Read Online All That Glitters by Thomas Tryon - Free Book Online Page A

Hollywood (his real name), an up-and-coming Broadway hotshot agent who said he had “plans” for me. These plans involved the person of Miss Babe Austrian. Lola having closed, she was going to tour a new play around the summerstock barns, and she was looking for someone to fill out her cast. Max turned me over to the tall, lantern-jawed young woman, Beata Saggiter, who had just begun as his assistant.
    Though it was only May, that week the temperature soared freakishly, day after day hovering in the high eighties. My appointment with the star was postponed twice, but finally Beata confirmed the date as locked in for Friday at 2:00 p.m. and said I should meet her at Sardi’s. I arrived in loafers, khaki slacks, and a navy polo shirt. “Jesus, Charlie,” Beata greeted me, “what’s this?”
    “What is what?” I countered.
    “You can’t go see Babe Austrian looking like Joe College. Don’t you own a dark suit?”
    Sure I had a suit. One. Blue serge. Hot.
    “Go put it on. I’ll wait,” Beata decreed. I hopped the subway down to the Village, pulled the suit out of the cold-storage bag, and was back at Sardi’s in forty-five minutes.
    “Jesus, Char lie,” Beata wailed, “what is that smell?”
    Mothballs.
    We cabbed up to Babe’s hotel. First we waited downstairs in the lobby, then in about an hour were allowed to head on up to the suite. It was big Sluggo McGurk who greeted us, and we sat around on the horsehair sofa for about ten hours, with only a drugstore fan and a pitcher of lukewarm “ice” water for cooling purposes. I was sweating bullets while we waited; I felt nervous, my mouth was dry, I drank the water, I sweated more. Finally Sluggo reappeared and told me to get up and follow him. “Not you,” he said to Beata, and preceded me into an adjoining room.
    In a large, tall-backed armchair sat Babe Austrian, looking me up and down as I trod in, wiping my brow. “Pleased ta meetcha,” she said as I approached the throne. She seemed a little nervous, even shy, as I gave my name.
    “Charlie, huh? I used to know a Charlie.” She rolled her eyes and ventured a tiny smile. “Charlie Peekoe. Smoked Cubano-Cubanas. Ran a numbers bag. Good guy, had a club foot, but he was a dancin’ fool. Sit down, honey, take a load off. How you been?”
    I said I’d been fine, exerting whatever charm I could muster, all of it damp.
    “Max says you’re gonna be a big star. Whaddya think? You want to be a star?”
    I guessed I’d like to, “if I could find the right parts.”
    “You look like you already got good parts,” she replied without missing a beat. Sluggo was standing by the window, staring out at the view. The room was hot and he was sweating the same way I was, but Babe sat there cool as a cucumber. The blue eyes again raked me tip to toe and she asked me how tall I was.
    I told her.
    “Umm. I like six-footers. And you probably have a couple extra inches to boot, hm?” She asked me to stand up and turn around; as I obliged her she made suggestive noises. “I suppose I could get you the right part if you could come up with the right parts for me. Whadda ya think?”
    Jesus.
    All the time she was sitting on that throne, vibrating —like an Oldsmobile warming up a bad battery. I thought the whole thing was some big put-on, but no, she was dead serious. She was still a sexy dame, I was a young stud to her, and it was play and pay all the way. This was no act, this was Babe.
    “You seem nervous,” she said. “Are you?”
    I blamed the heat and mopped my face with my soggy handkerchief. The suit weighed ninety pounds if an ounce.
    She was looking hard at me, I could tell. The long eyelashes went bat bat bat. “Haven’t we met someplace?”
    No, I lied, we hadn’t met. “I’d remember,” I said blithely. She studied me some more and I could tell I was bothering her. I was sure I wouldn’t get the job.
    “Say, Slug, how’s about catchin’ yourself a beer,” she told the gorilla by the window.