The sins of philip flemi.., p.7
The Sins of Philip Fleming, page 7
Sam was that phenomenon of a commercial era, a chain store dentist, a man who applied techniques of mass production to medicine. Sam owned eight flourishing offices, scattered throughout the Los Angeles area, and in them he installed eager young graduates of dentistry schools. He paid them high salaries and gave them bonuses. Despite the wounded outcries of the medical associations, Sam advertised his dental parlors, published signed endorsements of his painless extractions, served aching patients on a discount basis, and publicized a pay-as-you-go plan. Sam, himself, had not drilled a tooth in years. He managed the organization.
Wholesale dentistry had paid for the hilltop house, with its kidney-shaped swimming pool, in exclusive Bel Air. And it had paid for Tina.
Tina Barlow was Philip’s favorite other man’s wife. Sometimes, after parties, Philip and Helen discussed the mates of their friends. It made for fascinating pillow talk. Which of the wives, Helen liked to ask, would Philip prefer to sleep with? He knew the game by heart and played it well. He would look thoughtful, and think, and then say that none of them really appealed to him that way. Helen would beam, and press him. Wasn’t there one, just one, who was physically attractive? He would consider. Well, several were attractive, he would say, that is, in a technical sense. Betty Markson was attractive. And Greta Unger. And Marie Valetti. But sleep with them? No, thank you. Those were the good nights with Helen.
Actually, he never thought of sleeping with the wife of a close friend. The relationship automatically neutered them. The overtones were incestuous. Wives of acquaintances were fair game, but wives of friends, never. Tina Barlow was the exception.
She was thirty-two, and junoesque. Her hair was a soft copper-red, and she wore it sleeked back and bunned most of the time. Her complexion was fair, an English pink. Her large and round eyes gave her the appearance of a startled virgin. Her nose was classical, her mouth sensuous. On her right cheek, like a slash, was a long dimple that showed when she smiled. Her body was a full woman’s body, with large breasts, a long fleshy torso, and big female hips. Everything about her was provocative: her glance, her walk, her speech.
He tried, now, to visualize her beside Peggy Degen. It was difficult. Both held sex promise, but differently. Tina was less subtle and less fragile. Tina was a woman. Peggy was a girl. Now, he wanted Peggy. But, for all of the year before, ever since he had first laid eyes on her, he had wanted Tina. Here, too, there was a difference. IHs desire for Peggy was sudden, sharp, deep, obsessive. His old desire for Tina had been an easy, relaxed, daydreaming, fleeting and contemplative thing. It lacked staying power. But it had been there, until Peggy. And Tina had sensed it, and, in a way, provoked it and played upon it. Her gambit with him rarely varied: direct declarations of passion, lightly and publicly proclaimed; constant and frank admiration of his person; persistent but indefinite invitations to enjoy her companionship. He collaborated in this love banter. But beyond a kiss or squeeze at a party, he made no move. He was not a practiced seducer or lover. The complexity of an affair with the wife of a good friend appalled him. With Tina, he could control himself. With Peggy, he could act only as he felt.
They had reached the asphalt parking area before the Barlow carport. “Ten to one,” Danny was saying. “I really beat you.”
Philip slammed the car door in feigned anger. “I’ll trounce you on the way home,” he said.
Tina was waiting. “I heard you drive up,” she called out. She stood, framed in the doorway, smiling. She was wearing a skintight, light blue swim suit. The skirt was pulled several inches above her crotch. She leaned against the doorway, her pink flesh legs crossed.
“Did your ears burn last night?” she asked as he approached with Danny.
“What time?”
“Three in the morning. I dreamt about you. It was enough to give Sam grounds for divorce in any state—and you should have seen our state.”
“I’m glad you had a good time,” he said with a mock disgruntled air.
He kissed her cheek, and she pressed his hand warmly. Then she looked down at Danny and tousled his head. “How’s my Danny boy today?”
“Good.”
“Liz and Tony are in the pool with their father. Do you want to go swimming?”
“No,” said Danny.
“Go ahead and watch them,” Philip said.
Danny ran ahead. Tina took Philip’s hand and they walked leisurely through the spacious, modern house toward the pool. She glanced at Philip.
“Where’s Helen?”
“Moving furniture. We just got into the new place.”
“Already? I thought it was going to be next month.”
“All very sudden. We found a buyer.”
“When are we invited?”
“Soon,” he said.
“I hope so. I was beginning to think you didn’t love me, Mr. Fleming.”
“I love you very much, Mrs. Barlow. You, me, and Sam are my favorite triangle.”
“Quadrangle. Helen.”
“All right, Helen.”
They had reached the bar, and he could see Sam floating in the pool, like an exhausted porpoise, with the children splashing around him. Danny was at the edge of the pool, clapping his hands at them.
“Want to go in?” she asked.
“I didn’t bring my trunks.”
“Who needs trunks? I’ll take off my suit if it’ll make you feel better.”
“This I want to see.”
“This I want you to see,” she said, sliding her hand provocatively down her thigh.
She went outside. Philip followed her.
“Hi, Sam.”
Sam waved. “Get yourself a drink, Phil.”
“Later.”
He watched Tina walk to the pool. The swim suit covered only part of her buttocks, and the protruding flesh rolled as she moved to the diving board. It was a delightful sight, Philip thought. Women are a delightful sight, he amended.
He settled lazily into a deep wicker chair, stuck his feet out, and relaxed in the shade, drawing on his pipe. Tina stood poised on the board. Voluptuous was the word in Philip’s mind. She dove gracefully, and swam across the pool in strong, definite strokes. Sam continued to float. Not a porpoise, Philip decided, but a distended lifebuoy. Liz and Tony waded about in the shallow end, squealing as they threw a wet ball to Danny, who circled the pool and happily threw it back.
Philip observed the scene contentedly, and then he surveyed the setting. Remote and idyllic, he thought. The patio and pool had been set into a thick cliff, high above all worldly cares and curious eyes. To the left, behind the diving board, were two freshly painted white cabanas. Across the pool was a six foot wooden fence, built to contain the children but actually decorative with its lush clinging vine and white roses. Bending off to the right were the rows of orange poppies.
For the briefest interval, the raucous voices of the children and the splashing of the water were shut out. Philip felt detached from any commitment with his fellows excepting Peggy, who was detached with him, and thinking of her, he thought of tonight. What excuse could he make to leave the house for the entire evening? He considered Sam. The voices and the splashing increased in volume. Could he enlist Sam? He tried to gauge Sam’s reaction. Sam never told off-color stories, and he laughed uneasily when someone else told them. To make Sam a confederate in an enterprise that might involve infidelity might make Sam unhappy. He was sure that Sam would oblige. But reluctantly. Who else was there? He reeled off a parade of acquaintances. Acquaintances were safer than friends. There used to be the studio gang that he played poker with once a month. But they had not played since last Christmas. Still, he could pretend the poker game had been revived. Well, that would be the desperation measure, if he could invent nothing better.
The Barlows cavorted in and about the pool for three-quarters of an hour. Tina climbed out of the water first and waddled, toes out like a ballet dancer, dripping, to the nearest white cabana. A few minutes later Sam lifted the children out of the water and led them into the second cabana. Danny returned to Philip.
“I think you ought to take swimming lessons again,” Philip said.
“I don’t like them,” Danny said.
“You’re missing a lot of fun.”
“I don’t care.”
Philip rose, and moved restlessly into the bar, Danny tagging right behind him. Philip took a cork and played catch with Danny, until Sam, sheathed in enormous blue denims, appeared with Liz and Tony. “Come on, Danny,” he said, “Liz has a new game. Let’s find it.” He started out with the children, then called over his shoulder to Philip. “Just opened a new bottle of scotch, Phil.”
Philip glanced at his watch. It was three-thirty. A little early, but he felt jumpy. He walked around to the back of the bar, as Tina, wearing a polka-dot halter that covered all but the tops of her lavish breasts, and tight white shorts, came in.
“Make one for me, too,” she said. “Be right back.”
He set up two glasses, opened the refrigerator and tugged free the small tray of cubes. He cracked them loose. Through the archway he could see Sam enter the living room, carrying a cardboard box. Sam sat on the floor, and the children surrounded him.
Philip absorbed himself in the ritual of preparing the drinks. He dropped three cubes into each glass. He found the scotch at the edge of the bar, measured out a jigger to each glass, then added a half-jigger more to each.
He was about to reach for the water, when he felt a hand stroke the inside of his leg. He started, half turned and looked down. Tina was crouched behind the bar, playfully rubbing the inside of his leg with one hand, as she opened the cupboard below to search for a bottle of tonic. Alarmed, he looked off through the archway. Sam was explaining the new game to his children and Danny.
Philip quickly crouched beside Tina.
She smiled. “You have nice legs.”
“So have you.”
“No kidding, Phil, why don’t you drop by sometime during the week?”
“You might be sorry. I might take you up on it.”
“I want you to.”
“Sam wouldn’t like it very much.”
“Sam’s away at work all day. It gets awfully lonely. We could have a swim—talk—”
“I can do that with my wife.”
“I can do a lot of things better than your wife.”
He tried to keep it light. “Now I’m interested.”
She stared at him seriously. Suddenly she took his face in her hands and, lips parted, kissed him. It was exactly what Peggy had done last night in the hallway. “If you want the rest—come and get it,” she whispered. She grabbed the bottle of tonic, stood up, and busily began to open it. He remained kneeling beside her thighs. He lifted his eyes to the high line of her abbreviated white shorts. He had an impulse to slip his hand under her shorts. He wondered how she would react. Instead, teasingly, he ran his fingers up her bare leg, as she had done to him.
She did not stir or look down at him, as she continued to pour the tonic. It was almost a dare. He drummed his fingers higher. Still she did not move. He stopped. He rose to his feet. She did not look at him. “Chicken,” she said. He tried to read her face. “Next time, I won’t be,” he said.
He poured water in his drink, and left the bar to join Sam and the children.
When he arrived home with Danny, having sustained another crushing defeat at beaver by a score of eight to three on the way, Helen was in the kitchen writing a note to him. Now, she tore it up.
“I was just leaving a message for you,” she said. “I was going out to the market. Nathaniel Horn called.”
“Oh? What did he want?”
“He didn’t say. He wanted you to call back.”
“Something about that Western, I suppose.”
“I’ll take Danny to the market,” she said. “How were Sam and Tina?”
“As usual. She asked when we’re inviting them over. She wants to see the house.”
“We’ve got to straighten up first.” She shook her head. “What a mess—”
“It looks fine to me. Have you been unpacking all the time?”
“Steadily, grimly,” she said. “I’m bushed. The junk that collects! You just have no idea. What are we still doing with your old army uniform and helmet? And why Christmas cards eight years old and a thousand National Geographies? And shoes that we haven’t worn since our honeymoon? I’m going to be ruthless. I’m going to load up those Salvation trucks until they scream uncle, and then I swear, never again.” She looked about. “Where’s Danny?”
“Bathroom.”
“How was he?”
“Just fine. Played with the kids. No problem.”
“Did he go swimming?”
Philip frowned. “He didn’t feel like it. I didn’t push him.”
“Next year this time he’ll be swimming. You’ll see.”
She went to find Danny. There was a brief, indistinct argument. After being promised a candy bar and comic book, Danny appeared, followed by Helen. They went out the service entrance to the garage. Philip made his way to the portable bar in the dining room and poured himself two jiggers of scotch. He carried his glass to the refrigerator, took out a plastic tray of cubes, twisted it, removed two cubes and dropped them into his drink. He then picked up the telephone in his free hand, set it on the kitchen table, and dialed Nathaniel Horn.
While the telephone buzzed, he sat down, and sipped his scotch. After a moment, the connection was made.
“Hello?” It was Nathaniel Horn’s voice at the other end.
“Nat? Philip.”
“I’m glad you called. Something came up about a half hour ago—”
“You mean a job?”
“Remember when you were in Thursday? I mentioned a big independent who has a biographical idea? He wanted Ernie Ives, but I told you I gave him something of yours to read?”
“I remember.”
“Well, it was Alexander Selby. He got hold of me a half-hour ago. He wants to get together with you.”
In the motion picture industry, the name Alexander Selby and the word Class were synonymous. Philip had met Selby several times at social and political gatherings—once, at a Democratic fund raising dinner, he remembered—and he was sure he had made no impression. Selby involved himself in only one or two pictures a year, and for these he hired the most expensive and glamorous writers. To work for Selby, one had to head the current best-seller list or have a recent successful opening on Broadway. Selby was a slender, drawling esthete, with a chalky face, who served tea at four o’clock in his office and spoke of thematic values with the faintest hint of an English accent, the last acquired during two years spent working for J. Arthur Rank in London. It was rumored that he was homosexual, though Selby had promoted himself from assistant director to producer through an intelligent marriage to the step-daughter of a studio president. The fruits of the marriage were a son and an independent financing deal. The son demonstrated that Selby was heterosexual, to say the least, and the independent company proved that Selby had talent for management and organization. He was not a creative producer. New and daring ideas did not spring from his head. “He has become a success,” remarked a weekly newsmagazine, “by employing only the successful.” His films were always based on costly, well-known properties. These were lavishly mounted by the foremost technical specialists in show business. They starred the guaranteed box office names (to woo these names from the major studios, Selby had been the first to offer actors and actresses partnerships in his ventures). More often than not, his pictures made considerable profits. He was often misunderstood, credited with virtues he did not possess, and criticized for failings that did not exist. It was not for selfless charity that he contributed so much of his time and fortune to the ailing and the needy, but for immortality. It was not out of vanity that he employed two sets of press agents to serve him (and telephone him daily), but out of loneliness. This unsure and self-cultivated Croesus rarely hired the uncertified Philip Flemings of his industry, and this was what puzzled Philip.
“What in the devil would he want with me?” Philip asked Nathaniel Horn. “I haven’t had a best-seller lately—”
“You wrote Byron’s Circle” Horn said simply.
“Don’t tell me he’s heard about it?”
“He read it last night. I gave him my copy—”
“But why?”
“Because the big biographical picture lie’s planning—it concerns Lady Caroline Lamb—”
Philip’s voice reflected his astonishment. “A picture on Caroline Lamb?”
“Three million dollars’ worth of picture to be shot in England. It’s a setup for three of the biggest names in Hollywood and London—and from what he told me, the drama’s built in—the tempestuous Lady Caroline caught between love for her husband, Lord Melbourne, future Premier—and her lover, Lord Byron, most romantic figure of his age—”
“You sound like a billboard.” But at once Philip could see the finished product.
“I’m just quoting Alex. Anyway, I remembered you had a chapter in your book on Lady Caroline. I told our friend to read it. He read the chapter, then the entire book, last night. He was impressed. He wants to see you.”
“Does he want to hire me?”
“I don’t know, Phil. He must be interested, or he wouldn’t bother to see you. All he told me was that he’d like to meet you —that he had a few notions he’d like to try out on you—”
“You think there’d be a trip in it?”
“There might be. Alex likes to do his things up right.”
“Christ, wouldn’t that be something?” It would be more than something, Philip knew. It would catapult him out of the Western class, the mediocre credits, into a new and exalted position in the motion picture industry. Yet, even this possibility gave Philip no surge of excitement. He recognized what it might do for him. Dollars and cents. But it was still a screenplay. One hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pages of dialog and action, peppered with dissolves, to serve as the most pliable blueprint to a hundred or more men who would change it, twist it, distort it, and make it their own. It was not what he wanted, but it was what he needed.
