Joseph Kanon - Stardust

He got up from the park bench, restless. How could he not know Danny’s life? Ben had followed him everywhere, just wanting to be part of things. Wild, just like your father, his mother had said, meaning impulsive. But he wasn’t. A letter every week, staying in touch, still taking care of him. And now gone, without even a note. Maybe he hadn’t really meant to do it, not at the very end. A fall. How did she know for sure it hadn’t been like that? He stopped in the street, caught not just by the heat and the night of half sleep, but a deeper weariness, tired of thinking about it, going round in circles.

On State Street he saw an AIR COOLED banner running along a marquee and went inside. The picture was a Betty Grable on second run, something with snow. Caesar Romero danced. Charlotte Greenwood did her split high kick, right over her head. Betty was put out over some romantic mix-up with John Payne, all of it so airy that it melted away as you saw it, like touching beer foam. The newsreel brought him back with a jolt. Europe in grainy black and white, where he’d been just two weeks ago. People going through PX garbage cans. Then war criminals passing sentences on themselves before the courts could-cyanide capsules for the privileged, amateur nooses for the others. Not a botched accident, a Hollywood indulgence. Meaning it. In the camps, they threw themselves on electric fences. You never asked why, not over there. He stood up, desperate to move again.

Outside there was everything he’d been too preoccupied to notice before. Taxis. Buildings with glass. Stores. No debris in the street. Doormen walking dogs. The bar at The Drake, with silver dishes of nuts. A country so rich it didn’t even know its own luck. Where anyone could be happy.

At the station, busy with redcaps pushing luggage carts, he saw flashbulbs near the Chief. Not Lasner this time, real stars. Paulette Goddard. Carole Landis. Two girls he didn’t recognize. All of them smiling, holding up a bond drive poster as they perched on the compartment car steps. Other passengers stopped to watch. You’ll never guess who was on the train.

They left at seven fifteen exactly, sliding out so smoothly that it wasn’t until they began clicking over the points in the yard that Ben looked up to see they were moving. Past sidetracked box cars, then clotheslines and coal sheds and scrap metal yards, the backside of the city, until finally the open country of the prairie. Another day before they saw mountains. Los Angeles Monday morning, half a continent in under forty hours. He opened his bag to change. People dressed up for dinner on the Chief. A wash, a drink in the club car. He looked out again at the late summer’s light on the unbroken fields, a pale gold. Farther away from the newsreel with every mile. And then, not paying attention, he nicked his finger on his razor and watched, dismayed, as blood welled out of the cut. Had there been blood? She hadn’t said. A pool spreading under his head? Where had he fallen? But there must have been blood. There always was.

They were three deep at the bar in the club car, talking over each other, a party roar of indistinct voices and ice tinkling against glass. Just a few uniforms, officers with their own money. One of the starlets he’d seen on the platform, lipstick refreshed, was taking a light from a man she’d obviously just met, all eyes and what-are-my-odds. The way every trip should begin, Ben thought, the air bubbling like the tonic in his drink.

“So what happened to you?”

Ben turned to the finger poking at his shoulder.

“I thought you were coming up. Talk some more.”

Lasner had changed suits but seemed to have kept the same cigar, now just a stub between his fingers. He was with a young man whose eyes darted around the car, a quick sweep, before they settled on Ben. He stuck out his hand.

“Lou Katz. Morris Agency.”

“Lou works with Abe Lastfogel,” Lasner explained.

“I’m his number two,” Katz said, evidently a point. “You’re with Continental?”

“The Army,” Lasner said. “He’s making pictures for the Army.”

“Oh,” Katz said, his eyes beginning to move away. “You know who this is?” Lasner said. “Otto Kohler’s kid.”

“Really,” Katz said uneasily, not sure he could admit the name meant nothing.

“The director,” Lasner said. “Silents.”

“Right, silents,” Katz said, relieved. “Let me get us some drinks. You’re fine?” He nodded at Ben’s hand and without waiting for an answer headed into the bar crowd.

“Watch this,” Lasner said. “You want a drink right away, always travel with the Morris office.”

“Sorry about today. I thought you’d be busy.”

“So come now.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got the eight seating. It’ll be a help to me. You have dinner with Katz, you always feel a hand in your pocket. Look at this, what did I tell you?”

Katz was slipping through the crowd, drinks in hand.

“Looks like a full train,” he said. “You see Julie Sherman over there?” He nodded toward the starlet from the bond drive. “You know Fox isn’t picking up her option.”

“Lou, don’t peddle,” Lasner said. “Anyway, what would I do with her?”

“Nobody ever lost money showing tits. Your health,” he said, raising his glass.

“Then what happened at Fox?”

“Too much like Tierney. Who needs two? She should be somewhere they work with the talent. You know she can sing? Test her. See what she can do. You can’t run a studio on loan-outs.”

“How many times, Lou? Contract talent’s okay for the programmers. That’s your base,” he said, demonstrating with his hands. “Up here you don’t want to carry around that kind of expense. You get top-heavy. For A pictures, buy what you need. How many A’s do I make? Sell her to Metro, they can afford it.”

Katz shook his head. “You got it backwards. You should do the loan-outs. Look at Selznick-he’s living on his contract list. Every time he loans out Bergman, he’s making what? A couple of hundred?”

“There’s a name for that.”

“Producer.”

“Producer. What’s he doing now, some farkakte Western with that girl played the saint? One picture. You know how many pictures Continental’s releasing this year?”

“That’s my point. You’re not a small studio anymore. People should be coming to you for the talent.”

Lasner held up his hand. “You got something going with her, is that what?”

“Just ten percent.”

“Do you believe this guy?” Lasner said to Ben. “She’s gone down on half the Fox lot and with him it’s still business.”

“You’ve got her wrong. She can sing.”

“You remind me of Gus Adler. The way he was with Rosemary. All he could talk about. Test her, test her.”

“And you did. And signed her,” Katz said smiling, sending a ball over the net.

Lasner shrugged. “All right. Set it up with Bunny. Then we’ll see.” Katz started to speak, but Lasner stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Now take a step back. You push too hard, you knock people over. Learn from Abe. You know what he decided? Act like a gentleman, people always take your calls. There are ways to do things.”

“Jesus, Sol. I was just trying to say thank you.”

There was a stirring in the car, a shift in the air, as if someone were holding a door open. Paulette Goddard was walking toward them, people pretending not to notice as they let her pass. The bond drive dress was gone, traded up for a dark silk top that glittered with sequins, almost as bright as the diamond earrings setting off her face. It wasn’t just being beautiful, Ben thought, amused-she seemed to have brought her own lighting with her, a spot following her through the car.