6
Though there was a tremendous panic about it at first, Jack’s failure to arrive on set was eventually chalked up to a severe hangover — the man was simply sleeping it off at home. Upon this pronouncement, several members of the crew and some extras got to shuffling in either direction, whereupon Saul Veritek took up the director’s bullhorn and bellowed at everyone to remain where they were.
“This is no recess, you ingrates,” he hollered. “Time is money, for Christ’s sake. We have five pages need shooting and by God we’ll shoot them.”
Grace, barefoot in her ethereal, postmortem silk gown, floated beside him and whispered, “Saul, surely we shouldn’t go under Jack’s nose.”
The producer lowered the bullhorn slowly and turned to flash a dry grin at her.
“Dearheart,” he cooed, “when I want to hear you speak, they will be words I have written. Do you understand?”
She stiffened. Her lip trembled.
“Of course,” she said, softly. She added: “Mr. Veritek.”
With that, Grace Baron swept up the length of the cloudy gown and padded across the cold stage floor to the lot outside, where she lighted a cigarette and groaned with frustration.
“Trouble in paradise?”
She started, coughing on the smoke and moving her arms up to cover her bosom, and spun on her heel to find a lean youth leaning against the façade of the stage, a metal flask in his hand. He was in his shirtsleeves, rolled up to the elbows, with suspenders keeping up his sagging brown trousers and a rumpled cap on his head. The handsome youth assisting Horace with the lighting. Grace comported herself, stepping back and sucking deeply from her smoke.
“Drinking on the job?”
“Whatever gets you through the day.”
“Can’t think but Mr. Veritek wouldn’t like it much.”
“That old rummy? You’re kidding.”
“Most fellows can’t carry it like he can.”
“I do all right.”
He smiled, took a pull. Grace raised an eyebrow.
“Lighting man?”
“Apprentice electrician. I’m working under Horace.”
“Hope he’s making me look good.”
“Shouldn’t be hard,” he said.
Her cheeks, high on her otherwise pale face, pinked.
“I’m Grace,” she said, offering her hand.
He accepted it, said, “You don’t say.”
“Now don’t be smart.”
“Who, me? I didn’t even finish high school.”
“What’d they call you when you quit?”
“Dummy. These days I call myself Frank. Frank Faehnrich.”
“Used to know a Frank,” she reminisced. “Back home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Idaho, if you can believe it.”
“Sure, I believe it.”
“Does it show?”
“Not so’s you’d notice.”
She finished her smoke, dropped it on the ground. “Where’s headquarters for you, Mr. Electrician?”
“Uh-uh. First tell me who’s Frank.”
“Which Frank?”
“Idaho Frank.”
“A nobody. Probably still making ice-cream sodas at the drugstore on Chance Street.”
“It’s a job.”
“Spill, mister.”
“Not far from here. A little town called San Domingo. What’s so bad about a soda jerk?”
“I’ve known loads of jerks,” she said. “A jerk’s a jerk.”
“And a man’s a man, and a woman’s a woman. What’s it amount to? Ain’t here but enough time to get confused about it all, anyhow. Hell, maybe all jerks ain’t created equal, when you think about it.”
“What sort of jerk are you, Frank?”
“Only the best kind,” he teased.
“That a fact? And what kind is that?”
“Grace! Set!” Saul boomed from inside the set. “Now!”
“Maybe you’ll find out,” Frank said. “Best hurry along now. I’ve got to help shed some light on that pretty face of yours.”
“A charmer,” she pouted, fluffing her hair. “I’ve known loads of them, too.”
She offered a sardonic wink and rushed back inside. Saul stood dead center, his fists planted on his broad hips and sweating profusely. His shaggy brown eyebrows were squashed together and the cigar in his mouth wasn’t lit.
“Only in Hollywood,” he groused. “Anyplace else and you’d be on the goddamn street.”
“Don’t strangle yourself,” she chided him. “Only having a cigarette.”
She bounced past him, back to the cemetery at the northwest corner of the sprawling stage, where a day player in a grave-digger’s getup leaned on a shovel, half-asleep. Taking her position, Grace glanced over her shoulder at the lighting rig beside Jack’s — now Saul’s — chair. Horace was sweating worse than the boss beneath the white-hot lamp, cranking it up and playing with the shades. Behind him Frank stood with his hands behind his back, his eyes on Grace and the rest of his square face a cipher.
Vacant and crawling with mist, the cemetery lies dormant, the once imperious stones now cracked and covered with lichen. Only a bright shaft of moonlight slices through the pitch, illumining the tomb upon which, some years earlier, a maiden’s heart was pierced by the ritual blade. The heavy lid trembles, disrupting the blanket of mist, and then edges away, catty-corner to open a broad black triangle leading down into the cold finality within. From the grave, a lone hand slowly rises, its ashen, feminine fingers curling around the edge of the stone. She is risen.
Grace emitted a stunted yelp upon pulling the chain on the lamp. The dim bulb threw a yellow haze across the bungalow that caused Jack Parson to sit up, cough, and smile wanly at her from the edge of her bed.
“Christ have mercy, Jack,” she wheezed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, standing and smoothing out his sport coat with his hands.
Grace laid her bag on the chair and shut the door. She then fumbled for a cigarette from the box on the dresser, lighted it, and frowned at Jack through a blue haze.
“Are you drunk?”
“I wish I were.”
“Don’t you dare touch my liquor.”
He went over to where she stood, inspiring her to take a few steps back. Without asking, he took a smoke for himself and lighted it with her crystal lighter.
“Did you shoot today?”
“We shot.”
“Brought you back to life, did he? Saul, I mean.” He spoke the man’s name like a foul oath.
“That’s what it says in the script. Those are the pages for Tuesday, which is today, by the by.”
“The son of a bitch is turning it into some sort of…horror picture.”
“Hard to influence the course of events when you don’t show up at the studio, Jack.”
She puffed with exasperation, kicked off her shoes. Jack moved the bag to the floor and sat down in her chair.
“Why don’t you go somewhere else for your next one?” Grace asked, the cigarette dangling from her lips as she struggled her way out of her dress. Jack fixed his eyes on the floor. “Or do like Bill Hart’s doing — he’s making a picture all on his own.”
“Hart’s washed up. A joke.”
“Well, you’re still a young man. Just make Saul’s picture and put a lid on the sad-sack routine. You’re only making enemies, boyo.”
“In this town, it’s easy.”
“Easier still when you do all the work.”
Standing in her brassiere and bloomers, she crooked one foot behind her and pushed out a sigh at his boyish embarrassment.
“You’ve seen me stark, for Pete’s sake.”
“Talk to your boss — that was his scene, you know.”