1

244 miles south of San Francisco, 263 miles north of Los Angeles, there lies a soil path littered with gravel stones wedged in the mud. On one end, it opens into the Pacific Ocean – pelicans the size of children’s strollers soaring high above the water. Where low tide hugs sand and bathes sand crabs. On the other end, the path leads skyward.

Gnarled branches of the oak lunge out, tendrils of a temptress along the roadside. There are hundreds, thousands, clustered together – dark green bunches against bright brown brush. Inside the trees, woodpeckers tap and bluejays coo and squirrels dash. The leaves of jasmine bushes tickle the trunks of the oaks, along with lively ferns and quaking milkweed, taking their stake in the land of gold. In the land of dreams. Setting anchors to the core of the earth to avoid getting swept away. Quail, sparrows, and groundhogs dart across the path at varying speeds with varying intent.

The path continues to press up to the sun, weaving through mountains, snaking past sheds and homesteads to heights unknown. With the ocean far below now, gulls look like floating dandelion seeds. The path tunnels through one ornate, gold-encrusted gate. And then another. And then one more. Greco-Roman busts and headstones stand firm next to the borders. Another mile up, another dozen left turns and a half-dozen right ones, sharp and slanted, the path continued its ascent.

Growls and grumbles echo across ryegrass and folding poppies. They come from a caged grizzly, a caged lion, a caged tiger. Beneath the snarls, ivory hooves clack against unfamiliar ground. They come from a caged giraffe, a caged elephant, a caged moose. Mere yards from the edges of the path, these sounds arise. Upward, the path goes.

Another turn, and another. One hundred yards the path travels, turning from dirt to stone, from stone to marble. The path ends, and it appears. The castle. With steeples and spires that talk to the stars. With pools that lead from Earth to the River of Life. Fountains make music out of the silence. The buildings all come together like one thousand Spanish Missions, like two thousand Medieval bell towers. Statues pose and stare, with curious looks that shout sweet whispers at all that are living down below.

In that castle, lived two very angry men.

2

William Randolph Hearst sits in his darkened, satin-covered theater with gold floral trim that glimmers, bordered with gargoyles in thinking man postures along the exits. Draped from sky-tall ceilings, curtains sag. Film reels tick. Film screens stutter, stammer, lumber on lazily in the late night haze – so thick, with the pollen of summer, so thick, with the throngs of forced anticipation, so thick, with the wisps of cigarette smoke that snake their way through stale air to the moon.

To his immediate right sits his wife, Millicent. To her immediate right, three seats in between sits Charlie Chaplin. Two rows behind sits Marilyn Monroe. On her right shoulder sits Charles Lindbergh.

William Randolph Hearst picks up the phone attached to the left side of the chair. His fingers tumble the dial, forcing a crank. His projectionist, forehead dotted with perspiration – picks up the phone. “Lavetti,” said Hearst.

“Yes, sir,” said the projectionist.

“What did I tell you, Lavetti?”

“Sir?”

“About tonight. What did I tell you?”

The reels continue to crank. Click click click.

“You said you wanted something cheery.”

“No.”

“Sir?”

“I said I wanted something upbeat.”

The projectionist wiped his cheek with the side of his palm. “The picture picks up at the 22-minute mark, sir. I hate to spoil the story.”

William Randolph Hearst hunched over, pressing his top lip to the knob of the receiver. “You’re putting,” he spat, “our guests to sleep, you buffoon. Upbeat. Cheery. Now!”

The projectionist sat inside the booth, staring into the receiver. He looked at the screen to see pictures puttering from slide to slide. Feathery hats and glitter-specked heels did the Charleston across the screen to the sound of the pianist, who was burrowed into the far left corner of the stage covered in shadows. Marques was his name. The root note of the chords tonight was a little light, for Marques hurt his left ring finger badly last week moving Hearst’s Ottoman from the East Wing study to the Main Study. One might’ve sworn some of the bones broke. The projectionist looked back at the telephone, then to the little-big audience before him. As he did, he saw that Mrs. Hearst wore the same hat as the extra dancing on the screen.

---

Susie Winter, kitchen staff: I’d never seen a man move quite so fast.

Sasha Vintillo, kitchen staff: Like a ghost.

Susie: In.

Sasha: And out.

Susie: Like a flash of light, the projectionist jumped out of the booth.

Sasha: Before you could count to three he’d already jumped on Charlie Chaplin.

Susie: Oh, I could barely look.

Sasha: My poor little ears. Those screams.

Jackson Swan, hall boy: That’s when the blood shot everywhere. Up into the air.

Virgil O’Neal, hall boy: It didn’t shoot. It gushed, more or less.

Jackson: Could’ve sworn it shot.

Virgil: The other guy got it even worse.

Jackson: Who was the other guy?

Susie: Lindbergh. That’s when he turned and ran towards Lindbergh.

Sasha: With Chaplin just dying right there on the ground.

Susie: That wheezing. That’s when the screams got really loud.

Sasha: Piercing.

Jackson: Whoever he was running after could move like a deer. He jumped over the theater seats like a frog.

Virgil: Not for long though, with how close the projectionist was on his heels.

Tomas Luchato, hospitality staff: That asshole hit me square in the chest.

Lucio Zuniga, hospitality staff: You got rocked, Tomas.

Tomas: Anyone would’ve. He was running fast. Then, before I could help the guy up–

Lucio: The new guy came running in with a knife.

Tomas: Already bloody.

Lucio: Bloody as hell. Then he hacked the guest’s head in.

Tomas: You screamed.

Lucio: Not as loud as you.

Tomas: It was close.

Susie: That’s when we heard a scream from the lobby. Lucio, I think it was.

Sasha: Tomas, I thought.

Susie: Either way, the second I turned around I saw a body tumble down – BAM!

Sasha: Like a bag of rocks.

Susie: Straight to the ground. Lindbergh was gone. Oh, that sweet man.

Sasha: He was only sweet to you because you never wear your wedding ring.

Susie: Oh, and to think I could’ve been flying around the world with him. Far away from San Luis Obispo.

Lucio: I ran into the theater then.

Tomas: We both did. I thought it’d be less than a minute before Mr. Hearst started shooting.

Lucio: He has guns in the theater?

Tomas: In damn near every room. A rifle. In the chests.

Lucio: Ohh. The chests.

Susie: The minute he killed Marilyn I couldn’t bear to watch it any longer.

Sasha: We made a beeline right for our quarters.

Mo McCreedy, landscape team: I was trimming the hedges in the East Wing, Floor Side B when I heard the screeching. One of ‘em sounded like a banshee. The other like a schoolboy getting spanked raw from the Headmaster. I put the scissors down on the grass, poked my head through the back door to get a good look at the commotion. Once I saw Mrs. Hearst on the ground, covering her sweet little head like a shield from a grenade in the trenches I thought the day’d finally come. I thought the day where one of those bat-shit oblivious celebrities and diplomat-of-this or author-of-that had finally cracked. Had finally given Mr. Hearst, God-bless-‘em, a bash or butt or crack…it was fuckin’ inevitable the way he ran his mouth. I picked my scissors back up, then headed inside. Or, slid silently inside is more like it, as I crouched behind the back row of the theater tip-toeing as best as I could manage. I heard another shout, another crash like china against brick. I lift my head, hands gripping the shears tight as a bear trap. That’s when I saw who really was causing all the commotion, all the raucousness. It was Arthur fuckin’ Lavetti! The projectionist. Guess but six months was all it took for that to happen. I was always nice to Arthur. We’d light pipe together and talk film. He bein’ Hollywood-trained and all. We grew up only a few blocks from each other in Bushwick – go figure. Anyway, me bein’ a Mick I went out the back then. Whatever disagreement that happened between Hearst and Arthur wouldn’t require my services. No one saw I was there beside me and the great Mother Mary.

3

William Randolph Hearst, mouth drooping from hysteria, sprinted out of his home theater screeching like a wounded calf. Arthur Lavetti trotted closely behind him, breathing only a tick or two faster than at rest. On the East Wing parlor wall, adorning the insignia of a family crest hung a sword two yards tall, proudly on display. A wooden step ladder rested against the wall right below it. All was quiet in that room as Mr. Hearst staggered through the oaken double doors that separated it from the hall. In a few echoing steps, he was out of the room and into the first-floor den and all was quiet inside the parlor again until Mr. Lavetti entered. In a flash and a few full-bodied tugs, he was up and off the step ladder, sword in hand. On the opposite wall hung trophied elk heads, which Mr. Lavetti pulled down using the same step ladder. It took thirteen blows of the sword to fully hack off the nose and eyes and neck of the taxidermied elk head.

The doors of the den swung open, and the lamplight cast shadows and silhouettes across floor and air. Appearing through the darkness, Mr. Lavetti wore the horns and tattered head of the elk like a crown. An armchair and its accompanying velvet pillows lay strewn on the ground of the otherwise spotless den. Silent portraits framed with gold and Corinthian arches seemed to stare. Mr. Lavetti looked at the north-facing door to find it closed, the east-facing door to find it closed, and then the west-facing door to find it cracked. On he went.

It wasn’t until he was halfway down the hallway that Mr. Hearst realized he should’ve gone through the eastward door. Construction had finally wrapped on the first-floor dance parlor Millicent had been asking him about for a dozen years. That would’ve given him a straight shot to the southern staircase which would’ve given him a straight shot to the trap and skeet range. Now he’d have to go through the pool room and hope Lavetti didn’t cut off his access. He lumbered through the hallway, recognizing some paintings and finding others new.

---

4

June 14ᵗʰ 1921: Played Buster Keaton’s The Playhouse for post-dinner picture and The Boat for final evening picture. Mr. Hearst’s notes: Too comical for guests.

June 17ᵗʰ, 1921: Played Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris for post-dinner picture and Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage for final evening picture. Mr. Hearst’s notes: Second picture too dark for Millicent this far from Halloween.

June 21ˢᵗ, 1921: Played Fritz Lang’s Destiny for post-dinner picture and Marcel L’Herbier’s L’Homme du Large for final evening show. Mr. Hearst notes: First was ‘fantastic’, second was ‘egregious’. Be careful of French films when British guests are present. Mrs. Hearst finally shared the guest visit event calendar with me.

June 26ᵗʰ, 1921: Played Abel Gance’s J’accuse and Mauritz Stiller’s Erotikon. Hearst notes: Left the room. Note: Have three-pronged contingency plan with different paths for run-of-show based on Mr. Hearst’s temperament that day: glum, grim, ecstatic.

June 30ᵗʰ, 1921: Happy birthday, Lily.

July 19ᵗʰ, 1921: Amendment to three-pronged contingency plan: add in ‘short-tempered’ to the list of possible paths.

July 27ᵗʰ, 1921: Mr. Hearst cannot stand Erich von Stroheim. DO NOT PLAY AGAIN.

July 31ˢᵗ 1921: Carl Riggins in the paper today for premiere. Give him a call to congratulate.

August 14ᵗʰ, 1921: Take out ‘ecstatic’ bucket from four-pronged three-pronged contingency plan.

August 19ᵗʰ, 1921: Happy anniversary, darling.

5

When Mr. Hearst burst through the doors to the pool room, his face was nearly blue. Statues of bronze and silver lined the walls of the room – and the sound of the fountains swallowed up his panting like rain to flame. His eyes met the great glass windows above the backdoor opposite him. In between stretched fifty yards of crystal water baths, fashioned with Spanish tiles of orange and green and aquamarine and purple – oscillating, flickering as they changed shapes in the moving water. A moment more, and he raced toward the glass doors.

As he rounded the left corner of the pool, he hit a wet spot (left behind from a pre-cinema soirée). Unable to regain balance, Mr. Hearst fell into the pool. As the flailing of arms and legs against water resounded, Arthur broke through the entrance. And in only a few strides he was at the pool’s edge. Mr. Hearst, trying to hoist himself from the water to the poolside, let out a howl from deep, deep, deep within when he saw Lavetti cutting the air with his family sword. The blade whistled a tune of terror as Arthur slashed. The startle he gave Hearst threw him back into the pool.

As Mr. Hearst rubbed away the water from his eyes, the man in the torn elk head hopped from the ground above down into the pool. Arthur waded toward him, keeping the sword above water. Hearst kicked his legs, pushing himself further into the center of the bath.

“Arthur!” he shouted, breathless. “What do you want, Arthur?”

Arthur swung the blade against the water, forcing waves to splash through the air down on Hearst.

“Arthur, please! Why this? What happened?” He was shrieking now, drowning out the bellowing trickle of the fountains. Mr. Lavetti sent another flood of waves toward Hearst with a swing. “I can give you whatever you want!”

Hearst contorted his face into one of beckoning, holding up his hands in submission. That’s when Arthur charged through the water with force – elk horns pointing down. Mr. Hearst dashed to the closest edge of the pool then and grabbed it. As he did, a glint of steel flashed through the air and cut off his left pointer finger from skin and bone. The finger dropped into the water with the faintest thud, like a child flicking a nickel into a wishing well. Strands of red turned to pillows like a storm cloud as the lonely finger settled on the surface of the pool.

Mr. Lavetti stood in the water, still as stone. Climbing onto higher ground now, Hearst rolled on his back and scrambled to his feet – holding his wounded hand with his free one as it bloodied his white button-up and brown trousers. He tottered forward, bursting through the glass doors into the East Wing courtyard.

6

“I hadn’t been working here for more than a month, Keri,” said Savannah Larke, folding clothes inside the North Wing chambers.

“I’m surprised it took them that long if I was to be frank with ye,” said Keri O’ Cooley, laying down another perfectly manicured pair of trousers.

“You’ve been roped into it in your day then?” Savannah asked.

“In my day? Child. Oh, child,” Keri sighed.

“What’s the fuss in here?” Clara Kavanaugh said, entering the room, mop, and bucket in hand.

Savannah turned, eyes wide. “I was just explainin’ to Keri what happened to me in my very own quarters–”

“Hush now, will ye?” Keri said, nodding to Clara, who shut the door.

Voice lowered, Savannah continued, “I was in my quarters trying to sleep as it was the third of the month.”

“The same quarters you’re in now?” Clara asked.

“Yes. Same ones,” Savannah said. “Anyway, I couldn’t fall asleep for a while, to begin with–with the guests being in and out of the outdoor pool. Shouting and yelling and drinking, so I put a pillow over my head and I drifted off before long. After a bit I awakened to more noise, only this time it was more than just regular old screamin’.”

Clara shot a glance at Keri, who pursed her lips. Savannah caught the last bit. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Clara said.

“That look.”

“I didn’t give a look.”

“That was a look if I’ve ever seen a look,” said Savannah.

“That’s my face,” said Clara.

“‘Twasn’t.”

“That’s how my face looks. A twitch every now and again. Wouldn’t you say, Keri?”

“As long as I’ve known Clara, she’s had a twitch,” Keri said.

“Alright then. Anyway, there was a loud,” Savannah leaned in closer, almost whispering, “moaning. Right outside my door.”

“Oh, Lord,” Clara said.

“I didn’t know what to make of it at first. And in my dreamlike state, I probably wasn’t in my sharpest condition, so I waited a bit longer, but it didn’t stop. It only grew louder. That’s when I got up and headed to my door–”

“No,” Clara said.

“I did,” said Savannah. “What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know.”

Clara and Keri locked eyes again.

“There’s that look I’m talkin’ about.”

“Twitch,” Keri and Clara said together.

Savannah scoffed. “So I open my door, and what do I see? Mr. Hearst’s bare ass!”

“Hush now!” Keri shouted, eyes darting toward the window.

Savannah, under her breath, went on, “Mr. Hearst in front of my door, but a few feet away from it, stark naked with two women around him, also naked. My mouth dropped, then I look even closer and see there’s a third person in front of him. A man! Can you believe it?”

“Did they see you, sweetheart?” asked Clara.

“I think one of them must have. Because after a few moments, once I close the door and jump on my bed, what do I hear but a rap on my door that goes for minutes. I try my best to shut my eyes and feign sleep, but it turns to another before I know it.”

“Oh, child,” Clara said, shaking her head.

“It stopped after a while,” Savannah said.

“The noises?”

“No. The knocking. The noises got even louder – and closer. They seemed to last all night.”

“You poor child,” Clara said, placing a warm palm on Savannah’s shoulder.

7

William Randolph Hearst sprinted across the East Wing grounds.

“Help! Wake up now!” he shouted up to the stars, up to blackened windows and closed blinds.

He continued onward, and soon, Arthur was hot on his trail. On the third floor, Ricardo Suarez, hospitality staff, heard the cries of Mr. Hearst through his cracked window. He leaned over from his bedside and, with a surgeon’s precision, closed the window gently. On the sixth floor, Perry O’Toole, groundskeep staff, heard the cries of Mr. Hearst through his open window. He pulled out his earplugs from his nightstand and drove them far down into his ears. Mark Henson, groundskeep staff, heard the cries of Mr. Hearst through his shut window on the first floor. He pried it open and stuck his head outside to get a better look. Mr. Hearst flapped past but a few yards from the green. One look behind and it became clear who Mr. Hearst was running from. A man wearing an elk mask, whose vein-like horns cast sharp shadows from the moonlight. I’ll be goddamned, thought Mark Henson as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. As his vision clicked from foggy to clear, he and Mr. Hearst’s sights collided.

Hearst’s face contorted into a snarl, his lungs filled like a bagpipe, and bellowed, “Help me, Groundskeeper! For fuck’s sake!”

That’s when Mark Henson snapped to attention, springing up to his feet. Arthur Lavetti, sword twinkling like fizzling stardust, was close behind. Mr. Hearst tilted his head toward the trap and skeet field before sprinting off toward the main courtyard at the top of the mountain. Henson knew what that signal meant. He went to the great wooden chest at the front corner of the field house, frantically searching for the right key, found it, and pried the chest wide open. Moments later, Henson, rifle twinkling like fizzling stardust, was close behind.

---

The courtyard gleamed. The silhouettes of hunchbacked oaks painted against a sky streaked with blue and purple and black. Gusts in this area of the country, Arthur came to observe, had a musicality all their own. They hissed and whirred and rang with crescendos and decrescendos, random and not. It seemed to always intensify in the night. Sometimes, on his walks over the grounds, Arthur was convinced that if he let himself fall backward the wind would hold him up like a hammock. He would look out over the canyon below, and the brush and weeds seemed to tremor, vibrating with a hellish kind of life.

Inside the courtyard stood a statue of granite and marble, a faceless man holding his spindly arms up to the heavens. In submission, in defeat, in acceptance. Fingers, crooked like rigor mortis first catching the bloodstream. Trimmed bushes and carefully placed chrysanthemums held the backdrop. One look up, and you’re staring into the eyes of Hearst Castle’s Main Wing. One more look up, and you’re staring into the eyes of heaven. Arthur Lavetti was but twenty yards from Mr. Hearst when the old, angry man first collapsed in the courtyard. He fell much like the sun on a day of solstice, holding, holding, holding until it drops, fast and full. Arthur Lavetti was but ten yards from Mr. Hearst when he began to lock fingers to sword hilt in both hands, slowly raising the blade above his head. The ends of the elkhorns prodded Arthur’s biceps as he leaned back, rotating his hips and gripping the sword even tighter. That’s when the first shot rang out, sending the ravens and night hawks squawking, fluttering from tree limbs near and far. The bullet felt like a prick against bone, a shock of electricity, Arthur thought. A glance down and he saw the red spread like dye to water. The second bullet didn’t land far behind that one. That’s when Arthur Lavetti got one final look at the statue as the world tossed him onto his back and life faded away – sinking, calm, fluid, like the slowing chatter of the projection box.

8

Dear Arthur

Lily asked about you today. She’s putting together full sentences now. By the time you’re back, I would venture she’ll be up to stories from start to finish. She loves the books you’ve sent. I’ve almost run through our entire shelf at bedtime.

I’m terribly sorry to hear that about Mr. Hearst, my love. He truly does sound like he gets more and more dreadful each and every month. But remember this in times of doubt or frustration. You are the expert. You are the one who has poured in all the hours you have into your craft. A big castle does not grant Mr. Hearst with those skills. Your talent is your own and yours alone. I have a hunch – in Ancient Greece there were the patrons who funded artists like Michaelangelo, among many others. I would bet a good sum of money that those patrons, after seeing the works they funded get such widespread recognition, probably felt they knew better than the artists themselves. They probably felt in large part responsible for the creations, as if they were more than a purse – as if they were more than a banknote, as if they were the ones covered in oil and paint as if they were the ones nursing a sore shoulder from days spent with a hammer and chisel.

Hold tightly onto that, my dear. Remember why you’re there. Remember how very close we are to a better life. You’ll return to Los Angeles with a prestige fit for a king.

With love and yours,

Rebecca