The Dream Merchants (68 page)

He smiled again, but didn’t answer, just turned his head wearily on the pillow.

The nurse shooed us from the room then. “Good night, Peter,” I said.

His voice was light and faint. “Good night, Johnny.”

Doris kissed him again and turned to her mother. “Coming, Mamma?” she asked.

Esther shook her head. “I’ll stay here until he falls asleep.”

I remember looking back as we left the room. Esther was still sitting in the chair next to the bed. Peter’s hand lay outstretched along the cover and, while I was looking, Esther covered it with hers. She smiled after us as I closed the door behind me.

Silently we went downstairs, back into the library. Once inside the room, Doris turned to me. Her eyes were wide and suddenly frightened. She shivered as if a sudden chill had come over her. “Johnny,” she said in a small voice, “Johnny, I’m afraid.”

I took her in my arms. “Afraid of what, sweetheart?” I asked gently.

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said vaguely, “I don’t know, but I’ve a feeling something is wrong. Something terrible is going to happen.” Her eyes began to fill with helpless, frightened tears.

I put a hand under her chin and raised her face toward me. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I reassured her confidently, “it’s only your reaction to everything that has happened in the past week. And don’t forget you’ve had a tough day today, too. You’ve been driving almost twelve hours. Everything will be all right.”

She looked up at me, her face luminous, her eyes wide and trusting. “Do you really think so, Johnny?” she asked hopefully.

I smiled down at her. “I know so,” I said positively.

But I was wrong. This had been the last time I saw Peter alive.

***

I got down to the office early. I wanted to be there when the boys got the sad news. It was a bright, cheerful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I was whistling as I walked past the studio gates.

The gateman came out of his little cubbyhole and stood there looking at me. “Beautiful day, isn’t it, Mr. Edge?” He smiled.

I stopped and smiled back at him. “Swell day, fella,” I said. It was too.

He grinned again at me and I walked on. My heels echoed on the concrete walk. Crowds of people were coming through the gate. They were going to work. All kinds of people: actors, actresses, extras; directors and their assistants, producers and their assistants, cameramen and their assistants; prop men, grips men, electricians; bookkeepers, secretaries, typists, and clerks; messenger boys and the cute little girls just out of high school who worked in the steno pool. They were going to work. All kinds of people. My kind of people. Picture people.

I walked into my office briskly. Gordon was there already. He looked up at me questioningly. “What you so chipper about, Papa?” he asked.

I smiled as I threw my hat on the couch and went to my chair. I waved my hand expansively. “It’s a beautiful day outside,” I said to him, “so what have I got to feel blue about?” I looked at him. “Good morning, Robert.” I grinned. “You’re mighty dapper this a.m. in that sky-blue pink tie.”

He looked at me as if I were crazy. Maybe I was a little tetched that morning, but I didn’t care. If this was being nuts, I never wanted to be sane again. It felt too good.

I sat there looking at him owlishly until he began to smile. He got out of his chair and came over to me sheepishly. “You’re plastered!” he said accusingly.

I raised my right hand. “S’ help me,” I swore, “I didn’t touch a drop!”

He looked at me skeptically for a moment. Then he grinned again. “Well then,” he said, “let me in on the secret. Where did you bury the son of a bitch?”

I laughed aloud. “Why, Bob, how can you talk like that about our eminent chairman of the board?” I asked reproachfully.

He put his hands in his pockets and stared down at me. “When I spoke to you Friday night, you sounded as if you had been hit over the head with a sledge hammer. Yet when I see you this morning, you’re as bright and cheerful as a pup. That leaves me with only one conclusion. If you’re not drunk, then you’ve murdered him.” He smiled down at me gently. “Now come on, Johnny, let me in on it. Maybe we can bury the body together.”

I looked up at him. “I told you I had a plan,” I said.

“That you did.” He nodded.

“Well, it’s really very simple,” I said. I made snake-dance motions with my hands and gave him a fast sample of fancy double talk. “You franisan the sanifran an’ the first thing you know the old boy gets a call from his bankers in New York and phfft! Farber flies out the window with his bright little nephew along with him!”

“Honest, Johnny?” he asked, smiling suddenly.

I stood up at my desk and looked him right in the eye. “Do you doubt the word of Honest John Edge, the fairest dealer this side of Las Vegas?” I asked in a mock-heavy voice.

“I can’t believe it,” he said wonderingly. “How did you pull it off, Johnny?”

“Trade secret, son,” I said to him, still in that heavy voice. “Some day when you’re old enough, Papa John will tell you about the birds and bees. But right now—” I paused impressively and pointed to his door. “To work! Your duty calls you, Robert, and I will not have you shirk it!”

He walked smiling to his door and opened it. He bowed low in the doorway to me, his hands extended before him. “Your slave, O master,” he said.

I laughed and he closed the door behind him. I wheeled around in the chair and looked out the window. What a day! It was the kind of day you saw on those vacation posters. A pretty girl in make-up walked in front of my window. It fitted right into the picture. There was always a pretty girl somewhere on those posters that read: “Come to California.” I got out of my chair and went to the window sill and sat down on it. I whistled after the girl.

She turned and looked back at me. She saw who I was and smiled prettily and waved her hand to me. I waved back at her. I could hear her voice floating back to me on the morning breeze. “Hello, Johnny.” I watched her practiced walk until she was out of sight. She was cute. One of the kids who had beat her way up from the extra class. She had guts. She was one of my kind of people. Picture people.

I went back to my chair and sat down. I lit a cigarette. I never felt so good in my life.

***

It was almost ten o’clock when the intercom on my desk buzzed. I pressed the lever down and spoke into it. The indicator told me who it was. “Yes, Larry,” I said.

His voice was puzzled and worried. “Will you be in your office the next few minutes?” he asked, almost abjectly for him. “I want to come down there and see you.”

I smiled at the sound of his voice. “Come on down, Larry,” I said genially. “I’m always in to you!”

His face was a picture of bewilderment when he came into my office. It was worried too. All I had to do was look at him to know what had happened. He had heard from Konstantinov.

“Johnny, there’s been a terrible mistake!” were the first words out of his mouth. He couldn’t even wait to reach my desk before he spoke.

I played dumb. I raised an eyebrow and looked at him inquiringly. “Mistake?” I repeated in a voice smooth as silk. “About what?”

He stopped short and looked at me in surprise. “You saw the papers over the week-end?” he asked.

I nodded my head without answering. I could see the sweat standing out on his forehead, all three million dollars of it.

“The board got their wires crossed,” he said quickly. “They weren’t supposed to approve Farber and Roth until they had your okay.”

I didn’t answer right away. I enjoyed watching him flounder around. I liked seeing him crawl. On him it looked good. It did something for my ego. Then I piled it on. “That’s too bad,” I said slowly.

The worried look on his face deepened. “What do you mean?”

“Remember what I said yesterday? ‘If they come in, I go out,’” I hesitated just a second to make it look good. “Well, I’m out!”

For a moment I was willing to swear he was going to faint. His face turned a white ashen hue, his mouth opened as if gasping for air. I almost laughed in his face.

“But, Johnny”—his voice was weak—“I told you it was all a mistake. The wires got crossed!”

“Double-crossed!” I muttered under my breath. Only it had boomeranged back at him instead of me. I was sick and tired of all this flimflam. Why didn’t he talk straight and say he had tried to shiv me and let it go at that? That he was very sorry only because he missed. Then we could talk plainly to each other. We were no babies. We knew we were married by a shotgun.

But of course you can’t talk like that. That’s being honest, and there’s an unwritten law in the picture business that being honest doesn’t pay. It simply isn’t done.

I looked at him. My voice was patient. I sounded almost bored. “Which way is it then?” I asked.

He stared back at me for a long moment. The color began to return to his face. “I’ve already sent a note to the papers denying the story,” he said, a faint note of hope coming back into his voice. He leaned toward me. “I’m sorry this happened, Johnny.” His voice was earnest.

I believed him, too. I knew how sorry he really was. A guy like him doesn’t like to be caught off base. I stood up. “Okay, Larry,” I said easily, “mistakes will happen. Let’s forget it.” I could afford to be magnanimous. I smiled at him.

At first his answering smile was tentative, then it broadened as relief swept across his face. I could see the three million-dollar worry disappear from his eyes. When he left the office, he was almost back to normal and I was hungry. It was time for lunch.

I was tired and lazy when I got back from lunch. I had had a few drinks to celebrate, and the excitement of the morning had worn off. But I still felt good. It was still a beautiful day.

There was a note on my desk. I picked it up and read it. “Call Miss Kessler at home,” it read. I picked up the phone and told the operator to get her.

I hummed to myself as I waited for her to answer the phone. I heard the receiver come off the hook. Her voice sounded oddly tired to me. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello, sweetheart,” I said into the phone. “What’s on your mind?”

“Johnny,” she said slowly, her voice seeming to echo in the phone. “Papa is dead.”

I could feel the cold running through me. I felt as though I was in an icebox for a second. Then I found my voice. “Baby, I’m sorry,” I said. “When did it happen?”

“An hour ago,” she said dully.

“I’ll be out there in a little while,” I told her. An afterthought struck me. “How is Mamma taking it?”

“She’s upstairs with him now,” she answered. She began to cry into the phone.

“Get a hold of yourself, sweetheart,” I said to her. “Peter wouldn’t like that at all.”

I could hear her sniff. “No, he wouldn’t,” she said slowly. “He could never bear seeing me cry. All I had to do to get anything when I was a kid was to cry in front of him.”

“That a girl,” I said encouragingly. “I’ll be out there as soon as I can.”

I put the receiver back on the hook and stared at it. I turned the chair around and looked out the window. It was a beautiful day, but something had gone out of it for me. I could feel my eyes fill with sudden tears. I remember thinking: “Come now, Johnny old boy, you’re not going to act like a baby. Nobody can live forever, and he had a rich, full life.” But he had a lot of heartbreak in it too. So I turned around and put my head on the desk and made like a baby. But what the hell, I had as much a right to cry for him as anybody.

***

I picked my head up from the desk when I heard the door open and someone come into my office. It was Bob. He stood there looking at me.

“You heard about the old man,” he said. He could tell by looking at my eyes.

I got out of my chair wearily and walked around the desk. I picked my hat from the couch and stood there looking at him silently.

His eyes were filled with sympathy. “I know how you feel, Johnny,” he said quietly. “He was a pretty good old guy at that.”

“He was a greater man than most of us really knew,” I said. “At least he didn’t walk around with a knife in his hand.”

He nodded his head.

Suddenly I noticed the silence. It seemed to be all around us like a big blanket that had come down and shut off all the sound. I looked at him. “It’s awfully quiet,” I said.

He looked at me. “The news is all over the lot. Nobody feels much like working.”

I nodded my head. That was the way it should be.

I walked past him and out the door. People gathered in the corridor in small groups looked at me as I passed. Their glances were filled with compassion. One or two even came over to me and gripped my hand silently.

I went out into the sunlight. It was the same way out there. Everywhere people were standing and talking in hushed voices. I could feel their sympathy flowing toward me in a comforting wave. I walked past recording stage three. It was silent there too. It was the same way with stage four and two. In front of each building there were people whose kindness followed me down the walk.

A blare of music struck my ears. I looked up, startled. I had grown used to the silence. Sound stage one was blaring away. A pain seemed to swell up inside me and almost burst against my ribs. What right did they have to do business as usual? All the others knew enough to shut down.

I walked to the door slowly and went in. The music was as loud as thunder now. It beat against my ears as I made my way toward it. Then slowly it faded to a soft murmur and I could hear a rich young voice lifted in song. There was a young girl standing in the center of the stage singing into a microphone. Her voice poured forth from her throat as if it came from a golden flute. I turned and started back for the door.

An arm grabbed mine excitedly. I turned. It was Dave; his eyes were shining brightly. “Listen to that canary sing, Johnny,” he said. “Just listen.”

I looked past him to the stage. The kid could sing all right, but I was in no mood to listen to anything right now. I could see Larry and Stanley Farber walking toward us. Vaguely I wondered if Larry had told him yet. But I really didn’t care about that either. All I wanted to do was to get out of there.