This Time We Love Read online

  All right, possibly it was true that he felt both friendship and kinship to his relations. He got along excellently with all of them. But he had himself to think about. Why should he go back and spend his life bailing the concern out of the rut it was evidently in? He had his own life to lead, his own philosophy of Eat, drink and make Mary to fulfill.

  He swung his feet around out of the bed and to the floor and headed for the bathroom. Why in the hell didn’t Frederic Fielding sell out the company and retire?

  By the time he’d bathed, dressed and had breakfast, he’d come to the conclusion to quit Horatius at the Bridge and get plane reservations for Rio de Janeiro. In fact, he had half a mind to pack now, before going out to Cinecittà to hand in his resignation and collect the money currently coming to him. However, he left that and went down to the garage for the Porsche.

  At Cinecittà it developed that Manny King had called off the morning shooting on threat of rain and had gone into Rome on some business or other.

  Max went to the production offices to locate Mike Rogers and say his good-byes.

  Nadine looked up briskly as usual from her own desk in the outer office, immediately next to Rogers’ door. She said crisply, “Good morning, Max.”

  “Hello, honey,” he said easily. “Mike in?”

  “Afraid not.” She looked at her king-size watch and as she did Max decided all over again that Nadine Barney was an inordinately attractive girl in the American tradition. If he was ever to decide to return to Fielding Toys and devote himself to the project, here was the girl he’d choose to be his wife and helpmate. With Nadine to keep him in line and to balance his own happy-go-lucky ways, he could build that concern into the largest in the country. He caught himself up short. Easy, little Max, easy, boy. That way lay disaster.

  Nadine was saying, “Mr. Rogers has gone down to Naples to see about building that set that involves Vesuvius in the background. He won’t be back until tomorrow. Something important?”

  Max shrugged. “I’ll think about it,” he said. He turned to go, then hesitated and said, “Look, I understand it was your suggestion that got me that whopping bonus.”

  Nadine said crisply, “You deserved it.”

  He nodded. “Maybe, but it was nice of you to beat Mike over the head with the idea until he came through. Production managers aren’t usually exactly quick with a buck.”

  She looked up into his face, and as usual when they talked together these days, there was something in — or behind — her eyes that caused a wave of self-irritation to flood over Max Fielding. He said gruffly, “At any rate, thanks again. See you later, Nadine.” He didn’t know why he was refraining from telling her this was his last day.

  She returned to her work and he ambled out.

  He wandered over to the canteen for a cup of coffee, irritated. Now that he had decided to go, he wanted to get under way. On the other hand, he liked both Rogers and Manny King and didn’t want to leave without suitable good-byes.

  At the canteen he briefly met Lonny Balt. The photographer had evidently just finished a coffee break himself and was heading back to the publicity offices. He stopped for a word. “You seen either Bert or Jeanette? Neither turned up this morning.”

  “Good,” Max told him. “You’ll possibly never see Jeanette again. She’s called it quits with our Banty rooster friend.”

  “About time,” the pasty-faced photographer said. “And Bert?”

  “Probably in the hospital,” Max said. “He ran into the wrong situation last night. If I sized that little Texan up right, he’s spent some time in the ring.”

  “What Texan?” Lonny said plaintively. “This conversation sounds like every other sentence is being left out.”

  “It’s a long story,” Max told him, “but uninteresting. I’ll just tell you the end. Friend Bert picked a fight last night and nobody bailed him out.”

  Lonny beamed. “That calls for a belt. Have one with me, Max?”

  “Too early,” Max told him. “See you later, Lonny.”

  He spent the balance of the morning wandering around the sets, particularly the ones in which he had worked. In a way he felt nostalgia, since he was figuring on leaving. He imagined this film would be ending in a few weeks anyway. He looked forward to seeing the finished product, wondering, wryly, how he would personally show up in those combat scenes.

  After lunch in the cafeteria, he hung around the studio in the afternoon, hoping that either Rogers or King would return and he could terminate the job. He had no contract, of course, so there was no manner in which they could hold him, even if they wished, and he wasn’t as important as all that.

  It was in the late afternoon that one of the assistant directors approached him, a manila envelope in hand. “Max,” he said, “could you take this over to Miss McEvoy?”

  He frowned at the other. “Where is she, Charlie?”

  “At her apartment.” For some reason, the man seemed ill at ease.

  Max didn’t get it. “Well, why me? Why not one of the messenger boys?”

  Charlie said, irritably now, “Perhaps this is too small a matter for your great talents, but Mr. King’s first assistant is of the opinion that you are very reliable. This is a change in script that Miss McEvoy must have immediately and we haven’t had time to mimeograph it. This is the only copy and the writers would tear their hair if it was lost.”

  “Oh,” Max said. “Sure. What’s her address?”

  The other told him and Max walked toward the Porsche where it was parked beneath the trees behind the administration building. At least this would give him something to do in the way of killing time. As a matter of fact, the day would be over by the time the delivery was made. He’d have a good dinner and go home and, for once, sleep alone. Tomorrow he could wrap it up and take off for South America.

  Marcia McEvoy and her husband had taken a terrace apartment on Via Archimede, that street of the well-heeled foreign element of Rome. Max hadn’t been here before, although on two occasions the star had invited him to what she had called a small, intimate party. He’d suspected that the party would be so small that it would consist of nobody beyond Max and Marcy, and Max had already become repelled by her bitch-in-heat-like advances.

  He ran the gantlet of the twin doormen without difficulty, took the elevator to the eighth floor to the Giotto-McEvoy apartment, and rang the bell.

  He twisted his mouth in amusement. Suppose Filippo Giotto answered the door? The man was still evidently convinced that it was Max who was cuckolding him. Well, Max could handle the aggressively jealous Italian. In fact, he wouldn’t particularly mind the opportunity. He owed the other a few smacks in the teeth in return for that hired beating Max had taken.

  It wasn’t Filippo Giotto who answered the bell, but Marcy herself. Evidently there wasn’t a servant in the place. It was only early evening but she wore a diaphanous negligee and if Max was any judge, nothing else. At first glimpse of her, he suspected this was a setup.

  “Why, Max,” she said.

  He offered the envelope. “Some script changes. They asked me to bring them over.”

  She didn’t take it. “Well, come on in,” she said, opening the door wider. “Have a drink.”

  He shrugged inwardly. Obviously, the woman was available. Offhand he couldn’t remember, any time in his career, when such an obvious offering had been turned down by Max Fielding. Had you told him, six months ago, that he would have the opportunity to bed the famed Marcia McEvoy and would turn it down, he would have laughed. Max Fielding turn down a perfect piece like that? Don’t be silly.

  To enter, he had to brush her in passing. His first guess had been accurate, he decided. If there was anything but Marcy under that negligee, he’d eat the garment.

  The Giotto-McEvoy apartment was large to the point that it seemed unlikely that it could be less than a separate house. It ran to at least two floors, and the master living room could have been used as a skating rink or ballroom. Probably only in Rome, Max dec
ided, would you find this large an establishment in an apartment building. Well, it fitted in with the exhibitionistic tendencies of the star.

  “Let me get you a drink?” Marcy said from behind him. He turned. She was looking at him, her eyes sloe, her mouth slightly slack.

  It was obviously a setup. This was why Charlie had seemed strange. She’d bribed the assistant director to send Max on a false errand. Good grief, wasn’t there anything this woman wouldn’t do to bring any man she set her eye upon to her bed? The former repulsion he’d felt for her avidity increased doublefold. He had to make an effort to keep his disgust from his face and voice. He had no desire to hurt the neurotic woman — he just didn’t want any part of her. And he absolutely, positively, wasn’t going to play stallion for her.

  Max said evenly, “No thanks, Miss McEvoy. I’ll be running along. Charlie said these were some script changes the writers just finished with. No copies, so they wanted to be careful.”

  She looked at him and there was a faint scowl of doubt between her eyes, a lack of understanding. She was Marcia McEvoy. Every man in the world wanted her body. She knew that. She had known it for years. Everybody knew it. What was wrong here? Was the man a clod, a fool? She knew he was both normal and virile. She’d heard stories from the free-talking Clara Lucciola, and others, too. Max was a phenomenon in bed, they had all reported.

  Well, what was wrong? She felt a stirring akin to fear, deep within her. Was this what she had always feared, dreaded, been terrified of? Was this the moment when she first became aware that she was no longer young, no longer beautiful, no longer desirable? Was this the time she knew must one day come, when she stood before a man, freely offering, and saw no desire in his eyes? No, no! It couldn’t be yet. She was still too young, too desirable, to be scorned when her all was offered. There was some mistake. Perhaps the man was in awe of her due to her prestige and stardom; perhaps he thought her unobtainable.

  Marcy McEvoy said thickly, “Sit down, Max. Relax. I’ll look these script changes over. Perhaps I’ll have some message to send back with you.”

  He could have said he was busy, and that she could phone any such message, but he shrugged it off. There was no need for slapping the woman in the face. He’d ease himself out, shortly. He sat on one of the half-dozen sofas.

  Marcy took the couch across from him, crossing her legs deliberately. They were superlatively good legs, Max had to admit, but the gesture had no effect on him otherwise.

  Marcy decided to give the clod time to relax and to get into a state of mind in which he would appreciate her offerings. She poured herself a stiff Scotch from a decanter and sipped it straight, taking up the several pages of script which allegedly contained new changes. She ran her eyes over them for a moment, then looked up at Max again. He had brought forth his pipe, stuffed it from his pouch, and was now smoking even while eying her quizzically.

  Marcy McEvoy made a moue, and a pretense that something in the script had drawn her attention. She looked up at Max and said, “This may take a moment. If you don’t want a drink try some of that El Majoun, there at your elbow.”

  “El what?” Max said.

  “El Majoun,” Marcy said nonchalantly. “Hashish fudge. I got the recipe down in Tangier.”

  Max looked at the small golden tray near his elbow on a cocktail table. He had assumed the brown stuff was candy, and Max had little taste for candy, being a fairly heavy drinker. “Hashish fudge?” he said. “I thought you smoked the stuff.”

  Marcy shrugged and reached over and took a piece herself and nibbled on it, even as she went back to the script pages. “In North Africa when they smoke it they call it kief, when they work it up into El Majoun, or into marmalade, they call it hashish. El Majoun’s a combination of dates, figs, nuts, butter, brown sugar, various spices and a bit of hashish.”

  Max looked at the stuff, interested. “Well, what does it do to you?”

  The star shrugged again. “Affects people differently. Gives me a mild lift, somewhat different from alcohol. I like it, but if you’re afraid …”

  “Afraid?” Max said. “Hell, I’ll try anything twice.” He took up one of the squares and bit into it experimentally. He scowled at it. “They put pepper in it, too?”

  “Uh, huh,” Marcy said, back at the script again. “That’s one of the spices.”

  He finished the square, feeling no effect whatsoever. He was getting impatient now. His pipe was still warm from the last smoking and like any pipe buff he never refilled a hot briar. He shifted in his seat, took up another piece of El Majoun and ate it.

  He said to Marcy McEvoy, “I don’t feel any effect from this stuff.”

  She smiled slyly. “It takes longer to work than smoking it, but ultimately it has more effect.”

  Max didn’t like the smile, but figured the hell with it. He leaned back, his head against the rear of the couch and watched her as she read. Face it. Marcia McEvoy was one damned beautiful woman. She might be showing her years, just a trifle, but she was still one of the most beautiful sex symbols Hollywood had ever produced. Max could clearly remember that pin-up picture she’d once posed for in the altogether. It was some years ago, but he could remember it quite clearly. He must have still been in his teens, then, and she, too. Suddenly it occurred to him that he’d like to see Marcy in the nude like that, posed as she was in that photo.

  In fact, as she read she stirred the tip of one toe and Max began to find it tantalizing. He wished that she’d move that leg just slightly, so that he could see a greater portion of the famed McEvoy torso. How had it been possible that before he hadn’t noticed what a truly luscious woman she was? He couldn’t remember why he had avoided her advances. He must have been batty.

  It seemed to be getting slightly warm in the room, and he loosened his tie.

  Marcy looked up at him. Her eyebrows raised and she put the script aside. “Beginning to work?” she murmured.

  Max said, surprised to find that his voice was thick, “I beg your pardon?”

  She smiled, the sly smile he’d caught on her lips earlier. “The El Majoun. I forgot to mention, besides hashish it contains just a small quantity of cantharides.”

  Max would have scowled at that, but he was too intent on admiring the goddess body of this woman. Man, but she was a healthy animal. “Cantharides?” he said blankly.

  Marcy tapped the back of her hand to her mouth in a simulated yawn. “Spanish fly, they sometimes call it in the States,” she murmured. “It’s surprisingly available in the souks in Morocco. But, then, the Moroccans are surprisingly highly sexed — something like the Japanese. Ever been to Japan, Max?”

  His voice was heavy with the need for her now. He said, hoarsely, “Yes,” and came to his feet.

  Marcy stood, too, triumph in her face and the slackness about her mouth which was characteristic when she was in passion. Her negligee, seemingly unnoticed, began to slip down her shoulders and the McEvoy bosom, internationally famed, slowly manifested itself.

  Max, his eyes narrowed, stepped quickly forward. He cupped one of her twin globes in a hand, feeling the nipple rise almost instantly. She closed her eyes and her head went back in ecstasy. Max bent his head, took the coral pinkness in his lips and nibbled. Fire was raging through him. Fire that he feared would be forever unquenchable, fire that possibly could only be quenched by Marcy McEvoy, the incomparable Marcy McEvoy.

  “Yes,” she muttered meaninglessly.

  They were on the couch. Max couldn’t remember how they had got there. His hands were fumbling over her, trembling in his great need. The negligee had slipped further but still it was too great a hindrance. He began to strip it from her.

  “Cut!” a voice snapped.

  Max looked up, in a daze. He shook his head in an attempt to bring clarity to his senses. Filippo Giotto stood in the doorway which led to one of the other rooms.

  Marcy responded with a quick obscenity that it seemed impossible could be in the vocabulary of such a beautiful woman. She sh
rugged back into her garment angrily.

  “Superbly enacted,” Giotto said. He had a black Beretti automatic in one hand, held easily, comfortably, as though the hand were well accustomed to such a burden.

  Marcy bit out, “Don’t be more of an ass than you’ve already made yourself, Filippo. We’re through. What business of yours can it be who I entertain?”

  “Entertain,” the Italian producer said bitterly. “Ha! Entertain, she calls it.”

  “Look …” Max began, starting to his feet.

  Giotto’s grip on the gun tightened. “Stay where you are, Fielding,” he snapped. “I know your reputation, and if you think I’m going to let you get into a position to try and rush me, you can think again. Remain seated or I start right this minute.”

  Max sank back onto the couch. The Italian knew what he was talking about. From a sitting position, Max would be unable to launch an attack. It would be too slow in getting under way.

  Marcy McEvoy was furious, but already some of her anger was making way for another element in her expression and her voice. That was fear. She said shrilly, “Go away! Get out of my apartment! We’re through. I’ve already told my lawyer to start divorce proceedings.”

  The smile was oily, almost a stereotype of the movie villian leering at his victim. “Our apartment,” Giotto said. “Here in Italy, my love, our courts are famed for their tolerance to crimes of, ah, passion. I have never heard of a case where a man caught his wife with another and killed them both and was found guilty. In fact, under Italian law, he does not even jeopardize the inheriting of her property.” His face had taken on a mercenary quality now.

  “So that’s it!” she said shrilly. “You expect to take over my money. Kill me, and take my money!” Evidently, realization was coming to Marcia McEvoy that the man was deadly serious, not play-acting, and that the only reason he hadn’t already fired was that he was sadistically enjoying this cat-and-mouse situation.