Looking back, the first link of the chain was forged, so to speak, when Howie Lemp was jerking sodas for Rupp’s Drug Store in Chicago. It was during the morning rush when Howie looked up and suddenly noticed Mazie Slatter for the first time. He had seen her before, for Mazie was a waitress at
Rupp’s, but it wasn’t until this particular morning that he realized that her hair was the exact shade of the deviled egg he was spreading dexterously between two slices of toasted white.
He stopped spreading the deviled egg and swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.
“Mazie,” he said awkwardly, “would—would you like to go to a show tonight?”
Mazie tossed two lumps of ice cream into a tall glass before looking up at him. By ordinary standards Mazie would not be considered beautiful. To be blunt, it is doubtful that Mazie would have been considered beautiful by any standards. Her skin was sallow and her hair was a streaky blonde and her figure might remind you of an overstuffed pillow that had been tied together at the middle.
But to Howie she was suddenly The Girl.
He looked anxiously at her.
“Well?” he said weakly. “I thought you might like to.”
Mazie’s eyes traveled unenthusiastically over Howie’s lanky frame, past his out-sized adam’s apple and on to his horn-rimmed spectacles, watery blue eyes, receding forehead and thin brown hair.
Then she laughed sarcastically.
“Why should I go to a show with you?” she asked, “when I can take in a side-show by just looking at you.”
She stuck a cherry on top of the soda she was concocting and waddled off, leaving Howie staring after her, crimson-cheeked and miserable.
After a few seconds he returned to the deviled egg sandwich but his heart was not in his work. For suddenly and completely he had fallen in love with Mazie Slatter. Even her sarcastic rejoinder was only additional evidence of her wit and cleverness.
He finished the sandwich and started another mechanically.
“I can’t let myself go to pieces,” he thought grimly.
For the rest of the morning he filled orders heroically, and no one could have told from his sad, melancholy expression that the pangs of unrequited love were gnawing away at his soul.
For Howie Lemp always looked sad and melancholy.
AT lunch time he got out of the store quickly and crossed to the park where he invariably drank his quart of milk and ate his two hard boiled eggs in the forty-five minutes allotted him by the proprietor of Rupp’s Drug Store.
He ate an egg in solemn silence and thought wistfully of Mazie Slatter. With each passing second it seemed his devotion and love increased. He ate his second egg and polished off a pint of milk and then dropped his head into his long bony hands.
“I guess I was born to suffer,” he muttered brokenly.
For a moment there was a complete silence in the sunny park. Then:
“Why?”
The voice, soft and caressing, sounded beside him.
Howie sighed soul fully.
“Why?” the caressing voice persisted.
Shaken from his gloomy reverie Howie took his head from his hands and looked up. A girl was seated beside him on the park bench, her dark eyes resting on him in limpid compassion.
Howie hadn’t heard the girl come up and sit down and he wondered about this for a second. Then he straightened up, self-consciously aware of her intense gaze.
“Why are you unhappy?” she asked.
Howie turned to the girl impulsively, eager to pour forth the sorry story of his great affection for Mazie and her callous disregard of him. So absorbed was he in his own plight he did not particularly notice the amazing beauty of the girl sitting beside him.
Her hair was dark with strange highlights of blue that glistened in the sun, forming a shimmering halo about her delicate, perfectly molded features. In her eyes of deep cobalt blue, sultry fires seemed to leap and dance. There was something ageless and deathless about her loveliness, as if it were too beautiful to be ravaged by even Time itself. She wore a plain white dress that was almost severe in Grecian simplicity, but which accentuated perfectly her slim, delightfully curved figure.
Howie disregarded all of these abundant charms. If he even saw them he did not indicate it by so much as a flicker of an eyelash. He plunged into his story, happy for sympathetic ears to absorb it. He talked on, adding one glowing word after another in praise of Mazie’s beauty and charm. When he could think of nothing else to add he sighed with all of the reverence of a Tibetian monk in the presence of the Inner Mysteries and lapsed into moody silence.
“Is she so beautiful?” the dark haired girl asked.
Howie sighed.
“There’s no other woman like her,” he said.
“Is she,” the dark haired girl’s voice was as soft as a summer’s breeze, “is she more beautiful than I?”
Howie turned and looked at the dark haired girl critically.
“You’re kind of pretty,” he said, “but you haven’t got the same cute wrinkles in your neck that Mazie has.”
The dark haired girl’s face remained expressionless but there was a flicker of angry astonishment behind her smouldering eyes.
“Look at me,” she whispered.
HOWIE looked at her. He saw her slightly parted lips, her burning blue eyes, her slender voluptuousness. She moved closer to him, one soft white hand stealing across his shoulder to caress the back of his head.
“Can’t you forget this other girl?” she whispered. “We could be happy together, you and I. Look into my eyes and tell me if it would be difficult to love me.”
Howie squirmed uncomfortably and shifted away from the girl.
“It wouldn’t be difficult for a person to fall in love with you,” he said awkwardly. “You’re really nice and pretty and everything.” He tried desperately to think of something to say that would be kind and at the same time would discourage her intentions toward him.
“You just be patient,” he added, “and some nice young man will come along. As for me though, I’m in love with the only girl for me, Mazie.”
The dark haired girl’s features were unchanged, but there was dawning consternation in the depths of her eyes.
“Do you mean,” she asked, and there was a faintly anxious tone in her smooth voice, “that you are able to ignore me for this other girl? Surely she cannot be a tenth as desirable as I. Please look at me. You must see that I am beautiful. I could make you happier than you dream possible if you will only look at me and love me.”
“I’m sorry,” Howie said with finality, “but that just isn’t possible. I’ve told you you’re pretty—after a manner. But I’m in love with Mazie and nothing can change that. We got some good looking boys over in the store jerking sodas and if you’d like, I could maybe fix things up for you with one of them. But as for me, that’s out.”
He ran a long finger around the inside of his collar and moved a few inches away from the girl. A dizzy feeling of desperation was sweeping over him. He was no Casanova and he knew it, but this girl was acting as if he were a combination of Clark Gable and William the Conqueror.
“I’ve got to be getting back to the store,” he said apologetically, “it’s been nice knowing—”
“You can’t go,” the dark haired girl cried passionately. “You mustn’t leave me. I need you. I must have you. Why don’t you take me? Everything I have, everything I am will be yours to use as you wish. Only tell me you find me desirable and you love me. and I will be yours.”
The girl’s beautiful, haunting features were strained and fearful and a nameless terror was lurking deep in her eyes.
“You mustn’t leave me,” she begged. “You must say you love me and that you will be mine. Please tell me you can’t resist me.”
“I’d like to oblige you,” Howie stammered breathlessly, “but I just can’t do it.”
He scrambled to his feet and shoved the half-empty bottle of milk into her hands.
“
Here,” he said desperately, “maybe this’ll help you. It’s on me.”
He wheeled then and sprinted across the grass . . .
WHEN Howie Lemp reached the drug store, he was panting strenuously. Ducking inside, he hastily wrapped a clean apron around him and took his place behind the counter with a vast sigh of relief. He had been in a few uncomfortable spots in his lifetime, but never one that equalled the predicament he had just escaped. For several blissful seconds he enjoyed the sensation of security and then one of his fellow clerks nudged him.
“Lookit!” he whispered. “Lookit the doll at the end of the counter. Baby is she a knockout. And she’s giving you the eye.”
“Where?” Howie asked.
He needn’t have asked that question. All he needed to have done was to follow the gaze of all the male employees and customers in the store. They were all staring in unconcealed admiration at an incredibly beautiful girl with blue-black hair and great flashing eyes that were now resting limpidly and adoringly on a tall, gangling soda jerker by the name of Howie Lemp.
Howie swallowed nervously as he recognized the amorous creature who had shared the park bench with him some few minutes ago. She was looking at him. But all of the fear and consternation had left her. Now she was apparently the happiest creature in the world, smiling at him with a secretive, dreamy smile that was similar in kind if not in quality to that of a love struck adolescent mooning over an autographed picture of Robert Taylor.
“What’ve you got that I ain’t,” Howie’s fellow clerk whispered enviously. “If a dame like that gave me the eye I’d drop everything and run.” Blushing to the roots of his thin hair Howie hurled himself into the job of constructing a ham-and-cheese triple-decker. Why was this girl following him? What did she want? These unanswerable questions buzzed around in his head as he worked.
“Ham on rye,” a nasal voice sang out, and looking up, Howie saw Mazie standing in front of him. “It’s a special,” she snapped, “for Old Man Potterson, so be careful.”
Howie nodded. Potterson was one of the big shots from the Colossal Studio office on the fifth floor. He was a Hollywood producer, but he spent a good deal of time traveling on the search for talent. A liberal tipper, but he was finicky about his food.
“About tonight,” Howie said desperately, as Mazie was turning away. “Haven’t you changed your mind about taking in that show with me?”
Mazie looked at him coldly, then her gaze flicked down the counter to the gorgeous brunette who was still smiling seductively at Howie.
“Why don’t you ask her?” she snapped. “She seems to be interested in oddities in the news.”
CRUSHED and miserable Howie listlessly went on with his work. In his benumbed condition he slapped sandwiches together automatically, too miserable to think of anything but the hopelessness of his condition. A glamorous witch who wouldn’t leave him alone and who was souring Mazie on him even more than ever. Which was quite a lot, he was forced to admit dolefully.
The store was filling up with customers, he noticed lackadaisically.
Most of them however, he noticed, were not buying anything, but merely clogging up the aisles and counters staring and oogling the bewitchingly beautiful brunette who was perched provocatively on the end stool. He risked a hasty glance at her.
Her smile widened as she caught his eye and she winked at him, coyly and intimately.
Howie dropped his eyes to the sandwich board and groaned.
Things were terrible. They couldn’t get any worse.
In that he was mistaken.
Suddenly from one of the tables in the rear of the store an enraged bellow sounded. It was like a rogue elephant trumpeting defiance in the jungle, or a maddened bull roaring at a red flag. Only it was worse because it was “Stormy” Potterson of Colossal Films.
“I won’t stand for it,” Potterson was bellowing lustily and Howie could see his huge, red-faced figure lumbering toward the front of the store.
“I’ll break whomever’s responsible for this,” he shouted. “It’s one thing I will not stand tampering with.”
He shoved his way through the bugeyed crowd at the counter and pointed a fat finger at Howie.
“Young man,” he said at the top of his voice, “did you make my sandwich? Answer me yes or no, and don’t try and pass the buck.”
Howie swallowed nervously, then squared his shoulders.
“I won’t do any buck passing,” he said, “I made it.”
“Oh did you?” Potterson almost howled. “And you admit it, brazenly and impudently.”
He suddenly lifted his arm and extended a soppy object toward Howie.
“And did you put this in it?” he exploded.
Howie’s eye’s widened in horror as he recognized the object in Potterson’s hand. It was the flat sponge he used in swabbing up the sandwich board. His eyes flashed to the receptacle where it should have been, but the receptacle was quite empty.
And the receptacle was just next to the ham plate!
He knew in one horrified second what had happened. He had stuck the sponge in Potterson’s sandwich while he was brooding over his troubles.
“Well!” Potterson shouted the word. “Did you put it in my sandwich or didn’t you?”
HOWIE opened his mouth, but he didn’t get a chance to speak. For the mysterious brunette stepped into the picture at that instant. She stepped alongside Potterson and tapped him on the shoulder. Her pale cheeks were touched with spots of color and her eyes flashed like twin beacons of fury.
“You can’t talk like that to him,” she said softly. “No one can in my presence. Do you understand?”
“Who says—” Potterson began to bluster, but he suddenly lost his voice as he looked at the dark-haired girl. For fully a minute he sputtered helplessly, and then he wiped his damp forehead with a trembling hand.
“Let’s go somewhere where we can talk,” he said weakly. “I’m Potterson of Colossal Films.” His eyes traveled over the girl’s beauty with the swiftness of the experienced showman. “I’m sure I can make you an offer that you would find acceptable.”
“I am not interested in offers,” the girl said. “Only your apology to my friend.”
“Sure,” Potterson said eagerly. “We all make mistakes.” He waved genially to Howie who was watching the scene with his mouth open a full three inches. “Forget it son. Sorry I lost my head.”
He turned back to the dark-haired girl.
“My company,” he said rapidly, “is the largest in the business. We can give you the build-up you need. I can practically guarantee you stardom inside of six months.”
The dark-haired girl smiled languorously.
“That’s what the other gentleman said. He also said his company was the largest. But he promised me stardom in three months.”
“Who’re you talking about?” Potterson snapped shrewdly.
“The gentleman from Superba Films,” the dark-haired girl said innocently. “I might add that his offer was extremely interesting.”
Potterson mopped his brow. He took another searching look at the girl, appraising her eyes, her hair, her figure. She stood before him like something from Heaven, but amused and scornful.
Potterson snapped his fingers.
“I’ll double his offer,” he barked. “Whatever it was I’ll double it.”
“It isn’t up to me to decide,” the dark-haired girl answered.
“You got an agent?” Potterson demanded.
The dark-haired girl nodded her beautiful head.
“I wouldn’t make any decision unless he told me it was acceptable to him. I trust him implicitly. He’s more than an agent to me. He’s everything!”
“Who is he?” Potterson demanded hoarsely.
“You were shouting at him a minute ago,” the dark-haired girl answered coldly. She wheeled dramatically and pointed straight at Howie Lemp.
“Talk to him,” she said softly, her eyes shining. “The decision is for him to make, for I am his,
body and soul!”
A dish of deviled eggs crashed to the floor with a loud clatter. A second later it was joined by the limp body of Howie Lemp!
WHEN Howie Lemp came around, he opened his eyes and discovered that he was resting against the luxurious cushions of a swiftly traveling limousine. Startled, he attempted to sit up, but a hand on each of his shoulders pushed him back against the cushions.
“Nothing to get excited about.” a rumbling voice said.
Howie turned and saw “Stormy” Potterson on one side of him and a sharp-featured, snappily dressed middle aged man on the other. Both of the jump seats of the big car were occupied. One very fat man and one very skinny man had their backs to him.
“W—what’s it all about?” Howie asked bewilderedly.
“You’re a sly fox,” Potterson laughed with false heartiness. “Getting a contract on that young lady in the drug store and now pretending you don’t know what we want.”
“What do you want?” Howie asked wildly.
“Don’t get excited,” Potterson said soothingly. “Our price will be the best you can get. After you fainted in the store the young lady disappeared in the crowd, but she had already told us that we had to deal through you. So that’s what we’re doing. Got your boarding house address from one of the clerks at the store and we’re heading there now to draw up the papers. Just relax. We’ll treat you right.”
“You’re all crazy,” Howie said desperately, “I haven’t any contract on anybody. Let me out of this car. I’ve got to get back to the store.”
“I gotta hand it to you,” Potterson chuckled, “you’re going to keep up the act to the end aren’t you? But we might as well put the cards on the table. You’ve got us over a barrel, I don’t mind telling you. We’ve got to get that girl before Superba does. Why she’ll be the most terrific thing that ever hit the picture business. We can’t let her get away. So all you have to do is name the price and we’ll meet it if we have t.9 mortgage my false teeth to do it.”
Howie stared about frantically. Was everybody going crazy? What had he done that deserved punishment like this? With every fibre of lanky body he longed for the orderly bustle of Rupp’s Drug Store and the exhilarating presence of Mazie Slatter.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 73