Read Online The Kingdom of Shadows by K. W. Jeter - Free Book Online
Authors: K. W. Jeter
Tags: Horror
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money, that made all things possible. Money that he had scrabbled together out of his dead father’s string of fleapits, jerkwater theaters with screens that were hardly more than tacked-up old bed sheets, broken-down seats that leaked scratchy horsehair and a lingering smell of urine – movie-houses that had staggered so close to the edge of bankruptcy that the only way to get something to show was for the twenty-year-old heir to make the movies himself, sticking a broken-down silents cowboy behind a rented camera and playing penny-stakes rummy all night at the developer’s lab to get reel-ends of undeveloped film to shoot with. Anything that moved, anything that people would watch, went up on the screens.
Wilson knew the rest of the story; he had known it even before he come here to work for the man. When the money started coming in, David Wise had gone on hustling and pyramiding and betting everything. More than once, he had put up ownership of all the theaters, clean ones now, palaces with chandeliers in the ladies’ rooms, all against the first weeks’ receipts on films with real actors with real names in them. Those bets had finally paid off in a studio lot scraped out of twenty acres of Southern California orange groves, with a front entrance modeled after the Arc de Triomphe , a uniformed guard at the barrier gate and the name WISE in spot-lit above.
Behind himself, Wilson heard the soft clatter of the film projector, muffled by the wall with its small inset window. Wise knew how to run the equipment himself, from his days scrabbling around, doing everything in the shabby movie-houses his father had left him. The chair next to Wilson’s creaked as Wise sat down beside him.
The screen had filled with light, shadow and form. Faces. Wilson watched, and listened to them speaking. His fatigue was deeper than he’d thought – he couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
He leaned his head toward Wise. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s a German movie.” Wise continued to gaze straight ahead at the screen. “Somebody shipped it to me.”
“Who?”
“Beats me.” The studio head shrugged. “I’ve got some contacts at the UFA studios over there. One of them must have smuggled out this print and sent it to me. I was watching it when all this other bullshit happened.”
“Great.” Wilson shook his head. “Probably some goddamn Nazi propaganda. That’s all they do over there anymore.” He’d had gone along with Wise to one of the first fundraiser parties for the Hollywood League Against Nazism. Melvyn Douglas had just gotten back from Europe, with a pile of production stills showing greasy-bearded rabbis and hook-nosed war profiteers leering at blonde Teutonic virgins, all the simple-minded caricatures that Goebbels’ pet filmmakers specialized in. He didn’t have the same aesthetic standards as his boss, but the sheer crappiness of stuff like that had put a sour taste in his mouth anyway. He didn’t care for any kind of cardboard characters, let alone ones with the word kike smeared across them. How could somebody like David Wise – Weiss, actually; that had been his grandfather’s name – watch this kind of crap?
“Shh.” Wise raised his hand and pointed. “This is what I wanted you to see.”
The dialogue had stopped for a moment. On the screen was a dirty city street, tiny little shops with signs in German; probably somewhere in Berlin, Wilson figured. A girl in a shabby coat and a cloche hat walked slowly down the street, looking into the shop windows.
The camera moved in for a tight close-up, the girl’s face mirrored faintly in the window glass. Her gold hair spilled from under the edges of the cloche.
“God, she’s lovely.” Wise leaned forward, gazing avidly at the screen.
She looked young, maybe twenty at the most – and she was beautiful, Wilson admitted to himself. Her hair looked like spun white gold. But
Wilson knew the rest of the story; he had known it even before he come here to work for the man. When the money started coming in, David Wise had gone on hustling and pyramiding and betting everything. More than once, he had put up ownership of all the theaters, clean ones now, palaces with chandeliers in the ladies’ rooms, all against the first weeks’ receipts on films with real actors with real names in them. Those bets had finally paid off in a studio lot scraped out of twenty acres of Southern California orange groves, with a front entrance modeled after the Arc de Triomphe , a uniformed guard at the barrier gate and the name WISE in spot-lit above.
Behind himself, Wilson heard the soft clatter of the film projector, muffled by the wall with its small inset window. Wise knew how to run the equipment himself, from his days scrabbling around, doing everything in the shabby movie-houses his father had left him. The chair next to Wilson’s creaked as Wise sat down beside him.
The screen had filled with light, shadow and form. Faces. Wilson watched, and listened to them speaking. His fatigue was deeper than he’d thought – he couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
He leaned his head toward Wise. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s a German movie.” Wise continued to gaze straight ahead at the screen. “Somebody shipped it to me.”
“Who?”
“Beats me.” The studio head shrugged. “I’ve got some contacts at the UFA studios over there. One of them must have smuggled out this print and sent it to me. I was watching it when all this other bullshit happened.”
“Great.” Wilson shook his head. “Probably some goddamn Nazi propaganda. That’s all they do over there anymore.” He’d had gone along with Wise to one of the first fundraiser parties for the Hollywood League Against Nazism. Melvyn Douglas had just gotten back from Europe, with a pile of production stills showing greasy-bearded rabbis and hook-nosed war profiteers leering at blonde Teutonic virgins, all the simple-minded caricatures that Goebbels’ pet filmmakers specialized in. He didn’t have the same aesthetic standards as his boss, but the sheer crappiness of stuff like that had put a sour taste in his mouth anyway. He didn’t care for any kind of cardboard characters, let alone ones with the word kike smeared across them. How could somebody like David Wise – Weiss, actually; that had been his grandfather’s name – watch this kind of crap?
“Shh.” Wise raised his hand and pointed. “This is what I wanted you to see.”
The dialogue had stopped for a moment. On the screen was a dirty city street, tiny little shops with signs in German; probably somewhere in Berlin, Wilson figured. A girl in a shabby coat and a cloche hat walked slowly down the street, looking into the shop windows.
The camera moved in for a tight close-up, the girl’s face mirrored faintly in the window glass. Her gold hair spilled from under the edges of the cloche.
“God, she’s lovely.” Wise leaned forward, gazing avidly at the screen.
She looked young, maybe twenty at the most – and she was beautiful, Wilson admitted to himself. Her hair looked like spun white gold. But
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