Mrs. Houdini(72)

“It’s just like your magic shows,” she’d told him, grasping his elbow. “Just hold up your head and smile.”

Harry’s producer, Rolfe, had swept them through the doors and ushered them into the lobby, where reporters peppered Harry with questions about the logistics of his escape scenes. The movie was a smash. In one scene Harry, hanging by his thumbs, managed to get the antagonist into a chokehold using only his legs. Reaching into the man’s pocket with his toes, he extracted a key that freed him from his restraints. The audience had gone wild for it.

Now they stepped out of their car, Bess swathed in white silk, to see a paltry crowd of a hundred or so waiting for autographs. Bess glanced over at Harry, who looked stricken. “There’s—there’s no one here,” he muttered.

“Don’t let on that you’re disappointed,” Bess said.

Harry set his jaw and tried to smile. Inside, their friends were waiting to celebrate—Gloria Swanson and the Londons and Sargent and Vickery drinking champagne in the carpeted lobby.

“It’s too late,” Harry said, his face darkening. “It’s failed. I can tell.”

“You can’t tell a damn thing.”

“Well, it’s not the weather that’s keeping them home.”

Harry spent the screening slouched in his seat, glancing surreptitiously at the audience for their reactions as they watched him rescue Gladys Leslie from a vile gang of counterfeiters. He’d put his best work into this picture, his most daring escapes, even going so far as to stage an elaborate heist on a Hollywood street to promote the movie, leading to the unveiling of an enormous movie banner.

The screening received polite applause. Afterward, anticipating Harry’s dark mood, Bess stood up in his place and invited everyone to join them at Sunset Inn in Santa Monica.

Managed by the famous restaurateur Eddie Brandstatter, Sunset Inn was the place where many of the movie actors spent their evenings, because it was elegant but cheap, and there really wasn’t as much money in movies as everyone thought. The restaurant featured a hot and cold buffet and a dizzying rotation of cocktails on illicit menus; California was far from the grips of Prohibition, and everyone knew it. Actors and singers of all levels of fame were encouraged to give impromptu performances. By the time they arrived, Al Jolson was lounging at the bar, and Charles Harrison was on the stage crooning “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.” Bess was quietly awed by these guests. Sometimes it seemed she had invented them, and the whole life she’d stepped into here—the perfume of the women’s corsages, the lights glittering at the bottoms of the hills—was just smoke.

Clara Bow hadn’t been at the screening, but she was at the restaurant, nursing a glass of red wine. She had Hollywood in a tailspin, claiming engagements with everyone from Gary Cooper to Victor Fleming. Now she came sauntering up to Harry, batting her little-girl eyelashes, and set her glass of wine down on the table beside him. “Well if it isn’t the great Harry Houdini,” she said in her tiny voice. “I’ll tell you. I’ve been dying to see you do your needle trick.”

She blinked at Bess with a small smile. Bess laughed and picked up her own glass. “Go on, Harry,” she said, refusing to be baited. “Do a few tricks.”

The night before the filming of his first love scene with Marguerite Marsh for The Master Mystery, Bess had woken up to find Harry pacing the hallway, unable to sleep. Bess had led him back to bed. “Oh, go ahead and love her, for God’s sake,” she’d told him. “Customers don’t pay to see their leading men be faithful to their off-screen wives.” And she had kept her word; she wasn’t angry. Flirtations by other women only served to make Harry more appealing as a star.

Now she saw Harry brighten at Clara’s invitation to perform. Live magic was his forte; he carried a deck of cards and little tokens of magic in his pocket at all times. “If I can rustle together some needles, I’ll swallow them for you,” he told the actress.

A crowd had gathered around them. Bess went into the kitchen and came back with an orange. “Forget needles,” she told Harry, tossing him the orange. “You know he can swallow this?” she asked the onlookers.

“Oh, do tell me you’re kidding,” Clara said.

Jack London clapped Harry on the back. “Oh, I’ve seen it,” he said. “I’m not sure whether it’s illusion or some kind of grotesque reality.”

Bess retreated toward the bar in search of Gloria Swanson; she wanted to talk to the actress about convincing Paramount to allow her a role in Harry’s next picture. When she couldn’t find her, Bess circled back toward Harry on the other side of the room.

As she approached, Harry stepped out of the crowd. “Mrs. Houdini,” he said, holding out his hand. “Would you care to have dinner with me?”

“Harry, no,” she said. “We can’t go off by ourselves at your party.”

“I’ve already reserved us a table.” He gestured toward one of the many open tables at the back of the room. He led her to her seat and pulled in a nearby server. Bess ordered an Aviation cocktail.

“I do wish you wouldn’t have liquor tonight,” he said, frowning. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Bess pressed her lips together. “Don’t lecture me, Harry. It’s supposed to be a celebratory night.”