10-Story Detective Magazine, April 1946 — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

STARS DIE AT DAWN “Mark, darling! Come on over!” L did, and got whitewash all over my pants doing it. “Oh, Mark, it’s wonderful, c-cold it burns!” | She wore a two-piece of apple green. In the grey dawn her body was & white shadow in the water, like when » trout turns and flashes. ‘You really ought to try it, Mark!” she panted. “Yeah?” £ threw down a cushion off % warden chair, sat cross-legged on it aud lit a cigarette. “Mark!” Her wrey eyes blazed at me. “You've come to scold me.’ “What makes you think so?” “T know,” she scowled. “When you juat sit aud smoke and look down your long nose and wiggle your old red eye- brows like a dissolute old fox.” Her wide-lipped mouth pouted at me. She'd piled her hair up on her head, like a little wirl does when she gets iu the tub. The defiant way she held her chin would break your heart. 7 “Tt is about Turrentine, and me pro- ducing my own pictures? Mark, ia it?” I shrugged, “You're costing Turren- tine money and prestige. He'll break you.” “J have the right to make my own pictures! My contract says 30. You ne- gotiated that contract yourself, Mark!” I winced, burlesquing it. She swore at me. “Weil,” I grunted, “how could [ know you'd use a ouija board to pick seripts and directors?” “Just because I’ve had « couple of flops. This time it's going to be differ- ent. This picture, the next one—” E cut in, “Will cost you your last cent i€ you miss. You've already lost about two-thirds of everything I've piled up for you out of taxes.” I's 80 Que laughed and swam across the pool, her lovely shoulders white and shiny wet now. The first coppery light had sifted in among the top leaves of the walnut trees. A small green and brown frog hip-hopped in the wet grass, within arm’s reach of me, “Maybe,” I said bitterly, “you're not afraid of Turrentine or of losing your dough, But what about the way you're eee my new talent behind the eight- halt That was her soft spot—peonle. “What 2% do you mean?’ she wanted to know. “T mean I’ve got three newcomers on my string that look good. They deserve a break, They won’t get it. Everybody in Hollywood is scared to death of Tur- . rentine, Because I’m your agent, see?” it touched her. She looked thoughtful. “Are they any good?” I shrugged. “One is a kid just out of the Marines, He’s got talent. Also, he’s been through the mill. He could tell you how Tarawa smelled the third day, if you want to know. Most people don’t. They'd rather forget those things now. “Another of my stable is an old guy with forty years of character parts on the legit stage behind him. And I’ve got -@ chick of a girl out of a Midwest tank town who’s got what it takes.” “T’ll do something for them after I’ve made this next picture,” Vanessa mut- tered gulkily, I stubbed out my cigarette on the wet grass, “You think I’m mean, Mark. And cel-° lous. But I’m not.” She took hold of the edge of the pool and looked at me, her grey eyes big and serious. “Mark, you know some- thing? You’re in my will. You and Emily Hayden and ali the servants.” “Look,” I snarled. “Why do you think I came here in the early bright? Just to bat chit-chat back and forth?” She made big innocent eyes. didn’t?” I leveled on her. “Today is the day. You've got to go into a big studio huddle this morning. You'll be looking right down the barrel of all the power Tur- rentine can line up against you. The chips are down. It’s going to be you or him.” “I know how to handle myself.” “Do you? What about that old rumor floating around Hollywood about you having a husband hidden out over in Arizona? Your contract specifically for- bids matrimony in any shape or form. The public doesn’ want you married.” she told me what the public could do and grinned like a tomboy. “Just the same,” I warned her grim-~ ly. “Turrentine’s got a club over your head if he can prove you have a hua- band.” For just a split second aa looked acared. Then she scowled. “He can’t prove a thing.” eomlicbook CO