“Why?” I asked, seeing myself in that unwelcome covey.
They both shrugged.
While they talked, Tommy drank. Occasionally Polly glanced at him, tried to get his attention, and, once, nodded at the wine bottle. I ordered a second bottle of my nefarious prop for this one-act play. I barely sipped my drink and scarcely touched my food. But Tommy and Polly ravished theirs. At another time I would have been pleased, for I value souls who understand the delights of the kitchen. I would have routinely condemned Tommy, had I not seen the beneficial results of getting him drunk.
When Tommy excused himself to go to the rest room, I was waiting. “Polly, what’s your involvement with Jimmy?”
The question caught the young girl by surprise, for she actually jumped, then looked at Tommy’s disappearing back.
“What?”
“I thought I saw something in your eyes when we were discussing Jimmy’s less-than-decent relationships with women.”
She smiled. “I underestimated you.” She sighed. “I could lie to you, Miss Ferber, but I’m not going to. Jimmy and I had a moment-one moment, that’s all. A moment of weakness on my part, but a moment of sheer cruelty on his. Jimmy takes possession of other people’s property. I’m Tommy’s, and even though Tommy has nothing-no hope, no future, not even me some day-Jimmy had to be cock in the hen coop.”
“So,” I sympathized, “a moment. But you still seem to have a lot of emotion.”
“What?” She whispered the word.
“It was more than a moment for you, Polly.” The declarative sentence, I thought, more powerful than the interrogative.
Polly started to say something, but then, gulping, started to sob. “I thought I did it for revenge,” she mumbled. “You know, Tommy does whatever Jimmy does. Don’t get me wrong. I care for Tommy. I do. But something was said, an overheard remark, that led me to suspect that Tommy had a…a moment with Carisa Krausse.”
“Carisa!”
“She was Jimmy’s in Marfa. But Tommy has to have what Jimmy has. A rumor I never mentioned to Tommy. Carisa likes to sleep around with any…” She paused. “I’m not being very nice.” She dabbed her moist cheeks. “It’s probably something I just imagined.”
“But you thought you’d get back at her,” I said, focusing.
She ran her tongue over her upper lip. “I’m lying a little. You see, I’ve always had a sort of crush on Jimmy. Of course, you can’t tell him. I just can’t shake it. You see, when we first got here, I wanted Tommy to be Jimmy-ambitious, focused, and handsome.”
I smiled. “And since that moment with Jimmy, nothing.”
“I’m back to being wallpaper.”
“Is it possible Carisa’s baby was Tommy’s?”
Polly blanched. “Oh, my God!”
“And Tommy never…” I stopped. Tommy staggered back to the table. Polly, nervous, started munching on a roll, her tear-strained face turned away.
“Talking about me?” he asked, slurring his words.
“Yes,” I confessed. “I’ve gathered that Jimmy has yet another circle. I talked with this fellow Josh MacDowell today, a friend of Sal Mineo.”
Polly shot a quick glance at Tommy, who’d turned pale.
“What did I say?” I asked.
“Josh is very musical.” Tommy grinned.
“Stop it.” Polly glared at him.
“Musical?”
Polly, confidentially, “In Hollywood when you suspect any man likes, well, other men, you ask if he’s…musical. Like a code word for a touchy subject.”
Tommy bellowed loudly, “Jimmy doesn’t like swishy guys.”
“Yet Josh was a drinking buddy.”
“For a real short time. Now Josh has his sights on Sal Mineo, who’s sixteen and doesn’t realize he’s musical.” Tommy thought his line hilarious, and started laughing, but stopped and said with a sneer, “A bunch of freaks.”
Polly turned to me: “The one area Tommy will not imitate Jimmy.”
“Meaning?”
Tommy announced, “Jimmy’s an experimenter. He got all his breaks in California and New York through a sissy named Rogers Brackett, some queer radio producer with connections. Jimmy lived with him in New York. He met other men who got him parts on Broadway. Jimmy did what he had to do.”
“So you mean he sleeps with men?”
“Well, somebody hinted him and this Max Kohl had something going on, but maybe not. Because Jimmy likes to hang out with tough guys. He goes to parties in the Valley, homes of movie execs and hot shots who are that way, where there are guys who experiment.” Tommy was speaking too loudly, but sloppily, dragging the words out. “But I think Jimmy likes it too much.” He waved his hand in the air. “Who knows?” He hiccoughed.
I listened closely, realizing that Josh MacDowell had used the same word: experiment. Jimmy experimented with other worlds. The portrait of a young man in search of…of what?
Polly, glancing at her blotchy face in a compact mirror, left to repair the damage. Tommy stared at me. “So that’s our Jimmy,” he smirked. “You feed us and we give you his story, at least the part with the warts. Which is why, I guess, you fed us. But he’s the biggest star on the lot. Can you believe it?”
“You resent him, Tommy.” Another wonderful declarative sentence.
“No, I love him. He’s my buddy.”
“But I’m thinking maybe it should have been you who plays Jett Rink and Cal Trask and Jim Stark. All the rebels and sad boys.”
“I was the lead in The Front Page.”
Daggers drawn. “Don’t you get tired of being his shadow? Maybe, if James Dean wasn’t around, there’d be a Thomas Dwyer, in a red-nylon jacket. Girls asking for your autograph.”
Suddenly he looked at me, and his eyes got wet. “When is it my turn, Miss Ferber? When?”
I sighed, touched the back of his hand. “He seems to have all the luck.”
Tears streamed down his cheeks. “That’s it, exactly. Luck. Damn luck, really. That’s all it is in this God-awful town. And who you sleep with. Jimmy’ll sleep with trolls for a part. He has, and look where he is. Ugly old men with potbellies. Women who wear sable coats with nothing on underneath. He told me. Christ. Now he’s king of the world. Wherever we go, people scrape and bow. In Googie’s they sit behind the glass partition and stare. They mob him. One movie. One! And I’m there carrying his coat. Me.” He looked at me through sloppy tears. “He’s a dirty man, Miss Ferber. Not only that unshaven look, the sticky unwashed hair, Christ, even the dandruff, but inside. Inside.” He paused. “But I can’t stop loving him…” He trailed off.
Polly returned to the table. She looked at Tommy, whose face was wet with tears.
She looked at me, wonder in her eyes. I sat there nodding.
My God, I thought. I’ve had them both weeping. She metamorphoses from the witch of the west into a weeping soda-fountain shop girl; he, the meek of the earth, metamorphoses into a barroom drunk, filled with ill-defined anger at his meal ticket.
A successful dinner.
“Are you having dessert?” I asked, cheerily. “I hear the creme brulee is the best in California.”
Chapter 10
The next morning I phoned Mercy. “I need an accomplice.”
“Aiding and abetting is a part I’ve played in many movies.”
I was thinking out loud. “Carisa pushed someone too far. Despite her madness and her drug use, if that’s to be believed, Carisa seemed to draw people in. What we do know is that different roads led to her-and to Jimmy. Josh a high-school pal of hers. Josh introducing Jimmy to her. Jimmy dating her. Jimmy leaving her for Lydia. Lydia her old roommate and on-again off-again friend. Max Kohl seeing her before and after Jimmy. Max Kohl a biker buddy of Jimmy.” I was also thinking about Tommy Dwyer, maybe stepping out on Polly with Carisa. And Polly suspecting their tryst.