"Those were the good old days," Aida said. "We'll never see them again."
"Why did you close down?" Jennie asked curiously.
"There were several reasons," Aida said seriously, turning to Jennie. "After and during the war, there was too much free competition. It seemed as if every girl was determined to give it away. And it simply became too difficult to find girls who were interested and dedicated enough in their work to measure up to the high standards I wanted to maintain. All they were interested in was being whores. Since I didn't need the money, I closed up."
"Aida's a very wealthy woman. She put all her money into real estate and apartment houses, here and in most of the big cities around the country." Standhurst looked over at her. "Just about what are you worth right now, Aida?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "About six million dollars, give or take a little," she said casually. "Thanks to you and a few good friends like you."
Standhurst grinned. "Now are you still determined to go back to the hospital?"
Jennie didn't answer.
"Well, Jennie?" he asked.
Jennie stared at him, then at Aida. They were watching her intently. She started to speak but no words came to her lips.
Mrs. Schwartz reached over suddenly and patted her hand reassuringly. "Give her a little time to think it over, Charlie," she said gently. "It's a decision a girl has to make for herself."
There was a curiously fond look in Standhurst's eyes as he smiled at Jennie. "She'll have to make up her mind pretty soon," he said softly. "There isn't that much time left."
He didn't know it then, but there were exactly two days.
He turned his head to watch her as she came into his room two mornings later. "I think I’ll stay in bed today, Jennie," he said in a low voice. Drawing the drapes back from the windows, she looked at him in the light that spilled across the bed. His face was white and the skin parchment-thin over the bones. He kept his eyes partly closed, as if the light hurt them.
She crossed to the side of the bed and looked down. "Do you want me to call the doctor, Charlie?"
"What could he do?" he asked, a faint line of perspiration appearing on his forehead. She picked up a small towel from the bedside table and wiped his face. Then she pulled down the blanket and lifted his old-fashioned nightshirt. Quickly she replaced the waste pouch and saw his eyes dart to the pouch as she covered him. She picked up the waste bag and went into the bathroom.
"Pretty bad?" he asked, his eyes on her face, when she returned.
"Pretty bad."
"I know," he whispered. "I looked before you came in. It was as black as the hubs of hell."
She slipped an arm behind him and held him up as she straightened his pillow. She let him sink back gently. "I don't know. Some mornings I've seen it worse."
"Don't kid me." He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "I got a hunch today's the day," he whispered, his eyes on her face.
"You'll feel better after I get some orange juice into you."
"The hell with that," he whispered vehemently. "Who ever heard of going to hell on orange juice? Get me some champagne!"
Silently she put down the orange juice and picked up a tall glass. She filled it with cubes from the Thermos bucket and poured the champagne over it. Putting the glass straw into the glass, she held it for him.
"I can still hold my own drink," he said.
The teletype in the corner of the room began to chatter. She walked over to look at it. "What is it?"
"Some speech Landon made at a Republican dinner last night."
"Turn it off," he said testily.
He held out the glass to her and she took it and put it back on the table. The telephone began to ring. She picked it up. "It's the feature editor in L.A.," she said. "He's returning the call you made to him yesterday."
"Tell him I want Dick Tracy for the paper out here." She nodded and repeated the message into the telephone and hung up. She turned back and saw his face was covered with perspiration again.
"Your son Charles made me promise to call him if I thought it was necessary."
"Don't," he snapped. "Who needs him here to gloat over me? The son of a bitch has been waiting around for years for me to kick off. He wants to get his hands on the papers." He chuckled soundlessly. "I’ll bet the damn fool has the papers come out for Roosevelt the day after the funeral."
A spasm of pain shot through him and he sat up suddenly, almost bolt upright, in the bed. "Oh, Jesus!" he said, clutching at his belly. Instantly, her arm was around his shoulders, supporting him, while with her other hand, she reached for a syrette of morphine. "Not yet, Jennie, please."
She looked at him for a moment, then put the syrette back on the table. "All right," she said. "Tell me when."
He sank back against the pillow and she wiped his face again. He closed his eyes and lay quietly for a moment. Then he opened them and there was a look of terror in them she had never seen before. "I feel like I'm choking!" he said, sitting up, his hand over his mouth.
Quickly, without turning around, she reached for the drain pan on the table behind her and held it under his mouth. He coughed and heaved and brought up a black brackish bile. She put down the pan and wiped his mouth and chin and let him sink to the pillow again.
He looked up at her through tear-filled eyes, trying to smile. "Christ," he whispered hoarsely. "That tasted like my own piss!"
She didn't answer and he closed his eyes wearily. She could see him shiver under the onslaught of the pain. After a few minutes, he spoke without opening his eyes. "You know, Jennie," he whispered, "I thought the sweetest agony I’d ever know was coming. But going's got it beat a million miles."
He opened his eyes and looked at her. The terror was gone from them and a deep, wise calm had taken its place. He smiled slowly. "All right, Jennie," he whispered, looking into her eyes. "Now!"
Her eyes still fastened to his, she reached behind her for a syrette. Automatically she found the sunken vein and squeezed the syrette dry. She picked up another. He smiled again as he saw it in her hand. "Thanks, Jennie," he whispered.
She bent forward and kissed the pale, damp forehead. "Good-by, Charlie."
He leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes as she plunged the second syrette into his arm. Soon there were six empty syrettes lying on the cover of the bed beside him. She sat there very quietly, her fingers on his pulse, as the beat grew fainter and fainter. At last, it stopped completely. She stared down at him for a moment, then pressed down the lids over his eyes and drew the cover over his face.
She got to her feet, putting the syrettes into her uniform pocket as she wearily crossed the room and picked up the telephone.
The butler met her in the hallway as she was going to her room. He had an envelope in his hand. "Mr. Standhurst asked me to give this to you, Miss Denton. He gave it to me before you came on duty this morning."
"Thank you, Judson." She closed the door behind her and tore open the envelope as she crossed the room. Enclosed were five thousand-dollar bills and a small note in his scratchy handwriting.
Dear Jennie,
By now you must understand the reason I wanted you to stay with me. One thing I could never understand is that false mercy so many proclaim while prolonging the agony of approaching death.
Enclosed find your severance pay. You may use it as you will – to provide for a rainy day while you continue to waste your life in the generally unrewarding care of others; or, if you've half the intelligence I give you credit for and are half the woman I think, you'll use it as tuition to Aida's school, which for the sake of a better name I shall call Standhurst College, and go on from there to a more luxurious manner of living.
With gratitude and affection, I remain,
Sincerely,
C. Standhurst
Still holding the note in her hand, she went to the closet and took down her valise. She placed it on the bed and slowly began to pack. Less than an hour later, she left the cab and h
urried up the steps into the church, adjusting the scarf she wore around her throat over her head. She genuflected at the back of the church and hurried down the aisle to the altar, turning left toward the statue of the Virgin.
She knelt and clasped her hands as she bowed her head for a moment. Then she turned and took a candle from the rack and held a burning taper to it before placing it among the other candles beneath the statue. Again she bowed her head and knelt for a moment, then turned and hurried back up the aisle. At the door, she dipped her fingers into the Holy Fount and blessed herself, then opened her purse and pressed a bill into the slot of the collection box.
That night, the rector had a very pleasant surprise. There, in the collection box, amidst all the silver and copper coins, was a neatly folded thousand-dollar bill.
The gray Rolls-Royce was parked in the driveway of the old house on Dalehurst Avenue in Westwood as Jennie pulled up in a cab. She got out and paid the driver, then went to the door and put her valise down as she pressed the bell.
From somewhere in the house, a chime sounded. A moment later, the door opened and a maid said, "This way, please, miss."
Aida was seated on the couch, a tray of tea and cookies on the table before her. "You can put the valise with the others, Mary."
"Yes'm," the maid said.
Jennie turned and saw the maid put her valise next to some others standing by the door. She turned back to Aida. A newspaper was open on the couch beside her, the big, black headlines staring up.
STANDHURST DEAD!
Aida got up and took her hand, gently pulling her down to the couch. "Sit down, my dear," she said softly. "I've been expecting you. We have plenty of time for a cup of tea before we go to the train."
"To the train?"
"Of course, my dear," Aida said. "We're going to Chicago. It's the only place in the United States for a girl to start her career."
12
The big twenty-four sheet from the billboard hung over the makeshift stage at the Army camp. It was an enlargement of the famous color photograph from the cover of Life magazine. Looking up at it, Jennie remembered the photographer perching precariously on the top rung of the ladder near the ceiling, aiming his camera down toward her on the bed.
From that angle, her legs had been too long and had gone out of the frame, so he'd turned her around and placed her feet up on the white satin tufted headboard. Then the flash bulb had gone off, blinding her for a moment as they always did, and history had been made.
She'd been wearing a decorously cut black lace nightgown, which covered her completely from throat to ankles. Yet it had clung so revealingly, the soft tones of her flesh glowing in contrast to the black lace, that it left nothing to the imagination – the swollen nipples, irritated by the material across her jutting breasts, the soft curve of her stomach, and the sharply rising pubis, which couldn't be hidden because of the position of her legs. Her long blond hair spilled downward over the edge of the bed and the blinding light of the flash bulb had thrown a sensual invitation into her eyes as she smiled at the invisible onlooker, upside down, from the lower-left-hand corner.
Life had published the photograph with but one word emblazoned in white block letters beneath it:
DENTON
That had been almost a year ago, in October of 1941, about the time The Sinner was having its world premiere in New York. She remembered the surprise she'd felt, walking through the lobby of the Waldorf, with Jonas at her side, coming onto rows of photographs of herself hanging across the newsstand magazine racks.
"Look," she'd said, stopping in wonder. Jonas smiled at her in that particular way which, she knew by now, meant he was particularly pleased with something. He'd crossed to the newsstand and throwing a coin down picked up the magazine from the rack. He handed it to her as they went into the elevator.
She opened the magazine on the way up. The headline loomed over the text: Spirituality in Sex.
Jonas Cord, a wealthy young man, who makes airplanes, explosives, plastics and money (see Life, Oct. '39) and, when the spirit moves him, occasionally makes a motion picture (The Renegade, 1930, Devils in the Sky, 1932), has come up with a highly personalized version, in the De Mille tradition, of the story of Mary Magdalene. He calls it, with his customary frankness, The Sinner.
Without a doubt, the single most important factor contributing to the impact of this motion picture is the impressive performance of the young woman Mr. Cord selected to play the title role, Jennie Denton.
Miss Denton, without prior experience in motion pictures or at acting, has a most newsworthy effect upon audiences. With all the overtly sexual awareness that the motions of her body (37-21-36) seem to suggest, the viewer is at the same time aware of the deeply spiritual quality that always emanates from her. Perhaps this stems from her eyes, which are wide-set and gray and deep with a knowledge and wisdom of pain and love and death, far beyond her years. In some strange manner, she appears to project the paradoxical contrasts of our times – the self-seeking aggressions of man's search for physical satisfaction and his desire for spiritual values greater than himself.
The elevator door opened and she felt Jonas' hand on her arm. She closed the magazine and they walked out of the elevator. "My God, do they really believe that?"
He smiled. "I guess they do. That's one magazine you can't buy for advertising. I told you you were going to be a star," he said as they walked into his apartment.
She was to leave for the Coast immediately after the premiere to begin another picture. She saw the script lying on the table in front of the couch. Jonas walked over and picked it up, and riffled the pages. "I don't like it."
"I don't like it, either. But Maurice says it will make a mint."
"I don't care," he said. "I just don't like the idea of you being in it." He crossed to the telephone. "Get me Mr. Bonner at the Sherry-Netherland."
"Maurice, this is Jonas," he said curtly, a moment later. "Cancel Stareyes. I don't want Denton in it."
She heard Bonner's excited protest all the way across the room. "I don't care," Jonas said. "Get someone else to play it… Who?… Hayworth, Sheridan. Anyone you want. And from now on, Denton isn't to be scheduled for any picture until I approve the script."
He put down the telephone and turned to her. He was smiling. "You hear that?"
She smiled back at him. "Yes, boss."
The photograph had been an instant success. Everywhere you went, it stared out at you – from walls, from display counters, from calendars and from posters. And she, too, had gone on to fame. She was a star and when she returned to the Coast, she found that Jonas had approved a new contract for her.
But a year had gone by, including the bombs at Pearl Harbor, and still she had made no other picture. Not that it mattered. The Sinner was in its second year at the big Norman Theater in New York and was still playing limited-first-run engagements wherever it opened. It was proving to be the biggest-grossing picture the company had ever made.
Her routine became rigid and unvarying. Between publicity appearances at each premiere, as the picture opened across the country, she remained on the Coast. Each morning, she'd go to the studio. There her day would be filled – dramatic lessons in the morning; luncheon, generally with some interviewer; voice, singing and dancing lessons in the afternoon. Her evenings were generally spent alone, unless Jonas happened to be in town. Then she was with him every night.
Occasionally, she'd have dinner with David and Rosa Woolf. She liked Rosa and their happy little baby, who just now was learning how to walk and bore the impressive name of Henry Bernard, after David's father and uncle. But most of the time she spent alone in her small house with the Mexican woman. The word was out. She was Jonas' girl. And Jonas' girl she remained.
It was only when she was with him that she did not feel the loneliness and lack of purpose that was looming larger and larger inside. She began to grow restless. It was time for her to go to work. She read scripts avidly and several times, when she though
t she'd found one she might like to do, she got in touch with Jonas. As always, he'd promise to read it and then call her several days later to say he didn't think it was right for her. There was always a reason.
Once, in exasperation, she'd asked him why he kept her on the payroll if he had nothing for her to do. For a moment, he'd been silent. When he spoke, his voice was cold and final. "You're not an actress," he said. "You're a star. And stars can only shine when everything else is right."
A few days later, Al Petrocelli, the publicity man, came to her dressing room at the studio. "Bob Hope's doing a show for the boys at Camp Pendleton. He wants you on it."
She turned on the couch on which she was sitting and put down the script she'd been reading. "I can do it?" she asked, looking at him.
They both knew what she meant. "Bonner talked to Cord. They both agreed the exposure would be good for you. Di Santis will be in charge of whipping up an act for you."
"Good," she said, getting to her feet. "It will be great having something to do again."
And now, after six weeks of extensive rehearsal of a small introductory speech and one song, which had been carefully polished, phrased and orchestrated to show her low, husky voice to its greatest advantage, she stood in the wings of the makeshift stage, waiting to go on. She shivered in the cool night air despite the mink coat wrapped around her.
She peeked out from behind the wings at the audience. A roar of laughter rolled toward her from the rows upon rows of soldiers, stretching into the night as far as the eye could see. Hope had just delivered one of his famous off-color, serviceman-only kind of jokes that could never have got on the air during his coast-to-coast broadcasts. She pulled her head back, still shivering. "Nervous, eh?" Al asked. "Never worked before an audience before? Don't worry, it'll soon pass."
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