Эптон Синклер - Oil!

Also there was Bessie Barrie, because good form required that she be invited wherever Orpan went. He had backed her in several pictures, and she was “paying the price,” as the current phrase ran; but it wasn’t quite the same respectable arrangement as in the case of Roscoe and his Annabelle, because Bessie had been in love with her director, and he was still in love with her, and the attitude of the two men was far from cordial. This was explained to Bunny by Harvey Manning, gossip-in-chief, who had now had several more drinks, and got his tongue entirely loosened. Bunny noted that the hostess had tactfully placed the rival males at opposite ends of the table.

They were in a smaller cathedral now, known as the “refectory”; and Bunny was in the seat of honor, at the right of the charming Annabelle, transformed from a lemon-colored shepherdess to a duchess in white satin. On her left sat Perry Duchane, her director, telling about the cuts in the first two reels, which he had brought along for a showing. Next to him was a vacant seat; some lady was late, and Bunny was too young in the ways of the world to know that this is how great personages secure importance to themselves. It was his first meeting with actresses, and how should he know that they sometimes act off-stage?

You remember in that colossal production, “The Emperor of Etruria,” the Scythian slave girl who is brought in from the wilds to serve the pleasures of a pampered sybarite, and the scene where the fat eunuchs lay hands upon her? With what splendid fury she claws them and knocks their heads together! Her clothing is torn to shreds in the struggle, and you have glimpses of a lithe and sinewy body—the extent of the glimpses depending upon the censorship laws of the state in which you see the picture. The scene made a hit with the public, and many producers competed for Viola Tracy—pronounce it Vee-ola, please, with the accent on the first syllable. She displayed her magnificent fighting qualities next in “The Virgin Vamp,” and thereafter escaped dishonor by a hair’s breadth in many palpitating scenes. Of late she had acquired dignity, and was now regal on all the bill-boards of Angel City in “The Bride of Tutankhamen,” an alluring figure, with deep-set mysterious black eyes, and a smile fathomless as four thousand years of history.

Well, here she was, stepping out of the billboards, and into the refectory of the Monastery; her Egyptian costume changed for a daring one of black velvet, fresh from Paris, and with black pearls to match. The footman drew out her chair, and she rested one hand upon it, but did not take her seat; her hostess said, “Miss Tracy, Mr. Ross”—and still she paused, smiling at Bunny, and he smiling at her. It was a striking pose, and Tommy Paley, her director, who had taught her the stunt, and watched it now from the other end of the table, suddenly called, “Camera!” Everybody laughed, and “Vee” most gaily of all—revealing two rows of white pearls, more regular than the black ones, and worth many times as much to a movie star.

Annabelle Ames got along in the world without ever saying anything unkind about anybody, but that was not “Vee” Tracy’s style; she had a fighting tongue, as well as fighting fists, and her conversation gave Bunny the shock of his innocent young life. They happened first to be discussing a lady vamp, recently imported from abroad with much clashing of advertising cymbals. “She dresses in very good taste,” said Annabelle, mildly. “Oh, perfect!” said Vee. “Absolutely perfect! She selected her dog to match her face!” And then presently they were talking about that million dollar production, “The Old Oaken Bucket,” which was just then waking home memories and wringing tears from the eyes of millions of hardened sinners. Dolly Deane, who played the innocent country maiden seduced by a travelling salesman, was so charmingly simple, said Annabelle. “Oh, yes!” replied Vee. “For the chance to be that simple, she slept with her producer, and two angels, and the director and his assistant; and all five of them told her how an innocent virgin says her prayers!”

Bunny, who was a rebel in his own line, sat up and took notice of this conversation; and you may be sure that Vee did not fail to take notice of the young oil prince, flashing him mischief with her sparkling black eyes. The footman brought her a plate of soup in a golden bowl, and she took one glance and cried, “Oh, my God, take it away, it’s got starch in it! Annabelle, are you trying to drive me out of the profession?” Then, to Bunny, “They say that nobody can eat a quail a day for thirty days; but Mr. Ross, what would you say if I told you I have eaten two lamb chops and three slices of pineapple every day for seven years?”

“I would ask, is that an Egyptian rite, or maybe Scythian?”

“It is the prescription of a Hollywood doctor who specializes in reducing actresses. We public idols are supposed to be rioting in luxury, but really we have only one dream—to buy enough Hollywood real estate so that we can retire and eat a square meal!”

“Don’t you really ever steal one?” asked Bunny, sympathetically.

She answered, “Ours are the kind of figures that never lie. You can ask Tommy Paley what would happen if they were to see any fat on me when the gentleman heavy tears my clothes off! They would put me into the comics, and I’d earn my living being rolled down hill in a barrel!”

Conversation at this dinner-party, as at most dinner-parties in America at that time, resembled a walk along the edge of a slippery ditch. Sooner or later you were bound to slide in, and after that you could not get out, but finished your walk in the ditch. “Mr. Ross,” said Annabelle, in her capacity as hostess, “I notice you aren’t drinking your wine. You can trust what we have—it’s all pre-war stuff.” And so they were in the ditch, and talked about Prohibition.

The law was two years and a half old, and the leisure classes were just realizing the full extent of the indignity which had been inflicted upon them. It wasn’t the high prices—they were all of them seeking ways to spend money rapidly; but it was the inconvenience, and the difficulties of being sure what you were getting. People escaped the trouble by pinning their faith to some particular bootlegger; Bunny noticed it as an incredible but universal phenomenon that persons otherwise the most cynical, who made it the rule of their lives to trust nobody, would repeat the wildest stories which men of the underworld had told them, about how this particular “case of Scotch” had just been smuggled in from Mexico, or maybe stolen from the personal stock of a visiting duke in Canada.

They discussed the latest developments in the tragedy which had befallen Koski, one of the emperors of their screen-world, who had had a priceless stock in the cellar of his country place, and had taken the precaution to have it walled in with two feet of brick, and guarded by doors such as you would find on a bank vault; but thieves had come during the owner’s absence, and bound and gagged the caretaker, and cut through the floor of the drawing room, above the cellar, and hauled out everything with rope and tackle, and carted it away in trucks. Since then Koski had been raising a row with the authorities; he charged that they were standing in with the thieves, and he had brought in an outside detective agency, and threatened a scandal that would shake the pants off the police department. By this means he had got back the greater part of his casks and bottles; but alas, the real stuff was gone, they had all been emptied and refilled with synthetic. And so, after that, there was a convincing story for your bootlegger to tell you; this was some of the original Koski stuff! Millions of gallons of original Koski stuff were being drunk in California, and even in adjoining states.