The Love Machine (23 page)

“No,” she said quietly. “My real name is Rose. Nick Long-worth changed it when I started to model. Rose Jones wasn’t glamorous. He thought Amanda sounded English—Noel Coward and all that.”

“Well, it did until I learned about dear old Aunt Rose. Look, doll, I shared dressing rooms with colored acts. They’re my friends. Eventually things will change. I hope they do. But I’m not big enough to go on a one-man crusade. Let someone else do it, and I’ll join. But all my life I’ve been an almost-was. I played every crummy joint in the world. Loads of guys have done the same and never risen above it. But I’ve made it. And I’m offering it to you! But just you! Not your aunt, my cousin, my half-brother—it’s us all the way.”

He grabbed his coat and started for the door. “We forget tonight, understand? It never happened. I don’t know no Aunt Rose. You’re Amanda, the top model—we’ve got it made together.” He slammed the door.

She sat very still for a few minutes. Then she got up and poured herself a drink. Oddly enough she understood how Chris felt. Well, it proved one thing—she couldn’t afford the luxury of love. Because no one really cared. Everyone was out for number one! She’d never see Christie Lane again or Robin Stone! She’d quit the show, tell Nick to concentrate on getting her bookings,
even if she had to cut her price. She felt no guilt about Christie now. She’d work, take care of Aunt Rose, and marry the first decent man who came along so that she could have a child and give it a decent start in life. She took a sleeping pill, set the alarm and turned off her phone.

The alarm went off at nine. Her head ached. She reached for the phone to check with her service, then changed her mind. If there were any calls, they would only be trouble.

She took a cab to Queens. The small lobby of the nursing home was half empty. A few old women sat and watched television in wheelchairs. One woman was doing a child’s jigsaw puzzle. Another just sat and stared into space. An attendant was taking down a moth-eaten Christmas tree.

She went to the elevator and pushed the button to the third floor. She never announced herself. It was best not to give them any warning.

She opened the door of the room. The bed was stripped.

Miss Stevenson, the supervisor, came rushing in. She looked upset.

“We called you last night,” Miss Stevenson said.

“I tried to call in,” Amanda said. “The line was busy. Why have you moved Aunt Rose?” She suddenly panicked. “Is she worse?”

“She’s dead,” Miss Stevenson said.

Amanda screamed. Then she flew at the woman and grabbed her. “What happened? How?” Amanda shouted.

“At six o’clock when we brought her dinner, she suddenly sat up. Her eyes were bright. She said, ‘Where’s little Rosie?’ We told her you were coming. She lay back and smiled. She said, ‘I’ll eat with little Rosie. I don’t like to eat alone. When she gets home from school we’ll eat—’ “

Amanda began to sob. “She thought she was in the past. But she might have recognized me.”

Miss Stevenson shrugged. “When it seemed you weren’t coming, we tried to get her to eat. But she kept saying, I’m waiting for my child.’ Then at eight we came back, and she was sitting up
just as we had left her. She was dead. We called you—”

“Where is she?” Amanda asked.

“In the morgue.”

“The morgue!”

“We couldn’t keep her here.”

Amanda dashed to the elevator. Miss Stevenson followed. “I’ll give you the address. You can make your funeral arrangements from there.”

She made arrangements for the cremation and services. Then she went home, turned off the phone and slept.

When Jerry called the following day, she told him what had happened.

Jerry tried to hide the relief in his voice, but he said it was for the best. “Now you can go to California with a clear conscience,” he said.

“Yes, Jerry, I can go to California.”

She finished an entire bottle of Scotch that night. Then she stared at herself in the mirror. “Well, that’s it. Now you belong to no one! No one gives a good goddam about you. It’s a rotten world!”

Then she fell into bed and sobbed. “Oh, Robin, Robin, where were you? What kind of a man are you? I stayed at that party waiting for you, while Aunt Rose was waiting for me. I could have been with her—she
would
have recognized me, died in my arms, knowing someone cared.”

She buried her face in the pillow. “I hate you, Robin Stone! I was waiting for you while Aunt Rose died, and where were you? Oh God—where were you!”

He had been watching the Rose Bowl game. He had reached the apartment at seven in the morning, fallen into bed and slept until noon. When he awoke he went to the refrigerator, took two hard-boiled eggs and a can of beer into the living room, turned on the television set and stretched out on the couch. He took the remote control and clicked through the stations. He stopped at IBC. They were covering the pre-football-game pageantry. There was the usual fanfare, the floats, the interview with Miss
Orange Blossom or whatever she was. They were always the same type: long-limbed sunny-looking girls who might have been weaned on double orange juice. In fact this one looked like her mother’s milk had been orange juice. The nice white teeth, the clean hair, the nervous smile. Well, she’d have one day of glory, a week of local popularity and three pages in a scrap-book to show her children.

He stared at the girl with little interest. She was saying she wanted lots and lots of children. God, wouldn’t it be wonderful if just once one of them said, “Oh, I just want to fuck!” He pitied the poor girl who was interviewing her. He could only see the back of her neck but she had a good voice. He caught a quick glance of her profile as she signed off: “This is Maggie Stewart with Dodie Castle, Miss Orange Blossom of 1962—and now back to Andy Parino.”

Andy came on to interview an old-time football player. Robin switched to CBS to catch the game, then he switched to NBC. He was restless. He turned to Channel 11, watched an old movie and dozed off. When he awoke he clicked off the set and dialed Amanda, stopped midway and hung up. She was probably out, and besides, he wanted to cool it with her anyway. He was tired … the weather in London had been very bad, but that English girl had been a real swinger, and when he got her with the baroness she had gone right along with the scene. Ike Ryan had introduced him to the orgy game. Hell, they weren’t orgies—they were just group sex. Ike Ryan had a theory about making a girl become part of an orgy. You make her do it with you, then with a friend while you watch, then with another girl—and by then you’ve cut her down to size. Once she’s gone along with that scene, she can’t play games—none of that “send me flowers” jazz. You’ve reduced her to what every woman is, once you’ve stripped off the fancy manners: a broad.

Maybe he should try it with Amanda. That would sure as hell cut off the marriage talk. But something in him went against the idea. Because somehow he knew she
would
go along with it—she would do anything to hold him. But she wouldn’t forget it like the baroness or the English girl. And he didn’t want to hurt Amanda. God, in the beginning he had felt so safe with her. But
lately she seemed always on the brink of bursting at the seams. Well, it was time to cut out. He had given her plenty of reason-he always liked the girl to be the one to walk; at least it left her pride intact. Maybe this thing with Christie Lane would really work out.

He picked up the phone and asked for the IBC tie line. He got Andy in the control room and wished him a Happy New Year.

“How’s Miss Orange Blossom?” he asked.

“Chicken-chested and knock-kneed,” Andy answered.

“She sure as hell looked good on camera.”

“Maggie made her look good.”

“Maggie?”

“Maggie Stewart—you probably only caught the back of her head. She’s just great!”

Robin smiled. “Sounds like there’s something really going with the two of you.”

“There is. I’d like you to meet her. Why not come down for a few days? You could use a vacation. The golf is great here.”

“I never need a vacation. I enjoy every day as it comes. I’ve just come back from Europe with some great tapes. Now I want to do some live shows. Listen, chum, don’t go marrying this girl until I case her!”

“I’d marry her tomorrow if she agreed.”

“Andy, I’ll bet you anything she’s just another broad.”

Andy’s voice was hard. “Don’t kid about Maggie!”

“Happy New Year, sucker,” Robin said, and hung up.

He lit a cigarette. He thought of all the nights he and Andy had roamed up and down the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway together, stopping off at each bar, winding up with girls, swapping the girls in the middle of the evening… .

He threw on his coat and went out into the night. It was cold and clear. He walked down Third Avenue, all the way to Forty-second Street. He cut across town and hit Broadway. He stared at the glaring row of movie houses and pizza joints.

He passed a movie house, bought a ticket and walked in. A man from the next aisle came and sat beside him. After a few minutes Robin felt an overcoat tossed casually on his leg. Then a timid hand groped along his thigh. He got up and changed his seat. Five
minutes later a stout Negro girl with a blond wig nestled close to him. “Want a good time, honey? Right here? I put my coat over you and do the greatest hand job you ever had. Five bucks.”

He changed seats again. He sat next to two teen-aged girls. Suddenly one of them whispered, “Give me ten dollars.” He stared at her as if she was insane. She couldn’t be more than fifteen. Her friend was the same age. He ignored her. “Give me ten dollars or I’ll scream out in the theater that you tried to feel me up. I’m a minor—you’ll get into trouble.”

He got up and dashed out of the theater. He walked a few blocks and stopped at an all-night cafeteria for some coffee. He reached into his pocket—Christ! His wallet was gone. Who had it been? The fag with the overcoat? The hooker? The delinquent teenagers? He turned up his collar and walked home.

FOURTEEN

T
HE CROWD AT THE POLO BAR
at the Beverly Hills Hotel was thinning out. But it was still too noisy to try and make a long-distance call. Jerry decided to make it from his room. God, he hated this town, but the show had climbed to the number-two spot. It had been a good move switching the show to the Coast for the second half of the season. But there’d be three more months in the land of eternal sunshine, palm trees and loneliness.

He went to his room and placed a call to Mary. Thank God for the summer replacement show—he’d have to go back and help make the decision. That meant an entire week in New York. He wouldn’t even mind the commuter train.

The operator rang him back—the line in Greenwich was busy. He canceled the call. He was meeting Christie and Amanda at Chasen’s at eight thirty. It was one of the rare nights that Amanda had agreed to go out. She was always tired lately. Her room was down the hall, and like clockwork the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign went on her door every night at eight thirty. Of course she did have long hours—she had picked up most of the top modeling assignments in California. Christie Lane was vehement about California. He insisted the whole town closed down at ten thirty. Night after night he sat in a large rented house playing gin with Eddie Flynn and Kenny Ditto. Christie wasn’t comfortable at any of the Hollywood places. He claimed he never got a decent table. He had sulked for weeks when Amanda refused to go through with the Valentine’s Day wedding. She insisted she didn’t want to get married and rush back to work—she wanted a real honeymoon. Christie had finally agreed. Now they planned to get married the day after the show went off for the summer.

Jerry wondered about Amanda. She was with Christie the night of the show, and perhaps a couple of nights during the week. She refused to make the Hollywood scene, wouldn’t go to the Cocoanut Grove or any of the openings that Christie adored. So Chris roamed Hollywood with Kenny, Eddie and the show girl. Each night they wound up at the drugstore at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, hoping to run into some comics or other displaced New Yorkers who missed the midnight coffee klatches of the East. According to Chris, this was his first shot at California, and his last! He’d finish out the season, but he had served notice on the sponsors that he would do all the shows from New York the following season. Jerry was all for it—he was as lonely as Chris.

But Amanda didn’t seem to miss New York at all. She had never looked better, and she was getting some interest from picture producers. Her entire attitude seemed to have changed—as if the California climate had effected some change of chemistry in her personality. Her easy smile was always there, but Jerry felt there was something missing in their relationship. It was almost as if they had never known one another. He had given up asking her to dinner. She always made the same plea: “I’d love it, Jerry, but I’m tired and I’m doing a big layout tomorrow.” Well, maybe he had been exorcised along with Robin. She never mentioned his name or asked about him.

Jerry looked at his watch—eight forty-five. Christie and Amanda must be furious. He put in a call to Chasen’s. Christie came on right away. “Where in hell are you?”