The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel

by Iris Rainer Dart

  Chuck Larson, or whoever David was talking to, must have said something really funny then, because David was laughing very hard now. His face got really red, like his hair.

  "Yeah," he said into the phone. "Yeah, I know." He wiped his eyes. "Okay, I'll be in in a minute."

  Mickey felt a heaviness in his chest. David put the phone down. He was still flushed from the laughter. Why had he told Larson he'd be in in a minute? Mickey needed to talk to him.

  "Oh, Christ, that's funny," David Kane said. "Frances Gumm." He giggled again. "I'm sorry, Reg, go ahead. You were saying?"

  Mickey was afraid he couldn't talk now. He didn't know what to say. He had always been embarrassed by the fact that he couldn't get an agent who was better than Milt Stiener, but now he felt humiliated. Foolish. Like a person who was pretending to be in show business but who was really kidding himself. He was kidding himself. What did it matter what he said to Kane now? Kane knew exactly who he was. Just like his mother knew. A waterbed salesman.

  "I want you and Larson to represent me," he said. Now his heart was really pounding. Why the fuck did he say that? Because he'd been practicing it since yesterday when Kane agreed to see him? Because it seemed like something out of an old movie, where now Kane was supposed to say, "Of course, Mickey, I know of three parts you should be submitted for right now," and then Kane would pick up the phone and call Larson in, and the two of them would make phone calls that could change Mickey's life? Yes. David Kane had the power to change Mickey's life and he had to do it for him.

  He was laughing again.

  "No, really, Reggie," he said. "What did you really want to talk about?"

  Oh, Jesus. Kane thought it was a joke. He thought Mickey was trying to make him laugh the way he had when he mentioned Milt Stiener.

  "That's it, Arch," Mickey said. "That's what I really want."

  Kane's face sobered slowly.

  "Mickey," he said. "Do you know who we handle?" he asked. He looked to Mickey now as if he wanted to laugh but was keeping it inside to be polite. "Do you?"

  "Yeah," Mickey said softly. "Some of them."

  "Mickey, every one of them is a big star! We have Rue McMillan and Carol Denning and Beau Daniels and Doug Hart. Big giant motherfucking stars. We don't handle anybody who's new."

  "But everybody has to start somewhere," Mickey said.

  "Maybe so," Kane replied, "but not with us. Shit, Ashman, I don't even deal with the people you should be working with. Casting directors of episodic television. I only talk to producers and studio heads. My people are all names."

  Mickey was quiet. He'd go. God, he was a schmuck.

  "I'm working in a waterbed store," he said quietly.

  "That's a shame," David said. Mickey knew Kane didn't give a shit. "You should get someone better than Stiener though. Maybe you should try to meet an agent like Mike Amos," he offered.

  "I did. He turned me down."

  "How 'bout Anne Corey? She's very—"

  "She turned me down."

  "John Marks is good. He's a—"

  "He turned me down."

  "Well, maybe you should keep selling waterbeds," Kane said, smiling. He meant it as a joke, but Mickey had to grasp the arm of the chair he was holding very tightly to keep from getting up and grabbing Kane by the fucking shirt.

  "Yeah," he said instead. "Maybe I should."

  Mickey got out of his chair slowly and left.

  twenty-eight

  Beau Daniels wore a pink-satin mask over her eyes when she slept. She told everyone it was because even the smallest drop of light in the bedroom kept her awake. And that really was one of the reasons. The other reason was that somewhere along the line, while Beau was growing up and deciding she wanted to be a famous star, she imagined that when she was, she would sleep wearing a pink-satin mask. Beau's four-poster bed with the canopy, and her slinky nightgowns and the huge bedroom with French doors opening to the pool and grounds of her immense Bel Air estate were also part of the how-a-star-sleeps fantasy. Being in the bed alone, however, was not part of the fantasy. The house would be shared with her dream man, handsome, strong and sexy, who would make love to her passionately, then cuddle her lovingly and chuckle understandingly as she donned the pink-satin mask and settled in for her beauty sleep. Unfortunately, instead of having that man, Beau had Benny. Benny Daniels, her husband and Svengali. That son of a bitch. Where the fuck was the bastard anyway?

  Night after night he didn't come home. Not that he slept in the bedroom with her when he did come home. Benny had his own suite on the other side of the Daniels' mansion. At first he told Beau he wanted to use the bedroom in the east wing so she would be able to get her sleep on the nights before she shot her television show. After all, he was so hyper and nervous with all the details of being the show's producer that he'd be pacing and talking on the phone, and that would only keep her awake.

  Beau knew Benny cheated on her. That any girl who would pull her pants down had been fucked by him. But she never dreamed he would fuck one of his other women at home. Or that that was just why he wanted the east wing for himself. Prick. Prick. Rotten prick. Even now, remembering, the heat ran through her veins. A Valium. A ten. Perfect. Maybe a ten plus half a ten. She'd break the second one.

  She had been feeling scared one night about doing the show she was shooting the next day. She was afraid she wouldn't remember the dance steps and she woke up and walked down to Benny's room. And Rhonda, that tiny girl dancer from the show, was lying naked on Benny's bed. On the comforter Beau's mother had given them. With Benny. He was still in his shorts and socks, that uncool asshole, sucking on Rhonda's cunt. Beau remembered screaming. Screaming and yelling and running back to her room. Swearing to God she'd leave him. Leave the show because it would be nothing without her, and the partnership. But Benny never even came to her room to apologize or explain. He just went on, as he told her later, "sucking Rhonda's delicious pussy" and making her come, Beau, honey. You know how you love it when I do it to you? Well, Rhonda loves it when I do it to her. In your house. So do Sheila, and Josie and Betty. It was the next morning when Benny told Beau that. And then he fucked her. And she wanted him to. It got her hot thinking about him with those women, and after she came and he came and he fell asleep, she hated his guts. Hated his fucking, bloody, leeching, cheating guts. But she felt stuck. Trapped. She was Beau Daniels. Where was she going to go? What was she going to do? Date? Ridiculous. Who would date her? It wasn't like Connie. Connie was Beau's secretary. She and Beau looked alike. They both had short blond curly hair and were very skinny. Sometimes if fans were waiting outside the television studio for Beau, and Connie came out, they would scream for her before they realized it wasn't Beau. No, it wasn't like Connie. Connie could date anyone she wanted. The delivery boys from ABC Messenger who dropped some scripts off. The mustached shoe salesman at Pappagallo Connie met when she went to pick up fourteen pairs of shoes for Beau to try on to see which were the best to dance in for the production numbers. But Beau was stuck. Unless she ran away to another planet where no one knew her constantly photographed face, she was stuck.

  The Valium was starting to take effect. Thank heaven. Maybe she would talk to Lutz tomorrow and see if he could help her. Lutz was her psychiatrist. And the only time during the day she felt free from Benny was when she was on Lutz's couch. Mostly she was sure Lutz was crazy himself, because he was enormously fat, obese maybe, and that had to mean he couldn't even control his own eating. But at least she could tell old Humpty Dumpty Lutz—yes, that's who he looked like sitting so large in his chair—how awful her life was.

  Beau was getting very sleepy now. She loved the feeling of losing herself to a deep and heavily sedated rest. It was peace. Her only peace. The dreams would take over soon. Sometimes she had wonderful Technicolor movie dreams that were like dance numbers from her show, with chiffon and sequins and glitter-covered platforms, and she was in the center, singing. Her theme song. In her dreams, "I Am Yours." Well I Have Tried to Den
y the Way I Feel For You / And I Have Tried to Ignore the Way You Love Me Too / But There's No Runnin' Away from What Is Really True / Yes, Baby, I-Am-Yours.

  Once in the dream she couldn't remember the next chorus of the song and she got panicky. Very panicky, and she realized somehow in her panic that she was dreaming, not really doing the show and forgetting her words in front of an audience, but asleep, and she wouldn't wake up. She couldn't find the way back. Panic. Finally and slowly she became aware of her room and then the bedclothes around her and little by little she was awake. But tonight her dream was delicious. She was dancing, rocking with one of the boy dancers. He was behind her with his arms around her and his face in her neck. And he kissed her. Really kissed her, not just put his face there, the way those faggy boy dancers usually did. This must be someone new. She liked that he kissed her. It felt good. It tickled. His hands were on her breasts. Oh, yes. Her nipples pressed against his hands as they cupped her. "Beau," he whispered. "You're a superstar, aren't you, baby?" From behind her his hands slid down inside her gown to her crotch and inside her cunt, and it felt like there was something on his hands like lotion because they were wet and smooth, and she wondered why the director was letting this dancer do these things to her on camera but she couldn't stop to ask, didn't want to, because she was getting very hot and close to coming. Oooh, she was so aroused. Not a dream.

  "Come on, Beau baby, come for me." Not a dream at all.

  "Show me how you love it, let it go, baby, come on." Benny. Doing her.

  "Want it, baby? Do you want it, baby?"

  "Yes. Yes." She was awake now.

  "Do it for us, baby," he said. "We want to watch you come. We want to see a superstar come. We want to see if you come different from real people."

  We? Who was we? Beau wasn't sure but she thought she heard a giggle. God, she was hot. Coming. Coming. That's what she needed. To come. Now. Oh, Benny, baby. Oh, yes.

  She pulled at the mask and saw the tall, auburn-haired woman who sat nude in the chair across from the bed, grinning.

  "I'll be damned," the woman said to Benny, who sat next to the trembling Beau on the bed. "She does come just like everyone else."

  "Told you," Benny laughed. Benny had an erection.

  "You bastard," Beau said quietly to him.

  "Yes. She does," Benny said to the woman. "But this is for you." He took his erect cock in his hand and moved his hand up and down on it slowly.

  "Lucky me," the woman said, standing. She was beautiful and not the least bit self-conscious about being naked with Benny in front of Beau. "But let's do ours in private," she said, laughing.

  "Okay." Benny got up and put his arm around the woman and they walked out of Beau's room while Beau lay agonized and silent on the bed.

  "I can't wait to tell all of my friends about that," she heard the woman say.

  A sob rose in Beau's chest and for a few minutes she could only gasp silently but finally she began to wail and cry and beat the bed with her fists. That rotten cocksucker. That filthy prick. How could he do this to her? She loved him. She supported him. She was his wife and all he cared about was cunt, cunt, cunt. Pussy, pussy, pussy. Not how she wanted to have a baby with him. Not that she wanted to go away with him and try to rekindle the romance they'd had in the first few years where she was the only one for him. A roaring piece of ass, he called her. And he fucked her silly. Day and night. And then she noticed it was just night. And then every other night and then never. Or so rarely that—The lousy shit-head. She reached for the telephone. She'd call Chuck Larson and tell him to tell the network that she wasn't showing up at the studio. Tomorrow or ever again. Why should she? So that little weasel Benny could get half of everything she owned? Not on his life. It was over, and she'd tell Larson right now. She dialed Larson's number in the dark and then looked at the clock on her night table. Three A.M. SO what? So the fuck what? She was Beau Daniels. Her picture was on the cover of Time last year. Not Rue McMillan's. Hers. And Larson would answer her calls no matter what time it was. Or she'd cut him off, too. It was ringing. Kept ringing. Ringing. That's right! Shit. Larson was in New York. She slammed the phone down.

  Kane. David Kane. She'd call him. The overeager little asshole. He'd probably come over right now and beat Benny up just to make her feel better. He was Larson's associate, and when he came to the studio to visit her, to pay a service call, he was all over her, fussing, bringing things, telling her that she was the boss and that the director in the booth was just a puppet they chose because it was Beau's instincts that made the show a hit. Of course he never said that stuff in front of Benny. Benny. That fucker. She was seething. And she grabbed for the phone again and dialed. It only rang twice.

  "Hello." The voice was sleepy.

  It was a woman. Kane's woman.

  "It's Beau Daniels. I'm in trouble," Beau said.

  "Just a second."

  "Hello?" It was Kane.

  "Benny's fucking a woman in his room. Right now. I'm gonna kill myself." It was bullshit. She wouldn't give anybody the satisfaction of her suicide. Least of all not Benny Daniels, but it always got people crazy when you told them that.

  "No, Beau, hang on," David said. "I'll be right there."

  "Oh, God," she wailed into the phone, and when she heard the sound of her own wail it seemed strange to her. Because even though she did mean some of it, most of it was pure drama. Nevertheless it made Kane very nervous.

  "Beau, try and relax. Lock your bedroom door and pack a bag and when I get there I'll honk the horn twice and you can come here to stay at my place. You'll be fine."

  She didn't say anything.

  "Beau?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did you hear me?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'll be there in ten minutes tops."

  Beau put down the phone. She didn't want to pack a bag and go and stay with David Kane and some girl friend of his. Maybe she could get him to stay with her at the house tonight. That would be great. And in the morning—what? She and Kane and the woman and Benny would have breakfast together? Beau laughed out loud at the thought. She would leave with Kane now, and in the morning when Benny and that big broad, who couldn't wait to tell her friends about watching Beau Daniels come, woke up, they'd hear from her lawyers. Not just no more show. No more marriage. No more Benny and Beau. A divorce. She wanted a divorce so that this was the last time she'd have to feel like this.

  twenty-nine

  Everything was going smoothly. The concert was scheduled to start at eight o'clock. At one minute before eight, without anyone going to the dressing room to tell him it was time to go on, Harley emerged and walked quickly down the backstage hallway, carrying his guitar, nodding and smiling at everyone, took the three steps up to the stage all at once, and stepped into the spotlight. A hush fell over the restless audience when they saw him, and he began to sing "The Rain Is Like My Tears" at exactly eight o'clock.

  They loved him. They swooned over him. His sound was sweet and light and mellow and about love. And the people who knew the rumors weren't rumors at all, but the truth, knew that every song was for Barry.

  Stan and Barry stood in the dark next to the stage watching the concert. Stan felt very choked up and he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because he was so grateful to Barry and Harley for helping him back into business. Maybe he was just feeling lonely. Yes, for the last couple of days he'd been walking around with this heavy lonely feeling that wouldn't go away. As strange as Barry and Harley's love seemed to him, at least they had one another to care about. Stan had to stop using every ounce of his energy for business and have a social life. Call some girls for dates. Maybe he would find one who was special. There were lots of Dinnys and Honeys backstage he knew he could go to bed with, but he didn't want that. Not just to come and then start looking for his pants in the dark so he could go home. That was the way it always had been for him over the past few years. A few girls at Hemisphere looked pretty at their desks when he asked them, "Want to go to d
inner?" But later, in bed, before sex, after sex, there was never very much to say to them, and then they didn't look pretty anymore. And he wanted to get away from them. Fast.

  Stan smiled to himself, remembering he'd once heard some comedian say it was easy to understand what the attraction was in being homosexual. Because after two men had sex they could turn over and talk to one another about baseball. Did Barry and Harley talk about baseball? Maybe there was a woman who could talk about baseball. Stan didn't even like baseball.

  The final burst of applause broke his thoughts. And Barry gave him a nudge.

  The first show was over and it had been a huge success. Harley was smiling and waving and blowing kisses and fans were throwing flowers at the stage and snapping pictures of him. He ran off the stage and Stan and Barry moved quickly with him toward the wings.

  Almost instantly the backstage area was filled with record company executives, publicists, groupies, roadies and employees of Colossus, all standing in clusters laughing.

  "Hi, Stan." It was Jerri Marshall, a girl who was in Artists Relations at Rainbow. Great body.

  "Hi," he waved.

  "Terrific show, Golden," someone said. Harley had already disappeared into the dressing room and Barry was taking the congratulations.

  "He's the best," everyone agreed.

  "Here's Arch," Barry said to Stan.

  David Kane looked better than ever. Slim. Well dressed. His bright-red hair now in a perfect haircut. He was walking toward them and there were two women with him. Typical. One was Allyn and the other one—

  "Look at that," Stan said softly to Barry. "He brought Beau Daniels."

  David was grinning. Allyn looked beautiful. She was prettier than Beau Daniels, who looked tired.

  "Hey, guys. You remember Allyn? And this is Beau Daniels, my client. I'd like you to meet Barry Golden and Stan Rose. The geniuses behind this night."

  Beau smiled slightly at Barry and Stan.

  "The old gang," Allyn said.

  "Wonder where Reg is," Stan said. "He said he'd be here."