The Dream Merchants

by Harold Robbins

  Bob was on his second old-fashioned before I spoke. “That’s interesting,” I said casually.

  He almost choked on his drink. “That’s all you got to say?” he asked.

  I nodded my head.

  His face went red and he started to get up from the table.

  I grinned at him. “Sit down, sit down. Keep your shirt on. I’m not letting anybody screw you. We’ll let Dave get associate-producer credit if we have to, but it will still be a Robert Gordon production.”

  “That ain’t the way I heard it,” he said indignantly.

  “That’s the way it’s gonna be, an’ if they don’t like it, they can go hump ’emselves.”

  He settled back in his chair. He sipped slowly at his drink now, his face was thoughtful. “Got an angle, Johnny?” he asked.

  That was Hollywood too. Everything had to have an angle. You could get a guy to hang himself with pleasure if he thought he was in on an angle to screw somebody he didn’t like.

  “A million-dollar angle,” I said smiling.

  He was smiling now. “I should have known better, Johnny. I’m sorry for blowing my top.”

  “Forget it, Bob,” I said generously. I could afford to be generous. I wasn’t giving anything away.

  “What’s the gimmick?” he asked, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone.

  I looked around the room and lowered my voice to match his. The best actors in this business weren’t always on the screen. There was more acting in every minute of our end of the business than went on in a year before the cameras. “This is no place to talk about it, Bob,” I said softly. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  He was completely happy now. He looked around the room expansively. He even smiled and nodded to some people. His every gesture exuded confidence. It was amazing how that changed the atmosphere in the room.

  Before this, people had been talking quietly, looking at us apprehensively out of the corners of their eyes. They were wondering whether we’d still be their bosses tomorrow. They were already making plans in case we weren’t. New people had to be cultivated, flattered, new asses to be kissed. Maybe new jobs would have to be found by some. But now, from the way Gordon looked, most of them figured they were good for a while.

  I looked over Gordon’s head to the doorway. Ronsen, Farber, and Roth were standing there. Ronsen caught my eye and started toward me. He and Farber walked together, his hand most deferentially on Farber’s arm. Dave brought up the rear like a puppy trailing after its masters.

  Watching them, I almost smiled. Peter was right. I looked at Ronsen. His every action indicated solicitude for Farber.

  Ronsen had changed a little since he had first muscled his way into the place. He was confident then. I remember what he said: “The trouble with this business is that there is too much dependence on personalities and too little faith in the good old American principles of running a business. There need be no such conditions. It’s very simple, really. The studio is nothing but a factory. All they have to do is make pictures and have them marketed properly. That’s my job here. To show the picture business how it should be run. Before I get finished with this place it will run like the Ford Motor Company.”

  I almost laughed aloud when I thought of that. The Ford Motor Company. He took a leaf right out of their books and the first thing he tried to do was break our contracts with the unions. He almost broke us instead. For nine weeks not a picture rolled on our lot. He had raged up and down the place, yelling: “Communistic labor principles.” It didn’t do any good. Then, in the last week of the strike, when the projectionists across the country refused to run a single Magnum picture in their theaters and we were faced with a complete loss of revenue, he finally gave in and I had to go out and straighten up the mess.

  Peter was right. In the final analysis they had to come back to us. Maybe it was because we had nothing to lose and they had everything. We were broke when we started. We could afford to go out broke if we had to. We knew that the business was built upon a hypothecation, a gamble. We knew that every picture we turned out was a gamble, and like gamblers we were not satisfied to wait for the results of one bet. Before that picture was out we bet that it was good and hocked it against another picture, another gamble, and kept on going.

  That was something they couldn’t afford to do. They came to us with pockets loaded, with money that they had had for years, that their fathers had had before them, and if they lost that their world was at an end and there was nothing left for them.

  They had to come to us.

  I stood up as they neared my table. I looked at Stanley. The years had changed him but little. He was still the same guy. Maybe his hair had gone gray, his face had filled out along with his stomach, but he still had the same ready smile that lacked warmth. His eyes still gave the impression that they were constantly adding and subtracting. He hadn’t changed much. I still reacted to him the same way I had when I first met him. He rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t like him.

  Larry spoke first. “Hello, Johnny,” he said in that deep voice of his that carried to every corner of the room. “You know Stanley, don’t you?”

  Every eye in the room was on us. I smiled and held out my hand. “Sure,” I said, “recognize him anywhere.” He took my hand. It was still the same old handshake—just like picking up a dead fish. “How are yuh, boy?” I continued. “Glad to see yuh.”

  His face was a little pale under its ruddy color, but his eye had an unmistakable glint of triumph in it. “Johnny,” he said, “it’s been years.”

  He let go my hand and we stood there smiling at each other. To all outward appearances we were buddies who had just seen each other after a long while. And all the time we would have gladly cut each other’s throat if there was any way we could get away with it.

  “Sit down, gentlemen.” I waved them to the chairs.

  There were only four places at my table. Since Bob and I were already seated, there were only two more places. Larry dropped into the chair on my right and Stanley seated himself heavily on my left. That left Dave standing up and looking for a place to sit.

  Ginny saw him standing there and made a motion to get a chair for him; but I caught her eye. She stopped and, half smothering a smile, turned and went toward the kitchen.

  Dave stood there uncomfortably for a moment looking for someone to bring him a chair. He looked at me helplessly. I smiled up at him. “Grab yourself a chair, son,” I said pleasantly, “and sit down.” I turned to the others, still smiling. “I don’t know what’s the matter with these waitresses. They’re never around when you want them.”

  Dave had to walk over to the wall and bring back a chair. I watched him. Without turning I spoke to Stanley in a quiet voice, but one that could be heard all through the room. “Bright kid, your nephew,” I confided. “Reminds me of you, the way you were years ago. He’ll go far if he doesn’t let his head run away with him.”

  From the corner of my eye I could see the color run into Stanley’s face. I saw Dave stop for a second as my words reached him; then he picked up the chair and turned around. His face was pale as he walked back to the table with it. He came back and sat down.

  I turned to Stanley. “Yuh look good, boy,” I said. “Put on a little weight though, haven’t you?”

  The conversation went on, but I didn’t remember much of it. I was thinking about the last time Stanley and I had sat at a table together; that time he had come to me with the proposition that we unite our forces and take over the business for ourselves. It wasn’t so long ago at that. Only fifteen years. It was 1923.

  ***

  The little man got slowly to his feet. His blue eyes twinkled brightly at me; the fringe of gray hair around his bald head seemed to stand out like a wire brush from the sides of his head. He smiled at me. He spoke with a thick German accent. “I think that ought to do it, Mr. Etch,” he said.

  I looked down at my legs. There were two of them. One was mine and gleamed with a ruddy fleshlike col
or. One wasn’t. It was made of wood and had joints of aluminum. It fitted tightly over the stump and was held with two straps. One went around my thigh and one fastened onto another strap that went around my waist. I looked at him doubtfully.

  He seemed to read my mind. “Don’t vorry, Mr. Etch,” he said quickly, “it vill vork all right. Put on your trousers and then ve’ll try it.”

  Suddenly I was eager to try it. If it worked I could walk again. I could be like other people. “Why can’t I try it before I put on my trousers?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, “the trousers first. Take my vord for it, I know. Vitout trousers you will look at it and it vill be no good. You must not think about it.”

  I put the trousers on and he helped me while I buttoned them and slipped into the suspenders. He left me sitting there while he rolled a contraption over to me. It looked like one of those walkers they make for babies, only bigger. There were two parallel steel bars held up by four upright bars. On the bottom were four coasters, round little wheels.

  “Now, Mr. Etch,” he said, “hold onto these bars and lift yourself up between them.”

  I put one hand on each bar and lifted myself up. The little man stood next to me anxiously.

  “Rest each bar under your armpit,” he said.

  I did as he told me.

  “Now,” he said, going to the other side of the room, “valk toward me.”

  I looked at him and then down at myself. My trouser legs fell straight to the floor. Both of them. They looked strange there, two of them, instead of one going to the floor and the other pinned to my side.

  His voice was sharp. “Don’t look down, Mr. Etch. I said: ‘Valk toward me!’”

  I looked at him again and took a tentative step forward. The carriage rolled under my arm and I almost stumbled, but the bars held me up.

  “Don’t stop, Mr. Etch! Keep valking!”

  I took another step, then another and another and another and another. I could have walked a thousand miles. The carriage moved easily with me. I reached him.

  He put his hand on the bars and stopped the carriage. “So far, so good,” he said. He knelt by my side for a moment and tightened the strap around my thigh. “Now,” he said, straightening up, “valk after me.”

  He stood in front of the walker and, facing me, walked backwards. Slowly I followed him. He kept walking backwards in a wide sort of a circle. He never looked behind him; his eyes were watching the movement of my legs.

  I was beginning to get tired. There were shooting pains in my thighs, and the back of my neck hurt from my shoulders pressing against the bars. The belt across my waist cut into me every time I breathed.

  At last he stopped. “All right Mr. Etch,” he said. “That’s enough for the first time. You can sit down now and take off the leg. Vith a month of pragtice you vill be like perfect.”

  I sank into the chair, breathing hard. I opened my trousers and he slid them off. Then he quickly loosened the straps and the leg slipped off. He massaged my thighs with expert fingers.

  “It is sore, yah?” he asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “It is alvays like that at the beginning,” he said. “But you vill get used to it and it vill go avay.”

  The sense of power I had felt when I first stood up seemed to drain out of me as the leg had come off. “I’ll never get used to it,” I said. “I’ll never be able to use it for more than a few minutes at a time.”

  He pulled up his trouser leg and looked at me. “If I could do it, Mr. Etch,” he said, “a young man like you should not haff any trouble.”

  I looked at his leg. It was artificial. I looked at him. He was smiling. I began to smile back at him.

  He laughed aloud. “See,” he said, “it is not so bad.”

  I nodded my head.

  “I told Mr. Kessler ven he vass in Chermany that it vould vork for you,” he continued. “And it vill. He said to me: ‘Herr Heink, if you can give this friend of mine to valk, I personally vill see that you go to America vit your family to live.’ And I said to him: ‘Herr Kessler, I am as goot already as an American citizen.’ Is it not so?”

  I grinned at him. I felt good. As busy as Peter had been, he had not forgotten to try to help me. It would have been easy for him not to go out of his way to this small town where he had heard of Herr Heink but continue about his business. But Peter had taken the time even though it had thrown his schedule more than a week out of place.

  Then he sent this guy and his whole family to America and paid their way because that was the price the man had asked. He hadn’t said anything to me about it. He knew of the disappointments I had had with the artificial legs made here. They weren’t legs at all. They were clumsy stumps.

  The first I knew about it was when Herr Heink had come to the office and sent in his card and a note from Peter. The note read simply: “This will introduce Herr Joseph Heink, who has come to the U.S. to start in business. He makes artificial legs. Maybe he can help you.” Signed: “Peter.”

  No word about what it cost him. It was only after I had spoken to Heink that I learned what Peter had done.

  This guy had something too. It was the way the joints worked. Naturally. Like your own legs. The movements were free and easy to make. You could not tell from looking that the man had an artificial leg himself. I had not known until now.

  Peter was still in Europe. Doris and Esther were with him. They would be there for another six months and the business was all on my shoulders in the meantime.

  I stood up and leaned on my crutches.

  “You come back tomorrow morning, Mr. Etch,” Heink said, “and ve vill give you another lesson in valking.”

  When I got back to the office, Rocco was waiting for me. “How was it?” he asked.

  I smiled at him. “Good. I think this is gonna work.”

  He grinned. “That’s swell.”

  I sat down behind my desk. He took the crutches from me and leaned them against the wall. “Anything special come up this morning?” I asked.

  “The usual crap,” he answered. He started to turn away and then came back. “Oh yes,” he said, “Farber called and wanted to know if you were free for lunch.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I didn’t know, you hadn’t come in yet.”

  I thought for a minute. I didn’t like Farber. I never had and I didn’t know why. He knew his business all right, but there was something about him that I didn’t like. Maybe it dated back to that letter I had got from him before I went into the army—the one where he thanked me for a job I hadn’t given him yet.

  George had okayed him and I let the thing stand. I was going into the army anyway and didn’t think too much about it. But now he was in charge of all theater operations and we had over two hundred theaters. George was busy with his own theaters, which came to at least as many, and we had both agreed that Farber was logically the one to handle our jointly owned theaters.

  “Do you know what he wanted?” I asked.

  Rocco shook his head.

  I thought for another minute. “Oh, what the hell,” I said, “I suppose I might as well see him and get it over with. If I don’t he’ll only bother me until I do. Tell him I’ll meet him at the club at one thirty.”

  Rocco turned and left the office. I could hear him talking to Jane through the closed door.

  Stanley Farber was waiting for me in the lobby of the club as I walked in the door. There was another man with him, a tall heavy-set man with steel-gray hair and sharp eyes.

  He came forward to meet me, the tall man with him. He held out his hand. I took it. “Hello, Johnny, how are you?” His laugh was a little too loud, too forced.

  I put a smile on my face and looked at him. I wondered why he was so nervous. “I’m all right, Stan,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Never better,” he answered, still laughing.

  I said nothing, just leaned there on the crutches and looked at him. Su
ddenly he stopped laughing in the same way he started. He looked at me. “Johnny, I’d like you to meet my brother-in-law,” he said. He turned to the other man. “Sid, this is Johnny Edge, the man I told you about.” He turned back to me. “My brother-in-law, Sidney Roth.”

  We shook hands. I liked the way the man shook hands. It was strong, firm. I liked the way the man looked at me—straight, honest.

  “Glad to know you, sir,” I said.

  His voice was soft and quiet for so big a man. “I’m honored, Mr. Edge.”

  Stanley turned and started toward the table. “Shall we eat?” he asked, laughing foolishly again.

  I followed him, wondering why the hell he had me to lunch with his brother-in-law. I didn’t have to wait very long to find out. Stanley started in with the soup.

  “You’re in this business a long time, aren’t you, Johnny?” he asked.

  I looked at him. He knew as well as I how long I’d been in the business. I was polite, though. I answered him. “Fifteen years,” I said, “since 1908.” I was surprised myself when I said it. It hadn’t seemed that long a time.

  “Have you ever thought about going into business for yourself?” Stanley continued.

  I shook my head. “I always thought that I was,” I answered.

  Stanley darted a quick look at his brother-in-law. It was a sort of I-told-you-so kind of look. It had a funny expression of condescension about it. He turned back to me. “I mean, start your own company or take over another?”