Modern Screen (Dec 1942 - May 1943)

YOUR OWN NAME ON YOUR POWDER PUFFS Just Like ~Avou/t Jrffre^sAND OTHER FAMOUS MOVIE ACTRESSES Be" the envy of your friends! Imagine the thrill when they see you using a powder puff with your own name on it. It's new! It's intimate! It's excitingly individual! Get this lovely, colorful, transparent, gift box filled with nine full size soft PERSONALITY PUFFS— with your own name in gold on the ribbon of each puff, ^ This Coupon TodaY Nine Parfait Personality Puffs .. 1 your name in gold, packed in a lovely | gift box. So completely personal — 1 It'i the Perfect Gift to give or getl weeping copiously. Rumor had it that the occupant of the hearse was Finnigan — and Joe was scared. He remembered hitting Finnigan, everyone remembered Finnigan lying there cold as a clam — and even at Coney Island manslaughter was frowned on. Joe saw visions of iron bars, and Eddie didn't help much when he returned from the funeral talking about the comforts of hanging versus the electric chair. He stared down at his drink on Joe's best table and shook his head sadly: "It's too bad — somebody is sure to tell the cops who hit Finnigan." "Somebody?" Joe asked. "Who?" "Me." Eddie sighed and looked wistfully around Joe's Ocean Gardens. "I'll bet Kate will miss you." "So?" "I'll miss you," said Eddie. "The place will miss you — that is unless . . ." "Unless what?" "You need a partner," Eddie said. "I've told you that all along — remember? Now if I owned half of Ocean Gardens — if you let me run it my way . . ." "What then?" "Amnesia is a wonderful thing," Eddie grinned. "When the cops come, I could forget everything. I never really liked policemen anyway." Rocco didn't like jails, so that's the way it was. Eddie took over, and pretty soon Ocean Gardens began to look like what he called a highclass joint. The waiters wore Tuxedos, instead of aprons; there were cloths on the bare tables; Eddie even coaxed the orchestra to tone it down till the customers could hear themselves speak. But he had no luck with Kate. chained . '. She knew her stuff, and she was taking no lip from Eddie. When she sang, she sang— but loud. When she danced, she knocked herself out. After watching her, Eddie always felt slightly deaf and very tired, and the customers looked wilted. So one night he sneaked up on her in the wings. "Look at that ham," he said, and bent over.. There was a sharp click, and when Kate looked down, her ankles wore a pair of handcuffs. She started to swing on him, but he caught her arms and there was another click. More handcuffs. Kate forgot she was a lady. She tried to scratch him. She tried to bite him. She spoke to him severely. But he merely picked her up, carried her out onto the stage and balanced her carefully' against a prop tree. "When that curtain goes up," he said sweetly, ''you stand here quietly." "I won't," Kate screamed. "Then you'll fall on your pretty puss." Eddie tapped the floor with one toe. "And don't try to blast their ears off." "I won't sing a note," said Kate. "I won't open my mouth." "Okay," said Eddie, "but you'll look awfully stupid — leaning against a tree and doing nothing. And by the way — " He plucked a feather from her costume. "The moulting season has arrived." He plucked another feather. "From now on you're an artist — not an ostrich." When he walked offstage and gave a signal to the orchestra leader, there wasn't much Kate could do except obey orders. She stood quietly and sang quietly, so that Joe Rocco's customers had to look at her and listen to her. What they saw and what they heard was plenty. Kate's figure without feather camouflage was prettier than a $10,000 bill, and her voice was a soft husky invitation to romance. The curtain dropped on more applause than Kate had ever hoped to hear, and she would have done an encore, but Eddie picked her up again and carried her to her dressing room. the walking dead ... "Always leave 'em wanting more," he said and unlocked her ankles. He straightened, and she held out the handcuffs on her wrists, but instead he kissed her. Kissed her quickly and completely. Then he turned the key again and walked to the door. "Remember that, darling," he said lightly. "Always leave 'em wanting more." "Why you — " Kate looked for something to throw, but Eddie had pulled another quick fade. Business at Ocean Gardens built up and up, and Joe Rocco told Kate reluctantly that he had to admit that Eddie knew the right answers. Eddie wanted to open a new place, a really swanky place, and Joe had about decided to play along. But the night the papers were to be signed Finnigan came reeling back from Atlantic City, full of life and liquor, and Joe rescinded Eddie's partnership and put all the profits in his own pocket. Eddie was out in the cold again. But Eddie found a warm spot in the heart of the Brooklyn Savings Bank, of all places, when he explained that one thing and one thing only made the cash register tinkle at Ocean Gardens. That thing was Kate Farley. The bank president nodded. He had been trained to see a dollar a long way off. "You want to open a place of your own," he said. "Well, we can take care of the finances." "And I can take care of Miss Farley," Eddie said. It was in the bag — or would have been, except for William Hammerstein. The famous William Hammerstein, who pro duced the magnificent musical shows at the Victoria Theater. Somehow he heard about Kate and came out to Coney Island talent scouting. Eddie saw him in the audience at Ocean Gardens and knew what was up. If Hammerstein heard Kate, he would hire her for Broadway. If Kate went with Hammerstein, Eddie's new restaurant went out the window. So Eddie went into action. First he made Mr. Hammerstein comfortable. Then he made sure Joe Rocco was safely busy elsewhere. Then he arranged for a wheezy blondined understudy to go on instead of Kate, and sent Finnigan to Hammerstein's table to play Kate's boozy father. This done, he told Kate he was giving her one performance off and took her out where the moon shone down and the waves whispered on the sand. "I love you, Kate," he said. He told her of the fine restaurant he was opening, just for her. Just because he loved her, he had talked the Brooklyn Savings Bank into putting up the front money. Just because he loved her, he would make her famous. "I love you, too, Eddie," she sighed. "I guess I always have. I guess that's what made me so mad at you." That took care of Mr. Hammerstein, or should have. The trouble was that Joe Rocco came back to Ocean Gardens before Hammerstein left, and when he told Kate about the chance Eddie had gypped her out of, she understood just how much he loved her. The only thing in the world Eddie loved was himself. So she had Joe take her over to the Victoria Theater in New York so Mr. Hammerstein could hear the real Kate. But his accompanist couldn't play in the tempo Eddie had taught her, the slow rhythmic lilt that brought out the husky FEBRUARY, 1943 105