Loney was standing up with one hand behind him. Dick Cohen put his hands on the back of a chair and kind of leaned over it. Loney said, “I’m smart. The Kid fights the way I tell him to fight.”
The manager looked at me and looked at Dick and looked at Loney again and said, “M-m-m, so that’s the way it is.” He thought a minute and said, “That’s something to know.” Then he pulled his hat down tighter on his head and turned around and went out with the other two men following.
I asked Loney, “What’s the matter?”
He laughed but not like it was anything funny. “Bad losers.”
“But you’ve got a gun in?”
He cut me off. “Uh-huh, a fellow asked me to hold it for him. I got to go give it back to him now. You and Dick go on home and I’ll see you there in a little while. But don’t hurry, because I want you to cool off before you go out. You two take the car, you know where we parked it. Come here, Dick.”
He took Dick over in a corner and whispered to him. Dick kept nodding his head up and down and looking more and more scared, even if he did try to hide it when he turned around to me. Loney said, “Be seeing you,” and went out.
“What’s the matter?” I asked Dick.
He shook his head and said, “It’s nothing to worry about,” and that was every word I could get out of him.
Five minutes later Bob Kirby’s brother Pudge ran in and yelled, “Jees, they shot Loney!”
I shot Loney. If I was not so dumb he would still be alive anyway you figure it. For a long time I blamed it on Mrs. Schiff, but I guess that was just to keep from admitting that it was my own fault. I mean I never thought she actually did the shooting, like the people who said that when he missed the train that they were supposed to go away on together she came back and waited outside the armory and when he came out he told her he had changed his mind and she shot him. I mean I blamed her for lying to him, because it came out that nobody had tipped Big Jake off about her and Loney. Loney had put the idea in her head, telling her about what Pete had said, and she had made up the lie so Loney would go away with her. But if I was not so dumb Loney would have caught that train.
Then a lot of people said Big Jake killed Loney. They said that was why the police never got very far, on account of Big Jake’s pull down at the City Hall. It was a fact that he had come home earlier than Mrs. Schiff had expected and she had left a note for him saying that she was running away with Loney, and he could have made it down to the street near the armory where Loney was shot in time to do it, but he could not have got to the railroad station in time to catch their train, and if I was not so dumb Loney would have caught that train.
And the same way if that Sailor Perelman crowd did it, which is what most people including the police thought even if they did have to let them go because they could not find enough evidence against them. If I was not so dumb Loney could have said to me right out, “Listen, Kid, I’ve got to go away and I’ve got to have all the money I can scrape up and the best way to do it is to make a deal with Perelman for you to go in the tank and then bet all we got against you.” Why, I would have thrown a million fights for Loney, but how could he know he could trust me, with me this dumb?
Or I could have guessed what he wanted and I could have gone down when Perelman copped me with that uppercut in the fifth. That would have been easy. Or if I was not so dumb I would have learned to box better and, even losing to Perelman like I would have anyway, I could have kept him from chopping me to pieces so bad that Loney could not stand it anymore and had to throw away everything by telling me to stop boxing and go in and fight.
Or even if everything had happened like it did up to then he could still have ducked out at the last minute if I was not so dumb that he had to stick around to look out for me by telling those Providence guys that I had nothing to do with double-crossing them.
I wish I was dead instead of Loney.
THIS LITTLE PIG
Max Rhinewien’s telegram brought me back from Santa Barbara. He glared at me over his bicarbonate of soda and demanded, “And where’ve you been?”
“Where’d you wire me? I’ve been trying to finish a play.”
“Is there a picture in it?”
“Why not? You bought Soviet Law, didn’t you? And that’s a bibliography.”
“Never mind,” he said, “it’s a good title anyway. Listen, Bugs, I want you to hop over to Serrita and—”
“Nothing doing. I’ve still got nine days coming to me and I want to get the play finished.”
“As a favor to me, Bugs. It won’t take over a week, I promise you. Is a week going to hurt? You can take your nine days afterwards—take ten days—take two weeks if you want. I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t in a hole. My God, I’d be the last person in the world to interfere with your play. But maybe it’ll be better for you this way. Maybe you’ll come back to your play with a clear mind—you know—better perspective. You got some problems, haven’t you, that you ain’t been able to clear up yet? Well, you get away from it for a little while and give your self-conscious mind a chance to work and—”
I never had much luck arguing with Max. I said, “All right, I’ll go.”
“Thanks. That’s fine. I knew I could count on you. Did you see the Go West! script?”
“No.”
“Well, I said all along it needed something, but it wasn’t till last night I could put my finger on it. It ain’t a bad story at all—this Blaine’s got something—but it needs just that one thing; and you know what it is? Sexing up.”
“You mean you’re going to put sex in a Western picture?” I asked.
“Yep!”
I shook my head.
He beamed on me. “Can’t see it, huh? I guess a lot of people can’t, but stick around and you will. And you’ll see Westerns grossing in the first-run houses instead of just in the neighbs and the sticks. Listen, Bugs, is Sol Feldman a dope?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Exactly. Not that anybody knows of. Well, I happened to hear only last night that they’re sexing up this The Dogie Trail plenty.”
“Why don’t you let him? Why don’t you wait and see how—”
He slapped a hand down flat on his desk. “You know that ain’t my way,” he said. “I got to be always first in the field. You know that. And we can beat ’em to release by a week or two easy.”
“It’s all right with me. It’s not my baby. What do I do?”
“I want you to sex up Go West! Keep it clean, see, but cram it with that stuff. You’re the boy to do it. You’ll have to get over there right away—take a plane—and you’ll have to work your stuff up as they go along, because they already been shooting a couple days, but you can do that all right. This fellow Lawrence Blaine that wrote the script is out with them and you can either make him help you or send him back, whichever you want. And you won’t have any trouble with Fred.”
“That part’s O.K.,” I said, “but tell me one thing: how are you going to sex up Betty Lee Fenton?”
“Why not—so you keep it clean? She ain’t crippled. She can throw herself around if somebody shows her how, can’t she? Anyhow, you don’t have to depend on her. There’s other girls over there—Ann Meadows and Gracie King and—and if you want to take anybody else, go ahead. I’m sending Danny Finn along with you. I was thinking you might work him in something along the line that he’s a drunk piano player that Gracie—say—is taking along to open a dance-hall in this mining town, and she’s got some girls with her and—you know—you can work it up.”
“Didn’t Paramount try something like that with Gene Pallette in Fighting Caravans three or four years ago? I didn’t see the picture, but I heard—”
“What of it?” Max asked. “Is the stuff you write going to be like anybody else’s? That’s what I’m counting on—the Parish touch—the angle you got that nobody else can come anywheres near.”
“Go on,” I said, “I bet you tell that to all the writers. Have you got a copy of
the script?”
“Miss Shepherd’ll give you one. I appreciate this a lot, Bugs.” He shook a fist at me. “Like that, see, but clean.”
I said, “Absolutely,” and—with Danny Finn—flew over the mountains to Serrita.
I found Fred LePage in his tent—besides housing the company, the tents served as a U. S. cavalry encampment in the picture—rehearsing a small dark girl in a one-eyed fade-away. (A one-eyed fade-away is where a character that has been rebuffed glances sidewise—fearfully or reproachfully as a rule—into the camera or at whoever did the rebuffing, and slinks off.) Fred greeted me with open arms. “Hello! What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t Max wire you?”
His grin went away. “Maybe. I stopped reading his wires. He’s driving me nuts.”
“A fine business,” I said. “The director of a horse opera going temperamental.”
He had the decency to seem embarrassed. “Well, if you were in my shoes—” He broke off. “Uh—you know Kitty Doran? This is Bugs Parish.”
The small dark girl dimpled and held out her hand. “How do you do?”
Fred growled, “Come on, what’s the bad news?”
When I told him he hit the top of the tent and spun there. I had expected him to yell his head off, of course, but he put on a really grand performance.
“You know how Max is,” I said with soothing intent as soon as I could get a word in. “He hears Feldman’s going in for sex in the open spaces—we’ve got to have sex in our open spaces. What the hell? He’ll probably change his mind before—”
“That’s just it,” he howled. “He’ll change his mind again and stick me with a week’s retakes and I’m already three days behind. What was the idea of sending us way over here in the first place? And with nothing ready. I got to do every damned thing myself. What’s he trying to do—make a bum out of me? Why don’t he give me some of those crooner shorts if that’s what he’s trying to do?”
Fred was only a run-of-the-mine director, but his habit of getting pictures into the can a little ahead of his schedule and a little under his budget made him worth his wages, and he knew it.
I said, “I don’t blame you for squawking. Let’s see what you’ve shot and we’ll save as much of it as we can.”
He said, “I know it’s not your fault, but, by God, Max is driving me nuts.”
Betty Lee Fenton, our little gingham girl, came in and said: “Hello, Bugs. Say, is Max sticking this guy Finn in the picture? He knows I don’t like to work with him.”
“Danny’s a good comic, whatever else you say about him.” She made a face. “The else is plenty.”
“How are you on good clean sex?”
“What?”
“I don’t mean tonight, or anything like that; I mean in the picture.”
“What is this—a gag?”
I moved my head up and down. “And it’s got Fred here rolling on the floor. The picture’s new title is Go West with Sex.” Then it was her turn. “I might’ve known it,” she shrieked. “Once I let Max talk me into a ride-ride-bang-bang, he thinks he can do anything to me. Well, he can’t, and he might just as well find it out right now. If he’s crazy, I’m not. Don’t he think my public’s got a right to the kind of a characterization they expect of me? Does Fox try things like that with Janet Gaynor? Of course not. Sheehan’s got too much sense. Max is a fool.”
Fred said to her, “Now for God’s sake don’t you start cutting up.”
She turned on him: they were not very fond of each other. “Listen, Mr. Lubitsch, I’ve had—”
I said, “Come, come, my gal, you’re yelling before you’re hurt. Maybe—”
She turned on me. “You’re damned right I am! And I’m yelling long distance to Max right now.” And out she went. Kitty Doran said primly, “I think she’s unreasonable.”
Fred said: “What? Oh! Uh—better scoot, Kitty. We got to work.”
“All righty.” She smiled brightly at him and came over to me. “I’m awfully, awfully glad to have met you, Mr. Parish, and I hope—Well, by-by, Freddy.” She waved her hand at both of us and went out.
“Whaty is thaty?” I asked Fred.
“She’s all right, just a kid that had a couple of bits in my last picture. I’m giving her a small part in this.” He looked as if a thought had struck him. “We might build it up a little. She’s pretty good.”
“She must be—if she needs private coaching in one-eyed fade-aways.”
“She’s just a green kid, of course,” he admitted, “but—you’ll see. You don’t think you got a chance of changing what La Fenton calls her characterization, do you?”
“No. I’m counting on Ann for the chief—”
“Sure,” he said, “and we can build up Kitty’s part, too. She’s just a green kid, but she takes direction swell and—”
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
He scowled at me. “Are you going to start that too? Any other director can pick a girl out of the line because he knows talent when he sees it, but with me it’s got to be because I’ve fallen for the dame and she’s playing me for a sucker. You and Ann ought to incorporate.”
“Ann doesn’t think your Kitty’s got talent?”
“Ann’s just being disagreeable. What’s the matter with women? Look here, Bugs: I’m not saying this kid’s a Hepburn; I’m saying she’s got something. What do you know about it? You’ve never seen her work. Wait till you do.”
That seemed reasonable enough. I said: “O.K., Freddy. Get your author and let’s start pushing his masterpiece around.”
I sat beside Ann at dinner that night and we went for a walk down a canyon afterwards. “What’s the matter with everybody?”
I asked.
“I hadn’t noticed,” she said. “Location fever, I guess.”
“Sure, but that oughtn’t to come till you’ve been out a couple of weeks, and here you’ve all been out only since—what?—Sunday and you’re already split up into tight little groups going around dog-eyeing each other.”
“Well, Fred’s been in a bad humor and I guess it’s catching.”
“What’s the matter with him?” I asked.
She laughed, though not very happily. “It started with the Indians. It was somebody’s bright idea to send us to hell and gone over here because these Indians had never been used in pictures before. You know what I mean? Simple, natural, unspoiled, that kind of junk. What a bright idea that was! Never having worked in pictures before, these little red brothers had no idea of what extras get. All they knew was what they read about Garbo and Gable and they started off putting anything from a hundred dollars a day up on their price tags. Then, when we got ’em over that, we found out they didn’t have any horses and most of ’em didn’t know how to ride, so we had to get horses and teach them. Then Fred tried shooting them without putting Indian make-up on ’em—some more of that natural stuff—and had to shoot ’em all over again. All that wasted time and money—and you know how Fred is about the schedule and budget.” We took about ten steps in silence, then she said, “And then this cutie.”
“The Doran girl?”
“Yes. You know her?”
“I met her before dinner.”
“Sure. If you’ve seen Fred you’ve seen her.”
“Why don’t you write that guy off, Ann?” I said. “What do you want to waste your time on him for when you can have a fellow like me?”
“Probably because I’m a sap,” she said, “but neither of us can help that. How big a part is Fred persuading you to give her in the new script?”
“It depends on what she can carry. Is she any good?”
“Terrible!” She took hold of my arm. “She really is. It’s not just that I am jealous, though I am—awfully. Oh, Bugs, can I help it that I’m nuts about that guy?”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but I can do without hearing too much of it.”
She squeezed my arm and said, “I’m sorry,” as if she were thinking of something else. Pr
esently she asked, “Do you think she’s pretty?”
“She is.”
“Prettier than I am?”
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’ve got to talk to somebody. You’re the only one that knows how I really feel about Fred. I—I hoped maybe you could help me.”
“You mean help you get him back?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a sweet job to give me. You’re not just nuts about him—you’re nuts. Anyway, how do you know he isn’t really in love with the girl—and through with you?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said with complete certainty. “You know what a push-over he is for a new face and a new line—and how soon it blows over.”
“Then the answer’s easy. Just wait it out.”
She caught her breath. “I’m afraid. I’m always afraid that this time he’ll get himself so tangled up that he won’t—maybe won’t want to get out of it.”
I thought, that would be swell. I said, “There’s nothing I can do about it, but I’ll see.”
She squeezed my arm. “Thanks, Bugs. I knew you—”
“Better wait till you see whether you’ve got anything to thank me for. Let’s go back. I’ve got a couple of hours’ work to do.”
The next day I discovered that Fred was right, Ann wrong, about Kitty Doran’s ability. Her part in the scene I watched was pretty simple and she had to be told how to do everything, but, once told, she managed to do it with a sort of fake naturalness and an aliveness that were very effective.
When they had cut, Fred came over to me. “Well?” he asked, grinning.
“Not bad,” I said. “How does she photograph?”
He laughed. “Wait till you see the rushes. Hey, Lew!” The camera man joined us. Fred said, “Bugs wants to know how Doran photographs.”
Lew said, “Easy to handle. How about a little poker tonight, Bugs?”
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