The Head of the House

by Al Zuckerman

  Izzie had mixed feelings about Kremish. He’d learned probably a hundred times as much about Linda’s future father-in-law as Kremish could have found out about him—and most of it good. True, Kremish had a history of being a sucker for girls, and then having to pay off, which to Iz was a taste as dumb as alcohol. And in business Leo had pulled a few fast ones which he might have been nailed for, but Iz admired hiin for those, and Iz also got a kick out of the chubby tycoon’s jollity, his amused appreciation of the world’s absurdity. But it was hard for Iz to accept that Kremish, also starting with nothing, had been able to make it so big and all on the right side of the law. No one had to avoid being seen with Leo.

  Their conversation for several blocks was monosyllabic: the autumn foliage, the beauty of the campus. Then as they passed the monumental new Firestone Library, Kremish cleared his throat.

  “Your Linda is lovely. Already I love her—like she is mine own.”

  So much warmth, too sudden, out of the blue. A wallop had to follow. Izzie’s gut tightened. He played along, though, said back nice things about Scott, all true too, and he waited, showing himself relaxed, which he wasn’t.

  “She’s so good for Scott, the best thing,” Kremish bubbled on, “smart, sweet, but with a backbone too.” He jabbed a forefinger in the air to emphasize his point. “You people did some job with that girl.”

  Iz kept smiling.

  “Still even between young people in love, problems you always get, no?”

  “With those two youngsters, it’s hard to see where the problems would be,” Iz countered softly, “for a while anyway.”

  “Yes, true, in a way I agree. But what I am talking, well, it’s not strictly between the two of them.”

  Oh? Who else, Iz was now meant to ask. He didn’t. Let Kremish spit this up by himself. And choked a little doing it.

  They were strolling past Nassau Hall, which David had once pointed out as the oldest of the college buildings. Back of it a manicured lawn was adorned at its center with a black cannon. Odd that Kremish should have picked this spot to—shoot his mouth off.

  “Well, you see, and uh, it’s a little hard saying this”—Kremish was all but choking—“it’s uh to be frank uh about you.”

  Iz thought he’d inured himself. Still, it hurt.

  “It’s not I who accuse you of anything, you understand. It’s just, well, gossips, rumors. I worry if maybe this couldn’t make for the children trouble.” Kremish moistened his lips. “I uh assume you don’t wish any of this trouble.”

  Iz wanted to lie down on the grass, shut his eyes, and disappear, make Kremish disappear. A laugh. He’d have to cut through, finish up with this dreck fast, once and for all.

  “Okay,” he said pleasantly, “what do you have in mind?”

  Leo’s mouth opened, closed, opened again, and no sound. He seemed a little stunned.

  They walked on, Iz waiting.

  “Well uh,” Kremish collected himself and resumed, “There must be things you could do, maybe we both together could do, so this,” and he shrugged, seeming pained to repeat the word, “this gossip would stop, go away.”

  “A long time ago,” Iz, exhaling, began, “actually I was a kid still then, I got into the liquor business. Illegal those days—distilling, wholesaling, importing—anything to do with the stuff was illegal, except drinking it. At first, I didn’t own a pot to piss in. By Repeal, I was worth a few bucks. Nothing big really, but big enough for a few stories to start up. And people keep telling them.”

  “Really, all from twenty years ago?” Kremish sounded skeptical.

  “What other rumors have you heard?”

  “I guess, dates no one gave to me.”

  Could Kremish have heard then only that there were stories, but not the stories themselves? Iz’s heart began to lighten.

  “I think you got something particular in mind, Leo.” Iz kept a cordial tone. “So why don’t you tell me what it is?”

  Kremish’s smile stayed, but Iz noticed him swallow.

  They were nearing Blair, David’s turreted dormitory that looked straight out of knights-in-armor land.

  “Today, in your business, this kind of thing—is that all gone now, finished?”

  Iz nodded. “And for many many years. And even those old stories, believe me, are exaggerated like crazy.”

  “People do like saying the worst things.”

  Kremish, amiable, smoothing things over, nonetheless still had that hunter’s gleam.

  “Leo, what in particular is worrying you?”

  “All right. For example uh the casino outside Palm Beach, it’s yours, no?”

  “It might be. But no one could prove it. There’s not a scrap of paper anywhere that says so.”

  And the Cuban joints which throw off the heavy money, Iz was tempted to add, are legit one hundred percent. And I’d sell my action off, believe it or not, this second, if there were a way to do both that and keep on breathing.

  “What if I were to make you an offer?”

  Gevalt, what now? “Please.”

  “We did nine hundred million last year. This year we reach a billion maybe. I have with me good people. But always I am looking. I need more.”

  Kremish was offering him a job! Make Iz clean by putting him out in public. Iz chuckled to himself. Sharp move. And nice too, haimish. His heart went out to Leo. It’d be nicer yet, if it were possible.

  “Izzie, how much in a year do you make?”

  I don’t know. And if I did, the number would make you dizzy. Instead he answered, “You’re a gutte, Leo. I appreciate.”

  “Never mind good. Smart.”

  “Very smart.” Iz grinned. “It’d be interesting, and I always like a challenge; but I’m kind of locked in now.”

  He could keep playing, dodging; but sooner or later that’d make Leo angry. The real goods would be a blow, but after a while Kremish’d make peace—whereas keeping him thrashing in the dark. …

  “Leo, in a way I’m working with you already.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You own a lot of Dynamic, but the largest stockholder, they tell me, is a Swiss bank.”

  “Yes, Banque de Génève et d’Outre-Mer.”

  Leo looked puzzled at the turn of the conversation, not worried. He hadn’t yet caught on.

  “See,” Iz said as gently as he could, “Now you’re one of four people in the world who know it’s me who owns that bank.”

  Watching Kremish pale, stumble, almost fall, Iz felt sad, and yet relieved.

  CHAPTER 5

  Linda watched him burrow about in the open suitcase, then pull open a dresser drawer. She could watch Scott all day tieing his tie or his shoelaces, brushing on shaving cream, any little chore, and be fascinated and happy.

  Now! The voice inside again insisted, eroding her contentment. Speak up now! Or it would be too late. She’d been meaning to on and off for fifteen minutes, ever since hand-in-hand they’d walked away from the visiting-team dressing room.

  “You think maybe we could”—she plunged into motion, hurrying from the door where she’d been, and touching the back of his hand—“we could take a few minutes—here?”

  “Right now?”

  His tone said doubt. His beaming eyes, something else.

  Her bag slipped to the floor. She slid her arms under his, pressed herself into his chest, feeling shirt buttons, hearing his heart thump.

  “What about those ten million aunts of yours?”

  She could hear the grin in his voice.

  They’d stopped at his hotel room because Linda had noticed that his socks didn’t match. At wearing socks that went together he was hopeless, despite his being so brilliant he could quote Adlai Stevenson probably better than Stevenson himself.

  She tilted her head back, looked up at his jaw. It was so beautiful.

  “Something worrying you?” he asked.

  “No, no.”

  But she was worried. In an hour or so there’d be the engage
ment. But would there be a wedding?

  His sandy hair looked so perfect. While she herself looked so—Jewish—ordinary. And God, his family—real Renoirs. And no worries about who they were.

  Those wretched Kefauver hearings. Pop had told her that President Roosevelt personally had promised him a clean bill of health. But Roosevelt was dead. And Scott’s mother might yet turn him against her, convince him Linda Hargett was not for him. And in her heart Linda often felt she wasn’t.

  Linda remembered last spring, those weekends Scott was supposed to come down from Hanover, worrying if he really would. Fishing to get her own momma to approve, say one nice thing about him. Hannah, after folding up her newspaper one evening, had at last broke her silence: “All right, he’s smart, nice, good family, everything, too much—so not for you. I let myself get swept over by your pop, and all along I knew it was crazy. And you’ve got a keppele, and you know too.” And Linda did know.

  But Scott did keep coming; and in June at Lake Waramaug they’d drifted off into the mosquitoey night, and on a blanket in a pine forest, her love and terror overran their former bounds. True love was unselfish, she’d earlier decided. So whether he’d do “the right thing” once she’d given herself to him didn’t matter. Baloney. In the wee hours she’d realized she wanted his engagement ring, his name, him, utterly.

  And then in August, before he’d left for preseason practice, blessed miracle! he’d asked her. Walking on air! Yet even then, she’d felt on pins and needles.

  The worry about sex was part of that. Going-all-the-way had not been this great thing. In July Linda had come across a book, Ideal Marriage, which she’d quietly borrowed. Afraid if she showed it to Scott, he’d judge her brazen. Still, with her heart in her mouth, she’d showed it to him. He’d been great. They’d begun reading it aloud together. And it had been getting better. Except towards the ends of her months when she’d get so scared.

  Clothes off, Linda breathed in. Scott’s smell, faintly thymy with a hint of soap, fresh still from the after-game shower, beat any perfume.

  She nuzzled his chest’s tidy woolliness, licked around a breast, ending on his nipple, then glided her tongue down to a black and blue splotch at a lower rib, nasty souvenir of the game. Lapping at his bruise, she strived to get up her nerve. She’d made up her mind. She would do it, the best, the greatest thrill for a man. She’d show him. So then his mother’s snob crap—who’d care any more?

  “For the active partner”—The passage from Ideal Marriage was etched in Linda’s mind—“the pleasures of the genital kiss are wholly psychic . . . give joy to the beloved.” And she would, God, would she! If only it had been clearer how. “Unnecessary,” it had said, “to describe the technique . . . may be constructed from what already said about the kiss in general . . . intensely gratifying to the husband.” There was the key. Except, did she dare actually to—his thing—take it—into her mouth? And then she’d have to—she felt her throat tighten—lick it. How? Fast, slow, the tip, the whole thing, suck on it? And her teeth, mightn’t they scratch—hurt him? And then what about his semen—uuugggghhhh, she could all but feel herself gagging, spitting out. The book hadn’t mentioned that.

  As she faced the night table, her eyes paused on his watch. She had to begin, or forget it for now. The party most likely was already underway. Her hands felt heavy, stiff, unwilling. Finally she was touching it, then caressing, fingers numb, but doing all she could to fondle his straight-up peter.

  She wanted to look at Scott’s face, see a reaction, since he wasn’t speaking. But she felt self-conscious. So then what was she waiting for? Go, now!

  Her head lurched downward. Suddenly she was kissing it. Curious thingum, tender, yet so stiff, rising out of its thicket, throbbing, with its strawberry point. Strange, she’d not seen it before really closely.

  Hearing him purr, contentedly groan, she felt her heart skip. The fear ebbed. Maybe she could draw it in.

  Her mouth’s moistness seemed to come back. And he didn’t taste bad, hardly any taste really.

  She ached to know what he was feeling.

  She felt his belly quiver, heard him yelp, a tickled noise.

  She took in more of him, licking faster.

  His abdomen on which her hand rested, she could feel it hardening, creasing. Why? Was he sitting up? Then his hand, touching her forehead, lifting her up off him.

  Her heart stopped.

  “Lin?”

  She didn’t dare breathe. “Yes?”

  “Nothing.”

  He’d been about to say—she just knew it—something awful. She wrenched herself away and buried her face in the mattress.

  “Hey, you okay?” His voice was muffled, distant.

  What do you think? And I hate you! And now how can I ever look at you? Her mouth, though, was wadded with bed linen, and no words came out.

  His hand, she felt it on her shoulder.

  She was trembling.

  “Hey, don’t be so—I dunno. Are you really upset?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?” she snapped, but into the mattress.

  “Hunh?”

  “Nothing.” That she let him hear.

  “Look uh you did kind of surprise me.”

  “Go away,” she moaned.

  “Aw Lin, come on. We’ve got a whole army of people waiting for us.”

  She pushed the sheet from her mouth. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was—dumb.”

  “Look, it’s maybe—I’m kind of a prude.”

  She wanted to die.

  He took hold of her and kissed her hard on the lips, then asked, “You going to get dressed already?”

  She began fumbling about for her underwear.

  “Funny, I don’t know why I thought you shouldn’t do that,” he musingly let out. “Like somehow I didn’t deserve it. But I did like it—a lot.”

  Abruptly she was crying again. Stop it, stop it, stop it, she screeched to herself.

  Minutes later at the front walk of McCarter Inn, she tugged Scott’s arm, stopping him. “The whole thing was—to prove I love you—an extra amount.”

  He crinkled his face.

  Didn’t he believe her?

  “On account of—your mother. I wanted to be—more to you somehow.”

  He raised her hand and kissed two of her fingers, then pulled her along toward the massive oak door.

  She ought to feel happy. He’d done everything he could to reassure her. She straightened up and brightened her face.

  He’d come this far with her, so he might continue—if she kept lucky.

  CHAPTER 6

  Standing against one side of the room’s broad archway, Leroy scrutinized each person who entered, nodding to those he recognized. Those he didn’t, he gave categories to, designating them tentatively as Kremish family, Kremish business, college friends. Three guests so far were oddball puzzlers, and these he’d been keeping an eye on, or trying to, at least until each one had assaulted the buffet, because it seemed reasonable that someone busy filling his face wouldn’t be contemplating heavy stuff.

  These strangers, did some of them wonder who in hell he was: clean-looking, business-type black man, only one in sight? In miles probably. They more’n likely thought he was some bellhop without a uniform.

  His eyes on the archway’s elaborate molding, Leroy rated the McCarter Inn as bungalow-sized compared to any of Mr. H.’s hotels, though it had more classy little touches. What furniture! Silk-upholstered sofas with gracefully curved arms, deep-polished side tables in antique-looking grains, gleaming tray-type cocktail tables with forged brass hardware—real antiques probably—and oriental rugs, tapestries; soft lighting, no big chandeliers, only gentle glows from silk-shaded lamps and candlelike sconces. Different. Nice. The outside too, French doors, four pairs, leading to a flagstone patio overlooking a golf course of rolling hills with the university spires off in the distance.

  The guests were something else
. Their fandangles weren’t quite up to Lenox Avenue on a Sunday, but they came close. Triple-chinned women crammed into sheaths of pure glitter—gold thread, embroidered beads, shimmering sequins; heads crowned with ostrich, peacock, birds of paradise; hair tinted henna, peroxide, platinum, and sculpted into coiffures to rival Marie Antoinette. Wives of beer distributors, hotel managers, truck fleet operators, wholesale launderers, garment center laborers and entrepreneurs, they didn’t know to be casual on a football afternoon. An invitation from Izzie Hargett to celebrate his daughter’s engagement—a summons to the White House wouldn’t have been so big a thrill.

  These ladies’ husbands were stubby mostly, hair neatly plastered down; clothes somber: stiff double-breasted suits which didn’t hang well, bought perhaps when their wearers were slimmer, or so recently they still retained their factory-rigid press. In contrast, the Kremish group was quietly chic: men in subdued herringbones, worsteds; the women slimmer and in subtly accented wool knits, crepes, colorful hand-woven tweeds.

  Sprinkled through these two groups, blending them somewhat, were Linda and Scott’s friends: young men in gray flannel, white bucks, rep ties—the college vogue; their apple-cheeked girls in bright pleated plaids, cashmere sweaters.

  All in all, it was a hodgepodge: rich people, not-so-rich, and plain poor; highbrows and grunters, talk in Yiddish, perfect English, mixes spanning the two, and a sprinkling of Sicilian dialects; costumes ranging from garish parvenuism to semiaristocratic casualness—and even then, anomalies.

  Ernie Blomberg in his houndstooth, country squire, knickers outfit, might have looked fifth generation Princeton except for his pot-gutted, humpty dumpty shape and his Lower East Side diction. Producer during the War of Colorado, the most colossally profitable of Broadway musicals, and since then of flops equally colossal, he stood gobbling at an hors d’oeuvre plate of pickled fish, looking over the crowd, scouting perhaps for fresh pigeons to back his shows. All those millions down the drain, and still he seemed to have little trouble digging up fresh money. Even Iz usually anted up for a piece.