Stardust (64 page)

Ben shrugged. “My separation papers’ll come through any day.”

But Bunny was going somewhere else. “They’ve agreed to a limited distribution. The Nuremberg picture didn’t do what they hoped. This would be the last anyway.”

“How limited,” Ben said, alert, listening to code.

“Limited. Strictly speaking, we don’t have to distribute at all. There’s no agreement.”

“Sol agreed.”

“Well, Mr. L—”

“Is still head of the studio.”

Bunny looked up. “Keep your socks on.”

“You can’t do this,” Ben said, his throat suddenly tight. “Dump it. Not this one.”

He saw the pan shot of the guards’ faces, the slow walk into the camp, evidence.

“I’m not dumping it. And you’re leading with your chin. Anybody ever tell you not to do that here?”

Lasner on the train, clutching himself, never weak.

“Show them what you really want?” Bunny finished.

“I really want this,” Ben said, his voice steady. “It’s important.”

To whom? The dead, the survivors? It occurred to Ben that he had become a believer in images, their power to change things, even though of course they didn’t. Show the faces. Maybe that’s all it was, a record too late, but at least it was there. The dead are never avenged. All we can do is leave markers.

“I said limited. Major cities. After Christmas. Don’t worry, you’ll get your credit.”

“It’s not about that.”

Bunny raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Sol wants this picture.”

“So you keep saying. And I wouldn’t want to disappoint him. He knows what the exhibitors are like, but if we can sell it as—”

“What do you want?”

“Want?” Bunny said, raising both eyebrows now. “I’m not a pawnshop. It’s a picture, not a watch. I said I’d do what I could.” He paused. “What I’d
like,
though, is a little favor from you.”

Ben waited.

“I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time at Cedars. Little chats.”

“He likes to tell stories,” Ben said carefully, wondering where this was going. “The old days. My father.”

“Funny how that happens. He never used to dwell on the past.” He looked up at Ben. “I know Mr. L pretty well. He gets—enthusiastic. He’s likely to think things can happen that can’t happen. That people can do things—and they can’t, really. They don’t know enough. They’d be in over their heads.”

“They could learn.”

“Not on this job.”

“You’re ahead of yourself. Sol hasn’t offered me anything.”

“Then it’s a good time to move along, before it comes up. Fort Roach. Wherever. You don’t want to disappoint Mr. L, either.”

“How would I do that?”

“By having to say no. The job’s filled.”

Ben gave a quick half smile. “You really want this,” he said, an echo.

Bunny looked up at him. “I already have it. Now take yourself out of it.”

“That’s not up to me. Or you. Sol’s still head of the studio.”

Bunny shook his head. “Not anymore. But that’s something we’ll keep to ourselves, shall we? Feelings being what they are. Acting Head is fine with me. Mr. L can live with that. As long as he does. Let’s make it easier on everybody.”

“And what’s the favor? Go away? Why?”

“For Fay.”

“Fay?” Ben said, surprised.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about running a studio. The first thing—I’ll bet it’s never even occurred to you—is who owns it.”

“Sol owns it,” Ben said, suddenly not sure.

“Not all of it. Not enough. You know that Rex still has his original eight percent. He’s very excited about the television deal. Sam owns a piece, too, did you know? And I’m happy to say he feels very confident about the direction we’re taking. So does New York. Very panicky they get when there’s a health problem. They like a certain stability. That leaves Sol. Or, rather, Fay. I have enough voting stock to do it without her—I’m
already
running the studio, which seems to escape you. But it would be much nicer with. One happy family, not taking sides, squabbling over something that isn’t going to happen anyway.” Another direct look at Ben. “Some deathbed whim. Fay’s been lovely to me. I’d like it to be her idea, too. Sol’s idea. Not something that was forced on them in a proxy fight. And it wouldn’t be, if you weren’t here.”

“You really want this,” Ben said quietly.

“It’s not a lot to ask, considering, do you think? Think of all the favors I’ll have to do for Polly now, because of you.”

“Don’t do me—”

“Well, it’s not just you, is it? Polly’s a girl who hates being stood up. Vindictive, really. She still thinks you’re holding out on her. But we don’t want her going after you, opening things
up
. Looking into accidents.
I’ve got seventeen writers and I’d still rather just let things lie as they are. Think of all the people involved. Luckily, Polly likes access to studio heads. She’s not one to hold a grudge when there’s so much else she might be doing. And of course, if you’re not here, to put her in a temper—out of sight, out of mind.”

“She won’t be out of Minot’s mind.”

“Oh, they’ll make up. Well, at least go back to their corners. They need each other, when all’s said and done, always a point. A little go-between work and before you know it, it’s lunch at Chasen’s and off we go. It’s you they won’t forgive. There’s nothing you can do for them.”

“Only for you.”

“For Fay, really. No point in having any unpleasantness. Especially when it’s done.”

“You’re sure. Maybe you underestimate me.”

“No. I did. Not anymore. Why do you think we’re having this chat at all? This time, we need to understand each other. Lou,” he said, voice raised, eyes over Ben’s shoulders. “Good to see you. You know Lou Katz, from Abe Lastfogel’s office?”

“Nice to meet you. Jesus, this is some night.”

“Wait’ll you see it.”

“I hear, I hear. Listen, we should talk sometime about Julie. Who does a musical for two hundred dollars a week? I mean, it’s wonderful what you’re doing, a production like that at Continental? But she’s wonderful, too.”

Bunny nodded. “So let’s keep her happy. Monday, okay? We keep the steps, but we can do something on the front end. Just don’t plead poverty. Not the Morris office.”

“What, it’s for her. She’s still in some crappy efficiency on La Brea.”

“Not after this.”

“Zanuck never saw it.”

“Well, Sam Pilcer. He’s got an eye. You know Ben Collier? He’s producing a documentary for us. The end of the war. Footage you won’t believe.” He looked at Ben. “We think it’s an important picture.
San Pietro,
in that class. Awards, even.”

“Jesus, at Continental. How’s Sol? I hear so-so. That was something, though, wasn’t it? What he pulled with that fuck Minot?”

“Like something out of the movies,” Bunny said flatly.

The others were moving in now, filling the lobby. Liesl was posing with the servicemen, two on each side. Her father, looking slightly lost, had arrived with Salka. She was beaming, reminded perhaps of the old opening nights at the Ufa Palast, but no one in the bleachers paid any attention. Only Polly recognized them, nodding to Ostermann, her neighbor at the hearing, now someone she mentioned in her columns. The Conscience of Germany. There was talk of a Nobel, she’d heard. Behind her, Kelly was holding her mike, doing a remote check. When he looked up he caught Ben’s eye for a minute, an odd questioning, the sound stage accident mixed up with the Cherokee somehow, a scent nobody was following, Ben an inexplicable connection. But Kelly had moved on to another beat, no longer doing Cagney, and Dick Marshall was getting out of his car, the story he’d come for.

Ben went in, sitting in one of the back Continental rows, watching the rest of the audience kissing and waving across aisles, a party. Bunny hurried down front with Rex and Sam and some men from the front office, talking as he went, Lasner on the carpet at Grand Central. Little Brian Jenkins, quick as a bunny. Then Liesl came in between the Army and the Navy and the lights started to dim.

It was the kind of company audience that applauded the credits, little salutes to their friends. Imre Tabor, ten years out of Budapest, had directed, and Epstein had done the music and Simco the photography, all Europeans, but whatever edge they may once have brought had been smoothed out, maybe forgotten. It was a studio picture, bright, every eyebrow in place. Ben wondered for a second what might have happened to Kaltenbach if he’d stayed, got lucky with
Exit Visa,
shepherding Danny’s story through rewrites. A vehicle for Dick. Stranger things had happened.

On the screen a process shot of ruins dissolved to a studio interior, the family waiting for the Allied liberation. Then Liesl’s first appearance, riding a bicycle, hair blowing. Applause. Her face in close-up,
young, fearless, the one Danny must have known. In a second a retreating German soldier would grab the bicycle, force her into the doorway, struggle with her until she got his gun, shot him. The scene that would come in handy in real life, holding the gun steady in the nightclub set, standing over Dieter on the floor. Ben standing there, too. Are you finished now? Bunny had said. Danny finally avenged. But how could you ever be finished with murder? An endless accounting. There was always more. Reasons. And once you did know, what did you do? Not all deaths are alike.

Liesl was heaving, distraught, racing to safety. Now the advancing GI who would discover her, deliver her, and then come to call. The war as Continental saw it. Not the rest of it, not what Ben had seen. He glanced down toward Bunny. There were a hundred ways he could interfere, keep the faces off the screen. Would it matter? What was it worth to them, already gone? Had it mattered to Danny, Dieter finally lying in a pool of his own blood? But it had to, somehow. To us. What if we never saw the faces, stayed in the dark?

He felt the hand on his shoulder just as the screen Liesl shot the gun, making him jump. An apologetic publicist, drawing him quietly out to the lobby, a waiting phone.

“He’s asking for you,” Fay said. “I know you’re in the middle—”

“Is he—?”

“I don’t know. He keeps coming back. An ox.”

“But you called.”

“I have a feeling, that’s all,” she said, her voice small, afraid.

“I’ll be right there.”

The same hospital smell as he walked in, sharp disinfectant cutting through air thick with blood and waste, the same as Danny’s hospital, all of them. The linoleum in the corridor, just mopped, glared in the overhead light.

Fay was sitting in the room with Paulette Goddard, waiting together, maybe as they’d once waited in casting offices to show their beautiful legs. Now they both looked drawn, sober, their usual sparkle muted. The way his mother might have waited for Otto, if she had
been there, if any of them had. They squeezed his hand, a silent hello.

Sol was lying half propped up, eyes closed, his skin gray, thin hair pasted down with sweat. A plastic tube hissed oxygen in his nose, and a bottle hung next to him, dripping fluid through an IV. His face looked slack, old, the corners of his mouth white with dried saliva.

“How’s her picture?” he said, opening his eyes a little.

“The audience likes it.”

Sol grunted. “They’re on the payroll.”

“How are you?” Ben said, coming over to the bed, resting his hand.

“I’m signing up with Arthur Murray.”

“I’ll teach you for free,” Fay said.

Sol smiled. “Let me talk to Ben for a minute. Why don’t you and Paulette get something to eat? Like birds. A celery stick, they call it a meal.”

Paulette came over and tapped his nose. “You want me to get fat?” she said fondly.

“Fat.” He smiled at her. “Another pound wouldn’t hurt.”

“We’ll be outside,” Fay said to Ben. She nodded silently to a buzzer on the nightstand. “If you need me—”

“Go eat,” Sol said. He waited until they left. “They’re good girls. You know they go way back?”

Ben nodded. “How are you feeling?” His hand still on the sheet, seeing Otto’s bed again. But there hadn’t been one, no hospital room, a bullet somewhere, no one waiting outside.

“I feel like shit,” Lasner said. “Don’t bother with the pills next time.” He closed his eyes, drifting a little. “You know on the train? The way you were? It reminded me. My first trip out here. Looking at everything. I didn’t know what to expect. A desert. For asthma. Now—” He opened his eyes fully, lifting his head. “I want to talk to you.”

“Minot called off the hearings,” Ben said, heading him away.

“Yeah?” he said, pleased, then sank back against the pillows. “And then who? All these years. We made something great here. From nothing.” He looked out, as if there might be marquee lights, not just dull hospital windows. “It’s all going to fall apart now, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s going to change.”

“At my age, same thing. That union business,” he said, another thought. “On Gower Street, for chrissake. To see something like that on Gower. Clubs.” He was quiet for a minute, thinking. “We had the audience. Now, I don’t know. You know what I think it was? The war. Everything made money. You didn’t have to think about the audience, maybe they want something else. Whatever you gave them. You think they don’t change. But how do you go through something like that and not change? How’s your picture?”

“Done. We’ll put it out after Christmas.”

A weak smile. “First Crosby and the nuns. Then the dead Jews.” He looked at Ben. “So we did that. I want to talk to you,” he said again. “I have to make some decisions.”

“You just have to rest.”

Lasner waved his hand. “I still get tired. I’m tired all the time now. You notice they don’t send me home? I couldn’t have nurses there? So what do they know I don’t know?” He paused. “Nothing,” he said, answering himself. “So maybe the only way I’m getting out of here is in a box.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“You don’t have kids, you have to think about things. Who’s going to take over? Keep things going. You remember on the train? Even then I had an idea. Somebody moves like that. Keeps his mouth shut. You don’t always say what’s up here.” He pointed to his head. “That’s like me. And Otto’s kid. Christ. In the blood.”