Stardust

by Kanon, Joseph

  “She comes up here? You know what I’m thinking?” Lasner said, a kind of echo. “It’s a hell of a thing. To do that.” He looked over at Ben, suddenly embarrassed. “Well, I don’t have to tell you.”

  “No.”

  At the top there was another turn, then a swarm of lights at the end of a stretch, just before the road looped back. Ben saw an ambulance and a cluster of police cars, lights trained on a splintered section of a wooden barrier fence at the edge of the cliff. One of the policemen was holding back a group of curious neighbors, the same extras, Ben thought, who’d appeared in the Cherokee alley. A flashbulb went off— maybe even the same police photographer. Now a few more shots, catching the group of ambulance workers carrying a litter up the side of the hill and onto the road.

  “I made the call,” the policeman in charge said. “Sorry to bring you out, but we need an ID on her. It’s your car.”

  Another cop drew back the sheet. Lasner looked down at the body, his face growing slack, then turned away, squeamish.

  “A friend?”

  “Cousin,” Lasner said, almost inaudible.

  “You’re next of kin?”

  “My wife.”

  “Close enough. You’ll need to see the ME over there, make the ID. I’m sorry, but we need to do it.”

  “What happened?” Ben said, staring at her face, torn by shards of glass where she must have hit the windshield, her hair matted with blood. Her eyes were closed but her mouth was open, as if it were still saying “oh.”

  “She went through there,” the cop said, pointing to the broken fence. “Into the canyon. The car didn’t catch fire, so that’s one thing, but a drop like that, be a miracle you survive it. You just get knocked to hell.” He looked up at Lasner. “Sorry.”

  Ben looked at the length of road, almost straight after the hairpins coming up.

  “What do you think?” he said. “She swerved to avoid another car?”

  The cop shook his head. “No sign of that. No skid marks either side. Course the rain didn’t help there. But you get a slippery patch here, you take it a little fast—” He raised his hand, letting them fill in the rest. “We had a hell of a time getting her out. The door stuck.”

  But the curve wasn’t sharp, a gradual arc that anyone should have handled easily—unless you hadn’t driven a car in years, or never intended to turn. He looked down at the body again, trying to imagine the last minute, through the fence and then suspended in nothing, waiting for it to be over. Something no one else ever knows, the desperation for release. But what prompts it? Ben wondered, an awkward second, whether he had been part of it, the unexpected reminder, ghosts coming back.

  “Reuben, it’s you?”

  He turned to find Feuchtwanger, a raincoat over his jacket and tie, the slicked-back hair and wireless glasses formally in place.

  “Herr Feuchtwanger.”

  “Such a commotion. We saw the lights.” He looked over at Genia’s body, clearly not recognizing her. “Poor woman. Oh, these roads. Marta says it’s no worse than the corniche but me, I think a death trap.” He paused. “But what are you doing here?”

  “She’s a cousin,” Ben said, indicating Lasner, huddled now with the ME.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Would you like to come back to the house? Some coffee?” A ritual courtesy.

  “No, no, thank you. We have to—” He spread his hand to the accident scene, policemen still moving idly around. “Stay with the body. Sign things.” He looked down at her. “She survived the camps,” he said, perhaps a memory trigger.

  But Feuchtwanger still didn’t know her. The sorrow on his face was impersonal, another victim.

  “The camps, but not this road,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, what am I doing here? They say in English a rubberneck—it’s amusing, a rubberneck. So.” He looked toward the group of neighbors, still gawking. “Marta wanted to know—all the lights. If you need to telephone, please come to the house.”

  Ben nodded a thank-you.

  “And coffee one day. Tell Liesl to bring you, we’ll talk. She looked well. So strong. I thought it would kill her, too—the way she felt about him. But no, strong. The father’s daughter.” He looked down at the stretcher. “But so much death.”

  Ben stood in the road, watching him walk away. The way she felt about him. But Lion was a romantic, his books filled with duchesses and men in wigs and undying love. He didn’t know she could lean her head into your shoulder, soft, not strong at all. Everybody saw what he wanted to see.

  Lasner was almost finished with the police. Once the ID had been made there was little either of them could do except arrange for the car to be towed. He looked again at the road. No skid marks, the policeman had said, but you didn’t need to slam on the brakes to have an accident here. Another car, with its lights in your eyes. The inky darkness of the canyon beyond, making the guard rail hard to see. The slide effect of wet pavement. There were lots of ways it could have happened, all of them easy to believe, unless you had sat with her at dinner and seen her eyes.

  Still, why this road? The next turnoff would have taken her up over the coast highway itself, a more dramatic plunge off the cliff into the traffic, a spectacular end. But the etiquette of suicide could be peculiar, oddly discreet. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to make a point, just go quietly, no trouble to anyone.

  “Who found her?” Ben said suddenly to the cop. They had pulled the sheet back over her face. “I mean, anybody see it happen? Stop?”

  “No. Some kids. See the shoulder over there? It’s a view point, daytime anyway. Sometimes they park there—it’s away from the houses. Nights you don’t get many cars, so it’s—anyway, they’re there, going at it, and when they leave they spot the fence. They take a look and there’s the car, her in it. So they call it in.”

  “This was when?”

  “Hour ago, maybe. Couldn’t have been too long after she went over. No rigor. Tire marks still fresh. Must have been a quickie.” He caught Ben’s look. “The kids, I mean.”

  “Nobody heard the crash?”

  “Nobody said. Pretty quiet up here. She’d have the place to herself. Till morning anyway. Then you get the dog walkers.” Hours later, not an instant attraction on the highway. “It’s just lucky it didn’t burn. A few weeks ago, all you’d need is one spark and— woof.”

  But she would burn now, finally the ashes the Germans had wanted. Unless Sol decided to have her buried. He looked over to where Lasner was standing, a little lost. He was avoiding the stretcher, still shaken. But Sol had scarcely known her. It occurred to Ben that their talk at dinner may have been the only real connection she’d made in California, that he had known her better than anyone. Not buried. She’d want to go up in smoke, erasing herself.

  Another car had pulled up, with a noisy greeting to the police photographer. Kelly. Ben, not yet seen, went quickly over to Lasner.

  “Get in the car,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Now. Don’t let him see you, the guy over there—he’s press. If he thinks there’s a studio connection, he’ll do a story. You don’t need that.”

  “You’re looking after me now?” he said.

  “I know him, I’ll take care of it. Just don’t let him see you. He’ll recognize you. Not her.”

  “Another Bunny,” Lasner said, but moved to the car, his face turned away.

  Kelly was already at the stretcher with the cop.

  “Hey, Kelly,” Ben said. “Chasing ambulances?”

  “Hey,” Kelly said, surprised to see him. “It’s a living.” He nodded to the stretcher. “More trouble in the family?”

  “Just visiting down the street. We heard the sirens.”

  “Visiting,” Kelly said, taking in the neighborhood, an open question.

  “If you need to call you could use their phone.”

  Kelly turned back to the cop. “Who is it? Anybody?”

  The cop passed over a clipboard. “Here,” he said, “I can’t even pronounce
it. Copy it if you want. Polish or something. Slid in the rain and went through the fence.”

  Ben looked nervously at the form on the clipboard. They’d have the Summit Drive address, a Crestview phone exchange, easy for Kelly to spot. But Kelly didn’t bother to look.

  “Polish,” he said, a code for no story. “Anybody else hurt?”

  “If so, they took off. Just her.” He lifted the sheet off her face.

  “Christ, she did a job on herself, didn’t she? What’s with the head, in the back? You get banged up there, you’re the driver?”

  The cop nodded to the cars. “Take one and find out. I’ll give you a push.”

  “I’m just saying. A wound like that, it’s consistent with a crash?”

  “Kelly, for chrissake, anything’s consistent with a crash. You know that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s always got to be something,” he said, taking the clipboard away. “It’s not enough she’s dead. She’s got to be somebody dead.” Ben waited for him to mention Lasner, but evidently the name hadn’t meant anything to him. “If it was Lana Turner, I’d be on the phone to you.”

  “If it was Lana, you’d be fucking the corpse. I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  “Nice. And all those years in school. You going to write this up or what?”

  “A Polack goes in the ditch? My Pulitzer.” He turned back to Ben. “Funny seeing you here.”

  “Friend lives down there,” Ben said, cocking his head toward the houses. “Another refugee.”

  “Some refugee. You know what these go for?”

  “I guess he got his money out.” Ben moved slightly to the left, blocking Kelly’s view of his car.

  “I was going to call you.”

  “Yes?” Ben said, alarmed. Now what? A new scent? Maybe not just some gossip this time. Now there were worse secrets, the kind that could spread like a stain, touching other people. Things he wouldn’t want Kelly to overhear at Lucey’s.

  “Get anywhere with the loan-outs?”

  Ben shook his head. “I thought you were giving up on it.”

  “Yeah,” said Kelly. “Too bad, though. You hate to leave it, there’s a studio angle. Sometimes it’s like this with a story. It goes and then it comes back. Never close a door.” He held up a finger and smiled. “You know where I got that? Partners in Crime. Remember how Frank always said that?”

  Otto’s pet phrase. After he started working for Goebbels.

  “Which one were you?” Kelly said. “The younger one?”

  “Neither. It’s a movie.”

  Kelly nodded, unconvinced. “Well, you hear anything, you know where to reach me.”

  “You’re the first call.”

  He put the car in a U-turn away from the accident and started back down the hill.

  “What was that all about? He’s going to write this up?” Lasner said.

  “The only story was, she was related to you, so there’s no story.”

  “You forgot to mention it, huh?”

  “Mrs. Lasner doesn’t need to see this in the papers. I know what it’s like.”

  Lasner looked over at him. “You’re a piece of work. You’re here, what, five minutes? And already you know guys on the paper. Not to mention the goddam Palisades.” They were passing Feuchtwanger’s house, dark now. “Thanks for this,” Lasner said, serious. He was quiet for a minute as they turned onto Sunset, heading back. “It’s a hell of a life, when you think about it. Hiding like an animal. The camp. Now this. To do something like this.”

  “There was nothing you could have done,” Ben said quietly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What she went through, it breaks something. You can’t fix it. Not just like that.”

  “What did she say to you? At dinner. She talk about it?”

  “No,” Ben said, avoiding it. “She was sad, Sol. Nothing was going to change that.”

  “You give her all this,” Lasner said, glancing out the window, brooding. “You know the best thing that ever happened to me? Getting the hell out. Everybody should have got out. Even now, you want to kiss the ground here. What kind of life could you have there? This country—”

  He broke off, as if the thought had overwhelmed him. Ben followed his gaze out the side window, trying to see what he was seeing, the big, sleepy houses and palms and hedges of paradise.

  “She asks, tell Fay it was an accident.”

  But he didn’t have to say anything. When they pulled into the driveway Fay came running out of the house, and Ben could tell from her face that calls had been made and nothing needed to be explained. Behind her, like a shadow, Bunny stood in the doorway, evidently summoned to wait with her. She hugged Lasner, then put her hands on his chest, smoothing his jacket, a hovering gesture.

  “Are you all right?” she said. “Did you eat anything?” she said, her hands still on his jacket. “Come on, I’ll get you something.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “And then you’re weak. It puts a strain.” She patted his chest. “Come on. It was bad?”

  Lasner said nothing, moving one of his shoulders.

  “Her face, too?”

  “No.”

  She shook her head a little, relieved. “You know she was beautiful. Before everything started. You can’t see it now, but she was.” She took his arm to lead him into the house. Bunny stepped aside.

  “And where the hell were you?” Lasner said, not really angry.

  “Out.”

  “Out.”

  “Even the maid gets a night off. I’ll make the arrangements tomorrow. Fay said cremation?”

  Lasner nodded.

  “What shape’s the car in?”

  “Scrap, probably.” He pulled a receipt out of his pocket. “Here’s where they tow it.”

  “Anybody there from the papers? You want me to—?”

  “Ben took care of it,” Lasner said, giving him a thank-you wave.

  Bunny hesitated for a moment. “Ah. See you tomorrow then. You want an obit?”

  “Who would read it? Who did she know?”

  “It’s a question of respect,” Fay said, then to Bunny, “I’ll get you the dates. She was in a few pictures over there. You think they’d be interested in those?”

  “They always cut something,” Bunny said, evasive. “But we’ll see.”

  He watched them go in, then came over to Ben.

  “German silents. From the ’twenties. Just what the papers want.” He looked at Ben. “Who’d you talk to?”

  “Kelly from the Examiner. Don’t worry, they already had this one as an accident. You don’t have to make any calls.”

  Bunny held his stare, not answering, then said, “How’s Mr. L doing?”

  “He’s all right. It’s more the idea of it. He scarcely knew her.”

  “Neither of them. I don’t think she said ten words. Except to you.”

  Ben glanced up at the big picture window where she’d looked out over what had been bean fields. “She knew my father. It took her back.”

  He drove to the Hollywood Hills, his head filled with the grainy clips in Hal’s cutting room. Why did some survive and some break? But maybe it was only a matter of degree. Nobody was the same after. Only the mindless, or the callous, could pretend nothing had happened. The others would feel the weight of it, pressing on them, until they accepted it, part of the air, or it got worse and they drove away from it. Still, why the car? Maybe because it was the one way it wouldn’t have happened there—not gas or starvation, what they used, your own choice.

  Liesl was on the couch, smoking, her legs drawn up under her, a script in her lap. When he walked in, she drew on the cigarette, deliberately not saying anything.

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t call.”

  “I play a daughter,” she said, picking up the script. “So it’s good for me. Something I know.” Not asking where he’d been.

  He went over to the tray on the side table and poured a drink.

  “She ta
kes care of him, but now she has to go away. So I can just think of my father. What that would be like.”

  “You didn’t wait, I hope.”

  “No. Daniel would do it sometimes—not come. So I know, don’t wait.” She put out the cigarette. “Of course I thought he was working. That’s all I thought then.”

  “There was an accident. I had to take Lasner. Remember the cousin at dinner?”

  “What happened?”

  “Car crash. Near Lion’s, in fact. I saw him. When they pulled her out.”

  “You mean she’s dead?”

  Ben nodded. “She went into the canyon. Probably killed when she hit, that kind of drop.”

  “Oh,” she said, a sound standing in for everything else.

  “They’re listing it as an accident.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “No other car. She drove herself off.”

  “Oh,” she said again, taking this in. “She did that?”

  “It happens, with the survivors. It’s hard to come back.”

  “And here I am, thinking about— You’re not surprised at this.”

  “No. Neither was Lasner.”

  “It’s terrible for them. To be the ones left. It doesn’t end—” she said, her voice private, interior.

  He looked over at her. “He didn’t do that to you. That’s not what happened.”

  “It feels the same. You can’t put it away somewhere. It’s in your head. Tonight I sat here, I thought, it’s just like before. So foolish—a roast chicken, something as foolish as that. Waiting, just like before. And I thought, it’s happening again. I’m waiting again.”

  He went over to the couch, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrank from it, moving away.

  “No. Don’t.”

  She stood up and moved toward the French windows, clutching the sides of her arms, guarded.

  “We can’t do this. What happened—all right, it happened. But to keep—” She turned. “You know what I was thinking about tonight? Maybe I’m still angry, that’s why. Like a child, hitting back. You can, I can, too, something like that, I don’t know.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Not for you. I don’t know what it is for you. Maybe something of his. Something crazy like that.”