Night of the Juggler

Chang noted with disappointment that the large double doors leading to the bedroom were closed.

Rudi Zahn signed for the early supper-baby lamb chops, white asparagus, and Mouton Rothschild ‘59-and within seconds Chang was once again in the long corridor, alone again, except for his dashed little hopes and dreams.

Rudi Zahn had drunk sparingly the night before and was in excellent spirits, physically and mentally. Crescent, on the contrary, had finished two bottles of the Montrachet, and Rudi anticipated trouble with her, particularly if she had got into any of the scripts he had left pointedly on her bedside table.

(Nate Sokol had handled the morning’s press conference. Film clips and delicatessen and champagne and whiskey had been a benign substitute for the Stacked House Kid, who, Nate Sokol had explained, was down with a mild bout of flu.)

Rudi had waked at three thirty in the afternoon and, after a half hour of calisthenics, had shaved, showered, and put on a gray flannel suit over a tattersall vest, a combination he thought would complement the smart “British” look of his brown suede shoes. Rudi had ordered this light supper, not because Crescent would be hungry yet, but because nibbling at the food would allow her to savor the wine without any pangs from her conscience.

Not that her conscience ever won out. She ate and drank like a willful, undisciplined child: hot dogs and Cokes for breakfast, bags of roasted almonds, liverwurst sandwiches washed down with scotch as after-dinner snacks. Her handbag was always bulging with candy, and her portable dressing room (practically a bungalow) was stocked like an East Side delicatessen. Yet her skin remained flawless and creamy, her body was firm and slim, and her lavender eyes glowed with calm, serene health, like those of a contented Persian cat.

He pushed open the double doors and pulled the dining cart into her bedroom. “Hello there,” he said to Crescent, who was sitting up in their huge round bed, looking with what he judged to be active dislike at the script she was holding.

“Where do you get this shit from?” she asked him.

“What shit?”

“I mean this script shit,” she said. “I mean, who writes this cunty drivel?”

“There is one thing to remember about each of those scripts, sweetie,” he said and poured a glass of wine for her.

“Thanks. What’s that?”

“Each of those scripts is accompanied by a firm offer, and each offer tops anything we’ve got so far.”

“But why does it always have to be such crud? Honest, Rudi, there’s a scene in this bomb-what’s it called?” She turned the script around to look at the title on the cover. Then she stuck out her tongue at the script. “‘Boobs in the Woods.’ Well, there’s a scene where I’m attacked by vibrators. And are you ready for this? I adore it. Can’t get enough of it.”

“Look, sweetie. We’re not selling you as Bergman or Katie Hepburn,” he said. “You’re everybody’s roll in the hay, the little girl who shivers and squeaks when she’s kissed, who can widen her mouth into a perfect circle and make guys think dirty.”

“But you don’t have to act in these stinkers, Rudi.”

He gave her another glass of wine. She gulped two big swallows and then, more petulant than angry now, said, “Do you realize what it’s like to know that the grips and gaffers are embarrassed for you?”

Crescent looked miserably at her empty glass. “What are you so afraid of, Rudi?”

“I’m afraid of not making these three deals,” he said untruthfully, surprised at the question.

“But I don’t have any friends anymore,” she said, sighing again like a hurt child. “I’m thirty-three, and I’ve got to keep acting like I’m twenty. I’m sick and tired of training around the year like a goddamn racehorse. I want to eat and drink what I please-”

He cut in. “Well, if you’re on a diet now, I’d hate to be around when you go off it.”

“You just don’t want to get involved with anything or anybody. Just collect the loot, so we’ll be safe and secure when we’re what? Living in some rest home?” She sighed again. “I can’t wait. You and me going hand and hand up the path, where the staff of Ye Olde Bedpan Manor is waiting for us with big, happy grins.”

Rudi smiled at this, but he didn’t want her to start feeling sorry for herself; self-pity was vanity’s sniveling little sister, he knew, and Crescent was more malleable in moods of arrogant self-esteem and sexual exuberance than she was when her spirits plunged into these states of self-deprecation.

“Have some more wine,” he suggested, and when she nodded, he filled her glass.

But Crescent was not ready to be cheered up. “I don’t even see my family anymore. You don’t have any family, so you don’t know what that means, Rudi.”

“My family went up in smoke in Poland,” Rudi said coldly.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry, Rudi.” She looked contritely at him. “That was a lousy thing for me to say.”

She was going the wrong way again, he realized, loose and sloppy.

To correct this, Rudi said, “I wish you would occasionally think, think, if you know what the word means, before you shoot off that big mouth of yours.”

“Well, Christ, I said was sorry.” Then her temper got the better of her, and she threw her long golden hair back from her forehead and glared at him with what she fancied to be her “tigress” look. “Just who the fuck do you think you are, Rudi Zahn?”

“Very nice display. Very nice and tasteful,” he said quietly.

“Don’t give me that well-bred gentleman shit,” she screamed at him, challenging now, brandishing her sex like a weapon. “Where the fuck would you be without me? Without your sluttish dummy? You’d be hocking around the studios with flop sweat shining on your bald head, laying secretaries to get ten minutes with their bosses.”

She would be all right now, Rudi knew. When he returned, she would be her normal cheerful self. No gloom, no depressions. They would have a pleasant dinner, here or at 21, and she would be happily drunk by bedtime and would be grateful if he made love to her.

“Charming,” he said, and gave her a little bow. “You’re so delightful I’ll let you enjoy yourself without any distractions. I’m going for a walk.”

“Well, take these shitty scripts with you then,” she said, and hurled two of them after him. One of them struck his shoulder and fell to the floor.

He picked it up, put it on a coffee table, and strolled into the living room of their suite.

“Please come back, Rudi. Please.” She raised her voice to make sure he would hear her, but her anger had evaporated, and her tone was as pleading and helpless as a frightened child.

When she heard the door of the drawing room open and shut with a dry click of finality, she threw herself sideways on the bed, cradling her face in her crossed arms. She knew that Rudi used her, manipulated her moods and responses, playing her like a goddamn yoyo, but there was little bitterness in her reflections because she knew his private hells.

But it was hard. Hard to be thirty-three and charged with sexual excitement and still have to compete for Rudi’s love with an eight-year-old child who had died almost thirty years ago. Ilana. She was burned into his soul like a brand. He was chained to her memory.

Well, she’d keep trying, get herself beautifully turned out, and when he came back from the park, they’d go to 21 for dinner.

She sat up smiling and poured herself a glass of wine. They’d have champagne with a splash of vodka and maybe Little Neck clams and prime rib.

And then they’d come back here and be so good to each other. .

In the East Eighties, between Park Avenue and Lexington, a street vendor sold pretzels and cones of shaved ice liberally drenched with sweet fruited syrups.

The “clock” in Gus Soltik’s head told him there was time. So he bought one of the paper cones of sweet ice, extending his hand and letting the vendor pick the proper coins from his rough palm.

A police car cruised smoothly past the vendor, slowing with the rush-hour traffic.

The patrolman in the passenger seat was a uniformed officer in his forties, Joe Smegelski, a veteran with smoothly tanned features and calm blue eyes.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he said quietly, and tapped his partner on the arm. “Pull over to the curb, Abe. Take it nice and slow.”

“What’s up?”