The Star Stalker by Robert Bloch
But Sol Morris wasn’t satisfied. He kept looking for something new. When he went out for orders he’d sit in the barber shops, lie in the Turkish baths of the little towns, and relax, waiting for inspiration.
Eventually he found one, and right under his nose. (“That’s a lot of territory,” Arch Taylor had said, when he told me the story.) The Christmas trees went up in the town square. And invariably, inevitably, Sol Morris noticed, one side bordering each town square held a movie theater. In town after town, wherever he went, he saw a movie house.
So he told his brothers about it. “All right,” they said—apparently in chorus, according to the tale—“maybe we should invest in a couple of movie houses too.”
But that was not Sol Morris’s idea at all. He was strictly a wholesaler at heart. A movie house made money, yes. Several movie houses would probably make more money. But who wanted the headache of running them—particularly since all movie houses, everywhere, had to buy their pictures from a studio? That’s where the real money was. Why not start a studio and make movies for picture theaters all over America?
His brothers told him why not. Because they had a good business right here, because they didn’t know anything about the flickers, because he’d lose his shirt.
Sol Morris smiled, shrugged, and gambled his shirt. He sold out his interest to the brothers and headed for Chicago. He hung around the studios there for a month, picking up information. Then he picked up personnel. Before the year was out he’d made his first trip to California, for he’d already heard of a spot where the sun was high and the price of real estate was low.
The first years were rough, but when the war came, his actors donned khaki at once and wore it for the duration. The Kaiser and his Hunnish hordes died a thousand deaths in Coronet five-reelers. The Rose of No Man’s Land blossomed forth at least once a month in all its glory, the rattle of sabers turned to the ringing of cash registers, and Sol Morris was on his way.
By the summer of 1918 he was ready to risk all his resources on an epic. According to advance publicity, The Battle Cry would be the war picture to end all war pictures. But by fall, war pictures were ended. There were alarming rumors of a coming armistice—and if it came, Sol Morris and his big production would be casualities of war.
Then Theodore Harker stepped forth from the wings. He was a minor director on the lot, specializing in bogus-Bara, pseudo-Pickford and neo-Normand films, but Morris had never paid him much attention until he presented his plan for salvaging The Battle Cry. Yes, he could save all the war footage. Yes, he could hold down the costs. Yes, he could cut and edit. Morris listened and then, with the old familiar gesture, tossed his shirt into the pot.
And Theodore Harker raised his magic wand. He raised it and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. He raised it and the Savior was nailed to the cross. He raised it and The Battle Cry became The Prince of Peace. Five reels grew into ten, and the story of modern warfare was given a biblical parallel praising pacifism.
Then followed a flurry of publicity, a flood of bookings, and a shower of gold. The exhibitors thought it was box office. The moviegoers said it was a swell picture. And the critics called it Art.
From that moment on, Morris never removed his shirt again, except in the presence of his wife. Harker piled success on success for Coronet, profits were high, taxes were low, and all was well in Hollywood under the reign of Good King Doug and Queen Mary.
Sol Morris was already becoming a legendary figure, and he loved it. Like Sam Goldwyn and Papa Laemmle, his pronouncements and misprouncements were quoted everywhere. He was a member of the illiterati.
Even though I’d been on the lot for six months, I’d only seen him at a distance, but on several occasions I’d heard his voice raised in agony as I passed through the outer office. I’d seen the bookkeeper wince, watched Betty tremble, noted that even the windows shook.
Now, as I opened the door to his inner office, I heard that voice again. Apparently he’d just taken a phone call, because he was shouting into the mouthpiece now as I came in.
“No—not another dime! You know what it cost me the time you got mixed up with that little Mexican nafkeh? Better you should stick to studying, hurry up and matriculate or whatever they call it. No, I mean it, absolutely. So what’s that got to do with a college education? Fraternity-maternity, who needs it? And stop bothering me at the office, I got business to attend—all right, we’ll talk about it at home!”
Down went the receiver. Up went the hand to the head. “Troubles—what you get from kids!” He looked up and saw me. “Another kid! What kind of trouble you got for me?’
“No trouble, Mr. Morris. I’m Tommy Post. I work over in script for Mr. Harker.”
“Pleased to meet you I’m sure get out of here.”
“I understand you were looking for an actor—”
“Nu, so that’s it. Everybody and his brother comes to me, they want to be actors. Go see Sam Lipsky, he’s casting.”
“I don’t want a job, Mr. Morris. I’m here about this actor you’re trying to locate. This Kurt Luzovsky. I know where he lives.”
Morris looked at me. His fat little baby face was plumply plastic as the scowl became a smile.
“I’m sorry I hollered at you,” he said. “I get excited—and on top of it, my boy Nicky has tsurris with his college.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “This actor we’re looking for—you know why we want him?”
“Mr. Harker is going to run his test out at the house.”
“Smart boy. And you know where Mr. Harker lives?”
“I guess so.”
“So what are you waiting for? Go get this Luzovsky fella and take him out there.”
“Yes sir!” I turned and started out.
“Just a minute. What name did you say you were?”
“Post. Tommy Post.”
“Good. I make a note of it.” He beamed again.
I beamed, too, as I went out. It’s not every day that God marks down one of your good deeds in His book.
FIVE
ARCH TAYLOR greeted me in the corridor outside the office. “Where the hell you been? Glint is waiting for you.”
“She’ll have to keep on waiting.” I explained what had happened as I headed for the gate.
“But you didn’t have to go through all this monkey business.” Taylor shook his head. “Didn’t you know Luzovsky plans to show up here at the studio around noon? He told me so yesterday.”
“He told me, too,” I said. “You couldn’t keep him away if you called out the Marines. But Morris doesn’t know that.” I winked at him. “Just taking your advice. You told me to make an impression on the boss. And now I get a chance to go out to Harker’s house, too.”
“You work fast, don’t you?”
“I’ve got to work faster.” I waved and moved toward the street. “Want to catch Luzovsky before he leaves home. Just hold thumbs I make it in time.”
I made it in time, and a taxi. Luzovsky was just coming out when I arrived, so I hailed him and explained the situation as the cab carried us off in the direction of Beverly Hills.
Luzovsky was oddly silent and I sensed his tension as he gazed out the window. There was enough to see, and I stared with him.
The building boom echoed through the canyons to the north. Estates were going up in those days, with more to come shortly—Pickfair, Falcon’s Lair, the Fred Thomson-Frances Marion place, the Marion Davies beach house out in Santa Monica. Already these nearby hillsides were dotted with fine examples of Spanish Tudor, Provincial Gothic, Moorish Renaissance and Greek Elizabethan architecture. There were cathedrals with tennis courts, a Trianon with a six-car garage, a Westminister Abbey with a swimming pool. We swung past the mansions west of Sunset Strip, then angled off into one of the canyons on a side road.
Harker’s hacienda sprawled over angular acres on the side of a bluff. The wall surrounding his domain was covered with rambler roses. The cab deposited us before an inner courtyard where a fountain s
Salukis swarmed out to greet us as we made our way up the tiled walk to the arched oaken door. I stared up at the silver monogram crest set in the beam beside the doorway, then ducked my head as a swarm of snow-white pigeons descended to shower greetings.
Luzovsky tugged at his collar.
“Nervous?” I asked.
He shrugged.
I smiled at him. “Nothing to be afraid of. After all, a man who was head keeper at the Berlin Zoo—”
“But I was never at the Berlin Zoo,” Luzovsky sighed. “When I saw that lion yesterday I almost fainted.”
It was my turn to sigh. Actors! I raised the silver TH of the doorknocker. Over its echo I said, “Just walk through it now like a rehearsal.”
A real live butler in real live morning clothes opened the door. I eyed his real live sideburns as I stated our names and errand.
“Step inside, please,” he said.
So we stepped inside—inside the Harker house, with its dining hall that seated thirty, its fireplaces in all eight of the bedrooms, the private projection room with a screen framed in 18-karat gold. I didn’t see these wonders, but I’d heard about them, and now I was under the same roof, moving down a hall dominated at its far end by a huge staircase with an ornate hand-carved rail.
“Wait here.”
Here was the living room and that was sufficient spectacle for me. Seventy feet long, it extended across the entire left wing of the house, and its ceiling vaulted three stories high above my humbled head. The room was big enough to hold six divans, a grand piano, a built-in pipe organ, and still leave the two of us lost in its empty immensity.
We moved to the far wall, studying the tapestry which might have come from the set of a Fairbanks film, when the butler returned and nodded at Luzovsky.
“This way, please. Mr. Harker will join you in the library.”
I watched Luzovsky follow the butler into the hall, wishing I could go along. Then they disappeared and I was alone in the silence, the museum silence which seemed so oddly appropriate here. I wandered around, gazing at Louis Quatorze chairs, Spanish shawls, Ispahani prayer rugs, scimitars hanging from the walls, chandeliers dripping their crystal tears.
It was hard to imagine Harker spending an evening in this room, hard to picture him alone in this crazy clutter. But perhaps he wasn’t alone; surely he must have friends, even a woman in his life.
I tried to imagine just what kind of a woman Theodore Harker would choose to share his life. She’d have to be very special, this much I knew—someone wise and warm, but with an outer restraint to match his own. And she’d have to be completely genuine. Harker was too accomplished an analyst of emotion to settle for anything less, his sense of values too demanding—
Somebody opened a door quickly down the hall, and I heard the echo of voices. To my surprise one of them was Harker’s. I’d thought he was already in the library with Luzovsky, but apparently not, because it was a woman who answered him. Now I could hear them both, loud and clear.
“I’ve had it,” she said. “Up to here!”
“Then get out. Get out and stay out this time.”
“I’m going—don’t you worry about that. I’m through with you and your goddam astrology!”
“You needn’t shout, Mabel. There are guests in the house.”
“Who the hell you think you are, giving me orders? Mister Theodore the Great Harker—why for Christ’s sake, I knew you when you were peddling patent medicine!”
“And I knew you when you were peddling yourself, at two bucks a throw.”
“Why you lousy sonofabitch—”
“Get out and shut up! I’ll have Rogers pack your things.”
“Don’t bother, I’m leaving right now. Go play with your crystal balls, you phoney, stinking stargazer!”
A door slammed. Footsteps high-heeled along the hall in my direction as I edged against the wall.
I saw Mabel march past the doorway.
Mabel? It was Maybelle Manners.
“I knew you when you were peddling yourself at two bucks a throw.” No, it couldn’t be, the queen could do no wrong, Gioconda never fought like a fishwife, the Mona Lisa never was a whore—
Now the front door opened and slammed shut again, and I was alone, slumping back onto a sofa and trying to put the pieces of my world together again. A world where patent medicine vendors lived in palaces, where prostitutes played the role of the Virgin Queen, where bald-headed gods pleaded powerlessly to errant sons, where penniless actors fought lions to get a job.
And who the hell was I to pretend it was any different? From where I sat I could look up into a mirror. I saw the reflection of an orphan punk, a twelve-dollar-a-week flunky, bursting with delusions of grandeur because he’d just run a flunky errand for his employer. I stared deeper, trying hard to catch a glimpse of Tom Post, the successful screenwriter whose films moved millions, made millions. But he was gone, he wasn’t there, he’d never been there because he didn’t exist. All I saw in the mirror was a kid; a kid who didn’t know the score, didn’t even know the name of the game.
I was still sitting on the sofa when Luzovsky came back into the room. I blinked and looked at my watch, surprised to see that it was past one o’clock.
“You’d better go now,” he said. “Mr. Harker has asked me to stay for lunch.” I noticed he wasn’t nervous any more, and for some reason he appeared to be about six inches taller.
“Did you see the rushes?” I asked. “Is everything all right?”
He nodded. “Everything’s fine. We were just discussing my role in The Burning of Rome.”
“Your what—?”
“I’m going to play Petronius. Mr. Harker will write the scene himself.”
“But I thought they were signing Sam deGrasse—”
“Mr. Harker has selected me.” He beamed. “Now, I must get back. You run along.” I rose and moved with him into the hall. The butler appeared and opened the door. Luzovsky took my hand.
“Thank you,” he said. “Remember what I told you last night? It’s all true.”
And then I was outside again, outside in the sunshine, climbing down out of the canyon. There were no cabs waiting out here in the wilderness, and I didn’t want one. I didn’t plan on going back to the studio, and I wasn’t even interested in lunch. I wanted to walk.
“It’s all true,” Luzovsky had said, and he was right. The dream was coming true, for him, because he believed in himself. But I didn’t believe any longer—in Harker or the stars that shone in or over Hollywood. For me the dream was dead.
I wandered past the fake façades of the mansions set back on Sunset, then down into the no man’s land of the Strip. In the glare of afternoon sunlight everything looked dingy and deserted. Only at night did the Strip come alive, when the stars came out to play in their own artificial little heaven of cabarets and call-houses and casinos. But even at night it was a phoney paradise. The liquor was cut with bootleg alky, the women were paid to pretend passion, and the gambler’s decks were stacked, the dice loaded. Everything was cheap and commonplace, including my thoughts on the subject. Tommy Post, Boy Philosopher. Just another phoney, like all the rest.
I looked up across the street at the Chateau Marmont perched above it, then glanced ahead. I passed something called the Stumble Inn, a speakeasy masquerading as a restaurant.
That’s when I saw the green Pierce-Arrow, parked in the driveway. Something about it looked familiar, and suddenly I recognized it. God knows I’d seen it often enough at the studio; I even remembered the number on its license plate. S-2111. It was Maybelle Manners’ car.
Before I became conscious of my decision I had already turned in at the walk leading to the front door. I opened it and moved into the smoky twilight of the deserted bar. Not quite deserted, because there was a man on duty behind it, and a familiar figure seated on a stool before the counter.
She sat very quietly, hands folded, eyes downcast. The drink before her seemed untou
It was dark in there, and if she noticed me at all she gave no sign. The bartender was bored; he served me a shot without question, rang up the money, then walked over to a player piano and inserted a coin. The jangling cascade of notes resolved recognizably into a number called “Smiles.”
But she wasn’t smiling. Somebody had taken a knife and slashed it across the face of Mona Lisa, obliterating the smile forever. Only the eyes still burned and brooded as she lifted her glass and gulped. Then she turned and glanced in my direction. I saw her lips move but her words were inaudible above the music. I got off my bar-stool and moved down to where she sat.
“Tommy Post,” she said.
“What?” I wasn’t sure I was hearing correctly.
“Nothing. Just remembered your name, that’s all.” And the smile came, now. She smiled, and just for me. “You know who I am?”
“Of course, Miss Manners. Everybody knows who you are.”
“Sure.” The smile disappeared. And the bottle went up as she refilled her glass. “Grace Cunard. Mabel Taliaferro. Marguerite Snow.”
“I’m not quite sure I—”
“I’m talking about stars. Big stars, like me. Five years ago they were. Today nobody even remembers their names. Right?” She raised her glass, then hesitated, frowning.
“What the hell are you doing here? Who sent you?”
“No one sent me, Miss Manners. I just happened to be passing by—”
“Baloney.” She glanced at the player piano. “Can’t hear anything with that blasting in your ears.” Lifting the bottle from the bartop she moved away towards the rear. “Gonna sit in a booth. Okay?”