Love, Action, Laughter and Other Sad Tales

by Budd Schulberg

  They kissed then, for the first time, and the driver looked around and grinned and said, “Here’s Chasen’s.”

  “Just like in the movies,” Judy laughed.

  “I haven’t felt like this since I was a kid,” Larry said as they went in. “Young-love Sammy Glick should see us now.”

  Nearly everybody who eats in places like Chasen’s watches the door, lapping up the success with their filets, eager to see the new people who are entering the charmed circle. When Larry came in with Judy on his arm, people put their heads together and wondered who they were, and one lady thought she had seen Judy at some party the week before and then Wally Connors, Judy’s boss when he was production manager for Larry on the old lot, looked up and said, “Jesus, that’s Larry Moran—haven’t seen the old cock in years.”

  Connors walked over to Larry’s table and seemed very glad to see him.

  “Hello, Larry,” he said, “where’ve you been keeping yourself?”

  “Hello, Wally old kid, I’ve been traveling,” Larry said.

  “Abroad?” Connors asked. “Why didn’t you look me up when you got back, you dog?”

  “I’ve just been traveling from one hotel to another, jumping the rent,” Larry said.

  Connors threw his big head back and roared. “Still the same old Larry Moran,” he said. “But on the level, you’re looking great. Things must be picking up for you.”

  “Can’t complain,” said Larry. “Korda wants me to make a picture in England, but you know how I feel about this town.”

  “Sure do,” said Connors. He was glancing over toward his table. He couldn’t quite make Larry out, and he’d rather let it go at that before he got involved.

  “By the way,” Larry said, “you know Miss Becker, don’t you? Used to be with us on the old lot.”

  “Of course,” said Connors, vaguely, “good to see you again.”

  There was an awkward silence. Connors glanced over at another table and waved. “There’s Lolly Parsons,” he said. “Gotta see her a minute. Give me a ring, Larry, and we’ll have lunch sometime.”

  “He and I used to be great pals,” Larry said.

  “I can see that,” Judy said.

  “See,” said Larry, “they still come over to me—we’re in, kid.”

  He picked up the menu and read it from cover to cover. It gave him a kick to see those prices again. Then he beckoned the waiter with an authoritative wave.

  “Why isn’t the 1931 Liebfraumilch on the wine list?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the waiter answered, “we have the 1933.”

  “But the 1931 is the best year,” Larry said triumphantly.

  Larry leaned back. He had won his right to belong again. He ordered the ’33 and lobster Thermidor. He squeezed Judy’s hand. “Baby,” he said, “I haven’t felt so good in years.”

  “You didn’t have to order all that,” she said, “it’s too expensive. We don’t need all that stuff to have a good time.”

  She was wondering how he could afford it. He told her not to worry, just leave everything to him.

  Larry was getting drunk, and pretty soon Judy had a glow on too, and more people stopped over to say hello, and Larry leaned back very full and comfortable. He was beginning to feel his old warmth.

  He asked for a phone extension and called Ciro’s and said, “Reserve a table for two for Mr. Larry Moran,” and he hung up and blew Judy a kiss.

  Judy was drunk, not from wine but from the exquisite illusion of being out with the Larry Moran they all wanted to know. And I always thought I was a little too heavy to play Cinderella, she smiled at herself in her little makeup mirror.

  “Snap out of it, Judy girl,” Larry said. “You’re a million miles away.”

  And Judy snapped, giving herself to the moment. She’d forgot about thinking, she wouldn’t look before or after. “I’m right with you, Larry boy,” she said. “Have you heard the one about the Polish starlet who went to bed with the writer …?”

  They both howled then, and started out, Larry yelling back to the headwaiter, “Next time have that 1931.” And they roared with laughter, all the way out to the taxi. “Next stop, Ciro’s,” Larry shouted, “and step on it, we open the show!”

  “Young love, action, music and laughter, yowzer!” Larry Louis-Armstronged, and then he sang the words in time to the radio, “Young-love, action-and-music, laughter, do-dee-o-do. Can you imagine that little shrimp saying I don’t know anything about young-love, action-and-music, laugh-ter? Wait’ll I get one good picture under my belt, I’ll show that little worm—I wouldn’t have him as my office boy. Judy baby, you brought me luck—I love you, we’ll knock this town dead.”

  “We?” Judy asked.

  “Damn right!” said Larry, “we’re made for each other. We’ll fly down to Tijuana tonight and get hitched.”

  “Kiss me,” Judy said.

  “Are ya happy, honey? Say something.”

  “Hold me, Larry,” she said. “Just hold me.”

  Ciro’s was filling up. There was an air to that place with its smart patterns of black and white, the rustle of evening gowns, the seminude cigarette girls, the tailored moguls and their panting stooges, ingratiating agents doing business after dark, beautiful women with wet lips and cool mascara still searching for something, and poised ladies who had arrived, leaning back to watch the procession. With a well-practiced professional grin, the bandleader was driving his musicians through an impassioned cha-cha-cha.

  It was not quite real, this topsy-turvy world into which Larry and Judy entered, holding hands and laughing—laughing because all of a sudden life was just too funny for words.

  They were led to a table in a corner, ordered more wine and joined the dancers on the floor. As they whirled, they were tighter and tighter together until they almost fell. Somebody said, “If that’s what you want to do there’s a motel across the street.” It was Tony Kreuger, the tough little kid who used to be California lightweight champ until he met Sammy Glick and found out it was a softer racket to be a ten-percenter.

  Larry and Judy just laughed at Tony, and Tony didn’t like it. But he didn’t know who Larry was so he couldn’t come on too strong until he found out.

  Now Larry was making love out loud to Judy, and the waiters smiled, and Judy shook her finger, but Larry only kissed it noisily, saying, “We got a right—this is our engagement party! Hey, waiter, another bottle of champagne for me and the bride.”

  When they got up to dance again, they noticed that Tony Kreuger was sitting right behind them with a blond showgirl.

  “Those guys give me a royal pain,” Larry said. “Just another Hollywood tough guy. Like to see him get tough with me.”

  When the floor show began, Larry didn’t bother watching it, he was too busy watching Judy. His eyes made love to Judy.

  “As soon as this is over,” he said, “as soon as they wrap up the floor show we’re heading for the last round-up.”

  Tony Kreuger looked over and glared. He had found out who Larry was. “Shut up,” he growled.

  Larry stiffened. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “Don’t give me that act,” Tony said. “I heard all about you from Sammy Glick. Just because he’s nice enough to give you a handout today you think you can come here and be a big shot.”

  This was a shock to Judy. She must have loved Larry from way back because she still didn’t pity him; she understood—nothing was going to come between them.

  “Larry, sit down,” she begged.

  Her voice pierced the fog that was settling around his head.

  “Sorry, baby,” he said. “Let’s blow—let’s have some fun.”

  Tony felt very proud of himself; his eyes shone like a cat’s.

  Larry staggered out, Judy trying to help him without appearing to. They tumbled into the taxi, and Larry pulled all the bills he had left out of his pocket and told Judy to count them. She did, fearfully. There were fifty dollars left; she would like
to tell him to save them, to take it easy, but there was no time, no time like the present, no time but this for young love, action, music and laughter; time was ticking, time was chasing itself around the block; last call for fun. So she shut her eyes again, they would loop the last loop together, and she said, “Fifty bucks, honey,” and he grinned and yelled two loud words to the driver, “Clover Club,” and he grabbed her chin and kissed her possessively and said, “Now we’re gonna see some action!”

  And Judy said, “I’m right with you.” If Larry was going to lose his last fifty bucks, he was going to lose sight of Tony Kreuger, too. This night he would lose his shame and his weariness. Judy was with him. She was going to hold on to him; he could lose everything but her.

  The Clover Club was one of those quiet, swanky places where big men threw away big money with such ease you forget it was money at all. It was very exclusive, for they had to be careful whom they took their money from. Larry and Judy climbed the steps to the door, and a dark face looked out at them from a peephole.

  The face said, “Sorry, boss, don’t know you.”

  Larry said. “That’s your fault, I’m Larry Moran.”

  The face was puzzled. It said, “Wait a minute,” and disappeared.

  In a moment it bobbed up again with another face. The new face started out more diplomatically. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t get the name.”

  “You better get the name,” Larry said, “Or you’ll get a lot more than that.”

  Larry pranced on the step like a mad bull; he puffed fury into the air; he held his head high in the air and looked down on these guardians of the gate.

  He had won. He heard the bolt sliding and the knob turning. The big door swung open to them.

  Inside, Hollywood was having an expensive good time. Larry stormed in; Judy thought he would make everybody look at him. She caught a glimpse of Wally Connors, and there was Sammy Glick, but Hollywood has always suffered from convenient nearsightedness. Nobody turned, nobody seemed to look, the rhythm of the Clover Club flowed on unchanged.

  Larry shouldered his way into the crowd at the roulette table and asked Judy, “When’s your birthday, child?” “August fourteenth,” she said, and without hesitating he put five one-dollar chips on it.

  The wheel spun and the little ball did its dance.

  The wheel slowed, the little ball let each number catch it for a moment, then jumped away again, like a flirtatious girl, until it hopped securely into the arms of fourteen.

  Judy said, “Try twenty-eight, that’s the year we first met,” and the wheel spun once, and spun again. But twenty-eight didn’t seem to show, and Judy was nervous—it had to for her sake; and the third time the ball leaped in, as if it knew it was overdue.

  The wall of blue chips in front of Larry was growing higher. The man next to him said, “You’re getting to them,” and Judy noticed that several others looked over. Larry hadn’t time to look up.

  Then Larry put all forty blue chips on red, the whole stack, and the weasel looked up in appreciation. And Judy prayed, and red it was, four hundred dollars in chips, sliding across the table to them; that little ball was human, it understood them, and knew their needs.

  Larry and Judy and the wheel were going crazy; they were all spinning around together; they were hoping to spin forever. It seemed to Judy that they were out in a wonderful sort of snowstorm; it was snowing blue chips that would become a great fortress to protect them against the world.

  When Judy saw the wall of blue chips grow higher and higher, she asked, then begged, “Let me cash in half of that for you—and play with the rest. Let’s see what it looks like—in real money.”

  She came back from the cashier’s with a thousand dollars in cash—two five-hundred-dollar bills that first felt cool and crisp and then grew warmer and warmer until her hand began to perspire from their heat.

  Back at the table Larry was drawing a crowd. A waiter was serving Scotch-and-sodas, courtesy of the house. The Bern-heimers who owned this elegant casino—illegal but winked at by the local DA—only did this for their best customers. Larry drank his quickly, too quickly Judy thought, and sprinkled chips across the board like seeds. He and Judy were the center of a circle of amazement and envy. “Who is this lucky sonofabitch?” somebody asked. Someone thought he was a big developer from the east. Someone else had heard he had made millions running in booze from Canada in the Prohibition days. Then Sammy Glick came up behind him, watched him hit again, watched him take another highball from the tray, and said, “You don’t know who that is? Larry Moran. The director. He was in my office just today. One of my oldest friends.”

  Larry was ahead three thousand and the wheel was still spinning. Wally Connors said, “Larry—he’s been making pictures in England. Helluva guy, Larry. One o’ my favorite people.” And he went through the room proclaiming to everyone that his pal Larry Moran was hitting the wheel like his feet were attached to secret pedals and he owned it.

  The name was hoisted above the room like a flag. Larry Moran had ten thousand dollars. Everybody saluted.

  “It’s time to cash in,” Judy said.

  She was right. The room was buzzing with Larry Moran. With every moment and every dollar he was becoming a better director. “He can still do a better job than half these punks drawing down big dough,” one producer said. “He had a great touch,” another said.

  “The touch of a winner c’n make a lousy actress look good.” The old producer came up to him and shook his hand. “Congratulations, Larry,” he said, “glad to see you back. I’ve got a hunch Hollywood needs you more than England does. How would you like to meet me at the Vendome tomorrow at one o’clock?”

  “Okay, pal, you got it.” Larry said. This time the ball bounced out of fourteen, but what’s a hundred dollars?

  “Why, hello, Mr. Glick,” Judy said.

  It was Sammy. He put his arm around Larry and whispered into his ear.

  “Listen,” he said. “I happened to hear what A.D. said to you. How about dropping into my office first, about ten? I may have something hot for you.”

  Larry nodded. The wheel was still spinning. He was hot. He would rub one producer against another like flints. He would start a real fire again.

  Judy’s “cash in” seemed to be lost in the buzz of excitement building in volume around Larry. Like a star down front center stage, he took a stack of blue chips and set them on fourteen again. A blonde, a little tipsy, a bit player hungry for stardom, leaned over and kissed Larry on the check and set a few chips on top of his. “Lucky you, lucky me, baby,” she said.

  The little blonde took the loss of her chips like a good sport. “Lose some, win some,” she said, moving in between Larry and Judy, handing Larry another drink and taking one herself. “My name is Penny. Your lucky Penny. My birthday’s June sixth. Sixth month, sixth day. Let’s play her together, honey.”

  “Larry, it’s time to cash in,” Judy said, trying to push between them. “Cash in, Larry.”

  “Spoilsport,” Penny said. “Party-pooper. Go away. We’re havin’ fun.”

  This time the little ball came to rest on double-zero. The croupier raked in Larry’s stack of chips. “Double zero.” Judy said to the blonde. “That’s your birthday. Double-zero.”

  When Larry blew another stack, and then another, the little blonde pouted. “Boo hoo, there goes my paycheck,” and then eyeing Larry’s dwindling but still substantial stack, “You give Penny five o’ yours, I’ll win it back. When’s your birthday?”

  “He already played his birthday, and won,” Judy said. “You only have one birthday a year.”

  Larry looked over at her, almost as if he had forgotten she was there.

  “I need that grand,” he said.

  Judy’s hand tightened around the bills. “No, Larry, please.”

  “My dough,” he said. His words were beginning to thicken. “Give it to me, Judy. Gotta get more chips.”

  People were beginning to notice them, in a different w
ay. Some edged away. Nobody likes trouble. Especially in a casino. Things have got to flow nice. Nice when the money flows in. Flows in flows out. But don’t make waves.

  Judy wanted to put that money in a bank for Larry. Give him some breathing time. Space to move back into the stream again. But Larry didn’t have a bank. He had a few chips in his hand and the wheel and his head were spinning together. When Judy held back he made a sudden move, grabbed the bills from her hand, and asked the croupier to turn them into chips to be placed on lucky numbers and rebuild the blue castle around them.

  Judy wasn’t a partner anymore, merely a bystander, a witness to a night of wonders turning into a horror show, like the old Academy Award winner she had seen, the splendid Dr. Jekyll becoming the grotesque Mr. Hyde.

  Ten by ten and then five by five the blue chips, as if drawn to a magnet in the croupier’s hand, moved back across the board from Larry’s dwindling pile. Judy watched and felt hopeless as five hundred dollars’ worth of new chips followed the other back to the croupier.

  Larry just shrugged, had another drink and tried again, and again. He looked around for his little blonde mascot but Penny had moved on. David Selznick had just came in and he was flashing money at the crap table and beginning to draw a crowd. Judy didn’t really have to look around to know what was happening. The little blonde knew her Hollywood. D.O.S., as the insiders called him, was hot and famous after Gone With the Wind, and now with a new hit with Hitch … “Hey, David,” she was saying, “remember me, at the Spiegel party? Penny—I’m your lucky Penny …”

  All the chips he had left Larry could hold in his own hand now. His eyes were a little glassy and the big smile of the early winner now seemed to be frozen on his face. Wally Connors glanced over at him and said to a friend, “Well, I guess once a lush, always a lush.” Other players at the table drew away from him as if he were suddenly infected with a deadly disease. No sweet smell here. The sour odor of failure. The Hollywood disease. Worse than TB in the old days. Worse than VD terminal.