Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

He bent down and kissed her forehead. "If it helps you at all, any way at all, then tell me ," he said.

"Are you going to stay with me tonight?" she asked abruptly.

Bat nodded. He was surprised but was not going to pass up the opportunity.

"You don't know what you're getting into," she said. "Glenda falls in love. Glenda makes a fool of herself."

"So do I," he said.

She stood and began taking off her clothes. Besides the blouse and skirt she was wearing a bra and panties, garter belt and stockings. In a minute she was naked. She had a beautiful body, oddly white as if she never exposed it to the sun. She had no swimsuit marks. The contrast between her bright pink nipples and the white skin of her breasts was fascinating.

"C'mon, baby," she said. "I wanta see you, too."

Glenda grew visibly excited as Bat stripped. She winced when she saw the bullet-wound scar on his chest, but her eyes stayed on it only an instant before they dropped to his loins as he pulled down his shorts.

"Oh, marvelous!" she whispered. "Not mutilated. Not circumcised. My uncle is a mohel. He cuts little boys. I hate it. Bring it to me, Bat! Oh, God, I want it!"

She dropped to the floor, rolled on her back, and spread her legs for him. She brought to lovemaking the same energy and frenzy she brought to performing on stage, and she ascended to levels of rapture he had never seen a woman attain before. They coupled twice on the floor before she would consent to interrupt long enough for him to carry her to the bedroom and put her down on the bed. No other woman had ever exhausted him, but when finally Glenda Grayson grew heavy-lidded and soft of voice he was glad.

"C'n we put it in the contract that you'll give me nights like this at least three times a week?" she asked.

"I'm not sure I could handle it," said Bat.

"What an admission!" She laughed. They were her last words before she fell asleep.

A week later Jonas arrived in Las Vegas, flown in from the airstrip at Cord Explosives. Bat met him at the airport.

"What's this crap about making a television show?" Jonas asked as soon as they were on the road.

"I've got a good idea," said Bat.

"Yeah? Well, when did I say I want to make a television show? I suppose you mean to use my money?"

"It's a business proposition," said Bat. "A good business proposition. One we're going to need."

"Need?"

"We're beginning to lose money on the manufacture of television sets," said Bat. "The little makers are going to be squeezed out. That's why I think we should go into producing."

"Why should we be squeezed out?" Jonas asked. "The Cord sets are quality."

"Research and development costs are going to go out of sight," said Bat. "Are you aware of this thing called the transistor that they developed at Bell Labs? In a few years, the only tube in a television set will be the picture tube."

"What good will that do?" asked Jonas. "Sure, they've got pocket radios, which is all very well and good, but a TV set has to be big enough for its picture tube."

"How often does a Cord set have to be serviced?" Bat asked. "Servicing television sets is a minor industry. Day or night, somebody will come in a little truck and fix your TV. And what are they fixing? Tubes. Ninety-nine percent of all service calls are tube-replacement calls. Tubes fail."

"Transistors don't?"

"Occasionally. But not regularly, like tubes. And they're cheaper, too. I've read some technical papers on this. In a few years tube sets will not be competitive. Not only that, the sets of the future will receive color broadcasts. Aside from that, the Japanese are coming in. Ever hear of a company called Sony?"

"I've heard of Sony. You paint a goddamned gloomy picture, for a guy just now sticking his toes in the water."

"Not gloomy. Television will be bigger than ever. That's why I recommend we go into the production of shows — and maybe get out of the production of sets."

"So you got this broad you want to use as a star. What you think she can do?"

"A combination situation comedy and variety show," said Bat. "She's a performer more than an actress: a singer, dancer, and comedienne. But she can act, particularly comic acting. The situation comedy would be based on the idea that Glenda has a weekly television variety hour, featuring herself as principal performer. But we show her at home, too, with a husband and children; and we show in a comic way the difficulties she has combining the roles of wife and mother and performer."

"That's a cliché," Jonas observed.

"Name a successful television show that isn't. They're all cliché-ridden, and they're all predictable. Originality is poison on TV. Let's say we open each show with Glenda singing a song, then do the situation comedy, and close with a production number. I think it'll work."

"It'll work if somebody, namely me, puts in a pisspot full of money."

"Not all that much. We can build the New York apartment into one soundstage, the theater where she does the variety show into another. We don't have to do any location shooting. Talent costs will be reasonably high. We've got one young little dancer I want to use on the show. She's a newcomer, so she'll be cheap. Her name is Margit Little. She's going to be a star one day, and we'll have her under contract."

Jonas sighed heavily. "You're way outa line. When did I tell you to get me into a new business?" Jonas asked.

"If all you want me for is to run errands for businesses you've already got going, then take my resignation," said Bat. "Your father checked out and left you to run things your way. You put Cord Explosives into businesses he would never have approved of: airplanes, movies. Or maybe he would have approved, when he saw the money they could make. I don't think you'd have stayed with him if all he'd let you do is make dynamite. You — "

"You assume a lot," Jonas snapped.

"All right, forget what I assume about you and my grandfather. I'm telling you I won't stick if I'm shot down every time I come up with an idea. Even you can't turn me into an errand boy. Capisce ?"

Jonas raised his chin high. "I'd have more confidence in your judgment if you weren't screwin' this woman you want to make your star."

"What do you want, a virgin?"

"Uhmmm," muttered Jonas nodding. "She a good piece?"

"Fantastic."

"Maybe I should give her a try."

Bat shook his head. "She isn't a whore we can pass back and forth."

"Will she do a nude audition?"

"She's a star," said Bat. "Already. Without us."

"Shit."

Glenda squeezed Bat's hand when he opened the door and admitted her to the suite. She let his father see no other sign of her affection.

She had dressed for this meeting with the redoubtable Jonas Cord: in a tight black knit dress that looked modest enough but strikingly displayed her figure.

"Bat has told me what kind of show he proposes you do," said Jonas. "I assume you know what you're doing. Miss Grayson. I assume Bat will hire people who know what they're doing. It seems to me, though, that you're taking on a damned heavy burden by trying to do this show every week — or by trying to do thirty-nine of them a season. Bat hasn't had any experience in show business, but I have, and I think it's too much. If I'm funding this deal, I want to do it every other week — twenty shows a season, not thirty-nine. Apart from saving you from burning yourself out, that'll make it possible to build a little more quality into each show."

"I think that's a good suggestion, Mr. Cord," said Glenda.

"I haven't accepted the idea, you understand," said Jonas. "Bat's still working at selling me."

"Yes, I understand," she said.