bigger than the ones I’ll want later on. I was figuring it out. If you can get a thousand for me now, then in three or four months I’ll come back like for five hundred. I don’t see why we can’t work it out this way. I want you to be comfortable with it so you won’t try to upset anything.”
He was actually pleading with me. And obviously frightened. And I found myself reappraising marriage to Helen. She could more readily afford Mr. Walsik. I had no choice, of course. I had to agree.
He told me where to meet him and when, and I promised to bring along the thousand dollars in tens and twenties. After he had left, I had two stiff drinks and began to feel better. In ridding myself of Gloria I had saddled myself with Walsik, but he seemed a good deal easier to manage.
I found him two nights later exactly where he said he would be—in one of the rear booths of a tiresome little neighborhood bar. I handed him the envelope and he tucked it away. As I got up to leave, two burly chaps grabbed me, snapped steel on my wrist, and bustled me out to an official sedan.
They tell me that I held out for fourteen hours before I finally began to give them those answers as deadly to me as the cyanide will be in the gas chamber.
After it was over, they let me sleep. The next afternoon they brought Walsik to see me. He was not seedy. He was not humble. His voice was not the same. He had that odd, febrile, animal glitter so typical of Gloria’s friends in the industry.
“While you were on the grass-skirt circuit, Frank baby,” he said, “we borrowed your pad. We brought the long lenses. We rigged the safety net. A big crew of willing volunteers, baby, all the kids who loved Gloria. We guessed that’s how you did it. We took maybe fifty stills of Buddy dropping Nina over the wall. How did you like my performance, sweetie? You bought it good. After you bought it, we brought the law into it to watch yougive me money. Sit right there, Frank baby. Sit there and bug yourself with how stupid you were.”
I heard him leave, walking briskly down the corridor, humming a tune. Somebody said something to him. He laughed. A door clanged shut. And I began to go over it all, again and again and again.…
The Loveliest Girl in the World
She was a chrysanthemum girl, slender by all sane standards, yet not gaunted to the thinness of a high-fashion model. But very useful for the consumer items. You called the agency and you booked this Lya Shawnessy, which was what the agency had named her for obscure reasons of its own, and what they sent you was this Jean Anne Burch, basically from Canton, Ohio, one and the same girl.
And useful. More useful now in the late part of spring than she had been back in the winter, because now her understanding of what Joe Kardell wanted of her was more instantaneous. Also, when he would go dry on a special problem, and Ritchie couldn’t come up with anything either, she sometimes would have a shy idea that would work. It was a good product face, the bone structure so good it could even take flat lighting. And if the deal was to enchant the people with the idea of gobbling Yum-Bars, there she was, staring out of the color advertisement, all a glowing, textured innocence of delight in the masticatory wonders of Yum-Bars. Yet in all that innocence there was a subtle additive—something in the fullness of upper lids, in the modeling of the mouth—expressing a sweet sensuous innocent pleasure in everything, symbolic of the ideal consumer.
She took color beautifully, and direction well, and had few bad angles even in black and white. Joe Kardell had started using her in the winter, using her for things exactly right for her, and he wondered at what subtle and self-deceiving point he had begun using her for jobs not exactly right, jobs where another face would have been better, jobs where he could overcome that small discrepancy through his total mastery of his tools.
At least he had avoided location work,
He was actually pleading with me. And obviously frightened. And I found myself reappraising marriage to Helen. She could more readily afford Mr. Walsik. I had no choice, of course. I had to agree.
He told me where to meet him and when, and I promised to bring along the thousand dollars in tens and twenties. After he had left, I had two stiff drinks and began to feel better. In ridding myself of Gloria I had saddled myself with Walsik, but he seemed a good deal easier to manage.
I found him two nights later exactly where he said he would be—in one of the rear booths of a tiresome little neighborhood bar. I handed him the envelope and he tucked it away. As I got up to leave, two burly chaps grabbed me, snapped steel on my wrist, and bustled me out to an official sedan.
They tell me that I held out for fourteen hours before I finally began to give them those answers as deadly to me as the cyanide will be in the gas chamber.
After it was over, they let me sleep. The next afternoon they brought Walsik to see me. He was not seedy. He was not humble. His voice was not the same. He had that odd, febrile, animal glitter so typical of Gloria’s friends in the industry.
“While you were on the grass-skirt circuit, Frank baby,” he said, “we borrowed your pad. We brought the long lenses. We rigged the safety net. A big crew of willing volunteers, baby, all the kids who loved Gloria. We guessed that’s how you did it. We took maybe fifty stills of Buddy dropping Nina over the wall. How did you like my performance, sweetie? You bought it good. After you bought it, we brought the law into it to watch yougive me money. Sit right there, Frank baby. Sit there and bug yourself with how stupid you were.”
I heard him leave, walking briskly down the corridor, humming a tune. Somebody said something to him. He laughed. A door clanged shut. And I began to go over it all, again and again and again.…
The Loveliest Girl in the World
She was a chrysanthemum girl, slender by all sane standards, yet not gaunted to the thinness of a high-fashion model. But very useful for the consumer items. You called the agency and you booked this Lya Shawnessy, which was what the agency had named her for obscure reasons of its own, and what they sent you was this Jean Anne Burch, basically from Canton, Ohio, one and the same girl.
And useful. More useful now in the late part of spring than she had been back in the winter, because now her understanding of what Joe Kardell wanted of her was more instantaneous. Also, when he would go dry on a special problem, and Ritchie couldn’t come up with anything either, she sometimes would have a shy idea that would work. It was a good product face, the bone structure so good it could even take flat lighting. And if the deal was to enchant the people with the idea of gobbling Yum-Bars, there she was, staring out of the color advertisement, all a glowing, textured innocence of delight in the masticatory wonders of Yum-Bars. Yet in all that innocence there was a subtle additive—something in the fullness of upper lids, in the modeling of the mouth—expressing a sweet sensuous innocent pleasure in everything, symbolic of the ideal consumer.
She took color beautifully, and direction well, and had few bad angles even in black and white. Joe Kardell had started using her in the winter, using her for things exactly right for her, and he wondered at what subtle and self-deceiving point he had begun using her for jobs not exactly right, jobs where another face would have been better, jobs where he could overcome that small discrepancy through his total mastery of his tools.
At least he had avoided location work,
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