by Paul Malmont
Gibson almost blurted out that he had seen The Shadow, nearly told Welles about Providence. But Welles was a hard man to interrupt.
Welles shrugged. “The only good characters I’d present would be the agents of The Shadow—Harry Vincent, Margot Lane, Shrevnitz, the working stiffs who would be exploited by the criminal element if it weren’t for him. In fact, I’d want the audience to suspect each of them—the cabbies, the construction joes, the fruit vendors, and the doormen—of being The Shadow. The audience expects Lamont Cranston to be The Shadow, so that’s one place where I’d throw them off. Cranston, or Allard, what have you, he’s just another agent in the end, doing The Shadow’s bidding, spying on the underworld, bringing him information. The Shadow’s agents are the tools through which The Shadow acts and he uses them to change the villain’s world, manipulate his destiny, moving them like chess pieces, forcing the villain to react and react and react, each time thinking that he’s defeated The Shadow only to find that another agent has become The Shadow and is challenging him again and again, trapping him in an illusion of mirrors, until that villain’s fate is inescapable. And that fate is, of course, his doom.
“I’d never use a straight cut when The Shadow was in action. Everything would be done in dissolves so the images flow into each other. I’d pick the craziest angles I could shoot so that the audience would feel like the criminals, off balance and operating outside of normal conventions. Movies are about the interplay between light and dark, black and white. And so is The Shadow.”
“Well, it’s an awful lot to draw out of some pulp mags.”
“It’s all about the lie. The big lie. That’s what our audiences want from us, Walter. From you and me they want the big lie. They want the big stories about the great things. Not for us the little tales of simple people. We have to tell the big lie. The bigger the better. As far as I can tell, the best way to lie is to use film. Everything about it is a lie. The script is a lie the writer tells, which the actor speaks, lying to convince you that the words are his. The cameraman uses light and angles to lie about how good that actor looks. Then the editor takes all the lies, picks the best ones, and stitches them together into one great lie from beginning to end. But in spite of all that, when it’s done right, somehow it becomes something quite like the truth. That’s what I want to do. But,” he added wistfully, “you know the joke, right? How many Broadway directors they say it takes to change a lightbulb?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ten. One to do it, and nine to tell each other how they would have done it better.”
They sat in silence for a few moments as Rod faced menace from a gun-wielding thug. They both sighed at the same time as the cliffhanger came to an end.
“Hey! There’s a one-reeler cartoon, Hawaiian Holiday, after the newsreel,” Orson said as the Movietone logo splashed across the screen. “Want to stick around? I love Walt Disney.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. He is certifiably the only genius working in Hollywood today.”
“I knew him in France during the war. Skinny kid. Drove an ambulance. Who knew?”
“I can’t wait to see what he does with Snow White. Variety says it’ll ruin him; they say people won’t go see a feature cartoon. But I’d bet any amount that they will if Disney makes it. It’s amazing to me that the man is able to craft such a personal artistic statement in an art form that requires so much anonymous collaboration.”
“I don’t really follow the kids’ stuff too much.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I forgot you’re a serious writer. And how is your great American novel coming along anyhow?”
“I’ll let you know when I start it.”
“Too busy writing good to write great.”
“Which reminds me, I’ve got another script to get to you. Interested in a paper caper? A powerful news tycoon is murdered and only The Shadow can solve it.”
“Interesting. But hold that thought. Stick around and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”
Gibson looked at his watch. “All right,” he said, “let’s see what we shall see.” He lit a cigarette. The silver light cut through the smoke. Suddenly the newsreel, which had been running, caught his attention.
Thunderous howitzer cannons blasted an unseen enemy. “Dateline: China! General Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist army, has ended the civil war against Mao’s Communist rebel army in the greater interest of expelling the advancing Japanese army, whose devastating invasion of the Manchurian provinces continues.”
The narrator’s delivery was spitfire fast over spectacular battle footage of the brave and bold Chinese fighters. They crawled through mud or manned 37mm artillery guns. “The generalissimo came late to this conclusion, and only after being kidnapped by a faction of officers within his own troops led by General Zhang Xueling.”
The shot changed from weapons of war to one of a group of Chinese men in uniform. They posed stiffly, as if for a still photograph, looking all the more foolish for trying to remain motionless before the lens of a motion picture camera.
“General Chiang Kai-shek was persuaded to embrace the cause of Chinese unity at the home of General Zhang’s brother and closest political adviser, Zhang Mei. Sources claim that Zhang Mei, known as the Dragon of Terror and Peril, could himself lead the Chinese government at some future time.”
Gibson’s hands began to tremble. He instantly recognized the eyes of the intense dark man standing behind the soldiers. It was his Shadow, the Chinese stranger. He was the only man in the group whose very stillness seemed to reflect who he was, not what he wanted the camera to commemorate.
“Subsequent to the kidnapping, while all the plotters of the conspiracy have been rounded up, the general’s brother, the inscrutable Zhang Mei, has escaped into the shadows of war! Current whereabouts? Unknown.”
Stunned, he felt stuck in his seat. The cartoon began and Welles immediately began chortling, then laughing.
The Shadow’s laugh.
Walter sprang from his chair, not unlike his companion had when the serial had begun.
“What about the cartoon?” Orson shouted.
“I can’t stay!” Gibson hollered back as he ran up the aisle toward the exit. “I’ve got to find a cab!”
Episode Twenty-Eight
“DEAR BROTHER,” Xueling said to him, “Manchuria needs you now. I need you now.”
Snow was falling. Xueling was visiting Mei in the small house he had claimed near the outskirts of Shenyang, far from the palace. Mei scratched his hands through the long beard he had grown during his mourning.
He could see his brother’s eyes moving from him to the object behind him. Some time ago Zhang Mei had sent soldiers back to his home village and had them retrieve the statue of the god whose priest he had once pretended to be. He had wanted to show his wife and son something of his childhood, and this hollow old statue was the only tangible memory he could provide them. Of course, Lu Zhi thought it silly and had banished it to a far corner of her garden. Still, he’d had artisans restore its golden glory. When he had moved from that house, the statue was all he had asked to accompany him.
“I have nothing more to give to Manchuria,” he replied. “Nor to China. I have given all.”
“I have lost my father, as well,” Xueling reminded him.
Mei nodded but did not reply. He brushed a minute speck of incense ash from his black silk robe. “I wear the black robes of the old monk who taught us in our youth. Do you remember he once told us that in order to wear the white robes of healing, one must first wear the black robes of destruction?”
“You will find Mi-Ying someday,” Xueling said. He knew Mei had been scouring the countryside on the trail of the traitor. His quest had yielded no fruit, no relief.
“I believe he has fled to the south.” Mei nodded. “I will follow him there.”
“I have decided to strike my father’s colors,” Xueling said, suddenly. “I have made this decision with the advice
of my brothers.”
This, at last, distracted Mei from his concerns.
Xueling continued, “The men of Manchuria are brave and determined, but General Chiang’s army will overwhelm us in the end. I will order my father’s colors struck at sunset tomorrow and at dawn the next day we will raise the flag of the Republic of China. Henceforth, I will be the commander in chief of the Manchurian border. It is peace. Of a kind.”
“A peace with those who have killed my family? What kind of peace is this?”
“A peace that will unite China.”
“I believe we should fight on forever!” Mei spat, his voice dripping with bitterness. “Hit them harder, and harder, and harder!”
“Even if many more sons and wives and fathers die?” Xueling asked with surprising tenderness. “Even if the Han race be wiped from the face of the earth?”
“Yes!” Mei felt a murderous rage sweep over him. He dashed his weapons rack to the floor. “How can I swear loyalty to a man whose heart I want to rip out?”
Xueling gestured to an aide who stood nearby, who quickly left through the door. There came the sound of low voices in the small courtyard beyond. “I thought, as we all did, that General Chiang was behind the assassination. However, one who represents interests other than China’s has recently come to me with new information.”
The aide reentered the small room with another man. He was white and wore the uniform of an American officer.
“This is Captain Towers of the United States,” Xueling introduced the man, who bowed deeply and formally. He bore himself alertly and carried the demeanor of a warrior. “He has been attached to diplomatic relations in many other countries. He has recently brought intelligence to me of conspiracies which sought this assassination to push us over the precipice into a great civil war. Then, like vultures, the plotters would pick apart the corpse of the land. He has helped me turn away from that fall for the good of China. Now you will see who Mi-Ying’s merciless allies in this conspiracy are.” He turned and looked at the young captain, who stood ramrod straight. “Who has caused the death of our father? Of this man’s wife and son?”
The aide began to translate haltingly to Towers but the man cut him off with a wave of his hand. Towers’s eyes met Mei’s and his strong gaze did not waver for an instant.
“Japan,” Captain Towers, the American officer, said in Chinese. “The Japanese.”
Episode Twenty-Nine
“SO, THIS is where it gets interestin’, ’cause this is where I lost him,” Manny said, hitting the brakes with enough force to bounce Gibson forward against the dashboard.
“You lost him?”
Unfazed and unmoved, the cabbie chewed on his unlit cigar stub. “Wanna know what happened then?”
Gibson sat back in his seat. “Hell, yes!”
It had taken Manny’s dispatcher several hours to track him down. During this suspenseful wait Gibson had managed to convince himself that something unfortunate had happened to his affable friend. In the end, however, the familiar cab had squealed to a stop in front of his hotel. The trip down the West Side had taken only minutes. Manny had just stopped his cab by the newsstand on the Ninth Avenue IRT elevated tracks at Sixteenth Street. A young man was hawking afternoon editions of the New York Post. The light from the setting sun was sliced into neat slivers by the massive ironwork trestle overhead.
Manny leaned on the horn. At the sound the paperboy stopped hectoring the commuters and, with a smile of recognition, ran to the open window on the driver’s side.
“What’s up, Manny?” He was a teenager, of slight build and with dark eyes. His fingers, gripping the ledge of the door, were long and thin. The hair under his gray cap was a dark mop of brown curls and his eyes were wide and street-wary.
“Mr. Gibson, this here’s Kurtzberg.”
“Hiya, mister.” The kid shook his hand.
“Hello.”
“He plays stickball with my kid out in Sunnyside. So here’s what’s what. I follow your fella to here and then the cab stops and he gets out. He’s heading for the elevated and I want to keep an eye on him but if I leave my cab behind I’ll get fired. I’m on call, my dispatcher’s barkin’ at me. Nothin’ I can do. So I think fast. I look over and I seen Jakey selling his papers right here on that corner. I give him da sign, and as sure as Bob’s your uncle, he’s up the El after him. Even jumps the turnstile.”
“That’s right.” The kid nodded.
“Where’d he go?” Gibson asked.
“Just up to Thirty-fourth Street near the post office,” the teen replied. “I followed him off the train, and down at the entrance there’s this guy waiting for him with a car. But he ain’t Chinese. He’s American. Kind of an older guy, older than you even, with short silver hair. I tried to get close enough to hear them talking, but I couldn’t do it. Whatever the Chinese man tells this guy really ticks him off something fierce. He starts pounding on the roof of the car. Then the Chinese man tells him something that completely turns him around, makes him laugh. They get into the car.
“Now I can’t follow him on foot and I ain’t got no cab fare. But I see a pal of mine, Stanley Leiber, who works at his cousin’s husband’s newsstand up there.”
“That’s one of Martin Goodman’s stands,” Manny said.
“Yeah, I know him,” Walter said. “Also prints Stag Magazine, right?”
“He’s got a string of newsstands. Real bona fide operation.” Jakey continued his story. “Stan’s also a part-time Movietone news runner, a guy who rides his motorcycle to the site of a news story. The cameraman gives him the film and then he beats the devil through traffic back to the lab to get the film processed so it can get onto movie screens before The March of Time. He says it’s kinda like bein’ on the pony express,” he added somewhat wistfully. “Plus he makes some good scratch.”
“Forget it, kiddo,” Manny said, “I ain’t talkin’ your pop into getting’ you no motorbike. Them things are a menace.”
“Anyway, I tells him to keep his eye on the runner and he sets off after ’em and that’s the last I seen him.”
“Great work, kiddo. I’ll see you at the next game.” Manny slipped him a few bucks and put the car into gear and they raced up Eighth Avenue toward the post office district.
The car squealed to a stop at the newsstand, its racks bursting with titles, an Indian scout leaning against one wall.
“Hey-ho, Stan the man,” Manny hollered at the young man sitting on a stack of magazines before the stand. The young man, about the same age as Jakey, and just as gangly, nodded and rose stiffly. His face bore a fresh bruise, his fingers were dark with oil stains, and he walked with a limp over to the cab.
“Jesus, pal! Somebody rough you up?”
“Nah, Manny,” the young man said, defiantly, spitting on the sidewalk. “I got hit by a tuna.”
“How’s that again?” Gibson asked. The kid appraised him coolly.
“’S’all right,” Manny reassured him. “He’s the one calling the plays.”
The kid spat again. “I followed that car all the way downtown. You know the Fulton Fish Market, by the water there?”
Both men nodded.
“That’s where I got hit by a tuna. Some son of a bitch thrown it from a stall to a truck and the sucker smacked right into me. Forty-pounder, easy. Laid me right out on Peck Slip. Knocked the chain off my dang bike. Took me hours to get her running again. A crime too, ’cause I missed the drop from London out at Idlewild.”
“Damn,” Gibson sighed and sat back in his seat.
“Game called,” Manny grumbled.
“Naw,” Stanley seemed offended. “We got a pulp stand down there. Big Sammy the Boxer works it. You’ll know him when you see him, a huge grizzled piece of meat with a face that looks like a pile of broken brick. I gave him the signal. He hitched a ride on the back of a fish truck which was heading in the same direction.”
After slapping Stanley a few bucks to help him recoup the loss of the London dro
p, they left midtown and sped toward the waterfront. He was in it now, Gibson thought, grinning at the exhilaration of it all. The story was coming. He could feel the sense of urgent, unstoppable momentum rising up within, the same sensation he experienced when it all went well, the writing, as it went on the train when he had opened up the throttle and let the words out. He rubbed his hands—his fingers were throbbing—then leaned forward to watch the buildings flash by as the Brooklyn Bridge grew large.
Within moments they were in the midst of the Fulton Fish Market. The smell of fish permeated the car, even with the windows closed. Most of the buyers were already in business, bidding on and then distributing to local restaurants and fishmongers the day’s fresh catch being brought in from the sea. They found the plug-ugly pugilist, just as Stanley had described him, sipping a last whiskey of the day in his newsstand next to the tavern that sat behind the open-air fish stalls. Two drinks later and they were back in the cab heading farther south, into the financial district, the only part of New York that could truly be considered abandoned at night.
Manny pulled the car to a stop in front of an office building. It was indistinguishable from hundreds of other New York office buildings. Six or seven stories high, no ornamentation. “This was where Sammy the Boxer followed them to.”
Gibson could see lights on in the lobby and a pair of uniformed security guards inside. “Do you feel that?” he asked Manny. “The vibration?”
“Mm-hmm. Subway.”
Gibson shook his head. “No. There’s a rhythm to it. You catch the same sensation in the Street & Smith building. I think there’s a printing press down below us. Probably in the basement. It may even extend under the sidewalk.”