“There was a deal,” Zukor said, his eyes finding the floor. “You are doing the industry a great service. Be patient, mein Kind. If it wasn’t for the commission, every goddamn picture would be sliced up by every two-bit censor and religious nut.”
“I’ve lost a chunk of change during this mess,” Roscoe said. “They say they could take my home.”
“You’ll be back,” Zukor said. “I just wanted you to hear from me and not those goddamn newspapermen. They should be knocking on your door anytime. I suggest you get out while you can. Ask for a private table. They’ll understand.”
Roscoe felt a palsy in his cheeks. Minta rose from the piano. Roscoe held the edge of the piano. Luke sniffed at Zukor’s leg and began a low growl.
“How can they do this?”
“We voted,” Zukor said. “All of us did. It was best with the trial and all, and a few other things. The average Joe thinks Hollywood is the devil’s garden. See? We have to show them different. Listen, I tried my best to stop Hays, but he was intent that you were taught a lesson.”
“I was acquitted.”
“He said it sends the wrong message, that we can’t be tough enough on our own people. We must show toughness now.” Zukor shrugged. “In a year? Maybe another story.”
Roscoe just stared at him, feeling his heart drop, wanting a drink very badly.
“Maybe we can get a deal for Luke,” Zukor said. “How’d you like that?” Luke continued to growl, Minta walking by Roscoe and grabbing the dog’s collar. Teeth now bared.
Zukor had a fine camel coat laid across his arm and a beaver hat in his fingers that he nearly dropped while trying to shake Roscoe’s hand again. Roscoe took his hand but didn’t hold it. Zukor patted his shoulder and called him his child again, and just walked away, up the little landing and across the great hallway of marble checkerboard.
Roscoe did not move.
“Why has God done this to me?”
Minta didn’t answer, only sat back at the piano and started to play a song that they sang together in all those saloons and mining towns, and he turned to her, resting his hand upon her shoulder, and joined in, taking the time for a solo on the old kazoo.
He sang louder and louder, the windows of the mansion shaking, one song breaking into the next, while the front door chimed and the telephone rang. Minta’s gentle voice warming his heart until tears ran down his face and hit the keys.
He would not star in another picture for a dozen years, the very same year he died.
IT WAS FALL OF 1924 and Hearst decided on a party, quickly settling on the theme, the birthday of his good friend Tom Ince. He cobbled together a group of thirteen, including Miss Davies, and they all sailed from Wilmington on his sturdy little Oneida. That first night there was a spectacular dinner party, lobster cocktails and roast turkey and the endless uncorking of champagne for his guests. At sunset, the crew strung red Japanese lanterns along the rigging and the whole yacht took on a mystical glow in the balmy night, the thirteen gathering on deck for song and dessert, coffee, and more champagne. A giant birthday cake was brought out for Ince, baked in the shape of a horse since the man was famous for directing all those westerns-or what Hearst loved to call “horse operas.”
Ince blew out the candles and there was applause, and singing, and Marion announced after drinking more than she’d promised that everyone was to find a costume.
“But we brought no costumes,” Hearst said to the gathering.
“Here lies the challenge,” Marion announced, grasping a champagne bottle from a crewman and pouring another drink. Before long, the deck was filled, with one couple saying they were Indians but really just covering themselves with blankets as shawls, another couple simply exchanging clothing, George dressed himself in an old bathrobe and said he was a monk. But, as always, Chaplin stole the show, borrowing a negligee and parading around, patting his long dark curls and asking everyone in that maddening accent, “Don’t I look pretty?”
Even Hearst had to laugh.
There was a scavenger hunt and more song, and Hearst drank his coffee, speaking to the captain in the wheelhouse. It was there, through the glass, that he saw his guests standing on the bow staring up at the great ship’s mast as Chaplin, still in women’s silks, shimmied up the cables like some kind of ape, finding his footing high above them all, screaming and shouting. Hearst watched his enraptured guests, staring up at the drunken idiot.
Chaplin had found footing high in a crow’s nest and began to recite Shakespeare.
“Marion,” Hearst said. “We must-”
“Shush,” she said.
He stared at her. Her head tilted back, eyes up at the starred sky, hands clutched to her breasts.
“… slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them? / To die; to sleep; / No more; and by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; / To sleep: perchance to dream”-Chaplin stretched out his arm before him in contemplation-“ay, there’s the rub.”
Chaplin finished, thank God, and upended the bottle of Hearst champagne and tossed it deep into the Pacific. In the red glow of the lanterns, there was great applause, yet what mattered to Hearst was that there was also silence. The goddamn silence of awe for the funny little man.
Hearst put his hand on Marion’s shoulder. But she did not feel it.
Hearst, in his great black boots, turned and stormed below, shutting and locking the door. He took two aspirin, filled a glass with fresh water, undressed, and turned out the lights, the party sounds echoing around him as the guests rocked and spun on the ship.
He awoke at three with a tremendous headache, sliding into his silk robe and slippers, unlocking his door and wandering to the galley, where he found two Chinese crewmen playing fan-tan.
They stood at attention, but he paid them no mind, taking the steps up to the deck and searching for Marion. He would ask her to come back to bed, as he felt much better now, the heat and embarrassment of it all cooled away.
The deck of the Oneida was empty.
Empty bottles of champagne and half-eaten trays of food sat on linen-covered tables, the cloths flapping in a cold wind, an approaching storm heading east.
Many of the candles in the lanterns had burned out and the gaiety of it all had grown dim. The stars gone.
Hearst went below, checking Marion’s quarters, the quarters she kept during such trips with guests, only to find an unmade bed. Her night garments, laid out by George, untouched.
He walked the hallway. He heard laughter and thumping.
He stopped at a door, having to stoop a bit to get his ear to wood.
A woman’s laughter. A man’s laughter. A horrendous thumping sound.
Hearst reached for the doorknob, his mouth gone dry.
The room was dark, but a single oil candle on a bed table burned brightly enough that Hearst could see Marion’s marbled body riding a man who lay flat on his back. The man’s chest was bony, with a thin path of hair. He was sweating and smiling. Marion turned her head and, even in that moment, Hearst noted the beauty of her shoulder blades, the milk of her skin, the golden curls against the nape of her neck.
Hearst screamed. Even to him, he sounded like a woman.
He covered his mouth with a hand for the shame.
Chaplin unlatched himself from Marion and twirled a giant red satin sheet around him, holding up a hand and sliding a smile in surrender. He backed away from Hearst, who moved toward him with some kind of lethargic curiosity. Chaplin found another door, a back door, and bolted from the room as quick as a jackrabbit.
Marion was nude. Not a bit of shame on her.
He looked at the smallness of her, the moist patch of hair between her legs, and he felt a great sadness in him. The sadness broke apart as his right hand balled into a fist, and Marion saw a change coming across Hearst’s face, in the scattered light, as he turned and ran from the room.