Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"Where's the money for all this coming from?" Glenda asked.

"We can get it," said Stefano simply.

"I suppose I shouldn't ask where the money will come from?"

"Does it make a difference?" Stefano asked.

"Does it, Sam?" she asked.

Sam Stein shook his head. "Not to me it doesn't. This deal can be a great career boost for you, Glenda. And it gets the Cord family off our backs forever."

"Deal, then," said Glenda.

"Tittle Tattle" was a syndicated column, originating in Hollywood and written when she was sober enough to do it by a onetime bit player named Lorena Pastor. The column was syndicated in sixty-eight newspapers, thanks partly to heavy promotion by the syndicate, thanks also to Lorena's formidable reputation that persuaded people to confide in her. Gossip was her stock in trade, but it was also understood in the movie community that mention in "Tittle Tattle" often goosed new life into fading careers or into lusterless pictures.

— ("Don't be surprised if you hear about a bust-up between La Crawford and her current. Her latest ex, save one, has been seen leaving in the golden light of dawn, and we hear that an old fire is hot again. After all, old flames often burn hottest.")

— ("The town is ga-ga about Dan Armstrong's stellar acting in The Condemned . This little-heralded flick is a sure-fire winner. And don't forget — nobody else has been telling you.")

Lorena had the facial complexion of an Indian elephant: a tangle of wrinkles that lotions would not soften, sanding could not remove. She could only try to distract attention from it by wearing exaggerated lipstick and mascara, all obscured by veils that hung from her hats. She affected also an air of giddy ebullience: grinning widely, fluttering her hands, dancing about on her feet as if she were a girl of twenty, not a woman of seventy. Privately, people in the movie industry called her a viper, a harridan, and a lush.

Her usual turf was a table at the Brown Derby or another restaurant or watering hole, but this noon she ate a box lunch in the office of her publisher, Walter Richard Hamilton, Junior. He had accommodated her known penchant by providing her a pint of Beefeater gin, a bucket of ice cubes, and half a lime.

"I've got a story for you, Lorena," he said.

"Let's hope it's true , Walt," she said. "You know my policy — only to publish what can be— "

"Right, Lorena. Dad respected you for that. So do I. I can assure you this story is true."

"Well, tell me then!"

"Okay. You know the cute little dancer — ballerina-type dancer — who plays the teenage daughter on the Glenda Grayson Show? Margit Little? Okay. She sleeps with Jonas Cord."

"Oh, my dear! So did I once — when I was twenty-five years younger. How many women in America haven't— "

"Lorena. I want you to run the story. Not only that, I want you to give it big play."

She lifted the glass into which she had poured gin over ice and squeezed lime juice. "Of course, dear Walt! Don't forget, though, the man is a menace! You aren't ordering me to buy us a libel suit?"

"Let me worry about that," said Hamilton.

"You're the boss," she said simply.

"Here's the story. Her agent Sam Stein warned the girl not to go to Cord's hotel suite alone. She did anyway. She was supposed to call him when she got home. She called the next day. Sam's had her watched. When Cord is in town, she is not home nights."

"Sam's pissed," said Lorena Pastor. "You know he lost Margit Little as a client. To Ben Parrish. He might be— "

"Don't worry about it," said Hamilton. "I want you to play it. I'll run pictures with the column — sick old man and fresh young girl. That's the theme: old lecher taking the bloom of youth off pretty little dancer."

"Jonas Cord an old letch?" She shook her head. "I was in my forties. He was in his late twenties. Not a letch, Walt — a stud! "

"Write the story my way, Lorena," said Hamilton firmly. "Either that, or I'll write it and insert it in your column."

"Understood," she said sadly.

"Okay. Drink up. You see, your onetime friend Mr. Cord has run his ass up against some people who aren't afraid of him."

An hour later Hamilton was on the telephone to Detroit. "Done, my friend," he said. "No, I didn't have to; she'll write it herself, in her own inimitable style. Sixty-eight papers, Jimmy! Plus others that'll pick up the story as news. Sunday in thirty-five papers, Monday in the rest. This time next week every other American will know that Jonas Cord is screwing Margit Little. So— We got a deal, right? Your local will sign the contract. Right. Right. Sure, I know it's peanuts to what your pension fund is putting into the new Glenda Grayson. But you can understand a man's interest in— Right. Your word's good. I know that. So's mine. Look for the story on Sunday."

JONAS HAD RECONSIDERED HIS DECISION ABOUT A BEARD. It was gray, no question about that, but he had retained not just a barber but a hair stylist to trim it, and the man came to the suite twice a week to clip both beard and hair. With a straight razor he cut the hair low on Jonas's cheeks, to give him a beard and chin whiskers reminiscent of Abraham Lincoln's in the final Brady photograph — which indeed he acknowledged was his model. Unlike Lincoln, though, Jonas wore a mustache, which was the most difficult part of the trimming job.

Lest the beard seem to have turned him into some sort of bohemian character, Jonas returned to wearing jackets, white shirts, and neckties. A tailor came to the suite and measured him for half a dozen conservative single-breasted business suits. He abandoned the rumpled khaki slacks and golf shirts.

In April he flew to New York. In the Waldorf Towers apartment he did not reclaim his office but left it to Bat. Father and son met for lunch at The Four Seasons.

"I can break the bitch," Jonas said.

"No, you can't," said Bat. "She doesn't need us. Besides, she's got money behind her. She can walk away from us— "

"And shoot us a finger," Jonas interrupted. "How'd you think you were going to prevent her from doing that? By humpin' her? Well, it didn't work, did it?"

"That doesn't work very often, does it?" Bat challenged. "You haven't made it work any better than I have. You think you've sewed up Margit Little's loyalty by — to use your term — humping her? "

"Margit— "

"The Margit Little Show will not replace the Glenda Grayson Show ," Bat interrupted. "Not in ratings, not in revenue. Hell, she's got talent, she's appealing, and in time she'll be a winner. But next season we don't have a major show."

"Are you telling me I fucked it up?" Jonas asked irritably.

"I'm not saying it. You say it, if you think it's possible."

"You humped our star, then dropped her," said Jonas.

"You're humping Margit," said Bat grimly. "That's the problem. You started humping Margit, then you announced you were going to build a new show around her, and when Glenda asked for more money, you said no. What'd you think she'd do?"

"Son," Jonas murmured with mock patience, "Glenda didn't go off the reservation because I'm humping Margit and am going to make a new star of her. She'd have gone off, no matter what. Two days , just two goddamned days, after we broke off negotiations, she announced her nightclub schedule. She and Sam Stein didn't arrange that in two days. That took time to set up. When they came in to negotiate, they already knew she was going to do nightclubs all next season. Face it, Bat. The bitch sold out."

Bat drew a deep breath. "Margit is damaged goods," he said. "When the word got out that you were sleeping with her, the whole goddamned world took that as an explanation as to why you wanted to build a show for her."