Don't Speak to Strange Girls

by Whittington, Harry

  Stuart shrugged. “You did what you had to do.”

  “Could I — have a drink?” she said, smiling. “Anything. Just whiskey on rocks. Anything.”

  Clay got her a drink, watching her through the dark glasses. But he was aware he could not see into her clearly, even with vision unimpaired. You could not see into her; when you tried to understand Joanne it was like a face seen in the glass of a dusty mirror.

  She took a long drink, stared into the glass, at the rug, at the backs of her fingers. She did not lift her head.

  “But you couldn’t love me any more — after the way I’ve acted — could you?” she said. There was a faint plaintive note of pleading deep under the surface of her voice.

  “God knows.”

  She dropped the glass and ran around the couch suddenly. She grabbed his arms. Her fingers tightened, her eyes were wild, her voice was urgent.

  “You do love me, don’t you?” She searched his eyes behind those glasses. “No matter what a fool I’ve been. I’ve been a fool. I — didn’t know what a fool until last night. Please, you’ve got to believe that.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Joanne.”

  “I’ll make it up to you. Will you let me? You won’t send me away? I’ve got my suitcase — out in the taxi … I came back — if you want me — if you’ll let me make up the hurt.”

  He stared at her, but he was thinking about Sharon upstairs. There was no chance of letting her stay in this house while Sharon was here, even if he wanted her to. This no longer entered into it. How right Ringling was. She was always right about him. It was indecent for any woman to understand a man so fully. Daddy would behave himself with Sharon in the house.

  “I want to stay here, Clay. It’s all I want. All I’ve ever wanted, really.” She pressed herself against him. “You’ve got to love me, Clay. I’ll make it up to you. All of it.”

  • • •

  Shatner tossed pennies into the pool, watching them sinking, twisting and glinting to the bottom. “What are you doing?” Hoff said.

  “Haven’t you ever thrown pennies into a well to wish?” Shamer asked.

  Hoff shook his head, shuddering in a mocking way. “Such a was e.”

  Kay Ringling sighed, glancing at them. Their faces were troubled, but hers was serene. She sat back in the lounge chair, almost lost in it, watching the shadows grow upward out of the canyon. The shadows of the eucalyptus tree almost reached them, but not quite, the way Stuart’s and Joanne’s voices almost reached them, but not quite.

  “She’s giving him the business,” Hoff said, straining toward the French doors.

  “She’s making him like it,” Shatner said. “No matter what she’s done to him, she’s making him like it.”

  “No,” Hoff said. “He wanted to like it. He was waiting for her to come back here and make him like it.”

  “You’ve nothing to worry about any more,” Kay said, watching the shadows writhe nervously on the surface of the pool.

  “I been with him too long,” Shatner said, ignoring Kay. “He’s not fool enough to take her back.”

  “You should fall in love sometime, Shatner,” Hoff said. “I been in love.”

  “I mean with somebody besides yourself. You’d see … Nobody is smart when they love.”

  “He isn’t going to take her back,” Kay said. “That’s all over.”

  They seemed not to hear her. Shatner said, “But Stuart knows the score on her.”

  “You think he read your report?” Hoff shook his head. “No. She’s in there now, telling him about her unhappy life — how the things she did were things she had to do — and the funny part of it is, that much is the truth. Perhaps its is all the truth.”

  “That’s the way it’s going to be,” Shatner said in a resigned tone.

  But after a moment, the front door opened, Joanne went out, crossed the veranda and got into the waiting taxi. Even when it pulled away, Kay did not move, or even say I told you so to them.

  chapter twenty-one

  STUART SAT with Shatner in Dick Creek’s outer office at Warners. He wore dark glasses to conceal the discolored puffiness around his eyes. There was a welt across his cheek.

  “You all right, Clay?”

  Stuart glanced at Shatner through the dark glasses. “Stop fussing over me, mother.”

  “I’m not fussing over you. Hell, over and above everything, Clay, I just want you to know I don’t give a damn if you don’t take this picture.”

  “I’ll talk to Dick about it.”

  “Take six months off. You and Sharon. Take a year. You’re solid in this racket. A year away won’t hurt you.”

  “A year? My God, what would I do with myself for a year?”

  Would he get involved with another Joanne Stark? He did not believe there was another Joanne; she was compounded out of all the things that had happened to her, driving her, making her what she was. He would never meet one just like her again. But each woman was a sum total of superstitions, drives, beliefs, prejudices, doubts and fears, all seeming so simple, all so complex. Perhaps that wasn’t true. Perhaps they were not complex at all, maybe they were simple, so damned simple that you couldn’t understand them: they knew what they wanted, they’d kill to get it, they’d walk over you if you stood in their way. This wasn’t very complex. You gave it a lot of complex names because it was just too simple to accept at face value.

  He’d been alone and vulnerable after Ruth’s death. He had been unable to work. He had wanted something and from the moment he heard Joanne’s voice on the telephone, it had seemed to be her he wanted. One talked of innumerable friends, a glamorous life of a movie actor, but it was hard work and loneliness, that’s what it really was. Why else were the loveliest actresses forever prey to men who used them, took everything from them? Why had he been so pleased when Joanne called him that first time?

  “Loneliness,” he said aloud.

  “What?” Shatner said. Creek’s secretary glanced up.

  “Nothing. I’m all right, Marc. You can believe it. Call it shock therapy.”

  He could even think about Joanne dispassionately. She could no longer hurt him. And at last he saw what Joanne would never see about herself — the good in her life that she wept for didn’t last because she wouldn’t let it, she destroyed it. She killed it, reaching and grasping for something else that looked better and brighter and more golden.

  He couldn’t even hate her for it now. She’d been walking out on people — in one way or another — all her life. A girl running. Hoff had said it well. Joanne could no more help being what she was than Clay could, or anyone else could help being what their lives had made them.

  • • •

  Creek’s private door opened and the young producer stood there, smiling. “Come on in, fellows,” he said. “I was on the phone, and it was one of those things — ”

  “Bookie or mistress?” Shatner inquired as they entered his office. The room was small with polished desk, a few chairs, a couch, a bookcase topped with some awards Creek had accumulated over the years. The window behind Dick’s desk had a view of the top limbs of a eucalyptus tree.

  “My mistress is my bookie,” Creek said to Shatner. “Didn’t you know?”

  He nodded toward the most comfortable chair, deep tan leather, and told Clay to sit down. Clay slumped into it. He did not remove his dark glasses. He waited for Creek to remark on his torn cheek. Creek didn’t even appear to notice. This meant only one thing: he’d already heard all the details.

  Clay shoved his legs out before him and listened to Creek talk. He was enthused about this character Pinto — a lonely and tormented man who had been six years in the desert, most of it alone, a man driven by inner hurts and conflicts, a compelling need for vengeance. “This we must show, Clay. That’s one reason I wanted you from the first moment. Part of what we want is already in your face, Clay. And I know you, baby, you’ll get the rest of it there when we put you in front of a camera. I’m anxious to get started sh
ooting. I want to see this thing on the screen. If we handle it right — if we keep it bare and stark — we’ve got a classic.”

  Creek went on talking. Clay was pleased with himself about one thing. He was able to concentrate now on what the director was saying. He was recovering. There was no doubt about this. He had spun full circle, Ruth’s death, his loneliness, perhaps a sense of guilt, his vulnerability, his driving need for Joanne, culminating in Sharon’s flying back to remind him who he was, what he must be. From the moment he’d been kicked in the face by Joanne’s friends he had begun to get well. That tore it. The rest would be a matter of hard work and time. One of these days he would forget Joanne’s phone number; someday he would forget the excitement of her in bed, and one night he’d lie awake trying to recall her name.

  Creek’s soft enthusiastic voice flowed on, filling the small office. Clay listened with part of his mind. There was a breeze riffling the tree leaves beyond the window. Creek was saying something. Clay realized he had missed it entirely.

  “This girl whose screen test you were interested in,” Creek said again. “What was her name? Stark. Joanne Stark?”

  “Yes,” Clay said.

  “Yes,” Shatner said.

  “They’re running a rough cut of the picture she made this morning. What was it? Lone Star Kid. We thought you might want to see it, Clay?”

  “No,” Shatner said.

  “We think you ought to see it, Clay,” Creek said.

  “I’d like to,” Clay said, wondering about the odd tone in Creek’s voice.

  Creek spoke into the inter-com to his secretary. “Nita. Will you call and find out in which projection room they’re going to run Lone Star Kid?”

  After a moment the buzzer sounded. The secretary said, “Projection room nine, Mr. Creek. In five minutes.”

  “Come on,” Dick said. “We can just walk over.”

  They did not talk much going through the administration building corridors, through the inner gate, past the cutting rooms to the projection room. Jeff Gordon who had directed Lone Star Kid met them outside the entrance. He flushed slightly but did not say anything. The male lead was there, an old friend of Clay’s.

  “Well,” Gordon said with the depth of inevitability in his voice. “Shall we go in?”

  Creek held open the door. They filed in. Clay was last. Creek touched his arm.

  “It’s just a rough cut, of course,” Creek said.

  • • •

  The picture ended and the lights went up. The projectionist apologized over the inter-com for some technical difficulty during the screening. No one listened to his explanation. Creek thanked him, but none of them moved. They went on staring at the blank, starkly white screen.

  “We thought you ought to know,” Creek said at last to Stuart.

  “She just hasn’t got it,” Jeff Gordon said. “I had that feeling. You know? From the first.”

  “There was nothing we could do,” Creek said. “Except play it out. Sometimes they come over on the screen like dolls — ”

  “This one didn’t,” Gordon said.

  Creek glanced at the director, faintly annoyed. “You’ve been in this racket a long time, Clay. You know. We find a lead. We think we’ve another Cary Grant — you should pardon the expression. But when he plays on the screen, the audience gets that instinctive dislike — a feeling of distaste, even, you know. I don’t have to tell you. How many young players have you seen come along and flop because no matter how sweet the script says he is — the audience sees him — up close, up too close sometimes? They look at him and they despise him. He’s a louse. They can see it. He’s dead as far as the movies are concerned. He can get by on the stage, even in TV — but the screen is too big, too revealing.”

  “And it’s like that with Stark,” Jeff Gordon said. “I even get the feeling — that’s the way it is — as if I’m seeing a predatory babe — a dame on the make — and the script says she’s a sweet girl working in her uncle’s general store. I don’t believe it.”

  Creek didn’t like the way it was said. But he nodded. “That’s the consensus here, Clay. To get across on the screen, you’ve got to have something — I don’t know what — maybe it’s indefinable.”

  Shatner laughed. “And there’s something definable about this doll.”

  “I’m afraid that says it,” Creek agreed. “The company had a one-picture deal with her, Clay. They’re not picking up her option. They told her yesterday. I hope you understand.”

  Clay nodded.

  Creek said, “Jeff did everything he could, Clay. We all worked with her. Time was the thing on this picture — budget, you know. But within that limit, we did everything for her. We want you to know we can’t say how sorry we all are.”

  • • •

  When they got into his hardtop convertible, Clay drove. Shatner sat with a smug smile. They did not speak going across Barham to the freeway.

  “The bitch,” Shatner said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I was thinking about Stark. She can’t even claim now she isn’t a bitch. It showed — on that screen in Cinemascope.”

  “You’re wrong,” Clay said.

  “What?” Shatner sat forward. “Are you insane? It showed in her face.”

  “No. It wasn’t her bitchiness. If that was there.”

  “Are you still blind?”

  “No. I could see. What all the rest of you couldn’t see. Everybody was trying to explain why she failed, why she didn’t get across, but all of them were thinking — as you are — with your prejudices. I’ve been in this business too long. Bitchiness, earthiness, that can be an asset. A woman can make herself several million dollars if that earthiness really gets across on the screen. That wasn’t what was wrong with Joanne.”

  “I’m listening. What is wrong?”

  Clay sighed. “Something nobody can do anything about — cameramen, directors, nobody. She just doesn’t come across. It isn’t bitchiness, it isn’t amateurishness, it’s one fatal thing — flatness.”

  Shatner thought that over. Finally he nodded. “That’s true. Sometimes it happens with people you meet — ”

  “All the time.”

  “They just fail to make an impression. You forget them while they’re talking to you. They might bore you, annoy you, but mostly you just don’t care anything about them one way or another.”

  “They don’t sell.” Shatner nodded. “I think you’ve hit it, Clay. But either way, it finishes that babe in this business. And I can’t think of a nicer person to get it, and just like this.” His mouth twisted and his voice had poison and anger in it. He was watching the turn-offs. Clay moved the car into downtown Hollywood. “Where you going?”

  “I’ve got to find her,” Clay said.

  “Find her? You nuts? Let her go. She got it. She asked for it. I never saw anybody get it the way she asked for it.”

  • • •

  Clay came back out to the car from the apartment building. Flo was there. She did not know where Joanne was. Threats did not touch her, the offer of a hundred dollars appealed to her, but she had to admit she didn’t know where Joanne had gone. Finally she led him into the bedroom. She showed him Joanne’s closet. It looked messy, but he could see most of her belongings were gone.

  “She didn’t say where she was going,” Flo said. Her voice was empty. “When I asked her, she told me to go to hell — and that’s all she would say.”

  • • •

  They sat for a few moments in Clay’s car in front of the apartment building. The sun blazed down on their shoulders.

  Clay told Marc what Flo had said.

  Marc was pleased. “She got it in the kisser.” He doubled his fist and cut upward in the air, a short hard jab. “That’s the way I like to see ‘em get it.”

  “You reckon she’d go back to that town — the one she came from?” Clay said.

  Shatner laughed. “Why not? She’s got a meat block back there, just waiting for her.” Aft
er a moment, he shook his head. “No. She wouldn’t go back there. If you’d read my report, you’d know she wouldn’t. No matter how hard she’s hit, she isn’t hit that hard.”

  “There are a few bars around here. Let’s check a couple of them.”

  “This is an admirable idea,” Shatner said. “Even if we never find her. In fact, especially if we never find her.”

  • • •

  Shatner had whiskey on the rocks in each bar. Clay ordered draft beer, but did not touch it. He walked deep into all of them, checking the booths, the dark tables.

  “You’re not going to find her,” Shatner said. “Even you couldn’t have such miserable luck. Come on, let’s go home.”

  “I didn’t know her well enough,” Clay said. “I didn’t know the places she liked to go.”

  “Count yourself blessed, kid,” Shatner said. “Half a dozen bars. Half a dozen drinks. I’ve had it, whether you have or not. Come on, Clay, take me home.”

  Clay stood in the center of the walk. He looked both ways along the street. “I ought to find her,” he said. “This must have been hell on her. She’s going to need help more than ever.”

  “She got just what she asked for. She knew yesterday when she came back to you she was finished. Leave her alone.”

  Clay shrugged. “I’ll have to. Whether I want to or not. I know what she’s going through. I hate for her to think I didn’t even try to find her.”

  chapter twenty-two

  STUART SWUNG the car slowly off the drive into the gateway of his home. He moved the car to the veranda and parked it. Abstractedly, he glanced at Shatner. Marc was reclining across the car seat, head back, mouth parted.

  Clay sat there a moment, then he reached out and cut the engine. In the abrupt silence there was a wail from inside the house. Clay went tense. Shatner sat up, blinking.

  “What’s that?”

  The wailing was repeated. This time there was rage, but there was laughter in it, too. Shatner gazed around, trying to see where they were.

  The front door opened and Hoff came padding across the veranda and down the steps. His round stomach heaved. He was out of breath.