Then the settlers came, bringing their wood and concrete, their steel and gold. Los Angeles became a city, spreading out across the coast. Then Hollywood: first its own town, then a part of the greater whole as expansion met expansion and the ground between them was eaten away.
Up here in the hills some sign of that lost land is still to be found. The rocks are ancient, the plant life thick, and when the hot winds sweep in from the Mojave Desert the whole area comes alive, resuscitated by their hot breath.
The indigenous tribes may have gone but nature is a hardy thing and it thrives where it must. The agaves take root in shallow soil, the bougainvillea creeps its beautiful way across the walls of the new settlers who cling to these inclines so that they can look down on the world they have helped to make. In among their flowers and deep green leaves the plants’ thorns grow sharp, willing to fight for space in this dwindling paradise.
The animals too still wander among the canyons. The deer forage, the coyotes prowl, feasting from garbage cans if they must. Animals are not as proud as humans – they survive however they can, grateful for each meal.
They would think nothing of the business this stretch of land has seen lately, of a woman who has fed off others in order to remain strong and beautiful. To them it would be business as usual and they would have understood her need. Indeed, a small coyote pack who have made the canyon bordering the home of Elizabeth Sasdy and Frank Nayland their home would even feel gratitude were they capable of such emotion.
They found the body of Georgina Woolrich the very night Nayland dumped her there and they fed well. The meat was dry but it filled their stomachs and was particularly well received by the mother of the pack, her unborn pups weighing heavy inside her.
The pack left little of Georgina. Nature is not wasteful. Cracked bones and scraps of a dress as red as her meat would dry crisply in the sun of the following days.
The scent of human meat drew them closer to the buildings. One in particular, an old barn in the centre of an orange grove, called to them as they roamed their ever-widening feeding ground. There was meat here, their sensitive noses told them as much. In the darkness they scratched at the doors and stretched their snouts towards the windows. They could not get in. They wouldn’t give up: tenacity rewards the hunter and this was a feast that would be worth the effort.
Just as the wild dogs gathered around the scent of Elizabeth’s slaughter, the animal pack of Hollywood drew close to her home. Tonight was a night of celebration, a party that promised to go down in history. Of course, most of the attendees affected an air of indifference: even humans understood that an animal should not show excessive weakness, that to do so was a way of offering your throat to the predator, of marking yourself out as a victim. Beneath their casual pretence the mood was high. Elizabeth’s parties had once been a mainstay of the Hollywood calendar among those with the tastes to enjoy them. Talked about in knowing whispers, carnal battle grounds where the masks of day were shed in favour of a raucous night of freedom, of submitting to the animal instincts.
Some of the regulars had grown out of their habits, age or disease having robbed them of their appetites. They were replaced with younger stars, glittering faces that had never experienced a night in Elizabeth’s gardens but had certainly heard of their reputation. An indelible part of Hollywood’s secret history, the font of the illicit gossip that still thrived to this day.
As night fell, cars began to gather along the drive way and the road beyond – gleaming Chryslers, La Salles and De Sotos. The natural whiff of late-summer flowers mingled with expensive scents, the after-trail of rich colognes and decadent perfumes.
Beauty had come to play.
The staff were prepared, Patience having hired extra help for the evening. Their orders were explicit and she marched in front of them before the evening began, instructing them like an army sergeant about the limits of their jurisdiction.
‘You will serve the ground floor of the house and the periphery of the gardens,’ she explained. ‘You will keep drinks filled and the food moving. You will not, however, enter the gardens or go upstairs: both of those areas are out of bounds and anyone found breaking that rule will never find work in this city again.’ Patience looked at them directly, making sure there was no doubt over this most important rule. ‘Is that understood?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ came the scattered response.
She fixed them with one last meaningful glare and then commanded them to their posts.
Not far away the rest of the night’s staff were receiving a similar, if slightly more casual, pep talk.
Marie, installed within an ornate pagoda at the centre of the garden, wafted at herself with a highly decorated Japanese fan. Robert stood close by, as always, an implacable slab of muscle in his uniform.
‘Right, my darlings,’ she said. ‘We all have a long night ahead of us and I need hardly remind you of the important details: there is no such word as “no” and what happens in this garden stays in this garden. This is our little paradise and we are its willing serpents. Coil and hiss for me, my loves.’
‘We certainly will if the buccaneer is coming,’ joked one of the girls, taking the arm of the man next to her and giggling.
‘Everyone who is anyone will be here,’ said Marie, ‘and need I remind you that their names are not yours to utter? Our services are sweet and invisible, our clients equally so. I don’t care if you find yourself fist deep in last year’s Oscar winner, I do not expect the information to be shared, discussed or mentioned once the night is done. We are priests, my lovelies.’
‘We certainly spend most of our time on our knees,’ agreed the Puerto Rican boy who had been so favoured by Elizabeth a few short weeks earlier.
‘And offer forgiveness and a glimpse of heaven,’ Marie said. ‘They are blessed to receive our benedictions. Now, away with you all. Ensconce yourselves in the bushes, tails proud and to the wind.’
She turned to Robert. ‘And you, my darling, need to take your position at the gate.’ She grabbed at his groin with the sort of force that one uses to check the freshness of fruit. ‘Though I will miss you terribly.’
He nodded and, with one final twist, Marie waved him away.
In the kitchens a select staff were chopping, straining and piping, preparing plates of the most ostentatious food that Benito Gabrizzi could imagine. He had closed his restaurant for the night, his attention transferred entirely to the line of tables that would fill the upper terrace. He had an innate distaste for this sort of catering, where image and obscurity ranked above taste but he knew his market and played to it mercilessly. The partygoers wanted food that shone, canapés that swaggered. In truth, that was easy enough – you could fill the vol-au-vents with cat food and they’d gobble them up as long as you put an obscenely expensive truffle on top. He surveyed a truly vulgar ice sculpture of the HOLLYWOODLAND sign, the base of its glistening letters surrounded by fresh fruit peeled and splayed in unlikely and unnecessary formations.
‘It is silly shit,’ he mumbled in his thick Italian accent and went to smoke a cigarette.
Upstairs, the party’s hosts were unequal in their enthusiasm, which was only to be expected.
‘I’m surprised I’m even allowed to be here,’ Nayland was moaning. ‘I’d have happily stayed away.’
‘Nonsense,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘You can’t miss this, it’ll be the best night of the year.’
Nayland, who knew full well that it would be a night spent watching the woman he loved doting on anyone but himself, couldn’t agree.
‘Considering we’re supposed to be separated,’ he said, ‘it seems ludicrous to have me parading around here in front of everyone.’
‘But it’s not everyone, darling, it’s only the important people and they know as well as we do that public life is a fiction, nor do they care in the least what we get up to. There’ll be no press here, nobody but the most important, the most influential people in the business. I can’t imagine why you would want to avoid their company – after all, you’ll soon be needing all the help you can get.’
‘Nicely put.’
‘You know what I mean. You should be out there with a smile on your face. Drink a little, but not too much. Make love to someone exciting. Enjoy yourself.’
Nayland wasn’t sure he could remember the last time he had done that but he was quite sure the skill of it was lost to him.
Elizabeth turned to face him. ‘How do I look?’
‘Perfect as always. Maybe I should try a little myself.’
‘I can’t afford the supply right now. If you wanted to dabble you should have brought more livestock.’
He chose not to focus on the terminology. It would only have made him angry. Besides, he had become sickeningly hardened to the business over the last couple of weeks. It was disturbing how all it took to stomach atrocity was repetition.
‘I suppose your young man is coming?’ Nayland asked, deciding to be annoyed about something a little safer.
‘If you mean Henry, then I believe so, yes. Fabio was bringing him.’ Elizabeth began to dress, a light-blue silk confection that wafted around her like the petals of a poisonous flower. ‘Do try not to hit him again. His face is far too pretty to ruin and one more punch will put your career beyond the point of salvaging.’
‘I shall avoid him like the plague.’
‘Probably for the best.’
Henry arrived relatively early, unfashionable perhaps but his taxi driver had matched his enthusiasm for the night ahead and brought him to the house’s front gates at a speed that would have rivalled that of the Keystone Cops. It was with something approaching nervous relief that Henry stepped out onto the drive and walked the last few hundred yards. He had arranged to meet Fabio outside, the manager exercising his usual sub-paternal desire to escort him over the threshold and introduce him to all the ‘players’ who were there. Henry stood a short distance away from the front door and smoked a cigarette to give the man a chance to show up. He failed to do so, and, as more cars began to appear along the driveway, Henry decided to hell with introductions, he could manage just fine by himself.
As he was heading towards the entrance another man brushed past him. Henry was surprised by his appearance: a cheap suit and a hat that looked as if its job was to hide a savage haircut rather than set off a fashionable image. He was clearly not a partygoer.
Henry came up behind him as the man started to argue with Robert who was refusing him entrance.
‘But I’m a police officer,’ the man said, flashing his ID. ‘Party or not, I demand to be allowed to see Frank Nayland and Elizabeth Sasdy.’
‘I’m afraid, sir,’ Robert replied, ‘that my instructions are painfully clear. Unless you are invited to the gathering you don’t get in. Police officer or not.’
‘I could charge you with obstruction!’ the man insisted. Henry realised he was taking mental notes, slightly copying the man’s posture and bearing. All actors are vampires, he thought, sucking up the lives of real people for the sake of their own performances.
‘Not unless you have a warrant,’ Robert replied, showing no concern whatsoever. ‘If you have a warrant, then, yes, I have to allow you to enter. Otherwise you’re just another visitor and no visitors are allowed tonight. I suggest you come back tomorrow.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ the police officer sighed. ‘The damn badge doesn’t mean a thing to you people.’
‘Is there some sort of problem?’ Henry asked, thinking he should do his bit to help the doorman out a little. ‘I mean, is it so urgent that it can’t wait until a more civilised hour?’
The policeman turned to face him and Henry actually felt slightly intimidated by the sheer weight of insistence that the man carried. From behind he had written him off as a shabby caricature, a cypher, a supporting-cast member. Now that he was face to face with him he realised that this man could be a lead in his own right. But this was not his movie.
‘And you are?’ he asked.
‘Henry Toth.’
One day
, he thought,
people won’t have to ask me that question. I wonder if I’ll miss it?
‘Actor?’
‘Yes.’ To hell with the fact that he hadn’t appeared in a movie yet.
The policeman shook his head in open dismissal. ‘The lot of you probably deserve each other,’ he said and walked away.
‘Well,’ said Henry, slightly put out, ‘I certainly hope so.’
He looked to Robert who offered him a courteous nod. ‘You are most certainly on the guest list, sir. Welcome.’ He opened the door.
‘Thank you.’ Henry walked inside. ‘I was supposed to meet my manager here but he hasn’t turned up yet.’
‘In my experience, sir,’ said Robert, ‘managers are a disorganised bunch. I’m sure he’ll appear in his own good time.’
‘Yeah.’ Henry smiled. He rather liked this man who walked a fine line between pitch-perfect servitude and rebellion. ‘Well, he better hope I haven’t drunk all the cocktails by then.’
He went inside.
*
Harrison saw there was little point in his trying to browbeat the doorman. He wasn’t getting in by the official way so, to hell with it, he’d have to try a more unconventional method.
He walked a short way back down the drive, in case that bastard doorman was watching. Then, when he could see that Robert was otherwise distracted by more arriving guests, he cut to the side and moved into the trees that lined the property.
Working his way to the left of the house he approached its formidable wall and followed it around to the rear. If they wouldn’t let him in the front door then he would just try and find another way in. There was a service entrance but that was a hive of activity. Caterers were flitting between their vans and the house, and a man he took to be the chef was smoking a cigarette and offering frustrated curses to his staff.
Harrison kept moving. A little further along he came across a cypress tree that spread its branches close enough to the wall that he felt he might stand a chance of climbing over.
‘If I tear this suit,’ he mumbled to himself, ‘I’ll send the bastards a bill.’