She interrupted his question. “This is a very funny business, Johnny,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “We live in a sort of goldfish bowl out here. I know, because in some ways I helped to make it so. And I know, too, that many things are said about the people out here that aren’t true and that these things sometimes make a lot of trouble and hurt other people.”
He looked at her strangely. “I know, Marian,” he said gently.
An expression of relief crossed her face. She took her hand from his arm. “I’m glad you understand, Johnny,” she said. “Because I wouldn’t want to see you hurt unnecessarily. Take everything you read and hear with a grain of salt. Don’t believe anything unless you see it for yourself. There are many small and vicious people who are envious of your happiness and wouldn’t hesitate to destroy it.” And then with typical birdlike quickness she left him.
He watched her cross the room with her small hurried steps. Strange turn the conversation had taken. He wondered what she meant. He didn’t know of anyone who wanted to hurt him. He looked across the room. Dulcie and Warren were just entering the room from the veranda. A sudden light of comprehension came into his eyes.
So that’s what Marian was trying to warn him about. Dulcie was laughing and her face looked young and happy and excited. She had risen so quickly that there must be people envious of her success. Marian was trying to tell him that these people wouldn’t hesitate to hurt them if they could get at Dulcie that way. He smiled to himself confidently as he made his way toward them. Let them try. He knew better than to believe any of them or anybody. Even Marian Andrews.
2
Peter held the door open and let them enter the room before him. Then he followed them into the room and closed the door. The little study was quiet after the sound of the party outside. There was a small fire glowing in the fireplace and it cast a cheery reddish light across their faces.
He turned the key in the door and straightened up. “That’s so we won’t be disturbed,” he said smiling. “These big parties make me nervous. All day my stomach is upset thinking about it.”
“I know how you feel,” Willie Borden said. “That’s why I’m glad I’m moving back to New York. This ain’t the kind of life I like. I like making pictures, but I don’t like the things you got to do to keep up with the crowd out here. Sometimes I think we’re slaves to our publicity men’s ideas of how to run our business.”
“That’s how you guys might feel,” Sam Sharpe injected. “But from my point of view you can’t do without it. Outside in that room there you got maybe twenty people whose business it is to tell the whole world about what happens here. In Marian Andrews’s column tomorrow ten million people will read that everybody in Hollywood turned out for Peter Kessler’s party in honor of Warren Craig, who, incidentally, is appearing in a picture with Dulcie Warren for the Magnum studios. And that’s just one column. Like I said, there are twenty of them. It’s money in the bank for you guys, and you complain.”
“But you ain’t got to worry about nothing,” Peter objected. “You’re a ten-percenter. All you gotta do is collect your cut of the clients’ pay. We gotta worry about making them worth the pay. We gotta worry about whether the people who count come to the party. We got all the trouble building them up.”
“I still say it’s worth the trouble,” Sam insisted. “It brings customers to the boxoffice.”
Peter shook his head and walked to a cabinet. He opened it and took out a bottle of liquor. He took down three glasses and poured a measured drink in each. He handed the glasses around. “This is the real stuff,” he announced proudly, “not the junk I got out there.” He held up his glass. “L’chaim,” he said.
“L’chaim,” Borden replied.
“Here’s luck,” Sam said.
They swallowed the drinks.
Peter sank into a chair in front of the fire. He leaned forward and slipped off his gleaming black shoes. With a sigh he put his feet up on a hassock. “Sit down, sit down,” he said to them, waving to the comfortable chairs in front of him. “Ah, this is good, my feet were killing me. Esther made me put on my new shoes.”
Borden sat down opposite him, and Sharpe sank into the chair next to him. They were silent for a while, each man thinking his own thoughts.
“Another drink?” Peter asked at last. Without waiting for a reply he refilled their glasses.
Borden looked at him. “You look tired,” he said.
“I am,” Peter answered.
“Maybe you’re working too hard,” Borden suggested.
“It’s not that,” Peter denied. “I feel upset like. Ever since Johnny got here the day before yesterday, I’m worrying.”
They both knew what Peter meant.
“His wife?” asked Sharpe.
Peter nodded his head wearily.
“I’ve met women like that before,” Borden said. “In this business you can’t help it, but I’ve never met any as bad as she is. The stories I’ve heard about her!” He shook his head. “It’s almost unbelievable.”
“She’s a mental case,” Sam said bluntly. “If she keeps on the way she’s going I don’t think there will be a man left in Hollywood she hasn’t shared her bed with.”
Peter looked at them. “You fellas don’t know the half of it. If she stayed in her own bed all the time, it wouldn’t be so bad. But any place, any time, whenever she feels like it. Already I got to fire three men because they were talking about it. One day a guy comes to me with some pictures he took. She was in a corner of a set with one of the gaffers. Her dress was up around her waist and she was leaning against the wall. It cost me a thousand dollars for the negatives and prints and I still don’t know whether he didn’t hold out on me and keep some.” He looked down at the drink in his hand for a moment, then back at them. “I called her into my office and handed her the pictures. I was too ashamed to say anything to her. I just put the pictures in her hand without a word. And what do you think she said? You wouldn’t believe it. She looked at me and laughed. ‘The man who took this picture must have been an amateur,’ she says. ‘If he’d waited another minute he could have caught me at a better angle!’”
He waited for them to speak. They were silent. He continued: “‘Dulcie,’ I said to her, ‘You should be ashamed acting like that. People will talk.’
“‘They’ll talk anyway,’ she says.
“‘But, Dulcie,’ I said, ‘there’s no reason for it. You got a nice husband. What if he should hear about it? How would he feel?’
“She looks at me with a funny look on her face, ‘Who’s gonna tell him?’ she asks. ‘You?’
“I didn’t answer. She knew as well as me that I wouldn’t say nothing to Johnny. How could I tell him something like that? When I didn’t answer her, a funny smile came on her face and she says to me: ‘I thought you wouldn’t.’ She half turns as if to go out of my office and then turns back to me. She stands there almost a minute without talking. I could see she’s thinking. I wait for her.
“Then I could see tears come to her eyes slowly. Her lips began to quiver. ‘You don’t understand, Peter,’ she says, crying. ‘I’m a very emotional person, and when I married Johnny I thought I would be very happy. But I wasn’t. Johnny’s wound is more than just his leg. He can’t do anything. And I’m an actress and sometimes it’s important for me to feel the emotions I project, otherwise I wouldn’t be any good to you at all.’
“For a second I’m feeling almost sorry for her. Then I think that’s no excuse for a woman to act like a whore. If it’s that important for her she could do it discreetly and nobody would be any the wiser. I told her to behave better or I would have to put her off the lot. She promised she would and I chased her out of the office. I was so glad it was over.”
“Poor Johnny,” Borden said, looking into the fire. “Is he really like that?”
Peter’s face seemed to grow redder. “She was lying,” he said.
“How do you know?” Sam asked.
“Later
in the day I was thinking about what she said and I called Johnny’s doctor in New York. He said there was nothing the matter with him that way.” He coughed embarrassedly.
“I wonder what would happen if Johnny should find out,” Sam speculated aloud.
“I’m afraid to think,” Peter said quickly. “She’s got him fooled a hundred percent, she’s such a good actress.”
“That’s just the trouble,” Borden said. “Why couldn’t such talents have been given to a nice girl? It doesn’t seem right that a bitch like that should have so much.”
Peter nodded his head in agreement. “It doesn’t seem right, but that’s the way it goes. The good always have to struggle for what they get, the bad just stand there with their hands out and everything comes to them.”
Sam reached over to the bottle and refilled the glasses. He turned to Borden. “When are you planning to leave for New York?”
“In a week or two,” Borden replied. “As soon as I straighten up a few things. I bought a place out on Long Island and my wife is filled with excitement over furnishing it.”
“You’re going through with that deal?” Peter asked, looking at him curiously.
“Sure,” Borden said. “Why not?”
Peter didn’t answer for a moment. Borden was going to put his stock on the open market, keeping only the amount sufficient to ensure him control of his company. He had made arrangements with a group of bankers down on Wall Street to represent him and was following their advice to the letter. The entire company was being refinanced in accordance with their suggestions. There were two classes of common stock being issued, one with voting privileges, the other without. A preferred stock issue and debenture issue would be floated later. From the proceeds derived from the sale of these stocks Borden hoped to reduce his outstanding bank loans and eliminate expensive borrowings in the future.
“I don’t like it,” Peter answered at last.
Borden laughed. “You’re too old-fashioned, Peter,” he said. “You should learn that that’s how they do business today. No longer does one man try to run everything by himself. It’s crazy. Today everybody is a specialist. Why should I try to be a banker, a borrower, a producer, a theater operator, a sales manager, all at the same time? My idea is to hire the best specialists in each field and watch over them and guide the whole thing. This business is still growing. Who knows how big it will get? And for big business there are specially trained men too. Men who all their lives are in big business.”
“I don’t trust them,” Peter insisted. “They’re all right now when everything looks good, but who knows how they will act when things are bad? I remember what they used to say years ago when we walked into the banks in New York. They used to look down at their noses on us. You could see them thinking: ‘Jew pushcart business,’ when they turned down our loans. Now that they see we’re making money, they want to come in and help us. I don’t trust them. Where were they when we really needed help? Looking down their noses. When we needed money we went to Santos. He trusted us, took a chance on us.”
“At practically twelve-percent interest,” Borden interrupted.
“Twelve percent was cheap enough when that was the only place we could get money,” Peter retorted. He looked at Borden shrewdly. “How much stock are they keeping for themselves?” he asked.
“Only five percent,” Borden answered.
Peter shook his head. “That five percent is enough to make plenty trouble when things go wrong.”
“What can go wrong?” Borden asked. He answered his own question. “Nothing. Look at the stock market. It’s never been so high and it’s climbing higher every day. The country is booming, I tell you, booming. Besides, you don’t know these men. They’re gentlemen. With them everything’s open and aboveboard. They’re not the kind of people we got in this business. They got so much money they don’t have to screw anybody to get along. All they want to do is make things easy for us.”
Peter looked at him cannily. “And since when are you such an expert on them? What do you know about them?”
Borden laughed easily. “I know them all right,” he replied confidently. “Last year when I bought that property in Long Island, it was right in the middle of where they lived. I was the first Jew ever to buy property out there and at first I was worried whether I’d get along with them. But I didn’t have anything to worry about. They invited me to join their clubs and to their houses and made me feel right at home, they were so nice. They never once reminded me I was Jewish.” There was a proud look on his face.
Peter looked glum. “Because of that you think they’re all right?” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “It would be a good thing maybe if they reminded you you were Jewish. Maybe you’re forgetting you come from a dirty cold-water flat on Rivington Street with rats running in the back yard and toilets in the hall.”
Borden looked a little angry. “I’m not forgetting nothing,” he retorted hotly. “But I’m not such a fool to blame them for where I come from. What counts is that they take me for what I am now.”
Peter could see that Borden was growing a little angry, but he couldn’t resist one more gibe. “Maybe next year,” he said with a smile, “I’ll be finding your name in the Blue Book.”
Borden rose to his feet and looked down at Peter. “And what’s wrong with that? This is America. Anything is possible. I’m no snob. If they want to put my name in the Blue Book, I say let them!”
Peter stared up at him; his mouth almost hung open. Borden was really interested in getting into the Blue Book. He half shook his head wonderingly. Little Willie Bordanov of Rivington Street with the pushcarts in the Blue Book. He raised a hand placatingly. “Don’t be a fool, Willie,” he said in Yiddish. “I’m only talking for your own good. Be careful, that’s all I’m telling you.”
Borden relaxed slowly. “Don’t worry, Peter,” he replied with a smile. “I’m careful. Nobody is putting anything over on Willie Borden!”
Peter put his shoes on and got to his feet heavily. “I guess we’d better be going back inside before Esther starts looking for me.”
Sam Sharpe looked at them. They were a lot alike in many ways, he thought: life had not been gentle with either of them. They had to fight for everything they got. That was not the only trouble they faced, either. He could sense the basic insecurity of each, no matter what they had. In the back of their mind they would always worry whether they would be accepted because they were Jews. Maybe that was why they fought so hard for what they wanted.
He followed them slowly to the door. When the door opened he could see the mask with which they met the world settle on their faces. It was an intangible mask made up of nothing you could really say you saw. A brightness of the eyes, a tightening of the lips, a tilting of the head. For a moment he felt sorry for them. “It was tough to be a Jew,” he thought; “I’m glad I’m not one of them.”
3
He stood there alone for a moment, with a drink in his hand as the woman approached him. He watched her absently, knowing she was going to speak to him, but he was thinking of what Dulcie had said out on the veranda.
He had tried to kiss her, but she had evaded his grasp. She laughed at him. “Why, Warren,” she had said with a teasing sound in her voice as she looked up at him, “so soon?”
He had reached for her again, and again she had slipped away from him. She stood there with one eyebrow raised, a mocking look in her eye.
“Dulcie,” he had said, “you don’t know what it’s been like without you. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t do anything. Why do you think I finally called Johnny up and told him I was ready to make a picture for him?”
She had laughed again. It was a sure laugh, filled with confidence in herself. She came close to him. He put his arms around her waist. He could feel the warmth of her body against him through her thin evening gown. He was sure she would kiss him now. He smiled down at her as he bent his head toward her.
She did not speak until t
heir lips had almost met. Her voice was soft and carried only to his ear. “Remember what I said that night, the last time I saw you?”
He smiled again. “You were beautiful. I never saw you so beautiful before,” he whispered. “And angry. I remember.”
She closed her eyes, and her body seemed to cling to him. He could feel the heat rising in him. He moved his lips closer to her when suddenly her eyes opened. For a second they glared at him with a venom that frightened him. Then the words came from her lips in a cold angry rush. Her voice was still soft, still controlled, however. “I meant it then,” she had said, “and I mean it now. Anybody that I want can have it for the asking—except you!”
His arms had fallen from her and the cold of the night seemed to run through him. He stared at her.
Suddenly she smiled sweetly and took his arm. “Shall we join the party, Warren?” she had asked as if nothing had happened.
In a daze he had come back into the room with her, but he was too much an actor to show how he felt. The minute he stepped across the threshold of the room and felt the eyes upon him, his face was as bright and smiling as hers had been.
“Mr. Craig,” the woman was saying, “I’ve been simply dying all night to meet you, but I wanted to meet you without a crowd of people around so that we could really talk. I mean really have a chat.”
He smiled at her politely and bowed a little. “I’m honored, ma’am,” he said, managing to look both pleased and inquiring at the same time.
The woman smiled at him brightly. “I do love your voice, Mr. Craig, it is so—so trained. Most actors out here don’t know how to speak at all.” She finished her sentence triumphantly.
“Thank you again, Miss—uh, Miss—” He paused pointedly.
She put a hand to her hair and patted it unconsciously. Craig’s voice was known to have that kind of effect on some women. “How silly of me!” she cried, laughing gaily. “I forgot you were new out here and couldn’t know who I am.” She paused for an impressive moment and held out her hand. “I’m Marian Andrews.”
The Dream Merchants Page 38