The Dream Merchants (39 page)

“I’ve got to be going, Dulcie,” he said uncomfortably.

She stared at him unbelievingly. The man was crazy. What did he want? A written invitation? In a sort of daze she held out her hand.

He took it. “Good-by,” he said.

She didn’t answer. Still dazed, she watched the door close behind him. Then suddenly she came to life. In a rage she took off one of her shoes and flung it at the door.

The light flashed on in the foyer and she whirled around. Warren stood there mockingly, leaning against the inner door. He silently clapped his hands together. His voice was low. “Curtain, act two,” he said.

“What did you want me to do?” she snarled at him. “Hold him by his trousers?”

He walked over to her, shaking his head gently. “Temper, temper,” he said. “Can’t you see the man has ideals and is a gentleman?”

With an effort she controlled herself. She smiled and came toward him, put her arms around him, and looked up into his face. “What are we going to do now, Warren? I tried.”

He disengaged himself from her clasp. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, honey,” he said quietly, “but you’re going to have to leave here.”

She stared at him for a moment. Rage flashed across her face, and suddenly it was gone and she smiled. She turned, walked over to the door, and picked up her shoe from the floor. She walked back to him slowly. “Darling,” she said, sweetly, “did you ever want something you couldn’t have?”

His face was puzzled. “No,” he answered. He watched her walk past him to the inner door. “Why?”

She turned and faced him. The light of the room fell across her. She let her evening wrap fall from her shoulders. “Then take a good look, darling,” she said slowly, “because some day you’re going to want it an awful lot and you won’t get it!”

***

Johnny looked out the window of the train. They were rolling through the Jersey meadow. He settled back against the cushions comfortably. There was a knock on the door.

He looked up. It must be Rock with the papers. His hands were probably filled and he couldn’t turn the knob. He got up and opened the door.

“Can I come in, Johnny?” the voice asked him plaintively.

He stood there for a moment in shocked surprise. “Dulcie!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

She came into the compartment and closed the door behind her. “I wanted to be with you, Johnny,” she said breathlessly, looking up at him.

Happiness gradually replaced the look of surprise on his face. He reached out an arm to her. She took his hand. “But what about your plans?” he asked bewilderedly.

She put her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Last night when you kissed me I suddenly knew what I wanted. I didn’t want to be an actress any more. All I want is you!”

“But—” Johnny insisted.

“No buts!” she said swiftly. “I’m free, white, and twenty-four and I know what I want!” She pressed her lips to his.

He held her close to him. Her lips told him what she said was true. He could hear the words in his ears: “I know what I want!” The only thing the matter was that he didn’t know how true they were.

7

The sound of the water running in the shower woke him up. For a moment he lay listening to it, then, slowly, he rolled over on his back. He had been sleeping on his stomach. He opened his eyes. The bathroom door was open and through it came the sound of the running water.

He sat up and reached for his watch on the table next to the bed. It was almost six o’clock in the morning. He reached for the crutches that lay next to the bed and lifted himself up. The bed squeaked as his weight came off it.

Dulcie’s voice came from the shower. “Darling, are you up?”

He grinned to himself. If he hadn’t been awake before he heard her voice, he was now. He was suddenly alive. Alive in every part of his body in a way he hadn’t been for many years. “Yeah,” he called back.

“There’s a note on the dresser for you,” she called in to him. “I found it under the door this morning when I woke up.”

He went to the dresser and picked it up. It was a white square envelope with the hotel’s imprint up in the left-hand corner. On it was his name scrawled in Rocco’s familiar handwriting. He opened it.

“Dear Johnny,” it read, “I ordered the car to pick you up at seven fifteen downstairs as you wanted and took the five ten this morning back to New York. There’s no place for an extra man on a honeymoon. Good luck.” It was signed: “Rocco.”

He tapped the letter thoughtfully against the dresser. He thought Rock had been acting strangely yesterday when they had been married at that whistle stop just inside the California border. They had got off the train at Pasadena at ten thirty last night and had come directly to the hotel.

He had told Rock to have a car ordered for seven fifteen in the morning. Rock had looked at him and laughingly said: “Do you think you’ll be up that early?”

He had grinned back at Rocco foolishly. “Sure,” he had said. “I told Peter I’d be out at his house for breakfast.”

Awkwardly they had shaken hands and bidden each other good-night. He had gone up to their room and knocked on the door.

“Come in.” Dulcie’s voice was small.

He had gone into the room. She was in bed already, a small robe flung across her shoulders. The light from a small table lamp next to the bed was the only light in the room. She was watching him.

He smiled reassuringly at her. “Nervous?” he asked.

She nodded her head. “A little,” she replied. “I was never married before.”

He laughed at her small joke and sat down on the bed next to her and put his arms around her. She turned her face to his and he kissed her. He looked down at her; her eyes were closed. He kissed them tenderly. “Don’t be afraid, darling,” he whispered. “I’ll be gentle with you.”

He didn’t know it, but the shoe was on the other foot. She was gentle with him. So gentle he hadn’t suspected her experience.

She came out of the bathroom, a robe hanging loosely around her shoulders. “What is it?” she asked.

It was a moment before he realized she was referring to the note he held in his hand. The robe hung open and she was lovely beneath it. “From Rock,” he said looking at her.

She tied the robe around her and walked toward him. “What does he say?”

He handed her the note and she read it swiftly. A feeling of elation ran through her. There was something about Rock and his devotion to Johnny that she was afraid of. She gave it back to him. “It’s funny, he didn’t say anything last night,” she said.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “it is funny.” He laughed shortly. “I feel strange.”

She had turned and was running a comb through her hair. At his words she turned back to him. “How?”

He was uncomfortable. “This is the first time since the war Rock hasn’t been around.”

She came to him and put her arms around him. “You don’t need him any more, darling,” she said. “Now you’ve got me.”

He smiled down at her and kissed the lobe of her ear where it peeked out from under her hair. “It’s not that, sugar,” he said. “It’s something else.” There was a guilty feeling inside him. Strangely he couldn’t help thinking he had let Rock down.

She snuggled closer to him. “What else?”

He laughed embarrassedly. “Like who’s going to drive the car to take us out to Peter’s house this morning?” and was ashamed of his words as soon as they were out of his mouth, for that wasn’t the way he felt at all.

She kissed him. “I’m quite talented, darling,” she said, taking him at his word. “I can drive, too.”

She was curious about Peter and his family and asked him many questions about them as they drove out to his house. She asked him so many questions he didn’t realize most of them were about Doris.

At last he turned to her and laughed. “Don’t be such a busybody, you’ll meet them for yourself in a few minutes.”

She kept her eye on the road. “I’m only asking because they have known you so much longer than I,” she said in a hurt tone of voice. “And I wonder if they’ll like me.”

He kissed her cheek. “Stop acting, darling,” he said, smiling. “You know they’ll love you.”

She drove silently, following his directions. She was no fool. When she had made up her mind to marry Johnny she decided to learn all she could about him. Warren had told her as much as he knew. She added to that by careful questioning of some friends of hers who worked on theatrical papers. From them she had learned all about Peter and his family. She had especially been interested in Doris. An instinct told her to learn more about Doris. She had checked and found out that Doris had written a novel that had been published just a few months before. She read the book. When she finished it she knew she was right about Doris. The man in the story was enough like Johnny to be him.

Johnny’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “This last turn here and we’re right at the house.”

She looked at him. His face was intent, watching the side of the road for the first sign of Peter’s home. There was also a look of happy anticipation there. For a moment she was very fond of him. He was such a nice guy; he had acted toward her like a schoolboy with his first love. She took a hand off the wheel and placed it on his. “Happy, Johnny?” she asked.

He looked at her. “What do you think?” he asked in return, squeezing her hand.

***

Doris looked at them blankly. Her mind was still numb, her heart seemed to have turned into a lump of ice within her breast.

His words still hung in the air. “We were married last night!”

She watched her father jump up and go around the table and excitedly pump his hand. Hours seemed to go by. What was Johnny saying? She tilted her head a little to one side as if to hear better. He was talking to her. Desperately she tried to hear him.

“Ain’t you comin’ over and kiss your Uncle Johnny?” he was asking as if she were a little girl.

Stiffly she got to her feet. She wished she was a little girl again. Little girls didn’t hurt inside the way she did.

8

Conrad von Elster put his elbows on his desk and his head in his hands and stared at the photographs spread out before him. He was unhappy. And he was worried too. He was looking for a woman and couldn’t find one.

Not that there was a shortage of women in a personal sense for Herr von Elster. That there never was. In spite of a carefully cultivated rudeness of manner, unkempt, sandy-colored hair that never looked washed, slightly bulging, gimlety blue eyes and a pale, oily skin, he had attracted many women. This time he didn’t want a woman for himself, he wanted a woman for a picture he was about to make.

Conrad von Elster was a director of motion pictures. He had come to America at the personal request of Peter Kessler, who had told him that America was waiting for his pictures. He had come to America for one thousand American dollars every week. Inflation was rampant in Germany when he spoke to Mr. Kessler. The dinner they were eating at the time Mr. Kessler extended his invitation cost two hundred thousand marks, which Mr. Kessler paid with one American ten-dollar bill with an eagle on it. It was a good dinner. Von Elster belched politely and said he would be glad to come to America. That was four months ago.

He had arrived in Hollywood with Mr. Kessler about the middle of November and was installed in an office and told to go to work. He had already approved the script of the picture he was to work on and his first job was to select an adequate cast. He had no trouble until he came to the part of the leading woman. None of the actresses under contract to Magnum would suit him. Obligingly Mr. Kessler told the casting department to extend all possible aid to Herr von Elster. Immediately von Elster was swamped with photographs of pretty girls. His phone rang every minute with a request from the casting department to interview the newest hopeful.

Von Elster had looked at all of them and found none of them satisfactory. The photographs now spread on the desk before him were the best of all those he had seen. He shook his head and sighed. He didn’t like any of them.

He had to choose one of these girls to play the role in his picture or he might have to give up that thousand-dollar check he received every week. The idea of that one-thousand-dollar check made him happy until he thought of the note he had found on his desk when he arrived at the office that morning.

It was a simple note from Mr. Kessler. It was a small piece of paper. Across the top of it were printed the words: “From the desk of Peter Kessler, President, Magnum Pictures.” The message was typed carefully underneath it: “Be at my office at 11:30 a.m.” It wasn’t signed.

If this note had come before January 1, von Elster would not have been perturbed. Indeed, he would have looked forward to the meeting with anticipation. Mr. Kessler and he found many things in common to talk about; but things were different now. On January 2 a Mr. Edge had come to the studio from New York to help Mr. Kessler.

Von Elster was no fool. He could sense the almost immediate change in the atmosphere around him. Even the secretaries were at their desks early. The pleasant calls he would get from Mr. Kessler twice a week chucklingly asking him if he had found the right girl yet had stopped. It was now almost the end of January and this was the first word he had had from Mr. Kessler all month.

His fears were not entirely without other foundation. He had heard of the summary dismissal of certain directors, writers, and producers because of their inability to get their pictures into production. At first he had ignored these signals. Hadn’t Mr. Kessler told him every time he spoke to him that he didn’t have to start until he was perfectly satisfied with everything? But then as Mr. Kessler stopped making his bi-weekly calls, von Elster couldn’t ignore what was happening. That was why he was so unhappy. He didn’t want to stop receiving that one-thousand-dollar check.

He looked at his wristwatch. It was almost eleven o’clock now. At eleven o’clock the messenger would come with the check. Sometimes the messenger would be late. He hoped the messenger wouldn’t be late today. He would feel better with this week’s check safely in his pocket before he left for Mr. Kessler’s office.

There was a knock at his door. Von Elster smiled happily. The check was on time. The messenger placed the envelope containing the check on his desk and waited patiently while von Elster signed and returned the receipt to him. The messenger left the office and von Elster placed the envelope carefully in an inside pocket of his jacket.