Chapter 36

I went out walking as evening settled over the city. Walking and thinking, not paying attention to where I headed, not really having a direction in mind. But eventually I looked up and found myself on the sidewalk in front of Robbie’s house.

I went around to the guesthouse to pick up my laptop and a few other things, but I was too unsettled to stay in. I headed back to the theater and arrived as the 9:40 Gaslight began.

Callie was behind the candy counter. “I thought you left.”

“I’m back,” I said. “I’ll be in the office if you need me.” Because I had things to do.

I stopped in the break room for coffee, then took my laptop to the office and opened it up at the desk. The first thing I did was answer the lawyers. Then I went to my blog, because Marty was right. It had been far too long since Sally Lee’s last post. And walking all over the city had given me a lot to write about.

  

Marty and Callie both dropped by to say goodnight when the last show was over, but I barely glanced up. I was on a roll. Alone in the office in the empty theater I might have been afraid. I might have been creeped out by everything that had happened, hearing every little creak and rattle as a murderous maniac on approach. But I felt just the opposite. As midnight came and went I found myself relaxing into my writing. Alone at the Palace, I felt at home.

I was just wrapping up a new posting when a voice startled me. An incredibly welcome voice.

“Nora, you’re all right! I’m so glad! How long have I been gone?”

“Trixie!” I jumped to my feet and ran to hug her, remembering just in time that I couldn’t do that. I stopped awkwardly in front of her. “Are you okay? How did you do that? You saved my life!”

“Did I?” Her eyes grew huge, sparkling. “I don’t remember anything but watching him chasing you up those stairs and being so furious I could have killed him. Then I must have gone poof. What happened?”

“You really don’t remember?”

She shook her head. “Did the police come? Did they arrest him?”

I hesitated for an instant, making a quick decision. “No. He fell down the stairs. He died.”

She gasped, putting her hands to her mouth. “When he was chasing you? Oh, Nora.” Then her shock turned to indignation. “Well, it serves him right.”

It did serve him right. And if she didn’t realize she was responsible for it, I wasn’t going to burden her with that knowledge. I thought she might have blocked out her part in saving me because her mind couldn’t cope with it. She’d been glorious and terrifying. Maybe too terrifying for her to deal with.

“You were amazing,” I said. “Your trick with the lights got me the help I needed.”

“Did it?” Her face glowed with happiness. “Oh, Nora, I just couldn’t bear to think of him hurting you. And I couldn’t bear not being able to help.”

“You helped, sweetie. You helped so much.”

More than she would ever know.

“And the posters? Are they real?”

“They are,” I told her. “We found the MacGuffin and solved the murders.”

“Well! That’s not too bad for the new girl and a ghost.” She stood up tall, the gold braid on her cap glinting in the light from the desk lamp.

“Not bad at all,” I agreed.

Maybe it was for the best that Trixie couldn’t remember what had happened. It would probably figure in my nightmares for years. Maybe her inability to remember also accounted for something else I hadn’t been able to understand. She had no memory of Kate’s death. Was that something else that she’d actually seen and blanked out? Had it just been too painful? I’d probably never know.

A light rain had started earlier, and the wind must have been picking up, because we both heard a banging coming from downstairs.

Trixie flitted to the window and looked down at the dark wet street. “I don’t see anything.” She looked at me. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

I’d seen them take the body out. “I’m sure,” I said. “But the glass on the front door got broken. I bet the plywood came loose in the wind.” I looked around the room for anything I’d be able to use to secure it.

“Are you sure?” Trixie said. “I think it sounds like someone knocking.”

Now that she mentioned it, the banging did have a certain rhythm.

“Who—” Trixie asked.

“Hector,” I guessed. He’d probably been watching me walk around the office having a conversation with no one from his room across the street. “Wait here,” I said. “He’s probably just checking up on me.” And thinking I’d lost my mind.

“He’s that dishy Latin Lover type, isn’t he?” Trixie dimpled. “You take all the time you want, honey. When you come back I’ll tell you about a dream I once had about Gilbert Roland.”

I grinned at her, glad beyond words that she’d come back.

As I loped down the balcony stairs I admitted to myself how tired I was. I had a hotel room at the Fairmont and a bed in Robbie’s guesthouse. I should pick one of them and get some sleep. And in the morning, maybe I should start looking for my own place. Because it looked like I was going to stay.

Callie had left the lights on over the candy counter, knowing I was still upstairs. That was enough light for me to make my way across the lobby to the doors, where I saw the plywood was still in place on one and the outline of a man backlit by the streetlights was visible through the glass of the other. He waved when he saw me.

I waved back, then entered the alarm code and opened the door. “Hector—”

But it wasn’t Hector.

“Babe.”

Ted Bishop, movie star, husband, and paramour of Priya Sharma, stepped into the lobby and swept me into a cinematic embrace. He inhaled deeply, muttering in my ear in a way that sent well-remembered shivers skating down my spine. “Babe, I’ve missed you so much. I’ve been so, so stupid.”

Ted. Here.

What the hell was I going to do now?

  

San Francisco

1936

 

San Francisco is set in the months leading up to the earthquake of 1906. The opening title card describes the old city as “splendid and sensuous, vulgar and magnificent.” Damn right. It still is.

 

The movie is about high culture versus low, faith versus cynicism, good versus evil. There’s something approaching a “B” plot that I promise you won’t care about. There’s a rivalry between the Palace saloon and the highfalutin Opera theater, and prize money is at stake at something called the Chicken’s Ball. But it’s really only about Blackie Norton (Clark Gable), the “most godless, scoffing, and unbelieving soul in all of San Francisco” falling for the sweet opera singer Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) as she learns how to put over a number in his saloon (hint: it involves a lot of feathers and outsized arm gestures).

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We begin on New Year’s Eve. Showgirls! Confetti! Streamers! Gable’s Blackie is king of the Barbary Coast. He owns a joint called Norton’s Palace where the swells go to have fun—not the kind of place where a preacher’s daughter should be singing. But the little lady is new in town and looking for a job. Blackie asks to see her legs before he asks to hear her sing. And when she sings, boy, she sounds just like Jeanette MacDonald. Which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your feelings about operetta. Blackie’s into it.

 

Oh! I haven’t even mentioned Spencer Tracy! He’s Blackie’s childhood friend—and a priest! Father Tim Mullin, who can beat Blackie at fisticuffs. He lives for the day when Blackie will stop thinking that God is for suckers. Will the preacher’s daughter be able to get through to him? Or will Blackie succeed in corrupting her? It sure looks like it, much to Tracy’s dismay. When Gable talks MacDonald into leaving the Opera to come sing “San Francisco” at his joint (wearing a darling little military number with a capelet and spangled hot pants), Tracy is appalled, telling Gable “You can’t take a woman in marriage and then sell her immortal soul.” I mean, come on. They’re just spangled hot pants.

 

It’s going to take a major act of the sucker’s God to get everybody together again. Which brings us to The Earthquake. Considering this film was made in 1936, the special effects are pretty amazing. There are a lot of quick editing cuts, which weren’t too common at that time. Brick walls collapse, an entire theater is turned to rubble, people are crushed while running for their lives, and Jeannette (unhelpfully) faints. The aftershock is even more impressive, as is the widespread fire that overtakes the city.

 

With the city on fire, will Blackie finally find some faith? Okay, that’s not a fair question. But I have to say, when he’s reunited with Father Tim and Mary, even these jaded old eyes got a little misty. Mainly because of the look Tracy gives Gable. Spencer Tracy. Yes. Every time, yes.

 

“We’ll build a new San Francisco!” someone shouts in the crowd. And in the final shot, as “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” morphs into the fifth version of “San Francisco” of the film, we see the smoldering wreckage of the old sinful city turning into the modern (and blessedly still sinful) city of 1936. It really is amazing what 30 years can do. I’d love to see the view from that site now.

 

Don’t blink or you’ll miss it:

Gable shirtless in high-waisted short shorts as he spars with Spencer Tracy in the boxing ring. (Tracy wears sensible leggings and a turtleneck, no fashion victim, he.)

 

Where you’ll cringe:

Oh dear. The Chicken’s Ball. The opening number looks like a minstrel show. Mercifully, we only get a glimpse of it. Another thing we glimpse is the obligatory Asian “houseboy” who exists to make chop suey for Gable upstairs at the Palace.

 

Best line about my new home:

“They call us the wickedest city in the world. And it’s a bitter shame it is, for deep down underneath all our evil and sin we’ve got right here in San Francisco the finest set of human beings that was ever rounded up on one spot. Sure, they had to have wild adventure in their hearts, and dynamite in their blood, to set out for here in the first place. That’s why they’re so full of untamed deviltry now.”

  

Movies My Friends Should Watch

Sally Lee