Part 7 (1/2)
”O.K., then, Herman. You handle it. Three fifty while he's learning English, and then after the script is ready and we start to shoot, five. Six weeks' guarantee, at five hundred.”
Stoessel turned to Hudson and Lahr. ”I guess Mr. Ziskin don't need any introduction around here. He's interested in this man for a picture. Tell him that much, will you? Then we give him the rest of it.”
Lahr didn't act like he was any too fond of Mr. Ziskin, or Stoessel either, for that matter. ”Why don't you tell him yourself?”
”He speak English?”
”He did a minute ago.”
”Sure, I speak English. Shoot.”
”Well, say, that makes it easy. O.K., then, you heard what Mr. Ziskin said. Get your make-up off, put on your clothes, and we'll go out and talk.”
”We can talk right now.”
I was afraid to take my make-up off, for fear he would know me. They still thought I was Sabini, I could see that, because there hadn't been any announcement about me, and I was afraid if he placed me there wouldn't be any three fifty or even one fifty. I was down, that day, and he knew it. ”All right, then, we'll talk right now. You heard Mr. Ziskin's proposition. What do you say?”
”I say go climb a tree.”
”Say, that's no way to talk to Mr. Ziskin.”
”What the h.e.l.l do you think a singer works for? Fun?”
”I know what they work for. I handle singers.”
”I don't know whether you handle singers. Maybe you handle b.u.ms. If Mr. Ziskin has got something to say, let him say it. But don't waste my time talking about three hundred and fifty dollars a week. If it was a day, that would be more like it.”
”Don't be silly. ”
”I'm not being silly. I'm booked straight through to the first of the year, and if I'm going to get out of those contracts it's going to cost me dough. If you want to pay dough, talk. If not, just let's stop where we are.”
”What's your idea of dough?”
”I've told you. But I've been wanting to break into pictures, and to get the chance, I'll split the difference with you. I'll do a little better than that. A thousand a week, and it's a deal. But that's rock bottom. I can't cut it, and I can't shade it.”
We had it hot for a half hour, but I stuck and they came around. I wanted it in writing, so Stoessel took out a notebook and pen and wrote a memo of agreement, about five lines. I got a buck out of my pants and made him a receipt for that, first of all. That bound them. But when we got that far I had to tell my name. I hated to say John Howard Sharp, but I had to. He didn't say anything. He tore out the leaf, waved it in the air, handed it to Ziskin to sign. ”John Howard Sharp--sure, I've heard of him. Somebody was telling about him just the other day.”
They went, and a boy came in for Sabini's trunk, and Lahr went out and came back with a bottle and gla.s.ses. ”Guy has broke into pictures, we got to have a drink on that...Where did you say you were booked?” did you say you were booked?”
”With the Santa Fe, mas.h.i.+ng down ballast.”
”Happy days.”
”Happy days.”
”Happy days.”
The crowd was gone and she was all alone when I ran down the hill, waving the cape at her. She turned her back on me, started to walk to the bus stop. I pulled out the wad of five Lahr had given me. ”Look, look, look!” She wouldn't even turn her head. I took my coat off her, put it on, and dropped the cape over her shoulders. ”...I wait very long time.”
”Business! I been talking business.”
”Yes. Smell very nice.”
”Sure we had a drink. But listen: get what I'm telling you. I been talking business.”
”I wait very long.”
I let her get to the bus stop, but I didn't mean to ride on a bus. I began yelling for a taxi. There weren't any, but a car pulled up, a car from a limousine service. ”Take you any place you want to go, sir. Rates exactly the same as the taxis--”
Did I care what his rates were? I shoved her in, and that did it. She tried to stay sore, but she felt the cus.h.i.+ons, and when I took her in my arms she didn't pull away. There weren't any kisses yet, but the worst was over. I halfway liked it. It was our first row over a little thing. It made me feel she belonged to me.
We went to the Derby and had a real feed. It was the first time I had been in a decent place for a year. But I didn't break the big news until we were back at the hotel, undressing. Then I kind of just slid into it. ”Oh, by the way. I got a little surprise for you.”
”Surprise?”
”I got a job in pictures.”
”Cinema?”
”That's right. A thousand a week.”
”Oh.”
”h.e.l.l, don't you get it? We're rich! A thousand a week--not pesos, dollars! Three thousand, six hundred pesos every week! Why don't you say something?”
”Yes, very nice.”
I didn't mean a thing to her! But when I took the cape, and stood up there in my drawers, and sang the Toreador song at her, like I had at the Bowl, that talked. She clapped her hands, and sat on the bed, and I gave her the whole show. The phone rang. The desk calling, to ask me to shut up. I said O.K., but send up a boy. When he came I gave him a five and told him to get us some wine. He was back in a few minutes and we got a little tight, the way we had that night in the church. After a while we went to bed, and a long while after that she lay in my arms, running her fingers through my hair. ”You like me?”
”Yes, much.”
”Did I sing all right?”
”Very pretty.”
”Were you proud of me?”
”...You very fonny fallow, you, Hoaney. Why I be proud? I no sing.”
”But I I sang.” sang.”
”Yes. I like. Very much.”
Chapter 8.
I didn't like Hollywood. I didn't like it partly because of the way they treated a singer, and partly because of the way they treated her. To them, singing is just something you buy, for whatever you have to pay, and so is acting, and so is writing, and so is music, and anything else they use. That it might be good for its own sake is something that hasn't occurred to them yet. The only thing they think is good for its own sake is a producer that couldn't tell Brahms from Irving Berlin on a bet, that wouldn't know a singer from a crooner until he heard twenty thousand people yelling for him one night, that can't read a book until the scenario department has had a synopsis made, that can't even speak English, but that is a self-elected expert on music, singing, literature, dialogue, and photography, and generally has a hit because somebody lent him Clark Gable to play in it. I did all right, you understand. After the first tangle with Ziskin I kind of got the hang of how you handle things out there to get along. But I never liked it, not even for a second.