The Ticket Out

by Helen Knode

  INT. HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN. NIGHT.

  A high-angle shot of a cavernous hall with a cafeteria, a stage, and tables and chairs arranged around a large dance floor. It looks like a saloon, with murals of the Old West on the walls and wagon-wheel chandeliers. The main attraction of the Canteen is the movie stars and name musical acts. Maybe Harry James and his orchestra are playing tonight, and Betty Grable is the chief hostess. The dance floor and cafeteria are packed. The hall is jumping with servicemen, and young women in bright dresses. Men outnumber women ten to one.

  The place is loud, but the gaiety has a desperate, almost violent, edge. On the peripheries of the frame, in isolated knots, servicemen shove each other because they want food and women. But the camera doesn’t focus specific attention on the violence, it’s just part of the atmosphere, like the men fighting outside. The camera swoops in and picks a gold-and-diamond RABBIT PIN out of the crowd of dancers.

  INT. HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN. NIGHT.

  Extreme close-up of this obviously expensive piece of jewelry.

  INT. HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN. NIGHT.

  The camera pulls back from the RABBIT PIN to a medium shot of two people dancing. The pin is on the dress of a young, dark-haired woman, twenty years old. The pin identifies the grown-up GEORGETTE BAUERDORF for the audience. Her PARTNER is wearing an Air Force uniform.

  GEORGETTE

  (pointing to her partner’s wings)

  I’m learning to fly an airplane.

  PARTNER

  (laughs)

  Fly an airplane? What for?

  I turned the page.

  Someone had stuck a loose piece of paper into the script. The paper was covered with penciled notes in the same handwriting as the title page. Neil John Phillips’s handwriting.

  Phillips had a list of comments:

  “—lose Texas prologue—too depressing—creates mood audience won’t shake—

  “—story opens at H’wood Canteen—lose desperate atmospherics and rabbit pin. GEORGIE beautiful brunet—dancing in arms of handsome pilot her age—pilot names battles fought and Pacific islands seen (check historical accuracy)—Georgie fascinated—

  “—she passes friend, NANCE, on dance floor—Nance star, beautiful blond (think ditzy and ballsy, think Diaz or Zellweger)—Georgie whispers she has pilot while Nance has lower form of enlisted man—a running contest between the two girls—Georgie keeps count of flyers she meets—

  “—Navy pilot taps Georgies partner on shoulder. Georgie sees his wings—happy he cuts in—

  “—pilot’s name JEFF STONE —second male lead—major suspect in Georgies death until real killer caught—had good job at Metro before war—offers Georgie screen test when war over—Georgie flattered—”

  Phillips’s comments ended there.

  I turned to the next page of the script.

  The typing stopped and there was handwriting instead. The handwriting didn’t belong to Phillips: it belonged to Greta. She’d printed one word over and over on the blank page. The same word, with no spaces, on line after line.

  I turned the page.

  She’d done the same thing again. The same word, line after line, no spaces and no margins.

  I turned the page. It was the same: the same word.

  I started flipping pages.

  She had filled every page of the rest of the script with one word. The word was block-printed, in capital letters, in red ink, in tight lines, covering the entire page from top to bottom.

  There were at least one hundred blank pages in the script, and she’d written the same word at least three hundred times on each page.

  “MOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIES”

  Line after line, page after page, over and over, one single word from Greta Stenholm.

  The word was: Movies.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I CRIED FOR the rest of the night. I cried when I was awake, and I cried in my sleep. I cried so hard in my sleep that I woke myself up again.

  I hurt my rib crying. I soaked the sheets and blankets crying, and soaked my pajamas crying. At one point I crawled off the couch to find a dry place to lie down. I thought I headed for the bedroom. Doug’s neighbor came in the morning and found me on the kitchen floor. I was naked and shivering from the cold. He carried me to the bedroom, tucked me into bed, and made me swallow some pills.

  After he left, my voice came back. That’s when I started to howl.

  I didn’t know how long the howling lasted. It felt like hours—it could’ve been one continuous scream. I howled until my throat got raw and my voice got hoarse. I stopped making any sound, and I still howled. I fell asleep exhausted, sweating, and almost delirious. When I woke up, the sun was on me and it was afternoon. I ached everywhere. I crawled into the front room for my painkillers and took double the dose. I passed out on my way back to bed. The phone might’ve rung; I thought I heard it ringing. The neighbor might’ve come in. I woke up on the living-room floor; someone had put a pillow under my head. Someone had turned on a lamp. The sky outside the windows was dark. It was night again.

  I rolled over and flinched: the lamplight hurt my eyes. I needed to go to the bathroom. The hospital had given me a cane; I could see it propped against the coffee table. I reached with my foot, tipped the cane toward me, caught it, and used it to stand up. I limped to the bathroom and went. Feeling sticky and gross, I sponged off with a wet washcloth and rinsed my hair. I found a robe of Doug’s to put on and limped back to the couch.

  He had left fruit and crackers for me. I picked out a pear and ate it. It was hard to swallow but I was starving. I ate another pear, and a soft banana, and lay back.

  I put my feet up on the table. What a view Doug had—city lights to the horizon. I felt profoundly calm inside. I felt peaceful and calm and clear in my mind.

  Sometime during that awful day, I had dreamed about John Alton.

  JOHN ALTON was a legendary cinematographer. He was best-known for An American in Paris; he’d photographed the climactic fantasy sequence and won an Oscar for it. But movie buffs liked his black-and-white work better. He was considered one of the great stylists of film noir—classic film noir of the ’40s and ’50s. I revered John Alton; everybody I knew who knew about movies revered John Alton. And it was one of the thrills of my life to actually meet him and talk to him before he died.

  It had happened in Vienna in 1993.

  I’d gone to the Viennale with my director boyfriend, who was invited to the festival with his latest film. That year they were paying tribute to the emigré filmmakers of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Billy Wilder was the biggest name, but he hadn’t come. Among the people who did show up were Robert Siodmak’s brother; Francis Lederer, Louise Brooks’s costar in Pandora’s Box; and John Alton.

  I first spotted him in the lobby of the Hilton. He was ninety-two or ninety-three years old—a very old man. He was short and built like a peasant. He dressed in bohemian black and still wore his cap backwards for the camera viewfinder. I was too awed to go up and introduce myself, so I just sat in the lobby and watched him. He still had his marbles, his legs, and his eyes. He also hadn’t lost his zest: he was flirting with every woman in the place. The festival provided guides for the participants; he flirted with his guides. There were women directing traffic and running the hospitality suite; he flirted with them.

  It was hilarious, and I’d realized there was every chance he’d talk to me. I waited until he was alone, walked over, and asked if I could buy him a drink. He didn’t hesitate. He put his arm through mine and I got, “With pleasure, my dear. What is your name?” in a deep, thick German accent.

  We’d gone to the bar in the hotel. I had a moment of worry when he took my arm: if he turned out to be a lech, his movies would never be the same for me. But he never crossed any lines. He was a subtle and old-fashioned sexist; he didn’t know how to take wom
en seriously but they continued to delight him.

  And he delighted me. He was an ugly man up close, with tremendous personal magnetism. He ordered wine and started talking and I was riveted. The problem was: he didn’t want to talk about movies or himself. He wanted to talk about the Rembrandts he’d seen on a museum trip that day. It was a rare experience to hear John Alton analyze Rembrandt’s lighting effects. But when I tried to bring the conversation around to Alton’s treatment of light, he would get bored. If I pressed he’d say, “You fascinate me, go on,” and I’d feel like an idiot. Here was a guy, I thought, who’d worked for MGM in the 1920s; he’d grown up with the movies, he was as old as the movies almost. But he couldn’t have cared less about them. I pointed this out, and he agreed. He’d left Hollywood in the early ’60s because he was finished with pictures. I asked why. He said it was because pictures were bad. Why bad, I’d asked—in what way, bad?

  We were sitting together at a small table. Alton had put both his hands on my forearm and he’d said, “There was no longer any Art.”

  I LAY DOWN sideways and pulled the blanket over me.

  People had announced The End of Cinema since practically the beginning of cinema. The world wars started and ended movie eras in dozens of countries. Lillian Gish always maintained that movie art ended with silent film. In the States people dated the end from the breakup of the studios and their star contracts. Or dated it from the invention of television. Or dated it from the ’70s, from Jaws and Star Wars and the blockbuster mentality—the mind-set Michael Powell criticized in his book. And now people marked the corporate era in Hollywood as a new end to movies. The editor of Variety was vehement on the subject. Global entertainment was a growth industry, and we lived in a time of “movies-as-merchandise.” Studios didn’t produce movies, or story or character or art: studios produced “product” aimed at mega box-office returns and feeding other divisions of the international conglomerates that owned them.

  My dream was short and simple. It took place in a fin de siècle coffeehouse where I’d hung out during the Viennale. I was sitting opposite John Alton at a window booth. We weren’t talking, but his hands rested on my bare arm exactly the way they’d done when he said, “There was no longer any Art.” The sensation was vivid; only a dream could’ve conjured it from the past like that. Alton had had big, callused hands. They weren’t the sensitive artist hands you’d expect: they were peasant farmer hands. Those were the exact hands on my arm in the dream.

  I knew what the hands were telling me.

  It wasn’t that movies were bad. Would Alton argue that no one made an artful movie between 1963 and 1993? I’d asked him that question—not in the dream, in real life. I’d mentioned David Lean and Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders and Akira Kurosawa, my favorite screenwriters and cinematographers. I threw in Jane Campion and Kathryn Bigelow to see how he’d react. Louis Mayer said that no woman would ever direct on his lot; and no woman ever did.

  Alton’s only reply was, “You fascinate me, go on.” He just didn’t give a damn anymore.

  I didn’t give a damn anymore either. Movies in general were bad, unless you liked computer-generated special effects; they were thin and so male, and full of fear and despair. It had worn me down for sure. But somebody somewhere was always making a good one. There was hope from the independents and digital technology—hope maybe even from the resurgence of powerful women in Hollywood. Bad or good, though, hope or no hope, misogyny or no misogyny, the point was I’d stopped caring. It had happened between last night and tonight. The love affair was over. I was finished with the movies.

  But I wasn’t finished with Greta Stenholm.

  She said at the party, “You’re ready to give up. But I didn’t give up, and I won’t let you.”

  How did she know? I’d thought I just needed a break. She understood things I hadn’t understood—and dragged me along for the ride.

  I will beat the System, she’d said.

  She hadn’t beaten it in the end. But she saw into its guts.

  She gave Georgette Bauerdorf her stuffed rabbit. She’d carried the rabbit around with her in an Air Force duffel bag; it was with her when she was murdered. I’d described the rabbit in my crime-scene notes. A threadbare toy in a strange homemade dress—a crimson velvet gown trimmed with gold fur that resembled a lion’s mane. Georgette had sewed the dress, and she’d told the rabbit all her plans and dreams.

  Five people were dead. Six, including Georgette. I had to find out why; the carnage had to have a purpose. I owed Greta that much. I owed them both.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CAMERA TRUCKS lined the street in front of the mansion. They were mostly from local TV stations, with a couple from national news channels. It was a sign of my shell-shocked state that I couldn’t imagine what they’d be doing at the house.

  It was Friday morning. The day was already sunny and hot.

  Physically, I was managing to function. I felt stiff and sore; my head ached and my stitches pinched. But I’d had a good night’s sleep, woken up early, and driven to Los Feliz without much problem. It hurt the first time I used my left leg for the clutch. After that it got easier.

  Emotionally and mentally, I wasn’t functioning right. I knew it. But I didn’t know how bad it was until I turned into the driveway and reporters rushed my car shouting questions. I hit the brakes and froze. I couldn’t make sense of what the reporters were saying. I just sat in the front seat—I couldn’t speak or move. I was saved by a Metro guy I recognized; they were still keeping watch inside the mansion. He ran onto the lawn, ordered the reporters back to the sidewalk, and came and almost lifted me out of the car. I pointed to the passenger seat. He grabbed my cane and bag.

  He escorted me into the mansion, up to my temporary room on the second floor. I asked him what was going on. My throat hurt and I had to cough out the words. He said the media had labeled it “the Tunnel Massacre.” The cops involved had been sequestered; one witness was in the hospital, and I, Ann Whitehead, had been missing since Wednesday night. I was the only person out running around who knew what had happened in Culver City.

  Why was the mansion still being watched, I asked; were the cops waiting for me to show up? He shook his head. He said Detective Lockwood had requested their continued presence: Dale Denney had been released from custody the previous night.

  None of this information really registered. None of it made me feel anything. I was numb.

  The Metro cop said I should go to bed and rest. I realized I was still wearing Doug’s pajamas; I’d worn them from his place. I sent the cop out of the room. He thought I was going to bed. What I did was change into fresh clothes. He caught me in the hall as I was leaving the house. He tried to stop me: he didn’t succeed. He helped me out to my car instead, and kept the reporters off. As I drove down the street, they chased the car, shouting questions. I drove fast in case they decided to follow with their trucks.

  I BOUGHT THROAT lozenges on my way in to the office. Sucking a lozenge, I skimmed the radio dial; the talk shows were taking calls about the Tunnel Massacre. And the press had staked out the Millennium. I saw the camera trucks, and cameras, and reporters, when I turned the corner off Franklin. I could see Barry. He stood outside in front of the building. Reporters surrounded him two deep; they’d stuck microphones in his face and he was talking.

  I pulled into the curb down from them. Barry was deflecting questions about me. I got out of the car and headed for the front doors. Barry saw me coming. The reporters spotted me and rushed my direction. They shouted over top of each other. It was deafening, but I handled it better this time. I kept walking, and waved the cane to keep people at a distance. Barry held the door open; he told the reporters he’d have more to say later. I walked into the newspaper and led the way to his office.

  He told his assistant to hold his calls, slammed the door, and locked it behind him. I sat down. All his TVs were going, sound off. One channel showed pictures taken an hour before. I was limping into th
e mansion on the Metro cop’s arm.

  Barry sat on his desk close to me. He was fired up. “Where have you been?!"

  “I—”

  “It doesn’t matter, you’re here! Tell me everything! This is the definitive end to that pig’s career! What a coup for us—what a lucky fucking coup!”

  He reached behind him for a pen and a notepad. “I’m going to write the piece myself for next week. Start at the beginning.”

  He waited with his pen ready.

  I cleared my throat. I said, “Who murdered Greta Stenholm? Was it Scott Dolgin? If so, why? Was it Neil Phillips? If so, why?”

  “Who murdered Neil Phillips? That’s what I need from you.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Barry frowned at me. I still didn’t say anything. He said, “Ann.”

  I said, “There was a fight over her screenplay GB Dreams Big before she died. You were there.”

  “I don’t have time for this now. Tell me what happened Wednesday night!”

  I said, “Who killed her and why?”

  I had the cane in my left hand. I swung it up and whapped it on the edge of his desk.

  Barry jumped. “For Christ’s sake, I don’t know anything! Scott was with me when she was murdered. Past that, I don’t know anything!”