She looked at him a long moment with those deep brown eyes and then held out her hand. “I don’t hold grudges,” Jill said. “Can you come to dinner tomorrow night?”
Clifton took a deep breath and then smiled happily and said, “Thanks.” He found that his eyes were suddenly misty. “I—I won’t forget this. Ever.”
The following morning, when Clifton arrived at his office, there was a registered letter notifying him that his services had been terminated and that he no longer had the authority to act as Toby Temple’s agent.
30
Jill Castle Temple was the most exciting thing to hit Hollywood since Cinemascope. In a company town where everyone played the game of admiring the emperor’s clothes, Jill used her tongue like a scythe. In a city where flattery was the daily currency of conversation, Jill fearlessly spoke her mind. She had Toby beside her and she brandished his power like a club, attacking all the important studio executives. They had never experienced anything like it before. They did not dare offend Jill, because they did not want to offend Toby. He was Hollywood’s most bankable star, and they wanted him, needed him.
Toby was bigger than ever. His television show was still number one in the Nielsen Ratings every week, his movies were enormous money makers, and when Toby played Las Vegas, the casinos doubled their profits. Toby was the hottest property in show business. They wanted him for guest shots, record albums, personal appearances, merchandising, benefits, movies, they wanted they wanted they wanted.
The most important people in town fell all over themselves to please Toby. They quickly learned that the way to please Toby was to please Jill. She began to schedule all of Toby’s appointments herself and to organize his life so that there was room in it only for those of whom she approved. She put up an impenetrable barricade around him, and none but the rich and the famous and the powerful were allowed to go through it. She was the keeper of the flame. The little Polish girl from Odessa, Texas, entertained and was entertained by governors, ambassadors, world-renowned artists and the President of the United States. This town had done terrible things to her. But it would never do them again. Not as long as she had Toby Temple.
The people who were in real trouble were the ones on Jill’s hate list.
She lay in bed with Toby and made sensuous love to him. When Toby was relaxed and spent, she snuggled in his arms and said, “Darling, did I ever tell you about the time I was looking for an agent and I went to this woman—what was her name?—oh, yes! Rose Dunning. She told me she had a part for me and she sat down on her bed to read with me.”
Toby turned to look at her, his eyes narrowing. “What happened?”
Jill smiled. “Stupid innocent that I was, while I was reading, I felt her hand go up my thigh.” Jill threw back her head and laughed. “I was frightened out of my wits. I’ve never run so fast in my life.”
Ten days later, Rose Dunning’s agency license was permanently revoked by the City Licensing Commission.
The following weekend, Toby and Jill were at their house in Palm Springs. Toby was lying on a massage table in the patio, a heavy Turkish towel under him, while Jill gave him a long, relaxing massage. Toby was on his back, cotton pads protecting his eyes against the strong rays of the sun. Jill was working on his feet, using a soft creamy lotion.
“You sure opened my eyes about Cliff,” Toby said. “He was nothing but a parasite, milking me. I hear he’s going around town trying to get himself a partnership deal. No one wants him. He can’t get himself arrested without me.”
Jill paused a moment and said, “I feel sorry for Cliff.”
“That’s the goddamned trouble with you, sweetheart. You think with your heart instead of your head. You’ve got to learn to be tougher.”
Jill smiled quietly. “I can’t help it. I’m the way. I am.” She started to work on Toby’s legs, moving her hands slowly up toward his thighs with light, sensuous movements. He began to have an erection.
“Oh, Jesus,” he moaned.
Her hands were moving higher now, moving toward Toby’s groin, and the hardness increased. She slid her hands between his legs, underneath him, and slipped a creamy finger inside him. His enormous penis was rock hard.
“Quick, baby,” he said. “Get on top of me.”
They were at the marina, on the Jill, the large motor-sailer Toby had bought for her. Toby’s first television show of the new season was to tape the following day.
“This is the best vacation I’ve had in my whole life,” Toby said. “I hate to go back to work.”
“It’s such a wonderful show,” Jill said. “I had fun doing it. Everyone was so nice.” She paused a moment, then added lightly, “Almost everyone.”
“What do you mean?” Toby’s voice was sharp. “Who wasn’t nice to you?”
“No one, darling. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it.”
But she finally allowed Toby to worm it out of her, and the next day Eddie Berrigan, the casting director, was fired.
In the months that followed, Jill told Toby little fictions about other casting directors on her list, and one by one they disappeared. Everyone who had ever used her was going to pay. It was, she thought, like the rite of mating with the queen bee. They had all had their pleasure, and now they had to be destroyed.
She went after Sam Winters, the man who had told Toby she had no talent. She never said a word against him; on the contrary, she praised him to Toby. But she always praised other studio heads just a little bit more…. The other studios had properties better suited for Toby…directors who really understood him. Jill would add that she could not help thinking that Sam Winters did not really appreciate Toby’s talent. Before long, Toby began feeling the same way. With Clifton Lawrence gone, Toby had no one to talk to, no one he could trust, except Jill. When Toby decided to make his movies at another studio, he believed that it was his own idea. But Jill made certain that Sam Winters knew the truth.