The Dream Merchants (53 page)

Peter nodded hesitantly, looking down at Johnny. “I guess so,” he agreed.

Johnny stirred on the bed. He opened his eyes and they stared out feverishly at the others. He tried to raise his head but couldn’t, it fell back weakly against the pillow. His eyes closed wearily. His voice was faint, so faint they could hardly hear him, but it was filled with a desperate determination that made it sound like an explosion in the quiet room. “Don’t—tell—Dulcie—” His lips were barely moving. “She’s—no—good!”

Unconsciously Peter’s hand found Esther’s and squeezed it tightly. His eyes filled with tears and he looked down at Johnny. Now he knew what had happened.

***

It was a late Sunday afternoon, three weeks later. The slanting rays of the sun sparkled against the water in the pool, making it soft and iridescent. Its warmth fell across their faces as they looked down at the chessboard between them.

Peter made a move. He looked up at Johnny and smiled. “Knight to rook seven, check!” he announced. “That ought to hold you.”

Johnny’s face was still wan and pale as he studied the board. His position was hopeless, for on Peter’s next move he was checkmate. He looked up at Peter; his eyes sparkled with a faint mischievous light. “This calls for something brilliant.” He grinned.

Peter’s smile was triumphant. “Nu, so go ahead and be brilliant,” he chortled. “It won’t do no good.”

Johnny looked at him for a moment, then his grin broadened into a smile. “I will be brilliant,” he said, laughing, “I resign!”

Peter began to reset the chessmen on their board. “Another game?” he asked, looking at Johnny.

Johnny shook his head. “No, thanks,” he answered, “two lickings in one day is enough for me.”

Peter leaned back in his chair and let the sun play on his face. They were silent for a while. Johnny took out a cigarette and lit it. The smoke drifted idly from his nostrils.

Peter watched him. Johnny’s face was somber and thoughtful. “You made up your mind?” Peter asked. “You’re going down there tomorrow?”

Johnny nodded his head. “I want to get it over with as quickly as possible,” he answered tersely.

“I know,” Peter said, “but do you feel well enough to go yet?”

“Reno is as good a place as any to recuperate,” Johnny replied.

They were silent again for a few minutes, then Peter spoke. “I sent out their contracts Friday. Canceled. Morals clause.”

Johnny didn’t answer for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and strained. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said quietly. “After all, I know they mean boxoffice.”

Peter looked at him. “Do you think I would have them around my studio after that?” His voice was indignant. “I couldn’t stand seeing their faces any more!”

Johnny looked across the pool. “If I had only known before, if I only could have guessed! What a fool I was! I should have known better. All those things in the paper and I laughed at them, didn’t believe them. And all the time the laugh was on me!” His voice was bitter. He covered his face with his hands. “Why didn’t somebody tell me?” he asked brokenly between opened fingers.

Peter’s voice was filled with pity. He dropped his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Nobody could tell you, Johnny,” he said softly. “It was something you had to find out for yourself.”

***

The air in the musty old courtroom was dull and lifeless as the court clerk intoned in a singsong voice: “In the case of John Edge versus Dulcie W. Edge, is the plaintiff in attendance?”

“He is.” Johnny’s lawyer motioned to him to get to his feet.

Johnny stood up slowly and faced the white-haired judge. The judge’s face looked tired and bored. This was nothing but routine for him. He looked down at Johnny. “Mr. Edge,” he asked in a low monotonous voice, closing his eyes as he spoke, “is it still your desire that this divorce be granted?”

Johnny hesitated a moment. His voice sounded strange to his ears. “It is, your honor.”

The judge opened his eyes and looked at him and then down at the papers before him. He picked up his pen and wearily signed his name to the bottom of them, turning each paper over to the clerk, who stood next to him with a blotter in his hand. Finished, he looked down at Johnny. “Then it is the judgment of this court that this divorce be granted.”

The clerk picked up the papers and walked to the side of the bench. He looked up at the courtroom. “In the case of Edge versus Edge, the decision of the second district court of Nevada, the Honorable Justice Miguel V. Cohane presiding, the divorce is granted to the plaintiff on the grounds of incompatibility.”

Johnny’s lawyer turned to him and smiled. “That’s it, Mr. Edge,” he said. “You’re a free man now.”

Johnny didn’t answer. He watched the lawyer step forward and take the papers from the clerk’s hand and come back to him. The lawyer held out the papers toward him.

Johnny took the papers and put them inside his jacket without looking at them. He held out his hand to the lawyer. The lawyer took it. “Thank you,” Johnny said.

He turned and started to leave the court. At the door he paused a moment and looked back. The walls of the room were a dirty worn gray, paneled in brown rotting wood. The benches were a light yellow and covered with knife cuts and pencil marks. It was a fitting place for his marriage to come to an end.

Suddenly his eyes were wet and he turned and hurried out into the street. What was it the lawyer had said? “You’re a free man now.” He shook his head. Would he ever be free? He didn’t know. There was a heavy sunken feeling inside him.

He stopped at a news-stand and bought a paper. Idly he opened it and glanced at the headlines. There was a streaming red banner across the top of the front page.

Stocks Tumble for Second Time in Month!

Millions Lost as Wall Street Panicked!

AFTERMATH

1938

SATURDAY

I woke up with a splitting headache. The pulses in my forehead were pounding like trip hammers. I sat up in bed and swayed for a moment. I tried pressing my hands against my temples to quiet the pain, but it was no good. It didn’t help at all.

A sudden nausea ripped through my stomach. I fought it down as a foul taste came into my mouth. The wretched feeling passed and I knew the worst was over. I looked up. “Christopher!” I yelled.

Where the hell was he? He was never around when I wanted him. “Christopher!” I yelled again.

The door opened and he came in carrying the breakfast tray. He hurried to the bed and put the tray down in front of me. “Yes, suh, Mistuh Johnny,” he said, lifting the cover off the tray.

The smell of the food almost made me sick all over again. It seemed to turn my stomach. “What’s the matter with you today?” I shouted exasperatedly. “Take it away and get me a bromo!”

Chris hurriedly put the cover back on the tray and picked it up. He started for the door. I stopped him.

“You don’t have to take away the papers,” I said.

He came back to me and I took the papers from the tray. There was a hurt expression on his face, but I ignored it. I looked at the headline in the
Reporter
.

“Farber and Roth to Magnum Board,” it read.

I put the paper down and leaned against the back of the bed. It hadn’t been just a dream, then. Dreams didn’t make headlines in the
Hollywood Reporter
.

I read the story slowly. It was just as I had heard it from Bob. At the board meeting last night they had elected Roth vice-president in charge of production and Farber to the board with special advisory powers.

God damn them! Angrily I rolled the paper up into a small ball and flung it on the floor just as Christopher came back into the room. “They couldn’t do this to me,” I said aloud.

Christopher’s black face was startled. “Whut dat you say, Mistuh Johnny?” he asked as he hurried to the bed with the bromo in his hand.

“Nothing,” I answered shortly as I took it from him and drank it. I sat there for a minute feeling the bromo go down inside me and soothe my excited stomach. I belched. I began to feel better.

“Whut suit you want to wear today, Mistuh John?” Christopher’s face looked concernedly at me.

I looked at him. Suddenly I was ashamed of myself for shouting at him. “Any suit you say, Chris,” I answered. “I’ll leave it up to you.” I watched him walk to the closet and open the door. “I’m sorry I shouted at you, Chris,” I apologized.

He turned to look at me. Suddenly his face broke into a wide smile. “Why, that’s all right, Mistuh Johnny,” he said gently. “I knowed you didn’t mean to, you got lots o’ things in your mind, that’s all.”

I smiled back at him and he turned happily back to the closet. I closed my eyes and leaned back. The pains in my head were subsiding slowly, leaving my mind cold and clear.

I almost spoke my thoughts aloud. It was my turn now. First it was Borden, then it was Peter. Now it was me. One after the other we had been forced out. Was there no way we could lick them? I clenched my fist on the sheet. The linen tore under my fingers. Well, they hadn’t got me out yet. And they wouldn’t. Not without knowing they’d been in a fight. Slowly I let my fingers relax. I could remember how it all had started.

***

It was early in ’31 that it began. Peter was in New York on one of his semiannual visits and I was sitting in my office bulling with the boys. There was a good deal of smoke in the air besides other things, but, all in all, things weren’t too bad.

We were losing money all right, but so was every other picture company except Metro, and they couldn’t lose money. They had a pipeline to the mint.

We were still writing off that nine million bucks’ worth of silent film we had in inventory when the big noise came in. Our new pictures were no better and no worse than any of the other companies’. We still hadn’t got wise to the technique of sound.

But the future looked good. We had one picture under our belt that looked like money in the bank. It was a war story about a group of German soldiers and just about expressed everything a human being could say about the futility of war. And there were others coming. Peter had said so. I hoped so, though I privately doubted it.

I had to keep my mouth shut about production. When we had changed over to sound pictures I had insisted that we use sound on disks instead of sound on the film itself. Peter reluctantly gave in to me after I pointedly told him that I had been right about sound pictures in the first place.

Now it was costing us another million bucks to make the change to sound on film.

Peter had been decent enough about it. He didn’t rub it in even though he made it clear enough to me that he wanted me to keep my hands off production.

I had been sore about it at first, but I calmed down after a while. I figured the whole argument would blow over once things got back to normal.

I don’t remember who was talking when the interoffice communicator on my desk gave forth with a loud buzzing sound that was as good an imitation of the Bronx cheer as any I ever heard. A hush fell across the room as I pressed the answer lever down. “Yes, Peter,” I said into it.

“Johnny, come into my office right away,” Peter’s voice rasped through.

“Yes, Peter,” I said.

“And, Johnny,” he added chucklingly before he switched off, “tell those loafers in your office to get back to work.” The box clicked off.

I got to my feet. There was a burst of laughter from them. “You heard him, boys,” I said, smiling. “Back to the salt mines.”

I watched them filing out of my office. They were a good bunch of men, as good as any in the business. Some of them had been with us since before the war. When the last of them had gone I walked to the door that connected Peter’s office and mine. I opened it and walked through.

Peter was seated behind that big desk of his. He had a mania for big desks even though he was a small man himself. This was big enough to keep even him happy. It made him look like a midget. He looked up at me with a serious face. “Johnny,” he said, “I want we should lend Bill Borden a million and a half dollars.”

“A million and a half!” I choked on the words. That was all the reserve we had in case anything went wrong. And in this business it was peanuts.

Peter nodded his head slowly. “I said a million and a half. You heard me.”

“But, Peter,” I protested, “that’s all the mad money we got. What if something should go wrong?”

There was a discreet cough behind me. I turned around. Bill Borden was sitting in a chair behind me. He had shrunk into his seat and I had not seen him as I walked by. Shocked, I noticed that his face was haggard and drawn. His hair was completely gray. I walked over to him and held out my hand. “Bill,” I said embarrassedly, “I didn’t see you.”

He stood up and shook my hand. “Hello, Johnny,” he said. I didn’t recognize his voice. It had changed. There was a sound of uncertainty about it.

“I meant no offense, Bill,” I said quietly.

He smiled wanly at me. “I understand, Johnny. I know how you feel. I’d feel the same way myself if I was in your shoes.”

I looked at him a moment, then turned back to Peter. “Maybe I wouldn’t seem like such a fool if I knew what this was all about.”

“Well, it’s like this,” Peter began, but Borden interrupted him.

“Let me tell it, Peter,” he said, holding up a hand. “After all, it’s my problem.”

Peter nodded and I turned back to Borden.

He seated himself slowly in the chair and looked at me for a few seconds. Then he began to speak. His voice was bitter and from it I knew that he was ashamed.

“It must seem funny to you, Johnny,” he said slowly, “that Willie Borden has to come to you to borrow a few dollars. That Willie Borden, who is the president of the biggest picture company in the world, can’t go to the banks and get all the money he wants, just for the asking. But it’s true. You people are my only hope.”