‘You see a resemblance to whom?’
‘Sorry, it is rude of me not to introduce myself. My name is Franz Horvat. I represent the estate of the late Baron Jozsef Dragutin. He has died and his will leaves everything to his direct and sole-surviving relative. That relative, sir, is you. Baron Dragutin was your father and you are now a man of property.’
* * * *
7
A Century and Five
‘You’ve made a big mistake,’ said Rick Mason. ‘I think you have the wrong man. My father was no baron!’
The old man calmly removed his spectacles and cleaned the lenses in a most careful way on his handkerchief. ‘There is no mistake, I can assure you.’ He popped them back onto his nose and bent his head to business, taking a piece of paper out of the cardboard folder. ‘Your real name is Stjepan Gjalski, which was duly changed to Steven Gallis on passing through Ellis Island. From there you and your mother inhabited various towns and cities on the east coast until she died. You came west to Los Angeles, where you adopted the stage name Rick Mason.’ He looked up. ‘I admit that this last change did cause some trouble. But, after twenty-five years of searching for you, here you are at last.’
Mason narrowed his eyes. ‘Twenty-five years? How come you know all this about me?’
‘My business is to know things, Mr Mason – by the way, is that the name you wish me to call you? There seems to be so many to choose from.’ Mason nodded dumbly. ‘Your mother kept up a regular correspondence with contacts back in Slavonia, and judging by the look on your face it was a correspondence you knew nothing about. Alas, it is also my duty to inform you that the woman you thought of as your mother wasn’t in fact your real mother.’
Mason jumped from the chair. ‘OK, you’ve said enough. It’s time I was leaving. You’ve either got the wrong guy or this is some kind of hoax. Is that it – has someone like Luke Dillon set this up? It’s the kind of sick thing he’d enjoy.’
‘Please sit down, Mr Mason,’ he said abruptly. ‘I have travelled a very long way to see you on your late father’s behalf and the least you can do is have the good grace to listen to what I say. I am not a man to waste both time and effort in pursuing the wrong man, nor do I make sport by telling you a pack of lies for the entertainment of your Luke Dillon, whoever he is. You may rest assured that what I tell you is the absolute truth. Who do you believe to be your father?’
‘He was a Slavonian peasant, died of hunger when I was a baby. My mother blamed the Austro-Hungarian oppression for that. She blamed them for a lot. Can’t say I blame her. One thing that makes my blood boil is man’s ability to oppress their fellow man.’
‘Very commendable of you, but a philosophical discussion for another day. Your real father was as far away from a peasant as you can imagine. Nor was he Slavonian. Your real father was Baron Jozsef Dragutin, and as such you are made heir to his considerable estate, investments and Castle Dragutin in Slavonia. Though it is true you were born in Slavonia, at Castle Dragutin, your mother and father were Hungarian, a fact I know may cause you initial discomfort and soul-searching, but you will adapt to the situation in time.’ He waited, as if expecting some kind of response, but Mason’s mind was reeling with what he was hearing and as yet struggled to have any words to hand. ‘It is my duty to settle Baron Dragutin’s estate, and to take you back to Slavonia with me to finalise all the details.’ He removed his glasses again. His eyes looked smaller, more piercing. ‘I know all this must come as a considerable shock to you, Mr Mason, but life has that ability.’
‘Why should I believe a word you say?’
‘I’m not here to influence your belief, Mr Mason, merely to relate the facts as they stand and to fully discharge my duty as your father’s trusted representative.’ He reached inside his coat pocket. Mason noticed how the lapels were a little worn. ‘I have a trinket here that may help convince you.’ His fingers peeled open like the petals on some grotesque flower. Sitting in the palm of his hand was a gold locket minus its chain. He pressed its catch to open it. ‘See, here lays a lock of your mother’s hair.’ He held it up to Mason’s head. ‘And it is as close a match in colour to your own as you are likely to find. Rather elaborate measures to go to in order to perpetuate a hoax, wouldn’t you say?’
Mason took the locket. In the other half was a tiny oval photograph of a dark-haired young woman. Her face was solemn. ‘Am I supposed to believe this is my real mother?’
‘You are correct.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Her maiden name was Dorottya Szendrey.’
‘Is she dead? You referred to them both in the past tense.’
‘You are correct. She is dead, Mr Mason.’
Rick Mason pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. A headache was building, the pain cranking up behind his eyes. ‘So you’re saying I was adopted?’
‘After a fashion. I’m afraid this is neither the time nor the place to go into fine detail. All will be explained when you come back to Slavonia with me.’
He held up his hands. ‘Hang on there, buddy! Who said anything about me going to Slavonia? If there’s anything to settle, we do it here, in America.’
‘That is not possible, Mr Mason, for numerous technical and legal reasons. If you are to inherit all that is rightfully yours you must go to Slavonia. Once there it will take a week or so to sort things out.’
‘Say I believe all this, I can’t go running off to Europe, I’ve got a very important meeting tomorrow, the results of which could see me tied up here for a long while. If this inheritance really is mine, can’t we settle things here, make an exception or something?’
The old man shook his head and released a tired sigh. ‘You will be made a wealthy man, Mr Mason, trust me. But if it is not all sorted within an allotted period then everything will pass to the state. The time it has taken me to travel over here and track you down means that we only have a matter of months left to complete proceedings.’
‘So I’m supposed to drop everything and sail to Europe on the say-so of an old man I’ve never met before, telling me a story that quite frankly stretches credulity?’ He laughed, but it was a weak affair.
‘What you eventually decide to do is naturally entirely up to you. My job is to lay out before you the situation as it stands.’
Mason stared hard at the photograph in the locket. He’d no idea who he was looking at. He had no emotional contact with the sad-looking young woman. A few minutes ago his life had seemed to have gotten a whole lot better, headed down the first positive track in years. And now it had lurched unexpectedly sideways into completely unknown and unsettling territory. Everything he’d ever know about himself, his entire life, appeared to be built upon a lie, from his cultural origins to his so-called mother. Yes, she’d always been distant, seemed to regard him with such fierce eyes at times that he wondered what he’d done wrong. She died disowning him, and he’d put it down to her illness. Many unexplained things in his life now made sense with Horvat’s revelations. But it was all too much to take in at once.
‘Look, Mr Horvat, I’ve got to think about this. I can’t get my head around what you’re saying.’
‘I understand,’ said Horvat. ‘Ordinarily, to be the beneficiary in a will and the unexpected recipient of wealth would be most welcome; but of course, your news is tempered by facts about your origins that must cause considerable disquiet. I shall give you a day or so to think things through.’ He looked about him. ‘I am staying in this place in the meantime. I have kept costs to a minimum, as naturally my fees will be settled out of your late father’s estate, but I would appreciate it if I could stay somewhere less…’ He wrinkled his nose as if there was a bad smell. ‘I think you understand what I mean.’
‘Sure,’ said Mason. ‘This place is a dive. So you say I’ll be wealthy?’
‘Yes, very.’
‘Can you put a number to that?’
‘Not here, not now. All will be revealed to you in due course.
But yes, I can confirm it will set you up for life, if managed appropriately.’
‘Go ahead, find somewhere better for yourself,’ he said.
‘Very generous of you, Mr Mason.’
‘I’ll contact you the day after tomorrow. Leave a message at my agent’s office as to where I’ll find you – I’m sort of between houses at present.’
‘Very well, Mr Mason.’
‘Can I keep the locket?’ he said, snapping it closed.
‘Of course.’
He was about to leave when a thought came to him. ‘Mr Horvat, you implied you could have picked me out in a crowd. So I look like my father?’
Horvat squinted at him. ‘I have seen portraits of your father as a young man when he was about your age and I can say without doubt there is a powerful resemblance to him. Though your face is somewhat…’ He chose his words carefully. ‘Somewhat warmer than Baron Dragutin’s.’
‘How did he die?’
‘Old age. He was a very old man.’
Mason frowned. ‘Really? He can’t have been that old, surely? I’m only twenty-five myself.’
Baron Dragutin lived for a full century and five. He fathered you at the age of eighty.’
* * * *
8
Here’s to Horror
He was led quickly by a smartly-suited man through the building and outside to a swimming-pool. Rick Mason briefly caught a glimpse of the interior of the grand mansion as he was hurried through. He was reminded of an exotic Persian palace with its brightly coloured tiles, elaborate plasterwork on ceilings and walls, intricately carved woodwork everywhere; marble statues stood side by side with massive ceramic vases whose origins appeared to be middle-eastern; tables and chairs were constructed from polished mahogany standing on beautifully finished floors, with their ceramic tiles arranged in complex geometric patterns upon which their footsteps clicked. Conrad Jefferson, it appeared, rather fancied himself as some kind of Persian prince, thought Mason.
The pool was huge and inviting, fringed on three sides by lush greenery, with palms spiking into the blue Sun-drenched sky, their fronds swaying languidly in a thin breeze. The large space was empty save for two men sitting on wicker chairs on the opposite side of the pool to him. One of them raised a hand on seeing Mason and waved for the servant to walk him over. He was alarmed to see what he thought was a fur rug by the pool unfolding its limbs and shape itself into a full-grown leopard. It wore a diamond-encrusted collar and was fastened by a gold-coloured chain to a marble post.
‘Don’t worry about Sheba,’ said the servant quietly. ‘Mr Jefferson raised her from a cub; she’s quite tame since we gave her the sedatives.’
‘What if the sedatives wear off?’ he asked uncertainly. The animal eyed him as if he were next on the menu. The servant didn’t reply. He gave the leopard a wide berth.
‘Rick!’ said the man who’d waved them over. He was aged about fifty-five, he guessed, had a considerable paunch that pushed at his blue short-sleeved shirt and hung over his white shorts. His feet were inordinately large, thought Mason, long toes that didn’t look good in sandals. But Conrad Jefferson could afford to not care about how he looked. He motioned for Rick to sit down in one of the wicker chairs near him, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He still had a head of thick blonde hair run through with silver, which was oiled back over his skull. ‘Can I call you Rick?’ he asked.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Jefferson,’ said Mason. ‘Sure you can call me Rick.’
They shook hands. ‘Would you like a drink?’ He pointed to an array of spirits on a round mosaic-topped table. Mason had not seen that much alcohol on display since before prohibition, he thought.
‘Thank you, Mr Jefferson, but I don’t drink,’ he admitted.
He raised a surprised brow. ‘That’s no bad thing,’ he said. He held out his hand to the man at his side. ‘This is Hal Bremner. Hal, say hello to the kid.’
Hal Bremner was younger, maybe nosing into his forties. He wore a light-tan suit, no tie, fancy brogues. He removed his sunglasses and reached across the shake Mason’s hand. ‘Hi, Rick, good to meet you.’ His grip was firm.
‘You’ve probably heard of Hal,’ said Jefferson.
‘Sure have. Who hasn’t?’
Mason had seen photographs of both men in magazines; they looked far more formidable in real life, he thought. He’d expected Conrad Jefferson to be the serious, hardnosed business kind, but he was all smiles and laidback; Hal Bremner, on the other hand, didn’t show his teeth in a smile once. His greeting had been mumbled through tight lips, and marbled through with a kind of distrust or suspicion. The only reason he took off his sunglasses, Mason reckoned, wasn’t to be polite but to let him see his no-nonsense eyes of cold solid steel. His reputation as an intractable, humourless, hard-driving producer who got results appeared to be borne out, and they’d hardly exchanged more than a few words.
‘So glad you could make it,’ said Jefferson.
‘My pleasure, Mr Jefferson,’ said Mason. As if he’d refuse! Not many people got to see inside the man’s inner sanctum and he wasn’t sure yet why he’d been given such privileged access.
Conrad Jefferson leant back in his chair. Mason tried to make out the manufacturer of the gold watch that glinted on his wrist. ‘I hear Prima gave you a raw deal,’ he said. He wasn’t expecting a reply. ‘But that’s the Dillons for you. And that bastard Luke is the worst of the pair. You’ll be well shut of them and their two-bit outfit, eh, Hal?’ Hal put his sunglasses back on and gave the shortest of nods. ‘They tried a takeover of Metropolitan a year or two back, you know about that?’ Mason admitted he didn’t. ‘I’ve got what many people want. I’ve got success. Metropolitan’s got a big future in the motion picture industry. But it’s like a feeding frenzy out there, Rick. Like there’s some great big elephant been brought down and all the jackals and hyenas are stuffing their heads into the carcass trying to grab a chunk of the action. And if they can’t grab a chunk of their own, well they turn and make a grab for someone else’s. I’ve got jackals and hyenas all around me, all the time, making a grab for what I’ve got. And Prima is the biggest hyena of them all.’
Mason wasn’t sure how he should respond, what was expected of him, but the venom with which Jefferson attacked Prima underlined what Victor had told him about Jefferson’s relationship with the Dillons, and it was far from good. Mason suspected that he was little more than a pawn in their big game, but he guessed it wouldn’t hurt to see where this particular move would take him.
‘You’re the envy of many, Mr Jefferson,’ Mason said, which he thought did enough to acknowledge both the man’s success and the dog-eat-dog consequences of that success.
Conrad Jefferson gave a grunt. ‘The key is to stay ahead of the game. This business is changing year by year. What started out as an amusement, like it was a new but expensive toy that would have its day, is growing into something far bigger than anyone could have known. People want more, always more. They’re already getting very particular about what they want, too. The old days of hammy stage actors bringing their old-fashioned acting methods to the screen are fast on their way out. People are looking for a new breed of actor. They’re demanding a new breed of motion picture. That not so, Hal?’
Hal Bremner looked like he could hardly be bothered to bring himself to talk to Mason, but with a quiet sigh he flexed his fingers and looked out across the pool. ‘Unlike on the stage, where the audience views you from a distance and actors need to exaggerate their movements and use various artifices to convey emotions, with the motion picture it’s very different. The camera can get up real close. With a face blown up on screen the audience can read every tiny muscle movement, every flicker of the eyelid, every twist of the lips, the slightest tightening of the jaw. The motion picture is creating a new kind of actor that is unique to the industry, actors that are evolving alongside the medium. And one cannot exist without the other.’
‘Emotional depth is the next big thing, Rick,’
said Jefferson. ‘Love, happiness, sorrow, and fear. These are the frontiers of the future which we must approach and cross. Movies are first and foremost about people, and those actors that can deliver not only slapstick and adventure but can connect with their audience on an emotional level, as real people, then for them the movie world is their oyster. We see that kind of talent in you, Rick.’
‘You do?’ he was taken aback somewhat.
‘Sure, the films you were given at Prima were sub-standard affairs. Not even some of the biggest names could have salvaged anything from those. But we saw something special in the few decent scenes you were in, especially in the close-ups, and in the way you carried yourself. It was natural. It was believable. You had presence. Those morons at Prima don’t know how to exploit what you’ve got, Rick. But at Metropolitan we are headed in a direction where we need people like you. And your foreign accent, that’s going to serve you well, too!’
Mason frowned. ‘My accent? What’s that got to do with making movies? I don’t understand.’
Hal Bremner took his cue from a sideways glance from Jefferson. ‘Talkies, Mr Mason,’ he said crisply.
‘But sound is an experimental fad,’ Mason pointed out. ‘It’s technically difficult and some critics say it will never catch on. Charlie Chaplin hates the concept and says he’ll never use it in one of his movies, and if he’s saying it…’
‘You know nothing. You’re an actor,’ said Bremner. Jefferson gave a discreet cough and Bremner sighed. He was good at that, thought Mason. ‘Sound is the future. Since last year, studios have been converting to the new Vitaphone system following Warner’s success with their movie Don Juan. Theatres all over America are installing Western Electric amplifiers in response so they can screen movies with sound. We’ve been experimenting at Metropolitan. We tried out a number, including the Phonofilm system, but are investing in Vitaphone. We’re looking to produce our first goat-glanded motion picture using the new sound system.’
SILENT (a psychological thriller, combining mystery, crime and suspense) Page 5