Big Money (51 page)

Along the gulf coast of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana the roads were terrible. It was a relief when they got into Texas, though the weather there was showery. They thought they never would get across the state of Texas, though. Agnes said she didn't know there was so much alfalfa in the world. In El Paso they had to buy two new tires and get the brakes fixed. Agnes began to look worried when she counted over the roll of bills in her purse. The last couple of days across the desert to Yuma they had nothing to eat but one can of baked beans and a bunch of frankfurters. It was frightfully hot but Agnes wouldn't even let them get Coca-Cola at the dustylooking drugstores in the farbetween little towns because she said they had to save every cent if they weren't going to hit Los Angeles deadbroke. As they were wallowing along in the dust of the unfinished highway outside of Yuma, a shinylooking S.P. expresstrain passed them, big new highshouldered locomotive, pullmancars, diner, clubcar with girls and men in light suits lolling around on the observation platform. The train passed slowly and the colored porters leaning out from the pullmans grinned and waved. Margo remembered her trips to Florida in a drawingroom and sighed. “Don't worry, Margie,” chanted Agnes from the back seat. “We're almost there.” “But where? Where? That's what I want to know,” said Margo, with tears starting into her eyes. The car went over a bump that almost broke the springs. “Never mind,” said Tony, “when I make the orientations I shall be making thousands a week and we shall travel in a private car.”

In Yuma they had to stop in the hotel because the camps were all full and that set them back plenty. They were all in, the three of them, and Margo woke up in the night in a high fever from the heat and
dust and fatigue. In the morning the fever was gone, but her eyes were puffed up and red and she looked a sight. Her hair needed washing and was stringy and dry as a handful of tow.

The next day they were too tired to enjoy it when they went across the high fragrant mountains and came out into the San Bernardino valley full of wellkept fruittrees, orangegroves that still had a few flowers on them, and coolsmelling irrigation ditches. In San Bernardino Margo said she'd have to have her hair washed if it was the last thing she did on this earth. They still had twentyfive dollars that Agnes had saved out of the housekeeping money in Miami, that she hadn't said anything about. While Margo and Agnes went to a beautyparlor, they gave Tony a couple of dollars to go around and get the car washed. That night they had a regular fiftycent dinner in a restaurant and went to a movingpicture show. They slept in a nice roomy cabin on the road to Pasadena in a camp the woman at the beautyparlor had told them about, and the next morning they set out early before the white clammy fog had lifted.

The road was good and went between miles and miles of orangegroves. By the time they got to Pasadena the sun had come out and Agnes and Margo declared it was the loveliest place they'd ever seen in their lives. Whenever they passed a particularly beautiful residence Tony would point at it with his finger and say that was where they'd live as soon as he had made the orientations.

They saw signs pointing to Hollywood, but somehow they got through the town without noticing it, and drew up in front of a small rentingoffice in Santa Monica. All the furnished bungalows the man had listed were too expensive and the man insisted on a month's rent in advance, so they drove on. They ended up in a dusty stucco bungalow court in the outskirts of Venice where the man seemed impressed by the blue Buick and the wardrobetrunk and let them take a place with only a week paid in advance. Margo thought it was horrid but Agnes was in the highest spirits. She said Venice reminded her of Holland's in the old days. “That's what gives me the sick,” said Margo. Tony went in and collapsed on the couch and Margo had to get the neighbors to help carry in the bags and wardrobetrunk. They lived in that bungalow court for more months than Margo ever liked to admit even at the time.

Margo registered at the agency as Margo de Garrido. She got taken
on in society scenes as extra right away on account of her good clothes and a kind of a way of wearing them she had that she'd picked up at old Piquot's. Tony sat in the agency and loafed around outside the gate of any studio where there was a Spanish or South American picture being cast, wearing a broadbrimmed Cordoba hat he'd bought at a costumer's and tightwaisted trousers and sometimes cowboy boots and spurs, but the one thing there always seemed to be enough of was Latin types. He turned morose and peevish and took to driving the car around filled up with simpering young men he'd picked up, until Margo put her foot down and said it was her car and nobody else's, and not to bring his fagots around the house either. He got sore at that and walked out, but Agnes, who did the housekeeping and handled all the money Margo brought home, wouldn't let him have any pocketmoney until he'd apologized. Tony was away two days and came back looking hungry and hangdog.

After that Margo made him wear the old chauffeur's uniform when he drove her to the lot. She knew that if he wore that he wouldn't go anywhere after he'd left her except right home to change and then Agnes could take the car key. Margo would come home tired from a long day on the lot to find that he'd been hanging round the house all day strumming
It Ain't Gonna Rain No More
on his guitar, and sleeping and yawning on all the beds and dropping cigaretteashes everywhere. He said Margo had ruined his career. What she hated most about him was the way he yawned.

One Sunday, after they had been three years in the outskirts of L.A., moving from one bungalow to another, Margo getting on the lots fairly consistently as an extra, but never getting noticed by a director, managing to put aside a little money to pay the interest but never getting together enough in a lump sum to bail out her jewelry at the bank in Miami, they had driven up to Altadena in the afternoon; on the way back they stopped at a garage to get a flat fixed; out in front of the garage there were some secondhand cars for sale. Margo walked up and down looking at them to have something to do while they were waiting. “You wouldn't like a Rolls-Royce, would you, lady?” said the garage attendant kind of kidding as he pulled the jack out from under the car. Margo climbed into the big black limousine with a red coatofarms on the door and tried the seat. It certainly was comfortable. She leaned out and said, “How much is it?” “One thousand dollars . . . it's a gift at the price.” “Cheap at half the price,” said Margo.
Agnes had gotten out of the Buick and come over. “Are you crazy, Margie?”

“Maybe,” said Margo and asked how much they'd allow her if she traded in the Buick. The attendant called the boss, a toadfaced young man with a monogram on his silk shirt. He and Margo argued back and forth for an hour about the price. Tony tried driving the car and said it ran like a dream. He was all pepped up at the idea of driving a Rolls, even an old one. In the end the man took the Buick and five hundred dollars in tendollar weekly payments. They signed the contract then and there, Margo gave Judge Cassidy's and Tad Whittlesea's names as references; they changed the plates and drove home that night in the Rolls-Royce to Santa Monica where they were living at the time. As they turned into Santa Monica Boulevard at Beverly Hills, Margo said carelessly, “Tony, isn't that mailed hand holding a sword very much like the coatofarms of the Counts de Garrido?” “These people out here are so ignorant they wouldn't know the difference,” said Tony. “We'll just leave it there,” said Margo. “Sure,” said Tony, “it looks good.”

The other extras surely stared when Tony in his trim grey uniform drove her down to the lot next day, but Margo kept her pokerface. “It's just the old family bus,” she said when a girl asked her about it. “It's been in hock.” “Is that your mother?” the girl asked again, pointing with her thumb at Agnes who was driving away sitting up dressed in her best black in the back of the huge shiny car with her nose in the air. “Oh, no,” said Margo coldly. “That's my companion.”

Plenty of men tried to date Margo up, but they were mostly extras or cameramen or propertymen or carpenters and she and Agnes didn't see that it would do her any good to mix up with them. It was a lonely life after all the friends and the guys crazy about her and the business deals and everything in Miami. Most nights she and Agnes just played Russian bank or threehanded bridge if Tony was in and not too illtempered to accommodate. Sometimes they went to the movies or to the beach if it was warm enough. They drove out through the crowds on Hollywood Boulevard nights when there was an opening at Grauman's Chinese Theater. The Rolls looked so fancy and Margo still had a good eveningdress not too far out of style so that everybody thought they were filmstars.

One dusty Saturday afternoon in midwinter Margo was feeling particularly desperate because styles had changed so she couldn't
wear her old dresses any more and didn't have any money for new; she jumped up from her seat knocking the pack of solitaire cards onto the floor and shouted to Agnes that she had to have a little blowout or she'd go crazy. Agnes said why didn't they drive to Palm Springs to see the new resort hotel. They'd eat dinner there if it wouldn't set them back too much and then spend the night at a touristcamp down near the Salton Sea. Give them a chance to get the chill of the Los Angeles fog out of their bones.

When they got to Palm Springs Agnes thought everything looked too expensive and wanted to drive right on, but Margo felt in her element right away. Tony was in his uniform and had to wait for them in the car. He looked so black in the face Margo thought he'd burst when she told him to go and get himself some supper at a dogwagon, but he didn't dare answer back because the doorman was right there.

They'd been to the ladies' room to freshen their faces up and were walking up and down under the big datepalms looking at the people to see if they could recognize any movie actors, when Margo heard a voice that was familiar. A dark thinfaced man in white serge who was chatting with an importantlooking baldheaded Jewish gentleman was staring at her. He left his friend and came up. He had a stiff walk like an officer reviewing a company drawn up at attention. “Miss Dowling,” he said, “how very lucky for both of us.” Margo looked smiling into the twitching sallow face with dark puffs under the eyes. “You're the photographer,” she said.

He stared at her hard. “Sam Margolies,” he said. “Well, I've searched all over America and Europe for you. . . . Please be in my office for a screentest at ten o'clock tomorrow. . . . Irwin will give you the details.” He waved his hand lackadaisically towards the fat man. “Meet Mr. Harris . . . Miss Dowling . . . forgive me, I never take upon myself the responsibility of introducing people. . . . But I want Irwin to see you . . . this is one of the most beautiful women in America, Irwin.” He drew his hand down in front of Margo a couple of inches from her face working the fingers as if he were modeling something out of clay. “Ordinarily it would be impossible to photograph her.

Only I can put that face on the screen. . . .” Margo felt cold all up her spine. She heard Agnes's mouth come open with a gasp behind her. She let a slow kidding smile start in the corners of her mouth. “Look, Irwin,” cried Margolies, grabbing the fat man by the shoulder. “It is the spirit of comedy. . . . But why didn't you come to see me?” He
spoke with a strong foreign accent of some kind. “What have I done that you should neglect me?”

Margo looked bored. “This is Mrs. Mandeville, my . . . companion. . . . We are taking a little look at California.”

“What's there here except the studios?”

“Perhaps you'd show Mrs. Mandeville around a movingpicture studio. She's so anxious to see one, and I don't know a soul in this part of the world . . . not a soul.”

“Of course I'll have someone take you to all you care to see tomorrow. Nothing to see but dullness and vulgarity. . . . Irwin, that's the face I've been looking for for the little blonde girl . . . you remember. . . . You talk to me of agencies, extras, nonsense, I don't want actors. . . . But, Miss Dowling, where have you been? I halfexpected to meet you at Baden-Baden last summer. . . . You are the type for Baden-Baden. It's a ridiculous place but one has to go somewhere. . . . Where have you been?”

“Florida . . . Havana . . . that sort of thing.” Margo was thinking to herself that the last time she met him he hadn't been using the broad a.

“And you've given up the stage?”

Margo gave a little shrug. “The family were so horrid about it.” “Oh, I never liked her being on the stage,” cried Agnes who'd been waiting for a chance to put a word in. “You'll like working in pictures,” said the fat man soothingly. “My dear Margo,” said Margolies, “it is not a very large part but you are perfect for it, perfect. I can bring out in you the latent mystery. . . . Didn't I tell you, Irwin, that the thing to do was to go out of the studio and see the world . . . open the book of life? . . . In this ridiculous caravanserai we find the face, the spirit of comedy, the smile of the Mona Lisa. . . . That's a famous painting in Paris said to be worth five million dollars. . . . Don't ask me how I knew she would be here. . . . But I knew. Of course we cannot tell definitely until after the screentest . . . I never commit myself. . . .”

“But, Mr. Margolies, I don't know if I can do it,” Margo said, her heart pounding. “We're in a rush. . . . We have important business to attend to in Miami . . . family matters, you understand.”

“That's of no importance. I'll find you an agent . . . we'll send somebody. . . . Petty details are of no importance to me. Realestate, I suppose.”

Margo nodded vaguely.

“A couple of years ago the house where we'd been living, it was so lovely, was washed clear out to sea,” said Agnes breathlessly.