Wake Up and Dream (26 page)

“Howard was a dear friend.” Others were watching. Without raising his voice, Kisberg’s smooth tone easily filled the room. “He still is, or at least a fond memory. We wouldn’t be where we are without him. Not one of us.”

“But the whole business of anyone believing in Lars Bechmeir’s idea. The guy was a nobody, and the invention must have sounded like the work of a crank. Speaking personally, Mr Kisberg, what was it that made you go to the premiere of
Broken Looking Glass
?”

Kisberg took a slow sip of his whisky. “Maybe we were all a little younger and more foolish than we are now.” He smiled a boyish smile. “A little foolishness—a preparedness to take a risk. Maybe that’s something we should all try to keep in our lives?” There were solemn nods, and Clark supposed their conversation was at an end, but then Kisberg put down his whisky and leaned so close to him that Clark could smell the floral sweetness of the man’s cologne. “I do understand your wanting to get to the heart of what happened, Dan,” he murmured so close to Clark’s ear that it felt like the breath of a Bechmeir field. “And I think I can help.”

“How do you find my house, Dan? Over-large and over-ostentatious, I imagine. But one must put on a show. It’s an obligation of power, just as it has always been. I imagine monarchs of the old days such as Queen Elizabeth in that marvelous feelie pic you wrote would have felt the same.”

Clark Gable and Herbert Kisberg were walking red carpeted corridors lined with fine paintings and frail pieces of furniture, which Kisberg paused to explain with the vague air of someone who doesn’t wish to disclose how much they really know.

“I don’t fool myself into assuming that you’re a Liberty League supporter,” he muttered after pointing out the exquisite detail of a small dog in a painting by Vermeer.

“I don’t usually vote, Mr Kisberg. Although you’re right. I don’t support your party and I never would.”

“Is there a reason?” He glanced almost shyly up at Clark through blonde lashes.

“A few things. Timmy Townsend tells me that you’re doing a deal with the Nazis to supply feelie tracks for Hitler’s rallies, for example.”

“Oh,
that
. Tim’s an oaf, as you’ve doubtless noticed. But he means well, and he has a good eye for certain things—maybe even a successful feelie. Let’s hope so, anyway. As soon as I heard that one of Senserama’s executives had made that ill-advised approach to the Germans, I put a stop to it. The whole point of the Liberty League is that we don’t—and I mean absolutely don’t—support the Nazis. But we must leave Europe to deal with itself, and counteract the real threat which lies beyond.”

“Which is?”

“World communism, of course. If we choose to fight the current German expansion, all we do is play into Soviet Russia’s hands. Say we
did
go to war against the Germans, which is the way in which FDR’s policies are inevitably leading. Say we did draft our young men into the army and waste our great nation’s resources on building battleships and warplanes, all so that American blood could be spilled again in the fields of France—do you think that the Russians would simply stand by? And do you think the Japanese would either? I
know
about war, Dan. I fought as a captain in the trenches and I saw just how terrible it was. I don’t believe in illusions or half-measures. We must understand where our interests lie. Which is here at home. I want a prosperous and peaceful nation where people understand what it means to be an American.” He shrugged. ”That’s all my party has ever stood for.”

“And what about the guys you see on the streets? The ones who dress up like blackshirts? The fools who want the Jews to wear badges and are calling for the blacks to be put in reservations like the Indians?”

“They
are
fools. But they’re American fools, and they truly believe in their country and they feel a genuine sense of wrong. They’ve lost their jobs, their homes, their businesses, in these last difficult ten years. These are
real
Americans—they didn’t arrive here ten minutes ago—and they want their lives and their self-respect back. Sure, they have their prejudices. But don’t we all? It’s only if we leave them out in the cold and ignore their voice, Dan, that they become dangerous. If we welcome them in and put a stop to foreign influence and immigration and embrace the truth of what this country really is about…”

In one direction lay the golden glint of some big, wall-consuming treasure—perhaps the altar of some Italian chapel; it was hard to tell. The other led toward a small and dimly-lit room.

Inside, there was a bed, and a radiogram, which was softly playing something probably classical and symphonic, although the sound was too low to be sure. There was also a portable lavatory concealed behind a railed curtain, and a trolley racked this high with expensive drugs. The purpose of the room was clearly medical but there were barely any of the usual signals to set Clark’s teeth on edge. Apart, that was, from a dim aura of suppressed pain. There were several pictures on wall, but they were cheap reproductions. You could have got the painted plaster ornaments which were set above the unlit fireplace with a few lucky shots at the fair. After all he’d seen, it was the sheer blandness of this room which was shocking to him even before he’d fully taken in what was here.

There were two nurses, both wearing the sort of uniforms which showed off their figures so well you wondered about their other qualifications for the job. One of them was sitting reading a mail order fashion catalogue. The other was smoking as she peered out through a gap in the drawn curtains at whatever there was to see of the party outside. They both turned as Clark and Kisberg entered, touching their hairdos and adjusting the bored droop of their mouths into smiles.

“How is he?” Kisberg asked.

“Oh…” The nurse who’d been smoking popped her cigarette into a flip-top chrome ashtray, whilst the one who’d been sitting reading stood up and smoothed the rucks in her uniform across her thighs. “… he’s fine…” They were so alike in makeup and hairdo that it was hard to tell which was speaking. “… been asleep…” “… for the last half hour or so…” They could have been twins.

The long bed which filled the middle of the room was of the gray metal-frame sort, with raised bars on either side to stop people falling out, which you also saw in hospitals, but it was empty and one of the sides had been put down. The man they were all now looking down at was seated in the wheelchair beside the bed, his small body hunched piles of plaid blankets, from which a single brown rubber pipe ran out toward some kind of jar beneath the bed. The toes of slippers protruded, along with a glimpse of bare and bony, blue-mottled ankle. Above the blankets, he was wearing a collar shirt and cardigan, both buttoned wrongly. His mouth had lolled and his chin had been down inside his skewed collar when Clark and Kisberg first entered the room. He’d stirred at the sound of voices, slowly stretching his stringy neck, blinking his eyes and opening and closing his mouth, for all the world like a tortoise peeping out of its shell at the end of a winter’s hibernation.

One of the nurses leaned over to wipe a bead of drool from the corner of his mouth. The man responded with a sharp mash of his lips, and a spasm of irritation which had him raising his bird-like hands. He then made a series of wet clicking noises. The other nurse nodded; she seemed to understand these sounds as words. When she reached to a side counter, opened the wire arms of a pair of round-rim glasses, and hooked them around his ears and across his snub little nose, it was as if something had snapped sharply into focus within the room. Suddenly, there was no doubting who this frail old man gazed blinkingly up at them was. The beard might have grayed and thinned, and the double-breasted kaki jacket might be absent, but this was Lars Bechmeir. Propped up on the counter from where the nurse had picked up those famous glasses, Clark could even see the trademark Meerschaum pipe.

Much in the way a young relative might when visiting an elderly uncle, Herbert Kisberg bent down and smilingly took hold of one of the trembling hands. “Sorry to wake you, old chap. Must save your energies. But I’ve brought someone I’d like you to meet. He’s a writer by the name of Daniel Lamotte…”

“…W… ?” Thin lips strung spittle.

“That’s right, Lars. He’s a
writer
. And he’s going to write the feelie that tells the story of your life.”

Lars Bechmeir was looking more directly at Clark now. His mouth was still working, and he seemed to be trying to say something. Or maybe he was just gasping for air.

“Hi there, Mr Bechmeir.” Clark heard himself mutter. “It’s a real pleasure.”

“Some other time, Lars old boy, when you’re better rested, we’ll set up an interview. Would that be alright… ?”

“Al… right… ?” It was the first definite word which Clark had heard Lars Bechmeir utter. And there was an increasing sense of sharpness, almost of agitation, to the gaze with which he found himself fixed. This guy, he thought, isn’t quite all gone yet. There’s still something in there, somewhere, that’s alive and sharp… And there was something else, as well, about the way he was looking at him. The flurry of his hands was increasing—so much so that Herbert Kisberg had to stand back up and make room for the nurses. Instantly, all crooning lips and pressed linen asses, they were wiping the drool from his mouth, and steadying his flurrying hands.

“All
..? right
… ?” But Lars Bechmeir still seemed agitated. As Clark and Kisberg left the room he was still staring in Clark’s direction.

“All the sightings are false, of course,” Kisberg sighed. “Those, anyway, that haven’t been of him in the ranch down in Orange County where he lives a quiet life with a few select aides like Adeline and Marie-Louise. I’m sure we’ll be able to arrange a proper interview, but we don’t want to tire him out. He’s agreed to make his first public appearance in years tomorrow evening at the Liberty League ball at the Biltmore. Who knows, we may even get him to say a few words.”

Lars Bechmeir backs the Liberty League!
It would be the endorsement of the century—like God saying he supported the Nicks, or preferred Avis to Hertz. Assuming, that was, that the little man was still actually capable of expressing anything at all.

“So you really are going to run for president?”

Herbert Kisberg gave another of his bashful smiles. “We’ll have to wait and see.” He checked his watch. “But you must excuse me, Dan. I have work to do, I’m afraid.
Such
a bore. But it’s near midnight, and I believe most of my guests will soon be heading outside…”

Music roared. Lights speared the sky. The rain was holding off, but a near-gale was blowing—spinning hats and toupees off into the darkness—although it was impossible to tell if it was due to the weather, or if the studio had brought in wind machines.

Clark had already heard several stories about the ghost which supposedly appeared at midnight on the battlements of the picturesque ruin of Castle Balaig, which had been brought stone by stone from the Scottish Highlands and cleverly re-erected in Herbert Kisberg’s grounds. A woman wronged, a husband stabbed, a monk immolated, a nun buried alive or drowned… But, underlit by colored spotlights through a haze of dry ice, the castle seemed dwarfed by the spectacle which surrounded it; like the megalithic relic of some Indian tribe briefly unearthed in the excavations for a new shopping mall.

Velvet ropes formed a path through to the ruins, and there were tartan-dressed stewards to pour out tots of Scotch malt and usher people along the way. Some cynical souls were wondering aloud as they ascended the re-mortared steps if ghosts were aware of time differences, or perhaps stuck to the hour of the country of their birth, or death? And what about daylight saving time?

Midnight loomed, and with it came an eerie quiet as, for what seemed the first time that evening, or perhaps in all Hollywood history, the showbiz people crowded along the battlements ceased to bitch and crow. Then, just as the tower clock illuminated by a spotlight above Kisberg’s house began to chime, the sky shattered in a veins of light. A roar of thunder followed. In another moment, it was sheeting rain.

Women screamed, clothing turned sheer and heels broke as people stumbled from the battlements as the storm took hold, but Clark remained standing there, looking down through the spotlights as the ragged crocodile of revelers slipped and skidded across the mud. The entire gardens quickly emptied. Soon, it was just him out here amid this crashing storm and with these misplaced old stones. The thought struck him as flickers of light froze the rain that, if anyone was ever likely to see a ghost up on these battlements, it was now. Then he yelped as a cold, wet hand clapped across his shoulder.

“What a night, eh?” Timmy Townsend spread his arms, tilting his head back into the rain. “What a fucking night, eh? Come on God, you bastard! Strike me down right now!” A thick layer of white mucus glistened across the executive’s upper lip. “It just doesn’t get any better than this. Have you ever felt this happy, Danny boy, in your entire fucking life? I know your wife’s gone killed herself, and all of that. But you’ve
seen
him haven’t you? Lars fucking Bechmeir is here tonight, and he’s going to be at the Biltmore tomorrow!”

The sky flickered again. Thunder boomed, so loud this time that the castle seemed to tremble.

“But get this, Danny boy! I’ve got you on the
Star Talk
special live at the fucking Biltmore tomorrow to promote
Wake Up and Dream
in conversation with Wallis Beekins. We might even get a hi from Lars fucking Bechmeir, although I gather the guy ain’t exactly up for running the Olympics. And we can certainly get a word from our other man of the hour Herbert Kisberg, who’s our future fucking president. Who’d have believed it yesterday when we first met up? Who’d have believed it thirty fucking
minutes
ago—that this moment could be so fucking, fucking perfect?

“The feelie itself’ll be a trainwreck. You do realize that, don’t you, Dan? Now that we’ve got all the hype and the momentum going we’ll take our eyes off the fucking ball and forget the dream—ha!
Wake Up and Dream
, right?—that got us started on this project. We’ll produce some turgid piece of dross. And you know what? You know what the biggest fucking joke of all is? No one will notice…” Timmy Townsend was dancing now. Waving his hands. His feet skidding on wet stonework close to the edge of the thirty foot drop. “The crowds will come and the critics will cream themselves and dogs will bark at the sodding moon just as fucking always, and we’ll clink our glasses and fuck our whores and send our girlfriends on shopping trips to Rome, Berlin and Madrid and swallow every jism spurt of the fucking hype, and
Wake Up and Dream
’ll be a travesty instead of the masterpiece it could have been.
That
, Danny boy…” He swung a hand—half punch, half finger jab—in Clark’s direction. “Is the biggest joke of all. It’s downhill here for the rest of our sodding lives and we won’t even fucking care!”