Jack went to the bathroom and took a hot shower while Mickey made his telephone calls. When he returned to the living room, Mickey showed him a thumbs-up and grinned.
“She’ll be here within the hour. Don’t turn her away at first look. She’s okay. I’ll be back later. Let’s go out to dinner our last night in L.A.”
Jack nodded and poured himself another Scotch.
The girl, who was obviously a teenager, was plump. She was not terribly attractive, though he could see something erotic about her that he might not have noticed if Mickey had not urged him to give her a second look. From her swarthy complexion and her dark brown eyes, he guessed she was of Latin American extraction, probably Mexican. She wore a loose white peasant blouse, an exceptionally full black skirt decorated with green and red stripes just above the hem, dark stockings, and shiny black patent-leather shoes.
“Mr. Lear? You expecting me?”
He nodded, showing her a reluctant smile. “I guess I am. Come in.”
She entered the suite and looked around. “This is nice,” she said simply.
He heard little clicks as she walked across the parquet floor. He stared at her shoes and realized they were tap shoes. “You are a dancer?” he asked.
“Yes. I dance for you first . . . if you want.”
“Do you dance on the stage?”
“Yes. You have never heard of me. But I think you will.”
“I hope so,” Jack said. “And your name is . . . ?”
“Consetta Lazzara.”
“You are very young,” he said.
She smiled wryly. “I am old enough for what you require, Mr. Lear.”
“What were you told I require?”
“Mr. Sullivan said you are depressed. You went to your grandfather’s funeral today.”
“Well, Consetta, if you dance for me, will you dance nude?”
She grinned. “Yes. I knew you’d want it that way.”
She went to the radio and began to scan the stations for suitable music. She found it. She stripped off her clothes quickly—all but her black garter belt, dark stockings, and shiny black shoes—and began to dance, slowly and sinuously at first, then faster, tapping and whirling.
He was glad she hadn’t brought castanets. Maybe she was wise enough to know they would damage the mood she meant to create. Her dancing was sensual; more than that, it was lascivious. Her chubby breasts bounced. So did her belly. She was conscious too of the erotic effect of showing off her round little bottom and from time to time bent forward to wiggle and flaunt it. She had the most generous bush of dark pubic hair he had ever seen. Except when she spread her legs as she danced, it hid her cleft completely.
She danced for maybe five minutes, then threw herself down on the couch, glistening faintly with sweat. “What do you want now, Mr. Lear?” she asked playfully.
“Guess.”
He led her into the bedroom, where she lay down on her back on the bed with no embarrassment or hesitation. Totally aroused, he tugged off his clothes with an urgency that made her laugh. She laughed again and offered her nimble little hands to help him when he fumbled at drawing on his rubber. She pulled it on him with a dexterity that indicated she had done it before, more than once. In a moment he was on top of her, unable to delay himself. She grunted when he thrust in, but she did not complain. She closed her eyes and received his fervid strokes complaisantly, even as she shook under the impact of his ardor. He did not deceive himself that she enjoyed it as he did.
When he erupted, she sighed and put her arms around him to draw him down on her. His weight did not seem to bother her. When he rolled off, she astonished him by pulling off his condom, putting it in a bedside ashtray, then cleaning his shaft with her lips and tongue.
They lay quietly together for a time. She whispered to him that she would be happy to take him again. He said sure, in a little while. He lit a Camel and offered it to her. She took it, and he lit another for himself.
“Do you do this regularly, Consetta?”
“Only with people like you,” she said simply.
“Only with people like . . . what?”
“People who can help me.”
Jack nodded as if he understood perfectly what she was talking about, but his mind rushed to discern her meaning. He groaned inwardly. Mickey had told this girl—maybe had even told her parents, who might know what she was doing—that Jack’s brother was head man at Carlton House.
“You want to make it in the movies?” he asked her. “Is that it?”
“Yes. I think what I need is an opportunity.”
“So you . . . And with others besides me.”
“Like any girl who wants to make it in Hollywood,” she said, as if it were common knowledge.
“Well, I’ll see what I can do for you, Consetta. You understand that my chief interest is in radio. Do you sing?”
“I can sing.”
“Maybe we’ll get you a start that way.”
“But it is the movies that I want more than anything. You understand?”
“Understood. Do you mind giving it to me with your mouth?”
“I know how to do that,” she said simply.
Jack grinned. “Okay.”
She did know how, for sure. Even though he had come only a few minutes before, he came quickly again. She fled to the bathroom to spit in the basin. When she came back, she stared at his cock and smiled and shook her head when she saw it was still erect.
They smoked two more cigarettes.
“How old are you, Consetta?”
“I’m not sure you want to know.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m sixteen,” she said quietly.
“Ahh. Well, I’ll do whatever I can for you. Some money, incidentally.”
“No. I don’t do it for money. I’m not a whore, Mr. Lear.”
“Of course not. I didn’t mean to suggest you were. But would you accept, say, a hundred dollars just because you’ve pleased me more than you had to?”
“Well . . .”
“Okay, then.”
She dressed. “Mr. Lear,” she said, “how much should I consent to?”
“What do you mean, Consetta?”
“Well, somebody wants me to have my eyebrows plucked. They want to kill the hair on the front of my head, to make my forehead higher. They want me to lose weight. And somebody has said that Consetta Lazzara is not the name of a girl who is going to make it big. Somebody says I ought to change my name.”
“To what?”
“Well, I’ve heard several suggestions. One of them is that I should call myself Connie Lane.” She said the name as if it were a magical charm.
Four
“CHANGE OF PLANS,” JACK SAID TO MICKEY OVER DINNER.
“You can’t come with me on the train to Boston tomorrow.”
“Change your mind?”
“No. I offered you a deal, and the deal goes. But you’ve got to stay around here awhile. A week, two weeks. Whatever it takes you to get Consetta Lazzara a chance in pictures. Uh . . . I know. Turn her over to Mo Morris and tell him I sent her. After that, take the first train to Boston.”
“What? Uh-oh. I get it. I guess I screwed up on that one, didn’t I?”
“Mickey, I may call on you again sometime to get me laid. But please understand that my standards are higher than my father’s. No more sixteen-year-old girls. A man may get away with that in California, but in Massachusetts it can put him in the slammer.”
“Sorry . . .”
“Right. On the other hand, Mick, she’s got to be one of the best pieces of ass I ever had.”
“I’ll set her up with Mo Morris,” said Mickey. “He’s a hot agent. If anybody can get her into the movies, Mo can.”
Five
KIMBERLY MET JACK AT THE STATION. THEIR CAR WAITED OUTSIDE—a chauffeur-driven Duesenberg.
“I suppose I could wait until we get home before showing you this,” she said. “But . . . page four.”
P
age four carried a modest headline:
RADIO EXEC AT GRANDFATHER’S FUNERAL
Below the headline was a three-column photograph, the one taken on the lawn outside the funeral chapel, showing Erich and his two sons. The caption read:
CALIFORNIA SALVAGE TYCOON ERICH LEAR IS FLANKED BY HIS TWO SONS, MOVIE PRODUCER ROBERT LEAR, PRESIDENT OF CARLTON HOUSE PRODUCTIONS, AND JACK LEAR, PRESIDENT OF BOSTON’S WCHS, ON JUNE 13, AT THE FUNERAL OF FAMILY PATRIARCH JOHANN LEHRER, WHO DIED TUESDAY IN LOS ANGELES.
The photograph showed conspicuously that all three men were wearing yarmulkes.
“Oh, shit,” Jack muttered.
“My reaction entirely,” said Kimberly.
SIX
One
1935
THE TODDLER, JOHN, WAS A HANDFUL FOR THE NANNY, WHO felt so overwhelmed that she told to Kimberly she was not sure she could continue in the job. Her major complaint was that the boy’s demands made it all but impossible for her to give much attention to the little girl, Joan Edith.
She had been born two months after Jack returned from his grandfather’s funeral, and Jack and Kimberly had wanted to honor Johann Lehrer in naming this child. Johann’s wife had been named Shulamith, but Jack did not even suggest that name be given to his daughter. Kimberly pointed out that Johann was the German equivalent of John and that Joan was the feminine form of John, so their baby daughter was named Joan for Johann and Edith for Kimberly’s mother.
Kimberly persuaded the nanny to stay with the family by telling her she would personally take more responsibility for Joan.
Jack had moved his offices. He needed more space, especially since Mickey Sullivan had arrived from California and was installed as a vice president of WCHS, Incorporated. Herb Morrill was also a vice president.
Since the corporation now owned WHFD, Hartford, as well as WCHS, Boston, the corporate name was incongruous; and Jack changed it to Lear Broadcasting, Incorporated.
He upset a great many people in Hartford—as well as Kimberly—by changing the programming schedule for WHFD. Though it remained chiefly a classical-music station, he scheduled the piano playing of Wash Oliver for half an hour five evenings a week, the daytime drama Our Little Family five mornings a week, and Hartford’s own medical quacks on the same terms he offered the Boston quacks—in other words, they paid for their airtime.
WHFD had lost money for years, which had enabled Jack to pick it up cheap, but within six months it was making a modest profit.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston asked for a Sunday morning hour to be filled with lectures and prayers. Jack gave them the hour, from nine till ten. Then the Council of Churches demanded an hour for Protestant services. Jack responded that he would be happy to sell them the hour from ten till eleven—and at a ministerial discount of 25 percent. The council was pleased and began to broadcast services live from various churches. Jack did not tell them the archdiocese got its time free. He did tell the suffragan it would be wise to keep their little secret.
With the settlement of the Johann Lehrer estate, Jack had another half million dollars to invest. He invested in two things. First, he applied for an amendment to the station license for WCHS, to authorize an increase in power that would make it one of the most powerful stations in New England. When he got the authority he bought the new transmitter. Next, he bought radio station WHPL in White Plains, New York.
As he’d done with the Hartford station, he made the White Plains station an outlet for the programming he developed for WCHS. With the two new stations, the piano playing of Wash Oliver was heard throughout New England and now in New York City, where it gained a devoted audience. Jack hired Oliver away from the whorehouse and made him a full-time musician for Lear Broadcasting. They recruited backup men: a guitar and drums, then also a banjo; and the Lear Broadcasting Quartet, starring Wash Oliver, played in roadhouses and dance pavilions all over New England. People came to hear the famous jazz pianist they had heard on the radio.
Similarly, housewives all over the region became addicted to the dramatic doings and soapy optimism of Our Little Family When the original Mama had to be replaced, the change was made so seamlessly that audiences seemed not to notice that a new actress was reading lines like “A family’s love overcomes everything.”
Regretting that he had renamed the Bronson Brothers the Mellow Fellows, Jack changed their names again, to the Minstrels. He dropped the Wisecrack Guys and built a new show around Betty, the malaprop comedienne, and the Minstrels. A professional staff supported Betty and fed her straight lines for her malaprops.
Some of Betty’s lines—and she was still called simply Betty; no last name was ever suggested for her—became catchwords even beyond the area where she was heard. She pronounced the word breakfast “brake-fast,” pronouncing it to reflect what it meant, breaking the overnight fast before starting the day’s labors. Shortly, people all over New England, young people especially, were laughing and saying they wanted ham and “aigs” for “brake-fast.”
Kimberly couldn’t bear to listen. Jack couldn’t either, but The Betty and the Minstrels Show was a moneymaker. Shortly it became The Best Beauty Bar Show, Starring Betty and the Minstrels.
Betty, however, was the subject of a dark secret: she was a Negro. From Huntington, West Virginia, she spoke with the accent of the Ohio Valley, naturally, saying “feesh” for fish and “deesh” for dish. Nothing in her accent suggested her race. Her show was broadcast and recorded from a closed studio. Even the Minstrels had never seen their star. A white actress was employed to slip in and out of the studio, and Betty came and went in the uniform of a maid.
Jack was immensely sympathetic to Betty’s situation, but there was nothing he could do. Amos’n Andy were successful as whites who pretended to be black, but America was not ready to listen to Negro comics.
Kimberly knew. She invited Betty and her husband Charles to dinner at the house on Louisburg Square. Betty’s real name was Carolyn Blossom. Both she and her husband were the grandchildren of slaves. In the early 1920s they had come to Boston, thinking that the home of abolitionism could not be racist. They found it was.
Carolyn had made her way into radio by cutting records and submitting them by mail. A dozen times she had met broadcasters who were enthusiastic about her comedic talent—until they saw her. The maid uniforms she wore to slip in and out of WCHS were her own; she had worked in them for years.
Jack took the attitude that the money was more important than the principle. “Let’s make a pisspot full of dough, kiddo,” he said to Carolyn. “When your bank account’s healthy, then’s the time to make a point.”
TWO
IN JUNE, JACK WENT TO WHITE PLAINS TO REVIEW THE PROgramming and management of WHPL. Since it was summertime, he had his chauffeur drive him there in the Duesenberg. It was something of an adventure, making their way down U.S. 1, the Boston Post Road, through Providence, New Haven, and the shoreline towns of the Connecticut Gold Coast.
Since he would be gone four days, Jack decided to take along a pleasant companion—the comely blond divorcée, Betsy Emerson.
A thick glass separated the driver’s compartment from the passenger compartment, and during most of the trip Jack kept the blind lowered, so the chauffeur could neither see nor hear him and Betsy in the rear seat.
This made it possible for Jack to keep Betsy’s skirt pulled up to the edge of her panties and to fondle her legs. The privacy made it possible, too, for her to fondle his crotch. They talked about many things, most of them funny, but after their lunch stop Betsy turned thoughtful.
“I thought about saying no to this invitation,” she said soberly without lifting her hand from the stiff cock she was stroking through the fabric of his pants.
“I can think of one or two reasons why you might have said no. Which one bothered you?”
She brushed his cheek with a light kiss. “Kimberly. What we’re doing to Kimberly.”
Jack slipped his fingers inside her panties and ran them ove
r her cunt. She was wet. “I thought seriously about not inviting you,” he said. “For the same reason.”
“And?”
He pulled his hand out of Betsy’s panties. “What am I doing to Kimberly? Doesn’t there come a time when I’m entitled to ask what’s she doing to me?”
“And that’s why you—”
“No, that’s not why I invited you, not why I arrange to be with you whenever I can. I’m not using you, Betsy. I need you. I need to be close to a woman who doesn’t think I’m . . . Well, doesn’t think I’m . . . You know what I mean.”
She ran her hand down his cheek and across his neck. “Is it that bad?”
“What do you think? You’ve seen . . .”
Betsy nodded emphatically. “I’ve seen. And heard. And it pisses me off!”
“It’s worse when you can’t see and hear. It’s worse in private. I’m not a Wolcott. I’m not a Bayard. I’m the grandson of Johann Lehrer, who was a rabbi. Harrison Wolcott accepts that and doesn’t scorn it. But Kimberly—”
Betsy interrupted. “The other evening she said to Connie and me that she guessed she never would be able to teach you to fold your pocket handkerchief right. ‘He’s got a certain capacity for the crude,’ she said. ‘No matter how hard I try, I can’t entirely civilize him.’ Connie agrees with me that she ought to be proud of you. You ought to fuck Connie, too. If Kimberly found out you were diddling both of us, that’d get to her.”
“Why did she marry me, Bets?”
“I can think of two reasons. In the first place, Kimberly was always obsessed with the idea that some guy would marry her for her money—her father’s money. When you came along, she knew she didn’t have to worry about that, because you had money of your own. She even knew how much, Jack. At least she said she did. She told me you had half a million, all your own, plus more coming.”
“She talked about that, huh?”
“But there’s another reason, I think, why she married you. I don’t know when she first got a look at, a feel of, the Jack Lear schlong; but I have to suspect it was before the wedding. I mean, Jack, she wasn’t a virgin. You didn’t think she was, did you?”
Tycoon Page 6