set aside her suspicions. Or she forgot about them. Or for the time she and Max were in bed together, they seemed to be quite meaningless, anyway.

  37

  In the morning, while the lovers slept, the world shifted. Madness took hold on Wall Street. On the trading floor, brawls erupted as the stock prices plummeted, and grown men sobbed.

  When Max finally opened his sleepy eyes, two-and-a-half thousand miles away in sunny California, well on his way to being a poor man again, nothing could have been further from his mind. He saw Blanche’s young, pretty, face on the pillow beside him and he felt – for the sharpest, briefest instant – a lightness he’d not felt in years, and he wondered why he’d been fighting it all this time.

  38

  Five hundred miles away in Reno, the ticker-tape machine was going crazy. Matthew Gregory was finding it hard to concentrate, and even harder to sit tight, albeit at a fee of $14 per hour, while his client embellished a story with so many holes that nothing about it held together any longer or made the slightest sense.

  Eleanor was talking about a guy called Butch. The screenplay Matz wrote in 1918, which Butch produced, and Matz directed – or was it vice versa? He couldn’t be bothered to ask. It was the screenplay for the film that turned Eleanor Beecham into a star.

  Poppy Girl! He remembered that. It was a sensation at the time. Suddenly everyone was talking about Eleanor Beecham. Matthew Gregory had seen the film, along with most of America. He’d taken his sweetheart (now his wife) on what would have been their second or third date, and they’d both laughed until they cried. You wouldn’t guess it, listening to her today, but Eleanor Beecham was a wonderful comic actress. Funny thin
g, he thought, how gorgeous she was, up there on the screen. They’d all fallen crazy in love with her. Everyone! Men and women! And now here she sat, while what was left of his fortunes flushed away down the toilet, telling him a story that made no sense. Because she wouldn’t accept the truth. Because she thought, if she talked – what? There was still hope? What? What was she doing here? Poor thing, he thought. Poor old girl. For $14 per hour, he could at least try to be patient.

  So while she talked, Matthew Gregory did a few sums. Tried to work out the impossible, in a plunging market: what his situation might be at the end of the day. He’d bought £9,000 of US Steel on a margin of 10 per cent. He owned $300 of General Electric, which he’d ordered his broker to sell at whatever price he could get. Since the beginning of the week their value had already halved, and this morning it was impossible to tell what their price was until the ticker tape caught up, if it ever did. That was the damn trouble. It was driving him crazy, sitting here.

  At a 10 per cent margin, he owned £3,000 of a radio stock, inherited from his father, whose price had risen by 8 per cent in the month of September, dropped by a single per cent in the first week of October, and risen by 2 per cent on Thursday last. A 9 per cent increase in as many weeks! If only Gregory had sold he might have come away with a very tidy profit.

  But he hadn’t, had he? On Monday last he’d bought even more.

  ‘You’ll never get ’em cheaper!’ the broker had bellowed into the telephone. What had he been thinking? On Monday last, adrenalin pumping, from having a beautiful movie star waft into his cheap little office, he had taken the broker’s advice. Now, of course, the stock was less than worthless … He thought of his wife with one on the way, and his precious five-year-old daughter playing in her harsh, green suburban back yard. What had he been thinking? … If the price fell ten cents below the margin – he didn’t have to do the sums – he would be ruined. He glanced up at Eleanor. Yes, she was still talking …