ROBBINS Harold - The Carpetbaggers

She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "It's Parsons," she whispered quickly. "Bernie decided yesterday he wanted you to play the part of the stunt-rider. Louella's checking on the story."

"What's the matter?" Nevada asked dryly. ''Wouldn't MGM lend him Gable?"

"Don't be silly! Get on the phone."

"Hello, Louella."

The familiar, sticky-sweet voice chewed at his ear. "Congratulations, Nevada! I think it's just wonderful that you're to play opposite your lovely wife again!"

"Wait a minute, Louella." He laughed. "Not so fast. I’m not making the picture."

"You're not?" Another Parsons scoop was in the making. "Why?"

"I've already agreed to go out on the road with my Wild-West show," he said, "And that will keep me tied up for at least six months. While I'm away, Rina will look for another house for us. I think we'll both be more comfortable in a smaller place."

Her voice was businesslike now. "You're selling Hilltop?"

"Yes."

"To Thalberg?" she questioned. "I heard he was interested."

"I don't know," he said. "Several people have expressed interest."

"You'll let me know the moment you decide?"

"Of course."

"There's no trouble between you two?" she asked shrewdly.

"Louella!" He laughed. "You know better than that."

"I’m glad! You're both such nice people," she said. She hesitated a moment. "Keep in touch if there's any news."

"I will, Louella."

"Good luck to both of you!"

Nevada put down the telephone and looked across the table. He hadn't meant for it to come out this way, but there was nothing that could be done about it now.

Rina's face was white with anger. "You could have told me about it before you told the whole world!"

"Who had the chance?" he retorted, angry despite himself. "This is the first time we've talked in months. Besides, you might have told me about the picture."

"Bernie tried to get you all day yesterday but you never came to the phone."

"That's a lot of crap," he said. "I was home all day and he never called. Besides, I wouldn't have his handouts – or yours either, for that matter."

"Maybe if you took your nose out of that damn stable once in a while, you'd find out what was going on."

"I know what's going on," he said angrily. "You don't have to start acting like a movie star."

"Oh, what's the use?" she said bitterly. "What did you ever marry me for?"

"Or you me?" he asked, with equal bitterness.

As they stared at each other, the truth suddenly came to both of them. They had married because they both knew they had lost each other and wanted desperately to hold onto what was already gone. With the knowledge, the anger dissipated as quickly as it had come. "I'm sorry," he said.

She looked down at the coffeepot. "I am, too. I told you I was a spoiler, that I wouldn't be any good for you."

"Don't be silly," he said. "It wasn't your fault. It would have happened, anyway. The business is changing."

"I’m not talking about the business," Rina answered. "I'm talking about you and me. You should have married someone who could have given you a family. I've given you nothing."

"You can't take all the blame. We both tried in our own way but neither of us had what the other really needed. We just made a mistake, that's all."

"I won't be able to file for a divorce until after I finish this next picture," she said in a low voice. "It's all right with me if you want to file before then."

"No, I can wait," he said calmly.

She glanced up at the wall clock. "My God! I’m late!" she exclaimed. "I'll have to hurry."

At the door, she stopped and looked back at him. "Are you still my friend?"

He nodded his head slowly and returned her smile, but his voice was serious. "I’ll always be your friend."

She stood there for a moment and he could see the sudden rush of tears to her eyes, then she turned and ran from the room.

He walked over to the window, and lifting the curtain, looked out onto the front drive. He saw her come running from the house, saw the chauffeur close the door. The car disappeared down the hill on its way to the studio. He let the curtain fall back into place.

Rina never came back to the house. She stayed that night at Ilene's apartment. The next day, she moved into a hotel and three months later filed for divorce in Reno. The grounds were incompatibility.

And that, except for the legalities, was the way it ended.

David heard the violent slam of the door in his uncle's office. He got to his feet quickly and walked to the connecting door. He opened it and found his uncle Bernie seated in his chair, red faced and angry, gasping for breath. He was trying to shake some pills out of the inverted bottle in his hand.

David quickly filled a glass with water from the carafe on the desk and handed it to Norman. "What happened?"

Norman swallowed the two pills and put down the glass. He looked up at David. "Why didn't I go into the cloak-and-suit business with my brother, your uncle Louie?"

David knew no answer was expected, so he waited patiently until Norman continued. "Fifty, a hundred suits they make a day. Everything is calm, everything is quiet. At night, he goes home. He eats. He sleeps. No worries. No ulcers. No aggravations. That's the way a man should live. Easy. Not like a dog. Not like me."

David asked again, "What happened?"

"As if I haven't got enough troubles," Norman complained, "our stockholders say we're losing too much money. I run to New York to explain. The union threatens to strike the theaters. I sit down and work out a deal that at least they don't close the theaters. Then I get word from Europe that Hitler took over all our German properties, offices, theaters, everything! More than two million dollars the anti-semiten stole. Then I get a complaint from the underwriters and bankers, the pictures ain't got no prestige. So I buy the biggest, most artistic hit on Broadway. Sunspots the name of it is. It's so artistic, even I don't understand what it's all about.

"Now I'm stuck with an artistic bomb. I talk to all the directors in Hollywood about it. I'm not so dumb altogether that it don't take me long to find out they don't understand it neither, so I hire the director who did the play on the stage, Claude Dunbar, a faigele if I ever saw one. But fifty thousand he gets.

"A hundred and fifty I’m in already and no box office. So I call up Louie and say lend me Garbo. He laughs in my face. You ain't got enough money, he says. Besides, we got her in prestige of our own. Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill she's making. Good-by, I says and call up Jack Warner. How about Bette Davis? Wait a minute, he says. I sit on the phone ten minutes.

"The pisher thinks I don't know what he's doin'? He's calling his brother Harry in New York, that's what he's doin'. Here I am, sitting on long distance in New York with the charges running up by the minute and he's calling back his brother Harry, who is two blocks away from where I'm sitting. Hang up the phone, I feel like telling him. I can call your brother for only a nickel.

"Finally, Jack gets back on the phone to me ninety-five dollars later. You're lucky, he says. We ain't got her penciled in for nothing until September. You can have her for a hundred and fifty grand. For a hundred and fifty, don't do me no favors, I tell him. The most she's gettin' is thirty, thirty-five a picture, maybe not even that.

"How much you want to pay? he asks. Fifty, I says. Forget it, he says. O.K., then, seventy-five, I says. One and a quarter, he says. One even and it's a deal, I says. It's a deal, he says. I hang up the telephone. A hundred and thirty-five dollars the call costs me to talk two minutes.

"So I go back to Wall Street and tell the underwriters and bankers we now got prestige. This picture is goin' to be so artistic, we'll be lucky if we get anybody into the theater. They're very happy and congratulate me and I get on the train and come back to Hollywood."