Someone Is Bleeding Read Online Free Page A

I got philosophical, I always do when I’m around people who all have more money than I do.
    It was about that time that I saw Dennis.
    He was sitting on a couch with a pretty young thing. He was glowering alternately into his drink and at the mass of people wherein stood Jim and Peggy.
    I went over, sat down. I hadn’t known Dennis at college except by sight. Flitting about the campus like a scholastic phantom, carrying books and a woman. Always a woman.
    “Hi,” I said.
    The young thing showed teeth. Dennis looked at me with his dark eyes. Stuck in a lean face that seemed more than anything else to reflect one big, endless resentment. Of anything. Of everything. He didn’t answer. Once a spider looked at me like he did.
    “You don’t remember me,” I said.
    “No, I don’t,” he agreed.
    “I’m Dave Newton,” I said. “I was a friend of Jim’s at Missouri.” Recognition. But no pleasure.
    “Oh, yeah,” he said.
    I can’t get on very well with people who won’t talk.
    “You’ve got quite a home here,” I said.
    “Jim has quite a home.”
    There it was. Plain as the nose on his sullen face, The resentment. I’d heard Dennis talk once at college. That was one day when I’d come up to him and Jim on the campus. Dennis had walked away saying, “Sure, have it your way. You always do anyway.”
    And Jim had said to me, faintly amused, “That is brother Dennis. The brat of the family.”
    Now, in the present, I saw that Dennis was still the brat of the family.
    “Yeah,” I said, for want of anything better.
    Young thing coughed. Dennis didn’t stir.
    “I’m Jean Smith,” came a gushing introduction. “Dennis is just awful about introductions.”
    I smiled and nodded. I forgot about her.
    “Where’s Audrey?” I asked Dennis.
    He looked at me coldly a moment. I guess he didn’t see what he was looking for. He turned away.
    “She’s sick,” he said.
    “That’s too bad.”
    “Yeah, isn’t it?” he said and was up and moving for the bar.
    “Are you in pictures?”
    That was the young one. The busty one, revealing her deepest interest, her religion. To gain stardom at all costs, chastity to soul.
    “Sure,” I said disgustedly. “I work at Metro.”
    “Oh, really.”
    Big eyes popping. Brassiere straining.
    I was looking at Peggy. She was smiling at some big man who was holding her hand and obviously shooting her a line.
    “You’re an actor, I bet,” the young thing simpered.
    I paid little attention. “Producer,” I said.
    “Oh?”
    The poor girl was losing breath. She was dying to do something impressive. Chant Ophelia’s song going downstream, or peel clothes or do something noble.
    “What have you produced?” she asked.
    I took out a cigarette after she took one. I lit it and blew out a cloud. David Newton, producer and liar,
    “I just did a remake of Lassie Come Home with Gene Kelly,”
    “Oh?”
    “Musical. Technicolor,” I said. I watched Peggy look around cautiously, looking for me. Around her waist still, Jim’s arm.
    “Technicolor,” said the young thing.
    “Couple of million,” I said. “Prestige picture.”
    “Yes, I see.”
    I looked at Miss Nothing. I sighed.
    “My greatest picture though . . .” I stopped, overcome.
    “What? What?”
    “Vanilla Vomit,” I said.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “That was the title.”
    “Vanilla . . . ?”
    “Vomit.”
    “I don’t believe I . . .”
    She was still looking very blank as I moved for the big group. I was getting tired of this. It was obvious that Jim had no intention of sharing Peggy. She was private property.
    “It was superb.” Jim was doing some soaping up. Lamar Brandeis, real producer. Influential man. I stood behind Peggy Lister.
    “Peggy, let’s dance,” I said.
    Jim’s smile was antiseptic. Toothpaste ad smile.
    “Not right now, Dave,” he said. “We’re rather busy.” Then I was left to stand there, unintroduced, the ghost of Hamlet’s father at Malibu. I felt a heat churning up in