Hot Properties (3 page)

Fred guffawed nervously, getting up to greet Bart, who at that moment appeared at the front door. “That’s the idea,” he said to Patty and Tony.

They turned to look at Fred’s hope for success. Bart was the opposite of the caricature of the agent: he was tall, thin, with a full head of red hair. His long nose, pale blue eyes, and thin unsmiling mouth made him look like a Flemish painting: a mournful, industrious, and religious man. But his companion fit the image of a wheeling-and-dealing agent: she was a tall blond model with the perfect features of modern surgery and the brilliant white teeth of industrial enamel.

While Fred introduced them (the model’s name was Brett, which Tony thought was probably acquired at the same time as her teeth), the intercom buzzed again and soon they were joined by Karl Stein. Karl was also represented by Bart— indeed. Karl had provided the introduction that led to Fred becoming a client. Karl was a short, sad man with black and gray hair that hung from the center of his head like draperies. His thick black beard gave the impression of religious commitment: a martyr.

In a sense he
was
a monk of the Order of Novelists. After college, Karl had begun his first book, finished it within a year, and sent it to publishers. He got fifteen rejections. Meanwhile, he began work on another novel. Over the next ten years he wrote six manuscripts, none of them finding a publisher. A friend persuaded him to meet someone he knew at
Penthouse
magazine and Karl wrote a piece for them on a sex club in New York that led to the first check he received as a writer. After a few more pieces for
Penthouse,
other assignments followed—from
Playboy,
then
Esquire,
and so on. A piece for
Playboy
on stewardesses attracted Bart’s attention. Bart called Karl, suggested he fire his current agent, hirt Bart, and write an outline based on the notion of tracing three generations of a family of stewardesses, from the prop age to the Concorde. Karl’s ten-page proposal on this idea won for him the book contract that his six devotions did not. He had finished
Stewardess
by the time he walked into Fred’s dinner party and had only five months to wait for his first novel to appear.

The last guest to arrive was David Bergman, someone Fred knew slightly in college and had cultivated after he spotted David’s name listed on the masthead at
Newstime
as a senior writer. Marion had invited Patty partly because of David. He was single and a good catch. To be a senior writer at his age was a remarkable achievement, and besides, Marion liked David. He looked responsible and decent. In his double-breasted pin-striped suit, white shirt, and red tie, he didn’t look at all like a writer, she thought, without any irony or self-consciousness that she, the wife of a writer, was so impressed by that.

Other than David, who asked for bourbon, the new arrivals asked for white wine. Fred couldn’t resist a gibe. “Well, I’m glad I read the Living Section of the
Times
this month.”

Blank looks.

“Everybody’s drinking wine!” Fred said with the tone of Sherlock Holmes naming the murderer.

“I’m not,” David said mildly.

The rest looked puzzled and there was an awkward silence. Tony broke the tableau: “Fred, this is a most provocative remark. But we don’t understand it.”

Patty laughed violently, mostly at Tony’s tone of utter contempt and the embarrassed look on Fred’s face. She started to cough and choke, trying to stop herself, knowing her laughter was insulting—indeed, Fred’s face turned red.

“I didn’t mean it as a put-down,” Fred stammered. “Don’t you remember the piece a couple of weeks ago saying that hard liquor before dinner was passé?” Fred said this, appealed it really, to Karl, who (generally worried by any gathering larger than three) peered about in a bewildered and suspicious manner. He looked startled by Fred’s question. In fact, he was made nervous by Fred including him in something that seemed to be an embarrassing mistake.

“No—I didn’t hear what you said,” Karl answered in so guilty and halting a manner that when Tony leaned forward and patted Karl on the knee, saying, “Don’t worry, Karl, we’ll give you a makeup test later,” everybody laughed. They laughed nervously, because they were acquaintances burdened with the need to pretend intimacy and friendliness, and the strain needed relief.

Fred, knowing he had somehow made a fool of himself, desperately grabbed at a new subject. “Say, we got to get Patty a job.” Fred’s foot jiggled anxiously. “Come on, this room is full of people with connections. Patty’s terrific. She’s smart, she’s cute, she knows editing.”

Patty wished she was back in the bathroom again—this time to slit her wrists.

Karl frowned at her, increasing her discomfort. “You’re sure you want to go back into publishing?”

“Of course!” Fred answered for her. “We have to make sure all our friends become important editors so they’ll publish our books!” Fred guffawed, scanning the room with glistening eyes for others who would enjoy his open statement of opportunism. Fred suffered from the delusion that to confess to calculation was disarming and sophisticated. He believed it simultaneously revealed himself as aware of such conniving, disapproving of it, and yet showed he was prepared to take advantage of it himself—a combination of attitudes that Fred thought was self-aware and humorous (like a Woody Allen hero, Fred would have said) rather than the tail of the comet of self-doubt that raged constantly throughout the galaxy of his insecurities.

“I guess you’re right, Fred,” Tony Winters said to cover the embarrassed silence that threatened the room. “That’s probably the only way we’ll get any of our stuff published.”

“No!” Patty instantly protested.

“I don’t think you should go back into publishing,” Karl said in a grave and considered tone.

“Hear, hear,” Marion said.

Tony smiled at her. She returned his glance demurely.

“See,” Tony said to Patty. “And Marion’s an editor. Ask her how lucky you are to be out of it.”

“You know the problem with being an editor?” Marion said, leaning forward eagerly.

Fred broke in, flashing a look at his new agent, Bart. “Just don’t say it’s agents who ruin the business.” Again he guffawed.

“Well, they’re not a big help, Fred,” Marion said.

Tony smiled at Marion admiringly.

“Business,” Karl mumbled into his drink, unheard by the others.

“But they’re not the big problem,” Marion continued, looking into Tony’s handsome eyes. She felt encouraged by them: this kind of declamation was difficult for Marion. “It’s the mixed messages. Nothing is straightforward. They hire you and say, ‘Oh, we want you to aggressively acquire books, discover young writers, and demand big printings.’ Then they reject every unknown writer you bring in, while agents only give the track-record authors to the big boys—”

“Well, I don’t know if I can agree with that,” Bart said quietly. His still manner made the words impressive: Marion shut up and the room gave its attention to Bart. “Bob Holder at Garlands & Company is only twenty-eight. I give him a crack at all my six-figure authors.”

“Gosh, doesn’t that sound nice,” Tony Winters interrupted with a show of greed. Patty, Marion, and David Bergman all laughed instantly. Karl also laughed, but so violently that it seemed more like anger. The others looked puzzled, except for Fred, who was torn between appreciating Tony and not offending Bart. “It’s like a chest measurement for women,” Tony went on. “What’s sexier? A high six figures or a low seven?”

Patty’s lips made a small circle. “Oh, a low seven, for sure.”

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” Tony said. “That should be a hint to the National Book Awards, or TABA, or whatever the hell it is now.”

“TABA,” Karl said into his drink.

“TABA.” Tony nodded. “Well, anyway, they should have a swimsuit competition in the future. Can’t you see Bill Styron in a bikini?”

“How about Mailer?” David Bergman offered.

“No, no. Mailer stays in shape,” Tony argued. “You want the real slobs, the people who have gone to seed.”

“Mailer!” David Bergman called out again, laughing. “His writing fits.”

“That’s not true,” Karl said, so exercised that he raised his head and spoke clearly.

“Despite your joking, that is the idea,” Bart said to Tony. His serious tone again caused everyone to focus on him. Once they had, he continued. “TABA is an attempt to create superstar writers and superstar book events, like the Academy Awards. I think it’s a good thing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Fred said. His leg bounced up and down nervously. “I don’t understand why you guys at the Authors Guild and PEN voted against it,” Fred said to Tony and Karl.

“I’m not a member of the Authors Guild or PEN,” Tony protested.

Karl wasn’t either, but he didn’t like to admit it.

Fred stayed on Tony. “Yeah, but you know the presidents of both of them.”

“You make me sound like Secretary of State,” Tony answered, smiling. He stubbornly resisted Fred’s attempt to link him with a literary establishment, not out of modesty, but fear that if he admitted to Fred he had access to such people, within twenty-four hours he would get a call from Fred requesting introductions.

“It seems to me,” Marion said, “writers objecting to TABA is typical of how hypocritical writers can be. Authors want to be celebrities, they want their books advertised, and all the rest, but God forbid they should participate in the selling, or admit that it’s a business. Only writers can decide who are good writers, is what they’re saying. It’s bullshit.”

Karl coughed. “Excuse me.” He cleared his throat. “But that’s silly. Writers have always decided who are good writers. What do you think literary critics are? Painters? They’re writers.” He laughed and looked around for support, but the vehemence of his tone caused only worried looks.

“Karl.” Bart said the word like a parent: a warning against throwing a tantrum. “With your first novel coming out, you can’t have that attitude.”

David Bergman, unaware that Bart was Karl’s agent, and irritated by his arrogant manner, got up from his chair and walked around the couch to face Bart, saying, “Why the hell shouldn’t he? Seems to me with his first novel coming out, it’s the best possible attitude. Artists can’t take the judgments of businessmen to heart—not if they hope to continue to be artists.”

“Editors aren’t businessmen.” Marion said.

“Of course they are!” Karl sputtered. His drink spilled as he put it down on the coffee table. “That’s why—”

Bart’s commanding voice interrupted: “So are writers.”

Karl shut up and looked at his agent with the wide-eyed, trusting, and slightly frightened expression of a dutiful student.

“Never forget it,” Bart said in the sonorous tone of a newscaster signing on: “A writer is a businessman first. And then, if you’re lucky, you can be an artist too.”

David Bergman looked at the other writers. Tony, though he wore a slight smile to indicate distance from Bart’s judgment, looked at the floor. Fred, his leg bouncing up and down nervously, nodded his enthusiastic agreement. Karl simply closed his mouth, clamping down on his unfinished objection. And Patty, for the first time, looked at David with wide-eyed interest.

“Look,” David said. “I know I’m a hack journalist. One of the advantages I have over other writers at
Newstime
is I admit it to myself. But I’m not a businessman. And these fellows, they’re not hacks. They can’t be businessmen. It would kill them to even try.”

Bart looked up at David slowly. “To get what they want—they’d better be.”

There was a silence, a few seconds of embarrassed uneasiness at Bart’s dramatic tone.

Brett. Bart’s date, stood up, her long blond hair swinging like a slow-motion shot for a commercial. David stepped back, startled.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Where’s the little girls’ room?”

No one answered at first. Then David put his arm out—a gentlemanly escort. “I’ll take you there.”

Brett was astonished. “You’re going with me?”

“Yes. I have to throw up now,” David answered with a charming smile. The room broke up—except for Patty, who continued to stare at David with intense interest. As far as anyone could remember, that was the party’s last interesting moment.

CHAPTER 2

Everyone left Fred’s party only a half-hour after coffee had been served. Tony started the exit, announcing he had an early appointment. Having been shown the way out, they all developed early appointments and left within a few minutes of each other.

David Bergman was pleasantly surprised to find that Patty lived near him in SoHo, and offered to split a cab with her.

“How long have you lived in SoHo?” David asked after giving their addresses to the cabdriver.

“Two years, but I lost my lease.”

“Oh. You found another apartment?”

“No, I’m apartment sitting for two weeks. I lost my lease because of a lunatic.”

David smiled at her deadpan delivery.

“No one believes me. My friends think I must have done something horrible. But I’m innocent, I swear!” She clutched David’s arm and begged: “Do you believe me?”

David laughed at her desperate gesture and language, because while she pleaded, her eyes twinkled mischievously, hinting, like starlight, at tomorrow’s unseen and powerful sun.

He was drunk. The party had made him uncomfortable. Tasting the bourbon over and over helped, and by the time Marion’s heavy meal of crab croquettes and lasagna arrived, his stomach felt full and he only wanted more cool liquid. But the booze didn’t soothe his uneasy memory of his behavior. He had heard himself arguing with every opinion the guests pronounced. It had begun with Bart about writers and businessmen, but he even found himself telling Fred the Yankees couldn’t win this year, quoting half-remembered opinions of Harold Yeller,
Newstime’s
sports columnist, as if he had thought them himself, or even understood them. David hadn’t watched a ballgame in years. Yes, the general feel of the evening had disgusted him. There was something pathetic about Fred’s formal arrangements: forcing them into some sort of community. Worst of all was the pretense that they were important, when, in fact, other than Bart (who, after all, was merely an agent), they were mediocrities. All of them standing in line at the New York cafeteria of young professionals: stuffed with opinions before the meal of life had even begun.