by Stuart Woods
“I hate this,” Rick said, “and I won’t do this to Sid.”
“There’s something else,” Eddie said.
“What?”
“You can offer Sid another fifty thousand, if he’ll agree.”
“And you think he’d accept that? He’d spit in my eye.”
“No, he won’t.”
Rick looked at Eddie. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
“Alice Brooks walked out on Sid right after he testified. She’s filed for divorce, and she’s tied up everything: real estate, bank accounts, the works. Sid has moved into a little apartment building that he and Alice bought in Santa Monica, and for the moment, at least, he’s flat broke. Fifty grand would save his life right now.”
“He’s not going to take his own life; he told me that himself.”
“Was that before or after he testified and was cited for contempt? Before or after Alice left him? Before or after the blacklist? Sid is in a bad place right now, worse than the place Alan was in. He might do anything. He needs our help, and having his credit on this picture won’t help him. Fifty thousand dollars will.”
Rick slumped. “All right, I’ll see him, but I won’t take his credit off the film without his agreement. I’ll resign, first.”
Eddie went and put a hand on Rick’s shoulder. “I’ve been over this a hundred times, Rick, and this is the best thing to do for all of us, including Sid. Please believe that.”
“I hope you’re right, Eddie.”
“I’ll dictate a one-page addendum to his contract and have a check cut,” Eddie said. “See you tomorrow, kiddo.”
Rick took his drink back to his office and sat in the darkening room, wondering how he could ever say to Sid what he had to say.
27
When Vance Calder arrived at Centurion after the trip from Wyoming, a letter was awaiting him at the front gate.
Vance,
We’re delighted with your work onBITTER CREEK,and it seems appropriate that you have better accommodation on the lot. Accordingly, we’ve moved your things to the bungalow at 1 A Street; I think you’ll be more comfortable there. Also, your agent already has a bonus check from us for ten thousand dollars, and your price for the next two pictures will be fifty thousand dollars each. Your contract has been amended accordingly.
We’ll be working very quickly on the interiors, so plan on working straight through the weekend. I’ll tell you why when I see you and the rest of the cast at nine o’clock tomorrow morning at the ranch house set on Stage One. Again, you have the thanks of everyone here for a very fine job.
Warm regards,
Rick
Vance, a grin on his face, drove to A Street and made a right. There on the corner was number 1, the bungalow that had been Clete Barrow’s dressing room. He guessed that this meant he was now the number one star on the lot. Then he remembered Susie.
He drove quickly to his old half-bungalow and found her waiting on the front porch. “Get in your car and follow me,” he called out, then he led her back to his new digs, and they got out of their respective cars.
“This is the old Clete Barrow bungalow,” she said. “What are we doing here?”
“The landlord has upgraded me,” Vance replied, holding up the key. “Come on, let’s get your stuff.”
“Wait a minute. You mean your stuff, don’t you?”
He put his arms around her. “Listen, why should you go on sharing that tiny apartment in Hollywood, when I have all this room? Anyway, I’ve grown accustomed to sleeping with you in my arms. You don’t want to make an insomniac of me, do you?”
“Let’s take a look inside,” she said.
Vance opened the door and switched on some lights. The place had been newly painted, and the furniture looked new, too. There was a big living room, with a kitchenette and bar in a corner, a bedroom, lots of closet space and a makeup room with a barber’s chair and a lighted mirror.
“Wow,” Susie said.
“How about it, Hon?”
She smiled and kissed him. “You’re on.”
He went to their respective cars and hauled in their things, then he picked up the phone and called the studio commissary and ordered dinner for two. “We’ll be dining in an hour,” Vance said to Susie. He opened the fully stocked bar. “In the meantime, let me fix you a drink.”
“I’ll have a Scotch and water,” she said.
He handed her the drink and made himself one, on the rocks. “To a mutual new era of stardom,” he said.
They drank.
“When did they tell you about this?” she said.
“There was a letter waiting for me at the front gate.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, going to her purse, “there was one for me, too.” She opened the letter and giggled. “They’ve given me a bungalow, too—your old one—and I got a bonus!”
“I don’t want you to feel that you have to occupy it,” Vance said.
“Well, I’ll occupy it some of the time. After all, we don’t want to become an item in the columns.”
“I think we’re going to have to get used to that sort of thing,” Vance said.
She giggled. “Let’s hope so.”
Dinner arrived in a van, and a waiter set Vance’s dining table, opened their wine, poured some and left them alone. Vance held her, chair, then sat down.
“You know,” Vance said, “we’ve been so busy working and…”
“Fucking,” she said, finishing his sentence.
“Well, yes, fucking, and it’s been wonderful. I want it to go on and on. But my point was we don’t know much about each other.”
“You want my studio bio?” she asked.
“I’d like the unexpurgated version.”
“All right. I was born in a little town in Georgia called Delano that neither you nor anybody else has ever heard of. Its claim to fame is that it’s five miles from Warm Springs, where Mr. Roosevelt had his Little White House and died.”
“Did you know him?”
“Of course not. Did you know Winston Churchill?”
“I met him once, when he came to a performance of a play I was in in the West End and visited backstage.”
“Well, I saw Mr. Roosevelt drink a chocolate milk shake, once, while sitting in his car outside the City Drug Company. He used to drive himself around the county and stop for refreshments.”
“So we’re both politically well connected. What were you like as a little girl?”
“I was bright, pretty, got good grades and studied dancing from the time I was three, because my mother had a dance studio. I got all the best parts in the school plays, and then I went to college at the University of Georgia and got all the best parts there, too.
“After college I went to New York and got into the Neighborhood Playhouse, which got me a couple of supporting roles on Broadway; then a talent scout spotted me, offered me a screen test and I came out here nine months ago. I had a small part in a picture at RKO; then I got Bitter Creek. The rest will be history.”
“It certainly will.”
“Now you.”
“I was born in London, but since my father was an Anglican vicar, we moved around the southeast of England several times, mostly in Kent. My mother would take me to the theater in London sometimes, and I was enthralled. When I was fourteen, I made up a fake résumé and ran away from my boarding school, joining a repertory company that was passing through town doing She Stoops to Conquer.
“I painted scenery, ran errands, ran the lights, pulled the curtain then finally started getting juvenile roles. I looked older than I was, so I was playing early twenties. I was also taken into the bed of the leading lady, who was instructional.”
“So that’s how you got so good in the sack!” she said, delighted. “I thought maybe you had worked as a gigolo!”
“I never gave up my amateur status,” Vance said. “Anyway, I went to London to audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, failed to get in, but instead som
eone who saw my audition offered me a supporting role in a new play. We had a good run in London, then the Schuberts brought it to New York, where we had only a middling run. The rest of the cast went back to London, and I stayed on in New York, where I—not to put too fine a point on it—starved.
“Finally, in the dead of last winter, I hitchhiked to L.A., got a job with a construction crew and found a room in a boarding house in Santa Monica. One of the jobs I worked on, fortunately, was the beach house that Rick and Glenna are building in Malibu. Glenna came over to talk to me, introduced me to Rick and the next day I had a screen test that got me Bitter Creek. I believe you are acquainted with the rest of my résumé to date.”
“Two such all-American stories,” Susie said.
“One all-American, one all-English,” he corrected.
She poured herself some wine. “There’s something else you’d better know about me; you may already have heard it, but I’d prefer you had the real story from me.”
“All right.”
“When I was in New York, after college, I roomed with a beautiful girl who, well, preferred other beautiful girls to men. I also saw men, on the sly, but she and I were a couple, sort of, and I liked the sex. Then, just before I came out here, she surprised me by telling me that she was getting married. To a man, by the way.”
“Were you upset?”
“Not really. I knew I was, basically, heterosexual, though I doubt that she was. It came at a good time, since I was coming out here, anyway.”
“I’m glad you told me, but…”
“There’s more,” Susie said. “When I got the part at RKO, I was staying at the Studio Club—a kind of dormitory for aspiring actresses—and a script girl on the picture offered to share her apartment with me. I moved in, and we had pretty much the same sort of relationship that I had had in New York, except I was not as comfortable with it. I resolved to move out when I got back from our location shoot, and I had planned to do so tomorrow.”
“Anything else?” Vance asked.
“Nope, that’s it. I wanted you to know.” She laughed. “I don’t ever want anyone else to know, though, so promise me you’ll keep it to yourself.”
“Of course I will.”
“Any questions?”
“Will you move in with me? Just you, no girls. Unless we share them, of course.”
She laughed. “You betcha I will, starting right now. I do want to keep the pretense of having my own place, though, which will be easy, now that Rick has given me the little half cottage.”
“That’s fine with me. I don’t want to live on the lot forever. I’d like to buy a house as soon as I can afford one.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we burn it behind us,” she said. “Now can we go into the bedroom and fuck each other’s brains out?”
“Oh, yes.”
And they did.
28
Rick called Hyman Greenbaum when he couldn’t reach Sid Brooks by phone, then Sid called him back, and they made a dinner date at a little place on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Rick went into Eddie Harris’s office. “I have a dinner date with Sid Brooks,” he said.
“I’ll get that check cut,” Eddie replied, picking up the phone.
“Can you raise that much cash?” Rick asked. “If Sid’s in the middle of a divorce, I think he’d rather not deposit it into a bank account.”
“Not to mention avoiding taxes,” Eddie said.
“I’ll spread it among the production costs of Bitter Creek.”
“Okay, but don’t make a habit of this. My girl will bring it to you.” He held out an envelope. “Here’s what Sid needs to sign. Don’t forget to ask him what pseudonym he wants to use.”
Rick arrived at the restaurant on time, and Sid was already sitting at the bar. They shook hands and were led to a booth.
“How are you doing?” Rick asked.
“Better,” Sid replied. “I had a few bad days, especially when I learned that Alice was leaving and that she had taken everything I had with her. Hy sent me to a lawyer named David Sturmack; one phone call from him to her lawyer and my part of the money is back in the bank, and I’m living in my own house again. The phone number will be the same.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Sid. Who is this Sturmack? I’ve never heard of him.”
“Somebody Hy recommended; they’re in the same building. He’s only twenty-nine years old, and he came out of the war a colonel, and Hy says he’s very well connected, whatever that means.”
They ordered drinks and got menus. When their order was in, Rick got down to business. “Have you and Hy talked about what working is going to be like after the hearings?”
“Yes, at some length. What it boils down to is that I’m going to have to work under pseudonyms, and I won’t get my usual price.”
“I don’t want to know the pseudonyms, Sid, but I want to see whatever you want to write. We’ll have to keep it at arm’s length, just in case I get subpoenaed, or if questions arise from other studios.”
“I understand, Rick. I certainly don’t want to cause you and Eddie any embarrassment in the industry.”
“Eddie and I would just as soon tell all of them to go to hell, but there’s another consideration: the American Legion and some new groups plan to boycott and picket any films that have blacklisted writers, directors or actors associated with them.”
“All the more reason for pseudonyms,” Sid replied.
“This means we’re going to have to put a pseudonym on your credit card for Bitter Creek, too.”
Sid looked taken aback but nodded. “I guess that was inevitable.”
“Sid, you have a contract with us that guarantees your single-card credit on this picture, so you can sue us if you want to and probably win. It’s what I’d do in your position.”
“It’s what I would have done a couple of weeks ago, but it wouldn’t be in my interest to do that. I’m just going to have to lump it until things change.”
“I hope they change quickly, Sid. I really do.”
“Look, I’m the architect of my own fate, here; I’m not looking to blame anybody else.”
Rick nodded. Their food came and they ate quietly, making only desultory conversation. When the plates had been taken away and coffee served, Rick spoke up again. “I have a couple of pieces of good news, though.”
“I’ll take all the good news I can get,” Sid said.
“First, the bad news: Alan James’s picture, Dark Promise, was scheduled to open at Christmas at Radio City Music Hall, but because of the circumstances surrounding his death and, of course, because of the hearings, it was cancelled. Yesterday the distributors came to see Eddie, saw the incomplete rough cut of Bitter Creek, and offered us the slot at the Music Hall.”
“That’s wonderful!” Sid said. “I’m delighted.”
“It makes removing your credit all the more painful.”
“Don’t worry about that; it’ll be great for everybody who worked on it. Anyway, a lot of people around town know I wrote it; I’ll get a few pats on the back even if I don’t get a nomination.”
“Oh, Eddie wants you to sign this.” He gave Sid the envelope and watched as he read it and readily signed it.
Rick put a thick manila envelope on the table and shoved it across. “Here’s the other good news: we’re paying you another fifty thousand for your script. The envelope is full of cash, hundreds and fifties. We cleaned out the vault at the studio.”
Sid opened the envelope, peered inside and grinned. “I’ve never seen this much money before.”
“Neither have I. Of course, you don’t have to mention this to Alice or the IRS. If you want to pay Hy his commission, that’s up to you.”
“Of course I’ll pay Hy, but Alice can whistle for it; this is not marital income.” He patted the envelope as if it were a puppy. “Thank you, Rick, and thank Eddie for me, too. This will go a long way toward keeping me on my feet after the divorce.”
“Do you know
what that’s going to cost you?”
“I had a second meeting with Doug Sturmack this afternoon, and he tells me, since Alice and I were married for twelve years and all during the time I made any money, I’d better get used to the idea of giving her half of everything. In the end we’ll have to sell the house and the apartment building in Santa Monica and split the proceeds.”
“Can’t you just buy her out of the house?”
“The idea is that we’d have the real estate appraised and each of us could buy the other out, but the fact is neither of us would have the cash. I couldn’t get a mortgage under the present circumstances, since I’m technically unemployed, and she couldn’t either, as a divorced woman with no job. Sturmack has already gotten their agreement to put both properties on the market.”
“I’m sorry; I know you love that house.”
“The house is a thing; it wasn’t very big, but it had everything we needed. When things change I can buy another one. I don’t mind letting it go just to get out of the marriage.”
Rick thought of something. “Do you have any idea what it’s worth?”
“I don’t know, maybe eighty or ninety grand. A house a couple of doors down went for a hundred grand, but it’s bigger than ours.”
“Do me a favor. Get it appraised, but don’t put it on the market for a few days. I know a potential buyer, and it would save you paying a broker’s commission.”
“All right, Rick.”
“Is there a mortgage on the house?”
“No. Both properties are free and clear.”
“Right. There’s something else I’d like to ask you about, Sid.”
“Shoot.”
Rick told him about receiving the two party cards in the interoffice mail, but he didn’t mention Glenna’s name. “Do you have any idea who at Centurion might have sent those cards?”
Sid shook his head. “No, I can’t imagine who would do that.”
