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

Sluggo took the hint and sauntered into the other room. I wondered what Beata would do to him, or vice versa. Babe sat studying me some more.
    “Care for a cigarette?” I asked, taking out my pack.
    “I don’t smoke. It hurts muh voice. I’d prefer if you didn’t, either.”
    I pocketed the cigarettes. I was sure I’d shot myself down.
    “We got this show,” she said. “You ever heard of it? Sort of a little comedy. Some jokes. This guy wants to bring it in next fall. Nice little part for a young man. ’Bout your height. I like tall men, makes me look small, vulnerable, you know?”
    “Windy City?” I said, trying to sound savoir-fairish.
    “Huh?” she said.
    “‘The Windy City Blues’? I love that Windy City where the men are tall and brown in that oh-so-toddlin’ town’?”
    “Oh. Oh yeah. Heh heh.” That was her song, but my knowing a line didn’t win me any Brownie points so far as I could see. Finally I blurted out that actually she was right, we had met before. Oh? And where was that? On a train, I said. Which train? Super Chief. “Oh? Wonderful train. I take it all the time. I don’t like to fly,” she said. “This fortuneteller said I’d be killed in a plane crash. I always listen to my fortunetellers—you do that, too, you’ll live longer. How’d you say we met?” She drilled me with a look.
    Oh, I said weakly, it was just sort of in passing.
    She touched her hair. “Oh, en passant , so to speak.”
    “I told you then I wanted to be an actor.”
    “No kidding. Small world, isn’t it?” She was staring harder and I felt myself getting hotter. Goddamn air conditioning. Did she remember or didn’t she? I still couldn’t tell. “Yeah,” she said, looking me over again, “you’re tall all right. Dark, too.”
    She sort of rocked around in the chair before posing her next question. “Just how experienced are you?”
    I said I was in a show, that I’d done stock.
    “Stock, huh? Who’d you work with?”
    I mentioned two or three fading names—Ruth Chatterton, Kay Francis, Flossie Reed.
    “She must be ninety, Flossie. This dame who’s your agent. You and she an item?”
    I explained that Beata’s and my relationship was strictly professional.
    “Good. Keep it that way. She says you’re with Tallulah. But Tallulah’s closing. Could you get out of Tallulah and come with me?”
    Not too eager, but: “Sure. I think so. Yes. Very much. I’d like to work with you.”
    She vibrated a little more. “Umm. The feelin’s myutchul, I assure ya.” She touched the platinum scallops in several places.
    When she asked if I’d ever met a movie star before, I said I hadn’t, except Ozzie Nelson, whom I’d met with my Boy Scout patrol when we were taken to the theatre stage door—“in Hartford?” I ventured carefully. “The State Theatre?”
    “Oh yeah. I played the State. You’re too young to’ve seen me.”
    “I saw you.”
    “No kiddin’.” She seemed to come alive slightly. “You really saw me? Betcha don’t remember what I was wearin’.”
    I described her outfit as accurately as I could remember. She inspected her nails and rearranged several bracelets on her arm. “Hartfid, huh? Good town, Hartfid. They had a parade fuh me.”
    I agreed Hartford was okay.
    “Good place to be from, huh?” She laughed at her little joke.
    “Did you enjoy the parade?” I dared ask.
    “Yeah, why not? I rode with the Mayor. He was a screw. Kept puttin’ his hand on muh knee.”
    “I know.” She shot me a look. “I was there.”
    “You were where?”
    “On the running board.”
    “What were you doin’ on the runnin’ board?”
    “I wanted to see you. Close up.”
    “Didja? How’d I look?”
    “Great. You looked swell.” There was a beat while she looked at me and I looked at her. I wanted to look away, but could not do it. “I pinched you,” I confessed.
    “Get off my porch! How old?”
    “Twelve.”
    “Jeeze, you kids start early.”
    “Don’t you