That was the view from atop the east tower of the Sky Ride, on Northerly Island, anyway, where Mary Ann had dragged me. But even down on the grounds of the fair, the effect was otherworldly. This was not the first time Mary Ann had asked me to bring her to the fair at night: the half dozen times we'd been here together, with the exception of that first afternoon, had been after the sun fell and the lights came up, and the futuristic city looming along the lake became even more unreal.
Of course I hadn't really brought her here tonight; I had met her at the Hollywood pavilion, which was her favorite place at the exposition- and where, tonight, she'd been working. A special broadcast of "Mr. First-Nighter" had emanated from one of the two radio studios within Hollywood, which sprawled over five acres on the tip of Northerly Island, just south of the Enchanted Island playground. Much of Hollywood was a bulky- structure in shades of red that despite the massive round Sound Stage entryway was strangely lacking the futuristic grace of the rest of a fair which was itself more a reflection of Hollywood's notion of the future than science's. Outdoor sets surrounded the building, and movies were shot here daily by a crew making two-reelers for Monogram, often featuring name stars, admittedly not of Dietrich or Gable stature, but stars (Grant Withers was here for the duration), and amateur movie photographers and the just plain star-struck could watch talkies being made, and afterward have a beer and sandwich in the outdoor replica of the Brown Derby restaurant. And there were several sound stages indoors, one of them an auditorium that seated six hundred, which was also used for radio broadcasts, and was where Mary Ann and the rest of the "Mr. First-Nighter" troupe had broadcast this evening.
I'd seen Mary Ann doing radio before: several times I'd picked her up at the massive nineteenth-floor NBC studios at the Merchandise Mart, in Studio A, the largest radio studio in the world, where I stood in the glassed-in soundproofed balcony and listened to whatever soap opera she was working on that day come in via small speakers. She would stand before the unwieldy microphone and read her script, and she was good, all right, but I can't say her talent bowled me over.
Tonight, though, I'd sat in the audience at Hollywood, and Mary Ann had impressed me. It was odd to sit in a theater and- where stage or screen should be- see a big glassed-in sound stage, inside of which were padded walls like an asylum, where not inmates but actors with scripts were caged, standing before mikes, sound effects man at his table with his blank gun and frame door to slam and quarter-flight of steps to climb in the background. Above the forty-foot glass enclosure were two smaller glass-enclosed rooms for the sound engineers; the control rooms were dimly lit, but lights on their console panels winked at the crowd. An impressive theater, unlike anything I'd ever seen before.
But it was Mary Ann that impressed me most.
Even with the glass curtain separating her from the audience, they loved her. And she loved them back. The awkwardness of standing reading a script did not keep her from making eye contact with them, from playing out to the hilt her role of damsel-iu-distress in the ludicrous private eye melodrama she was cast in tonight. She had dressed simply, in a milk-chocolate linen dress, with tiny pearl buttons down the front, some puff in the shoulders, the skirt clinging, then flaring a bit at the knees, and of course a matching beret; somehow it made her look innocent and worldly at the same time. When the show signed off the air, and the actors-under-glass took their bows, it was Mary Ann, not guest star Adolphe Menjou, who got the big hand.
"You were terrific," I said.
She grinned, crinkling her chin. "You never said that about my acting before."
"I never saw you wrap an audience around your pinkie before. Say, what kept you?"
She'd been nearly half an hour after the performance before meeting up with me outside.
"You won't believe this," she said, "but a scout for Monogram was in the audience."
"Somebody connected with the movies they're making here, you mean?"
"Yes, but he works for Monogram in Hollywood. Real Hollywood."
I wasn't sure there was any such thing, but I said, "And you've been offered a part?"
She was beaming. "Yes! Isn't it exciting? In August, if I can get a week off from 'Just Plain Bill.' They can write me out: give me the flu or send me on a trip or something. Isn't that just splendid?"
I was happy for her; I didn't mention that in the weeks previous she had dismissed Monogram as "poverty row." and had pooh-poohed the making of two-reelers here at the fair as a "small-time publicity scheme, catering to these hick crowds." But I also knew she'd filed her name with the Monogram people's casting office, as had most of the actors in Chicago.
We were walking past the Enchanted Island, and its giant boy on his Radio Flyer wagon. It was a little windy tonight; almost chilly, for summer, but pleasant enough.
"Mr. Sullivan- he's the director I'll be working with- says it will be a sort of paid screen test. If Mr. Ostrow in Hollywood likes my work in the two-reeler, I could be flown out to Hollywood and put under contract!"
"It sounds like money in the bank to me," I said, meaning it. She'd been good tonight; she'd connected with that audience like Barney's left and Canzoneri's chin.
"Nathan," she said quietly, as we moved among the crowd, wandering past the circular court of the Electrical Building, where a fountain fanned water and light in a silver arc before the pastel orange-and-blue building. "You'll come out there with me, if they send for me- won't you?"
"Sure," I said.
"Do you mean it?"
"Sure. I can pack my business in a suitcase in a minute flat. California's perfect for my kind of work."
"You're not just saying this?"
I stopped her: put my hands on her arms. I looked into the Claudette Colbert eyes and said. "I'd follow you anywhere. To hell, or Hollywood. Got that?"
She smiled and hugged me; some people going by smiled at us.
"Then take me to the fair." she said impishly.
"Where the hell do you think you are?"
"There's some things we haven't done."
"Like what?"
"The Streets of Paris. I want to see Sally Rand take off her clothes."
"Sally Rand doesn't take off her clothes; she already has her clothes off when she comes out. The trick is to catch a look at her when she's waving these damn ostrich plumes around."
"You speak as if from experience."
"This is what the boys tell me. I wouldn't know, myself. Why would I want to go see a gorgeous blonde parade around in her skin? For that matter, why would you?"
"Just checking out the competition. They say you haven't seen the fair if you haven't seen Sally Rand."
Actually, I did know why she wanted to check Sally Rand out. It'd been in the papers, just recently: several of the Hollywood studios were after the sensation of the fair to sign with 'em. So Sally Rand w&s competition.
But I had been hoping to go right home, either to my place or hers, and I told her so. What I didn't tell her was why.
Yesterday somebody had tried to kill me; I was convinced of that. I didn't know whether or not Dipper Cooney had been silenced on purpose, or had just happened to be there when an attempt on me was made. But my instinct was that I had been the prime target last night. And the only thing I'd been up to lately, outside of working at the fair, was snooping around looking for Mary Ann's brother.
I couldn't tell her about last night. I couldn't tell anybody, not Eliot, maybe not even Barney. That dark residential side street had been deserted enough for me to risk leaving poor Cooney dead, there on the sidewalk, and I'd walked quickly back the number of blocks to my car in the stadium parking lot and went home, to my Murphy bed. Because me being involved with another shooting right now what with the hostile cops and yellow journalists that would attract was something I could do without.