Stardust

by Joseph Kanon

  “What about German writers?”

  Riordan turned. “You’re a suspicious guy.” He looked down at the table. “It was just lunch.”

  He crossed the patio to the exit near the vegetable stalls, unhurried, not even a backward glance.

  “What the hell was that?” Kelly said at their table.

  Ben handed him the business card. “What you thought. The Bureau. But retired.”

  “They never retire. They just find another pack of hyenas to sniff around with.”

  “Like Polly.”

  Kelly shook his head. “But somebody. I’ll find out.”

  “You know people at Republic? Find out if he ever got a consultant fee. On Danny’s pictures.”

  “What if he wasn’t paid?”

  “Then why do it?”

  Kelly looked at the card again, memorizing the name, then handed it back.

  “Christ, all I wanted was the girlfriend, an item, and now I’ve got the Bureau on my back.”

  “I don’t think so. If he was tailing you, you’d never see him. Handing out cards. He wants something else.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. But think where we’ve seen him-Republic, the funeral. You weren’t even at the funeral. He’s not tailing you. It’s like he’s tailing Danny.”

  Lasner lived in a chateau near the top of Summit Drive with enough land for a full set of tennis courts and a formal garden. Danny’s house flowed easily outside and back, the pool another room, but here the effect was moated, drawn up behind the gravel drive, the high view just something framed by picture windows. Teenagers in uniforms had been hired to park the cars so that arriving felt like stepping out of a liveried carriage, something Lubitsch might have shot.

  The inside rooms were Du Barry French, high and ornate and formal, with gilded side tables and silk fire screens and ormolu footed chairs. Ben wondered what Lasner made of it all, passing through each morning on his way to coffee. Or did they have breakfast in bed, a proper levee? Still, Fay clearly loved playing chatelaine, greeting people just inside the door with real warmth, so where was the harm? The money, all those nickels, would have been spent somehow. Why not on a French dream? With a hostess once pretty enough to have been a Goldwyn Girl, far more attractive than any of the originals. Even Sol, beaming by her side, was an improvement, at least a bulldog jaw, not a weak Bourbon chin.

  “My god, look at the jewels,” Liesl said.

  Bunny had said to dress, but Ben had expected country club cocktails in suits. Instead he felt he had walked into an A-picture party scene, everyone turned out by Makeup and Wardrobe, evening dresses and sparkling necklaces, the room like some velvet jewel case.

  “Fake,” he said, smiling.

  “No, they’re not.” She put her fingers to her throat. “Anyway, the pearls are nothing to be ashamed of. My mother wouldn’t sell them, not even in Paris when we-”

  “Nothing to be ashamed of. The rest of you looks good, too.”

  “Oh yes, in a roomful of movie stars.”

  He glanced around, taking in what she’d already noticed, faces from covers, people you saw in magazine ads recommending soap. He thought of his mother’s parties before the war, gaunt women with hats and fur trim, not beautiful, using their jewels to light up the room. Here the faces themselves were luminous. Paulette Goddard had come, looking even better than she had on the train. Alexis Smith was talking to the Lasners, her chin at a patrician tilt. He recognized Ann Sheridan by the fireplace, the full mouth not drawn in a glamour shot pout, but smiling, as down to earth as the girl next door, if she’d been beautiful. They were all beautiful. It seemed a kind of joke, an ancien regime room finally filled with glorious-looking people instead of pinched-faced heirs.

  “There’s Marion Wallace. I’d better say something to her. She sent a nice note.”

  “Let me buy you a drink first.” He lifted two champagne flutes from a waiter’s tray. “Who else is here?” he said, clinking her glass. “Do you know anyone?”

  She smiled. “A few. There’s Walter Reisch. Daniel used to play tennis with him. Paul Kohner. You know him, the agent? He handles Bruce Hudson. In the series.” She took another sip. “It’s a small town. Nobody ever believes that, but it is. They never see anyone else. If my father walked in, no one would know who he was. Alma used to complain about it. After Bernadette, when people asked Franz to parties.” She giggled. “People thought she was a character actress.”

  “Ah, you’re here,” Lasner said, not really in a receiving line, but hovering near the door. “A clean shirt even. You know Fay.”

  “So glad you could come,” she said. “Sol tells me everything’s great with the picture.”

  “Well, the cutter is. Now all I have to do is listen to him.”

  “You think you’re kidding, but I’ve seen it happen. So maybe you are as smart as he says.” She smiled, rolling her eyes toward Lasner. “Hello,” she said, extending her hand to Liesl.

  “I’m sorry. Fay, Liesl Kohler.”

  “Talk about smart,” Sol said quickly, missing the introduction but taking Liesl’s hand. “One week in town, already a beautiful woman.”

  “Sol,” Fay said, then to Liesl, “Pay no attention, he thinks he’s a comedian.”

  “No, Jack thinks he’s a comedian. He tells jokes to Jessel. The same jokes. You meet Jack?” he said to Ben. “When we were over in Europe? He was with the group.”

  “Jack Warner? Just to shake hands.”

  “You’re lucky. He tells one tonight, it’ll sound like the first time to you. Maybe even funny.”

  “Sol,” Fay said, but with a glint, agreeing. She looked at Liesl. “Your pearls are lovely. I couldn’t help noticing.”

  “My mother’s.”

  “I knew it. The old ones have that rich tone. They say it comes from being worn next to the skin. All those years.”

  “Do me a favor,” Lasner said to Ben. “I want to introduce you later. Fay’s cousin. We just got her out. Over there. All along, we’re thinking she must be dead and then the Red Cross calls and says she gave them our name, she’s alive, would we send for her? So, we’re crying, thinking, what are the odds? And now she’s here, she just smokes.”

  “Sol, she has been through something.”

  “Did I say no? It’s a miracle. She’ll be interested-your picture.”

  “Sometimes, you know, it’s the last thing they want to talk about. Where was she?”

  “Poland. Not at first. They shipped her around. She doesn’t say much.”

  “She told you, Sol. Oranienburg, then Poland.” She turned to Ben. “She’s getting used to things, that’s all. She’s only here two days. Big shot here wants- I don’t know, what, she should be dancing.”

  “I’d like to meet her,” Ben said politely.

  “I figured,” Lasner said. “You’ll have something to talk about.”

  Is that why he’d been invited? To entertain survivors? But she’d only just arrived. Lasner was drawing him aside, keeping his hand on his arm.

  “Listen,” he said, low as a secret, “I just want you to know. I didn’t want to say at the studio, but I appreciate-you know, on the train-”

  “You feeling okay?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Sol, it’s Jack and Ann,” Fay said, drawing him away.

  The Warners were all smiles, Jack with a jaunty mustache and a tan so dark that it seemed to have shriveled his face, like a walnut. Ben remembered him from the Army tour, paler and in uniform, telling stories about Errol Flynn. They’d been on Hitler’s boat, a brief day’s outing on the Rhine, which reminded Warner of his own yacht, moored next to Flynn’s at the marina, so close you could hear what happened in the master bedroom. “Not just every night, two, three times a night. Maybe different ones, I don’t know. I said to him, you keep it up, it’s going to fall off.” Laughter from the others, watching the banks stream by. Now he shook Ben’s hand without any hint of recognition, just a new face at La
sner’s.

  “So all I hear is Rosemary Miller,” he said to Sol. “It’s going to happen for her?”

  “Your lips,” Lasner said, raising his eyes.

  “Get it in the can before the goddam union closes everybody down,” Warner said, prompting a huddle, cutting Ben and Liesl loose to drift.

  Waiters were still passing rich canapes-caviar and asparagus tips in puff pastry-so it would be a while before they sat down. Liesl had told him Hollywood ate early to get up early, but Saturday must be the exception. No one made any move to the several tables set up in the next room. Ben wondered how dinner would be announced. A gong? Meanwhile, more champagne was poured and the man at the grand piano in the corner, probably someone from Continental, kept playing show tunes.

  All the talk, overheard in snippets as they walked around the room, was about pictures. An option picked up. Sturges’s fight with Paramount. Disappointing grosses on Wilson. De Havilland taking Jack to court over her suspension. Would there be a strike? Paramount having a record year. But so was everybody. Knock wood. There seemed to be no one from the outside at all. The aircraft factories in Northridge, the oil companies downtown, shipping offices in Long Beach-all the rest of the new, rich city was somewhere else, at gentile dinners in Pasadena, maybe, or out at the movies. Rosemary Miller had just arrived, giving Sol a showy hug, careful not to muss her lipstick, then a broad smile to the rest of the group. Because it seemed to be her time-even Jack Warner had heard-and people were coming over to her, after all those parties where nobody had even noticed her.

  “I’d better say something to Marion,” Liesl said. “Who’s that looking at you?”

  Ben followed her gaze. “Bunny, the one I told you about. He runs things.”

  She patted his arm. “Then be nice. I won’t be long.”

  She moved away before Bunny reached him.

  “Who was that?” he said, his eyes following her, intrigued.

  “Liesl Kohler.”

  “His wife?” he said, slightly addled. “You brought her? You might have said.”

  “She’s allowed to go out. Why? Is there something wrong?”

  “It’s just that all the seating’s been-well, never mind,” he said, stopping. “I’ve put you next to Paulette. Since you’re such old pals.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Well, that’s your left. Right you’ve got a relative of Sol’s. Fay’s actually. Genia, hard g. Markowitz. Polish. But lived in Berlin. Sol asked. She doesn’t speak much English, and I gather you can speak German,” he said, his voice rising at the end, a question.

  “I was brought up there. Partly, anyway.”

  “That’s right, the father. Quite a life. More interesting by the day.”

  “And that’s just my childhood.”

  Bunny smiled, enjoying the play, a kind of volley.

  “Often the most interesting part,” he said. “ Mine was.”

  “God. Rex Morgan?” Ben said, distracted by a tall man near the corner. “I haven’t seen him since I was a kid. He’s not still a cowboy. He must be-”

  “Real estate. Glendale. You’d be surprised how many people want to live there.”

  “His pictures were Continental?” Ben said, still trying to explain his being here.

  “Every one. Locations out in Simi Valley. His ranch now. He bought it eventually.”

  “So he and Lasner are old friends.”

  “Well, that. And he owns a piece. Of the company. He came through in ’thirty when the banks wouldn’t. Mr. L got through the crunch and Rex got eight percent,” he said simply, the details of the business like a file at his fingertips.

  There was a burst of laughter near the door.

  “Wonderful. Jack’s here. Telling jokes.”

  “You often have the competition over?”

  “He’s the reason for the party.”

  “It’s not just dinner?”

  “It’s never just dinner.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “The Honorable Kenneth T. Minot.” He looked at Ben. “Our congressman. He and Jack need to meet.”

  “Why?”

  “His district takes in Burbank. Jack’s in Burbank. They should know each other. Mr. L thinks he might be useful with the consent decree.” He caught Ben’s puzzled expression. “The Justice Department issued a consent decree, before the war, to separate the studios and the theaters. Force separate ownership. A disaster for us. Nobody wanted to do anything while the war was on-kick us while we were being so helpful- but now it’s over, they’re acting up again so we’re trying to put a stop to it. Minot’s been friendly.”

  “But Continental doesn’t own theaters, does it?”

  “But Jack does. And we have a distribution agreement with him. This goes through, everybody suffers.”

  “Warner doesn’t know his own congressman?” Ben said. “A studio that size-”

  “Wrong party. Jack’s funny that way. After Yankee Doodle, he thought Roosevelt was a personal friend. But it’s time he met more people.”

  “Across the aisle.”

  “We don’t care where they sit as long as they get the decree squashed.”

  “And he gets?”

  Bunny raised his eyebrows. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

  Ben looked around the room again. All this extravagance to arrange a meeting. Rosemary was near the piano now, chatting with Alexis Smith. Ann Sheridan had gone over to greet the Warners. It occurred to Ben suddenly that the stars had been brought in to dress the room, like eye-catching centerpieces. They were all under contract to Continental or Warners-maybe Lasner and Jack had simply ordered them up. He wondered if there were a studio pecking order, Bette Davis having earned the right to pass, Cagney beyond this kind of thing. Only Paulette was with another studio, but she was a friend, happy to sparkle for old times’ sake.

  “Well, he’s here,” Bunny said, looking toward the door. “The Honorable. Ken to his friends.”

  Minot was sandy-haired, younger than Ben had expected, with an athlete’s build already filling in, about to turn soft. There was a pleasant-looking woman on his arm, a little dismayed at the dazzle of the party about to swallow her up.

  “His first term?” Ben said.

  “War hero. Took out a Jap machine gun emplacement. Then caught shrapnel in the leg, enough to get him out. Just in time to start passing out flyers in Van Nuys. Well-oh god, the wife. Marie, I think. Marie?”

  “Time to go to work.”

  “You think you’re kidding. Sorry about the cousin, but I did give you Paulette. I just wish you’d told me- By the way, I talked to the boys in Publicity. And Security. Nobody made any calls about your brother. Nobody knew him, in fact. So I’d check your sources. They might have got mixed up. Another studio. That happens. Sometimes on purpose. A little game they play.”

  Taking the time to close the door on it. Ben started to say something, then let it go. Bunny was already moving away, on to more important things.

  He made another circuit of the room, another glassful, then noticed Liesl listening to some man, her expression polite but a little pained, trapped. There had been a shift in the crowd, the people near her moving away, leaving her standing in a circle of space, like a fawn in a clearing, and he felt a sudden urge to wrap a coat around her shoulders. When he went over she smiled, a flicker of relief in her eyes. Marion had been replaced by a director who’d known Danny at Metro and was now offering his condolences. He took Ben as a convenient excuse to escape.

  “Having fun?”

  “I would be if I didn’t have to talk. Be like her,” she said, nodding toward a middle-aged woman staring out the picture window, smoking. “Just watch everybody.”

  “She’s looking the other way.”

  “They all want to know what picture I’m working on. When I’m not, they walk away.”

  Ben’s eye wandered back to the woman at the window, now moving to a coffee table to put out a cigarette and light another. She looked up,
taking in the room, but blankly, as if she couldn’t really see anything. A skeletal thinness, gray hair in short bangs, a velvet dress that seemed too big for her, borrowed. She turned back to the window, staring down at Los Angeles.

  “I have a feeling that’s my dinner partner,” Ben said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Paulette Goddard said, suddenly at his side. “I am. Hello again.”

  He introduced her to Liesl.

  “Bunny told me,” she said to Ben. “I don’t suppose you brought any cards.” Her smile and eyes bright, still carrying their own key light. Ben thought of her cross-legged on the Pullman bed, letting Sol win. A good sport.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” he said.

  “Mind? I usually get Rex. He likes me or something. I don’t know why. He starts on his horses and I just nod off. Do you ride?” she said to Liesl, drawing her in.

  “No.”

  “I can’t imagine. The only ranch I’ve ever been to was the divorce ranch in The Women. At Metro.” She glanced around. “Fay certainly knows how to go all out,” she said, half-laughing. “I remember when it was soup and crackers.” She reached for a canape on a tray, showing a green flash of emerald bracelet.

  “You’re friends?” Liesl said, polite.

  “Mm, from the good old days, and thank God they’re over. Are you in pictures or-?”

  “I translate books. From German,” she said, with a sly glance to Ben, waiting for Paulette to bolt.

  But Paulette was impressed. “Do you really? I wish I could. Anything like that. They say you’re not supposed to regret anything, but when you don’t have school- I started work so early, I don’t know anything. You never catch up, really.”

  “Well, translation, it’s not so brainy,” Liesl said easily. “Just work. And they’re my father’s books, so I can always ask him what he meant. Then find the words.”

  “Your father?”

  “Hans Ostermann. He’s not so well known here-”

  “ Central Station, ” Paulette said immediately. “I read it. Warners made it. God, what a mess. Mary Astor. He must have hated it. But I read it in English, so that was you? I’d love to meet him sometime. Just coffee or something, if he sees people. Oh, there’s Rosemary. Have you met? Rosemary,” she said, drawing her to them, “come meet some people. Liesl Kohler,” she said, remembering it, something they didn’t teach in school. “My old friend Ben-we were on the Chief together.”