Toby had enjoyed his first meeting with Sam after the deal had been made. “It would have been cheaper if you had returned my phone calls,” Toby said, and he told Sam of how he had tried to reach him.
“My tough luck,” Sam said, ruefully.
Now, as they sat in Chasen’s, Sam turned to Clifton Lawrence. “If you don’t take an arm and a leg, I’d like to make a new three-picture deal for Toby.”
“Just an arm. I’ll give you a call in the morning,” the agent said to Sam. He looked at his watch. “I have to run along.”
“Where you going?” Toby asked.
“I’m meeting another client. I do have other clients, dear boy.”
Toby looked at him oddly, then said, “Sure.”
The reviews the next morning were raves. Every critic predicted that Toby Temple was going to be as big a star in movies as he was in television.
Toby read all the reviews, then got Clifton Lawrence on the phone.
“Congratulations, dear boy,” the agent said. “Did you see the Reporter and Variety? Those reviews were love letters.”
“Yeah. It’s a green-cheese world, and I’m a big fat rat. Can I have any more fun than that?”
“I told you you’d own the world one day, Toby, and now you do. It’s all yours.” There was a deep satisfaction in the agent’s voice.
“Cliff, I’d like to talk to you. Can you come over?”
“Certainly. I’ll be free at five o’clock and—”
“I meant now.”
There was a brief hesitation, then Clifton said, “I have appointments until—”
“Oh, if you’re too busy, forget it.” And Toby hung up.
One minute later, Clifton Lawrence’s secretary called and said, “Mr. Lawrence is on his way over to see you, Mr. Temple.”
Clifton Lawrence was seated on Toby’s couch. “For God’s sake, Toby, you know I’m never too busy for you. I had no idea you would want to see me today, or I wouldn’t have made other appointments.”
Toby sat there staring at him, letting him sweat it out. Clifton cleared his throat and said, “Come on! You’re my favorite client. Didn’t you know that?”
And it was true, Clifton thought. I made him. He’s my creation. I’m enjoying his success as much as he is.
Toby smiled. “Am I really, Cliff?” He could see the tension easing out of the dapper little agent’s body. “I was beginning to wonder.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got so many clients that sometimes I think you don’t pay enough attention to me.”
“That’s not true. I spend more time—”
“I’d like you to handle just me, Cliff.”
Clifton smiled. “You’re joking.”
“No. I’m serious.” He watched the smile leave Clifton’s face. “I think I’m important enough to have my own agent—and when I say my own agent, I don’t mean someone who’s too busy for me because he has a dozen other people to take care of. It’s like a group fuck, Cliff. Somebody always gets left with a hard-on.”
Clifton studied him a moment, then said, “Fix us a drink.” While Toby went over to the bar, Clifton sat there, thinking. He knew what the real problem was, and it was not Toby’s ego, or his sense of importance.
It had to do with Toby’s loneliness. Toby was the loneliest man Clifton had ever known. Clifton had watched Toby buy women by the dozens and try to buy friends with lavish gifts. No one could ever pick up a check when Toby was around. Clifton once heard a musician say to Toby, “You don’t have to buy love, Toby. Everybody loves you, anyway.” Toby winked and said, “Why take a chance?”
The musician never worked on Toby’s show again.
Toby wanted all of everybody. He had a need, and the more he acquired the bigger his need grew.
Clifton had heard that Toby went to bed with as many as half a dozen girls at a time, trying to appease the hunger in him. But of course, it did not work. What Toby needed was one girl, and he had not found her. So he went on playing the numbers game.
He had a desperate need to have people around him all the time.
Loneliness. The only time it was not there was when Toby was in front of an audience, when he could hear the applause and feel the love. It was all really very simple, Clifton thought. When Toby was not on stage, he carried his audience with him. He was always surrounded by musicians and stooges and writers and showgirls and down-and-out comics, and everyone else he could gather into his orbit.
And now he wanted Clifton Lawrence. All of him.
Clifton handled a dozen clients, but their total income was not a great deal more than Toby’s income from night clubs, television and motion pictures, for the deals Clifton had been able to make for Toby were phenomenal. Nevertheless, Clifton did not make his decision on the basis of money. He made it because he loved Toby Temple, and Toby needed him. Just as he needed Toby. Clifton remembered how flat his life had been before Toby came into it. There had been no new challenges for years. He had been coasting on old successes. And he thought now of the electric excitement around Toby, the fun and the laughter and the deep camaraderie the two of them shared.
When Toby came back to Clifton and handed him his drink, Clifton raised his glass in a toast and said, “To the two of us, dear boy.”
It was the season of successes and fun and parties, and Toby was always “on.” People expected him to be funny. An actor could hide behind the words of Shakespeare or Shaw or Molière, and a singer could count on the help of Gershwin or Rodgers and Hart or Cole Porter. But a comedian was naked. His only weapon was his wit.