fortune with that voice of yours. All you want is a cure.’
‘You’re kidding yourself,’ she said, jerking free. ‘I’ve had a cure. It doesn’t work. How about something to eat?’
‘Dr. Klinzi could fix you. Maybe Shirely would advance the money when he hears the recording.’
‘Maybe I’ll grow wings and fly away. No one is going to lend us that kind of money.’
Around three o’clock that afternoon, I borrowed Rusty’s car and drove over to Hollywood. I had the tape in my pocket and I was really worked up.
I knew it would be fatal to tell Shirely that Rima was a junky. I felt sure, if he knew, he wouldn’t touch her.
Somehow I had to persuade him to part with a five thousand dollar advance. I had no idea how I was going to do it. Everything depended on how he reacted to the tape. If he was really enthusiastic, then I might get him to part with the money.
The Californian Recording Company was housed within a stone’s throw of the M.G.M. Studios. It was a two-storey building that covered practically an acre of ground. There was the usual reception office outside the gates with two tough-looking, uniformed guards to take care of the unwelcomed visitors.
It was when I saw the size of the place, I realised what I was up against. This was big-time, and I had an abrupt loss of confidence. I was suddenly aware of my shabby suit and my scruffy shoes.
One of the guards moved forward as I came up. He looked me over, decided I was of no importance and asked in a rough-tough voice what I wanted.
I said I wanted to talk to Mr. Shirely.
That seemed to kill him.
‘So do twenty mil ion others. You got a appointment?’
‘No.’
‘Then you don’t see him.’
This was the moment for a bluff. I was desperate enough to swear my father had been a negro.
‘Well, okay. I’ll tel him how efficient you are,’ I said. ‘He told me to look in when I was passing, but if you won’t let me in, that’s his loss, not mine.’
He did a quick double-take.
‘He said that?’
‘Why not? He and my father were at col ege together.’
He lost his aggressive look.
‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Jeff Gordon.’
‘Just hang on a moment.’
He went into the reception office and talked on the telephone. He came out after a while, unlocked the gates and waved me in.
‘Ask for Miss Weseen.’
At least that was one step forward.
Dry mouthed and with my heart thumping, I walked up the drive to the imposing entrance hall where a boy in a sky blue uniform and brass buttons that glittered like diamonds, conducted me along a corridor lined on either side by polished mahogany doors to a door marked with a brass plate:
The boy opened the door and waved me in.
I walked into a large room decorated in dove grey where about fifteen people sat around in lounging chairs looking like the legion of the lost.
I had no time to concentrate on them before I found myself staring into emerald green eyes that were as hard as glass and just as expressionless.
The owner of the eyes was a girl of about twenty four, a red-head with a Munro bust, a Bardot hip line and an expression that would have frozen an Eskimo.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr. Shirely, please.’
She patted her hair and regarded me as if I were something out of a zoo.
‘Mr. Shirely never sees anyone. Mr. Knight is engaged. Al these people are waiting for him.’ She waved a languid hand at the lost legion. ‘If you will give me your name and tel me your business I’l try to fit you in at the end of the week.’
I could see the lie I had told the guard wouldn’t cut any ice with her. She was smart, wise and lie- proof.
If I couldn’t bluff her I was fixed.
I said carelessly, ‘A week? Too late. If Knight can’t see me right now, he’s going to lose money and Mr. Shirely will be annoyed with him.’
Feeble stuff, but it was the best I could do.
At least everyone in the room was listening, leaning forward and pointing like gundogs.
If they were impressed, Miss Weseen wasn’t. She gave me a small, bored smile.
‘Perhaps you would write in. If Mr. Knight is interested he’ll let you know.’
At that moment the door opened behind her and a fat man, balding, nudging forty, in a fawn coloured seersucker suit, looked around the room with a hostile air and said, ‘Next,’ the way a dentist’s nurse calls to the flock.
I was right by him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tall youth with Elvis Presley sideboards drag himself out of an armchair, clutching a guitar, but he was much too late.
I walked forward, driving the fat man back into his office, giving him a wide, confident smile.
‘Hello, there, Mr. Knight,’ I said. ‘I have something for you to listen to, and when you’ve heard it, you’ll want Mr. Shirely to hear it too.’
By then I was inside the room and had shut the door with my heel.
On his desk was a tape recorder. Moving around him, I put the tape on the machine and turned the machine on.
‘This is something you’ll be glad to listen to,’ I said, talking hard, and fast. ‘Of course, it isn’t going to sound so hot on a machine like this, but hear it on an electrostatic speaker and you’l hit the ceiling.’
He stood watching me, a startled expression on his fat face.
I pushed down the start button and Rima’s voice came out of the speaker and hit him.
I was watching him and I saw the muscles of his face tighten as the first notes filled the room.
He heard the tape right through, then as I pressed the re-wind button, he said, ‘Who is she?’
‘My client,’ I said. ‘How about Mr. Shirely hearing her?’
He looked me over.
‘And who are you?’
‘Jeff Gordon’s the name. I’m in a hurry to do a deal. It’s either Mr. Shirely or R.C.A. Please yourself.
I came here first because R.C.A. is just that much further away.’
But he was too old a hand for that kind of bluff. He grinned, and sat down behind his desk.
‘Don’t get so intense, Mr. Gordon,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying she isn’t good. She is, but I’ve heard better voices. We might be interested. Bring her around towards the end of the week. We’l give her an audition.’
‘She’s not available, and she is under contract to me.’
‘Wel , al right, then when she is available.’
‘The idea was for me to get a contract from you right away,’ I said. ‘If you don’t want her, I’l try R.C.A.’
‘I didn’t say we don’t want her,’ Knight said. ‘I said we want to hear her in person.’
‘Sorry.’ I tried to sound tough and business-like, but I knew I was making a poor show of it. ‘The fact is she isn’t wel . She needs toning up. If you don’t want her, say so and I’l get out of here.’
The door opened on the far side of the room and a small, white haired Jewish gentleman wandered in.
Knight got hurriedly to his feet.
‘I won’t be one moment, Mr. Shirely…’
