by Steve Fisher
Copyright 1941, 1960 by Steve Fisher
Copyright renewed 1968 by Steve Fisher
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in 1941; revised edition published in 1960.
First Vintage Crime / Black Lizard Edition, November 1991
ISBN 0-679-73677-8
For Mary
I WAKE UP SCREAMING
1
IT WAS A HOT Saturday night and I had on a Sy Devore suit and a hand-knit tie and sat at the bar in Mike Romanoff’s drinking Canadian Club old fashioneds. The bar stools were leather and the wall decorations had that ultra look and Zsa Zsa Gabor was at a close-by table, her head thrown back in laughter, and Gary Cooper and Bing Crosby and Bill Holden were at other tables and a couple of blocks away, on the corner of Wilshire and Beverly Drive, they were having a premiere for the latest Jerry Wald epic: arc lights swinging back and forth, limousines arriving, and cops holding off the crowd. I was at long last in tinsel town and I was excited. At the same time I felt lonely. That sweet, hot loneliness that’s like music. I was twenty-seven, had a play on Broadway, and now a studio contract at one of the majors that was still making big wide screen pictures. Hell, I even had my Writer’s Guild of America card! I thought about things. Those first hard years were over. This was it, I thought. This is the works!
On Monday morning I reported to the studio for work. The story editor was a nice guy. He wore glasses, was very casual, called me by my first name, said not to worry much about learning the screen play form, and to beware of local scenarists, because most Hollywood writers hated the very guts of a New York importation. After that he said I should stand by for an assignment, and gave me a load of shooting scripts to read to while away the time. He conducted me to a nice big office with a couch and brown Venetian blinds. From there on I was on my own.
For days I was afraid to leave the office because the thought haunted me that while I was out a producer might ring. I read all of the scripts. One written by Ben Hecht was a honey. I ate big lunches and took naps on the couch. I became so bored that I began to practice pitching pennies against the wall. I developed a twist of the wrist technique and became quite excellent at it. Later, I used to prop my door open—so I could hear the phone if it rang—and wander forlornly up and down the hall.
It was in the hall that I first saw Vicky Lynn.
I stopped cold in my tracks. My first thought was that she was some star who, by mistake, had gotten lost up here in the Writers’ Jungle. But she was a secretary. Her hair was golden blond like the Marchand ad and came to her shoulders. She was wearing a soft, pleated blue skirt, and her hips had a nice, exquisite swing. Her breasts were nippled sharply against a white middy blouse. But all the same she was like A Creature—a lovely baby. I heard her laugh that day, warm, rich laughter, and I shivered.
The second time I saw her she was in the switchboard reception room on the writers’ floor. Secretaries often go in there with marked up shorthand books and worn down pencils and flop limply into the nearest chair. Writers go in to read the switchboard girl’s afternoon paper. I went in and sat down. Vicky was so near I could have touched her, but I didn’t know what to say, how to start a conversation. I didn’t want to louse things up. She was talking to someone else and she glanced at me only once. After a while she left. My spirit got up and went with her. What was left of me sat there in the chair in a sweet daze.
I rode down in the elevator that night with Lanny Craig. He was a big guy with thick eyebrows, graying hair and a limp; but he imagined himself still a boy. In between pichire assignments he wrote English mysteries which were second rate imitations of Agatha Christie. He had started out in Greenwich Village, but he was not what even he would call a success. Here at the studio he was in the B Unit of a notorious exploitation-type executive who ground out films on a hundred thousand dollar budget aimed at drive-in theaters and teen-age audiences—horror, sex and outer space. He said pictures used to be bad in the old days, but they were great compared to what he was now writing. He told me there was no middle area in picture making any more. They either made Suddenly Last Summer or Beatnik in a Hot Rod. He was wearing slacks, an open shirt and a sports coat.
“I’m having some people over Sunday—want to make it?”
“I’ll try,” I said. “Listen, that’s really a babe upstairs, isn’t it?”
“Who—Vicky Lynn?”
“Is that her name?”
“Yeah, Vicky Lynn.” He laughed. “A cat can look at heaven, of course—but if you’ve an idea you can make Vicky it’s a very sad thing indeed.” The elevator door danged open. “We’ve all tried, kid.”
“What’s the matter—has she got a guy?”
“The girls say no. It’s just no dice.”
On Friday I talked to Vicky for the first time. We were in the switchboard room, and I said something about the weather, and then I asked her if she had ever thought of writing a story. It was the old line. She said she’d written a story, or was writing one. I was too excited to get it straight. I remember she promised she would let me see what it was she had written.
For three days nothing happened. Then she came in, shyly, a four-page thing in her hand. She put it on my desk and mumbled something about it being awfully kind of me to want to read it. Our eyes met only once, and she flushed, embarrassed, and I thought: She knows, and I know, that this is a game, and in the end it wifi mean a date. When she had been gone only an hour I telephoned her and said that I wanted to discuss the story. I said it would be better if we talked outside of the studio. She hesitated, and I pretended it made no difference to me. “All right, then,” I said, “never mind.” That was when she agreed to meet me.
I picked her up on a street corner and we went to the Beachcomber. We had a side table and the lights were soft. Polynesian waiters swished past and there was Island music. It was like something out of James Michener. Vicky sat there shyly, and I was awkward, saying a lot of damn fool things that echoed back in my ears, whispering revision, papa, these things you say may be true but they have a phony ring. You know how it is sometimes with a girl that’s really terrific. I couldn’t get started. My fingers walked back and forth on the tablecloth. The waiter came and I ordered Zombies. There’s nothing like a nice warm jag to break the ice.
It worked! About halfway through the first Zombies we were doing swell. Vicky laughed in sheer relief, and now she was gorgeous. Candlelight flickered on the table, and very softly and eloquently she began to recite little snatches of poetry. Wistful little verses. She was just a kid. I was charmed. I began to talk like a love scene.
“Gosh, you’re swell! Where’ve you been?”
Two More Zombies!
“You’re beautiful, Vicky! You’re ineffable!”
“I’m what?”
“You’re tops, honey. You’re silk stockings from Paris; you’re Shelley on a moonlit night.”
“You aren’t exactly fat and bald yourself,” she said.
“Sure I am; it’s just the cut of my clothes that deceives you.”
“You’re the youngest writer in the studio—except for the fifty dollar a week junior writers. Did you know I noticed you that first day in the switchboard room?”
“You only think that was the first day,” I said. “I’ve been following you around, up and down halls, across the lot, like—”
“I’d—rather you didn’t say like what.” I laughed.
“I want you to know,” she said, “that from the first time our eyes met—I thought you were swell!” She put down her drink. “Oh, but
we’re starting the wrong way! A girl doesn’t tell a man what she thinks—and she—she doesn’t get drunk before dinner. Even in Hollywood! We’re going to spoil everything, aren’t we?”
“Of course not!”
“But we will! People always tell polite lies to each other at first—and we’ve been so frank, it’s—embarrassing. You’ll hate me!”
“Sure,” I said, “I’ll hate you in heaven!”
“I’m just a silly, romantic fool,” she said. “But it never happened this way before, and—oh, that sounds so old, doesn’t it?”
“That’s the trouble with love,” I said, “—it’s old.” We were merrier than Disney’s mice by now. “Look, shall we have dinner?”
“All right.”
“Here—or elsewhere? Name your favorite hash house, Vicky.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. Then: “Would you like me to cook? We might disgrace a restaurant by tripping over a table or something. I’ll cook for you if you want.”
“Ah—a girl scout!”
But it was a lovely idea. We left the Beachcomber and I somehow navigated my car to her apartment. It was a place on Franklin—you know, the stone statue on the lawn spurting water into a goldfish pond—and she shared two rooms on the fourth floor with her sister. It was average. About $80 a month. There were knickknacks around, a portable radio, and a pretty, gaudy rag doll that sat on the floor, its head askew. Vicky went in ahead of me and I helped her with her coat.
She went into the bedroom then. After a while I followed her. She was standing in front of the mirror putting on lipstick with her little finger. She turned around, and all at once I was kissing her. I don’t know how long we stood there kissing. But she wasn’t just any girl. I knew that she was the one I’d been dreaming about.
We were very tight. She wore a soft gray dress, I remember that; and my hand started roving. It wasn’t right. I didn’t want her to think I was a cheap heel—that this was everything. She began to cry, and was sort of fighting, and crying.
Then it was all right.
Afterward, I stood at the window. The room was dark and you could see the street below.. I heard Vicky crying, softly—broken-hearted. I called myself a louse, the way you do. I had a hell of a headache.
I went out through the living room and into the kitchenette. I turned on the faucet and ducked my head under it, then wiped my face with a dirty dish towel. There was a pot with a little stale coffee in it and I lit the fire under it. When it was hot I drank it black, and shook my head. There was no sound from the other room. I lit a cigarette and stood there, trembling.
I looked around the kitchen, opening cupboards. I found some chops, and began making dinner. I had never cooked dinner in my life. I put on an apron. Once I went in to see about Vicky. She’d imagined I’d left. She was sobbing. I crept back into the kitchen and finished the dinner—cutting my finger on a tin can and scorching the potatoes. But when the food was all on the table it looked fine.
I got a damp cloth from the bathroom and went into the bedroom and applied it to Vicky’s forehead, and wiped away all the tears. She was staring up at me, through the dark. I got her to stand up, and she came out to the kitchen in her stockings. She stared at the dinner that was cooling, and then she looked at me. She couldn’t quite believe it. I pulled back a chair.
”Voulez-vous?”
She sat down and I scrambled into the built-in seat opposite her. She had sobered considerably, and she was cute. We had a post-mortem, of course. “You must think I’m awful!” It wasn’t time to be ffip or I would have said, no, she was lovely. It turned out that she had once been engaged. It was all over now, but the affair had lasted a long time, and she’d been really in love. “And there was no one else—ever!” She told it straight, and I knew, in some way, that it was the God’s truth. She was intensely sincere. I got away from the subject. I made some pointless sally or other, and she laughed.
“You’re such an elegant guy!” she said. “And you’re such a pretty baby, gee—”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s my sister that’s pretty. She sings with a band. You’ll have to meet her.”
“I certainly will.”
“She’s three years older than I am—I’m twenty-two—and not engaged or anything.” She paused, engrossed. “Of course—she’s chased by Paul. Quite terrifically. He’s our community millionaire. Every blonde knows one. He bores Jill. But what can you do? One Sunday when she wouldn’t see him he sent over roast pheasant and champagne—imagine Jill and I sitting here alone, eating a dinner like that!” She looked up. “And he’s an awful cheat. Once we hung a dress on a mop just to see if it was true he’d go for anything in skirts.”
“Was he insulted?”
“So much that the next day he sent Jill a mink coat—she returned it, of course. She’s like that. She wouldn’t have Paul on toast!”
“Would you have returned the coat?”
Vicky laughed. “I don’t know!” She went on: “I don’t think Jill’s ever been really in love. Yet—she is emotional. I suppose one day she’ll fall in love so hard she’ll never get over it. Am I boring you?”
“In an enchanting sort of way.”
“What a silly person I am! I’ll drive you from the place screaming!”
We finished the coffee and went into the other room. I sat with the long-legged rag doll on my lap, the radio playing low, and asked all about her. She had been raised in Los Angeles and was a graduate of Hollywood High School. She showed me her class ring and I swiped it and put it on my little finger.
“Token,” she said.
She was radiantly beautiful.
“How come you took a studio job?”
“I always wanted to get in the movies. I thought that might be a way.”
“Is it?”
“Apparently not. But a director took me to dinner once.”
“Who?”
“His name is Hurd Evans.”
“What was wrong?”
“He—well, you know how it is. And I—I just couldn’t stand him.”
“The heel.” I looked up at her. “Listen—you’re marvelous, see? You’ll get in pictures and it won’t have to be through the back door.”
I was just talking. But it suddenly occurred to me that I had struck upon something. I felt a quick surge of excitement. Here was Vicky who had everything: beauty and personality and music in her voice. She said she’d been in a few amateur plays and had done all right. It was possible that there were strings I could pull in the studio. Certainly I could afford to back her with a little money!
“I’m going to see about it,” I said.
She frowned. “Look, baby, you’re so sweet—you don’t have to say that. Everybody out here makes promises. Just be you, that’s all.”
“Yes—sure, but—you’ve got the groceries, Vicky! With a little grooming—it’s personalities they want and—you know, I really think—”
I ran away with myself. We began talking about it. I told her I was going to do everything I could. I’d hire a press agent. I’d send her to dramatic school. We’d get her in the Community Playhouse. We’d have dozens of photographs made. I’d get an agent to take her around to the studios. I knew an artist who’d paint her for a magazine cover. Then I thought of the idea of getting a couple of guys to go in with me as her sponsors. That would be the ticket!
She was a star when I finished talking. We were shouting promotion ideas back and forth. We acted out bits of scenes we remembered from pictures. We walked up and down the room reading Shakespeare.
“How’m I doing, baby?”
“Fine, Juliet. You’re simply swell. Aren’t you swell, though?”
Suddenly we had stopped the rehearsal and I was holding her in my arms. It was two in the morning. She clung to me and whispered she loved me, and she was crying. I laughed because I was happy. I kissed her warm lips. I told her she was Cinderella.
2
I MET HER sister the next day. It was
Saturday and I came up at noon. Jill was there. She wore a blue lounging robe and there wasn’t any make-up on her face, but she was pretty. Her hair was yellow and came short of her shoulders. She was slender, taller than Vicky. I had a little florist’s box in my hand but I stopped in the middle of the room and stared at her. She looked at me the same way. For a moment I felt a chill. She looked very familiar. It was as though I should kiss her and say, Darling, I’ve been a long time away. How are you? But then it passed. I imagine it’d just been that she resembled Vicky. When she spoke her voice was pleasant. It was a low, very soft voice.
“Hello. Vicky’s talked about you all night and half the morning. How are you?”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m glad to know you, Jill.”
Vicky came in then, wearing white silk slacks, and I gave her the florist’s box. She opened it, very carefully, and then she took out the flower. It was a white orchid with a deep scarlet center. Vicky gazed at it tenderly. She looked at me, and then she looked over at Jill.
“That’s funny,” she said. “Nobody ever bought me a white orchid!”
“What’s it for?” said Jill. “You two going out?”
“I don’t know.” My cheeks were hot. “I was just walking along and saw a shop and went in and bought it. I don’t know what it’s for.”
Jill sat down. She had the morning paper. I looked at her. “I understand you sing?”
“A little.”
“I always wanted to meet a torch singer.”
“That isn’t what you call it,” Jill said. “That’s old.” She seemed nervous. She kept watching me. It was the damnedest thing I’ve ever experienced. Vicky went into the kitchen to get a vase for the flower. Jill rumpled the paper. “You two go ahead. Don’t mind me. I’ve got to pick a horse. I always bet on Saturdays. Do you know a horse?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t.”
I followed Vicky into the kitchen. She had placed the orchid in a little glass vase and was still admiring it.
“Hello, starlet,” I said.
“We went crazy last night, didn’t we?”
