The Drazen World: The California Limited (Kindle Worlds Novella) (3 page)

Now you’re cheating.

Why would I need to cheat?  I’m winning easily enough in fair play.

You’re too far forward.

You’re too far back.

You can’t slap every card.

You’re truly terrible at this.

It’s not my game.

What is your game?

We need to play something slower.

We will.

As promised, Jack won nearly all the games except for the ones where he deliberately slowed a beat.  He wanted to see her win.  More than that, he wanted to hear what she wanted when she did.

“I don’t know,” she said after thinking.

“Something.  Anything.”  She was thinking.  “Be creative.”

“All right,” she said.  “When we get off in LA, I’d like those cards.”

“These?”  He held up the deck, flexing them in his strong hands, and she nodded.  “Something more than these, surely.”

She blinked slowly as she stared at him, a change so subtle occurring on her face that most would have missed it.  “And your hands to shuffle them,” she said with the frankest look anyone had ever given him.

45 hrs. to Los Angeles

They went to the lounge car for lunch but not before sitting down at the glossy Kelly green, cherry red, and butter yellow bar that shined like gumdrops and smelled like subtle notes of high-shelf booze.

“I’ll have a gin martini.  Extra dirty,” said Jack, flashing his money and a smile to the bartender.  “And she’ll have a French 75.”

Minnie looked at Jack with unfeigned consternation.  “What if I don’t drink?”  She crossed her arms.

“You drink, doll,” he replied with a sly smile.  “Everyone drinks now.  Nothing ever made America so drunk as telling her she couldn’t drink.  I have no complaints, mind you.  The Volstead was good for us.”

“I think I know what that means.”

“Good.  Then you’re not dull.”

“So you’re the original Irish gangster, are you? 
The Public Enemy
and all that?”

“No.  And I’m offended by the caricature, sweet.  Do I look like Jimmy Cagney?”

“Not at all, if you care to know.  Why, he’s all short and square.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, then.” 

“You should.”  The bartender placed their drinks before them.  She looked at hers, all thirst and sly.  “It might be a little early for me,” she said.

“Ha.  Good girl.  At least now you’re being honest.  And what’s early?  If ever there was a prescription for alcohol and then some, it’s a sixty-three hour train ride.  Now be a darling and drink so that we can forget all this nonsense about you not doing it or it being too early.  Plus,” he leaned into her, lowering his voice, “I’d like to put some color on those cheeks and loosen that tongue.  We’ll start with the drinks for now and move to something else later.”

She shook her head as Jack sucked a green olive from a toothpick, chewing and nodding.

“You’ll corrupt me yet, Mr. O’Drassen,” she said.

“Yes,” he replied.  “And you want me to.”

44 hrs. to Los Angeles

He slapped the deck on the table.  “Cut.”  She did.  Then he proceeded to deal them each ten cards and turn another card up next to the remaining turned down deck.  “So.”  He looked up at her, forearms resting casually on the table.  “Gin Rummy.  More complicated than Slap Jack but not by much.  And slower.”  His lips pulled into a half-grin.  “More luck than speed and a tiny bit of strategy.”

Then he proceeded to turn their hands over, explaining the rules and demonstrating the object of the game.  When he looked up to see her brow knit in confusion, he said, “A hand, maybe two and you’ll get it.”

He re-dealt and as they studied their cards, rearranging them in their hands for runs and sets, they talked.

You’re moving to LA on business.  The entertainment business?

Yes.  And you at Columbia.

I suppose you’d like to be an actress.

A performer, really.  I love to sing and dance, too.

Have you any thought for a good word with Harry Cohn?

I would never ask such a thing.

Perhaps not but you should.  I don’t think it pays to be shy about your talents when you would live on them.

I suppose not.  And I intend to.

Let me guess, you dressed up as Little Orphan Annie and tromped around your house exclaiming
‘Leapin’ lizards!’
to anyone who would listen.

Yes
and
I used to have a regular gig at a little speakeasy.  Singing.

Now that explains it.

Explains what?

Those girls have brass balls and ya don’t seem a meek daisy.

Must you be so simple?

Would you rather I pour honey in your ear?

No.  Well maybe a little.

I’ll not be doing you a favor, then.  You’ve chosen a difficult road, sweet, being an actress, singing and dancing.

I’m not completely unaware.

You’re sure to hear far worse than ‘brass balls’ and see, well…

No sooner had the third hand been dealt when she began winning.  And winning.  And winning. 

“Gin.”  She spread another winning hand on the table to his frustrated frown.  “Don’t look like that.  You were a good instructor.”

“There’s nothing to that but a good student.”

“And a healthy dose of beginner’s luck,” she added.

After some hours at cards, Jack put away the deck and moved, sitting down on the couch next to Minnie.  “I’m past sick sitting facing the wrong direction.  Do you mind so terribly?”  He looked at her, her face, her mouth so close to his.

“Not at all.”  She went to stand.  “I can move.”

He grabbed her hand.  “Don’t you dare.”

She tentatively settled back and he threaded his fingers through hers.  He peered out the window, studying the vast landscape rolling by, and thought how more than comfortable her hand felt in his.  It felt right and that compared to it, nothing else had ever felt so.

After several minutes had passed, he turned to her.  “When did you know?”

“Know what?” she asked and didn’t shrink from his intense gaze.  In fact, she seemed to take him in, her eyes boldly skating over his face.

“That you wanted to be an actress.  A performer.  When did you know?”

She settled back into the couch and appeared to think.  “There was never any great realization, no inspiration or singular event.  It was always a part of me, that desire to perform, to be on stage.  Like my eye color.  A part of my makeup.  I could sooner exchange my eyes for others than I could take on a different dream.”  She leveled her gaze at his once again.

“I wouldn’t want you to do that.  Exchange your eyes for another’s.  Their beautiful.”

She gave him an embarrassed smile.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, darling.”

“Do you know, I think you are the first person to ever ask me that.”  She chuckled breathily.  “Is that sad?”

His brow furrowed.  “A little.  Though, now that you mention it, I don’t think there was ever a time when anyone thought to ask me what I wanted to do with my life.  Not really.  It was as if in giving me my father’s name they had given me his path, too.”

“I have my mother’s name.  But I think they were merely too tired to come up with another one.”  They exchanged smiles.  “It isn’t the burden that your name seems to be.  She’s a good woman, my mother…”  Her voice broke and she cleared her throat.  “…and I’m proud to share anything with her.”

They peered out the window for another length of time when Minnie spoke.  “When did you know you wanted to make movies?”

“I grew up shadowing my dad.  He runs hotels.  Their fine.  First-class all the way.”

“The Ambassador?”

“That’s not his, but like that and he has his eye on the men who do, every man who does, just like they have their eyes on him.  It’s a good business, hospitality.  Making people feel comfortable.  He’s a natural.  A glad-hander of the first order.  But he owns more than a few speakeasies in the theatre district, too.  Bars and lounges now, I guess.”

“That’s where you met those girls with brass balls?”

“More than a few.  I cut my teeth on their dramatics.  It was never dull.”  He peered at her intently.  “I can’t say that you’re like them.  Not really.  You’re steel-cut like them, yet earnest, too.  I don’t know that I’ve ever known a practical dreamer.  Yet here you are.”

“How do you know that I’m practical?  That makes me sound wrong and not in the right way.”

He stared at her, her searching eyes fixed on him, her lips parted.  “I don’t know,” he finally said.  “It’s the strangest thing, that I should know you so well when we have only just met.  But I think I do.”

By a barely perceptible degree, she shrunk away from him, pulling her hand from his.  She peered out the window across the aisle from them and he turned back to his window.

“You never said,” she began after some time, turning back to him, “what it was about movies.”

“I shouldn’t tell you.  It’s a little embarrassing.”

“Now you
should
tell me
because
it’s embarrassing.”

“I told you I shadowed my dad and spent a good time in the theatre district.  It seemed we were always around performers.  My father calls them his birds.  ‘Their pretty feathers liven up the place,’ he’d say,” Jack said, affecting his father’s voice.  “’On the whole,’” he continued in his father’s voice, “’they’re vile and ridiculous, but don’t think for one minute there’s not a place for them.  They make me money.  On stage, in the lobbies of my hotels.  Theirs are large personalities and generally beautiful.  People like to be around that.  Makes them think they’re large and beautiful, too. 
That’s
the secret of hospitality.  You don’t beat them in with a sandwich board and a grating holler.  You seduce them in with a leggy blonde.’”

“He sounds sweet,” she said in deadpan earnest.

Jack threw his head back and laughed.  “Sweet.  No,” he choked on his laughter.  “To a man, I don’t think anyone would call Seamus O’Drassen sweet.  But that’s only part of it.  This is the embarrassing part.  Promise not to laugh?” 

“No.  Now you’ve really got me intrigued.”  She leaned in, a fist pressed under her chin, her eyes rapt, affecting exaggerated anticipation. 

“I love,” he paused and lowered his voice to a whisper, “radio soapies.”

She sat back, her chest shaking in unvoiced laughter until it broke.  “How marvelous!  I think I love you.”  It was a light and careless utterance.

“You promised not to laugh.”

“No.  I didn’t.”

“My mom always has them on.  You stand still for a few minutes in our house and they can’t help but get into your ear.  Then you have to know what happens.  So you stick around.  And you come back.  And you keep coming back.  My mom thinks I’m the most dutiful son; always around.”

“But it’s the soapies.”

“The damn soapies.  She was devastated when I told her I was moving to LA.  Who will talk
Betty and Bob
and
The Romance of Helen Trent
with her?”

“Oh.”  She threw her head back.  “I love
Helen Trent
.  She carries such a torch for Gil.”

“Will she ever become an important Hollywood costume designer?”

“She has such moxie.  Of course she will.  She has to.  And win her Gil besides.”

“Anyway,” he sat back, “I love stories and I always thought it would be neat to work with performers.  Really respect them, ya know?  Not like my dad. But make money, too.  I’m no communist.  Producing just seems like the perfect fit.”

“It does,” she agreed.

“So,” he took her hand again, studying it in his, his thumb skimming over the pale top, so fine and smooth.  His fingertips in her palm grazed hard callouses and he turned it over to look, but she winced and tried to pull it away.  “Ah-ah.”  He added his other hand to grasp it more firmly, examining first one, then the other.  Then his eyes slowly climbed to meet hers.  “These are the hands of someone who doesn’t own gloves.”

Her lips were parted to speak, her expression inscrutable.  “I-I was gardening without my gloves,” she finally croaked out.

“Really,” he said, his voice tight and skeptical.  He sat back against the window, his head resting in a splayed hand and his face cold and blank.  “Tell me about your love of gardening.”

“What have you to say about my hands?” she asked, her brows furrowed in anger.  Just as quickly her face and body relaxed and she sighed.  “I’m tired.  Sleeping on these couches is perfectly wretched.  I think I’ll move over there—” she pointed to the couch across the aisle, “—and stretch out for a nap.”

He watched her settle herself across the aisle and thought why he should make any claims and challenges of her.  So she worked with her hands?  There was nothing wrong with it.  It was to be admired, really, and he had made her feel like a fraud, like she was playing at being refined and cared for.  He had been an ass.