“Rightly so,” somebody said under the chattering of tinkling glass.
From that point on the brunch dissolved into side conversations with very little directed to Sarah. She was already running the changes through her mind. Reconfiguring the set. Deciding on the best course for breaking the news to Alexandre in a way that would not recall another infantile tantrum. She was not enthused about making this change, but she was relieved to be free of the burden of Marguerite Gautier. All she had to do was walk right through the doors of the Sant’Andrea della Valle church and she would become Floria Tosca.
Death for honor is much easier to grasp than death for metaphor.
And in truth this was all really a giant compromise. Because her real instinct was to walk away. Stand up and say, I retire. But as long as she created this diversion of changing plays, acting as though there was still purpose and reasoning, then she might possibly be able to keep pushing, giving everyone something to work for, perhaps sustaining her long enough to make it through this run, and through the rest of the tour (they needed the money, Max kept reminding). But she was truly on the verge. One stubbed toe could retire this filly for life.
Following coffee and half-eaten chocolate pastries, Kinney pushed himself away from the table and thanked everybody for coming. It was a pleasure and joy to share such an intimate time with a true legend, as well as get to be privy to her artistic thinking in person. And, he added, he looked forward to vindicating her from those Los Angeles loudmouths in their fortress cathedral. “Call it a group effort.” He smiled.
Ever the professional actor, Sarah stood up for farewells. Warm up your voice: Le bal—Le baaaaal. She was sorry to have to leave so soon. Nod your head. The brunch felt like it was still only beginning. Minor but sincere frown. But they must all imagine the work that must be done. The arrangements and the rearrangements. Look over to the door and then down at your feet. She kissed them once on each cheek and wished each person well. Slightly forgiving posture. As they exited toward the service stairs, she took Max’s hand. One that didn’t seem as if it wanted to be taken.
“I guess I need to go tell them to strike the set,” Max said.
“They will be charmed by the drama of it.”
“Don’t forget.” Max started to walk away. “You have a one o’clock with that reporter.”
“Cancel, please. I do not have the energy for acting anymore.”
“MR. BAKER.” Dolph called over to the reporter who had been sitting patiently on the cream love seat for the better part of an hour and a half. He had seen the dilettante procession parade by at least twenty minutes ago. But he had not seen Bernhardt yet. Perhaps she had escaped up a rear exit. It being 1:36 P.M., Baker was getting a little irritated. He was usually not kept waiting. “Mr. Baker.”
The clerk’s voice finally caught his attention. Baker rose, ready to be directed to the guest room. “Which floor, Dolph?”
“I am sorry, Mr. Baker. But Mr. Klein has just informed me that Madame Bernhardt is not feeling well. She regrets that she must cancel the interview.”
“Cancel?”
“That is what Mr. Klein said.”
“Did Mr. Klein suggest a better time?”
“He said only as I have told you.”
“And if I want to reschedule?”
“I am just the desk clerk.”
Baker turned to walk away. He didn’t offer an appreciation for the effort, nor did he offer a gratuity—something that certainly could lose an ally quickly. He stood in the center of the lobby, turning a full circle and looking for something that he wasn’t sure of. He wasn’t used to be being canceled on. She should be pleased that he was willing to even sit down with her, and lower himself to this kind of story. In any other circumstance, he would have sooner quit than be associated with this bullshit, but he had conceded that there was a strange seduction about her that begged many questions. Baker wasn’t so irritated that she had canceled (after all sick is sick), but that he had let himself be taken in by her. He should know better than that. Every reporter knows that your subjects cannot fascinate you. It is the breakdown of objectivity. The moment that you start forgiving them their faults is the same moment when you have joined their payroll. Baker was better off covering the Hollywood expansion, water wars, railroad fights, and all the other downtown scandals. He didn’t trust any of those bastards for a minute.
He walked outside and sat down on a green wooden bench, uncertain of what to do next. Wind was blowing off the whitecaps and slapping his face with a mother’s scolding. The bottom line was that he still needed to file the story. Graham Scott would be twiddling his fingers, bouncing the erasers off the desk, and yelling out to Barb every thirty minutes to find out if there was any word on Baker’s article.
At that moment Vince Baker could have walked away. Not just from the story, but from the whole career altogether. It’s not that any of those sonsabitches had ever held a grip on him. Doheny. Harrington. Huntington. Johnson. He had the one thing that all their money combined could not buy—a voice. They did their level best to seduce him, offering glimpses into their lives and letting him have a slight touch. They made certain that the maître d’s knew him by name and treated him as though he were one of the tribe. They offered to put him on their payrolls for businesses three times removed, but he never acquiesced. His distance and comparative poverty were his strength. His upper hand. But here he was, standing alone and waiting. A good reporter doesn’t usually even have a half second to turn around and adjust his Johnson. A reporter’s eyes roam. They catalog. They conclude. They remember. But here in the land of Abbot Kinney, between the theater and the hotel, he suddenly understood the true deference he had with all his subjects. No matter how much you think you are smoking them out, the truth is that you are always still chasing after them. You can strut and posture as much as you like, but in the end you are ultimately left waiting for the invitation. Not much of a life to lead.
But he would have still liked to get her take on the boycott. True, the bishop and his army had relaxed, but initially they still had intended to extend the boycott into Venice. They had hounded Baker daily, led by their little messenger, Dorothy O’Brien, who was on his back both goddamned day and night to hear her plans. She left messages at the Herald to say that the story was not over. A certifiable nut. Living in her solitary bungalow where the paint never peels, where for two years she’s walked at least one mile every day to go to the Cathedral of our Lady of Angels, where she sometimes works as an assistant to Bishop Conaty, but more often than not is a caretaker for the church, sweeping the steps, polishing the pews, and dusting the cobwebs that are spun to the Savior’s nailed feet. She goddamn told him everything. Never just said her piece and went. Finally he managed to get her off his back by telling her that if he reopened the story it would not be about the success of extricating Bernhardt, rather it would investigate how the bishop was funding the new cathedral. Apparently the threat worked, because the League of Decency had turned quickly silent. (And Baker was lucky that it stopped there, because if word had reached Scott that Baker had tossed out threats to the religious community during the cleanup of the Vienna Buffet, Baker would have been knelt down in the Herald’s guillotine right then and there.) Dorothy O’Brien left one last message to invite him to a small victory celebration for their most trusted parishioners and the press. That’s how they are, those zealots. They come frumped up in their salt-and-pepper wool overcoats, shuffling along like they are too lonely to walk, looking helpless and slightly off, and then the next thing you know they are given a little attention and they hang on you night and day, the lunacy confirmed. Baker had elected not to go. Reporters don’t celebrate the outcomes of their stories with the people involved. His regret was that he probably could have made Bernhardt’s story into something. Now he would likely hack some junk out, trying to make celebrity machinations into a newsworthy piece.