The Alexandria lobby was home to a twenty-seven-foot-long Sultanabad with a deep-blue frame and red interior, decorated with yellow flowers and intricate latticework vines, and its quality was mediocre. Knots came loose, rips appeared in it and were poorly sewn together, only to rip once again the next time someone tripped across it. However, so many film producers had shaken hands on deals here, the awful Sultanabad was known as the million-dollar carpet. It was one of the first objects that Hollywood had grown attached to, and so, every evening, a girl handy with needle and thread undertook another patch job.

This morning, a Sunday, the dining room was officially closed. However, a secret memorandum had been sent to the highest levels at the studios. A partnership-agreement draft proposal had been approved, a massive merger program that would create a $250-million corporation. In the collapse of Europe, and with it the European film industry, America had stepped in with a superior product that would now, starting today, flow with more efficiency than ever. There were also unstated goals: controlling the feisty actors and the writers and directors who acted.

Zukor had quietly booked the Alexandria dining room for the announcement, which was to occur over breakfast. Outside of the men standing with him, and their assistants, news of the meeting was supposed to have a quality that did not yet have a name. It was supposed to be both secret and known to all, and thus seasoned with primordial fear, like the true name of God.

But the doors of the Alexandria were not open, and ten minutes had already passed. The sidewalk outside was buzzing. Here was Goldwyn, looking nervous and about to explode into tears of joy; and there was William Fox, who spoke to no one; and next to him a fatigued-looking Albert Smith of Vitagraph; and then Carl Laemmle and Merrill Montgomery of Universal; Al Christie of Christie Studios; Robert Lieber of the First National Exhibitors’ Circuit, NYC; Charles Eyton of Lasky; Maxwell Karger, director general of Metro; David Bernstein of Loews; Morris Kohn, president and treasurer of Realart; and of course Zukor himself, who had thought to bring bodies with him: Jesse Lasky (Famous Players–Lasky), Emil Shauer (assistant treasurer), Elek Ludvigh (from the old country, assistant secretary), four general managers, two production managers, three business managers. There were perhaps fifty people on the sidewalk, not one of them an actor. In other words, had a family from Omaha set down their bags and wandered among them, not a single face would have been familiar.

Captains of industry, they were on the cusp of their largest triumph. If only they could get into the hotel.

“Can you explain the meaning of this?” asked someone; it hardly mattered who. “Why are the doors blocked?”