Rickert had warned me that I’d get no place, fast, on my own. And that’s exactly where I’d arrived. No place. You feel funny there, in no place. You feel as though you aren’t really alive, or have no right to be alive. So you take a couple of drinks and wait for tomorrow. You might be somewhere else, tomorrow. But you’re not. You wake up in the crummy apartment and you’re still no place. Mr. Nobody from nowhere.
But that’s your business, isn’t it? People haven’t got the right to stare at you and find it out. Damn it, there was nothing to be ashamed about. I knew what I was doing here. I had it all figured out, just how I was going to put it over. And then this little character had to come along and upset me!
I raised my eyes and looked at him. He wasn’t so much. Black suit, unusual for the West Coast, but nothing special about its cut. White shirt, quiet foulard tie. Flashy ring on little finger of left hand. Probably fake stone.
He saw what I was doing, of course. But his expression did not change. He stared. I stuck my chin out, folded my hands across my chest and stared back. It hurt a little. He refused to blink, and those two stones met my gaze. You can’t break stones with your fist. Constant dripping—
Sweat rolled down my forehead and I blinked first. But I wouldn’t turn my head. I stared at the bridge of his thick nose. Maybe if I thought of something else, it would help.
I thought about the trip out, thought about meeting Rickert for the first time, and the fast line of con he handed me, the buildup about what he would do for me. I thought about really getting a break, making the grade on a big show, wowing ’em. That would make my dumb brother wipe the sneer off his face for good. I’d wipe the sneer off all their faces, including this little puffy face in front of me.
But he kept staring. He knew. He knew I was a fake, he knew I was licked, that I’d never make it.
The hell he did! All imagination. Keep staring. He’ll break first.
I looked into his eyes. For the first time, the stones seemed to turn. His pupils were dilating. The lids crept back. The stones glittered. Diamonds. Diamond drills. Drills that bored.
Fakes. Like the diamond on his little finger. I wasn’t afraid. I stared.
All at once, his hand moved. Pudgy worms crawled into the handkerchief pocket of his coat. They emerged and carried something up to his left eye. It glittered. A monocle.
He fixed it into position without altering his line of vision. It hung there in the eye-socket and the eye behind it became huge. The distorted pupil glared at me. I thought that he looked like Erich von Stroheim. I thought that if I had to endure that wave of power beating into my brain, I’d get up and run. I thought—but I stared back.
And his mind told me something. Told me that I was really through, that it was no use, that I was washed up. I’d better get up and leave now. Yes, that’s what he told me, and he was right. I’d get up and—
“Mr. Rickert will see you now.”
I heard it somewhere in the distance. Then I was on my feet, stumbling through the inner office, walking down the hall to the big layout in back.
My head was splitting. Larry Rickert smiled at me across the desk.
“Sit down,” he said. “Good to see you, Eddie. Be with you in just a sec.”
He waved goodbye at me with his left hand and picked up a phone with his right. He began to talk, and a steady stream of conversation and cigar smoke drifted around the big red folds of his neck.
I lit my next-to-the-last cigarette. The headache was worse now. I tried to remember my canned speech, but I couldn’t. All I wanted to do was run away. When he finally hung up and turned to me again, I couldn’t even remember to smile.
“Now,” said Rickert, “what can I do for you, sweetheart?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know,” I told him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I came in here over two months ago, because your ads say you’re a good agent and that’s what I needed. You didn’t sign me up or anything like that. But you did manage to get over three hundred bucks out of me, for retainer fee and for photographs and audition records. What I want to know now is, when do I see a little action?”
He gave me the same grin he used for his advertising photos.
“Take it easy, Eddie. Relax.”
“I’ve been taking it easy, but I can’t relax. I want to know why you haven’t sold me or my show idea.”
Rickert stopped smiling. He leaned forward and waved the chewed end of his cigar at me. It dripped.
“Listen, son,” he said. “This isn’t Iowa. That package idea of yours—the Television Psychologist—may have sounded pretty good to you when you dreamed it up back there. And I was willing to give it a whirl. I sent out your audition discs to all the network reps. I’ve pitched you. But it’s just no dice.”
My headache was worse. Rickert’s face wavered in and out of focus as I answered him. “All right, drop the show idea. But remember, I’m still an announcer. I had a chance to get on in Des Moines, and I’m willing to start at the bottom here. There must be plenty of openings around town.”
“In manholes, yes.” Rickert lit a fresh cigar. It dripped nicely, too. “Look, sweetheart, here’s some free advice. Maybe you’re not ready for the big time yet. Why don’t you go back home, take that job? You won’t starve. So you’re out a couple of hundred on this deal—so what? Maybe you’ll click later on. Lots of these executives, they listen to the little stations. Who knows, maybe somebody will spot you and—”
“So I’m not ready for the big time yet, eh?” I stood up and tried to keep my balance in the rolling room. “All right, Mr. Rickert. Thanks for the analysis. But it’s a pity you didn’t tell me all this before I spent three hundred bucks with you—and two months of my life.”
“Hold on, now, sweetheart—”
I was holding on, hard. Even though my head was splitting, even though I wanted to kill somebody, I held on. I knew there was no use getting mad. He’d given me the answer. I was washed up.
“No hard feelings, Eddie,” said Rickert. “Go on home and think it over. Maybe something will still break. I’ll let you know.”
“Only if it’s your neck,” I told him. “This I’d love to hear about.” Then I stopped. “I—I really don’t mean that. Sorry, I’m not feeling too good.”
I went out and managed to wobble through the hall, back to the outer office. It was like walking under water, and the glass bricks wavered before my eyes.
The little man with the monocle was still sitting there. I swam past him. He looked up and started to open his mouth. Fat little fish, gulping air in the wavering water.
“Pardon me,” he said. Voice from far away. Sound under water.
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I opened the door and emerged upon the sunlit shore of the street.
He padded after me. “Please—” he murmured.
I shook him off. “Go away.” I knew that’s what my voice said, but I couldn’t control it. “Go away. Can’t you see I’m busy? I have to kill somebody.”
Rushing around the corner, rushing into the crowd, I wondered who it was I meant to kill.
All I knew was that it was going to happen soon.
The sunshine swept all around me, and so did the people. These people walking along the Strip were no better or no worse than those in any crowd, but right now I couldn’t stand their faces: those horrid, impersonal wooden masks which everyone wears in public.
I see those masks on people everywhere: walking down the street, waiting on the corner for cars or busses, standing in elevators, eating in restaurants. All of them trying to pretend they’re alone, all of them behaving like toys wound up to walk, ride, stand or eat.
I saw them now, the hideously animated dolls, and as I hurried along I turned my head away. I breathed deeply but I couldn’t stop trembling. What was wrong with me, anyhow?
I knew what was wrong. I had nowhere to go.
Stopping in a doorway, I lit the last cigarette, and when I threw the package away I was tossing Rickert and the photos and the recordings into the gutter. Everything was gone.
And where did I go from here? The cigarette teeter-tottered in my mouth as I searched my pockets. I found crumpled bills and some change. Four dollars and thirty-five cents. I’d better have something to eat, first.
Eat? I never eat on an empty stomach...
The thoughts kept spinning around, bruising my brain. Why had I ever come out here, anyway? I was just a hick, like all the other Iowa farmers who dream of the trip for years, save up for years, finally travel 2000 miles to
