Barnes laughed, “Ha-ha,” as unnaturally as if it were Morse code.

“Mr. Barnes?” Mrs. Franklin Geary leaned forward so far that the feather on her hat almost poked Barnes in the eye.

The house lights went down. Lee Duncan began his audition.

By Lotta’s Fountain, there were bursts of applause from the audience that came with the insistence of a rain dance—if only they clapped long enough, surely the actors would appear. The afternoon shadows had lengthened, and with them came the famous wind that gave the herringbone delta its nickname of Cape Horn.

Hart was restlessly bending and flexing his roping arm, because he had recently taken a fall from his beloved pinto, Fritz. Fairbanks looked impatient and Chaplin deathly ill, though it was hard to guess whether he was more afraid of the crowd or of Mary Pickford. Who was staring at her best friend.

“Frances, have you met Charlie?” she asked, in a way that was remotely singsong.

“We’ve met,” she said.

“Charlie, you’ve met Frances, haven’t you?”

“Why do I call you ‘Bug,’ Bug?” Frances disengaged from her friend and walked away. Mary gazed about as if she had no idea what had just happened.

“Are you all right, Doug?” Chaplin asked.

“I’m the pepper on life’s steak.”

Chaplin smiled at Mary, a smile so tight you could play snare drum across it. “With everything that’s happened, I wanted to know how you are, you and Mary.”

“We don’t need to talk about that,” Doug said. Why not? Charlie wanted to ask. Doug narrowed his eyes. “Say, is there something going on with you and Frances?”

“Doug.” Mary spoke that syllable, and Douglas was struck silent.

“Could I have a last word with you?” McAdoo strolled up. He intended simply to explain the order in which they would appear. He did not mean to burden them with a terrible fact, that the Loan Drive today was not a success. They still needed to raise a great deal of money.

There was sunlight behind him, so it caused them to squint. In a huddle, from noon: Hart, then Chaplin, then Fairbanks at six o’clock, then Pickford, then, with a slight gap, McAdoo. All he could think, as he looked from face to famous face, was “I am taller than all of them.”

“I have some numbers here,” he muttered.

“Are they excellent?” asked Mary.

“We’re at ninety-two percent of two hundred ten million.”

“Well, that’s excellent,” Fairbanks said.

“No, not quite. We should have gone over the top already.”

“I don’t see the problem,” Chaplin said. “This is largely ceremonial, us appearing, isn’t it? What’s the problem if we sell only two hundred million instead of two hundred ten?”