The room ran the width of the building and made the chairs and table look like an afterthought. The only touch of color came from the movie posters taped to the plaster walls, and they weren’t particularly colorful.
“This way,” Gregor said, walking to the canvas curtain.
“I was just admiring your posters,” I said politely, following him.
“The posters,” Gregor said, looking around at the walls as if he were seeing them for the first time. “Yes. They represent many years of work for Eric and me. Years of work in Europe and here.”
I looked around at the posters. Four or five were in German and looked a little grisly. One displayed a green, hulking man in a cloak holding a long knife dripping green blood. The movie was, apparently, called Der Sturm. The others were no less threatening, including the French one with the man strangling a woman or a man with long hair. The American movies, three of them, where Secrets of Darkness, Terror at Midnight, and The White Ghost. All of the posters were green or blue and filled with murder and shadows.
“You are familiar with our work?” Gregor asked.
“I think I saw that one,” I said, pointing at the Secrets of Darkness poster.
“Ah, yes,” he said with a knowing smile. “The dream film, the nightmare film. You know of course that Eric was a founder of film expressionism. He worked for Heinrich Galeen on The Golem and Weine on Das Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and I, I was an assistant cameraman on Warning Shadows.”
“That a fact?” I said.
“But times are hard now,” Gregor said, looking toward a poster. “Now, to survive we must produce dreck. You know ‘dreck’?”
“Intimately,” I said.
“Bring him in,” came Eric’s voice from beyond the curtain. “We do not exist to bore visitors with tales of our lost past. Bring him in. Bring him in. Bring him in.”
Gregor brought me in through a slit in the canvas that was hidden by the draping of the fabric.
“In” was not much better than “out.”
The space behind the curtain was the size of a basketball court, though only the area to half court was lighted. In the darkness beyond, I could make out the shape of painted boards stacked up, light stands, a few tripods and cameras, and some cabinets. In the lighted space in which I was standing were the living quarters of the Steistel brothers—two beds next to each other against one wall with an ornate chest of drawers next to each bed, a couple of wooden wardrobes with doors open to reveal the suits, shirts, and other clothing of the two old men, a round, heavy wooden table with two candle holders in the center and four chairs around it. Add to that a sofa and two stuffed chairs, none of which matched. On the opposite wall was a stove with something bubbling on it, and a refrigerator.
Eric Steistel was sitting at the table with a plate of food in front of him. His sightless eyes were aimed more or less in my direction.
“Sorry to come during dinner, but this is important,” I said.
“Gregor says you are able to find a replacement for Lowry.”
“I think so. An agent friend and I are looking.”
“And why do you do this?” asked Eric with a knowing little smile. “What commission do you hope to gain? We are not a big studio. We can pay at best …”
He said something to Gregor in German and Gregor answered.
“… at best,” Eric went on, “five hundred dollars to the actor. We have one more week of shooting. Of course, payment will be deferred until we have a distribution and you, you will receive twenty-five dollars. Gregor can prepare a contract.”
“No contract, no commission,” I said. “Can I sit?”
“I do not know if you are capable of sitting,” said Eric. “But you may sit if you can.”
I sat near the table.
“You’ve got a sense of humor,” I said.
“Eric always was known for his wit,” said Gregor, going for the pot on the stove and turning off the flame. “He was known in Berlin at UFA Studio as the comical expressionist.”
“The sardonic expressionist,” said Eric wearily as if he had corrected his brother hundreds of times before, which he probably had. “You’d like some goulash, Mr ….”
“Peters,” I said. “No thanks. I ate before I got here. But you go ahead.”
Gregor poured goulash into the two bowls on the table, tore bread off the loaf in front of him, and put one chunk in Eric’s hand. I waited while they ate after Gregor stopped me from speaking with a finger to his lips.
I waited and listened to the two old men eating, Eric looking nowhere and Gregor looking from me to his brother. They ate slowly and I sat patiently. When he was finished, Eric pushed his plate away and turned in my general direction.
“And so, Mr. Peters, we resume our conversation,” said Eric.
“Someone killed Lowry,” I reminded them.
“Of that we are painfully aware,” sighed Eric.
Eric tapped the table lightly with his fingertips as Gregor began to clear the table.
“Lowry said ‘Steinholtz’ just before he died,” I said, cutting into Eric’s sightless memories of expressionism in good old Berlin. “You never heard the name?”
Eric laughed like a pebble in a tin can.
“Steinholtz,” he rasped. “How many Steinholtzes have we known, Gregor?”
Gregor paused at the sink to consider the question seriously.
“Steinholtz, the baker who wanted to write poetry,” answered Gregor. “I think he shot his dog and himself in 1920 or ’23. Then there was Steinholtz the eye doctor. Only he wasn’t an eye doctor and his name wasn’t really Steinholtz. He took that name from his cousin because his name was Greenberg and he thought …”
“I get the idea,” I said.
“Steinholtz is a common name in Germany,” said Gregor, going back to his dishes.
“Was Lowry German?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” said Gregor. “He spoke German.”
“Definitely,” said Eric triumphantly. “He had the pretend accent to simulate Lorre, but beneath the pretend accent was a real accent. He claimed to be a cousin of the real Peter Lorre, but …”
“How did he get the role?” I asked, as Gregor examined a stubborn goulash stain on one of the plates.
“An agent,” said Eric.
“No,” corrected Gregor. “Elisa brought him to us.”
“Elisa knew Lowry?” I asked. “Where …”
“Music,” Eric said suddenly, as if ordering a studio orchestra into action. Gregor responded by turning off the running water, drying his hands on a dish towel, and moving to one of the dressers, where he removed a purple cloth from an old record player. A stack of records stood neatly alongside the old Victor machine. Eric drummed his fingers expectantly on the table and I said, “Where did Elisa …?”
“Not now. Not now,” Eric said impatiently, putting his fingers to his lips to silence me.
Gregor selected a disk, blew on it gently, and placed it on the turntable. The Steistel Brothers were not to be rushed. I looked around the dark loft for some closet where Shelly might be stored, but saw nothing.
The machine crackled and I expected something Wagnerian. I got a hot, unexpected blast of loud trumpet that lightninged through my head.
“Harry James,” Eric whispered reverently during a slight break in the solo. “Trumpet Blues and Cantabile.”
“Harry James,” Gregor added seriously just before the band blasted out again into the dark corners of the loft, “has just been voted the best lead trumpet in the country in the Metronome poll.”
“And,” screamed Eric with delight over the blast of brass, “second only to Ziggy Elman as best hot trumpet. And do not forget Downbeat’s poll had Harry James as favorite soloist.”
“Who could forget,” I called over a crescendoing riff. “Listen, listen, listen,” Eric shouted, cocking his head to one side. “James’s trumpet calls the trumpet section to play the blues over this bouncing upbeat tempo. Now. There. Now.” He bou
nced in his chair excitedly. “Suddenly everything smooths out as the strings play this long bridge back to Harry James’s lead trumpet in a hot, melodic chorus. Listen.”
We listened. Gregor stood at attention, guarding the machine. I knew a headache was on the way if I didn’t escape.
“I think …” I began.
“Now,” Eric cried excitedly, “the boogie beat brings back the blues motif, and the brass soars to a triumphant climax.”
We listened to the triumphant climax and then the record ended. Eric sank back exhausted. Gregor gently removed the record and addressed me.
“You would like some Charlie Shavers?” he asked, sounding more like a waiter suggesting dessert than a German cameraman offering pain to an aching head.
“I don’t …” I began.
“‘Saint Louis Blues,’” Eric jumped in. “Magnificent backup by Buster Bailey on clarinet.”
“Or you might prefer,” Gregor went on, “‘Bugle Blues’ with Buck Clayton on trumpet. Excellent Count Bassie arrangement.”
“No, thanks,” I got in. “I’ve got a little headache and I’d like some information. Remember?”
Gregor nodded and went to the stove where he poured two cups of coffee. I resumed talking before Eric could launch into a tribute to Charlie Shavers.
“A dentist has been kidnapped,” I said.
“Why?” asked Eric. “Who would pay ransom for a dentist?”
“It’s not for ransom. It’s to keep me from looking for whoever killed Lowry and another Peter Lorre imitator.”
“Mr. Lowry was not an imitator,” Eric said indignantly, turning to face my general direction. “He was an impressionist, an artist.”
“Artists work cheap these days,” I said, looking around the dark, windowless loft.
“We could afford far better than this,” Gregor said at the sink as he poured me a cup of coffee. “But we are living frugally and investing our money.”
“In movies,” Eric whispered, in case the Warner Brothers had their ears to the door. “We are saving our own movies, buying the rights to other low-budget features that have already been shown in theaters.”
“Why?” I asked accepting the coffee cup from Gregor. “What can you do with old B movies?”
“Television,” shouted Eric triumphantly.
“Television?” I repeated, wondering how I could get rid of the headache and get back on the subject of Shelly’s kidnapping.
“Klaus Landsberg …” Eric began.
“We knew him in Germany, an electrical genius,” added Gregor as I hurried through the coffee.
“Klaus was hired last year by Paramount Studios to organize and operate a new experimental television station,” said the excited Eric who was, once again, addressing the wall. “That will make two stations operating in Los Angeles, Paramount’s and Don Lee’s.”
“So?” I asked.
“Soon there will be five, six stations,” said Eric growing ever more excited. “And people will be buying receiving machines. Hundreds …”
“Thousands,” entered Gregor from the sink.
“Ten thousand,” Eric raised in the poker game of dreams.
“A hundred thousand,” countered Gregor.
“And they will need something to put on the television, something to see,” beamed the blind man.
“Old movies?” I guessed.
“Precisely,” said Eric.
“Never happen,” I said, getting up. “People aren’t going to sit around their living rooms in the dark watching old movies they wouldn’t go see in a theater.”
“We shall see,” said Eric, which struck me as ironic coming from a blind man. “I am a bit of a Cassandra. I can see the future but no one but Gregor believes me. Therefore, my brother and I will profit from my skill at prophesy.”
“Good luck,” I said, heading for the curtain.
“We shall use our profits to make films,” Eric shouted, sensing or hearing me move away, “films in the great tradition of expressionism. I have vision, Mr. Peters. The dark shadows of the past, of our psyches, shall be unleashed through the artistry of the soul in image and sound. We shall reveal the deepest horrors of the human spirit. We shall make visible what our repressions have told us should forever be kept secret. We shall liberate the monsters of our libidos and stand them naked before us in the theater of illusion.”
“Sounds like fun to me,” I said.
“What about the replacement for Lowry?” Eric shouted even louder as I groped for the opening in the canvas.
“Maybe tomorrow. Maybe Saturday,” I said as Gregor hurried over to find the break in the canvas for me and part it.
“I looked over at Eric before I left. His sightless eyes were aimed into the darkness of the studio and he was smiling.
“Gregor,” he called. “‘C Jam Blues’ followed by a little Elman, perhaps ‘Moonlight on the Ganges.’”
Gregor gave me an apologetic little nod that let me know I should find my own way out. I nodded back to show it was fine with me, and I stepped into the reception area and crossed the space to the door. As I opened the door to Miracle Pictures, I heard the first blare of Billy Strayhorn’s trumpet.
I made my way down the dark, narrow stairwell with Duke Ellington following close behind, pounding with both elegant hands on my head. When I opened the street door, the afternoon sun blinded me. I stood for a few seconds till I could see again and realized that my headache had become a heavy-weight contender.
Thinking sometimes gives me headaches and I had been thinking too much lately, but I didn’t want to take any of the credit away from the Steistel brothers’ concert. I didn’t seem to be getting closer to Lowry’s killer and Shelly’s kidnaper. Maybe Seidman and my brother were having better luck but I doubted it.
My head was throbbing too hard for me to consider driving and the sun was breathing down on me too hot for me to see clearly. I made my way through the door of a Greek restaurant across the street, checked to be sure it was empty, and went into the welcome darkness and silence. It was perfect. An old man with bushy hair and walrus mustache dyed black escorted me to a table near an open space that looked like a miniature dance floor. He poured water for me into a green glass and stood back.
“Greek coffee and a generous slice of baclava,” I said softly. He smiled and walked away without a word and, mercifully, without a clattering of feet. I pulled out my aspirin, inhaled half a bottle washed down with water, and sank back in the cool silence with my eyes closed.
The horror was sudden, worthy of Eric Steistel’s worst or best images from hell. A brass horn blasted in my ear and someone shouted, “Whoopah.” My eyes opened in pain to the sight of three people standing in front of me, two ancient men and a creature of no known gender or age. They all wore suits. One of the men held a cornet. The other man had an accordion. The maybe-woman held a mandolin. I don’t know which one of them had yelled, but I do know that they grinned at me, stomped their feet explosively on the wooden floor, shouted, and played their instruments.
The second wave of horror came with the realization that they were performing for me. There was no one else in the place but the old waiter, and he seemed to have been smart enough to take off for Boyle Heights. I was wrong. He appeared just as the trio finished whatever they were playing and screaming and started on another tune of no identifiable melody. I tried to smile through the pain as I drank my coffee. I tried to ignore them as they launched into a Greek version of ‘Johnny Got a Zero’ while I ate my baclava. My fingers grew sticky from honey. I licked them, waved them in the air, and tried a weary “Whoopah” of my own, figuring it could only burst a vessel in my brain and release me from this mortal coil. And there was some chance it might slow the musicians down.
My next ploy was to smile and point to my head, to which the mandolin player responded with a Greek version of something that might once have been Beethoven. At that point, rudeness and a run for the door seemed the only chance I had to avoid permanent bra
in damage. I started to get up but the old waiter with the dyed hair came back and motioned for the trio to stop. They did and I considered giving the old guy a kiss on each cheek.
But he hadn’t come to rescue me.
“Telephone,” he said.
“For me?” I asked, popping the last crumb of baclava in my mouth.
“You Mr. Peters?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“For you,” he said and pointed to the cashier’s counter near the door where a phone sat off the hook.
The trio watched and waited. I dropped a buck on the table and pointed at it and them. I don’t know why I assumed they couldn’t speak English but I did.
I lurched to the phone and picked it up.
“Hello,” I said.
“We’ve been watching you,” came a voice that could be coming from a woman, a nervous kid, or a man doing a rotten imitation of Mickey Mouse.
“I hope you’ve enjoyed the show so far, but I heard Hedy Lamarr in Ecstasy is worth a trip to the Aztec Theater.”
“This is no joke,” screamed Mickey Mouse.
The old waiter came over to the counter, handed me the bill for the coffee and baclava, and looked at my face.
“Headache?” he mouthed.
I nodded yes as Mickey Mouse screamed in my ear. The waiter held up a stubby finger, turned, and disappeared again.
“What do you want?” I asked. “I’ve got a headache.”
“I’m sorry,” said Mickey. “But we warned you.”
“Nobody warned me about this headache,” I said.
“Not the headache,” the voice squealed again. “The investigation. We warned you.”
“You tried to goddamn kill me,” I countered.
Think Fast, Mr. Peters Page 13
