i am now. daddy spying on me again?
well that's a new one--
this is all a fluke. i met them at laverne's last fall. betty maybe one time. linda a couple. she'd come in to cadge a drink or a meal off a sister.
no. just cocktail lounge chitchat.
ye might say i take it where i can find it, laddie.
mister, my father is emmett sprague. the emmett sprague. he built half of hollywood and long beach, and what he didn't build he bought. imagine the headlines. "tycoon's daughter questioned in black dahlia case--played footsie with dead girl at lesbian nightclub". get the picture?
linda talked about her boring boy back in hicktown, nebraska, or wherever. betty talked about the latest issue of screen world. hollywood dreams, the sad nine yards.
on a conversational level they were right down there with you, only they were better looking.
you're not. look, i'm tired. you want to hear my alibi so i can end this farce and go home?
my family and i were at our house in laguna from sunday through thursday along with our live-in servants. if you want verification, call daddy. but be discreet about where we met.
ah, laddie's not what i'm saying.
tomorrow night. eight o'clock. my address is 482 so. muirfield.
not surprised. pick me up. like a gentleman.
i'll try to remember.
look. i hate to pull this, but daddy has heard about you. he insisted you stay for dinner. i told him we met at that art exhibit at stanley rose's bookshop, so if you have to pump everybody for my alibi, be subtle. all right?
that's balto. the paper is the la times for august 1, 1926. balto was bringing in the paper when daddy's accountant told him he'd made his first million. daddy wanted to consecrate the moment so he shot him. here we go--
bucky bleichert. may i present my family. my mother, ramona cathcart sprague. my father, emmett sprague. my sister, martha mcconville sprague.
daddy can we eat? bucky and i want to catch a nine-thirty show.
i'm sorry. i'm so sorry.
i'm so. sorry. don't hate my family-- don't--they're not so bad--
until we announce the wedding?
she's a hypocrite. she takes pills the doctor gives her, so she's not a hophead. you know how daddy really made his money?
he bought rotten lumber and abandoned movie facades from mack sennett and built houses out of them. he's got firetraps all over la registered to phony corporations. his "good friend" george? disfigured in a car crash while running daddy some errands. daddy throws him scraps now--odd jobs tending some rental property--
i want to. i like you bucky.
bucky, i didn't tell you all about betty short.
don't be mad at me. it's nothing. i just don't want to lie to you.
last summer i was bar-hopping a lot. straight bars. i heard about a girl who looked like me. i got curious and left notes at a couple places: "your lookalike wants to meet you", things like that. i left my number. she called. that's how i met her at laverne's with linda.
yes. that's all of it.
serve my family right.
no. i don't.
i've worked pretty hard to be loose and free. but the way people described betty. it sounded like she was a natural.
hmmm. she was this poor girl. came from nothing. but then she carried nothing with her, either. i don't know. when you're rich sometimes you romanticize the poor.
hello.
when?
not at the house. daddy's having a business soiree. the red arrow.
room 11. forty-five minutes.
smile at me. look soft and sweet.
did she mention me?
sugar, betty and i made love once, that one time we met last summer. i just did it to see what it would be like to do it with someone who looked like me and--
bucky that's it, i swear. please stay--
you'll be back. i look like her.
what?
you miss 'em, laddie? mother's insults? martha's pornography.
i don't wanna go to europe, daddy. you're always talking about how dreadful and provincial it is.
georgie was always. sneaking around daddy's properties. he saw them make it. he. got crazy about betty.
it was sunday i remember. betty called. short of cash as usual. i put daddy on, and he offered betty money to date a nice man he knew. georgie'd been driving daddy crazy, wanting to get with betty ever since the movie. threatening to tell people he was my father. but we thought georgie just wanted her for sex.
we said he was a war hero. because we didn't want her to feel like a whore.
you know the rest.
i went looking for linda martin, and i found her at a motel in the valley. i gave her money and told her to say the stag was filmed in tijuana with a mexican crew.
bucky--
bucky--
martha knew i'd been with betty. but that was all. but she's a demon, you know. she even called the cops with a tip on la verne's--just hoping i'd get smeared in the papers. i scratched her good for that.
figures.
we'll ruin you in court, you know. if you go after us, we'll ruin you. over what? some little slut--
--don't come over. daddy's having a business soiree--
i think you'd rather fuck me than kill me. but you don't have the guts to do either. you're a boxer. not a puncher.
i don't know what you're talking about--
you'll never do it. never. remember. i look like her.