Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“Make? No. Show. You rent the stores at night-who was using them at night? — and you rent some chairs, you got a film from the exchange, and you were in business. Get a little ahead, you take over the store in the day, too. People came. Of course I’m not the only one seeing this. Then it’s theaters and it’s serious money. Banks. Fox, that prick, is squeezing right and left. Zukor. How do you compete with this? You don’t. I thought, I don’t want to be in the real estate business. They can gobble up everybody and then what? They still need something to show. So I sold the theaters and came out here to make pictures.”

Already “out here,” Ben noticed, still two thousand miles away.

“The right place,” Ben said.

“Well, not then. That all came later. There was nothing here then. Oranges. Goyim with asthma. Nothing. But every kind of country, sun every day. It was all outside then. You put up walls and hung cheesecloth over it. To cut the glare. Right out in the open. We used a ranch out in the Valley for Westerns. For years, the same ranch.”

“That’s how you started? With Westerns?”

“Everybody started with Westerns. What’s to know? A man rides into town. That’s it. Just go from there.”

Ben smiled. “But what happens?”

“What happens. Guns. Chase. Gets the girl. It’s a picture.”

He stopped, distracted for a moment, then picked up the thread again, enjoying himself, and Ben sat back, letting the words circle around him. The Lasner style, growls and purrs and easy intimacy under the sharp eye.

“The first place we had was on Gower. In the gulch, right across from where Cohn was. With all the fly-by-nights. They go out of business, we’d pick them up. Just kept moving down the street. Those days, it was hand-to-mouth. Sometimes not even.” He looked up at the ceiling, absentmindedly smoothing the blanket. “You know what you miss? That age? You never think about being sick. Dead, maybe, the idea of it, but not sick. Your body’s just something you carry around with you. Then one day you’re lying here with a bomb in your chest, waiting for it to go off. Just when things are going-since the war, everything’s doing business. Then something you never figured. I’m on two kinds of pills. And you know what Rosen says? Slow down. In pictures. You show weakness for five minutes and-”

He let the words hang in the room. Ben got up and went over to the wash basin.

“Well, it wouldn’t be a weakness to get some rest. Here, take this.” He handed him a pill from the small envelope.

Lasner held it in front of his mouth, a bargaining chip. “But you’ll stick around.”

Ben nodded, watching him lift the water glass. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay till you’re asleep.”

“And after that?” Childlike, pressing.

Ben took the glass away. “After that you’ll be asleep. If anything happens, ring for the porter. I don’t care who’s tipping him. You don’t want to take any more chances with that.” He pointed to Lasner’s chest.

Lasner grunted. “People try to see me all day long and here you are, and all you can say is go to sleep.”

“Mr. Lasner-”

“Sol. For chrissake, you took my pants off.”

Ben sat down. There was nothing to do but wait for the pill to kick in.

“All day long,” Lasner said. “No wonder I get episodes. You think it’s a picnic, running a studio?”

“Maybe you should think about retiring.”

“Hah. Then who would call me?” Said so simply that for a second Ben thought he was joking.

“But if you’re sick-”

“What do you think, it’s something you can just walk away? I built the studio. All of it.” He sat back against his pillow. “Nobody sees the work. They think it just happens. But it’s work. Look at Paulette.” He raised a finger. “You’re wrong about her. I saw it in your face. You thought she was a Peggy Joyce.”

“Who?”

“Gold digger. She had a career for about two minutes. You never heard of Peggy Joyce? She was in a song for chrissake.”

Ben shrugged his shoulders. “Before my time.”

“I forget you’re a kid. She married-well, who remembers? Her they remembered. Or did,” he said with an exasperated look at Ben. “Paulette never married for that. You know how old she was, she started to work? Fourteen. She’s fourteen and making a living.”

“On the stage?”

Lasner nodded. “Chorus. Then Ziegfeld. Next thing, she’s out here. Pretty. But that wasn’t it. Pretty you can get anywhere. She was raring to go. Fun. That’s what Charlie spotted in her. Not just pretty. You know where they met? Joe Schenck’s boat. So, another girl for Charlie. But no. He works with her. And the way he works, every little thing perfect. And she does it. Even now, you see the picture, she’s terrific. Casual, like she’s not working. But she’s working since she was fourteen. And now she’s a star.” He lowered his voice, suddenly pragmatic. “But not to carry a picture. Not yet. And they want to put her in a hoop skirt- where’s the sense in that? The way she wears clothes? What do you see in a period picture? Shoulders.”

“What’s wrong with shoulders?”

“What’s wrong with you? I’m trying to tell you something here. You have to know what you’re doing. You make a bad picture, that’s one thing. You make a few-” He spread his fingers, letting the thought slip through them, like luck itself running out.

Ben stared at the hand, curious. Every gambler’s fear, that it might all go away. Danny’s world.

“Nothing’s the way you think out here,” Lasner said, his voice weaker, drifting again.

Ben looked over at him, not sure what he was talking about now, some earlier thought, and saw that the eyes had finally closed, his chest moving slowly, night breathing. Resting comfortably, nurses would say. After his scare. Five minutes of weakness. Their secret. He could go now, leaving only the dim night-light. But he stayed, listening to the wheels, keeping watch, sure somehow that Lasner felt his presence, felt safer. What happened in a deeper sleep? Did you hear anything in a coma, voices, faint rustling sounds around you? Would Danny even know he was there, had come all this way to see him? Maybe Lasner didn’t know, either, breathing steadily now. But when Ben woke, hours later, and finally left, he tiptoed to the door and opened it quietly, without a click.

Lasner was still in bed in the morning, now propped up against pillows in a patterned silk bathrobe.

“Where’ve you been? The doctor was here an hour ago.”

“And?”

“I’m great.”

“He tell you to stay in bed?”

Lasner waved his hand in dismissal, but made no move to get up.

“You want some breakfast?”

“I already had. What do you keep, banker’s hours? Let’s talk about the picture. There’s nothing to see till New Mexico anyway.”

Ben looked out the window-endless yellow fields, silos and telegraph poles, a hot, bright day.

Lasner held up a finger. “It’s not because I owe you. I don’t want you to get that idea.”

Ben nodded and sat down. “Sure you’re up to this?”

“How much footage have you got?”

“Lots. And some captured Nazi film-they actually filmed it. We can also get stock from Artkino, the Russian agency.”

“You want to use Russian film?”

“They were the first ones in. The quality’s okay-I’ve seen it.”

“Never mind the quality. It’s Russian. You use it, that prick Tenney will be all over you.”

“Who?”

“Jack Tenney. You’ve been away for a while. He used to write songs. Mexicali Rose, one hit. Now he’s a politician, with a bug up his ass about Reds. He’s got a committee up in Sacramento. Making lists. You don’t want him making trouble for you.”