King Rat

Then his rage burst. “I only had one drink, damn you to hell,” he shouted and spun her around and ripped the dress off her and ripped the bra off her and threw her on the bed. And he ripped at her clothes until she was naked but for the shreds of stockings clinging to her legs. And all the time she lay still, staring up at him.

“Oh God, Trina, I love you,” he croaked helplessly, then backed away, hating himself for what he had done and what he had nearly done.

Trina picked up the shreds of the clothes. As though in a dream, he watched as she went back to the mirror and sat before it and began to repair her makeup and started to hum a tune, over and over.

Then he slammed the door and went back to his unit and the next day he tried to phone her. There was no answer. It was too late to go back to London, in spite of his desperate pleading. The unit moved to Greenock for embarkation and every day, every minute of every day, he phoned her, but there was no answer, and no answer to his frantic telegrams, and then the coast of Scotland was swallowed by the night, and the night was only ship and sea, and he was only tears.

Grey shuddered under the Malayan sun. Ten thousand miles away. It wasn’t Trina’s fault, he thought, weak with self-disgust. It wasn’t her, it was me. I was too anxious. Maybe I’m insane. Maybe I should see a doctor. Maybe I’m oversexed. It’s got to be me, not her. Oh Trina, my love.

Trina sipped her martini and smiled the special smile that a starlet smiles to producers, particularly one that has a juicy part in a movie ready to begin production. “You’re looking very well, Mr. Durstein. Isn’t the rain miserable?”

Max Durstein was not looking at all well and he was not feeling well, hating London, hating the downpour, hating Sunday, hating the V2s that fell on London Town. He fought out of his hat and his raincoat and put them on top of the steaming pile of soaking topcoats.

A freezing squall battered the windows of the large hotel reception room that looked out on the bleak puddles of Piccadilly. He shuddered and wished himself to Los Angeles and the sun and the warmth.

“You’re looking well, Mr. Durstein,” Trina said again.

“Yeah,” he replied sourly. He was tired and his ulcers hurt and his arches had fallen and he had been given the same smile for years—but only when he had a movie on the planning boards and not when his last film had been panned—but he remembered that this little harpy had a good film under her girdle and the trade moguls had picked her as potential box office draw, and she would fit “Dolly Saunders” to a rubber glove.

He cursed under his breath, what a dreck name—Dolly Saunders! How is it possible when I pay so much money to a lousy writer that the least he could do was to invent a name that has impact. Dolly! The name made him feel sick. But, he told himself, that’s what a producer is for—to take notalent and make it talent, to take a nothing name and give it grandeur. Gotta think of a name!

He looked at Trina, not listening to her chatter, not listening to his automatic answers, but thinking of a name. The name must be a name of names. Harlan. Possible. But not enough sex. Harlan Foy? Coy Harlan?

“What’s your name?” he asked abruptly, bursting into Trina’s patter.

“Trina John.” She was astonished. Who the fat pig in hell does this slob think he is, anyway, to ask me that when the cocktail party’s in my honor to celebrate my role, Princess Zenobia, in Spears on the Volga?

“I know that,” he said testily, letting the cigarette ash join the rest of the white stains on his blue pinstripe suit. “I mean your maiden name, darling.”

“It was Trina Johnson.” Actually it was Gertrude Drains. Trina kept a sweet smile on her face but inside she was spitting blood. Gerty! She could still hear her mother calling her. Gert, wipe your nose. Gerty do this, Gerty do that. And again, after two whole years of not thinking about her mother, Trina spat a stream of curses on the smelly harpy fishwife who bore her. Thank God I got away from her, thank God!

“You were married, weren’t you?”

“Oh yes. He was a Colonel in Intelligence. His name was Grey. My present husband’s name—”

“I know. Billy Stern, the agent.” He looked at her.

Trina was svelte and looked like a lady, but she had that so necessary quality of dirt somewhere mixed up with the lady. She dressed well. Hips okay. Legs long. Dress tight around the buttocks. Easy to bed. He was sure because Billy had indicated, round about, that she was cooperative. Christ, what a business! But no good, that’s what he’d heard.

Grey? Possible. Harlan Grey? How about Harlana Grey? No. Harlana Lunt! That’s it. Rhymes and has class to boot. Harlana Lunt! Everything, it has everything.

“Why the smile, Mr. Durstein?”