The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery

By Mel Anastasiou

Vancouver schoolmarm Frankie Ray runs away to Silver Screen Hollywood to test her conviction that an actress who lacks glamour but has talent and an enterprising attitude can make it in the movies. But when a dissolute, womanizing matinee idol turns up dead on her sofa, Fr

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pulp Literature Press
• Release date: Sep 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781988865362

Mel Anastasiou

Mel Anastasiou writes the Fairmount Manor Mysteries, the Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries, and the Monument Studios Mysteries. Winner of a Literary Titan Gold award and longlisted for the Leacock Medal, Mel is also the author of two illustrated thirty-day workbooks on story structure: the steampunk-themed The Writer's Boon Companion and The Writer's Friend and Confidante. For news on published and upcoming new works, visit her website, melanastasiou.wordpress.com.

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1

May 7, 1934

Paradise Gardens Villas, Sunset Boulevard

Hollywood

Sunlight through the bungalow window highlighted the needle-thin black lines criss-crossing the dead man’s knuckles.

The young woman dampened a tea cloth at the sink and carried it to the sofa to clean her lover’s lifeless hands and face. She took up one grimy hand and then the other, and scrubbed them with her damp cloth. There were so many tiny creases in a person’s skin where soil could collect. When she was satisfied, she set his left hand across his lap and his right palm down at his side.

His hand looked empty. Forlorn.

She fumbled in her pocket and brought out an orange she’d plucked from the tree in the back garden. There were oranges everywhere in Hollywood in springtime. This one was a beauty. She touched the fruit to her nose and smelled the bittersweet peel before bending his cool fingers around it.

Where the lapel of his jacket had slipped back, she could see the bullet hole. She made a little clicking sound and pulled the jacket straight. She would not cry. In fact, she must not cry.

She bent down beside him and kissed his mouth.

Goodbye. It was not enough. Good night, sweet prince.

A show-business farewell. He would have liked that.

2

Nine days earlier

Vancouver, Canada

A thousand miles north of Hollywood

Francesca Ray smacked the chalk dust off the backside of her school skirt, unhooked her stockings, and rolled them down around her ankles. She knew she ought to peel some parsnips and potatoes for supper, but spring weather made a person restless somehow, as if something important were coming, some great event that made root vegetables seem wintry and irrelevant. She sidled past her father’s bedroom and out the front door onto the stoop. The paperboy cycled up, whistling through his teeth, and she saw him toss the afternoon newspaper her way just in time for her to snatch it out of the air.

Pats leaned on his handlebars and shook his head. You shoulda been a fellow, Frankie, he said. You’re ready for anything.

It’s Miss Ray to you, Pats. She threw the newspaper back, loose and low, the way her fiancé had shown her. And keep the paper — Dad stopped it.

He started it again. The paper flew back at her. Say, Frankie, you oughta take a look at the classifieds. There’s an ad in there, and if it means what I think it means, you’ve got trouble in your teapot.

Cheeky, she called after him, but he’d already pedalled halfway down the block, slinging his papers in clever arcs against the neighbours’ doors. Pats had never been what you’d call respectful, but he had a bean or two in his head, so Frankie opened the newspaper to the back. She looked around for somewhere ladylike to perch, but in the end plunked herself down on the top porch step to study the small-print classifieds in the light of the blinkered April sun.

Somebody had lost a dog. Somebody else had found a lady’s sequinned coin purse, contents intact. A whole column of the usual hopefuls searched for work or cheap accommodation. But, at the top of the page, one black-boxed ad jumped out at her.

Talent search. Young actress …

A talent search was exciting enough for an ad in a Vancouver newspaper. But the sort of acting work proposed thoroughly electrified her.

… to work in films.

Frankie cast a glance at her father’s bedroom window. She slipped the paper inside her cardigan, sprinted through the front hall, and dashed up the stairs to her room in the pointed gable above the front steps. She shut the door behind her.

With her back to her bedroom door, she snapped the paper open. Was the ad baloney, or was it not?

Talent search. Young actress to work in films.

Hollywood studio production beginning May 1934 …

Next came the dodgy part.

She scowled and set the paper down on the windowsill atop a stack of movie magazines. Still frowning, she hung up her school skirt in her closet and buttoned herself into her blue house dress.

She pulled the orange crate that served as her hope chest up to the window that looked out over Thirty-Sixth Avenue. She spread the newspaper out on top of the Photoplay and Movie Mirror magazines and reread the ad’s last bit. The dodgy bit:

… a production beginning May 1934. No experience required.

Make yourself available at the Dominion Theatre,

65 Granville Street.

11:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.

Trouble in your teapot. Even a newspaper boy like Pats knew a thorn patch when he saw it. No experience required … at 11:30 p.m.

Trouble was putting it mildly. Still, the ad was in a reputable paper. Frankie’s father had taken The Province off and on as far back as she could remember. She had even been a member of their Kids’ Club — secret greeting, Klahowya. She and her friend Connie still had the tiny club totem pole pins tucked away among their treasures. Frankie was certain The Province would check their ads as they did their stories, otherwise what was to stop any old murderer or thief from advertising for a victim when times were lean?

Frankie became aware of a clamouring outside. She opened her window, rested her elbows on the movie magazines, and felt her scowl melt away. Her good friend Connie’s progress down their street never failed to entertain. Today, Connie led a noisy parade of neighbourhood children along Thirty-Sixth Avenue. Hazel, mother to the three smallest girls on the street, brought up the rear.

"Connie Mooney, where’d you get that hair?" a boy in a Cub Scout shirt asked.

For a birthday present. Connie tossed her copper head. The Scout guffawed and scampered off.

Hazel’s kids gazed up at Connie adoringly. For who didn’t love Connie? Who didn’t smile back at her white smile, and laugh along with her easy laughter? This afternoon, Connie’s excitement was such that you could almost see lights shoot out of the top of her head, the sort of conical beams that swept the indigo skies above Hollywood in magazines.

Connie, Hazel, and the kids all tumbled to a stop at Frankie’s walk. At twenty-three, Hazel was two years older than Connie and Frankie, which made her the youngest wife on Thirty-Sixth Avenue. She smacked playfully at her scuttling daughters with her own copy of The Province, set her hands on her hips, and grinned up at Frankie. In the leaf-filtered light her freckles, and those of her children, stood out like pepper in cream. Did you see the paper yet?

Frankie, mindful of her father asleep in the room below, silently waved her paper back at Hazel to show that she had read it.

Connie, red hair crackling, set Hazel’s youngest on her hip. She said, Lookie here, Frankie! Clark Gable autographed our newspaper and dropped it at my door.

Don’t wake Dad. Frankie waved both hands.

But you might as well ask cats not to yowl as beg Connie for quiet. She sang out, Hey-dee hoo-dee hoo-dee hee.

For Pete’s sake, Connie, put a lid on it!

Hazel’s kids piped out the musical reply, Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi.

A bellow burst from Frankie’s father’s bedroom window. From behind closed curtains, Sheridan D Ray let fly a terrible oath, one far too ripe for the tender ears of Hazel’s daughters, obviously seconds away from belting out another chorus of the popular song.

Frankie leaped down the stairs, hurried out the front door, and took the stoop in one jump. She herded the lot of them away from the house and onto the grassy verge beneath the line of maple trees on the street. Connie held out the newspaper. With a glance over her shoulder at her father’s darkened bedroom window, Frankie took the paper from her.

I’ve seen the ad for the movie audition. And I think it’s baloney. I wish I didn’t, Connie, but I do.

Thanks for your positivity, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Connie snatched back the paper. Hazel’s kids chortled. Frankie pulled a ferocious face at the three of them, and they laughed louder. Hazel’s youngest put her feet on top of her mother’s and danced. Whenever Frankie worried about motherhood in her future — she herself had no mother for a model — she couldn’t go far wrong with Hazel as a guide. Just now she caught the look Hazel sent her and was relieved to know that she wasn’t alone in her suspicions about the audition advertisement. The problem was that getting Connie to listen to reason was a feat few dared attempt, for she was certain that her future shone like a diamond, like a star, like a searchlight in the skies above Hollywood. Frankie believed Connie was right. Or at least, she used to. Frankie was older now, and engaged to a man who knew his business. She was beginning to wonder whether most of the bright and shiny ambitions in this world were dime-store paste.

Hazel hugged her daughter close. Connie, first of all, you must wonder why the ad is asking young women to show up downtown in the middle of the night.

That’s second of all, Connie said. First of all, what will I wear?

Frankie and Hazel exchanged a look.

Frankie said, A midnight audition? We need to know whether the people who placed this ad are mashers.

Connie said, "I don’t believe The Province would let a masher lay a trap in their classified advertisements."

Well, you can’t go downtown at that time of night.

I can and I will. The streetcar is perfectly safe.

Tell that to your mother, why don’t you?

Hazel said, Frankie, stop arguing. Connie will go to the audition no matter what we say. You’ll have to go with her. I can’t go — Harry would never let me.

Thou speakest truth, wise Hazel, Connie said.

Frankie said, Hazel, how the dickens can you encourage her?

Connie stamped her foot on the sidewalk. Look, staying out of trouble in life isn’t enough for me. And it shouldn’t be enough for you. If you want to be safe, stay in bed.

Frankie looked again at the paper. A young actress. One young actress. Singular. If the ad was genuine, and if a scout did ‘discover’ an actress in the dark of night at a downtown office, it wouldn’t be Frankie.

Please, won’t you come, Frankie? Connie crushed the paper to her bosom as if all her hopes were written there.

Hazel squeezed Frankie’s shoulder, and the two of them exchanged a look. Frankie’s look said, A thing that’s too good to be true isn’t true.

Hazel’s said, The two of us can only envy a girl like Connie.

Hazel’s daughter wriggled free and skipped away down the sidewalk. Frankie gazed up through the spreading branches of the maple tree above them, through the young leaves to the blue spring sky. The sky looked back down at her — at the three young women in their buttoned sweaters over light flowered skirts that fluttered around their shins. Strange to think that exactly the same sky gazed down on Hollywood.

Frankie said, I’ll tell you what. When we go to the audition, we carry hatpins.

Connie gleamed with satisfaction, a trick she’d been able to do since she was a child. She hugged Frankie, and the newspaper crackled between them.

What should we wear, do you think? Connie asked. Leather pumps for beauty and poise? Or galoshes in case of rain?

Leather pumps, though Hell should bar the way, Frankie said. And take both papers with you, so that Dad doesn’t see the ad.

3

That night it took Connie longer than usual to steal the car.

Frankie waited for the Model A in the pool of light beneath a streetlamp at Thirty-Sixth and Dunbar Street. She wondered whether she should have worn something a little fancier. Connie had gone to the trouble of pressing the dress she’d hemmed for Easter and airing out her summer-weight coat. Frankie peered down at her new school skirt and jacket and felt like Miss Plain Schoolteacher, but took comfort that at least she hadn’t worn her usual squashy tam. Instead, her best hat was fastened tightly to her head with her departed mother’s pearl-top hatpin. Her best leather pumps made a tapping noise as she paced the sidewalk. Frankie fished inside her jacket pockets and pulled out her right glove. She searched for the other but came up empty. She must have left it up in her bedroom. But no matter how her suit looked without gloves, there wasn’t a chance in the world that she’d go back for it. If her dad awoke, the jig was up.

At last the Model A bumped up against the curb. In the driver’s seat, Connie fanned out an enormous smile. In her best radio announcer voice, she boomed, "Hey, Frankie, what do you like in a convertible car?"

They’d been playing this radio advertisement game for years, and maybe it was time to stop. The two were grown women now. But as Connie gazed expectantly at her, Frankie responded in her own radio voice, "Ease of control. Trim smart lines!"

"Sweetness, balance, and security at all speeds. Connie climbed out of the driver’s seat. She patted the Model A on its hood. That mechanic works so late that he must own the darned garage. I had to wait for him to leave to grab the car. Frankie, don’t you dare give me that look. I’ve told you before, it’s not stealing if we put the car back."

I’m pretty sure it’s stealing right up to the moment when we do.

But you know very well it never gets any use. And a fellow told me that cars have to be driven at least once a month, for their engine health.

As they debated this new technical point, the Dunbar streetcar hissed past them on its way downtown.

Connie threw out her hands. If we stand around talking all night, we’ll miss the audition.

Then I’m driving.

I’m the better driver.

I’m less easily distracted. Frankie played her trump. And it’s my dad’s car.

By the time she reached the north end of the new Burrard Street Bridge, Frankie was sure she had her driving legs. She fiddled with the gasoline mixture knob and almost ran down a pedestrian. The girl, dressed in a coat slightly too short for her skirts, scuttled past the Model A’s bonnet. Frankie braked. So did the car behind her. Another girl bustled between the two cars and caught up with a cluster of young women on the opposite curb. Frowning, Frankie put the car into low gear.

Connie stood up in the passenger seat and shouted, Where are we going, kids?

Hollywood, somebody called back.

You’ll wreck your hair, Frankie told Connie. Get your head back inside the car.

Jeepers! There’s another girl.

Frankie risked a glance in her side mirror, and sure enough, the car behind them had a woman at the wheel. She jinked around two more women drivers. Horns bleated. She felt the spring and jerk of the rumble seat as it slipped its catch and dropped open behind them.

Connie hoisted herself back out the window and called out, Chums, they only want one actress.

"Well, there’s only one of me," somebody shouted back.

As the Model A neared Drake Street, one of the girls on foot said, Have a heart. Give a girl a ride.

Frankie heard despondency in the girl’s voice — despondency that could take a person by the shoulders, spin her about, and send her home. She said, Hop on, sister.

Happy days! The girl stepped up onto the running board. She hung on with one hand inside Connie’s window and another on the rumble seat.

Frankie put her foot on the gas, manipulated the throttle a bit, and they were all spared a stall. But three more girls chased the Model A and flung themselves into the rumble seat with a whoop and a complaint of springs from low in the chassis. The rumble was meant to hold only two, so they got themselves almost irretrievably tangled up. Their feet, in shiny shoes, dangled over the back. Another girl leapt up on the running board on Frankie’s side, and another behind her. Frankie hoped to heaven nobody took it into her head to hop up on the hood, or they’d all end up plastered across a storefront.

Head for Hollywood, driver, one of the girls called out. If there’s enough of us, we’ll take the place by storm.

I bags Gilbert Howard, another said. Him and his bedroom eyes.

Then I bags Clark Gable.

You can have Clark Gable, the girl on the left running board called back. I want Mary Pickford’s mansion.

Connie said, I’ll take every fur coat Marietta Valdes owns.

The whole crew hung on tight and cheered as Frankie drove down Drake Street across Seymour. She parked the Model A with a rasp of tire rims against concrete that told her she was correctly positioned against the curb. They shed riders like a possum sheds babies while the girls in the rumble wriggled themselves free.

Do you remember the address? one of them asked. It’s almost eleven now.

Holy crow. Hotfoot it, kids!

The girls rushed for the corner ahead.

The excitement was contagious, and Frankie had to remind herself that in the company of some of Vancouver’s prettiest girls, she had no practical chance of being chosen by a scout for a motion picture studio. She glanced in her rear-view mirror and met the uncertain gaze of her own brown eyes beneath the brim of her good felt hat. She yanked the key out of the ignition and climbed out of the driver’s seat. There was always the possibility of rain, so they had to haul up the Model A’s top. She tugged on the canvas roof while Connie struggled to pull her side up to the catch on the windshield.

In the circle of light cast by the streetlamp at Granville and Drake, Connie shone like a red-headed Venus.

This could be your night, Frankie said. You’ve got a chance, you know?

I know. Connie grinned. And so do you have a chance, too.

What would I do with a chance to be a movie star? But thanks, Connie.

The world was wide, and nowhere in it was there a better friend than Connie. Frankie put the car key into her jacket pocket. If only she hadn’t lost her glove. She touched the ring on her left hand, took the ring off, and put it in her pocket with the key. If you’re going to do a thing, Frankie instructed herself, you do it right.

But her finger felt terribly bare. She’d had that ring on since Christmas, when she’d promised Champ to keep it on unless she was washing dishes. She put her hand into her pocket and slipped the ring back onto her finger.

Jeepers, what had she to be so nervous about? She almost forgot to turn off the headlights before the two of them raced to the corner of Drake Street and Granville.

How different could it be, Connie asked, acting for the camera from acting on a stage?

I read that they shoot scenes out of sequence. And wouldn’t you speak your lines more quietly on film than we do on stage?

Sure.

They rounded the corner.

My aunt! Connie said.

Ye gods and little fishes, Frankie agreed. What a circus!

Lights pulsed green and orange, red and white above a long line of young women. The line-up extended from the door of the Dominion Theatre down the street, past Walford’s Appliances. The girl at the head of the line by the theatre door was whitely blonde. Amid the many bobbing heads, Frankie spotted plenty more blondes sporting that distinctive platinum Harlow look. Frankie speculated, not for the first time, about how she would look with cloudy platinum hair, spun soft like an angel’s over dark brows like Harlow’s. She wondered if dyeing her hair platinum might be what it took to make her beautiful — or whether she’d look, as she feared, like a jar of cotton balls with eyebrows.

Connie called out, Hey, does anybody know what time it is?

Somebody shouted back, It’s eleven ten, kids, and Gary Cooper’s kissing my picture right now.

The line of girls buzzed with laughter and excitement. One girl laughed so hard that she sat down on the sidewalk. Her nearest neighbours took her by the armpits and lifted her back up onto her high heels.

At the tail end of the line, Frankie hopped into place with Connie at her side. Ahead of them stood another blonde girl. With her elderly umbrella half-unfurled, the blonde peered up at the lowering sky. Her hair reflected the neon lights of the furniture store sign.

That’s all we need, the blonde said to Frankie. Rain.

I should have looked at the barometer before we left home.

Sometimes it’s better not to know what the weather is cooking up, Connie added.

Wet weather can do very bad things to felt hats, the blonde said. If the sky lets go, you two can come under my umbrella if you want. And you. She nudged a black-haired girl one up in the line.

That’s kind, Frankie said.

Thanks, honey, the black-haired girl said. These curls can’t take water.

A window banged open one story above the Dominion Theatre facade. Shouts rang out in the night. A man’s voice — no, two men at least — and a woman’s voice all rose and tangled in a knot of furious argument. Frankie leaned out of line to stare up at the window, but could see nothing inside but flitting shadows. A bang sounded, and an atonal thunder of piano keys.

What’s going on in the theatre? Connie asked. Sounds like a real rumpus.

That’s some audition they must be having up there, the blonde girl said.

There sounded a fearful cracking.

Was that a gunshot? The black-haired girl laughed in disbelief.

Couldn’t be. To Frankie, the whole kerfuffle sounded more like Saturday night at Irene’s house at the far end of her street. Could it?

Hollywood is just phoney danger, the blonde girl said. It’s all in good fun.

A large object plummeted from the window above the line of girls. It smashed against the sidewalk below, and girls cried out as glass shattered. Bits of what appeared to be a small steel cage twisted against the sidewalk. Frankie looked up at the window as a head emerged and then withdrew, too quickly for her to see what sort of person it was.

Holy smokes, any minute they’ll send out the dancing bears, the black-haired girl said. Don’t look now, but here’s more action.

What’s next? Frankie leaned out of line to see the theatre door bang open and reveal a young woman in a flowered dress. Her coat trailed off one arm onto the sidewalk. The platinum-haired girl first in line at the door held out a hand to her, but she of the flowered dress burst into tears and careered down the row of girls, shaking off the hands that reached out for her like a flock of pale birds. She hurried away down the street.

In the silence that followed, Frankie touched the pearl end of her hatpin. She tugged it free, cocked her hat a little more over one eye, and slid the pin firmly back into place. If, as now seemed more likely than ever, there were mashers in the Dominion Theatre, she’d be ready.

The blonde girl leaned on her umbrella and peered up at the sky. That poor kid. But you can’t be soft if you want to be an actress.

It’s a tough business, the black-haired girl agreed.

If you can’t take the audition, how can you take direction? I hear directors can be beasts.

Next up the line, a pretty girl wearing glasses said, You said it, sister. Her lenses caught the neon light of the appliance store. Further down the line, a good twenty more girls had joined the rest.

Rain began to fall. The blonde opened her umbrella. Somebody let out a shout of protest at the weather, and laughter travelled down the line. Not a single girl left the group, not even when the rain worsened, spattering the cigarette butts and paper bits collected against the shop walls. From under the blonde’s umbrella, Frankie watched the neons blink above the shop fronts, putting a shine on raindrops and painting the wet pavement in blues and reds. Out of the dark lanes, groups of men — the jobless of Vancouver, concave in their jackets — stared as they passed on their way to search out dry places under the bridge for the night. The line of girls grew quieter, until Frankie could hear only the rustle of coats against skirts and the patter of the rain. The young women stood in their line-up, quiet as angels. Frankie felt a rush of pride to be among these brave and patient Vancouverites.

Maybe the movie people changed their minds, the black-haired girl murmured. She, Frankie, and Connie huddled themselves under the blonde’s umbrella.

The girl wearing glasses pulled her collar up and grinned. Or maybe they hope some of us will give up and go home.

Fat chance, the blonde with the umbrella said.

Maybe he wants to cast a part with a drowned rat, the girl in glasses said. I could be the lucky one.

Do you think it’s a fake audition? the black-haired girl asked.

My mother says they’re white slavers. The girl with glasses shivered.

Frankie pulled her under the umbrella.

The black-haired girl said, Ha! I don’t care. I’m a slave at home anyway.

What chance do any of us have? The blonde girl looked from face to face in the shadow of the umbrella. "I’m a dyed blonde. You wear glasses."

The girl with glasses said, Don’t give up hope, honey.

Everybody dyes in Hollywood. And it’s time for a star who wears glasses, Connie said.

Frankie said, Yes, and what about Clark Gable’s big ears? What about Marietta Valdes and her long upper lip? Sometimes different is better. She wondered, however, how badly the engagement ring on her own left hand would work against her in an audition. Every reader of Movie Mirror understood that if an actress was doing her job, she ought to fall in love with at least one or two actors for the publicity value. But she’d promised her fiancé to wear her ring, and after all, it might not be noticed by anybody important.

Stick it out, girls, the girl with glasses said.

The black-haired girl nodded grimly. Then after, let’s go on a toot.

Rain poured off the points of the umbrella and inside Frankie’s collar. She squirmed. Her best leather shoes would simply have to grin and bear it. No sooner had this thought passed through her mind than the rain slowed and stopped. The blonde girl tipped back her umbrella and Frankie looked up at the empty sky.

The theatre door opened again. A woman wearing a red satin dress stepped outside. She paused on the puddled sidewalk and flipped a pale fur wrap over one shoulder. Even from Frankie’s position toward the end of the line, she could make out the gleam of the woman’s eye. The scarlet curve of her long upper lip caught the light. Her skin glowed like a South Sea pearl. She gave no sign that she saw anything unusual about the line of gaping girls. She stood as still as if painted in the air. Once everybody had a chance to get an eyeful of her splendour, she strode to the corner of Granville Street, turned left onto Drake, and vanished from view.

The line of girls exhaled as one. Hollywood had entered their lives, lit the scene, and left them staring.

Holy Moses, the black-haired girl grunted. She looked exactly like Marietta Valdes.

"She was Marietta Valdes," Connie said.

If she wasn’t, she could earn a little money pretending to be her, Frankie said.

The girl with glasses breathed, Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

Frankie said, Anyway, seeing a real movie star is good evidence that there actually is an audition here, ladies.

And the rain’s stopped for good. The blonde girl raised her furled umbrella like the sword Excalibur. It’s blue skies and apple pie now, sisters.

Frankie could see hope rise and prickle its way down the line of girls.

I hope they let me read my Ibsen piece, the girl with glasses said.

"I’m giving them Mata Hari," the black-haired girl told the others.

I’ve brought my review. Connie pulled out a square of newsprint.

The blonde flicked the review with her index fingernail. Read it.

Connie would have read it, but the theatre door banged open for the third time.

The first platinum girl stepped forward. Before she could pass through the open door, a man shouldered her out of the way. He stepped outside with the air of one who owned the city and possibly the world.

The line of girls fell silent.

He said loudly, It’s been a wretchedly difficult night, and I want to go home.

King Samson. Producer. Director.

For Frankie, this moment topped all. First Marietta Valdes, in person, and now a personage of great power in Hollywood. Frankie had seen this man’s face in glossy black and white and knew his name and achievements.

Samson was owner and head of Monument Studios on Sunset Boulevard.

He looked up and down the long line. Are you pulling my leg? All of you came here to audition after dark, in the rain? I’ll be frank. I don’t want to look at any of you.

Somebody let out an angry, Oh!

Another girl shouted, No fair!

A few very young voices started up a chorus of boos.

All right, already. King Samson flexed his hands inside gloves of butter-coloured leather. I’ll tell you ladies what I’m going to do. I’m going to save you a great deal of valuable time and look at every one of you right out here, right now. That’s fair, isn’t it? Nobody move.

He paced from one girl to the next down the line.

Frankie looked down at her own hands, and at her ring with the tiny diamond chip. It caught a pinprick of white light.

The producer and owner of Monument Studios moved along the line. He examined each young face, his dour expression never changing from one to the next. In another moment, he’d be level with Frankie and Connie.

Frankie slipped her left hand into her pocket. Feeling that a moment like this one would never come again, whereas marriage lasts a lifetime, she wiggled her engagement ring off her finger. It fell deep inside her pocket.

4

Granville Street at midnight had never witnessed such excitement, or at least Frankie had never heard tell of such.

She couldn’t take her eyes off King Samson’s butter-coloured gloves. She’d never seen a pair so rich in colour. Those gloves reminded her of all the things she knew about him — his numbered wives, his temper, his great white house atop Beverly Hills, and his film Ambition — two years in the making! — which, when she was much younger, she had seen twice upon its release.

Samson waved his gloved hands. The line fell silent.

He said, Here’s how it is with an open audition: even if you’re chosen, you’re not likely to be hired. And before you sigh and mourn, let me tell you that when I came out that door — he gestured to the Dominion Theatre — I intended to leave without auditioning anybody. I’ve had a hell of a night. And lord, how I want to go home to Hollywood.

A ripple of protest swirled through the group of girls. He scowled, squared his shoulders beneath his camel coat, and set about peering at the girls in front of him.

Frankie nudged Connie. Move forward.

It’s not fair to the others, Connie hissed.

Now that the rain had stopped, the night grew colder. Frankie was glad after all that she’d worn her good suit of thick tweedy wool, and she felt sorry for Connie shivering in her Easter extravaganza of a cotton dress. Still, that dress might help get Connie noticed. To increase Connie’s chances further still, Frankie decided that when Samson returned their way, she would push Connie