Stardust

by Joseph Kanon

  “So what? He’s hurt.”

  Stein opened his eyes again, looking at Bunny, then Lasner, and began to smile, as if they were acting out a surreal joke.

  “You have a stretcher?” Ben said to the nurse. “He’s heavy.”

  She hesitated, uncertain, waiting to be told what to do.

  “You can’t be serious,” Bunny said.

  “You want the cops to finish him off?” Ben said. “He’s hurt.”

  “He’s picketing us, ” Bunny said.

  “Get the stretcher,” Ben said to the nurse, then turned to Bunny. “Look at his head. You can’t just leave him in the street.”

  He looked at Lasner, still sitting next to Hal, a vacant expression on his face, like someone after a house fire.

  “Fucking Stein,” one of the producers said.

  “He could be dying,” Ben said to Bunny. “You want the papers to see Continental throw him back in the street?” He jerked his head, motioning to the photographers outside the gate. “How would you fix that?”

  For a moment no one said anything, then Lasner got up, his eyes on Ben. “Get a stretcher,” he said to the nurse. “And the doc.” He turned to one of the studio cops. “Tell Charlie to get the men back in. That’s it.”

  They waited together for a few seconds, an awkward silence, louder than the yells and sirens behind them, then Lasner patted Hal on the shoulder and turned to go. “See if anybody else needs an ambulance,” he said to Carl. “Before they start throwing them in the wagon.” He looked at Bunny, expressionless. “The cops stay off the lot.”

  The nurse was running toward them, bringing two aides with a stretcher.

  “Get him to Cedars,” Lasner said to her. “When the doc says it’s okay.” Then, his face drained, almost vacant, he started back to the Admin building.

  “I suppose you know what’s going to happen when our people see him,” Bunny said to Ben.

  “Maybe you should switch unions. Or would it cost you?”

  “You don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “I don’t care,” Ben said, helping the aides lift Stein onto the stretcher. Stein groaned, eyes half-open.

  “Right. Leave it to me to explain. Make a mess and hand somebody else a mop. And when the police come looking for him? Not exactly Mr. X, is he? They know him.”

  Ben stood. “And went at him. I saw it. And I have a good memory for faces. Tell them anybody comes after him with cuffs, I’ll ID them. The ones who clobbered him when he was down. And me.” He touched his arm. “Beating up soldiers. I’m still in the Army, remember?”

  “Out of uniform.”

  “Not when I testify. We can play it that way, if you want. You think this is a mess? You wouldn’t have a mop big enough.” He turned to the aides. “Got him? On two.”

  Bunny watched them lift the stretcher. “Why are you doing this?” he said.

  “I owe him a favor.”

  Stein opened his eyes, watching them both as the group moved past the Admin building toward the infirmary.

  “A favor,” Bunny said.

  “Plus he’s bleeding.” He turned. “I’d do the same for you.”

  In the infirmary, the aides transferred Stein to an examination table, high enough to do stitches. As the nurse swiped his head, stanching blood, Stein reached out his hand, grabbing Ben’s wrist.

  “Don’t leave me,” he said.

  Ben started, back in the other hospital, another hand on his wrist, a stopped moment.

  “You’ll be all right,” the nurse said, reassuring.

  A hand with the same urgency, but it was Stein, not Danny, a different meaning.

  “Not with them,” he said, looking at Bunny and one of the aides.

  Bunny rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. Now I’m Chester Morris. Where did I put my gun?”

  “You’d all better scoot,” the doctor said, “while we patch him up. This is going to sting. We can’t use anesthetics until we know what’s going on in there.” He gestured to Stein’s head. “Here, hold on to these.” He put one of Stein’s hands on the gurney frame.

  Ben moved the other hand off his wrist. “I’ll be just outside.” He looked toward Bunny, already at the door. “They’re going.”

  “What favor?” Stein said, his voice raspy. “Why do you owe me a favor?”

  “I figure Danny owes you something. A little payback.”

  “Payback?” Stein said, vague.

  “He should have been a better friend.”

  “Well,” Stein said, shrugging this off, then winced at the antiseptic.

  “One more,” the doctor said. “Just a sting.”

  “I’ll be right outside,” Ben said.

  In the hallway a nurse was wrapping an Ace bandage around a studio cop’s wrist while another lay on a gurney, holding a pad to a cut on his forehead. The aide had gone but Bunny was still there, smoking just outside the screen door. He stepped aside as another stretcher was brought in.

  “Christ, Scarlett down at the rail yard,” he said, offering Ben a cigarette. “Looking for Dr. Meade.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said, lighting it.

  Bunny nodded at the splotch of blood on Ben’s shirt. “Yours?”

  “No. Carrying him.”

  “How’s the hand?”

  Ben made a fist and opened it. “Nothing broken.”

  “All very Boy’s Own, I must say. Wading in like that. Who’d have thought?” He looked toward the gate. “The problem is, it won’t solve anything. They’ll be out there again tomorrow. And now we’ve got this little situation here.” He looked back to Stein’s room.

  “He’ll be out of here in an hour. What situation.”

  “The unions are a little prickly at the moment. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Nobody’ll accuse you of switching sides. Act of mercy. The papers got some pictures, by the way. You might want to see what they’re planning to run.”

  “Right,” he said, making a mental note. “It wouldn’t do to have Charlie’s boys looking-well, looking unfriendly. Just the big Boy Scouts they are.” He drew on the cigarette. “God, I hate this. IATSE, all of them. We’re supposed to be making pictures, not-whatever they think they’re doing. I suppose you know your new best friend in there is a Red. Just to make things that little bit more complicated.”

  “Does it?”

  Bunny circled around, not rising to this, then looked over at Ben. “I hear you’ve been talking to Minot.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Just listening to the drums. Lunch at Chasen’s. Hardly a secret.”

  “It was just lunch.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “My brother, mostly.”

  “Your brother?”

  “He worked for Minot. One of his legmen. You know that. You made the call for him. Can we stop this? All the cat and mouse?”

  Bunny said nothing for a second, drawing on his cigarette. “All right. I don’t like Tom and Jerry much, either. Dennis asked, I called. Nothing earthshaking. It was an easy favor to put in the piggy bank, that’s all.”

  “For someone you’d never met.”

  “I didn’t do it for him. I wouldn’t have lifted a finger for him.”

  “But Minot-”

  “Is important. We need him on the consent decree.”

  “So why not help him-what? Tidy up?”

  Bunny shrugged. “Very scrupulous they are. Afraid a little of the soot would rub off, I suppose. But who cares? So let’s just say he tripped. Nicer for them. And the family. For you, come to that. Much nicer. And you keep hounding me about it.” He paused. “Now Ken. You’re not hounding him, I hope. He could have you for breakfast before you noticed.”

  “And that’s why you jump when-”

  “I don’t jump. The studio needs him.”

  “For the studio. Not because he has something on you. That’s his specialty, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “If he do
es, he didn’t get it from Danny. If that’s what you think. I checked. All he ever did was put you at a meeting. As a tourist. That’s it.”

  “Well, there’s a comfort. He doesn’t ‘have’ anything. There’s nothing to have.”

  “Only a meeting? You scare easy. How did Danny know, by the way? Who told him about it?”

  “Nobody told him,” Bunny said, dismissive. “He was there.”

  Ben looked up, caught off guard. “I thought you said you never met him.”

  “I didn’t. We were never introduced. People weren’t. Not exactly a garden party. But I knew who he was.”

  “And he knew you.”

  “He must have. And, think, to remember all those years. Just store it up here and wait till you need a little mud to throw.”

  “So it wasn’t MacDonald.”

  Bunny hesitated for a second, either rattled or genuinely confused. “Who?”

  “He was at the meeting, too.”

  Bunny shook his head. “I told you, nobody was introduced.”

  “Danny said you were with him.”

  “With him?” Bunny said, wrinkling his brow, acting out thinking. He dropped the cigarette and started rubbing it out. “Oh, Jack. It’s been years. He was in the Pasternak unit, over at Universal. An arranger. He worked on some of the Durbin pictures.”

  “A friend?”

  “Just someone around.”

  “Who took you to meetings.”

  “Once. I didn’t know-well, we all say that now, don’t we? Anyway, I didn’t. Not really my idea of a good time.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “No idea. We’re talking about years-”

  “He went into the Army.”

  “Did he? I didn’t know.” He looked up. “How did you? Oh, Brother Tell All. What else did he say?”

  “Nothing. Just the one meeting.”

  “Then what’s this all about?”

  “A loose end. I just wanted to know.”

  “A loose end of what? You want to hound him, too? Sorry to disappoint. I don’t have the faintest. I expect if the Army got him, he’s probably dead. Not much of a fighter.” He paused, checking himself. “You don’t want to get mixed up with Minot. They don’t fight like this,” he said, waving at Ben’s shirt. “You won’t even see it coming. I don’t want Continental involved in any of his-” He stopped again. “Not one person on this lot.”

  “I don’t work for him. I’m not Danny.”

  He looked at Ben, then backed off. “Better get a shirt from Wardrobe. Before you start scaring people. I’ll see what’s happening outside. I suppose they’re arresting people.” He sighed. “But they won’t stay arrested.” He started to move off, then stopped. “How much does she know? About all this. I mean, married to him.”

  Ben shook his head.

  “You’d want to keep this to yourself, then. Not clutter things up.” He tapped a finger against his temple. “You don’t want anything here now but the part.”

  Before Ben could answer, the doctor came through the screen door.

  “Is he going to be all right?” Ben said.

  The doctor nodded. “Just a little agitated. About being on the lot.”

  “While we’re so tickled pink,” Bunny said. “So to speak.”

  “I’ll go in,” Ben said.

  Stein, his head now bandaged, opened his eyes when Ben approached the bed.

  “We’ll get you to a hospital. Just take it easy.”

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Now they’ll say we started it.”

  “Probably.”

  Stein grimaced. “So thanks for-”

  Ben nodded, cutting him off. “We’ll get you an ambulance.”

  “You know, with your brother? That was all right. A lot of people lose interest.”

  Ben said nothing, confused for a minute, until he realized Stein meant the union.

  “I don’t want you to think-he wasn’t a friend. People lose touch, that’s all.”

  After Stein was taken away, Ben stopped by the cutting room to check on Hal, already back splicing film, as if nothing very much had happened. But something had. The lot had a hospital quiet, and, even though the police had now cleared the street, people kept looking toward the gate, an accident after the tow truck had pulled away.

  “On Gower,” Hal said. “Lasner-it’s like somebody knocked the wind out of him.”

  “Nobody’s had a raise since wage controls. He had to expect-”

  “It’s not the money. It’s his studio. He knows everybody’s name.”

  R OSEMARY WAS in Post-Production, recording, the red light on. Why did he have to know? To salvage one piece of decent behavior? Find one line Danny hadn’t crossed, after crossing all the others?

  When she came out on break she was in street clothes, her skin pale, not made up for the camera.

  “I heard you got beat up,” she said, noticing the cut on his forehead.

  “You should see the other guy.” He smiled. “Cheap line. How’s it going? I thought you wrapped.”

  “Dubbing. They want to sneak it and the sound’s still not finished.”

  “I need to ask you something. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “About Daniel?”

  “Yes. Well, about you.”

  “Me.”

  “Did you ever tell him about Pine Hill? When you were with him, I mean, did you ever mention it?”

  She stared at him, clearly thrown. “You have a great way of coming up from behind,” she said finally.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean-”

  “Sure you did.”

  “Did you? Talk about it?”

  “No.” She took out a cigarette and let him light it for her. “Why, did he?”

  “No,” he said, a relief audible only to him.

  “How do you know about it, then?”

  “I read something. It said you’d been there as a kid. I wondered if he knew.”

  “Why? Am I supposed to be ashamed of it? Eight years old? Read something where?”

  Ben shrugged.

  “Or are we going to? Is that what this is, a shakedown? ‘Rosemary Miller: Red Diaper Baby.’ ” She moved her hand through the air, a headline.

  “No.”

  She looked at him sharply. “I always knew somebody would someday. You never see it coming, though, do you?”

  “It’s not coming now. This is just between us.”

  “You think I’m afraid of this? There are pictures. Me and Aaron Silber, who later went on to-who knows? His father was a button supplier, he’s probably running that now. Anyway, we’re on a raft. In the lake. Cute. They ran it in the Daily Worker. My parents still have a copy, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “I’m not after anything.”

  “No, just curious. Want to know what it was like? Nice. We had a lake. Campfires. No running water in the bunks, but that was all right. Everything looks good when you’re eight. Eight.” She looked directly at him. “A child. Who didn’t know it was any different from the other places in the mountains. I felt lucky to go. The classes with the lessons? Only one a day and who listened in class anyway? Not with Aaron Silber around. Shows, too. I was on the stage. My parents came up for it. They thought it was wonderful. They thought the whole thing was wonderful. What the future would be like. One big Pine Hill.” She looked down, her voice lower. “Maybe I would have thought so, too. If I’d had that life. You see these fingers?” She held up her index and middle fingers. “My mother has no feeling in them. Ever operate a sewing machine?” She held her hands in front of her, mimicking pushing material toward a bobbing needle. “Sometimes it slips, you get your fingers caught under the needle. It hurts. Not like a saw or anything. You don’t lose them. But after a while, it happens enough, it kills the nerves, so you lose feeling. My father, with him it’s the cough. From the fabrics, the dust. It gets in your lungs, you never get it out, just keep coughing. So maybe they were right, what they thought. If you have that life.” She look
ed up at him. “But I don’t. I have this life. But there’s always somebody looking to dump you right back, isn’t there?”

  “I’m not-”

  “What did they do anyway, that was so wrong? Send me to camp. I’m supposed to apologize for that?”

  “No. Stop,” he said, raising his hand a little.

  “They’re my parents-”

  He raised it higher, a halt. “My father was a Communist, Rosemary.” He looked at her. “So was Danny.”

  “What?” Her head tilted, as if it had been literally jarred, hit by something.

  “He never said?”

  “No,” she said, still off balance.

  “I thought he might have talked about it, that’s all. That’s the only reason I asked.” He trailed off, letting them both take a breath. “I’m not trying to-”

  “Never. He never said anything like that,” she said, her voice vague, groping. “It’s true? He was?”

  “In Germany. Then he changed. That’s what I’m trying to understand. What made him change.”

  “But all this time,” she said, moving, her body restless, unsettled.

  She dropped the cigarette with a willed half smile. “What my parents always wanted. A boy from-well, but not married.” She shook her head, a physical clearing out. “But how could it be true? He wasn’t like them. He wasn’t even interested.”

  “It was a while ago. He was younger.”

  “My parents never changed. Every time my father read the paperBut not Daniel. Not even that, what was in the paper. Or maybe he just never talked about it with me. Anything he cared about. Not with the girlfriend.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Oh, you know that, too? What he was thinking. Tell me. I don’t understand any of it. Why would he-?”

  “I’ll tell you this. If he never asked you, it means he cared about you.”

  “I don’t understand that, either.”

  “He was protecting you.”

  She looked at him quizzically, then smiled to herself. “Protecting me. It sounds better, anyway. Or maybe you like making him look good. What’s next? Maybe he was in love with me, too.”

  “Maybe he was.”

  She glanced up, her eyes suddenly moist, but her voice still edged. “Well, that’s something to hold on to.”

  Riordan called late in the afternoon while Ben was drafting the last of the voice-overs.