Motel. Pool. (2 page)

But none of that mattered now, as he was doing laps at a famous movie director’s house in December under a bright blue sky.

S
AM
HAD
promised a quiet weekend, but by eight that night, the house was full. This was a select crowd, one Jack had seen many times before. There were men Sam’s age. Rich men. A lot of them were in the industry, but others were lawyers or businessmen. And there were young guys Jack’s age, every one of them good-looking. Most of them wanted to be actors, but some called themselves assistants or personal secretaries. Some of the attendees were well-known leading men. At first Jack had been both awed to meet them and amazed that these matinee idols liked dick, but he was over that by now. He knew the score. In front of the cameras, you pretended to moon over some pretty starlet. And when the press went away, you could gather with some like-minded fellows who’d be sure to keep their traps shut. Sometimes Jack contemplated which actress would be his beard, when he was famous enough to need one.

A few women showed up too, but Doris was notably absent. Hiding in her bedroom, perhaps. That was too bad, because Jack liked talking with her. As it was, he spent most of the night stuck with a portly man who owned several Cadillac dealerships and had awful breath, and a sneering kid the man introduced as his “nephew.” Both of them made veiled allusions to three-ways and found excuses to touch him. Jack tried to escape, kept trying to catch the attention of the agent he’d had his eye on for weeks, but Mr. Caddy got in the way. It was damn frustrating.

To calm himself down—and to help him refrain from socking Mr. Caddy and Junior in the noses—Jack drank. Not beer, like he was used to back home, and not the fancy, fruity concoctions Doris sometimes gave him, but whiskey on the rocks, just like Sam. He had several. And when someone handed him a marijuana cigarette, he had some of that too. He was left feeling tired and bleary but not especially happy.

After Mr. Caddy palmed Jack’s ass for the umpteenth time while Junior snuggled close enough for Jack to feel his hard-on, Jack had reached his limit. He lurched away from them and stomped off in search of Sam, who might at least convince his buddies to keep their hands to themselves.

He found Sam, all right—scrunched into a quiet corner of the patio with a dark-haired boy kneeling in front of him, sucking his cock. Sam held a cigar and gazed over the moonlit pool. Jack made a small noise and Sam turned his head to look at him. Sam’s expression didn’t change, and he made no move to push the boy away.

Cursing under his breath, Jack slipped back into the house.

He worked his way through the crowd, snagging a bottle of booze as he went, and walked down the long hallway to the room at the end. He stepped inside and closed the door. Sam and Doris called this the guest room. It was nearly as big as the whole house where Jack had grown up. The carpet was gold, as were many of the decorative accents, and there was a private bathroom. When Jack visited Sam in Palm Springs, he spent a lot of time in Sam’s bed, but he always slept in this room, by himself.

He kicked off his shoes but left the rest of his clothing on. Propping himself on the bed, he uncapped the liquor and began to drink.

J
ACK
SLEPT
until almost noon and woke with a throbbing head. Still wearing his rumpled, smoke-smelling clothes from the night before, he made his way to the kitchen. He’d been half hoping Doris would be there, but instead he was greeted with a frown from the Richards’ housekeeper, Juana. “Morning,” he mumbled.

She nodded stiffly and scrubbed at the counter.

“Can I get some coffee? And something to eat? Please.” He wouldn’t have minded fixing his own meal, but the few times he’d tried, Juana had yelled at him in Spanish. He didn’t know what she was saying, but he was positive it was nothing good.

Now she nodded again. He sat at the table, wincing every time she slammed a pan or rattled cutlery. But the food smelled good and the coffee even better, and he thanked her when she brought him an omelet with toast and a steaming mug of joe.

She sniffed disdainfully and walked away.

Jack was using the toast to mop up the last of the egg when Sam entered the room. He wore a suit and tie, and his hair was carefully combed. He walked over to Juana and said something too quiet for Jack to hear. Within minutes the vacuum was roaring in the living room, signaling that Juana had left them alone. Sam sat opposite Jack. “Hand me that ashtray, kid.”

Jack slid the thing across the table. He watched as Sam shook out a cigarette and lit it with his gold lighter. After a single puff, Sam wordlessly offered the cigarette to Jack and lit another for himself. “I have to head back to LA,” he announced.

“I figured you were overdressed for Palm Springs.”

“You can stay here if you want. Doris might like the company.”

“I didn’t come here to keep Doris company.”

Sam quirked his lips slightly but said nothing. They smoked in silence, not quite making eye contact. They finished their cigarettes and Sam lit two more. Finally he looked at Jack. “You weren’t trying to convince yourself I was going to fall in love with you, were you?”

Jack pressed his lips together and shook his head.

“Good. Didn’t think you were that stupid. I know you sure as hell aren’t falling for an old bastard like me. Hell, I don’t even know if you really swing this way. Would you rather be screwing girls, Jacky?”

“I don’t like girls.” Jack had dated a few girls back home, and he’d had sex with three of them because they were willing and any sex seemed better than none. He’d got his rocks off, but it wasn’t earthshaking. When he beat off, he thought about men.

“Ah, girls are all right. They smell nice. But you have to seduce them, at least a little bit. Even the ones who want you badly have to pretend they don’t. I’d rather stick my dick up a tight ass like yours.”

“Or in a mouth like that boy’s last night.”

“Yeah, he’s real pretty, isn’t he? Mouth like a fucking angel. Thinks he’s going to be a movie star, but with skin dark as his, he’s never going to play anything but bit parts. Indians, Arabs, maybe a wop or a kike.”

Jack happened to know that Sam’s last name had originally been Rosenberg, but he didn’t point that out. Instead he stubbed out his cigarette. “How about me?”

“You look plenty all-American, kid. Those lips and those cheeks are maybe a little too pretty for some parts—you’d make a crappy PI—but you can do a leading man. You could be a young Monty Clift.”

Despite his headache, Jack perked up a little. “Really?” Montgomery Clift was from Omaha, just like him. So was Marlon Brando. “How about James Dean?”

“James Dean’s dead.”

“I know.” The accident had happened a few months ago, and Jack had cried for hours when he found out. He’d never even had a chance to meet the man who’d inspired him to head to Hollywood. “So now they need somebody else to play those kind of parts, right? I could do it.”

Sam looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Yeah, sure. You could do Dean.”

“So when are you gonna give me a part like you promised?”

“I gave you a part in my last picture.”

“I was hardly more than an extra. I had three fucking lines, Sam.” He’d played a hotel bellhop, which meant he had to wear that stupid uniform with the ridiculous hat.

“Gotta start somewhere. James Dean didn’t start with top billing. And I made sure you were listed in the credits, didn’t I?”

Jack scowled. His character hadn’t even had a name. He was just “Bellhop.”

With a loud sigh, Sam leaned across the table and cupped Jack’s cheek in one palm. “I gave you a bigger part in this picture, didn’t I, Jacky?”

“Yeah, you did.” The movie was set in a high school, and Jack was cast as a leader of a rival gang. He wasn’t a star by any means, but he was in a half dozen scenes and had several pages of dialogue. And the character had a name—Mikey Collins. “And I appreciate it. It’s just….”

“You want big.” Sam chuckled and patted Jack’s cheek. “Give it time. You gotta have patience in this game.” He stood, scraping his chair noisily.

“I’m trying to be patient,” Jack said with a sigh.

“I know. So look. Take a few days here, make Doris feel young and glamorous. Keep her from going nuts by herself. Head back to town on Tuesday and I’ll take you out somewhere real nice for dinner, maybe buy you a couple new outfits. We start rolling on Thursday.”

“Okay. Thanks, Sam.”

Sam walked around the table and bent down to give Jack a long, deep kiss. He tasted like tobacco and whiskey. When he straightened up, he ruffled Jack’s hair. “See ya Tuesday, kid.”

1956

W
HEN
J
ACK
bought his mansion, it would have so many bedrooms that he could sleep in a different one every night of the week. The kitchen would be enormous, with full-time staff to cook and clean. Maybe he wouldn’t buy in Beverly Hills. Instead, he could have something custom-built in Malibu or Santa Monica, something with ocean views from every window.

Right now, he had a crappy walk-up studio apartment with a two-burner stove and a view of a grimy parking lot.

He sat on his open Murphy bed, considering his finances. His first movie part had paid almost nothing and the second not much more. His rent was due soon, and the Ford he’d driven all the way from Nebraska to California was going to fall apart from rust—if the engine or transmission didn’t do something terminal first. Sam gave him money now and then, but not enough, and the next picture wasn’t due to begin filming for another month.

“Fuck,” Jack said, falling back on the pillow. If he didn’t think of something soon, he was going to have to find a day job.

He didn’t really have a lot of marketable skills. When he was a kid, he’d mowed lawns and delivered newspapers; later he worked as a bag boy at a local market. For a little while after high school graduation, he dragged himself to the plant with his father every morning. But meatpacking was hardly the life he’d dreamed of, and if forced to do it much longer, he’d have been ready for slaughter himself.

Then one Saturday night he went to the theater to see
East of Eden.
Sunday morning he packed his jalopy and headed west.

He had enough savings to rent this closet of an apartment, and he hung around the studios for a couple of weeks before pestering his way into a job cleaning the sets. And then Sam Richards spied him while Sam walked from his car one morning. By the end of the day, Jack was bent over Sam’s desk, bare ass waving in the air; by the next Monday, he had his first movie role.

Jack couldn’t go back to sweeping floors now.

He could sell some of the stuff Sam had bought him. He didn’t have room for all those clothes anyway, and lately Sam had been too busy to take him anywhere he could wear them. Sam had bought him a nice ring too, heavy gold with real diamonds. Jack could pawn it.

Groaning softly, he rolled onto his belly and reached for his shoes. That was an advantage of a tiny apartment: everything close at hand. Maybe he’d get a golf cart for traveling from one end of his mansion to the other. He’d build the hallways extra wide. Or he’d have servants to fetch things, cute boys wearing skimpy uniforms.

He slipped into his shoes, ran his fingers through his hair, and checked his reflection in the mirror next to the door. Not bad. He stuck his hand in his pocket to make sure he had change, then stepped outside. The sunlight seemed especially glaring today. A little variation in the weather would be nice. No blizzards or tornadoes—nothing like that—but maybe a bit of a chill, at least, or a really good rainfall.

The phone booth was downstairs near the street, and the enclosure smelled like piss. His mansion would have a phone in every goddamn room—even the bathrooms. He slipped a dime into the slot and dialed the numbers he’d been instructed to use sparingly.

“Sam Richards’s office. How may I help you?” Viv’s voice was warm and sultry, even over the phone lines.

“Hi, Viv. Jack here. Can I speak to Sam?”

“I’m sorry. Mr. Richards is in a meeting.”

“C’mon, Viv. I really need to talk to him. Please?”

There was a brief pause. “All right. I’ll see what I can do, Jacky. Hang on.” Viv knew all Sam’s secrets and could be trusted to keep them to herself. She’d once confided to Jack that she appreciated having a boss who wasn’t constantly trying to drag her into bed. She had a girlfriend, a pretty girl with eyeglasses and—according to Sam and Viv—an outstanding talent for playing the flute.

The operator came on the line, demanding another dime; a few minutes later, she was back. Jack was nearly out of change. He breathed a heavy sigh at the gruff, familiar voice. “Told you not to bug me, kid.”

“I know. But I need…. Can we get together, Sam? I could come over tonight. Or maybe you want to catch dinner somewhere.”

“Can’t do it. I’ve got a lot going on. This new picture’s giving me grief, and—”

“That’s what I wanted to talk about—the new picture.” A car screeched by on the street, making Jack cough at the exhaust. He’d get himself a limo when he was a big star. Something long and sleek. And when he rode around town, people would watch the car go by and wonder who was riding inside. Jack had once given Sam a blowjob in the backseat of Sam’s Caddy on a side street near the Wilshire Brown Derby. Now Jack had a fantasy about a boyfriend sucking him sweet and slow while a chauffeur drove them down Sunset Boulevard.