Free A Stranger in the Mirror by Sidney Sheldon Page B

all that was left for him were dull, 'I;! monotonous jobs where he would be caged up for the rest of -S-tos life. Mr. Anonymous. No one would ever know who he ^ was. He thought of the long, dreary years, the bitter loneliness ^of a thousand nameless towns, of the people who had applauded ^ him and laughed at him and loved him. Toby wept. He wept I" for the past and for the future. ?V } He wept because he was dead.
    ^ It was dawn when Toby returned to the white stucco ^g bungalow he shared with Alice. He walked into the bedroom ^ and looked down at her sleeping figure. He had thought ,that fr: she would be the open sesame to the magic kingdom. But �;', there was no magic kingdom. Not for him. He would leave. ' He had no idea where he would go. He was almost twenty& seven years old and he had no future. He lay down on the couch, exhausted. He closed his eyes; ' listening to the sounds of the city stirring into life. The mom^ ing sounds of cities are the same, and he thought of Detroit. ^ His mother. She was standing in the kitchen cooking apple iz tarts for him. He could smell her wonderful musky female odor mingled with the smell of apples cooking in butter, and she was saying, God wants you to be famous. !:- He was standing alone on an enormous stage, blinded '^ by floodlights, trying to remember his lines. He tried to speak but he had lost his voice. He grew panicky. There was a great rumbling noise from the audience, and through the blinding lights Toby could see the spectators leaving their seats and running toward the stage to attack him, to kill him. Their love had turned to hate. They were surrounding him, grabbing him, chanting, "Toby! Toby! Toby!" Toby suddenly jerked awake, his mouth dry with fright. Alice Tanner was leaning over him, shaking him. "Toby! Telephone. It's Clifton Lawrence."
    Clifton Lawrence's office was in a small; elegant building on Beverly Drive, just south of Wilshire. French Impressionist paintings hung from the carved boiserie, and before the dark green marble fireplace a sofa and some antique chairs were grouped around an exquisite tea table. Toby had never seen anything like it. A shapely, redheaded secretary was pouring tea. "How do you like your tea, Mr. Temple?" Mr. Temple! "One sugar, please." "There you are." A little smile and she was gone. Toby did not know that the tea was a special blend imported from Fortnum and Mason, nor that it was steeping in Irish Baleek, but he knew it tasted wonderful. In fact, everything about this office was wonderful, especially the dapper little man who sat in an armchair studying him. Clifton Lawrence was smaller than Toby had expected, bur he radiated a sense of authority and power. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your seeing me," Toby said. "I'm sorry I had to trick you into --" Clifton Lawrence threw his head back and laughed. "Trick me? I had lunch with Goldwyn yesterday. I went to watch you last night because I wanted to see if your talent matched your nerve. It did." "But you walked out --" Toby exclaimed. "Dear boy, you don't have to eat the entire jar of caviar to know if it's good, right? I knew what you had in sixty seconds." Toby felt that sense of euphoria building up in him again. After the black despair of the night before, to be lifted to the heights like this, to have his life handed back to him -- "I have a hunch about you, Temple," Clifton Lawrence
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    said. "I think it would be exciting to take someone young od build his career. I've derided to take you on as a client." The feeling of joy was exploding inside Toby. He wanted to stand up and scream aloud. Clifton Lawrence was going to ^be his agent! "...handle you on one condition," Clifton Lawrence was saying. "That you do exactly as I tell you. I don't stand for temperament. You step out of line just once, and we're finished. Do you understand?" ' Toby nodded quickly. "Yes, sir. I understand." "The first thing you have to do is face the truth." He smiled at Toby and said,