by Judith Gould
Before Hank and José were out the door, Jewel was already busy washing blood from the worktable and counters. 'It's all mah fault. Ah shouldn'ta been at him, the po' thang.'
'It wasn't your fault,' Tamara said. 'It was an accident.'
'Never mind what it was. There ain't no time fer us to chat. We're shorthanded now. Lucky fer us that your test's been postponed and you come in today.'
Yes, and unlucky for me, Tamara thought. And for Inge too. She started back to the storeroom to change into her uniform.
'Fergit 'bout changin',' Jewel said. 'There ain't no time.' Jewel reached for an apron and looped it over her head. 'T'mara, git on out in the dinin' room. You do all the waitin' and Ah'll do the cookin, God help 'em all!'
Tamara hurried out the swinging door.
Without Jewel's competence, the dining room had quickly turned into bedlam.
Despite the rain, a sudden crowd had descended upon the restaurant. Unfortunately, everyone was in a hurry to eat, and the weather brought out the worst in tempers. They were the most demanding customers Tamara had had to serve to date. She dashed nervously from one table to the next taking orders and rushing back again with filled plates and pots of steaming coffee. In her nervousness she dropped one plate of food, mixed up three orders, and tripped and spilled coffee all over the guest whose trench coat was hanging by the door. Tamara stared at him in horror, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole.
'Ooooh . . . I'm sor-ry!' she blabbered in horror. 'I've ruined your beautiful sweater!' Her face burning scarlet, she rushed back to the counter, grabbed a stack of paper napkins, and began dabbing ineffectually at the spreading brown stain on the man's sweater. Clearly it was ruined. She wanted to die.
But the man didn't seem to mind. He was staring mesmerized at her, as if he'd found a particularly priceless gem.
She stopped dabbing at his sweater and took a step backward. She was fast becoming disconcerted by the way he kept staring up at her. 'Is something the matter?' she asked shakily. 'I mean . . . other than the coffee I spilled on you?'
Louis Ziolko grinned and grabbed her arm as she was about to scurry away. 'Hey, beautiful. How'd you like to be in pictures?'
Chapter 5
International Artists, Inc., had been started eight years earlier by a husband-wife couple, two disgruntled motion-picture stars, Laura Banker and Clyfford Shannon. For ten years they had reigned as the show-business couple, the brightest stars in a dazzling firmament, but even so, they were disgusted with the roles forced upon them, the hold their previous studio had on them contractually, and their inability to express themselves creatively. Luckily they had amassed a considerable fortune. Even more luckily, their names were money in the bank. When it came time to renew their contracts, they figured that they were far better off starting their own studio than they were indenturing themselves for another period of five years.
So International Artists, popularly known as IA, was born. The company, relying on the box office power of its star owners, became a major success virtually overnight. Then, three years, seven Banker-Shannon films, and twenty-nine other pictures later, the world's most celebrated screen couple died in a fiery automobile crash.
International Artists was left adrift, without a captain at its helm and minus its two most bankable stars. For a year the company floundered. The banks threatened to call in their loans. Bankruptcy was visible on the horizon.
The heirs of Banker and Shannon decided to sell.
Enter Oscar Tenney Skolnik.
At age thirty-four, Skolnik was already well on his way to becoming a full-fledged American legend. It seemed there was nothing he couldn't do if he set his mind to it. His exploits were legion. He was the first of the big-time corporate raiders, and so proud of that fact that he wanted everyone to know it, unwittingly creating a moneymaking public-relations firm in the process. He relished giving birth to corporations, pirating companies, building a nationwide conglomerate, gaining ever more power, and basking in celebrity. He couldn't get enough publicity. Naturally, there were men richer than he who enjoyed their wealth quietly, but during those bleak, dark years of the Depression, the multimillions he flaunted fired the imagination of a depressed, starving public. It pleased him to no end when he read in the New York Times that the new equation for wealth was 'Skolnik = $'.
Of course, what he didn't advertise was the fact that he hadn't been born into poverty. Far from it. He'd had a nice head start in becoming wealthy. In 1915, an inheritance of a quarter of a million dollars was a healthy-enough jumping-off point—more than enough seed money to sow a sprawling empire. Still, his achievement was astonishing. He had a truly magic flair for making money multiply. In the fifteen years following his father's untimely death aboard the torpedoed liner Lusitania, the nineteen-year-old Skolnik parleyed his inheritance into a seventeen-million-dollar fortune, an almostunheard-of sum. By then, his companies and investments were such that they would from that point on continue multiplying astronomically, ad infinitum.
Later, critics and armchair economists would deride his spectacular successes, pointing out that the achievements were minimal: the time had simply been ripe for picking up invaluable companies, and investments and financial wizardry had had little, if anything, to do with it. After all, thanks to the Depression and the misery of millions, companies were going begging for ridiculously cheap prices to anyone who had any money. In addition, the period following World War I was a technological wonderland, more dazzling than the previous ten centuries combined. The world had taken giant leaps forward, bursting into a future few people could predict.
But Oscar Skolnik could and did. He was among the first visionaries to predict the eventual decline of the railroads and the advent of air travel. Thus he began his own fledgling airline—Trans US Airways, more commonly known as TUSA— which began with government-contract mail routes, and in later decades revolutionized travel and became a mammoth multibillion-dollar carrier, with its distinctive blue-and-white planes logging millions of miles each year.
He borrowed liberally from Henry Ford's pioneering genius, applying the method of assembly lines to building aircraft—Skolnik Aviation.
In 1920 Skolnik had been one of the first men in the United States to foresee the popularity of radio not as a novelty but as a major business with limitless opportunities. He subsequently purchased the third licence to broadcast in the United States, thus creating WSBN—Skolnik Broadcasting Network. In later years he was to apply his radio know-how to television, with even greater success.
But above all, Oscar Skolnik was a dedicated womanizer. None of his myriad business interests or daredevil exploits could compare with his passion for women. The truth of the matter was that he loved women, all women, but the more beautiful and celebrated they were, the better. Indeed, it was this passion for the female of the species which first attracted him to motion pictures. Figuring that the film industry was filled with the most glamorous, sought-after women in the country, he decided that he should have a film studio of his own.
As it had in all his other ventures, luck smiled on him in this one. He didn't even have to go through the trouble and expense of setting up a studio. International Artists happened to be going begging at just the right time.
Under him, IA was not only saved. With his famous Midas touch it quickly flourished and became a power to be reckoned with. Soon he moved his entire business headquarters to Los Angeles in order to keep his eagle eye on his favourite business and be close to his beloved women.
It became immediately apparent to him that IA suffered from one crucial problem. It was missing the most fundamentally necessary asset of any film kingdom: a major, full-fledged female star of its own, one with enormous, surefire box-office appeal. At first he had managed to get around the problem by relying upon loan-outs from other major studios, but he knew that was no solution. To secure IA's future, he needed his own Gloria Swanson, his own Greta Garbo, his own Constance Bennett—or better y
et, all three. In the past, IA had depended too heavily upon its deceased actress and actor owners. Insecure as only creative people can be, no matter how successful, they had loathed competition, and had been adamant about being their company's only major, bankable stars. They hadn't been about to share the limelight with anyone else.
Now, without any major stars, IA was in peril.
Skolnik had instinctively recognized this problem. However, he hadn't anticipated the sheer difficulty in finding, or creating, a bankable star. Though he had systematically raided talent from other studios with promises of huge salaries when their current contracts expired—Louis Ziolko, the celebrated director from MGM, and Miles Gabriel, the debonair leading man from Paramount, had been among those, as well as a host of solid supporting players—IA continuously suffered from the lack of a leading screen siren to pair with Miles. Not that Skolnik's talent scouts hadn't tried. He'd been kept well-informed, and knew that his scouts had been everywhere, turning over any rock where the elusive star he was looking for might be hiding. Nationwide, they had scoured local theatres, attended talent contests, beauty contests, and countless fairs. Either something was lacking in the possible candidates, or another studio had gotten there first. He had gone so far as to negotiate for untried but promising new talent from other studios, prepared to buy out their contracts for far more than they were worth, but thus far the six starlets he had depended on had fizzled like defective firecrackers, despite IA's mighty publicity machine. .
The public simply hadn't warmed to them, and Oscar Skolnik, unaccustomed to failure, didn't like it one bit. He was outwardly calm and emotionless, but the very idea of Hollywood getting the better of him rankled deeply, burned in a silent rage within him.
'Goddammit!' he fumed over and over. 'There's got to be a bewitching woman out there somewhere!'
Among the first things Oscar Skoinik had done upon acquiring IA was to set up weekly Monday-morning meetings— nuts-and-bolts meetings which focused mainly on the behind-the-scenes workings of the studio. Regulars at the Monday meetings generally included Milton Ivey, head of the legal department; Marty Scher, head of accounting; Edward Brain, who handled distribution and was in charge of IA's chain of three hundred outrightly owned nationwide cinemas; Skolnik's severe but efficient secretary, Miss Schultz, who took copious notes and kept her first name a jealously guarded secret; Rhoda Dorsey, who headed the reading department, where fifteen full-time readers pored over books and plays and wrote reports on their viability as possible film properties; Bruce Slesin, vice-president in charge of publicity; Roger Callas, the general manager of IA and Skolnik's right-hand man, whose duty it was to keep the cogs of the studio's business machinery humming; Carol Anderegg, whose scouts were always out sniffing for new talent; and, unless he was involved in shooting, testing, or in production, Louis Ziolko. Other studio executives and managers were summoned on an 'as-needed' basis, depending on the subjects under discussion.
The Monday meetings focused upon finances, distribution, production schedules, projects under consideration, projects in the works, who was available for loan from other studios, how many inches of film had been shot per dollar, whom they should or shouldn't cast and in what, safety procedures and legal liability for stunt crews, and, invariably, the subject would somehow always roll around to Skolnik's pet peeve: finding and developing a beautiful, talented major new star.
On this particularly dreary, rain-lashed Monday morning in January, Skolnik looked around his conference table with the deceptive lack of emotion typical of him and asked, ' Where's Ziolko?'
The others glanced at Louis Ziolko's empty leather chair and shrugged, but then Miss Schultz, seated off in one corner, spiral-bound shorthand pad poised on her crossed legs, spoke up and said, 'Mr. Ziolko was supposed to be testing.'
'Supposed to be?' Skolnik asked without turning around to look at her.
'Yes, sir,' Miss Schultz sniffed. 'But according to his secretary, he won't be in today. It seems his house slid down the canyon.'
'Beats hell out of me why anyone'd want to live on a mountainside,' Skolnik grumbled, eliciting some chuckles. 'But he's all right?'
'I believe so, O.T.'
'Then why the hell didn't he come in to work? Doesn't he realize that a screen test costs an average of four thousand dollars whether it's made or not?'
Louis Ziolko could scarcely contain his excitement. His body temperature rose feverishly, and his heart thumped at twice its normal rate. He was dizzy with delirium and felt like dancing and shouting for joy.
He had found her! Her! That ephemeral presence, that new face for which everyone at IA had been fruitlessly scouring every nook and cranny of the country, that face which, like Helen of Troy's, would be capable of launching a thousand ships, inspire a million dreams, drive men insane with lust, and, miracle of miracles, had been right here all along, practically under all their very noses!
The very notion that she'd been the proverbial hop, skip, and jump from the studio struck him as being too, too delicious. It was, he considered, not at all unlike finding a wish-wielding genie inside a Coca-Cola bottle.
Would he ever knock Oscar Skolnik's black silk socks off when he brought her in! He couldn't wait to see Skolnik's face. He had made the once-in-a-lifetime discovery, and it was his, and his alone. Posterity would see to it that he would receive the credit for having discovered her. Whether or not she could act was a bridge he would cross when he came to it. At any rate, it wasn't a worry which would eat at him days and keep him awake nights. Somehow he would cajole her, prompt her, teach her, and patiently direct her, drawing a performance out of her by using his own genius and conducting her as carefully as any nimble conductor led his orchestra. After all, films weren't like the stage, where acting ability counted for everything. In films, too much talent and overacting could kill a scene more swiftly than an untalented youngster who could be herself and follow direction. He much preferred to direct a fresh newcomer he could mould into his vision of a star than deal with a talented name saturated with other directors' mistakes. It was far easier to create than to destroy and re-create, do than undo.
'Mister!' Tamara's sharp hiss intruded into his spiralling, convoluted thoughts. 'You're keeping me from my work!'
He stared into the limpid pools of her uncanny, glossy emerald eyes, and it was as if he were being inexorably swept into the hypnotic, spiralling depths of a slowly moving maelstrom. 'Huh?' he said dreamily.
'I said, I've got to work.'
He said nothing in reply, dismissing her with good-natured impatience, his eyes agleam.
She looked down at her arm, which he was still clutching tightly, and tried to shake him off. 'Please! Let go of me!'
He narrowed his eyes to squints and, without asking her permission to touch her, raised a trembling hand to her chin and moved her face this way and that, studying her profile, calculating her superb, startling facial angles with keen professional interest.
Abruptly she jerked her head back angrily. 'What's the matter with you? Are you crazy or something?'
'Ssssh! Keep still.'
'What the—' For the third time Tamara tried to shrug his hand off. This time she succeeded.
He was in euphoria. No, he was definitely not dreaming! he thought exultantly. She was very, very real indeed.
'Sit down, please listen to me,' he urged quickly, starting to pull her down into the booth. 'Just give me a minute to explain.'
'It's against the rules, I'm afraid.' She laughed good-naturedly, but stood her ground and refused to budge.
'Rules are made to be broken,' he said solemnly.
'Unh-unh.' She tossed her head. 'Not here they aren't. Not if I want to keep my job.'
'What you want to do that for? You're beautiful. Why would you want to work in a place like this?'
'If you haven't figured it out already, I'll spell it out for you. I've got to eat.'
'Don't you want to be in movies?' he asked curiously. 'You can sign a contr
act today.'
She blushed and then laughed. 'Mister, that's got to be the oldest line in this city. Now excuse me, but I have better things to do.'
He looked genuinely hurt. 'Listen, you want to check up on me? See if I'm kosher? There's a pay phone over there.' He nodded toward the entrance.
'I work here,' she reminded him stiffly. 'I know very well where the phone is.'
'Good. Here, I'll even give you change.' He dug deep into his pocket, and she took the opportunity to make her escape.
'Hey!' He jumped back to his feet. 'Where're you going?' he called out in surprise. 'Don't you want to call the studio and check up on me?'
'I've got tables to wait.' She strode swiftly toward the counter, trying to ignore the other patrons, who were now staring at her with new interest.
He was at her heels. 'I don't even know your name!' he said loudly.
'And I don't know yours either, do I?' she said casually, trying to keep her voice low so the entire restaurant wouldn't be privy. She grabbed two plates from the hatchway, pirouetted, and smiled sarcastically at him. 'That makes us even, don't you think?'
'Mine's Louis Ziolko,' he said quietly. 'What's yours?'
She was so startled that she dropped the plates. They fell to the tiles with a clatter, and he had to jump back to avoid being splattered by eggs and pork sausages.
'What's the matter with you?' he asked. 'You look like you've seen a ghost or something.'
She grabbed his sweater precisely where lapels would have been had he been wearing a suit, and shook him. 'What did you say?' she whispered incredulously. Her face had suddenly gone ashen.
'I said, my name's Louis Ziolko. Now, would you be kind enough to tell me yours?'