The Steampunk Megapack

by Jay Lake

  He had not thought it would be this way. He had looked forward to falling right back into the old rut, among the old friends, and he had anticipated swaggering like a good one—all kinds of publicity in it! But, somehow, he found himself landing with a horrible jar. He was damned glad, he reflected, to be done with the bare simplicity of the soldier’s life, with the saluting and uniforms and general prophylaxis; and yet—

  Homesickness had glamoured all the old life, but now that he was back in it, the glamour seemed unaccountably like tinsel. The directors, for instance, even his own director and old crony, with their puttees and riding-breeches, general superiority, and bustling business—well, maybe it was the puttees that grated. Keene had saluted leather puttees until he was heartily sick of it; but that was another story altogether.

  He wondered inwardly if he had ever been like the men now around him—good fellows, of course, but abominably artificial. These fancy tailored garments, these amber cigarette-holders and sodden cigarettes without a bite, these flashing jewels, and, worst of all, this breezy talk that moved in perpetual high lights—

  What the devil was the matter with him, anyhow? Maybe it was because Lola had not come yet.

  Well, Lola came, with a stifled shriek and a tiny Peke, and flung herself at him. Good Heaven! Keene had been away from studio paint so long that her appearance frightened him. And had he really picked that engagement ring, that diamond like a walnut? Yes. He remembered hideously the glee with which he had nonchalantly signed that five-thousand-dollar check, and the delight with which he had seen the check pictured in the papers.

  “You’ve been away a hell of a long time, old sport!” and his director clapped him on the back. “But now you’re back to the life—the only life, boy!”

  “Right you are!” cried Reever Keene, bracing his shoulders. “Let’s have a drink!”

  Chapter III

  The fact that Reever Keene, home from the army, insisted on working with an abalone blister in his scarf, was an idiosyncrasy good for three-day comment in the press. And the press-agent sighed for the lost opportunities that were closed to him simply by the stubborn deviltry of Keene. Nobody knew what had got into the screen star. He had changed. The abalone pin, for instance, was a sore subject with him.

  He never wore any of his former loud attire, and had discarded all his jewelry, which formerly flashed in the cabaret lights of Los. He even wore that abalone pin stuck in the front of his dress shirt, for a society picture; and when the director expostulated, Keene bluntly told him to go to hell—which was no way to treat a famous director.

  Then somebody in the scenario department—that is, somebody in the orange-hued flivver class—had an inspiration. He wrote a story about that abalone pin. Keene, according to his contract, had the say about what film stories were to be accepted for his use; and he went into closed session with the scenario department, and there was evolved a scenario which made the director gasp. But the scenario went through; it had to go through, with Keene backing it.

  “What’s come over him?” said the president to the director. “He used to get stories written by his friends, turn down everything from the department, make us pay five hundred dollars for the stories—and then split with his friends. That’s the old stall; what’s this new wrinkle?”

  “Damned if I know,” groaned the director. “It’s got society stuff in it, and only last week he said he’d never touch society stuff again. And there ain’t any punch, not a bit; it’s one o’ them bleedin’-heart things, and it ain’t got—”

  “It’s got Reever Keene in it,” snapped the president, “and that’s enough to put it across anywhere. Do you get me?”

  The director departed, weeping.

  Worse was to come, however. Reever Keene sold his gorgeous car, and showed up with a plain green-black affair—not even a victoria top to it! Lola refused to ride in the wretched thing, and Keene swore; and the end of this matter was a fine quarrel which the press-agent featured without the least opposition.

  And then came the first of the month and the new story.

  The story was a society story, right enough. For three days. the company was on location at the Billingkamp residence—you remember, of course, Billingkamp’s Canned Soups—and the exteriors were gorgeous affairs.

  The trouble was that Reever Keene had been reading some highbrow stuff, and insisted on wearing his silk hat without any of the rakish tilt which is so fetching to the screen folk; and he insisted on throwing out the beautiful white roadster with red upholstery which the director had provided, and used his own sobersides of a car—and other things like that.

  In between times the quarrel with Lola was deftly adjusted, the date was set for the wedding, and duly featured by the press-agent.

  After that the company came back to the studio, the remainder of the picture being interior sets—and then the trouble really began. Reever Keene had instructed the property-men about the drawing-room set; the director had done likewise. Props, seeing himself between the devil and the deep sea, provided both sets, and left the principals to scrap it out. Which was wise.

  Reever Keene took one look at the director’s set, and ordered it off the stage. The director was inspecting Reever Keene’s set, and Keene met him in the act.

  “My Lord!” said the director. “I don’t know anything about motion-pictures; I’m just a poor simp who’s spent all his life in the game. Look—for the love of Heaven, look!”

  “Get down to cases, you,” growled Keene. “Never mind the high-art stuff, now. Just be sensible and tell me what’s wrong!

  The director swallowed hard and waved his hand at the set. It had been assembled with a good deal of trouble. There was an imitation Rubens; there was a real set of imitation armor that looked from the camera considerably like fifteenth century. The rest was deeply rich velvet and hangings.

  “As man to, man,” said the director, “I’ll put it to you, Keene. How do you think this dark stuff is going to take? All to the bad! It can’t be done, man! You’ve got to have contrast. Now, can’t you realize that this picture has got to show a society home? A real swell home. None of your junk, but stuff that spells money. They eat it, the people do!”

  “If you knew the money we’d spent on this set,” began the property-man plaintively. But Keene interrupted.

  “What would you suggest, then?”

  “Just what I ordered set up!” returned the director. “Statuary. A nude on the wall. Some o’ this here lacquered Chinese furniture—we got Bent’s whole store to draw on, and you know the best people ain’t buying anything else but lacquered, which shows up like real money. Then that high-colored rug, and so forth. It’ll be toned down fine in the film, Keene.”

  “Maybe so, maybe so,” said Reever Keene.

  “And then these here costumes. I been reading over your directions.” The director tapped the papers in his hand, with growing boldness. “I notice you got white neckties with evening clothes; you know’s well as I do they don’t make contrast. Then you got the society dames ordered to cut out the low-neck stuff—What the hell gives you such a notion of society, anyhow? Don’t you know they run around half naked? And no jewels. My Lord! If I was to run out such a picture the society papers would give me plain hell!”

  “If you had ever read them at all,” said Keene dryly, “you’d see they do that, anyhow.”

  A few minutes later the president sent for Reever Keene.

  “Take a cigar, Reever,” he said genially. “Now, we’ll have to cut out this fussing between you and Bob, see? He’s a damned good director; I’m not paying him twenty-five thousand dollars for nothing.”

  “Let him mind his own business, then,” said Keene, a little white around the jaw. “I’ve got a good picture, and he’s not to spoil it.”

  “Sure not,” agreed the president affably. “But see here, now. He’s contracted to put out your pictures, ain’t he? All right. And he’s got the say.”

  “In other words,” sai
d Keene slowly, “I’ll have to stand for his directing in this picture, eh?”

  “Sure. His contract is up in three months. If you want, I’ll put you in charge of your own directing after that.”

  “Then stop work on this picture until he’s out of it.”

  “Can’t do it; Reeve—we’re a week behind on the next release, and it’s got to be rushed. That’s why I’m putting it up to. you straight to work in with him now, and we’ll work in with you later, see?”

  Reever Keene nodded curtly.

  “I’ll try,” he said. “But—I won’t promise.”

  “The hell he won’t!” laughed the president later, when he was recounting the conversation to the director. “Like the rest of them—throwing a big bluff so he can strut around the Screen Club and tell how he handed it to me! Well, that’s one way of managing these here stars, believe me! This guy’s getting more money than the President of these here United States. Is he going to chuck his job?”

  “Not him,” said the director confidently. “Besides, he’s under contract to us, and if he broke the contract—”

  “He’d be finished, absolutely!” declared the president. “He’s no fool!”

  The president was playing both ends against the middle, which is a wise game—sometimes.

  Chapter IV

  Reever Keene had been too long in the movie game, and was taking too much money out of it, to have any artistic temperament—that is, when he was on the lot. Movie folk have to keep their temperament out of business.

  Still, when Keene saw what his director was doing to the abalone-pin story, and realized that he could not prevent its being done, he boiled with inward and suffocating rage. After three days he was so stifled with fury that he was ready for an outbreak.

  He had put Jim Bleeker into that story, and when he saw how the director was handling Jim Bleeker, despite all protests, his fury became white-hot.

  On the fourth morning he drove to the studio without opening his private mail. Once in his dressing-room, he glanced over the letters while he was making up; but, for him, that mail resolved itself into just one letter. He propped it in front of him and read it over again:

  DEAR MR. LARRIGAN:

  Within a few days I am leaving for Europe to take part in reconstruction work. I could not leave without writing you to express anew my very deep appreciation of all your thoughtful kindness to Jim. I know from his letters what your friendship meant to him, and I have learned from other comrades of your great devotion toward the end. Thanks seem but a little thing to offer; yet, believe me, my thanks and appreciation come from the soul.

  I know nothing of your financial position or status in civil life, and I do not wish you to think that I am insulting so deep and pure a thing as your friendship with Jim. However, I am enclosing a card from my attorneys, who are fully instructed to honor it in any way. If you should ever be in need of advice or aid, it will give me great happiness to know that you will make use of this card as though it had been handed you by your friend,

  JIM BLEEKER

  “Bless her sweet heart,” muttered Reever Keene, tearing the card across and tossing it into his waste-basket. He smiled a little, as he thought of his twenty thousand dollars in cash, buried where no one would ever detect it; and of the Kansas oil stock, held by a friend, which brought in itself a comfortable income. Everybody in the business thought that Reever Keene blew all he had, like every one else; but Aloysius Larrigan knew better.

  He read the letter again, fingering the blister pearl in his scarf, and forgetting his make-up completely. Once more he was standing in that house, half a block off Fifth Avenue; once more he was living through that moment when Mrs. Bleeker had handed him that scarf-pin, with her quiet, steady voice, and her brave, stricken eyes.

  The thought of it made him sit very quiet, staring at the letter. In all his life he had never experienced a moment such as that; no not even when Jim had died, beside him! It had been a moment of the spirit; a moment of absolute integrity, of purity, of unsullied sweetness.

  That moment had assoiled many long-soiled years. It had grown upon Larrigan ever since, had grown larger, had grown to mean much more than he had dared admit. Now this letter had come to bring it before him again in all its larger aspects.

  He made up mechanically and went out on the lot; for an hour he acted mechanically, obeying the director without protest, without thought. Then, during a change in the set, he went to his dressing-room.

  Lola was there, standing at his table, reading the letter. Something went cold inside Reever Keene, and he stepped forward as if to take it from her. But she turned upon him, a flood of passion in her face.

  “Well,” she observed with a sneer, “I guess I got your number now, Mr. Larrigan! Lady signs herself Jim Bleeker, does she? Maybe we’re goin’ to hear a lot of things that happened—”

  “You’re making a mistake, Lola,” said Reever Keene.

  “Mistake, am I?” She shook the letter at him with sudden passion. “Maybe I don’t know a chicken’s writing when I see it, huh? Well, if you think I’m a fool, this ends it! You can go along with your Jim Bleeker all you damn please! When you get ready to talk turkey to me—”

  Lola drew off the walnut diamond and laid it, very carefully, on the corner of the dressing-table under Reever Keene’s nose. The whole action was very statuesque and very dramatic; at least, was so intended.

  An instant later Lola uttered a despairing shriek. Reever Keene had seized the walnut diamond and had hurled it through the open window—hurled it with a swing that sent it glittering through the air to Heaven only knew where!

  “Ends it, eh?” snapped Keene. “Then I’m blamed glad of it! So-long!”

  Lola fainted as he vanished, and immediately the dressing-corridor was filled with figures answering her final dramatic shriek. Reever Keene went outside and climbed into his plain green-black car and drove down the street to his lodgings.

  Once there, he wiped the paint from his face, with a curse, and began to pack up his things. He paid his landlady. He burned Mrs. Bleeker’s letter over the oil- stove. Then he threw his stuff together in the rear of the car, and drove down to the bank, where he drew what money he kept deposited there.

  This finished, he went to the central gasoline station and turned over his car to be filled with gas and oil, and to be loaded with sundry extra five-gallon cases of the same.

  While he was watching these affairs being brought to conclusion he heard a wild hail and saw the president’s car stopping at the curb, and the president himself descending, red and perspiring of face.

  “Hey, Keene!” demanded the magnate heatedly. “What the devil’s struck you? They said you blew out o’ the studio like a wild man and quit work! Get on back there—”

  “Go to hell!” snapped the star. “I’ve quit being Keene. I’m Aloysius Larrigan, see? And don’t get fresh, you!”

  “What! Where you going?”

  “I’m going to Kansas, where I got business,” retorted Larrigan. “Hurry up with them two cans of oil, over there! And blow up the extry tires while you’re about it, partner.”

  The president seized him by the arm.

  “Look here, you!” he exploded violently. “Are you quittin’ on the job—quittin’?”

  “I am,” said Larrigan coldly.

  “By Heaven, if you bust this contract I’ll see to it that you never get another job in front of any damned camera in the world!” raved the other. “I’ll—”

  “You,” said Larrigan, “and your contract, and your seventeen companies, and your directors, and your money, and your whole damn camera battery, and your entire double-dashed motion-picture industry—go to hell! I’m done! Mustered out!”

  He shoved a greenback at the gasoline, dealer, climbed into his car, and went. The president gazed after him with eyes of dulled, glazed despair.

  “Bein’ in the army—that’s what done it for him—ruined the best star in the whole damned works!” he murmur
ed dismally. “Damn the Kaiser!”

  PAYABLE TO BEARER, by Talbot Mundy

  CHAPTER 1

  Ikey and His Trade.

  If you bring a woman into a story you spoil the story, and in all probability libel the woman; everybody knows that. But there are two women in this story, so get ready; they always have crept in, and they always will—and we have to make the best of it. In this instance, though, the first person to creep in was Ikey Hole.

  The police in particular, but almost everybody who knew him at all intimately, called him Keyhole Ikey, so that by the time that he crept into the story he was laboring under an extra syllable as well as a kit of scientifically constructed tools distributed about his person. It was a second story that he crept into—through a bedroom window.

  Ikey started in business at the early age of sixteen as a porch-climber, and by the time he was twenty he had become a past grand-master of his profession; but since by that time porches had grown a little out of fashion in New York he began to make a specialty of fire-escapes, and from that time on he throve amazingly, as everybody does who is sufficiently far-sighted to move with the times.

  He was a very careful man, was Ikey. He considered every little detail, just like the big interests do; but, unlike them, he was contriving to salt away quite a snug little fortune without running the risk of being muckraked.

  He agreed with the big interests in detesting publicity, but he differed from them again, in having nothing whatever to do with gentlemen’s agreements. Ikey had no pals; he always worked alone.

  He closed the window carefully behind him, leaving just sufficient space open at the bottom to enable him to insert his fingers should he have need to open it again in a hurry; then he pulled down the blind.

  That left him in pitch-darkness, but not for long, for he produced an electric torch from his sleeve and pressed the button; that gave him just sufficient light to examine the door by.

  The door proved to be unlocked, and the key was on the outside; so he opened it very gently, removed the key, and locked it on the inside.