The Star Stalker

  “Anyhow, he wins out. The girl and the old guy are watching him through the porthole, and he fixes the gadget just in time to save them.

  “Then we’re gonna use all these Fleet Review shots in the last scene, where the young guy is standing up on the poopdeck or wherever, getting married to the girl by her own father—you know they got the authority to do that at sea. Maybe we fix the McLaglen type up with Hedda Hopper, somebody like that.

  “Anyways, the hero gets a medal, too, and salutes. And we fade out on that goddam monkey, see, wearing a little sailor suit and saluting like crazy. How about that, now?”

  I never told him how about that, now, or any time. He went right ahead and made it—and then he made the one about the Marine and his comic Jack Oakie-type buddy, and the one about the West Point Cadet who took the blame for the heroine’s cheating brother in the final exam, and the one about the World War rookie who didn’t believe in fighting until he saw Gustav von Seyyfertitz-type Germans trying to rape his girl.

  You name it, he made it.

  And always Salem was in the background, working with his writers, his slick-haired juveniles and bee-lipped jazz babies who would do these assignments for peanuts or even shells; badgering Riley in the newly-created Publicity Administration Department to step up the budget on advertising.

  All at once, late that fall, he wasn’t in the background any more. No one could mark the exact moment when the change took place—but suddenly he was right out in front, under a great white light. Acclaimed by the press as the new Boy Genius. That seemed to be the typecasting triumph of the year, Lester Salem, Boy Genius at forty-three.

  Before the year was out, the Nicky Morris units were asking for, and getting, A-picture budgets and treatment. And Salem’s name kept turning up in the trade papers and in the public press. Glenda Glint’s column, to be specific.

  I noticed Glint was printing a lot of inside gossip about our operations. That would be Salem’s method of paying her back for favors received. They were working together, now—for Salem and against his enemies.

  There was the matter of Lozoff’s new picture, which I hadn’t written. Morris gave him the director’s job and he called in an outside team to work on the story. Glint dutifully reported, “Story trouble with a certain temperamental foreign director whose sudden rise to eminence seems to be affecting his hat size these days.”

  Druse was getting it, too.

  When he turned down an offer for an outside film with PDC, or some such outfit, Glenda Glint wrote, “What rival of Lon Chaney, the Man with the Thousand Faces, is currently rejecting work on the grounds of ill health? According to our sources, the real reason is pure laziness, which promotes us to nominate the character actor as the Man with the Thousand Excuses.”

  Catty stuff like that, nothing specific—yet. Just enough to show which way the wind was blowing. At the moment no storm warnings had come my way. But I kept watching Salem and Nicky.

  Then, late that fall, I took on another Druse assignment. This time I did an original story, Spider Man. It was beginning to feel good to work again, and what I turned out wasn’t half bad. Druse himself was very enthusiastic.

  “This is what I want,” he said. “Now that Chaney is going in for stuff like The Unknown, we need a strong story line. You and Weichmann are a good team for me. As long as they keep young Morris and Salem off our necks, we’ll be all right.”

  “You still angry about that night on the set?” I asked him.

  “No. I’m not angry. But Salem is. You’ve read some of the cracks Glint printed. It isn’t hard to guess where they come from. Salem’s out to get me.”

  “Maybe you’re just imagining things.”

  “No. I never imagine things.” Druse was grave. “I tell you, he won’t rest until he drives me out of pictures entirely.”

  “Come on, now, it can’t be that bad.”

  “Wait and see.”

  I thought he was kidding me. Until—

  Until the week before we were scheduled to start rehearsals on Spider Man.

  That’s when the front office sent through a memo that the Druse unit had been shifted. No change in cast or assignments, but the production would be under the supervision of Nicholas Morris.

  I went around to talk to Druse about this, but he wasn’t at the Studio.

  He didn’t show up on starting date for rehearsals, either. We called his home, but there was no answer.

  The next morning Weichmann was almost frantic. We rang the house, and I was just about ready to suggest stronger measures when I got a summons to stop in at Nicky Morris’s office.

  I went over to the Executive Building and gave my name to his receptionist—a new one, of course; he switched regularly every month.

  “Oh yes, Mr. Post. You’re to go right in.”

  I entered the boudoir (to this day I can’t conceive of that upholstered, overstuffed, purple-plush suite as a business office) and was surprised to discover Lester Salem seated behind the bleached mahogany desk-bar.

  “Where’s Mr. Morris?” I asked.

  “He left yesterday for the East,” Salem told me. “The Trianon opening in Philadelphia, you know. But I asked you in here on another matter. Where is Karl Druse?”

  “I don’t know. Have you called his home?”

  “Of course we’ve called his home. So have you. Betty, at the switchboard, told me.”

  So now he had spies in the office too, I bit my lip. But he wasn’t waiting to observe my reaction.

  “Are you sure you don’t know his whereabouts?”

  “Of course not. He seemed satisfied with the script when I gave it to him last week. Of course, Druse isn’t very talkative—”

  “Oh, he can talk when he wants to. And usually, out of turn.” Salem stared at the wall.

  “Perhaps you ought to send someone out to the house,” I suggested, breaking the silence.

  “That is just what I had in mind. Post, I’m delegating that little duty to you. I don’t want to send an ordinary messenger, because I have a rather private communication to deliver.

  “I want you to find Druse and tell him that if he isn’t on the set promptly at nine tomorrow morning, he’ll be liable for breach of contract. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then make certain it is equally clear to Mr. Druse. I’ll be waiting here for a report from you. Good day.”

  If it was, I hadn’t noticed it.

  I went out into the sunshine and started searching for a shadow.

  TWENTY

  I DIDN’T know Karl Druse very well, but I had a great deal of affection for him. That’s because he came in handy whenever I encountered the Argument.

  The Argument was a common occurrence in those days. It arose whenever I, as a member of the “movie colony” was introduced to an outsider. Immediately, Hollywood was attacked by the Hollywoodn’t.

  The approach was as invariable as it was inevitable. Why were “you motion picture people” so crazy? Oh, you know what I mean—all those loud clothes and costume parties and comic-opera castles.

  To which I’d reply by reminding them of a few hallowed names in the Sacred East, near Mecca itself. Jim Fisk, the Vanderbilts; the party where the naked chorus girls came out of the pie to entertain the Social Registrants. I’d mention Diamond Jim Brady’s rather conspicuous manner of dress, and the architectural monstrosities created by and for the élite in times when business magnates were magnatizing just as our nouveau rich did now.

  Stalemate, but only for a moment. Then it was, “What about the scandals, the divorces?” Followed by the usual names.

  My answer always took the form of more names—the scores of cinematic celebrities who were happily married and stayed that way, whose social activities never made the headlines because they were neither scandalous nor even exciting. I’d give them Bebe Daniels, and H.B. Warner, Ernest Torrence, the Costello girls, the Lloyds, Lozoff and his wife.

  But they’d come right back at me. How
about Mabel Normand, taking that whole gang to Europe the time they came down to see her off at the boat? Tom Mix, earning $19,000 a week and driving a $35,000 car? What about Theodore Harker?

  Wasn’t it true, they asked me, that movie people got delusions of grandeur, that they tried to “live” their screen roles?

  No, it wasn’t true, I said. Look at Karl Druse and his horror films. Karl Druse, the horror star—a quiet middle-aged man who wore a battered derby and smoked a pipe. Why, he came to work in a little Chevy, with no chauffeur. And he probably lived in a duplex.

  That usually stopped them cold. And it helped to reassure me, as well, because there were times when I wasn’t any too certain I believed my own arguments. Then the memory of Karl Druse came to my rescue.

  Of course, I stretched my story a bit. I didn’t know whether Druse lived in a duplex or not. I’d never been invited to his home.

  As a matter of fact, right now, after leaving Lester Salem’s office, I had to stop and look up Druse’s address before driving out to his place.

  I found him listed in a side street off Benedict Canyon, and as I went Stutzing along I wondered just what sort of house he occupied.

  In order to gratify my curiosity I had to make three sharp turns, climb a small hill, and then climb a larger hill in back of the first one. Druse certainly liked his privacy.

  The place itself was reassuringly unpretentious. It was a two-story white affair, hidden by trees; the grounds bordered by hardy native shrubbery. There was no swimming pool, and the garage was small.

  I walked up to the big open porch, picturing Druse as he must sit here in the evening, puffing on his corncob and staring out at the sunset. Here, in a setting of almost rural seclusion, a man could enjoy peace. Walden Pond is where you find it.

  There was a bell to ring. I rang it. There was a door to open. Somebody opened it.

  “I beg your pardon. I’m Mr. Post, from the Studio. Is Mr. Druse at home?”

  “Come in.”

  I dived into Walden Pond and came up with a mermaid. Or something equally exotic.

  The girl who had answered the door wore cloth-of-gold pajamas, Chinese-fashion. This was not inappropriate, because she was obviously Chinese. From silver sandals to carved ivory cigarette holder, the oriental motif held true. And the lotus-look, the almond eyes, were exotically authentic.

  There was only a single discrepancy. The Chinese girl’s hair, worn in a pageboy bob, flowed to her shoulders. And it was platinum blond.

  I tried not to stare as I followed her into the living room. Once inside it was easier, because I found other things to stare at.

  Here were Tutankhamen’s tomb, and Angkor-Wat: here were Cathay and Cambodia and Ceylon. Reared against scarlet walls was the black and baleful bulk of a brooding Bubastis, a somber Set, a trumpeting Ganesha, and the Thunder-God of Tibet. Incense rose from a tripod and swirled over the divans, the prayer seats, the tear vases, the ceramic-inlaid coffee tables from Turkestan.

  I thought of Harker’s self-consciously lavish layout for comparison, but no—his romantic rococo was recognizable. This was different, disturbingly so. Idols and altars, incense and amber, ivory and jade and a carved replica of the Peacock Throne—but no chairs.

  And the Chinese girl with the platinum hair—

  “I know who you are,” she said. “You’re the one who’s been writing Spider Man. Karl has spoken of you often.”

  “That’s right. I came to find out where Mr. Druse has been. The Studio’s a little worried because he hasn’t reported in for rehearsals.”

  She nodded. “He hasn’t been feeling well for several days and he went away for a rest.”

  “What’s the matter with him? If he’s ill, he should have notified us. There’s an expensive production involved.”

  She shrugged, then stiffened. I stiffened, too, because we both heard it. The voice, from upstairs.

  “Sin! Where are you?”

  I stared at her. “Isn’t that Druse?”

  “I heard nothing.”

  “Sin, is somebody here?” The voice again, unmistakable.

  She moved to block my way, but I was faster. I went up the stairs two at a time, noting its unusual double railing. At the landing I paused, wondering momentarily which turn to take.

  A sound decided me.

  I heard a rustling, a slithering in the hall. Then a head came around the corner of a doorway. It bobbed forward and I saw arms inch out, a body emerge. Something writhed toward me, crawling.

  Crawling.

  He didn’t see me because his head was down. But I saw him. Saw the outstretched arms, the widespread legs—and the place where the feet should be.

  I stared down at the Man of a Thousand Bodies. The man who was always too short or too tall, the man who walked stiffly, the man whose legs ended above the ankles.

  Then he glanced up and his eyes met mine.

  “Sin!” he shouted. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

  The girl came up the steps behind me. Her eyes were impassive, but her mouth worked. “I tried, but he was too quick—here, let me help you.” She stepped forward, stopped, but he waved her aside. Slowly, painfully, he crawled into the doorway at my right. I followed him and found myself in a small sitting room. He moved to a low divan, lifted himself by the arms, leaned back with a sigh.

  Flame, framed by the fireplace, reflected redly against his gaunt face. He looked like something out of one of his own movies.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” I said. “I didn’t know—”

  “Damned right you didn’t!” He barked a laugh. Then, “Sin, how about a drink?”

  She moved out of the room.

  “Dumb as they come,” Druse murmured. “Sometimes I wonder why I ever married her. Then, again—” He glanced down at his legs.

  “Welcome to the freak show,” he said. “Stop gawking and sit down!”

  I found another divan across the room on the other side of the fireplace. There were no chairs, of course; he wouldn’t want chairs. “Please.” I shook my head. “I came here on Salem’s orders. We’re ready to start rehearsals.”

  Druse nodded. “Sorry. You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve been doing some drinking these past few days. And I intend to do more. Ah, here we are—”

  Sin entered with the tray and the glasses. She poured scotch, all around, then stood for a moment with her glass held at her side.

  Druse scowled up at her. “Don’t worry, it’s all right! Another one won’t hurt me. Take the car and drive into town for a while—I want to talk with Post.”

  She left the room without a word, then almost instantly reappeared. In her hands she bore a strange assortment of straps and silver that gleamed in the firelight as she placed them on the floor beside Druse.

  “I’m going now,” she said. “But you’ll need these if you’re alone. Please, try to be careful.”

  “All right. See you later.”

  She bent to kiss him, rose and nodded to me. “Goodbye, Mr. Post.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Her footsteps in the hall—on the stairs—the slight sound of a door opening and closing—then silence. Karl Druse reached down and picked up the straps and the silver.

  “Ever see anything like these before?” he asked. “Finest job in the country. I’ve got six pair. Cost me three thousand apiece to have them made up. Worked out the design myself. Those orthopedists don’t know how to do it.”

  He began to adjust the straps at the knees, the calves of his legs. “Talk about feet of clay,” he chuckled. “Me, I’ve got feet of silver. With a little steel and aluminum, here at the joints. See how they bend and flex? But I can use the muscles of my legs for support and balance. Watch.”

  Druse stood up, stiffly but swiftly. “Of course it’s even easier when I’m wearing shoes,” he said. “This is one of the long pairs. The short ones are more comfortable. Hardly notice them under the pants-legs, do you?”

  I nodded. He reached out, downed his drink, then refi
lled his glass from the bottle next to the divan. “How about you?” he asked.

  “No, thanks. I still have some here. Besides, it’s not noon yet.”

  “Of course. I’d forgotten.”

  “Did you forget about the rehearsals, too?”

  “Hell, no! Why do you think I’m drinking?” He eyed me for a moment. “Look, Post—you’re not going to go back and tell them about this are you?”

  He pointed at the artificial feet, and I shook my head. “You know I won’t,” I said.

  “I thought I could trust you. You’re all right, Post.” He sat down again. “So I might as well let you in on the rest of the secret. I’ve been stalling on purpose. I don’t want Salem and that gum-chewing ape on my picture. I don’t want them on any picture. They’re going to ruin it.”

  “But they won’t really interfere,” I said. “It’s probably just one of the Old Man’s gestures.”

  “Well, I don’t like his gestures. I know where they lead to. You’ve seen those turkeys the two of them are turning out. Before long the whole Studio’ll be run that way—we’ll be making Poverty Row serials next, wait and see.”

  “Morris wouldn’t let that happen ”

  “Oh, wouldn’t he? He needs money, and Salem is calling the time. I know what I’m talking about—the day is coming when they’ll take the movies away from the moviemakers and turn everything over to the book-keepers. To the moneymen who don’t believe in making anything except dollars. What are you shaking your head about?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes I think the big trouble with all of us is that we’re too self-conscious about what we’re doing. Always trying to analyze the movies and ourselves. I’ll bet the Industry will outgrow this sort of thing, twenty years from now.”

  “Sure it will,” Druse answered. “But it won’t grow up as a result. It’ll grow down. Twenty years from now there’ll be damned little analysis left except cost analysis. Hollywood will be filled with pale-faced fish like your Lester Salem. There won’t be room for a Stroheim or a Chaplin or a Griffith or a Harker. And when that day comes—” He finished his drink instead of his sentence. “But I’m not going to see it happen without a fight. I want to do your version of Spider Man, not that watered-down abortion Salem sent me last week.”