Don't Speak to Strange Girls

by Whittington, Harry

  Flo caught Clay’s arm, pulled him away to the window.

  “I’m looking for Joanne,” Clay said.

  “She’s not here, lover,” Flo said. Her eyes did not focus at all.

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  Flo giggled. “Don’t call me a liar. Call me anything else, but don’t call me a liar.” She made a sing-song verse of it.

  Clay ignored her, searching over the heads of the other people for Joanne. He could not find her. His eyes struck against those of Nicky again. He looked away. Nicky was pretty obvious, and crude. Nicky hated Clay Stuart because Stuart was in moving pictures and Nicky couldn’t make it. He despised Bunny Harper for the same reason. Bunny was small, even effeminate, and Bunny was making pictures and TV shows all the time. There was only one way Nicky could strike at Bunny. He could use him, debase and degrade him. Great guy, Nicky. Joanne knew some wonderful people.

  Where in hell was she?

  “She’s not here, honey,” Flo said again. “Come on, let’s dance. This is a big night. Big party. Joanne’s party. Celebration. You know what we’re celebrating? End of shooting on Joanne’s picture. You know that? That’s right. They wrapped it up today. Lone Star Kid.”

  “Where is she?”

  Flo caught his arm, turned him toward her, working her hungry angular body against his, quivering as if in heat.

  “Who cares? She went out for liquor. Come on. Let’s dance.”

  “No.”

  “You can’t keep pushing me off, Clay. I’m nuts about you. All hacked inside. Look at these nothings around here. You walk in here and I’m hacked. Please, Clay — look at me — forget her.”

  “Go get a drink.”

  “Drink? I don’t need a drink. I need you. You know what you are. You’re Disneyland. You’re the lights out front of Moulin Rouge. You — you’re every guy any woman ever wanted. Why you want Joanne? She doesn’t want a man. She wants a career. Me. I ain’t crazy. Except crazy for you. It’s like I got bugs crawling in me. Only I can’t itch. Why not me, Stuart? Look at me, damn it.” Flo was writhing against him. She was clinging to him, her body working as if in some exotic dance. “I know things … things she never even will learn.”

  Clay caught both her hands, pushed them down and shoved her away, still looking for Joanne.

  Flo screamed, going backwards, falling. She toppled crazily toward the opened window.

  A girl screamed. A man lunged at Flo, grabbing at her as she struck the sill. He deflected her body enough so she struck against the wall, screaming. She slid down the wall.

  A man leaped at Clay, catching his shirt-front and turning him around. Others stopped dancing and crowded in close.

  “Why don’t you get out of here?” the man said. Clay saw it was the one called Johnny. Joanne’s Johnny. I’ll never see him again if you don’t want to.

  Johnny shoved Clay. Clay struck against Nicky who had pushed his way through the crowd behind him.

  “Let’s throw him out,” Nicky said. “The son of a bitch.”

  “Get out,” Johnny said again.

  “Hell, don’t tell the son of a bitch,” Nicky said, sweating. “Throw him. Big movie star. Let’s see what kind of fighter he is. Hell, he used to win wars all by himself. Let’s see how he can dish it out.”

  Clay saw Nicky’s fist coming toward his face. He threw up his arm to protect himself. Nicky’s fist scraped across his wrists, struck against the side of his face. He toppled backward, slowly, like a giant sequoia.

  Nicky was raging with laughter. “Movie star!” Nicky yelled. “Hell, he can’t fight at all. Look at him, for God’s sake. He can’t even fight. He don’t know how to throw a punch.”

  Clay straightened and Nicky struck him in the face twice, short hard jabs into his eyes and mouth. He reeled out backwards, the room skidding crazily away from him.

  Women screamed. Some of the men grabbed at Nicky. He shook them off, cursing. He stood above Stuart, the gold locket bouncing on his heaving chest.

  “Get out of here, Movie Star,” Nicky raged. Clay raised his head from the floor, trying to clear it.

  Nicky kicked him in the face.

  • • •

  Stuart opened his eyes. He was seeing everything through an occluding film of blood. The music was still blaring loudly.

  Joanne was kneeling over him. She whispered his name. Her voice was frantic. “Clay. Get up. Get up. I’ve got to get you out of here. Somebody has called the police.”

  Clay shook his head, feeling blood flicking from his nostrils when he moved. He pushed himself upward slowly, feeling Joanne’s arms around him. A couple of men tried to help but Joanne told them to get away, get back to dancing. “Pretend nothing has happened. A brawl. My God. This could ruin me.”

  Clay got to his feet. He wanted to laugh, but there was too much agony in his bruised face for even a short bitter laugh. For one whole minute there he had felt supreme. Somebody had called the police, Joanne wanted to get him out of there; it had been wonderful to believe she was thinking about him, worried for him. This hadn’t lasted very long. She was thinking only about herself, her own reputation. “This could ruin me.” The words chattered around in his brain in monkey voices.

  She led him to a stairway beyond the service door and they went down the service steps in the wan darkness. They stood at the rear door on the ground floor for a few moments, listening for sounds of the police.

  “Where is your car?” she said.

  He considered a moment, then nodded downhill. She moved with him through the alley.

  He heard her crying softly. “Oh, Clay. You’ve got to let me alone.”

  “I — I’ve loved you.”

  “I can’t help it. I can’t see you any more. Can’t you understand? It will spoil everything. You’ll spoil everything.” Her voice quavered with the tears choking her throat. “Why don’t you let me alone? I’m where I want to be.”

  “People like that, Joanne?” His voice was ragged.

  “Yes. All right. Yes. They’re my friends. They don’t spoil everything … I was all right. Tonight I was on top of the world. I had everything I wanted.”

  He stood in the chill night, shoulders sagged round, looking down at her. Blood leaked from his face. He lifted the back of his hand, wiped at it, smearing it across his cheek.

  Joanne was crying abruptly, her body shaking.

  “Please. Let me alone,” she begged. “Tonight was so nice — and you had to come around — and spoil it all.”

  chapter twenty

  CLAY LAY a long time on his rumpled bed that night, unable to sleep. His thoughts crawled in torturous ways no matter how hard he tried to blot them out. The agony of his torn, bruised face no longer hurt him at all, but he felt helpless against the bruising force of his thoughts.

  He had reached bottom tonight, drunk and beaten in that loud apartment among those smelly kids, hearing Joanne saying his brawling could ruin her, tonight was so nice and he had come around and spoiled it all.

  He could think clearly, despite the pain, and he knew he was not going to see her any more. From now on she could not touch him, and he thought this with a mixture of pain and sadness but also a terrible kind of finality.

  He twisted on the bed, thinking that he had always felt she needed him, and might need him more than ever. And thinking this, his mouth twisted into a painful smile. She had lived before he came along, she would live when he had forgotten her name.

  He fell asleep thinking about her, and the way it had been between them, the way it would never be any more, but already it was something he could put behind him and his last conscious thought was of the sharp lances of sunlight against his swollen lids.

  He awoke at three o’clock that afternoon, thinking about Joanne, but also aware of the hollow physical pain that was more urgent. Every day he awoke wanting to call her and he glanced at the telephone now. But he got up, dressed and ate brunch on the flagstone terrace and did not call her at all. When his thought
s turned back to her, he forced himself to remember the way she’d cried out that he’d spoiled everything. It made staying away from the telephone easier.

  McEsters studied his torn and battered face without seeming to look at him at all. The dark glasses were the only concealment Clay wore, and he offered no explanation even when his nose bled abruptly and inexplicably.

  He thought about Man of the Desert with almost a sense of longing. He went into the library, locked the door though this was unreasonable; except for the servants, he was alone in the house.

  He opened the script and scanned through the sides marked for Pinto. He tried desperately to see all the excitement and power that Dick Creek had found in the desert man, but he could not concentrate yet, and when the telephone rang, he pounced upon it as if it were his last means of escape.

  For a moment he felt the unreasoning fear that it might be Joanne and all his vows would go out the window. He felt his stomach nerves tighten up. He held his hand poised above the receiver. Then the phone rang again. He warned himself he couldn’t be afraid of her; if he had to talk to her, it would be for the last time and only when she called.

  He picked up the receiver, gripping it tightly.

  “Hello.”

  “Daddy?”

  “Sharon! Good Lord. Where are you?” His face ached when he stretched the muscles, smiling, and he thought what a mess he looked.

  “I’m at the airport. Would you come and get me?”

  He pressed his fingers against the proud, purpled flesh, on the flat imprint of a shoe sole across his mouth and cheek. “Lord yes. I’d love it. Can you wait for me to comb my hair?”

  “You better put on a pair of pants, too.”

  He laughed, face hurting. “It’s so good to hear you.”

  Ten minutes later he was cruising down Sunset. The boulevard was quiet at this hour. He passed a Beverly Hills police cruiser. He swung right at La Cienega and went downhill.

  There was only sparse mid-afternoon traffic. He made good time crossing town. When he reached the airport, however, it was as though the population explosion had converged upon this one area. He decided these people were always in airports, always the same ones, never sleeping, never shaving, always looking rushed and haggard as if they’d just missed the last plane out.

  Sharon was sitting in the waiting-room near the American Airlines desk. She got up when she saw him. She carried only an overnight bag and make-up kit. She set them down and threw her arms around him, but stopped at the sight of his discolored face.

  He held her a moment, stroking her tenderly.

  “You walked into a door in the dark,” she said.

  He nodded. “And when I hit it, it hit me back.”

  “Poor daddy.”

  “What happened to you?” he said. “They didn’t fire you?” He felt a sudden constriction in his solar-plexus, thinking about this man Darrow who had been after Sharon. It would be hell if she’d gotten over her head in trouble while he pushed her aside in his mind, snarled up in his own private agonies.

  “No. I took time off. I came home.”

  He carried her bags and they walked out to his hardtop convertible in the clotted parking lot. People recognized Stuart, even with his dark glasses and purpled face. They nudged each other and whispered.

  Sharon looked Clay over. Her voice was light, but the undercurrent of worry threaded through it. “You been all right — except for fighting back at doors in the dark?”

  “Yes. I’ve missed you… .” He put her bags in the car, helped her in, went around and got under the wheel. “But you haven’t told me yet why you dashed home like this.”

  She waited until they were out in traffic, headed toward town. “I missed you,” she said. “I worried about you … I was sorry I didn’t stay and take care of you — the way you asked … But I’m here now.”

  “But what about — ” He hesitated, still unable to speak Amory Darrow’s name. “What about school?”

  “I got to thinking. About what you said about wanting to go somewhere, and I decided we had little enough time together. You were right. School can wait.”

  He studied her, trying to find hurt in her eyes, the faint new twist of pain about her mouth. If Darrow had hurt her, he would kill him. This was all he really needed anyhow, to kill somebody, and Amory Darrow — whoever he was — would do nicely. He would get him down in the street the way the colonel had pummeled that drummer in that faraway Nebraska summer.

  “You arrived at this conclusion by yourself?” he said.

  She blushed. She did not meet his gaze. “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “Your exams must be about due.”

  “Yes.”

  “And this near getting that degree, you just quit and came home?”

  “Yes.” She sighed heavily, covered his hand with hers. “We can go down into Mexico. So many places we could go. So many things we could do.”

  He felt a sudden rising sensation of anxiety and hope. They could have a fine time together. He and Sharon. They could go anywhere they wanted. He could give the studio the final nix on Man of the Desert. This in itself would be pleasurable. He and Sharon would get out of this town. They would be together and they would move, and keep moving. Whatever she wanted to do. He would keep all his thoughts on Sharon. There was a whole wide damned world that he could show her, that he could see anew through her eyes.

  A smile pulled at his torn mouth. This had to be the answer. He didn’t care who had written to her, or called her at the school and told her he needed her, that she might save him by coming home at once. Maybe they had frightened her; well, he would make it up to her.

  He glanced at her face. She was so pretty, so fresh and young, even sleepless as she was, even tired from the long flight. And I’m so tired. Tired of this rat race. Beaten — in more ways than one, so beaten that the physical beating didn’t even matter. I’m tired wanting something I can’t have. Tired knowing I must return to work and knowing I can’t face it. Sharon was what he needed, someone to care about, to think about, to run with. She was young and he could be young with her and she could save him.

  She yawned and for a moment she looked like a little girl. And abruptly he remembered the way she’d looked that day of Ruth’s funeral. There was a loss in her eyes then, and there was a loss now, only he had been too involved in himself to see it. Even when he had thought about showing the world to Sharon, he had not really been thinking about Sharon at all, or what Sharon really wanted.

  He had been thinking about himself.

  • • •

  They were gathered like a conclave of the clan in the foyer when Clay and Sharon entered the house. Sharon cried out happily and ran to them, kissing Hoff, Shatner and then clinging to Kay.

  “How did you people know Sharon was in town?” Clay said.

  “I told them,” Kay said, staring past Sharon’s head.

  Clay’s jaw tilted. So Kay had called Sharon, urging her to drop everything, studies, romance, daily existence and come running back to daddy. Trust Kay Ringling to know exactly what to do for him. She had known precisely the kind of girl that would topple the defenses he’d set up around himself after Ruth’s death. No one else had known, but Kay had known, to the width of the girl’s smile, the depth of her eyes. And now when things got out of hand, Kay knew the answer to that problem, too. It didn’t matter what the sacrifice cost Sharon. There was no sacrifice Kay Ringling wouldn’t make for Clay Stuart, none she wouldn’t quietly ask of others.

  He opened his mouth to ask her what right she had interfering, but something in her face stopped him. They could talk about it later.

  He said, “If you’re tired, Sharon, why don’t you freshen up?”

  The four of them trooped into the library after Sharon had gone up the stairs, followed by McEsters with her bags and a maid to see that she had everything she needed.

  “God, it’s good to see her,” Hoff said.

  “She gets prettier every time,” S
hatner said.

  Clay flopped down on the divan and stared at them. “Stop talking around it. Kay sent for Sharon. Now everything is going to be fine for the old fellow, isn’t it? Senile. He can’t take care of himself. But then he doesn’t have to. He has you two, and Kay Ringling.”

  “Your face doesn’t look like you do so well when we’re not around,” Kay Ringling said.

  “Never mind my face.”

  “I know an elephant did it,” Shatner said. “But why? I never knew you had a hate for elephants.”

  “He’s got a hate for everybody,” Kay Ringling said.

  “But you’re going to fix that, aren’t you? Daddy will be a good boy with Sharon in the house, won’t he?” Clay said.

  “God knows, I hope so,” Kay told him.

  “To get back to work,” Hoff said. “That’s the thing. You shouldn’t hate us who love you, Clay. Get to work. Everything will be fine.”

  “I’m thinking about taking a cruise,” he said, with malice. “Just Sharon and me.”

  Hoff clutched his fat breast above his heart and paced in a tight circle. Shatner exhaled heavily, walked to the window and stared through it. But he did not say anything. Kay sat in a club chair under a reading lamp. They heard a car, distantly, in the drive, but none of them said anything.

  After a moment the library door opened. McEsters said, “Miss Joanne Stark is outside, Mr. Stuart. She’d like to talk to you.”

  • • •

  Joanne came into the library. Through the French windows she could see Shatner, Ringling and Hoff in deck chairs beside the pool. She did not mention them. Her smile was troubled, and she asked first about Clay’s face.

  “Do you hate me?” she asked.

  He shook his head, watching her, trying to see in advance what she wanted.

  “You’ve always loved me, haven’t you?” she said. “From the first.” She fell on the divan in the old way she always had, as if it had been only last night she’d been in this room, pushing off her high-heeled slippers and wriggling her toes. “From the first day you’ve loved me, haven’t you? And I treated you so badly.”