Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 Read Online Free PDF Page A

into our lives, in any fashion. Okay?”
    She raised her hands in gentle surrender. “All right, bad suggestion—but your partner Fred has a black book filled with movie colony bigwigs. Isn’t that why you threw in with him—the movie studios and stars he works for, and with? It would be easy for him to line up some interviews, some auditions for me.”
    “You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?”
    “Yes. Yes, I have.”
    “And I’d just move out here, and what? Let Lou Sapperstein run the Chicago office?”
    “Sure, and you can fly back and forth some. We could maintain two residences. We can afford it.”
    I knew when Peg got up a full head of steam like this, there was no stopping her—and, frankly, I didn’t see the harm. She did have a little talent—a little—and, yes, she had the looks. She was pretty with a nice shape, and with all the Technicolor pictures they were making these days, those violet eyes would show up nice.
    But the reality was, she didn’t stand a chance, even with a little string-pulling. At twenty-nine, she really was too old for this town, to be starting out, anyway. So I didn’t see the harm. Let her try, let her get her hopes dashed, and let her come running back into my arms in tears.
    The second agent she tried out for signed her. I chewed Fred out, asking what the hell he thought he was doing, had he twisted this guy’s arm or what?

    Fred—a small, compactly muscular, nattily dressed man in his forties with sharp dark eyes, a rumpled face, and a shiny bald head—sat behind his desk in the Bradbury Building and shrugged elaborately. “Who’d a thunk it? I didn’t ask for any favors, except to let Peg read for him. I said she was my partner’s wife and would he please humor her. He said sure, and now this!”
    I was pacing. “Humor her is right. She goes out on audition at Fox tomorrow!”
    “Having an agent is nothing.”
    “Nothing! There’s ten thousand beautiful babes out there that would screw you silly for an in with an agent!”
    “Maybe in the future I should keep that in mind.” Fred sat forward, patted the air reassuringly. “Listen, Nate, don’t worry. Roles are not that easy to come by. You think she’s gonna get the first part she reads for? No way in hell!”
    Fred was right. She got the second part she read for, a bit as a waitress in a Bob Hope picture at Paramount.
    She was thrilled, giddy with it, and I did my best not to be a rat, and seem happy for her.
    Anyway, Peggy taking this flier at the movies didn’t bother me as much as the notion of relocating to Los Angeles; and Fred Rubinski wasn’t crazy about it, either, because he was used to running his own office. Taking me on as a partner had been predicated on my ass staying in Chicago.
    “I don’t know what to do about it,” I said to him, in a booth at Sherry’s, the swanky restaurant he owned a piece of on Sunset. “I could divide my time between Chicago and here, maybe three weeks back there and one in L.A.”
    “That might work,” Fred said, lighting up a cigar, pushing a plate of cheesecake crumbs aside. I was still working on my dessert, a rum and Coke.
    “Trouble is,” I said, “knowing how susceptible Peggy is to this show biz baloney, I’m afraid Errol Flynn or Robert Taylor or somebody would be in her pants before I got off the plane in Chicago.”
    “Nice, you got such faith in your bride.”
    “Listen, I love Peggy and I think she loves me, but I got noillusions about this marriage. I got her on the boomerang and I have my work cut out, holding on to her without her flying into somebody’s else’s arms.”
    “Siegel?”
    “No. But somebody rich and slick and handsome.”
    Fred’s rumpled face formed a lopsided smile. “Well, Nate, you may not be rich, but you’re workin’ on it, and lots of people think you’re slick, maybe too slick—and more than your share of ladies have found you handsome enough, over the years.”
    “Yeah, but I’m