by John Gardner
“We got serious things to talk about, Lou.” Herbie lowered himself into a chair, balancing his tray. He took a spoonful of steaming soup and slurped noisily.
“So what’s new?”. Passau sipped, in a very sophisticated manner.
“We’re going on a trip.”
“You taking me to London, Herb? Pucky going to sit and hold my hand all the way? Bet London’s got a whole team waiting to whisk me off to that place you got near Warminster.”
“How d’you know about Warminster, Lou?” Casual, understated.
“Lots of things I know. When you’re as old as me, you pick up lots of things.”
“Leprosy?”
“I am a leper now?”
“To some people, it seems.”
“Ah.”
“Why would London get worried about Langley moving in on you, Lou? Does Langley know something we don’t?”
“Maybe. Who knows? A long life and you carry secrets like a snail carries his home. It’s possible Langley wants to bury me. We really go to London, Herbie?”
“Eventually, maybe. But first we’re off to Florida.”
“Florida? Why in the hell Florida? It’s full of old people and doctors’ offices. Biggest concentration of doctors in the world, Florida. They keep old people alive so they can eat the oranges.” His voice went up, heading towards the angry zone.
“And go to see Mickey Mouse. Disneyland, Lou.”
“That’s where you should head for, Herbie. Fucking Disneyland is right up your alley—you should pardon my French, Pucky.”
“We’re going to a very nice part of Florida, Lou. Gulf Coast,” she said brightly.
“Wrong time of the year. Why Florida? Why can’t we stay here? I like it here, and what about music? There’s plenty of music here. Will there be music in Florida?”
“Will there, Puck?”
“Not unless we take our own.”
“We need a container truck to take all the music I shall need. No, I’m not going to fucking Florida, pardon me again, Pucky. It’s not fair.”
“You’ll go where we take you or we’ll feed you to the wolves, Lou. I’ll do what I can about the music, okay?”
The Maestro sulked. They finished their soup in silence, and Herbie went to the kitchen and stood next to Pucky while she scrambled the eggs.
“What else did Art have to say? Anything about the goings-on in what used to be the evil empire?”
“Yes. He said to take care. It’s going to be a long haul, and not easy. The Russian service is still active—here and in Europe, the U.K. of course. He reckons there’s not going to be any sudden revelations from the archives. Guess what? Half the archives seem to be missing. He says nothing’s changed in the field.”
“No surprise. Ten years. Maybe twenty to get it all straightened out. More pepper in the eggs, Pucky. I bet the Russian Service have buried all the interesting files. They talk about the truth coming out. A sharing of old secrets. But most of the secrets’ve already been put out of harm’s way, I think.”
Maestro Passau sat looking at his feet when they returned with the trays. He ate more or less in silence, though they tried to jolly him along.
After lunch, Herbie stayed with him and tried to push him back to the first meeting with Stefan Greif—and, more important, with the actress, Rita Crest—in that odd desert place in which he had been hiding.
It took an hour to kick-start Passau. Even then it was clear that he was not going to say much.
“Look, Lou, you promised. I mean we had a deal. You tell me your life story, uncensored, and I try to make sure you’re safe.”
“For how long, Herbie? Time must be short anyway—for me, I mean.”
“Self-pity’ll get you nowhere. You enjoyed your life, yes? Well, tell me. Take it from the top, Lou. You got the five old guys playing. Then Rita comes out and does her scene for Greif, yes?”
“Yes. Eventually she came out.”
“What did you think?”
“Of her scene?”
“No. Your first impression. First impression of the lovely Rita Crest.”
Passau stared at his feet for a while. Then—
“Her name was really Creskowitz. Polish, I think. You know she never came clean to me about her ancestors. Maybe she had started to believe the publicity by then, but it sounds Polish, yes?”
“Just a lot.”
“Bella Creskowitz. Tall. Five-eight, five-nine, with an amazing body. Slim, like a boy. Slim and supple, with small tits—good but small. Also great legs and a face that could light up the day—and the night, of course—but that was a bit later.” He stared over Herbie’s shoulder again.
“That was then, of course. The face went in a few years. Faces reflect the inner workings of the mind, Herb, so her face frayed at the edges a lot. But then, when she came out of her dressing room to do the scene, she looked like a million bucks.”
“And she was worth more than that.”
“Sure she was.” He looked up and locked eyes with Kruger. Then, hurriedly, “I didn’t know that then. I had no idea how much money she had until much later.”
“Okay.”
“She came out complete with body and face, and the long red hair. Striking. A natural. She worked on the scene for two hours. In hot sun. I stayed down there until they had finished.”
“What she have to do?”
“Ride like the wind, with these Indians chasing her. Fake Indians, like the hut. White guys dressed in buckskin and feathers. Get off the horse at the fake hut. Larry Stube—romantic interest—dashes out of the hut, starts to pull her in, then gets zapped by an arrow. She shouts at the Indians—‘You devils! You murderers! Savages!’ Drags Larry to the doorway and gets zapped herself. They have this long bit of dialogue while they’re dying—about three minutes. How they love each other and will go on until the end of time. I couldn’t figure why the Indians didn’t come and zap ’em again. It was the end of the picture—West with the Wind it was called. Very sad ending. Old-fashioned movie. Nowadays the Native Americans would have shown mercy. What did we know then, eh?”
“Weren’t they a long way from home? A long way from the studios? Greif and his unit, the actors, I mean.”
“That was Greif. He had this thing about getting all the action shots done far from L.A. Nobody else did it. They had begun to do shooting on location, but it was usually nearer home. Stefan Greif was way before his time. He wanted his actors to feel the land. The desert. The sun. The dust in your throat. On the studio backlot they all went in for a shower and a change of clothes between takes. He said actors had to feel the dirt and hardness of the old west. I don’ know, Herb. First of the Method directors he could have been.”
“So when you get to talk with her for the first time?”
“Not that day.”
“I would have thought you’d have made a move on her if she was so gorgeous, or was this guy, the actor, Larry Stube …”
“Larry was a screaming queen, Herb. He played all these tough guy parts, but he was what nowadays they call gay, right?”
“Okay. Nothing wrong with that.”
Passau made a derogatory sound at the back of his throat. “In those days it was against the law.” As if that said everything.
“Pagan.” Herbie looked suitably solemn, thinking what a hypocritical old fart Passau really was. “So when you get to talk with her?”
“A week. Ten days later. In Hollywood.”
“You went that soon?”
“Sure. Why not? That night, Greif comes up to my place and we talk. He was experimenting with putting music on the track. Rita had to have the mood music before she played a scene. Let me tell you, Rita was a pain in the ass about her damned mood music. But Stefan had an idea that there should be special music to cover the action. He wasn’t the only one doing it, but he took it further than anyone else. I gave him dinner that night. Corned beef hash, up in my cabin, and we talked about music. He was knowledgeable. Said movies should have ton
e poems playing along. That’s the expression he used—tone poems. Most of the directors used any old stuff. He asked me what I would suggest for the Indians riding after Rita. I sat down at the piano. Didn’t even think. Did half an hour of straight rum-ti-tum. Heard war drums and horses’ hooves and savages. He said it was brilliant. Said he could use it. Asked if I’d come back to Hollywood and write it all down. Work on the thing with him.”
“And you did. …”
“I said no. Then he told me they’d pay me.” For the first time that afternoon, Louis Passau looked up and smiled. “After that he told me what they would pay me. Then I said yes.”
“And that was your first movie score, Lou? West with the Wind?”
“I wrote an hour of music after I got to Hollywood. Like he asked: a tone poem. Love theme, cowboys and Indians theme, chase. They used less than ten minutes of it. But they paid well.”
“And you got to meet Rita.” Herbie sounded arch.
“Yea, I got to meet Rita Crest.”
STEFAN GREIF HAD A small, pleasant house in the hills above Sunset. The studios were beginning to take control of the business, vying with each other for the best pictures, the best actors, technicians and directors. Greif, who was to become a very great movie director, had signed up with Metrobius, an emerging studio with an impressive financial power base. The guiding force of Metrobius was the forty-year-old Maxim Ebius.
Ebius had been in the garment business in New York, and sounded like it. But he turned out to be one of the naturals in movie production. He knew money: knew how to make it, invest it and use it to his advantage. Like all the really effective studio heads of the early days, he was a dreamer, but his dreams were anchored to the ground, to his instinct and to what was available. Maxim was one of those Hollywood gamblers who hedged his bets and knew when to pledge more and when to be ruthless about withdrawing. He gambled on Greif, and won handsomely.
“Stefan had this quite small house until the late thirties when he built on,” Passau said. “Very correct. A lot of old furniture. Real stuff from Europe. Even then, I remember, there was this nice little Monet on his dining room wall. I think later he had a huge collection, valued at millions, but in those days he was careful. A lot of them were careful, even actors. Some of the great actors didn’t even buy houses at first. They didn’t think talkies were going to last.”
Before West with the Wind, Stefan Greif had made five pictures: four silent and The Angel, which was his first talking picture. “You ever see The Angel, Herbie?”
Kruger shook his big head, but said nothing.
“He had done that with Rita. Very powerful. Successful as well. It was a war movie, of course. Rita was a nurse—First War; what we called the Great War. What did we know then?
“There had been already one war movie that did good business—Wings, directed by William Wellman. First good aerial photography and sound effects. Then The Angel grabbed everyone’s imagination. Obvious story. American nurse in France meets up with old boyfriend, now wounded and like to die. The usual mush, but Greif made the thing damned realistic.”
“Overnight success,” Herbie commented.
“You might say that. Very bright man, Stefan. In one night he talked me into following them back to Hollywood.”
Passau remained cautious. He paid a man to keep an eye on the cabin and set out two days after Greif and his unit returned to Los Angeles. “I owned that cabin for another three years. I always had a bolt hole. It was like a safety net.”
He drove to the nearest train stop. “One of those little halts they used to have. Like a bus stop. I left the truck there, in the fucking desert, and bought a car when I got to L.A. Inexpensive; secondhand. I remember Greif made me buy something more decent, brand new, when he saw that car. Even in those days the inner circle took note of what you drove and what you wore. I was shunted around tailors. Got a new suit made in twenty-four hours for fifty bucks.”
Greif kept his word. There was an office available—with a piano—at Metrobius Studios. “I was like some of the actors, Herb. This was too good to last. I stayed in a hotel. It was nice in those days. No smog, no freeways. Good weather, and a lot of people making movies.”
Two days after his arrival, Stefan Greif invited Passau to a dinner party, where he first saw the small Monet in the dining room. It was also his first real meeting with Rita Crest.
“Nice little painting you got here, Stefan. Pretty. You get someone to do it for you? He has talent. The trees are good. Look at the trees in this picture, Ailsa.” Max Ebius flapped a hand at his wife, gesturing for her to come over and look at the painting which had so obviously taken his fancy. He was a little man, birdlike, who walked in short steps with his head thrust forward. His beaky nose gave him a predatory look. His bullying tactics were well-known and he would stand with his aquiline face thrust two inches from the faces of his victims. His wife, Ailsa, was tall, well-fed and cosseted by her husband’s money. “A very stupid, spoiled woman,” Passau said.
“They had no style, Herb. Once I seen him blow his nose with his fingers. Outside on the backlot. Then he wiped his fingers on the grass. A rough diamond, they called him. But what they meant was not couth.”
Stefan came and stood between Max and his wife. “It’s a Monet, Max.” He pronounced it properly—‘Monay’ all one word—not like other Americans who said ‘Mon-Ay,’ with the accent on the second syllable, all wrong.
“Hey, Money,” Max laughed—his laugh was a kind of donkey bray. “That’s what makes the world go round, Stefan. Give you a grand for it.”
“Not for sale, Max. Come and meet Louis Passau.”
Passau had just arrived. “I don’t remember if he had hired the guy who looked after the house by then, Herb. Guy by the name of Gates. British, small-part actor. Did butlers very well, but he became Stefan’s butler for real and never got another acting job. Not ever. I think that night Stefan had a girl in to take the wraps and things. A long time ago, Herb. I guess Gates was later, funny what you forget.”
“Funny what you remember,” Herbie thought.
Max Ebius craned forward to look at Passau. The handshake was weak, but his eyes seemed to be clocking up what this man could be worth. “Oh, yea, you’re the pianist Stefan’s made me put on the payroll. Hope you’re worth it, Passau.”
“Composer,” Greif corrected.
“So? Composer. Pianist. What’s the difference?”
“You going to play for us tonight, Mr. Passau?” Ailsa asked. “There’s such a nice little tune going around. Now what’s it called, honey?” She had a nervous habit, lifting her right hand and quickly rubbing all her fingertips across her thumb. People said Max made her count the weekly take in cash. It was not true.
“No good asking me. I can’t tell one tune from another.” Ebius still looked at the picture, as though taking in every detail.
“I know.” Ailsa was dressed in a long black creation which, Passau thought, made her look like a giraffe in mourning. “I know—
‘Even when the darkest clouds are in the sky,
You mustn’t sigh, and you mustn’t cry;
Just spread a little happiness as you go by.’”
She sang in a high, off-key soprano, but it was obvious that Ebius thought his wife could have appeared at the Met.
“You play that one for us, Mr. Passau?” she asked, coy and gushing.
“I’m afraid I’m not sure of the key. I haven’t heard it before.”
“What kind of pianist are you, Passau? Not to hear a song everyone is singing?” Ebius looked as though he was going to peck him to death.
“I am not a follower of popular songs.”
“Why we hiring him, Stefan? The guy doesn’t know from popular songs. In the movies we have to have popular …”
“Max,” Greif said quietly. “He doesn’t have to know popular songs. He composes his own music. He’s not just a pianist. He writes music.”
“And we pay people for that? Ain’t there
enough free music around that people have already written and died?”
“Do you wear old clothes, Max?”
“Whatchermean?”
“Louis tailors music for the picture, like you used to make suits for individual customers.”
“That was a long time ago, Stefan.” He was eager to change the subject. But, at that moment, the two other guests arrived—
“Stefan, who is this wake for? You didn’t say when you sent that darling invitation. Hallo, Ailsa. God, how can you stand to let Max out of your sight for a minute. Aren’t you afraid some quite unscrupulous woman will just gobble him up and ride off with him into the night.”
Crystabelle Challis, the fluffy little blonde who had already made her name as a movie comedienne, stood in the archway leading into the dining room. Behind her, as though playing second fiddle, Passau saw the more statuesque Rita Crest.
Greif went over and gave Crystabelle a hug. “It’s turning out to be Louis Passau’s wake, I think,” he chuckled.
She settled her gray laughing eyes on Louis. “Oh, you’re the divine man who made organ grinders out of the monkeys. Yes, Stefan told me you’re brilliant.” She walked over and kissed the air by his cheeks, then did the same to Ailsa and, last, to Max who had no idea that she had been joking at his expense.
“Challis was not, of course, her real name, Herbie.” Passau smiled, as though the memory warmed and nurtured him. “She really was what you would nowadays call a sex kitten. She was only around five-two, but she was a woman who was all curves, from legs, to waist, to tits to cheeks, to her smile and even her hair, an explosion of blond curls. She was funny, cheeky, saucy, you might say, and I instantly wanted her. So, I should imagine, did everyone else in the room—apart from Max, of course. He was not allowed to want any other woman except that long streak of black water, Ailsa. Ailsa Ebius kept him on a dog chain. Everyone joked about it, because no woman alive would ever invite him into her living room, let alone her bed. Except his secretary Myrtle, of course. Myrtle was quite a girl, in her own doglike way.
“I tell you, Herb, I can see that room now. Elegant. Silver on the table, beautiful china, candelabra, very romantic. He was clever for he had low sofas around a low table. You ate like a king with Stefan, and you ate in comfort. It always reminded me of what ancient Rome must’ve been like. And there was La Challis making everyone laugh. I recall she had just finished a movie called The Blonde in the Window and even Max congratulated her on the performance. She played a waitress who bets a week’s wages that she will sit in the restaurant window and pose as a wax dummy for one hour. Sounds corny now, but it was very funny.”
