I looked at him and smiled. “In a way. Meanwhile, I got another job for you.”
“What is it?” he asked disgustedly.
“Advertising sales manager.”
“Oh, no. You’re not going to stick me with that. There isn’t a legitimate advertiser that would spend a nickel in our paper.”
“Right on,” I said. “What about illegitimate advertisers? There’s got to be thousands of topless bars, discos and massage parlors that can’t get into the regular papers. We set up a special entertainment section and sell them an eighth of a page at discount rates for seventy-five bucks. I want four pages like that.”
“You’ll never get ’em. Joints like that want out of the papers, not in. They’re afraid of getting busted.”
“Everybody likes to see his name in print. They’ll buy.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“‘I don’t know’ gets you a fifty-dollar raise for dawning intelligence. ‘Can do’ gets you a hundred more on top of that.”
“Can do,” he said with sudden enthusiasm. A moment later he was worried again. “But what about the paper?”
“You do your job, Joe. I’ll do mine.”
CHAPTER 10
“You’re spending a lot of money,” Verita said.
I put down the piece of copy I was checking. “We short?”
“No. But you’ve run the cost of this issue up to eleven thousand dollars already. That’s as much as we’re taking in. If we keep it up, we won’t be making a profit.”
“First issues always cost more. We needed a lot of things. Give me a breakdown.”
She picked up a sheet of paper. “Printer and paper for first issue, seven thousand. We can save a thousand if you don’t use glossy for the cover pages.”
“Glossy is classy. We keep it. Otherwise, we look like every other rag on the racks.”
“Photos, art and layout, twenty-five hundred. Bobby has expensive tastes; he doesn’t have a clue to the value of money.”
“I told him to go first cabin. That’s ninety-five hundred. What’s the rest of it?”
“Salary, expenses, et cetera.”
“Not much we can do about that. People have to get paid.” I lit a cigarette. “What do you think we ought to do?”
“Tighten up on the next issue. Skip the glossy paper and cut Bobby’s budget in half.”
I smiled. “Spoken like a true accountant. I have a better idea. How much do we have in the bank right now?”
“About eighty thousand dollars.”
“Why don’t we grab the money and jump over the border to Mexico? We can live pretty good down there for that.”
She looked to see if I was kidding. I played it straight. “That would be dishonest.”
“So what? We’d have a ball.”
She shook her head seriously. “If I wanted to live down there, I could have gone years ago. But I’m American. I like it here.”
I laughed. “So do I.”
A look of relief came into her eyes. “I was beginning to think you meant it.”
“Look, it’s not so bad,” I said. “Bobby’s shot enough girls to carry us for six issues. He also has the forms worked out for the layout. All we have to do now is slot them in. He doesn’t expect his costs to run over a grand a week from now on.”
“That makes me feel better. What about the glossy?”
“It stays. We’re asking thirty-five cents a copy. That’s a dime more than the other papers and it’s the first thing a customer sees. It’s gotta look like he’s getting more for his money.”
“Okay,” she said. She took an invoice from her folder. “This bill just came in.”
It was from Acme Photo Supplies. Three thousand dollars for cameras and equipment. I tossed it back to her. “Pay it.”
“He bought the most expensive cameras. A Rollei and a motor-driven Nikon plus lenses and tripod.”
“He could have gone more expensive. It’s used equipment. New, they would have cost ten grand. But it doesn’t matter. He’s going to shoot all the photos himself. That saves us a hundred an hour off the top for the photographer.”
“I give up,” she said.
I grinned. “You worry too much. How long’s it been since you got laid?”
She finally smiled. “You ought to know. Unless you have been grabbing some little chickees from the mission that I don’t know about.”
“Workshop, not mission,” I said. I put down my pencil. The last ten days had been a bitch. There wasn’t a night that I had gotten out of the office before two in the morning. That was the trouble with writing everything yourself. There were only so many puff handouts from the film companies that you could use to fill space; then you had to go to work. I made up my mind that if we made money the first thing I would do was hire a couple of reporter-writers. I hadn’t been made for this kind of grind. I checked my watch. It was almost midnight and we were the only two left in the office.
“What do you say we go up to Sneaky Pete’s on the Strip and get us a steak then go home and fuck?”
“I have a better idea.”
“I’m open.”
“You have steaks in the fridge. I can throw them on the broiler and ball while they’re cooking.”
“Your idea is better.” I got to my feet. “What’s taking you so long?”
***
I was really into sleeping. That deep black nothing kind of sleep that is forever and only happens when you’ve blown your balls out the head of your cock. I didn’t hear the telephone. But Verita did.
She shook me awake and put the phone on the pillow next to my ear. “Your mother,” she said.
“Hello, Mother,” I mumbled.
“Who was that girl?” My mother’s voice echoed in the receiver.
“What girl?” I was still fuzzy.
“The one that answered the phone.”
“That was no girl. That’s my accountant.”
“She sounds Mexican,” my mother said.
I opened my eyes. My mother always knew how to wake me up. “She’s black, too,” I said.
“Why are you avoiding me?” my mother asked.
“I’m not avoiding you. I just don’t play tennis anymore.”
“That’s not funny. Do you know what day this is?”
“Christ, Mother, how should I know? At this time of the morning I don’t even know what year it is.”
“It’s ten o’clock in the morning. You haven’t changed a bit. I knew what Uncle John was telling me couldn’t be true.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said you had really straightened out and were working very hard. He should know better. You’ll probably lose all that money he gave you.”
“Shit, Mother. Come to the point, why the call?”
“It’s the fourth anniversary of your father’s death. I thought it might be nice if we had dinner together. You, John and me.”
“It won’t bring him back, Mother.”
“I know that,” she said. “But it would be nice if we did something that showed we remember him. Eight o’clock all right?”
“Okay.”
“Wear a tie if you still have one. I have a new butler and I don’t want him to think that my son is a bum.” With that she clicked off.
“That was my mother,” I said to Verita as I reached for a cigarette.
“I know.” She held a match to my cigarette. “You looked like a baby you were so fast asleep. I hated to wake you.”
“What’s that?” I asked, hearing sounds from the kitchen.
“I don’t know. Did you expect Bobby to come back last night?”
I shook my head and got out of bed. The moment I opened the bedroom door I could smell the frying bacon. I went to the kitchen.
Bobby, at the stove, spoke without turning his head. “Go back to bed. I’ll bring breakfast.”
“He’s cooking,” I told Verita as I returned to the bedroom.
“Better him than me.”
She laughed. “I’d better get something on.”
The door opened just as she got out of bed. Quickly she jumped back in and pulled the sheet over her breasts. Bobby, dressed in a butler’s outfit—striped pants, wing collar and bow tie—had a broad smile on his face. In his hands he held a white breakfast tray.
“Breakfast is served, sir,” he said, stepping through the doorway.
I heard a giggle and Denise followed him into the room, dressed in a French maid’s uniform—shiny black micro-mini dress, long black opera-length nylons, tiny white apron and cap. She, too, carried a breakfast tray. “Breakfast is served, madame,” she giggled.
Solemnly each of them placed the trays on our laps. “What the hell’s going on, Bobby?” I asked.
He laughed. “Drink your orange juice and champagne. This is a very important day.”
He grinned broadly, reached under his jacket and came out with a neatly folded paper. “Morning paper, sir. First copy off the press.”
I looked down at the bold black heading. THE HOLLYWOOD EXPRESS. Beneath it was the bold two-color picture of Denise getting off the bus at the Greyhound station, and the streamer running through the photo read new girl in town!
“You got it!” I yelled.
He was laughing. “We were down at the printers at six this morning.”
“Jesus,” I said, turning the pages. There was something about it that was different. Even though I had seen everything in proofs, I got what felt like an electric charge from holding the actual paper in my hands.
“Like it?” Bobby asked.
“Hey,” I said in answer to his question, “call Persky, tell him to get down there and start the distribution.”
“He’s down there already. The first five thousand are on their way to Ronzi.” He came up with two more glasses of O.J. and champagne and gave one to Denise. “To the Hollywood Express,” he said. “May it never get derailed.”
In a strange way I still couldn’t believe it was real. I flipped through the pages again and stopped at the centerfold. There Denise was—naked and beautiful. The photographs had a fresh country-fed sensuality that leaped off the pages. It was a kind of innocent sexual awareness that spoke a language all its own.
I could see that Verita felt the same way I did. “What do you think?” I asked her.
“I’ll pay the bills this morning,” she answered simply.
“The pictures are sensational, Bobby. And I can’t believe how beautiful you look, Denise.”
She smiled artlessly. “Thank you. I was nervous about them.”
“She was worried about showing too much pussy. I told her I would take care of it.”
“Airbrush?”
He shook his head. “You said no airbrush, remember? I gave her a trim. It came out sensationally, don’t you think?”
I grinned at him. “You can put a sign out as a cunt coiffeur. You’ll wind up making a mint.” Suddenly I was starved and started attacking the bacon and eggs. “What about you two?” I asked between bites. “Have you had any breakfast?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Bobby said, leaving the room. He was back a moment later with another tray. He put it across the bed and they both climbed on and sat cross-legged facing us. Suddenly a thought crossed my mind.
“Your father’s ad,” I said to Bobby. “I never saw it.”
“We got it down there last night. It’s on the back cover.”
I turned over the paper. There was the usual picture of Reverend Sam’s smiling face that I had seen many times before in other papers. But the copy was different. Under the banner heading, the church of seven planes, there were two simple lines: “What you do with your bodies is your business. What you do with your souls is ours. Let us help you find God on your own terms.”
“Does he really mean that, Bobby?”
“Yes,” Denise said, answering for him. “I told him I was doing the photographs. He didn’t say anything. I also told him how I felt about you.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
She smiled. “I thought you might have forgotten.” She leaned across the tray and kissed me on the mouth. “I’m eighteen today.”
CHAPTER 11
The distance between Hollywood and Bel Air was a million dollars. When I went past the Bel Air patrol at the main gate, they didn’t give me a second glance. I was driving Bobby’s Rolls and that meant automatic approval. I would have been flagged down in anything less than a Caddy or a Lincoln Continental. I turned onto Stone Canyon Drive, which led to my mother’s house.
The streets were dark and deserted. Lights shone in the houses on either side, but there was no sound coming from them. Lonergan’s car was already in my mother’s driveway. His chauffeur was leaning up against the big black Caddy limousine. I pulled to a stop behind him. He looked at me curiously as I got out. I think the car or the straight suit and tie I was wearing must have thrown him because he gave no sign of recognition.
As I pressed the doorbell, I could hear the soft tinkle of the chimes. A butler whom I didn’t know opened the door. “I’m Gareth,” I said, walking past him into the foyer.
His face was devoid of expression. “Mr. Lonergan is in the library. Your mother will be down in a minute.”
That was par for the course. Eight o’clock sharp meant that mother would be ready by eight thirty.
Lonergan was standing at the library window with a drink in his hand, looking out at the lighted swimming pool and tennis court.
“May I serve you a drink, sir?” the butler asked, as Lonergan turned toward me.
“What are you drinking?” I asked Lonergan.
“Dry martini.”
“I’ll have the same.”
“The house is just as beautiful as the day you moved in. Do you remember that, Gareth?”
“I don’t think so. After all, I was only about a year old at the time.”
The butler vanished after handing me the drink. I took a sip and it exploded in my stomach. Too late I remembered that I couldn’t handle martinis. I put the drink down carefully.
Lonergan studied me. “I had forgotten. Time moves too quickly sometimes.”
I didn’t answer.
“You look different,” he said.
“It’s the threads. Mother wanted me to show up straight.”
“You ought to wear them more often. You look good.”
“Thank you.” I went to the bar and fixed myself a scotch and water. “Martinis are too much for me,” I said.
He smiled. “One before dinner gives me an appetite.” He came and sat down on one of the couches. “Don’t you miss living here?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It’s a ghetto.”
“Ghetto?”
I sat down on the couch opposite him, the cocktail table between us. “The walls outside separate this place from the rest of the world. It may be rich, but it’s still a ghetto. Only the people here don’t want to get out.”
“I never thought of it like that,” he said. He took another sip of his martini. “I don’t like your paper. I’m withdrawing my advertising,” he said in the same conversational tone.
“You do and I’ll sue your ass off,” I said quietly. “We have a firm contract.”
“It’s an immoral paper. Pictures of naked girls and articles dealing with explicit sex. There isn’t a court in the land that would uphold that contract if I showed them a copy of the paper.”
I laughed. “I don’t advise you to try it. You have too many business interests that can’t stand examination. At least not on the basis of morality.”
“You mean that?”
I met his eyes. “You better believe it. You were the one who pushed me into this paper. What did you expect me to do? Follow Persky’s footsteps into bankruptcy? I went into this to make money, not to act as a Chinese laundry, giving you silk shirts for cotton.”
“How many copies did you put out?”
“Fifty thousand. That’s
thirty-five more than Persky ever got out before. With a circulation like that, you’ll buy two more pages if you’re smart. Based on those figures, there’s no question in my mind that you can justify it.”
“How do you know they’ll stick?”
“They’ll stick. Ronzi’s nobody’s fool. He’s pulled out all the stops on this one.”
“Ronzi’s Mafia,” he said disapprovingly.
“So?”
“You don’t want to get involved with people like that.”
I laughed. “He warned me about people like you.”
We heard Mother’s footsteps coming down the staircase. “Come to my office Monday. We’ll talk about it then,” he said.
“There’s nothing to talk about. Besides, I’m busy. I’ve got the next issue to get out.”
We rose to our feet as Mother came in the room. I had to admit that she was quite something. At fifty-two, she didn’t look a day over thirty-five. Her face was tanned and unlined, her hair as blond as it had been when I was a kid, and her body lithe from the tennis she played every day. She came toward me and turned a cheek to be kissed.
“You look thin,” she said.
She could do it every time. Suddenly I was fifteen years old again. All arms and legs and no tongue.
She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Don’t you think he looks thin, John?”
A faint smile curved his lips. “I wouldn’t worry about him if I were you,” he said dryly. “He seems quite capable of taking care of himself.”
“He knows nothing about proper diet. I’ll bet he hasn’t eaten a green salad in months. Have you?”
“I didn’t know green salads were fattening.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Gareth. You know perfectly well what I mean.”
“Mother,” I said sharply.
A sudden nervous tremor came into her voice. “What?”
I swallowed my irritation, realizing that it was as difficult for her to communicate with me as it was for me to reach her. There was no mutual ground on which we could walk. Sad. Down deep sad. I kept my voice light. “You look beautiful, Mother.”
She smiled. “Do you mean that?”
“You know I do.”
This was safe ground. Her ground. Her voice relaxed. “I have to. Youth is such a cult these days.”
Dreams Die First Page 6