Flicker (27 page)

“She was one of the orphans, was she?”

“Christ, yeah. She was one of the big-cheese orphans. She even scared Max. He hated her guts. Me too. You know what she called me? A
monkey.”

“But she helped launch Castle's career, I thought.”

“Oh sure. She was his whatyoucall sponsor when he was a kid. But once them orphans get their claws in you, they don't let go. See, she never liked Max makin' any movies on his own that the orphans couldn't have their big say-so about.”

“But how could they expect to influence his work from Europe?”

“They weren't just in Europe,” he answered, as if I had asked a dumb question. “They were all over the studios right here. Like them goddam twins.”

“Twins?”

“The Reinkings, the Reinkings. They did all Max's editing. That's where they stuck in all the tricks. See, they knew all about the flicker.”

“The flicker?”

“Sure. That's what makes Max's pictures so good. The flicker. He knew how to use it just right. Him and the Reinkings.”

“The flicker … ” I groped my way ahead awkwardly. “That was one of the tricks.”

“Nah!” Zip snapped, as if I should know better. “The flicker was how you made the tricks happen just right. First you had to get hold of the flicker, see? Then you could stick in all the tricks you wanted.”

“Oh yes,” I said, understanding nothing. “So the flicker was … ”

“Was what?”

“I'm sort of … asking. What was the flicker?”

Zip went silent all of a sudden, as if he'd decided to slam on the mental brakes. “Wouldn't you like to know?” he said, reverting to his tough-guy mode.

By now I'd come to suspect that “wouldn't-you-like-to-know” was what Zip said when he had no answer to give. And when he ran out of answers, he began to grow cantankerous. I quickly shifted the discussion to new ground.

“How did you get along with the Reinkings?”

“Phaw! They treated me like absolute dirt, they did. Son-of-a-bitch stuck-up krauts. They usta call me 'the mechanic.' The
mechanic!
Can you beat that? Editin'—that was 'art,' see? That's how they saw it. But runnin' the camera—that was just bein' a mechanic. Every chance they got, they froze me out. Max—he woulda let me in on the editin'. But not them Reinkings.”

“They were twins, you say—the Reinkings. Twin men … ”

“One
was a man. Heinzy was a man. God only knows what the other one was. That was Franzy. But I usta call 'em Hans an' Fritz.”

“You couldn't tell whether the other one was a man or woman?”

“Them orphans could be queer. Queer. Like Von Pull-zig there. I guess she was a woman. But real dykey. I had my suspicions about her. I bet she shaved every morning. Wouldn't surprise me.”

“So the twins were film editors. I don't remember seeing their names on any movies.”

“They didn't care about that. They didn't want their names on anythin'. What they liked to do was work with the new editors—the greenhorns. Or with real goof-offs. And then they'd just sort of take over the job. See, they was real good, real sharp, I have to admit. Fast and good. And they was always hangin' around, givin' advice. Well, Heinzy give advice. Franzy—I never heard him say a word. A real spook he was. So people let 'em do this an' that. Especially with the cheapies. Nobody cared who worked on the cheapies.”

“The studio let them get away with that?”

“Somebody
in the studio let 'em.
Somebody
was keepin' 'em on the payroll.”

“Who?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?”

“Which studio did they work for?”

“All
the studios. Them orphans worked all over town.”

“You mean there were lots of orphans—in all the studios?”

“Not a lot. I didn't say a lot. Just enough. In just the right places to stick their noses in.”

“Why did Castle have so much to do with these orphans?”

He answered as if it were stupid to ask. “Hell, Max was an orphan himself. But he never treated me like dirt, like the rest of 'em.”

“Max was an orphan?”

“You didn't know?”

“But you said Max hated this Von Pölzig woman.”

“Right. Because Max wanted to go his own way. He wanted to make his own picture. So old bloodsucker Von Pull-zig, she got all in a huff. Snotty bitch. And, boy, did Max tell her off but good.”

“This was in that summer—1938?”

“What else're we talking about? Sure. That summer. I thought Max was gonna haul off an' pop her one.”

“Where did they have this argument?”

“I told you. In Europe there.”

“I mean, was it in Paris … ?”

“In Zurich. When we was in Zurich. That's where the head orphanage was. Christ, that was some blowup.”

“Do you remember what they said?”

“Nah! It was all in German. I couldn't pick up a word. But it was a plenty hot argument. That's when she called me a monkey. Max told me.”

“So what came of it?”

“She screwed us but good. Made sure Max couldn't raise a nickel.” Smugly, he added, “We had Garbo all lined up.”

“Greta Garbo?”

“Was there any other Garbo you ever heard of? Max had her signed on the dotted line. Then, kapoot! No dough, no Garbo.”

“You're saying that Max Castle was going to use Greta Garbo in one of his films?”

“You got it. Just her eyes. That's all he wanted. Just her eyes. We tried to set it up with her two, three times. Always fell through because of the dough. She wanted plenty. Fifty thousand bucks for maybe two, three hours of shootin'. Big money in those days.”

“So Castle never got to film her?”

“Not after Von Pull-zig put the whammy on him. Max couldn't raise that kinda money. We got the eyes. But they wasn't Garbo's eyes.”

“Whose eyes did you get?”

He gave me a foxy stare. “Guess.”

“I give up.”

“Come on. Whose eyes were next best to Garbo's? I mean if you wanted sad eyes. That's what Max wanted. Sad.”

“Really, I have no idea.”

“Ah, you don't know nothin'.” Zip was forever losing his temper with me and condemning my gross ignorance. “Sylvia Sidney. Right? I mean just the eyes up close.”

“Oh yes, now that you mention it.”

“Damn right I'm right. Shooters know eyes. That's where you get the light from inside. The eyes. Sylvia Sidney. Terrific eyes. Maybe better'n Garbo. She worked cheap too. A thousand bucks she did it for. Sweet kid. I coulda gone for her.”

“You shot her eyes, that's all?”

“Max had this thing about eyes. He collected 'em. Whenever he saw eyes he liked—like Garbo's there or Sylvia's—he tried to get 'em in front of the camera. Sometimes Max'd use a real stinky actor just cuz the guy had great eyes. Then Max'd make sure we got 'em filmed. For later.”

“Later?”

“Later in his own movies. Max was carryin' a dozen movies in his head all the time I knew him, tryin' to scratch together the cash. All he ever got done was a scene here, a scene there, couple shots of
this and that. When I started earnin' good money, I gave him lots of dough—but, hell, I was no Louis B. Mayer.”

“How was he going to use these eyes?”

“Eyes meant somethin' special to Max. Know what he said once? 'God is in the eyes. The devil too, every time you blink.' ” Zip peered sharply at me rather as if he wished I might explain the remark. When I didn't, he gave a grumpy little grunt and went on.” The eyes're the doors of heaven and hell,' he usta say.” Zip paused again, studying me, clearly hoping I'd be suitably impressed. I offered him a nod and a thoughtful “Hm.” That seemed to satisfy him. “What Max did was he snuck the eyes in behind the movie. Like in
House of Blood.
That was all eyes, in the shadows, all these doped-up actors we shot at one of Max's parties, while they was watchin' Olga do her dance.”

“Olga … that's Olga Tell?”

“None other. She was Max's lady friend. Beautiful girl.”

“What kind of dance?”

Zip's face went stone-wall blank. “None of your business, nosey!”

I quickly changed the subject. “So that's where all the eyes went—into
House of Blood?”?

“Not
all
of 'em. Some of 'em. Max and me, we had lots more. Some day he wanted to make a movie that was all eyes, nothin' but eyes. And, of course, split lightin'.”

“Oh yes … split lighting. That was one of the tricks, wasn't it?”

Zip gave an exasperated hiss. “Nah! Split lighting was just split lighting. You could lay the tricks on top of it, if you wanted. But it wasn't a trick—like the slide.”

“It was more like the flicker.”

Another testy hiss. “Jesus, no! The flicker was always there. You could split light
over
the flicker, but you didn't have to. The split lightin' was just to bring out the flicker. The flicker is basic. It's like you could say the heartbeat.
Structure
, understand? That's how Max put it. Let's see … there was structure. And there was … ” He was struggling to remember things he had memorized but never really understood. “God, I can't get it. They always used the German, you know—between themselves.
Overlay.
That's it. Structure and overlay. Tricks was overlay. They came mostly in the editin'. See, you don't have to know all that to do the shootin'.”

“So the split lighting was completely separate from the tricks?”

“Right.”

“It was a kind of lighting?”

“Right.”

“And all these things—the split lighting, the tricks—were part of the underhold?”

“Yeah … sort of.”

“And the underhold was … ?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?”

I dutifully reported all this to Clare, hoping that she'd pick up on some of what Zip left so obscure. But she knew nothing about slides and flickers and split lighting. “It sounds like a totally different species of filmmaking,” she commented, giving the remark a distinctly disapproving twist. “Makes me feel like an old bard who's being told about some newfangled kind of literature called ‘wri-ting.'”

“The trouble is,” I explained, “I don't think Zip can tell me much more than he already has. Castle hired him to shoot his films, but Zip was never in on the editing. That was always done by Castle and the Reinkings. Zip thinks it was the Reinkings who blocked him out. But I'm not sure. It might have been Castle himself. Zip can be very loyal; but I sense that Castle didn't return that trust. Incidentally, Zip shot off a lot of footage that never seemed to have much connection with the movie they were working on. Extra stuff. Often got shot at Castle's house when he gave parties. He never left any film stock over. Used it all. In fact, he'd even go around the studio begging spare stock off other directors.”

“What became of all the outtakes and extra footage?” Clare asked.

“Some of it might have gotten back to Zip, but I don't think very much. That's one of his grievances with the Reinkings. They kept a lot of what they edited for Castle.”

“What happened to them after Castle's death?”

“Zip thinks they went back to Europe after the war. By that time Zip was well installed in the studios doing major pictures. He lost touch with Castle's circle, not that he ever had much rapport with any of them.”

“But he says there were more of these orphans around?”

“That's what he remembers from when he was still working. He says he used to go out of his way to make sure none of them laid hands on any of his films. He hasn't been working for more than ten years now, so all this might have changed.”

Clare pondered my report. “Remember when we unpacked the
Judas?
There was an envelope postmarked Zurich. It said something
about orphans.
Sturmwaisen,
wasn't that it? Find out about that if you can.”

I said I'd try, but warned her, “Zip can be so touchy, especially when you get close to things he doesn't know. He gets angry and stubborn. And I think there's a lot he doesn't know.”

I brought Clare my thoughts and speculations about Castle like so many gifts, hoping, in my naive way, that my service as an intermediary would lend me intellectual stature in her eyes. If it did, she didn't let it show. In fact, it sometimes seemed that my association with Castle was driving a wedge between us—as if I were a messenger contaminated by the unwelcome intelligence I brought.

One night, before I fell asleep beside her, I heard Clare musing over her last cigarette, “Ever since I got serious about movies—the night my mother took me to see
Les Enfants du Paradis
—I knew there was something there, deeper in. Something more than the glamour, the enchantment. Behind that. A power. Anything that could reach inside and take hold of you that way … I went back to see that movie seven times. I was just a kid, but I knew the whole civilized world was going up in smoke. And here was this work of exquisite beauty, so pure, so delicate. Like a flower growing on a battlefield. It was an intellectual ecstasy. But even then, I knew there were ways that power could be twisted… .” Then, after a long pause: “Suppose you were there, Jonny, when they invented fire. Suppose some genius of the species brought you the first torch. Such a gift. But suppose you could see—right there—the ruined cities, the charred flesh, the burning battlefields. What would you do, Jonny? What would you do? Drown the fire. Kill the inventor.”

Wandering through Zip's distant and darkening memories of Max Castle was becoming more and more of a mystery tour with each visit. His recollections were forever turning into culs-de-sac, labyrinths, locked doors. His great benefactor had left him with a backlog of oracular pronouncements and baffling incidents which the little guy had been puzzling over for years. As much as anything Castle had ever put on film, it was this lingering aura of strangeness that made him special to Zip, a wizard in touch with higher powers. My problem as the intruding scholar was to decide if Castle was the sorcerer his loyal apprentice still took him to be. Or was he a carnival faker willing to exploit the easy gullibility of those who trusted him?