Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

So they continued their descent, hand in hand. They said nothing now. There was no need.

On the other side of the Canyon, a lone coyote began to yap; his voice was answered by another higher up on the ridge behind them, then another two in the same vicinity, and now another, and another, until the entire Canyon was filled with their glorious din.

When Todd and Katya reached the lawn there was a small, scrawny coyote loping across it, giving them a guilty backward glance as he disappeared into the undergrowth. As he vanished from sight, the pack ceased its din. There were a few moments of silence. Then the insects took up their music again.

'It's sad, the way things have declined,' Katya said, looking at the sight before them. The starlight was forgiving, but it couldn't conceal the general condition of the place: the statues missing limbs, or toppled over and buried in vines; the pavement around the pool cracked and mossy, the pool itself stained and stinking.

'What's that?' Todd said, pointing out the one-story mock-classical structure half-hidden by the cypresses around the pool.

'That's the Pool House. I haven't been in there in a very long time.'

'I want to see it.'

It was a larger building than it had appeared from the front, and uncannily bright. There were several skylights in the ceiling, which ushered in the brightness of moon and stars, their light bouncing off the silky marble floor. In the center stood a cocktail bar with mirrors of marbled glass behind the glass shelves. Even after all these years there were dozens of bottles on the shelves—brandies, whiskies and liqueurs.

'You used the pool a lot?' Todd said.

'We had the best pool-parties in Hollywood.'

Their voices echoed off the glacial walls as they spoke, coming back to meet them. 'And the people who came here, knew . . .' Katya said. 'They knew.' Letting the thought go unfinished, she moved past him to the bar.

'What did they know?' he said.

'Not to make any judgments,' she replied. She slipped behind the bar, and began to survey the rows of bottles.

'I don't think we should try drinking any of that stuff,' he said. 'I've got fresh booze in the house if that's what you want.'

She didn't reply; simply continued to survey the selection. Finally she decided upon one of the brandies, and taking the bottle by the neck she pulled it forward. There was a grinding noise from behind the mirror as some antiquated mechanism was activated. Then the mirror slid sideways three or four feet, revealing a small safe.

Todd was intrigued. He hopped over the bar to get a better look at what Katya was up to. She was working on the tumbler lock; he could hear a faint clicking as she flipped it back and forth.

'What's in there?' he said.

'We used to have a book—'

'We?'

'Zeffer and I. We just kept it for fun.'

'A book of what?'

'Of party pieces,' she said, with a little smile. 'Who did what to whom. And how many times.'

'You're kidding!'

She turned the lock one more time, and then pushed down on the handle and pulled the door. There was a cracking sound, as the decayed rubber seal broke. Then the door swung wide.

'Are there any candles?' she said to him. 'Look in the cupboard there between the columns, will you?'

Todd did as he was instructed, and found several boxes of plain white candles on the shelves. One was open, and the heat of many summers had turned the contents into a single box-shaped slab of white wax. But the contents of the other two boxes were in better condition: under the first layer, which was partially melted, there were salvageable candles. He set up six of them on the bar, seating them in their own dribblings so that they wouldn't fall over.

Their flickering yellow light flattered the marble interior; and by some strange arrangement of the walls it seemed he heard the whispering of the flames multiplied. Indeed they almost sounded like voices; uncannily so. He looked around, half-expecting to see somebody flitting between the columns.

'Ah, voila!' said Katya, reaching into the depths of the safe.

She brought a small, thick book out of the little safe along with a sheaf of photographs and set them all down on the bar in the light from the candles. The book looked like a journal, bound in dark red leather. When she opened it he saw that its handwritten contents were arranged symmetrically; two columns to each page.

'Take a look,' she said, obviously delighted with her find.

He picked up the book and flicked through it. Almost three-quarters of its pages were written on, sometimes in the two-column configuration, sometimes simply filled up from top to bottom. He turned to a page of the former variety. On the left-hand side of the pages was a column of names; on the right hand, a column that was far harder to make sense of. Occasionally there were names, but more often letters and symbols, some of them resembling obscure mathematical equations. His puzzlement amused her.

'Think of it as a history book,' she said, offering a teasing smile along with the clue.

'A history of what?'

'Of better times.'

Todd flipped through the pages. Now and again, among the names, he came upon some he knew: Norma Talmadge, Theda Bara, John Gilbert, Clara Bow; all movie stars of another era.

'You knew all these people?' he said to her.

'Yes, of course. This was the place to come, when you wanted to have some fun. Every weekend, we'd have parties. Sometimes in the pool. Sometimes in the house. Sometimes we'd have hunts, all through the Canyon.'

'Animal hunts?'

'No. People hunts. People treated like animals. We whipped them and we chained them up and . .. well, you can imagine.'

'I'm beginning to. Wow. You had Charlie Chaplin up here, I see.'

'Yes, he came up here often. He used to bring his little girls.'

'Little girls?'

'He liked them young.'

Todd raised a quizzical eyebrow. 'And you didn't mind?'

'I don't believe in Thou Shalt Not. That's for people who are afraid to follow their own instincts. Of course when you're out there in the world you've got to play by the rules, or you'll spend your life behind bars. They'd lock you up and throw away the key. But this isn't the world. This is my Canyon. They called it Coldheart Canyon, because they said I have a soul like ice. But why should I care what people say? Let them say whatever they want to say, as long as their money pays for the little luxuries in life. I want my Kingdom to be a place where people could take their pleasures freely, without judgment or punishment.

'This is Eden, you see? Only there's no snake. No angel to drive you out either, because you did a bad thing. Why? Because there were no bad things.'

'Literally none?'

She looked at him, her stare luminous. 'Oh you mean murder, perhaps? We had one or two murderers here. And we had sisters who'd fucked their brothers, and sons who fucked their mothers, and a man who liked having children suck him off.'

'What?'

'Ha! Now you're shocked. His name was Laurence Skimpell, and he was as handsome a man as I've ever met. He had a contract at Warner Brothers, and they were going to make him a star. A big star. Then this woman turns up at the studios with a child, who she said was Skimpell's. Warner Brothers have always been very loyal. They offered the woman money; said they'd put the child up for adoption. But as she got up and left she said: You don't understand, this isn't his offspring. This is his lover.'

'Oh Jesus Christ.'

'That was the last we ever heard of Laurence Skimpell.'

'That's a ridiculous story. I don't believe a word of it.'