‘I very nearly didn’t, but I happened to catch sight of the boss’s wife,’ I said.
‘His wife?’ Solly’s expression changed. He looked the way a gundog looks when his master takes aim.
The most important thing in Solly’s life after money was women.
‘You men make me sick to my stomach,’ Patsy said, getting up. ‘I’m going to the John. Get the gruesome details over before I get back, will you please?’
Solly aimed a slap at her as she passed him, but he had done this so often, she had no trouble in whipping her tail out of reach.
When she had shut the door, Solly took out two cigarettes, rolled one across the desk to me and offered me a light.
‘What’s this about his wife?’ he asked.
‘She’s nice,’ I said, and drew a shape in the air with my hands. ‘Very, very lush: redheaded, green eyes and a figure like a bra. I didn’t see why I shouldn’t give myself a job right next to her when it was offered to me. And apart from the sex interest, I drive a cream-and-blue Rolls convertible that’s as big and as expensive as a battleship. Isn’t that an improvement on this lousy job?’
‘Sounds like it,’ Solly said reflectively. ‘They don’t want a butler, do they? I could talk to the redhead while you’re driving the husband to work.’
‘They don’t want anyone but me,’ I said grinning.
‘But seriously, Glyn, where will it get you? A chauffeur’s job is no kind of life for an up and coming guy like you.’
‘Where’s your job going to get me, come to that?’
‘If you’d only work at it and get some business, I might make you a partner one of these days,’ Solly said and smirked. ‘You’re not a bad guy if you weren’t so damned lazy.’
I laughed. ‘That’s good coming from you.’
Solly flicked ash on to the carpet, swung his feet up on to his desk and waved his hand.
‘Who’s this big shot anyway?’
‘His name’s Erle Dester.’
The only reason why I was giving Solly all this dope was because there were very few big names in Hollywood that he didn’t know. I was still fishing for information, but you don’t ask a guy like Solly outright for information unless you want to pay for it.
Solly’s grin slipped and he stared at me.
‘Dester? You don’t mean Erle Dester at the Pacific, do you?’
‘Of course I do; who else should I mean?’
‘Well, for sweet Pete’s sake!’
‘Do you know him then?’
‘Know him? That lush? I’ll have you know I’m careful with whom I associate. Why, Glyn, you’re out of your mind. Listen, that guy is washed-up. In a couple of months he’ll either be bankrupt or he’ll have a hole in his head. Erle Dester! For the love of mike!’
I made out I was nonplussed.
‘You wouldn’t kid me, Jack?’
‘Look, this guy’s more than a drunk: he’s an alcoholic. He’s never sober. No one wants him in the movie business. His contract runs out at the end of the month. And that wife of his! You won’t get anything but trouble from her. I’ve seen her: okay, she looks good, I’ll give you that, but she’s just a beautiful shape wrapped around an iceberg.’
‘All the same, I think I could get to the first base with her. I think I could thaw her out.’
Solly sneered.
‘Now you really are kidding yourself. I’ve heard things about that dame. They say she drove Dester to drink. I reckon if I married her and found out she was a block of ice, I’d take to drink myself. I heard it said there was another guy who threw himself out of the window because of her. Boy! You’re certainly kidding yourself if you think you can thaw her out. You haven’t a chance, and if you don’t want to finish up a rumdum like her husband, you’d better leave her strictly alone.’
‘Who was she before she married Dester?’
‘I don’t know. He met her in New York, married her and brought her back here. It doesn’t matter who she is. Leave her alone or you’ll be up to your neck in the stuff.’
‘Well, thanks for the advice, but you don’t scare me,’ I said, pushing back my chair. ‘If Dester drops dead and Mrs. D. asks me to marry her, I’ll get you to be my best man.’
‘What a pipe dream!’ Solly said in disgust. ‘Now for the love of mike, sober up. Come back here and get down to a job of work. I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll raise your cut to fifteen per cent. I can’t be fairer than that, can I?’
‘Shove it,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I’m going to stick with Dester until he goes broke. By that time I shall be house-trained, and I’ll ask Sam Goldwyn for a job.’
Solly lifted his shoulders and spread out his hands.
‘You’re nuts, but okay. When you’re tired of the job, come back to me. I’ll keep your job open for you.’
‘The only reason why you’ll keep it open, Jack, is because you know damn well no other sucker would have it,’ I said. ‘So long. Don’t wave to me if you see me in the Rolls. I too have to be careful now whom I know.’
I went down the stairs into the hot sunshine.
Another guy threw himself out of a window because of her.
What guy and why? I asked myself.
When I returned to the Desters’ residence around three in the afternoon, the Cadillac convertible was still missing. I put on my uniform, made sure I looked immaculate, then drove over to the Pacific Studios.
The guard opened the gates without looking at me, and I drove over to the office block with an embarrassed feeling that I was trespassing.
I backed the Rolls into one of the chalked-out spaces before the office block and settled down to wait. At twenty minutes past four I left the car, walked up the steps and into the vast hall where a dozen bell hops sat on a bench beside a big circular desk where four lovelies handled inquiries and visitors.
One of them, fair, rising nineteen, with that fresh complexion that only healthy teenagers seem to monopolize, looked inquiringly at me.
‘Yes?’
‘Will you tell Mr. Dester his car is here?’ I said.
Plucked eyebrows lifted.
‘Mr... who?’
‘Mr. Dester: spelt D-e-s-t-e-r: pronounced Dester.’
A slight flush rose to her face.
‘There’s no Mr. Dester here,’ she snapped. ‘Try the studios.’
‘Look, baby, just move over and let me speak to someone who knows this job better than you do,’ I said. Then spotting a dark, sleek young woman who was busily buffing her fingernails, I raised my voice: ‘Hey, honey, a moment of your precious time.’
The dark one froze into an outraged statue.
‘Were you by any chance addressing me?’ she asked in a voice you could frost a cake with.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What do I do to get some service in this joint? I want Mr. Erle Dester. Where do I find him?’
She flicked open a reference book, stared at it, showed her surprise at finding his name in the book, and said in the same frosty voice, ‘Room 47, first floor.’
She then turned her back on me.
The row of bell hops moved excitedly as they listened to and sniggered at this little scene. I picked on the fattest of them and hauled him to his feet by his right ear.
‘Take me to Room 47, sonny,’ I said, ‘and snap it up.’
He hesitated, and we looked at each other. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell me to go jump in a lake. I balled my fist and smiled at him.
He decided not to call my bluff and set off up the wide staircase while the rest of the bell hops and the four lovelies stared after me as if I were the first visitor from Mars.
Fatso took me down a long corridor with fancy name plates screwed to each door, and with fancier names. Room 47 had no plate on it, but you could see where it had been by the four small screw holes.