I bent over and kissed her. “You just make sure you’re all right.”
The doors opened and the nurse began to push her into the elevator. “I’ll be all right. Just look out for yourself. Don’t go getting into any trouble now, hear?”
“I hear,” I said as the doors closed.
I walked down the corridor to the room they called The Club. There were several other expectant fathers there. They looked up as I came into the doorway. I took one look around and went back outside. I didn’t feel much like sitting with them. They looked too grim.
I went downstairs and bought another pack of cigarettes. I lit one and puffed a few times, the put it out. I walked down the corridor.
I walked back upstairs to The Club. Even those grim faces were better than nobody.
“Nine hours I been here already,” one man said to me as I sat down.
“Yeah,” I said, lighting a cigarette. I looked around the room. All the stock cartoons were on the wall—“We haven’t lost a father yet.” Very funny.
A nurse came into the doorway and all our faces turned toward her as if we were puppets. “Mr. Carey?” she asked.
“That’s me,” I said, getting to my feet. I felt kind of lightheaded.
“Of all the damn luck,” I heard the man mutter. “I been here nine hours an’ he’s only been here five minutes!”
The nurse heard him too for she smiled as she walked toward me. “That’s right,” she nodded. “You’re a very lucky man… .”
Jann’s Notes
Ayn Rand, author of Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, was quoted as saying, “Harold Robbins has the most cinematic eye of any author I have ever read. He makes the reader feel he is in the room where the scene takes place.”
Harold Robbins was quoted when discussing his writing with a group of students at NYU, “for me, the goal is always to make the page disappear and speak to my reader face to face as each character comes to life …” Over 750 million readers have had that most intimate experience with Harold Robbins.
After the tremendous success of 79 Park Avenue as a book, it was brought to life in a mini-series in 1977. It was the most highly rated mini-series of its time, starring Leslie Anne Warren, and was scheduled for a sequel. Unfortunately, the star opted not to play the leading role and we never discovered the conclusion of 79 Park Avenue. Maybe the “madam for the elite … the rich and famous politicos, celebrities, diplomats, billionaires” will once again appear to tell us her final chapter.
The Adventurers movie is sold on the Paramount Video Web site. At the time it was produced, it was the most expensive movie ever filmed. “An underrated film and book that shares themes with works like Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum, the overbearing melancholic truths of The Adventurers evoke both a crippling sadness for humanity and a hope for future generations …” Sounds like Harold Robbins may have written this book for our time now in the twenty-first century. This story stands the test of time, selling over 10 million copies worldwide.
Although the screenplay for The Adventurers movie is credited to Michael Hastings and Lewis Gilbert, at one point John Michael Hayes and Harold Robbins himself were set to do the adaptation. Harold Robbins did adapt The Adventurers from his novel for the screen. He sent the script to Lewis Gilbert, the director of the film, and received a call in the middle of the night at his home in Le Cannet, France. Gilbert screamed into the phone, “You’re fired, Robbins … this screenplay is too bloody, too sexy and too much like the book!” He hung up, and that was the end of Harold’s screenwriting career.
LOOK FOR
HAROLD ROBBINS’
SPECTACULAR NOVELS
Descent from Xanadu
Spellbinder
Goodbye, Janette
Memories of Another Day
Dreams Die First
The Lonely Lady
The Pirate
The Inheritors
The Adventurers
Where Love Has Gone
The Dream Merchants
Never Love a Stranger
Available From AuthorHouse
Table of Contents
Where Love Has Gone
CONTENTS
THE PURPOSE OF JUVENILE COURT LAW.
PART ONE
1
2
3
4
PART TWO
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
PART THREE
1
2
3
4
5
PART FOUR
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
PART FIVE
1
2
3
4
Where Love Has Gone (1962) Page 35