‘She doesn’t know,’ Clay protested, ‘just suspects sometimes. In fact, she only ever caught me once, and that was with the German au pair. Terrible fight. I told you about it, didn’t I? When she chased me bollock-naked into the garden and I fell in the pond?’
‘Yes.’ Charlie laughed, remembering the story well.
‘That German bit had the biggest pair of knockers I ever saw. It was Natalie’s fault for hiring her. She knows what I’m like about tits. By the way, while we’re on the subject, that friend of Dindi’s – Sunday Simmons – what wouldn’t I give for a piece of that!’
‘Hmm . . .’ Charlie thought about Sunday reflectively. He had thought about her several times since the party and decided that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He remembered her eyes, strange browny-yellow tiger eyes.
‘I wonder if she fucks,’ Clay said.
‘They all do,’ Charlie replied shortly. ‘You offer them a job and they all do.’
* * *
Natalie went upstairs and changed into pants and a shirt. After lunch she thought she would try the hairdressers, she wanted to look particularly attractive for that evening. She knocked on Dindi’s door; they had adjoining suites. There was no reply.
Blast the little tart! She wasn’t about to go searching the hotel for her. The bitch would just have to miss lunch.
Natalie walked slowly to the elevator. Things were going well between her and Charlie. She had noticed the small intimate looks he kept giving her. She smiled to herself. It wouldn’t be long.
The elevator arrived and she stepped in. It was going up. A tall brunette in a short toga said, ‘You musta pressed the wrong button, people are always doing that. It’s a drag, you’ll have to come right to the top, and then it’ll stop at every floor down.’
The elevator zoomed silently up, finally stopping at the eighteenth floor. The girl in the toga got out, and two girls got in, pressing the hold button for another girl hurrying to join them.
Natalie, standing at the back of the elevator, saw Dindi emerge from a room with a good-looking dark-haired man. Then the elevator doors closed and she saw no more.
The girls were talking. ‘Well, he grabbed my thigh and I said, “Knock it off, jerk.” ’
‘Honestly, some guys have such a nerve.’
‘You can get black and blue just walking around here!’
‘Excuse me,’ Natalie said. ‘What’s on the eighteenth floor. Is it part of the hotel?’
The three girls all stared at her. ‘Offices,’ said one.
‘Steam room, staff rooms, management suites. Are you English?’ said another.
‘Yes.’
‘Charlie Brick’s staying here, you know,’ the third girl confided, ‘and Tom Jones came in here one night when he was playing Caesar’s. Hey, I’ve a cousin in a place called Leeds, maybe you know her? Her name’s Myrtle Long, she’s a model.’
‘No, I don’t know her.’ Natalie shook her head.
‘I looove English actors,’ the first girl said, ‘Roger Moore, Peter Sellers, Omar Sharif. Oh, boy!’
‘Omar Sharif’s not English,’ said the girl with the cousin, ‘he’s an Arab.’
‘Well, I dig Arabs too.’
Natalie smiled. Steam rooms, offices, staff rooms, management suites was definitely where Dindi must have been. She wondered with whom. But whoever it was, she planned to find out.
* * *
‘I think Dindi’s still sleeping,’ Natalie remarked, arriving for lunch.
Serafina scowled, furious at having been dragged away from the roulette wheel to eat. ‘That girl will sleep her life away. A truly fit person needs no more than six hours a night.’
Morton yawned, as if to confirm the fact that Serafina needed only six hours a night.
Clay was grinning at a statuesque lady, poised with pencil and pad, ready to take their order.
Charlie wished he were back at the house in Los Angeles quietly getting stoned. He didn’t feel social. It wasn’t right for him to be forced to spend an active weekend when he was working. He should be resting, studying his script. He wished he had brought George, instead of leaving him with the children.
‘What’s on for this afternoon?’ Clay asked.
‘I’m going to the hairdressers,’ Natalie announced.
‘Morton and I shall be returning to the tables,’ said Serafina. ‘The sun saps your vital energy and ruins your skin.’
‘I think I may sleep,’ Charlie said.
At that moment Dindi appeared, flushed and pretty. ‘Hi there. I thought this is where I’d find you. Charlie, sweetie, I’m doing stills this afternoon. Can I have some bread? I’ve seen some things I want to buy.’
‘Stills for what?’ Charlie asked, unaware that the studio had arranged anything for Dindi that weekend.
She pouted. ‘For a magazine.’
‘What magazine?’
‘Just some magazine, I don’t know.’
‘Well you had better know, otherwise just forget it.’
‘Forget it?’ Her blue eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean, forget it?’
Charlie realized the whole table was listening – Clay embarrassed, Serafina spiteful, Natalie sympathetic, Morton uninterested.
He smiled coldly. ‘Dindi, love, be a good girl and run along and find out what magazine it is. Now that you’re such an aspiring actress it wouldn’t do for you to appear in the wrong sort of publication.’
His voice was mild, but Dindi realized she had pushed too far. ‘OK, honeybunch,’ she said, tossing blonde curls. ‘See you later, gang.’ And she wriggled off in tight jersey slacks and cutoff sweater.
Charlie sighed. He didn’t want it and he didn’t need it. After the movie Dindi was out.
He went upstairs after lunch and phoned George.
‘Send me a cable immediately,’ he said. ‘Say – meeting imperative on Roundabout, urgent. Return at once. Sign it Cy Hamilton.’
An hour or so later the cable arrived, and full of apologies, Charlie showed it to Serafina, now playing black-jack.
She looked dismayed. ‘Does that mean we have to go too?’
‘No, love, not at all. I’ll leave you credit, and you can stay as long as we planned. Dindi will stay too, and Clay and Natalie. You’ll be fine.’
Serafina didn’t argue.
Next, he located Clay by the pool, chatting up a showgirl. He showed him the cable. ‘Sorry, love, it’s a real drag. You’ll keep an eye on Serafina for me, won’t you? I’ve left her plenty of credit but if she needs any money, give it to her.’
Clay nodded. ‘What about Dindi?’
‘She’s staying too. I don’t know where she is, but I’ve left her a note. Just make sure she stays, and see she’s nice to Serafina.’
‘Yes, boss!’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you and Nat.’
Clay grinned. ‘You’d manage.’
Charlie was on a plane half an hour later on his way back to Los Angeles.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The item read: ‘Steve Magnum and ravishing eye-stopping Sunday Simmons seem to have found each other on the sunny shores of Acapulco where they are filming Cash together. Do we hear wedding bells?’
The item read: ‘Sexsational Sunday Simmons and much-married Steve Magnum constant companions on location for Cash.’
The item read: ‘Steve Magnum seems to have bewitched lovely newcomer Sunday Simmons. Friends say they are inseparable. They are working on Cash together.’
* * *
For once the Hollywood gossip columns read correctly. Sunday and Steve were constantly together.
She found him charming, easygoing, and very attractive. He was so unlike anyone she had ever met before. Always in command of any situation, always laughing and joking. She wasn’t sure if she was in love, so she refused to sleep with him.
He couldn’t believe it. ‘Honey, it’s not like you’re a virgin. How long has it been for Chrissake?’
&n
bsp; She smiled in reply. ‘Long enough. I don’t want to be another Steve Magnum conquest. Let me be sure.’
So she waited.
‘I’m in shock,’ he confessed to friends. ‘This broad’s put me in shock!’ But he laughed when he said it, and he respected her and didn’t push her into bed. What he did was install Enchilada in a nearby hotel, and she visited him when Sunday returned at night to Las Brisas. It seemed like a fair arrangement. What Sunday didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and as soon as she overcame her doubts, Enchilada would be sent packing with a couple of thousand dollars to soothe her ruffled pride. Actually, it rather pleased Steve that Sunday wasn’t prepared to leap straight into the sack; at least it suggested that there hadn’t been a long line of guys in front of him. She told him, and he believed her, that there had been no-one since her husband. What a change it made from the usual Hollywood scene which was like a bizarre game of Change Partners.
* * *
Cash was nearing completion. The film Sunday had made with Jack Milan was released, and although her part was only small, she was mentioned favourably in the reviews and started to receive an avalanche of fan mail.
Carey phoned her every day to report the offers she was getting. There was a movie in Europe. A Bonnie and Clyde-type film in Texas. A comedy in Hollywood.
Steve advised her not to accept anything. ‘Keep ’em waiting and your price will rocket. When they see you in our movie you’ll be able to name any terms you want.’
Sunday wasn’t sure. It would be months before Cash came out and she didn’t want to wait that long. It was too much of a risk with the industry in its present state.
Carey was persuaded. ‘OK, let’s strike while you’re hot.’
So Sunday signed for the comedy.
Steve sulked. ‘Wouldn’t listen to me, huh?’ he complained. ‘Five minutes in the business and you know it all.’
‘I haven’t been five minutes in the business. Anyway it’s a very good script.’
They were sitting by the pool at his house. It was early evening and they had just finished the day’s shooting.
‘I’m going for a swim,’ she announced, and went to a cubicle and changed into a white bikini.
‘Hey, listen, do an old man one favour at least and swim in the raw.’
‘What?’ she asked laughing. ‘You’re as bad as all the directors I work with.’
‘Listen, baby, it’s enough not having you yet. If anyone knew my reputation would be shot to hell. So give me a cheap thrill, huh? Just for kicks.’
‘Steve, I can’t. You’ve got a house full of servants. Anyway, I don’t think—’
‘OK.’ He shrugged. ‘OK, if you don’t even care that much about me. You know we’re completely secluded from the house.’ He turned away, staring at the pink uneven walls surrounding the pool area and wondering what it was about her that had him so hooked.
There was a splash, and then she called him.
She was floating in the pool, her hair wet and streaming out behind her, and her naked breasts outlined clearly in the opalescent blue water. She wore only the bottom half of her bikini.
He was pleased. ‘Hey, baby, that’s really something.’
She waited for him to dive in, but he just smiled his famous smile and said, ‘Baby, you are beautiful.’ So conditioned was he to not having her that it didn’t occur to him that she might be ready. Besides, he had had a three-hour session with Enchilada the previous evening, and at his age it was exhausting.
She swam slowly around the pool. Soon the film would be finished and she had to decide about herself and Steve.
‘Listen, baby,’ he said, ‘I promised we’d go to a party tonight. OK with you?’
She climbed out of the pool, covering her breasts with her hands. ‘Fine.’
* * *
The Acapulco Film Festival was in full swing, and Sunday and Steve had already attended several parties together.
Sunday enjoyed them. It was interesting meeting the foreign contingent, and she had run into two or three people she had worked with in Rome.
‘You’re quite a celebrity,’ Steve said with a mixture of jealousy and pride when an important Italian director greeted her with a stream of praise about a film they had made together.
‘I did exist before Hollywood,’ she said with a smile.
‘You bet your ass you did, and I don’t want to hear about it.’
Claude Hussan, the French director, was brought over to be introduced by an anxious publicity girl. Claude was a tall angular man with dark emaciated features, black eyes and long straight hair. He was the current rage in French film circles, and married to a French actress who had starred in his latest film. The film was collecting a series of awards, and his wife was being acclaimed as a young Garbo.
Sunday was excited at meeting him, but he greeted her with bored eyes and a great lack of interest, talking only to Steve. It upset her. She couldn’t understand why he was so rude. She had seen his new film and admired it greatly. Secretly she harboured the wish to work for him. She knew that he was in the process of preparing his first American film, although no one seemed to know much about it.
On the way home Steve said, ‘What did you think of Claude?’
She shrugged. ‘Full of his own importance.’
‘Yeah, he’s a cold fish. I hear he’s a bastard with the ladies.’
‘Yes, well you’re not exactly Little Boy Blue.’
He told the chauffeur to pull over and stop. ‘Listen kid, you have no complaints. I’ll tell you what I was thinking. You want to try the marriage bit?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Marriage baby. Let’s get MARRIED. Then maybe I can score a little sex around here.’ Memories of Sunday swimming half-naked gave him his first hard-on of the day.
‘You’re not serious, are you?’
‘I’m serious. When do you want to do it? Jesus, I thought the days of a broad holding out until after the ring was on her finger were over, but I guess they’re not. When, baby? You name the day.’
‘I – I don’t know.’ A proposal of marriage was the last thing she expected. She certainly hadn’t been holding out for that reason. I mean are we compatible? Do we like the same things?’
‘Take off your clothes, sugar, and we’ll soon find out.’
‘Steve, don’t joke. I’ll have to think about it.’
His voice echoed disbelief. ‘You’ll have to think about it. What is there to think about? My God, I’ve met difficult broads but you beat the band.’
‘I can’t just rush into a decision. It’s a little more complicated than that.’
‘Jesus, Sunday. Do you think now that we’re practically married I can get on with my sex life? I feel like a goddamn monk, it’s been so long.’
‘Is that why you want to marry me, just for sex?’
‘Don’t talk like an idiot.’
‘I’ll tell you what. We’ll go to bed together and then we’ll see.’
‘We’ll see what?’
‘We’ll see if we want to get married.’
He shook his head. ‘You know, you’re a nutty broad.’
‘I’m not a broad.’
‘No, I guess you’re not.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘So when do I get lucky?’
She smiled. ‘Soon, I promise.’
The next day, without asking her, Steve announced their forthcoming marriage. Journalists started to flow into Acapulco from all over the world. Cash received a million dollars’ worth of free publicity. Sunday Simmons became a household name.
She was angry. ‘You should have waited. This isn’t fair.’
He grinned his famous grin and presented her with a flawless square-cut diamond ring. It was difficult to stay angry with him, he was so pleased.
She phoned Carey, who was delighted about the whole thing. Then she phoned Max Thorpe. He hadn’t predicted an immediate marriage.
‘I’d like to see you,’ she pleaded. ‘We’re having an en
gagement party tomorrow night. Can you possibly come?’
‘I’d love to,’ Max said. ‘Will Branch be there?’
‘I hope so.’
‘So do I, my dear, so do I.’ Max chuckled and envisaged himself in his pink frilled evening shirt.
* * *
It seemed all of Acapulco turned out, plus a certain section of Hollywood, and most of the wandering jet-setters.
Sunday was amazed at Steve’s wide range of friends.
Her guests were few – Carey, with Marshall, smiling all over her face and whispering, ‘I want to hear the whole story.’ Branch, strangely quiet and morose. Max Thorpe, telling fortunes, in particular that of an eighteen-year-old rock idol. And Dindi, alone and pretty in the skimpiest dress, which showed off every one of her assets.
‘Where’s Charlie?’ Sunday asked, slightly disappointed by his absence.
‘That man is such a drag,’ Dindi said. ‘All he has on his mind is work. I’m seriously thinking of trading him for a newer model now that I’m making it on my own. Did you know I’m starring in All the World Loves a Stripper? It’s a fabulous part. Lots of nude scenes, but it’s very artistic, and absolutely imperative to the story.’
‘That’s terrific, I’m sorry that things aren’t too good with you and Charlie.’
‘Good, schnood, who cares.’ Dindi peered closely at Sunday. ‘Say, is it all true or what?’
‘Is what true?’
‘The sexy Mr Magnum. Is he where it’s at or not? I mean does he swing like they say? Is he that good?’
‘Er, Dindi, I’ll see you in a minute, there are some people I must talk to.’ Sunday hurried off.
‘For a great-looking girl she sure is dull,’ Dindi muttered. ‘Bet she wouldn’t know a good screw if it was staring her in the face.’
Dindi was particularly disturbed by the engagement. She had got herself lumbered with a moody English actor, and Sunday had picked the plum, Steve Magnum himself.
Steve was talking to a well-known senator when Dindi zeroed in. ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘I’m Dindi Sydne, Mrs Charlie Brick. I’m Sunday’s best friend. I guess she told you about me.’
‘If you give yourself any more billing, you’ll own the studio!’ Steve said with a laugh.