The Sixteen Burdens (19 page)

Grauman ran off to help a worker struggling to hold a crate of champagne.

“There’s security everywhere,” Panchito said. “We can’t wait until next week.”

Gray watched as a giant red carpet was unloaded off the back of a truck.

“I don’t think we’ll have to.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
IX

D
ARKO
A
TLAS
STROLLED
through the orange grove with his companion, their path dappled with golden rays of late-afternoon sun. It was an altogether pleasant walk, for Atlas if not his captive.

“How did you find us?” Atlas asked.

Douglas Fairbanks breathed in the fragrance of orange blossoms, which trees were still producing this late into the year. He tried to ignore Sugar’s knife pressing into the side of his throat.

“I simply inquired into your whereabouts,” Fairbanks said. “It’s all a matter of asking nicely. Is this really necessary?”

He gingerly touched the blade against his neck. Sugar stood behind him with plugs in her ears. Atlas had given her instructions to slit the actor’s throat at the slightest sign of trouble. He had heard rumors of what Fairbanks could do.

“Those men were well paid for their discretion,” Atlas said.

“What’s discretion in the midst of a friendly face? A warm demeanor? A heartfelt plea for help?”

There was no way Fairbanks could have happened upon their clearing in the middle of hundreds of acres of citrus trees. It would have taken at least three men to betray his trust for this visitor to find the way.

They couldn’t help it.

Dead men, nonetheless.

Up ahead was a rusted red pickup truck, its bed half full of rotting oranges. A black cloud of flies was buzzing around it.

“You’re very good, Mr. Fairbanks,” Atlas said. “Perhaps you could indulge me with a demonstration? Within reason, of course.”

“Of course,” Fairbanks said, looking around. “That rust bucket over there. If you’d be so kind, Mr. Atlas, would you pick it up for me?”

The words took on a musical quality. Atlas felt them ringing in his ears and a fog took over his mind. It wasn’t that he felt compelled do the actor’s bidding; it’s that he
wanted
to.

Atlas walked over to the truck, lifted the back half off the ground, then got under it and hoisted the entire vehicle over his head.

“What are you doing?” Sugar asked. She pressed the knife into Fairbanks’s throat.

“That will do, Mr. Atlas,” he choked out quickly. “You may set it down.”

Atlas threw the truck down in front of him and it rolled toward Fairbanks and Sugar. It landed upside down, and the front door popped open. A corpse fell out at Fairbanks’s feet, a man whose throat was slit halfway through to the back. Atlas remembered Sugar mentioning an uncooperative farmer she had encountered.

Fairbanks kept the same smug expression on his face, even as he stepped casually away from the body.

“Thank you, Mr. Atlas. That’s all.”

The fog lifted. Sugar eased her grip. Atlas stared at the truck.

“You have a way with words.”

“What is charisma but an ability to inspire others to bend to your will?”

Atlas turned and led them back toward the camp.

“You charmed your way in, Mr. Fairbanks. Now let’s see if you can charm your way out.”

Fairbanks winked.

“I won’t need to charm you with a deal this good. I’ve come to give you the Eye.”

Atlas mopped his brow with an old jacket he used as a handkerchief. He had a sudden memory of Harry Houdini years ago in Montreal. The magician had thrown a gold chain across a stage. Atlas had chased it, thinking it was the Eye. But it was merely sleight of hand. A trick.

“You have the Eye then?”

Fairbanks flicked a piece of imaginary dirt from his well-manicured nails.

“Not in hand, but I have a good idea of how to get it.”

Atlas wasn’t surprised.

“What is that saying about birds and hands and bushes?”

“Before I acquire it, I want to make sure it’s worth my while. It may require a degree of…unpleasantness.”

“You’re going to have to steal it from someone. From Mary’s son?”

Fairbanks looked up in surprise.

We know more than you think, Mr. Charisma.

We think more than you know.

“Yes,” Fairbanks said. “From her son. He’s no one of consequence, but Chaplin seems to think Mary told him where the Eye was before you…escorted her away.”

So Charlie Chaplin’s in this too?

We should have known.

Atlas pulled a small orange from a tree and swallowed it whole like a raisin.

“Do you really think he’s no one of consequence? Or are you just saying that to protect him?”

Here Fairbanks looked genuinely dumbfounded. Atlas laughed, a deep, guttural laugh that shook the leaves surrounding them.

“You don’t know! Whatever friends you’re working with clearly don’t trust you.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Atlas had begun feeling stronger than ever since he had arrived in Los Angeles. He had chalked it up to good eating until the night he met Gray. That young man’s blood, there was something about it. Something that was affecting all of them. Sugar had never been so fast, and some of the old man’s hair seemed to be growing back.

He took the knife out of Sugar’s hand.

“Cut me,” he said to Fairbanks.

“Are you mad?”

“Go ahead.”

Fairbanks took the knife and Atlas held out his burly forearm. Gently, Fairbanks ran the knife across it.

“No,” Atlas said. “Saw at me. As hard as your manicured hands can manage.”

Fairbanks applied more pressure and grimaced as he cut across Atlas’s forearm. Nothing happened. He dug in even harder and tried again. The skin moved as normal, but it wouldn’t break.

“I’ve always been tough,” Atlas said. “Tougher than anyone. But that young man…he’s a source of great power. I’ve become invincible ever since I got here.”

“What ever do you mean?”

If it were a poker game, Fairbanks had unwittingly shown his hand.

“He’s a tool,” Atlas said. “Like the Eye. He is one of the Great Artifacts.”

“A living Artifact?” Fairbanks said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. I would have known.”

“The way he looked at me. I think he can see us. I think he can tell what we are.”

The poor actor’s face dropped as if suddenly realizing he had a losing hand on a big pot.

“Someone would have told me. We’re a team.”

“Not an equal team, it seems.”

Fairbanks slapped his hand against a tree trunk.

“Damn that Charlie!”

“Bring us the Eye,” Atlas said. “And the young man with it.”

“Absolutely not. The Eye is more than generous!”

Atlas played his trump card.

“You miss your days playing the hero on screen, don’t you?” he asked. “Bring both the Eye and Gray Studebaker, and we can repay you. With strength. With health. You could get decades more out of your career while your peers wither away. You and Mrs. Pickford could return to the way you were. America’s Hero and America’s Sweetheart.”

Fairbanks stood in silence, staring at a liver spot on the back of his hand.

“What do you want with the Eye?” he asked. “Houdini had wild visions of armies and world domination. Is it true?”

Atlas considered his response. Would it do any good to tell Fairbanks the truth? He could tell him about burned neighborhoods and bloody massacres. He could recount his father’s slit throat, or the knife lodged deep in his mother’s back. He could describe the skeletal tuberculosis that ate away at his brother’s bones until he rotted dead in prison. He could tell countless stories about the two nights of slaughter in Bosnia.

Five hundred dead Serbs.

All because of one Archduke.

But that was half a world away and a lifetime ago, and Fairbanks was a man untouched by suffering.

“My plan is to stop the Nazis,” Atlas said. “Isn’t that a good enough reason on its own? I will obliterate the Germans.”

And the Austrians. And the Croatians.

And anyone else who challenges me.

They reached the edge of the camp. It was grungy and tattered and would become miserable with the first rain.

“You killed Houdini,” Fairbanks said. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“I did kill Houdini, but I had no choice,” Atlas said. “I love my homeland and will do what it takes to see it properly restored. Sometimes we must take drastic measures for the things—and the people—we love.”

He gave Fairbanks a pointed stare.

“My deal is more generous than what your friends have offered,” Atlas said. “I’ve at least been honest with you.”

Whatever internal struggles Fairbanks had, it didn’t take him long to resolve them. He wasn’t the type of man who seemed deeply troubled by conscience.

“Very well,” Fairbanks said. “I’ll bring Gray too. In exchange for Mary, your talents, and your promise to leave us alone thereafter.”

“It’s a deal,” Atlas said. “Though you may want to hurry.”

Fairbanks raised an eyebrow.

“Why is that?”

Atlas walked him over to the old bear cage. Fairbanks shrugged as if wondering why he had been brought there. But when he caught sight of the lump in the corner, the expression that was always so carefully crafted on his face dropped off.

“The object of your affection is refusing to eat,” Atlas said. “Perhaps she’s not accustomed to our rustic menu. At any rate, I doubt she has more than a few days to live.”

At the sound of voices, Mary Pickford lifted her head from the moldy bed of straw.

“Douglas?”

Fairbanks gasped when he saw her frail beauty.

“Take me instead. Oh, won’t you please!”

It wasn’t a command. It was the plea of a desperate man. Even so, Sugar pressed her knife deep enough in Fairbanks’s back to cut his jacket.

“We have our deal,” Atlas said. “Now go.”

Fairbanks nodded. He seemed unable to tear his eyes from her.

“I’m going to save you, darling, whatever the cost.”

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be saved at any cost.”

“Keep up your strength and take heart,” Fairbanks said. “I’m going to free you. I’m going to be your hero.”

Pickford frowned and laid her head back on the straw.

“You’re just an actor, Douglas. You’ll never be a hero.”

But Fairbanks wasn’t listening. A man of action, he was already charging away.

Atlas motioned for Sugar to remove her earplugs.

“Follow him,” he said. “I want to make sure he’s not playing us.”

“I don’t think he is,” Sugar said.

“Me either,” Atlas said. “I think he genuinely still loves Mary Pickford—and himself—enough to surrender the Eye. The fool.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

G
RAY
DISCOVERED
THAT
getting into the premiere of
Gone With the Wind
was the easy part. That evening, before Chaplin was home, Gray called Douglas Fairbanks to ask about it. The actor arrived within the hour with two tickets.

“You’ll be taking a date, of course?”

Gray stared at the second ticket like it was a snake that might bite him.

“Yeah,” Gray said. “Of course.”

“Elsie?”

Fairbanks offered a conspiratorial wink.

“Yeah… Elsie.”

“Good,” Fairbanks said. “You deserve a little levity during this difficult time.”

Gray had prepared an elaborate story about why he wanted to go watch an epic historical romance, but Fairbanks never bothered to ask. Chaplin would be more inquisitive, so Gray decided he’d avoid telling the comedian until after the premiere.

The next day, Gray waited for Chaplin to leave before making some calls. Panchito flipped his wig when Gray told him who would be using the second ticket.

“You think that girl can protect you better than I can?”

“It ain’t like that,” Gray said. “I gotta have a date or it will draw suspicion.”

“We found the theater together,” Panchito said. “We’re a team!”

“Sorry, pally,” Gray said, and this time he meant it.

Panchito hung up on him.

Fairbanks offered to drive that evening and even found Gray a tuxedo from the United Artists costume department that had been used by an extra in
Puttin' On the Ritz
. The bow tie felt like a noose around his neck. He kept tugging at it.

“You look like a proper gentleman,” Fairbanks said as they cruised down Sunset Boulevard that afternoon in his bright red 1939 Mercury breezer. It drew attention, and Fairbanks seemed to soak it in.

Charisma requires an audience.

Fairbanks looked at the fedora on Gray’s head as if he wanted to give it a stern talking to.

“Let’s give the hat a rest, shall we?”

The fedora was the only thing Gray owned that he liked. When he put it on his head it felt like a wall that separated him from the rest of the world. Reluctantly, he took it off.

They arrived at Elsie’s half an hour before the premiere. She had been reluctant to go, but Jack Siegel had been called away to business in Las Vegas until tomorrow, and the prospect of the reward money was too great to resist.

Fairbanks honked multiple times, and the front windows of the dormitory began popping open like an out-of-synch cuckoo clock. Dozens of girls stared down at them. Gray sunk in the back seat, but with the top down there was no hiding.

Elsie walked out the front door wearing a shimmering gold gown that draped gracefully down her. It was like nothing Gray had ever seen her in. Her reddish-brown hair had been trimmed and styled in a way consistent with the day’s fashion. She had on a simple silver necklace.

“My! Look at those glad rags,” Fairbanks said. “Elsie, you’re positively darling.”

Elsie blushed and slid carefully into the back seat, half-sitting, half-leaning against the inside of the car.

“You’re togged to the bricks, dollface,” Gray said.

“Don’t call me dollface! If I get so much as one wrinkle in this dress, Gina said she was going to shave my head bald.”

In the distance, the bright spotlights from the theater lit up the darkening sky. Traffic slowed to a crawl as they approached. At the theater itself, policemen fought to keep crowds on the sidewalks from spilling out onto the street. Bleachers had been set up for spectators to watch the stars as they entered. They got in a queue of cars waiting to drop off passengers.

“What’s this movie about, anyway?” Gray asked.

Elsie clasped her hands in excitement.

“The book is wonderful. It takes place during the Civil War.”

“So it’s about a war?”

“A war between two hearts,” Elsie said.

Gray rolled his eyes. Elsie pinched him hard.

“I can sense that, you know!”

When they pulled up to the red carpet, the valets recognized Fairbanks and opened both doors.

“No driver, Mr. Fairbanks?” one man asked.

Fairbanks remained seated.

“Tonight I am the driver. Have fun kids. I’ll meet you after.”

Gray and Elsie got out.

“I should take your arm,” she said.

He held out his arm to her, and stiffened a little when she took it.

“Relax,” she said. He could feel her calming his emotions.

“Don’t do that to me,” Gray said, although he was inwardly grateful for it.

For all the time Gray had resented being on the outside of a velvet rope, being on the inside was worse. Spotlights were trained upon them as if he were a prison escapee, so bright he could barely see in front of him. A tempest of voices and applause roared about them. He could barely make out what people were saying, but he caught snippets of one or two of the closest voices.

“—that young couple in this film?”

“—dropped off by Douglas Fairbanks himself!”

They entered under a tent and found themselves packed tight in a crowd that was dense and undulating, a human Jell-O salad. He turned to Elsie, who was breathing deeply with her eyes closed.

“You don’t look so hot,” Gray said. “You’re not gonna go bananas on me, are you?”

“It’s the thousands of people…all in an excited state. It’s overwhelming.”

She grasped his arm tightly.

“Try to stay calm so I have something to anchor myself to. Otherwise I think I’ll drown in emotion.”

Gray took a deep breath, then took her hand. There was electricity in their contact, but it was different from the first time they had touched. This time it gave him butterflies.

When they approached the entrance to the lobby, Gray handed the tickets to the usher, who looked at the names on them.

“This box is only for Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, or an immediate relative of theirs.”

“He is,” Elsie said, nudging Gray forward a bit. “He’s Gray Pickford, Mrs. Pickford’s son.”

The usher looked at Gray, whose face turned the color of a cherry soda.

“And I’m Elsie Avery, his date.”

She put her hand on the usher’s arm and Gray saw a swirl of blue energy surround him. The usher handed Gray back his tickets and cleared his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Elsie Avery and Gray Pickford!”

Men in tuxedos and women in slinky dresses turned momentarily to look at them. Gray dragged Elsie to the farthest corner, behind a plant.

“Why’d you say that?”

“We had to get in,” she said. “And it’s true.”

The lobby was blood red, floor to ceiling. Gray had the feeling of having been swallowed whole by a giant beast.

“There’s gotta be a secret room or something. Let’s split up.”

There were at least a dozen doors and hallways in the lobby, some leading up and some going down. They each took a side, poking their heads in and out of passageways. The ones going down led to restrooms; the ones going up led to offices and storage rooms. The ground floor was the theater itself.

They met up again near the concession stand.

“Now what?” Elsie asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh, look!”

Gray turned toward the entrance. Just entering the lobby were Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy, both actors Gray recognized from his map.

Then, to much applause, Clark Gable entered with a dark-haired beauty, the one who was with him on the billboards outside. They waved to people and shook a lot of hands.

Bringing up the rear, by herself, was a handsome, demure-looking woman. She wore a silky brown fur coat and matching fur-trimmed hat. She seemed perfectly content talking to no one.

“Who is that?” Elsie said. “She’s lovely.”

“Greta Garbo,” Gray said. He recognized her from the time he accidentally snuck into a showing of
Anna Karenina
, thinking it was
Mutiny on the Bounty
.

Garbo radiated a unique sort of beauty; she outshone everyone around her, even the younger women. That gave him an idea. As other people surrounded Clark Gable and his companion, Gray approached the standoffish woman in furs.

“Miss Garbo,” he said. “I’m a big fan.”

“Of me?” she said. “Why would a young man like you be a fan of mine?”

“You’re a great-looking dame,” he said.

Her look soured.

“Everyone here is beautiful. And here I was starting to think you interesting.”

Gray removed the betting sheet Chaplin had given him at the race track.

“Maybe you’d at least gimme your autograph?”

He unfolded the paper and held it out to her. Garbo took it and turned it over. She stopped when she saw the sketch of Newton’s Eye. Her expression didn’t change, but the pause at the sight of the drawing told Gray everything. She removed a pen from her clutch, signed the paper and gave it back.

“It appears you are interesting,” she said.

“I’m trying to find out where you mighta seen this. I’m trying to help the women who’ve been abducted.”

A bell rang to notify people to take their seats in the theater. Garbo glanced around before continuing.

“I can only tell you I remember uneven concrete, and steps leading down. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”

She bowed her head slightly, and joined the flow of people entering the theater.

Uneven concrete and steps leading down.

Gray walked back to Elsie.

“I think I know where to go. Come on.”

He took her arm and they exited through a side door near the front, so that they were back outside in the forecourt, alongside the tent through which they had entered. Against a backdrop of shouting fans and flashing cameras, in this area they were alone. Here, there were dozens of handprints and footprints of celebrities from nearly two decades.

Gray walked around, not quite sure what he was looking for. Then he saw Mary Pickford’s slab of concrete. The original one Grauman had told him about. It had her handprints and shoe prints, with a message that read: “Greetings to Sid. 1927. Mary Pickford. Hand and foot prints of.”

He knelt by the slab and put his hand into the impression of hers. It felt strangely personal. Her hands seemed small, much smaller than he remembered. But then what did he know? He knew nothing about her, really.

He put weight on his hand to help him stand up, and that’s when it happened. The slab depressed into the ground. It was only about an inch, but Gray knew it was intentional.

“Elsie, look!”

She came over to him and inspected the slab.

“It moved,” he said.

“Should we lift it up?”

He shook his head.

“I think it’s more like a switch. Or a button. As if it unlocked something.”

A man in a simple black suit with a pencil mustache opened the glass door and stuck his head out.

“The movie is about the begin. And you’re not supposed to be out here.”

“Be right there!” Gray said.

Gray looked around to see if anything else in the forecourt had changed. Nothing had. The potted palm trees barely rustled in the evening breeze. The Chinese-style lion statues still stared forward, immobile.

“Maybe it’s like a combination lock,” Elsie said. “We have to push multiple slabs. But then there must be some kind of code.”

Gray remembered.

“A merry heart withers under candor!”

“What?”

“I wonder if ‘merry’ is actually
Mary
, as in Mary Pickford.”

He looked around.

“Is there someone named Heart?”

Elsie took a few steps in one direction, then another, scanning the stones.

“Bill Hart! The silent Western film actor.”

Gray walked over and stepped on the concrete slab. It too depressed about an inch and clicked into place.

“What’s next?” Elsie asked. “Withers? Could that be Jane Withers, the child actress? Does she have handprints in here?”

They had to search around, but they found her handprints near the corner. It, too, depressed when stepped on.

“The last one must be Eddie Cantor,” Gray said. “It’s the only name that sounds anything like
candor
.”

They found the singer’s stone near Pickford’s and Gray stepped on it. Nothing happened. He tried jumping on it in case it were stuck. Still nothing. They were so close.

The manager stepped outside again.