The Hollywood Trilogy (46 page)

The doorbell rang and she opened it without thinking. Fortunately it was
not the man with the white hair or Alonzo or anybody else but Jan.

“You look cool,” was Jan's only comment. “Let's get on the phone to Stan and see about that dope!”

“Didn't you ask him the other day?”

“Yeah, but he told me to call him at home tonight.”

Stan Bird arrived around midnight, with a friend and a pocketful of drugs. Bird was a small handsome man with grey eyes behind contact lenses and teeth so even Jody was certain that they were false, although they did not have the look of bad false teeth. They were probably caps, she thought. Looking down, she saw that he was also wearing shoes that built up his height about two inches. Around his middle was probably a combination girdle and moneybelt, she thought, and laughed aloud. Stan Bird was dressed Mod, and his friend, a large pale sweating man of about thirty in Hawaiian shirt and white drill pants. Jody guessed that the big man, introduced only as Tommy, was supposed to be for her. By this time Jody was wearing a faded blue man's shirt and her tightest palest Levi's, and she could see Tommy's eyes covertly looking at her body. Tommy did not look like a rich or powerful person. She wondered who he was and why Bird brought him.

“It's party time,” Stan Bird announced, and pulled from one pocket a plastic bag filled with dark-red cleaned marijuana. “You got any papers here?”

Jody sat at the coffee table with the weed and papers and rolled a few joints while the others talked quietly. Jan wanted to talk about F. Wayne Cole and the picture, but Bird was evasive. Tommy did not join into any of the movie talk, and when Jody lit one of the joints and passed it to him, he waved a pudgy hand and said, “No, thanks. Emphysema.” She did not believe it for a minute. While the others smoked, Tommy sat quietly sweating, looking from person to person, trying to appear interested but not joining into the conversation except to inject clichés like, “Well, what do you think of that!” or, “Sounds about par for the course.”

After only a few tokes Jody knew this was very good weed. “Where can I buy some of this?” she asked Stan, and Stan grinned and pointed to Tommy. “This here's the man,” he said.

“What do you want for it?” she asked Tommy. Now she recognized the type. He was a dealer but a square. He would run down to Mexico in his camper or motor home, square as a bear, probably with an uptight-looking
woman with him, make his deal in Mazatlán or some other wide-open place, then cruise back, while the police were busting longhairs. If he was really smart he would buy his drugs directly from the police, paying well enough to guarantee, hopefully, that he would not be betrayed. And obviously he had not been. He looked no more like a dope dealer than the man in the moon.

“This is Panama Red,” he said, as if describing an item in his sales catalog; “it's not tops, as you can tell, but the tops to this stuff went for fifty a lid.”

“How much do you want for a good lid?” Jody persisted.

“Mostly it goes by the pound,” he said, but she finally cornered him into admitting that he would part with an ounce of it for thirty dollars. Christ in Heaven, she thought, I'm glad it's not my money.

“Listen,” Stan Bird said. He had his arm around Jan's shoulder and they had been whispering. “While you people conduct business, me and this one are going to use your bedroom, okay?”

Tommy had to go down to his car to pick up the lid, and as Jody was holding the door open for him she said, “Do you happen to have any coke?” She thought about Harry's desire never ever to see coke again. Well, if this man had any, she would conceal it from Harry, that was all.

“I have a little bit,” Tommy said, and negotiations began as soon as Jody shut the door again. After he left to get the drugs, Jody sat down in the living room and tried not to listen to the faint sounds coming from the bedroom. It helped that all the windows in the apartment were open, and traffic noises from the nearby entrance to the Hollywood Freeway drifted up on the warm air; but it did not help enough. Jody was horny, that was all. She had been horny before, and she had gone without before.

But she was getting older. Thirty-five. Time was wasting and death was coming. She thought with a smile about seducing Tommy, the uptight businessman who happened to find himself in the dope business. Since he was overweight he was probably very uptight about women and sex, too. Maybe he carried all that extra weight on purpose, to thrust away the problems of sex. But then maybe not. Maybe he would be the one. Maybe it would be an act of kindness to seduce him, to be gentle to him and make love to him.

Jody caught herself gritting her teeth noisily. The doorbell buzzed and she opened it to Tommy, who smiled without looking at her and stood in the middle of the room, holding out the bag of marijuana and the gram of cocaine in its small plastic envelope. “Do you want to taste the coke?” he asked.

“Sure, but not from my gram,” she said. They sat beside each other on the couch while he got out his own coke, contained in a small wooden carved box. He had a tiny silver coke spoon for her to use. She snorted a good pile into each nostril and felt the incredible, indescribable rush that first-class cocaine gave her. After a few moments she said, “Aren't you going to have any?”

“I just keep it for my friends,” he said. He still would not look her in the eye, but it did not matter. From the bedroom came a cry and then another one. Tommy grinned at the floor and stood up. “Guess I better get out of here,” he said.

“Don't be in a hurry,” Jody said. “Don't you take
anything?
”

“I guess I'm just a sugar junkie,” Tommy said. Now he looked at her. “There's a delicatessen down on Fairfax,” he said, “with the best pastries you ever saw. Care to go have something to eat?”

“No, baby,” she said. “I'm in the mood for love. You know what I mean?” His face reddened thickly and she said, “Oh hell, I was just kidding. Let's go eat.”

Tommy brought her back to the hotel and up in the elevator, but he did not enter the apartment. Jody could not hear anything, so she walked quietly down to the bedroom and looked in. The bed was a mess but there was nobody in it. The air conditioner was on, clanging distantly, and the room was slightly cooler than the others. Jody sighed and went to bed.

TWENTY-EIGHT

IT WAS six o'clock Monday evening before Jan came up to tell Jody what had happened on her interview with F. Wayne Cole. Jody had just awakened from a nap and had not yet showered the sweat off her body, and she was about to ask Jan to come back a little later when she saw her face. Jan looked very bad. Jody opened the door wider and said, “What happened? Do you want a drink or anything?”

“I should have known,” Jan said. She walked into the living room with her arms at her sides and sat down on the edge of the couch, as if she had to get up and go in a few minutes. She was dressed in jeans and a man's red tee shirt, so she had had time to change, and perhaps had been home for hours. Jody brought them drinks and sat beside her.

“Okay, spill it,” Jody said. “You didn't get the part. Okay? You can't win them all.”

“He wanted me to suck his cock,” Jan said. “I came in his office and sat down and he said, ‘Stan Bird tells me you give really good head.' I didn't know what to say. I just sat there. You hear about it, you know. But I never believed. He just kept looking at me. He's smaller than I thought and he has this full beard now and his eyes stick out a little. Then he says, ‘Well, what do you have to say for yourself?' I asked him what else did Stan say about me and he says, “‘That was about it, honey.'”

“Those sons of bitches,” Jody said.

“Jody, I don't know what's the matter with me. I did it. I went over to him and kneeled down next to his desk and undid his pants and blew him. I wasn't even thinking, I just did it. It took a long time for him, but he squirted off in my mouth, and then when I'm spitting the stuff out into my hankie he says in this real distant voice, ‘I wanted you to swallow it, honey.'”

She looked at Jody and smiled strangely. “That's when I finally caught on to what was happening. He was really auditioning me, but the person who gets the part has to be his girlfriend on the location. I guess when I didn't swallow his come I flunked.” She laughed. “I used to
study
him in school! I'm such a goddamn idiot! What made me think I could make it out here, anyway?”

“Don't talk like that,” Jody said. “He's just one bastard, that's all.”

But Jan was crying now, and she grabbed Jody by the arms. “Oh, did you ever do anything like that, though? I feel so bad about myself! Why didn't I just say no thank you or something and walk out? I guess I really wanted that part bad, so bad I even shut off my mind. But I can't shut it off now, I think about those two calling each other up on the telephone and talking about me, like, ‘She didn't work out, do you have any other girls?'”

“Did you talk to Stan Bird?” Jody asked. “I'd like to know what . . .”

“Oh, yes, that was the first thing I did. As soon as I got off the lot I went into this Chinese restaurant across the street and went in the can and cried, then I called Stan on the pay phone. He was very angry with me. He said it was all my own fault, for doing it to him the first time we went out. He said he thought I loved to do it and wouldn't mind. He told me that was how to get small parts and later on things would get better. He said I was stupid. I think he's right.”

“I think he's a bastard,” Jody said. “You're not stupid. You just happened to run into a couple of bad numbers, that's all. Don't be down on yourself.”

“But I can't help it! There's thousands of women in this city trying to get parts! It's so hopeless! It's so stupid!”

She broke down again and for a while Jody held her by the shoulders while she cried. Automatically Jan reached for her shoulder-bag and got out a wadded-up handkerchief, and then started sobbing again, throwing the handkerchief across the room. It came to rest on the rug, and Jody looked at it while Jan went into the bathroom to finish crying and wash her face. She knew she should get rid of it, but she did not want to touch it. But she had to, before Jan returned. Jody held the handkerchief as if it was a dead rat, and dropped it into the wastebasket under the sink, and then came back into the living room and waited for Jan. She did not feel like drinking whiskey, and Jan had not touched hers.

When Jan came back she said, “I'm getting out of here.”

“No,” Jody said. “Stay. We'll go have dinner and a good time.”

“No,” Jan said. “I mean Hollywood. I'm getting out of here. Tonight. I mean, why wait? I mean,
fuck it!
”

With Jody to help her, Jan packed her things into two suitcases and one cardboard carton from the Hughes Market and stowed them in her car. She would be on the Hollywood Freeway before nine o'clock.

“Where are you going?” Jody asked her as they were standing beside the car in the parking lot.

“Anywhere but Detroit,” she said. “I think maybe San Francisco or someplace like that.”

“I'm going to miss you, baby,” Jody said, but she did not ask her to stay. Jan was doing the right thing for a change.

“Oh Jody,” Jan said, and hugged her tight. “I love you, Jody. I hope you get what you want. You're such a good person!”

Jody was startled. She had been called everything but that in her life. “I love you too, baby. Take care.”

Jan got into her car, and after hesitating a moment, Jody said to her, “Wait. Listen. What you did. I've done a lot worse. And I'm okay.” She laughed nervously. “It's just that I really hope I get in this picture of Harry's. I'm thirty-five years old, baby.” She laughed again, the laugh almost out of control. “I sure need this part!”

In the elevator on the way back to her apartment, Jody could not understand why she had copped out on herself like that. She did not confide in
people. Maybe I'm more shook up than I think I am. I know I'm shook up, but this is really bad.

In bed by eleven Jody smoked the last of a joint, wet out the roach and swallowed it, hoping it would help her sleep. But as good as the marijuana was, she could not feel it. There was no elation in her, just a deep sad feeling for Jan and for herself. She was really scared now. Harry was not going to give her a part. Intelligent men did not give parts to their girlfriends. And it was too late for Jody now. She had frittered her life away, trying this way and that way, but never just getting down to the hard work, always being the sexual object and never the smart determined intelligent person she knew she had to be to get anywhere in show business.

She had done worse, all right, lots worse. She had been a thief, a pimp, a blackmailer, a junkie, a liar and a cheat. She had pretended to love men she had despised. She had done it all, and none of it had worked. Every time she got into a place where she might have had a chance, something inside her fired up and she ruined her chances. Always. She thought about the time years before when she had been working as a dancer at the Copa in New York, and the headliner had come on to her, not the first star in her life, promising her a job in his traveling company when he took the show around the world, sending her expensive Dupont lighters and flowers and the whole bullshit business, but when he invited her to a party at his suite, and all she had to do was show up, look beautiful and then spend the night, what she actually did was drink champagne and screech at everybody until they threw her out. And that hadn't been the only time. Her whole life was a clutter of three-day jobs, punctured ambitions and drug-deadened hangovers.