Big Money (54 page)

“I'm starving and here you are making three thousand a week. . . . Yesterday Max and I had no money for dinner. We are going to be put out of our apartment. By rights everything you make is mine. . . . I've been too soft . . . I've let myself be cheated.”

Margo yawned. “We're not in Cuba, dearie.” She sat up in bed. “Look here, Tony, let's part friends. The contract isn't signed yet. Suppose when it is we fix you up a little so that you and your friend can go and start your polo school in Havana. The trouble with you is you're homesick.”

“Wouldn't that be wonderful,” chimed in Agnes. “Cuba would be just the place . . . with all the tourists going down there and everything.”

Tony drew himself up stiffly. “Margo, we are Christians. We believe. We know that the church forbids divorce. . . . Agnes she doesn't understand.”

“I'm a lot better Christian than you are . . . you know that you . . .” began Agnes shrilly.

“Now, Agnes, we can't argue about religion before breakfast.” Margo sat up and drew her knees up to her chin underneath the covers. “Agnes and I believe that Mary Baker Eddy taught the truth, see, Tony. Sit down here, Tony. . . . You're getting too fat, Tony, the boys won't like you if you lose your girlish figure. . . . Look here, you and me we've seen each other through some tough times.” He sat on the
bed and lit a cigarette. She stroked the spiky black hair off his forehead. “You're not going to try to gum the game when I've got the biggest break I ever had in my life.”

“I been a louse. I'm no good,” Tony said. “How about a thousand a month? That's only a third of what you make. You'll just waste it. Women don't need money.”

“Like hell they don't. You know it costs money to make money in this business.”

“All right . . . make it five hundred. I don't understand the figures, you know that. You know I'm only a child.”

“Well, I don't either. You and Agnes go downstairs and talk it over while I get a bath and get dressed. I've got a dressmaker coming and I've got to have my hair done. I've got about a hundred appointments this afternoon. . . . Goodboy, Tony.” She patted him on the cheek and he went away with Agnes meek as a lamb.

When Agnes came upstairs again after Margo had had her bath, she said crossly, “Margie, we ought to have divorced Tony long ago. This German who's got hold of him is a bad egg. You know how Mr. Hays feels about scandals.”

“I know I've been a damn fool.”

“I've got to ask Frank about this. I've got an appointment with Madame Esther this afternoon. Frank might tell us the name of a reliable lawyer.”

“We can't go to Vardaman. He's Mr. Hardbein's lawyer and Sam's lawyer too. A girl sure is a fool ever to put anything in writing.”

The phone rang. It was Mr. Hardbein calling up about the contract. Margo sent Agnes down to the office to talk to him. All afternoon, standing there in front of the long pierglass while the dressmaker fussed around her with her mouth full of pins she was worrying about what to do. When Sam came around at five to see the new dresses her hair was still in the dryer. “How attractive you look with your head in that thing,” Sam said, “and the lacy negligee and the little triangle of Brussels lace between your knees. . . . I shall remember it. I have total recall, I never forget anything I've seen. That is the secret of visual imagination.”

When Agnes came back for her in the Rolls she had trouble getting away from Sam. He wanted to take them wherever they were going in his own car. “You must have no secrets from me, Margo darling,” he
said gently. “You will see I understand everything . . . everything. . . . I know you better than you know yourself. That's why I know I can direct you. I have studied every plane of your face and of your beautiful little girlish soul so full of desire. . . . Nothing you do can surprise or shock me.”

“That's good,” said Margo.

He went away sore.

“Oh, Margie, you oughtn't to treat Mr. Margolies like that,” whined Agnes.

“I can do without him better than he can do without me,” said Margo. “He's got to have a new star. They say he's pretty near on the skids anyway.” “Mr. Hardbein says that's just because he's fired his publicityman,” said Agnes.

It was late when they got started. Madame Esther's house was way downtown in a dilapidated part of Los Angeles. They had the chauffeur let them out two blocks from the house and walked to it down an alley between dusty bungalow courts like the places they'd lived in when they first came out to the coast years ago. Margo nudged Agnes. “Remind you of anything?” Agnes turned to her, frowning. “We must only remember the pleasant beautiful things, Margie.”

Madame Esther's house was a big old frame house with wide porches and cracked shingle roofs. The blinds were drawn on all the grimy windows. Agnes knocked at a little groundglass door in back. A thin spinsterish woman with grey bobbed hair opened it immediately. “You are late,” she whispered. “Madame's in a state. They don't like to be kept waiting. It'll be difficult to break the chain.” “Has she had anything from Frank?” whispered Agnes. “He's very angry. I'm afraid he won't answer again. . . . Give me your hand.”

The woman took Agnes's hand and Agnes took Margo's hand and they went in single file down a dark passageway that had only a small red bulb burning in it, and through a door into a completely dark room that was full of people breathing and shuffling.

“I thought it was going to be private,” whispered Margo. “Shush,” hissed Agnes in her ear. When her eyes got accustomed to the darkness she could see Madame Esther's big puffy face swaying across a huge round table and faint blurs of other faces around it. They made way for Agnes and Margo and Margo found herself sitting down with somebody's wet damp hand clasped in hers. On the table in front of Madame Esther were a lot of little pads of white paper. Everything was quiet except for Agnes's heavy breathing next to her.

It seemed hours before anything happened. Then Margo saw that Madame Esther's eyes were open but all she could see was the whites. A deep baritone voice was coming out of her lips talking a language she didn't understand. Somebody in the ring answered in the same language, evidently putting questions. “That's Sidi Hassan the Hindu,” whispered Agnes. “He's given some splendid tips on the stockmarket.”

“Silence,” yelled Madame Esther in a shrill woman's voice that almost scared Margo out of her wits. “Frank is waiting. No, he has been called away. He left a message that all would be well. He left a message that tomorrow he would impart the information the parties desired and that his little girl must on no account take any step without consulting her darling Agnes.”

Agnes burst into hysterical sobs and a hand tapped Margo on the shoulder. The same greyhaired woman led them to the back door again. She had some smellingsalts that she made Agnes sniff. Before she opened the groundglass door she said, “That'll be fifty dollars, please. Twentyfive dollars each. . . . And Madame says that the beautiful girl must not come any more, it might be dangerous for her, we are surrounded by hostile influences. But Mrs. Mandeville must come and get the messages. Nothing can harm her, Madame says, because she has the heart of a child.”

As they stepped out into the dark alley to find that it was already night and the lights were on everywhere Margo pulled her fur up round her face so that nobody could recognize her.

“You see, Margie” Agnes said as they settled back into the deep seat of the old Rolls, “everything is going to be all right, with dear Frank watching over us. He means that you must go ahead and marry Mr. Margolies right away.” “Well, I suppose it's no worse than signing a threeyear contract,” said Margo. She told the chauffeur to drive as fast as he could because Sam was taking her to an opening at Grauman's that night.

When they drove up round the drive to the door, the first thing they saw was Tony and Max Hirsch sitting on the marble bench in the garden. “I'll talk to them,” said Agnes. Margo rushed upstairs and started to dress. She was sitting looking at herself in the glass in her stepins when Tony rushed into the room. When he got into the light
over the dressingtable she noticed that he had a black eye. “Taking up the gentle art, eh, Tony?” she said without turning around.

Tony talked breathlessly. “Max blacked my eye because I did not want to come. Margo, he will kill me if you don't give me one thousand dollars. We will not leave the house till you give us a check and we got to have some cash too, because Max is giving a party tonight and the bootlegger will not deliver the liquor until he's paid cash. Max says you are getting a divorce. How can you? There is no divorce under the church. It's a sin that I will not have on my soul. You cannot get a divorce.”

Margo got up and turned around to face him. “Hand me my negligee on the bed there . . . nouse catching my death of cold. . . . Say, Tony, do you think I'm getting too fat? I gained two pounds last week. . . . Look here, Tony, that squarehead's going to be the ruination of you. You better cut him out and go away for another cure somewhere. I'd hate to have the federal dicks get hold of you on a narcotic charge. They made a big raid in San Pedro only yesterday.”

Tony burst into tears. “You've got to give it to me. He'll break every bone in my body.”

Margo looked at her wristwatch that lay on the dressingtable beside the big powderbox. Eight o'clock. Sam would be coming by any minute now. “All right,” she said, “but next time this house is going to be guarded by detectives. . . . Get that,” she said. “And any monkeybusiness and you birds land in jail. If you think Sam Margolies can't keep it out of the papers you've got another think coming. Go downstairs and tell Agnes to make you out a check and give you any cash she has in the house.” Margo went back to her dressing.

A few minutes later Agnes came up crying. “What shall we do? I gave them the check and two hundred dollars. . . . Oh, it's awful. Why didn't Frank warn us? I know he's watching over us but he might have told us what to do about that dreadful man.” Margo went into her dresscloset and slipped into a brand new eveninggown. “What we'll do is stop that check first thing in the morning. You call up the homeprotection office and get two detectives out here on day and night duty right away. I'm through, that's all.”

Margo was mad, she was striding up and down the room in her new white spangly dress with a trimming of ostrich feathers. She caught sight of herself in the big triple mirror standing between the
beds. She went over and stood in front of it. She looked at the three views of herself in the white spangly dress. Her eyes were a flashing blue and her cheeks were flushed. Agnes came up behind her bringing her the rhinestone band she was going to wear in her hair. “Oh, Margie,” she cried, “you never looked so stunning.”

The maid came up to say that Mr. Margolies was waiting. Margo kissed Agnes and said, “You won't be scared with the detectives, will you, dearie?” Margo pulled the ermine wrap that they'd sent up on approval that afternoon round her shoulders and walked out to the car. Rodney Cathcart was there lolling in the back seat in his dressclothes. A set of perfect teeth shone in his long brown face when he smiled at her. Sam had got out to help her in, “Margo darling, you take our breaths away, I knew that was the right dress,” he said. His eyes were brighter than usual. “Tonight's a very important night. It is the edict of the stars. I'll tell you about it later. I've had our horoscopes cast.”

In the crowded throbbing vestibule Margo and Rodney Cathcart had to stop at the microphone to say a few words about their new picture and their association with Sam Margolies as they went in through the beating glare of lights and eyes to the lobby. When the master of ceremonies tried to get Margolies to speak he turned his back angrily and walked into the theater as if it was empty, not looking to the right or the left. After the show they went to a restaurant and sat at a table for a while. Rodney Cathcart ordered some kidneychops. “You mustn't eat too much, Si,” said Margolies. “The pièce de résistance is at my flat.”

Sure enough there was a big table set out with cold salmon and lobstersalad and a Filipino butler opening champagne for just the three of them when they went back there after the restaurant had started to thin out. This time Margo tore loose and ate and drank all she could hold. Rodney Cathcart put away almost the whole salmon, muttering that it was topping, and even Sam, saying he was sure it would kill him, ate a plate of lobstersalad.

Margo was dizzygiggly drunk when she found that the Filipino and Sam Margolies had disappeared and that she and Si were sitting together on the couch that had the lionskin on it. “So you're going to marry Sam,” said Si, gulping down a glass of champagne. She nodded. “Good girl.” Si took off his coat and vest and hung them carefully on a chair. “Hate clothes,” he said. “You must come to my ranch. . . .
Hot stuff.” “But you wear them so beautifully,” said Margo. “Correct,” said Si.

He reached over and lifted her onto his knee. “But, Si, we oughtn't to, not on Sam's lionskin.” Si put his mouth to hers and kissed her. “You find me exciting? You ought to see me stripped.” “Don't, don't,” said Margo. She couldn't help it, he was too strong, his hands were all over her under her dress.

“Oh, hell, I don't give a damn,” she said. He went over and got her another glass of champagne. For himself he filled a bowl that had held cracked ice earlier in the evening. “As for that lion it's bloody rot. Sam shot it but the blighter shot it in a zoo. They were sellin' off some old ones at one of the bloody lionfarms and they had a shoot. Couldn't miss 'em. It was a bloody crime.” He drank down the champagne and suddenly jumped at her. She fell on the couch with his arms crushing her.