"It came down very well, Glenda," said Sam Stein. "The ratings will be— "
"Danny brings the good ratings," said Glenda. "Pour him a drink, for Christ's sake, and hand him a wet towel."
Glenda let Amelia take off her dress, leaving her standing in the middle of the dressing room in white nylon panties and bra. She took a gulp from her drink and stepped inside the shower. Her underclothes were wet with sweat, and usually she soaped herself and them together, then took them off, rinsed them, and hung them over the top of the glass door. The shower water steamed the glass, and a blurred image of her showed through the door.
"Didn't give you a chance to introduce your friend, Sam," she said.
"He's John Stefano," said Sam. "Got some ideas for us."
"Joke writer?" she asked.
"Not exactly."
"Well, nice to meet ya, John Stefano. Congratulate Danny on a great performance. When he comes on, we do the best show of the year."
Stefano nodded and smiled at Danny Kaye. "I've admired your work for many years," he said.
"Thank you," said Kaye. "Well ... Sam says you're not a joke writer — which I didn't think you were. What is your business, Mr. Stefano, if I may ask?"
"Investments," said Stefano.
"The very best line of business," said Danny Kaye. He took the answer as ominously uncommunicative and retreated from the subject. "Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the show."
"Oh, yes," said Stefano.
Kaye took a sip from the Scotch Sam handed him. "I have to get on to my dressing room," he said.
"Don't you dare leave before I get outa here and give you a big kiss," said Glenda. "Time for a towel, Amelia."
Amelia handed her one towel and held up another while Glenda dried herself and pulled on a flowered silk dressing gown. She picked up the bottle and strengthened her drink.
"Well, you say Mr. Stefano has some ideas for us," she said to Sam.
"Some business ideas," said Sam.
"I'll be going," said Danny Kaye. "You'll want to talk in private."
Glenda threw her arms around him and kissed him on the mouth. "Thank you, lover," she said. "Give my best to Sylvia."
Glenda turned to Amelia. "Thanks," she said. "You can go get yourself some dinner now."
Glenda sat down at her dressing table and went to work on her hair and makeup. Her back was to Sam Stein and John Stefano, but she could see them in the mirror. "What ya got in mind, guys?"
"Some different things," said Sam. "To start with, I've got some news for you. Margit notified me this morning that she doesn't want me for her agent anymore."
"What the hell?"
"And guess who her new agent is gonna be," Sam continued. "Ben Parrish. How does that grab ya?"
"It grabs me that Jonas Cord is getting ready to give Glenda's show to Margit Little," she said angrily.
"No. He won't do that. You're still the only moneymaker Cord Productions has got. I figure he'll spin her off, set up a Margit Little Show."
"Well, I guess you can't blame the girl if she takes that deal," said Glenda. "She'll get another deal with it, though — that she may not find irresistible. Jonas Cord will want in her pants."
"He's already in her pants," said Sam.
"And Ben'll be in 'em next," said Glenda.
"I doubt it. I think the Cords have chewed up Ben Parrish and spit him out. They queered some of his deals. For a guy like him, money dries up when the Cords put the word around that anybody who backs his deals will offend them. He can't do anything they don't want him to do. They've made him dependent on them."
Glenda turned and smiled over her shoulder. "Except in one important respect, Ben's a little guy. When he messed around with Jo-Ann, he brought down the wrath of a family that can buy and sell him out of pocket change."
"Which brings us to another point," said Sam. "John Stefano is here to offer us a deal."
"Let's say I'm here to do some preliminary talking about a possible deal," said Stefano. Now that he was going to talk, he put his cigar aside in a heavy glass ashtray. "When you came in from the set, you said you had to do just two more shows under your present contract with Cord Productions. When you go to negotiation with the Cords, it could be very helpful to you if you had an alternative."
"What might the alternative be?"
"Just thinking out loud," said Stefano. "I can book you into the best clubs in the United States, not to mention a run in one of the big rooms in Havana. You can make more money than you're making in television, and you won't have to work so hard, because you can use the same show for a whole year."
"The way I used to do," she said.
Sam interjected an idea. "Suppose you were off television for a year. There would probably be a big demand for you to return."
"Or maybe not," she said. "The public's got a short memory."
"You're a star," said Sam. "The public won't forget you."
"We can keep you in the public eye," said Stefano. "Get you covered in the tabloids. Then maybe we form a production company — GG Productions, let's say — and package a return show. We go to one of the networks with a pilot tape. We can orchestrate everything."
"Where's the money for all this coming from?" Glenda asked.
"We can get it," said Stefano simply.
"I suppose I shouldn't ask where the money will come from?"
"Does it make a difference?" Stefano asked.
"Does it, Sam?" she asked.
Sam Stein shook his head. "Not to me it doesn't. This deal can be a great career boost for you, Glenda. And it gets the Cord family off our backs forever."
"Deal, then," said Glenda.
5
"Tittle Tattle" was a syndicated column, originating in Hollywood and written when she was sober enough to do it by a onetime bit player named Lorena Pastor. The column was syndicated in sixty-eight newspapers, thanks partly to heavy promotion by the syndicate, thanks also to Lorena's formidable reputation that persuaded people to confide in her. Gossip was her stock in trade, but it was also understood in the movie community that mention in "Tittle Tattle" often goosed new life into fading careers or into lusterless pictures.
— ("Don't be surprised if you hear about a bust-up between La Crawford and her current. Her latest ex, save one, has been seen leaving in the golden light of dawn, and we hear that an old fire is hot again. After all, old flames often burn hottest.")
— ("The town is ga-ga about Dan Armstrong's stellar acting in The Condemned. This little-heralded flick is a sure-fire winner. And don't forget — nobody else has been telling you.")
Lorena had the facial complexion of an Indian elephant: a tangle of wrinkles that lotions would not soften, sanding could not remove. She could only try to distract attention from it by wearing exaggerated lipstick and mascara, all obscured by veils that hung from her hats. She affected also an air of giddy ebullience: grinning widely, fluttering her hands, dancing about on her feet as if she were a girl of twenty, not a woman of seventy. Privately, people in the movie industry called her a viper, a harridan, and a lush.
Her usual turf was a table at the Brown Derby or another restaurant or watering hole, but this noon she ate a box lunch in the office of her publisher, Walter Richard Hamilton, Junior. He had accommodated her known penchant by providing her a pint of Beefeater gin, a bucket of ice cubes, and half a lime.
"I've got a story for you, Lorena," he said.
"Let's hope it's true, Walt," she said. "You know my policy — only to publish what can be— "