“Can we go back to the hotel now, Max? I am tired.”
He put his arm around her shoulder and guided her out of the inlet. The length of the pier had become shadowed under a drifting cloud. “First you need to stop by and tell Kinney that the theater looks great. We don’t want him to be concerned about anything.”
“But, Molly…I’m tired. And we still need to read through the scene.”
“This stop will only take a necessary minute.”
“Always looking out for me.”
Inside Kinney’s office Sarah firmed her posture and spoke confidently about the theater. Good acoustics. Nice stage. When Kinney asked if she was sincere, she merely winked and said in a breathy voice, “Mais oui.” She was first and foremost an actress. Max could always rely on that. When he was finally assured of Kinney’s satisfaction, Max announced that Sarah needed her afternoon nap. Kinney said he would show her the newspapers later. He smiled. He was proud. He thought she should be too. They were defining a new history.
Sarah and Max left through the front door. The clouds had passed. The pier was bright again. As he closed the door, Max looked back to Kinney. The don of Venice pretended to be relentlessly engaged in his papers.
VINCE BAKER’S MORNING came too soon, despite the late hour at which he arose. His night had started around midnight at Willie’s with a dame named Muriel who managed to stay one drink ahead of him until closing time. She was tall and brassy. Big hips that swelled from a tiny rib cage. Her hair could have been any color. Everything took on the same hue in the sepia cigar cloud that palled over the room. She laughed with a howl in the raucous moments, and pouted full mommy lips when the scene called for sympathy. By the end of the night Muriel was slumped unapologetically against the bar, her last bit of grace cupping a highball, eyes half closed.
He woke Muriel to tell her that he needed to go, he was late. She had a pinch of surprise in her eyes, only partially startled, though not so for the situation but for the realization that her prince had turned out to be just another member of the court. They recognized the disappointment in each other’s eyes, and both smiled with the graciousness of a track bettor whose long shot pick didn’t do better than show. Baker walked with her out the door. They shook hands. Forgot to say good-bye.
Waiting on his desk at the newsroom was a note from Graham Scott, saying that this morning’s story warranted some discussion—as soon as Baker bothered to arrive. Baker sighed while he reached for the morning edition. Normally he would have scoured it front to back by now, discerning the paper’s agenda and projecting where he might be heading for his next story. But with the morning slipping away he had not only failed to see the paper, he had also nearly forgotten to look at it. He kicked his feet up on his desk, straightening the periodical and ironing out the fold. There, front-page bottom left-hand corner, was a photo of Abbot Kinney on his pier. Stately and dignified. One hand tucked into his breast pocket while the other gestured with a punctuated but nonaccusatory forefinger. Below his byline, the cutline read “Kinney’s Cultural Renaissance.” His article began just as he had turned it in, describing Kinney true to form, giving a brief mention of his new Venice development and referring to him as a former tobacco man who had turned his energies and wealth toward promoting a cultural alternative to the ever-growing Los Angeles region. His only mention of Sarah Bernhardt that made the final cut in the article was a pro forma line that said that Bernhardt would be the first major act to perform at Venice, followed by a quote from Kinney that stated “she was having a rather splendid time enjoying this new view of California. And enjoying the fishing.” The end. Baker didn’t write about her mutilating the fish. Although he enjoyed her show from the pier, it was hardly the kind of thing he would bother with. Instead he chose to focus the ending on a recap of the League of Decency and the controversy that led into yesterday, closing with a comment by the bishop’s mouthpiece, Dorothy O’Brien, that said something to the effect that Bernhardt was a public nuisance. An ending that never saw print.
Baker threw the Herald down and grabbed for the competing editions of the Record, Evening Express, and Examiner. Same shit. All the other articles read like a group of conspiring college freshman plagiarizing the same primary source, only inverting a word or phrase in hoodwinked originality. They all wrote about the incident from the pier as if it were the only news in the world. Detailing the drama and theatrics, clearly not intrigued nor willing to understand, approaching it only as sensational drivel to rile the readership. The Register was the only paper to offer any deeper suggestion of Bernhardt’s exile. But even still, its focus was a page-eight picture of her on the dock next to Kinney, with the caption reading “The French stage star enjoys the California sun.” Like it was part of the goddamned weather forecast. “Sonabitch,” he said to himself.
Following a summons, he marched back to Graham Scott’s office, brushing past Barb, the secretary, who organized her papers conspicuously while watching him from the corner of her eye.
His feet felt as if they were pounding the floor and rocking the entire building. He knew that his face was turning red, paling the pouched bags beneath his eyes. He could really use a smoke about now. He repeatedly dried his sweaty hands against his slacks, leaving streaked finger stains.
Graham Scott rolled his eyes up to greet his visitor. His cheek was cupped in his hand as he studied a pile of feature stories being considered for Sunday’s paper. His eyes were tired and glassy but not unusually so. They always had a watery jaundiced quality about them. He didn’t move when Baker entered his office. Still kept the full weight of his head propped on his right elbow. He had been in the business almost since it first became a business. He had done his time on the streets before settling into his career as a managing editor. There was not much that he hadn’t seen, but still he never did get that one story to hang his hat on. In his day he had covered it all, from politics to crime, all of it being relevant to the times, but he had never managed to capture a defining story like so many of his colleagues had. He saw himself as a good defensive second baseman who made the plays day in and day out but was never the hero of the game. But the guy knew this town. He had really hit his stride when he moved to the editorial side. He had a knack for organization and, perhaps most importantly, the unique grace to balance between the needs of his reporters and the demands from the upstairs Mahogany Row boys. That was why he liked Vince Baker. With his work everybody looked good.
Baker didn’t bother to announce himself. “You called?” he said.
Scott didn’t even need to point to the paper. “Why this shit when there was a real story?”
“If there is any real story in this nonsense, then the boycott is it.”
Scott shook his head. “Come on, Vince.”
“Politics. Manipulation. Greed. All the basic ingredients for cooking up any story.”
Scott straightened up then leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over a recently acquired potbelly. “One of the most famous stage actresses smothers a fish over her face, and that’s nothing? Politics. Manipulation. Greed. When the other three idiot papers here report on it, doesn’t that give you a sense of its newsworthiness? Everybody in this town is talking about Sarah-on-the-Pier except for the ignoramuses who subscribe to our paper. Why? Because they don’t know about it. From now on, give me the stories as they happen. If something real comes up again about the boycott, then by all means give it to me. But it appears that the story is elsewhere.”