I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and knew that if the Japanese were searching for an easy target, they’d have it as soon as I stepped into the street.
Gunther popped his head out of the door as I started to leave.
“Toby,” he began, and then his little mouth dropped open as he looked at my costume.
“Right, Gunther,” I said seriously. “I’ve got to get to Paramount. De Mille’s in trouble.”
Gunther, who spent his money on neatly tailored handmade conservative suits, couldn’t take his eyes from my tie as he spoke.
“Mrs. Plaut is most irate,” he said. “Most irate. I told her that the large piece of metal was a patriotic modern sculpture done by a serviceman.”
“Very inventive, Gunther,” I said and meant it.
“She, however, did not accept my explanation. I do not have your gift of dissembled conversation,” he said a bit apologetically.
“Stick with me,” I consoled, “and you’ll pick it up. Want to join us?”
“Yes, perhaps,” he said with animation. “Hans Mulsin has waited two hundred years to be translated into English. He can wait another few hours. I’ll get my coat.”
I looked at the stairway nervously, expecting Mrs. Plaut, and waited. Gunther emerged, wearing a neat Chesterfield coat, Homburg, and a cane.
“We are going to a fine party, are we not?” he said.
“It is now,” I said and led the way down the stairs and out of the house.
Jeremy and Gunther exchanged greetings, and with great dignity, Gunther put his hand on his Homburg and climbed into the small space behind us.
We were at Paramount ten minutes later, where a guard at the gate stopped us and looked into the car. He was an old-timer named Belzer, whom I met once or twice back in the days I was working Warner. Most of the people working the studios were old-timers now. The young-timers were in different uniforms.
“Toby Peters, is it?” he said. His cap was well down on his forehead when he looked into the car and exchanged nods with Jeremy and Gunther, who peeked over the backseat along with the top of his silver cane.
Little tufts of white hair had sprouted from Belzer’s ears since I last saw him. It was decorative.
“Couldn’t believe it was you when Mr. De Mille left the list here for the get-together. Spotted you right away,” Belzer went on. “How have you been?”
“Failing to make a living,” I said. He looked at my suit and tie and the Ford and shook his head. He believed me.
“Your friends on the guest list?” he said.
A car pulled up alongside it, and Chester Morris stuck his head out of the window. Belzer waved him on.
“They’re my partners,” I said. “We’re here to protect De Mille from a maniac named Ressner.”
I described Ressner to him, and he tried to think, but a lot of people had come through that gate and Ressner could have been many of them, male or female.
“Don’t remember, but that’s no guarantee one way or another,” he said. “Drive on in. Go to the end of this street and then sharp to the left. Should be a whole bunch of cars parked. Find yourself a space and follow the crowd.”
In the rearview mirror I could see that the car behind us was driven by Madeleine Carroll. It was going to be some party.
CHAPTER 15
We parked, got out, and passed Chester Morris, following the crowd into the clear May afternoon. The woman with Morris looked at us over her shoulder and nodded. Morris glanced at us and said, “Must be entertainment.” He grinned at us and we grinned back. We did turn out to be the entertainment, but not quite the comedy act he had in mind.
In a studio full of famous faces, we held our own in drawing attention. So I decided that we should separate. I described Ressner to Jeremy and Gunther again, though I knew my description wouldn’t be much good. The real trick was to find and stick close to De Mille and look for anyone who might have a hidden knife, though we weren’t even sure if Ressner would stick to his familiar weapon.
The crowd flowed, and I moved to the side. In a few seconds, I lost sight of Gunther and Jeremy. My guess, and I was pretty good at crowds from my studio premiere days, was that there were about four or five hundred people in the space into which we were being corralled.
That space looked familiar to me, and I tried to imagine it without the modern dressed people. It was the outdoor set of King Richard’s courtyard for The Crusades.
On the stone wall to the side hung a huge poster with a cartoon sailor holding some pieces of paper. The red, white, and blue lettering read, BUY BONDS NOW, DO YOUR PART. WE’RE DONG OURS.
I leaned against a wooden post next to a plaster of Paris fountain and scanned the crowd.
“Looking for someone particular to give the evil eye or will anyone do?” came a voice behind me.
I knew the voice and didn’t want to turn, but there wasn’t any choice now. A hefty guy said “Excuse me” as he moved past looking for a spot to perch, and I looked back at Brenda Stallings. Her nose was about a foot from mine, and she looked tired. She was wearing a tan suit and silver earrings, but she wasn’t shining. She held a purse, and I wondered if there might be a tiny gun in it. I had succeeded in being around and involved when two men in her life lost theirs.
“I was trying to save Talbott,” I explained.
She shook her head, gritting her even white teeth, and examined me from bandage to ADA tie to tight waiter’s jacket to baggy pants.
“What are you dressed up for?” she gasped.
“Comic relief?” I tried.
Her right hand went up to her eyes, and she began to shake. I reached for her and touched her shoulder.
“I don’t know if I’m laughing or crying,” she said, taking down her hand and reaching in her purse for a handkerchief. “Probably both.”
“Makes sense,” I said, continuing to scan the crowd for signs of Ressner. “It’s like that for me almost all the time.”
She looked at me with those intense blue eyes filled with tears and said, “What do you wind up doing?”
“Smiling,” I said. “Can I get you a drink? I think I see some guys circulating.”
“Sure,” she sighed. “Why not.”
I inched through the crowd past a character actress with no chin, whom I recognized but to whom I couldn’t put a name. A lot of the people I made my way past looked like producers or bankers, money people.
C. Aubrey Smith and I reached for same drink on the tray.
“After you, dear chap,” he said genially, trying to read the letters on my tie. He took a glass of wine, touched his big white moustache, and said, “Mind if I ask?” pointing at my tie.
“American Defense Always,” I explained.
“Quite right,” he agreed and turned away.
I made my way through the crowd back to Brenda Stallings and handed her the wineglass. I took a sip of my own and watched her down hers in one tilt of the head. Rather than go back through the crowd, I gave her mine. She took it and finished it off before my hand was back at my side.
I took the empty glasses and placed them both in the pool at the base of the plaster of Paris fountain.
“Toby,” Brenda said over the murmur of the crowd. “Do me a favor. Never, never see or talk to me again.” She touched my cheek.
“I’ll try,” I said, and she disappeared as something began to stir behind me. I turned. On a low platform of wood raised above the crowd stood a man at a microphone. A sharp buzz came over a loudspeaker, and the man dressed in a tuxedo spoke with a sputtering S because he was standing too close to the mouthpiece. Radio was not his medium.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please. Your attention. We want to welcome you here today on behalf of Paramount Pictures. It is my pleasure to introduce our host for the afternoon, Mr. Cecil B. De Mille.” De Mille climbed to the platform and moved forward with a tall dark-suited old man, who looked something like a cross between an undertaker and a clean-shaven Abe Lincoln. De Mille was wearing
tan kickers, a white shirt, and light brown jacket.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said after the applause had died. He spoke slowly, clearly, a man well at home with a microphone. “It is my distinct honor to share this platform today with the man who may be most responsible for the industry in which we work, the man who turned a technology into an art, the true pioneer of the film medium, Mr. David Wark Griffith.”
Griffith stepped forward with a small smile to the applause and leaned into the microphone.
“I thank you, C.B.,” he said. “And I thank you especially for the opportunity to urge all of these loyal Americans to support our war effort.”
De Mille stepped up and made it quite clear that the little presentation had been rehearsed.
“Yes, D.W. We’re at a crucial point in the war being fought all around us, a point where every dollar and every bit of effort and sacrifice is needed to see us through to victory. I’d like to see us sell a million dollars in bonds right here. This afternoon. I know you have the power to do it, just as I know America has the will to win.”
“C.B.,” said Griffith in distinct cultured tones. “I’d like to start the camera rolling with the purchase of a one-hundred-dollar bond.”
De Mille applauded and I wondered if Griffith could afford a hundred-buck token payment. I’d heard from a friend that the old man had been reduced to noncredited consulting at Hal Roach’s studio.
“Now,” went on C.B. “Mr. Griffith and I and our volunteers will circulate among you. There are plenty of refreshments, and many of you have kindly agreed to perform for us through the afternoon. So enjoy yourselves, open your hearts and purses, your souls and wallets, and help us to make this an afternoon for which Hollywood can be proud.”
More applause as De Mille and Griffith waved and left the podium to Kay Kyser who adjusted his glasses and said, “Hi you all.”
Before he could call Ish Kabible to the stand or start his band playing, I pushed through the crowd to find De Mille.
People were flocking around one of several tables set up to sell bonds. I moved behind one of the tables as the music began. I thought I recognized the voice of Ginny Simms singing “Who’s Sorry Now,” but I didn’t spot De Mille.
Someone touched my arm, and I looked down at Gunther. I had to bend down to hear him over the music and voices.
“Toby, did you not tell me that Miss West struck this Ressner in the face last night?”
“Right,” I said.
“There is a waiter serving behind that punch bowl with a bandage on his nose. It may mean nothing, but …”
I hurried in the direction of the punch bowl as indicated by Gunther. The going was slow.
I passed Bing Crosby, who was holding something small up to a young man and saying, “Will you look at that?”
The table with the punch bowl was long and covered with a white tablecloth and little punch glasses. Behind it stood not one but three waiters serving. One of them, indeed, had a bandage on his nose. His hair was dark and long, and he sported a black moustache, but it was Ressner without a doubt, the same man who had appeared in my office and told me he was Dr. Winning. I tried to ease around a chubby guy, who had one foot propped up to tie his shoe.
Ressner looked up at the right or wrong moment and spotted me. His eyes made it clear that I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to be locked up in a booby hatch outside of Fresno. He turned and ducked into the crowd behind him. I followed.
For four or five minutes I plowed through celebrities asking me questions about my tie and people who didn’t want to move or be moved. No Ressner. I gave up and looked for De Mille. Instead I spotted Jeremy talking to a matronly woman.
“Romanticism is returning now in full flower with the young English poets,” he was saying as I grabbed his arm. He excused himself, and I told him to help me find and keep an eye on De Mille. I told him about Ressner and his disguise, and we separated again.
About four minutes later I spotted De Mille again, this time without Griffith, as he returned to the platform and took the microphone.
“We’re doing very well,” he said. “But we can do better. Open those hearts as I know you can.”
“Blasphemer,” came a shout from behind De Mille. The roar of the crowd stopped as everyone looked up. A figure climbed on the stage. He was dressed like a hermit and carrying a wooden staff. He also had a bandage over his nose.
De Mille’s “Oh my God,” was barely audible over the speaker because he had turned his head.
The crowd waited anxiously, wondering what this piece of entertainment would be. I tried to muscle through the crowd as Ressner stepped toward De Mille with his staff raised.
I could see Jeremy to my right, muscling his way forward with more success than I was having, but still too far to get there before Ressner had a chance to strike out with his staff. The people around the platform must have thought it was part of an act, too, because no one moved to give De Mille help.
I kept driving forward and glanced up to see De Mille standing quite resolutely with his feet apart, waiting for Ressner.
I was at the foot of the platform when Ressner raised the staff and shouted, “For all the filth that you have put on the screen and the defilement of the Lord, I shall smite thee.”
“Your knowledge of the Bible,” I could hear De Mille say, “is as weak as your performance. Now …”
Ressner was about to bring the staff down on De Mille’s head, and neither Jeremy nor I was near enough to act. But instead of the heavy stick swooping through the air, it went flying high into the crowd, and Ressner tripped forward.
At the edge of the platform I could now see Gunther, his cane extended. I guessed that he had climbed up and hit Ressner in the shin. It was a good guess. Ressner turned in fury toward Gunther, who tried to scramble away. He almost made it. Ressner caught him by the collar and pulled him up where everyone could see. De Mille moved to help, but Ressner lifted Gunther and flung him into the crowd. People went down like lined-up blocks when Gunther’s body struck, and Ressner leaped off the back of the platform into the crowd.
The applause and cheers were deafening and one man shouted, “Magnificent show, C.B.”
A woman’s voice confirmed, “You might expect something like this from C.B. Wonderful dramatic sense. Wonderful.”
De Mille quickly climbed from the podium, and I caught a glimpse of Jeremy burrowing around the crowd in pursuit of Ressner. I went for Gunther, who was being held up and dusted off by a pretty young girl.
“You were wonderful,” she said.
“How are you, Gunther?” I asked.
“While I prefer not to be publicly conspicuous, as you well know, Toby,” he said, looking for his Homburg, “I am well trained in tumbling and well able to absorb the fall and the indignity. The mother of this child upon whom I landed is in some anguish.”
The pretty girl remembered her mother, pulled her fascinated eyes from Gunther, and went to the woman, who had been seated in a chair and now looked as if Jim Thorpe had belted her in the solar plexus.
I took up the chase of Ressner, passing D. W. Griffith on the way, who was saying, “Carol Dempster. Without a doubt. Carol Dempster.”
The crowd thinned at the edge of the set, and I moved between two buildings in the general direction I had seen Jeremy and Ressner take off. Nothing. I went to my right and found myself circling back toward the party and the set from The Crusades.
I climbed some wooden stairs and found myself on the tower over the party. In front of me, about fifty feet down on the wooden planking, Jeremy was advancing on Ressner, who had nowhere to go.
I ran forward. Ressner moved to the edge of the railing some thirty feet above the crowd. No one seemed to spot him from below. Jeremy took a step to the side, and I could see the too-calm look on his face. I didn’t like it.
Ressner struck out with his fist and hit Jeremy cleanly on the chin, but Jeremy paid no attention. Ressner backed up his last step and threw
a punch toward Jeremy’s neck. Jeremy ignored it.
“I should have been a star,” shouted Ressner in Jeremy’s face. “I am a great actor. This is an unfair world.”
Jeremy’s answer was to grab the front of Ressner’s hairy costume and lift him up. I stopped about ten feet away when Jeremy lifted Ressner over his head as Ressner had done to Gunther. There was no doubt about what Jeremy had in mind. He was going to fling the madman into the crowd below.
Ressner looked over at me with a combination of fear and anticipation. It might mean his death, but it also would mean his greatest moment. All of Hollywood was gathered for his big scene.
“Jeremy,” I said above the band that had started playing “Darktown Strutter’s Ball.” “Gunther is all right. Not even a bruise.”
Jeremy’s response was to hoist Ressner even higher.
“That’s what he wants you to do, Jeremy,” I said. “That will be his big splash in the movie world. It’s the death wish he’s been after.”
Jeremy hesitated, and I took another step forward.
“It’ll hurt him a lot more to go back to the Winning Institute or to go on trial,” I said.
With that, Jeremy turned and threw Ressner on the wooden planking at my feet. The madman landed on his back, bounced, groaned, and rolled on his side.
“And what of my satisfaction?” said Jeremy, rubbing his hands.
“Get it through poetry,” I said, grabbing Ressner’s arm.
Jeremy nodded at the wisdom of my remark and helped me drag Ressner’s unmartyred form back down the walkway and into the nearest office where I could make a phone call to my brother.
Ressner’s thin brown hair fell over his pale blue eyes. Jeremy had seated him at a desk chair on little rollers. Scratching his stomach once or twice through his itchy hair shirt, Ressner began to rock back and forth with a satisfied grin.
“Why’d you kill them?” I asked, looking at the walls of the small room. There was nothing on three of them. On the fourth was a large photograph of an old man with a high starched collar, who looked at all three of us without humor.
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