Max (36 page)

‘Mama, Sally's not stuck up. She even said I'm neglecting you.'

‘Ah-hah, so when she says it it's right, and you come running. Otherwise, I could drop dead. Eat something. I stayed up to the middle of the night baking.' She pointed to a dish of cake and cookies resting on a table with a teapot and cups and saucers, the table set in the parlor and covered with a lace cloth. It was a small, round table that stood in front of an enormous velvet-covered sofa. Though his taste was limited, Max recoiled in despair every time he walked into his mother's house. The living room was filled with large, ungainly pieces of furniture set on a garish Persian rug. On marble pedestals there stood a stuffed owl, a stuffed squirrel, and a bronze casting of a young woman in flowing robes. On another table was displayed a collection of sea shells, and on the walls, hanging almost as high as the twelve-foot ceiling, a series of oil paintings that Freida had discovered in the various auction houses she visited.

Max bit into a cookie and praised it, and Sarah said, ‘See, I would have time to bake if my children were happy.'

‘So now what, Mama?'

‘Your sister Esther, my beautiful Esther with the red hair, she's got two babies, they should starve? That's what you want?'

‘What do you mean, that's what I want?'

‘With Manny not working, what else?'

‘You mean that bum she married has been fired again? I talk Plotkin into giving him the best kind of a selling job a man can have, and he's fired again?'

‘What kind of a life does she have with him traveling all the time?'

‘At least he's out of the way.'

‘Manny's a sweet man.'

‘Yeah.'

‘I can see the meanness in you. You'll let them starve.'

‘Mama, I won't let them starve. Only he's such a damn schmuck.'

‘That's language to use in front of me!'

‘I'm sorry, Mama. All right, I'll find something.' He got up, ready to leave.

‘You'll wait a minute? I got something to say about next door.'

‘What do you mean, next door?' Max was on his feet. He started to leave, and each step was like pulling a foot out of hot tar.

‘Next door is where you live. You got a minute more for your mother?'

‘All right.'

‘So sit down.'

‘I'll stand. What about where I live?'

‘You I don't see going in, but Freedman's in and out of there all the time, except when she ain't there. Instead of raising her children, she's running around.'

‘She's not running around. She's working.'

‘She shouldn't be working. She's a lady. Her husband ain't got enough money, she got to be working?'

He left there, his fists clenched so tightly his nails bit into his skin. The following day, at his office, he called Della O'Donnell in and asked her to sit down. ‘Tell me about your mother, Della,' he said to her. ‘You never said a word about your mother or your father.'

‘All of a sudden, Max? Just like that? You call me into your office and tell me to tell you about my mother?'

‘I got reasons.'

‘All right. My father was a drunken bum and he used to beat the hell out of my mother. She drank. If she didn't drink, how could she stand it? I was the only kid. I didn't like my father and I don't like to talk about it. I didn't like my mother but I felt sorry for her. My father was a teamster, and one day his horses went crazy and he was dragged to death. I was eleven. A year later, Mama died, and the Murphys sent me off to board at school, at the Good Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Period. You have my life story, Max.'

‘I shouldn't have bothered you.'

He looked so crestfallen that Della went around his desk and kissed him. ‘I usually don't do it during business hours.'

‘Why didn't I find you when I was a kid?'

‘Maybe you were never a kid, Max.'

‘Maybe not. Now, darling Della, get out of here and let me think, because in a half-hour I got to talk to that son of a bitch Stanford. Also, send in Freddy and Sam. I need support.'

‘I think,' Feldman said, sitting in Max's office with Snyder and Max, waiting for Stanford to appear, ‘I think we have to fight him this time – I mean, we have to take him to court under the Sherman Antitrust Act, which National has violated a hundred times. This trust is no different than all the other trusts, and they just march along, figuring that the world is theirs until someone stops them. We have to stop them.'

‘I don't like it,' Max said. ‘I don't like the courts and I don't trust the courts. National, the telephone company, the Rochester people, Edison – every part of that lousy trust is burning up because a handful of Jews without a dime of capital have put something together that they never even dreamed of. We made this. We created the moving picture, and now that it's here, they tell us to drop dead. Well, screw them!'

‘All right. Screw them. But do it my way.'

‘Hold on, hold on,' Snyder said gently, ‘Max, you remember when we made
The Waif?
You gambled with everything. You sold the nickelodeons and the halls and put every dime we had into that picture – and it worked. Sure they hate the Jews, but those bastards hate everyone else – the Irish, the Germans, the Polacks, the Italians – the hell with that. We got to stop them, Max. We can't live with it anymore. I can't invent a new projector every time they slap an injunction on us.'

‘Do you know what it has to cost? Tell him, Freddy.'

‘It could be half a million before we're through.'

‘And right now,' Max said, ‘we're shooting four features, two up in Harlem and two in the ice house. Where does the money come from? Suppose it runs to a million, two million?'

‘And suppose they slap an injunction on our cameras while we got four pictures going?'

‘All right, let's think about it,' Feldman said. ‘Meanwhile, buzz Della in here.'

‘What for?'

‘You'll see. Trust me.'

Max pressed the buzzer on his desk and Della came into the room. ‘Is he here yet?' Max asked.

‘Sitting outside and as annoyed as a wet hen. He doesn't like to be kept waiting.'

‘Let him stew. Now what, Freddy?'

Feldman pointed to the door that led to his office. ‘I'm going to leave the door open a crack, Della, and I'll put a chair right next to it in my office. After Stanford comes in here, take your pad and go around to my office and sit just outside that door and try to take down every word that's said in here.'

Della shook her head. ‘I don't know, Mr Feldman. I just don't know if I'm that quick.'

‘Give it a try. What's important is to get what Stanford says. You can fudge what we say, but get him.'

‘I'll try.'

Frank Stanford, tall, elegant, amiable, gave no sign of the irritation Della had observed. He shook hands with Snyder and Feldman. Max, protected by his desk, did not offer his hand and Stanford did not ask for it. He observed that Max was looking well.

‘I got a clear conscience,' Max said coldly.

‘Hell, Max,' Stanford said, ‘I can't see why you got a chip on your shoulder. You beat the tar out of us on that
Queen
film. We broke our backs to get it, but you got some kind of love affair going with the French.'

‘No love affair,' Feldman said, trying to ease the tension. ‘We sell them good films. They sell us their best.'

‘Just like that?'

‘More or less.'

‘We offered them double what you did.'

‘Maybe they don't like your ass,' Max said. ‘You're a bunch of tight-ass bastards. Maybe the French don't appreciate that.'

Feldman looked at Max pleadingly, and Stanford said, ‘That was uncalled for.'

Max shrugged, ‘Sure. Trouble is, Stanford, that every time you come around, you bring an ax with you.'

‘I bring offers. That's the way business works. We would have liked to have
The Queen
. But we can understand how you Jews stick together. We don't hold that against you.'

‘What in hell does that mean, the way we stick together?'

‘Well, it's no secret Sarah Bernhardt's a Jew lady –'

‘And you think that's how we got the picture?' Max said icily.

‘Now, hold on,' Stanford said, spreading his arms. ‘Let's not have unpleasantness. I came here to make you an offer. We want your moving pictures. We'll buy them or rent them, whatever you wish, and we'll open our stock to you. But we want the European films and we want the European market. You bow out of that, and we'll open our doors to you.'

Max burst out laughing.

‘I don't find it amusing.'

‘Go fuck yourself,' Max said.'

‘I expected that. You never got your face out of the gutter, did you, Britsky? All right, we have put up with you – now you're finished. We are going to wipe you out. We'll smother you with injunctions. We'll make it impossible for you to buy film stock if we have to buy half of France, and we'll lock every film you try to import into Customs. And we can do it. We have the money and the connections, and if you think you can buck a trust the size of ours, you're out of your mind. We got the telephone company behind us, and we got the whole Rochester crowd locked into this. We'll tie up every camera you got in your studios. You're a two-bit little East Side Jew, Britsky, and too big for your boots. If you think that you alone, out of every producer in America, can buck the trust, you are crazy. You're finished!' With that, he turned on his heel and strode to the door, flung it open, and then slammed it behind him.

Silence after he left. Then Feldman grinned tentatively Snyder looked at him. The smile was catching. Max burst out laughing and through his laughter managed to say, ‘He never changes. That dumb son of a bitch never changes.'

‘Della!' Feldman called out. ‘Come in, Della – come on in!'

Watching Feldman, Max continued to gurgle. By now, Feldman's intent was obvious, and Max could have embraced and kissed the chubby little lawyer. It had never occurred to him that they had picked up his own style or even that he had a style of his own; but Snyder also followed Feldman's reasoning, and he watched with pleasure as Della entered, waving her notebook.

‘Got it all?'

‘Every word.'

Max bounced around the desk and kissed her cheek. Feldman said to her, ‘Type up the whole thing, three carbons. Then take out that last remark of Mr Britsky's – you know what I mean?'

‘Indeed I do, Mr Feldman.'

‘Good. Now, put this down as a heading: Meeting at the Britsky offices in the Hobart Building, April 11, 1912. Present, Max Britsky, president, Britsky Productions; Samuel Snyder, vice president, and Frederick Feldman, corporation counsel. Testimony taken by Della O'Donnell –'

‘But he didn't know I was there, Mr Feldman.'

‘Doesn't change anything. You make the three carbons, bring the original and two carbons here, and send in Jake to notarise them. Give the third carbon to Millie, and have her make copies. I want three dozen copies.'

Della left, and the three men sat in silence, looking at each other. Then Max went to a cabinet and produced a bottle of Old Overholt and three shot glasses. He poured the drinks and said, ‘You used to be my conscience, Freddy. Honest Fred. Would you believe it?' he asked Snyder.

‘Nope.'

‘Here's to Standford, poor bastard,' Max said. They drank. ‘You know what I'm going to do, Fred? I'm going to take an ad in the
Tribune
, and I'm going to print the whole thing. Is that legal?'

‘Why not? If the
Tribune
runs it.'

‘If they don't, the
Post
will. Maybe not the
Times
, but the
Post
will. What's your play for the end of Mr Stanford?'

‘I don't hate him as much as you do, Max. I'm after the trust. Stanford's only an errand boy. Clyde Hillering is the president of National, and these notes will go out to him today, notarised, with a covering letter that we are bringing suit against the trust for twenty million dollars. That's a nice round sum. Restraint of trade and violation of the antitrust act.'

‘What about Rochester?' Snyder asked.

‘They'll get copies, and Mr Edison too. I wasn't thinking of the advertisement, Max, but of getting a copy to each paper and let them run it as news. Of course, nobody may take it either way because they'll be afraid of slander.'

‘I know Hillering,' Snyder said. ‘He'll break Stanford's back.'

‘Unless –' Max began.

‘Unless what?'

‘They're both vicious bastards.'

‘I have a feeling,' Feldman said, ‘that today is the beginning of the end of the trust. When word of this gets out, all the independents are going to turn brave. The lawsuit will go on for years, but the shock value is what counts. And in the end, we win, believe me, Max.'

The
Tribune
printed Max's advertisement the following day, and it became a news item in every other newspaper in New York as well as in three or four hundred that were not in New York. Theodore Roosevelt took time out from organising the Bull Moose party for the coming presidential election to send the following telegram to Max Britsky:
GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS FROM AN OLD TRUST-BUSTER STOP GO GET THEM MAX STOP AND WHEN I AM ELECTED PRESIDENT AGAIN THE GOVERNMENT WILL JOIN YOU IN KICKING THE PANTS OFF NATIONAL AND THE TELEPHONE COMPANY TOO STOP BULLY FOR YOU.
Max took ads in the
Times
and the
Tribune
and ran Roosevelt's telegram in large type; then he made his first political contribution, sending a check for five thousand dollars to the local organizing committee of the Bull Moose party.

A few days later, Snyder informed Max that he had heard, via the film grapevine, that National had fired Stanford.