The Children of Hamelin (17 page)

“I dunno,” I muttered, “maybe I’m getting too involved. I keep telling myself ‘fee-writers are shits’ but sometimes I almost don’t believe it.”

“Any time you start feeling sorry for the cruds,” Berkowitz said, “just contemplate the Mad Dentist and Company, Nathanael West, and have the innocent purity of your cynicism magically restored.”

He had a point there; my attack of conscience was probably nothing more than the Wednesday afternoon blues. Thus purged of thought-crime, I returned to my letter to old George Casey:

“Frankly, Mr. Casey, the finest writer in the world could not do a piece like this in a manner that would render it salable to a national magazine. The obvious legal question of libel aside, no major magazine is as yet ready to publish an article which unequivocally advocates the use of marijuana as a positive good—”

Was I getting through? Could he tell that I was telling him I was on his side? Shit, if only I could say what I wanted to say for once!

“There are so-called ‘underground’ publications which might publish the piece, but since they pay little or nothing for material and since 10% of nothing is very little indeed, no reputable literary agent can afford to deal with them.”

A neat piece of double-talk: I had given him the Dirk Robinson party-line while really telling him where he
could
get the thing published. But I had to tell him what the consequences could be or I’d be nothing better than a pimp for the narcs....

“Moreover, if I may, I’d like to warn you against submitting the piece to these markets on your own; in view of your conviction for a narcotics violation, publication of this article might very well serve to focus the attention of certain governmental agencies whose interest you might find less than desirable upon your person to your general detriment and to the detriment of your promising career as a writer...”

A word to the wise, kiddo. I had done as much good deed for the week as I was going to; from here on in, it was strictly The Word according to St. Robinson:

“...Nevertheless, this article does demonstrate a powerful and well-controlled writing talent at work, and when you apply that talent to a less commercially-limited subject in your next submission—”

“The Man craves your presence in his inner sanctum.”

Huh? I looked up: it was Dickie who had appeared in front of my desk in a puff of ectoplasm while I was hung-up with my conscience. A moment of idiot panic—had Dirk somehow picked up my brainwaves? Was he calling me on the carpet before I had even finished the offending letter? Talk about paranoia!

“Who me?” I said.

“None other.”

“Into the Valley of the Shadow...” said Berkowitz.

“Ah, fuck off!” I rejoined brilliantly over my shoulder as I followed Dickie through the boiler room to his office. (The main entrance to Dirk’s office was strictly for Big Name Writers and other VIPs; we peons entered the Holy of Holies through the airlock of Dickie’s little private cubicle.)

“Who did I kill?” I asked Dickie when we were inside his office (a large closet containing a window, a door to Dirk’s office, a shelf of books Dickie had had a hand in, and a desk overflowing with correspondence, books, manuscripts and used paper coffee-cups).

Dickie grinned at me as he opened the door to Dirk’s office. “Fear not, Tom me lad,” he said. “Fame and fortune await within.” And in I went, and Dickie closed the door behind me with a doorman’s flourish.

Dirk’s office was set up as a movie set of Dirk Robinson’s office. A monstrous, Danish-modern walnut desk faced the entrance across about an acre of black wool carpet. The wall behind the desk was festooned with white and gold drapery to hide the fact that the windows overlooked a magnificent view of the seedy office building next door. The wall facing me as I entered from Dickie’s office was given over to bookcases displaying the published works of clients to denote worldly success; the wall behind me to bad paintings done by Dirk himself symbolizing artistic concern. Two uncomfortable modernistic armchairs faced the desk; between them was a large low table which was empty except for a small bronze bust of JFK.

The huge free-form desk itself was absolutely bare expect for a telephone and a bronze In-Out basket (unlike Dickie, Dirk had a clean desk fetish) but the typing-table joined to the desk at right angles held the latest IBM Selectric and Dirk, in his big clear-plastic swivel-chair, was working at it as I entered.

Dirk swiveled his chair to face the armchairs, said: “Sit down, Tom” in that soft, too-even voice of his. I sat down facing Dirk Robinson: a slightly overweight cat of about forty-five in shirtsleeves-and-tie, with a soft, flabby, easily forgettable face except for the small hawk-nose and the bright dark eyes that told anyone with a brain in his head not to be conned by Dirk’s insurance-salesman appearance.

“How long have you been working here?” Dirk said, leaning forward across the desk at me. He knew how long more precisely than I did and we both knew it. His face was, as always, professionally unreadable. I started to sweat inside. What was going on behind those fox-eyes of his?

“A little less than a year,” I said.

Dirk nodded like an emperor over all that gleaming walnut. “A little more than ten months,” he said, scoring some kind of points in a game of his I couldn’t fathom. “How do you like your job?”

What was he fishing for? Was he going to can me? Or try to maneuver me into asking for a pro desk again? Okay, Dirk baby, so let’s play games.

“It’s an education,” I said.

Dirk leaned back in his chair, spread his arms to rest the fingers of each hand on the edge of the desk, smiled. “You don’t want to be a writer,” he said evenly. “We get three basic types on the fee-desks: would-be writers like Mannie Berkowitz, guys who see it as the first step up the ladder, and guys like Bruce Day who aren’t thinking beyond an easy hundred bucks a week. I
know
you’re not a would-be writer. I get the feeling you’re one of the easy-buck boys.”

Was this the lead-in to a firing? What the hell else could he be getting at? Well, if he was going to fire me, I wouldn’t make it easy for him.

“Could be,” I said.

Dirk hunched forward suddenly, hands still on the edge of the desk; now he looked like a pudgy panther ready to spring. His expression never changed, but his eyes seemed to be laughing at a private joke. “The easy-buck boys last longest at the fee-desk,” he said. “Bruce could be here indefinitely, but I don’t give Mannie Berkowitz another six months.”

Now I understood the joke—he
wasn’t
going to fire me, but he had known that was what I would think and he had played one of his mini-mind games. But what
was
he up to? I decided to relax and ride with it—Dirk had just given me a little reminder that it was pointless to try and think a step ahead of him.

Dirk subsided into his chair, suddenly an old Dutch Uncle. “The guys that interest me,” he said, “are the ones who see the fee-desk as the first step on the ladder. I think you’re selling yourself short, Tom.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“In the ten months you’ve been here, you’ve sent about forty scripts on to Dickie for marketing. Dickie had to bounce only about a dozen. About twenty of the rest eventually sold. That’s pretty impressive.”

So that was it—now I was supposed to ask for a job handling pro writers and then he’d make me sweat a little before he gave it to me. Now I
was
a step ahead of Dirk: I knew where he was going and I had no intention of playing his game.

“To tell you the truth, I never thought about it,” I said.

Dirk leaned forward slightly, nodded almost imperceptibly, frowned the frown of a man who had heard what he had expected to hear. I saw another unexpected curve-ball coming. “I know,” Dirk said. “Your trouble is just that: you haven’t learned to think far enough ahead. Right now, you’re thinking I’m about to offer you a pro desk, right?”

“Right,” I said, knowing a second before I said it that it had to be wrong.

Dirk seemed to know I knew: he smiled and fixed me with a bright rodent-stare that seemed to look into places in me where I didn’t even know I had places. “Wrong,” he said. “You’d be a pretty good pro man, but you’d be more trouble than you’re worth. I don’t want you for a pro desk for the same reason I wouldn’t want
me
on a pro desk if I walked in the door: I’d be a fool to trust me and I’d be a fool to trust someone like you. A good pro man has to be a team-player like Dickie; he has to get a real charge out of contributing to Dirk Robinson Inc. and getting a private office with his name on the door. That sure wouldn’t be
me,
if someone else was top dog. And it’s not for you, either.”

“That’s some kind of compliment?” I asked.

“Wrong again. Neither of us is cut out to be a pawn in someone else’s game. But that’s as far as it goes. When I was your age I was well on my way to setting up this agency. You’re going nowhere.”

“They say money can’t buy happiness,” I said.

Dirk leaned back, seemed to suck his neck into his shirt like a turtle. “Bullshit,” he said evenly. “I’m not talking about money and you know it. Money is just a convenient way of keeping score. I’m talking about who is Tom Hollander ten years from now. Picture yourself as a fee-reader pushing forty.”

I stared at Dirk, staring at me. A cold empty feeling in my gut.
Forty.
Christ, forty! Forty living in a pad in the East Village knocking down an easy hundred a week balling Robin blowing pot—ugh! But what else was there? You stinking son of a bitch!

“To tell you the truth,” I said softly, “I can’t see myself pushing forty, period.”

Dirk hunched forward and again rested his fingertips on the edge of the desk. “Of course you can’t,” he said. “You can’t see yourself at forty the way you are now and you can’t see yourself as a forty-year-old Dickie Lee with your own little office and your name on the door either.”

Job or no job, I had had about enough of this crap. That lousy hundred bucks a week didn’t buy Dirk the right to talk about me like my goddamn father!

“Come on Dirk,” I said, “what the hell is all this about?”

Dirk rose up on his fingertips and ass. He gave me the coldest look I had ever seen. “I’m telling you the facts of life, Tom,” he said. “You’re the kind of guy who’ll reach forty in only one of two conditions: with a game of your own or out in the gutter. You’re just not a company man.”

“So?” I snarled. Who the fuck did he think he was, reading me the dirty-hippy riot-act?

But I couldn’t even get a rise out of him by acting antsy. He was still old, unflappable Dirk Robinson. Instead of getting uptight, he sank back in his chair and gave me his clever plastic imitation of a warm smile.

“So I’m going to give you a chance to get started playing your own game,” he said. “Dickie’s told you about
Slick.
They need a slush-pile reader, and confidentially, they’ll take anyone I recommend. Say the word and the job is yours.”

I’ve got to admit I was touched. Sure it was just a dumb job in LA and something I had no eyes for, but from where Dirk sat, he was really doing me a favor, saving me from myself, acting fatherly. Maybe he saw in me a young Dirk in danger of ending up someplace he had once feared he would end up. Who knows? But on his terms, he was doing me a real favor, and I would be a shit to treat it otherwise.

“How much does it pay?” I asked, feeling I had to at least make a show of considering it.

“A hundred a week.”

“A hundred a week? That’s what I’m getting here! Why the hell should I drag my ass to LA to make the same bread reading crud for a lousy stiffener that I’m making here?”

“Because LA
is
the boondocks in the publishing industry,” Dirk said. “To be honest, magazines like
Slick
are staffed mostly by middle-aged editorial derelicts who couldn’t make it in New York. Lushes. Queers. Unsuccessful crooks.”

“You’re a great salesman for the job, Dirk.”

“You’re missing the point,” Dirk said. “There’s a tremendous turnover in an outfit like that. A young guy with something on the ball could start as slush-pile reader and be editor of the magazine in a couple of years.”

“I don’t see myself as the forty-year-old editor of some crummy West Coast stiffener either.”

Dirk smiled; his eyes seemed to sparkle; suddenly I saw this seemingly phony room for what it was: the lair of one hell of a predator. Dirk did his own thing, and did it all the way.

“You’re starting to think the right way,” Dirk said. “The editor of something like
Slick
is either an old has-been who really never was or a hungry young kid on the way up. Get the point?”

“On my way up to
what?”

Dirk shrugged. “If you were the kind of guy who’d let me tell you that, I’d rather keep you on my team.”

Which reminded me of what Dickie has said about the
Slick
job—the payoff Dirk would expect for the favor.

“As long as we’re being so man-to-man, Dirk,” I said, “just what’s in it for you? I never made you for an altruist.”

Dirk laughed a real laugh. “I’ve been called a lot of things,” he said, “but never an altruist. Still, I
can
be an altruist when altruism is good business. I’ve been in this business for eighteen years. Hundreds of guys have passed through this office. A couple dozen have used it as a stepping stone to jobs at magazines or publishing houses. Most of them owe me for getting them started. Some are senior editors now. Some are personal friends. That’s why this is the biggest agency around—I’ve got my people all over the publishing industry.”

“You expect payoffs?”

Dirk leaned forward, gave me a little smile, seemed to be acknowledging that in a weird way, our minds worked on the same wavelengths. “Nothing as crude as all that,” he said. “The whole thing runs on gratitude. Genuine gratitude. I don’t ask for a thing—which is why I get more than I could possible get on a quid pro quo basis.”

“What about ingrates?”

Dirk looked me straight in the eye; it was like looking into the eye of a camera or a one-way mirror: he saw everything. I saw a shiny glass surface. Dirk was a monomaniacal genius, I realized, a selfforged weapon; the Big Game
was
Dirk.