Motel. Pool. Read online

  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.”

  Two

  1956

  WHEN JACK 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.

  On the other end of the phone line, Sam was puffing on a cigar—Jack could tell. After a few more noisy exhalations, Sam said, “You can’t come over here, not now. The goddamn press has been all over me lately. Keep seeing that bastard Miller from Whisper skulking in corners. He’s been wanting to run a story on me for years, and all he needs is a snapshot of a pretty boy visiting my place at night.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Jack chewed his lip. “I could meet you in Palm Springs.” He wasn’t sure his car would make it, but he was willing to give it a try.

  “No time. I have an early meeting tomorrow.”

  “Sam—”

  “Yeah, yeah. You home right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait for me.” Sam hung up before Jack could reply.

  Back up in his apartment, Jack brushed his teeth and shaped his hair with the help of a dab of Brylcreem. He’d been wearing a T-shirt and trousers, so now he slipped into one of his nicer shirts, the blue one tailored to emphasize his muscles and trim waist. He folded the bed into the wall, straightened his two chairs, and wiped the crumbs off the minuscule countertop. Then he sat down with a pack of cigarettes and a glass of cheap whiskey, and he waited.

  A recent postcard from his sister sat on a little table next to his ashtray. It displayed a photo of Nebraska’s state capitol building, irreverently dubbed the Penis of the Plains. Betty hadn’t intended the picture ironically—she didn’t know her brother was queer, and if she had known, she’d have been scandalized. Maybe she chose this card to convince him he was missing out on his home state’s exotic sights.

  The short message was hastily scrawled. Mom and Dad were fine. Betty was engaged to Hank Ellebruck and they were saving up for the wedding. She missed her big brother.

  When Jack had arrived in LA, he’d sent a postcard home with his new address. He’d sent a few cards afterward too, but this was the first reply he’d received.

  Maybe by the time Betty got married, he’d have made it big. He could go bac
k to Omaha in style—he’d fly there!—and show up at the wedding in a fashionable suit and expensive shoes. He’d sit in the back of the church so as not to take too much attention from Betty on her big day, but still people would whisper: “Do you see? That’s Jack Dayton! Yes, the one who beat Brando for the Oscar last year.”

  And someday… not now, not next year… but someday, he’d have a boyfriend. Someone he loved and who loved him, someone steady and handsome and good. And Jack would be so rich and famous by then that his family could overlook him being a homo, could maybe even accept his boyfriend into the fold. Jack and his boyfriend would host an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner catered by the best outfit in town, and they’d fly in Jack’s folks and Betty and Hank just for the weekend. After eating, they’d all go for a swim in the pool, even Jack’s parents.

  He heard Sam’s heavy footsteps in the hallway and opened the door before the first knock. Sam’s cigar was stuck in his mouth, unlit, and his hat was pushed back on his head.

  “No photographers?” Jack asked in a teasing tone.

  Sam growled quietly and pushed past him into the apartment. The room was even smaller with Sam filling all the space, and everything seemed far shabbier than usual. He grabbed Jack’s half-full glass of booze and downed it in one slug, grimacing.

  “Do you want some more?” Jack asked. “Or, uh, I could make some coffee.” He stepped around Sam and reached for the percolator on the sole kitchen shelf.

  But Sam grabbed him around the waist and drew him close. “Didn’t come here for coffee,” he said, breathing whiskey-and-cigar-scented air into Jack’s face.

  Jack allowed his body to go soft and pliant against Sam’s. Jack was an inch or two shorter, a circumstance that surely pleased Sam. Chuckling, Jack lifted Sam’s hat and tossed it aside. “And I just packed away my bed.”

  “Don’t need a bed for this, Jacky.” To illustrate his point, Sam pushed firmly on Jack’s shoulders.

  Jack settled on his knees, glad he’d landed on the apartment’s only throw rug. He unfastened his own trousers and then Sam’s, revealing Sam’s erect cock. But when he leaned in close, intending to begin sucking, Sam pushed him back slightly. “Not yet. Let me see you jack yourself.” Sam laughed softly at the joke that was already old between them.

  It took only a few moments of stroking before Jack was hard. He imagined himself performing this act with some of the matinee idols he’d been admiring his whole life. That hand roughly stroking his cheek belonged to Tony Curtis, to Glenn Ford, to Rock Hudson, to Gary Cooper. To James Dean.

  Sam grunted, grabbed Jack’s hair with both hands, and guided Jack’s head to his crotch. Jack wrapped his mouth around Sam’s cock.

  Sam wasn’t the first fellow Jack had had sex with. Back in Omaha, he’d fooled around with a couple of boys while in high school. He’d found a few more later, after washing up from the meatpacking plant on Friday nights and heading out to a bar. He’d find a friendly face or two, and they’d fuck in the bathroom, the alley, the backseat of someone’s car. There was always the risk of being arrested, but that added to the excitement, got him off all the quicker and all the harder.

  He’d had an easier time getting laid when he hit LA. Hell, his second day here, a good-looking kid about his age eyed him up real good at a diner, then met him afterward in an alcove near the garbage bins.

  But Sam was different. He was older. Richer. More powerful. Sex with Sam was business.

  Jack came first, climaxing as he imagined fucking his boyfriend in the middle of a huge round bed with silk sheets and with mirrors on the ceiling. A minute or two later, Sam jerked forward. He thrust his dick deep down Jack’s throat, making him choke, but didn’t let up the pressure on Jack’s hair and head until Jack swallowed every drop.

  “You’re good at that,” Sam said as he stepped away and zipped up.

  Buttoning his pants, Jack stood. He coughed a little and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Sam oofed slightly as he collapsed into one of the chairs, and Jack turned to the kitchenette, grabbing the percolator and filling it at the sink.

  “I saw a really good movie the other day,” he said as he plugged in the pot, his back to Sam. “This guy was in it, Yul Brynner, and I guess he—”

  “Fucking musicals. Bunch of prancing and fancy costumes. That’s not real acting.”

  Jack slouched against the wall, where he could watch the coffee brew and Sam smoke. “I thought it was pretty good. I like musicals. I can sing pretty good. We did Oklahoma! when I was a junior. I played Curly McLain.”

  He remembered the rush he’d felt when the audience in the high school auditorium erupted into applause, when he and the girl who played Laurey—damned if he could remember her name—stood front and center for the final bows, when it seemed like the whole world was looking at him with approval. At that moment he hadn’t even cared that his parents weren’t there. This was before James Dean, before Jack’s vague hopes crystalized into a plan. But standing in the spotlight in his checked shirt with a bandana around his neck, he’d been sure that someday soon he’d be something more than a meatpacker’s kid from Nebraska.

  “I won’t direct any fucking musicals,” Sam said.

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  The percolator bubbled and spat.

  “Will you tell me about the new movie? The one you’re casting now?” asked Jack.

  “It’s a war picture. Second World War. A bunch of young American soldiers are held in a German POW camp. A local Fräulein who’s working there falls for one of ’em—he’s a moody bastard because his brother bought it in a big battle—and together they hatch a plan to spring all the prisoners. They do it too. But she gets killed in the effort and he dies too. We don’t know whether it’s a heroic sacrifice or just plain suicide.”

  Jack pictured himself in a GI uniform, a world-weary stare in his eyes. “My grandparents were German. On my mom’s side. I know a few words.”

  “That’s great, kid.”

  Sam looked at his cigar but tucked it into his jacket, unlit. He pulled a cigarette from the package Jack had left on the table and lit it. He stretched his legs out in front of himself as he smoked.

  Jack filled a pair of mismatched mugs with coffee. They’d been in the apartment when he moved in. One was plain white, maybe lifted from a diner, and the other was jade green with a drippy-looking glaze. He used to add milk and a lot of sugar, but by now he’d learned to take it black, as Sam did. He handed the green cup to Sam, who set it on the table.

  Jack sipped, burning his tongue. “Hey, Sam? I, uh, sort of need a loan. Just a little one. I’ll pay it back when I get the first paycheck from the new picture.”

  Sam didn’t look at him. He dug in a pocket, removed his wallet, and pulled out some bills, which he set beside the mug. Jack couldn’t make out the total, but the top bill was a twenty. “Thanks,” said Jack. “I’m not gonna have to do this anymore once I’ve made it big.”

  Sam smoked.

  “So Sam? What’s the fellow’s name? The soldier who dies at the end.”

  “Hunter Reeves.”

  Jack tasted the name silently. He liked it. “And how much—”

  “You’re not gonna play Hunter Reeves, kid.”

  The coffee was bile bitter. Jack put the cup on the counter. “Why not? I can—”

  “Got someone else lined up for it.”

  “Who?”

  “That new kid. Benny Baxter.” Sam shook his head. “Dunno if he’s going to keep that name, though. He needs something stronger, with more zing.”

  Jack had met Benny Baxter at a couple of Sam’s parties. He was tall, strikingly good-looking, with the muscular build of a football player and soulful brown eyes with lashes any girl would kill for. Jack had seen Benny and Sam laughing together.

  “Are you fucking him, Sam?”

  “He’s right for the part. And he’s got chops. Took classes at the Actors Studio.”

  Jack’s eyes prickled and his throat was tight. “But
you promised—”

  “I can give you something. You’ll be good in a Nazi uniform. You look Aryan. And you said you can manage a couple lines in German, right?”

  “An extra. You’re gonna make me an extra?”

  Sam shrugged. “I can probably get you a credit line.”

  Jack turned to face the wall. “You promised me. You said—”

  “This isn’t a game, kid!” Sam huffed as he rose to his feet and closed the space between them. He grabbed Jack’s shoulder, pulling him around. Jack tried to duck away, but the grip was bruisingly tight. “This is the fucking industry. It’s not a bunch of your little pals getting together to have a show in someone’s backyard.”

  Jack managed to twist away but was still pinned between Sam and the cabinet. “I know.”

  “You don’t know anything, Jacky-boy. The producers are gonna sink four million into this picture. You think they’re doing that just for fun? You think that’s pocket change? The money they pay me—the money I use for things like your fancy clothes and the pool in Palm Springs you like so much—you think they give me that for nothing? It’s a fucking business and they wanna see a profit.”

  “So?” Jack lifted his chin defiantly. “You said I’m good-looking and—”

  “Yeah, you’re real pretty. Give me an hour and I could find a thousand other cocksuckers just as pretty, just as eager to bend over for me.”

  Jack’s hands clenched into fists so tight the nails dug into his palms. His voice was tight too. “I can act.”

  Sam sighed, shook his head, took a half step backward. “Sure. You do okay. I’ve seen way worse.”

  “Then why can’t—”

  “You’re not a star, kid. Look, there’s a… thing. Dunno what it is or what to call it. Charisma maybe. Maybe one guy or babe in a million’s got it. The ones that got it, we can’t take our eyes away from them. Like James Dean, right? You put them on set and the camera fucking loves them. They do to the lens what your lips do to my cock. Hell, they don’t even have to be that handsome. Jimmy Stewart. John Wayne. Neither of them are all that special until you watch them move, hear them talk, then… wham! They got you.”