7.

The sound of the water running in the shower woke him up. For a moment he lay listening to it, then, slowly, he rolled over on his back. He had been sleeping on his stomach. He opened his eyes. The bathroom door was open and through it came the sound of the running water.

He sat up and reached for his watch on the table next to the bed. It was almost six o"clock in the morning. He reached for the crutches that lay next to the bed and lifted himself up. The bed squeaked as his weight came off it.

Dulcie"s voice came from the shower. "Darling, are you up?"

He grinned to himself. If he hadn"t been awake before he heard her voice, he was now. He was suddenly alive. Alive in every part of his body in a way he hadn"t been for many years. "Yeah," he called back.

"There"s a note on the dresser for you," she called in to him. "I found it under the door this morning when I woke up."

He went to the dresser and picked it up. It was a white square envelope with the hotel"s imprint up in the left-hand corner. On it was his name scrawled in Rocco"s familiar handwriting. He opened it.

"Dear Johnny," it read, "I ordered the car to pick you up at seven fifteen downstairs as you wanted and took the five ten this morning back to New York. There"s no place for an extra man on a honeymoon. Good luck." It was signed: "Rocco."

He tapped the letter thoughtfully against the dresser. He thought Rock had been acting strangely yesterday when they had been married at that whistle stop just inside the California border. They had got off the train at Pasadena at ten thirty last night and had come directly to the hotel.

He had told Rock to have a car ordered for seven fifteen in the morning. Rock had looked at him and laughingly said: "Do you think you"ll be up that early?"

He had grinned back at Rocco foolishly. "Sure," he had said. "I told Peter I"d be out at his house for breakfast."

Awkwardly they had shaken hands and bidden each other good-night. He had gone up to their room and knocked on the door.

"Come in." Dulcie"s voice was small.

He had gone into the room. She was in bed already, a small robe flung across her shoulders. The light from a small table lamp next to the bed was the only light in the room. She was watching him.

He smiled rea.s.suringly at her. "Nervous?" he asked.

She nodded her head. "A little," she replied. "I was never married before."

He laughed at her small joke and sat down on the bed next to her and put his arms around her. She turned her face to his and he kissed her. He looked down at her; her eyes were closed. He kissed them tenderly. "Don"t be afraid, darling," he whispered. "I"ll be gentle with you."

He didn"t know it, but the shoe was on the other foot. She was gentle with him. So gentle he hadn"t suspected her experience.

She came out of the bathroom, a robe hanging loosely around her shoulders. "What is it?" she asked.

It was a moment before he realized she was referring to the note he held in his hand. The robe hung open and she was lovely beneath it. "From Rock," he said looking at her.

She tied the robe around her and walked toward him. "What does he say?"

He handed her the note and she read it swiftly. A feeling of elation ran through her. There was something about Rock and his devotion to Johnny that she was afraid of. She gave it back to him. "It"s funny, he didn"t say anything last night," she said.

"Yes," he said slowly, "it is funny." He laughed shortly. "I feel strange."

She had turned and was running a comb through her hair. At his words she turned back to him. "How?"

He was uncomfortable. "This is the first time since the war Rock hasn"t been around."

She came to him and put her arms around him. "You don"t need him any more, darling," she said. "Now you"ve got me."

He smiled down at her and kissed the lobe of her ear where it peeked out from under her hair. "It"s not that, sugar," he said. "It"s something else." There was a guilty feeling inside him. Strangely he couldn"t help thinking he had let Rock down.

She snuggled closer to him. "What else?"

He laughed embarra.s.sedly. "Like who"s going to drive the car to take us out to Peter"s house this morning?" and was ashamed of his words as soon as they were out of his mouth, for that wasn"t the way he felt at all.

She kissed him. "I"m quite talented, darling," she said, taking him at his word. "I can drive, too."

She was curious about Peter and his family and asked him many questions about them as they drove out to his house. She asked him so many questions he didn"t realize most of them were about Doris.

At last he turned to her and laughed. "Don"t be such a busybody, you"ll meet them for yourself in a few minutes."

She kept her eye on the road. "I"m only asking because they have known you so much longer than I," she said in a hurt tone of voice. "And I wonder if they"ll like me."

He kissed her cheek. "Stop acting, darling," he said, smiling. "You know they"ll love you."

She drove silently, following his directions. She was no fool. When she had made up her mind to marry Johnny she decided to learn all she could about him. Warren had told her as much as he knew. She added to that by careful questioning of some friends of hers who worked on theatrical papers. From them she had learned all about Peter and his family. She had especially been interested in Doris. An instinct told her to learn more about Doris. She had checked and found out that Doris had written a novel that had been published just a few months before. She read the book. When she finished it she knew she was right about Doris. The man in the story was enough like Johnny to be him.

Johnny"s voice interrupted her thoughts. "This last turn here and we"re right at the house."

She looked at him. His face was intent, watching the side of the road for the first sign of Peter"s home. There was also a look of happy antic.i.p.ation there. For a moment she was very fond of him. He was such a nice guy; he had acted toward her like a schoolboy with his first love. She took a hand off the wheel and placed it on his. "Happy, Johnny?" she asked.

He looked at her. "What do you think?" he asked in return, squeezing her hand.

Doris looked at them blankly. Her mind was still numb, her heart seemed to have turned into a lump of ice within her breast.

His words still hung in the air. "We were married last night!"

She watched her father jump up and go around the table and excitedly pump his hand. Hours seemed to go by. What was Johnny saying? She tilted her head a little to one side as if to hear better. He was talking to her. Desperately she tried to hear him.

"Ain"t you comin" over and kiss your Uncle Johnny?" he was asking as if she were a little girl.

Stiffly she got to her feet. She wished she was a little girl again. Little girls didn"t hurt inside the way she did.

8.

Conrad von Elster put his elbows on his desk and his head in his hands and stared at the photographs spread out before him. He was unhappy. And he was worried too. He was looking for a woman and couldn"t find one.

Not that there was a shortage of women in a personal sense for Herr von Elster. That there never was. In spite of a carefully cultivated rudeness of manner, unkempt, sandy-colored hair that never looked washed, slightly bulging, gimlety blue eyes and a pale, oily skin, he had attracted many women. This time he didn"t want a woman for himself, he wanted a woman for a picture he was about to make.

Conrad von Elster was a director of motion pictures. He had come to America at the personal request of Peter Kessler, who had told him that America was waiting for his pictures. He had come to America for one thousand American dollars every week. Inflation was rampant in Germany when he spoke to Mr. Kessler. The dinner they were eating at the time Mr. Kessler extended his invitation cost two hundred thousand marks, which Mr. Kessler paid with one American ten-dollar bill with an eagle on it. It was a good dinner. Von Elster belched politely and said he would be glad to come to America. That was four months ago.

He had arrived in Hollywood with Mr. Kessler about the middle of November and was installed in an office and told to go to work. He had already approved the script of the picture he was to work on and his first job was to select an adequate cast. He had no trouble until he came to the part of the leading woman. None of the actresses under contract to Magnum would suit him. Obligingly Mr. Kessler told the casting department to extend all possible aid to Herr von Elster. Immediately von Elster was swamped with photographs of pretty girls. His phone rang every minute with a request from the casting department to interview the newest hopeful.

Von Elster had looked at all of them and found none of them satisfactory. The photographs now spread on the desk before him were the best of all those he had seen. He shook his head and sighed. He didn"t like any of them.

He had to choose one of these girls to play the role in his picture or he might have to give up that thousand-dollar check he received every week. The idea of that one-thousand-dollar check made him happy until he thought of the note he had found on his desk when he arrived at the office that morning.

It was a simple note from Mr. Kessler. It was a small piece of paper. Across the top of it were printed the words: "From the desk of Peter Kessler, President, Magnum Pictures." The message was typed carefully underneath it: "Be at my office at 11:30 a.m." It wasn"t signed.

If this note had come before January 1, von Elster would not have been perturbed. Indeed, he would have looked forward to the meeting with antic.i.p.ation. Mr. Kessler and he found many things in common to talk about; but things were different now. On January 2 a Mr. Edge had come to the studio from New York to help Mr. Kessler.

Von Elster was no fool. He could sense the almost immediate change in the atmosphere around him. Even the secretaries were at their desks early. The pleasant calls he would get from Mr. Kessler twice a week chucklingly asking him if he had found the right girl yet had stopped. It was now almost the end of January and this was the first word he had had from Mr. Kessler all month.

His fears were not entirely without other foundation. He had heard of the summary dismissal of certain directors, writers, and producers because of their inability to get their pictures into production. At first he had ignored these signals. Hadn"t Mr. Kessler told him every time he spoke to him that he didn"t have to start until he was perfectly satisfied with everything? But then as Mr. Kessler stopped making his bi-weekly calls, von Elster couldn"t ignore what was happening. That was why he was so unhappy. He didn"t want to stop receiving that one-thousand-dollar check.

He looked at his wrist.w.a.tch. It was almost eleven o"clock now. At eleven o"clock the messenger would come with the check. Sometimes the messenger would be late. He hoped the messenger wouldn"t be late today. He would feel better with this week"s check safely in his pocket before he left for Mr. Kessler"s office.

There was a knock at his door. Von Elster smiled happily. The check was on time. The messenger placed the envelope containing the check on his desk and waited patiently while von Elster signed and returned the receipt to him. The messenger left the office and von Elster placed the envelope carefully in an inside pocket of his jacket.

He looked down at the desk again in disgust. In America they called these women? Bah! In the old country they had women-real women. Here they were all alike. Made in ma.s.s production like the automobiles that covered the roads. Too skinny. Too much make-up. Too short haircuts. In Germany they had women. There the women had what he called the three B"s-b.r.e.a.s.t.s, bellies, and behinds. Without them what good was a woman?

Worriedly he walked over to the window of his office and looked out. From his window he could see the entrance to the casting department. He took a cigar from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth and chewed on it morosely.

The door of the casting department opened and a girl came out. She stood there on the steps for a moment and opened her purse. She took a cigarette from the purse and lighted it. The sunlight falling on her hair made it seem like a ring of gold. She puffed at the cigarette, and when she was sure it was going she started down the steps. Admiringly von Elster contemplated her. That was a woman. She had the three B"s all right.

She was wearing a white simple sports dress that clung to her body. Her short skirt swirled, showing long, slim legs. For a moment she stood on the walk in front of the casting building as if undecided in which direction she should go. She turned and came toward his window.

The phone on his desk began to ring. He turned and walked back to his desk and picked it up. "h.e.l.lo," he said into the phone, still looking out the window. "This is Conrad von Elster." The girl was almost opposite the window now.

"Mr. Kessler would like to change the time of your appointment to four thirty this afternoon. Will that be all right?" a woman"s voice asked him.

"Yes," he replied, "it vill be all right."

"Thank you," the voice said, and the phone clicked off.

He placed his phone back on the desk, his mind still on the girl outside the window. He saw her face for a moment as she walked by. "Gott in Himmel!" he swore to himself. "That one is a beauty. Why can"t they send me one like that?" He turned and picked up a match from the tray on his desk. He snapped it against his thumbnail and held it up to his cigar. Absently his eyes looked at the photographs on his desk and suddenly his hand shook and the match fell to the floor.

"Dummkopf!" he almost shouted aloud at himself. He turned and ran to his door and opened it. Leaving it open behind him, he ran down the corridor to the street entrance.

In the street he looked frantically from side to side. He didn"t know which way the girl had gone. At last he saw her. She was walking toward the administration building, her white skirt swinging in the sunlight.

"Fraulein!" he shouted, forgetting his English, "Fraulein!" He began to run after her. His heart pounded against his side; it had been a long time since he had demanded such effort from his body.

He was drawing closer to her. "Fraulein!" he shouted again. She didn"t hear him and kept on walking. He tried to run faster; his side began to ache. "Fraulein!" This time his voice was shrill, it was almost a scream.

The girl heard him and turned around. He slowed down to a walk and held both hands in the air waving to her to wait for him. He was breathing heavily as he came up to her.

A lifted eyebrow and a studied disdainful smile was on the girl"s face as she watched him approach. Her body stood quietly, perfectly poised, ready to move on if it was a case of mistaken ident.i.ty.

He gasped for breath with which to speak. It was as it should be. The girl was too young to have appreciation for the difficult exercises of middle age. And those ignoramuses in the casting office had sent her away. He found his voice. "Are you an actress?"

The girl looked puzzled for a second, then nodded her head.

"That"s right," he said. "In pictures you don"t have to speak!" He waved his hands in the air dramatically. "I, Conrad von Elster, will make you the greatest star on the screen!"

Dulcie had a wild impulse to laugh. For a moment she thought of telling this funny little man who she was. Then she changed her mind. It would be fun to see what would happen. Johnny was tied up all day and she had nothing better to do anyway. It was like that almost every day and she was getting bored with sitting around and waiting for him.

Von Elster didn"t wait for her to speak. He took her arm and was leading her back to his office. "Ve must immediately make for you a screen test."

"A screen test!" Dulcie thought. "Johnny would get a kick out of that!" But deep inside she knew he wouldn"t like it and was preparing an explanation for him. If she did anything, she would do it for herself and because she wanted it and not for anyone else, even Johnny.

They were in von Elster"s office now. He motioned her to a seat and picked up the phone. "Mr. Reilly in casting, please," he said into the phone. He waited for a moment, then a man"s voice answered.

"Mr. Reilly, this is von Elster. I haff a girl here in my office I vant immediately to test." He paused for a moment. "No, Mr. Reilly, not this afternoon. Right avay! I haff a meeting vit Mr. Kessler to look at it at four thirty." He was silent for a moment while the man spoke, then he looked at her. He put one hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. "Qvick, vat iss your name?" he hissed at her.

Dulcie hesitated for a moment. She could still back out and end this little farce. But she didn"t want to. She wanted to be an actress. She had always wanted it. Why should things be any different now because she was married to Johnny? She stared back at von Elster. "Dulcie," she said, "Dulcie Warren."

Her breath caught in her throat as von Elster repeated the name into the phone. Suddenly her tenseness was gone and she felt relaxed and at ease again. Johnny wouldn"t like it, but what did it matter? What had she married him for if not this-among other things?

The test was good. No one had to tell Dulcie, she knew it. She had spent enough time around the theater to know when something was good. She could tell from how the people on the set had acted. At the beginning they were bored. It had been just another job to them, another test. They made dozens of these every week. There wasn"t any reason for them to think this would be different from any of the others. But it was.

Maybe at first they had been attracted by that nervous little foreign director. He had been so excited that they could hardly understand his instructions. When they finally understood him, they had opened their eyes wide in amazement. His style, his technique, was certainly different, something they had never seen before. But their professional minds had grasped it at once and wondered why no one had used it before. It was that simple and that good.

Up to the moment when Dulcie took her place before the cameras, the interest, the excitement, had all been intellectual. A style, a technique, a way of mechanics. But when Dulcie stood there, with all the lights beating down on her, everything the little man had done suddenly made sense. Emotionally as well as intellectually. It was then they realized that this funny little man had created a new technique especially for this actress, and they looked at him with a quick and deep respect. The little man gave the actress her final instructions; then he stepped back from the set and sat down in his chair.

All eyes turned to the girl when the little man dropped his hand. Quiet fell across the small set; only the clicking of the cameras could be heard; the intense heat coming from the overhead lights could be felt as the girl began to act.

The sweat was pouring from von Elster"s pale face as he watched her. This had to be right. He was convinced now that fate had given him this one last chance. Suddenly there was a tension in the air. It was as if a spark of electricity had reached out from the girl and made contact with every person there.

Von Elster"s breath whistled out between his lips in a long sigh of relief. Slowly he turned his head away from the girl and looked at the others. The script girl had forgotten her script, it lay on her lap as she watched the girl. He turned his gaze to the men. It was the men who would feel the full impact of this woman. He was right. The props men, the grips, the electricians were staring at her. The same look was on all their faces.

It was a look as old as time. Von Elster turned his gaze back to the girl and settled back comfortably in his chair. His eye saw with the eye of the camera. He had been right about the girl. She projected. He smiled happily to himself at the thought, visions of a long line of one-thousand-dollar checks dancing before him. She projected in more ways than one. He didn"t have anything to worry about.

9.