WE COMPLETED THE PICTURE IN FOUR WEEKS. Nevada knew what was happening but he never said a word. Two weeks after that, we held the first sneak preview at a theater out in the valley.
I got there late and the studio publicity man let me in. "There are only a few seats left on the side, Mr. Cord," he apologized.
I looked down at the orchestra. There was a section roped off in the center for studio guests. It was jammed. Everybody at the studio from Norman on down was there. They were all waiting for me to fall on my ass.
I went up into the balcony just as the lights went down and the picture came on. I found my way in the dark to a seat in the middle of a bunch of youngsters and looked up at the screen.
My name looked funny up there.
But the feeling left when the credits were over and the picture began. After ten minutes had passed I started to sense a restlessness in the kids around me. "Aw, shit," I heard one of them whisper. "I thought this was gonna be somethin' different. It's just another friggin' Western."
Then Rina came on screen. Five minutes later, when I looked around me, the kids' faces were staring up at the screen, their mouths partly open, their expressions rapt. There wasn't a sound except their breathing. Next to me sat a boy holding a girl's hand tightly in his lap. When Rina finally pulled Nevada down onto the bed with her, I could feel the kid squirm. He whispered, "Jesus!"
I reached for a cigarette and began to smile. Nobody had to tell me this picture was box office. When I came down into the lobby after it was over, Nevada was standing in the corner surrounded by kids and signing autographs. I looked for Rina. She was at the other end of the lobby surrounded by reporters. Bernie Norman was hovering over her like a proud father.
Dan was standing in the center of a circle of men. He looked up as I came over. "You were right, Jonas," he cried jubilantly. "She creamed 'em. We'll gross ten million dollars!"
I gestured and he followed me out to my car. "When this is over," I said, "bring Rina to my hotel."
He stared at me. "It's still eating yuh, isn't it?"
"Don't lecture me, just do as I say!"
"What if she won't come?"
"She'll come," I said grimly. "Just tell her it's collection day!"
It was one o'clock in the morning and I was halfway through a bottle of bourbon when the knock came on the door. I went over and opened it.
Rina walked into the room and I closed the door. She turned to face me. "Well?"
I gestured toward the bedroom. She looked at me for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders and nonchalantly started for the bedroom. "I told Nevada I was coming here," she said over her shoulder.
I spun her around violently. "What the hell did you do a damnfool thing like that for?"
Her eyes appraised me calmly. "Nevada and I are going to get married. I told him I wanted to be the first to tell you."
I couldn't believe my ears. "No!" I shouted hoarsely. "You can't. I won't let you. He's an old man, he's through. You'll be the biggest star in the business when this picture comes out."
"I know."
"If you know, then why? You don't need him. You don't need anybody."
"Because when I needed him, he helped me," she said evenly. "Now it's my turn. He needs me."
"He needs you? Why? Because he was too proud to do his own crawling?"
"That's not true and you know it!"
"Making you a star was my idea!"
"I didn't ask you for it," Rina said angrily. "I didn't even want it. Don't think I didn't see what you were doing. Cutting down his part in his own picture, building me up as a monument to your own ego while you were ruining him!"
"I didn't see you trying to stop me," I said. "We both know he's on the way out. There's a new kind of cowboy over at one of the studios. A singing cowboy. He uses a guitar instead of a gun!"
"You know everything, don't you!" Her hand slashed angrily out at my face. I could feel its sting even as she spoke. "That's why he needs me more than ever!"
I exploded and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her violently. "What about me? Why do you think I went into this? Not for Nevada. For you! Did you ever stop to think that when I came rushing up here to see you, that maybe I needed you?"
She stared into my eyes angrily.
"You’ll never need anybody, Jonas, only yourself. Otherwise, you wouldn't have left your wife down there all by herself. If you had any feelings at all, even pity, you'd have gone down there, or had her come up here."
"You leave my wife out of this!"
She turned to pull away and the front of her dress tore down to her waist. I stared at her. Her breasts rose and fell and I could feel the fever climb up in me. "Rina!" I crushed my mouth down on hers. "Rina, please."
Her mouth moved for a moment as she struggled to get away from me, then she was pressing herself closer and closer, her arms around my neck. That's the way we were when the door behind me opened. "Get outa here!" I said hoarsely, without bothering to turn around.
"Not this time, Jonas!"
I gave Rina a shove toward the bedroom, then turned around slowly to face my father-in-law and another man. Behind them was Monica, standing in the doorway. I stared at her. She had a belly way out to here.
The hollow echo of triumph was in Amos Winthrop's voice as he spoke. "Ten grand was too much to give me to send her away before." He chuckled quietly. "How much do you think it'll cost you to get rid of her now?"
As I stared at Monica, I began to curse myself silently. No wonder Amos Winthrop could laugh. I'd known Monica for less than a month before we got married. Even to my untrained eyes, she was at least five months' pregnant. That meant she was two months gone when she married me.
I cursed myself again. There's no fool like a young fool – my old man always used to say. And, as usual, my father was right.
That wasn't my cake she was baking in her oven.