Tycoon

by Harold Robbins

  “I hope I shan’t have to tell you again, Mr. Lear, that you play too rough. Your aggressiveness on the playing fields is attracting unfavorable notice. The purpose of athletics is to build character as well as the body.”

  “I supposed the purpose of a game was to win it, sir,” Jack said in his defense. “I play within the rules. I don’t cheat.”

  “That is not the point. You play too rough. What if someone were hurt?”

  “I risk being hurt, too, sir.”

  “Mr. Lear, I specifically order you to take it a bit easier when playing games.”

  “Even if Academy loses, sir?”

  “Even if Academy loses.”

  Five

  CURT FREDERICK RETIRED. HE WAS SIXTY-SIX, AND JACK couldn’t talk him out of it. He bought a home in Scottsdale, Arizona—a stuccoed house supposed to look like adobe, so oppressed by the blazing sun that the front yard was green gravel instead of grass, which wouldn’t grow there. The air conditioning was industrial strength, and in the backyard lay a large walled-in pool surrounded by lush shrubbery kept alive by nightly drenchings of water.

  The Fredericks had been gone from New York about six months when a short story by Jason Maxwell appeared in The New Yorker. In part it read:

  Many years ago, George Blake, being then a man frustrated and alone, had entered tentatively into a gay relationship. That is, he took a lover nicknamed Zip, a younger man willing to play the female role to his male role. In time George grew bored, even repelled, by his situation and left Zip and took a wife.

  Zip was shattered. He felt he could not live without George’s affection, without George’s fatherly support, without even the discipline George had imposed on him—and George had imposed discipline on him, assiduously. Zip skidded downward in life, until he became a panhandler on the streets of New York.

  Zip might have blackmailed George. He never did. He loved him too much to do that. He did one day diffidently suggest that George might help him a bit. George’s wife, Jane, was a woman of fine Christian instincts, which is to say she was sympathetic and charitable, perhaps to a fault, and she suggested that Zip come and live with her and George. He could earn his keep, she said, by being useful around the apartment.

  Thus was Zip turned into a domestic servant. He thrived in the role. George would no longer discipline him, but Jane would. Among the penances she imposed on him was requiring him to leave off his clothes for days at a time. Very close friends were allowed to see Zip. They were startled, to say the least, to be served cocktails by a stark-naked houseboy, and this in the home of a highly respected and eminently successful professional man.

  Such a situation could not continue to run a smooth course indefinitely. Jane was hugely annoyed that Zip did not at all mind what she had supposed would be painful humiliation. No. Au contraire. Nothing could have pleased him more.

  And so . . .

  When Anne read the story she lied to Jack for the first time. Rather, she didn’t actually lie to him; she just didn’t tell him about the story Jason had written. Jack didn’t read The New Yorker and didn’t see the story. None of their friends said anything about it. The Fredericks said nothing about it. Maybe they hadn’t seen it either.

  But Anne was appalled. She knew that “George” was Curt, “Jane” was Betsy, and “Zip” was Willard Lloyd—Cocky.

  She also knew how Jason had gotten the idea that Cocky ran around the Fredericks’ apartment naked. Betsy had invited her to go to lunch one day. Anne had gone to the apartment to meet her. Betsy herself had answered the door. They had sat down for a drink before they went to the restaurant, and Betsy had served. Anne knew that Willard Lloyd, pleading abject poverty, had been allowed to join the Frederick household as a servant, and she had asked, casually, if it was the houseboy’s day off. No, Betsy had said, Cocky was in the kitchen. Then Anne caught a glimpse of the houseboy and saw he was naked. With that, Betsy had laughed and called Cocky into the living room. “Our little secret,” she’d said. “I’ve always known who the little bastard is, and when I agreed to take him in as a servant I demanded—Don’t tell Jack.”

  Anne had not told Jack. But one day she had confided it to Jason, who apparently had found it too good a scene not to use.

  She called him on it. “Jason, for God’s sake! I trusted you!”

  “And?” he asked, grinning. “Nobody’s hurt. So far as I know, you’re the only person who recognized the Fredericks. I’ve had no calls, no letters. But the story is delicious!”

  Six

  IN THE FALL, KATHLEEN HORAN FOUND HERSELF ENROLLED at a women’s college with the phrase “Sacred Heart” in its name. Until now she had been educated at Sacred Heart day schools, but she would board at the college. No longer could she escape overnight from the strictures of the nuns.

  She had heard stories of how the Sacred Heart nuns engaged in self-flagellation. Here, at the college, girls in the dormitory had seen nuns whipping themselves, never each other, with what they called “disciplines.” Under their habits some of them wore hair shirts that chafed them all day long. Small wonder that they were irritable and impatient.

  They were capable of great kindness too, and no one could deny their devotion, but Kathleen quickly came to believe she had been placed in the custody of a gaggle of madwomen.

  On the afternoon when she heard of the assassination of President Kennedy, she left the school without permission and went home. Her mother drove her back immediately, and Kathleen was campused for a month, meaning she could not leave her room after seven o’clock, except to go to the bathroom. Her mother approved, agreeing with the mother superior that Kathleen was becoming a bit willful.

  Kathleen decided she hated everything about the school and everything about her life, including her pietistic mother. But there was no escape.

  Seven

  1964

  ALTHOUGH JACK OWNED AND OSTENSIBLY CONTROLLED CARLton House Productions, he left its day-to-day operations in the hands of skilled men and women who had been with the company for a long time. His brother Bob had essentially retired. He and Dorothy had built a home in New Mexico and spent most of their time lying in the sun and playing golf.

  Carlton House owned a vast and valuable library of films. Jack had authorized the spending of money to buy up the libraries of studios that had ceased production. He enlisted CH in a program to preserve old films, transferring them from the brittle and flammable materials on which they had been shot to more durable materials. Opening old film cans often resulted in bitter disappointment—the film had dissolved and lay as dust under corroded reels.

  Selected films were copied to videotape. This made them available for television broadcasting. Dr. Loewenstein believed that a new business would develop: that of selling videotapes to home consumers, as video players came down in price for a consumer market. The tapes would be a lucrative business asset, he predicted.

  The CH soundstages were now devoted almost exclusively to television production.

  Sally Allen had quietly remarried Len, somehow managing to avoid publicity. They came to Jack and proposed to make a picture based on the lives of two married couples who were neighbors and shared the ups and downs of everyday life. Jack read Len’s script. It had humor, but it was not a comedy. Sally would play a serious dramatic role. Jack consulted with people whose judgment he trusted and agreed to make the picture. They put it together fast, on a low budget, starring Sally and players from several successful but now canceled situation comedies.

  To Jack’s dismay, when Oscar time came, Sally Allen and Joni Lear both were nominees for Best Actress. Sally won.

  Eight

  1965

  FOR THE FIRST TIME, JACK WENT TO ST. CROIX WITHOUT Anne. She had begun to feel chronically tired, and at the suggestion of her doctor she checked into Greenwich Hospital for a few days for a series of tests. Not wanting Jack to hang around the hospital wringing his hands, she virtually ordered him to fly to St. Croix for a few days in the sun.

&
nbsp; The day before he was to leave, he ran into Jason Maxwell at lunch. He mentioned his trip and said sadly it was going to be a lonely few days because neither Anne nor any of his children could accompany him. Jason brightened and said he’d be glad to fly down and try to be amusing.

  Jack accepted his offer and said he’d pay his fare. Jason wouldn’t hear of it.

  They arrived in St. Croix on Wednesday, February 17.

  Jason was as diverting as he had promised he would be. During the whole visit he rarely wore anything but a pair of skimpy shorts—cutoff jeans with frayed bottoms—and a hat made of palm fronds, which he’d bought from a beach peddler.

  Jason was just thirty-two, which reminded Jack that he had only a year to go before he turned sixty.

  The hair was gone from the front of his head, leaving his forehead bald. The rest of his hair was thick but mostly gray. He combed it forward as best he could, but it still didn’t cover his entire pate. He had developed jowls, and the flesh under his chin was loose. His eyes, which had always tended to droop, now had wrinkles at their corners. Nonetheless, his face was still lively and expressive, and he smiled readily.

  His body did not show his age as much as his face did. Even without dieting or exercising in any systematic way, he remained nearly as trim as he had been as a man of forty. He had not slowed down.

  On their third night in St. Croix, Jack encouraged Jason to dress so they could go out to dinner. After a couple of rum cocktails, they ate a seafood dinner accompanied by wine. It was a pleasant evening, largely because of Jason’s all-but-obsessive effort to be entertaining. Over dinner he gossiped about a dozen celebrity-type men and women, not so much about sexual peccadilloes as about embarrassing situations into which they had fallen.

  One story had to do with a Broadway actress who had wet her pants at 21. Another had to do with a United States Senator who had been wakened by the police in the stairwell leading to a cellar that housed a notorious Queens numbers drop.

  Jack knew these were the kinds of stories Jason told Anne because they so much amused her. When the two men arrived back at the house, Jack poured brandy and sat down in the living room to hear more.

  They drank, and Jason told two more stories. Then he fell moodily silent.

  “Well,” said Jack. “I suppose it’s time to call it a day.”

  “Jack . . .” Jason murmured.

  “Hmm?”

  “Have you ever slept with a man?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “Did you ever want to? Did you ever think about it?”

  Jack, who had been poised to stand, settled back in his chair. “I can’t say I’ve never thought about it or wondered about it. Why?”

  Jason lifted his eyebrows and smiled. “Well . . .”

  “It’s your thing, isn’t it? What am I hearing, a proposition?”

  “A suggestion. Respectfully offered. You won’t hate me for asking, will you?”

  Jack leaned back in his chair and for a moment closed his eyes. “No, Jason, I’m not going to do it, but I won’t hate you for asking.”

  “You impress me as a man who wants to experience everything this world has to offer. I imagine there is not much that could happen between a man and woman that you haven’t tried. That’s why I thought you might want to complete your inventory of experiences.”

  Jack reached for the bottle and poured himself more brandy. He handed the bottle to Jason and said, “I won’t deny that it’s an intriguing idea. You’re right when you suggest there is little I haven’t experienced.”

  Jason curled his lips in a salacious smile. “Me too,” he said. “I have a friend—I see him rarely, and you’ll understand why—who beats me with a whip. He puts real welts on me, Jack! And—can you believe this?—it is delicious!”

  Jack stared into his glass for a moment. “My first wife was like that: an utter masochist. Not at first. Later, when it took more and more to satisfy her. Jason . . . it killed her.”

  THIRTY - THREE

  One

  1965

  DR. HAROLD MANNING SAT IN THE CHAIR BESIDE ANNE’S HOSpital bed. He was a young internist, only three years out of his residency, but she knew he had already developed an excellent reputation at Greenwich Hospital. She liked him and had confidence in him. The only fault she could detect in him was his tendency to smile a little too much and a little too broadly.

  “How are you feeling this morning, Mrs. Lear?”

  “I suppose a little better,” she said. “Bed rest . . .”

  He nodded. His smile faded. “Yes. Rest is good. I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to rest more.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “I’ve asked Dr. Philip DeCombe to join us for a conference. He has worked with me on your diagnosis. He’ll be here in a moment.”

  “This sounds ominous,” Anne said.

  “Well, I’m afraid our findings are not the most encouraging,” Dr. Manning conceded. “Dr. DeCombe is a specialist.”

  “A specialist in what, Doctor?”

  Dr. Manning drew a deep breath. “Cancer,” he said quietly.

  “What kind of cancer?”

  “Mrs. Lear, before I tell you, let me say that people live for years with this particular disease. Not only that, they live normal, productive lives. It’s only in the final stages that it becomes debilitating.”

  “Final stages . . .”

  “Yes. We— Ah. Dr. DeCombe,” he said looking up at the older man who had entered the room.

  DeCombe had come directly from surgery and was wearing greens. He was tall, rail thin, and absolutely bald. He said good morning, making no effort to be cheery.

  “I’ve begun to tell her,” said Dr. Manning.

  Dr. DeCombe nodded grimly. “You have leukemia, Mrs. Lear.”

  TWO

  WHEN JACK AND JASON ARRIVED AT KENNEDY AIRPORT, ANNE was waiting. She offered to drive Jason into the city, but he insisted on taking a cab.

  Jack waited until they were in the car before he asked her what she had learned at the hospital.

  “It seems I’m a little anemic,” she said. “They prescribed some medicine for it. My blood count’s up already, and I’m feeling better.”

  “What’s the cause of it?”

  “This particular anemia seems to have been caused by a virus. It’s not serious. I may have to take the pills for some time, and I’m to go in and have a blood count taken periodically, but I’m not going to be an invalid.”

  “Jesus, Anne . . . I don’t know what I’d do if—”

  She laughed. “Don’t think about it. Don’t worry. I’m not, so there’s no reason for you to.”

  Three

  THE RITUALS OF MAJOR QUIZ SHOWS HAD ALWAYS BEEN THE same. Contestants entered a soundproof booth, usually with lights shining up from below to make deep, dramatic shadows. They then frowned and pondered over the questions posed by a vacuous host or master of ceremonies.

  For You Bet! the host was Art Merriman, the morning-show host whose shtick of capering up and down the studio aisles trying on women’s hats had grown not only thin but also impossible as women stopped wearing hats.

  The teenage baseball expert Glenda Bonham was an appealing contestant. A plump little blond who wore miniskirts, she chewed gum and giggled as she answered the questions. In her appearances on You Bet! she had attracted the highest rating any Lear Network show had ever received.

  On her final night, the show clearly would have far outstripped every other show on television if Lear had had stronger outlets in some markets. Many viewers still did not receive UHF channels.

  “Now, Glenda,” Merriman intoned, “we have a two-part question. Here’s the first part. The Baseball Writers Association began naming the Most Valuable Player of the Year, for each league, in 1931. Since 1931 a number of players have been named Most Valuable Player twice, but only a few have been named three times. Who were the players named three times?”

  The lights outside the booth went down. The s
tudio filled with recorded music. Glenda Bonham frowned, wrote one name on her pad, frowned some more, wrote another, and finally wrote a third.

  “Glenda! Who were the players?”

  She giggled. “Jimmie Foxx, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio.”

  Merriman applauded wildly, as did the studio audience.

  Then Merriman turned somber. “Now, Glenda, the toughest question of all. Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready, Mr. Merriman.”

  Merriman nodded grimly. “The player who hits the greatest number of home runs in the National League and in the American League wins the home-run championship for that league. Only once in the history of modern baseball have those two championships been won by players who hit the same number of home runs in the National League and the American League. What year? Who? How many?”

  Glenda Bonham grinned as she quickly wrote on her notepad. She stood relaxed and confident and smiling as the rigmarole of lights and music played out.

  “Glenda?”

  She giggled. “In 1923 Babe Ruth hit forty-one for New York, American, and Cy Williams hit forty-one for Philadelphia, National.”

  “You have just won . . . one . . . hundred . . . thousand.. dollars!”

  Four

  DICK PAINTER HUGGED CATHY MCCORMACK. “I TOLD YOU the kid would be good!”

  “How much could she have answered on her own?”

  “Most Valuable Player—She knew the answer to that one flat out. Home runs—She knew it was Babe Ruth and Cy Williams, but she didn’t know the year, and she wasn’t sure who Williams played for. She had the basic stuff. We just had to help her fine-tune her answers a little bit.”