Chase The Rabbit: Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #1 (20 page)

              “Yes,” I answered. “Of course, I do.”

              “This assignment, to find this man,” he said, “is a bit crazy. You have nothing to go on but a photograph. How could anyone expect you to retrieve a person in a place like Hollywood with so little to go on?”

              I knew Bela was right. It was crazy. And to take on such a task was way beyond my better judgment. I felt sick to my stomach, but decided to come clean with my friend and be honest.

              “I agreed to it because I fell head over heels for the lady who asked me,” I admitted. “And the money was good.”

              Bela nodded his head in the affirmative and cracked a slight smile. 

              “I totally understand, Bay,” he said.

              “You do?” I asked.

              “Of course!” he replied. “What may seem crazy to others seems totally logical to us at times. You are doing what I am doing.”

              “Come again?” I asked.

              “I am going to work against the wishes of a lot of people in Hollywood, including my own agent,” he said. “And you, my dear friend, are chasing a rabbit that would appear to not be there at all.”

              “Yes,” I said. “I suppose I am.”

              “It is the same thing,” he continued. “You see, some of those Hollywood people think I am crazy, but they do not understand my motivation, my mission. Sometimes we have to do what we have to do.”

              “You are crazy,” I said. “If you support me in this search, my friend, then you are as crazy as I am!”

              “Let’s go make a toast to our both being crazy then!” Bela said.

              As we left the kitchen to go down the hallway, the assistants stopped us. “May we leave now?” one of them asked.

              “Yes,” Bela said. “And thank you. It is getting late and we will be retiring soon.”

              “I have one request,” I interjected. 

              “Oh?” Bela said. “And what is that?”

              “A delivery,” I answered.

              The assistants stood rigid and opened-eyed. They seemed to be in total shock. 

              “What do you want delivered?” Lugosi asked. “We have just eaten.”

              “Not a delivery here,” I said. “I want a delivery to be made out.”

              “My God, man,” Bela said laughing, “what are you talking about?”

              “I want a dozen new sheets delivered to Jean Harlow’s house tonight along with a note,” I answered.

              Lugosi had to sit down because he was laughing so hard. The poor assistants were looking at us like we were crazy.

              “Where will we get sheets at this hour?” the young female assistant asked.

              Bela composed himself quickly and replied “Go to my linen closet and take all the sheets and deliver them to Harlow tonight. I will pay you handsomely.”

              I jotted a note to go along with the package.

Dear Jean:

              Here are the sheets you requested. Sorry we could not be there in person, but we are springing Bonnie and Clyde at the moment. Good luck in your escape.

              Bay and Bela

The assistants returned with a small stack of white sheets, looking confused. 

              “I have another idea to go with this,” Bela said.

              “You don’t like the note?” I asked.

              “Oh, the note is great,” he replied. “But I have an addition to the package.”

              Lugosi produced a black felt marker. “We should sign one of the sheets!” he proclaimed.

              “You want to autograph a sheet?” I asked, not really understanding.

              “Yes!” he said. “And you should sign it too. We will ask Jean to sign it later!”

              “Why would anyone want my autograph?” I asked.

              “You are famous,” Bela said laughing.

              “No,” I replied. “I am not.”

              “Yes, you are, Bay,” Bela explained. “You are a famous writer.  And now, you are a famous Graf survivor. Besides, it is just a joke for Jean. Just sign the damned thing!”

              “You go first,” I said.

              Bela took the marker and very carefully began the first letter of his message. It was a “C” and was two feet from top to bottom. The assistants stood behind us at the kitchen table. We were all in awe of how seriously Lugosi was working on making his message on the sheet look. I had expected him to just sign it quickly, but he was going about it as if were the most important project he’d ever had.   

              It took him a good twenty minutes to finish the inscription. The poor assistants had to keep giving him fresh black ink markers. I’d lost count of how many he’d gone through. But when he was finally done, it was stunning.

Children Of The Night-Bela Lugosi, 1932

“What do you think?” Bela asked.

              “It’s amazing!” I responded.

              “Here,” Bela said, handing me the marker. “Your turn.”

              “When you get finished,” Bela said as he was leaving the room, “you had better retire. I will wake you at 5 AM.”

             
Son of a bitch!
I thought.
How am I going to compete with this! 

              “I need colored markers,” I told the assistants. 

              They looked at me like I was crazy. 

              “Or paint or something,” I added. “And I need them now!”

              As they exited the room, I sat down, trying to think of something clever to write and design on the sheet beneath Lugosi’s brilliant, black inscription. Bela had written part of that famous line from
Dracula
. But what could I write? 

              The assistants came back with a box full of acrylic paints of all colors and brushes of all sizes and sat them on the table in front of me.

              “Thank you,” I said. “Now please leave me until I call for you.”

              It took over an hour to paint my message and signature. When I was finally finished, I was quite elated with the result. It wasn’t just an inscription. It was a painting. A work of art. 

C
h
A
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e
T
h
e
R
a
b
b
i
t
-G
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Tc
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B
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, 1
9
82

All three of the young assistants were shocked and seemed to be in awe of the sheet that lay before them.

              “Sir, that is amazing!” one of them said.

              “Thank you,” I replied. 

              “Absolutely brilliant!” one of them remarked.

              “And the contrast between Mr. Lugosi’s style and yours beneath it is incredible!”

              “But you made a mistake,” one of them said.

              “A mistake with what?” I asked.

              “You dated it 1982.” 

              “That was intentional,” I responded, laughing. “You see, I am fifty years ahead of my time.”

              “Yes, I think you are,” the female assistant replied.  “But we can’t deliver this tonight.”

              “And why is that?” I asked.

              “The paint,” she said. “It has to dry. We can’t move this now.”

              I hadn’t thought of that. “Yes,” I said. “Come back tomorrow and deliver it then.”

              “Yes, of course,” the young girl replied. “But, sir, if I may ask, what does it mean?”

              “What does what mean?”

              “Chase The Rabbit,” she said. “What does that mean?”

              It was a question I’d asked myself many times over the years, yet I didn’t really have a singular explanation for it. But no one had ever asked me that question before. My back was against the wall, and I finally had to pin it down.  I had to face the question. My answer came out easily.

              “It means pursue your dreams.”

Chapter Seventeen

T
he
White Zombie
set was nothing like I’d imagined it would be. 

              It was on the Warner Brothers’ lot, which consisted of many warehouses. It took us a long time to find the exact location; and when we did, there weren’t that many people there. 

              It was six o’clock in the morning, and I virtually had no sleep because I had spent the weary hours of the evening painting my inscription for the Jean Harlow sheet.

              We found the director, Victor Halperin who seemed to be in a hurry already. He showed us to an area on the set where several women began making up Lugosi for his character. 

              “I want to use a beard for this,” Bela told the make-up lady. Otherwise, I will look too much like Dracula.”

              As Bela sat in a chair to be made up, I eavesdropped on the various chatter that was going on around me. I sensed a sizable amount of tension. This didn’t seem like it was going to be as fun as I’d anticipated. Then, suddenly, there was a shriek.

              “Oh no!” a voice cried out. “No!”

              It was Victor Halperin, the director. Someone was standing next to him, and they were both in hysterics. Bela and I jumped up and rushed over to them. A half dozen people made it there before us. It was total insanity. 

              “It is Robert,” someone said. “He is dead!”

              “Who?” Bela asked.

              “The actor,” they replied, “Robert Frazer. He was just killed in a car accident. On the way here!”

              This seemed like bad luck warmed over. First, the Graf, and now this. 

              “What are we going to do now?” the director moaned. 

              It hit me hard that the loss of the life of a man seemed less important than the production of a motion picture. 

              “I have a solution to this problem,” Bela told the director. “An immediate fix to this.”

              “What on earth are you talking about?” Halperin shouted.

              “I have a movie to make and one of our principal stars is gone! I have just two weeks to do this, tops!”

              “This man,” Bela said, gesturing towards me, “he can do the Beaumont character. He knows it.”

              “Wait a minute,” I said. “I don’t know about that.”

              “He knows the part,” Lugosi went on. “Let us show you.”

              The director looked at me and said, “What experience have you had in acting?”

              “I have none,” I replied. “But it appears you might be lucky enough to discover me.”

              “Okay,” he said. “I will give you one shot at it. But you better be good!”

              “Scene 52,” Victor said. “Do scene 52 in its entirety now!”

              “Just like in my study,” Bela whispered to me. “And really lean on it this time.”

              “I’ve got this,” I answered.

              Lugosi and I tore into the scene like hungry German Shepherds on Sunday left overs. I had studied acting through watching motion pictures for many years. I’d seen how Bela used his body to convey certain things. He was famous for his facial expressions, but what fascinated me the most was how he used his hands. And, of course, I knew the lines. I was able to block out all the people on the set and just concentrate on Bela. I nailed the scene and I knew it.