The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel

by Iris Rainer Dart

  The Boys in the

  Mail Room

  Iris Rainer Dart

  Copyright © 1980, Iris Rainer Dart

  This book is dedicated to the memory of

  Steve Wolf

  and all the joys we shared

  especially our son Gregory

  "Behind the explicit sex—literal, clitoral, and constant . . . moments of sorrow, anger and tenderness. . . Iris Rainer . . . can spin a yarn."

  —New York Post

  "A tale filled with heartbreaks, successes, treachery, unrestrained ambition and above all lust . . . coupled with a fast-moving plot."

  —Best Sellers

  "A steamy book that will delight readers of Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann. It is told in graphic language that paints a raw picture of the power structure in Hollywood."

  —Houston Home Journal

  "Fast-paced reading. It's a can't-put-it-down first novel in which the action moves cohesively, the dialogue is believable and the suspense is surprising."

  —Indianapolis Star

  "A piece of candy . . . devilishly tasty . . . warm, amusing and human . . . accessible, compelling and well-constructed story—a perfect book to curl up with in front of the fire . . . full of the titillating stuff that makes mainstream bestsellers."

  —The Advocate

  The Boys in the Mail Room

  written by a screenwriter who knows her Hollywood, lays bare the danger and the dazzle, the hopes and spoiled dreams for success in a world that makes or breaks the stars.

  acknowledgments

  Special thank-yous to

  George Eckstein

  Bernie Weintraub

  Elaine Markson

  Pat Golbitz

  Sharleen Cooper Cohen

  Richard Grossman

  David Knopf

  Jay Cooper

  Mary Blann

  P. W. Davidson

  Sandy Ferguson

  Maria Padilla

  Colleen Collins

  and

  Katzie

  CONTENTS

  THE BOYS . . .

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  IN THE MAIL ROOM . . .

  Chapter five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  ON THEIR WAY . . .

  Chapter twenty-six

  Chapter twenty-seven

  Chapter twenty-eight

  Chapter twenty-nine

  Chapter thirty

  Chapter thirty-one

  Chapter thirty-two

  Chapter thirty-three

  Chapter thirty-four

  Chapter thirty-five

  Chapter thirty-six

  Chapter thirty-seven

  UPWARD . . .

  Chapter thirty-eight

  Chapter thirty-nine

  Chapter forty

  Chapter forty-one

  Chapter forty-two

  TO THE TOP

  Chapter forty-three

  Chapter forty-four

  Chapter forty-five

  Chapter forty-six

  Chapter forty-seven

  THE BOYS . . .

  one

  When Dave Kane was seventeen and his mother was thirty-five, at first glance people who saw them together thought they were a young attractive couple. Marlene Kane had fiery red hair and freckles and green eyes, and she wore jeans and T-shirts on her slim body, long before dressing that way was chic. Her son, also a redhead, was six foot one, and the extensive sports program offered at his posh Beverly Hills private school helped him to develop an exquisite athlete's body.

  David could never remember Marlene treating him like a child. When his father walked out David was seven. He heard the shouting in the middle of the night but he was used to that, so he managed to get back to sleep. When he woke up again it was light outside, and Marlene was sitting silently at the bottom of his bed. She was holding the G.I. Joe doll he had been playing with and left on the bed the night before.

  "Daddy's gone, Davey," she said.

  David searched his mother's face for even a trace of sadness. There was none. He also tried to cry. He emitted a few sounds that sounded more like coughing than anything else, and then he stopped. Marlene and David were both feeling relieved. David was even more relieved when Marlene assured him his father would "never be back again." Filled with the Oedipal leanings of the average seven-year-old boy, David's future looked bright to him. He was glad Marlene didn't fall apart this time, the way she had in the past when she fought with his father. Instead she got up and said she'd make breakfast. David climbed out of bed and padded after her into the kitchen. It wasn't until later, when David was putting his toys away that he realized that somehow, since last night, G. I. Joe's head had been broken off his body.

  Marlene didn't start going on dates for a very long time. Men would call her, David knew that, because many times he answered the phone when they did. She was polite, but she always told them, "No, thank you. I'm very busy with my son." Then the man would say something, and Marlene would reply, "Sorry, I can't do that, but thank you," and David imagined the man was saying, "Why not bring your son along, too?" And he would wonder how it would be to sit in a restaurant in a big round booth with his mother and a man, instead of at the little tables for two to which he and Marlene were inevitably ushered when they went to restaurants alone. But, though David wanted a dad, he wanted having Marlene to himself more, so he never asked her what the men on the phone said to her.

  By the time Marlene started having any noticeable social life, David was in his early teens and too busy to care. She was working in Saks in Beverly Hills in the cosmetics department, and he knew sometimes she met men there who worked in the store, or customers who stopped to buy gifts there, and they would call her.

  One of the men was an actor. When Marlene came home from her dates with him she looked disheveled but happy. After a while the actor finished making the movie, which was why he was in town to begin with, and went back to New York, and Marlene started going out with another man. This one worked in the men's department at Saks. He was nice. On David's birthday the man brought him a blue Oxford-cloth button-down-collar shirt. It wasn't until David was fourteen that Marlene met Charles Wolfson. Wolfson was tall and elegant and graying at the temples, and he always had a tan, and he wore nicer suits than David saw in the men's department at Saks the time he stopped in to say hi to the guy who gave him the shirt.

  To David, Wolfson was kind of dull, even though he seemed to want to be friendly. He called David "Davey" the way Marlene did, and he always wanted to discuss the ball scores on nights when Marlene was finishing dressing and he and David would end up face to face in the living room of the tiny apartment. Marlene, however, didn't think Wolfson was dull at all. David could see that by the way she looked at him. He could also see that she was starting to use a lot of the stuff she sold in the cosmetics department. Mascara and other dark eye makeup that David didn't like on her. It reminded him of the kind of stuff the drippy girls at school wore.

  After she'd
been seeing Wolfson for about six months or so, Marlene started turning down dates with everyone else. It seemed funny to David though because Wolfson only saw her a few days a week, and she would end up being home alone a lot. But she didn't seem to mind. David didn't spend too much time thinking about Marlene because his own life was beginning to take shape now. He lost his virginity with the help of a girl in the senior class who called him every night from her personal Princess phone to say good night, and frequently mentioned to him that she was sleeping naked and thinking of him. And he had an after-school job he liked at the offices of the Beverly Hills Messenger. The Messenger was a throwaway local newspaper. The job was mostly doing errands for the editor, but all the people at the paper were very nice to him, and they laughed a lot, and he felt as though he fit in.

  David never even read the Messenger. It wasn't really a newspaper. It was kind of a community service filled with stories about who did this charitable thing, or what citizen was being presented with which award. So that day when he happened to be waiting in the gas station for the attendant to take a look under his hood, it was just out of boredom that he looked at the copy of the paper that was sitting next to him.

  When he saw the photograph of a familiar face he looked closer. It was Charlie. Charlie Wolfson. How about that. He looked at the printing. Charles Wolfson, Beverly Hills banker, presenting check to organization's president Meyer D. Coleman. On his right, Mrs. Charles Wolfson. David looked back at the picture. The dark-haired woman who was smiling at Charlie in the picture was Mrs. Charles Wolfson. David looked at the picture for a long time trying to work it out in his mind. The woman was very pretty. She was older than Marlene. Probably the same age as Charlie Wolfson. But she was—oh, shit—she was his wife. Charlie Wolfson was married. David felt queasy. He ached from his throat all the way to his stomach. Wait until Marlene found out. God damn it. She'd really be pissed.

  David carried the secret around with him for several days. No wonder Charlie only saw Marlene during the week. God damn that son of a bitch. Married. On the weekends he had to be at home with the smiling Mrs. Charles Wolfson.

  On Sunday night, Marlene was in her room watching Ed Sullivan. David summoned up all his courage and went to talk to her. The only light in the room was the light from the television show, where a bunch of little dogs wearing coats were running around the feet of some couple. The dogs were yapping, and the audience was laughing and applauding.

  "Mah."

  "Hi, honey. What are you doing here? I thought you were going to a movie."

  "I changed my mind. Mah, I have to tell you something."

  Marlene's eyes opened wide. She looked afraid. She got up and turned off the television. David's heart was pounding.

  "Are you in some kind of trouble?" she asked.

  "Mah, Charlie Wolfson's married." There. He'd said it. Oh, Jesus, that was hard, but he was glad he did it because now it would be okay. Marlene would call Wolfson or send him a nasty letter. David would help her write it, and she'd really lay into that lying bastard. Thank God he'd seen the picture of that schmuck or they never would have—

  "I know, Davey," she said calmly, "I've always known that."

  "What?"

  "It doesn't matter," she said. "I love him. And that's all that counts."

  David couldn't believe it. This was crazy. She was acting like one of those dramatic women characters in some soapy movie. A woman someone had to grab by the shoulders and shake. A woman who was told by everyone, "Come to your senses!" Not his mother.

  "Davey, he wants to leave her and marry me. Honest. And he will. It's just that he doesn't know how to tell his children yet—so we're waiting. Just a little longer. He's a very devoted father. Otherwise he'd marry me tomorrow."

  David took a long look at her. She hadn't put on any of the makeup today and she looked like a very young girl. He felt as though she were his child. That he was the parent and not her.

  "Mah . . ."

  "He's crazy about you, Davey," she interrupted. "He wanted me to tell you right away that he was married. I said no, but he thought you should know. He hoped you'd understand. He respects you, Davey." She paused for a moment. Then her eyes filled. "He doesn't love Diane, you know. That's been over for years. He loves me."

  Diane. That must be Mrs. Charles Wolfson. David stood up. He felt very tired. Very helpless. It occurred to him that when Marlene had stopped dating the others, he figured she would marry Charles Wolfson and he'd been glad. He wanted his mother to stop working and to live in a big beautiful house, and go to the beauty parlor and shop for expensive clothes the way the mothers of his friends did. Now he didn't know what would happen. Maybe Marlene was right. Maybe Wolfson would leave Diane for her.

  The relationship between Marlene and Wolfson went on for a long time after that, and David tried to block it out. He couldn't bear to look at Marlene's face when it was a holiday, and he sat with her at a dinner she had cooked, and she couldn't enjoy it until the phone rang, and she heard Wolfson's voice from Acapulco or Honolulu, telling her he loved her.

  Every time Wolfson was coming over, David found someplace else to be. It wasn't difficult to avoid the situation. Wolfson and Marlene never spent much time in the apartment. Just as long as it took for Wolfson to pick her up and go. Where? David wondered about it constantly. Certainly nowhere in public. David had done some more investigating about Wolfson. One night he stayed late at the office and found himself poring over the Messenger's files, when he discovered that C. W. Wolfson didn't simply work at the First Beverly Hills Bank. He and his three brothers owned it. Charles and Diane lived at the corner of Lexington and Crescent in an enormous Tudor mansion and had another home in the South of France. There were more pictures of Diane. She collected antiques and furnished the house with them. It made David nauseous. And it didn't look as if Wolfson didn't love his wife. There were pictures of him gazing at her lovingly. More lovingly than David had ever seen him gaze at Marlene. And time was passing. David would be graduating from high school in June. So it was nearly three years Marlene and Wolfson had been together. Three years of Wolfson coming to their apartment to get Marlene, David's mother, his beautiful mother, and take her somewhere—just to fuck her. Oh, Christ. And her walking around with this bullshit dream about Wolfson marrying her. That's what it was, David thought. Bullshit! And he was going to go home right now and tell her so. She was still young and she was very beautiful, and Wolfson was wasting her time.

  David parked the green Volkswagen that the editor of the Messenger had loaned him for errands in front of the apartment building on South Almont Drive. No one would miss him at the Messenger. They'd think he was out picking something up. It was Monday. Marlene's day off from Saks. She'd be bustling around cleaning the apartment. Saks. Cleaning the apartment. Diane Wolfson probably never lifted a finger. And David was sure she spent more at Saks every week than his mother made there.

  He took the steps up, three at a time. The door was unlocked.

  "Mah?"

  The television was on in Marlene's bedroom. Maybe she was in there.

  "Mah?"

  Maybe she went downstairs to the laundry room, David thought, and he started to turn when he saw the blood. He took a deep breath and walked slowly toward the door.

  "Mah?"

  Marlene was lying on the bathroom floor. The tile and the chenille rug under her were covered with blood. Other things were covered with blood, too. A lot of towels that sat on the lid of the toilet, and a robe that was thrown across the sink. Marlene's eyes were closed but she was, oh, God, she was still breathing. David kept repeating the words be calm to himself. Be calm. Oh, God. He ran into the bedroom and grabbed a pillow from the bed. He brought it back and put it under Marlene's head. Her eyes opened slowly and she looked at him.

  "Mah," he said softly. "Mah, I'm gonna call an ambulance."

  "No," she said. "No ambulance. You take me. Take me to U.C.L.A. I don't want anybody to know, Davey."

  The
doctor at U.C.L.A. told David Marlene was pregnant and had tried unsuccessfully to abort herself. She had lost a lot of blood and would have to stay in intensive care. David was nauseous at first, then very angry. He went to the phone and called information. He asked for Charles Wolfson's home phone number. He didn't care if the son of a bitch's wife knew. His mother had lost a lot of blood. Maybe she would—unlisted. The bank. First Bank of Beverly . . . fuck. It was five o'clock. His boss at the Messenger. Maybe he had Wolfson's number.

  I don't want anybody to know, Davey.

  He could see Marlene's ashen face as she said that.

  "Mah!" he cried out aloud, still holding the receiver of the pay phone. David Kane stood in the hospital corridor sobbing. A nurse came through the swinging doors of the intensive-care unit and walked toward the nurses' station where she leaned forward and said something to the nurse who was sitting next to the phone. David turned cold. He sensed what it was the first nurse had said, but he couldn't move. The nurse who was next to the phone picked the phone up and dialed a few numbers. A moment passed and David heard the page: "Dr. Seligson. Dr. Howard Seligson." The doctor who had admitted Marlene.

  Marlene was dead. David saw it on Seligson's face as he got off the elevator and walked down the hall. Seligson didn't notice him standing there, and David didn't make himself known. He watched Seligson enter the I.C.U., and continued to stand paralyzed by the pay phone. Maybe it wasn't Marlene. Oh, please, God. Maybe it was someone else. Someone old. Someone who had lived a full life. Someone—Seligson emerged from the swinging doors and spotted David immediately. He began to walk toward him.

  "Mr. Kane."

  No, David thought. Maybe if I run. But he didn't.

  "Mr. Kane. I'm sorry," the doctor told him. "Your mother is dead."

  Charles Wolfson had a regular doubles match very early every Tuesday morning. The other three men arrived at Wolfson's at seven. By that time he had already been up for two hours, having his morning coffee and making calls to the East Coast from the elaborate poolhouse-office, which was adjacent to the tennis court. Wolfson was looking forward to the game. He'd had two lessons over the weekend, and his serve was a killer ace. He wished he'd gone to bed a little earlier last night but that dinner party he and Diane threw was worth losing sleep for. The cook had outdone herself. Wolfson patted his middle. Never mind. He'd work the dinner off this morning. Maybe ask one of the men to stay later for a set of singles.