Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2003

“There was a girl... about yea tall. Dark hair. Round face.” His voice trailed off. “We were dancing.”

I stood, my skin as cold as marble. “You must be tired, sir. It’s time to go home.”

He looked at me, his forehead and cheeks white in the spot, his eyes deeply shadowed. Then he glanced behind him as if he’d heard a noise. “I was holding a girl, I could have sworn...”

I rattled my keys. “It’s been a long day, Mr. Astaire. I’ll open the door for you.”

When he was gone, I crossed the cavernous space, past the Valentine Day’s set, through the little tree-lined road for the carriage ride, where Bing Crosby sang “Easter Parade” to Marjorie Reynolds, through the Holiday Inn set — the Christmas tree was next to the piano; they’d do the “White Christmas” bit this week — and then to the north doors.

They were secure, I knew they were, but I checked them anyway. When I came to the door, my hand trembled. The big deadlock turned stiffly — the door wasn’t used much — and I pushed it open with my shoulder. Outside in the California night I saw a narrow alley, a low wall, and on the other side, shining in the starlight, the glistening mausoleums and tombstones of the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery. Rudolph Valentino is buried there, and so is Douglas Fairbanks. I also saw Lillian’s grave, not so new now, tucked away inconspicuously next to the gaudier displays.

Lillian, who answered a call for dancers last year, who lined up with the rest, who made the first cut because she wasn’t too tall, or too short, or too fat, who waited for her chance to dance, and when they called her name she stood, took her spot on the stage, put her hands on her hips, poised for the music to begin, like a thousand other girls over the years. I watched her because I always watch the dancers’ auditions. Except this time, for this girl, before the music started, she swayed and fell.

I sighed. Lots of girls faint. They stand around all day, their hopes in their throats, and then their turn comes. So I walked forward, fingering the smelling salts in my pocket. She’d come to, another embarrassed performer. But she didn’t. The studio doctor got there within minutes. The other dancers, all hopefuls, surrounded us.

“She’s gone,” the doctor said.

A dancer shrieked. “It was just sleeping pills! It couldn’t have killed her.”

I learned that day how strong, how obsessive, the Hollywood dream is. Lillian had looked like a shoe-in for the part. If she flubbed her audition, then the other dancer thought she’d have a better chance, so she’d slipped her the drugs.

The doctor told me later, “Lillian must have had a weak heart, Pop, for her to collapse that way.”

I don’t know what killed her, but I don’t believe it was a weak heart. Not her heart.

Lillian’s tombstone glowed grayly among the others. There’s something in the real dancers, like Fred Astaire, that won’t quit, some steel-barred determination that keeps them on their feet long after the rest have gone to bed. I looked up and down the alley, the door’s handle cool under my hand. “Go to sleep,” I said into the empty night. “Go to sleep, Lillian. Quit coming back.”

Most of the soundstages at Paramount have a haunt or two. It’s an old studio. The first film was shot here in 1917, De Mille’s The Squaw Man. Valentino shot The Sheik here in 1921, and Wings, which won the first ever Academy Award for best picture, was filmed here in 1927. Casts by the hundreds have come through Paramount’s gates. All those dreamers filming dreams. But doors swing open on empty stages. Equipment moves. An actress can walk from one spot to another ten feet away and suddenly shiver. “It’s so cold here,” she’ll say, her hands wrapped round her arms.

I saw Lillian the first time a week after she died, her back to me, standing in an open door. “You can’t be here, Miss. We’re closed,” I said. Then she turned, and I recognized her as she faded away. She returned two or three times a week, looking sad. I followed her once, walking slowly from set to set. At the end she met my eyes. I blinked, and she was gone.

I asked around. None of the other security guards knew about her. Only me. I thought, why me? Why do I always see her? Was it because I held her head as she died on the stage, so young, so unfulfilled, still waiting for her musical cue? Was that it?

When I returned to the soundstage at noon, filming had already been going for four hours. Jimmy, the morning guard, told me that Astaire was waiting at the gates at six and danced for two hours before the rest of the cast arrived. Firecrackers popped within the studio.

“He’s doing the 4th of July routine again?” I asked.

Jimmy shook his head, then nodded. “The man’s unstoppable.”

There was applause as I approached the set. The camera crew and extras clapped. Astaire stood in the middle of the stage surrounded by wisps of firecracker smoke. “Not right yet. Let’s shoot it again,” he said. Then he took his starting position behind the curtains.