Colleen Moore, Barbara La Marr.
Turning the corner of the house, a constellation of Japanese paper lanterns blazing against the night sky surprises me. Yukio teeters on a stepladder while Chance stands on the lawn directing the positioning of lanterns on a cord strung between two palms. An intruder, I instinctively freeze to the spot.
“Now the red one,” says Chance, “next to the green.”
In the warm glow of the lanterns, Yukio’s face shines like rubbed brass. Beyond the two men, the swimming pool gleams intensely green in a blanket of soft light, liquid jade. A woman is swimming in the pool, sinuous water rolling smoothly over her shoulders, the surface of the pool undulating faintly behind her as she plies the breast- stroke. Completing a length, she turns without a splash, glides back. Chance pays her absolutely no attention; face raised and forehead lined with attention, he studies the lanterns dangling like coloured concertinas drying on a clothesline.
I clear my throat and he wheels around, peers hard to where I stand one foot in the shadows, one in the light.
“Harry!” he exclaims. He comes forward eagerly, pointing to the manila envelope tucked under my arm. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He checks his watch. “Punctual to a fault,” he says, taking the envelope. The girl in the pool begins another lap. The water flows around her thickly like heavy green syrup. A burst of laughter rings out from the house, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Chance ignores it, or doesn’t hear.
“Let’s go in,” he says.
“No, really, I don’t want to crash your party.”
Chance puts a hand on my shoulder. “But the party is for you, too. A little treat for working so hard.”
“I’d feel out of place among such a distinguished crowd.”
Chance throws back his head and laughs. “That’s right. Don’t spoil it. I get your meaning.” He steers me to the rear entrance. Over my shoulder I peek at the woman in the water. It is as I thought; she’s stark naked.
He leads me through the kitchen, past a number of rented waiters in dinner jackets toiling over trays of canapes, and down a passageway which delivers us into one of Chance’s empty, blank rooms. A very odd setting for a party, just a few ladder-backed chairs marooned on a parquet floor. A waiter is serving drinks to two women; a man’s muffled shouting can be heard further back in the house. The two women are Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow.
“It’s a very small affair,” explains Chance, completely ignoring two of Hollywood’s greatest stars. “By coincidence some of Fitz’s boon companions from New York are in town and I indulged him by inviting them along. Fitz is like a boy with a new train set; he wants to show it off.” He taps the envelope. “I’ll take this up to the study and give it a look. It’s quieter there. Until I need you, consider yourself to have been given the keys to the city. Miss Lillian Gish is dying to meet you.” With that cryptic comment he exits the room. As soon as he leaves, Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow advance on me, heels clicking like castanets on the hardwood. It’s now I become aware that Gloria’s sequinned dress, skeins of pearls, and beauty mark are right, but her chin isn’t. It’s pronounced, but not pronounced enough. Seen up close, Clara Bow, the “It” girl, isn’t It either. The eyes are set too close together and the eyelids don’t droop the way the Jazz Baby’s do in the pictures.
I laugh with pure relief.
“Is it a man, or a hyena,” snarls Gloria.
“Be nice,” cautions Clara.
“The rest are hyenas, why’d he be any different.” Gloria tips her glass and drains it.
“So what is this? You girls doubles? Stand-ins?”
“That’s rich – stand-ins. We don’t do much standing.” Gloria consults her companion. “More like lay-downs, wouldn’t you say?”
“Lay-downs,” giggles Clara and then covers her mouth coyly with her hand. Some of her teeth are rotten.
“What is it with this Chance?” asks Gloria, gloomily surveying the barren room. “He run out of money before he got the decorators in?”
“You’re a card, honey,” says Clara. “A regular card.” She appeals to me. “Isn’t she a card?”
“How come nobody’s interested in La Swanson?” demands Gloria, sullenly angry. “My stock falling with the movie-going public?” She turns on me. “What about you, sport? You interested in a little movie magic?”
“Just have another drinkie and relax,” Clara advises.
Gloria wants nothing to do with relaxation; she’s obviously spoiling for a fight. “Come on, big spender,” she says. “Don’t just stand there. Show us a parlour trick.”
“What kind of parlour trick?” I ask pleasantly, a feeble ploy to smooth her ruffled feathers.
“Parlour trick. Parlour trick,” she rasps. “The big palooka in the other room showed us how he could balance three silver dollars on his cock. Be a sport. Go for four.”
Just then Fitz crashes into the room, dragging a cringing Lillian Gish by the wrist.
“Speak of the devil!” shouts Gloria. “Here’s Mr. Show-off now!”
“Shut the fuck up,” says Fitz, “or I’ll fucking shut you up.”
Gloria looks like she is going to answer him, then thinks better of it. Fitz is sweating, his face puce. “Harry Vincent, guest of honour,” he says introducing me to Lillian Gish. “Treat him right, he earned it, Mr. Chance says.” He shoves the girl at me. “Here’s your fucking treat, Vincent. Suck on this little candy cane, you’re so special.”
“Hey,” says Gloria, “we seen him first.”
“I told you to close your cake-hole. Miss Gish is compliments of Mr. Chance. Keep your nose out of it.” The girl is rubbing her wrist. “Miss Gish is Harry’s favourite actress. Mr. Chance remembers stuff like that. Don’t he, Harry?”
“Apparently.”
Fitz prods the girl forward with his thumb. “Take the golden boy Vincent upstairs.”
“Maybe I don’t want to go upstairs,” I say.
“I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth if I was you,” says Fitz.
The girl snatches at my arm like it’s a life raft and she is drowning; she’s hardly bigger than a child. “Please,” she whispers, “do like he says.” Her plea unmasks a terror so naked, so compelling, it would be cruelty to refuse. She pulls me from the room, fingers biting my forearm; my last glimpse of Fitz he’s clumsily fingering Gloria’s pearls with one hand, a breast with the other.
Upstairs, the girl drags me into a bedroom and locks the door. Something tells me it is Fitz’s. There’s an unmade bed, a dresser with a bottle of bay rum on top of it, pictures of Gentleman Jim Corbett and Kentucky Derby winner Man o’ War on the wall.
The girl offers a smile meant to be provocative but isn’t. It’s a grimace – whistling in the dark. “My name is Miss Lillian Gish. How do you do?”
In some respects it is true. She succeeds as Miss Lillian Gish in a way that the tawdry Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow fall short of their models. The resemblance is astonishing. She has the wrought fragility of the original, the delicate bird-like bones, the cupid mouth, the large eyes, the fine tousled hair which now, with the light of a lamp behind her, blazes like a heaven-sent aura. Unlike the others she isn’t dressed in glamorous party clothes – just the opposite – she’s wearing a paisley shawl and a long dress with a conspicuous patch on the skirt.
“You girls – just who are you?”
She smiles shyly, a real Lillian Gish smile this time, and makes a stab at resuming her performance, “My name is Miss Lillian -”
I interrupt. “What the hell’s going on here?”
She says, “The greatest gift it is in an innocent, pure girl’s power to give is yours for the asking.” It sounds like a recitation at the Christmas concert.
I drop down in a chair; she remains standing uncertainly in the middle of the floor. After a moment’s hesitation, she begins to unbutton her dress.
“Stop,” I say.
Her hands slowly open the dress front, cup her breasts and hold them on timid display. They are exquisite.
“Why are you doing this?”
Consternation and confusion struggle in her face. “I’m supposed to do this,” she complains.
She begins to toy with her nipples; voyeuristically I watch them stiffen. An uneasy, violent lust ripples in
