Tell All

ACT I, SCENE FOURTEEN

Cut to me, running, a trench coat worn overmy maid’s uniform flapping open in front to reveal the black dress andwhite apron within. In a tracking shot, I hurry along a path in thepark, somewhere between the dairy and the carousel, my open mouthgasping. In the reverse angle, we see that I’m rushing toward the roughboulders and outcroppings of the Kinderbergrocks. Matching my eye line, we see that I’m focused on a pavilion builtof brick, in the shape of a stop sign, perched high atop the rocks.

Intercut this with a close-up shot of thetelephone which sits on the foyer table of Miss Kathie’s town house. Thetelephone rings.

Cut to me running along, my hair flutteringout behind my bare head. My knees tossing the apron of my uniform intothe air.

Cut to the telephone, ringing and ringing.

Cut to me veering around joggers. I’m dodgingmothers pushing baby carriages and people walking dogs. I jump dogleashes like so many hurdles. In front of me, the brick pavilion atop Kinderberg looms larger, and we can hear thenightmarish calliope music of the nearby carousel.

Cut to the foyer telephone as it continues toring.

As I arrive at the brick pavilion, we see anassortment of people, almost all of them elderly men seated in pairs atsmall tables, each pair of men hunched over the white and black piecesof a chess game. Some tables sit within the pavilion. Some tablesoutside, under the overhang of its roof. This, the chess pavilion builtby Bernard Baruch.

Cut back to the close-up of the foyertelephone, its ringing cut off as fingers enter the shot and lift thereceiver. We follow the receiver to a face, my face. To make it easier,picture Thelma Ritter’s face answering thetelephone. In this intercut flashback we watch me say, “Kentonresidence.”

Still watching me, my reaction as I answerthe telephone, we hear the voice of my Miss Kathie say, “Please comequick.” Over the telephone, she says, “Hurry, he’s going to kill me!”

In the park, I weave between the tablesshared by chess players. On the table between most pairs sits a clockdisplaying two faces. As each player moves a piece, he slaps a buttonatop the clock, making the second hand on one clock face stop clickingand making the other second hand begin. At one table, an old-man versionof Lex Barker tells another old Peter Ustinov, “Check.” He slaps the two-facedclock.

Seated at the edge of the crowd, my MissKathie sits alone at a table, the top inlaid with the white and blacksquares of a chessboard. Instead of pawns, knights and rooks, the tableholds only a thick ream of white paper. Both her hands clutch the stackof paper, as thick as the script for a Cecil B.DeMille epic. The lenses of dark sunglasses hide her violet eyes.A silk Hermès scarf, tied under her chin,hides her movie-star profile. Reflected in her glasses, we see two of meapproach. Twin Thelma Ritters.

Sitting opposite her at the table, I say,“Who’s trying to kill you?” Another ancient SlimSummerville moves a pawn and says, “Checkmate.”

From the offscreen distance, we hear thefiltered ambient noise of horse carriages clip- clopping along theSixty-fifth Street Traverse. Taxicabs honk on Fifth Avenue.

Miss Kathie shoves the ream of paper, slidingit across the chessboard toward me. She says, “You can’t tell anyone.It’s so humiliating.”

Bark, oink, screech… Screen Star Stalked by Gigolo.

Moo, meow, buzz …Lonely, Aging Film Legend Seduced by Killer.

The stack of papers, she says she discoveredthem while unpacking one of Webb’s suitcases. He’s written a biographyabout their romantic time together. Miss Kathie pushes the stack at me,saying, “Just read what he says.…” Then immediately pulling the pagesback, hunching her shoulders over them and glancing to both sides, shewhispers, “Except the parts about me permitting Mr. Westward to engageme in anal intercourse are a complete and utter fabrication.”

An aged version of AnthonyQuinn slaps a clock, stopping one timer and starting another. Miss Kathie slides the pages within my reach,then pulls them back, whispering, “And just so you know, the scenewhere I perform oral sex on Mr. Westward’s person in the toilet of Sardi’s is also a total bold-faced lie.…”

She looks around again, whispering, “Read itfor yourself,” pushing the stack of pages across the chessboard in mydirection. Then, yanking the pages back, she says, “But don’t youbelieve the part where he writes about me under the table at Twenty-one doing that unspeakable act with theumbrella.…”

Terrence Terrypredicted this: a handsome young man who would enter Miss Kathie’s lifeand linger long enough to rewrite her legend for his own gain. No matterhow innocent their relationship, he’d merely wait until her death so hecould publish his lurid, sordid tale. No doubt a publisher had alreadygiven him a contract, paid him a sizable advance of monies against theroyalties of that future tell-all best seller. Most of this dreadfulbook was in all probability already typeset. Its cover already designedand printed. Once Miss Kathie was dead, someday, the tawdry lies of thischarming parasite would replace anything valuable she’d accomplishedwith her life. The same way Christina Crawfordhas forever sullied the legend of Joan Crawford.The way B. D. Merrill has wrecked thereputation of her mother, Bette Davis, and Gary Crosby has dirtied the life story of hisfather, Bing Crosby—Miss Kathie would beruined in the eyes of a billion fans.

The type of tome HeddaHopper always calls a “lie-ography.”

Around the chess pavilion, a breeze movesthrough the maple trees, making a billion leaves applaud. A witheredversion of Will Rogers reaches his old Phil Silvers hand to nudge a white king forward onesquare. Near us, an aged Jack Willis touches ablack knight and says, “J’adoube.”

“That’s French,” Miss Kathie says, “for tout de suite.”

Shaking her head over the manuscript, shesays, “I wasn’t snooping. I was only looking for some cigarettes.” MyMiss Kathie shrugs and says, “What can we do?”

It’s not libel until the book is published,and Webb has no intention of doing that until she’s dead. After that, itwill be his word against hers—but by then, my Miss Kathie will bepacked away, burned to ash and interred with Loverboyand Oliver “Red” Drake, Esq., and all theempty champagne bottles, the dead soldiers, within her crypt.

The solution is simple, I tell her. All MissKathie needs to do is live a long, long life. The answer is … to simplynot die.

And pushing the manuscript pages across thechessboard, shoving them at me, Miss Kathie says, “Oh, Hazie, I wish itwere that simple.”

Printed, centered across the title page, itsays:Love Slave: A Very Intimate Memoir of My Life with Kate Kenton

Copyright and author, Webster Carlton Westward III

This is no partial story, says Miss Kathie.This draft already includes a final chapter. Pulling the ream of paperback to her side of the table, she flips over the stack of pages andturns the last few faceup. Near the ending, her voice lowered to a faintwhisper, only then does she begin to read aloud, saying, “ ‘On thefinal day of Katherine Kenton’s life, she dressed with particularcare.…’ ”

As old men slap clocks to make them stop.

My Miss Kathie whispers to me the detailsabout how, soon, she would die.