"Say you loved a girl. Really loved her with your heart and soul. And then you found out she had ... a past. There had been other men in her life. Quite a few men."

"If I really loved her with my heart and soul, it wouldn't matter the least little bit."

"Say it was worse than that." Amanda dropped her eyes to the floor. "Say ... say she was a ... a good-time girl. Then what?"

Eddie's voice dropped low, as quiet and final as the grave. "Well, then I guess she'd know how to show me a good time."

Letting out a cry, Amanda threw herself into Eddie's arms. She felt his astonishment, a tiny moment of hesitation, and then they closed around her, blocking out everything else. The danger had pa.s.sed. Her mouth was on his, devouring it hungrily, and she took sustenance from a warmth, an ardor that quickly rose to meet her own. Safe, her heart cried out to itself over and over again. This will keep me safe.

In that moment, it wasn't Eddie Sharp she was kissing. It was life itself.

TWENTY-THREE.

For once, Hollywood was in total agreement: it was the wedding of the year. Maybe even the century.

That is, they agreed as soon as they recovered their powers of speech. Then everyone in the movie colony was buzzing with all the romantic details, the sheer juiciness of which seemed to elevate the newlyweds to a level that neither had ever achieved on their own. About how it was love at first sight, eyes meeting across a crowded room-in this case, the crowded room of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, although the groom claimed he'd known she was the girl for him the moment she had briefly appeared in the doorway of the greenroom as he prepared to go onstage at this year's Governor's Ball. About how their mutual pa.s.sion had been so strong that he'd paid a delighted cabbie five hundred dollars to drive them to Atlantic City in the middle of the night, where they could get married at one of those twenty-four-hour chapels without a blood test and with two down-on-their-luck poker players as witnesses. About how the bride arrived in a jaw-dropping black tulle evening gown with an unusually daring neckline that Photoplay claimed was "the thing that hooked her man," although she changed for the ceremony into a demure suit of ruched ivory silk with a matching veiled hat. Both ensembles were rumored to be Hattie Carnegie, although when reached for comment, the couturier would only say: "Miss Farraday makes her clothes her own." The House of Mainbocher, long a.s.sociated with the famously chic starlet, offered no official statement from Paris, but as a representative in their Bullock's Wilshire boutique told Reelplay, "Mrs. Sharp is a cherished client and we look forward to providing her with many exquisite pieces for her new married life."

"I've never been so happy," said the radiant bride. "Eddie is everything I've dreamed of in a husband, and I'm determined to make him the perfect wife."

The dazed and grinning groom said simply, "I feel like the luckiest guy on earth."

At Metro, Paramount, and Warner Brothers, Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, and Bette Davis were all lobbying to star in pictures based on the Farraday/Sharp nuptials-the public frenzy over the elopement would surely translate into big box office, which all three stars could use.

Larry Julius was said to be fuming at having somehow been ignored despite his near-sacred jurisdiction over such matters, but ever sensitive to public opinion, he and his staff composed a statement for Olympus chief Leo Karp that was so br.i.m.m.i.n.g with "love conquers all" beneficence and fatherly pride in his wayward charges that it could have come from the desk of Walt Disney himself. Every other flack and studio chief in town, however, was in raptures that the Omniscient One had finally been beaten-and by a girl he'd fired. Surely this was a sign that the tide was turning. Old Man Karp was slipping.

Margo Sterling, whose Wedding of the Year had just had the rug yanked cruelly out from under it-by one of her own bridesmaids, no less!-was diplomatic, but everyone knew the studio was going to make her postpone until she could win back the attention of the public. If Diana Chesterfield didn't win back the groom first.

The only comment from Harry Gordon, the bride's former flame, in whose company she'd been seen the night of her marriage by no less a reliable source than the legendary Walter Winch.e.l.l, was a retort the editor of Picture Palace deemed unprintable in a family magazine.

From Gabby Preston, who had been seen keeping company with the groom during the past few weeks, there was no statement, printable or no, on the record or off. This was because just before the story broke to the press, a team of Larry Julius's goons arrived at the house on Fountain Avenue and, over Viola Preston's protests, cut the line to the phone.

It was just as well, really, Gabby thought as she snorted up another one of her crushed green pills from the dashboard of her mother's car.

After all, if they called now, what was Viola going to say? That the day it was announced that her underage daughter's bad-boy boyfriend had eloped with another woman, Gabby had stolen the Cadillac and driven off to parts unknown without so much as a word of explanation-or a license? The gossip rags would have a field day with that one.

But it's not like I had any choice, Gabby thought, swerving abruptly into the next lane. Angry honks went up from the car she'd just cut off, but she sped on heedlessly, barely noticing. She could run every automobile in Los Angeles off the road right now, and she wouldn't care. Gabby was a woman on a mission. The second she'd seen that blurry photograph of the man she thought she loved tenderly lifting the bridal veil of the girl she thought was her best friend, Gabby knew there was only one person she could talk to, only one person who would understand, who would be able to explain just what the h.e.l.l was going on. Only one person who might actually be my friend.

She knew the only place to find him, too.

And there was no way in h.e.l.l any studio chauffeur was going to take her there.

The famously rollicking sidewalk outside the Dunbar Hotel was almost eerily deserted by day. Gabby heard an ugly metallic crunch as she pulled the Cadillac up against the curb, but she didn't jump out to survey the damage. There'll be plenty of time for that later. Instead, she picked up the last bit of powder from the polished walnut dashboard with a moistened fingertip and rubbed it over her gums. No sense in it going to waste. But that made her heart race, so she swallowed one of the blue pills she had tucked into the glove compartment. Two greens, one blue, she thought, although today the magic ratio had been more like ten to three.

Or thirty to ten. She couldn't remember anymore. To be safe, she swallowed another blue pill. Just to even things out.

The slightly shabby lobby of the Dunbar was nearly as empty as the sidewalk. In the main dining room, where the musicians played, a couple of waiters were pulling the cafe chairs down from the tables. A janitor stripped to his undershirt, his suspenders dangling around his hips, was clenching an unlit cigar between his teeth as he ruminatively pushed a broom across the stage. Another man stood behind the bar in his shirtsleeves, carefully slicing citrus fruit with a small paring knife. He looked up at Gabby with an expression that might have been surprise if he weren't the kind of guy who had long ago made up his mind never to be surprised by anything.

"We ain't open yet," he said to her gruffly, still sawing away at the rind of a particularly recalcitrant lime. "Unless you're a guest of the hotel."

"And if I am?"

From the set of the bartender's mouth, he seemed to find this possibility highly unlikely. "Then you can go back up to the front desk and ask one of the porters to bring you a bottle of whatever you want."

"Actually, I'm looking for someone," Gabby said.

"Oh." His tone invited no further elaboration.

"Yes. A friend of mine."

"A friend of yours? Here?" Chuckling, the bartender shook his head. "Missy, I think you got the wrong place."

He can't give me the brush-off. Not now. Not after everything I've been through. "Dexter Harrington," she pressed. "He plays here sometimes."

The man's head jerked up from his lime. "Dexter Harrington?"

"Yes. The piano player. Although he plays a little bit of everything, I guess. Do you know him?"

The bartender put down his knife. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"I mean, sure. Sure I do."

"Well?" Gabby tapped her foot impatiently. "Is he going to be here tonight? Or do you know where I can find him?"

"Now, that I don't know. What does a girl like you want with Dexter Harrington?"

"What do you mean?"

The man's eyes flashed. "I mean, I aim to mind my own business, that's what I mean. So I ain't about to go running my mouth about Dex to just anyone. Least of all some little girl who, no offense, looks like she's going to be nothing but trouble. So I tell you what. You want to find Dexter? Why don't you write a note and I'll make sure he gets it. That way he can decide for himself whether he wants to be found or not."

Write a note? The mental image of this man watching her as she struggled to force a pencil to form the right letters sent a shudder of alarm through Gabby. "You don't understand," she insisted. "Dexter's my friend. He'll want to see me. He'll be angry that you wouldn't tell me where to find him."

Desperately, she scanned the room, a trapped mouse looking for a way out. A small stream of light shot through one of the shuttered windows and fell on a waiter setting up chairs, illuminating an unexpected reddish tinge to his close-cropped hair. "Him!" Gabby exclaimed. "I know him! I mean, he knows me."

"Rusty! Come here for a minute."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"This ..." The man paused for a moment, studying Gabby. "This lady says you know her."

Rusty looked alarmed. "I ... I don't rightly know."

"Sure you do!" Gabby exclaimed, extending a hand toward him. "I'm Gabby Preston. Eddie's ... Eddie Sharp's friend, remember?"

"Eddie Sharp's friend." His voice was mechanical, but a faint flicker of sympathy touched his eyes. "Sure. How you doing?"

"Oh, I'm fine." Her voice was artificially bright. "Just fine. Positively fine."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it." Wiping his hands awkwardly on the short ap.r.o.n he wore, he glanced anxiously back at the tables. "Now, is there something I can do for you, or ..."

"As a matter of fact, there-"

"She wants to know where Dexter is," the bartender interrupted.

"Dexter Harrington?" Rusty whistled. "What the h.e.l.l does she want with Dexter Harrington?"

"I'm right here," Gabby reminded them. "I can hear you. And I only want to talk to him." Would tears help? she wondered, looking from Rusty to the bartender and back again. "It's just that ... with everything that's happened, I just ... I need to talk to someone. Someone who might ... understand."

And suddenly, without quite meaning to, Gabby Preston began to cry. The first tears she'd shed since the whole sordid mess of Eddie and Amanda came to light, and they weren't the winsome, pearly ones she'd been taught to let drop slowly down her cheeks by Olympus's most skillful acting coaches, the sort she'd always imagined might inspire the tenderest sympathy from all who saw them. This wasn't so much crying as awful, body-racking sobbing, the kind that made the tears pour down her face in torrents, disfiguring her features and leaving horrible streaks of Max Factor cake mascara behind.

Silently, the bartender poured a jigger of whiskey and pushed it toward Gabby. She gulped it down gratefully and slid the empty gla.s.s forward for a refill.

"There, there," Rusty was saying. "It can't be that bad. Eddie didn't get you into any ... any trouble, did he?"

"No." Gabby shook her head, surprised to note that she was perversely flattered by the a.s.sumption.

"And Dexter?" Rusty asked carefully. "Did Dexter ..."

"Aw, come on," the bartender snorted. "Dexter Harrington's got more sense than to fool with some little white girl."

"Dexter was always a perfect gentleman," Gabby insisted, trying to keep from slurring her words. The whiskey had made her awfully sleepy. She'd have to dip into her emergency stash of green pills for the drive home. If I go home. "I just wanted to talk to him, honest. Do you think he'll be here later?"

Rusty let out a slow hiss, like an ominously deflating tire. "Here? No. Not for quite a while. You see, Dexter's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean gone?"

"I mean, he's gone. All I know is he and that cat Eddie Sharp had some kind of falling-out. About what I don't know, although my guess is some chick. It's always some chick. Anyway, last I heard, he packed up and went back to Paris."

"Paris? Paris, France?"

"Far as I know, he ain't never been to Paris, Texas. He left a couple of weeks ago. Right before Eddie went off to play that gig in New York."

"But I saw Eddie right around then. He never said anything."

"Well, he wouldn't, would he? Like I said, it was a bit of a sore subject."

"He can't be in Paris," Gabby said flatly. "He just can't. There's going to be a war. Everyone says so."

"Yeah, well, you got me there." Rusty laughed. "Guess Dex figured he rather take his chances with Adolf Hitler than Eddie Sharp."

Gabby's hands were shaking. Dexter was gone. Eddie was gone. Amanda had betrayed her. n.o.body loves me. The thought seared through her, as direct and final as a bullet through the brain. n.o.body wants me. n.o.body cares if I live or die.

"Give me a drink," she ordered the bartender.

"I just gave you two, and you ain't paid yet for either one."

With difficulty, Gabby undid the clasp of her purse and pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill. "That should take care of those and then some. So come on, fill 'er up. Unless you got something stronger behind that bar of yours."

The bartender froze, whiskey bottle in midair. "Stronger?"

"That's right. Whatever you have."

The bartender's eyes flashed dangerously. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, come on, sure you do."

"And I'm sure I don't."

"My G.o.d, do I have to spell it out for you?" Gabby yelled, lunging for the whiskey in his hand. "I'm looking for dope. Smack. Happy dust. Anything. Anything guys like you keep behind the bar so girls like me never have to feel anything they don't want to."

The bartender slammed down the whiskey bottle. "Get the h.e.l.l out of my bar."

"What? What did you say?"

"You heard me. Get the h.e.l.l out of here, before I throw you out."

"How ... how dare you?" Gabby sputtered. "Don't you know who I am?"

"Believe me, sister, I know exactly who you are, and that's why I want you the h.e.l.l out. Last thing I need is some junked-up Hollywood princess pulling a croak on my watch. So go on, get yourself gone before I call in someone to do it for you."

Rusty took her arm gently. "Come on, Miss Preston. You're not feeling well. I'll put you in a cab."

"Get your hands off me!" Gabby shrieked, jerking away from him as though he'd burned her. "Don't touch me! Leave me alone!"

She managed to s.n.a.t.c.h the bottle of whiskey from the bar before she was lifted aloft by a pair of ma.s.sive arms-belonging to some previously unseen bouncer, it seemed-carried through the lobby, and dumped unceremoniously onto the sidewalk, where a small but curious crowd, lured by her screams, had begun to gather. Great, Gabby thought irritably. Now everyone shows up.

A man with a leering mouthful of gold teeth sidled up to her. "You lookin' to score, baby?"

Before Gabby could respond, she spied the telltale gleam of a camera lens in the crowd, leaving her no choice but to leap into Viola's Cadillac and peel away from the curb like a hit man fleeing the scene of a crime. In the relative safety and privacy of the speeding car, Gabby lunged for the glove compartment and emptied the remaining contents of both gla.s.s vials down her throat, washing the pills down with generous gulps of revoltingly warm whiskey. Blue, green, the ratio of each to each, what did it matter anymore? She'd have to swallow an entire pharmacy to make a d.a.m.n's worth of difference now.

The scenery was changing fast. Amazing how quickly you can move when you decide to let the traffic make way for you instead of the other way around, Gabby thought, taking another swig from the purloined whiskey bottle. Maybe everything in L.A. really does take twenty minutes. Already she could see the Hollywood sign looming before her like the gates of heaven. Or was it h.e.l.l? Gabby wasn't sure anymore. She thought she saw Eddie's face as she came up Laurel Avenue and turned onto Sunset Boulevard. It was looming over the hills, smiling, beckoning to her. Then it changed to Dexter's face. Then Amanda's. Then some horrible amalgamation of the three.

"Please," Gabby said. "Please just hold still so I can talk to you for a minute. That's all I want, to talk to you."

What she didn't see was the other car. But she heard it. A sickening crunch of crumpling metal and shattering gla.s.s. The sound of everything bad in the world. The sound, Gabby thought, of death.

"Oh please," Gabby whispered. "Oh please, oh please, oh please."

She didn't know who she was talking to, or what response she expected. Dazed, she reached for the handle and forced the door open. In front of her was the crushed exoskeleton of what looked to have once been quite a nice car, bearing about as much resemblance to its former state as an exhumed corpse to a healthy human.

On a dashboard as littered with sparkling gla.s.s shards as any flashbulb-strewn red carpet, Gabby glimpsed a hank of yellow hair darkened with quickly congealing blood.