pitch over-then, appalled, running. Ben looked away from the screen. The way he wanted it, not the way it had been.
“This is a woman’s picture?” Lasner said.
“The DA falls in love with her,” Bunny said, deadpan. “Well, here’s your little friend,” he said to Ben as the next clip appeared.
Ben looked back at the screen, but the terrace scene kept playing itself in his mind. Couldn’t it be possible? Not intentional, not someone coming up from behind. A woman, a love quarrel gone wrong. Two men struggling. Over what? It might even have gone the other way, Danny left standing with the appalled face. But it hadn’t.
On the screen, Julie Sherman was getting up from a piano and walking over to an older man in what looked like some variation of Intermezzo. She had been talking earlier, but Ben hadn’t been paying attention. Now her voice caught him, the same surprising modulation he’d noticed when they said hello. Nothing remarkable happened. She kissed the man, patting his arm, then walked across the room, turned, and said good-bye.
“Satin,” Bunny said. “Lou would dress his mother like a hooker.”
“Forget the dress,” Lasner said. “Sam likes her. He thinks he can do something with her.”
“She can’t move her arms.”
“So she can practice yanking his dick.”
“Sol,” Bunny said, then picked up the phone. “Any more dailies? Okay.” He looked down toward the directors. “We’re done here. Thanks. Rosemary looked great, Eddie.” He watched them leave, then turned to Lasner. “Sol,” he said, the rest unspoken.
“Sam’s girl-she looks good,” Lasner said stubbornly.
“She’s last year, somebody you could get into the sack before you ship out.”
“You’re an expert on this.”
“And now they’re coming back. What do they want? A quickie with a waitress or somebody you can bring home?”
“They want to fuck Loretta Young?”
“Sol, I’m serious. We don’t need her.”
“Sam Pilcer’s been with me a long time,” Lasner said quietly, a little embarrassed. “He doesn’t ask much.”
“So let him slip her a fifty every time.”
“We can always use a girl.”
“Fox dropped her.”
“Zanuck doesn’t see it. It wouldn’t be the first time. Lou doesn’t see it, either-he keeps saying she can sing. We could get her for a hundred a week with steps, and he’d be grateful.”
“Not as grateful as Sam,” Bunny said.
Lasner turned to Ben. “What do you think? You’re a guy off the boat. She look good to you?”
“Everybody looks good to me.” He glanced at Bunny, an offering. “She has a nice voice.”
“You want to sign her for her voice?”
“Try a shorter option,” Ben said, the thought too sudden to be filtered. “You don’t have to pick it up.”
Bunny looked at him, surprised, then waited for Lasner’s reaction.
“It never lasts long with Sam,” Lasner said finally, staring at Ben. He turned to Bunny. “Tell Lou you like her voice,” he said, amused now.
“Start her with a voice-over,” Bunny said, thinking. “If we had any.” He looked at Ben. “You could request her. For your picture.”
Ben nodded. An easy chance to make an ally.
“That picture? What voice-over?”
“One of the victims,” Bunny said. “The voice-over tells her story.”
Lasner stared at him for a second, then snorted. “You’re going to tell Lou you want her to play a dead Jew? Let me know what he says.” He stood up, shaking his head. “That’s some pair of balls you got on you,” he said to Bunny, heading for the door.
Bunny picked up a clipboard. “Good night, Pete,” he yelled to the projectionist, then turned to Ben. “Clever you,” he said, his voice without edge, as if he were trying to decide how he felt.
“If it works.”
“With Lou? He’ll grab it. It gets his foot in the door.” He sighed. “My new best friend,” he said, then looked up. “It’s hard for Sol to say no to Sam. They go back.” He hesitated. “You don’t have to use her. If she’s not right for the picture.”
“I can find something. Maybe buy myself a favor.”
“I wonder what that could be.”
Ben looked at him. It wouldn’t be Ruth Harris, not even worth safety shots anymore. “You do any favors for Rosemary?”
“My whole life is doing favors for Rosemary,” Bunny said. “Did you have a particular one in mind?”
His tone, a pretend innocence, drew a line, his eyes daring Ben to cross it. But what would be the point? Ben answered by saying nothing, a kind of standoff.
“I hope you’re not still going on about people making calls. You don’t want to be a nuisance.” He paused. “Rosemary’s been seeing Ty Power, since he got out of the Marines. She’s been photographed seeing him. They make an attractive couple. She’s going to keep seeing him. Until her picture comes out.”
“A one-man woman.”
Bunny tucked the clipboard under his arm and turned to the door, then stopped, looking back over his shoulder. “Why Rosemary?”
“She’s Danny’s type.”
“Oh,” Bunny said, his voice sliding an octave. “And here I thought you were just guessing.”
“And she’s important to the studio.”
“Everybody’s important. Until they’re not.” He turned fully, facing Ben. “Look, I don’t know where you think you’re going with this, but if I were you, I’d park it outside the gate. You don’t want to be bothering people. Mr. L likes to keep things running. Anything interferes with production- Right now he likes you. He gets these little enthusiasms. You could have a future here. But he can blow hot and cold. You should know that. It’s a studio. People come and go all the time.”
“Except you.”
Bunny nodded. “I keep things running.”
S HE WAS in the pool when he got home. He followed the faint sounds of splashes through the quiet house and out onto the terrace, stopping for a second by the lemon tree near the door. Only the pool lights were on, a grotto effect, with blue light rising up, not spilling down, and he saw that she was naked, her body gliding through the water with a mermaid’s freedom, alone in her own watery world. He knew he should make a sound but instead stood watching her, the smooth legs, the private dark patch in between when they opened out. When she became aware of him, a shadow at the end of the pool, she swam toward him without embarrassment, faintly amused at his own.
“I thought I was alone,” she said smiling, glancing toward the crumpled bathing suit on the edge of the pool.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean-” Still looking, only her head above water, but the rest of her clear in the pool lights.
“That’s all right. I was getting out anyway.” She reached for a towel, more of her out of the water now, her nipples hardening a little as the air touched them. “Quiet as a mouse.”
She looked at him, still amused, then began to climb the shallow end steps so that he finally had to turn away, a show of modesty. Behind him he could hear the towel rubbing, another rustling as she put on a robe, watching her now by sound.
“Have a drink.” She moved to the open wine bottle on the table, tying her belt. “Iris left something in the fridge, if you’re hungry. I didn’t know-”
“I should have called.”
“No, don’t feel that. Come and go as you like.” She poured out two glasses from what he saw was an almost empty bottle. “Did you have a good day?” she said, handing him one.
