In reality, his plan was a simple one. He had ten theaters lined up around the country. Each theater was willing to make a four-wall deal with him. In effect, they were leasing the theater to him to show the picture. He would guarantee them a minimum profit and they would share fifty-fifty with him on the overages. The guarantees plus the advertising that he would have to pay came to three thousand dollars a week per theater. Thirty thousand a week for the five-week period, which was the minimum he could contract for, one hundred and fifty thousand in all.
He could come up with thirty thousand himself, another twenty thousand he felt sure his parents would give him, especially after the quick repayment he had made on the original loan. Solveg promised to contribute fifty thousand dollars again on the part of the Swedish film industry. That still left him short by fifty thousand dollars.
He pushed back the papers on his desk and looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock. He rubbed his face thoughtfully. He had better shave and get ready. He had arranged to meet Denise at the Brass Rail for dinner. They had a nice dining room upstairs and she had gone home to change. The telephone rang and he picked it up.
It was Denise. “Sam?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he answered. “Just a little tired, I guess.”
“Look, I have an idea,” she said. “It’s miserable out and raining. Why go out to dinner? Come on up here and relax. I have a couple of huge steaks I can throw on the fire.”
“Sounds great to me,” he said. “When do you want me up there?”
“Come now,” she said. “I have everything ready.”
***
He sat in the living room of her West End Avenue apartment, a drink in one hand and an illustrated children’s book of Snow White in the other.
“Is that Snoopy, Uncle Sam?” Myriam asked in her little voice, pointing to an illustration.
“No, that’s Grumpy,” he said.
“I don’t like him,” the child said.
He laughed, putting down his drink and rumpled the child’s head. “Nobody likes him. He’s got bad manners.”
“I have good manners,” Myriam said. “Everybody likes me.”
“I’m sure they do,” Sam said.
The child crawled off his lap. “Don’t go away. I’m going to get another book.”
“I’ll be here,” Sam promised. He picked up his drink again and looked around the apartment. His parents were right about one thing. Apparently she didn’t need the job. The rent on this apartment was more than he paid her each week. The doorbell rang.
“Will you get it, Sam?” Denise called from the kitchen.
He opened the door. Her brother, Roger, stood there. He came in and they shook hands. “I can only stay a few minutes,” Roger said. “Denise told me you were coming up for dinner and I thought I’d drop by and say hello.”
Denise came in from the kitchen. “Why don’t you stay for dinner? There’s plenty of food.”
“I don’t want to intrude,” Roger said, looking at Sam.
“You won’t be intruding,” Sam said.
“Fix yourself a drink,” Denise said. “Dinner will be ready in a minute. I’ll set another place.”
“How’s it going?” Roger asked, over the drink.
“Good,” Sam replied. “We’re still playing to capacity.”
“It’s a good picture,” Roger said. “I especially like that scene where the Germans can’t find the American soldiers because naked everybody looks alike and they want everybody to put clothes on.”
Sam smiled. “It’s a good scene.”
“How’s your distribution plans coming along?”
“Slowly,” Sam answered. “It takes time.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The usual. Money,” Sam replied.
“How much do you need?”
Suddenly it all made sense to Sam. He wasn’t here just for dinner. Denise had arranged it all.
Later when Roger had left and they were having a second cup of coffee in the living room, he turned to her. “You didn’t have to do it.”
“I wanted to,” she said. “I believe in you.”
It happened quite naturally. They leaned toward each other, then she was in his arms. They kissed. Suddenly his size didn’t matter anymore. He felt tall.
“Why me?” he asked. “I’m fifteen years older than you, short and fat.” He gestured toward a photograph of her late husband. “Not a bit like him.”
Her eyes were steadier than her voice. “You’re a man. Compared to you all the others, everyone else, is a boy.”
A small sound came from the open doorway. They turned. The child was standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. “I had a bad dream.”
Sam picked her up and brought her back to the couch between them. “It will go away,” he said soothingly.
She looked up at them, first at her mother, then at him. “Are you going to be my daddy?”
“Why don’t you ask your mother? She seems to have it all worked out.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I’d like you to get some new clothes,” she said one evening as they sat down to dinner.
“What for?” he asked. “I got all new clothes just before we got married. They’re perfectly good.”
“Sure,” she agreed. “For a racetrack tout. Not for a successful businessman.”
“I’m in the picture business,” he said. “They don’t dress like everybody else.”
“Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you want. If you like looking short and fat.”
“I am short and fat,” he said. And that was the end of it. He thought. Until he went to his closet the next morning.
He turned back into the room. “Where the hell are all my suits?” he yelled.
“You’re shouting,” she said. “It’s not healthy.”
“It’s healthy to walk around naked?” he yelled. “What did you do with my suits?”
“I gave them to the Salvation Army,” she said.
He was speechless.
“I made an appointment for you at the tailor,” she said. “Ten o’clock this morning. I’m going with you.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “But what do I wear in the meantime?”
“The suit you wore yesterday,” she said.
They bought a half dozen suits. All the same cut, three in black, three in dark blue. Even he had to admit afterward that he looked better. The new shoes with the built-up heel didn’t hurt either.
A few days later she turned from her desk in the small office they shared and waited until he finished screaming over the telephone at the theater manager in Oklahoma City.
“You don’t have to shout,” she said quietly. “The way you’re carrying on you can save yourself the cost of the phone call.”
“What do you expect me to do?” he yelled. “When the son of a bitch is trying to screw me out of two grand?”
“You’re shouting now,” she said. “And I’m only three feet away from you.”
“Of course I’m shouting. I’m angry.”
“You can be just as angry in a quiet voice,” she said. “And people will have more respect for you.” She got to her feet. “You don’t have to yell anymore to make people listen to you. You’re successful. You’re a big man. They’ll listen if you whisper.”
She walked out of the office and his eyes followed her to the door. He turned back to his desk. That was always the trouble with women. They were never happy until they changed you. All the same, maybe she had something. Just like with the suits. It wouldn’t hurt to try it. He could always go back to shouting if it didn’t work.
That night when they were in bed, he turned toward her. “You know you were right,” he said.
“About what?” she asked.
“About shouting,” he said. “I don’t really have to. It was just a habit, I guess. Maybe it was just my way of showing I was boss.” He pull
ed her toward him.
She held him away. “There was something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Can’t it keep until later?” he asked like a little boy. “I want to get laid.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” she said. “Later you’ll be asleep.”
He reached over and turned on the lamp, sitting up in bed. “What is it?” he asked, looking at her.
Her face began to turn pink. “I can’t talk about it with the light on and you staring at me like that.”
“You want I should go in the next room and pick up the telephone?”
“Don’t make jokes,” she said. “This is serious.”
“I’m not joking,” he said. “Tell me already.”
Her face was completely red now. Her eyes fell. “That’s just it. You’re so impatient, you’re always in a hurry.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She looked up at him. “We’re married almost six weeks,” she said in a low voice. “And I’ve only had maybe two orgasms.”
A note of concern came into his voice. “Why didn’t you say something before? Maybe you ought to see a doctor, there might be something wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” she said. “It’s just that—you see—you’re always in such a hurry. Bing, bang, boom. You’re on, you’re off, you’re out, you’re asleep. Then I lie there awake half the night trying to figure out what happened.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” he said. “All you have to do is get it off sooner.”
“I can’t,” she said in an unhappy voice. “You’ll just have to give me more time.”
“How can I do that?” he asked. “You know me. Once I get started, there’s no stopping.”
“Maybe it would help if you thought of other things when you find yourself getting too excited.”
“If I think of other things I’d lose my hard,” he said.
“I read somewhere that if you counted to yourself, it helps,” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “Did you have the same trouble with him?”
She knew who he meant. “I never had an orgasm with him at all,” she said honestly. “Before I had a chance to think about it, he went overseas.”
Sam was silent.
“I don’t mean to upset you, honey,” she said, reaching for his hand. “I love you. You know that.”
“I love you,” he said, looking at her. “I want it to be right for you. I’ll try.
He turned off the lamp and bent over her and kissed her. She moved his face down to her breasts and held him tightly there while he nuzzled like a child. A few moments later, he was inside her.
“Is it all right?” he whispered.
“Beautiful,” she answered, all warm and flowing.
He grew stronger inside her and she began to respond to her fierce thrusting. “I’m getting there,” he whispered hoarsely. “Should I begin counting now?”
“Yes. Yes,” she replied, unable to control her own responses.
“One… two… three… four… How long do I have to keep this up?” he gasped.
“As… long as you can,” she cried.
“Five… six… Oh, Jesus… seven… eight.” He was almost shouting now. “I’ll never make it… Nine… Here it comes… oooh… ten. There go the rockets!”
She clung tightly to him, rising and falling with him until the tide within them was completely spent. After, they were silent and a kind of languor came over her. She felt his breath on her cheek and opened her eyes.
He was looking at her. “Was that better?”
She nodded.
“You never felt like that with him?” His voice was almost fierce.
“No, never,” she answered.
He stared at her for a moment, then his face relaxed into a smile. “Is it all right if I sing the next time?” he asked. “I always was lousy at arithmetic.”
***
By the time Samuel Junior was born, late the following year, they had settled into a comfortable kind of life. Between the theater and the distribution company, Sam netted in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars a year and had developed a reputation in the trade for merchandising and handling a specialized kind of film. Exploitation pictures they were sometimes called. The subject matter was almost always something unusual, something that at the first glance did not seem to have promotional qualities, but Sam found the key to them and for the most part they worked. There was only one trouble with the business. None of the pictures was sufficiently broad in its basic audience appeal to break through into the general market.
That was where he had to go for the really big money. Seventeen thousand theaters against the few hundred that he sometimes could play. He kept his own counsel, not even sharing his ambitions with Denise, who in those years was fully occupied with the two children. Quietly he watched and studied the market and then one day in 1955 decided to take his big step.
He sold his lease on the theater and moved the distribution company into small offices in Rockefeller Center. Television had thrown the film industry into a panic. Grosses were off and theaters were threatened with closure all over the country.
His reasoning was simple. What had worked for him on a smaller scale would now work in the larger market. Promotion, publicity, and exploitation even more than the picture itself would attract people to the local box office. But, again, it had to be the right kind of picture. One that would appeal to all kinds of audiences, young and old, if it were to work. And it had to be the kind of picture that would lend itself to the old-fashioned circus publicity he intended to give it. He also knew where he would have to go to find it.
Italy. Italian film-makers had climbed aboard the Ben Hur chariot after MGM finished its famous remake. They had taken advantage of the many sets and props gathered for that film and he had heard of a number that were in production that might fit his plan. All he needed was money.
Denise invited Roger and his new wife to dinner.
CHAPTER NINE
Sam looked up as Roger came into his office. Roger put a sheet of paper in front of him. “Here are Charley Luongo’s latest figures from Rome on the Barzini picture.
“What do you think?” Roger asked.
Sam shrugged. “That’s merely the auditor’s report. I knew those figures two weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you say something to me?” Roger asked. He was annoyed with himself. He should have remembered that the auditors were two weeks behind.
“What was there to say?” Sam asked. “We’re in this far, there’s nothing else to do but keep on going.”
“You still could have told me.” Roger was angry. “I am your partner.”
“I didn’t want to worry you,” Sam said. “I figured with Anne just about to have the baby you had enough on your mind.”
“Enough on my mind?” Roger’s voice rose sharply. “You think I’m a child? That I didn’t know we’re looking bankruptcy in the face? I said we should never have got into this damn film!”
Sam stared up at him without speaking.
“But you’re supposed to be the expert?” Roger continued sarcastically. “This picture is going to win all the awards, you said. The only award it’s going to win will be Chapter Eleven in bankruptcy court.”
“Hold it a minute!” Sam snapped. “It’s a hell of a picture. I showed Steve Gaunt the first two reels and he flipped over it.”
“So he flipped over it,” Roger said. “I still didn’t see him come up with any money toward it.”
“You know he can’t do that,” Sam said. “Not until it’s finished.”
“You’re being conned, Sam. Why can’t you see it?” Roger was nasty now. “That boy is as cold as ice. I know his reputation by now. He uses everybody. You think I don’t know the type, the friendly goy, always with a smile on his face, while behind your back he’s looking how to murder you?”
Sam’s voice was mild. “Okay, Roger. You�
��re upset so I’ll make allowances. Now go back to your office and calm down. We’ll talk again when you’re able to make sense.”
“I can make sense right now,” Roger said. “Perfectly good sense. Just give me my money back, that’s all. I’m not greedy. You can have it all if you think it’s that good.”
“You don’t mean that.” Sam said.
“You don’t think so?” Roger stared down at him. “Try me.”
Sam shuffled the papers on his desk and picked up a letter with a check attached to it. He handed it to Roger. “There’s a check from Supercolor Laboratories for two hundred grand they’re lending me on account of the agreement I made to give them all our film processing and printing. I was going to send it to Italy for the production account. Now it’s up to you.
“If you still feel that way, keep it. But if you think everybody in this business is crazy the way you think I am and that they don’t know what they’re doing, someday you’ll regret it. But make up your own mind. You can put it in the production account or keep it. But either way, after this, I don’t want to hear no complaints from you.”
Roger looked down at him. “If I keep it, what do you do?”
Sam met his gaze. “I managed this far, I’ll manage the rest of the way.”
They both knew that all it would take for Roger to put the check back on the desk was for Sam to ask. But it had gone too far. Sam’s back was up. He would never ask. That would be too much like begging. And he had his own kind of pride.
He knew from the expression on Denise’s face when he got home that evening that she already knew. He didn’t say anything, went straight to the bedroom and began to change his clothes. He got into a shirt and slacks, kicked his feet into a pair of slippers, and went into the living room. The ice and the Scotch were already on the coffee table. He fixed himself a drink, turned on the television for the seven o’clock news, and sat down on the couch. He took a long sip of his drink.
The children came into the room as was their custom after they had finished their dinner. They climbed upon the edge of the couch and kissed him. “Hi, Daddy.”
He smiled at them. “Hi. Have a good dinner?”
Myriam nodded, Junior didn’t even bother to answer. He was watching the television set.
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