King Rat

“I liked your ‘Princess,’ darling,” the producer in him was saying. “And it’s making a bundle. With luck you may be a star one day. Sell tickets, that’s the only thing that counts. You’ve got a lot of talent.”

“I’ll say,” he told himself. “But in bed you haven’t. Not according to Jules.”

“How’s Jules these days?” he asked.

“He talked a lot about you while we were shooting. A nice man, and such a talented producer. A darling.” She let her eyes mist prettily. “I think producers are so important. He helped me so much.” She let this fall, then brightened in the right way, taking care that she didn’t stand too tall in her shoes, for this Durstein was small. “I’m so happy the public is paying so much to see Spears. Jules was saying that they’ll make their costs back in the first twenty weeks.”

That’s a lie, Durstein told himself, seething. Why, that rotten little picture cost well over a hundred thousand pounds! Jules always was a liar, and a thief. And an assassin. But still, he had knifed him but good out of the Four Swords in Hell project, and the thought warmed him nicely.

“Interesting,” he heard himself saying. He was still looking at Trina. He’d take her if he could get her cheap. But Billy can be a hard trader if he knows that one of his clients has a chance. Yes, she’d fit. But how much…

“Money,” he said aloud.

“What about it, Mr. Durstein?” Trina bubbled happily as though the word was a witty remark.

“Money’s the only thing that counts in the business. Money making films.” He smiled a false-toothed smile, patted her buttocks paternally, but Trina knew that it wasn’t really paternal. And Durstein kept his hand there, just too long, just enough to let her know that he was interested. How much, depended on her. “Maybe I can do something for you in my next picture. Of course, that depends.”

His eyes were quite cold and calculating. Trina looked at them and while her face smiled, her eyes told him, it also depends on how much.

Across the smoky room, Billy was talking to Jules and his eyes were on Jules, listening to his plans for his next film, how he might be able to up Trina’s money and sweeten the part a little. But Billy’s senses were concentrating on Durstein and Trina and he was watching them closely. As to Jules, well, Jules had served his purpose and he’d be damned if he let Trina play in another of Jules’s second features. Not for five thousand. Well, for ten, maybe. But the “Dolly” role was what he wanted for Trina. Yes, he told himself, that part she’d play like a house afire. And with a little of the Billy luck, he’d get the part for her.

He saw, with cynical amusement, Durstein’s hand on her buttocks and the linger of it. Good. Don’t have to show Trina any of the tricks. That bitch learned them with her mother’s milk. When Durstein wandered away, Billy excused himself from Jules.

He walked through the crowd of neophytes and hangers-on and out-of-work actors and actresses and protégés and columnists and newspapermen, and for each he had a crack and a smile—for those of any importance. When he got to Trina, she was sipping another martini.

“Go easy on the liquor,” he warned.

In an equally low voice Trina snapped back. “Go to hell! I can drink this slop until the cows come home. If I want to drink, I’ll have a drink.”

Billy was smiling, but inside he wasn’t. “How’d you get on with the Creep?” he asked, using Durstein’s nickname. It came from way back. Durstein’s first picture. The Zombie Creeps. Made a fortune.

“Fine.” She looked across the smoke and saw that Durstein was talking to one of the columnists. “He didn’t say anything except he ‘might do something for me in his next.’” She swallowed the martini quickly and took another from the waiter as he passed. She didn’t particularly want one, but she did it to annoy Billy. One of her great pleasures in life was baiting Billy, and he hated the smell of gin so she always drank gin.

Billy looked at her, bound to her by the great mutual hatred they had for one another. “Bathe in it for all I care.”

“On your money?”

Then they began to quarrel viciously. As only a husband and wife can quarrel in a crowded place. Quarrel so that no one knows that they are quarreling or feeling the fury facaded by exterior calm.

Billy cursed himself for marrying her. But it was the only way he could make her and the only way he could get her signed. His investment had paid off. Princess had started her soaring, and there was a good chance that Durstein would give her “Dolly.”

“I don’t know what I ever saw in you.” She sipped her gin, the sweet smile on her face. Boiling inside.

“That’s easy. You saw ‘career.’ You knew I was a star maker—”

“My ass. I got the job. I worked for it. In more ways than one. I’ve got the talent. All you did was introduce me.”

“Without me—”

“Hello, darling,” Trina purred as Winter Smith, another bosomed starlet and another possible for “Dolly” breasted the crowd. “You look tired. You’re lucky not to be working.”