HARRISON MARLOWE INDICTED 4 page

"Places!"

The two actors stretched out in front of the cabin door. An assistant director and the script girl quickly checked their positions with photographs of the scene previously made and made a few corrections. The hand of one actor was in the wrong place; a smudge had appeared on the cheek of the other.

Norman saw Dunbar nod. "Roll 'em!" There was silence for a moment as the scene plate was shot, then Dunbar called quietly, "Action."

Norman smiled to himself. This was a cinch. There wasn't even any sound to louse this one up. Slowly the door of the cabin began to open. Rina stepped out and looked down at the two men.

Norman swore to himself. You'd think at least the shmuck would have enough sense to rip her dress a little. After all, it was supposed to be out on the desert. But no, the dress went right up to her neck like it was the middle of the winter. The finest pair of tits in the whole business Dunbar had to work with and he kept them hidden.

The big camera began to dolly in for a close-up. Rina raised her head slowly and looked into the camera. A moment passed. Another moment. "Cry, damn you!" Dunbar screamed. "Cry!"

Rina blinked her eyes. Nothing happened.

"Cut!" Dunbar yelled. He walked out on the set, stepping over one of the prostrate men to reach her. He looked at Rina for a moment. "In this scene, you're supposed to cry, remember?" he asked sarcastically.

She nodded silently.

He turned around and went back to his place beside the camera. Rina went back into the cabin, closing the door behind her. Again the assistant director and the script girl checked the positions, then walked off the set.

"Roll 'em!"

"Scene three seventeen, take two!" The plateman called and stepped away from in front of the camera quickly.

"Action!"

Everything happened exactly as before until the moment Rina looked into the camera. She stared into it for a moment. Unwinking. Dry eyes. Then, suddenly, she stepped aside.

"Cut!" Dunbar called. He started out onto the stage again.

"I’m sorry, Claude," Rina said. "I just can't. We'd better use make-up."

"Make-up!" the eager assistant director yelled. "Bring the tears!"

Norman nodded. There was no use wasting money. On screen, nobody could tell the difference. Besides, the phony tears photographed even better — they rolled down the cheeks like oiled ball bearings.

Dunbar turned. "No make-up!"

"No make-up!" his assistant echoed loudly. "Hold the tears!"

Dunbar looked at Rina. "This is the last scene of the picture," he said. "Two men are dead because of you and all I want is one lousy little tear. Not because you feel sorry for them or for yourself. It's just to let me know that somewhere inside you, you still have a soul. Not much, just enough to show you're a woman, not an animal. Understand?"

Rina nodded.

"O.K., then," he said quietly. "Let's take it from the top." He walked back to his place beside the camera. He bent slightly forward, peering intensely as Rina came out the door. She looked down at the men, then up as the camera began to dolly in close. "Now!" Dunbar's voice was almost a whisper. "Cry!"

Rina stared into the approaching camera. Nothing happened.

"Cut!" Dunbar yelled. He strode angrily into the scene. "What the fuck kind of a woman are you?" he screamed at her.

"Please, Claude," she begged.

He stared at her coldly. "For five months we were making this picture. I've worked day and night, for only one reason. You wanted to prove you were an actress. Well, I've done all I could. I'm not going to destroy the integrity of this picture in the last scene because of your inadequacy. You want to be an actress — well, prove it! Act!"

He turned his back on her and walked away. Norman covered his face with his hands. Ten thousand dollars a day this was costing him. He should have known better.

"Action!"

He opened his fingers and peered through them at the scene. This time, he could hear Dunbar speaking to Rina in a low voice.

"That's right, that's right, now you walk out. You look down and see them. First at Paul, then at Joseph. You see the gun in Joseph's hand and you know what has happened. Now you begin to look up. You're thinking, they're dead. Maybe you didn't love them but you lived with them, you used them. Maybe for a moment one of them brings back a piece of your memory — the memory you lost and never recovered. But for a fraction of a second, the veil lifts. And it's your father, or your brother, or maybe the child you never had, lying there in the sand at your feet. The tears start up in your eyes."

Slowly Norman's hands slipped away from his face. He held his breath as he moved toward the side away from the camera, which blocked his view. Rina was crying. Real tears.

Dunbar was still whispering. "The tears have come but the veil has dropped again and you can't remember why you are crying. The tears stop and your eyes are dry. Now you turn and look out into the desert. Out there in the lonely sand someone is waiting, someone with your memory. You will find that person out there. Then you'll really know who you are. You begin to walk out into the desert . . . slowly . . . slowly . . . slowly."

Dunbar's voice faded as Rina began to walk away, even the proud, straight shape of her back calling for pity. Norman looked around him. The crew were staring at Rina. They had forgotten everything on the set except her. He felt a moisture in his eyes. The damn scene had even got to him.

"Cut!" Dunbar's voice was a hoarse, triumphant shout. "Print it!" He slumped back into his chair, exhausted.

The stage turned into bedlam, with everybody applauding. Even the hard-bitten veterans of the crew were grinning. Norman ran out onto the stage. He grabbed Rina's hand excitedly. "You were wonderful, baby!" he said. "Magnificent!"

Rina looked at him. For a moment, it seemed as if she were far away, then her eyes cleared. She looked toward Dunbar, seated in his chair, surrounded by the camera crew and his assistants, then back at Norman. "Do you really think so?"

"Would I say it if I didn't mean it, baby?" he replied, smiling. "You know me better than that. Now, you take a good couple of weeks' rest. I got Scheherazade all set to go."

She turned away from him and watched Dunbar, who was approaching them slowly, the lines of exhaustion showing clearly on his thin, forty-year-old face. "Thank you," she said, taking Dunbar's hand.

He smiled wearily. "You're a great actress, Miss Marlowe," he said, formal once again, now that their work was over. "It was a privilege working with you."

Rina stared at him for a moment, a new vitality flowing into her. "You're out on your feet," she said, concern in her voice.

"I'll be all right with some rest," he said quickly. "I don't think I've slept a night through since the picture began."

"We'll soon fix that," Rina said confidently. "Ilene."

From somewhere in the crowd, Ilene suddenly appeared. "Call James and have him prepare the guest room for Mr. Dunbar."

"But, Miss Marlowe," the director protested. "I can't put you to all that trouble!"

"Do you think I'd let you go back to that empty hotel room the way you're feeling?" Rina demanded.

"But I promised Mother I'd call her the moment the picture was finished."

"You can call her there." Rina laughed. "We do have telephones, really."

Norman clapped Dunbar on the shoulder. "You do like Rina says, Dunbar. You can use the rest. You still got ten weeks of editing in front of you. But don't worry, you got a great picture here. I wouldn't be surprised if you both get Academy Awards!"

Norman didn't believe it when he said it, but that was exactly the way it turned out.

Nelia Dunbar, sixty-three years old and strong as the proverbial rock, crossed the room and looked down at her son. "That horrible creature," she said quietly.

She slipped into the seat beside her son and took his head on her shoulder. Absently she stroked his forehead. "I was wondering how long it would take you to see her in her true light," she said. "I told you not to marry her."

Claude didn't answer. There was no need to. There was a familiar safety in his mother's arms. There always had been. Even when he was a child and had come running home from school when the boys ganged up on him. His mother knew him. He didn't have to tell her when he was troubled. Instinctively she had moved out to California after his marriage to Rina.

He had never been very strong, always frail and thin, and the intense nervousness of his creative spurts left him drained and exhausted. At times like that, his mother would see to it that he took to his bed — for weeks on end, sometimes. She would serve him his meals, bring him the newspapers, read to him from the books they both loved.

Often he felt that these were the happiest moments of his life. Here in the gentle pastels of the room his mother had decorated for him, he felt warm and comfortable and at ease. Everything he wanted was at his fingertips. The dirtiness and petty meanness of the world were safely locked away outside the walls of that room.

His father had never been more than a vague nebulous shadow. He could scarcely remember him, for he had died when Claude was only five. His father's death had caused scarcely a noticeable ripple in the course of their lives, for they were left well off. They weren't wealthy but never was there want.

"You go back to the house and get what few things you need," his mother said. "You can spend the night here. In the morning, we'll see about a divorce."

He raised his head from his mother's shoulder and looked at her. "But, Mother, I wouldn't even know what to say to a lawyer."

"Don't worry," his mother said confidently. "I'll take care of everything."

He could feel a great weight lifting from his shoulders. Once again, his mother had spoken the magic words. But when he stood in the street in front of the house and saw Rina's car in the driveway, he was afraid to go in. There would only be another scene and he wasn't up to it. He had no more strength.

He looked at his wrist watch. It was almost eleven o'clock. She would be leaving soon because she had a luncheon date at the studio. He walked back down the hill to the cocktail lounge just off the corner of Sunset. He would have a drink while he waited. He would be able to see her car as it came down the hill.

The cocktail lounge was dark as he entered, the chairs still up on the tables. The bar was open, however, and there was already a customer seated with a glass of beer in front of him. Claude climbed up on a stool near the window, from which he could watch the street.

He shivered slightly. It had begun to drizzle as he came down the hill and was turning into one of those nasty, chilly afternoons peculiarly indigenous to sunny California. He shivered again. He hoped he wasn't catching cold. "Whisky and warm water," he said to the bartender, remembering the drink his mother always gave him at the first sign of a cold.

The bartender looked at him peculiarly. "Warm water?"

Claude nodded. "Yes, please." He looked up and noticed that the lone customer was also staring at him — a young man in a yellow lumber jacket. "And a slice of lemon, if you have it," he called after the bartender.

Claude picked up the small steaming mug. He sipped at it and felt its warmth creep down toward his stomach. He turned and looked out the window. It was really raining now. He picked up the mug again and to his surprise, it was empty. He decided to have another. There was time. He knew exactly what Rina was doing right now. He gestured to the bartender.

Right at this moment, she was seated in front of her dressing table, putting on her make-up, until it was precisely the way she wanted it. Then she would fuss with her hair, teasing it until it hung carelessly, but with every strand in its allotted place.

She had a fetish about not getting anywhere on time. She was always at least an hour late, most of the time even later. It used to drive him crazy having to wait for her, but it never seemed to disturb anyone else. They just took it for granted.

Claude looked down at the mug. It was empty again. He ordered another drink. He was beginning to feel better. Rina would be surprised when she came home and found his things gone. No more would she call him half a man. She'd find out just how much of a man he was when the lawyer served her with divorce papers. She'd know then that she couldn't push him around.

And she'd never look at him again the way she had the first night they were married — with pity and yet contempt, and worst of all, the knowledge in her eyes that she saw into him deeply, laying bare the very secrets of his soul, secrets that he kept even from himself.

He had come into the darkened bedroom, holding in his hand a tray on which stood an iced bottle of champagne and two glasses. "I have come bearing wine for my beloved."

They began to make love. Gently and beautifully, the way he had always known it would be, for he was a virgin. And there was comfort in the womanly curve of her body on the bed, lying there so passive and undemanding. He had even begun to compose a poem to her beauty when he felt her searching hand against his flesh.

For the tiniest fraction of a moment, he froze, startled by her alien fingers. Then he relaxed, for her touch was so light and gentle that he was scarcely aware of it. He felt a tremor shake her body, then another, and a sudden burst of heat seemed to rise from her.

Then a cry came from deep within her and she pulled him down toward her, her hands ripping off the bottom part of his pajamas. No longer was she suppliant and gentle, no longer did she care what he felt or needed, she was caught up in a frenzy of her own. Her fingers hurt him as she tried to guide him, to force him into her.

Suddenly, a wild terror began to run through him. A fear of the demanding sexuality of her body, which had lain dormant, waiting only for this moment to feed upon his manhood and devour him. In a near panic, he tore himself free and stood trembling near the bed.

He tried to pull the torn pajamas around him and heard the sound of her breathing become quieter. There was a rustle of the sheets and he looked down at her.

She had turned over on her side and was staring up at him, the sheet carelessly draped over her hips. Her breasts were heavy, the nipples still swollen with passion. Her eyes seemed to flame their way into him. "Are you the kind of man some people say you are?"

He felt the fire burning its way into his cheeks. He had not been unaware of the snide remarks made behind his back, but ordinary people did not understand his absorption in his work. "No!" he said quickly.

"Then what kind of man are you?"

He fell to his knees beside the bed and looked at her. "Please," he cried. "Please, you've got to understand. I married you because I love you but I'm not like the others. My mother says I’m more nervous and high strung."

She didn't answer and he saw the horrible combination of pity, contempt and knowledge come fleetingly into her eyes. "Don't look at me like that," he begged. "It will be better the next time. I won't be so nervous. I love you. I love you."

He felt her hand touch his head gently, then slowly stroke his temples. Gradually, his tears subsided and he seized her hands, kissing them gratefully. "It will be better, darling," he promised.

But it was never any better. There was something about the complete femaleness of her body, her terrifying sexuality, that frightened him into complete impotency.

"What did you say?" The words took him from the past into the present. He looked up. The other customer, the young man in the yellow jacket, was speaking to him. "I thought you said something to me. I'm sorry."

Claude felt foolish. There was no doubt that he had spoken. Very often he did while lost in thought. He began to feel embarrassed. "I did," he said, quickly trying to cover his embarrassment. "I said it turned into a rather nasty day, didn't it?"

The young man's eyes went past him to the window, then back. "Yes," he said politely. "It sure did."

Claude looked at him. He seemed like a nice enough young man. Handsome, too, in a rough sort of way. Probably an actor, down on his luck, who'd stopped in to nurse a beer until the rain stopped. He picked up his mug. It was empty again. "Let me buy you a drink," he said.

The boy nodded. "I'd like another beer. Thanks."

"Bartender, a beer for the young gentleman," Claude called. He tapped his mug. "And I’ll have another of these."

It wasn't until three drinks later, when he saw Rina's car turn downtown onto Sunset, that he got the idea. After all, there were quite a few things he wanted to take with him and he couldn't carry all of them alone.

After he rang the bell the second time he remembered it was Thursday and all the servants were off. He took out his key. They went right up the staircase to his room. He opened the closet and took out a valise. "You empty those drawers," he said to the boy. "I’ll get another suitcase."

He left the room for a moment and when he returned, his companion was holding a picture of Rina that had been standing on the bureau. "Who's this?"

"My wife," Claude answered tersely. Then he giggled. "Will she be surprised when she gets home and finds I'm gone."

"You Rina Marlowe's husband?"

Claude nodded. "But not for long now, thank God!"

The boy looked at him strangely. "What do you want to walk out on a dish like that for?" he asked.

Claude snatched the picture angrily from his hand and threw it against the wall. The glass shattered and fell into tiny bits on the carpet. He turned and walked into the bathroom. He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. He turned on the taps to wash his hands but the sound of the water rushing into the basin reminded him suddenly of the time he had walked into the solarium. He remembered the sound the water had made in the fountain as he became aware of Rina, lying nude on the table, being given a massage by Ilene.

Ilene was nude to the waist, her lower half enclosed in the tight-fitting black trousers she usually wore. He noticed the stringy muscles working along her back as her hands moved gently over Rina's body.

Rina had one arm thrown over her face to shield her eyes from the sun. Her body writhed sensuously under Ilene's touch. When they became aware of his presence, Rina lifted her arm. He felt a vague surprise at the straight flatness of Ilene's chest. "Don't stop, darling," Rina said huskily to Ilene.

Obediently Ilene began to massage again. The sensuous rhythm seemed to return to Rina's body as she lay there, her head turned to the side, watching him. After a moment, she put her arms up and drew Ilene's head down to her hips, "Kiss me, lover," she commanded, her eyes still watching Claude.

He turned suddenly and fled from the room, the sound of her mocking laughter, mixed with the sound of the water from the fountain, echoing in his ears.

Remembering, he lifted his hands to his face. It was bathed in perspiration. His clothing clung to him stickily. His skin began to feel crawly. He decided to take a shower.

The hot needle spray of the shower began to relax him. It seemed to bring the inner warmth of the whisky to the surface of his skin. Luxuriously he lathered himself with the delicately scented soap his mother ordered from London especially for him.

He stepped out of the shower, rubbing himself vigorously. He looked down with satisfaction at his pink, tingling skin. He liked being clean. He looked for his robe, but it wasn't on its usual hook. "Would you get the blue robe from the closet for me, please," he called automatically, without thinking.

He took the bottle of cologne down from the shelf and sprinkled it lavishly into his hand, then began to rub himself down. Some instinct caused him to look up into the mirror. The boy was standing in the open door, watching him. The robe was thrown over his arm. He had taken off his yellow jacket, revealing a dirty white T-shirt.

Claude saw the thick black hair that sprouted wildly from the young man's arms, shoulders and chest. A feeling of distaste ran through him. "You can leave it on the chair," he said, covering himself partly with the towel.

Instead, the boy grinned knowingly at him and came into the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind him with his foot.

Claude turned around angrily. "Get out of here!"

The young man didn't move. His smile grew even broader. "Aw, come off it, old man," he said. "You didn't really bring me up here to help you with your packing, did you?"

"Get out or I’ll call for help," Claude said, feeling a strangely exciting fear.

The boy laughed. "Who'll hear?" he asked. "I was wise to you the minute you told me the servants were off."

"You horrible thing!" Claude screamed. He felt a stunning blow on the side of his head and he fell sprawling. He pulled himself to his hands and knees. "Please go," he whispered, his voice breaking.

The young man raised his hand threateningly. Instinctively Claude shrank back but he wasn't quick enough. The open palm cracked smartly across the side of his face, knocking his head sideways against the toilet bowl. He stared up at the boy with frightened eyes.

"You don't really want me to go, do you?" the young man said, his hand tugging at the black leather belt around his waist. "You're the kind that likes to get roughed up a little first."

"I am not!"

"No?" The boy laughed derisively, raising the belt. "Don't crap me, I can see."

For a fraction of a moment, Claude did not know what he meant, then he looked down at himself. A crazy thought went racing through his mind. If Rina could only see him now, she would know he was a man.

The belt cut down across his back, sending a thin shiver of agony down his spine. "That's enough!" he whimpered. "Please don't hit me any more!"

He raised himself wearily from the floor and looked out into the bedroom. The boy was gone, taking with him all the money Claude had had with him. Slowly he got into the shower again and turned on the hot water.

He felt his strength returning as the water soaked into his skin. What a horrible thing to have happen, he thought, remembering all the indignities the young man had subjected him to. A warm feeling of satisfaction came to him. If he had been the stronger, he would have shown him. He felt the excitement begin to beat inside his chest as he thought how he would have torn the belt from the young man's hand and beaten him with it until he bled. He felt the sudden surge of power to his loins.

It was precisely at that moment that the truth came to him. "Oh, no!" He cried aloud in shock at the realization. What everyone had said about him was true. It was only he who had been blind to it until his own body betrayed him.

A dazed kind of anger came over him. Leaving the water running, he stepped from the shower stall. He opened the medicine cabinet and took down the old-fashioned straight razor that he had used ever since he began to shave — the razor that had stood proudly for him as a symbol of his manhood.

A wild, crazy kind of anger rolled blindly over him as he slashed viciously at himself. If he was not to be a man, at least he could turn himself into a woman. Again and again, he slashed at himself. Until at last, his strength gone, he collapsed onto the floor.

"Damn you!" he cried. "Damn you, Mother!"

They were the last words he ever said.

David Woolf stood in the doorway of the bathroom, nausea rising in the pit of his stomach. There was blood everywhere, on the white-and-blue tiles of the floor and walls, along the sides of the white bathtub, sink and toilet bowl.

It was hard to believe that it was only thirty minutes ago that the door of his office had burst open to reveal his uncle, his face flushed and purple, as it always was whenever he was upset. "Get right over to Rina Marlowe's house," Bernie Norman said. "One of the boys in publicity just got a tip from the Beverly Hills police station that Dunbar committed suicide."

David was already on his way to the door.

"Make sure she's protected!" the old man called after him. "Two million dollars in unreleased negatives we got on her!"

He picked up Harry Richards, chief of the studio guards, at the gate on the way out. Richards, a former police sergeant, was in good with all the cops. He took the short cut over the back roads through Coldwater Canyon to Sunset. He was at Rina's house in twenty minutes.

Now the two white-jacketed mortuary attendants were lifting Dunbar's somehow shrunken body into the small, basket-like stretcher and covering it with a white canvas sheet.

The attendants picked up the stretcher and David moved aside to let them pass. He lit a cigarette as they carried the body through the bedroom and out into the corridor. The first acrid taste of smoke settled his stomach. A faint screaming came from the downstairs foyer and he started hurriedly for the door, wondering if somehow Rina had got away from the doctor. But when he got to the head of the staircase, he saw that it wasn't Rina at all. It was Dunbar's mother.

She was struggling to free herself from the grasp of two red-faced policemen as the white-covered stretcher went by. "My baby!" she screamed. "Let me see my baby!" The attendants moved impassively past her and out the door. David could see the crowd of reporters outside, pressing against the door as it opened and closed. He started down the staircase, hearing the old woman begin to scream again.

She had pulled herself partly free of one of the policemen and with one hand she held onto the railing of the staircase. "You murdered my son, you bitch!" The high-pitched voice seemed to fill the whole house. "You killed him because you found out he was coming back to me!" The old woman had her other hand free now. She seemed to be trying to pull herself up the stairs.

"Get that crazy old woman out of here!" David turned, startled at the harsh voice that came from the top of the stairway behind him.

Ilene stood there, a wild, angry look on her face. "Get her out!" she hissed harshly. "The doctor's having enough trouble with Rina as it is, without her having to listen to that crazy old bitch!"

David caught Richards' eye and nodded to him. Instantly, Richards walked over to one of the policemen and whispered to him. All pretense of politeness gone, the two policemen got a new grip on the old woman and, one of them covering her mouth with his hand, they half dragged, half carried her out of the room. A moment later, a side door slammed and there was silence.

David glanced back up the staircase but Ilene had already disappeared. He walked over to Richards. "I told the boys to take her over to Colton's Sanitarium," the ex-policeman whispered.

David nodded approvingly. Dr. Colton would know what to do. The studio sent many of their stars out there to dry out. He'd also make sure that she didn't speak to anyone until he had calmed her down.

"Call the studio and have them send a couple of your men out here. I don't want any reporters getting in when the police leave."

"I already did," Richards replied, taking his arm. "Come on into the living room. I want you to meet Lieutenant Stanley."

Lieutenant Stanley was seated at the small, kidney-shaped telephone desk, a notebook open in front of him. He got up and shook hands with David. He was a thin, gray-faced, gray-haired man, and David thought he looked more like an accountant than a detective.

"This is a pretty terrible thing, Lieutenant," David said. "Have you figured out what happened yet?"

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 470