Mario Puzo - Fools die

“When did that start?” I said, thinking it was because of my success with the book and my working in movies.

“Just now,” Artie said. “Just this second.”

I was instantly on the alert. “What does that mean exactly?” I said.

Artie thought it over. “You were never really happy,” he said. “You were always a grim son of a bitch. You never had any real friends. All you did was read books and write books. You couldn’t stand parties, or movies, or music, or anything. You couldn’t even stand it when our families had holiday dinners together. Jesus, you never even enjoyed your kids.”

I was shocked and hurt. It wasn’t true. Maybe I seemed that way, but it wasn’t really true. I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. If Artie thought of me this way, what did other people think? I had that familiar feeling of desolation.

“It’s not true,” I said.

Artie smiled at me. “Of course it’s not. I just mean that now you show things more to other people besides me. Valerie says you’re a hell of a lot easier to live with.”

Again I was stung. My wife must have complained all these years and I never knew it. She never reproached me. But at this moment I knew I had never really made her happy, not after the first few years of our marriage.

“Well, she’s happy now,” I said.

And Artie nodded. And I thought bow silly that was, that I had to be unfaithful to my wife to make her happy. And I realized suddenly that I loved Valerie more now than I ever had. That made me laugh. It was all very convenient, and it was in the textbooks I had been reading. Because as soon as I found myself in the classical unfaithful-husband position, I naturally started to read all the literature on it. “Valerie doesn’t mind my going out to California so much?” I asked.

Artie shrugged. “I think she likes it. You know I’m used to you, but you are a tough guy on the nerves.”

Again I was a little stunned, but I could never get mad at my brother.

“That’s good,” I said. “I’m leaving for California tomorrow to work on the movie again.”

Artie smiled. He understood what I was feeling. “As long as you keep coming back,” he said. “We can’t live without you.” He never said anything so sentimental, but he’d caught on that my feelings were hurt. He still babied me.

“Fuck you,” I said but I was happy again.

It seems incredible that only twenty-four hours later I was three thousand miles away, alone with Janelle, in bed, and listening to her life story.

One of the first things she told me was that she and Doran Rudd were old friends, had grown up in the same Southern town of Johnson City, Tennessee, together. And that finally they had become lovers and moved to California, where she became an actress and Doran Rudd an agent.

When Janelle went to California with Doran Rudd, she had one problem. Her son. Only three years old and too young to cart around. She left him with her ex-husband. In California she lived with Doran. He promised her a start in movies and did get her a few small parts or thought he did. Actually he made the contacts, and Janelle’s charm and wit did the rest. During that time she remained faithful to him, but he obviously cheated with anyone in sight. Indeed, once he tried to talk her into going to bed with another man and him at the same time. She was repelled by the idea. Not because of any morality but because it was bad enough to feel used by one man as a sexual object and the thought of two men feasting off her body was repugnant to her. At that time, she said, she was too unsophisticated to realize that she would get a chance to watch the two men making love together. If she had, she might have considered it-just to see Doran get it up the ass, as he richly deserved.

She always believed the California climate was more responsible for what happened to her life than anything else. People there were weird, she said to Merlyn often, when telling him stories. And you could see she loved their being weird no matter how much damage they had done to her.

Doran was trying to get his foot in the door as a producer, trying to put a package together. He had bought a terrible script from an unknown writer, whose only virtue was that he agreed to take a net percentage instead of cash upfront. Doran persuaded a former big-time director to direct it and a washed-up male star to play the lead.

Of course, no studio would touch the project. It was one of those packages that sounded good to innocents. Doran was a terrific salesman and hunted outside money. One day he brought home a good prospect, a tall, shy, handsome man of about thirty-five. Very soft-spoken. No bullshitter. But he was an executive in a solid financial institution that dealt with investments. His name was Theodore Lieverman, and he fell in love with Janelle over the dinner table.

They dined in Chasen’s. Doran picked up the check and then left early for an appointment with his writer and director. They were working on the script, Doran said, frowning with concentration. Doran had given Janelle her instructions.

“This guy can get us a million dollars for the movie. Be nice to him. Remember you play the second female lead.”

That was Doran’s technique. He promised the second female lead so he could have some bargaining power. If Janelle became difficult, he would up the ante to the first female lead. Not that that meant anything. He would, if necessary, renege on both promises.

Janelle had no intention of being nice in Doran’s sense. But she was surprised to find that Theodore Lieverman was a very sweet guy. He didn’t make leering jokes about starlets. He didn’t come on to her. He was genuinely shy. And he was overcome by her beauty and her intelligence, which gave her a heady feeling of power. When he took her home to Doran’s and her apartment after dinner, she invited him in for a drink. Again he was the perfect gentleman. So Janelle liked him. She was always interested in people, found everybody fascinating. And she knew from Doran that Ted Lieverman would inherit twenty million dollars someday. What Doran had not told her was that he was married and had two children. Lieverman told her. Quite diffidently he said, “We’re separated. Our divorce is being held up because her lawyers are asking too much money.”

Janelle grinned, her infectious grin which always disarmed most men except Doran. “What’s too much money?”

Theodore Lieverman said, grimacing, “A million dollars. That’s OK. But she wants it in cash, and my lawyers feel this is the wrong time to liquidate.”

Janelle said laughingly, “Hell, you have twenty million. What’s the difference?”

For the first time Lieverman became really animated. “You don’t understand. Most people don’t. It’s true I’m worth about sixteen, maybe eighteen million, but my cash flow isn’t too good. You see, I own real estate and stocks and corporations, but you have to keep the money reinvesting. So I really have very little liquid capital. I wish I could spend money like Doran. And you know, Los Angeles is a terribly expensive place to live.”

Janelle realized she had met that familiar type in literature, the stingy millionaire. And since he was not witty, not charming, not sexually magnetic, since, in short, he had no bait except his sweetness and his money, which he made clear he didn’t part with easily, she got rid of him after the next drink. When Doran came home that night, he was angry.

“Goddamn, that could have been our meal ticket,” Doran told her. It was then she decided to leave him.

The next day she found a small apartment in Hollywood near the Paramount lot and on her own got a bit part in a movie. After her few days’ work was done, homesick for her child and Tennessee, she went back for a visit of two weeks. And that was all she could stand of Johnson City.