she supposed one would do whatever the producer asked.
Behind her, Norah heard Black Jasmine bark. There was no mistaking that flat little quack. She reentered the house, passed through the long makeup room, and looked into the chamber beyond.
Black Jasmine and—surprisingly—Buttercreme were engaged in furious pursuit of something Norah couldn’t quite make out in the shadows. Probably a mouse or a stray golf ball from Mr. Fallon’s game with Chang Ming. Norah smiled, leaning in the doorway to watch them: ostrich-plume tails curled tightly up over their backs, fur flouncing in all directions like a couple of sixteenth-century children running about in farthingales and trains, they darted among the shadows of the far wall, eyes gleaming in the stray light that leaked through from the courtyard. Their toenails clattered on the terra-cotta tiles, and now and then one of them would bark, the curious barks of Pekingese, small and fierce and the farthest sound possible from the nervous yapping of most toy dogs. The noise echoed queerly in the low-raftered chamber.
They filmed until after midnight. Part of this was due to Alec’s determination to shoot nearly twice as much film as usual, and part to Blake Fallon’s absolute inability to rise above the level of an extremely comely department store mannequin. Faced with the most gut-wrenching moral dilemma of his life in the garden of the queen, he paced up and down beneath her balcony with the brow-clutching hyperventilation of a high school production of Romeo and Juliet. In a later scene—for which Christine changed from shimmering and abbreviated black into shimmering and abbreviated gold—he received the news of his banishment from his cruel goddess’s favors with the spastic jerks of a string-activated wooden toy.
“I can see why Mr. Brown teamed them up,” Norah remarked to Alec during one of Hraldy’s impassioned demonstrations of alternately spurning himself and falling at his own feet in despair. She hugged her cardigan closer about her; the night air was definitely turning cold.
Alec nodded wisely. “He does make her look good, doesn’t he? Part of it’s the coke—that’s why he keeps flubbing. But even sober he comes in second to the scenery.”
“Do they all dope?” demanded Norah, exasperated as much as horrified. “I know Christine does; I see Flindy McColl and Wilmer and Calderone...”
“Christine’s not as bad as some, but she’s playing with fire,” Alec said bluntly. “Studio doctors prescribe it like cough drops; they have to if the stars are shooting fourteen, sixteen hours a day, six days a week sometimes. About a third of the crew uses it, too; I don’t, but I have a standing prescription for as much as I want. And the stars who don’t use it to stay awake use it to stay skinny. The camera puts about ten pounds on a person. And that,” he finished with a grim glitter in his eye, “is Hollywood, too.”
At ten Frank Brown showed up, and Norah and the lesser Ned walked down to T’ang’s on Hollywood Boulevard for food for the crew. It was of a piece with the night, she thought, to sit in the royal gardens of Babylon watching Queen Vashti, her godlike young lover, and the two shining-muscled Nubian guardsmen downing fried rice and sweet and sour pork out of paper cartons.
“I want you to keep an eye on her out in the desert,” said Brown, hunkering clumsily down at Norah’s side. Norah felt startled, gratified at this evidence of his care, until he added, “I don’t expect Hearst’ll get reporters out that far, but he might.”
She looked across at the big man. The doughy face looked even heavier with fatigue, sleeplessness bloating the flesh around the cold celadon eyes. She recalled his arrival at Christine’s house the previous day, minutes before the reporters, and how he had remained, a traffic cop to the interview, until the last had gone. “So they’re not accepting your story?”
The pale eyes flashed
Behind her, Norah heard Black Jasmine bark. There was no mistaking that flat little quack. She reentered the house, passed through the long makeup room, and looked into the chamber beyond.
Black Jasmine and—surprisingly—Buttercreme were engaged in furious pursuit of something Norah couldn’t quite make out in the shadows. Probably a mouse or a stray golf ball from Mr. Fallon’s game with Chang Ming. Norah smiled, leaning in the doorway to watch them: ostrich-plume tails curled tightly up over their backs, fur flouncing in all directions like a couple of sixteenth-century children running about in farthingales and trains, they darted among the shadows of the far wall, eyes gleaming in the stray light that leaked through from the courtyard. Their toenails clattered on the terra-cotta tiles, and now and then one of them would bark, the curious barks of Pekingese, small and fierce and the farthest sound possible from the nervous yapping of most toy dogs. The noise echoed queerly in the low-raftered chamber.
They filmed until after midnight. Part of this was due to Alec’s determination to shoot nearly twice as much film as usual, and part to Blake Fallon’s absolute inability to rise above the level of an extremely comely department store mannequin. Faced with the most gut-wrenching moral dilemma of his life in the garden of the queen, he paced up and down beneath her balcony with the brow-clutching hyperventilation of a high school production of Romeo and Juliet. In a later scene—for which Christine changed from shimmering and abbreviated black into shimmering and abbreviated gold—he received the news of his banishment from his cruel goddess’s favors with the spastic jerks of a string-activated wooden toy.
“I can see why Mr. Brown teamed them up,” Norah remarked to Alec during one of Hraldy’s impassioned demonstrations of alternately spurning himself and falling at his own feet in despair. She hugged her cardigan closer about her; the night air was definitely turning cold.
Alec nodded wisely. “He does make her look good, doesn’t he? Part of it’s the coke—that’s why he keeps flubbing. But even sober he comes in second to the scenery.”
“Do they all dope?” demanded Norah, exasperated as much as horrified. “I know Christine does; I see Flindy McColl and Wilmer and Calderone...”
“Christine’s not as bad as some, but she’s playing with fire,” Alec said bluntly. “Studio doctors prescribe it like cough drops; they have to if the stars are shooting fourteen, sixteen hours a day, six days a week sometimes. About a third of the crew uses it, too; I don’t, but I have a standing prescription for as much as I want. And the stars who don’t use it to stay awake use it to stay skinny. The camera puts about ten pounds on a person. And that,” he finished with a grim glitter in his eye, “is Hollywood, too.”
At ten Frank Brown showed up, and Norah and the lesser Ned walked down to T’ang’s on Hollywood Boulevard for food for the crew. It was of a piece with the night, she thought, to sit in the royal gardens of Babylon watching Queen Vashti, her godlike young lover, and the two shining-muscled Nubian guardsmen downing fried rice and sweet and sour pork out of paper cartons.
“I want you to keep an eye on her out in the desert,” said Brown, hunkering clumsily down at Norah’s side. Norah felt startled, gratified at this evidence of his care, until he added, “I don’t expect Hearst’ll get reporters out that far, but he might.”
She looked across at the big man. The doughy face looked even heavier with fatigue, sleeplessness bloating the flesh around the cold celadon eyes. She recalled his arrival at Christine’s house the previous day, minutes before the reporters, and how he had remained, a traffic cop to the interview, until the last had gone. “So they’re not accepting your story?”
The pale eyes flashed
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