by John Dunning
Back to the gate, blinded by tears. To the guard’s shack, blinded by hate, and on into the coming South African night.
September 20, 1900. Dusk of another Friday in the Transvaal.
That night he did his first cold murders. Waited for the guards to come off duty and followed them through the streets. In the morning he killed two more: British officers he met on the road back to Johannesburg.
Music up and out. Overture with full orchestra.
Dulaney sat quietly for long minutes, his mind filled with Boers and Germans and long-dead British officers. With Carnahan and Kendall. March Flack as Lord Kitchener, his chest splashed with medals. And Paul Kruger, famous in his day, probably some great South African freedom fighter.
He tried to remember his world history, but his knowledge of South Africa was too spotty and the Boer War had always been slighted in American textbooks. We weren’t in it, so it couldn’t have amounted to much.
Then he remembered something that brought him straight up in his chair and made the hair bristle on his arms. Just a line or two, perhaps a short paragraph read long ago in an encyclopedia. There had been another famous man in South Africa then. The man England had sent to crush the Boers, do whatever it took to bring that damned war to an end.
Kitchener. The man who invented the concentration camp.
( ( ( 14 ) ) )
FROM that moment, he never doubted its truth. He read it again, literally now, not as fiction, and suddenly many questions began to clarify.
Why would a killer confess his childhood murders in a radio script? Because he can’t help himself. Even after forty years his hatred of England is so intense that he will take any risk to tell what she did to him. He spreads out his case as if the whole world must see it his way—the single-minded intent of the British empire to destroy the women and children of a land they had no right to be in.
Even the Germans make sense. He joins hands with anyone who is England’s enemy. Whitemarsh, if it is ever pinned down, will turn out to be just what it sounds like, a German code name. He has probably been spying on British activity in the States since 1939 and maybe much longer, but his motives have nothing to do with politics. He probably cares nothing for the so-called ideals of the Nazi government, they may even sicken him, but still he seeks vengeance for his own personal ghosts. That’s why he killed March Flack, an old imperialist who dared throw the spitting image of Kitchener in his face. There is indeed a German angle, but it wraps around a motive much older and deeper.
At some point the German angle takes on a life of its own. The more you do for them, the more they demand. It is so much easier to begin a campaign of spying than to end it, and suddenly the hour is late and even a fool can see that relations between Tokyo and Washington are disintegrating. Any day now there will be war with Japan. Germany and Italy will inevitably follow, and then he will be spying against America, an automatic death sentence in wartime. He knows they must be careful but they are not careful enough. Somehow they are discovered by Carnahan, a handyman with his run of the place, and everything begins to unravel.
Dulaney heard footsteps in the hall and recognized the gait. Becky Hart. She knocked on the door.
“Jordan?”
He looked at the clock. Five past eight.
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
“Everyone’s here.”
“Good. I’ll be right down.”
He turned over the final page and found a sheet of notes in Becky’s hand. Got out his notebook and made his own notes.
In 1936, Paul Kruger had apparently been living in an apartment on New York’s West Side, near Ninth Avenue and Fifty-sixth Street. “He did accept our check for the script,” she had written. “According to our records it was endorsed P. Kruger and made payable to a John Riordan, also of that address. So we do seem to own the property, if we want to make something of it now. If we can.”
Holly must know this, he thought: she must be told.
Told what? I still don’t know who he is. But I know who he was.
( ( ( 15 ) ) )
HE came into the studio and Brinker appeared as if he’d been waiting there at the door. “Jordan,” he said, “I need to talk to you, now if you can, before we get started.” But they were mobbed as the actors came down to meet him and shake his hand. Rue introduced him to half a dozen people at once, and he forgot all the names as they moved into the room and down to the edge of the soundstage. He heard Brinker say his name and he looked up and nodded. Then Becky Hart had him for a short conference at her table.
“Rick Gary’s coming. I talked to him about half an hour ago. He’s got an early show tonight on NBC so he can’t get here till ten. Just a bug in your ear when you start reading the others for the father—the best may be yet to come.”
She shuffled her notes. “Stoner and Livia want to sit in, if you don’t mind. That’s about it. I did tell Kidd what you said. About me producing the show. He laughed, if you can believe that—the man actually laughed at our spunk. I guess I’m yours, sweetheart. Use me well. I look tiny but I’m fast and fearless and I don’t break.”
Suddenly they hugged each other and he thought, This is how we begin. In an ideal world, sit on a stool at the edge of the stage and begin.
“I apologize for being late and thank you all for coming. I wish I had a part for each of you, but there will be other parts as we go along. Tonight I hope we’ll form the core of a standing company, one that can be used on many projects, not just this one.”
He talked for a moment about his horse people. How a river of life was what he wanted, a mythic tone wrapped in a hard shell of modern realism. “It’s not about horses, it’s about people. Here in this studio is where they come to life.”
There wasn’t a sound in the room as he looked from face to face. Each of them had years in the business, yet he felt a thousand years old in the matters of his story and how it must be told. An actor might not know what osselets were or what a sweatbox was used for, how a horse got on the vet’s list and what that meant to people who were not rich and had to keep ’em running. They wouldn’t know what a bug boy was, or a bleeder, or when and why a running horse changed its lead. “Don’t worry about this tonight. My tendency is to explain nothing in fear of losing the realism. We will try to hold the listener with character and plot and let the background wash over him as it goes along. If I write it right, the listener won’t care that he doesn’t know these things, and then, suddenly one day, he does.”
He waited for questions. There were none, and Becky began assigning them a pecking order. Each would be read alone while the others adjourned to the smaller studio down the hall and waited to be called. Jordan felt a momentary lightheartedness as Stoner made an O-K signal with his finger and thumb. This would be a helluva thrilling night, he thought, if I were Jordan Ten Eyck.
He opened the door to the booth. Stoner had his transcribing equipment ready to cut, with a shiny smooth black disc on the turntable. “I thought you might like some of this recorded,” he said. “Then if you’ve got two actors who are very close, you can listen to them tomorrow before you set it in stone.”
“What a great idea, Gus. I owe you one.”
“Just look up and nod your head and I’ll be recording in here.”
He turned, almost bumping into Brinker, who had come up behind him.
“Jordan. I know you’re busy but I really need to talk to you. I got my draft notice today.”
They didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Good-bye, Mamma, I’m off to Yokohama,” Brinker said.
“When do you report?”
“Ten days. They don’t give you much time. Anyway, I wanted to tell you before you got started. Before you waste any time on me.”
“Well,” Jordan said lamely. “I appreciate that.”
“Rue doesn’t know yet, I just found out myself an hour ago. I’d like to tell her now if it won’t disrupt your audition.”
“Sure. Absolutely.”<
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But they stood there and finally Brinker said, “I guess we’ll find out a lot of things now. I hear Rick Gary is coming.”
“That’s what I hear too.”
Brinker laughed but Jordan could see the fear in his eyes. He’s dead certain he’s not coming back, and if he does, everything will be different.
“He’s a great actor,” Brinker said. “Don’t pass him up on my account if you can get him.”
Jordan wanted to say something positive but he’d never been much of a flag waver in the face of bad news. What he finally said was simple: “I’ve got a good feeling about you, Jimmy. For what that’s worth at a time like this.”
“You might be surprised what it’s worth. I’ve admired you right from the start. I just wish I could be here to do this damn fine thing you’re putting on.”
“I wish you could too, Jimmy.”
His words felt wooden but Brinker’s eyes filled with tears. Abruptly he turned and walked away.
Now we have three to cast, Jordan thought. But that made light of it, and Brinker’s departure hit him harder than he could’ve imagined. He barely knew the kid, but the loss he felt was suddenly deep, almost personal.
He disposed of the announcers quickly. Stallworth would announce and Eastman, after reading a few crucial lines, was made chairman of the Jockey Club. Then Becky began calling the actors, who each came in and read a page or more, pausing occasionally to discuss emphasis and delivery. He called a few back for additional lines and this meant they had passed first muster. They all knew the signs. They were being recorded, the man liked them, they were still in the running.
His direction began modestly and gained strength as the night went on. He sensed at once if a voice was wrong for the character he had created, but he owed them a reading and he cut no one short. He was looking for a certain timbre, and it surprised him when he winnowed the older brother down to three actors who sounded nothing alike. “There’s something about that little fella Blake that rings my bell,” he told Becky. “I’d like to hear him again and have the others read for the younger son.”
“Isn’t that Jimmy’s role?”
“No,” he said, and she looked at him sharply but let it pass.
Rick Gary arrived shortly after ten and went back to the small studio to wait his turn with the others. They all took a break around ten thirty. Becky had ordered hot food and the actors mingled in the lobby, eating and smoking and talking shop. Across the room Rue stood alone, caught in the grim struggles of the real world. Brinker had left the building. Rick Gary had been cornered by his New York colleagues but he pulled away to talk to Rue, who suddenly burst into tears. Gary put his arm around her and led her away to a dimly lit corner of the lobby. Livia watched them from the opposite corner, her face giving no hint what she thought.
Back in the studio Stoner sat behind the glass, in the chair he hadn’t left all night long. Jordan felt his first wave of weariness. “It’s getting late,” he said to Becky. “Let’s read Rue next and let her get on home.” He could hear the actors shuffling back through the hall behind him, but it was Livia who was close when he turned. She had come to say good night. She had to rescue her sitter. It was going to be a fine show.
“I dreamed about Carnahan last night,” she said.
“So did I.”
This was probably remarkable, though neither seemed to think so. “He’s always saying good-bye,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning, if we’re all alive then.”
They began again, with Rue and Pauline. There was no competition for either part, but he wanted to hear the new man Blake in a scene with both, then bring in Rick Gary as the father and have them all run through the closing lines of chapter one. This took very little time. Even Rue, still pale from the shock of Brinker’s news, rose to her part, and in ten minutes they had nailed it.
“The mother’s yours,” he told Pauline. “You couldn’t be more right for it.”
“Bless you, Jordan. Now I can get me lights back on.”
He told Rue what she already knew: she had the choice daughter’s part. “Now why don’t you drop Pauline off and go on home yourself.”
“I’m not ready to go home yet,” she said, a little crossly.
“Don’t worry about it,” Pauline said. “I can walk over the dunes faster than you can drive me there anyway.”
Jordan felt chilled at her words but she didn’t seem bothered by the idea of her husband’s disappearance on the same walk. He gave Rue a frosty look. “Do me a favor and drive her home.”
“Of course. I’ll take her home and come back. If that’s all right with you.”
“Take her home and don’t come back,” Jordan said. “Go talk to Jimmy.”
“What the hell am I supposed to say to him? He thinks I’m glad he’s going. So I can go off and be with . . . someone else.”
“He doesn’t really believe that.”
“Then why’d he have to say it? If I wanted to leave him I’d just do it. He doesn’t own me. He’s got no right making this my fault.”
“Right now he’s alone and hurting. Go talk to the man, Rue.”
“I don’t see why I should. Not after what he said to me.”
“Then don’t go talk to him,” said Jordan, suddenly angry. “Be petty and mean instead. When he gets his brains blown out in France you can tell him you’re sorry over his gravestone.”
She looked as if he’d slapped her. “Jesus Christ, what is it with you men? Why are you all such bastards?”
“I guess it’s in the blood,” said Jordan in a softer, kinder voice. “You do what you want, but don’t come back here tonight. The part’s yours if you want it. But if you come back tonight, I’ll give it to Hazel.”
“Yessir! I shall do exactly as you say, sir! Right this goddamn minute, sir!” She turned and clicked her heels. “Heil Hitler!”
He closed his eyes until she’d gone.
“What the hell was that all about?” said Stoner through the bitch box.
“That’s just our girl Nina,” Becky said. “You chose her well for this part, Jordan.”
He told them about Brinker, and Becky sighed. “I guess that means we’ve got one more to cast.”
It was now after eleven: he had been here thirteen hours, Becky even longer. He told Blake to go on to the hotel and come back in the morning. In the booth Stoner had finally moved from his chair. He leaned over and spoke into the microphone. “If you crazy people want to work all night, that’s fine with me. I’ve got to get a show ready for midnight. I’ll send Joe down to finish you up.”
A few minutes later Joe Carella came in and took the chair in the booth. The readings began on the younger brother. They finished at midnight and Becky went home. Jordan went back to Studio B and found Rick Gary sitting alone. “Let’s go grab a beer,” he said. “I’ll meet you downtown at the hotel in fifteen minutes.”
( ( ( 16 ) ) )
“THERE’S a thing about radio,” Rick Gary was saying. “It gets in your blood and ruins you for anything else. The only people who ever get out of it are those who can’t make it, and even most of them never stop trying. They have a little success and it breaks their hearts that they can’t take it farther. Sometimes it’s just bad luck, sometimes a real lack of talent, occasionally a fall from grace. But they keep sniffing out auditions and turning up to compete, and they never get a call. Directors like to work with people they know.”
“You can understand that.”
“Sure I can. At the same time, some of these people deserve a much better fate. Take your guy Blake. He’s been around New York radio for years but all he gets is dog food. I think he’s a fine talent and I had a hunch you’d choose him. When Becky told me who was coming tonight, I thought, Ah, Blake! At last he’ll get his chance.”
They had met in the lobby of the hotel and walked half a block to the bar, where they now sat nursing their beers. Jordan had asked for a table in the back of the room and had seated himself facing the d
oor.
“Speaking of falling from grace,” he said. “You probably knew Marty Kendall. I imagine you did a show or two with him.”
“Everybody knew Kendall. I did more than a few shows with him. Hell, two or three hundred is more like it.”
“What’d you think of him?”
“I liked him a lot. We were never bosom buddies or anything, but he was a talent and I respected that. Had an amazing range, was able to make everything sound so damned real. How’d you know him?”
“We just met on the road.”
Gary nodded as if this had to figure. “He just couldn’t leave the sauce alone, could he? That’s the biggest tragedy of all. I’ll bet his nights were filled with dreams of coming back.”
Jordan nodded. “He thought about it all the time.”
“Which is what I’ve been saying. Whenever I start getting cocky I think about Kendall and a few others who have had it all and lost it. Believe me, I know how lucky I am.”
This brought them to the point and Gary knew it. “Let’s see if I can guess what’s on your mind. You want me to play the father but you’re uneasy. You’re afraid I’ll take the part and then get tired of making this god-awful trip every weekend, and at some point, say around the middle of the second month, I’ll bail out on you, and there goes your lead character.”
“You should be a mind reader.”
“It’s just common sense, it’s what I’d think if I were you. You’re probably wondering why I’d take the role in the first place, when I’ve got everything I can handle in New York.”
“So far you’re outhitting Ted Williams.”
Gary finished his beer and waved for another. “It’s simple and complicated at the same time. I’ll give you the simple answer. I’m doing it because years ago, when I was a kid trying to break in, I fell in love with an older woman. She opened the door for me. She opened many doors.”
“Are you talking about Mrs. Harford?”