Stabs at Happiness by Todd Grimson Page B

had all been in the script.
    The smell of urine was pretty strong. She took the sheets off the bed, and, embarrassed to have the maid know she’d peed them, put them in the bathtub to rinse out. She could do nothing about the mattress, she realized, but at least she would do what she could.
    Getting the water running and doing something manual helped get her mind functioning, to some extent, even though she still felt under the influence of the residue of alcohol and drugs, she couldn’t clear her head…
    She looked around, not really knowing what she was looking for, and suddenly knew that they’d stolen her wig. She started laughing. She wondered if they knew who she was, or if they’d been too dumb to figure it out. They could try to blackmail her, she supposed, but she wasn’t very worried about it. After all, her reputation was that of a slut, a hot number and all of that… The revelations of some grifters wouldn’t mean much, even supposing that anyone would listen. She wouldn’t give them a dime.
    Jean washed herself, slowly and thoroughly, groaning gently at times, lost in basic animal life. The numbness was gradually wearing off, so that emotions came to her a little more directly than at second or third remove. She felt a kind of astonishment wrapped in gauze, a muffled or subdued fascination with what she had done with herself: she thought she ought to feel more different than she in fact did.
    And then, as she finally got up the nerve to call Arthur Landau, her agent, collect at his home – she felt somehow amused, she could hardly keep from laughing out loud as she put through the call.
    She wanted Landau to wire her $500 via Western Union. He said he’d send her the Pullman fare back to Los Angeles plus $50, no more. Jean asked to speak to his wife, Beatrice, who she thought would be a softer touch.
    â€œOf course,” she said to Arthur, “I guess if I really wanted to I could earn a couple hundred pretty easy, hardly working up a sweat.”
    Landau digested this, then said: “All right, I’ll send you a hundred. I give in, okay, but only to stop you from talking like that.”
    â€œThen make it the five,” she said, using her tough-girl voice. “Or do you want to hear about how much I’ve already given away for free?”
    â€œChrist, Jean, what’s got into you? Be reasonable. You hurt me when you talk like that. I don’t like to think of you doing these things to yourself.”
    â€œI know what I’m doing.”
    â€œNo you don’t, but that’s not the point. Listen, I’ll have the ticket waiting for you at the Southern Pacific ticket office by this afternoon, all right? Beatrice and I will be here at the station when you get off.”
    â€œArthur, you listen. I want three hundred, or else forget the whole thing. I’m not kidding. I know a Mexican guy who wants to take me down to Tijuana, introduce me to some people down there. I told him I don’t tan, but he says I’ll never have to go outside again.”
    â€œI’ll send you the money,” said Landau, and Jean felt bad about having pushed him but pleased he had given in. She tried to smooth things over. She promised to be good.
    When she got off the phone, her mouth was so dry it felt as if all of her bodily fluids had dried up. As soon as the money came, she needed to get something good to drink. In the meantime, she settled for some water.
    The Buck Rogers Disintegrator Ray Gun was on the floor next to the bed. She picked it up and pulled the trigger, aiming at the mirror, but the toy had been broken sometime during the night.
    She bruised easily. There were blue and violet marks on her skin, as if she had been roughly handled. Her thigh-muscles were sore.
    Now everything was gray. As it got darker, the gray would turn to black. Once vision became obsolete, the other senses would have to be developed to a higher level of