The Dream Merchants (37 page)

Johnny stood up and smiled at him. “I understand.” He walked around the desk and took George’s hand. “You’re being fair to us, old friend.”

George smiled at him fondly. “And what is old friends for?” he asked. “You help me, is only natural I help you.”

He watched George leave the office and went back to his desk and sat down. It would have been easy enough for George to sell his share on the open market without talking to them first. He knew in a case like that he would be giving someone a chance to cut in on the Magnum Theaters Company the way that Farber had wanted to do. An expression of distaste flitted across Johnny’s face as he thought about Farber.

It was a good thing he had got rid of him when he did. He hadn’t realized just how deeply entrenched in the organization Farber had made himself. Most of the theater personnel had been hired by him and he had made many connections in the picture company too. It wasn’t until after Farber had gone that Johnny found out just how thorough and far-reaching his activities had been.

He picked up his phone. Jane answered it. “Is Rocco in yet?” he asked. Rocco had gone to park the car.

“He just came in,” Jane answered.

“Tell him I want to see him.” Johnny hung up the phone.

Rocco came into the office. “What do you want, boss?” he asked with a smile.

Johnny looked up at him. “Go over to a good florist’s and pick out a dozen of their best American Beauty roses. No”—he hesitated for a moment—“you better make it two dozen, and send them to Miss Dulcie Warren at the Plaza with my card.”

Rocco looked at him in surprise for a moment. He recovered quickly. “Sure, boss,” he said, starting out the door.

Johnny stopped him. “You got the name right?” he asked.

Rocco smiled. “Sure, Johnny. Dulcie Warren at the Plaza. Two dozen American Beauty roses with your card.”

Johnny nodded. He was pleased. “That’s right,” he said.

Rocco closed the door behind him and swore softly to himself. He walked over to Jane’s desk and looked down at her. “What happened to him last night?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. He came in whistling and I asked him if Craig signed and he said no as if he didn’t care. Then he went in to see Pappas, who was waiting for him. Why?”

Rocco scratched his head, puzzled. “Do you know what he wants me to do?”

“No. What?”

“He wants me to send some flowers to a dame at the Plaza. Two dozen American Beauty roses, no less, to Miss Dulcie Warren at the Plaza. Who is she, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Jane answered, “I never heard of her.”

Rocco looked down at her challengingly. “So I was wrong last night when I told you all he needs me for is an errand boy? It’s ‘Rock, bring the car around,’ ‘Rock, get my briefcase over there, will yuh?’ Who’s crazy, me? Now he wants me to buy him some flowers for a dame. I tell yuh, Janey, I’m nuthin’ but a flunky around here and I don’t like it!”

“Shh—” Janey tried to quiet him. “He might hear you!”

“What if he does?” Rocco asked savagely.

She didn’t answer—just looked up at him appealingly. There was nothing she could say. Last night in the car he had told her how he felt, told her why he had hesitated about taking the job with him because he was afraid he would turn into a servant for Johnny. “I’d be better off if I went back to my old job in a barber shop,” he had said. “At least there I would be doing a job and not have to be any man’s flunky.”

She had told him it wasn’t so, he had the wrong idea. She was sure as soon as Johnny had time to think about it, he would give Rock a worthwhile job to do.

He had scoffed at her. “Doing what?” he asked. “This ain’t my racket. What could I do?”

Again she didn’t have an answer. But something had grown between them last night. He had held her hand and she had felt alive again. She was no longer a woman alone with a child and without a man to make her complete. When he had stopped the car in front of her door, she had suddenly leaned toward him and kissed him.

His arms had gone around her and he kissed her again. His voice was suddenly soft. “Is that how it is?” he had asked huskily.

“That’s how it is,” she had answered, putting her arms around his neck.

She had been humming to herself as she let herself into her apartment and had gone over to her son’s bed and looked in it. She had smiled and covered the child and started to undress. She remembered she had felt so foolish and young again.

She looked up at Rocco in surprise. Johnny had come into the office whistling. She had been so happy herself she didn’t have time to reason why he had been whistling. But now it made sense. Suddenly her heart sank in her breast. Doris would be unhappy. Somehow she had always felt that when he snapped around to normal, he would turn to Doris and things would be right for them.

But imperceptibly it had happened. She should have seen it herself. Ever since he had started to move around on his artificial leg. Day after day he grew more like the Johnny of old. Bit by bit, as his confidence in his ability to get around grew, he snapped back. And now he was the same old Johnny as before, with the same purpose and selfish viewpoint that he had before he went away. It was pictures and himself now. That’s all he had thought about then and that’s all he thought about now.

Her voice was almost a whisper. “What did you say the girl’s name was?” she asked Rocco.

“Warren,” he answered, putting on his coat, “Dulcie Warren.”

She nodded her head slowly. She didn’t like the name. It was too carefully picked, too cute, too feminine. And she wouldn’t like the woman either. Somehow she knew that even before she met her.

4

She liked the needle spray of the shower on her body. Some women liked bathtubs, but not her. She liked the feel of the stinging water on her body. It made her tingle and feel alive. She arched her body and let the water beat against her breasts. She could almost feel her blood circulating and, looking down, she could see her nipples slowly thrusting out against the stimulation of the water. It was almost like a lover’s hands seeking her. She laughed aloud. She liked her body. She was proud of it.

Women could have these flat boyish figures if they wanted to, but not she. She had a woman’s body and she wanted everybody to know it. And she knew that they knew it too. When she walked into a room, she knew that the men’s eyes would automatically turn toward her. How long they would look depended upon whom they were with. If their wives or sweethearts were with them, they would turn away hurriedly and steal occasional glances at her out of the corners of their eyes. If they were alone they would continue to look and she could see the wanting in their eyes. She liked to have them look at her that way.

She had been like that in school, too. Soon enough other girls knew it and were afraid to have their boyfriends and sweethearts meet her. The silly fools! What did she care for their boyfriends? They were just kids, while she was destined to be a great actress.

She had been born to be one. Her family had been on the stage ever since she could remember and before that. Her father had been on the stage with his sister, Warren Craig’s mother. He had told her many times about the marriage of the two greatest families on the American stage, the Warrens and the Craigs. Everyone of importance had been there. The Colts, the Drews, the Barrymores, the Costellos, everyone. And Warren Craig was the only son. He had been given the name Warren in honor of his mother’s family. At his christening his father had said boastfully: “Some day he’ll be the greatest name in the theater!” And it was coming true.

That was why she could never understand why they wanted to keep her from the stage. As a child she had loved to act. Her home life was a constant struggle for the center of the stage. Sometimes it would be she, sometimes her father, very rarely her mother. They were too much for the poor woman. The only big scene they allowed her was when she lay dying, and even then her father had tried to ham it up.

She remembered it well even though she was only eleven years old at the time. The room had been darkened and quiet, when suddenly her father had broken into loud sobs and laid his head on the bed. “Don’t leave me, darling,” he wept vainly, “don’t leave me.” It was very touching. The other people in the room, the doctor and the nurse and the servant, shifted awkwardly. She had put her hand on her father’s shoulder. Her voice carried only to his ears, the others in the room could not hear her. “You’re overacting, Papa,” she said. He had nodded his head quickly and whispered back to her: “I know it, honey, but that’s the way your mother likes it.”

The theater was in her blood and she couldn’t help it. She was born to act just as some people are born to paint or make music. She had come to New York sure that her Cousin Warren would give her a chance. But she hadn’t figured on Cousin Warren’s new wife.

Cynthia Craig took one look at Dulcie and silently screamed for help. This natural-born cocotte was not the ideal thing to have around in a marriage that was still in its honeymoon stages. But there was nothing she could do about it. Warren insisted stubbornly that Dulcie could stay around as long as she felt like it. And Dulcie stayed.

Cynthia even tried to get Dulcie some parts in shows that were going on the road, but Warren peremptorily rejected them for her. “It’s not right for her,” he would say. “What she needs is dramatic training first and I’ll see to it that she gets it.”

Cynthia, looking at Dulcie, would think to herself that a girl with a figure like that should not try for the dramatic stage, but should go right to Ziegfeld. He would know what to do with her. He would take ninety percent of her clothes off and let her walk around the stage. But Cynthia forgot one important thing: Dulcie could act and all she needed was a chance.

At last Cynthia gave in and offered some advice to Dulcie. “You wouldn’t have any trouble getting parts if only you’d slim down and get your hair cut in an attractive boyish bob. Then you wouldn’t look like a girl out of yesterday, and maybe some producer would give you a break.”

Dulcie looked at her disdainfully. She let her eyes run up and down Cynthia’s slim figure until Cynthia flushed. Then she tossed her head and her hair shimmered in the light. “I’m happy the way I am,” she had said.

The water felt good on her. She turned around, letting it run down her back. Suddenly she cocked her head to one side. The phone was ringing. She waited a moment for someone to answer it before she remembered that the maid had gone out and she was alone in the apartment. With a reluctant sigh she stretched out one brown arm and turned off the water.

She stepped from the tub hurriedly and threw a towel around her and went into the living room to pick up the phone. “Hello,” she said.

“Dulcie?” came the voice.

She recognized it immediately, but didn’t let on that she knew who it was. “This is Dulcie,” she said.

“This is Johnny,” the voice came back happily. “What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

Johnny Edge was nice all right, but there was nothing particularly exciting about him. All he knew was pictures. He didn’t understand how she felt about the theater. She had gone out with him several times and he had sent her flowers every time they had a date, but she wasn’t in the mood to see him today. Her voice was reproachful. “Oh, Johnny, why didn’t you call earlier? I just made a date with a girl friend of mine I had been promising to visit and just simply couldn’t put off any longer.”

Johnny’s voice sounded disappointed. “How about tomorrow, then?”

“Cynthia and Warren might have arranged something,” she said. “Why don’t you give me a call in the morning?”

He sounded a little more cheerful. “All right, I’ll call you then. So long, Dulcie.”

“So long, Johnny.” She hung up the phone, wondering what kind of excuse she could give him tomorrow. She started suddenly. Someone had come into the room and was watching her. She looked up.

Warren was standing there looking at her.

She pulled the towel around her. It had somehow loosened while she had been on the phone. “Warren!” she said. “You frightened me.”

He grinned at her. “That I would like to see. Nothing frightens you, Dulcie. Not even Cynthia.”

She looked at him in surprise. His speech was a little thick, he had probably just had a few cocktails. “What do you mean?” she asked innocently.

He laughed. “You don’t have to act for me, Dulcie. I’ve seen how you and Cynthia get along. I think she’s a little afraid of you.”

Dulcie smiled and stood up. She could see him looking at her legs where they showed under the towel. She knew the look and delighted in it. It was the first time Warren had ever looked at her in that way. She shook her head. “I don’t know why she should be. I’ve never given her any reason to worry.”

She started to walk past him to the bathroom. He shot out an arm and stopped her. She turned and faced him.

“No?” he asked, smiling quizzically. “Are you sure? After all, walking around the house like this would make her worry.”

Dulcie looked at him levelly. She didn’t push his hand from her arm. “She shouldn’t,” she replied quietly. “There isn’t anybody home.”

For a second they stared at each other, then he pulled her toward him. She came to him willingly enough and held her lips up to him. The towel fell to the floor unheeded as he picked her up and carried her toward his room.

At the door she stopped him for a moment. “Cynthia?” she asked.

His voice was gruff. “Cynthia’s having dinner with her agent. I’m to meet her at the theater.”

***

There was quiet in the room. It was almost dark outside. She turned over on the bed and looked at him. “Give me a cigarette,” she said.

He took a pack of cigarettes from the table next to the bed, gave her one, and took one himself. He lit his and then gave her his cigarette to light hers from. He watched her sit up in the bed as she drew on the cigarette. Against the shadow of the window he could see her breasts rise. He put his hand against her body. It was warm and firm. She placed his hand on her thigh.

“What are you thinking about, Warren?” she asked.