A multitude did. Within the quarter-hour a stag party had takeheapartment, several of them in uniform. I ted two Naval officers and an Air Forceel; but they were outnumbered by graying arrivals beyond draft status. Exceptfor a lack of youth, the guests had no on theme, they seemed strangersamong strangers; indeed, each face, oering, had struggled to ceal dismay atseeing others there. It was as if the hostess had distributed her invitations whilezigzagging through various bars; which robably the case. After the initialfrowns, however, they mixed without grumbling, especially O.J. Berman, who avidlyexploited the new pany to avoid discussing my Hollywood future. I was leftabandoned by the bookshelves; of the books there, more than half were abouthorses, the rest baseball. Pretending an i in Horseflesh and How to Tell Itgave me suffitly private opportunity for sizing Hollys friends.
Presently one of these became promi. He was a middle-aged child that hadnever shed its baby fat, though some gifted tailor had almost succeeded incamouflaging his plump and spankable bottom. There wasnt a suspi of bone inhis body; his face, a zero filled in with pretty miniature features, had an unused, avirginal quality: it was as if hed been born, then expanded, his skin remainingunlined as a blown-up balloon, and his mouth, though ready for squalls andtantrums, a spoiled sweet puckering. But it was not appearahat singled him out;preserved infants arent all that rare. It was, rather, his duct; for he wasbehaving as though the party were his: like aic octopus, he was shakingmartinis, making introdus, manipulating the phonograph. In fairness, most ofhis activities were dictated by the hostess herself: Rusty, would you mind; Rusty,would you please. If he was in love with her, then clearly he had his jealousy incheck. A jealous man might have lost trol, watg her as she skimmed aroundthe room, carrying her cat in one hand but leaving the other free thten a tieor remove lapel lint; the Air Force el wore a medal that came in for quite apolish.
The mans name was Rutherfurd ("Rusty") Trawler. In 1908 hed lost both hisparents, his father the victim of an anarchist and his mother of shock, which doublemisfortune had made Rusty an orphan, a millionaire, and a celebrity, all at the age offive. Hed been a stand-by of the Sunday supplements ever since, a seque had gathered hurrie momentum when, still a schoolboy, he had caused hisgodfather-custodian to be arrested on charges of sodomy. After that, marriage anddivorce sustained his pla the tabloid-sun. His first wife had taken herself, andher alimony, to a rival of Father Divihe sed wife seems unated for,but the third had sued him in New York State with a full satchel of the kind oftestimony that entails. He himself divorced the last Mrs. Trawler, his principalplaint stating that shed started a mutiny aboard his yacht, said mutiingin his being deposited on the Dry Tas. Though hed been a bachelor since,apparently before the war hed proposed to Unity Mitford, at least he was supposedto have sent her a cable to marry her if Hitler didnt. This was said to be thereason Winchell always referred to him as a Nazi; that, and the fact that he attendedrallies in Yorkville.
I was not told these things. I read them in The Baseball Guide, another seleoff Hollys shelf which she seemed to use for a scrapbook. Tucked between the pageswere Sunday features, together with scissored snippings from gossip ns. RustyTrawler a