The Carpetbaggers (27 page)

"That's more like it," I said. "We'll shoot those scenes again now."

Rina nodded and turned away. Miss Gaillard's voice stopped her. "We can't photograph her like that."

I looked at the designer. "What did you say?"

Miss Gaillard stood up. "We can't shoot her like that. Her bust bounces."

I laughed. "What's the matter with that? Tits should bounce."

"Of course," the designer said quickly. "But on the screen everything is exaggerated." She looked at the cameraman. "Isn't that right, Lee?"

The cameraman nodded. "That's right, Mr. Cord. They won't look natural at all."

"We'll have to put some kind of brassière on her," Miss Gaillard said.

"O.K. Go see what you can do."

A moment later, Rina and the designer came out of the bathroom. They walked toward me. It was better than the original harness but they didn't look as good as they did without restraint. It just didn't look right to me.

I got up from the desk and walked over to Rina. "Let me see."

Rina looked at me, her eyes deliberately distant. Impassively she dropped the negligee from her shoulders, holding it to her by the crook of her elbows. "Turn right," I said. "Now left."

I stepped back and looked at Rina. I knew what it was now. Whenever she turned, the brassière pulled and flattened, which was what gave her breasts that unnatural look. I looked at the designer. "Maybe if we took off the shoulder straps?"

Ilene Gaillard shrugged. "We can try." She reached over and pushed down the straps.

Rina stood there, her eyes fixed on some distant point over my shoulder. "Now turn." The brassiere still cut into her breasts. "Unhh-unhh," I said. "I still don't like it."

"There's one other thing I can try."

"O.K.," I said.

A few minutes later, they came out again. Rina wore a wire-ribbed contraption almost like a small corset, except it didn't come down over her hips. And when she moved, her breasts didn't. You could see them all right, but they looked as if they had been molded out of plaster of Paris.

I looked at the designer. "Isn't there some way we can cut out some of those wires?"

"I think that looks fine, Mr. Cord. Anyway, I don't see why you're so worried about her bustline. Her legs are good and you'll see plenty of them."

"Miss Gaillard, since you're not a man, I don't expect you to understand what I'm getting at. I can see all the legs I want to see just walking down the street. Just answer my question, please."

"No, we can't cut the wires, Mr. Cord," she replied, equally polite. "If we do, she might as well be wearing nothing. There wouldn't be enough rigidity to support her."

"Maybe if I show you what I want, you can do it. Take it off, Rina," I said, walking over to her.

Impassively Rina turned aside for a moment. When she turned around again, the contraption was in one hand and with the other she held the top of the negligee closed.

I took it and tossed in onto my desk. I put my hands to the top of Rina's negligee and pushed it down until it formed a square across her breast just above the nipples. Her breasts rose like twin white moons against my dark, clenched fists. I looked back at the designer. "See what I mean?"

Maybe she didn't but there wasn't a man in the room whose eyes weren't popping out of his head.

"What you want is impossible, Mr. Cord. Rina's a big girl. Thirty-eight C. There isn't a brassière made that could support her bust like that. I'm a designer, Mr. Cord, not a structural engineer."

I let go of Rina's negligee and turned to Miss Gaillard. "Thank you," I said, going over to the telephone. "That's the first constructive idea I've heard since this meeting started."

* * *

Morrissey was there in less than twenty minutes.

"I’ve got a little problem, Morrissey. I need your help."

His nervousness disappeared slightly and he looked around shyly. "Anything I can do, Mr. Cord."

"Stand up, Rina," I said. Slowly she got to her feet and walked around us. Morrissey's eyes widened behind his glasses. I was glad to see that other things could occupy his mind besides airplanes.

"There isn't a brassière made that can keep them from jiggling," I said. "And still look natural. I want you to design one that will."

He turned back to me, an expression of shock on his face. "You're joking, Mr. Cord!"

"I was never more serious in my life."

"But— but I don't know anything about brassières. I’m an aeronautical engineer," he stammered, blushing a bright pink.

"That's why I called you," I said calmly. "I figured if you can design planes that have to withstand thousands of pounds of stress you ought to be able to come up with something that would hold up a little thing like a pair of tits." I turned to the costume designer. "Fill him in on what he needs to know."

Miss Gaillard looked at me, then at Morrissey. "Perhaps it would be better if we worked in my office in Wardrobe. I have everything there you might need."

Morissey had been staring at Rina's breasts while the designer spoke. For a moment, I thought he was paralyzed, then he turned around. "I think I might be able to do something."

"I knew you could," I said, smiling.

"I’m not promising anything, of course. But it's a very intriguing problem."

I kept a straight face. "Very," I said solemnly.

Morrissey turned to the designer. "Do you happen to have a pair of calipers?"

"Calipers? What do we need calipers for?"

Morrissey looked at her in amazement. "How else would we be able to measure the depth and the circumference?"

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then, taking his arm, began to walk him toward the door. "I'm sure we can get a pair from Engineering. You'd better come with us, Rina."

Morrissey was back in a little over an hour. He came in waving a sheet of paper. "I think we've got it! It was really very simple once we found the point of stress. The weight of each breast pulls to either side. That means the origin of stress falls between them, right in the center of the cleavage."

I stared at him. His language was a curious mixture of engineering and wardrobe design. But he was too wrapped up in his explanation to pay attention to my look. "The whole thing then became a problem of compensation. We had to find a way to utilize the stress to hold the breasts steady. I inserted a V-shaped wire in the cleavage using the suspension principle. Understand?"

I shook my head. "You went way past me."

"You know the principle used in a suspension bridge?"

"Vaguely," I said.

"Under that principle, the more pressure the mass exerts against itself, the more pressure is created to hold it in place."

I nodded. I still didn't understand it completely. But I had all I needed for now. What I wanted to know was would it work?

I didn't have long to wait for the answer. Rina came into the office shortly after that with Ilene Gaillard. Deliberately she let the wrap fall to the floor and stood there in the repaired negligee.

"Walk toward Mr. Cord," the designer said.

Slowly Rina walked toward me. I couldn't take my eyes from her. The sweetest pair of knockers a man ever put his head down on. She stopped in front of my desk and looked down at me. For the first time that afternoon, she spoke. "Well?"

I was conscious of the effort it took to raise my eyes and look up into her face. Her eyes were cold and calculating. The bitch was always exactly aware of the effect she had on me. She started to turn away. "One more thing, Miss Gaillard," I said. "Tomorrow when we start shooting, I want her in a black negligee, instead of that white one. I want everybody to know she's a whore, not a virgin bride."

"Yes, Mr. Cord." Ilene came up to my desk, her eyes shining. "I really think we're going to set a new style with Miss Marlowe. Unless I'm completely mistaken, women all over the world will be trying for her style once this picture comes out."

I grinned at her. "We didn't set the fashion, Miss Gaillard," I said. "Women looked like women long before either of us was born."

She nodded and started out. I looked around the room. The meeting was over and everybody was getting stiffly to his feet. Nevada was the last one out and I called him back.

He came back to my desk. I turned and looked at my secretary. She was still sitting there, her book filled with shorthand notes. "What've you got there?" I asked.

"The minutes of the meeting."

"What for?"

"It's a company rule," she said. "Minutes of all executive meetings are recorded and copies circulated."

"Give me that book." I held it over the wastebasket and set a match to it. When the flame caught, I dropped it into the basket and looked up at her.

She was staring at me with an expression of horror.

"Now trot your fat little ass out of here," I said. "And if I ever hear of any minutes of meetings in this office ever showing up outside these walls, you'll be looking for another job."

Nevada was smiling as I turned back to him. "I'm sorry I had to speak the way I did, Nevada."

"That's all right, Junior. I shouldn't have shot my mouth off."

"There's a lot of people in this town think I'm a sucker and that I got conned into a bum deal. You and I know that's not true but I have to stop that kind of talk. I can't afford it."

"I understand, Junior. Your pappy was the same way. There was only one boss when he was around."

Suddenly, I realized how far apart we'd grown. For a moment, I had a wave of nostalgia for my childhood, when I could always reach out to Nevada for assurance. It wasn't that way any more. It was exactly the opposite. Nevada was leaning on me. "Thanks, Nevada," I said, forcing a smile to my lips. "And don't worry. Everything'll turn out all right now."

He turned and I watched him walk out of the office. Shortly after he left Dan Pierce came into the office. I reached for a cigarette and lit it. "About what you said this morning. I think we ought to change the script. You better send for the writers right away."

He grinned knowingly. "I already did."

WE COMPLETED THE PICTURE IN FOUR WEEKS. Nevada knew what was happening but he never said a word. Two weeks after that, we held the first sneak preview at a theater out in the valley.

I got there late and the studio publicity man let me in. "There are only a few seats left on the side, Mr. Cord," he apologized.

I looked down at the orchestra. There was a section roped off in the center for studio guests. It was jammed. Everybody at the studio from Norman on down was there. They were all waiting for me to fall on my ass.

I went up into the balcony just as the lights went down and the picture came on. I found my way in the dark to a seat in the middle of a bunch of youngsters and looked up at the screen.

My name looked funny up there.

JONAS CORD PRESENTS 

But the feeling left when the credits were over and the picture began. After ten minutes had passed I started to sense a restlessness in the kids around me. "Aw, shit," I heard one of them whisper. "I thought this was gonna be somethin' different. It's just another friggin' Western."

Then Rina came on screen. Five minutes later, when I looked around me, the kids' faces were staring up at the screen, their mouths partly open, their expressions rapt. There wasn't a sound except their breathing. Next to me sat a boy holding a girl's hand tightly in his lap. When Rina finally pulled Nevada down onto the bed with her, I could feel the kid squirm. He whispered, "Jesus!"

I reached for a cigarette and began to smile. Nobody had to tell me this picture was box office. When I came down into the lobby after it was over, Nevada was standing in the corner surrounded by kids and signing autographs. I looked for Rina. She was at the other end of the lobby surrounded by reporters. Bernie Norman was hovering over her like a proud father.

Dan was standing in the center of a circle of men. He looked up as I came over. "You were right, Jonas," he cried jubilantly. "She creamed 'em. We'll gross ten million dollars!"

I gestured and he followed me out to my car. "When this is over," I said, "bring Rina to my hotel."

He stared at me. "It's still eating yuh, isn't it?"

"Don't lecture me, just do as I say!"

"What if she won't come?"

"She'll come," I said grimly. "Just tell her it's collection day!"

It was one o'clock in the morning and I was halfway through a bottle of bourbon when the knock came on the door. I went over and opened it.

Rina walked into the room and I closed the door. She turned to face me. "Well?"

I gestured toward the bedroom. She looked at me for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders and nonchalantly started for the bedroom. "I told Nevada I was coming here," she said over her shoulder.

I spun her around violently. "What the hell did you do a damnfool thing like that for?"

Her eyes appraised me calmly. "Nevada and I are going to get married. I told him I wanted to be the first to tell you."

I couldn't believe my ears. "No!" I shouted hoarsely. "You can't. I won't let you. He's an old man, he's through. You'll be the biggest star in the business when this picture comes out."

"I know."

"If you know, then why? You don't need him. You don't need anybody."

"Because when I needed him, he helped me," she said evenly. "Now it's my turn. He needs me."

"He needs you? Why? Because he was too proud to do his own crawling?"

"That's not true and you know it!"

"Making you a star was my idea!"

"I didn't ask you for it," Rina said angrily. "I didn't even want it. Don't think I didn't see what you were doing. Cutting down his part in his own picture, building me up as a monument to your own ego while you were ruining him!"

"I didn't see you trying to stop me," I said. "We both know he's on the way out. There's a new kind of cowboy over at one of the studios. A singing cowboy. He uses a guitar instead of a gun!"

"You know everything, don't you!" Her hand slashed angrily out at my face. I could feel its sting even as she spoke. "That's why he needs me more than ever!"