Chapter Text
“Wow! Hollywood!” Gussie sighed, leaning out the vestibule window as they waited inside the train car.
“Not quite, sir.” Beauregard corrected. “I believe they are building a closer station, but for now the line ends quite a few miles outside the city.”
“But this is…” His waved hand took in the warm tropical landscape.
“It is indeed, sir.”
The Super Chief train hissed and sighed as it rolled into Pasadena’s Santa Fe station, its gleaming cars a testament to the modern age. The platform buzzed with porters hauling trunks, starlets in wide-brimmed hats posing for the inevitable cameras, and every form of normal humanity doing every possible task. Families were reuniting on the station yard, and farmers waited at the far end with boxes of produce ready for the return trip.
A faint whiff of orange blossoms mingling with engine smoke. California, 1935, was a land of dreams, schemes, and more than a few well-buried secrets. The sun blazed yellow overhead, casting sharp lavender shadows on the red-tiled station floor. It was a stark contrast to the gray hustle of New York’s Penn Station, where Augustus Berrycloth-Young, Lucien Gibbs, and their impeccable butler Maximillian Beauregard had begun their journey days ago.
The conductor blew his whistle and the attendant pulled the train door open. At the lower end this caused a general rush, but the Berrycloth-Young party had traveled in a pair of bedroom cars and thus were unpushed. Their few neighbors were happily descending from the other end of the train car.
Gussie adjusted his straw boater and squinted into the sunlight. His pale linen suit, impeccably tailored, was a perfectly suited to the California heat. He wore it with the cheerful obliviousness of a man who believed style trumped economy. Not that he had to fret over economy. Unlike so many, the Berrycloth-Young’s fortune had miraculously survived the slings and arrows of an outrageous Depression.
“I say, Lucien, this place is positively radiant! Like stepping into a postcard, what?”
“Radiant, sure, but it’s got that Los Angeles laziness. New York’s got a pulse. This place feels like it’s napping. Or maybe roasting.”
Lucien Gibbs, a sharp-eyed journalist for the New Amsterdam, loosened his tie and smirked. His suit, less ostentatious than Gussie’s, bore the creases of a man who’d spent the journey scribbling notes for his next column. He was in Los Angeles to interview those luminaries of the jazz set who had set their stars in a more western sky. With money tight and vaudeville in rags more than one jazzman or singer had decided the films offered more. More money. More fame. Maybe more freedom.
He had an interview set up with Spencer Williams. The man was doing some interesting work, at least in the newspaper sense. As the black cinema left New York much of it had crossed over to the general studios. Actors and directors had directed their talents into more studio-driven films. The transition had come not always gracefully but always in ways that interested the New Amsterdam readership.
His voice carried the cadence of Harlem’s jazz clubs, where he’d spent years chronicling the scene for every black newspaper in Manhattan.
Behind them, Maximillian Beauregard, butler extraordinaire, glided from the train with the poise of a man who could serve tea during an earthquake. His black tailcoat and serene movements suggested he was above such mundane concerns as travel fatigue. His expression suggested he’d already cataloged the station’s inefficiencies, and if needed would be amending them forthwith.
“If I may, sir,” he said to Gussie, “the climate is agreeable, but the lack of urgency is… notable.”
“Quite right, Beauregard!” Gussie beamed, clapping his hands. “But we’re here to make a picture, not a fuss. A film noir, no less! Spooky houses, mysterious professors. Loads of jolly good fun!”
Lucien raised an eyebrow. “Fun, maybe, but I’m betting this town’s got more mysteries off-screen than on. Keep your forma, Gussie.”
Gussie frowned, checking his pocket watch. “Dash it, you’re right. The studio was meant to send a car. Perhaps they’re caught in a celluloid jam?”
As they stood, a sleek Duesenberg Model J roared up, its chrome gleaming like a jazz trumpet. Out stepped the spectacularly recognizable form of Don Lockwood, Monumental Pictures leading man. His white fedora was tilted at a rakish angle and his smile was as polished as the car. He scanned the platform, clearly expecting someone. His eyes landed on Gussie’s flamboyant waistcoat.
“Are you the English guy here to back our movie?” Don asked, his voice smooth but urgent, like a man expecting a check to clear.
“Why yes. I am.”
Gussie thought he should be excused the confusion. It was one thing to anticipate seeing movie stars. It was another to have one as a chauffeur.
“Great!” Don said, striding forward with a hand outstretched. “I’m Don Lockwood, here to whisk you to Monumental Pictures. R.F. Simpson’s thrilled about you.”
Lucien raised an eyebrow, leaning toward Gussie. “This is how Hollywood works? They grab the first toff they see?”
“Efficiency, Lucien!” Gussie said, clambering into the Duesenberg’s plush interior. “Beauregard, do join us. No sense standing about like a lost prop.”
“Thank you, sir.” Beauregard inclined his head. “I would prefer to hire a taxi and see the luggage delivered to our hotel.”
“Whatever you think best.”
“Then, with you gentlemen’s permission, I shall rejoin you at the studio when my present task is done.”
Gussie and Lucien settled into the rear seat behind Don Lockwood.
As the Duesenberg purred toward Hollywood, Lucien scribbled notes on a pad, muttering about the syncopated madness of the city. Gussie, meanwhile, leaned out the open top, marveling at the palm-lined streets and billboards hawking toothpaste and talkies.
Don, glancing back, tried to make conversation. “So what’s your angle? Investing for the thrill, or do you fancy yourself a movie mogul?”
“Oh, bit of both!” Gussie said cheerfully. “I love a good story, and the script your studio sent out? Couldn’t be better!”
“Glad to hear that. Dexter’s got lots of new ideas I think you’ll be impressed by.”
“I’m so looking forward to meeting him.” Gussie answered. “I’ve loved all his work.”
“Yeh, well, he’s done right by me.”
The Duesenberg glided through Los Angeles, past palm-lined boulevards and stucco bungalows that seemed to glow in the sunlight. Gussie gaped; his boyish excitement undimmed.
“Look at that, Lucien!” He pointed, nearly knocking his hand into a passing bicycle. “Oranges growing right on the trees! And the houses. They’re like villas from some Italian fantasy!”
Lucien snorted. “Fantasy’s the word. Back in Harlem, you’d need a hours wages foe a bag of those oranges.”
“But it’s not Harlem. Not that I don’t love the place, but this is a dream.”
“Yeh. Well, I’m more concerned what will happen when you wake up.”
Gussie hummed a jazz tune, blissfully unaware of the chaos awaiting them. “Oh, pish, Lucien. You are gloomier than a London fog. We’re here to make a picture!”
XOXOXOXO
Meanwhile, unnoticed by the Duesenberg’s occupants, a ragged figure slipped from a boxcar on the far side of the station. J. Cumberland Spendrill III (or rather, Bert Higgins, hedge-wizard and penniless impostor) brushed grime from his tattered coat. His sharp eyes darted toward the departing car, a mix of relief and irritation crossing his face.
“Bloody toffs,” he muttered, adjusting a battered hat that hid his prematurely gray hair. “Stealing my ride. Well, Hollywood, let’s see what you’ve got for a wizard with no wand and no wallet.”
Bert slunk into the crowd, his threadbare suit blending with the station’s flotsam. He had no money, no prospects, and a fake name he’d been milking for months. But he had magic (raw, unpolished, and dangerous) and a plan to make it in Tinseltown, even if it meant sleeping in prop rooms and dodging real millionaires like this Berrycloth-Young fellow.
As the car vanished into the sun-drenched streets, Bert Higgins trudged toward the taxi ranks, muttering spells to keep his shoes from falling apart. He couldn’t afford to pay for a ride, but with a bit of distraction and a bit more then slight-of-hand he could probably slip into a trunk. The real trick was to pick a cab going the right way
XOXOXOXO
The taxi bearing Maximillian Beauregard pulled up to the Gaylord Apartments Hotel, a towering edifice of golden stone that loomed over Wilshire Boulevard. The Los Angeles Times had called it “pretentious,” and inside it lived up to the billing: carved deco columns flanked the entrance, a fountain burbled in the patio courtyard, and a doorman in a gold-braided uniform waited as a crew of porters whisked the luggage inside. The lobby gleamed with polished wood and crystal chandeliers. A trio of young women played classical music in the corner.
While no less active, Los Angeles was a far cry from either the smoky jazz clubs of Harlem or the damp men’s clubs of London.
It took only a minute for the manager to appear, checking bone fides before handing over the keys to the penthouse apartment arranged for from New York.
“You want to come with me, boss?” One of the young lads serving as bell hops was waiting with the cart of luggage. “I’ve got the elevator waiting.”
“Decidedly.” There was much to check on. The residence had been arranged via a broken in New York. By necessity that had meant trusting ‘Gussie’ to handle matters with an uptown agency, and in turn that had led Maximillian Beauregard to fret (as he did when any arrangement was removed from his immediate management). Still, this residence was promising.
The butler thus being so occupied with directing the porters and giving instructions to the doorman he failed to notice the back if the cab trunk lifting slightly. If anyone emerged? Well, no one was visible.
XOXOXOXO
So many people were in motion. So many minds were scheming, each to their own end. And? Somewhere in the city, a shadowy figure was already plotting to ensure The Professor’s Shadow never saw the light of day. The game was afoot, and in 1935 Hollywood, magic and mischief were about to collide.