Playland (37 page)

“Your industry, Mr. Frankel—” Congressman Wilder said.

“French,” J. F. French said.

“Excuse me,” the congressman said. “I must have been thinking of somebody else. Mr. French. French. Of course. Mr. French, your industry has got to be serious about this secret infiltration of all those Reds—”

“And pseudoliberals,” J. F. French interjected.

“They’re bad for the Jews, Moe,” Lilo Kusack said, inhaling his cigar and then blowing perfect smoke rings past the congressman’s face. The whole evening seemed to entertain him.

“Exactly,” Congressman Wilder said, waving the smoke away. “Exactly right, Mr.…”

“Kusack. K-U-S-A-C-K. I come from Vilna.”

“Where is that, Mr. Kusack?”

“Tennessee,” Lilo Kusack said, not missing a beat. Rita Lewis tried not to laugh. There were times when she almost liked Lilo, and this was one of them.

“Did you know, Mr.…”

“French.”

“Did you know, Mr. French, that Edward G. Robinson’s real name is Emmanuel Goldenberg?”

“Nooooo,” Lilo Kusack said, drawing the word out. “Is that
right?” He poured the last of a wine bottle into his glass and snapped his fingers at a waiter for another bottle. “Did you know that about Eddie, Moe?”

J. F. French stared impassively at Lilo Kusack.

“I didn’t know that, Lilo,” Blue Tyler said. “It takes up a lot of letters on a marquee, that must be the reason Eddie changed it.” She paused, counting on her fingers as if computing the number of letters in both names. “But Edward G. Robinson is only a couple of letters less than Emmanuel … what did you say his name was?”

“Goldenberg …”

“It really doesn’t matter with Eddie. He’s below the title anyway. I don’t know why he changed it then.”

Congressman Wilder turned and looked at Blue in puzzlement, as if she might have been pulling his leg, but irony, as Arthur always assured me, and as I learned in my brief acquaintanceship with her, was a tactic not included in her arsenal of dissembling.

“You’re so cute,” Blue Tyler said. She pursed her lips, placed her hand under her chin, and blew the congressman a kiss off her fingers. “It’s a good thing you’re so happily married to what’s-her-name over there, or I’d steal you away from her.” She mouthed the words, You make me wet, and then aloud said, “You going to eat that spud?” Before he could answer, Blue had speared the last roast potato from his plate and stuffed it into her mouth. “Rita,” she said, chewing noisily. “Arthur told me you used to fuck some Italian gangster in Cleveland when you were a kid.”

Rita Lewis regarded Blue without speaking. She knew it was a waste of time and energy to dislike Blue, a child-woman who had never really been a child but from the age of four only a capital asset. When she was still a little girl, grown men had looked at her in a way she knew they were not supposed to, in a way that made her understand, years before puberty that her body, especially the part between her legs, had a greater currency even than money. The language she talked was that of the film crews she worked with. She said
fuck
and
cunt
before she
knew what the words meant, and now that she had learned, she used them because of the effect they had on the people who would control her. Her every whim was catered to, her willfulness indulged. She had never been held accountable for her actions, and she knew implicitly that as long as she continued to be the star she was she never would be.

“Arthur,” Blue said, waving her napkin in his direction, “what was the name of that gangster you said Rita used to ball in Cleveland?”

Arthur French pretended not to hear and bent close to Congressman Wilder. “I think what the Industry needs is a statement of principles about this menace.”

“What menace is that, Arthur?” Blue said. And then to Rita: “I mean it’s exactly the kind of picture I want to do now. You’re fifteen years old—did you say Rita was fifteen or sixteen, Arthur?” There was no response from Arthur French. “Say sixteen then, and you’re screwing this ginney from Cleveland, and then you end up out here. In Hollywood. The stuff in the middle, Arthur will hire a writer.”

Across the table, LuAnne Wilder was looking numbly at Blue Tyler, as if she did not quite believe she was hearing what she thought she was hearing. “I’m very good on story,” Blue said to her confidentially. Turning back to Rita Lewis, she said, “Maybe I’ll give myself a kid. So I have something to lose in the last reel. Because J.F. is always saying money doesn’t buy happiness. That’s bullshit, look at all this,” she said, her hand sweeping around the Ambassador ballroom, taking in the hundreds of people in evening dress. “They don’t look unhappy, Clark and Ginger and them. I’m not married to the kid, either, but the writer can work out something I can lose.” For a moment she was lost in thought, going over the possibilities for emotional loss. “Maybe a mother. Or a brother. Who’s crippled.” A satisfied smile. “I really like that.” In her mind, she seemed to be mulling over the crippled brother who would die in her screenplay, and how she would play his death scene. “I was born for this part, Rita, what do you say?”

“I would say it was Chicago,” Rita Lewis said slowly. “And I
was fourteen.” She took a compact from her purse, examined her face, then snapped it shut. “And I think it’ll be a while before you grow into the part.”

“That shows how much you know,” Blue Tyler said. “If we put it in Cleveland, we won’t have to pay you for the rights then.” She leaned across the table. “Arthur, do you want me to show you how bad girls kiss?”

“Actually, no, Blue,” Arthur said.

Blue winked at LuAnne Wilder. “But I want to, Arthur.”

Arthur French pulled a bill from his pocket and handed it across the table to Blue. “Why don’t you go powder your nose, Blue.”

Blue snatched the bill away from him. “Arthur, you’re always sending me off to the potty.”

“Because you act like you’re not potty-trained,” Rita Lewis said.

“Well, fuck you,” Blue Tyler said.

There were photographs of Jacob King’s arrival at the dinner in the morgue at the
Los Angeles Times
, and other photos from newspapers long since dead in the microfilm room at the UCLA library.

“King,” Jacob King said to the young woman at the registration desk. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, surreptitiously checked both left and right profiles, shot his cuffs, flicked an invisible piece of lint from the silk collar of his double-breasted dinner jacket, and finally ran his tongue over his teeth, searching for any food particles that might have lodged between them. Several of the reporters and photographers waiting in the ballroom’s annex for the evening to end moved closer to check out the late-arriving stranger paying so much attention to his appearance. Filtering through the closed doors, the rising voice of Congressman Wilder could be heard inveighing against the Communists who had stage-managed the crucifixion. “Jacob King.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. King,” the young woman said, suddenly and
unexpectedly flustered. There was a sexual component to the man smiling so knowingly at her, as if he knew what she looked like without her clothes on, knew she was having her period and wanted to escape to the ladies’ room to change her sanitary napkin, and knew that she knew what he was thinking. “I can’t seem to find your name on the list.”

Jacob removed a roll of bills from the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. As the reporters watched, he peeled off five hundreds and fanned them out on the table as if he were laying out a full house. “I’ll buy a table then.”

“The tables have all been subscribed, Mr. King,” she said, reluctant to reach for the money. “But I know the committee and all true Americans will be extremely grateful to receive your generous contribution …”

“A true American.” Jacob nodded appreciatively. “That’s the way I like to think of myself.”

Suddenly one of the reporters said, “You’re Jake King, aren’t you?”

He turned to the photographers and smiled. “You boys are a little slower than they are back in New York.”

There was a blaze of flashbulbs. “Be nice, fellows, only my good side,” Jacob King said.

The young woman at the registration desk looked perplexed. The man with the polished hair was getting as much attention as Clark Gable had when he arrived earlier, but then everyone knew who Mr. Gable was. As Jacob moved toward the door of the ballroom, trailed by the photographers and reporters shouting questions, he turned and flashed his knowing smile, the smile she would remember later that night and wonder what it would feel like to lose her virginity. “You see, sweetheart, it’s okay.”

The houselights in the ballroom dimmed, and then went out. Only the candles on the tables flickered. The conversational hum slowly died down until there was no sound except for nervous coughing and waiters rushing their trays toward the
kitchen. Then suddenly in the center of the room, framed by a spotlight, the face of Blue Tyler.

“I pledge allegiance …” Pause. “… to the flag …” Pause. “… of the United States of America …”

Jacob King stood just inside the ballroom door, transfixed, staring at Blue’s spotlighted face, her hair backlit, giving her an almost celestial appearance.

At the head table, J. F. French whispered to Arthur, “She got it wrong, the little whore, it’s God bless America.”

“No, no, she’s got it right, J.F.,” Arthur said, “just repeat it after me. ‘… one nation … under God …’ ” The invoking of the Almighty, then not included in the pledge, had been a concession to the cardinal, although Barry Tyger, devout secularist that he was, later told J. F. French he was not all that thrilled with His inclusion, it being his considered opinion that God should be confined to the Sabbath.

Rita Lewis lit a cigarette and as she took a first deep drag, Lilo Kusack reached over and removed it from her lips. “ ‘… indivisible,’ ” Lilo said, crushing Rita’s cigarette into an ashtray, then smiling at her, “ ‘with liberty and justice for all.’ ”

The houselights came up, and J. F. French rose as if propelled, vigorously leading the ovation. “That’s my little girl, one take, that’s all it took, that’s why her pictures come in on time and under budget. Rita, get up, clap, be a good American like little Blue.”

“I’m going to go pee,” Rita Lewis said, ignoring him. “Lilo, is it okay if I grab a smoke in the can, I can smoke there, can’t I?” Lilo nodded with a benign smile. Rita was trying to pick a fight, and he never argued with women, it was a waste of time, and only occasionally did he hit one. “Order me a Rob Roy then,” Rita said. “On second thought, two Rob Roys.” She caught Mrs. Wilder staring at her. “Were the Commies really at the foot of the cross? I never heard that at St. Leo’s in Chicago, and the nuns there taught all sorts of weird shit.” Rita favored LuAnne Wilder with her most dazzling smile. “You want to come to the can with me, honey?”

LuAnne Wilder shook her head back and forth, as if in a catatonic trance. She seemed to have forgotten how to blink.

At the microphone Blue Tyler linked arms with Congressman Wilder. “I told Ted Wilder …” She turned to the congressman and winked ostentatiously at him. “I can call you Ted, can’t I … Teddy?”

There was another burst of applause.

“Timing,” J. F. French said. “My little girl’s got perfect comedy timing.”

“Anyway,” Blue said, “I told Ted if he kept his speech short, I would give him the first dance. The first dance to the first winner of the first annual Cosmopolitan Pictures ‘I Am an American’ award.” More applause. “And then he gets up here and yaks for twenty-two minutes.” She paused. “It didn’t take twenty-two minutes to burn down Atlanta in
Gone With the Wind
.” It did not seem entirely suitable to make fun of a foot soldier in the front line against Communism and there was only a smattering of nervous laughter. Blue did not seem to notice or care as she shielded her eyes from the lights and peered out into the audience. “Clark, that is still such a good picture.” Then she turned back to Congressman Wilder. “Come on, Teddy, let’s cut a rug. Cheek to cheek. Ten cents a dance.”

Immediately the orchestra struck up “You Ought to Be in Pictures,” and Blue whirled Congressman Wilder onto the dance floor. All over the ballroom, other couples began dancing. At the head table, Lilo Kusack was left momentarily alone. He was always most perfectly comfortable in his own company. People and their demands interrupted the reasoning process. He cut the end off another cigar with a gold clipper and, as he lit it, watched J. F. French trying to maneuver LuAnne Wilder into a foxtrot. It was like watching elephants fornicate, he thought. Even Benny Draper was dancing, with Chloe Quarles. The invitation to join Moe and the nitwit congressman at the head table had not seemed to make Benny any more tractable, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. The contract problem would not go away, and Moe was on a short fuse. Maybe, Lilo
thought, we can throw Chloe into the deal. She doesn’t look bad for her age. Even up the ante a little. Chloe and her girlfriend. A perfect triple-decker. Benny was so bent he might even consider it.