The Dream Merchants (46 page)

Farber looked at me. I could see the desire well up into his eyes to tell me to go to hell, but his lips were pressed tightly together. His million bucks were in the pot already and there was nothing he could do about that. He got twenty-five thousand shares of common stock for it, which was all he could get—on paper. The new S.E.C. rules would not let any written agreement go further than just that. I could almost see him make up his mind to go along with my proposal and I knew that the fight had only started. I could see, too, that his mind was made up to get me out. He would wait for the right time, though. He felt certain it would come.

He got to his feet. From the look on his face I knew he had thought of something else. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and started out of the office.

Ronsen jumped to his feet quickly. He looked at me and then at Farber, who was walking to the door. I almost felt sorry for him. He was in the middle of it. For the moment it was a fight between Farber and me and he was out of his depth completely. The door closed behind Farber.

I smiled at Larry. For the first time I was in a position to give an order. “You better chase after your boy, Larry,” I said patronizingly. “And see if you can make him see the light.”

He didn’t answer. The veil dropped from his eyes again for a second and his blazing resentment shone through; then he turned and hurried after Farber.

I watched the door close behind him and I knew I had made him an enemy as well as Farber. But somehow I didn’t care about it any more. I would rather have them face me in the open light of day than have to look out for them in the dark. And yet inside me I knew that I was wrong. For whatever we could agree on during the day would have to be canceled when night fell. That was the kind of business this was.

***

The lights glowing on the clock on the dashboard of Doris’s car showed it to be after ten. The radio was playing softly as we rode along. The night was warm and the tiny stars were twinkling in the dark blue-black of the sky.

I looked at her as she turned the car into the driveway and climbed the hill toward her house. She had been silent since we had left the restaurant.

She pulled the car to a stop and turned off the ignition key. We lit cigarettes and sat there silently listening to the music coming from the radio.

We both started to speak at the same time. It was funny and we laughed and the tension that had descended on us ever since we saw Dulcie in the restaurant seemed to fall away.

“What were you going to say?” I asked, still smiling.

Her eyes were serious as she looked at me. “Nothing.”

“You were going to say something,” I pointed out. “Now come on, what was it?”

She drew on her cigarette. It glowed and I could see the shadows in her eyes. “You loved her very much once.”

I looked across the field in front of her house. Did I? I sometimes wondered now. Had I ever really loved Dulcie? Had I ever really known her? I doubted it. But she was such an actress, I had loved what I thought she was, or rather what she let me know of her. Now I was older and I knew more. If I told Doris that I hadn’t loved Dulcie or that I didn’t know, she wouldn’t believe me, so I played it straight. “I did love her—once,” I answered.

She was silent again. I watched her smoke her cigarette. I knew there was more coming. I waited. I wasn’t wrong.

“Johnny,” she asked, her voice very low, “what was she like? I mean really like. I heard so many stories about her, but I never really knew her.”

What was she really like? I wondered. Thinking back over all that had happened, I knew now that I didn’t know. I shrugged my shoulders. “You heard the stories?”

She nodded her head.

“Well—they were all true,” I said.

She was silent again. Her cigarette burned down and she snapped it over the side of the car. We watched it make a glowing spiral in the air as it fell toward the ground. I felt a movement against my side. I looked down. Her hand was in mine. I looked at her and smiled.

Her voice was low. “It must have hurt terribly.”

It had, but not as badly as I thought at the time. I remembered how I felt that night when I discovered Warren Craig in her bed. I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to remember it. But I could still hear her screaming after me—words I had never thought I would hear from any woman’s lips. Then the sudden silence when I hit her. I could remember how she looked lying there nude on the floor, looking up at me with a crazy sort of triumph in her eye, a cold smile on her lips, as she said: “That’s what I always expected from—a cripple.”

I looked at Doris. Her eyes were on me sympathetically. “No,” I said slowly, “I don’t think she ever really hurt me. What did hurt, though, came afterwards. Long afterwards. When I learned what I had been missing these many years.”

She was watching my face carefully. “What was that?” she asked.

I looked into her eyes. “You,” I said softly. “It really hurt then, for I knew that all the years before had been lost and I could never get them back. And I was afraid to try, I didn’t know how.”

She looked into my eyes searchingly for a long moment; then she turned and rested her head on my shoulder and looked up at the sky. We sat like that for a long time.

At last she spoke, her voice warm and contented. “I was afraid, too,” she said.

I smiled down at her. “Afraid of what?” I asked.

She shifted her head on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. They were soft and trusting. “Afraid you would never forget her, afraid you would never come back. I was even afraid you thought of her now.” I kissed her. She looked up at me. Her voice was small. “You don’t know what it means to be afraid like that. Not to be sure of someone you love.”

I kissed her again. Her lips were soft against mine. “You don’t have to be afraid any more, sweetheart.”

She smiled gently up at me. I could feel her breath against my cheek. “I know that—now,” she sighed contentedly.

The night was still again and we could hear the sound of the crickets chirping in the bushes. Occasional fireflies sparkled in the night. Below us in the valley were long lines of lights. They came from homes, from street lamps, from neon signs. They matched the stars in the sky above us.

She sat up suddenly and looked at me. “What’s going on at the studio, Johnny?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

I lit a cigarette before I answered. “Nothing important,” I answered.

The look on her face was skeptical. She knew too much about this town to believe me. “Don’t tell me that, Johnny,” she said quietly. “I can read the papers. I saw what the
Reporter
had to say yesterday. Is it true?”

I shook my head. “Part of it is,” I admitted, “but I think I got it licked.”

“You did get into trouble because you came out to Papa,” she said. She hesitated a moment. “I should have thought of that when I called you.”

I looked at her. Her eyes were questioning. She was worried about me. Strangely I felt good about it. With all that she really had to worry about that was more important, she was thinking about me. I picked up her hand and kissed its palm. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, sweetheart,” I said. “Even if it meant that I had to leave Magnum. Being with you again and seeing Peter is more important than anything I have to do at the picture company.”

Her eyes were clouded with a sort of mist. “I hope you won’t have any trouble on account of it.”

I squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry about your old Uncle Johnny, sweetheart,” I said more confidently than I felt. “He’s got the situation under control.”

I don’t think it was more than ten minutes later that I found out how wrong I was. We heard the sound of a motor coming toward us in the driveway.

Doris looked at me puzzledly. “I wonder who that is,” she said.

“It’s Christopher,” I said, glancing back at the headlights and recognizing the car. “I told him to pick me up here a little after eleven.”

The car pulled alongside ours. Christopher stuck his head out the side. “That you, Mr. John?” he called.

“Yes, Christopher,” I answered.

“I got a special message for you from Mr. Gordon. He says for you to call him right away. It’s most important.”

“Thanks, Christopher,” I said, getting out of the car. I turned to Doris. “I’ll use your phone.”

She nodded and I hurried off to the house, wondering what he wanted now. I could hear Christopher’s pleased voice behind me:

“Hello, Miss Doris. How is Mr. Peter?”

I didn’t hear her reply because I was already in the hall and picking up the phone. I dialed Bob’s number and waited. I could hear the buzz of the phone at the other end. It rang only once, then he picked it up. He must have been waiting for the call. “Bob,” I said, “this is Johnny.”

His voice sounded angry. “I thought you told me everything was going to be jake,” he shouted into the phone.

What the hell was he sore about? “Pipe down, pal,” I said dryly, “or I won’t need a phone to hear you. Sure I told you everything was going to be jake. Now what’s wrong?”

He was still shouting. “Everything’s wrong. You’ve been feeding me a line of bull, that’s all. I just want to tell you I’m not gonna take it any more. I quit.”

Now I was sore. “What the hell’s going on?” I asked. “Stop the crappin’ around and tell me what happened. I still don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” There was a sound of skepticism in his voice.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

He was silent for a minute. When he spoke again, there was a new tone in his voice. “Then we’re both getting jobbed,” he said. “I just got a call from Billy at the
Reporter
. He said an announcement just came from Ronsen’s office that at a special board-of-directors meeting held in New York tonight Roth and Farber were elected to the board and that Roth was also elected vice-president in charge of production!”

It was my turn to be silent. The sons of bitches had called my bluff. Farber must have done some fast talking to get Larry to pull a stunt like this. I could just imagine his arguing: “Take a chance and do it. Edge won’t pull out. He’s with this company too long. It’s his baby.” And he would be right too. He knew I wouldn’t pull out even if Larry didn’t. I found my voice. “Don’t do anything until I see you, Bob. Sit tight, and if I don’t see you over the week-end, I’ll see you at the office Monday.”

I hung up the phone. I waited a minute, then picked it up again and called the long-distance operator. “Get me New York,” I said, and gave her Janey’s number.

It was almost two o’clock in New York, but I had to find out what had happened.

Rocco answered the phone; his voice was fuzzy with sleep. “Hello,” he growled.

“Rock, this is Johnny,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry to disturb you so late, but I gotta talk to Janey.”

He was awake in a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Hold on.”

Janey’s voice came on. “Yes, Johnny.”

“What time did that directors meeting take place tonight?” I asked.

“About nine o’clock,” she answered. “The Teletype calling for it came through at six, but it was nine before they could get enough of them together for a quorum. I thought you knew about it, but I didn’t take any chances. I sent a notice back to you on the night wire.”

“I see,” I said slowly. I certainly did. There were probably two notices on my desk in the studio right now, placed there after I had left the office. I had left early because I wanted to try to see Peter that afternoon.

“Is there anything else, Johnny?” she asked anxiously.

Suddenly I was tired. “No,” I said slowly. “Thanks a lot. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“That’s all right, Johnny,” she said.

“Good night Janey.” I heard her answer and then hung up the phone and turned around.

Doris was standing there looking at me. I looked at her. My face must have told her the bad news. She took a deep breath. “Trouble, Johnny?” she asked.

I nodded my head slowly. Nothing but trouble. It was up to me now. Put up or shut up. If I took it, I was through. If I didn’t, I was through anyhow. Slowly I sank into a chair. What a day! Black Friday.

I should’ve stayed in bed.

THIRTY YEARS

1925

1

Johnny walked through the crowded room looking for Dulcie. She had been with him a moment ago, but suddenly she had disappeared. He wondered where she had gone.

A small, thin-faced woman called him. “Johnny dear,” she said in a thin high-pitched voice that was not unpleasant to the ear, “come here a minute and talk to me. We have so little time to chat with each other, I’m beginning to forget how sweet you are.”

Johnny turned and looked at her, then he smiled slowly and walked toward her. Nobody dared to ignore Marian Andrews. She was small and nervously intense and wrote a column that was syndicated in almost every newspaper in the country and throughout the world. Her subject was Hollywood, and Hollywood was her subject. Her words were known to make or break people. She knew how important she was and hesitated but little in using her power when she so willed. But the power was cleverly concealed beneath an overfriendly, gushing, inquisitive manner that carried somehow into her column and gave the reader a feeling that he or she had just heard the news over the back fence that separated his own home from his neighbor’s.

“Marian,” Johnny said pleasantly, taking her hand, “I didn’t see you.”

She looked at him a moment, an eyebrow lifted archly. “For a second,” she said lightly. “I thought you didn’t want to see me.”

“How could you imagine such a thing?” He laughed easily. “I just had something on my mind, that’s all.”

She looked at him shrewdly. “Such as where is your lovely wife?”

He looked at her in surprise. “That’s one of them,” he admitted.

She laughed, happy at her guess. “You don’t have to worry about her, dear boy, she just went outside for a bit of fresh air. Her cousin Warren is with her and you can sit down here beside me and we can have a talk.” She patted the seat beside her.

He looked down at her and smiled again. “You see everything, Marian, don’t you?”

A glint of pride came into her eyes. “That’s my job,” she replied. “Don’t forget I’m a reporter. Now come on, do sit down.”