[Concluding chapter four]
“I do believe that’s Casey,” drawled a low, familiar voice. “Why don’t you come and join us exiles over here, Casey?”
“Miss Farrell,” Casey said, swallowing and trying to keep his voice steady as he looked for the source of the voice. After a moment he gave up. “Where are you?”
“In the dark, of course,” she said. “If someone could see me, someone could ask why I’m not inside sharing my life’s wisdom.” Now Casey could see the glowing tip of a cigarette hovering over a spot on the lawn some distance away and well out of the light leaking from the French doors.
He tripped only once, over a projecting tree root, before he found Desiree sitting in a cast-iron chair around a small table. One of the other chairs was also occupied, by a tall, very slender man whose age couldn’t be guessed at in the dark. The man’s round spectacles occasionally shone yellow when their owner’s head turned to catch some bit of light somewhere.
“Take a seat,” Desiree said, pointing to one of the chairs. Casey was relieved to see a cushion on it. When he got himself seated and his eyes became better-adjusted to the gloom, he saw that Desiree’s companion was a young man in spite of his balding pate.
“At last we meet,” the young man said.
“Casey,” Desiree said, “this is Jeff Cunningham. He’s the writer of the magnificent opus on which you and I toil.”
“You make that sound like a death sentence,” Cunningham said with what looked to Casey like a shy smile. He wished there was a light source other than the moon.
“Now that everyone expects us to talk, it just might be,” Desiree said. “You’re responsible for putting words into all of our mouths. You’re the one who has to keep us all from sounding like John Gilbert: ‘I love you, I love you, I love you!’ Poor Jack.”
“You’re the writer Jerry Straebo wanted me to talk to?” Casey asked. Suddenly Straebo’s job offer took on a new meaning. “He tell you to look for me tonight?”
“Not at all,” Cunningham said. “That was Desiree’s doing.”
“Um,” Casey said. He supposed he should add something brilliant and clever, but angry though he was, he didn’t want to offend Desiree Farrell.
“Oh, don’t be a prima dona, Casey,” Desiree said. “You said the other day that you wanted to know about Straebo and Hughes. Jeff wants to know about flying for Howard Hughes. Seems like a fair deal to me.”
Casey’s stomach splashed something bitter and nasty into his throat. “Do I have to? Thinking about Hughes gives me a pain.”
“It’s all part of the process, Casey.” Desiree tapped his hand with a slim finger. Perhaps it was meant to be a friendly gesture, but Casey suddenly felt much more awake. “To understand Jerry you have to learn about why he doesn’t get along with Hughes.”
“So why don’t they get along?”
“I don’t suppose you remember a movie called Swell Hogan,” Cunningham said.
“No,” Casey said. “Should I?”
“Not unless you’re obsessive about movies,” Desiree said. “The picture was awful, so awful it was never released.”
“So why should I care?”
“Because,” Cunningham said, “It was Howard Hughes’s first try at producing a movie. And guess who helped him learn the ropes?”
“Ah,” Casey said. “The fun-loving Mr. Straebo.” A bottle had appeared on the table, though he hadn’t seen which of his companions had put it there. Since he was beginning to be aware of his sore ribs again, Casey picked up the bottle and took a cautious sip. It was dreadful, but still better than most of the liquor he’d been able to afford lately.
“Straebo was furious that Hughes wouldn’t release the movie,” Cunningham said. “Or maybe it was that Hughes fired him, and then went on to win an Academy Award last year.”
“What a pain that ceremony was,” Desiree said, taking the bottle from Casey. “I’ll go on suspension before I attend another one of those.”
“Hard to imagine that that’ll ever be a party worth attending,” Cunningham said. “Anyway, Straebo just hates Hughes now, thinks he’s the worst sort of bummer. And he’s decided to get even with the guy. In just about the most juvenile way I can think of.”
“Which is?”
“Your turn first, Casey,” Cunningham said. “What happened to you that Hughes fired you?”
“It was probably my own fault,” Casey said. “I had too much confidence in my own ability.”
“Story of my life,” said Desiree, lighting another cigarette.
Casey told them the story of his encounter with Hughes at Mines Field, telling it as plainly as he could. He had to shake his head at the end; it still didn’t sound like a firing offence to him. Remember, he told himself, Hughes is still just a kid. Kids take things too seriously.
“Well, that is just too perfect,” Cunningham said. “Thanks, Casey.”
“What do you mean, perfect?” Casey asked. Cunningham had produced a small notebook and was scribbling something, heedless of the darkness that made it impossible for Casey to read the label on the bottle.
Desiree said, “Unless I miss my guess—which, of course, I never do—we’re about to see a new scene added to Jerry Straebo’s magnum opus.”
Casey felt light-headed, distressingly like the way he’d felt just after Hughes had fired him. “You’re going to make my story a scene in this picture?” Casey made a grab for Cunningham’s notebook. “You can’t do that!”
“Don’t worry, Casey,” Desiree said with a laugh as Cunningham snatched the notebook back out of Casey’s reach. “Jeff’s pretty good, for a writer. He’ll make enough changes that Hughes will never know the source of the story.”
“Assuming Jerry will let me,” Cunningham said.
“What the hell kind of picture is this?”
“You’ve been working on it two days already and you don’t know?” Cunningham asked.
“You think that a man can figure out what a movie is about by watching it made?” Casey snorted. “That’s like asking me to deduce the shape of a loaf of bread by watching a farmer harvesting grain.”
“You should give him a copy of the script, Jeff,” Desiree said. “He could probably give you some pointers.” To Casey she said, “High Risk is ‘a stirring tale of motion-picture stunt pilots, torn from today’s headlines.’ I got that from our publicity department, so it must be true.”
The light dawned. “Oh, God,” Casey said. “I think I need another drink.”
“That’s right,” Desiree said. “This is Jerry’s oh-so-subtle way of getting back at Hughes. The story involves a tyrannical director who puts his stunt pilots at risk by forcing them to do dangerous and unnecessary stunts for the camera. Conrad Hart plays the leader of the heroic stunt pilots, with Dickie Armstrong as his best buddy. Eve Adams is his too-virginal-to-be-true girlfriend. And I’m the bad woman, the dangerous actress who tries to seduce Connie away from the straight and true.”
“He’s going to get himself sued. Or beaten up.” Casey shook his head. “Howard Hughes has a temper to match his ego. He’s not going to let a picture like this be released. And I’m not sure I would either. I thought this was going to be another Great War picture, like Wings. Who in the world would be interested in a movie about stunt pilots? It makes no sense at all.”
“Some of us find stunt pilots very interesting indeed, Casey.” Desiree batted her eyelashes in an exaggerated fashion, then laughed throatily. “Besides, who said any of this had to make sense? This is Hollywood.”
“Now do you have a better idea of what Jerry Straebo’s like? “ Cunningham asked, taking a long pull from the bottle. “Jesus,” he gasped as he set the bottle back down. “That’s truly awful stuff.”
What a piece of work is our Jerry Straebo, Casey thought. Then he heard the soft whiff of silk stockings as someone new approached the table. She was moving pretty quickly, too.
“Jeff, is that you?” Eve Adams came into view, apparently still unaccustomed to the darkness: as Casey watched she carefully shuffled over the dew-dampened grass with her arms extended in front of her. “Over here, Eve,” said Jeff, waving his cigarette so that the glowing tip described a sort of neon circle in the night.
“Have you seen that ass Straebo?” Eve hissed as she approached the table. Casey was surprised at how low and angry her voice sounded. Then she stopped abruptly. “Desiree?” Eve’s voice went up a half-octave, back to normal. “What in the world are you doing here? You never come to these things.”
“Just felt like being perverse, darling,” Desiree said. “We haven’t seen Jerry for hours, though. Why are you looking for him? I thought you came with your parents.”
“I did,” Eve said. “But Daddy’s being a bore with Mr. Fairbanks and I don’t want to wait until he decides that it’s time to go home. Jerry was supposed to take me if I wanted to leave early. I asked inside, and somebody said he’d gone outside.”
Why, Casey wondered, would Desiree’s presence here come as such a surprise? Everyone else in Hollywood seemed to be at this party. As if on cue, a fresh burst of singing rang out from the house, followed closely by the ringing shatter of something fragile and no doubt expensive.
“If it helps, I talked to Mr. Straebo about twenty minutes ago,” Casey said. “It seems to me he’s doing more work than partying tonight.”
“Hello, Mr. Casey,” Eve said. Casey thought he heard a smile in her voice. “I didn’t recognize you in the dark. Well, if he hasn’t come out here and he’s not in the house, maybe he left without me.” She turned her head, though Casey couldn’t imagine what she might be looking for. “If I can’t find Jerry, perhaps I can get Lily to drive me home. Does anyone have any idea where she might be?”
“No,” said Desiree.
“Nix,” said Cunningham.
“I saw her leaving a few minutes back,” Casey said. “As I was coming outside.” He thought for a moment. “Even if you could find her, Miss Adams, I don’t think she’s in any shape to drive you home.”
“Oh.” Eve’s voice seemed to deflate through the course of the syllable; after that sad sound nobody said anything for what seemed to Casey like several minutes. “Thank you anyway,” Eve said, getting to her feet. “Perhaps Daddy won’t be too much longer.”
“Poor Eve,” Cunningham said as they all watched the slight form make its way back toward the glowing house. “I wouldn’t have her life on a bet.”
“Seems not bad to me,” Casey said. He said it more because the situation seemed to demand it than because he was really envious of her. Part of him, he had to admit, was fantasizing about being a knight in shining armor to the girl. Something in the way she carried herself and spoke seemed to invite a man to offer her a strong shoulder.
“Oh, it’s bad enough,” Cunningham said. “She had as tough a time as any extra when she first arrived; her family pretty much dumped her out here and left her to fend for herself. So she was on her own—until she signed for a thousand a week. Then mommy and daddy were overjoyed to snake their way back into her life. Now she has to live in this grotesque mausoleum that her father built with her money. He’s trying to take over management of her career, and if she’s not careful he’s going to wind up getting her suspended. The bosses at Monarch can’t stand him.”
“If you think that Eve has it bad,” Desiree said, “then you haven’t been paying attention. I can only imagine what she’s going to do to Jerry when she finally catches up with him.
“Jerry’s the one you should be feeling sorry for.”
Next Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four
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