“Aren’t you listening, darling?” Carol asked, looking at me.
“Let’s not do any more tonight,” I said, pouring hock into my glass. “I think we’ve done quite enough. I’ll talk it over with Bernstein on Monday. Maybe he has someone in mind to do the script.”
She looked at me puzzled. “But darling . . .”
I took the play from her hands. “No more tonight,” I said firmly and walked out onto the verandah, unable any longer to meet her eyes.
The moon rode high. I could see the lake, the valley and the hills. But at that moment they meant nothing to me. My attention was concentrated on a man who was sitting on the wooden seat at the far end of the garden. I could not see his features. He was too far away for that, but there was something strangely familiar about the way he sat and the way he held himself, his shoulders rounded and his clasped hands gripped between his knees.
Carol came out and joined me.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she said, slipping her arm through mine.
“Do you see . . . ?” I asked, pointing to the man sitting on the garden seat. “Who is that man? What is he doing there?”
She looked. “What do you mean, Clive? What man?”
A cold wave of blood surged down my spine. “Isn’t there a man sitting on the garden seat down there in the moonlight?”
She turned to me quickly. “There is no one there, darling.”
I looked again. She was right There was no one there.
“That’s odd,” I said, suddenly shivering. “It must have been a shadow . . . it looked like a man.”
“You’re imagining things,” she said, her voice troubled. “There honestly was no one there.”
I drew her closer to me. “Let’s go inside,” I said, turning back to the sitting room. “It seems cold out here.”
It was a long time before I fell asleep that night.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SAM BERNSTIEN whipped off his horn-rimmed glasses and gave a wide, expansive smile. “Yes,” he said, slapping the treatment Carol and I had written with his small fat hand, “this is what I want. It is not right. It is not nearly right, but it is something to work on. It is a good beginning.”
I looked expectantly at him from where I was sitting in a low comfortable armchair in his big office. “I thought that’d be something on which to base a discussion. After all, you have ideas of your own so I kept it to the briefest outline.”
Bernstien pulled a box of cigars towards him, selected one, offered it to me but I shook my head. He lit up and rubbed his hands. “I didn’t expect you’d be so quick,” he said. “Now let us go through this point by point. When we have agreed, I suggest you take it away, expand it and let me have it when you are ready. Then I will see R.G.”
“You’re going to have some difficulty there,” I said, pessimistically.
He laughed. “That is something I can take care of,” he said. “For the past five years R.G. and I have had our little fights. They mean nothing because, in the end, I get my own way. You leave him to me.”
“All right,” I returned, not convinced. “I’ll leave it to you, but I warn you, Gold hates my guts.”
He laughed again. “I don’t blame him,” he said. “Carol’s a very lovely girl and you are a very lucky man. But if he hates your guts, he also loves a good story.” He slapped the treatment again. “This is a good story!”
I caught a little of his enthusiasm. “Just as you say.” I pulled my chair closer to his desk. “Suppose we go through the treatment.”
“It’s swell,” he said, grinning delightedly at me. “Take all this stuff away and give me a second treatment. I think then it will be time to go on R.G.”
I got to my feet. “Well, thanks a lot, Mr. Bernstien,” I said. “I’ve enjoyed this immensely and I won’t be long in letting you have the second treatment.”
“Just as soon as you can.” He walked with me to the door.
“I suppose Carol will be tied up all day?” I said, as we shook hands.
He lifted his shoulders. “I do not know. Go along and see for yourself. She’s with Jerry Highams. You know his office?”
“Sure,” I said. “I know where it is. Well, so long, Mr. Bernstein. I’ll be seeing you.”
I walked quickly down the corridor and although I had to pass Highams’ office I did not pause. I had no intentions of meeting Frank Imgram again and the chances that he would be with Carol were too great a risk.
I passed a public call-box at the end of the corridor and I slowed my steps, stopping outside it. I looked at my wrist- watch. It was eleven fifty-five. With any luck, Marty would not have arrived. I wanted to be sure that Eve would answer the telephone. I entered the call-box and shut myself in. While I dialled her number I was aware that my heart was pumping against my side with suppressed excitement.
The bell rang several times before she answered.
“Hello.”
I recognized her voice.
“Eve,” I said. “How are you?”
“Good morning, Clive,” she said. “How are you? You’re early, aren’t you?”
“Did I wake you up?” I asked, startled that she sounded so friendly.
“No, it’s all right. I was having some coffee. I’ve been awake some time.”
“When am I going to see you?”
“When do you want to come?”
“Now wait a minute, Eve,” I said too puzzled to be cautious. “The other day you said you didn’t want to see me again.”
“All right, then I don’t want to see you again,” she returned and giggled.
“I’m coming right away,” I said. “You are a devil. You gave me a bad two days. I really thought you meant it.”
She giggled again. “Well, you are the limit, Clive. Anyway I did mean it at the time. I was angry. You were a stinker to go off like that.”
“All right, I was a stinker,” I said, laughing. “But I’ve had my lesson and I won’t do it again.”
“You better not,” she warned. “I shan’t forgive you so easily next time.”
“Come and have lunch with me.”
“No.” Her voice hardened. “I’m not going to do that, Clive. You can come and see me professionally if you want to, but I’m not coming to lunch.”
“That’s what you think. You are coming to lunch and you’re not going to argue,” I said.
“Clive!” There was a startled annoyed note in her voice. “I tell you I’m not coming to lunch.”
“We’ll talk about that when we meet. I’ll be along in half an hour.”
“It’s too soon, Clive. I shan’t be ready by then. Come about one o’clock.”
“All right and wear something nice.”
“I’m not coming to lunch.”
“You’re going to do what you’re told for a change,” I said, laughing at her. “You put on something smart—” but the line suddenly went dead as she hung up.
I looked at the telephone and grinned. Okay, sweetheart, I thought, we’ll see who’s going to be boss.
I went to the parking lot and drove the Chrysler slowly through the Studio gateway. I felt good. I felt confident that I could master Eve. She could hang up on me if that pleased her vanity, but she was going to have lunch with me, if I had to drag her to the restaurant in her nightdress.
I drove to the Writers’ Club and asked the Steward for my mail. He gave me a few letters and I walked over to the bar and ordered a Scotch and soda. A quick look at the letters convinced me that there was nothing from Eve. Leaving my drink on the bar table I went back to the Steward and asked him if he was sure that there was nothing else for me.
“No, sir,” he said, after looking again in my pigeonhole.
And yet Eve had been so emphatic that she had returned the forty dollars I had given her on that night I had walked out on her.
I went to the telephone and dialled her number.