The Hunting Trip (31 page)

“Would that be the Bradshaw Hedge Fund Cumings Bradshaw the Third, sir? Or the Old American Library Cumings Bradshaw the Fourth? Both gentlemen are honoring the Harvard Club with their patronage today.”

“The latter.”

“You'll find Bradshaw Four drinking his luncheon in the bar, sir.”

“Long time no see, Phil, old boy,” Cumings Bradshaw IV greeted Phil. “May I offer you a vodka martini, no vegetables, to cut the dust of the trail?”

“Don't mind if I do, Cumings, old chap.”

The waiter appeared and took ol' Cumings's order, which he immediately modified: “You'd best make those libations doubles, as when this gentleman hears how shoddily this Groton Old Boy has treated him, another Groton Old Boy, he'll need it.”

The waiter left, whereupon Mr. Bradshaw IV turned to Phil and said, “Our libations will go on my tab, that is to say the Old American Library's tab, old boy, inasmuch as I wish to make amends for the shoddy way in which I, as editor in chief of the ol' Old American, have been treating you.”

“How shabby? You're going to publish four of my novels and have advanced me fifteen hundred dollars per book for the privilege of doing so. As we sergeants say, that ain't too shabby.”

“Alas, it is. That fifteen hundred dollars per book is, I mean.”

“Tell me more, Cumings, old boy.”

The waiter delivered their double vodka martinis, no vegetables, and left.

“Mud in your eye, old boy,” Cumings said, raising his glass.

“Up yours, Cumings,” Phil responded. “Tell me how you've been treating me shabbily at fifteen hundred per book.”

“Well, old boy, when Daddy bought me the Old American Library as a graduation present on my graduation from Fair Harvard, he offered me some professional advice based on his years as a hedge fund biggie.

“‘Cumings,' he said, ‘the key to success in any business is to screw not your customers or your suppliers, but both.' He was speaking figuratively, of course, not physically.

“I of course took Daddy's advice to heart from the day the ol' Old American opened its doors for business. And I must say, with all modesty, we've been doing very well following that ‘screw not your customers or your suppliers, but both' business philosophy.”

“Why don't you get to the point, old boy?” Phil said evenly.

“Righto! You understand, of course, that as an author you fall into the ‘supplier' category. If publishers didn't have a supply of manuscripts from authors, where would they be?”

“I see your point.”

“Well, one day a couple of weeks ago, sitting at the bar at ol' Winged Foot, I had an epiphany, which I don't have to tell you, because you are an author who knows many big words, means a sudden realization: a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.”

“I know the word.”

“What I suddenly realized was that when I came across a first draft of a manuscript, yours, that showed great potential, I followed Daddy's advice to screw the supplier whenever possible and got you to sign a contract, actually contracts, plural, which screwed you royally.”

“You're talking about the fifteen hundred?”

“That, too, but also with regard to other contractual details. For example, if
Comfort Me With
Love
is sold to Hollywood for adaptation into a motion picture, the proceeds therefrom go five percent to you and ninety-five percent to the Old American Library, which is to say, me.”

“That sounds a bit unfair.”

“Of course it is, but first-time novelists are so thrilled with getting a contract that they'll sign anything I send them.”

“So that's what this is all about, Cumings, old boy, you want to tell me you're sorry you screwed me?”

“That, too, of course, but primarily to tell you what I've done to rectify the screwing I've given you.”

“More money, perhaps?”

“That, too, of course, but primarily to tell you that I've talked the matter over with ol' Cushman Johns. You remember him, of course, from dear old Groton?”

Phil searched his memory. “Tall, thin drink of water, played the harmonica, looked like a skinny Abraham Lincoln?”

“Right. He was two years ahead of us at Groton, and then two years ahead of me at Harvard, because you never got to go to Harvard.”

“What about him?”

“Well, ol' Cushman is now a literary agent, one of the better ones. So I popped the galleys of
Comfort Me With Love
over to ol' Cushie-Baby, as he's known in publishing, and asked him what he thought could be done with it. He promptly replied he was sure he could
unload it onto J. K. Perkins & Brothers, Publishers since 1812, for a price in the five-figure range. That means a figure between $10,000.01 and $99,999.99. A penny more and it becomes six figures.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“I
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
you not, Philip, old chap. So I told Cushie-Baby to have a shot at seeing what he could work out. And he did. And as we speak he's on his way here, to speak with you, enormously relieved he's not going to have to go all the way to wherever the hell you live in the Deep South to do so.”

—

Cushman Johns,
of Cushman Johns & Associates, Authors' Representatives, came into the bar of the Harvard Club fifteen minutes later.

“I vaguely recognize the face,” he said to Phil, “but can't put a name to it. I deduce further that since you're sitting here in the bar of the Harvard Club wearing a very nice J. Press tweed jacket, you're one of us. But what I'm here for is to deal with some sergeant ol' Cumings here has turned up who, truth being stranger than fiction, has come up with a manuscript that's going to make me some real money, so I don't have time to stroll down memory lane with you. Perhaps some other time.”

“Still wearing those really ugly blue suede shoes, I see, Cushman,” Phil said.

“Then we do know one another? Harvard, perhaps?”

“Try Groton. My name is Philip Williams.”

“Of course it is!” Cushman Johns said. “And I really would like to swap stories of dear Old Groton with you, Philip, old boy, but I can't, as I am here to deal with this Sergeant Wallingford Philips who ol' Cumings here has turned up.”

“You're looking at him,” Phil said.

—

“Let me give you,”
Cushman Johns counseled Phil ten minutes later, “the lay of the land over at J. K. Perkins & Brothers, Publishers since 1812, before we go to meet Chauncey S. ‘Steel' Hymen, vice president, publisher, and editor in chief of J. K. Perkins & Brothers, and the other members of the triumvirate at the 21 Club.”

“Why are we going there?” Phil asked.

“Because the Harvard Club now lamentably lets practically anyone in, which cannot be said of the 21 Club. If you take my point, I will proceed with giving you the lay of the J. K. Perkins business landscape.”

“Please do.”

“It is run by a triumvirate, anchored by ‘Steel' Hymen. He is a great editor and publisher, but knows zilch about money. The money is handled by ‘Two Gun' David Gobbet, so called because he is the current Fast Draw Champion of the Upper East Side of Manhattan Chapter of the Single Action Colt .45 Fast Draw Association.

“David knows zilch about literature or editing, but is a good man with a dollar. The third corner of the most successful management triangle in publishing is a woman whose name escapes me at the moment. Formidable female. She knows zilch about money or editing or publishing, but, being a woman—it's the nature of the beast—manages to take credit for all of the good work done by Steel and Two-Gun.”

“I understand.”

—

Readers of a romance novel
such as this understandably would be bored with the details of what happened that afternoon in the 21 Club, so they will not be chronicled in detail here.

Suffice it to say that sitting at the bar right under the picture of the
actor David Niven, who before he went on to cinematic glory sold intoxicants for the 21 Club and is fondly remembered by the proprietors, Phil signed a forty-eight-page new contract that among other things provided for the repurchase from the Old American Library of all the contracts for books save that of
Comfort Me With Love
and their resale to J. K. Perkins & Brothers, Publishers since 1812, for a price in the very, very high five-figure range. Each.

When Two-Gun Gobbet handed him all the checks with all those zeros on them, he asked if Phil, since he was around soldiers, and soldiers have guns, if Phil might be interested in becoming an out-of-town associate member of the Upper East Side of Manhattan Chapter of the Single Action Colt .45 Fast Draw Association.

Phil told him he would give the invitation serious consideration, as he didn't want to do anything at all to annoy “the Perkins money man” until he had deposited all the checks with all the zeros on them—and ensured that they indeed cleared—in the account he had maintained in the Park Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street branch of the First National City Bank of New York since he was six years old.

—

On the way back
to Fort Benning, Phil decided he would have to tell Brunhilde (the one he was married to) about his good fortune. Then he decided that maybe telling her how much good fortune there was might be a mistake and decided instead to tell her they could now afford a slightly newer, say three-year-old, Ford station wagon to replace the one they had now and leave it at that.

She was delighted with that news, and that may—on the other hand, may not—have had something to do with the surprise she had in store for him.

That was that when he started to retire to his bed in the nursery, he heard a sharp piercing whistle, and when he went to investigate
what his wife wanted, found Brunhilde in her bed wearing nothing but a rose between her teeth.

“Guess what your prize is if you can guess which baby has moved into the nursery and who gets to move back in here,” Brunhilde said.

A second child was born to Technical Sergeant and Mrs. Williams nine months later.

He was named Philip Wallingford Williams IV.

XII

PHIL BECOMES SECRETLY FAMOUS

[ ONE ]

A
fter Phil's return to Fort Benning and the USAAMU from his meeting with ol' Cushman Johns and the star of the J. K. Perkins & Brothers, Publishers since 1812, Management Troika, Chauncey S. “Steel” Hymen, to find, so to speak, Brunhilde (the one he was married to) waiting for him with a rose in her teeth, a good deal happened. Including, of course, the birth of Philip Wallingford Williams.

Comfort Me With Love
by Wallingford Philips had been published and found immediate success. It started out as #6 on
The New York Times
Cheap Paperbacks Best-Seller List, rose in three weeks to #1, and stayed there for three more weeks, when it moved to the
Times
's General Paperback Best-Seller List at #2.

Suspecting this was going to happen, the Old American Library published the fifth
et seq
editions with a new cover price of $0.35 and a new cover. The latter was far less lurid than the original cover, which permitted sale of the book to the general public, rather than
only in the Adult Toys & Naughty Books outlets that had previously been the only points of sale.

Then it set publishing history.

Chauncey S. “Steel” Hymen invited the publishing press (
The New York Times Book Review
,
Publishers Weekly
, et cetera, and book reviewers from major newspapers) to a luncheon at Sardi's in Manhattan.

There, to the popping of champagne corks, the vice president, publisher, and editor in chief of J. K. Perkins & Brothers, Publishers since 1812, announced that J. K. Perkins & Brothers, Publishers since 1812, had acquired the hardback rights to
Comfort Me With Love
from the Old American Library and would publish it with an embossed cover just as soon as it could be rolled off the presses of R.R. Donnelly & Company as a public service to those lovers of literature who wished to add it to their collections of great books in their personal libraries.

This was the first time in publishing memory that a hardcover book had been published as a result of the sales of a paperback work. Previously, it had always been the other way around, i.e., hardcover, then paperback.

On the one hand, these developments were naturally pleasing to Phil, because they meant there would be more checks with lots of zeros on them forthcoming. On the other hand, the concomitant publicity this generated
vis-à-vis
Wallingford Philips scared the living
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
out of him.

To wit: What would happen if the Army found out that Wallingford Philips—who was writing all these terrible things about the hanky-panky their majors and up, and the dependents thereof, were in the practice of practicing during their off-duty hours—was really Technical Sergeant Philip W. Williams of the USAAMU?

The terrible and likely possibilities began with physical exercise
twelve or more hours a day, to the point of exhaustion, day after day, in the dark, and got worse from there.

He confided his fears to his new author's representative, Cushman Johns, who agreed it was a problem inasmuch that if Phil were making little rocks out of big ones at the Army Prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, twelve or more hours a day, to the point of exhaustion, day after day, in the dark, he would have precious little energy left to devote to his creative writing.

“I think what we should do, Phil, old chap, is call in the Rabbi. It will cost you a
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
arm and a leg, but advice from the Rabbi is invariably worth every
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
dime it costs.”

“Who's the Rabbi?” Phil asked.

“You've never heard of the legendary Gustave Warblerman, L.L.D., literary legal counsel to the giants of literature?”

“Can't say that I have. And why do they call him ‘the Rabbi'?”

“Because he has the soft eyes and benign ambience of a Jewish clergyman at one of the better temples. This masks of course his true persona. And right now, trust me, old chap, you need him.”

On being apprised of the problem, “Rabbi” Warblerman said he was quite sympathetic as once, in his youth, he, too, had been a common enlisted man and thus knew to what depths those
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
West Pointers would go to stick it to some poor
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
enlisted man who dared question their claim to semi-divinity.

He recommended a program of disinformation.

“I'm in your capable hands, Rabbi,” Phil said. “Do whatever you think should be done.”

“Only those whom I have skewered with my legal genius call me ‘Rabbi,' Phil. My friends, and you may now include yourself in that select group, call me either ‘Gus' or ‘Your Honor.'”

“Gus, Your Honor, please do what you think should be done,” Phil said.

He did.

Word was leaked to the publishing press that there was no such person as Wallingford Philips, and that Wallingford Philips was the
nom de plume
of Friar Aloysius of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, who resided at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, and who did not give interviews to the press, because Trappist monks don't even talk to each other, much less to the press.

This worked, and the Army never found out that Phil was really Wallingford Philips or vice versa as long as he was in the Army. When they did find out his true identity, that is to say Wallingford Philips's true identity, Phil was out of the Army and it was too late for them to wreak vengeance upon him.

But this is getting a little ahead of the narrative of this romance novel, so back to it:

The other thing that bothered Phil was the necessity of concealing his newfound affluence from both the U.S. Army and from Brunhilde, the one he was married to. He had to conceal it from Brunhilde because he knew the moment she learned about it, the Brunhilde in diapers would find herself rolling around in a baby carriage manufactured by the Rolls-Royce Motor Car Company of Crewe, England, and the Army would wonder how the wife of Technical Sergeant Williams had come by the wherewithal to be so kind to her offspring.

He had told her that they could afford a newer Ford station wagon to replace the one he'd bought from Kenny McLain's Previously Owned Motor Cars outside Fort McPherson and which now, at almost fifteen years of age, was in terminal shape. So shortly thereafter they carefully drove it to the Columbus Ford and Jaguar Motor Company in Columbus, Georgia, and bought, on time, a five-year-old Ford station wagon in less terminal shape.

While Brunhilde was discussing the financial terms of the deal, Phil's eye fell upon something in the dealer's new-car showroom with which he immediately fell in love, specifically a British racing green Jaguar motor car with chromed wire spoke wheels like a bicycle.

He learned that day that the pain caused by not having the money to buy something every fiber in your body wants is nowhere near as painful as not being able to buy something every fiber in your body wants when you do have the money to buy it but can't because of other circumstances.

He managed to resist the temptation to buy the Jaguar that day—but it was a battle. He managed to resist it again six months later when their “new” Ford station wagon turned out to be more of a lemon than their old one, and they had to return to the Columbus Ford and Jaguar Motor Company for another one. The silver Jaguar then on display was even nicer than the first one he had seen, and he had been instantly enamored of it, as it had bloodred leather seats, chromed wire wheels, and, on its nose, the iconic hood ornament known to those in the know as the Jaguar Leaping Leaper.

He resisted the temptation to do something stupid like buy the silver Jaguar—which would really cause the Army to ask questions he didn't want to have to answer—despite many sleepless nights thinking about that adorable little chromed Jaguar on the hood, which was of course the bonnet, as Jaguars were of English manufacture, until after Philip Wallingford Williams IV was born into this vale of tears.

It was at this point that they again returned to the Columbus Ford and Jaguar Motor Company, this time to buy yet another Ford station wagon, replacing the three-year-old lemon with a new one. The occasion was Brunhilde-the-wife's announcement that she was again in the family way, having graciously moved him back into their bedroom as she had previously and with the same result.

Phil, without betraying the fact there was ample cash in the bank
to pay cash, had told her that they had probably established enough credit for the Ford Motor Credit Company to loan them enough to buy a new vehicle, and she liked the idea, as in seven months they would have three little ones, not just two, to ferry from hither-to-yon.

While Brunhilde-the-wife was dealing with the salesman
vis-à-vis
the terms of the ten-year note Phil was later that day to sign, Phil sought out the proprietor of the Columbus Ford and Jaguar Motor Company and asked if he could have a quiet word with him.

“What would you say, sir,” Phil said when he had been led into a dark corner of the service department, “if I told you I am prepared to buy that silver car with the wire wheels and the chromed Jaguar on the bonnet on your showroom floor right now, providing that you let me keep it in your service department so that I can come here at night and on weekends and take my Jag for a little spin?”

“Let me get this straight. You want to buy the car and leave it here and then come and take it for a little spin every once in a while?”

“That is correct.”

“Then I would say, Sergeant, although I can't smell anything, that you've been at the sauce and I will thank you not to waste any more of my valuable time. You know how much that Jaguar sells for?”

“To the
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
penny,” Phil replied, and then thrust a pigskin leather folder before the proprietor's eyes. “You know what that is?”

“I do indeed. I saw a story in
Forbes
magazine,” the man said. “It's a City-Diamond pigskin leather checkbook holder, which the First National City Bank of New York issues to stinking rich people who maintain a minimum average balance of one million dollars in their City-Diamond checking accounts. I'm actually wondering where you found it, or more likely stole it.”

“If you would be so kind, sir, as to call the number on the check and say ‘Hotshot,' I feel my charge account executive at the First
National City Bank, whose name is Ellward T. Fobby, will quickly assure you not only that this is my checkbook, but also that the funds in my account were acquired through absolutely legal means that he is not permitted to divulge.”

“Let me get you a cup of coffee, Sergeant, while I get on the phone.”

—

For the next seven months,
Phil frequently visited the Columbus Ford and Jaguar Motor Company's garage late at night, or sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, to visit with the adorable chrome Leaping Leaper on the bonnet of his Jaguar, and to polish him and the rest of the car with loving swipes, and every once in a while to take quick trips up and down the Georgia back roads.

But—even after Franz Josef Williams was born, when he had been sorely tempted to drive his second son home from the hospital in the Jaguar—Phil never drove it in the daylight or told Brunhilde-his-wife what he had done.

[ TWO ]

Foggy Point, Mississippi

Wednesday, December 15, 1954

P
hil's enlistment was finally over. He was discharged under Honorable Conditions from the U.S. Army.

“Brunhilde,” he said, when he returned for the last time to his—actually, their—quarters at 103B Bataan Death March Avenue in NCO Town, “before we go out to the USAAMU for the last time to
say
auf Wiedersehen
to Master Sergeant Percy J. Quigley and the boys, we have to make a quick stop at the Columbus Ford and Jaguar Motor Company to pick up my Jaguar, which I have somehow neglected to mention to you previously.”

“I knew the minute I laid eyes on you that you weren't to be trusted,” Brunhilde replied. “But I am so happy to be able get the hell out of here that I will delay your punishment for the time being.”