“We got together down in Florida,” Ruthy said. “We lived in the same apartment building. I was working a dinner theater down there. I was there a year. You should’ve seen my tan. But I got a chance a couple years ago to move back to Des Moines and work the Candle Lite, and Des Moines is sort of home to me, since I went to college here, before I dropped out, so I was glad to come back… even if it meant kissing my year-round tan goodbye.”
Tree finally decided to join the conversation. “The nice thing about the Candle Lite, for Ruthy,” he said, “is she gets to work other places, too. The Candle Lite is linked with a number of other dinner theaters in the Midwest, and in many of them she gets to appear with name actors. Just last March she was in Milwaukee in The Seven Year Itch with one of the actors from Gilligan’s Island.”
“It usually keeps me out of the hard work,” Ruthy said, feigning sheepishness. “This is actually the first time I’ve had to help strike a set since I came to the Candle Lite… which is why I’m working so hard at it. The rest of the company thinks I’m going to loaf my way through it, and I’m going to show ’em.”
“Not to change the subject,” Lu said, apparently a bit bored with Ruthy’s show biz patter, “but Jack here’s been looking for work for the past week or so and hasn’t had much luck. Jack has better manners than to bring it up now, but I’m not a shy type. Think you might have something for him at the Barn?”
“What line are you in, Jack?” Tree said. Nothing in his voice, but a little something in his eyes.
“I’m a salesman. I used to sell ladies underwear, but you can see how much the girls here care about that.”
The air was chill in there and four nice nipples were standing out and we all laughed a little.
“Well, I know what kind of poker player you are. And I’m thinking of replacing one of my dealers. Interested?”
“Very.’’
“Come around and play some cards tomorrow night… and try not to win too much more of my money… and stay and talk to me after closing.”
“Fine.”
Just as we’d prearranged.
Then I asked Ruthy how exactly “striking a set” was accomplished, and she told us. Tree and I listened intently. Lu had a couple of Bloody Marys and stared off someplace.
27
On the stage was an antique oak bed, a post rising from each corner to support a lace-trimmed, blue satin canopy. There were several other pieces of antique-looking furniture, a chair, table, trunk; another chair, and all of them, including the bed, were pushed forward, almost to the edge of the stage, as Ruthy and another member of the repertory company, a lumpish female in curlers and workshirt and rolled-up jeans, painted the light blue “walls” of the set, which had a doorway off to the left and a window to the right.
It was mid-morning and the front doors of the Candle Lite Playhouse had been open. I walked up the short flight of stairs onto the stage, where day before yesterday I had filled a plate with food, and my footsteps clumped hollowly on the floor of the stage.
Ruthy, on her hands and knees painting, turned and looked up at me and said, “Hi! Where’s Lucille?”
“The apartment,” I said. “She kicked me out. She had a bunch of cleaning to do.”
(Which made it convenient for both of us, as I could go do the snooping I needed to, and Lu could continue her surveillance of Tree, without either of us getting in the other’s way. And since I knew Frank Tree would not be leaving his apartment before nightfall and the Barn, and would in fact be spending the day in front of his television with a revolver in his lap-with time out only for bodily functions and perhaps the preparation and consumption of a TV dinner-I had few worries about what might happen while I was out.)
Ruthy was, like her lumpy companion, wearing jeans and a workshirt. Ruthy’s jeans, however, were tourniquet tight, and her workshirt knotted into a halter, leaving a succulent tummy, complete with navel, exposed, the buttons at the top open and giving me a skyscraper look down her impressive cleavage. It was a view she was aware of, and even exploited. Whether she was just a cock-tease in general, or had something in mind for me specifically, was, like my teased cock, up in the air.
She gave me a sly look that I had seen before (in her performance Sunday) and said, “Sure she isn’t cheating on you? It wouldn’t take twenty minutes to clean that place of hers stem to stern.”
I squatted down to talk with her and look her in the eye and not the gland.
“Lu’s like anybody else,” I said. “She’s just got to have a little privacy sometimes, and she’s got a right to it. It’s her apartment. I’m just a guest.”
“Well, if I had a guest at home like you, I wouldn’t send you out in the cold.”
“It’s not so cold. In fact the sun’s out for a change. Kind of a nice day out there. Too bad you’re stuck in here working.”
“Oh I don’t mind. It’s all a part of theater. It’s just as exciting to me to be backstage as center-stage.”
The lumpish girl, standing, stroking with a paint brush, rolled her eyes, without Ruthy seeing.
“Did you tell Lucille you were gonna stop by and see me?”
“No,” I said.
“I’m gonna be busy all day, Jack.”
“I figured you might be. I’ll tell you why I stopped by. I noticed in your program, Sunday, that there’s something called Candle Lite Productions, that does advertising work, locally. TV and radio spots, that sort of thing.”
“That’s right. This place used to be a church that did its own radio shows here. There’s a studio set-up on the second floor, where we do the recording. Why?”
“I thought maybe I could pick up some extra work. I thought your production company might be able to use a salesman, part-time, maybe?”
“Well, Jack, it’s not my production company, but I sure can talk to the boss lady for you. She’s here, now, if you want to see if you can see her.”
“That’d be great.”
“I’ll go get her for you. Give me about fifteen minutes. She’s probably just finishing her breakfast about now, and might not be dressed yet.”
“She lives here?”
“Sure. So do I. There’s four apartments here. She uses one, her ex-husband who manages the place has another, and me and another permanent member of the troupe use the other two. When I say I live in the theater, I ain’t kidding, booby. Be back in a flash. A fifteen-minute flash, that is.”
She stood up. Her jeans were so tight they were sucked up into her pubis. It was a wonder she could walk in the damn things, but she did, and then I was alone with her stocky coworker, who put down her paint brush and said, “Buy you a cup of coffee, friend?”
I took her up on it, and soon we were sitting at a ringside table, drinking instant coffee. Her name was Martha and she had pretty features buried in a pale round face and smoked two Camels in rapid succession as we talked.
“You want some free advice?” she asked.
“Price is right,” I shrugged.
“Stay away from that little cunt.”
I acted surprised by her language, then pretended to recover and said, “Well, I doubt it’s little. I get the idea she gives it plenty of exercise.”
“That she does. But you get my drift. I’m talking figurative cunts, not literal. And that’s a figurative cunt if I ever met one.”
“I’ve met a few myself. What makes her qualify?”
“You know that innocent, dumb, sexy blonde act of hers? Well, it is just an act. She comes on that way to the guys in the company, except for those she’s had in the sack a few times who she gives the cold shoulder once she’s bored and who come to hate her guts as much as the women, some of whom she comes on to too, though to most she’s shit personified from the start. The pits, my friend.”
“How so?”
“Aloof. Conceited ass, first class. The cunt thinks she’s Glenda Jackson and she isn’t even Mamie Van Doren. The pissy part is she gets all the good roles, or most of ’em, anywa
y. She really must’ve fucked her way into somebody important’s heart.”
“Isn’t she striking the set, like anybody else in the company?”
“That’s just what I mean. This is the first time since she came here she ever lowered herself to that. I don’t know how she rates, playing all those other dinner theaters all over, I mean that just isn’t done. You’re either part of a rep company or you aren’t. You got to be a name to be on the circuit. Unless you fucked somebody important, I guess. Look, I probably shouldn’t be telling you all this, but I heard you guys talking, I mean I was standing right there
… and if you’re shacked up with somebody already, don’t throw it away for her. Look the other way when she comes on to you. Ignore the cunt. She just isn’t worth it. Whatever you got now, it’s better. Believe me.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Besides,” she said, pulling some smoke up in her head and letting it out her nose, “she isn’t even all that hot in bed.”
I thought about that a while, and went back to the bar where the hot water was and made myself a fresh cup of coffee. Martha came along. She was starting on her third Camel.
“I hate these things,” she said, referring to the cigarette. “If I had a left nut, I’d give it for one goddamn half-smoked roach.”
“I hear it’s hard to score in this towm.”
Which I really had heard, having spent an hour on the East Side trying to score myself, before coming here this morning. The closest I came was a black guy in a khaki outfit in front of a place called Soulful Record Shop who said maybe next week. Things were as lean as Tree had said. The local anti-drugs campaign seemed pretty effective, from my superficial investigation, at least.
“Hard to score?” she said. “No harder than shaking oleo out of a dairy farmer. Haven’t you seen those hokey posters in the storefront windows? And heard the bullshit on the tube? And on the radio, and in the papers… D.O.P.E.? If ever an organization was aptly named, that’s it. You wanna know the ironic part?”
“What’s that?”
“Des Moines is supposed to be a sort of retirement village for Mafia types. Yeah. You can’t turn around in Des Moines without bumping into an Italian restaurant, did you notice? Even the food served here at the Candle Lite is catered by one of them.”
“I don’t see your point.”
“It’s just kind of funny. These Mafia types move out of Chicago and places like that and come to nice, quiet Des Moines to retire, to watch their grandkids grow up in zero crime rate. Only they can’t escape what they put in motion, you know? I wonder how many of these butts shouting law and order, how many of these D.O.P.E. s are Mafia types who started the problem themselves?”
It was a mice irony, but when I questioned her about it further, gently, she said it was just rumors. She wasn’t a Des Moines native, and only knew what she’d heard longer-time residents say.
“Hey, Jack!” Ruthy said, moving toward us remarkably quickly, considering the tight jeans. “The boss lady says she’ll see you, now.”
And Ruthy put an arm around my waist and showed me the way.
28
A stairway off the lobby took us to the second floor, where the living, quarters and offices were. That is, all of them except Ruthy’s; her small apartment was downstairs, in the basement of the place.
The door she led me to said PRIVATE on it. She knocked, a tenor voice within said, “Yeah,” and we went in, Ruthy first.
It was a small office, just big enough for a metal desk with wood top, a few files, a few chairs and several walls of plaques and framed citations and some signed photographs of moderately well-known actors. The only wall that wasn’t that way, besides the one with a door on it, was the bookcase wall, and the shelves of that were top-heavy with trophies. There were a few books, too, paperbacks mostly, and hardcovers on the careers of movie stars.
The woman was drinking orange juice, sitting behind the desk, which had nothing on it except a little brown box with a face the time appeared on, rolling along like the odometer of a car.
She was about thirty-five and looked about forty-five, a cadaverously thin woman with an intelligent, unattractive face; her dark brown, almost black eyes were penetrating, demanding of attention, although she kept them constantly stiffed, eyes so commanding they diverted from her sunken, pockmarked cheeks, hook nose and well-kept but painfully thin colorless brown hair, which she wisely wore short.
She was wearing a bathrobe, light blue and softly quilted and rather feminine, but not in the blatant way Ruthy’s tight jeans and plunging neckline were.
“I’m Christine Price, Mr. Wilson.”
She extended her arm across the desk like a spear. I took the hand she offered, shook it, gave it back. She had a firm grip. She was skinny but I wouldn’t want to arm wrestle her.
“Please call me Jack,” I said and took a chair.
“Jack, then. I prefer Christine, to Chris, and Ms. Wilson to Mrs. But you call me what you like.”
“Christine, then.”
“Good,” she smiled. A toothy white smile that was so honest and engaging I almost didn’t notice it was grotesque.
“I understand you do advertising work, here,” I said, and we were off and running.
Ruthy sat and listened quietly, palms pressed together and slipped down between her thighs against her box, a posture of innocence that evoked the opposite.
I told Christine Price that I imagined their clients had been largely in the Des Moines area itself, advertisers drawn to the Candle Lite production company, because it was an arm of the first professional theater group in Des Moines, whose good reputation and high visibility in the community were all the selling necessary, locally. She told me I was right. I told her how a man on the road could extend their market to the entire state, and probably to surrounding states as well. She wanted to know how. Various ways, I said. By playing tapes of radio commercials produced by Candle Lite to potential clients, and showing films or video tapes of television commercials; by accumulating letters of references from satisfied Des Moines clients, and having photographs to show taken during production of both radio and TV commercials, and perhaps some taken at the theater at a performance, showing off particularly impressive sets and a packed house, neither of which directly related to advertising work but both of which spoke of professionalism and were just generally impressive, especially in the hands of a good salesman. Which I claimed to be. It was a pretty good spiel. Christine Price seemed to think so, too. Anyway she leaned forward across her desk, listening.
She also smoked a skinny cigar that didn’t smell too terrific, but made her feel like an executive, I guess, so what the hell.
I was glad she seemed to believe me, because if she did, chances were Ruthy did, too. And all of this was more for Ruthy’s benefit than anybody else’s, as she would surely report this conversation to Lu, hopefully confirming me as a real person actually out looking for work, maybe making me a little less suspicious.
It also gave me an excuse to be here, at the Candle Lite, my real reason being to check up on Ruthy; but to do that properly I needed to get rid of her and talk to the boss lady in private. And I could see no way of doing that.
But then Christine Price did me a favor.
“Ruthy,” she said, “I believe your friend Jack, here, and I are going to talk some hard business. And I think we’d best be left alone for that, if you don’t mind.”
“I got some sets to paint,” Ruthy said cheerfully, leaning over and patting me on the upper thigh, and got up and left.
And her boss came around the desk and sat on top of it, crossing her legs, showing a knee and a couple of calves. She didn’t have bad legs for an ugly woman.
“What kind of experience have you had?” she asked.
“I had a nice childhood.”
She smiled coquettishly. “I mean as a salesman.”
“I was a salesman for five years. A little longer than that actually. Before that I
was in Vietnam.”
“You must be about thirty.”
“About.”
“What did you sell? How many firms did you work for?”
“Just one firm. Ladies underwear.”
She liked that.
She said, “You look like somebody who wouldn’t have much trouble getting in a woman’s pants.”
So that was her game. She wanted to be a man, wanted to play the employer role, but she wanted it all the way: she wanted to sleep with her secretary like any good boss.
“Actually I don’t look that hot in women’s pants,” I said. “I don’t have the build for it.”
She gave me that toothy smile again and said, “Can I offer some friendly advice? It’s free.”
This was starting to sound familiar. “Price is right,” I shrugged.
“Ruthy.”
“What about her?”
“Be a little careful of her.”
“Just a little?”
“Maybe a lot. She says you met Frank Tree last night. That you play cards and may do some dealing for him.”
“That’s right. I prefer a selling job, though. That’s why I’m here.”
“Ruthy’s been thick with him, lately. How much do you know about him?”
“Frank Tree? Nothing.”
“He’s got some connections.”
“Is that why I should be careful of Ruthy?”
“No. Not really. She’s got some connections herself.”
Something happened in her face, then; something turned it blank.
But only for a moment, after which she uncrossed her legs and lowered them to the floor and leaned her butt against the desk and folded her arms. The intense, businesslike look was back on her face.
“I like your idea,” she said. “I think I could use you.”
I’ll bet.
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said.
“Let me sleep on it Get back to me tomorrow, or sometime later this week and we’ll talk it all out. Here. Here’s my card, with my personal number.”
She gave me a business card and I put it away.
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