“Burn her up. Oh, my God, Mart—that beautiful body of hers, crumbling
to dust—and I’ve got to watch it! She made me promise I’d watch to make
sure they burned her.”
I said, “Cremation’s a clean ending, Hess. And Sandra was a clean girl,
and a damned good actress.”
He put his flushed face close to mine. “Yeah—but I’ve got to burn her
up. It’ll kill me, Mart. Oh, God!” He put the empty glass down on a
table and looked around dazedly.
I was wondering why Sandra had insisted on cremation. She’d given an
interview once in which she stressed her dread of fire. Most write-ups
of stars are applesauce, but I happened to know that Sandra did dread
fire. Once, on the set, I’d seen her go into hysterics when her leading
man lit his pipe too near her face.
“Excuse me, Mart,” Hess said. “I’ve got to get another drink.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, holding him. “You want to watch yourself, Hess.
You’ve had too much already.”
“It still hurts,” he said. “Just a little more and maybe it won’t hurt
so much.” But he didn’t pull away. Instead he stared at me with the
dullness of intoxication in his eyes. “Clean,” he said presently. “She
said that too, Mart. She said burning was a clean death. But, God, that
beautiful white body of hers—I can’t stand it, Mart! I’m going crazy, I
think. Get me a drink, like a good fellow.”
I said, “Wait here, Hess. I’ll get you one.” I didn’t add that it would
be watered—considerably.
He sank down in a chair, mumbling thanks. As I went off I felt sick. I’d
seen too many actors going on the rocks to mistake Hess’s symptoms. I
knew that his box-office days were over. There would be longer and
longer waits between pictures, and then personal appearances, and
finally Poverty Row and serials. And in the end maybe a man found dead
in a cheap hall bedroom on Main Street, with the gas on.
* * * * *
There was a crowd around the bar. Somebody said, “Here’s Mart. Hey, come
over and meet the vampire.”
Then I got a shock. I saw Jack Hardy, my host, the director with whom
I’d worked on many a hit. He looked like a corpse. And I’d seen him
looking plenty bad before. A man with a hangover, or a marijuana jag,
isn’t a pretty sight, but I’d never seen Hardy like this. He looked as
though he was keeping going on his nerve alone. There was no blood in
the man.
I’d last seen him as a stocky, ruddy blond, who looked like nothing so
much as a wrestler, with his huge biceps, his ugly, good-natured face,
and his bristling crop of yellow hair. Now he looked like a skeleton,
with skin hanging loosely on the big frame. His face was a network of
sagging wrinkles. Pouches bagged beneath his eyes, and those eyes were
dull and glazed. About his neck a black silk scarf was knotted tightly.
“Good God, Jack!” I exclaimed. “What have you been doing to yourself?”
He looked away quickly. “Nothing,” he said bruskly. “I’m all right. I
want you to meet the Chevalier Futaine—this is Mart Prescott.”
“Pierre,” a voice said. “Hollywood is no place for titles. Mart
Prescott—the pleasure is mine.”