“Looking for someone particular to give the evil eye or will anyone do?” came a voice behind me.
I knew the voice and didn’t want to turn, but there wasn’t any choice now. A hefty guy said “Excuse me” as he moved past looking for a spot to perch, and I looked back at Brenda Stallings. Her nose was about a foot from mine, and she looked tired. She was wearing a tan suit and silver earrings, but she wasn’t shining. She held a purse, and I wondered if there might be a tiny gun in it. I had succeeded in being around and involved when two men in her life lost theirs.
“I was trying to save Talbott,” I explained.
She shook her head, gritting her even white teeth, and examined me from bandage to ADA tie to tight waiter’s jacket to baggy pants.
“What are you dressed up for?” she gasped.
“Comic relief?” I tried.
Her right hand went up to her eyes, and she began to shake. I reached for her and touched her shoulder.
“I don’t know if I’m laughing or crying,” she said, taking down her hand and reaching in her purse for a handkerchief. “Probably both.”
“Makes sense,” I said, continuing to scan the crowd for signs of Ressner. “It’s like that for me almost all the time.”
She looked at me with those intense blue eyes filled with tears and said, “What do you wind up doing?”
“Smiling,” I said. “Can I get you a drink? I think I see some guys circulating.”
“Sure,” she sighed. “Why not.”
I inched through the crowd past a character actress with no chin, whom I recognized but to whom I couldn’t put a name. A lot of the people I made my way past looked like producers or bankers, money people.
C. Aubrey Smith and I reached for same drink on the tray.
“After you, dear chap,” he said genially, trying to read the letters on my tie. He took a glass of wine, touched his big white moustache, and said, “Mind if I ask?” pointing at my tie.
“American Defense Always,” I explained.
“Quite right,” he agreed and turned away.
I made my way through the crowd back to Brenda Stallings and handed her the wineglass. I took a sip of my own and watched her down hers in one tilt of the head. Rather than go back through the crowd, I gave her mine. She took it and finished it off before my hand was back at my side.
I took the empty glasses and placed them both in the pool at the base of the plaster of Paris fountain.
“Toby,” Brenda said over the murmur of the crowd. “Do me a favor. Never, never see or talk to me again.” She touched my cheek.
“I’ll try,” I said, and she disappeared as something began to stir behind me. I turned. On a low platform of wood raised above the crowd stood a man at a microphone. A sharp buzz came over a loudspeaker, and the man dressed in a tuxedo spoke with a sputtering S because he was standing too close to the mouthpiece. Radio was not his medium.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please. Your attention. We want to welcome you here today on behalf of Paramount Pictures. It is my pleasure to introduce our host for the afternoon, Mr. Cecil B. De Mille.” De Mille climbed to the platform and moved forward with a tall dark-suited old man, who looked something like a cross between an undertaker and a clean-shaven Abe Lincoln. De Mille was wearing tan kickers, a white shirt, and light brown jacket.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said after the applause had died. He spoke slowly, clearly, a man well at home with a microphone. “It is my distinct honor to share this platform today with the man who may be most responsible for the industry in which we work, the man who turned a technology into an art, the true pioneer of the film medium, Mr. David Wark Griffith.”
Griffith stepped forward with a small smile to the applause and leaned into the microphone.
“I thank you, C.B.,” he said. “And I thank you especially for the opportunity to urge all of these loyal Americans to support our war effort.”
De Mille stepped up and made it quite clear that the little presentation had been rehearsed.
“Yes, D.W. We’re at a crucial point in the war being fought all around us, a point where every dollar and every bit of effort and sacrifice is needed to see us through to victory. I’d like to see us sell a million dollars in bonds right here. This afternoon. I know you have the power to do it, just as I know America has the will to win.”
“C.B.,” said Griffith in distinct cultured tones. “I’d like to start the camera rolling with the purchase of a one-hundred-dollar bond.”
De Mille applauded and I wondered if Griffith could afford a hundred-buck token payment. I’d heard from a friend that the old man had been reduced to noncredited consulting at Hal Roach’s studio.
“Now,” went on C.B. “Mr. Griffith and I and our volunteers will circulate among you. There are plenty of refreshments, and many of you have kindly agreed to perform for us through the afternoon. So enjoy yourselves, open your hearts and purses, your souls and wallets, and help us to make this an afternoon for which Hollywood can be proud.”
More applause as De Mille and Griffith waved and left the podium to Kay Kyser who adjusted his glasses and said, “Hi you all.”
Before he could call Ish Kabible to the stand or start his band playing, I pushed through the crowd to find De Mille.
People were flocking around one of several tables set up to sell bonds. I moved behind one of the tables as the music began. I thought I recognized the voice of Ginny Simms singing “Who’s Sorry Now,” but I didn’t spot De Mille.
Someone touched my arm, and I looked down at Gunther. I had to bend down to hear him over the music and voices.
“Toby, did you not tell me that Miss West struck this Ressner in the face last night?”
“Right,” I said.
“There is a waiter serving behind that punch bowl with a bandage on his nose. It may mean nothing, but …”
I hurried in the direction of the punch bowl as indicated by Gunther. The going was slow.
I passed Bing Crosby, who was holding something small up to a young man and saying, “Will you look at that?”
The table with the punch bowl was long and covered with a white tablecloth and little punch glasses. Behind it stood not one but three waiters serving. One of them, indeed, had a bandage on his nose. His hair was dark and long, and he sported a black moustache, but it was Ressner without a doubt, the same man who had appeared in my office and told me he was Dr. Winning. I tried to ease around a chubby guy, who had one foot propped up to tie his shoe.
Ressner looked up at the right or wrong moment and spotted me. His eyes made it clear that I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to be locked up in a booby hatch outside of Fresno. He turned and ducked into the crowd behind him. I followed.
For four or five minutes I plowed through celebrities asking me questions about my tie and people who didn’t want to move or be moved. No Ressner. I gave up and looked for De Mille. Instead I spotted Jeremy talking to a matronly woman.
“Romanticism is returning now in full flower with the young English poets,” he was saying as I grabbed his arm. He excused himself, and I told him to help me find and keep an eye on De Mille. I told him about Ressner and his disguise, and we separated again.
About four minutes later I spotted De Mille again, this time without Griffith, as he returned to the platform and took the microphone.
“We’re doing very well,” he said. “But we can do better. Open those hearts as I know you can.”
“Blasphemer,” came a shout from behind De Mille. The roar of the crowd stopped as everyone looked up. A figure climbed on the stage. He was dressed like a hermit and carrying a wooden staff. He also had a bandage over his nose.
De Mille’s “Oh my God,” was barely audible over the speaker because he had turned his head.
The crowd waited anxiously, wondering what this piece of entertainment would be. I tried to muscle through the crowd as Ressner stepped toward De Mille with his staff raised.