I nodded; Madeleine groaned, Ramona Sprague winced and speared a potato. Emmett said, “My old dreamer friend Georgie Tilden taxidermied him. Scads of odd talents dreamer Georgie had. We were in a Scots regiment together during the war, and I saved Georgie’s life when a bunch of your fine German countrymen got obstreperous and charged us with bayonets. Georgie was enamored of the flickers; he loved a good nickelodeon show. We went back to Aberdeen after the armistice, saw what a dead dog town it was, and Georgie persuaded me to come to California with him—he wanted to work in the silent flicker business. He was never worth a damn unless I was there to lead him around by the snout, so I looked around Aberdeen, saw that it was a third-class destiny and said, ‘Aye, Georgie, California it is. Maybe we’ll strike rich. And if we don’t, we’ll fail where the sun always shines.’“

I thought of my old man, who came to America in 1908 with big dreams—but married the first German emigrant woman he met and settled for wage slavery with Pacific Gas and Electric. “What happened then?”

Emmett Sprague rapped the table with his fork. “Knock wood, it was the right time to arrive. Hollywood was a cow pasture, but the silents were moving into their heyday. Georgie got work as a lighting man, and I found work building damn good houses—damn good and cheap. I lived outdoors and put every damn good dime back into my business, then took out loans from every bank and shylock willing to lend money and bought damn good property—damn good and cheap. Georgie introduced me to Mack Sennett, and I helped him build sets out at his studio in Edendale, then touched him for a loan to buy more property. Old Mack knew a lad on the make when he saw one, being one himself. He gave me the loan on the proviso that I help him with that housing project he was putting up—Hollywoodland—underneath that godawful hundred-foot sign he erected on Mount Lee to ballyhoo it. Old Mack knew how to squeeze a dollar dry, he did. He had extras moonlighting as laborers and vice versa. I’d drive them over to Hollywoodland after ten or twelve hours on a Keystone Kops flicker, and we’d put in another six hours by torchlight. I even got an assistant director’s credit on a couple of movies, old Mack was so grateful for the way I squeezed his slaves.”

Madeleine and Ramona were picking at their food with sullen faces, like they’d been captive audiences to the story before; Martha was still drawing, staring intently at me, her captive. “What happened to your friend?” I asked.

“God bless him, but for every story of success there’s a corresponding one of failure. Georgie didn’t butter up the right people. He didn’t have the drive to complement his God-given talent, and he just fell by the wayside. He was disfigured in a car crash back in ‘36, and now he’s what you might call a never was. I give him odd jobs tending some of my rental property and he does some rubbish hauling for the city—”

I heard a sharp screechy sound, and looked across the table. Ramona had missed stabbing a potato, and her fork had slid off the plate. Emmett said, “Mother, are you feeling well? Is the food to your liking?”

Ramona stared in her lap and said, “Yes, Father”; it looked like Martha was bracing her elbow. Madeleine went back to playing footsie with me; Emmett said, “Mother, you and our certified genius have not been doing a very good job of entertaining our guest. Would you care to participate in the conversation?”

Madeleine dug her toes into my ankle—just as I was about to try to lighten things up with a joke. Ramona Sprague forked herself a small mouthful of food, chewed it daintily and said, “Did you know that Ramona Boulevard was named after me, Mr. Bleichert?”

The woman’s out-of-kilter face congealed around the words; she spoke them with a strange dignity. “No, Mrs. Sprague, I didn’t know that. I thought it was named after the Ramona Pageant.”

“I was named after the pageant,” she said. “When Emmett married me for my father’s money he promised my family that he would use his influence with the City Zoning Board to have a street named after me, since all his money was tied up in real estate and he couldn’t afford to buy me a wedding ring. Father assumed it would be a nice residential street, but all Emmett could manage was a dead-end block in a red light district in Lincoln Heights. Are you familiar with the neighborhood, Mr. Bleichert?” Now the doormat’s voice held an edge of fury.

“I grew up there,” I said.

“Then you know that Mexican prostitutes expose themselves out of windows to attract customers. Well, after Emmett succeeded in getting Rosalinda Street changed to Ramona Boulevard he took me for a little tour there. The prostitutes greeted him by name. Some even had anatomical nicknames for him. It made me very sad and very hurt, but I bided my time and got even. When the girls were small I directed my own little pageants, right outside on our front lawn. I used the neighbor’s children as extras and reenacted episodes out of Mr. Sprague’s past that he would rather forget. That he would—”

The head of the table was slammed; glasses toppled and plates rattled. I stared at my lap to give the family infighters back some of their dignity and saw that Madeleine was gripping her father’s knee so hard that her fingers were blue-white. She grabbed my knee with her free hand—with ten times the strength I thought she’d be capable of. An awful silence stretched, then Ramona Cathcart Sprague said, “Father, I’ll sing for my supper when Mayor Bowron or Councilman Tucker comes to dinner, but not for Madeleine’s male whores. A common policeman. My God, Emmett, how little you think of me.”

I heard chairs scraping the floor, knees bumping the table, then footsteps moving out of the dining room; I saw that my hand was gripping Madeleine’s the same way I curled it into an eight-ounce glove. The brass girl was whispering, “I’m sorry, Bucky. I’m sorry.” Then a cheery voice said, “Mr. Bleichert?” and I looked up because it sounded so happy and sane.

It was Martha McConville Sprague, holding out a piece of paper. I took it with my free hand; Martha smiled and walked away. Madeleine was still muttering apologies when I looked at the picture. It was the two of us, both naked. Madeleine had her legs spread. I was between them, gnawing at her with giant Bucky Bleichert teeth.

We took the Packard down to hot sheet row on South La Brea. I drove, and Madeleine had the smarts not to talk until we passed a cinderblock auto court called the Red Arrow Inn. Then she said, “Here. It’s clean.”

I parked beside a line of pre-war jalopies; Madeleine went to the office and returned with the key to room eleven. She opened the door; I flicked on the wall light.

The flop was done up in dreary shades of brown and reeked of its previous inhabitants. I heard a dope sale being transacted in number twelve; Madeleine started to look like the caricature in her sister’s drawing. I reached for the light switch to blot it all out. She said, “No. Please, I want to see you.”

The narco sale burst into an argument. I saw a radio on the dresser and turned it on; an ad for Gorton’s Slenderline Shop ate up the angry words. Madeleine pulled off her sweater and removed her nylons standing up; she was down to her undergarments before I began fumbling at my clothes. I snagged the zipper stepping out of my trousers; I ripped a shirt seam unhitching my shoulder holster. Then Madeleine was naked on the bed—and the kid sister’s picture was obliterated.

I was nude inside of a second and joined with the brass girl inside of two. She muttered something like, “Don’t hate my family, they’re not bad,” and I silenced her with a hard kiss. She returned it; our lips and tongues played until we had to break for breath. I ran my hands down to her breasts, cupping and kneading; Madeleine gasped little words about making up for the other Spragues. The more I kissed and felt and tasted her and the more she loved it, the more she murmured about them—so I grabbed her hair and hissed, “Not them, me. Do me, be with me.”