Screenland (May-Oct 1942)

way it was her acting that way with the boys that hurt more than the things she said to him. Little Pinks really thought he meant it as he stalked away, leaving his discomfited friends to push her home. But of course he saw her again. Even if Violette hadn't come to the Florida Club that night telling him Gloria had collapsed, he would have gone back. Now he was like a mad man as he began taking off his white bus boy's coat. "If you walk out of here, you're fired," the captain said. "But it's an emergency," Little Pinks explained. Then he stiffened as he saw the door to the office opening and Case Abies coming out. "What kind of carryings on is this?" the big man demanded. "I run a respectable joint, not a pig market." "You run — ?" Little Pinks looked at him in astonishment. "Sure I run." Abies laughed derisively. "How do you think you got your job?" Little Pinks leaped at him then hitting him so hard he sent him sprawling to the floor. But he felt better as he hurried after Violette. He felt like a man. The doctor was talking to Nicely Nicely when they got back but Little Pinks didn't want to talk to him then; he only wanted to see Gloria. She was lying in the room Violette had fixed for her, the nicest room in the bungalow, with its windows opening on the balcony and to his amazement she was humming the song she used to sing in the club back in New York. "Remember that song?" she asked. "Sure," he nodded. "You used to have the people in the aisles." "I'm singing it for the last time, Pinks," she said slowly. And then ignoring his protest, "Know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking that I'm in a swell supper spot with gold and marble and servants all dressed up in satin pants and Decatur Reed is there too and a lot of classy people. And I walk in." "You'd knock 'em dead," Little Pinks assured her. But she didn't hear him. Her eyes were misty with dreams and she was lost in her own world, the world she created for herself. "I got on a white dress, see?" Her voice came in that soft hushed way it did when she dreamed. "White net, very long, and all over it are little diamonds that shine, and I'm wearing my hair straight back, and when I walk in all the columnists take out their gold pencils and all the dames look like last year's models, and all the guys would give a year's salary just to dance with me. And I walk along like I was a duchess, holding an orchid in my hand, a white orchid." Suddenly she looked down at her small, empty hand and it brought her back to reality. "There's no orchid, Pinks," she whispered. "No orchid." "I'll bring you dozens of them," Little Pinks said. "Dozens !" "No." She looked away. "There's no anything, Pinks. Just a broken-down komoppo in a wheel-chair — waiting, Pinks, just waiting." It didn't do any good to say the doctor had promised she would be well soon. Her Highness had heard that too many times. And when Little Pinks went in to the other room and saw the doctor's face, he knew it was worse, worse than he had thought even. "Did you ever hear of anything called paranoia?" the doctor asked. Then at Little Pinks' uncomprehending stare, "No, I guess you didn't. Well, it's what happens when people think they're somebody they're not. It doesn't usually matter except when the illusion is shattered. Ther^they kind of wither up unless it's restored." They wither up! Her Highness withered up. Not if Little Pinks could help it. Her Highness had to have all those things she had been dreaming about so it wouldn't happen to her. She just had to have them, no matter how he managed it. It was then Little Pinks began running away from reality too, just the way Her Highness did. It was Little Pinks now who was beginning to dream, those impossible dreams he had to make come true. And the next night when he was passing the Florida Club and he saw the seductive blonde come out, the woman he had served so often in the Club and who he knew was the wife of the middle-aged Colonel Venus, who was something of a joke because he didn't know his wife was twotiming him with a tall, dark young Latin, Little Pinks knew his dream was beginning to come true. For she was wearing a dress that could have been the one Gloria had described to him, white and net and long and all over it little diamonds that shone. And it didn't need the newsboy going by right then shouting an extra about the latest jewel robbery to make him know what he had to do. First he saw Horsethief and the Professor and the reformed crook they introduced him to at the cheap bar nearby, the gentleman crook who only shook his head when Little Pinks gave out with his proposition. "I have retired from the hoist," the crook said. "No percentage any more. Syndicates have driven the rest of us out of business, syndicates who engage in the entirely unethical practice of clipping the insurance companies. The middleman gets everything these days and the laborer nothing for his hire." "Then I'll do it myself," Little Pinks said. "Please, Pinks." The Professor shook his head. "You can't start at the top with these things. At least begin with a little pocket-picking or such odd jobs." "I got to get that dress!" Little Pinks said desperately. "It's a matter of life and death." He got up and walked to the door and Horsethief started after him. But the Promessor called him back. "Don't, Horsethief," he said. "When a man has that kind of look in his eyes, he's liable to clop you good." Little Pinks might have been robbing houses all his life, he was so professional about it, climbing the iron gates of the Venus estate, running toward the house, zigzagging from one tree to another, climbing the trellis to the balcony outside that lighted room on the second floor he could see was a bedroom. The French Fredric March, above, made up with long hair and mustache for his title characterization in "The Adventures of Mark Twain." WHAT STARS KISS like gentlemen? * ★ ★ * Certain "wolves" among the stars take advantage of every kissing scene with powerful gestures never suggested in the script. Maureen O'Hara exposes their tricks in a great Silver Screen article — and tells how other stars kiss like men . . . gentlemen! 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