Household (46 page)

“I have been,” Septimus mumured.

“Good.” Mr. Vernon did not appear to notice the irony implicit in his tones. “Now perhaps you would like to see Paris?”

“Paris?” Richard questioned.

“The set,” Mr. Goldbaum put in. “It is nearly completed.”

“That would be lovely,” Kathie said.

❖

After the tour was completed, a taxi was called for the three Grenfalls. Bidding farewell to Mr. Goldbaum, Miss Fiske and Mr. Vernon, they clutched their scripts and solemnly walked out of Mr. Goldbaum’s office, making their way back to the studio gates. It was not until they were in the taxi that Richard broke the silence by saying, “Paris... plaster of Paris!”

Their loud and sustained laughter startled the driver enough for him to eschew the roundabout route he had been happily contemplating. He drove them straight to their destination and breathing a deep sigh of relief, sped away. After living in Hollywood for a number of years, he could recognize lunatics when he saw them.

Chief among the supper clubs that were springing up in the vicinity of Hollywood and further West was a little-known-to-the-general-public but extremely well-patronized nightery called simply “Kitty’s.” It had the reputation of being considerably more than a mere dine-and-dance spot. Kitty, its proprietress, was a rambunctious lady of fifty-odd with a whiskey voice and a face she cheerfully described as a “clock-stopper.” In addition to providing the best food and booze in town, she took the name “club” seriously enough to provide several upstairs rooms which could be booked from one to eight hours a night. The cost was exorbitant but the facilities, running to ceiling mirrors and black satin sheets on extra-wide beds were, as many guests agreed, worth the price of admission.

It was an open secret that many film deals were consummated in Kitty’s upstairs quarters. The boxoffice blockbuster,
Roman Nights
, brainchild of Frankie Farrell of Fair burn Films, Inc, occurred to that youthful genius after he saw Gloria Gower spread-eagled on Kitty’s shiny black sheets. Those same sheets were the inspiration of Palette Productions’
The Downfall of Dee-Dee
, loosely based on Shakespeare’s
Othello. King leer
, another Palette production, also found its inspiration at Kitty’s.

Consequently, everybody who was anybody in filmdom and lots who were merely hopefuls, considered an appearance at Kitty’s a must. The trade up the stairs resulted in carpet and treads needing to be replaced at least once a fortnight. Its owner did not cavil at the cost of replacing expensive Oriental runners nor did she mind the wear and tear on sheets that sometimes did not last an hour. A well-stocked linen cupboard at the far end of the hall was often empty by sunrise, but Kitty could expect a percentage of what she called “ceiling contracts.”

She received more than a mere percentage from her “cellar contracts.” These involved servings of that popular white powder affectionately termed “coke” or pipes filled with opium or heroin injections. There was much more camaraderie in the two long cellar rooms. These were supervised by Kitty’s silent partner and supplier Ah Hung Low, whose face, if not his activities, was famous. For one reason and another it was always on Ah Hung Low that producers and directors called when an extra Chinaman was needed to glower from the screen. Naturally, with so much going on at Kitty’s, the aura of dope and hope was so vivid it was a wonder it did not shine like an extra electric light at the top of Kitty’s small red sign. If it could not be seen, however, it could be felt.

In the past 135 years, Colin and Juliet had become peculiarly adept at recognizing the effluvium of evil. It was an unavoidable aspect of their condition. This nose for the noisome had resulted in some unique and enlightening experiences. Sometimes when they were in the mood for reminiscing Colin would recall the time they visited the cellars of Malmaison to watch a defrocked priest celebrate the Black Mass that was supposed to bring Napoleon back to his Josephine even on the eve of his wedding to Princess Marie-Louise of Austria. Though the ceremony was not immediately effective, they agreed that it filled the Emperor with a false sense of power, one that culminated in his ill-advised effort to conquer Russia.

In 1893, they had visited Paris in time to see the notorious. Marquis de Guaita slay a rival by means of a Black Mass, and they had returned to that city for the famous “Paris Working” of Aleister Crowley in which he committed sodomy for Satan. Currently they were thinking of joining Crowley at his so-called Abbey of Thelema, actually a Sicilian farmhouse in the vicinity of Celafu. Though his sorcery was open to question, he was always amusing and both had reached the stage where they felt far more comfortable with the rogues and rascals of this world. As Juliet was wont to say, “Evil is always so marvelously entertaining.”

Consequently, when they saw the spurious Spanish outlines of Kitty’s Place rising on a cliff overlooking the sea, they were both enchanted by its promise. That they themselves exuded a similar promise as they entered the establishment was immediately apparent. There was a definite lull in the conversation as Colin, wearing the extremely well-fitting tuxedo acquired during a midnight stroll through one of the better men’s shops in the area, escorted Juliet, a vision in silver lame sparkling with jet and crystal beads on a low cut bodice and edging the hem of a skirt that showed a great deal more of her shapely legs than was strictly fashionable in this year of 1921. Her short hair was banded with a silver ribbon and her slender feet were encased in high-heeled silver pumps.

Juliet was scarcely aware of the effect she was creating. She was listening to the loud strains of the jazz band and wishing it was even louder. After rising from the dawn-to-dusk oblivion that was never disturbed by a single dream, she craved the gaiety and laughter that helped her forget that she had missed seeing some 53,730 suns, she who still remembered how much she had loved those beneficent rays. In fact, it was her memory of leaning out the window of her room at the Hold to see the eastern horizon turning red that brought her plight home to her even more than that which she must do to sustain herself. For reasons she could not quite fathom, she had been feeling a little melancholy this night, to the point that when Colin came to lift her from her coffin, he had said knowingly, “Cobwebs, love?”

“Cobwebs,” she had acknowledged defensively. There was no use trying to keep anything from her brother.

But now, entering Kitty’s Place, she could not retain her cobwebs, not with the orchestra playing a tune that made her long to dance.

The proprietress, a huge woman, looking even larger in a bright red dress sparkling with sequins and with diamond bracelets traveling up to the elbows of both her brawny arms, came forward, a scowl on a wide face amply powdered and heavily rouged. Her eyes, small and gimlet sharp, accorded her would-be guests with a lowering suspicious stare. “Kinda young, ain’t ya?” she snapped, her gaze wandering up and down Juliet’s slender shining figure.

Juliet returned her stare calmly. “I am older than I appear,” she purred.

“Would you care to see our birth certificates?” Colin extracted a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket, placing it on the hostess’s plump palm. He was amused to see her beringed fingers close on it with the mechanical rapidity of a steel trap.

“Enjoy yourselves,” she boomed. “Mack,” she bawled to a slender man in black tie and tails, “show these here kids to a table, huh?”

“We’ve already dined,” Colin said. “We’d like to dance and...”

“And booze, I suppose, or maybe... smoke?”

“Maybe.”

“Anything you want, we got it. The three S’s, that’s us. Sin, sex and smoke.” She gave them an impudent grin. “And don’t worry none about raids. The cops are on the take.”

“Does that orchestra ever play a tango?” Juliet asked.

“You a Rudy fan? I go for Latin lovers myself. Sure, I’ll put a bug in Frank’s ear. That’s the gink that’s leadin’ the band.”

“Thanks.” Colin pressed another bill into her hand.

“Geez.” She looked down, her eyes widening as she saw another hundred. “You got what it takes’n we’ll take what you got.” She clapped a hand to her mouth and looked actually discomfited. “Listen to me. I sound like I’m comin’ unstrung.” Her grin appeared again. “Maybe you’d like to go downstairs, huh? Lotsa partyin’ goin’ on down there’n upstairs, too. You let me know when you dogs get tired’n I’ll find a nice comfy place for you to lie down.” She fluttered one of her heavily beaded eyelashes and moved away.

“If you get to those black satin sheets before I do, let me know,” Juliet whispered.

“I’m not that thirsty, yet,” he muttered.

“You...” Juliet paused as the music suddenly changed from “Ain’t She Sweet,” to “Jealousy.”

“A tango,” she announced.

Colin dutifully led her onto the floor, but before they had accomplished their first swoop, he felt a light tap on his shoulder and turned to find a tall, slender young man with slicked-back black hair and dark langorous eyes—at least they would have been langorous if he had not been staring so avidly at Juliet.

Colin, glancing at his sister, received the high sign he expected. He relinquished her into her new partner’s arms and finding a nearby potted palm in the curve of the stairs, he stood beside it, half-concealed by its fronds, searching out the various women who were minus escorts. He recognized half a dozen famous faces but regarded them without interest. He was not there to court publicity. A dance with any one of them would be accompanied by photographs, the results of which he did not like to contemplate. He glanced at several unknowns. They didn’t interest him either, mainly because they looked the worse for the quantities of booze they must have imbibed. He still remembered the time in New York when he had drained a tipsy socialite with disastrous results to his own constitution. He had managed to make it back to the cemetery, but Juliet still talked about how she got him into his coffin just in time.

One of the women had to be
the
woman. Though his need was, as yet, just a little tickle in his throat, it would grow. Before the night was out, his thirst must be slaked. However he had time. He frowned as a cry of protest touched by fright reached him.

“But Mr. Galgani, I didn’t come here for
that.
You said I’d meet a lot of people—producers.”

“Aw c’mon, Morna, you’re so big on begin’ a vamp,, whyn’t you try ’n vamp me?”

“I don’t want to go upstairs. I’ve heard about... about what’s up there. Ow, you’re hurting my wrist!”

“Lissen, you little twit, I spent a hell of a lotta dough on bringin’ you to this here clip joint an’...”

“You said...”

“I said we’d have ourselves a damned good time’n we will. All you gotta do is be Theda and bare it.” His loud laughter made Colin wince. “Get it,” he chortled. “Theda Bara?”

“I get it and I don’t want it,” she retorted bravely. “Now take your big paws off of me and... ahhhh.” She screamed as Colin heard the sound of a slap.

Fury raced through him. Making his way around the curving newel post, he looked upwards and saw a squat, chunky man in ill-fitting evening clothes half-dragging a slender young woman in black chiffon up the stairs. Swiftly he mounted them, arriving at the top a split second behind the couple. Moving down the corridor, he managed to get ahead of them and turning swiftly said softly, “I don’t think this lady wishes to go with you, sir.”

“Yeah,” he received a lowering glare, “an’ I don’t think it’s any of your damned business what she wants.”

“Oh, please.” The girl stared at Colin out of dark eyes heavily rimmed with mascara. Her dark hair framed a thin pretty face in heavy bangs. Spit curls seemed pasted to both cheeks. Her mouth was unfortunately a trifle wider than the bee-stung pout she had painted on it. She wore quantities of cheap but flashy jewelry in the form of beads and chains around her slender neck, bangles on her wrists and a snakeskin belt complete with serpentine head hugging her slender waist. Moved as he was by her plight, Colin, recognizing the popular “vamp” look, had difficulty swallowing a grin as he wondered what several vampiric ladies of his acquaintance would say were they confronted with the girl and her costume. He wished he might tell her that with the possible exception of his sister Juliet they dressed very quietly.

His stream of thought was interrupted as a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. “Like are you goin’ to stop botherin’ us, sonny boy? Or do I have to give it to you with the knuckles?”

“I shouldn’t suggest that you do,” Colin said pleasantly, his hand closing on Mr. Galgani’s thick wrist.

“Aowwww,” the bully screamed. “Leggo, yer breakin’ my wrist!”

Colin did not even glance at him. Relaxing his hold, he offered his arm to the girl. “Come, my dear, let’s go downstairs.”

Her huge dark eyes were wide and tears gleamed in them. A good portion of her mascara was running down her purposely whitened cheeks. “That was wonderful of you, but... look out!” she screamed as the big man slammed against them, grabbing for Colin’s sholder. He turned, and in another instant Mr. Galgani was tumbling down the stairs. Reaching the bottom, he jumped up and dashed through a forest of tables, knocking down a few as he went and finally running out of the club.

Though her hand had tightened convulsively on his arm, Colin was inordinately pleased to find that the girl seemed totally in command of herself. She was actually smiling as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

They were confronted by an angry and blustering Kitty. “Look,” she began, “I don’t go for no rough stuff in this here joint. Tony Galgani is a good friend of mine.”

“You ought to be more selective,” Colin said softly. “But as it happens, this young lady and myself are just leaving.” Moving past Kitty, he said solicitously, “Do you have a wrap, Miss...”

“Moran,” she supplied. “Morna Moran, but look, you needn’t bring me home. You were swell. You were really swell, but I don’t want to make you go to any more trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t want you to go home alone.”

“Well, I guess I won’t say ‘no,’ then, Mr....”