I listed the movies by date, studio, and dancers, and ran a cross-tabulation on the data. And then I sat and stared at the nonresults for a while. And at the array.
There was a knock on the door. Mayer. I blanked the screen and tried to think of a nonmusical to call up, but my mind had gone blank. “Philadelphia Story,” I said finally. “Frame 115-010,” and yelled, “Come on in.”
It was Heada. “I came to tell you Mayer’s going nuclear about your not sending any movies,” she said, looking at the screen. It was the wedding scene. Everybody, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, were gathered around Katharine Hepburn, who had a huge hat and a hangover.
“The word is, Arthurton’s bringing in a new guy, supposedly to head up Editing,” Heada said, “but really to be his assistant, in which case Mayer’s out.”
Good, I thought, at least that’ll put a stop to the carnage. But if Mayer got fired, I’d lose my access, and I’d never find Alis.
“I’m working on them right now,” I said, and launched into an elaborate explanation of why I was still on Philadelphia Story.
“Mayer offered me a job,” Heada said.
“So now that he’s hired you as a warmbody, you’ve got a stake in his not getting fired, and you’ve come to tell me to get busy?”
“No,” she said. “Not warmbody. Location assistant. I leave for New York this afternoon.”
It was the last thing I expected. I looked over at her and saw she was wearing a blazer and skirt. Heada as studio exec.
“You’re leaving?” I said blankly.
“This afternoon,” she said. “I came to give you my access number.” She took out a hardcopy. “It’s asterisk nine two period eight three three,” she said, and handed me the piece of paper.
I looked at it, expecting the number, but it was a list of movie titles.
“None of them have any drinking in them,” she said. “There are about three weeks’ worth. They should stall Mayer for a while.”
“Thank you,” I said wonderingly.
“Betsy Booth strikes again,” she said.
I must have looked blank.
“Judy Garland. Love Finds Andy Hardy,” she said. “I told you I’ve been watching a lot of movies. That’s why I got the job. Location assistant has to know all the sets and stock shots and props and be able to find them for the hackate so he doesn’t have to digitize new ones. It saves memory.”
She pointed at the screen. “The Philadelphia Story’s got a public library, a newspaper office, a swimming pool, and a 1936 Packard.” She smiled. “Remember when you said the movies taught us how to act and gave us lines to say? You were right. But you were wrong about which part I was playing. You said it was Thelma Ritter, but it wasn’t.” She waved her hand at the screen, where the wedding party was assembled. “It was Liz.”
I frowned at the screen, unable for a moment to remember who Liz was. Katharine Hepburn’s precocious little sister? No, wait. The other reporter, Jimmy Stewart’s long-suffering girlfriend.
“I’ve been playing Joan Blondell,” Heada said. “Mary Stuart Masterson, Ann Sothern. The girl next door, the secretary who’s in love with her boss, only he never notices her, he thinks she’s just a kid. He’s in love with Tracy Lord, but Joan Blondell helps him anyway. She’d do anything for him, even watch movies.”
She stuck her hands in her blazer pockets, and I wondered when she had stopped wearing the halter dress and the pink satin gloves.
“The secretary stands by him,” Heada said. “She picks up after him and gives him advice. She even helps him out with his romances, because she knows at the end of the movie he’ll finally notice her, he’ll realize he can’t get along without her, he’ll figure out Katharine Hepburn’s all wrong for him and the secretary’s the one he’s been in love with all along.” She looked up at me. “But this isn’t the movies, is it?” she said bleakly.
Her hair wasn’t platinum blond anymore. It was light brown with highlights in it. “Heada,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I already figured that out. It’s what comes of taking too much klieg.” She smiled. “In real life, Liz would have to get over Jimmy Stewart, settle for being friends. Audition for a new part. Joan Crawford, maybe?”
I shook my head. “Rosalind Russell.”
“Well, Melanie Griffith anyway,” she said. “So, anyway, I leave this afternoon, and I just wanted to say good-bye and have you wish me luck.”
“You’ll be great,” I said. “You’ll own ILMGM in six months.” I kissed her on the cheek. “You know everything.”
“Yeah.”
She started out the door. “‘Here’s lookin’ at you, kid,’” she said.
I watched her down the hall, and then went back in the room, looking at the list Heada’d given me. There were more than thirty movies here. Closer to fifty. The ones near the bottom had notes after them: “Frame 14-1968, bottle on table,” and “Frame 102-166, reference to ale.”
I should feed the first twelve in, send them to Mayer to calm him down, but I didn’t. I sat on the bed, staring at the list. Next to Casablanca, she had written, “Hopeless.”
“Hi,” Heada said from the door. “It’s Tess Trueheart again,” and then stood there, looking uncomfortable.
“What is it?” I said, standing up. “Is Mayer back?”
“She’s not in 1950,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “She’s down on Sunset Boulevard. I saw her.”
“On Sunset Boulevard?”
“No. On the skids.”
Not in a parallel timefeed. Or some never-never land where people walked through the screen into the movies. Here. On the skids. “Did you talk to her?”
She shook her head. “It was morning rush hour. I was coming back from Mayer’s, and I just caught a glimpse of her. You know how rush hour is. I tried to get through the crowd to her, but by the time I made it, she’d gotten off.”
“Why would she get off at Sunset Boulevard? Did you see her get off?”
“I told you, I just got a glimpse of her through the crowd. She was lugging all this equipment. But she had to have gotten off at Sunset Boulevard. It was the only station we passed.”
“You said she was carrying equipment. What kind of equipment?”
“I don’t know. Equipment. I told you, I—”
“Just got a glimpse of her. And you’re sure it was her?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but Betsy Booth’s a tough role to shake. And it’s hard to hate Alis, after everything she’s done.” She gestured at her reflections in the array. “Look at me. Chooch-free, klieg-free.” She turned and looked at me. “I always wanted to be in the movies and now I am.”
She started down the hall again.
“Heada, wait,” I said, and then was sorry, afraid her face would be full of hope when she turned around, that there would be tears in her eyes.
But this was Heada, who knows everything.
“What’s your name?” I said. “All I have is your access, and I’ve never called you anything but Heada.”
She smiled at me knowingly, ruefully. Emma Thompson in Remains of the Day. “I like Heada,” she said.
Camera whip-pans to medium shot: LAIT station sign. Diamond screen, “Los Angeles Instransit” in hot pink caps, “Sunset Boulevard” in yellow.