VII
Conversation at this dinner-party, as at most dinner-parties in America at that time, resembled a walk along the edge of a slippery ditch. Sooner or later you were bound to slide in, and after that you could not get out, but finished your walk in the ditch. “Mr. Ross,” said Annabelle, in her capacity as hostess, “I notice you aren’t drinking your wine. You can trust what we have—it’s all pre-war stuff.” And so they were in the ditch, and talked about Prohibition.
The law was two years and a half old, and the leisure classes were just realizing the full extent of the indignity which had been inflicted upon them. It wasn’t the high prices—they were all of them seeking ways to spend money rapidly; but it was the inconvenience, and the difficulties of being sure what you were getting. People escaped the trouble by pinning their faith to some particular bootlegger; Bunny noticed it as an incredible but universal phenomenon that persons otherwise the most cynical, who made it the rule of their lives to trust nobody, would repeat the wildest stories which men of the underworld had told them, about how this particular “case of Scotch” had just been smuggled in from Mexico, or maybe stolen from the personal stock of a visiting duke in Canada.
They discussed the latest developments in the tragedy which had befallen Koski, one of the emperors of their screen world, who had had a priceless stock in the cellar of his country place, and had taken the precaution to have it walled in with two feet of brick, and guarded by doors such as you would find on a bank vault; but thieves had come during the owner’s absence, and bound and gagged the caretaker, and cut through the floor of the drawing-room, above the cellar, and hauled out everything with rope and tackle, and carted it away in trucks. Since then Koski had been raising a row with the authorities; he charged that they were standing in with the thieves, and he had brought in an outside detective agency, and threatened a scandal that would shake the pants off the police department. By this means he had got back the greater part of his casks and bottles; but alas, the real stuff was gone, they had all been emptied and refilled with synthetic. And so, after that, there was a convincing story for your bootlegger to tell you; this was some of the original Koski stuff! Millions of gallons of original Koski stuff were being drunk in California, and even in adjoining states.
Suddenly Vee Tracy clapped her hands. “Oh, listen! I have one on Koski! Him and some others! Has anybody heard The Movie’s Prayer?”
There was a silence. No one had.
“This is something for all of us to teach our children to recite every night and morning. It is serious, and you mustn’t joke.”
“Let us pray,” said the voice of Bessie Barrie.
“Fold your hands, like good little children,” ordered Vee, “and bow your heads.” And then with slow and solemn intonation she began:
“Our Movie, which art Heaven, Hollywood be Thy Name. Let Koski come. His Will be done, in studio as in bed.”
There was a gasp, and then a roar of laughter swept the table; no explanations were needed, they all knew their emperor, master of the destiny of hundreds of screen actresses. “Go on!” shouted voices; and the girl continued to intone an invocation, which echoed in outline and rhythm the Lord’s prayer, and brought in the names of other rulers of their shadow world, always with an obscene implication. It was a kind of Black Mass, and performed the magic feat of lifting the conversation out of the ditch of Prohibition. They talked for a while about the sexual habits of their rulers; who was living with whom, and what scandals were threatened, and what shootings and attempted poisonings had resulted. There were thrilling crime mysteries, which would provide a topic of conversation for hours in any Hollywood gathering; you might hear half a dozen different solutions, each one positive, and no two alike.