Eve

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SAM BERNSTIEN whipped off his horn-rimmed glasses and gave a wide, expansive smile. “Yes,” he said, slapping the treatment Carol and I had written with his small fat hand, “this is what I want. It is not right. It is not nearly right, but it is something to work on. It is a good beginning.”

I looked expectantly at him from where I was sitting in a low comfortable armchair in his big office. “I thought that’d be something on which to base a discussion. After all, you have ideas of your own so I kept it to the briefest outline.”

Bernstien pulled a box of cigars towards him, selected one, offered it to me but I shook my head. He lit up and rubbed his hands. “I didn’t expect you’d be so quick,” he said. “Now let us go through this point by point. When we have agreed, I suggest you take it away, expand it and let me have it when you are ready. Then I will see R.G.”

“You’re going to have some difficulty there,” I said, pessimistically.

He laughed. “That is something I can take care of,” he said. “For the past five years R.G. and I have had our little fights. They mean nothing because, in the end, I get my own way. You leave him to me.”

“All right,” I returned, not convinced. “I’ll leave it to you, but I warn you, Gold hates my guts.”

He laughed again. “I don’t blame him,” he said. “Carol’s a very lovely girl and you are a very lucky man. But if he hates your guts, he also loves a good story.” He slapped the treatment again. “This is a good story!”

I caught a little of his enthusiasm. “Just as you say.” I pulled my chair closer to his desk. “Suppose we go through the treatment.”

“It’s swell,” he said, grinning delightedly at me. “Take all this stuff away and give me a second treatment. I think then it will be time to go on R.G.”

I got to my feet. “Well, thanks a lot, Mr. Bernstien,” I said. “I’ve enjoyed this immensely and I won’t be long in letting you have the second treatment.”

“Just as soon as you can.” He walked with me to the door.

“I suppose Carol will be tied up all day?” I said, as we shook hands.

He lifted his shoulders. “I do not know. Go along and see for yourself. She’s with Jerry Highams. You know his office?”

“Sure,” I said. “I know where it is. Well, so long, Mr. Bernstein. I’ll be seeing you.”

I walked quickly down the corridor and although I had to pass Highams’ office I did not pause. I had no intentions of meeting Frank Imgram again and the chances that he would be with Carol were too great a risk.

I passed a public call-box at the end of the corridor and I slowed my steps, stopping outside it. I looked at my wrist- watch. It was eleven fifty-five. With any luck, Marty would not have arrived. I wanted to be sure that Eve would answer the telephone. I entered the call-box and shut myself in. While I dialled her number I was aware that my heart was pumping against my side with suppressed excitement.

The bell rang several times before she answered.

“Hello.”

I recognized her voice.

“Eve,” I said. “How are you?”

“Good morning, Clive,” she said. “How are you? You’re early, aren’t you?”

“Did I wake you up?” I asked, startled that she sounded so friendly.

“No, it’s all right. I was having some coffee. I’ve been awake some time.”

“When am I going to see you?”

“When do you want to come?”

“Now wait a minute, Eve,” I said too puzzled to be cautious. “The other day you said you didn’t want to see me again.”

“All right, then I don’t want to see you again,” she returned and giggled.

“I’m coming right away,” I said. “You are a devil. You gave me a bad two days. I really thought you meant it.”

She giggled again. “Well, you are the limit, Clive. Anyway I did mean it at the time. I was angry. You were a stinker to go off like that.”

“All right, I was a stinker,” I said, laughing. “But I’ve had my lesson and I won’t do it again.”

“You better not,” she warned. “I shan’t forgive you so easily next time.”

“Come and have lunch with me.”

“No.” Her voice hardened. “I’m not going to do that, Clive. You can come and see me professionally if you want to, but I’m not coming to lunch.”

“That’s what you think. You are coming to lunch and you’re not going to argue,” I said.

“Clive!” There was a startled annoyed note in her voice. “I tell you I’m not coming to lunch.”

“We’ll talk about that when we meet. I’ll be along in half an hour.”

“It’s too soon, Clive. I shan’t be ready by then. Come about one o’clock.”

“All right and wear something nice.”

“I’m not coming to lunch.”

“You’re going to do what you’re told for a change,” I said, laughing at her. “You put on something smart—” but the line suddenly went dead as she hung up.

I looked at the telephone and grinned. Okay, sweetheart, I thought, we’ll see who’s going to be boss.

I went to the parking lot and drove the Chrysler slowly through the Studio gateway. I felt good. I felt confident that I could master Eve. She could hang up on me if that pleased her vanity, but she was going to have lunch with me, if I had to drag her to the restaurant in her nightdress.

I drove to the Writers’ Club and asked the Steward for my mail. He gave me a few letters and I walked over to the bar and ordered a Scotch and soda. A quick look at the letters convinced me that there was nothing from Eve. Leaving my drink on the bar table I went back to the Steward and asked him if he was sure that there was nothing else for me.

“No, sir,” he said, after looking again in my pigeonhole.

And yet Eve had been so emphatic that she had returned the forty dollars I had given her on that night I had walked out on her.

I went to the telephone and dialled her number.

“Hello,” she said, almost immediately.

“I hope I didn’t get you out of your bath, Eve,” I said. “But you remember you told me you had returned my money?”

“Well, I did.” Her voice was sharp.

“To the Writers’ Club?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it isn’t here.”

“I can’t help that,” she returned indifferently. “I sent it and when I say a thing I mean it.”

“But Eve, I want you to have the money. I came here to get it. Are you quite sure you sent it?”

“Of course I am and, anyway, I don’t want it. You annoyed me, so I returned you the money. I shan’t accept it if you do give it to me.”

I stared thoughtfully at the pencil scribblings on the wall. There’s something wrong here, I decided.

“Did you put a note inside?”

“Why should I?” She was on the offensive now. “I put the money in an envelope and addressed it to the Club.”

She was lying. I knew now that she never had any intentions of sending the money back. She had wanted to show her power. She knew that she would hurt me by sending the money back to me, but, in spite of wanting to get even with me, her greed had been too strong. She had tried to compromise and hoped that by telling me she had returned the money I would believe her and she would get her revenge cheaply. Well, she had made me suffer for two days, but now I realized that she had not been big enough to go through with it, my contempt for her was in itself a victory.

“Maybe it’s been lost in the mail,” I said, half jeering at her. “Well, never mind, I’ll make it up to you.”

“I don’t want it, Clive,” she snapped. “I must go now. My bath’s running.”

“We’ll talk about it when we have lunch,” I said and tried to get the receiver down before she did, but she beat me to it.

I reached Laurel Canyon Drive at five minutes to one. I pulled up outside the little house and sounded my horn. Then I got out and walked down the path. I rapped on the door, took out a cigarette and lit it.

I waited a moment or two and then realized that there was no sound coming from the house. Usually as soon as I knocked I would hear Marty coming down the passage.

I frowned, then I knocked again. Nothing happened. I waited, a cold sinking feeling coming over me as I stood there.

I knocked four times and then I went back to the Chrysler. I got in and drove slowly down the street. When I got out of sight of the house, I pulled up and lit another cigarette. My hands were trembling as I held the match.

I suddenly thought of Harvey Barrow. I remembered what he had said. “I said I’d take her away and she said all right. But I went to her place four times and each time her damn maid said she was out. But, I knew she was upstairs laughing at me.”

My hands tightened on the steering wheel. She hadn’t even had the decency to send Marty with some lie. I could see her in the little bedroom, her head on one side, listening to me knocking on the door. Marty would be with her and they would exchange glances. They would smile. Let him knock, Eve would whisper, he’ll soon get sick of it.

I drove slowly along Sunset Boulevard, not thinking of anything, but feeling numb and sick. I pulled up outside a drugstore, went in and dialled her number. The bell rang for a long time, but there was no answer.

I could imagine her about to pick up the receiver and then stop. She would know who it was. I leaned against the wall of the stale smelling call-box, listening to the bell ringing. Quite suddenly I wanted to kill her. It was a cold, almost impersonal thought that dropped unexpectedly into my mind and I found myself considering it with interest and pleasure. Then, horrified at even contemplating such a thing, I hung up and walked out into the sunlight.

Was I going crazy? I asked myself, as I drove towards Three Point. It was one thing to be furiously angry with her, but to kill her . . . what a mad, stupid, dangerous thing even to think of for a moment.

All the same I knew I would get pleasure out of killing Eve. There was no other way that I could touch her. Her armour was too strong. Again I hurriedly dismissed the thought but it kept coming back, and, in my mind, I went throughout the details of killing her and it gave me a lot of pleasure.

I saw myself, some night, getting into that little house when she was out and waiting for her. I would hide upstairs in one of the empty rooms until I heard her key in the lock. Then I would come out of my hiding place onto the landing to make sure that she was alone. I knew I could see her quite easily by leaning over the banisters and that she couldn’t see me.

Before going to bed, she would want to use the bathroom. I would slip back into one of the other empty rooms and wait until she went downstairs again. It would give me a lot of pleasure to think she was moving about the lonely little house, believing that she was alone, while, all the time, I was hiding upstairs, waiting to kill her.

Perhaps she would return drunk as she had on the night I had walked out on her. If she were drunk, then it would be easy for me to kill her. I would have no pity nor feeling for her if I found her snoring and smelling of whisky.

I would creep out onto the landing and listen. I would hear her prepare for bed. I knew enough of her routine now to picture exactly what she would do. First she would take off her skirt. She did that the moment she got indoors because it was cut so tight that she could not sit down comfortably in it. Then she would go to her wardrobe and take out a clothes hanger. She would put the coat and skirt away methodically. Perhaps she would light a cigarette while she slid out of the rest of her flimsy underclothes. She would put on her nightdress and flop into bed.

By listening carefully, I would be able to follow all these details. Each of them had their own individual sound to the final creaking of the bed as it received her slight body. Perhaps she would read or perhaps she would turn out the light and smoke in the darkness. Whatever she did, I would give her plenty of time to fall asleep. What did I care if I had to wait hours up there in the darkness? I would come down eventually. I would come down like a ghost, holding onto the banister rail and trying each stair before I put my full weight upon it. I would not wake her until it was too late for her to save herself.

I would edge round the door and peer into the darkness. I would not be able to see her, but I would know just where her head lay and I would sit gently on the bed by her side. Even then she would not awaken. I would find her throat with one hand and with the other I would switch on the little bedside lamp.

Then would come the moment that would heal all the wounds she had inflicted on me. That brief moment when her senses would awake from sleep and her eyes would recognize me. We would look at each other and she would know why I was there and what I was going to do. I would see the helpless, terrified look that would come into her eyes and I would see her for the first time without her wooden mask or without her professional mannerisms.

It would be only for two or three seconds. But it would be enough! would kill her quickly with my knee on her chest and my hands about her throat. Pinning her to the bed with all my weight, she would not have a chance. She would have no time to steel her body against me or even scratch at my hands.

No one would know who had done it. It could have been any of her men friends.

I was shaken out of this horrible daydream by the violent sound of a motor horn and I only managed to avoid a head-on collision with a Cadillac. I had been so absorbed that I had allowed the Chrysler to wander over to the left side of the road. I heard the driver of the other car curse me as he swept past and I hastily pulled over to my right side and continued on my way with caution.

When I reached Three Point I was still disturbed by the uncontrolled feeling of pleasure I had experienced while imagining how I might settle all my differences with Eve. As it was now almost three o’clock, I asked Russell to bring me sandwiches and a whisky on the terrace.

While I waited, I paced up and down, savagely angry by the way Eve had treated me and yet alarmed to realize to what an extent my mentality had been affected by her callous indifference towards me. The fact that I had actually contemplated murder down to the last details and had derived pleasure in doing so shocked and frightened me. Such a thought would never have entered my mind some three weeks ago, but in that unguarded moment in the call-box it had seemed to be the one solution of our struggle.

I must pull myself together, I thought, as I paced up and down. She’s no good to me. She never will be and I might just as well admit defeat and forget her. I can never hope to get on with any work if I allow her to influence my mind, to occupy my thoughts and to irritate my nerves in this way. This nonsense must stop.

Russell came with a tray which he put on the table.

“Get my typewriter, Russell,” I said turning. “I’ve some work to do.”

He beamed at me. “I do hope, sir, you had a good morning at the Studio.”

“It was all right,” I said, without enthusiasm. “Be a pal and let me get to work.”

He gave me a quick, disappointed glance and hurried into the library for my typewriter.

I sat down and began to read through Bernstien’s notes but I found concentration difficult. I could not erase from my mind the humiliation of standing outside Eve’s door like some street salesman. The more I thought about it, the more angry I became. When Russell put the typewriter at my elbow and had gone away, I could not bring myself to work. Instead I finished the sandwiches and began to drink steadily.

I’ll make her pay for this, I thought, pouring more whisky into my glass with an unsteady hand. Somehow I’ll find a way to get even with her. I drank the whisky at a gulp and immediately refilled my glass. I did this several times until I felt a slight numbness in my legs. I knew I was getting drunk. I pushed the decanter away and pulled the typewriter towards me. To hell with her, I said aloud. She can’t stop me. Nobody can.

I made an attempt to write the first scene along the lines suggested by Bernstein and after struggling with it for over an hour I tore the sheet from my typewriter and ripped it angrily to pieces.

I was in no mood for creative thought and, leaving the terrace, I wandered through the empty rooms of the cabin. Russell had taken himself off somewhere. He had probably hidden himself away for an afternoon nap in the woods. The cabin was unbearably lonely and I began to wonder if I had not been a fool to have settled in such an out of the way place.

It was perfect so long as I had Carol to keep me company, but now that she was going to spend most of her days at the Studio I was going to find it pretty dull.

My mind kept returning to Eve. I made a feeble effort to think of something else, but I did not succeed. I picked up a novel and tried to read, but after turning a half a dozen pages I realized that I had no idea what I had been reading and I threw the book across the room.

By now, the whisky I had drunk was hitting me and I felt heavy in the head and reckless. I suddenly got to my feet and went over to the telephone. I’ll tell her exactly what I think of her, I decided. If she thinks she can do that to me and get away with it she’s got a surprise coming to her.

I dialled her number.

“Who is that please?” Marty asked.

I hesitated, then quietly replaced the receiver. I wasn’t going to be snubbed by Eve through Marty. I lit a cigarette and wandered unsteadily onto the terrace again.

I could not go on like this, I thought. I must try to do some work. I again sat down at the table and began reading through Bernstien’s notes, but my mind kept wandering and I finally gave it up in despair.

Carol returned in time for dinner. She got out of her cream and blue roadster and came running across the lawn towards me.

I felt a great weight roll from my mind at the sight of her and I held her tightly against me for several seconds before letting her go.

“Well, my dear,” I said, smiling at her. “How did you get on?”

She heaved a sigh. “I’m tired, Clive. We’ve been at it without a stop. Do come in and get me a drink. I want to hear all your news.”

We walked to the cabin while I listened to her account of the story conference.

“R.G. is delighted so far,” she said. “It’s going to be a marvellous picture. Jerry has never been better and even R.G. has made one good suggestion.”

I fixed her a gin and lime and gave myself another whisky.

“I say, Clive,” she exclaimed suddenly. “You haven’t drunk all that whisky yourself, have you? The decanter was full this morning.”

I gave her a drink and laughed. “Of course not,” I said. “What do you think I am . . . a soak? I upset the damn thing and wasted half of it.”

She gave me a quick, searching look but I met her eyes and her face cleared. “So you’re not a soak,” she said, smiling at me. She looked tired and pale. “Well, tell me, did Sam like the treatment?”

I nodded. “Sure he liked it. Why not? You wrote it, didn’t you?”

“We wrote it, darling,” she said, again looking troubled. “You’re not sore about it, are you? I mean — I won’t interfere if you don’t—”

“Forget it,” I said shortly. “I know I’m not so hot when it comes to a picture treatment, but I don’t mind learning.” I sat down by her side and took her hand. “But I’m not going so well with the second rewrite. You know, Carol, I wish Bernstien would get someone else to do it. I don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

“Give me a cigarette and tell me what Bernstien said.”

After I had lit her cigarette I explained Bernstien’s suggestions. She listened attentively, nodding her small dark head every now and then with approval.

“He’s terrific,” she said, when I had finished. “It is enormously improved. Oh, Clive, you simply must work at it. I know you can do it and it’ll mean so much to you.”

“It’s all very well for you to talk, Carol,” I returned bitterly, “but now I haven’t any feeling for the story. I’ve been messing with it all the afternoon and I’ve got nowhere.”

She looked at me for a moment, her eyes searching and puzzled. “Perhaps tomorrow you’ll feel more like it,” she said hopefully. “Sam will expect something soon. He’s late for production as it is.”

I got up irritably. “Oh, I don’t know. You can’t force these things.”

She came and put her arms round me. “Don’t worry, Clive. It’ll come, you see.”

“Oh, the hell with it.” I turned to the door. “I’ll put on a dressing gown and settle down for the evening. Have you a book?”

“I’ve some work to do,” she said quickly. “I want to draft out a few scenes.”

“You can’t go on working all day and night,” I returned, irritated that she could give her mind to creative thought. “Have a rest. It’ll do you good.”

She pushed me to the door. “Don’t tempt me. You sit on the terrace. It’s lovely out there and I’ll come as soon as I’m through.”

I sat on the darkening terrace for a long time brooding about Coulson. I knew I was doing a mean thing by turning his play into a picture, but I had gone too far to stop. I should never have stolen his play in the first place. But if I had not done that I should not be where I was, sitting on the terrace of an expensive cabin in one of the loveliest spots in California. I should never have met Carol. I drew a sharp breath — and I should never have met Eve.

“What are you doing out there in the dark?” Carol said as she stepped onto the terrace. “You’ve been sitting there hours, my dear. It’s after twelve o’clock.”

I pulled myself together with a start. “I’ve been thinking,” I said, getting up. I felt stiff and a little cold. “I had no idea the time had gone so quickly. Have you finished?”

She slipped her arm round my neck and kissed me. “Don’t be cross, darling,” she whispered, her lips touching my ear. “I’ve roughed out the second treatment for you. You can do it now and it’s really good. You’re not angry, are you?”

I stared down at her, sick with envy that she could do so easily what I had failed to do. “But, Carol, you can’t do my work as well as your own. This is absurd. I’ll be living on you next.”

“Don’t be angry,” she pleaded. “All I’ve done is to put your ideas and Sam’s ideas down on paper. Why a stenographer could do that. You must polish it tomorrow and take it to Sam. Then R.G. will okay it and you can really start work. Give me a kiss and take that frown off your face.”

I kissed her.

She gave me a quick hug. “Come on to bed,” she said. “I must be up early tomorrow.”

“I’m coming,” I said, feeling flat and depressed.