Ed Lacy - The Best That Ever Did It

After prison life the army was a snap for Lund, although the army didn't know exactly what to do with an actor. He was sent to a motion unit at Wright Field which was soon disbanded. Then Lund was assigned to special services and spent several months taking tickets at a Topeka air base theater. From there he was sent to England where he did guard duty, permanent K.P., and drove a truck. Lund spent some time with a touring G.I. show, asked to be made an aerial gunner and was turned down for some unknown reason.

Toward the end of the war Sam was working behind a PX counter at a bomber base in France. It was easy to smuggle out a few cartons of cigarettes now and then and he began doing some minor black-marketing. However, when the war in Europe was over and the bomber outfits were being rushed back to the States, on their way to the Pacific, the bookkeeping was snafued in the general confusion and Lund sold cigarette cartons by the case. At his trial Lund admitted once selling an entire truckload of supplies, working with the driver and another soldier. Lund was fast becoming an “operator.”

There wasn't anything waiting for him in the States, so Sam signed up for the army of occupation, went to Germany. Here he put on camp shows and engaged in various “deals.”

The new soldiers arriving in Germany were mostly kids, [Lund stated], all of them eighteen or nineteen years old. They thought it was a big deal to sleep with a Fraulein for a pack of butts. Me, I was now an “old army man.” I didn't bother much with those kids. I put on a lot of corny shows—any blue line or raw joke had them in the aisles with laughter. I had plenty of time to look around. There were plenty of things worth looking into in Germany then, the black market was amazing, wide open, everybody was hustling. It was sensational.

He worked his angles carefully and when he suspected things were getting too warm, Staff Sergeant Sam Lund took his discharge in 1950 and headed for Paris. He had a new Dodge car, five thousand dollars in cash, and some jewelry said to be worth fifteen thousand dollars and which he was only able to sell for nineteen hundred dollars. Sam also had three cans of film he had stumbled upon in a bombed film office in Bavaria. He had vague plans about using the reels as the core of a full-length adventure picture about an OSS man parachuted into Germany during the war—the main role to be played by Sam Lund, of course. He felt this would not only make money but establish him as an international actor.

During his first week in Paris Sam stopped at the George V Hotel, went to Maxim's, the Lido, and Monseigneur nightly-only to find at the end of the week that he had spent eight hundred dollars. He quietly moved to a small hotel in the Pigalle section, where he met Gabby.

Gabby was twenty-two, small and trim, with a cute face and a jutting bosom. She was a movie actress, but her only roles were those of an artist's model, a native girl, or any brief part featuring nude breasts. She thought Sam the greatest man in the world: he was handsome and tall, considerate of her, and he had money and an American car. Sam liked her because she worshiped him and because she was a part of the French movie crowd. Only, as he soon found out, acting jobs were few and the unions strong, and it was impossible for him to get a work card—a role—although as a result of living with Gabby he soon spoke French like a native.

One evening, after he had been in Paris four months, Gabby introduced to him another American, a quiet-spoken fellow named Martin Pearson, and his horse-faced girl, Therese. Sam was suspicious of Martin, couldn't see the percentage in letting anybody else in on the picture deal. But Martin was helpful. When Sam told him, “My ninety-day tourist stay is running out and I'm having trouble getting a carte d'identite. How have you worked it all these years?”

Martin told him, “Go to a school, under the G.I. Bill, then you'll get a student identity card. Be careful with this identity-card business. You may think the French police are slow, but they're good and they're sharp.”

Lund became a student and in time became rather friendly with Pearson, although he still wouldn't let him in on his picture idea. Sam became a student in more ways than one—he learned there are angle men in every country and it's difficult for a foreigner to outsmart the native talent.

He lost five hundred dollars as the “manager” of a French boxer. After Sam had purchased a complete gym outfit for the pug, fed and housed him while the fighter got back into shape, he learned that a manager had to be a member of the French Federation of Boxers—which didn't admit foreigners. Then he paid six hundred and fifty American dollars under the table for the rent of a large house on the outskirts of Paris, only to find when he tried to move in that he hadn't paid the money to the owner; no one seemed to know exactly who Sam had dealt with.

He was swindled out of a thousand dollars in a black-market money deal—they slipped him counterfeit francs, and another American touted him out of several hundred dollars at the race track. But Paris was Paris and Sam was enjoying himself. In the summer of '52 he and Gabby, with Martin and Therese, drove down to Nice for an August vacation.

The main thing Sam disliked about Martin was the man's tightness with a franc—Pearson always let somebody else pick up the tab. In Nice when Sam wanted to play big shot and stop at the swank Negresco Hotel, Martin and Therese found a cheap pension in the center of town. At the casino Sam dropped a hundred and fifty dollars while Martin never gambled a franc.

One day as they were sunning themselves on the beach, the girls wanted ice cream. Martin didn't reach for his wallet. Sam gave Gabby a five hundred franc note and when the girls left, he asked, “The francs glued to your mitt, Marty? You never even offer to share the gas for my car.”

“How much of your original bundle have you left, Sam?”

“What the hell business is that of yours?”

“Stop acting, Sam, how much?”

“About three grand. I hear you have something in your mattress, too.”

“I have over six thousand,” Martin said softly. “Sam, before you throw away the rest of your money, let's make that picture. We've already wasted two years. I'm off the G.I. Bill, need a source of income if I want to get my identity card, stay here. Therese and I have formed a picture company—in her name. I can trust her.”

“And where do I come in?”

“You invest your three thousand and those reels of Nazi film. I'll put up six grand. I figure we can shoot most of the picture outdoors, around here, within the next two months. I've talked to a Paris writer who is willing to do the story and screenplay for a percentage. I'll help with the camera, Therese will cut and edit, you and Gabby will be the main actors. We won't have to hire too many people.”

“About got everything figured, haven't you?”

“I think I have. Sam, I know you can sell the reels to one of the picture companies for about a thousand dollars, although Hitler is kind of old hat now. But you'll spend that and in a few years from now where will you be? Either back in the States grubbing for a job, or just another broke American in Paris. If you're serious about living here, about being an actor, let's get started.”

“I'll think about it.”

“Think all you want, Sam. Only remember the war is over— and so is the gravy train.”

The next morning they all sat down in Sam's room and formed a partnership—in Therese's name with Gabby as treasurer, and Sam and Martin owning one-tenth of the company, as allowed by French law. They called in a lawyer to draw up the papers and Sam sent for champagne, but Martin said vin ordinaire would do. Sam got a little high on wine and decided it was time to try his luck at the casino. Martin told him to save his money.