The Dream Merchants by Harold Robbins Page B

would be working because it was the only day some of the girls they had hired would be free. These girls worked in a burlesque show during the week and this was a chance for them to pick up a few bucks extra.
    When he got there, Joe was in the midst of a hot argument with one of the girls. She was screaming at him. At first Johnny couldn’t make out what it was all about, but then he gathered it had something to do with the clothes she was wearing.
    Bill Borden was standing near by, wearing a worried look that Johnny had come to recognize as customary for all picture men. Joe stood there calmly waiting for the girl to stop screaming. Johnny stopped near the door. No one even noticed his entering.
    At last the girl stopped yelling. Joe looked at her for a moment, then turned to Borden. “Give her her time, Bill,” he said calmly, ignoring the girl. “We can’t afford temperament in this business.”
    Borden didn’t answer. The worried look on his face grew deeper.
    The girl started to shout again. “You can’t do it!” she screamed at Joe. “I’m supposed to have the lead in this picture. My agent’ll sue you!” Her voice grew shrill.
    Joe looked at her calmly for a moment; then he suddenly exploded. “Who the hell do you think you’re gonna sue and for what?” he shouted back at her. “Why, for Christ’s sake, we pay you more here for one day’s work than you make all week hustling your ass on a burley line! Sue us an’ you get no work from any of the picture people!” He stepped close to her and shook an angry finger in her face. “Now, if you want to play the lead in this picture, take off your God-damn dress and show your chemise! And don’t give me any bull about being modest. I seen you on the stage of the Bijou without nothin’ on! Thass the reason I hired you!”
    The girl fell silent in the face of this sudden tirade. After a few seconds of looking at him thoughtfully, she said: “All right, I’ll do it. But there’s one thing!” With a sudden motion she stepped back from him, drew her dress off over her head, and threw it at Joe’s feet.
    A gasp rose in Johnny’s throat. The girl didn’t have a stitch of clothing on under the dress.
    Quickly Joe picked up the dress and rushed to cover her. Borden threw his hands over his face and groaned.
    The girl smiled as Joe reached her. “You’ll have to lend me a chemise,” she said sweetly. “It was too damn hot to wear one.”
    Joe began to laugh. “Yuh shoulda said so in the first place, baby,” he managed to say. “We would’ve saved ourselves a pack uh trouble.”
    A few minutes later the girl was dressed in a chemise, and the camera began to roll. Joe looked up and saw Johnny. He went toward him, a smile on his face. “See what I gotta go through?” he asked.
    Johnny grinned back at him. “Yeah. Pretty tough, isn’t it?”
    Joe laughed at Johnny’s answer. “No foolin’, though,” he said seriously. “These kids are crazy, you never know what to expect from them.”
    Johnny grinned again. “I didn’t see nuthin’ to complain about.”
    Joe shoved him gently by the shoulder. “Go on into the projection room an’ look at those pictures, you unsympathetic bastard,” he said in a friendly voice. “I should be through by the time you are. Then we’ll go to eat.”
    “Okay,” Johnny said, starting to turn away.
    Joe called him back. “I was just thinkin’,” he said with a smile on his face. “It might be a good idea if we took a couple of the babes along with us. The kinda life you been leadin’ up in Rochester ain’t too good for yuh.”
    “Decent of you to worry about me,” Johnny told him with a derisive smile on his face. “I suppose you can get along without dames.”
    Joe smiled comfortably. “I kin take ’em or leave ’em. But I remember the time when you were about sixteen an’ yuh got so randy over that contortionist, Santos had to take yuh over an’ get yuh fixed up.”
    Johnny’s face grew red;