Tycoon (51 page)

The next day Anne came downstairs again. She sat in the library and saw each of the children individually. She was calm. The truth was, she was resigned. She had resisted the idea of dying for as long as she could.

They were not to stay any longer, she said. She might the tomorrow; she might live through Christmas. Nothing could distress her more than watching them interrupt their lives to sit around and wait. Jack was doing that—she couldn't talk him out of it—and that was bad enough.

Except for Linda, who was living in the house because her marriage had failed, the family scattered again.

On Sunday, November 10, Anne died peacefully, early in the morning. The night nurse woke Jack to tell him, then left him to writhe in agonized sobs in his bed.

1969

O
N
M
ONDAY,
J
ANUARY
6, J
ACK FINALLY REAPPEARED AT HIS
office. He was gaunt. For the first time that anyone could remember, he wore a suit that did not fit him perfectly. He was also deeply tanned, since he had been in St. Croix since Anne died in November. Linda had been there with him most of the time. Nelly had stayed at home in the care of Priscilla until mid-December but came as soon as her school closed for Christmas break.

LJ and Liz joined Jack in St. Croix for Christmas, as did Joni and David. Sara, who had found a job in Los Angeles, visited during the week before Christmas.

All of them had seen him cry. They would find him sitting on the beach, staring at the waves coming in, and sobbing.

By telephone from St. Croix he had called a meeting of LCI executives and ranking staff, to convene in the boardroom at ten o'clock on Monday, January 6.

Mary Carson was there, sitting at the foot of the big conference table. Also present were Mickey Sullivan, Cap Durenberger, Herb Morrill, Dr. Friedrich Loewenstein, and Raymond l'Enfant. Other executives sat in chairs around the walls, and still others stood.

Jack rose. “I want to thank all of you for relieving me from
my responsibilities for more than three months. It has helped me tremendously to know that during a period when I was not able to do my job, competent and committed people were here doing it for me. I am sincerely grateful.

“I am going to ask you to do me one more service. I know that all of you want to offer your sympathy. I have received your cards and letters and will in time reply to every one of them. I do ask you, though, not to offer any further sympathy. When we sit down together privately, don't begin our conversation by telling me how sorry you are about my loss. I know you are. But each kind expression of sympathy just reminds me once again—”

His voice broke, and for a minute everyone stared at the table or the floor, not at him, while he struggled to regain his composure.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a company to run. When I called from St. Croix I suggested an agenda for a management meeting this morning. I would like to ask all those seated at the table to remain—also Dave and Margaret. The rest of you I thank again. I will be sitting down with each of you individually during the week to discuss what you are doing and what we need to do.”

For a moment, before he flipped the pages of his notebook and introduced the first item on his agenda, he glanced around the table at his self-conscious officers, directors, and staff. There had been changes. There would be more. Painter was gone, of course. He would have to be replaced by a programming man. Cap Durenberger was seventy-nine and would retire soon. There were rumors that Ray l'Enfant might be offered a position in the Nixon administration. He was euphoric over Nixon's election and wore an enameled American-flag pin on his lapel. Mary Carson was no longer the bikini-clad young woman Jack had seen in the pool but a mature woman, with her hair cut shorter and wearing a pair of reading glasses.

A
T DINNER WITH
M
ARY
C
ARSON,
J
ACK LEARNED THAT SHE
wanted to be more of a hands-on director than her father had been. Having listened to her ideas during the day, Jack said he would recommend that the board elect her a vice president.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when he arrived home. Mickey dropped him off, and Jack let himself into the house with his key. Linda was waiting for him in the library, where she was watching television and at the same time scanning a book.

She switched off the television set and put down her book. She stood. She was wearing a yellow baby-doll nightgown, not sheer but short enough to expose her legs and yellow panties. She stepped toward Jack and into his arms. They kissed.

He had called her, so she knew he'd had his dinner. “Let's go up,” she whispered.

They didn't use the master bedroom suite where he had slept with Anne. He had moved into one of the guest rooms. The master bedroom suite had been left as it was the last night Jack and Anne slept together. Even Anne's nightgown was laid out, as it had been in September before she went to the hospital for the last time. The guest room would have been rather spare, but Linda had moved some things into it, including the erotic prints Anne had bought for Jack. His clothes hung in the closet. One drawer in the bureau was reserved for her lingerie.

While Jack undressed, Linda chose something to wear. She carried her selections into the bathroom and changed into them. When she came out, she was wearing a sheer black jacket, a black satin G-string, dark stockings held up by lacy black garters, and black patent-leather high-heeled shoes.

Jack, who himself had stripped to white slingshot underpants, had poured them two brandies, and they sat on a love seat—Linda in his arms. It was eleven o'clock, and he clicked on the television set. It was their habit to watch the news, then at least part of the Johnny Carson show each night.

He pulled down her G-string. She kept her crotch shaved, and she had the most prominent wattles he had ever seen, red and fleshy and visible. He fondled them, and Linda stiffened and moaned. She seized his penis.

As usual, the news was less interesting than what they were doing. They hurried to the bed and plunged into a round of lovemaking. They finished by the time the Carson show started and returned to the love seat, both naked now except that she still wore her stockings. They cuddled.

Linda had been his salvation. Providence seemed to have brought them together. Neither had planned it. For five weeks after Anne died, Jack and Linda had been alone on St. Croix. Linda had given him support and sympathy. Joni would have interrupted the shooting of
Norma
to be with him, but Linda had said she could take a leave of absence from Yale-New Haven Hospital to go to St. Croix with him. Jack was immensely grateful.

Linda knew how to hit the right notes with him, when to be solemn, when he was ready to be cheerful, when he wanted to brood alone on the beach, when he wanted her to walk with him into town to prowl the market. When he took her hand in the market one day, she squeezed his. Everything from that point on was settled.

“Jack,” she said when Carson broke for commercials, “I'm going to have to move out of this house.”

“My God, no!”

She kissed his neck. “We can't be what we are. We've got to stop it. I can't let Nelly find out I'm sleeping with her grandfather. We can't let the rest of the family find out.”

He ran both hands down over his face. “I know . . .” he whispered. He reached for her hands. “Linda, I might have killed myself if it hadn't been for you.”

“No. You wouldn't have.”

“I might have. I'd give anything in the world if—”

“People would hate us. My parents, to start with. I mean, they'd
hate
us, Jack.”

He sighed and nodded in reluctant agreement.

“That's why I've got to find someplace else to live. I'm not going back to Guy, for damned sure. I—”

“Hold on a minute,” he interrupted. “You don't need to find a place to live. You live here.
I'll
move out.”

“You can't do that.”

“I can. Think of the problems it solves. I'll live in the city. I don't want to live in Greenwich anyway. Not now. Still . . . this is the family home. I'm reluctant to sell it. When Joni or LJ or Liz comes home, this place should be here for them. And Kathleen, too—I mean Sara. This house is also home to Priscilla. She's been with us more than twenty years. I'll move into the brownstone. I'll take a few personal things, and—Linda! Do it! Make this your home, for you and Nelly. I'll come out from time to time. And we don't need to—”

“Yes, we do. And we will. Occasionally. But we need to find other people. Both of us do.” She kissed him. “I love you, Jack,” she whispered. “In all the ways it's possible to love someone.”

“I love you, too, Linda—in all the good ways.”

A
T
J
ONI'S REQUEST,
M
O
M
ORRIS HAD TRIED TO FIND FILM
work for Sara. When he did not succeed, he offered her a job in his office. To everyone's surprise, including hers, she fit in well and learned the business rapidly. Six months after she joined his agency, Mo had new business cards printed:

Mo was seventy-five years old and was beginning to let his junior partners take on more of the responsibilities of the agency. Friden should have inherited a big client like Joni Lear, but Mo knew she would want her half sister to represent her if
possible. He kept his own hand on Joni's career, but he let Sara take on some of the nuts-and-bolts work.

Sara proved to have a fine eye for small clauses in contracts. Independent producers, including stars producing their own films, had a penchant for departing from standard contracts and writing contracts of their own, with unusual clauses that were often not to the actors' or directors' advantage. It was the agent's job to spot these things—and Sara did.

Though she liked her new name, she stopped pursuing her conversion to Judaism. She began to spend time with a young writer named Brent Creighton. She surrendered her virginity to him, and he introduced her to a commune, where she learned to smoke pot and socialize in the nude.

J
ONI WON HER
A
CADEMY
A
WARD AT LAST, FOR HER ROLE AS
Norma in the film adaptation of Jason Maxwell's novel. In addition she won the New York Film Critics Award and the Golden Globe Award.

Jack made his first major public appearance since Anne's death at the Academy Awards ceremony. Joni had promised him he would escort a famous actress that night, and with the help of Mo Morris she arranged a date for him. Beaming, he emerged from his limousine, then extended his hand to help Ava Gardner out into the glare of camera lights. She accompanied him, too, to the triumphant supper where Joni clutched her Oscar and received the homage of two hundred guests.

Sara was there, with Brent Creighton. In a crowd where every woman was a spectacle, or meant to be, she attracted attention for her fresh beauty and for her dress: a simple sheath of thin red silk, under which she very clearly was wearing nothing at all. She wore only one piece of jewelry, a diamond-studded bracelet that had been Anne's.

Liz was also there. She had flown to Los Angeles with her
father on a company jet. She was escorted by her brother. LJ had been chosen All-American and had signed a contract to play professional football for the Miami Dolphins. Liz detested him, but she had to admit it was glamorous to be escorted by a looming hulk of All-American football player. She was nineteen years old and did not pretend to compete for attention in the Academy Awards crowd. She wore a silver lamé dress that attracted admiring glances for its bold front and back décolletage.

Linda too had arrived on the LCI jet. In her form-fitting beaded black dress, with dark sheer stockings and black shoes, she was stunning.

After the supper, at two o'clock in the morning, Jack assembled the family in his suite at the Beverly Hilton—just the family, none of the dates or escorts.

He raised a glass of champagne. “Joni . . .” he said quietly. “We are all proud of you. My children are achievers, all of them. If only—” He paused and bit his lower lip. “If only John and Anne could be here. . . . And, Joni—Even Kimberly. She'd be proud of you.”

1970

C
URT
F
REDERICK WAS AS BORED IN
A
RIZONA AS
J
ACK HAD
predicted he would be. When Jack Suggested he come back to New York and do a monthly interview show, Curt talked it over with Betsy, and they agreed. He would have to spend no more than a week or ten days in New York each month. Jack invited Curt and Betsy to stay in the Greenwich house whenever they came east.