"I guess I'm a little lost," he admitted. He was immediately appalled. He was never supposed to admit that. Luna was a strange place, as his father reminded him every time they played there. They had some odd ideas here, ideas that didn't necessarily make single parenting an easy thing. The child-welfare authorities, for instance, would have taken a dim view of Dodger's being left alone all day while his father auditioned. It didn't make much sense to Dodger. What did they expect? His father was a little short of cash right now and couldn't afford to hire a sitter—an idea which offended Dodger anyway. How did they expect a person to get parts, earn a living, put bread on the table if he couldn't look for work?
But if Dodger was picked up, lost, alone, he would surely be taken to the State School. Dodger had never seen this State School, but he had seen Oliver Twist, with Sir Alec Guinness as Fagin, and his father assured him the State School was pretty much like that.
He looked up to gauge the man's reaction. He frowned. Hadn't he seen this guy somewhere before? The man pursed his lips thoughtfully.
"A little lost, is it? Well, I know how that feels. Been a little lost myself here and there. Come to think of it, it was more there than here, or at least that's what it felt like."
"I don't know where here is," Dodger said.
"That's it, exactly!" the man crowed. "What's that in your hand?"
Dodger gave him the paper, and he took something from his pocket and put it on his face, squinting through pieces of glass as he read. Dodger had never seen anyone use spectacles as anything other than a stage prop. The man pointed to the bottom of the page.
"Gideon Peppy? Did you meet Gideon Peppy?"
Dodger nodded.
"Well, I'm impressed, I must say. Mr. Peppy's a mighty big man around here. Yes sir, a mighty big man. Not just everybody gets in to see him."
Dodger didn't care so much about that. All he could think about now was the clock ticking, and his father waiting.
"Do you work here?" he asked.
"Oh, no, it's not that way at all," the man said. "You might say I live around here. But I don't work, not anymore. I did, though. A long time ago, back before it was Sentry/Sensational." He started walking, his hands jammed into the baggy pockets of his pants, and Dodger decided to walk along with him. Where else did he have to go?
"Jack Sensational bought Sentry Studios... oh, it must have been forty, fifty years ago. Only his name wasn't Sensational back then. It was Pudding. Jack Pudding. I guess he figured not many people would come to see a film from Pudding Pictures, so he changed it."
Dodger laughed in spite of himself, then looked up to see if the lanky stringbean was kidding him. He could see no sign of it in the deadpan face. He was more sure than ever he'd seen the man before.
"It's an old Hollywood tradition, you know. I used to know a man by the name of Goldfish. Samuel Goldfish. Jewish fellow, I believe. Well, I don't know what Goldfish means in Hebrew, or maybe Jewish folks just think Goldfish is a mighty fine name—and they'd get no argument from me, you understand—but old Sam realized pretty quick that in America, which is where he lived, Americans thought it was a pretty silly name. So he changed it to Goldwyn, which didn't mean anything at all."
"You mean... the guy from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer?"
"That's him. Only old Sam bailed out of it before Metro really got off the ground. It was old Louis B. that ran the show. Louis B. Mayer. And that's the fellow I worked for. Metro pretty much fell apart a long time ago, and for a while I think it was Sony Pictures, or something like that. But Sony became something else, and that was swallowed by a big corporation, and when all the dust settled, why, there was the Sentry Motion Picture Company." The man stopped, and assumed the well-known position of the giant sentry with his rifle Dodger had seen on the way in, only when he did it, it was comical, his face sort of pop-eyed, his mouth making a little O of surprise. That's when Dodger got it.
"You're Jimmy Stewart," he said.
"Well, no, that's not right," the man said, reaching into his hip pocket and removing a wallet. "The name's Dowd. Elwood P. Here, let me give you one of my cards." Dodger took it, and looked at it. A phone number had been scratched out with a pencil, and a new one written in:
Call (Northside 777)
Pennsylvania 6-5000
"Now, if you want to call me use this number, not that one. That number is the old one."
Dodger was going to say that he'd seen the man just a few weeks ago in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, with John Wayne and Lee Marvin, directed by John Ford, but the talk of telephones brought him back to his problem.
He was supposed to call only in emergencies.
John Valentine was suspicious of most technological advances, regarded even the ones he took advantage of as no better than necessary evils. To him, the telephone was still a newfangled gadget. He refused to have one implanted in his head, like most people. But one could never tell when one's agent might be frantically looking for one, so he carried a pocket portable.
Telephones for children were both improper and an unwarranted expense. Dodger had no instrument at all, internal or otherwise. There were public phones for emergencies.
But telephones also functioned as the omnipresent ears of the government, of law enforcement, and John Valentine had never been on good terms with either. Every conversation was monitored and recorded, he was convinced. So it had damn well better be an emergency.
This was the problem Dodger had been wrestling with, then. He was already beyond hoping he could get out of this without consequences he didn't even like to think about. Father was going to be angry no matter what. Would calling make things worse, or better? And even more important, did he dare make a call when the people from the State School were listening in?
"So what would your name be?"
"Huh?" Dodger had almost forgotten about Mr. Dowd. "Oh, I'm Kenneth. Kenneth Valentine."
"No. You don't say. You wouldn't be Dodger Valentine, John B. Valentine's son, would you?"
Dodger looked up in astonishment, and momentary hope.
"Do you know my father?"
"Why, sure I do. To speak to, anyway, it's not like we're buddies. And I certainly know his work. Anyone who knows theater knows John Valentine's work."
"Mr. Dowd, could you—"
"Call me Elwood. Everybody calls me Elwood."
"Elwood, I've got a—"
"Why, I believe I saw him not thirty minutes ago. Now where was that...?"
Dodger was jumping up and down in his excitement.
"Mist—Elwood, please remember. I've just got to find him."
Elwood squatted down and looked at Dodger, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the boy's eyes.
"Yes, sir. I believe you do. Well, we'll just have to do something about that, won't we? He stood and took Dodger's hand.
They went around one corner, down a long hallway with doors on each side, then two more corners and there he was, John Valentine, standing tall as he always did, smiling at passersby. Giving no hint of the agitation he was certainly feeling.
Dodger swallowed hard, started forward, then looked around for Elwood.
He was gone.
Then he looked again toward his father, and there was Elwood, standing beside him. The differentness about Elwood was even more pronounced when he saw him standing by his father. Dodger couldn't quite put his finger on it. Elwood's presence was not as solid, somehow. He was not translucent. He cast a shadow. But Dodger knew he wasn't like other people.