Terrific! “What makes Miss Brand think you can produce a motion picture?”
It was as though Sam had touched a hidden spring. Barbara Carter was suddenly full of animation. “Tessie and I have talked a lot about this picture.” No more “Miss Brand,” Sam noticed. “I feel there are a lot of things wrong with the script, and when I pointed them out to her, she agreed with me.”
“Do you think you know more about writing a script than an Academy Award-winning writer who’s done half a dozen successful pictures and Broadway plays?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Winters! I just think I know more about women.” The gray eyes were harder now, the tone a little tougher. “Don’t you think it’s ridiculous for men to always be writing women’s parts? Only we really know how we feel. Doesn’t that make sense to you?”
Sam was tired of the game. He knew he was going to hire her, and he hated himself for it, but he was running a studio, and his job was to see that pictures got made. If Tessie Brand wanted her pet squirrel to produce this picture, Sam would start ordering nuts. A Tessie Brand picture could easily mean a profit of from twenty to thirty million dollars. Besides, Barbara Carter couldn’t do anything to really hurt the picture. Not now. It was too close to shooting for any major changes to be made.
“You’ve convinced me,” Sam said, with irony. “You’ve got the job. Congratulations.”
The following morning, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety announced on their front pages that Barbara Carter was producing the new Tessie Brand movie. As Sam started to throw the papers in his wastebasket, a small item at the bottom of the page caught his eye: “TOBY TEMPLE SIGNED FOR LOUNGE AT TAHOE HOTEL.”
Toby Temple. Sam remembered the eager young comic in uniform, and the memory brought a smile to Sam’s face. Sam made a mental note to see his act if Temple ever played in town.
He wondered why Toby Temple had never gotten in touch with him.
13
In a strange way, it was Millie who was responsible for Toby Temple’s rise to stardom. Before their marriage, he had been just another up-and-coming comic, one of dozens. Since the wedding, a new ingredient had been added: hatred. Toby had been forced into a marriage with a girl he despised, and there was such rage in him that he could have killed her with his bare hands.
Although Toby did not realize it, Millie was a wonderful, devoted wife. She adored him and did everything she could to please him. She decorated the house in Benedict Canyon, and did it beautifully. But the more Millie tried to please Toby, the more he loathed her. He was always meticulously polite to her, careful never to do or say anything that might upset her enough to call Al Caruso. As long as he lived, Toby would not forget the awful agony of that tire iron smashing into his arm, or the look on Al Caruso’s face when he said, “If you ever hurt Millie…”
Because Toby could not take out his aggressions on his wife, he turned his fury on his audiences. Anyone who rattled a dish, or rose to go to the washroom or dared talk while Toby was on stage was the instant object of a savage tirade. Toby did it with such wide-eyed, naive charm that the audiences adored it, and when Toby ripped apart some hapless victim, people laughed until they cried. The combination of his innocent, guileless face and his wicked, funny tongue made him irresistible. He could say the most outrageous things and get away with them. It became a mark of distinction to be singled out for a tongue lashing by Toby Temple. It never even occurred to his victims that Toby meant every word he said. Where before Toby had been just another promising young comedian, now he became the talk of the entertainment circuit.
When Clifton Lawrence returned from Europe, he was amazed to learn that Toby had married a showgirl. It had seemed out of character, but when he asked Toby about it, Toby looked him in the eye and said, “What’s there to tell, Cliff? I met Millie, fell in love with her and that was that.”
Somehow, it had not rung true. And there was something else that puzzled the agent. One day in his office, Clifton told Toby, “You’re really getting hot. I’ve booked you into the Thunderbird for a four-week gig. Two thousand a week.”
“What about that tour?”
“Forget it. Las Vegas pays ten times as much, and everybody will see your act.”
“Cancel Vegas. Get me the tour.”
Clifton looked at him in surprise. “But Las Vegas is—”
“Get me the tour.” There was a note in Toby’s voice that Clifton Lawrence had never heard before. It was not arrogance or temperament; it was something beyond that, a deep, controlled rage.
What made it frightening was that it emanated from a face that had grown more genial and boyish than ever.
From that time on, Toby was on the road constantly. It was his only escape from his prison. He played night clubs and theaters and auditoriums, and when those bookings ran out, he badgered Clifton Lawrence to book him into colleges. Anywhere, to get away from Millie.
The opportunities to go to bed with eager, attractive women were limitless. It was the same in every town. They waited in Toby’s dressing room before and after the show and waylaid him in his hotel lobby.
Toby went to bed with none of them. He thought of the man’s penis being hacked off and set on fire and Al Caruso saying to Toby, You’re really hung…. I wouldn’t hurt you. You’re my friend. As long as you’re good to Millie…
And Toby turned all the women away.
“I’m in love with my wife,” he would say shyly. And they believed him and admired him for it, and the word spread, as Toby meant it to spread: Toby Temple did not fool around; he was a real family man.