“Wrong party. Jack’s funny that way. After Yankee Doodle, he thought Roosevelt was a personal friend. But it’s time he met more people.”
“Across the aisle.”
“We don’t care where they sit as long as they get the decree squashed.”
“And he gets?”
Bunny raised his eyebrows. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”
Ben looked around the room again. All this extravagance to arrange a meeting. Rosemary was near the piano now, chatting with Alexis Smith. Ann Sheridan had gone over to greet the Warners. It occurred to Ben suddenly that the stars had been brought in to dress the room, like eye-catching centerpieces. They were all under contract to Continental or Warners—maybe Lasner and Jack had simply ordered them up. He wondered if there were a studio pecking order, Bette Davis having earned the right to pass, Cagney beyond this kind of thing. Only Paulette was with another studio, but she was a friend, happy to sparkle for old times’ sake.
“Well, he’s here,” Bunny said, looking toward the door. “The Honorable. Ken to his friends.”
Minot was sandy-haired, younger than Ben had expected, with an athlete’s build already filling in, about to turn soft. There was a pleasant-looking woman on his arm, a little dismayed at the dazzle of the party about to swallow her up.
“His first term?” Ben said.
“War hero. Took out a Jap machine gun emplacement. Then caught shrapnel in the leg, enough to get him out. Just in time to start passing out flyers in Van Nuys. Well—oh god, the wife. Marie, I think. Marie?”
“Time to go to work.”
“You think you’re kidding. Sorry about the cousin, but I did give you Paulette. I just wish you’d told me— By the way, I talked to the boys in Publicity. And Security. Nobody made any calls about your brother. Nobody knew him, in fact. So I’d check your sources. They might have got mixed up. Another studio. That happens. Sometimes on purpose. A little game they play.”
Taking the time to close the door on it. Ben started to say something, then let it go. Bunny was already moving away, on to more important things.
He made another circuit of the room, another glassful, then noticed Liesl listening to some man, her expression polite but a little pained, trapped. There had been a shift in the crowd, the people near her moving away, leaving her standing in a circle of space, like a fawn in a clearing, and he felt a sudden urge to wrap a coat around her shoulders. When he went over she smiled, a flicker of relief in her eyes. Marion had been replaced by a director who’d known Danny at Metro and was now offering his condolences. He took Ben as a convenient excuse to escape.
“Having fun?”
“I would be if I didn’t have to talk. Be like her,” she said, nodding toward a middle-aged woman staring out the picture window, smoking. “Just watch everybody.”
“She’s looking the other way.”
“They all want to know what picture I’m working on. When I’m not, they walk away.”
Ben’s eye wandered back to the woman at the window, now moving to a coffee table to put out a cigarette and light another. She looked up, taking in the room, but blankly, as if she couldn’t really see anything. A skeletal thinness, gray hair in short bangs, a velvet dress that seemed too big for her, borrowed. She turned back to the window, staring down at Los Angeles.
“I have a feeling that’s my dinner partner,” Ben said.
“No, it isn’t,” Paulette Goddard said, suddenly at his side. “I am. Hello again.”
He introduced her to Liesl.
“Bunny told me,” she said to Ben. “I don’t suppose you brought any cards.” Her smile and eyes bright, still carrying their own key light. Ben thought of her cross-legged on the Pullman bed, letting Sol win. A good sport.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he said.
“Mind? I usually get Rex. He likes me or something. I don’t know why. He starts on his horses and I just nod off. Do you ride?” she said to Liesl, drawing her in.
“No.”
“I can’t imagine. The only ranch I’ve ever been to was the divorce ranch in The Women. At Metro.” She glanced around. “Fay certainly knows how to go all out,” she said, half-laughing. “I remember when it was soup and crackers.” She reached for a canapé on a tray, showing a green flash of emerald bracelet.
“You’re friends?” Liesl said, polite.
“Mm, from the good old days, and thank God they’re over. Are you in pictures or—?”
“I translate books. From German,” she said, with a sly glance to Ben, waiting for Paulette to bolt.