The Star Stalker

  Morris mounted the platform now, emerging from the throng down front. He’d been there all the time but I hadn’t noticed him. I’d seen Harker standing stiffly erect like a black arrow driven into earth; Karl Druse watching at one side, his eyes inscrutable and inescapable; Lois Payne, Lozoff’s current leading lady, commanding as a queen, her hair flowing like a living flame. In such a group, the bald, fat little nonentity was unnoticeable.

  But now, up there on the platform, he was God again. And his voice thundered down from a clapboard Sinai.

  “Fellow workers,” he began. “That’s what my good friend Bernie Glazer just called you. And I hope when he said it he meant it should include me, too. Because I am a fellow worker also, even if some of you think I’m not much of a fellow and I don’t do any work.”

  He waited for the dutiful laughter, and got better than that, because there were a lot of people here in the crowd who really liked him.

  “Today I’m not making a speech. First of all it’s too hot, and second of all, you want to go away for a holiday. I guess you know the studio is closed until Monday.”

  Somebody whistled above a spattering of applause. Morris frowned.

  “But what you don’t know is—the studio stays closed. It don’t open on Monday. Or ever.”

  He raised his hand before the crowd raised its groan.

  “Right now we got only two units working anyways. Dude Williams goes on location in San Fernando next week. The Emerson Craig company starts shooting on the Classic lot—it’s all right, I got everything arranged with Nate Fisher over there, he’ll take care of you.

  “And for the rest of you—goodbye and good luck. Until Labor Day, that is. Because now I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. We close the studio like I said. And then we tear it down.

  “But on Labor Day we’re opening up again. With a brand new, bigger and better studio for Coronet Pictures!”

  The applause was sudden and shattering. Somebody must have let the press in because flash powder burst now about the bald head and beaming face. Morris raised his pudgy hand once more, signaling for silence.

  “That’s right. I said bigger and better and I mean it. Modern, the latest thing, top to bottom. You’ll read all about it in the papers and like I said, I’m not making a speech.” He paused, took a cigar from his pocket, then put it back. “One thing more I got to say, though. This new studio ain’t being built by me. It ain’t something I decided about just so I could have my name up bigger over the entrance.

  “It’s being built by you. All of you who work here and helped make us a success. You get the credit.

  “But I can see from the faces you ain’t so worried about the credit as you are about cash. So the last thing I got to tell you is—everybody stays on the payroll, from now until we open up again after Labor Day. Goodbye and God bless you.”

  Then there really was applause. Applause, and excited babbling, and a mad rush for the side of the room where the glasses and ice and bottles waited.

  I found myself wedged in beside Arch Taylor. “You know about this?” I asked.

  “Not until this morning. He called in Harker, Lozoff, a few others—big surprise. Showed us the plans. Looks like we’ll have the best layout in town. Better than Paramount or First National. Of course Metro and Universal have more space—”

  “How about some space for me?” Carla Sloane started to struggle past us to the scotch bottles and I opened a path for her.

  “Thank you, Red Grange,” she said. “See you at the party?”

  “What party?”

  “Mine.” Jackie Keeley peered over my shoulder. “We’re celebrating the Fourth of July. Come on over and see the fireworks.”

  “But the Fourth is two days away—”

  “Gives us time to catch up on our drinking.”

  “Lois Payne will be there,” Arch said. “She’s been asking about you.”

  I glanced across the room at Lozoff’s new leading lady. It was hard for me to imagine that this regal redhead had any interest in me.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “So help me, it’s true—heard her myself,” said Jackie Keeley. “It’s gonna be a real brawl, too. All you can drink, and I ordered a whole truckload of Roman candles you can play with.”

  “To say nothing of Lois Payne,” Arch murmured.

  “Better come out.” Jackie Keeley winked at me. “Maybe she’ll help you shoot off your firecracker.”

  EIGHT

  SOMEWHERE during the crush and course of the afternoon I lost Arch Taylor. When I tried to hunt him down I learned he’d left and taken Lois Payne with him.

  “Come and ride out with us,” Carla Sloane said. “I’m getting a lift from Hacky.”

  Hacky’s real name was Hackenheimer, but nobody ever called him that. He was a big, beefy red-faced man with all the souvenirs of a former career in the prize ring—a broken nose, a cauliflower ear, and a slightly battered brain.

  He’d worked for Pathé and for Educational as a gag man, and that’s where the battered brain came in handy. It was still doing service now, for Jackie Keeley. The addled ideas it produced were worth enough to indulge Hacky’s fondness for purple shirts and orange knickers. He wasn’t even a gag man any more; he was a “comedy constructionist.”

  At the moment he was far from sober, and he steered all over the road. But this was before the era of stoplights on Wilshire and we just thought it was funny. After the scotch we’d had, everything seemed funny, including Hacky’s remarks. He habitually steered his conversation the way he steered his car.

  “Think Arch Taylor’s already out there?” I asked, as we weaved past the frame structure of Soldier’s Home.

  “Everybody’s out there the way I heard it,” Hacky yelled. “Everybody including Jackie Coogan and his brother.”

  “Didn’t even know he had a brother,” Carla giggled. “What’s his name?”

  “Coffee Coogan.”

  While Carla giggled, Hacky passed the flask. “Didja hear the gag about Chaney?” We sped through the sleepy, sun-baked streets of Santa Monica. “First fella says, ‘See if you can use Lon Chaney in a sentence.’ Second fella says, ‘That’s easy. Lately I been working so hard I don’t have time to eat Lon Chaney more’. Get it?”

  We got about a dozen others before we descended to the coast highway and began to move north in the direction of Malibu. It was a clear day, but with the contents of Hacky’s flask sloshing around inside us, we didn’t see Catalina.

  Even so, it was impossible to miss Jackie Keeley’s beach house. It was the only one that had a drawbridge and a moat before the entrance.

  The drawbridge was lowered and the voices were raised in the patio beyond. We parked the car in the courtyard, between a Model T and a Mercedes, then pushed forward into the crowd congregated around the patio pool. Hacky hadn’t lied—everybody seemed to be here. Everybody except Jackie Coogan and his brother (whose name, for the record, happened to be Robert). I didn’t see Harker or Lozoff or Karl Druse, but then I didn’t expect to; they were not partygoers or partythrowers.

  But Emerson Craig lurched over as we entered. The tall leading man was rapidly approaching the point where somebody would have to be leading him. “Well, look who’s here! Come on and pour yourself into a drink.”

  “Is the liquor safe?” Hacky asked.

  “Sure. Jackie ran his yacht up to Canada and picked up a good load.”

  “Nothing like a good load, I always say.” Keeley himself wavered over and waved a welcome. “Hi, Carla—you giving me a little manicure later on?”

  “Doesn’t your wife look after your cuticle?”

  “What wife?”

  “How do I know? What wife are you on now, anyway?”

  “That’s a good one!” Hacky guffawed.

  “I’m serious,” Carla insisted. “How many is it, Jackie—four or five?”

  “Five, last time I counted.” Keeley slid an arm around her waist. “But she took a powder on me la
st week. That’s why I’m celebrating. Who knows, maybe I’ll meet Number Six.”

  Emerson Craig shook his head. “Jackie, how do you pay your alimony?”

  “Seldom, that’s how.” Keeley urged us forward. “The bar’s inside. Tell ’em I sent you.”

  We moved along the patio, dodging drunks, nudging neckers, elbowing past mustached men who might have been Mdivani brothers and women who might have been their sisters but probably weren’t.

  Inside the big living room it was louder and funnier. Louder, anyway. There was a Hawaiian with a ukulele, accompanying a blonde who did a hula wearing a fringed lampshade for a grass skirt. I saw somebody who looked like Laura LaPlante and somebody who looked like Mickey Neilan, but on second thought LaPlante wouldn’t have a tattoo on that spot and Neilan wouldn’t be publicly inspecting it if she had. There was a charming little brunette with a pet monkey on her shoulder; at least it was on her shoulder until it decided to make a hammock for itself in her decollatage. As we moved up to the bar we almost stumbled over a barefooted old gentleman with a long white beard who might have passed as Peter the Hermit. He was sitting on the floor, staring dreamily into the eyes of a teenage girl as she lit a match and tried to set fire to his beard.

  In a madhouse, you’re apt to hear voices. I did.

  “. . . Christie Brothers, Warner Brothers, Talmadge sisters. Everywhere you go, there’s nepotism . . .”

  “. . . sounds more like incest to me. So what’s wrong with that, it’s all in the family . . .”

  “. . . we are all worms, wriggling on the end of God’s fishhook . . .”

  “. . . why don’t you get smart and put that monkey back on bottle-feeding, darling?”

  “. . . million and a half it grossed and he’s complaining! You should have William Fox’s dough, that’s all I wish on you . . .”

  “. . . he only uses a double in his love scenes . . .”

  “. . . well for chrissake, grab the monk by the tail and pull him out of there . . .”

  “. . . john is full, so use the pool . . .”

  “. . . anybody seen Billie? She said she’d drop in . . .”

  “. . . warned you, didn’t I? Grab his tail unless you want people to think you’re pregnant . . .”

  “. . . goddam it, I am pregnant . . .”

  Standing at the bar, my ears eliminated voices, my eyes examined everyone, alerting myself to Lois Payne’s possible presence. Suddenly I caught sight of Arch Taylor moving toward me, glass in hand. The glass was empty and he was obviously full. Somewhere along the line he’d lost his jacket, necktie and coordination.

  “Sorry I lost you!” I called. “How you doing?”

  “Great.” He leaned against the bar for support, waving my hand aside. “Don’t worry ’bout me. When I get tired I’ll just crawl under the nearest blonde and sleep it off.” He blinked. “Which reminds me. How about going over and cheering Lois up? She’s got the blues.”

  “Lois Payne? Where is she?”

  “Out there.” Taylor gestured in the direction of an alcove off the living room. Reaching across the bar, he picked up a half-filled bottle of rye. “Here, tell her I sent a drink.”

  As I picked my way through the crowd I caught sight of her and moved faster, guided by the blazing beacon of her hair. The alcove, just off the hall leading to the bedrooms, was almost completely filled by a grand piano. Lois Payne sat on the bench behind it, cool and aloof, her pensive eyes downcast. I’d learned a lot since the Maybelle Manners days; enough to know that here was a true aristocrat. Perfect poise, finely chiseled features, a mouth that was almost prim despite the flaming promise of her hair. She glanced up as I approached, extending the bottle.

  “Arch Taylor asked me to bring this over,” I said. “I’m Tommy Post.”

  “Yes, I know.” She smiled quietly, took the bottle from my hand, set it down beside her. “We don’t really need this, do we?”

  “I can get glasses—”

  “No thank you.” Her voice was low and I caught a hint of embarrassment. “I don’t drink.”

  I started to move around the side of the piano. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Please do. Oh, be careful—”

  She didn’t have to warn me. The growl did that.

  There was a dog crouching beside her, back of the piano. It had taken the bulk of a baby grand to hide the creature, because this was the biggest wolfhound I’d ever seen. Panting, it rested a massive head on Lois’s lap as she stroked its jowls.

  “Now you be good,” she murmured. “He’s our friend.”

  “Your friend,” I said, eyeing the monster.

  “Actually he belongs to Jackie,” Lois told me. “We’re just getting acquainted.”

  I slid onto the piano bench—on the far side of the dog. It made a rumbling noise in its throat, then subsided as Lois petted it. She stared across the alcove into the living room beyond, an enigmatic expression in her hazel eyes.

  “Cigarette?” I offered.

  “Sorry.” She was almost blushing. “I don’t smoke.”

  “Quite a party.”

  “Yes.” She patted the dog’s head and it licked her hand with the longest, pinkest tongue I’d ever seen. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a partygoer.”

  Staring off at the clamoring crowd, I could understand that. This was a girl who belonged on the cover of a candy box; hers was a face meant to be framed by the lace of an old-fashioned valentine. Her gentle grace didn’t fit these raucous surroundings. As she quietly fondled the muzzle of the huge dog, he responded and so did I.

  “Arch Taylor said you were feeling a little depressed,” I said.

  “Did he?” She gave me a shy smile. “If I am, it’s his fault.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Nothing, really.” Lois sighed. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but your friend Arch Taylor is a lousy lay.”

  I blinked.

  She brightened. “I’ll bet you’re good, though. There’s a bedroom just down the hall here—”

  I blinked again. Lois glanced down wistfully at the wolfhound as its pink tongue lapped her fingers. “Forget it,” she murmured. “All men are beasts!”

  Rising, she moved into the hall. As I watched, Lois Payne went into a bedroom with the dog and closed the door behind her.

  I stared after her, then turned as smoke surged from the living room. There was a sudden, shattering sound, set against a counterpoint of screams and laughter.

  Hacky was standing on top of the bar, setting off Roman candles. Apparently he’d discovered his host’s stock of fireworks. Rockets whizzed across the room, their flight applauded by shrieks and shouts from the crowd. One lodged on the staircase and sputtered there; another spurted sparks in the bowl of the chandelier. For a wonder, no fire started and no one was hit. Hacky balanced on the bartop and tried to light a six-inch salute with his cigar.

  “Hot dog!” he shouted. “Let’s start the show off with a bang!” Somebody grabbed at his leg and he fell off the bar into the crush below.

  I didn’t wait to see what happened. There was a side door leading from the alcove to the garden. I opened it and went out.

  The garden was cool and quiet, the green of its grass and shrubbery already tinged with twilight. A breeze beckoned from the bench beyond and I sought its source on the edge of a bluff overlooking the ocean.

  Dusk deepened as the moon came up over the water. I stared down as the gigantic creamy tongue of a wave lapped the beach below.

  The long, pink tongue of the wolfhound . . .

  What was wrong with Lois Payne? And what was wrong with me? Why did I insist on the glamor, why couldn’t I take the reality for what it was worth? You couldn’t have both, and if you insisted, you ended up with neither. You ended up looking down at the water, wondering what it would be like to jump.

  “Hey, what gives?”

  The voice came from behind me. I turned and the moonlight disclosed the haggard face of my host. Jackie Keeley had
been drinking all afternoon, but he looked sober now.

  He sounded sober, too. “Don’t you like my party?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I get it. I saw you inside there with Lois. The original Bengal Man-Trap.” He grinned. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from, believe me.”

  “I believe you. But maybe that’s the trouble. Maybe I don’t want any more of that kind.”

  “There are no other kinds,” Keeley said. “I ought to know.” He pulled a silver flask from his hip pocket and unscrewed the cap. “Here—have a drink.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not the answer.”

  Keeley shrugged, then tilted the flask to his lips. “You come up with a better one, just let me know.” He drank, then set the flask down on a ledge of rock.

  “Does it really help?” I asked.

  “Nothing really helps.” Keeley perched on the rock ledge, glanced down wryly at his dangling legs. “Maybe I could steal a pair of Karl Druse’s platform shoes or whatever it is they say he wears. But I can’t wear them to bed and I wouldn’t fool anybody if I did. I’d still have runt sickness.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “That’s the only name I can give it. Runt sickness. You get it young, when you’re just a kid and shorter than the others. People start calling you ‘Shorty’ and ‘Tiny Tim.’ And they laugh. The other kids, the girls, even your own family. They think it’s funny when you try to fight somebody twice your size, funny when you get licked and have to cry. But after a while you get used to it. You figure if they’re gonna laugh anyway you might as well do things that make them laugh with you instead of just at you.” Keeley chuckled. “So that’s how I ended up in Hollywood. Star comic, but still a runt.”

  “You’re not really so short,” I said.

  “No, that’s the hell of it. Two, three inches less and I’d be cute. As it is, I’m just undersized. The kind of a guy no girl wants to dance with.”