Sidney Sheldon - A Stranger in the Mirror

One minute later, Clifton Lawrence’s secretary called and said, “Mr. Lawrence is on his way over to see you, Mr. Temple.”

Clifton Lawrence was seated on Toby’s couch. “For God’s sake, Toby, you know I’m never too busy for you. I had no idea you would want to see me today, or I wouldn’t have made other appointments.”

Toby sat there staring at him, letting him sweat it out. Clifton cleared his throat and said, “Come on! You’re my favorite client. Didn’t you know that?”

And it was true , Clifton thought. I made him. He’s my creation. I’m enjoying his success as much as he is .

Toby smiled. “Am I really, Cliff?” He could see the tension easing out of the dapper little agent’s body. “I was beginning to wonder.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got so many clients that sometimes I think you don’t pay enough attention to me.”

“That’s not true. I spend more time—”

“I’d like you to handle just me, Cliff.”

Clifton smiled. “You’re joking.”

“No. I’m serious.” He watched the smile leave Clifton’s face. “I think I’m important enough to have my own agent—and when I say my own agent, I don’t mean someone who’s too busy for me because he has a dozen other people to take care of. It’s like a group fuck, Cliff. Somebody always gets left with a hard-on.”

Clifton studied him a moment, then said, “Fix us a drink.” While Toby went over to the bar, Clifton sat there, thinking. He knew what the real problem was, and it was not Toby’s ego, or his sense of importance.

It had to do with Toby’s loneliness. Toby was the loneliest man Clifton had ever known. Clifton had watched Toby buy women by the dozens and try to buy friends with lavish gifts. No one could ever pick up a check when Toby was around. Clifton once heard a musician say to Toby, “You don’t have to buy love, Toby. Everybody loves you, anyway.” Toby winked and said, “Why take a chance?”

The musician never worked on Toby’s show again.

Toby wanted all of everybody. He had a need, and the more he acquired the bigger his need grew.

Clifton had heard that Toby went to bed with as many as half a dozen girls at a time, trying to appease the hunger in him. But of course, it did not work. What Toby needed was one girl, and he had not found her. So he went on playing the numbers game.

He had a desperate need to have people around him all the time.

Loneliness. The only time it was not there was when Toby was in front of an audience, when he could hear the applause and feel the love. It was all really very simple , Clifton thought. When Toby was not on stage, he carried his audience with him. He was always surrounded by musicians and stooges and writers and showgirls and down-and-out comics, and everyone else he could gather into his orbit.

And now he wanted Clifton Lawrence. All of him.

Clifton handled a dozen clients, but their total income was not a great deal more than Toby’s income from night clubs, television and motion pictures, for the deals Clifton had been able to make for Toby were phenomenal. Nevertheless, Clifton did not make his decision on the basis of money. He made it because he loved Toby Temple, and Toby needed him. Just as he needed Toby. Clifton remembered how flat his life had been before Toby came into it. There had been no new challenges for years. He had been coasting on old successes. And he thought now of the electric excitement around Toby, the fun and the laughter and the deep camaraderie the two of them shared.

When Toby came back to Clifton and handed him his drink, Clifton raised his glass in a toast and said, “To the two of us, dear boy.”

It was the season of successes and fun and parties, and Toby was always “on.” People expected him to be funny. An actor could hide behind the words of Shakespeare or Shaw or Molière, and a singer could count on the help of Gershwin or Rodgers and Hart or Cole Porter. But a comedian was naked. His only weapon was his wit.

Toby Temple’s ad libs quickly became famous around Hollywood. At a party for the elderly founder of a studio, someone asked Toby, “Is he really ninety-one years old?”

Toby replied, “Yep. When he reaches one hundred, they’re going to split him two-for-one.”

At dinner one evening, a famous physician who took care of many of the stars told a long and labored joke to a group of comedians.

“Doc,” Toby pleaded, “don’t amuse us—save us!”

One day the studio was using lions in a movie, and as Toby saw them being trucked by, he yelled, “Christians—ten minutes!”

Toby’s practical jokes became legend. A Catholic friend of his went to the hospital for a minor operation. While he was recuperating, a beautiful young nun stopped by his bed. She stroked his forehead. “You feel nice and cool. Such soft skin.”

“Thank you, Sister.”

She leaned over him and began straightening his pillows, her breasts brushing against his face. In spite of himself, the poor man began to get an erection. As the Sister started to straighten the blankets, her hand brushed against him. He was in an agony of mortification.

“Good Lord,” the nun said. “What have we here?” And she pulled the covers back, revealing his rock-hard penis.

“I—I’m terribly sorry, Sister,” he stammered. “I—”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s a great cock,” the nun said, and began to go down on him.

It was six months before he learned that it was Toby who had sent the hooker in to him.

As Toby was stepping out of an elevator one day, he turned to a pompous network executive and said, “By the way, Will, how did you ever come out on that morals charge?” The elevator door closed and the executive was left with a half a dozen people eyeing him warily.

When it came time to negotiate a new contract, Toby arranged for a trained panther to be delivered to him at the studio. Toby opened Sam Winters’s office door while Sam was in the middle of a meeting.

“My agent wants to talk to you,” Toby said. He shoved the panther inside the office and closed the door.

When Toby told the story later, he said, “Three of the guys in that office almost had heart attacks. It took them a month to get the smell of panther piss out of that room.”

Toby had a staff of ten writers working for him, headed by O’Hanlon and Rainger. Toby complained constantly about the material his writers gave him. Once Toby made a whore a member of the writing team. When Toby learned that his writers were spending most of their time in the bedroom, he had to fire her. Another time, Toby brought an organ grinder and his monkey to a story conference. It was humiliating and demeaning, but O’Hanlon and Rainger and the other writers took it because Toby turned their material into pure gold. He was the best in the business.

Toby’s generosity was profligate. He gave his employees and his friends gold watches and cigarette lighters and complete wardrobes and trips to Europe. He carried an enormous amount of money with him and paid for everything in cash, including two Rolls-Royces. He was a soft touch. Every Friday a dozen hangers-on in the business would line up for a handout. Once Toby said to one of the regulars, “Hey, what are you doing here today? I just read in Variety that you got a job in a picture.” The man looked at Toby and said, “Hell, don’t I get two weeks’ notice?”

There were myriad stories about Toby, and nearly all of them were true. One day, during a story conference, a writer walked in late, an unforgivable sin. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he apologized. “My kid was run over by a car this morning.”

Toby looked at him and said, “Did you bring the jokes?”