Free Lillian and Dash by Sam Toperoff

about it, everything,” Phil said. “You haven’t even basked.”
    Myra, who happened to be in the kitchen, called out, “Don’t humor the girl. She’s basking in silence. That’s the worst kind of basking to have to listen to.”
    They didn’t speak very much as they ate the best Stroganoff in Southern California and drank a good Napa Valley burgundy. The bread and cheese were French, the dessert a baked Alaska. “Jee-sus,” Hammett said to the ceiling, “this woman could possibly cuisine her way into heaven … Brava, Myra Ewbank.”
    At dinner there were toasts to Lillian’s success, and to future successes, to Myra’s wonderful meal, to friendship, and to more good work by all and bigger paychecks. Mostly the after-dinner talk was of the movie business. The transition came when Myra wondered aloud about something Lillian had been thinking for a while: Could there be a way to adapt her play about a possible lesbian affair into a film? “Not while Louie B. draws breath” was Myra’s opinion.
    “Imagine,” said Lilly, “this from the genius who made that little redheaded tramp into a charmer? Turned Emma Bovary into Old Faithful.”
    Myra said, “Your two ladies truly love one another. And that’s a Mayer taboo writ large. Only thing I can think of worse is maybe cannibalism.”
    Hammett said, “Bite your tongue, Lill.”
    Phil steered the conversation to the various projects in the works at the studio, not only what he and Myra were working on—he on some
Grand Hotel
dialogue; she on a first draft of
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
—but also about what future projects looked intriguing. “That’s how they get us hooked,” he said. “You go round and round always thinkingthere’s a bigger, more wonderful brass ring coming on the next turn.”
    “Sure, the ring shines, but it’s never gold. In fact, by the time you grab it, it’s usually not even brass. The real attraction is the check that comes when the carousel stops.” Hammett wished he hadn’t said it. “That’s the only gold there is.”
    “Did you see the numbers on
The Thin Man
?” Phil asked. “In the stratosphere.”
    “You didn’t tell me,” Lilly said.
    “Didn’t know.” Dash downed his burgundy.
    “Word is,” said Myra, “they’re going to make at least three more.
The Thin Man Picks His Nose … The Thin Man’s Fly Is Open … The Thin Man Wipes His Arse
 …”
    “When it rains on you two, it really rains on you two.”
    Dash said, “In the words of the ole Negro spiritual, ‘So when we gonna get dat Rolls-Royce car?’ ”
    Lilly could tell that Dash had been told nothing about possible
Thin Man
sequels and that wasn’t a good thing. Could they be squeezing him out? By way of changing the subject, she said, “I see the studio optioned Hemingway’s short stories. Who’s going to get first crack at that?”
    Phil: “How about Hemingway his own self?”
    “Get out of here. The great man deigning to corrupt his art with a movie? For two bits a pop in crummy theaters? That’s not the Papa I’ve been drinking with.” Lilly turned to Dash. “Tell them about the spoon.”
    “No.”
    And Dash meant no, so Lillian told how one night at Ratoff’s Hemingway was particularly obnoxious and challenged Dash to bend a spoon inside his elbow by flexing his upper and lower arm muscles. “Dash said he didn’t do party tricks, nor did he ever fight—present company included—just for the hell of it. But if Hemingway wanted trouble all he’d have to do was lay a hand on him. Then the two of them stared at one another for the longest time. I thought, there’s a puffed-up African silverback and a lean, hungry tiger, and it’s a stalemate. At the end of it all, Hemingway called out to the crowd to step up and watch how he could bend the spoon.”
    Hammett raised his empty glass. “Still, you have to tip your hat to the guy. He may not be Dostoyevsky but he has this powerful trick of making cardboard