Super (23 page)

Now he sat there by himself in a private stupor, brooding over how he had failed to Jump!

He tried to consider again if Gene could be right about making a comeback. He had never been that far up, that famous or powerful to begin with, so the return wouldn’t be that long a trip. Even if Gene was also right about
Elmer Gantry
and Burt Lancaster there was no way in hell he could get the rights, the backing or Burt. And forget trying to get Grant, Saint, Mason and Hitchcock or any combination like them to ever do anything for him. Comeback? No, forget it. Nobody in pictures comes back from the kind of humiliating bankruptcy he was going through.

They stole my house! My Brancusi!

Television? What would it take for him, inside his soul much less technically and professionally, to make a television series? Could he actually organize properties, scripts, writers, directors, actors, networks, flacks and whatever it took to make hundreds of formula half-hour programs about cute families, feuding couples, tough cops, honest lawyers, frantic doctors, dedicated teachers? Would that be better or worse than humiliating bankruptcy—or even death?

“Welcome, whoever you are.”

It was a female voice. Rinehart adjusted his eyes to see a woman in sunglasses with a shawl over her head. She was smoking a cigarette.

“Thanks,” he said. Company was not what he wanted—particularly right now.

“I’m Miss Scarlett,” said the female voice. “Care to join me?”

He wanted to yell No! But there was something familiar in
her voice. And how in the world could he resist that name, Miss Scarlett?

Whatever else, this woman was probably Pure Hollywood, mused Rinehart as she sat down in one of the lounge chairs next to him.

“Don’t look too closely,” she said. “I’d prefer that you didn’t recognize me.”

There seemed little chance of that. The large scarf, which seemed to be dark blue—it was difficult to see for sure in the dark—and the sunglasses combined to make her face nearly invisible. All Rinehart could tell was that she was a mature woman of an indeterminate age with bright white skin who had coated herself in a strong-smelling perfume and filled herself with what smelled like gin.

She had set a glass of it in front of her. There was no ice in the glass, making it a perfect match with his own drink.

“What are you doing up and about at this time of night?” she asked.

That voice. It was definitely a lady of the movies—maybe a star of the movies. At least, she had a voice Rinehart had heard before.

“I always come in here about now,” said Rinehart.

“‘Always come in here’? What does that mean?” she said. A few more sentences, thought Rinehart, and I’ll know who she is.

“I’m a regular on the Super Chief, that’s all,” he said. “I like to come in here in the late dark and sip a scotch.”

“For a while, I was a regular, not for long and no more,” she said. “This is my first time in a long time.”

Rinehart now knew exactly who this woman was. She was indeed a star—or had once been a star.

She said, “Do you want your drink refreshed? I’ve got more where this came from back in my compartment.”

“No, thanks. I’m fine.”

“‘No, thanks, I’m fine.’ Well, that’s easy for you to say. I’m not fine at all. I haven’t had a role worth anything in five years. I’m quitting. I
have
quit. Everything I own is in the trunks I have with me on this train. I’m on my way to Europe. Sailing on the
Queen Mary
next week from New York. I’m going to live in Switzerland or someplace and I’m not going to even go to the movies, much less act in them. Do you blame me?”

“No, I do not. I know exactly how you feel and, as a matter of fact—”

“I could have gone away on an airplane. But I decided my last trip out ought to be on the train—the Super Chief. Old times’ sake. Go slowly. Other reasons for the Super Chief, too. Personal reasons. I’m never coming back. The pictures got everything I had and they hate me. Everybody hates everybody else in Hollywood. Did you know that? Remember Harry Truman when he was president? He used to say that if you wanted a friend in Washington, get a dog. Well, let me tell you in Hollywood even the dogs will bite you in the back.”

Rinehart smiled and then he laughed out loud, particularly at the idea that he hadn’t known until they got to LA that
Harry S Truman himself had been on the westbound Super Chief.

She laughed, too, for her own reasons—probably at her telling of the Truman line. Then she made a move to stand.

“You’re Grace Dodsworth,” said Rinehart. “I’m Darwin Rinehart.”

She sat back down. “Did we work on a picture together?”

“Yes.
The Tie That Binds
in 1941.”

“Right, right. Set on Park Avenue. I was the killer—and I got away with it. I strangled Barton Greene with his own necktie.”

“That’s right. A red, white and blue one.”

“But it was in black and white so nobody could see the colors. I was Rose. His character’s name was Richard. The sonovabitch had stolen my daddy’s inheritance, thrown it all away on the horses and the whores. I hated him for that. I hated him more than anybody I had ever hated before in my life …”

Her speech was not quite slurred but the words were becoming increasingly rounded—and loud. Rinehart couldn’t tell if it was the gin or the anger that was the primary cause. Her ferocity recalled the conversation he’d had with Gene about actors playing out their make-believe roles. She sounds as if she really does hate the Barton Greene character. Wasn’t she also married to the real Greene, the British actor? There was a time in Hollywood when it seemed everybody had been married to everybody for a while.

Rinehart said, “He came in falling down drunk, taking off
his suit coat and tie, you confronted him, he socked you in the jaw, you shoved him backward—”

“He fell back, but onto a couch—”

“A chair, actually.”

“All right, a chair. He passed out. I grabbed the tie he had just taken off. I went around behind him, wrapped it around his neck and pulled it until he was dead. I strangled him and it was good riddance.”

There was an element of stridency in her voice—as if she had just killed the guy a few minutes ago and was damned proud of it.

“I really did get away with it, too.”

“You did indeed. You merely put the tie back around your dead husband’s neck, tied it in a regular four-in-hand knot and the police never thought of it as the murder weapon. They suspected you might have killed him but nothing could ever be proved and it worked as a movie because it was a satire and he was such—”

“An awful bastard who deserved to die!”

“Exactly. You were terrific.”

“My god … it’s getting me all worked up. See, I can still do it. I can act. What’s your name again?”

“Darwin Rinehart. I was the producer of that picture.” He chose not to add the fact that her name was engraved on his silver
The Tie That Binds
flask with the rest of the cast. That flask was back in his compartment. Maybe he should get it and show it to her?

“Sure, right,” said Grace Dodsworth. “Sorry. Yes, certainly you were. I remember you now.”

“Nobody ever remembers producers.” He laughed. It was not a friendly laugh.

“What happened to you since that picture?” she asked, but it was not a serious question. She didn’t give a damn about him. She was just making noise. For him, the noise resonated deeply into his own thoughts about who he was and where he was right now.

He said, “I made seventeen pictures. We did have that one Oscar nomination for
The Tie That Binds …
”

“What time is it?” said Grace Dodsworth.

Rinehart said he couldn’t see his watch in this darkness but it was probably well after one o’clock.

“Why don’t you take off that scarf and those glasses?” he said. “I know who you are.”

“Knowing is not seeing,” she said. “If anybody sees me tonight on this train … well, it won’t be you—or anyone from the movie business. It’ll be somebody else.”

Under normal circumstances, that would have sounded weird. But nothing was sounding that way to Rinehart right now.

Grace Dodsworth’s was a well-known Hollywood story. She had been picked out of a nightclub chorus line when she was eighteen, given a screen test by MGM and established herself quickly as a sexy siren. She initially played mostly light roles with comedians such as Bob Hope and Jack Benny but
then was given a chance to do some satirical stuff along the lines of
The Tie That Binds
and eventually a few serious parts. She was riding along on a star high when her personal life erupted into a series of storms. Her many affairs—some rumored with women as well as men—quick-short marriages, drinking and drug episodes took a toll.

The Super came to a gradual, gentle stop. Rinehart looked out the window. It was Bethel, Kansas, as he knew without even reading the sign in front of the station. Now he could see his wristwatch. It was just after one thirty.

Grace Dodsworth suddenly yanked off her scarf and sunglasses. She looked at her reflection in the window glass.

“How do I look?” she asked Rinehart—the world.

“Great,” Rinehart replied. “Expecting someone?”

She didn’t answer.

They remained seated, silent, staring out the window. The lights from the station and the platform at least had made the famous face of Grace Dodsworth fully visible to Rinehart. Her aging and drinking had left marks but her baby blue eyes and shiny porcelain complexion were as striking as ever. So was her hair, which was, with the help obviously of a coloring expert, still its famous reddish brown.

Finally, after five or so minutes, the Super eased away from Bethel, Kansas.

“I knew it was a long shot that he might be here tonight,” she said as the Super picked up speed. “Life goes on.”

Rinehart had no idea what she was talking about. He?
Who? Rinehart decided not to ask. He saw what appeared to be tears in her eyes. Whatever she meant, it seemed way too personal for him to ask about.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Miss Dodsworth?” he asked.

She shook her head. Then after a few seconds, she said, “‘Miss Scarlett.’ Being a Hollywood man, you figured why I chose that name for this trip, am I right?”

She was indeed correct. He had definitely figured it out. But Rinehart decided to say nothing. This was her story.

“I’m the one Selznick really wanted for Scarlett O’Hara. But he couldn’t cast me because I couldn’t prove to the bluenoses I was really married to … oh never mind. You know all that.”

Yes, Rinehart knew all that. Everyone knew all that.

He said, “As coincidence would have it, Clark Gable just came in on the westbound Super Chief from Chicago yesterday morning.”

She shook her head again. “Couldn’t be. I was with Clark—in the flesh, so to speak—in a suite at the Beverly Wilshire in L-A Land the night before, saying our farewells. Bad Breath and I used to be quite an item, and we were—one last time. He’s still not much more of a lay than he ever was. Carole Lombard was right about his not being any kind of king in the sack. But who cares. It’s Clark Gable. For me, like leaving town on the Super Chief, it was all for old times’ sake.”

Rinehart assumed that Grace Dodsworth was either so drunk the other night in Los Angeles or right now on this train
that she was dreaming about having been with Clark Gable at the Beverly Wilshire.

“I would have been a great Scarlett with Clark,” she continued. “A great Scarlett. I’d have won that Oscar instead of that Brit twit Vivien Leigh. All she was before was to be Larry Olivier’s lay. She didn’t deserve that part. I did. They’d still be talking about me if I’d gotten it. I’d have been great. It’s still in me. Acting is still in me. It’ll always be in me. But I’m not doing it anymore. Do you hear me?”

At that moment, Darwin Rinehart made a decision to do something about what was in
him
.

“I do hear you, I do believe you,” he said. “You are one of the greats of the business and you will always be known and revered as such.”

Rinehart stood up. “I remember that scene from
The Tie That Binds
. To me, that was one of the great movie scenes of all time—of
my
all time, at least. Do you remember the lines?”

Grace Dodsworth stood. “I remember every line I have ever had.”

She glided into the aisle of the lounge car. Rinehart pushed his chair out, too, and placed her scarf around his neck as if it were his tie.

They faced each other.

“‘You still up?’” he asked, in his best impression of a 1930s drunk hustler named Richard.

“‘I know about the money—the women, the gambling,’” Grace Dodsworth said as Rose of Park Avenue.

“‘Shut up about it and everything else,’” Rinehart said, grabbing the scarf from around his neck and placing it on the table to the side, as if he were removing his tie.

“‘Don’t tell me to shut up!’”

“‘You do what I say!’”

“‘Never again!’”

Rinehart threw his right fist toward Grace Dodsworth’s chin, stopping in time to avoid any contact—just like in the movie.

But she reached forward with both hands and shoved him with great force. There was hate in her eyes.

He fell carefully back in the chair, closed his eyes and slumped his head down onto his chest. He had, in accordance with the script, passed out.

Grace Dodsworth snatched the scarf off the table, went back behind Rinehart and wrapped it tightly around his neck, leaving the two ends free.

Rinehart felt tension in the scarf.

She had grabbed the two ends and was pulling on them.

The pressure mounted.

He coughed.

He had trouble breathing.

His head filled with haze.

His last thought before losing consciousness was that maybe the Santa Fe kid was onto something with his idea about a movie that happens on the Super Chief. A remake combination of
Silver Streak
and
Grand Hotel
? Maybe there was a TV
series here if nothing else. You could stretch one forty-hour Chicago-to-LA trip into eighty half-hours. But not with Claudette Colbert …