Stardust(5)

And what was there to say to that? Danny had gone to California in ’40, using Otto’s name to get a Second Unit job at Metro. Just to see what it was like. And then the war had closed the door behind him, eight thousand miles away, so that all they’d had for years were sheets of blue tissue V-mail. Danny playing parent. Keep safe, out of combat. Their mother’s health. War news. But still Danny’s voice, the same wink in it. Stories he knew Ben would like, could pass on to his friends. Meeting Lana Turner. Going to hear the King Cole Trio. You have to come out here. The whole make-believe world real when Danny wrote about it, the same kid sneaking cigarettes, talking late at night from his bed across the room. About what? Anything. Ben wrapped up in the sound of it.

He got up, feeling Lasner’s hand still on his shoulder. “Don’t forget to call Freeman.”

“I don’t forget anything,” Lasner said, peering at him. “I’ll tell you one thing I don’t forget. Your father cost me a bundle. So maybe I’d better watch out—you’re an expensive family.”

“No sets this time,” Ben said.

Lasner nodded, finally dropping his hand. “We’ll talk. Where are you staying in Chicago?”

“I’m just changing trains.”

“The Chief? That’s seven fifteen. That gives you what? Nine hours to kill.” Everything measured and counted. “What’re you going to do for nine hours?”

“See Chicago, I guess.”

Lasner waved his hand. “You’ve seen it. You need a place to rest up, I’m at the Ambassador East. They get me a suite. Plenty of room.” He started to move toward the end of the car. “Otto’s kid. You live long enough—” He turned. “He was shot?”

“That’s what the letter said.”

“But who knows with the Nazis.” The unspoken question, a quick bullet or days of pain, clubs and wires, and screams. Years ago now.

“Anyway, he’s dead,” Ben said. “So it doesn’t matter.”

Lasner nodded. “No. It’s just my age, you think about the how.” He was silent for a minute, then looked up. “You got a budget on this thing?”

Ben held up his hand, checking items off his fingers. “Hard costs. The footage we’ve got. Prints, I can req the raw stock from the War Production Board. You do the prints. And the sound—an engineer for the track, some bridge scoring, somebody to do the narration. American. Fonda, maybe?”

Lasner shook his head. “Use contract. Frank Cabot?”

“Fine. All I need is a cutting room and a couple of hands. We can do it either place, but yours would be better—Army studio, someone’s always taking your equipment. You provide the space, I can get the hands from Fort Roach. The stock would be an Army expense,” Ben said, looking at him directly. “We’ll make it for you. If you put it out.”

“Nobody makes pictures for me,” Lasner said, looking back, the rhythm of negotiation. “At my studio.” He held Ben’s eyes for another second, then smiled. “You know, if your father had been like you, he’d still be—” He looked away, at a loss. “I mean—”

Ben said nothing, waiting.

Lasner held up a finger. “Don’t take advantage. People don’t forget that.” He lowered the hand, a dismissal, and walked away, followed by his moving reflection on the glass roof. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he said, the words in a slipstream over his shoulder.


BUT WHEN the train pulled into LaSalle Street it was the scene from Grand Central all over again—Lasner surrounded by hats, tips given out, telegrams handed over, the group moving down the platform in a huddle. Ben followed behind, not wanting to interrupt, then lost him outside in the line of waiting taxis. Dearborn Street, where the Chief would pull out, was only a few blocks away, but what would he do there? He turned east instead, past the murky bars and shadowy streets under the El, light poking through the girders in latticework patches. Off the train, things seemed to pass in a plodding slow motion. Nothing whizzed by the window. He had all day.

He crossed Michigan to the lakefront, hoping for a breeze, but the lake was flat, a sheet of hot tin. In the park, dogs panted under bushes. He thought of Warner being wheeled out on a stretcher in Lasner’s imagination. But anyone could have an attack, even someone as young as Danny. Except he hadn’t. What had his life been like? Maybe the same pressure cooker the Warners steamed in. Not the easy California you saw in magazines, men in open-necked shirts. Did he look like that? His wife would have pictures. Hans Ostermann’s daughter, the only thing Ben knew about her. She’d be at the hospital now, waiting things out.