without you.” He never said anything so sentimental, but he’d caught on that my feelings were hurt. He still babied me.
“Fuck you,” I said but I was happy again.
It seems incredible that only twenty-four hours later I was three thousand miles away, alone with Janelle, in bed, and listening to her life story.
One of the first things she told me was that she and Doran Rudd were old friends, had grown up in the same Southern town of Johnson City, Tennessee, together. And that finally they had become lovers and moved to California, where she became an actress and Doran Rudd an agent.
Chapter 30
When Janelle went to California with Doran Rudd, she had one problem. Her son. Only three years old and too young to cart around. She left him with her ex-husband. In California she lived with Doran. He promised her a start in movies and did get her a few small parts or thought he did. Actually he made the contacts, and Janelle’s charm and wit did the rest. During that time she remained faithful to him, but he obviously cheated with anyone in sight. Indeed, once he tried to talk her into going to bed with another man and him at the same time. She was repelled by the idea. Not because of any morality but because it was bad enough to feel used by one man as a sexual object and the thought of two men feasting off her body was repugnant to her. At that time, she said, she was too unsophisticated to realize that she would get a chance to watch the two men making love together. If she had, she might have considered it-just to see Doran get it up the ass, as he richly deserved.
She always believed the California climate was more responsible for what happened to her life than anything else. People there were weird, she said to Merlyn often, when telling him stories. And you could see she loved their being weird no matter how much damage they had done to her.
Doran was trying to get his foot in the door as a producer, trying to put a package together. He had bought a terrible script from an unknown writer, whose only virtue was that he agreed to take a net percentage instead of cash upfront. Doran persuaded a former big-time director to direct it and a washed-up male star to play the lead.
Of course, no studio would touch the project. It was one of those packages that sounded good to innocents. Doran was a terrific salesman and hunted outside money. One day he brought home a good prospect, a tall, shy, handsome man of about thirty-five. Very soft-spoken. No bullshitter. But he was an executive in a solid financial institution that dealt with investments. His name was Theodore Lieverman, and he fell in love with Janelle over the dinner table.
They dined in Chasen’s. Doran picked up the check and then left early for an appointment with his writer and director. They were working on the script, Doran said, frowning with concentration. Doran had given Janelle her instructions.
“This guy can get us a million dollars for the movie. Be nice to him. Remember you play the second female lead.”
That was Doran’s technique. He promised the second female lead so he could have some bargaining power. If Janelle became difficult, he would up the ante to the first female lead. Not that that meant anything. He would, if necessary, renege on both promises.
Janelle had no intention of being nice in Doran’s sense. But she was surprised to find that Theodore Lieverman was a very sweet guy. He didn’t make leering jokes about starlets. He didn’t come on to her. He was genuinely shy. And he was overcome by her beauty and her intelligence, which gave her a heady feeling of power. When he took her home to Doran’s and her apartment after dinner, she invited him in for a drink. Again he was the perfect gentleman. So Janelle liked him. She was always interested in people, found everybody fascinating. And she knew from Doran that Ted Lieverman would inherit twenty million dollars someday. What Doran had not told her was that he was married and had two children. Lieverman told her. Quite diffidently he said, “We’re separated. Our divorce is being held up because her lawyers are asking too much money.”
Janelle grinned, her infectious grin which always disarmed most men except Doran. “What’s too much money?”
Theodore Lieverman said, grimacing, “A million dollars. That’s OK. But she wants it in cash, and my lawyers feel this is the wrong time to liquidate.”
Janelle said laughingly, “Hell, you have twenty million. What’s the difference?”
For the first time Lieverman became really animated. “You don’t understand. Most people don’t. It’s true I’m worth about sixteen, maybe eighteen million, but my cash flow isn’t too good. You see, I own real estate and stocks and corporations, but you have to keep the money reinvesting. So I really have very little liquid capital. I wish I could spend money like Doran. And you know, Los Angeles is a terribly expensive place to live.”
Janelle realized she had met that familiar type in literature, the stingy millionaire. And since he was not witty, not charming, not sexually magnetic, since, in short, he had no bait except his sweetness and his money, which he made clear he didn’t part with easily, she got rid of him after the next drink. When Doran came home that night, he was angry.
“Goddamn, that could have been our meal ticket,” Doran told her. It was then she decided to leave him.
The next day she found a small apartment in Hollywood near the Paramount lot and on her own got a bit part in a movie. After her few days’ work was done, homesick for her child and Tennessee, she went back for a visit of two weeks. And that was all she could stand of Johnson City.
She debated bringing her son back with her, but that would be impossible, so she left him with her ex- husband again. She felt miserable leaving him, but she was determined to make some money and some sort of career before setting up a household.
Her ex-husband was still obviously smitten by her charm. Her looks were better, more sophisticated. She turned him on deliberately and then brushed him off when he tried to get her to bed. He left in an ugly mood. She was contemptuous of him. She had truly loved him, and he had betrayed her with another woman when she was pregnant. He had refused the milk from her breast that she had wanted him to share with the baby.
“Wait a minute,” Merlyn said. “Give me that again.”
“What?” Janelle said. She grinned. Merlyn waited.
“Oh, I had great tits when I had the baby. And I was fascinated by the milk. I wanted him to taste it. I told you about it once.”
When she filed for divorce, she refused to accept alimony out of sheer contempt.
When she got back to her apartment in Hollywood, she found two messages on her phone service. One from Doran and the other from Theodore Lieverman
She called Doran first and got him in. He was surprised that she had gone back to Johnson City but didn’t ask a single question about their mutual friends. He was too intent, as usual, on what was important to him.
“Listen,” he said. “That Ted Lieverman is really gone on you. I’m not kidding. He’s madly in love, not just after your ass. If you play your cards right, you can marry twenty million dollars. He’s been trying to get in touch with you and I gave him your number. Call him back. You can be a queen.”
“He’s married,” Janelle said.
“The divorce comes through next month,” Doran said. “I checked him out. Re’s a very straight square guy. He gets one taste of you in bed and you got him and his millions forever.” All this was off the top of his head. Janelle was just one of his cards.
“You’re disgusting,” Janelle said.
Doran was at his most charming. “Ah, honey, come on. Sure we split. Still, you are the best piece of ass I ever had in my life. Better than all those Hollywood broads. I miss you. Believe me, I understand why you split. But that doesn’t mean we can’t stay friends. I’m trying to help, you have to grow up. Give this guy a chance, that’s all I ask.”
“OK, I’ll call him,” Janelle said.
She had never been concerned about money in the sense that she wanted to be rich. But now she thought about what money could do. She could bring her son to live with her and have servants to take care of him when
