The Star Stalker

by Robert Bloch

  “Of course.” Harker looked at me. “I can see many things. What this picture means to you.”

  I stared into his eyes. “Yes,” I said. “When I wrote it, when we made it, I felt the way you do.”

  “I understand.”

  Lozoff coughed. “Tommy said something about a loan. If you have your own private funds, Mr. Harker, couldn’t you—”

  “Of course.” Harker smiled. “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  The director glanced out of the window, peering at the grey prelude to twilight. “It’s not too late. We can probably catch Morris if he’s still at the Studio.”

  He strode to the door. “Rogers! Phone Coronet Pictures, Mr. Morris. I want an appointment now—tell them it’s urgent.”

  We waited a moment. The phone rang in the alcove off the dining room. Harker hesitated, then picked it up. “Hello, Mr. Morris? Oh, I’m sorry, I expected another call. Yes, this is Harker speaking. No. No, he didn’t. Yes, if he comes I’ll have him call you immediately. That’s right. Goodbye.”

  He replaced the receiver. “Karl Druse’s wife.”

  “Looking for him?” I asked.

  “Yes. She knew about the meeting and wondered if he was here. She’s very upset about him, ever since he heard the bad news.”

  “I can imagine.” Lozoff needed. “He knew what you were going to tell us. I spoke to him yesterday myself. He sounded bad—I think he’d been drinking. He has the odd idea that the Studio is somehow responsible for our not getting the money.”

  “There are some queer portents,” Harker said. “I meant to recheck my findings.”

  Lozoff nodded again. “Still interested in astrology? Strange the stars didn’t foretell all this.”

  “Perhaps they did.” Harker sighed. “It’s just that sometimes you don’t want to believe, even when you see the truth plainly forecast. There are times when a man must rebel against the stars—”

  Rogers entered. “Mr. Morris will see you whenever you arrive, sir.”

  “Good. Then let’s be on our way.”

  We drove in twilight. Taki slid skillfully through the traffic. We stared out at the violet sky. The stars were beginning to break through. I watched them and wondered. Lozoff watched Harker and Harker, for some strange reason, kept watching me.

  Lozoff began to tell the director about his wild plans for stealing the print of Crime and Punishment. He spoke of how the negative was stored in the laboratory, and Harker nodded. But he watched me.

  It wasn’t until we approached the Studio that he spoke. And then he said, “I’m glad I called you. At first, I didn’t know—I thought you might have been angry. But you were entitled to a place with us. You belonged. Even though it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. You understand what I mean?”

  “I understand,” I said. “I’ve forgotten the—the other. That’s all in the past.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Lozoff demanded.

  “Nothing. Just a private matter,” I told him. “It isn’t important any more.”

  “But the picture is important, isn’t it?” Theodore Harker murmured. “To you?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Then you’ll have it. This much at least I owe you.”

  For a moment we stared at the stars together.

  It was dark now, as we arrived. The gates were closed and Taki had to slide out from under the wheel and go over to the guard’s office.

  Then we rolled onto the lot, noting the changes, sensing the difference, each of us equally oppressed and uncomfortably aware of the passage of time.

  The extra-bench was gone, and so was the casual litter of the outer office. We entered the Executive Building after a backward glance at the new sound stages to our right, halted at the outer desk while a trim young thing buzzed Mr. Morris.

  She smiled brightly. “He’ll see you now, Mr. Hecker.”

  Hecker. Yes, times had changed.

  But we went in, and there was Morris, big as life, standing up and holding out his hand. He hadn’t changed, not good old bald-headed Sol—

  Oh yes, he had! Good old bald-headed Sol was wearing a neat little brown toupee now. Just a partial hairpiece, nothing extreme, but after all, a fella has to keep up with the times, no sense letting people think you’re an old has-been.

  I didn’t like the toupee, somehow. It bothered me. All during the hearty exchange of greetings, all during the “How are you?” and “Great to see you!” and “Sit right down” preliminaries, I kept watching, wondering, worrying.

  Then we were all seated, and it was time to begin. In a moment Harker would get down to business, start the ball rolling. All I had to do now was sit back and wait.

  Instead, I opened my mouth.

  “Say, that must be a new brand of cigar you’re smoking, Mr. Morris.”

  He smiled. “No, Tommy. The same like always. You remember.”

  “Well, it smells different to me.”

  “Must be something wrong with your nose.” Morris chuckled, then leaned forward. “Hey, wait a minute now. I do smell something.”

  “So do I.” Lozoff sniffed.

  “Smoke.” Theodore Harker rose. “Something is burning.”

  “Wait, I’ll take a look.” Morris got up and opened the door of his private office. The barber chair was revealed in all its golden splendor. “No, nothing in here.” He stared. “Look—under the door! That’s where it’s coming from, the hall.”

  We trooped after him, crossing the room to the door leading to the corridor beyond. He yanked the knob. “Here, let me get my key—”

  The door swung back, the smoke billowed forward.

  “Fire!” Morris yelled. “There’s a fire down there—quick, somebody call—”

  Lozoff turned away, heading back to the outer office.

  Morris coughed, tears running from his eyes. “Maybe it’s the lab,” he said. “All them chemicals and stuff—”

  Suddenly a siren sounded from outside. I stared through the window of the corridor. There was a red glare rising off to the right.

  “The new stages, they’re burning!” Morris brushed past me. “I got to see—”

  “You can’t go through that hall,” I said. “You’ll suffocate. Close the door and wait for help to come. There’s nothing you can do, anyway.”

  “That’s right. There’s nothing you can do. It’s too late. Too late!”

  The voice came croaking out of the corridor, and then the figure came crawling out of the smoke. The face was blackened, but I recognized the eyes. They stared up at us now, and we stared down in turn—at the body hunching on hands and knees, at the lolling legs, the silver feet. The silver feet—

  “Druse!”

  “Yes, I’m here.” He peered up at us, laughing. “I’ve been here all the time, Mr. Morris. All day. You didn’t know that, did you? I wasn’t invited, I’m not welcome here any more, but I came. In makeup, if you please—as an extra. You see, I wanted to do another job for you. Just one last job. And I did it.”

  “Why you—”

  “Keep back!” We saw the gun then.

  “Karl—stop it!” I said.

  Druse shook his head and leveled the gun at me. “Stand still and you won’t get hurt. Mr. Morris and Mr. Salem, they’re going to hurt now.” He grinned with his mouth but his eyes were mirthless, merciless. “It’ll hurt bad to see everything go up in flames, won’t it, Mr. Morris? All those nice new sound stages you built for others to use, because we weren’t good enough any more. What did Salem say about me, eh? Did he say I wasn’t convincing as a monster? Maybe he’s changed his mind now.”

  Harker started to gesture, but the gun brushed him back.

  “No use. It’s going good. In three places. The lab was the last. Wait until all that film catches—then you’ll really see something!” Druse started to laugh, but the gun never wavered.

  “Karl, you’re sick—”

  “No. Drunk, maybe, but I’m not sick. This is th
e first time I felt good since I heard the news. About the money. I know why we didn’t get the money. Salem and Morris queered it, they wanted to stop us. But I stopped them.”

  He stared at Harker and the grin came back, crawling over his face. “I’m good at setting fires. You ought to know that, Harker. Didn’t I do a job for you, years ago—?”

  “Shut up!”

  Now I stared at Theodore Harker, and I knew. Years ago. The fire that killed Andy and Minnie wasn’t an accident.

  I moved toward Harker, my throat throbbing, my fists clenched. “So that’s it! You were afraid they’d tell me the truth, the only two people who knew, so you sent Druse to get rid of them—”

  His face went white. “No—”

  “You son of a bitch, you’re the real monster!”

  “Stop!”

  But I didn’t stop. I went for him, my hands opening and reaching for his throat. And then Karl Druse fired.

  The shot went wild, but it stopped me; stopped me long enough to turn and lunge. The hands intended for Harker’s throat grasped Druse’s wrist instead. I twisted it and the gun clattered to the floor.

  “Get some help!” I yelled. I had to yell because of the sirens making all that noise outside—and because of a series of muffled reports from down the hall.

  “Chemicals!” Sol Morris turned away, holding a handkerchief to his nose. “We got to get out of here before the film catches.”

  “Film—” Harker murmured. He wasn’t looking at Morris or Druse or me; he stared off into the swirling smoke of the hall beyond the doorway.

  Druse struggled, trying to break my grip, and I felt the surging strength in his arms. I shouted at Harker. “Come on, help me hold him—we’ve got to take him outside.”

  Harker turned for a moment, shaking his head. “Your film. It’s in there.”

  He started to move toward the hall doorway.

  “No—you can’t! Come back!”

  I released my hold on Druse’s wrist and started across the room, but Harker was already in the corridor. For an instant I saw his face before the smoke shrouded it. His lips moved and I caught the words very faintly.

  “I’m going, son.”

  He said “son.” I heard him, I heard him.

  Then he disappeared in the blinding billow of the hall beyond. The muffled blasts echoed, and Sol Morris grabbed my arm.

  “Quick, let’s go! You can’t stop him anyway. He’s crazy, like Druse.”

  “No.” I shook free, pushing Morris against the wall. His hairpiece slid off and I stared down into his frightened face. “You know why he went in there? To get the print of Crime and Punishment.”

  “He’ll fry—look at the flames now!” Morris clawed at my arm again.

  “The firemen are here,” I yelled. “Tell them to run a hose in, quick. I’ll get Harker out of there.”

  “No you don’t!”

  I turned. Druse was on his knees. He’d picked up the gun from the floor and he trained it on us once more as he edged back slowly, moving to the hall doorway.

  “You stay here. I’ll go back for him. I have to go back anyway.” He laughed. “I forgot my shoes. Must find my shoes, put them on. Don’t want anyone to see me without my shoes.” He moved back along the corridor, still facing us. A surge of smoke surrounded him. His clothes were beginning to smoulder.

  “I’m not a freak, you know,” he said. He laughed again as his hair started to burn, as he moved into the fire and the smoke billowed up, blotting out his face.

  “Don’t!” I yelled. “Come back! Father!”

  But nobody heard me. There was nothing but the crash of a falling beam, the roar of the fire, the shouts of the men who came up behind me then and held my arms.

  They had the hose, and they tried to get in. I remember how they played a stream of water along the hall, and I think they finally managed to get as far as the lab door—or the place where the door had been. Now there was nothing but thunder and flame, thunder and flame and then a blazing burst that ended in utter darkness as I slumped forward and passed out.

  When I came to I was at the hospital, and it was all over. Morris was there with me, and Lozoff. They told me the rest.

  The lab and half the Executive Building were gone. Two stages up in smoke, completely demolished. One watchman and one gaffer dead, three injured. Two firemen out—suffocation. Damage roughly estimated at four hundred thousand.

  “But what about—?”

  Morris gulped. “I already told the papers. How Harker was back there looking at some film when the fire started and Druse went in after, to save him. That’s how the story’s gonna be, we had to tell them something—”

  Lozoff pushed the little man aside. “They never came out,” he said. “Druse was pinned under a beam when they found him. Harker almost made it. He got as far as the door, anyway, carrying all those reels in his arms. He was still holding them when the wall caved in. He wanted to save our picture.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I guess we all did.”

  Morris shook his head. “Terrible,” he muttered. “Believe me, I don’t care about the Studio. We got insurance, anyway. But to see a fine actor like Druse go to pieces that way—terrible! And Theodore Harker. He was a fool to try and get those reels out. What kind of business is that, to kill yourself for a movie? But he was a great director.”

  Kurt Lozoff sighed. “No, he wasn’t. He was a great man.”

  I turned my face to the wall and they left.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I WON’T take you with me to the funeral. It was one of those big affairs, with too many people, too many flowers, too many reporters and photographers and bit players and curiosity seekers who stood outside the chapel and asked for autographs. The sermon by an eminent local divine was a glowing tribute to the heroic sacrifice of two men whose contribution to the art of the screen would never be forgotten. Two men whom, incidentally, the eminent local divine had never seen.

  But it was a great spectacle. And almost all the stuff about the unforgettable contribution was printed in the evening papers—which were used to wrap the garbage in, the following morning.

  And that was that.

  I’d seen them all at the cemetery, of course, Lozoff, Madame Olga, Jackie Keeley, Hilton, Craig, Maybelle, Arch Taylor, and the people from the Studio—all the studios. Glenda Glint had a wonderful time just listing the names and describing the floral offerings.

  Nicky and Hilda Morris were there, with Sol, in a new hairpiece—it was black for the occasion, and attracted favorable comment.

  Morris came up to me, as I was leaving, and shook my hand. “You come and see me one of these days,” he said. “Don’t forget, now.”

  I nodded and said yes, but I never did. I never went back.

  He probably would have been much too busy to see me anyway. Because a lot of things happened during the months that followed.

  They bought Harker’s land in the San Fernando Valley from his estate and rebuilt out there. He would have laughed about that, I think—Salem and Morris erecting their new Studio on his chosen site. It was, somehow, the final touch.

  From time to time I heard rumors about the others, but I gradually lost track of them during 1930. Lozoff and Madame Olga went to Europe. Lucille Hilton and Emerson Craig both announced their formal retirement. Maybelle Manners just disappeared.

  In the fall of ’30, Coronet Pictures opened their new plant, with Lester Salem cutting the pink ribbon, and shaking hands with Sol Morris—the Grand Old Man of the Industry, as Salem now called him. Nicky got himself some kind of title with the new setup, but the Grand Old Man gradually drifted out of the news reports and the publicity blurbs, and I guess the gold barber chair went with him when he sold out the following year.

  As for me, I went back to Encino. I still had the lots, and a little cash. I had enough to put up a small building and take a stab at going into business. Used cars, of all things. Turned out pretty well, too—plenty of people wanted used cars at the
beginning of 1931.

  That was the year Chaplin made City Lights. The rest was talk, punctuated by the chanting of chorines and the spattering of machine guns on the soundtracks.

  That was the year, though, when I found out what had happened to Jackie Keeley.

  As a matter of fact, he drove in to see me early one Friday evening when the lot was still open. It developed he had a Rolls to sell. Rolls wasn’t exactly a hot item in 1931, but I made him a deal. He looked as though he could use the money.

  “Things aren’t so good right now,” he admitted, as we sat in the office, afterwards. “You probably heard. Oh, I did a couple of supporting jobs here and there, but I’m on the way out. And we can’t all produce our own, like Charlie.”

  I got out a bottle and let him sample the latest production of the reliable bootlegger. He seemed to approve of it.

  “Funny how fast things change,” he said. “Most of my bunch is gone, already. All the Sennett people, the oldtimers. Langdon is through. Lloyd and Keaton, too, but they don’t know it yet. They will, in a few more years. But they won’t give up—they’re just like the characters in the comedies. Brave little guys who never quit.”

  I poured him another drink.

  “Thanks, Tommy. You know, you were lucky in a way. Still young yet, so you can start over again like this and make a go of it. But me, I’m still in pictures, even if I’m out.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “I can’t explain. This new bunch, the New York crowd and the young people growing up with the talkies, they’re in business. Producing, directing, acting—that’s just a job to them. It was different with us. We lived our work. Old D.W. Griffith, with those brass-hooked shoes and the loops in back for pulling them on, remember? He was a Great Director twenty-four hours a day. Harker, too. Valentino was the Great Lover, on screen or off. Just like Karl Druse was a monster, and I was a funny little runt. We lived our work, so that’s why we died, when the silent movies died. Some of us actually passed on, and the rest of us are only partially alive.” He helped himself to another drink. “Yes, you’re lucky. You got out, got back to reality, just in time.”