“We don’t have one. I liked Elmer Bernstein, but Leon nixed him as a Red. Personally, I don’t give a good goddamn what people’s politics are. Let the Reds sit in their little cells and plot world revolution or an Easter egg hunt for all I care, but for Leon, you’re Red, you’re dead.” Gordon turned to me. “Give me some hope here, Roxanne. You’re the one who learned at the feet of the masters.”

This time he said it without irony or underlying sarcasm, and I was taken aback. “It’s not a question of story. It’s a question of image. If only Denise didn’t look so vampy when she’s supposed to be a scientific mind who devised this scientific plan to get her scientific man. How can you fix that?”

“If I could answer that question, I wouldn’t be drinking heavily.” He opened his bottle of Pepto-Bismol. “The premiere is already set—a gala premiere at the Griffith Observatory in February.”

“How did you get the Observatory to agree to that?” I asked, impressed.

“The Leon and Denise Greene Endowment, a cool million dollars.”

“A million dollars!” My jaw dropped to think of anyone just giving away that much money.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t my idea. I can tell you that. It’s part of the publicity budget.”

I let that sink in for a few minutes.

“Yes, ladies,” he added, “the cool million came from the studio, not from Leon personally.”

“Jean Arthur would have slain them in this role,” I offered by way of nothing.

“You’re living in the past. No one in Hollywood can afford to live in the past.”

“Well, it’s late, and I’m going home,” said Phil. “I’ll deal with this tomorrow.”

“In Banner Headline,” said Gordon, when he and I and Irene were left alone, “Denise’s character was supposed to be a little harebrained—sweet, but not a great mind. This character . . . this film . . .” He coughed, a nasty, wracking cough, and stubbed out the cigarette.

“You shouldn’t smoke, honey,” said Irene. “It’s bad for your ulcer.”

“Denise Dell is killing me.”

“Could you re-record her voice, maybe? Get someone else to speak her lines?” asked Irene.

“So we could call it Singin’ in the Lab and have Gene Kelly dance?”

“The problem’s not with the lines,” I said, “it’s with the mouth they come out of. Could you do some reshoots?”

“We can’t reshoot, Denise is pregnant,” said Irene as Gordon and I gasped in unison.

“Jesus Christ all Friday H!” he cried.

My heart knotted in my throat, and my mind whirled. The child of my grandfather . . . My aunt? My uncle? A squalling infant aunt or uncle? My grandfather fathered a baby? “I can’t make myself believe this. Denise and Leon can’t be having a baby!”