AND
ASSOCIATES
I snapped the brim of my hat, turned the doorknob, and walked into the office. A set of chimes made background music.
The walls of the small reception room were of glass brick. Torcheres gave off a soft, discreet light. There was an end table bearing the usual copies of Variety and Billboard. Two chairs and a sofa, overstuffed by a firm of reliable over-stuffers, completed the ensemble. It made me sick to look at the joint.
I headed for the ticket-window opening in the wall ahead, where a receptionist’s ponytail bobbed behind a panel of glass.
When I rapped, the ponytail switched around until I got a look at a long, thin face with about three dollars’ worth of fancy makeup on it.
The panel opened and the makeup cracked into a smile. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Haines.”
Well, that was something. At least she recognized me, even if she didn’t exactly swoon in my arms at the sight of my smiling face.
“Is Mr. Rickert in?” I asked.
“Have you an appointment?”
“No. Not exactly. But I only want to see him for a minute or two.”
She nodded, closed the panel, and manipulated the intercom system, or the TV set, or whatever they used to convey trivial messages around here. After a brief pause for station identification she opened the panel again.
“Mr. Rickert will see you in a moment. Won’t you be seated, please?”
I tipped my hat, smiled roguishly and hit bottom on the overstuffed sofa. The sliding panel closed again. I waited to see if she would put up a Sold Out sign, but nothing happened.
There were exactly three cigarettes left in my package. I lit one and watched my hand tremble. Inhaling, I leaned back and forced myself to breathe deeply and slowly. Gradually I calmed down. It was going to be all right as long as I kept a grip on myself. Sure, I was perfectly relaxed now.
I only jumped about two feet when the outer door opened and Peter Lorre came in.
It wasn’t Peter Lorre, of course. Rickert didn’t handle any movie talent. But the little guy in the black hat bore a fleeting resemblance to the star. He walked over to the reception window and mumbled something about an appointment. I avoided watching or listening too closely, and presently he took his place on the chair set at right angles to my sofa. Something began to burn inside my forehead. He was staring at me.
Right away, my jumpy feeling came back. It was silly, of course. Let him stare. What did he know about me? What could he know?
I was putting up a good front. Sitting down with my legs tucked back this way, it was hard to tell that the shine was on the seat of my pants and not on my shoes. He couldn’t guess that the reason I came to Rickert’s office instead of calling him was that my phone had been disconnected. For all he knew, I had a full, fresh package of cigarettes in my pocket, and plenty of money to buy more.
So why should I worry if he stared at me? But I did worry. I doused my cigarette and looked up. His eyes were stones set in flesh.
I could feel my shirt getting sticky under the sports jacket. And I got the funniest notion that he felt it, too. He could feel everything I was feeling, think everything I was thinking. Those stones set in flesh were magnets.
Maybe I was flipping my wig? Maybe that’s what was wrong with me? All these weeks in the apartment, waiting for Rickert to call, watching the money run out. Then no phone, and nothing to do but run around and try to break the doors down myself—carrying my own photos and recordings.
Rickert had warned me that I’d get no place, fast, on my own. And that’s exactly where I’d arrived. No place. You feel funny there, in no place. You feel as though you aren’t really alive, or have no right to be alive. So you take a couple of drinks and wait for tomorrow. You might be somewhere else, tomorrow. But you’re not. You wake up in the crummy apartment and you’re still no place. Mr. Nobody from nowhere.
But that’s your business, isn’t it? People haven’t got the right to stare at you and find it out. Damn it, there was nothing to be ashamed about. I knew what I was doing here. I had it all figured out, just how I was going to put it over. And then this little character had to come along and upset me!
I raised my eyes and looked at him. He wasn’t so much. Black suit, unusual for the West Coast, but nothing special about its cut. White shirt, quiet foulard tie. Flashy ring on little finger of left hand. Probably fake stone.
He saw what I was doing, of course. But his expression did not change. He stared. I stuck my chin out, folded my hands across my chest and stared back. It hurt a little. He refused to blink, and those two stones met my gaze. You can’t break stones with your fist. Constant dripping—
Sweat rolled down my forehead and I blinked first. But I wouldn’t turn my head. I stared at the bridge of his thick nose. Maybe if I thought of something else, it would help.
I thought about the trip out, thought about meeting Rickert for the first time, and the fast line of con he handed me, the buildup about what he would do for me. I thought about really getting a break, making the grade on a big show, wowing ’em. That would make my dumb brother wipe the sneer off his face for good. I’d wipe the sneer off all their faces, including this little puffy face in front of me.
But he kept staring. He knew. He knew I was a fake, he knew I was licked, that I’d never make it.
The hell he did! All imagination. Keep staring. He’ll break first.
I looked into his eyes. For the first time, the stones seemed to turn. His pupils were dilating. The lids crept back. The stones glittered. Diamonds. Diamond drills. Drills that bored.
Fakes. Like the diamond on his little finger. I wasn’t afraid. I stared.
All at once, his hand moved. Pudgy worms crawled into the handkerchief pocket of his coat. They emerged and carried something up to his left eye. It glittered. A monocle.
He fixed it into position without altering his line of vision. It hung there in the eye-socket and the eye behind it became huge. The distorted pupil glared at me. I thought that he looked like Erich von Stroheim. I thought that if I had to endure that wave of power beating into my brain, I’d get up and run. I thought—but I stared back.
And his mind told me something. Told me that I was really through, that it was no use, that I was washed up. I’d better get up and leave now. Yes, that’s what he told me, and he was right. I’d get up and—
“Mr. Rickert will see you now.”
I heard it somewhere in the distance. Then I was on my feet, stumbling through the inner office, walking down the hall to the big layout in back.
My head was splitting. Larry Rickert smiled at me across the desk.
“Sit down,” he said. “Good to see you, Eddie. Be with you in just a sec.”
He waved goodbye at me with his left hand and picked up a phone with his right. He began to talk, and a steady stream of conversation and cigar smoke drifted around the big red folds of his neck.
I lit my next-to-the-last cigarette. The headache was worse now. I tried to remember my canned speech, but I couldn’t. All I wanted to do was run away. When he finally hung up and turned to me again, I couldn’t even remember to smile.
“Now,” said Rickert, “what can I do for you, sweetheart?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know,” I told him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I came in here over two months ago, because your ads say you’re a good agent and that’s what I needed. You didn’t sign me up or anything like that. But you did manage to get over three hundred bucks out of me, for retainer fee and for photographs and audition records. What I want to know now is, when do I see a little action?”
He gave me the same grin he used for his advertising photos.
“Take it easy, Eddie. Relax.”