" On the phone in the living room, Henry Kissinger, a frequent overnight guest, engages in apparently serious conversation: “Mm. Yes. Yes, undoubtedly.…” Gilruth swoops in to light pine-scented candles and slip a coaster under Kissinger’s drink. Kissinger nods his thanks. Gilruth nods back. They’ve done this before. The music, a comely mingling of rock and jazz standards: “You must remember this.…” The threads of golden sconce light pinging off the roses … The china, gilded with a naked girl riding a centaur, waiting contentedly on a dining room table. Printed linen walls.… Gilruth—handsomely grizzled, William Holden with a tan—whistles while he works. “A sigh is just a sigh.…” “Yes,” Kissinger says. “Yes, goodbye.” Click. “The fun-da-mental things … apply.…” Kissinger stands. “As time”—he croaks on his way to the guest room to change—“goes … by.… "

― Sam Wasson , The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood