The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  Her delicate small nose, she had long decided, gave her part of that innocent girlish aspect. The mouth was another matter. The cherry-colored full lips, shaped in a pout, seemed sulky and full of teasing sensuality, in contradiction to the innocence of the nose and smooth cheeks and dainty ears.

  The expensive St.-Tropez costume, she knew, was perfect for her near-perfect body. The short V-necked loose blouse draped down across her bosom hung straight from the firm points of her breasts, and since she’d worn no brassiere this morning and the blouse was nearly transparent, the large circles of her nipples and the shadowy outline of her high abundant bosom were plainly visible. Her tanned midriff, set off by the white above and below, was bare today. A wide leather belt, buckled below the slash of her navel, held the skintight stretch pants in place. She marveled at the way the pants were molded along her thighs, buttocks, shapely legs, so that every contour was her own and every movement of a muscle could be seen.

  This was all she had, she thought, this voluptuous, falsely promising face and body. Her measurements, some men’s magazine had said, were as much her identity as her name. Hello, Medora Hart. Hello, 38-22-36. Hello, Medora—38 or whoever you are, anymore.

  Then she thought, Jouvet, you old swine, you’ve had a bargain and you ought to pay salary by the inch. Jouvet had named his profitable nightclub Chez 88-40-88, meaning that no girl who appeared in his shows would ever have a bust measurement less than 88 centimeters, a waist less than 40 centimeters, hips less than 88 centimeters, meaning 35-16-35 in inches, meaning Medora was not only qualified, but super-qualified.

  She had been pleased by the one in the mirror, for she had seen there her inheritance, education, pound value in the marketplace, and as long as that was there, she was safe from the ultimate degradation. With this much going for her, she could be an independent entertainer, read it any way. Without all this, she could be only a whore.

  She had enjoyed totting up her bank balance and almost felt better, but moving back to the washbasin, seeing herself again in the horrible mirror, she was immediately depressed and on real and familiar grounds once more. For the last glance at the mirror had done her in. Four years ago, in her senseless glory, she had looked like this, and three years ago, during the scandal, she had looked like this, and now, at twenty-one, she still looked like this. Suddenly, it would be three more years of exile, and then six, and then you were old, when so many others were young, and you had nothing, no home, no family, no money, no career, nothing, except street corners which were for nothing.

  She took up the Coke and sitting against the basin, her back to the mirror, she drank and wondered what she should do—immediately, and the day after immediately.

  There were three straws offered and she must draw one. Not any one of them would solve her real problem, but two would continue to solve the problem of day-to-day subhuman existence, not living but surviving. She needed money because she spent too much since it sometimes seemed there was nothing to save for. Yet, she needed money for her mother, for her pitiable little sister (yet not so little, forgetting that Cynthia had grown older in the last three years and must be sixteen even though her mind was chained to seven or eight). She needed money for a solicitor to take her case and a barrister to fight her persecution (and there was a famous one, a flabby, gross, odious one, at Eden Roc, there always was a barrister, and this one a Q.C., and he would “look into it,” but of course there would be a fee, and in lieu of a substantial down payment of cash, he would be receptive to other favors, but—crikey, no thank you, not with that one!—and so it would have to be cash). Finally, once she’d won her case and been permitted to go back legally to where she came from, she needed money to undertake what she’d wanted from the start, her training as a beautician, so that she’d have a career that was proper and respectable until she could find a young man who was proper and respectable and who no longer remembered the Paddy Jameson affair. Je-sus, how she hated Ormsby, not that impotent ass Sydney with his fancy polka-dot drawers, but her real Judas, Sir Austin, that conniving poseur, that bloody, cheating, lying toad, Je-sus, if people only knew the truth… but then here she was, becoming overwrought again, hot on the inside as well as the outside, and it was no use, as it was never any use, because you couldn’t hit what was out of reach and impregnable, like a mouse trying to tear apart a Hon.

  With an immense effort made possible by three years of daily effort-building, Medora banished Sir Austin from her mind, and that left the immediate problem, which was always the same immediate problem, which was always immediate money for immediate survival.

  So, three straws to choose from, with the choice and draw to be made quickly.

  The first straw to grasp was Chez 88-40-88. She had been booked into this Juan-les-Pins cabaret for eight weeks as the featured attraction, the scandalous English playgirl who offered songs and “la danse sexy.” There had been good houses when she opened off-season, but recently, with the tourist influx into the Riviera, her raucous audiences had been overflowing. Her eight-week engagement had ended with the final show last night. She had four weeks free until her next booking in San Remo, which was to be followed by a stand in Genoa. But then, a week ago, a tearful Jouvet had come to her waving a telegram. His next featured attraction, an emaciated Montmartre female sparrow, who was to succeed Medora and make a singing debut tomorrow night, had fallen ill in Marseille and canceled her engagement.

  In desperation, the proprietor had pleaded with Medora to forgo her four-week vacation and continue her appearance in Juan-les-Pins. If she extended her stay by four weeks, and saved him and the club, he would raise her weekly salary by twenty per cent. He would announce that she had been held over by popular demand, and she could retain most of her old material, if she substituted three or four new numbers for old ones so that Jouvet could advertise that she was presenting a new show. This would bring back customers who had already seen her, and attract newly arrived tourists from Cannes, Nice, and Juan-les-Pins itself.

  Although she was tired of working, the promise of a raise in salary had interested Medora. She had told Jouvet that she would consider it and give him his decision by tonight. Then, considering the extended booking, not knowing whether she would accept it or not, she had, in a desultory way, to fend off boredom mostly, worked out several new numbers for her act. When Jouvet had telephoned her early this morning, she had sleepily told him that she had not yet made up her mind, but if he and the director would meet her at the cabaret around ten, she would run through some fresh material. After that, she would see.

  The second straw to grasp was the Club Lautrec in Paris. No sooner had she hung up on Jouvet than a wire had been delivered to her room from Alphonse Michaud, the extravagant, attractive, successful (she had seen a picture-spread on him in Paris Match last month) owner of the vast and booming Club Lautrec off the Champs-Élysées. Michaud had stated that in a conversation with Medora’s booking agent he had learned she was available for four weeks beginning Sunday. Although his show, “The World Comes to Gay Paree,” featured its standard dancers, The Troupe, who, Medora knew, rivaled the Lido’s Bluebell Girls in fame, and although his show was fully booked with renowned specialty artists, Michaud wanted one more, and the one he wanted was Medora Hart.

  His flattering telegram explained that he had followed her successes in the capitals and resorts of Europe, that he now regarded her as a premier attraction of international reputation, and that four weeks of her time would guarantee the prosperity of his show. He had been advised of her salary, but for this brief engagement he was prepared to offer her fifty per cent more plus her transportation to Paris and from Paris to her next engagement, and all her expenses for room and board while in Paris.

  The impact of the telegram had, at first, excited Medora. During her shower her mind had been full of it. She had never played in anything as big and well known as the Club Lautrec. She had ‘never before been offered the kind of money that Michaud was offering her. Even though the C
lub Lautrec was an enormous flesh factory, gaudy and brassy, anything but class, it did attract the top level of tourists and everybody who was somebody went there, sooner or later, at least once. For Medora, it would be a marvelous showcase and, somehow, a step upward. To what and where this step upward, she did not know, as she never knew, but it sounded good.

  Yet, Michaud’s telegram puzzled her. For three years since the scandal and her banishment, like that Wandering Jew, she had dragged herself around the mainland of Europe with her baggage of a body, appearing in small clubs in big cities, and big clubs in small cities (like Juan-les-Pins), but at no time had a big club in a big city ever offered her its stage. She had had no illusions about this. She had not been sold for her ability to sing or dance, for she had never been more than an amateur at this, although lately, she had acquired more stage presence. She had been sold, really, as a dirty book is sold, something immoral and scandalous and forbidden. She was a body hired directly from the secret plush bedrooms of the wealthy and aristocratic to be displayed to the peasantry at last—come one, come all, and see the sex creature enjoyed by your betters, the naked body that almost brought down a government. She was a titillation, she knew (from having read about it), an attraction to the thousands, the millions, who must indulge their lewd dreams and fantasies secondhand. She was this. She was not an entertainer. The big shows in the big cities wanted entertainers, and so they had never wanted Medora Hart. Now, overnight, the Club Lautrec in Paris wanted Medora Hart. It was puzzling.

  But during her Continental breakfast on the balcony outside her spacious double room on the third floor of the Provençal, what was puzzling her was quickly solved by the ringing telephone. The long-distance call was from her booking agent in Munich. He had just returned to his office from Paris. Had Medora received a telegram from M. Michaud of the fabulous Club Lautrec? She had. Was not the sum offered impressive? It was. Was not this the major opportunity of her career? Possibly, maybe. What did she mean by that? She meant (now wondering and suspicious) that she was confused by the offer. She had never been wanted by a club so grand as the Lautrec—and yes, yes, she was sure her agent had done a magnificent selling job, as always, but he had never brought her anything on this scale before, and she was curious as to how it had happened this time.

  Her agent, who was an effective agent because he was insensitive and treated clients as pieces of beef hung in a butcher shop, was proud to tell her what had transpired with Michaud. During their meeting in the Club Lautrec, Michaud had complained that he had no stellar attraction with special appeal for the thousands of extraordinary, free-spending delegates and their wives and staffs who were crowding into Paris to attend the two-week Summit conference. Like the Lido and Crazy Horse and Moulin Rouge, Michaud was presenting a lively but routine show. Since cabaret competition was fierce, he would give anything to obtain one unusual act that might have special international magnetism for the Americans, English, Germans, even the Russians and Chinese, who were arriving in Paris. Then the agent had announced that he had just such an attraction, and that she happened to be available, and that her name—of course, Michaud would know her name, everyone knew her name—was Medora Hart. And Michaud had slapped his thighs, and excitedly agreed that this was exactly the attraction to seduce every foreigner in Paris for the Summit, and he was ready to contract for the admirable lady.

  That was the whole story, her agent had said, and was it not wonderful? For Medora, heart sinking, it was considerably less than wonderful. In fact, it was hateful. The agent was going on. Would she wire her acceptance of the offer to Michaud at once? In a dead voice, she said she did not know. Did not know? Well (white lie), she’d half committed herself to stay on in Juan-les-Pins, and it wouldn’t be easy to get out of it. Her agent began to argue, and Medora squirmed and was feminine and vague, and at last, in disgust, the agent had said she must inform Michaud one way or the other today. But, he warned her, if she turned the offer down, she would always regret it, always. If she said yes, it would mean a new life for her.

  On her tray the coffee had become cold, and she had sat staring out across the pines in the park below, at the gleaming blue Mediterranean beyond, and she had known that she did not want the kind of new life the Club Lautrec and Paris might give her.

  On the balcony of the Provençal hotel a few hours ago, as in the ladies’ room of the Chez 88-40-88 this moment, she understood what troubled her about the Club Lautrec offer. A success there would not give her anything she really wanted, and it might give her everything she did not want. For what she wanted above all, far more important than the day-to-day money, was some means of overcoming Sir Austin Ormsby, so that he would be forced to capitulate and allow her to return home to London. If she could become prominent enough, and therefore powerful enough as a Name, to enlist other powerful people on her side, and with this alliance and strength overcome Sir Austin, a success would be meaningful. But such a success she could not have, not in the Club Lautrec, not anywhere, because she did not have the talent for a success that would bring her prestige. The only success she could hope for, in showing herself at the Club Lautrec, would be to excite and attract once again the so-called highest type of lechers and bring them to her bed. The push of her appearance, her appearance itself, would bring them running, the rich playboys and industrialists, the powerful ministers of many governments, and for a night with her naked body they would give her money, jewels, furs—everything except the only thing she desired: help to get home again. They would come to her, and use her, and pay her off with the only kind of remuneration they understood, and then they would leave her. They would go back to their homes and leave her as she had been, homeless and lost, a stranger exiled in a foreign land, only not quite as she had been, for she would be even more sullied and degraded and devoid of self-respect than before.

  That was what she hated about the capital cities, and Paris was the worst of all for one like herself. She knew, because three years ago, she had begun her exile in Paris and made her show-business debut in Paris, and it had been rotten, finally. Oh, there was so much about Paris that she would have loved if only she’d been left alone, the quiet Left Bank hotel near the Seine, the kiosk with the Byrrh sign on the corner, the crooked little cobbled streets off St.-Germain-des-Prés, the fresh-smelling greenness of the Luxembourg Gardens with children’s sailboats in the basin, the Guignol fun in the Bois, the poached mussels in that cozy bistro on the Rue des Écoles. But then there was the night Paris of the stifling smoke-filled cabarets, the powdered-skin flesh smells of the audience, and when you were alone on the stage, it was beastly, hateful. You were up there shedding your decency, revealing your naked parts, and the panting voyeurs were down there with their hot minds, unblinking bright eyes, parted dry lips, nervous fingers and knees, and it came at you, put you down, violated you, like you were the victim of a gang rape. And when it was done, it was not over, because then came the flowers and cards and the gentlemen themselves, the rich, the famous, the sex acrobats, the jaded hunting for some new charge. They came with their propositions, their promises and tedious lovemaking and inevitable disrespect, and left you on countless rumpled beds, while they returned to their comfortable wives and homes and businesses. For them, as the Westerns on the telly used to put it, another notch in their pistols, a stag conquest, a conversation piece. For you, aching thighs, loathing heart, some bloody bauble on the table.

  That was the Paris she remembered and abominated, and by comparison those days had been relatively good because she had worked in a little-known cheap club on the Left Bank, frequented by relatively decent clerks and lorry drivers, and only when it was known to the wealthier classes that it was she (with the Jameson affair still in the papers) did it become bad, and from this she had finally fled. Now, if she returned to Paris, spotlighted in one of its greatest show palaces, audiences dominated by sophisticated males of every nationality on the prowl, it would be worse, far worse. The pressure would be relentless, and she would gi
ve in, let go and give, because in the end you were worn down, too weary to resist, and besides, since you were lonely anyway, going nowhere anyway, saving yourself for nothing, you gave in and gave in and gave in and didn’t give a damn—until later.

  At least here in Juan-les-Pins it was a little better. Only the older male tourists were troublesome. Most of the rest of them were boys, younger, cleaner, healthier, and to those kids she was a contemporary but a little too old and well known, and to them the Jameson affair was ancient history, and her nudity was no nuder than any on the streets and beaches, and they didn’t need her because there were so many girls everywhere anyway, and it was all so easy and natural—and this made her life here a bit easier, a bit more natural, than it could ever be in Paris. No, Paris, for whatever its false inducements, was the second choice.

  But there was yet a third straw to grasp, and that was not to work in Juan-les-Pins, not to work in Paris, but rather simply not to work at all, anywhere. She needed a vacation, four weeks of nothing, no hours, no costumes, no music, no audiences, just nothing. This might be the best solution in the world for her.

  Instantly, she knew that was a lie. Calling four weeks of leisure a vacation was like calling death a vacation. She would worry about emptying The Piggy, her leather-encased savings bank, which had pitifully little money in it anyway. Worse, she would have too much time to brood, to measure her helplessness, her lack of future, and she had long ago used up ways to fill free time. She had tired of gambling, water-skiing, motorboat chuting, and so the only sports would be excessive drinking, immoderate dosages of Nembutal, and drunken daydreams about what had been and what might have been and should she kill Sir Austin Ormsby before she killed herself. A vacation could only be a vacuum that revived every aspect of her exile.