Tell-All

important.
    Oliver “Red” Drake, Esq. , was another story. The founder of a steel smelting empire, only he possessed the resources to marry my Miss Kathie and give her a life at home, a passel of children, reduce her to the status of a Gene Tierney hausfrau … which is the Italian word for
loser
. Steel would buy her away from the larger world the way the Grimaldi family bought Grace Kelly , and I would be left with nothing to show for my effort.
    Every husband had been a step forward in her career, but Oliver Drake represented a step forward in her personal life. By the time they’d met, Miss Kathie could no longer play the ingénue, which is Spanish for
slut
. The future meant scratching for character roles, featured cameos shot on location in obscure places. Instead of the glory of playing Mrs. Little Lord Fauntleroy or Mrs. Wizard of Oz , Miss Kathie would take billing in third place as the mother of Captain Ahab or the maiden aunt of John the Baptist .
    Poised at that difficult fork in life, Miss Kathie was looking for an easier path.
    It was so enormously selfish of her. The life’s work of writers and directors, artists and press agents had built this pedestal she was tempted to abandon. There were larger things at stake than love and peace. The independent, pioneering role model for millions was leaving the stage. A legend seemed about to retire. Thus the tycoon’s apparent death by suicide would preserve a cultural icon.
    It was no difficult task to persuade several top film executives and directors to testify to Mr. Drake’s depressed state of mind. Some of Hollywood’s biggest names swore that Drake often spoke of ending his own life by cyanide. In that manner, the film community was able to retain one of its brightest investments.
    In the flashback, we see the ugly girl wend her way closer to the pretty one. With a studied, rehearsed nonchalance the homely girl stumbles into contact with the beauty. Jostling her, the clumsy beast says, “Gosh, I’m sorry.…”
    The mob mills around them, that crowd of pretty anonymous faces. The Hay Bale Queen . The Sweet Onion Princess . Lovely, forgettable faces, born to flirt and fuck and die.
    All those years and decades ago, the beauty smiles that astonishing smile, saying, “My name’s Kathie.” She says, “Really it’s Katherine.” Offering her hand, she says, “Katherine Kenton.”
    Every movie star is a slave to someone.
    Even the masters serve their own masters.
    As if in friendly greeting, the beast offers her own hand in return, saying, “Pleased to meet you. I’m Hazie Coogan.”
    And the two young women join hands.

ACT III, SCENE FIVE
    We slowly dissolve back to the present. The mise-en-scène: the daytime interior of a basement kitchen in the town house of Katherine Kenton; arranged along the upstage wall: an electric stove, an icebox, a door to the alleyway, a dusty window in said door. A narrow stairway leads up to the second floor. Still carved in the window glass, we see the heart from Loverboy ’s arrival as a puppy, oh, scenes and scenes ago.
    In the foreground, I sit on a white-painted kitchen chair with my feet propped on a similar white-painted table, my legs crossed at the ankle; my hands turn the pages of yet another screenplay. Open across my lap is a screenplay about Lillian Hellman starring Lillian Hellman written by Lillian Hellman .
    Upstage, Miss Kathie’s feet appear on the steps which descend from the second floor. Her pink slippers. The hem of her pink dressing gown. The gown flutters, revealing aflash of smooth thigh. Her hands appear, one clutching a ream of paper, her other hand clutching a wad of black fabric. Even before her face appears in the doorway, her voice calls, “Hazie …” Almost a shout, her voice says, “Someone telephoned me, just now, from the animal hospital.”
    On the page, Lilly Hellman runs faster than a speeding bullet. She’s more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
    Standing in the doorway, Miss Kathie holds the black fabric, the ream of papers. She says, “Loverboy did not die from eating chocolates …” and she throws the black fabric onto the kitchen table. There the fabric lies, creating a face of two empty eyes and an open mouth. It’s a ski mask, identical to the one described in Love Slave , worn by the Yakuza assassin wielding the ice pick.
    Miss Kathie says, “The very nice veterinarian explained to me that Loverboy was