What's Better Than Money (7 page)

“I’m not interested. I would be interested if she was quite fit and ready to go to work. I would give you a very good contract, but I am not interested in anyone who has to go first to Dr. Klinzi before they can sing.”

He went out, closing the door behind him.

I took the tape off the recorder, put it in its box and dropped the box into my pocket.

“There it is,” Knight said awkwardly. “You played it wrong. The old man has a horror of junkies. His own daughter is one.”

“If I can get her cured, would he be interested?”

“No doubt about it, but he would have to be sure she was cured.”

He opened the door and eased me out.

CHAPTER FOUR

I

When I finally got home, Rima was out. I went into my bedroom and lay on the bed. I was completely bushed.

I hadn’t felt so depressed in years. From the Californian Recording Studios, I had driven to R.C.A. There they had admired Rima’s voice, but when I began to talk about a five thousand dollar advance they eased me out so fast I hadn’t a chance to argue with them.

I had gone to two of the bigger agents who also showed interest, but when they heard Rima was under contract to me they brushed me off in a way that made my ears burn.

The fact that Rima had gone out depressed me further. She had known I was going to see Shirely, and yet she hadn’t bothered to wait in to find out the result of the interview. She had been certain nothing would come of it. Bleak experience had already taught her that any effort of mine to get her somewhere was so much waste of time. That thought depressed me even more.

I now had to face the problem of what I was going to do.

I was out of a job and I had only enough money to last me until the end of the week. I didn’t even have my fare home.

I didn’t want to do it, but I finally decided I would have to go home. I knew my father would be sympathetic enough not to throw my failure in my face. I would have to get Rusty to lend me the fare and persuade my father to pay him back.

I was so frustrated and depressed I felt like banging my head against the wall.

Five thousand dollars.

If I could only get Rima cured, I knew she would make a hit. In a year she could make half a million and that would be fifty thousand dollars in my pocket: a lot better than crawling home and having to tell my father I had flopped.

I lay on the bed thinking like this until it got dark. Then just when I had finally made up my mind to go down and talk Rusty into lending me the money, I heard Rima come up the stairs and go into her bedroom.

I waited.

After a while she wandered in and stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at me.

“Hello,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

“How about something to eat?” she said. “Have you any money?”

“Don’t you want to hear what Shirely said?”

She yawned, rubbing her eyes.

“Shirely?”

“Yes. The boss of the Californian Recording Company. I went to see him this afternoon about you – remember?”

She shrugged indifferently.

“I don’t want to know what he said. They all say the same thing. Let’s go somewhere and eat.”

“He said if you took a cure, he’d make a fortune for you.”

“So what? Have you any money?”

I got off the bed and went over to the mirror on the wall and combed my hair. If I hadn’t done something with my hands, I would have hit her.

“No, I haven’t any money, and we don’t eat. Clear out! The sight of you makes me sick to my stomach.”

She sat on the edge of the bed. She put her hand inside her shirt and began to scratch her ribs.

“I’ve got some money,” she said. “I’ll treat you to dinner. I’m not stingy like you. We’ll have spaghetti and veal.”

I turned to stare at her.

“You have money? Where did you get it from?”

“The Pacific Studios. They ‘phoned just after you left. I had three hours crowd work.”

“I bet you are lying. I bet you went down some dark alley with an old man with a beard.”

She giggled.

“It was crowd work. I’ll tell you something else. I know where we can get that five thousand you’re worrying about.” I put down the comb and faced her.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She studied her finger nails. Her hands were grubby and her nails black rimmed.

“The five thousand for the cure.”

“What about it?”

“I know where we can get it.”

I drew in a long slow breath.

“There are times when I would like to beat you,” I said. “You exasperate me so much one of these days I’ll slap your bottom until you scream blue murder.”

She giggled again.

“I know where we can get it,” she repeated.

“That’s wonderful. Where can we get it?”

“Larry Lowenstien told me.”

I thrust my hands deep into my trousers pockets.

“Don’t act cute, you dope! Who’s Larry Lowenstien?”

“A friend of mine.” She leaned back on her elbows, arching her chest at me. She looked as seductive as a plate of lukewarm soup. “He works for the casting director. He told me they keep more than ten thousand dollars in the casting office. They have to have it in cash to pay the extras. The lock on the door is nothing.”

I lit a cigarette: my hands began to shake.

“What’s it to me how much money they keep in the casting office?”

“I thought we could get in there and help ourselves.”

“That’s quite a bright idea coming from you. What makes you imagine they wouldn’t object to us taking it? Hasn’t anyone told you that taking someone’s money is stealing?”

She wrinkled her nose and shrugged.

“It was just an idea. If you feel that way about it, forget it.”

“Thanks for the advice. That’s just what I’m going to do.”

“Well, all right. Anything you say, but I thought you were so keen to get that money.”

“I am, but not that keen.”

She got up.

“Let’s go and eat.”

“You go. I have something to do.”

She wandered to the door.

“Oh, come on. I’m not stingy. I’ll treat you. You’re not too proud to be treated by me, are you?”

“I’m not proud. I’ve something else to do: I’m going to talk to Rusty. I’m borrowing my fare home from him. I’m quitting.”

She stared at me.

“What do you want to do that for?”

“I’m out of a job,” I said patiently. “I can’t live on air so I’m going home.”

“You can get a job at the Pacific Studios. There’s a big crowd scene tomorrow. They want people.”

“They do? How do I get a job like that then?”

“I’ll fix it. Come with me tomorrow. They’ll give you a job. Now let’s go and eat: I’m starving.”

I went with her because I was hungry and I couldn’t be bothered to argue with her any more.

We went to a small Italian restaurant and ate spaghetti which was very good and thin slices of veal fried in butter.

Half way through the meal, she said. “Did Shirely really say I could sing?”

“That’s what he said. He said when you had a cure and when you were a hundred per cent fit, he would give you a contract.”

She pushed aside her plate and lit a cigarette.

“It would be easy to take that money. There would be nothing to it.”

“I wouldn’t do a thing like that for you nor anyone else!”

“I thought you wanted me to have a cure?”

“Oh, shut up! To hell with your cure and to hell with you!”

Someone put a nickel into the juke box. Joy Miller began to sing
Some of these Days.
We both listened intently. She was loud and brassy and often off-pitch. The tape I had in my pocket was much, much better than this disc.

“Half a million a year,” Rima said dreamily. “She isn’t so hot, is she?”

“No, but she’s a lot hotter than you. She doesn’t need a cure. Let’s get out of here. I’m going to bed.”

When we got back to the rooming-house, Rima came to the door of my room.

“You can sleep with me tonight if you like,” she said. “I feel in the mood.”

“Well, I don’t,” I said, and I shut the door in her face.

I lay in bed in the darkness and thought about what she had said about all that money in the casting director’s office. I kept telling myself that I had to get the idea of stealing the money out of my mind. I had sunk pretty low, but I hadn’t sunk that low, but the idea kept nagging at me. If I could get her cured. . . I was still pecking at the idea when I fell asleep.

The next morning, soon after eight o’clock, we took the bus into Hollywood. There was a big crowd moving through the main gates of the Pacific Studios and we tagged along behind.

“There’s plenty of time,” Rima said. “They won’t start shooting until ten. You come with me. I’ll get Larry to book you.”

I went along with her.

Away from the main studio block was a number of bungalow type buildings. Outside one of them stood a tall, thin man wearing corduroy trousers and a blue shirt.

I hated the sight of him as soon as I saw him. His white puffy face was badly shaven. His eyes were close set and cunning. He looked like a pimp alert for business.

He gave Rima a jeering grin.

“Hello, sugar, coming to work your stint?” he said and then he looked at me. “Who’s this?”

“A friend,” Rima said. “Can he be one of the crowd, Larry?”

“Why not? The more the merrier. What’s his name?” “Jeff Gordon,” Rima said.

“Okay. I’ll book him.” To me, he went on, “Get over to Number three studio, pal. Down the alley, second on your right.”

Rima said to me, “You go ahead. I want to talk to Larry.”

Lowenstien winked at me.

“They all want to talk to me.”

I went off down the alley. Half way down, I looked back. Rima was going into the office with Lowenstien. He had his arm around her shoulders and he was leaning close, talking to her.

I stood in the hot sunshine and waited. After a while, Rima came out and joined me.

“I was taking a look at that lock. There’s nothing to it. The lock on the drawer where the money is kept is tricky, but I could open it, given a little time.”

I didn’t say anything.

“We could do it tonight. We could get lost here,” she went on. “I know a place where we can hide. We’d have to stay the night here and get out in the morning. It would be easy.”

I hesitated for perhaps half a second. I knew if I didn’t take this risk I wasn’t going to get anywhere. I realised I would have to go home and admit defeat. Once I got her cured, both of us would be in the money.

Right at that moment, all I could think of was what ten per cent of half a million dollars would mean to me.

“Okay,” I said. “If you’re going to do it, I’ll do it with you.”

II

We lay side by side in the darkness, under the big stage of Studio Three. We had been lying like that for the past three hours, listening to the tramp of feet overhead, the shouting of the technicians as they prepared the new set for tomorrow’s shooting, the professional cursing of the director as they didn’t do what he told them to do and did what he told them not to do.

All the morning and the afternoon, we had worked in the heat of the arc lights until dusk with three hundred other extras: that regiment of the lost who hang on to Hollywood in the hope, some day, someone will notice them and turn them into stars, and we had sweated with them and hated them.

We had been part of a crowd supposed to be watching a Championship fight. We had stood and yelled when the director had signalled to us. We had sat and booed. We had leaned forward with horror on our faces. We had jeered, and finally we had lifted the roof when the pale, thin looking kid in the ring who didn’t look as if he could punch his way out of a paper bag, had brought the champion down on his knees and forced him to quit.

We had done all that over and over again from eleven o’clock until seven o’clock in the evening, and it was the hardest day’s work I have ever done in my life.

Finally, the director had broken it up.

“Okay, boys and girls,” he had bawled over the loudspeaker system. “I want you all here tomorrow at nine sharp. Wear what you are wearing now.”

Rima put her hand on my arm.

“Keep close to me and move fast when I tell you.”

We tagged along just behind the long line of sweating extras. My heart was thumping, but I wouldn’t let myself think what was ahead of me.

Rima said, “Through here,” and gave me a little push.

We slipped down an alley that brought us to the back entrance of Studio Three.

It was easy to get under the stage. For the first three hours we remained like mice, scared that someone might find us, but after a while, around ten o’clock, the technicians knocked off and we had the place to ourselves.

By then I was aching for a cigarette and so was Rima. We lit up. In the feeble light of the match’s flame, I saw her stretched out beside me in the dust, her eyes glittering, and she wrinkled her nose at me.

“It’s going to be all right. In another half hour, we can do it.” It was then I began really to get scared.

I told myself I must be out of my mind to get involved in a thing like this. If we were caught. . .

To get my mind off it, I said, “What’s this guy Lowenstien to you?”

She shifted. I had an idea I had touched a sore point.

“He’s nothing to me.”

“Don’t tell me! How did you get to know a rat like him? He takes after your pal Wilbur.”

“You’re a fine one to talk with your scarred face! Who do you imagine you are?”

I clenched my fist and punched her hard on her thigh.

“Shut up about my face!”

“Then shut up about my friends!”

I had a sudden idea.

“Of course – you get the stuff from him! He’s got peddler written all over him.”

“You hurt me!”

“There are times when I could strangle you. He’s the rat you get your drugs from, isn’t he?”

“What if he is? I have to get it from someone, don’t I?”

“I must be nuts to have anything to do with you!”

“You hate me, don’t you?”

“Hate doesn’t come into it.”

“You’re the first man who hasn’t wanted to sleep with me,” she said, her tone bitter.