She smiled without looking at him as she started unwrapping hers. Her arms were pale against the classic blackness of the dress, cut straight across the bodice, with shoestring shoulder straps.
The other guest, Valenti, seated himself by Dryden’s right and made it clear from the outset that he expected conversation irrespective of Miss Fryer’s claims. ‘So you’re the super salesman. What is it — merchandising agent?’
‘That’s what I put on my tax forms,’ Dryden said, ‘but it’s an area of employment that’s variously described. Some of my colleagues are sensitive about the word ‘agent.’ They prefer to be known as managers or consultants. It doesn’t trouble me.’
‘All this fancy labeling,’ said Valenti. ‘I’m in pharmaceuticals and I don’t give a damn if you call me a dope peddler so long as you buy my products.’ Plenty did, if appearance was any guide. Valenti’s suit had the Brooks Brothers finish, and the several rings on his hands indicated a predilection for rubies. They weren’t paste. ‘Myself, I don’t have much time for PR. I handle the production side and hire guys like you to do the selling. When Dr. Serafin invited me to join the consortium, I told him straight I’d be a sleeping partner. I wouldn’t interfere — just put up a few grand as an investment. And you can’t say I haven’t kept to it, eh, Doc? But when I heard they were figuring on hiring a — what do you call yourself? — I thought I’d like to know who was getting into bed with us. You run that Brooks Stevens job I saw outside, do you?’ He stabbed a glittering finger in the general direction of Dryden’s car.
‘That’s mine, yes,’ said Dryden, and to make it clear he didn’t expect a one-way interrogation over dinner, asked, ‘What do you drive?’
‘Nothing,’ said Valenti. ‘I have a chauffeur. We used the Cadillac this trip. Here’s the menu. What are you ordering? Myself, I’m starting with prawns in aspic.’
‘In case it influences your choice, we have nothing strenuous planned for the rest of the evening,’ Armitage told his guests. ‘A film and, I believe, a progress report from Dr. Serafin.’
Serafin gave a nod in confirmation. Unlike Valenti, he seemed indifferent to the impression he made, offering no remarks to the table at large, but speaking quietly at intervals to Armitage on his left. Slimly built, with the deep-set eyes and angular cheekbones of a Slavonic cast of face, his hair silver, thinning and neatly barbered, he made an unlikely — and therefore potentially successful — con man. His bow tie was the worst that could be held against him.
Dryden waited for Melody to complete her examination of the menu and asked her, ‘Is this a commercially made film we’re going to see?’
She leaned his way, ambushing him with cleavage and Clinique. ‘You’re too inquisitive. I’m not allowed to say. He doesn’t want us to talk about the project over dinner. He’s anxious that you should see the film first.’ So close that their shoulders touched, she added, ‘We’re not too expert on the promotional side. That’s where you come in — hopefully.’ She moved away as the waiter approached to change the cutlery for Dryden’s hors d’oeuvre. ‘Say, could you really play Miss Sutton’s forehand?’
The meal — Dryden had crab salad and escalopes of veal Valentino — could not be faulted, but the conversation never developed beyond trivialities. Serafin was unable or unwilling at this stage to commit himself to anything touching on their presence at the ranch, and the others took their cue from him. Dryden divided his attentions between topping up Melody’s glass with Pouilly-Fuissé in the hope that it might give more substance to her conversation — it didn’t — and reaching the conclusion, as he listened to Valenti’s hard-headed rundown on the problems facing the U.S. economy, that if Serafin had conned him, he was a very skillful operator.
In all the talk of capital improvement and rising stocks, it seemed impertinent to mention coffee, but Armitage eventually slipped in a suggestion that they ask for it to be served in the screening room, and received almost total support.
The room they moved into was designed with the care evident elsewhere. It had a dual purpose, Armitage explained; although known as the screening room, it was more often used as a lounge. The low, velvet-upholstered easy chairs could be drawn together in rows to seat as many as eighty on a wet afternoon when play was impossible on the courts. He had a film library of most of the classic championship matches since the Smith-Nastase Wimbledon final of 1972. Once a film was running, an audience wouldn’t shift until championship point was played, whatever the weather did, so in the planning he hadn’t underestimated the comfort factor.
For the screening of Dr. Serafin’s film, five chairs were grouped behind a glass-topped coffee table. Dryden lingered by the door till he saw where Valenti was heading, and then moved toward the chair at the opposite end. He happened to notice that Serafin motioned Melody to the seat beside him. She gave her long skirt a twitch and slanted her legs his way, taking the cigarette he offered. ‘Do you suppose smoking is a forbidden activity on a tennis ranch?’ she asked as she held her face toward the flame.
Dryden shook his head. ‘The place was built on prize money put up by the American Tobacco Company. The only objection I can think of is that these are Winstons. Keep the brand name under your finger like this and we might not be thrown out.’
She looked quite serious and then laughed. ‘That’s a cute idea. I’ll pour you a coffee, then I can tap you for another illicit Winston with a clear conscience. Black or white? I’m sure it’s here for us to help ourselves.’
‘Black, if you please. I’m still a little muzzy from the Dow Jones Index.’ But it was easier talking to Melody without Valenti at his other elbow. She was undoubtedly put there to soften him up for the hard sell, but she was doing it sweetly.
Dick Armitage handed coffee to his other guests, and asked Serafin if he wished to say a few words to introduce the film.
‘No. It speaks for itself.’
So he gave a signal, and a large screen slowly unfurled on the facing wall. Apparently by the same mechanism, blinds descended at the windows.
A projector whirred, and the gray surface of the screen changed to dazzling gold.
Yellow of various intensities is often described as gold, but true gold has a translucent quality that sets it apart.
For up to ten seconds the screen and the faces of the watchers were radiant with this unique colour. Then the gold began to merge into an ocher shade, and Dryden became aware that he was watching the effect of pure sunlight on a close-up of softly tanned human flesh. As a suggestion of pink tinged the surface, the gold shimmered again on myriad tiny hairs, giving it the texture of silk.
A girl’s stomach.
From the top left of the screen, as the camera zoomed out, a neatly formed navel came into frame, confirming Dryden’s supposition. He felt like applauding, the camera-work was so effective.
Across the screen appeared the single word GOLDENGIRL.
The dead-still white lettering emphasised the delicate movement of the skin.
There were no credits. The camera stayed with its subject, the just perceptible movement of the navel toward the center of the screen confirming that the shot was moving outward. At the base of the screen, the sunlight discovered a concentration of flaxen down which slowly intensified in thickness and profusion until a triangular mound of fine gold hair was defined.
A warning signal sounded in Dryden’s mind. There was nobody sharper than Dick Armitage in tennis, but off court he wasn’t noted for his powers of discrimination. What was on the screen didn’t look like an athlete training for the Olympics. It was more like the intro to a blue film. Professionally made, he conceded, but no different in kind from the skinflicks men with an eye to a fast buck had been purveying since the days of the brothers Lumière. He was no prude. While Goldengirl stayed on the screen he was as ready as the next man to enjoy her visible assets. But let anyone suggest the Dryden Agency might promote them, and he was going to sound off like Lincoln on human rights.