Don't Speak to Strange Girls (15 page)

She never intended letting anyone peer too deeply.

His mouth twisted. All the beauty creams on earth can’t hide what’s in them; they bring those memories with them all the days of their life. It is a spur and a whip and it’s never out of their minds any more than it’s out of the backs of their eyes. You just have to look into their eyes and you see the town like this where they were born, and the salesmen who taught them about the quick trick, the laugh and the gasp in the backroom, coming out brushing down the wrinkles from their skirts. The old man who was a boozer or a tramp, or both.

He motioned to a cab, warning himself that he would keep it just. He was going to be fair in this thing as long as he could. He asked the driver the address of the best hotel in town and then ordered himself driven there.

• • •

He started digging that night. She had worked as a waitress in the Fried Egg on Main. The owner-cook was a dark man with hair standing from his temples like bristles in a toothbrush.

“Joanne Stark? You’re asking do I remember her? Listen, mister, you ask her if she remembers about the meat block in the kitchen of this place.” He laughed, leaning across the counter.

“I sure will,” Shatner said.

“You let me tell you. She was a gorgeous trick, nobody can’t take that away from the Stark kid. And a hard worker. Listen, there were five or six kids in her family. She worked hard. It was just that you couldn’t look at that body and keep your cottonpicking hands off her. You know? You’ve seen that kind of doll.”

“All the time.”

“Well, first time I tried to put her up on that meat block, she raised hell. But she came around. First, she tried to stall me off. Talked about how she couldn’t do anything like that.”

“How old was she at the time, you know?”

The café owner laughed. “She was jail bait, I admit that. But she had worked a couple other places before she came here. Just the same, I recall I almost fell for that story how pure she was. Then a salesman dropped in here one night. When he saw Joanne, I thought he was going to turn purple. He told me about it. Seems that on her days-off, when we let her go from this place, she and another waitress a couple years older were driving fifty miles over to Andrewsville and picking up guys in bars — you know — for money. And here in town? Playing it cagey and virgin-pure. Man it hit me hard, right here.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“Then when I told her what I knew, she and I used that old meat block pretty regular. She made me swear I wouldn’t tell anybody in this town — and I never told nobody, either. She was 93-score, top grade; and I was willing to keep my mouth shut for it.”

“Why did she leave?”

He laughed, a rueful sound. “Listen, mister. You ever hear of setting a trap and gettin’ caught in it yourself?”

“I’ve heard.”

“It happened to me. I had to give her six months pay and let her go. First, I had the upper hand. Or she let me think I did. Oh, I had the facts on her. But the first time I got her on that meat block, it all changed. She had me pushed in a corner. She was underage, she threatened to tell my wife. Man, you don’t know my wife. That Stark had me where she wanted me. I had to double her salary. Give her extra time off. Gifts.”

Clane Trevor worked a five-piece band in a road spot just outside town. He had given Joanne a job.

“She couldn’t sing. Couldn’t carry a tune. She couldn’t dance. I mean specialty stuff. But I got a lot of jobs playing for smokers. Stag stuff. You know. She was good for that. Nobody had to tell her she had a body a man could go nuts over. Hell, it was as if she got a large charge seeing the rubes go bulb-eyed over that body of hers.”

“What happened?”

“We played up the line for a meeting of some movie exhibitors. One of them told Joanne he was going to a convention in L.A. He promised to take her along, see she met the right people. Man, she walked out on me. Man, she didn’t even bother to say goodbye.”

• • •

There didn’t seem much sense in tracing the rest
of it But Shatner did. The house where she was born. The fights between her
old man and old woman. A house without love, but a new kid every year or so.
She quit school in the ninth grade. Her grades were good, but she excelled
in nothing. She played hooky a lot. The teachers remembered the boys were crazy
about her. The school authorities had caught her in a dozen lies. Shatner walked
the streets she had walked, talked to the people who had grown up with her.
All of them remembered one thing. There had been only one desire in Joanne
Stark’s life. She wanted out of Cragshead and she didn’t care
how she made it, or what it cost her.

You couldn’t believe much else she said, but you could believe that.

The third day after his arrival in Cragshead. Shatner knew more about Joanne than he’d ever known about his own mother. He sat in a train compartment typing steadily all the way to Chicago. He spent four hours more in a Loop hotel finishing the draft, typing and smoking and keeping the dossier as impersonal and dispassionate as he could make it.

He caught the six
P.M
. direct jet flight at O’Hare.

• • •

Shatner walked into the library. Stuart was sprawled on the divan reading the last quarter of
Man of the Desert.

Clay looked up at him. “Where you been?”

“Out of town for a few days. You read that thing yet?”

“Can’t seem to keep my mind on it.”

Shatner unzipped his briefcase, removed the stapled papers he had typed. He tossed the flat sheaf into Stuart’s lap.

“Here’s something for you.”

After a moment Stuart picked up the packet of paper. He glanced at it, thumbing back the pages. He shook it closed again.

“Is that where you’ve been?”

“That’s right. Cragshead, Illinois.”

“Why?”

“You know why, Clay. Hoff, Ringling and I. We love you. We’re pretty sure you mean to marry Stark.”

“And this is your wedding gift?”

Shatner winced. “I didn’t enjoy doing it, Clay.”

“Does that take care of your conscience?”

“I’ve no conscience when it means doing something for you. We’ve been friends a long time. I never did you dirty. Not once. There were plenty of opportunities. Many times you wouldn’t even have known. Marry her if you must … but I want you to have that.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

“No. I’d like you to read it.”

“Why? Couldn’t I just ask Joanne?”

Shatner shrugged. “She has a long record of lying, Clay. She would lie about most of this stuff anyhow. Any woman would.”

“Then why should I read it?”

Shatner shrugged. “Read it.”

Stuart tossed it on the floor beside the blue script.

Shatner said, “Aren’t you going to read it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe later.”

“Read it now. You need it.”

“Why?”

“Hit me, Clay. Slap my teeth out. But I tell you that when you read about her in this report, you can start getting well, you can start getting her off your mind.”

“Must be pretty potent stuff.”

“You can believe it. It’s gospel.”

“Oh, I know that. You’re always very fair. You deal in facts.”

“When I have to.”

Stuart got up, walked to the French doors. He stood there breathing deeply, as though he could not get enough fresh air.

“It’s not malice, Clay,” Shatner said from behind him.

Stuart did not turn. He lifted his shoulders, let them sag.

“She’s been using you, Clay. The screen test. She would never have gotten one without you.”

Stuart nodded. “She’s made me very happy, Marc. Shouldn’t she get some return for what she’s done for me? Should I better repay her by reading that — dirt.”

“That dirt is the truth.”

“All right. She used me. She made me happy. It checks as far as I’m concerned. It would make us quits — without that.” He gestured toward the typed report.

“Quits?”

“Yes. You’ve been out of town too long, Marc. You’ve lost touch with everything. You could have saved your shoe leather.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look around. You see Joanne?”

“What happened, Clay? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I just got news for you. Warners hired Joanne to play the lead in a fifteen-day western they’re shooting. It’s a low budget picture, but she’s giving it everything she’s got.”

Shatner’s voice was taut. He could hardly speak. “And she walked out on you?”

Still Stuart did not turn. “I told you. She’s busy. Always rushed. Always in a hurry. You know how it is when you’re shooting a picture — a tight schedule.”

“Sure,” Shatner said. His voice sounded hollow in his own ears. He walked to the small bar, poured himself half a glass of straight bourbon, dropped in an ice cube.

“She’s — very grateful,” he heard Stuart say from across the room. “It’s just that she’s too busy.”

Shatner downed the bourbon in one long gulp. His mouth burned and he held it wide open, breathing outward.

“Listen to me, Clay,” he said. “Listen to me. Some rainy afternoon you want to get some idea of just how lucky you are to be rid of her, you get out this paper on her — and you read it. You got no idea how lucky you are.”

“God knows,” Stuart said. “I’m lucky. I stink with luck.”

chapter seventeen

A
T BREAKFAST
the next morning Stuart read in the Hollywood
Reporter
that Warners was ready to go into production with a super-western,
Man of the Desert.
Richard Creek was to produce and direct from a script which had been written and doctored by three top men. There was no mention of actors.

Clay pushed away his plate of unfinished eggs, dropped the paper on the table.

He got up and went out on the terrace, feeling a chill in the morning smog. He wished they would start production on
Man of the Desert.
He wished he never had to hear of it again. He’d feel as if bonds had been released from him if they went into production without him, if they quit thinking about him, if he could quit thinking about them.

He prowled the terrace, walked down to the hedge that marked the line of his property, hurled a rock out into the canyon.

He stood there with his hands in his pockets and asked himself why he had fallen so hard for this girl. Who was she? What was she? The answers were in the report Shatner had compiled. He had not read it, didn’t intend to read it — self-flagellation never appealed to him; at least it hadn’t until he met Joanne — but he didn’t need to read it. The answers were in Shatner’s face, too. Shatner wasn’t happy about what he had done.

Why had he wanted her in the first place? He could answer that one, all right. He’d come to the place in his life when she was the one woman who could blast him loose from all he had been — trust Kay Ringling to unerringly choose the exact woman he would fall for. He remembered the exciting timbre of Joanne’s voice over the telephone that first time she’d called. She’d laid it on thick, acting on Kay Ringling’s orders to get herself invited up to see him. Joanne was all the exciting women he’d wanted in the past twenty-five years and had never had, had even denied wanting. In his grief at Ruth’s death, and his loss, he’d been vulnerable and — why try to explain it? There was no explanation, any more than there was any explanation why he still wanted her when she no longer wanted him. He’d known all along that besides being lovely, she’d been elusive, so you never wholly possessed her, no matter how closely you held her. She was excitement. She was torment. God have mercy, he had to get her out of his mind.

His laugh was bitter and sharp.
God have mercy.
The three most useless words in the English language — God have mercy. If there were a God his intentions were incomprehensible, and if there was any mercy in those intentions, it was no more than coincidental. The universe, the sun and even the tides were part of some cosmic plan, but it had nothing to do with personal inconveniences.

He walked slowly back up the incline. Get something to do and get her off your mind. He could hear Hoff say this. He had a career, he had the kind of life millions of people thought they wanted. Face it, he was the loneliest character he knew.

When he reached the terrace he saw them waiting for him.

He felt a quick rush of anger. They stood on the flagstones watching him. He had no idea how long they had been there. He could not remember whether he had talked to himself or not, whether he’d cried out, or cursed or moaned. He felt he might have done all these things.

They had no right to stand and stare at him.

He saw Dick Creek was with the three of them.

Creek came forward, a slender, dark man in his early forties. He was handsome enough to be an actor. He had been a drama instructor in some college. His manner was always gentle and self-effacing. He never raised his voice. Until you knew him better — until you knew he had an ulcer like everybody else — you wondered how a quiet man like Creek existed in this business. The thing about Dick Creek was that once he made up his mind about something, he never stopped, never gave an inch, and never raised his voice; the loud ones didn’t know how to shout him down; they grew tired shouting; they became frustrated; some of them even disappeared, confused and in shock, and Dick Creek remained.

Shatner, Hoff and Kay Ringling nodded at Clay, smiling uncertainly at the anger they recognized in his eyes.

Dick Creek smiled and offered his hand.

“Clay. I’ve been looking forward to talking to you.”

“Thanks, Dick.”

“Well — they tell me you’ve read it.”

“Man of the Desert?”

Creek laughed. “What else? You mean there’s another property? You have read it?”

“Most of it.”

“Most of it? Three months and you haven’t read it all, baby? I hope you never try to read
Gone With the Wind.
”

“I never will.”

“You truly don’t like reading, do you, Clay?”

“Who told you that?”

Creek flushed. “Lord, I assumed it. Three months and you haven’t waded through three hundred pages … But you know most of what the story is about?”