Stardust (52 page)

“Preview of coming attractions.”

“That’s right. We understand each other?”

For a minute Ben heard only the clock ticking.

“Mr. L is out of it,” Bunny said. “And the union contract?”

“That’s not in my gift. But I can promise that Mr. Stein will be otherwise occupied. That should help things along. Funny how they’re always Jews, isn’t it? Well, I have to get going. Do me a favor, will you, and reach behind? Get me an envelope for this? There should be a box of manilas in there.”

Ben fixed his eyes on the edge of the screen. What an animal must feel, he thought, finally outrun, trapped, a rush of blood to the head, then an eerie stillness, everything stopped, waiting. A hand, then a body blocking the light, Bunny turning. Ben reared back, flattening himself against the shelves, as if he could disappear, out of Bunny’s startled gaze. He expected Bunny to jump but instead he put his hand to the shelf, maybe to steady himself, still staring. A second passed, then another, neither of them making a sound, so that of all the things racing through Ben’s mind, what stuck was Bunny’s control, a will stronger than shock. And then it was too late for him to say anything, the moment over, both thinking, not breathing, trapped by each other.

“The door slides,” Minot said. “They’re back there somewhere.”

Maybe coming to help. Ben made his eyes go to the shelf beside him, a direction, then repeated it, like a flashing light.

“I see it,” Bunny said, reaching to the box on the shelf, his hand grazing Ben’s shoulder, complicit now by his silence, suddenly Ben’s
protector. They looked at each other, a whole exchange without words, beyond the obvious question.

“I’ll have Andy drop you home,” Minot was saying, his voice sounding closer.

“No, the studio,” Bunny said, still looking at Ben. “I have a meeting. Somebody I need to see.” His voice now pitched directly at Ben, unmistakable. He took the envelope, then pulled the accordion screen closed, hiding Ben. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to Minot, and it was only then Ben heard the first waver, Bunny’s nerves finally engaged, not wanting Minot to know.

“This late? Well, I know how that is. Come on, I’ll get you back. I feel good about this. I think we got something done tonight.”

Ben heard them cross the room and then the light went out and the door slammed. He breathed out, the blood coming back, and realized he was sweating. He nudged the screen back, trying to do it silently. Give them a few minutes. He looked around the dark office. He’d have to use the window after all.

He leaned against the wall, waiting, thinking about the conversation. Their jobs. He was going to get the studios to do it for him. And they would. Buying time, feeding him one piece at a time, staying 100 percent American. Even Bunny, who understood, would have to give him somebody, a face to start with. He thought suddenly of Bunny’s face as it had been, guileless, a Freddie Bartholomew tear running down his cheek. An orphan. If you were fired at one studio, you’d never work at another. It would be understood, the way Minot wanted it.

Some headlights went by outside the window. Minot’s or just another car? Not yet. He looked at the files. Any one of them. And then he knew who it would be, the pragmatic choice. The file was right here, easy for him to take. Would it make any difference? You could reconstruct a file. If you remembered the sources, knew the cross references, had the time. And Minot now was in a rush. Danny had tried to help her once, never reported a thing. She must have meant something to him. Ben glanced at the file drawer again. Right here. Be Danny one more time.

He went over to the files and flicked through the tabs. Miliken, Millard, Miller. He took it out, bulky, and put it in his jacket, feeling his blood rush again. He glanced around, a thief’s involuntary gesture, then closed the drawer and went over to the window, trying to estimate the drop. Not far, the first floor, but you’d have to dangle a second before you dropped or risk your ankles, just the second a car might be passing. But everything seemed quiet. Wilshire was always busy, but the side street mostly took the outflow of the parking lot. He waited another minute, listening, then opened the window and swung out. When he was over, still hanging from the lintel, he tried to reach up with one hand to bring the window back down, but it jammed and putting his weight on one hand made it begin to slip, so he brought the other back and let himself down, dropping slowly until he was a few feet from the ground. Now. He hit the ground just as a pair of headlights swung around from Wilshire. He was wincing from the dull shock of the jump, but forced himself up before the light could reach him. A crouch would be suspicious. Your body told the story. Somebody walking, heading for the lot. The car passed.

Liesl was still down the street.

“I didn’t know what to do. It was Bunny, wasn’t it? What was he doing?”

“Fixing things. He thinks. Drop me at the studio. I told him I’d be there.”

“He saw you? What did he say?”

“Nothing. He was more upset that I saw him. Kind of thing you like to do by yourself.”

“What?”

“Make deals.”

She was quiet for a minute, moving them into traffic. “What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

She fixed on the windshield, shivering a little. “It’s like before. Today, at the studio, I felt it. The way it was before the war. The quiet. Nobody talks. Everybody knows and nobody talks. So it’s like that again.”

There were a few lights on in the Admin building, but Bunny’s office was dark so Ben headed over to the screening room. He touched the letter in his jacket, aware suddenly of the shadows and the deserted alleys between the sound stages, a perfect place to wait. No shots, another crack on the head, fatal this time, Carl oblivious at the gate while someone went through Ben’s pockets.

Bunny was alone in the screening room, running a picture.

“Just a minute,” he said, motioning Ben to sit. “Watch this.” Not rushes, an old feature, Claudette Colbert in a gold lamé evening dress, clearly gold even in black and white. “Watch her wiggle in the seat.” A society party, people listening to a classical singer. “She got in with a pawn ticket and now they’re onto her. Barrymore knows. Look at the way they size each other up.”

But Ben was watching Bunny, his face soft with pleasure, living in the picture even as he talked.

“Now Hedda makes the announcement. See the one with her back to us? That’s Polly.”

“Polly?”

“Mm. Her greatest performance. Hedda gave her her start, with the column. Watch Barrymore’s eyebrows. Nobody could ham like that. The way they play off each other. Her eyes. It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

Claudette was getting up, summoned by a butler, and Bunny picked up the phone.

“Stop it there, Jerry. Thanks.” His eyes were still on the screen as the lights came up. “One week at the Paramount and it’s gone. But it was perfect. That look, like a grace note. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing here, putting in grace notes. Making things better.”

“What’s the picture?”

“
Midnight
. Before the war.” He got up. “There’s a sequence I wanted to see, a bit with taxis. But I don’t think we can use it.” He turned to Ben. “What were you doing there?”

“If you don’t know, you’ll never have to answer that,” Ben said, feeling the weight in his pocket.

Bunny looked at him, then moved away, running his hand over the
back of his seat. “I suppose you heard everything, behind your little arras.”

“Faint mumblings.”

“I should have had a sword. Run you through. But I find I never do have one, when I need it.” He stopped. “Don’t interfere in this.”

Ben nodded, noncommittal.

“I mean it. Just put it out of your mind. We’ll both do that. What
were
you doing, though?”

“Catching up on my filing. They make interesting reading.”

“Not anymore. Stay out of it.”

“Don’t give him anybody.”

“You think I’m enjoying this?” He walked down the aisle, away from Ben. “It’s business, that’s all.”

“No. It’s going to get worse.”

“Not for us,” Bunny said quickly. “Look, I’m walking a tightrope here.” He lifted his arms from his sides a little, a balancing mime. “Don’t shake it. Don’t huff. Don’t puff.” He looked at Ben. “Don’t anything. Or you’re off the lot. Mr. L or no.”

The back door to the Cherokee was kept locked now, so he went through the front, past the new night clerk, attentive, maybe a Bureau man, planted too late. Upstairs he flicked on the light before going in and flung the door open, in case another Ray was waiting. He opened the French windows to let in some air, then went back to the door and wedged a desk chair under the knob. Would he really try here again? Dropping somehow onto the balcony?

Ben sat on the bed and pulled out the sheet of names. Wallace. Gilbert. No more recognizable than before. Not here, not in San Francisco. Friedman. He stopped. A name he had heard. Literally heard. A voice saying it. But whose? He tried putting it in people’s mouths to see how it would sound—Liesl, Bunny, anyone he knew, but nothing came. Still, he’d heard it somewhere. On the lot? Lasner’s party? Let it go. If you tried to force it, nothing came. You had to let it pop into your head.

He looked at the door again, barricaded, what his life was going to be like now. What if he never came? But he’d want the list. Unless he’d decided to write it off as a bad risk, move on. Still, he’d tried once, a man dead. A day, two. Or he’d have to use more bait.

M
INOT PRESENTED
the hearings as a preliminary fact-finding inquiry, something local, but he was staging them like a full Washington investigation. The press had its own section in the hearing room, behind the newsreel cameras, but half were still outside covering the witnesses arriving, a premiere without the broad smiles. The public seats filled almost immediately, with a few front rows reserved for the witnesses, studio VIPs, and anyone with a friend on Minot’s staff. Ostermann, surprisingly, was in the press section, near Polly, who kept leaping up and down to talk to people, then scribble notes, a blur of eager restlessness. The committee sat at a long table, not a raised judge’s bench, but the arrangement, looking across at the witnesses and their lawyers, still had a courtroom effect.

What Ben noticed most was the noise. The galleries buzzed with talk. In the side rooms, telephones rang almost constantly and aides ran back and forth with messages. When Minot came out to take his place at the table the hum rose even higher, the room busy, anticipating. Ben thought of a Coliseum scene in the old silents, everyone in jerky motion, waiting for the lions.

The first bang of the gavel was startling, followed by a murmur, a second bang, quiet. Minot, his face flushed with confidence, gave the opening speech—a great industry undermined from within, the values and moral fabric of the culture itself at risk, the unwitting comfort extended to traitors in our midst—and then, just a few seconds before the audience could get restive, called Dick Marshall.

“I thought he was going to start with Stein,” Bunny whispered, half to himself.

A logical choice, the strike still daily news, and Stein’s sympathies
so well known he would have been an easy first shot, but for once Bunny’s instincts were off, not the point Minot wanted to score. As Marshall approached the table, there was an audible rustling of interest. A movie star, someone, Ben suddenly remembered, who’d once actually played a gladiator.

It was clear from the first moment, Minot’s head nodding with respect, that Marshall had come as a friendly witness, there to add a glow and demonstrate that he was as American as everyone assumed him to be. There were soft questions and patriotic answers, more nods from the committee, Dick’s very presence, his concern, somehow affirming their own. Bunny watched carefully, head on his pyramid fingers. Marshall was Continental’s most valuable name, a marquee favor to Minot. But why call him? Ben looked at his tanned, smooth face. An arm dangling from a chaise. Minot, he saw, was ignoring the Continental row. There were complicit glances at the rest of the audience, direct appeals to the cameras, but he never met Bunny’s eyes, acknowledged the gift. Marshall was his.

“Now you yourself didn’t serve in the military?” Minot said.

“No, I was 4-F. Perforated eardrum.”

Bunny sat up but didn’t say anything, maybe a question not in the script.

“But of course you served your country in other ways.”

“I did what I could, yes. During the bond drive, we raised—”

“Well, I meant more just by doing what you do. Your pictures. I can tell you, when I was in the Pacific, there were times the boys thought you were winning the war single-handed.”

Everyone laughed and Marshall tilted his head modestly.

“I had a little help. About four million guys, in fact. They’re the ones who won it.”

“Christ,” Ben said under his breath.

“Don’t snipe,” Bunny said.

“But I think we can all agree,” Minot said, “morale’s important, too. As someone who did see active service, I can tell you those pictures
meant a lot to us. Now I wonder if I can ask you about one of them. In 1943, you were in
Convoy to Murmansk
. You remember that?”

“Sure. I was in the Navy in that one.”

“Escorting a convoy of freighters, wasn’t it?”

Dick nodded. “Dodging U-boats.”

“Dodging U-boats. Now of course they were all over the Atlantic. And the book the movie was based on—were you aware of this?—was English, about convoys heading for England.
Convoy
it was called.”

“That was the original title of the picture, too. The first script, I mean.”

“Oh, the original. And were you going to England in the script?”

“Yes.”

“Then all the sudden, Murmansk. Now why is that, do you think?”

“I don’t know. That would have been up to the writer. The director. I just say the lines.”

“The director, the writer—same fella on this picture, is that right? On
Convoy to
—
Murmansk
,” Minot said, emphasizing the last word.

“Right. Milton Schaeffer.”