Hot Properties (18 page)

But when he got back to the hotel, drunk with fatigue, his legs aching, his eyes watering, suffering from what felt like a broken back, his sinuses clogged and his throat sore from too much smoking, and stood himself under the shower, he abruptly lost his confidence in her. I’m a rube, he thought. She probably went out to dinner with me to get precisely that kind of gossip. He could vividly imagine her at work tomorrow telling the gang all the scandals, laughing at the pretentious, ignorant New York writer with two parents in show business who didn’t know a thing about movie deals.

He ordered coffee from room service to keep himself up until the eight-o’clock breakfast with Bill Garth and … and whom? He sat on the bed and realized with dread he had forgotten the producer’s name. One of the few powerful independent producers in the business, Lois had called him, claiming
he,
rather than Garth, would probably decide whether to hire Tony.

Room service arrived looking as sleepy as he, with the pink-and-green linen motif of the hotel, and he drank his coffee, his stomach rumbling angrily at its arrival. There was a wave of nausea moments later, so severe that Tony thought he was not only about to vomit but also that he was fatally ill. Could he cancel? he wondered, writhing on the bed while fighting off the queasiness.

But that passed.

What was that producer’s name? His cheek lay on the rough bedspread, and he felt warm about his eyes. He closed them and remembered being on the plane—the steady hum of the motor, the keen promise he had felt about the trip. It seemed like weeks ago, but it was only yesterday afternoon, a little more than …

There was ringing. Lots of ringing. Shut up. Shut up. I’m sleeping.

He gasped and sat up. There was bright sunlight all around him, so bright the sun seemed to be inside the room. He had overslept!

He grabbed the phone. He said something into it. It was supposed to be hello.

“Tony?” a female voice said doubtfully.

“Yes!”

“Hi, it’s Lois. I just wanted to make sure you were awake. Did you fall asleep?”

“Oh, God. Thank you. Yes. What time is it?”

“Seven-forty-five. You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“Okay! Bye!”

“Call me,” Lois said eagerly. “Let me know what happens.”

“Sure.” He started to hang up and then caught himself. “Where?”

“The number is—”

“I don’t have a pen—”

“Call the network at Studio City. Ask for the show. Then ask for me.”

He shaved as quickly as he could, given that the floor seemed, every once in a while, to buckle and wave beneath him. He wondered if it was an earthquake, but his puffy and pale face and his bloodshot eyes told him otherwise. When he bent over to rinse off, he almost pitched into the sink. He rubbed hot water into his skin and then stared into his eyes. “You’re a mess,” he told himself. “If you can’t handle a breakfast, how the fuck are you going to write a screenplay?”

He groaned and rested for a moment, trying to settle his erratic breathing and his uncertain stomach. When he looked back in the mirror, he had an answer:” ’Cause it’s the breakfast that’s really tough.”

He laughed at himself, as if he were in an audience, not feeling his anguish and tension, but merely observing how childishly he was overreacting.

That’s what you’ve got to do. Play this like it’s a part. A role you’ve written.

Tony walked out of the room, his back straight, and ambled casually toward the stairs, his feet moving silently on the thick green-striped carpet. You’re smart, modest, pleasant, and sure of yourself, he said as he appeared in the lobby and turned toward the elevator banks.

You’re smart, modest, quite pleasant, and impossibly sure of yourself, he told himself as he approached the narrow arched entrance to the Polo Lounge. A woman dressed in a silk blouse and a tweed skirt came up to him.

“Reservation?” she asked languidly.

Only then did he realize she worked there. “I’m meeting Bill Garth.”

“Yes,” she said with anxious eagerness, “he’s here.”

Tony ignored the glances—evaluating ones, he was sure—as they walked toward the back, heading for a bank of booths against one wall. Garth was there along with the producer (his name! what was it?), and as Tony approached they broke off what appeared to be a serious discussion. Garth’s face, that famous but relatively ordinary face, with his slightly bent nose, high forehead, and darting clever eyes, looked up at him.

You’re very smart, very modest, extremely pleasant, and utterly, totally, eternally sure of yourself, Tony said to himself.

David Bergman tossed his yogurt into the black plastic wastebasket under his desk and stared at his typewriter. It was an old Royal, a rattling gray manual that writers at the magazine insisted on, believing it created more than a superficial kinship with the great journalists of the past. David had gone along with the tradition, just as he had adopted their style of dress, their drinking hours, and their political attitudes. He had become a member of the club, body and soul, but now that he was recognized as a top writer, a power hitter who could win the ballgame in the late innings, he wanted out.

For a day, he thought he had crossed the line from the playing field to the front office. The weekend with Patty had overwhelmed such thoughts. But when he entered the building that morning, walking past the huge blowup of that week’s cover, the disappointment of Chico’s promise falling through made him sag unhappily. He loathed the routine: carrying his paper bag with coffee and yogurt, reading the competition, admitting to himself that their story was very similar, indeed almost identical to his, and waiting for orders from above as to what his subject matter for the week would be.

He picked up his phone and dialed Chico’s extension. He hadn’t decided what he would say—a unique approach for him, normally he mentally rehearsed every conversation with a boss—but he felt there was nothing to lose by complaining. His job was secure and his chances for a promotion, if they had been scuttled by the hiring of Rounder, couldn’t sustain any further damage.

“Hi, Linda,” David said. “It’s David Bergman. Is he there?”

“He’s in a meeting with Syms and Rounder. He’ll get back to you.”

“Syms and Rounder?” David said. He had—he made a point of having—a good relationship with all of the Marx Brother secretaries. “What’s going on? A triple suicide?”

Linda laughed sharply and quickly caught herself. She whispered: “I don’t know. But it’s something.”

“Hmmm. Well, get your boss to call me back. Tell him I’ve taken poison and unless I get his call within a half-hour, the antidote won’t have enough time to save me.”

Linda laughed. “Okay, but if I were you, I’d take the antidote.”

He hung up and stood, walking to his one window with its view of Madison Avenue. The city looked gray, dressed for work in a law firm, presenting an unemotional face, a face that could look upon misery and greatness as one. He knew that the meeting upstairs would have a profound effect on his life. If they were firing Syms, that meant Chico was influencing Rounder’s decisions, and David’s promotion to senior-edit Business was likely. If they weren’t, then there would be no openings on the senior-editor level, and Syms, given a chance to toady to Rounder, would clog up things for a while, and probably insist on keeping David as a writer, knowing that to surrender a good writer would only weaken his section.

It was all garbage, David thought with disgust. They dangle jobs and promotions as if they were cheese for experimental mice: to convince the poor trapped writers that the maze could be escaped someday. I’m here forever, he pronounced over himself, a judge delivering the sentence.

“Good job, David,” a voice called at his door.

It was Kahn. For a moment David didn’t know what Kahn meant, and then remembered he had written the cover story. “Thanks. I read
Weekly’s.
Seemed no different.”

Kahn raised his eyebrows. This was the sort of criticism that, if someone else made it, would be considered insulting. “You’re selling yourself short. Your piece is much better.”

David nodded and returned to his chair, sitting morosely.

Kahn looked at him. “Something wrong?”

David shook his head.

“I liked your tag,” Kahn went on, as if David’s problem was that he needed more praise. He looked at David’s piece and quoted, “ ‘While the President lay on an operating table, Haig took the microphones at the White House to reassure the nation that “I’m in charge here.” Although the assassin’s bullet thankfully proved not to be fatal, Alexander Haig will not soon forget its deadly political ricochet.’ ”

“That was Chico’s suggestion,” David said coolly. He didn’t believe Kahn’s praise. That tag was a routine gag, nothing special.

“Oh,” Kahn said, taken aback. “Well, it’s good,” he went on lamely.

David had never been anything but polite to Kahn, who, after all, was his elder and for many years had been the heir presumptive to Syms. But he didn’t conceal his irritation now: “Give me a break. It’s crap. And you know it.”

Kahn’s mouth opened to answer, but nothing came out.

David smiled maliciously. “Yes?” he prompted. “Going to argue about it some more? There’s nothing in this magazine worth the paper it’s printed on. The only thing that separates you and me from them”—he pointed outside his office, meaning to indicate the less prestigious writers of
Newstime
—“is we process the crap faster.”

Again Kahn opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, behind him Chico, Syms, and a tall blond appeared.

Chico entered officiously. He introduced David and Kahn to the tall blond, who was, of course. Rounder, their new boss. David, rattled that the two most powerful Marx Brothers had entered so hard upon his critical remarks, got up awkwardly.

“Pleased to meet you,” Rounder said to David. “Just finished reading your cover. Good job.”

David glanced nervously at Kahn, momentarily fearing he would tell on him. But Kahn looked pale and apprehensive. David was dismayed at how little strength Kahn’s age and experience gave him to resist the uncertainty of this moment: meeting a man who controlled your fortune seemed to frighten everyone regardless of age or rank. Was there no escape, David wondered despairingly, from this craven insecurity? Even Chico, grinning like a court jester and nervously pretending that being with Rounder delighted him, was obviously eager to please the new editor in chief.

David studied Rounder. He seemed alien. He was at least four or five inches taller than Chico, and Chico was over six feet. Rounder, however, had none of Chico’s stockiness. He looked trim and muscled, at ease with his body, and that, combined with his blond hair and brilliant blue eyes, gave an impression of command, of absolute self-assurance, and implied that he was judgmental, perhaps harshly so. But more than that, he was physically atypical. Not dark, or short, or pudgy, like most of the ethnic types. And not florid-faced or distracted like the usual magazine WASP. Rounder was an American. The talk had made fun of his image: former Navy pilot, all-American in college. But he looked the part, and his steady eyes, his coldhearted blue eyes, convinced David that Rounder
was
the part.

“I’m making an informal tour,” Rounder said. “Wanted to meet the key personnel. I know there’s a great deal of worry when a new man comes in. I hope to put that fear to rest. Of course, there’ll be changes. But only some shifting about at first. We do intend to make organization changes eventually, but only after I’ve had a chance to learn how the magazine operates. After all,
Newstime
comes out every Monday, so you all must be doing something right.” Rounder smiled and they reflected the light of his bright big teeth with their own duller versions. “You’re both essential to what makes this a terrific magazine,” he said, looking first at David and then at Kahn. “I’m a newcomer. Never been a writer. So I need input from men like you. If you’ve got ideas, or maybe just good observations, about how to improve things, I’ll be grateful and glad to hear ’em.”

Rounder looked expectantly at them. David, still stunned by the coincidence of their entrance into the middle of his complaining, nodded stupidly. Kahn looked at him, though, as if he should talk, and David plunged in: “Well, we only know about our little corner of the universe—”

“But you know it very well. Better than anyone else can,” Rounder said, his voice eager, jumping on David’s words as if trying to force them open with a knife. “I don’t care if it’s just meaningless bitching”—he smiled brilliantly at David, his blue eyes staring into David’s eyes—“I want to hear it.”

“Well, to tell you the truth,” David began. He saw Chico straighten. He was standing behind Rounder and he looked alert, as if he might have to wrestle David to the ground, a Secret Service agent protecting his Chief. “Just as you came in I was in the middle of meaningless bitching. But it’s nothing you can do anything about. I wasn’t happy with my cover story. The
Weekly’s
was almost identical, and that always bothers me.”

“I liked your piece,” Rounder said, as if someone had challenged him about it. “And there’s not much you can do on a major national story to distinguish your stuff from the
Weekly.
What fellas like you need are more chances to do think pieces, more general stuff that’ll allow you to grow and shine.” Rounder smiled at him dazzlingly. “So you see, your bitching wasn’t all that meaningless.”

David smiled back stupidly, a dog eagerly waiting for more petting. Rounder said it was good to meet them, that he had to continue his tour, and they would talk more soon. Chico winked at David when he left behind Rounder. Syms followed them outside to the hall and said good-bye there.

David and Kahn looked at each other. The visit had the feel of a presidential tour and they both felt like naive visitors to the White House. Golly gee, their faces seemed to say, we just met the commander in chief. Steinberg had never had that effect. Rounder was radiant with energy and confidence. David felt, abruptly, that
Newstime
was going to be a very good, very exciting place to work.