Flicker (28 page)

There was one talk I had with Zip that managed to distill the enigmatic essence of his relationship with Castle. It raised a multitude of questions which, as usual, I stored away to be taken up later when I judged that Zip might be more forthcoming. But this time the questions would go permanently unanswered. Zip and I would never talk again.

We were watching Castle's final movie,
Axis Agent.
Since Zip didn't assist on the film, he hadn't been able to get hold of a good print. That made him reluctant to screen the picture. He was as sensitive to bad film as Clare. Twice before we'd gotten about a half hour into a less than perfect print, only to have him petulantly order Yoshi to stop. “I shoulda scrapped this piece of
dreck
years ago,” he muttered. And back into the can it went.

This time we got through to the end, but it wasn't worth the time. Even making allowances for the inferior quality of the print, it was clear that this was among Castle's least distinguished efforts, bearing none of his artistic trademarks. Zip was sure the movie had been batted out in less than ten days and that a few other hands had patched it over here and there. In passing, I tossed off the observation I remembered Clare making the first time she saw the film—that there was a great deal in
Axis Agent
Castle had borrowed from
Citizen
Kane.
“I guess he was so rushed he had to lift a few things.” I meant no disrespect by the remark, but at once Zip began to fume.

“Lift?” He turned on me with such pique that he immediately crumpled up in a spasm of coughing. I waited for him to continue. “Max never lifted nothin', junior. You got it exactly vicey-versy. Orson, he lifted from Max.”

I'd learned not to contradict him too sharply, so I assumed an objectively inquisitive air. “Oh? Do you think so? But I thought
Citizen Kane
was completed before this film.”

“Course it was.”

“Then how could Orson Welles have lifted anything from
Axis Agent
?”

“He didn't, dumb-dumb. Not from the movie. From the horse's own mouth.” When I didn't register comprehension, Zip blew out an exasperated sigh. “Boy, talkin' to you is like talkin' to a bowl of chop suey. Orson lifted from Max
direct
is what I'm tellin' you. The two of them, they had their heads together all the time Orson was makin' the movie. That Orson, he was some good listener. Picked up on every word Max said. And he was gettin' it all free of charge, just for the cost of the booze. That's how hungry Max was to get in on a first-class production.”

“You're telling me Castle assisted on
Citizen Kane?”

“What d'you mean 'assisted'? You ever hear anybody say Thomas Edison 'assisted' on the light bulb? Sure, Orson was a bright kid. But he didn't know beans about makin' movies when he come to RKO. Of course he had the instinct, you know? But without Max—and without Gregg Toland on the camera there—he woulda never got outa the bush leagues, believe me.”

“Well, I'm certainly impressed to hear all this.”

“Oh you are, are you, smarty-pants? Prob'ly you think that's some big deal, huh? Well, lemme tell you:
Citizen Kane
was second-best.”

“What do you mean?”

“Citizen Kane
wasn't what Max and Orson had in mind, not first off. First choice was the real lalapoloosa. And you know who woulda shot that one?
Me,
that's who. And, boy, it woulda stood your ears on end.”

“What movie are you talking about, Zip?”

He passed me a cagey little squint.
“Hearta Darkness.
You ever hear of that? High-class literature. Joseph Comrade.”

“Conrad.”

“Yeah, well, whichever, that was number one top of the list. Max wanted to make that picture so bad. For years he wanted to make it, long as I knew him. He had this script he was promotin' all over the place, ever since he come from Germany. Nobody'd give him a tumble. Then Orson shows up in town, the fair-haired boy. He could write his own ticket. Studio big shots were standin' in line to give him money. But who's the first person he wants to see? Max Castle, you bet. ‘They want me to make a movie,' he says. And what does Max do? Hands him the script. 'Make
Hearta Darkness,'
he tells Orson. 'You're the only one who can.' So Orson says, 'Great idea.' Smart boy he was. Knew a good thing when it fell in his lap. Spent his whole first year at RKO workin' on it with Max. Then, blooey! Studio puts the kibosh on it. And after all the shootin' Max and me did.”

“You shot material for
Heart of Darkness?”

“Didn't I just say so? And it wasn't easy, believe me. We were chasin' all over Mexico, sweatin' our balls off. Jeez, they got mosquitoes down there big as airplanes.”

“Mexico?”

“Sure. For the jungle stuff.
Hearta Darkness,
that means the jungle, see? The jungle, that's the star of the movie. That's how Max saw it. Savage, you know. Like every minute it was gonna jump off the screen and eat you alive. I guess we really didn't have to go on location, but Max didn't wanna shoot around the studio. Didn't want nobody breathin' down our neck. And Orson, he had money to burn, right? So off we go to … where the hell was it? Yucatán, yeah. Nearly a month we were down there.”

“What were you filming?”

“Like I said: the jungle. What the hell else is there to film in Yucatán? The jungle and the natives there. The Indians. Mean-lookin' buggers they were. Never wanted to turn my back on 'em. But Max slipped 'em some firewater and got 'em to do these dances. Wow, some dances. I filmed 'em, but believe you me, I was scared shitless. It was bad enough shootin' all those eyes. But those dances, I tell you I was shakin' so hard, I just about couldn't keep the camera steady. And I had to do all this hand-held stuff right in close. Boy!”

“You filmed their eyes?”

“Yeah. Mostly that's what Max wanted. Like in
House of Blood,
but lots scarier. He was gonna fill the whole jungle with eyes. I musta shot two, three reels of these Indian faces. They had real dangeroustype
eyes, especially the hungry ones. They didn't like us bein' there, you could tell. You could feel it comin' at you like poison arrows. That's what Max was after.”

“But you never got the chance to use any of this footage?”

“Nope. And that ain't all the shootin' we did, either. We did plenty back at the studio. The stuff with Olga.”

“Olga Tell, Max's girlfriend?”

“Yeah. Olga was a damn good sport, I can tell you. She'd do anythin' Max wanted. Sure as hell nobody else would do those scenes except some … well, that's not what Olga was. She was a good girl. Maybe a little wild—like, you know, these European girls are.”

“What scenes are you talking about?” I asked.

Zip's voice dropped into a near whisper. “Weird stuff. Weird.” Then, as if I'd made some challenging response, he snapped, “Hey, don't get no fancy ideas, sonny. It wasn't porn. Max never shot anything dirty. No sir! This was artistic, understand. Like in paintings with naked ladies.” By now I'd learned that Zip was always somewhere in the middle of a private argument, part of a script that had been playing inside his head for years and which had little to do with anything I said.

“Of course it was artistic,” I hastened to agree. “But what was it, exactly?”

“It was gonna be a movie inside a movie inside a movie, you get me? Nobody but Max could pull off somethin' like that—if they ever let him, which they didn't, so he couldn't. 'They're never gonna get to the bottom of this one if they dig a hundred years'—that's what Max said. He was gonna use all his tricks. See, he thought maybe this was his last chance to do good work, by latchin' on to Orson there. Only he didn't get his chance. Damn orphans saw to that. They aced Max out but good. No
Hearta Darkness,
the front office says. But it was the orphans pullin' their strings. Max knew. He was on their shit list and they were gonna keep him there just grindin' out the crud—like this here
Axis Agent.
Max, he was at the end of his rope. That's how come he started shootin' off his mouth every which way. He just didn't give a damn anymore. Like with Huston there. That's what really cooked old Maxy's goose, that goddam
Maltese Falcon.”

“Castle and Huston were friends?”

“Like
that
they were. Big drinkin' buddies. See, after
Hearta Darkness
crashed, Max was just about at rock bottom. He was practically
beggin' for work. Orson woulda took him on as assistant somethin' or other for
Citizen Kane,
but the studio wouldn't go for that, not after all the dough Max burned up in Mexico. So Max starts feedin' Huston all this stuff for
The Maltese Falcon.
The
real
story, you know.” This came with a knowing wink. I had no idea what I was supposed to know, but I winked back anyway. “He was hopin' Huston could get him in on the picture someways. Huston tried, but it was no go. Max was gettin' froze out all over town.”

“The real story. Was there a real story? I mean Sam Spade was fictitious, wasn't he?”

Zip wagged his head in disgust with my utter and unforgivable stupidity. “Not Sam Spade, dummy! I'm talkin' about the bird. The black bird. That goes way back. To Malta. You know, these knight guys in the iron clothes.”

Zip was doing his best to sound impressively knowledgeable, but I could tell he was balancing on the edge of total ignorance. “Do you mean the Templars?”

Amazement flashed across his face. “You know about them, huh?” I sensed that Zip, suspecting I might know the answers to questions that had been haunting him for years, would have liked to ask me who these Templars were. I hoped he wouldn't. He didn't. Restraining his curiosity, he continued. “Course, Huston never used any of that stuff. I guess it wouldn't've fit too good in the movie he was makin'. Or maybe when he woke up next morning he was too hung over to remember what Max told him. But it sure got the orphans plenty steamed when they heard how Max was blabberin' away all over the lot. That's when they started sweet-talkin' him about comin' back so they could talk over a deal. Fat chance they was goin' to give Max any money.”

“Back? To Germany?”

“To Zurich. To the head orphanage there. Ain't you listenin' at all? I told Max not to go. I told him the whole thing sounded fishy. But he wouldn't listen, he was so sore. A showdown, that's what he said he was after. Either they pony up the dough, he says,
or else.
Toward the end there, Max wasn't thinkin' too straight. He was drinkin' a lot, makin' all kinda threats. You don't mess with those orphans like that. They're mean, mean as hell.”

“What exactly was he threatening to do?”

“Spill the beans.”

“What beans?”

“All the inside dope, the secret stuff.”

“What secret stuff?”

There was another of those strained, embarrassed pauses. Then: “Wouldn't you like to know?”

I moved to another position. “I'd love to see some of this film you shot in Mexico.”

“Oh yeah? Well, you're not gonna. So there.” He drilled me with a defiant stare, then melted into a sad grumble. “What I got left ain't worth lookin' at. Didn't even get it composited.”

Composited
. I gathered the word was another item in Castle's private cinematic vocabulary. What did it mean? I asked Zip. As usual, he answered as if I was forcing him to repeat the point. “You know—composited.” He made an odd little gesture with his hands, one on top of the other, fingers knitted together. “That's what the editors did. Otherwise all you got is like an assembly print, see? It's all there, but it ain't … composited. Besides, what I got left ain't even all there. Best stuffs gone for good, and there wasn't much of that.”

“Gone where?”

“Fish food. Bottom of the sea. Like I told you, the orphans said they wanted to talk money. So Max brung the film along to show 'em. Got torpedoed with him.” Zip's voice fell away into a hushed tone. “If you ask me, they wouldn't've let Max come back anyway, even if he ever got there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think they were out to finish him off once and for all.”

“You think they were that displeased with him?”

“Hell yes. Max was breakin' his vows.”

“Vows?”

“You never heard of vows? Like in church? Don't you go to some kinda church?”

“I meant what vows was Castle breaking?”

“That was between him and the orphans. None of my business. All I know is Max, he just wanted to make movies, real good movies. But that's not what the orphans cared about. What they wanted was for him to sneak all this propaganda of theirs into the camera.”

“Propaganda?”

“Secret propaganda. The kind you can't see is even there. Like I showed you with the sallyrand.”

“What good is propaganda you can't see?”

Zip goggled at me in amazement. “That's the best kind. Which is the
worst
kind. Cuz it sneaks up on you, see?”

“What was this propaganda trying to get across?”

Suddenly Zip flushed with anger. “Not like what you're thinkin', sonny,” he snapped.

“I'm not thinking anything,” I protested. “I'm just trying to understand you, Zip.”

“Max was no Nazi, get me? He wasn't nothin' political—like them orphans.”

“The orphans were Nazis?”

Zip glared at me. “Did I say so?”

“Well, no, but … ”

“Well, just stop the hell jumpin' the gun. They weren't Nazis, but they were pullin' for the Nazis, see?”

“But why?”

“Because they wanted to prove their point, and they didn't care how.”