Page 9 of His Girl Hollywood

Eddie said nothing, just sipped significantly from his coffee cup once more.

“Christ, maybe I need that strawberry milkshake after all.” Don flagged down the boy in the paper cap behind the counter and ordered a milkshake and a hamburger. He was starving. He’d need his strength to start filming tomorrow.

While he waited for his food, his thoughts turned again to Arlene. “Maybe you’re right, Eddie,” he muttered. “Maybe she’s nervous. But it’s not as if she’s the only one under a lot of pressure here.”

Eddie sighed and patted Don on the back. “I know, pal, but think about it from her shoes. She’s getting the chance of a lifetime—one of the only women given the director’s chair on a studio film in years. Then, your ugly mug comes strolling back into her life.”

“Oh, come off it, Ed. I bet she’s barely thought about me in thelast decade. She has an Oscar, for Christ’s sake.” Was that it? Did she think she was better than him? That she’d outgrown him? Did she resent that she was saddled with him instead of a proven entity, a movie star with legions of fans? Looking down her nose at people had never been Lena’s style, but he had scarcely recognized the distant, cold woman he’d met tonight.

His stomach turned as the pimply teenager working the soda fountain set his burger and milkshake down in front of him. Don pushed the plate away and leaned his elbows on the counter.

“You’re thinking about Frankie, aren’t you?” Eddie muttered.

“How can I not? I just ordered a meal I can’t afford to pay for because that backstabbing sonofabitch pockets every penny I nearly kill myself to earn. I can’t even look at a pretty girl without thinking about Mabel. Which makes me think of Eleanor and what she did. I start to see red. Frankie controls everything I do. Even who I love. And I was such a mug that I didn’t realize how deep in I was until it was too late.”

He didn’t say the other part. The part that was always on his mind. How he’d traded one tyrant for another in a quest to prove himself and his dancing to the world. He’d been so desperate to escape his father that he’d leaped into Frankie’s trap with bells on.

Eddie interrupted his thoughts. “You gotta stop beating yourself up over that, Don. Frankie’s the bad guy here, rigging your contract and using you to make money hand over fist. Putting you in illegal situations so that you were under his thumb before you could say Jack Robinson. It could’ve happened to anyone. Hell, throw a rock in this town and you’ll probably hit someone who’s been through something similar.”

“No. If I had been smart and not a bum, if I had more to my name than my old man’s stevedore hook and the inescapable stench of fish guts, I would’ve known better. Mabel would’ve achievedher dreams and we would’ve got married. She would’ve been safe. Eleanor and Frankie would have never targeted Mabel.”

Eddie downed the last of his coffee, which the soda jerk had been assiduously refreshing, and turned on his stool to face Don. “Look, I know nothing I say is gonna change your mind. But you can’t let the past haunt your future. What happened to Mabel was horrible. But it can’t be the only thing that defines you for the rest of your life. We are the people our history has made us, but we can make our own path too. Hollywood is a fresh start for you. For the both of us.”

Don set his napkin down and started to rise from the stool.

“Hey, where you going?” Eddie called after him.

“You got a nickel?” was his only reply.

“Ain’t you got one?”

Don put his hands in his pockets and pulled them inside out, holding out only a penny and some lint.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Sooner or later you’re gonna have to use that penny.”

Don winked. “Never. It’s my good-luck charm.” He breathed on it in the palm of his hand and shined it with the edge of his sleeve. He’d carried this around in his pocket for ten years, and if it was the only thing between him and utter starvation, he wouldn’t give it up.

Eddie sighed, fished a coin from his pocket, and handed it to Don. Don thanked him and then added, “What you said about my past haunting my future… I gotta call Frankie. If he doesn’t hear from me, he’s going to suspect something’s up.”

Eddie grinned, a shit-eating look that had his rough-and-tumble Brooklyn upbringing scrawled across his face. “To be fair, something is up.”

Don ran a hand down his face. “Yeah, but I don’t need him to know that right now. He thinks this picture is going to be his ticketto a foothold in Hollywood. This only works if Frankie doesn’t get wise to the fact that Evets Studios is cutting weekly checks to me. You know what happens when he gets wise to things.”

“I do.” Eddie rubbed his nose meaningfully. Last year, one of Frankie’s guys had broken Eddie’s nose. A stranger had cornered him outside the stage door and slugged him until his face was like mush. The next week, the extra choreography fee Eddie had tried to arrange for Don onPal’ing Aroundwas no longer in his contract. They’d never had any proof it was on Frankie’s orders. But a payment to Frankie Martino for “miscellaneous services” was listed in Don’s contract instead. What other proof did they need?

“So, I better check in. Keep him happy.”

Don sighed and found his way to the bank of phones against the opposite wall. “You could at least reverse the charges,” Eddie called after him. Don flipped the nickel over his shoulder and turned his head in time to watch Eddie catch it. They were a hell of a team.

He slid open the glass door to the phone booth, the only empty box out of the four, and took a seat on the wooden stool inside. The cold metallic gleam of the phone taunted him. He had to play this right or it was going to blow up in his face. He took a breath and closed his eyes, envisioning himself walking on a balance beam, an audience watching him intently.

He reached out and dialed zero. “I’d like to place a collect call to New York City. Offices of Martino and Associates,” he told the operator.Associates, what a joke. More like Martino and Goons. The whirring sound of the call connecting and ringing as the signal wound its way from California to New York brought him to attention. He cleared his throat and sat up straight.

“’Lo, this is Frankie, whadya want?”

Don shook his head. Classy guy, Frankie Martino.

“Frankie, it’s Don.”