The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel

by Iris Rainer Dart

  There was a station break. Stan took another swig of the orange juice.

  "Drug bust at rock concert tonight. Film at eleven," someone said. It was so fast Stan wasn't even sure he'd heard it. The news began.

  "On the national scene," the anchorman was saying. It was a blur. Yeah? Yeah? Stan kept saying to himself. Go on. Get to the drug bust.

  Then suddenly there it was. On film. Narcotics officers tonight . . . concert produced by promoters Stan Rose and Walter Barton . . . the outrageous rock group known as Corpse. One of the promoters, Walter Barton . . . radio personality "Big Wally" . . . arrested . . . charge: trafficking in narcotics . . . promoter Rose was not available for comment . . . Jesus. What the fuck was going on? Stan picked up the telephone, and sat there holding the receiver in his hand. Who could he call? He'd call Barton's house. This had to be some kind of a nightmare. Walter wouldn't have. It was pretty bad for a guy to get sucked off in the dressing room by an underage kid, but Stan had sat down with Walter and begged him to swear he'd never do that again. At least not in the building where the concert was being held. And Barton laughed and he seemed to understand why it was dangerous for the business, so there was never any behavior like that again—at least that Stan knew about. Barton's phone rang ten times. No one was there.

  Marty Leff. That's who he'd try. Marty Leff was the lawyer who drew up the contracts for the forming of Rose and Barton. He was Barton's lawyer and the company had used his services a few times to check over various contracts. Stan was sure that if Walter Barton had been allowed to make one phone call after he was arrested, the way they let people do in movies, he'd call Marty Leff. Where was Leff's number? The fever was really dragging Stan down, but he went through his desk in the living room. Leff's number would be on the contract. Yes. Here. He dialed Leff's office knowing the service would pick up. Five rings. Six.

  "Leff and Marcus."

  "Yeah. I'm trying to reach Mr. Leff. It's an emergency, and I don't have his home phone number."

  "Who's calling, please?"

  "Stan Rose."

  "And your phone number, Mr. Rose?"

  Stan dragged the phone into the bedroom while he gave his phone number to Marty Leff's answering service.

  "I'll try to reach him, Mr. Rose, and ask him to call you back."

  Stan got into bed and under the covers. His teeth were chattering.

  Why was he waiting for Marty Leff to tell him what to do? He knew what to do. He should go down to the county jail and see if he could bail Walter out. That's what people did in cases like this, wasn't it? After all, Walter was his partner and his friend. No. He was just his partner. But still. This was a terrible mistake. Walter and drugs? No. Did the news say trafficking?

  The phone rang.

  "Stanley? Marty Leff."

  "Jesus, Marty," Stan said. "Is there anything I can do?"

  "Sit tight," the young lawyer said. "He's downtown at Parker Center. He'll be arraigned tomorrow morning and the bail will be set at that time. I'm going to try and get him out tonight on a writ, but I don't know if I can. You'll probably have the press crawling all over your office tomorrow, so maybe you should just stay home." Leff said.

  "Yeah, okay."

  "I'll call you in the morning," the lawyer told him and hung up.

  Stan hung up the phone and dialed his secretary Patty's number. He'd tell her to stay at home tomorrow, too. Patty wasn't home. Stan watched two old movies on television until it was four o'clock in the morning, and somewhere around then he drifted off to sleep.

  At seven the ringing of the phone woke him.

  "Mr. Rose?" It was his secretary, Patty. "Uh. . . I saw the, uh . . . news last night and—"

  "Don't go in, Patty," he said. "I'll call you when I know more."

  Now he was wide awake. The phone rang again. "Stanley!" It was Albert Rose, his father.

  "Dad?"

  "It was on the news this morning," he said. "Anything I can do?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Well, I'm here and I love you if you need me."

  Stan's eyes filled with tears. He hadn't been back home once since he moved to Los Angeles. Albert came to visit him for a week right after the concert business was starting to become successful, and Stan was so busy running off to meetings and coordinating the shows that his father had to spend a lot of the time alone. On Albert's next visit, last year, he had brought Stan's sister, Bonny. Bonny was in her early twenties now and deeply involved with some long-haired guru in Florida, and even though she got to have front-row seats at a Rose and Barton concert, which she loved, she was in a hurry to get back.

  "What do you think of your sister?" Dr. Rose asked Stan. Bonny was a hippie. There was no doubt. She was using all the vocabulary and wearing all the outfits to try to look as if she were from Haight-Ashbury.

  Stan had shrugged. It wasn't his problem. Now he felt terrible about that. Members of a family should help each other. Albert had nursed Stan every day and cured him of polio. Nursed his mother, too . . . Stan should have said about Bonny, "I'll talk to her, Dad." But he didn't. And now Bonny had moved out of Albert's house and was living in a commune somewhere and Albert worried about her constantly.

  "Thanks, Dad," Stan said into the phone now. I love you, too."

  When Stan and his father hung up the phone, it rang again. It was the Rose and Barton answering service.

  "Mr. Rose? We have Arthur D. Blake's office on the line. Can we cross-connect?"

  "Yes." Oh, Christ. There was a silence. Some clicks.

  "Go ahead, please."

  "Mr. Rose?"

  It was Blake's secretary. "I'm calling for Mr. Blake," she said. "He asked me to tell you that he wished to cancel the two Rose and Barton upcoming dates at Colossus. There will be correspondence from our lawyers to follow, but Mr. Blake wanted you to know right away."

  "No," Stan said. "Wait a minute. We have contracts."

  "Mr. Blake asked me to remind you about the morals clauses contained in those contracts, Mr. Rose," she said icily.

  "But—"

  There was a click. The concerts. Canceled. Big ones. Shriek and Joyride. Both Joe Rio acts. How could he tell Rio what had happened? Jesus. Joe Rio, who warned him. Three years ago, and Stan had never stopped worrying about why. And always when Rio called the Rose and Barton offices, if Stan was out and Barton was in, Rio's secretary would say, "Have Mr. Rose call Mr. Rio back." Rio never spoke to Barton. He must know about the arrest already. Albert knew in Florida. It was probably in the trades today.

  Seven thirty. Ten thirty in New York. Rio would be up. Not in the office yet, but Stan had the number in Chappaqua.

  "Rio residence."

  "This is Stan Rose calling Mr. Rio."

  "One moment."

  It was strange. Whoever answered the phone must have just laid it down because it wasn't on a hold button. Stan waited for fifteen minutes. Sometimes he heard voices as though there were people in the room where the phone was, but no one picked it up. Finally he hung up and called the Chappaqua number back. The line was busy.

  He should get up. Do something. Get showered. Dressed. Something. He was still so achey. He dialed Joe Rio's Chappaqua number again. Still busy. He dialed Rio's office in New York.

  "Joe Rio Enterprises."

  "Can I speak to Mr. Rio's secretary?"

  "Who's calling?"

  "Stan Rose."

  "One moment."

  Long silence. Long. Stan decided to time it. He looked at the clock on his night table. He knew Rio's secretary pretty well. He had taken her out to supper once when he was in New York for a meeting with Rio and Rio was two hours late. One minute. Surely Rio would be on his side. Would understand that whatever happened with Barton had nothing to do with him, and the act would go on. Stan would have Marty Leff fight for this. And Rio would be behind him, because Rio knew what kind of a guy he was. Always told Stan he trusted him. They had become friends. Sort of. Oh, God. Walter was on the news last night. Getting
into that police car. Big Wally. Trafficking in drugs. Promoter Rose unavailable for comment. Thank God Stan's phone was unlisted. Three minutes.

  "Mr. Rose." It was still the receptionist. "She'll have to call you back."

  "Thank you." Stan sighed and hung the phone up and it rang.

  "Hello."

  "Marty Leff here, Stanley."

  "Marty. What's going on?"

  "Well—it looks like the bail is going to be somewhere around a million dollars."

  "What? Jesus, Marty. What happened? I don't know anything. I was here. Sick in bed. What are the charges?"

  "Apparently they've been watching him for months, Stan," Marty said. "Based on information they got from what they call an unidentified informer. I guess they must have decided last night was the night to close in, because they hit his house with a search warrant at about the same time they hit the auditorium. An undercover agent made a cocaine buy from Walter, and agents found a stash at the safe in his house with a street value of five million bucks."

  "What?"

  Stan was shocked. He knew Barton seemed a little shady, sometimes mysterious about phone calls he got, which Stan always assumed were his extracurricular girl friends. But this? This was major crime.

  "It's big," Marty said, as if reading Stan's mind. "Big-time deep shit, and I need your help."

  "Of course," Stan blurted out, wondering immediately if he hadn't blurted it out too soon.

  "I know you guys have a few business bank accounts. Barton needs a hundred thousand as a down payment to a bail bondsman who will underwrite the million-dollar bail. I need you to get the hundred to me, now. This morning."

  "But I—"

  "Walter needs you, too, Stan."

  "Sure," Stan said.

  "Banks open at nine," Leff told him. "I'll be in my office waiting."

  Stan hung up the phone, and touched his own forehead, the way Albert used to touch it when Stan was a very little boy, to see if there was a fever. He was burning hot. It was fate. This flu. This fever. It kept him from going to the concert or the police might have taken him to jail, too. Jail. Prison. Good God. Fever or not, he had to get up. He would go to the bank and get the hundred thousand to Leff, and he'd worry about the company later. And Arthur D. Blake and Joe Rio. Rose and Barton Concerts. Jesus. Maybe now there wouldn't be any more Rose and Barton Concerts.

  When Stan left Marty Leff's office after dropping off the money, it was raining. Hard. Stan stayed in bed for three days, getting up only to have an occasional light meal. He had been certain the phone would ring constantly the way it had earlier that day, but no one called, and by Monday he was feeling stronger and at nine o'clock he got up and dressed and went to the office. Patty was already there.

  "Joe Rio's secretary called from New York," she said. "And a Mr. Leff called to say Mr. Barton is staying at Mrs. Barton's sister's house to avoid reporters. And a Mr. Ashman called. Said he just wanted to see if you were all right, and some letters came by messenger from Arthur D. Blake's office."

  "Get Joe Rio's secretary for me, Patty."

  Stan sat down at his desk. He would handle this. He had to handle this. He wasn't going to let this destroy all the things he'd been working so hard for. Ashman had called to see if he was okay. That Ashman! He was a sweet guy.

  "Rio's secretary on line one," Patty said.

  "Sheryl," Stan said into the phone.

  "Hello, Stan," she said. "How's it going? We heard the news. My goodness. Five-million-dollar street value. With a load like that, why even bother with the music business, huh?"

  "Look, Sheryl," Stan said. "I have to talk to Joe."

  Silence.

  "I have to discuss the Shriek and Joyride dates with him. Arthur D. Blake is trying to pull the dates from us because of this and the tickets are already on sale. So ask Joe if he'll—"

  "It's just as well, Stan," she replied. "Joe told me to tell you we're pulling the acts because of illness."

  "What?" Stan said. "Who's ill?"

  "Just call the trades, Stan," she said. "Tell them the shows are off."

  "Wait a minute," Stan said. "Who's ill, Sheryl?" He was talking very loud into the phone. That wasn't the way he liked to do business, but he was furious.

  "Let's say the groups aren't feeling up to playing Los Angeles, Stan. Okay?"

  "Not okay," he said.

  "Cancel the dates, Stan," she said. She sounded very firm and sure of herself. Not like the demure girl who had taught him how to use chopsticks that night in the Chinese restaurant near Rio's office. "Or let me put it another way. They're canceled." She hung up.

  The envelope from Blake's office contained the letters Blake's secretary had said she would send.

  "Get me Marty Leff," Stan said. God damn this whole fucking thing.

  Marty Leff told him to call the trades and announce the cancellation of the dates.

  "Everyone will understand," he said. "Call the ticket agencies and tell them the same, and don't talk to the press."

  For the next three work weeks, Monday through Friday, fifteen work days, the Rose and Barton phones didn't ring. Stan and Patty played darts, ordered fried chicken to be delivered for lunch, and watched soap operas on a portable television Patty brought to the office. Stan got one phone call at home from Walter.

  "Stanley," he said.

  "Walter," Stan asked. "Are you okay?" In his whole life Stan never knew anyone who'd ever been in jail. And this was his partner.

  "Okay," Walter repeated. "I'm in big-time deep shit, kid," he said. Stan recognized that expression as Marty Leff's. "I want you to know, Stanley," Barton went on, "I'm sorry for what I did to you."

  "Walter. . ." Stan didn't know what to say. He wished he could say it's okay. Or don't worry about me. I'll be fine. But he couldn't. Walter had fucked him over and had a good reason to be more than just sorry. Besides, never mind what he'd done to Stan. The man had been selling drugs to kids, for God's sake.

  "I'll make it up to you," Barton mumbled, or at least it was something that sounded like that. And then he hung up.

  By the fourth week, Stan hated to even go into the office. No one he tried to reach would take his calls, and no one called him. When he arrived that Monday, the phone was ringing and Patty wasn't there yet.

  "Stan? It's Barry Golden."

  Jesus. Barry Golden. Stan had tried him a few times but the secretary said he was in Europe. Stan was sure she was telling a lie.

  "I just got back from Europe last night," Barry said. Now Stan knew it was true.

  "What can I do?" Golden asked. "I know you're being frozen out," he said. "Maybe I can help."

  Golden. That frenetic little hustler was a multimillionaire. And he was twenty-two years old.

  "I don't know," Stan said. He remembered reading some play by Tennessee Williams once where these two guys kept talking about how much they had in common because they'd been army buddies. Maybe being in the mail room together was like being army buddies. Stan hadn't gone into the army because he had flat feet. And Golden. Golden was a fag. Gay. A homosexual. Stan remembered being surprised when he found that out. He was so naïve about that kind of stuff. He always thought the only guys who were real homosexuals were the ones who wore eye makeup and walked around on Sunset Strip. Golden looked to Stan like every kid he knew in Florida. But Barry Golden and Harley Ellis were lovers. Had been for years. Everyone knew that. And they were very cool about it. Out-of-the-closet cool. They had a really neat house in Malibu, and they gave great parties. Parties that only two millionaires like that could give.

  Jesus. What a nervous little punk Golden was in the mail room. Then he was at World Records for a short time and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there was Barry Golden Management. With two huge acts. Harley Ellis and Heaven. Well, it was Golden who really made Heaven a big act. He even signed them to World, in spite of the fact that World's artists were all M.O.R. up until then. Then he totally turned World around. Made it one of the biggest labels with h
is acts. New acts that came to him to get him to do for them what he'd done for Heaven. And he did. And Harley was a superstar. His albums shipped platinum. He was the most successful male singer today. And even with the articles that flared up occasionally in the fan magazines implying that Harley Ellis had a male lover, the poster bearing his gentle, little-boy face adorned the bedroom walls of millions of teen-aged girls.

  "Har-leee," they would scream when he sang. And the royalties came pouring in.

  "Harley's going to do some dates," Barry said. "I want you to promote them."

  Rose and Barton had promoted Harley during the first few years when he was rising. But now Stan was afraid that none of the auditoriums would accept them as the promoters of anything. Barton's arrest and the cocaine sales were still the biggest news in the music business. Every day there was something in the trades about parents who said their kids had bought cocaine from Barton, and they were suing the company.

  "Rose and Barton is poison in this town, Golden," Stan said.

  "Wrong," Barry answered. "Walter Barton is poison. Stan Rose is just fine."

  "You sure?" Stan asked. He had been convinced for the last few weeks when the phone didn't ring that he had nothing left. That all the connections he'd taken so long to build were shot. Gone.

  "Change the company to Stan Rose Presents. Today. I have lawyers who can do it for you fast."

  "I have plenty of lawyers," Stan said, "but I don't know if I can—"

  "Rose," Barry Golden said. "Save your ass. The time is now. Harley's name can open the doors for you. Let us help you."

  Stan was confused. Barton was his financial backer. The one hundred thousand dollars that came out of the Rose and Barton account for Barton's bail would never have been there if Barton hadn't started the company off with his cash. Cash that Stan needed to make deposits to the groups, to the auditoriums. Without Barton he had no money either. Barry must have read his thoughts.