But trust Happy on a thing like that. Happy is the boy that one time invited eight big shots, from all the main studios, to fly down to Caliente with him and see the races, and then when they were in the plane, he phoned the airport he couldn’t come, so they had to ante up for the plane themselves; and then come to find out, the pilot didn’t have a border permit, so he set them down in San Diego, and they spent the afternoon watching the gobs paint the anchor of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington. A guy that can get himself in Dutch with every studio in town, all at one crack, has got talent, you’ve got to hand him that; and a little thing like a horse, he can handle that with one hand and light a cigarette with the other.
Well, by the end of a year Kennelly was through. He didn’t have any bank-account; he didn’t have any ranch; and he didn’t have any future. He wasn’t but twenty-seven years old, but he was already just a fragrant memory.
So then was when Happy got the idea for the party. What a party has got to do with a comeback, is something I can’t figure out; but any agent can figure it out, and it has got so now that all the big blow-outs are given by agents, and you can’t tell whether the agents are running the business or the business is running the agents; and whichever one wins, it is probably no great loss. So Happy put out bids for the party, and it was to be at his place up near Malibu — of course not right at Malibu Beach, you understand. Malibu Beach is run by a guy by the name of Art A. Jones, that gets the money the first of every month — and he gets it, don’t make any mistake about that. So of course that wouldn’t suit Happy very well, and his place is in the hills right above Malibu, so he can get his mail at Malibu and say he lives there. It was to be one of those Sunday night things they put in the fan magazines, and the stars were to be there, and the shots — and not having any other word for it, we can call it entertainment.
“Wait till Fanchon and Marco see it,” Happy tells Kennelly. “Will they be sore, or will they be sore? Listen, Tim, how we do it. First we put on a hold-up, see?... No, you got me wrong. That’d be swell, wouldn’t it, to have a goat-getter there, taking guys’ pocketbooks? Pay Vincent Barnett fifty bucks to make everybody sore! You got me wrong. We put on a real old-time Western hold-up, stagecoach and all, a regular high-class up-to-date job, that takes people back. You get it, Timmy? That gives them romance. That gives them real romance.”
“Yeah,” says Kennelly, “but where do I come in?” An actor can’t listen long if he don’t see where he comes in.
“Wait.”
Happy walked around Kennelly and burned him with his flashing eye. “Wait. You got that, Tim? Wait. They’re all there. They haven’t seen you yet. It’s your party, and it’s getting late, and they’re all asking where is Kennelly. They’re crazy to see you, and what do we do? Wemake ’em wait. We make ’em wait. Because look at Fields! After all, Tim, what makes him what he is? Ain’t that all there is to it? He can make ’em wait. He can make ’em wait till he’s ready to shoot it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You ride in! On Silver Heels, you ride in! Remind me to tell you about that horse, Timmy. I got him for a hundred and fifty bucks, and if I ever saw personality on four feet, that horse has got it. You ride in! You rope those bad men! You rescue the stagecoach! They’re for you! It’s the first they’ve seen of you, and they’re crazy about you! You take it on the gallop; the band goes into ‘The Lone Cowboy,’ and you give it to ’em while they’re hot! You sing to ’em, right while they’re cheering for you!.. Wait a minute — I’ve got to make a call.”
Every agent, if he don’t do anything else all day long, he makes calls. So Happy dialed a number, and said where you been — I thought you were going to tip me off how that deal is going — well, I want to see you soon — we’re working on our end of it every minute. And while he talked, Kennelly thought it over.
“That kind of hits me a little bit,” says Kennelly, soon as Happy hung up.
“You get it, Tim? Out of the black. That’s you from now on. Out of the black. Because look! We’ve made some mistakes, but I hope there’s one mistake we never make. Those kids are never wrong. They know. You know what I mean, Tim? They know. From now on, that’s you. The man of sorrows. Out of the black, into the dawn. In with the sunset, off with the rising sun. And in the end, in the end, Timmy, what do we see? A cloud of dust along the ridge, a lone rider against the sky — fade, cut, and that’s all.”
“Yeah,” says Kennelly. “You know what I mean? There’s something to it.”
“Out of the black.”
“That’s it. And off with the dawn. After all, that’s me, isn’t it?”
“They know, Timmy. They know.”
I guess I don’t have to tell you it laid an egg. First off, those guys on the stagecoach swung in too far on the lawn, and broke a whole circuit of Japanese lanterns where the mob was sitting. Then Kennelly’s horse, the new one with personality plus, began to squeal where Kennelly and Happy had him hid out back, and that wasn’t so good, because there was some tip-toe stuff in the stagecoach part, and every time the horse would squeal, the mob would laugh. So they were right back of the stables of the place next to Happy’s, or anyway what looked like stables, and Happy yanked open the door of one, and began whispering at Kennelly.
“Shove him in here!” he says. “Quick, before he ruins it!”
If Kennelly had thought about it, he would have known that a horse don’t squeal for nothing, and been a little careful how he let Happy go opening doors. But just then the guys on the hold-up began yipping his cue, and he jumped on and went riding out of the black, and Happy ran around to where the mob was, to catch how things were going.
Well, of course they had gave the wrong cue, and he had to go riding out of the black again, because the hold-up part hadn’t even started yet, and that was a laugh. And then, when he finally did get all the bad men roped, and went into his number, all the horses began to squeal, and that was a laugh, so it all went pretty sour.
“Where’s Thalberg?” says Kennelly, soon as he had got rid of his horse. “I got to tell him how it was those horses that busted it up.”
“Thalberg couldn’t get here,” says Happy. “They’re cutting a picture over there tonight, and he couldn’t make it.”
“Where’s Laemmle?”
“He had to go out of town.”
“I want to see Harry Cohn, too. No need to tell him, though. He was a singer. He knows.”
“I don’t know what’s keeping him,” says Happy. “He swore up and down he would be here, and he hasn’t showed.”
So then Kennelly knew he was sunk. He had been looking them over while they were talking, and there wasn’t anybody there but a lot of third-rate hams and fourth assistant cameramen, that Happy must have pulled in off the Mojave Desert, the thirst they had. He didn’t wait to hear any more. He didn’t go back to the house, where they had all scrammed after the show was over, to get next to the liquor. He didn’t even go upstairs to change from his cow suit into his evening clothes, like he had intended to. He felt sick to his stomach, and went right out to his car, and began sliding down the drive. But he had to stop at the Malibu Inn to get some gas, and that was where he ran into Burton Silbro.