Fade to Black

by Ron Renauld

  “What do you play?” Moriarty asked.

  “You come tonight,” the small man said, following his burly counterpart back into the club. They closed the door behind them.

  Moriarty stared at the door and the corkboard marquee, with its small poster reading blues tonight.

  He got back on his bike and rode to the beach, finding a place to himself and taking out his harmonica. He played until the sun set.

  CHAPTER • 13

  “You think a squealer can get away from me? Huh? You know what I do to squealers? I let ’em have it in the belly . . . so they can roll around for a long time, thinking it over.”

  The philosophy of Tommy Udo, courtesy of Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer.

  Eric stared, mesmerized by Richard Widmark’s portrayal of Udo, a psychopathic hit man sent out to nail a gang informant in Kiss of Death. Widmark, as Tommy Udo, was stalking around the mother of the man he was about to kill. She was an invalid, cringing in her wheelchair.

  Eric dragged on a cigarette as he sat next to his projector, dressed like Udo, his eyes fixed to the film like dried blotters, soaking it all in. He didn’t pay any attention to the faint motorized rurr out in the hallway.

  “You’re worse than him, telling me he’s coming back,” Widmark snarled on the blank wall Eric used for his screen. The invalid was middle-aged, like Aunt Stella. “Ya lyin’ old hag!”

  Eric smiled at the dialogue, mimicked the curdling laugh of Tommy Udo.

  Aunt Stella pounded on his door with her baton.

  “Come out of there!” she shrieked. “What’s the idea? You haven’t been out of that room for two days!”

  She thumped on the door again. “If you don’t open up, I’m going to use the key!” she threatened.

  Eric had called in sick to work yesterday and today. Around the clock he had remained in his room, watching movies with the blinds closed, the clocks turned to the walls. He was going through his collection of 16mm prints alphabetically. He’d started with All about Eve, featuring Marilyn Monroe in her scene-stealing walk-on with George Sanders. He was now watching Kiss of Death for the second time in a row, reveling in the 1947 thriller that had propelled Richard Widmark into stardom.

  Smiling as he watched the flicker of black and white on his wall, Eric crushed out his cigarette and pulled down the brim of his fedora. Widmark was unplugging a lamp and using the electrical cord to tie the woman to her chair, despite her urgent pleadings.

  “I’ve got another one for you when you’re through,” Eric whispered out loud to Widmark as his aunt pounded on the door a final time and then began scraping her key against the lock.

  Opening the door, Aunt Stella rode into the darkened bedroom. It was obvious she’d spent the past few hours letting her temper build to the breaking point. She let it out slowly.

  “Eric, you’re hopeless,” she said, staring at him. “You can’t stay in here forever. This isn’t a charity ward. Either you go to work, you eat, or you can find yourself another place to live!”

  Breathing in short, excited bursts, Eric aped Widmark, baring a toothy grin and sneering, “Shaddup!” without taking his eyes off the movie.

  Brandishing her baton, Aunt Stella shifted her chair forward, exploding, “This is final! Watching movies again, spending all your money on films—”

  “Aunt Stella, this is the best part,” Eric implored her in his own voice.

  Aunt Stella moved in front of the shaft of light shooting out from the projector, blocking the film and throwing a shadow on the wall. Tommy Udo’s face shined over her own.

  “Everything’s movies, movies, movies—”

  “Aunt Stella, please!”

  “I’m sick and tired of it!” she raged, charging her wheelchair at the table and knocking over the projector.

  “Jesus Christ!” Eric wailed as if he had been wounded.

  The projector kept running for a few seconds after it fell to the floor, thowing its darting image sideways onto the bedroom wall . . . Tommy Udo pushing his bound captive down a staircase.

  Eric charged from his chair and around the table, turning off the projector. The rear reel continued to spin, trailing the severed strip of celluloid so that it slapped at the floor before coming to a stop. Eric looked down at the projector as if it were a best friend lying in a dead heap. He gently picked the machine up and set it back on the table. He was weeping silently.

  Aunt Stella wheeled away from him and stopped in the doorway leading to the adjacent room.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Eric ignored her, continuing to stare at the projector, running his fingers softly over the bent front reel. His aunt thundered, “I said I’m sorry!”

  Letting a fresh rage wash over her, Aunt Stella shifted the wheelchair into the next room, which was filled with the overflow of Eric’s memorabilia.

  “Look at this place!” she howled. “This room is a disgrace! Eric, come in here!” She turned the gearshift on her wheelchair and it jammed momentarily, adding to her fury. “Oh, this damn thing! Eric, get in here now! Get in here right now! Eric!”

  Eric came into the room silently, his face lifeless.

  “Eric, I have had it with you,” Aunt Stella said. “I want you to get rid of all this junk. Do you hear me? Move it!”

  “You ruined it,” Eric said, his voice wavering. “You ruin everything.”

  “I said move it!” she shouted. She put her hand on the shift knob, intending to back out into the hallway. The temporary wiring on the motor gave way and the engine slipped into gear and jammed again. This time, however, it wasn’t for only a second.

  “I can’t stop the chair!” Aunt Stella shouted as she found herself suddenly propelled forward.

  Eric watched her curiously. She was heading straight toward the upstairs doorway, unable to change her course, too out of her wits to grab for something to stop herself.

  “Eric!” she sobbed, trying to look over her shoulder at him.

  Eric laughed the close-lipped squeal of Tommy Udo as he followed behind his aunt, making sure the chair proceeded down the carpet unobstructed. He had a glazed look to his face, as if he were walking in his sleep.

  “Eric! I can’t stop the chair!” Aunt Stella continued to scream hysterically as she yanked at the gearshift knob.

  When they came to the doorway, Eric reached over his aunt and threw the door open. Weeping, Aunt Stella clung to his arm.

  Staring at his aunt, eye to eye, Eric chortled, like Tommy Udo, “You think a squealer can get away from me? Huh? You know what I do to squealers?”

  “Eric, I didn’t mean to—”

  Her pleading was interrupted by her own scream as she rolled out onto the side stairway. Eric pulled her hand away from his arm. One wheel dipped over the first step, pulling the rest of the chair with it, bounding crazily down the flight of steps. Aunt Stella was thrown slightly forward, but not enough to pitch her out until the wheels slammed into the sidewalk. Flung free, Aunt Stella plunged forward, striking her head against the sidewalk with a force that silenced her screams, once and for all.

  One wheel of the overturned chair continued to turn after the motor had stopped, much as the takeup reel on the projector had. Midnight, the black kitten, scampered down the steps and over to the chair, jumping up onto the frame and pawing at the wheel playfully.

  At the top of the stairs, Eric stared down at his aunt. The sick smile remained on his face, spilling out the last of his eerie laughter. In its place, after a troubled pause, came his own voice, weak and uncertain.

  “Twentieth Century Fox presents Kiss of Death,” he recited, “starring Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen Gray . . .” The laughter came again as he turned slowly to go back inside. When he spoke again, it was in the voice of Tommy Udo “. . . Richard Widmark, Taylor Holmes, Howard Smith, Karl Malden . . .”

  He closed the door and slowly walked back through the room, past the suit of armor, past the hung costumes, the collage of posters and cardboard cutouts
, the library of film books and catalogued films. A thousand faces stared at him, silent. Some laughing, some grim, all staring outward, watching.

  His legs seemed heavy. Each step weighed him down more, weakening him.

  Aunt Stella was gone. He’d never known a moment without her there, in person or influence. Gone. No more nagging. No more lectures. No more backrubs.

  He stumbled into his bathroom, slumping over and running the cold water, splashing it up into his face.

  He looked up. There were two mirrors, the larger a flat surfaced reflection on the medicine cabinet doors, the smaller a round mirror mounted beneath it. One side of the round mirror was flat, but the other was slightly concave, enlarging his features, distorting them slightly around the edges.

  No more.

  No more Aunt Stella.

  No more Eric Binford.

  He backed away from the mirror, terrified, overcome with nausea. He crumpled slowly to his knees, gagging violently. He rolled over onto the floor, curling himself up into a fetal position and weeping softly to himself until the sickness passed.

  CHAPTER • 14

  It rained on and off the day of the funeral. At the cemetery, it came down hard, as if the skies were weeping for Aunt Stella to compensate for the absence of a gathered beloved. Aside from Eric and the priest, there were only a handful of groundskeepers listening to the eulogy, standing serenely beneath extended umbrellas as they waited for the showers to dissipate so they could go back to work.

  The Reverend Schick spoke with the clear, commanding voice that had earned him a radio slot Sunday mornings and a generous congregation of listeners, among them the deceased.

  “Stella Binford led a life of piety and quiet Christian charity that touched all who knew her. Generous to a fault, both to her friends, loved ones, and to the church, we commit her spirit to the Almighty and pray for her eternal salvation, that her wondrous soul may find peace in Heaven as it did on Earth. Amen.”

  Eric listened from the cover of a nearby mausoleum, dressed in a gray suit and a matching wide-brimmed hat, again from a bygone era. A yellow raincoat was draped over his shoulders. His face was paler than usual, etched in grief. He took a final draw on his cigarette, then dropped it on the cement, watching the rain put it out, drop by drop.

  By the end of the service, the rain was letting up. Reverend Schick came over to Eric, carrying both a black fabric purse and a gold-plated urn the shape of a trophy cup he’d picked up from the rain-beaded card table before him. He was young, large and handsome, a true quarterback in the Lord’s backfield.

  “I’m sorry,” the priest said, “but there was just no room next to Miss Monroe.”

  “But that’s where I wanted her.” Eric said, genuinely saddened.

  “There are other nice sites,” Reverend Schick offered, holding out his purse.

  Eric fed it a folded bill.

  “Thank you,” the priest said. “Come, walk with me.” He held his arm out, ready to drape it over Eric’s shoulder. Eric went with him, but kept his distance. They strode across the green, unassuming grounds of Westwood Memorial Park. Situated across the street from Ship’s Westwood, the cemetery was well-hidden by surrounding buildings. The grounds were flat, no larger than a small city park. All gravemarkers were fiat and level with the ground, so that at first glance it seemed that the greenery was no more than a well-shaded picnic area. Along the north wall, running parallel to Wilshire Boulevard and adjacent to the Avco building and the parking lot for Perpetual Savings, were various marble courtyards, each lined with burial vaults. Marilyn was entombed in the northeast wall.

  “Now, here are the ashes,” Reverend Schick said, handing the urn to Eric. “Why don’t you take them home, live with them for a couple of days. There’s no hurry. You have plenty of time to decide . . . say until Friday, okay?”

  They made their way to an elongated white Lincoln parked alongside the curb. A television aerial sprouted from the trunk like a haloed fin.

  “I really have got to go,” the priest explained. “I have to service another funeral, I have a christening, and I have a wedding . . . that’s a double ceremony. But if there’s anything you need, my boy, you call me, okay? Preferably before six.”

  Reverend Schick opened the back door to the Lincoln and climbed in. Eric watched him. Just like Spencer Tracy in Boys Town, he thought. Hah.

  The priest pressed down the electric window and looked back at Eric, saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow now, at your aunt’s memorial service?”

  “No,” Eric said with finality. “I don’t believe in God.”

  “Well, God still believes in you, Eric,” Reverend Schick assured him, bringing the window up so that Eric found himself staring at his own reflection in the tinted glass, arms cradling the urn with his aunt’s remains.

  Before the car pulled away, Eric laughed at his reflection.

  It was the snicker of Tommy Udo.

  The coast was overcast, but it had stopped raining. Eric stepped off the bus in front of his house and went inside to drop off the urn and his raincoat. He paused in the living room, putting on his sunglasses and staring in the mirror as he adjusted the brim of his fedora. He spoke to his reflection as if it were a gunsel in his private mob. His voice was Cagney’s.

  “We’re in this jam on account of a double-crossing dame, see? Nobody gets off crossing Cody Jarrett.”

  Outside, Eric climbed down the steps. He looked down at the other end of the house, seeing where the back stairwell led to the sidewalk. He could see the leaves already turning yellow on the limb of a shrub that had been broken by Aunt Stella’s wheelchair days before.

  “Top o’ the world, Ma,” he muttered before turning and starting down Riviera.

  Three Chicano youths in their early teens were idling at the corner on their bicycles, uniformly dressed in white T-shirts and denim shorts. They all wore butch haircuts and chewed on lollipops with the white sticks poking out of their mouths like cigarettes.

  Eric saw them and crossed the street to avoid them.

  “Hey, dig the pimp!” one of the youths said.

  Eric ignored them, but they rolled over the curb on their bikes and fell in beside him.

  “Hey, pimp!” one of them wheedled, “you score us some pussy? We got a dollar.”

  Eric stopped and looked at them.

  “A dollar? What for? Cat food?”

  “Cat food? Sheeet, man. We ain’t talking cat. We talking pussy.”

  “Now look here, boys,” Eric said, calling on Cagney to help him out. He pulled open his suit coat, exposing a shoulder holster and the handle of a revolver. Once he was sure they had seen it, he buttoned his coat back up. “I’m working for the Man, see? Now am-scray or I’ll make some trouble for you, hear?”

  The youths looked to one another, deciding not to call Eric’s bluff. They silently rode off.

  By the time he reached Windward and Pacific, Eric blended in with the crowd more readily. His suit could have passed as stock in the chic shop at the corner, where he went inside to buy a pack of cigarettes and a copy of the Hollywood Reporter. The cashier made eyes at him, but he wasn’t interested.

  Taking up his position across from the skate shop, Eric skimmed through the slick-sheeted tabloid, stopping to read over an article addressing itself to rumors that Cagney was coming out of retirement after twenty years to play a cameo roll in the film version of Ragtime. Eric was both elated and saddened by the news. It was good to see that his favorite star was going back into pictures, but he had hoped that the occasion would have been for the movie Eric had been working on. He’d written a part specifically for Cagney, a role similar to Brando’s in The Godfather. Well, Eric consoled himself, if Cagney came back for one picture, he might be willing to try another, especially when it was right up his alley. The perfect part. Tony Alabama’s mentor.

  “Well, I think you’re better off without either one of them,” Stacey said, holding the door open while Marilyn came out, then closing up th
e skate shop for the night.

  “I don’t know,” Marilyn said, “There was something about that boy with the scooter . . .”

  “Oh, brother,” Stacey moaned as they started walking home along Speedway, an ironically named sidestreet that could barely support two-way traffic.

  “Be nice, Stacey,” Marilyn said, “I think I’d like to track him down, although he must hate me for standing him up.”

  “Consider yourself lucky. He seemed like the kind who’d sit next to you the whole movie trying to work up the nerve to put his arm around you, and all the time he’d be squirming in his seat so much you wouldn’t be able to concentrate.”

  “He’s not like that at all. He knew a lot about the movies. More likely he’d forget I was even there.”

  “So where would that leave you?”

  “That’s the way I like to watch movies,” Marilyn said. “Up in the front row, with nobody distracting me. I knew this guy once who told me that if you sit up close, you have a better chance of tuning out the other people and just being sucked into what’s happening on the screen.”

  “You can have it,” Stacey told her. “I like to hang back with the real people.”

  “Don’t I know it? I’ve gone to one too many movies with you,” Marilyn berated her friend, “cracking jokes all through the whole picture. You ruin it, you know?”

  “To each his own.”

  Eric followed from a block behind them, passing full-scale murals that threw back the image of old street scenes from the sides of buildings, like brick snapshots blown up to serve as a movie backdrop.

  To himself, he narrated each step he took, caught up in the role of his screenplay persona. Tony Alabama . . . Cody Jarrett with a name change, a few years shaved off his age. He lit a cigarette for effect, then whispered inaudibly through the smoke like a speech balloon in a comic strip.

  “Alabama stalked her down the broken backstreets, his feet like bloodhounds sniffing out the trash along the sidewalk . . . She even walked like Monroe, swaying her hips like a stopwatch in the hands of a hypnotist. I had to look away now and then or I’d fall in a trance . . . Yeah, just like Marilyn in Niagara . . . Women like her ought to have it registered, just like a gun . . . I’ve seen a woman’s legs cause more damage than a full round from a forty-four.”