TEN
IT was odd to watch Kurt Lozoff at ease in the privacy of his new home, wearing an old sweater as he sprawled in a morris chair and accepted a mug of black coffee from Madame.
By rights he should have been poised perfectly on the edge of his seat, spruce and stiff and starched, ready to spring up and click his heels when the butler entered the room with the silver coffee service. I wrote the scene in my mind, then discarded it as he spoke.
“Ah, it is good to get the shoes off after all that standing!” He gazed at me over the rim of his coffee mug. “What’s the matter? You’ve been so quiet this evening. Didn’t you enjoy the reception?”
“Of course. It’s just, well—” And I told him about the incident with Hacky.
He smiled and slapped his knee. “But certainly! And the man is right, as far as he goes. It is only that his vision is limited.” Lozoff took a gulp of coffee. “He is like a child at a puppet show, happy as long as he can see the strings in plain view. But take away the strings and he becomes afraid. He can only feel safe in this fantastic business when he’s sure it’s fantasy. That’s why he complains about the new studio. To him it’s no longer a puppet show because the strings are concealed.”
Lozoff offered me a cigarette. “He probably felt safe in the old days, the cramped quarters, where he could see Karl Druse go behind a curtain and come out again with his costume on. Then he could be sure Druse was just wearing makeup. But today he might not see Druse until he’s in character, and then he may mistake him for a real monster.” Lozoff finished his coffee. “But you and I know better. This is only the same old puppet show on a newer and bigger stage.”
“Now you sound like Harker,” I told him.
“Mawkish, you mean?” He laughed. “But of course; we are in a mawkish business. We deal in sentimentality, not sentiment. We create comedy and ignore humor, honor bathos above pathos. But it does not matter if we get bigger as long as remember we’re still pretending.
“You mentioned Harker—has he changed? You heard him today when he introduced that girl. Wasn’t it typical?”
“Same old Harker,” I admitted.
“And Mr. Morris. Certainly it will be harder to see him in his new suite of offices, surrounded by private secretaries, and the secretaries of private secretaries. But what’s inside the inner office? The gold barber chair—the make-believe throne where he sits and dreams of more make-believe. No, the time to start worrying is when they take away the barber chair and Mr. Morris turns into just another businessman.”
I snubbed out my cigarette. “You sound optimistic.”
“Of course I do. We’re going to see great things now that the screen is coming into its own. This man Murnau—have you heard of his new film, The Last Laugh? His camerman, Karl Freund, has developed a technique where the camera becomes the eyes of the character, and you see what he is seeing. Think of what we can do with this! And the picture has only one title.”
“Oh, great!” I said. “Pretty soon they’ll be shooting without any script, I suppose. And then where will I be?”
“You’ll move along with the developments, become a part of progress. Some day we will go beyond these silly costume epics. I will put aside my evening clothes and play mature parts in mature films. Perhaps I shall even direct them myself.”
I nodded. “Have you talked to Harker about this?”
“Yes. And in time he will see it as I do.”
“You mean he really isn’t sold on the idea.”
“Well.” Lozoff’s gaze dropped. “It isn’t that Harker is old-fashioned. One cannot accuse him of that, not a man who has been responsible for so many innovations, who has developed the use of the visual symbol, who really created intercutting—”
“Let’s be honest,” I said. “Harker is old-fashioned. He’s a complete dictator, he wants to control everything connected with his pictures. That’s why we have no producers on our lot, when all the other studios use them. That’s why he always rewrites what Taylor or I give him, or shoots off the cuff. That’s why he insists on bringing in his own discoveries when he casts.”
“He has made some fine pictures,” Lozoff said, softly.
“True. But he’s had his share of flops. And I wonder how his methods will work now that we’ve gone modern. That astrology of his—holding up shooting because the horoscope isn’t favorable. He’s going to have to pull his head out of the clouds and come down to earth.”
“This doesn’t sound like you, my boy.”
“I know. Maybe I’m going modern, too. Maybe I’ve grown up these past few months. I’m getting a little bit impatient with all this temperament, this business of being phoney off the set as well as on.”
“You’ve got to have the make-believe,” Lozoff murmured. “Harker must play his role. The black suit and the astrology chart—he needs them both.”
“Maybe you’re right.” I stood up, glancing at my watch. “Got to be running, now. We’ll get together tomorrow, I guess, and discuss this mysterious new script he’s doing.”
Lozoff escorted me to the door and I paused there. “Say, I almost forgot. What do you think of this girl—this Dawn Powers?”
“Exquisite.”
“Can she act?”
Lozoff shrugged. “I do not know. I’ve never seen her before.”
“But didn’t Harker run her test for you? After all, she’ll be your leading woman in the picture, won’t she?”
“So I learned today,” Lozoff said. “Harker has never even mentioned her name to me.”
“But that’s incredible!”
“That’s Theodore Harker.”
We parted and I drove home—home to the apartment, and Carla.
She had arrived a few minutes before me and let herself in. Right now she was curled up around a big highball.
“Want one?”
“I could use it, thanks.” I sat down and took off my necktie. “Big day.”
“You said a mouthful!” Carla mixed my drink. “I hear you got a load of Dawn Powers. How is she?”
“Looks okay.”
“Prettier’n I am?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh, so’s your old man! You don’t have to kid me.” She brought my drink and sat down on the sofa beside me. “But don’t go getting any ideas about this Dawn Powers, now. She’s strictly Harker’s property.”
“How do you know?”
Carla’s smile was vague. “I get around. Confidentially—” Her smile vanished and her voice lowered. “You know how Harker is about the stars? Well, this summer he got mixed up with a new astrologer. And she introduced him to Dawn Powers.”
She began opening my shirt as she spoke.
“You mean that’s all there is to it?” I asked.
Carla giggled. “Act your age! The astrologer was in cahoots with somebody who wanted to get to Harker. They made a deal to sell him a bill of goods.”
“But Harker’s not a fool.” The shirt came off and Carla started to remove my shoes.
“All men are foolish about something,” she said. “Harker’s a fool about the stars. And I’ll bet this dame was plenty clever. Probably dug up a lot of stuff about Harker’s past, told him things he didn’t think anyone knew about, and said she saw it in the stars. Here, get those socks off.”
I got those socks off. “Then what?”
“Then it was easy. She had his confidence, started advising him. Naturally he started talking about the future, his next picture, that sort of thing. That’s where Dawn Powers came in. The astrologer probably looked into a crystal ball or whatever they use, and described the kind of a girl who’d be his next star. Predicted that she’d be a big success. And then arranged for Harker to see her. I don’t know where, but my guess would be in some bedroom.”
“You have a one-track mind,” I told her.
“No detours in my sex drive.” She stood up, unbuttoning her dress.
“So I notice.” Carla let the dress fall, lowered herself
beside me. “But you didn’t finish. How did this astrologer get hold of Dawn Powers in the first place and figure the scheme out?”
“Somebody must have come to her, stupid. And made a deal—if the astrologer sold Harker on Dawn Powers, there’d be a payoff.”
“Are you sure you aren’t just making this all up out of your pretty head?” I touched her breasts.
Carla sat up. I’d touched her vanity, too. “Look, if you must know, I can even tell you who made the deal. Some dame, a widow with a couple of movie-crazy kids. She’d been trying to peddle her boy all over town and no sale. Then she started out on the girl. Maybe it was an accident, her hearing about this astrology business with Harker, but when she did she doped out a scheme. And it worked. She sold her own daughter, and that’s the honest truth. The kid’s name isn’t Dawn Powers, you know. Something like Fritzi or Mitzi somebody—”
“Mitzi LaBuddie,” I said.
“Huh? Yes, that’s it.”
“I thought I recognized her.” I stood up. “She must have lightened her hair.”
“You know her?”
“No. I only saw her once.”
“Then what are you so upset about?”
“I’m not upset.” I put my hand up to my eyes. “Just a little headache. Today was pretty hectic for me.”
Carla sighed. “That’s all right. Here, just let me get my things on.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“Oh yes I do.”
“You mad about something?”
“No. I’m not mad about anything.” She smiled at me as she wriggled into her dress. “Didn’t I always tell you it was that way with us—just for laughs, remember? Sooner or later it had to happen.”
“Nothing’s happened. You sound like you were walking out on me. Carla—”
Her hands were busy with the buttons. “I am walking out, before something does happen. You’re a sweet guy, Tommy, and no hard feelings.” She picked up her purse, moved toward the door. “But just remember, I warned you. There’ll be trouble if you try to tangle with Theodore Harker.”
“Why should I tangle with him?”
Carla turned at the door and gave me a long look. “Maybe you don’t know it yet, but your headache is just starting. I saw your face when you mentioned that girl’s name. You’re in love with Dawn Powers.”
She closed the door behind her, and left me alone.
Alone with the truth.
REEL TWO:
Came the Dawn—
ELEVEN
WHEN I walked into my office the next morning, my secretary was already sharpening her pencils. We must have had a hundred of them, but Miss Kress sharpened a new batch every day. What she did with them—or dreamed of doing with them—I never knew. The tall, angular spinster didn’t seem to have any other vices; the moment she left work she was off to Angelus Temple quicker than you could say Aimee Semple McPherson.
I don’t think Miss Kress really approved of me. I had the feeling that she would have preferred working for a more important writer—Jeanie MacPherson, Bill Counselman, or even Rupert Hughes. But she did her job efficiently and that’s all I required. Never once during our association had I asked her to take off her glasses, told her she was really beautiful and swept her into my arms. If I had, perhaps she wouldn’t have sharpened so many pencils.
Right now, I had other things to think about.
“Good morning, Miss Kress,” I said. “Would you get Mr. Harker for me, please?”
She glanced up at me without ceasing her symbolic circumcision. “His office called just a few minutes ago. He won’t be in today.”
That was all I needed to know.
“Be back in a little while,” I told her, heading for the door.
Miss Kress glanced up. “Is there something you want me to do in the meantime?”
“Yes. Stop sharpening and check the erasers. A writer uses them a lot more than he does pencils.”
I hurried down the walk outside of the Writer’s Building, looking for the brand-new cluster of bungalows behind Stage Four. Luck was with me when I found the one I wanted, and luck was with me again when I knocked on the door.
“Come in,” she said.
She was sitting in front of the mirror, doing something to her hair. When she swiveled around and saw me, her mouth made an O.
“I thought you were Mr. Harker,” she said.
“Sorry. I understand he’s not on the lot today.”
“But he told me—” She hesitated, glancing up at me, “I—I don’t believe we’ve met.”
I nodded. “Several months ago, in my office. Do you recall it now, Miss LaBuddie?”
Her eyes widened. But she wasn’t looking at me now; she was staring over my shoulder at the door, assuring herself that it was closed. Then she spoke. “How did you recognize me?”
“I didn’t. Not at first. You did a wonderful job with your hair and everything.”
But she wasn’t listening. “Mr. Harker didn’t tell you,” she murmured. “I know he didn’t, because he said it was a secret. So how did you—”
“Aren’t you even going to ask me to sit down?”
“Please,” she said. “You won’t tell? Promise me you won’t say anything—”
“Don’t worry, Miss LaBuddie.”
“Don’t call me that! My name is Dawn Powers.”
“All right, Dawn. I’ll keep my mouth shut. On one condition. That you have lunch with me this noon.”
“But—”
“Call it blackmail.” I smiled at her. “Meet you outside the front gate, twelve sharp.”
Her mouth made that O again. I turned, opened the door and went out, closing it carefully behind me.
Now I was certain. However she managed to sense it, Carla had been right. I was in love with Dawn Powers.
I don’t know what I did for the next two hours, and it doesn’t matter. Probably my body was busily occupied in its usual daily routines, but I was somewhere else, building a dream out of vowels. I meeting the O of her mouth. Meeting with it, melting with it, merging with it.
Then it was noon and she was standing there next to the driveway exit, smiling nervously at me as I opened the door of the car. And we were riding somewhere, and then I parked, and we went inside to a table and we ordered. But all the while we were talking. Small talk, yet very important to me. Because I could see her mouth form that O again.
“How’s your mother?”
“Please, Mr. Post. I’d be much happier if you’d consider this our first meeting. I’d rather forget what happened in your office. Mama was very foolish, and as for Buddie—”
“Has he been working?”
“Just a bit part at FBO, with Jack Hoxie, I think, or Jack Holt. Somebody named Jack. Anyway, he was terrible, of course. Mama was pretty disappointed this summer.”
“Until you met Harker,” I said, smoothly.
“Yes.” Her answer wasn’t smooth.
“That was certainly a break, you coming here as a full-fledged star in your first picture. You must have made a tremendous impression on him.”
“It was—” The O dissolved. She began to sob. As she fumbled for her purse I got my handkerchief out.
“Use this.”
I watched her dab at her eyes, wondering why women always dab instead of wipe.
“That’s better,” I said. “No sense bawling just because you’re happy.”
“Happy? I wish I was dead—”
More tears, more dabs. Until I reached over, took the handkerchief and did a man’s job. “Blow your nose,” I commanded.
“Thanks. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. Eat your lunch.”
“I’m not very hungry.”
“Scared?”
“Wouldn’t you be? I’m no star. I’m not even an actress. Oh, I’ve had two years in one of those side-street dramatic schools and I did a little extra work, but that’s all. I’ve never even wanted to act.”
“Then this wa
s your mother’s idea?”
Dawn sighed, nodded. “The whole thing. Changing my hair, the makeup. Introducing me to Mr. Harker, even coaching me on what to say.”
“How did that happen?”
“I—I don’t know. It was at a party; she got an invitation from somewhere and made me come along. The whole thing was crazy. Mr. Harker just took one look at me and then he started to talk. All about the stars and how he guided his destiny with them and how he could make me a star—” She broke off. “I told you it was crazy.”
I shook my head. “You’ll be a star if Harker says so. That’s the way it goes in this business.”
She opened her purse, took out a lipstick and began to refashion the oval of the O. “You don’t sound very surprised,” she said, between strokes.
“I knew about the astrology.”
The lipstick halted an inch from her mouth. “Who told you?”
“I can’t say. But I’m sure the information will remain confidential.”
The lipstick moved, then halted again. “What did they say—” Her hand started to tremble.
I reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Stop shaking. Nobody’s going to harm you. Nobody’s going to find out.”
Her flesh was warm, smooth. My fingers wanted to tighten but I made them yield. She put her hand down, dropped the lipstick in her purse. “Thank you, Mr. Post.”
“Look.” I smiled at her. “If you expect me to call you Dawn Powers, you’ve got to call me Tom.”
“All right. All right, Tommy.” But she didn’t return my smile. “I’m sorry to make such a fuss over nothing. It’s silly for me to be frightened, only”—and her voice came out in a rush—“I can’t help it, I don’t know what to do, I don’t want to be a star. It’s just that Mama said it was the only way, we were down to our last five dollars and Buddie made a flop of it, and then she said it was up to me, I had to go through with it, our last chance—”
“Sure,” I said. “I understand. I won’t tell anyone and you don’t have to talk about it any more.”
I got the smile then, the grateful smile, and we changed the subject. At first I carried the conversation and then, gradually, I got her to talking. That’s the way I wanted it; there was so much for me to observe, to learn.