Beebo watched him with interest as he directed Venus. He was electrically alive, cunning in the way he teased and bullied and loved the song out of her. Beebo could almost feel the tune, the words, Venus herself, coming to life. Leo was a good seat-of-the-pants psychologist.
After several run-throughs he turned to Beebo. “You’re helping,” he said laconically. “She sings better for you than for me. I show her what to do. You make her feel it.” He scratched his head, then let his shirt-sleeved arms drop. “That’s okay, as long as she doesn’t lose it at the studio,” he decided. “Maybe we’ll let you watch some other scenes at home, Beebo.”
Beebo grinned. It was a relief to participate at last in the paramount sphere of Venus’s life.
“It helps to have her in love again,” Leo observed candidly. “Makes her much more responsive.”
“Don’t talk about me as if I were a machine,” Venus flashed at him. “And don’t laugh at me. I know how silly you think it is. I know Beebo’s too young.”
Leo sat down on a leather-topped bar stool. “You’re happy, Beebo?” he asked.
Beebo nodded, wondering where he was going.
“It’s rough, isn’t it? Venus isn’t home much these days. And you have nothing to do but goof around in that car.”
“I get along,” Beebo said cautiously. “Are you against the car, Leo?”
“No, just the taxi service.” There was a deadly pause, and Leo’s face folded into a heavy frown. Beebo was lost for a moment, till Venus sighed and lighted a cigarette with angry movements. “Who squealed?” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Leo said crisply. “I don’t like the idea of you two ladies consorting in public.”
“Leo, don’t pull that solemn face on me,” Venus said. “She and Toby came together. They picked me up at work. Nobody saw her face—”
“Nobody had to,” Leo said, taking a drag on his cigarette.
“Look, Leo, let’s not fight over it,” Beebo said. “Be reasonable. Things are working out all right. I’m discreet and I swear I’ll never—”
“I know, you’ll never do anything to hurt darling Venus,” Leo said acidly. His eyes narrowed, and he began to pace the room. When either of the women tried to speak he silenced them with a gesture.
Finally Venus said, “That poor kid never goes anywhere. She deserves—”
“She deserves to torpedo your career, just to alleviate her ennui?”
“Well, damn it, Leo, if you turn her out, I’m going with her. I happen to be in love with Beebo and I don’t give a damn what you think of it.”
“Venus, go upstairs,” Leo said. He lighted a cigar—a concession to his mental distress. When Venus objected he said, “Will you please go?” as if she were a naughty child. He was almost fatherly with her. “I can’t talk to Beebo with such a distraction as you around.” He made her hope he and Beebo would understand each other. She left slowly, telling Beebo not to believe a word Leo said.
Leo stopped his pacing and sat down to face Beebo. “There’s too much at stake, Beebo,” he said at once. “I can’t tolerate even small slip-ups. Venus is silly, but that’s no excuse for you. You’re a sensible kid.”
“But Leo, such a little thing—”
“Nothing is little, Beebo,” he said. “Let’s be frank with each other. It worries me enough that you’re so young. At least her other lovers were nearer her own age. But to have you a girl…” He puffed rapidly on the cigar. “I won’t disguise the fact that I find you rather…well, unsympathetic. I think most normal men would. Partly from masculine resentment, I guess. A natural revulsion for women who parade as poor imitations of men, but—”
“You liked me well enough when you got home and found Venus acting like a lovable human being,” Beebo interrupted him heatedly. “I’m the same person now as then. I just happened to pick her up in a parking lot and drive her home.”
“The guy who told me about it,” Leo said thoughtfully, “said Venus was picked up by a good-looking boy. A friend of Toby’s he supposed. Of course, you were hard to see inside the car. But Venus had told him, when she saw you pull up, that you were one of the servants. So he was a little surprised to see her jump in the front seat with you…and you didn’t have a uniform on, either. He was giving me the old elbow-in-the-ribs-treatment.” He blew cigar smoke at the ceiling without looking at her.
Beebo cleared her throat. “It was so innocent,” she said.
“Nothing is innocent,” Leo said flatly. “Especially a classy young butch on the make.”
“Damn it, Leo!” she said. “I’m clean, I’m healthy, I’ve worked hard all my life. And so help me God, I’m not ashamed of being what I can’t help being. That’s the road to madness.” Her cheeks were crimson.
“Well said, Beebo,” he acknowledged calmly. “You’re right—but so am I. You might as well face up to the world’s opinion. I speak for the ordinary prejudiced guy, too busy to learn tolerance, too uninformed to give a damn. We are in the majority. I admire your guts but not your person. As for the intolerance, it’s mostly emotional and illogical. I can’t help it and neither can most men. I apologize. I warn you that it’s there. I add: it’s beside the point.
“What I think of you is less important than what the people in Venus’s world think. I don’t care what you say, somebody in this world besides the Bogardus family knows you’re living here and laying my wife. It’s no secret from the servants, you know.”
Beebo caught her breath and Leo looked at her piercingly. “I’ve heard them laughing about it,” he said. “And our servants bat the breeze with the other stars’ servants. They know more guff about us—what we eat, when we pee, who our lovers are—than all the gossip columnists rolled into one and stashed
