Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“You ever miss it?” he said, steering them away. “The business?”

“That life? Not for two seconds. What’s to miss? One town after another with nothing to do-someplace in the sticks, you couldn’t wait to get back to New York. It’s the same here, you ask me, but don’t, because Sol loves it. At least it’s not the road, schlepping around, worrying are you losing your looks. What kind of life is that? Oh, at first, you’re young, you think there isn’t anything else. I never saw myself like this. Married. Mrs. Lasner. And all right, he’s a handful, but you know what? He’s crazy about me. The rest,” she said, waving her hand, “it’s nothing.” She put out the cigarette, looking straight at him. “Would you tell me something? He almost died on the train, didn’t he? Don’t worry, I didn’t get it from you.”

“He had an attack. I don’t know how serious. I’m not a doctor.”

“He almost died,” she said flatly. “He thinks I don’t know. How can you live with somebody and not know these things?”

“What did the doctor say?”

“Rosen? What does he ever say? Retire. And do what? Watch birds? Anyway, he wasn’t there, only later when Sol’s better. You were. You know how I know? How he is with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Close. You almost die, there’s a closeness.”

“I think you’re imagin-”

But she was shaking her head. “He watches you at the studio, how you’re doing.”

“He watches everybody,” Ben said.

“But he tells me about you. How you are with Hal. Other things. He thinks you have a feel for the business. A family thing.”

“Only my father. My mother hated it.”

“Why? Oh, the girls? He got distracted?”

Ben smiled at the word. “Over and over.”

“People say I should worry about Sol, and you know I never do. I figure, if it happens, who’d want to know?”

“She did.”

Fay smiled. “So maybe I’m not telling the truth, either. I’d kill him. Bare hands. But I’ll tell you something, he doesn’t even look. I know. I was on the lot, for years. I know what to look for. The thing about Sol, nobody gets this, he’s a gentleman. They see the rough spots, not here.” She tapped her heart. “Here he’s not so tough.” She looked down, flustered. “I don’t mean the real one. A figure of speech.”

“I know.”

“But that’s right, too, isn’t it? The real one’s not so tough, either. Then what? You know what he thinks about, all the time? What happens to the studio. Me, I guess he figures I can take care of myself. But what happens to the studio. Who could do it? You know we never had children. He said it didn’t matter to him, but now I think it does. You build something, you want to pass it on, not just hand it over to the banks. I said to him once, maybe it’s better, look at the Laemmles, Junior almost took it down with him, and I could tell he’s not even listening. So that’s part of it, I think. Why he watches people.”

“What about Bunny?”

“Bunny’s not a son.”

“I’m not, either.”

“But he likes you. So maybe it was the train, I don’t know. All the sudden you feel you’re running out of time. Maybe this is it. Did you ever wonder how much time you have left? I’ve been thinking about that, because of Sol. But I guess that’s one thing nobody can know.” She paused. “Unless it’s like with her. You decide,” she said, her face softer. “You were nice to come. It’s good somebody came.” She lifted her head, a visual pulling up. “It’s funny, she’s the one contacted the Red Cross. She wanted to come over. You wonder. But you know what I think? It came to me this morning. Does this make sense to you? I think she was already gone. She just didn’t want to die over there-give those bastards the satisfaction.”

There was still a police marker by the broken fence, so Ben stopped short, pulling the car over to the lookout shoulder where couples parked. The drive up Feuchtwanger’s corniche had been no easier in daylight, an ordeal even for anybody familiar with the road. Ben imagined it dark, headlights shining on the wet surface. He got out, not even sure what he was looking for. Something left carelessly behind? But the place seemed undisturbed, even the smashed car removed now, any tire marks or shoe prints washed away. He walked to the fence, looking over into the canyon. A steep drop. All you’d have to do was put the car in gear and let it go. Gravity and a soft skull would do the rest.

Ben went down the slope. There were ruts gouged out of the ground, probably made by the tow truck or whatever kind of winch they’d used to haul the wreck up. The tree that had stopped it had some bark scraped away, but was still standing. Given the angle of descent, the impact must have been violent, a thudding crash, enough to throw a body into the windshield. So why hadn’t there been more blood? He tried to remember the body, his brief look when the sheet was pulled back. Lacerations, the matted wound on the head, but not drenched in blood. But it wouldn’t have been if she’d died instantly. A dead body doesn’t pump blood. Still, the blow on the head had caused a bloody welling. Ben looked up to the broken fence. Unless she’d been hit before the crash, maybe already dead when the car began plunging.

He hiked back to the road and walked along the shoulder to the turnoff. Big enough for two cars, even more, somewhere to meet, marked by the curve. Ben turned back again to the fence, searching the ground. He’d wanted to come back to the site, show himself how it was possible, but he’d known outside Chasen’s that she hadn’t been alone. A phone call, a hasty meeting, dead or almost dead before she went over. The ground falling into Topanga told him nothing. He thought of her at the Lasner party, unafraid to tell him things he shouldn’t know. No more whispers and shadows, not after everything. A German voice on the phone. Who else was at the party, what other ghost? Who recognized her.

He drove back to Feuchtwanger’s house, parking near the other cars along the steep patch of road, one of them, he noticed, Ostermann’s.

“Come in, come in,” Feuchtwanger said, bubbling, his rimless glasses catching the afternoon light.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No. Brecht is starting to make speeches. Please interrupt. What, were you just passing by? Nobody passes by up here.”

He led Ben into a large living room with a spectacular view of the Pacific through the picture window. Couches were arranged to face it, but the group sat instead at the end of the room, away from the light, clustered around a coffee table littered with half-finished cups and hazy with smoke, as intimate as a Ku’damm cafe. Everyone was speaking German.

“So, you can decide,” Feuchtwanger said. “I’m thinking about a play and of course Brecht doesn’t want me to write a play, so he doesn’t like anything about it.”

“Write the play,” Brecht said, deadpan, drawing on his cigar.

“Do you like The Devil in Boston? For a title?”

“The title tells you what’s wrong,” Brecht said. “All right, so witch trials. Yes, everyone sees, a metaphor for what is happening here, what is going to happen, but it’s not exact. It was then about belief, the devil in Boston, a religious phenomenon, not political persecution.”

“It felt the same to the witches,” Feuchtwanger said.

Brecht waved this aside. “It confuses the issue.”

“But the process is exactly the same, the psychology.”

“Oh, psychology,” Brecht said, dismissive.

“Why do you think it’s going to happen,” Ben said, back at Chasen’s, Minot’s hand on his shoulder.

“Because I’ve seen it happen before.”

“Precisely,” Feuchtwanger said. “The process is the same, always. Make the fear, then the fear feeds on itself. That’s the devil. Hitler made the Jew the devil, but it was the fear.”