“I saw the marriage license, J. J.”
“Tell me more!” His voice became shrill.
“People are watching us. Please.”
“Make me laugh some more!”
“You’re nervous and edgy. You didn’t sleep well.”
“Sleep well? I have no reason not to sleep well, do I? While I’m asleep, and my back is turned to the mattress, the world is not busy telling lies about me. I don’t have a willful and ungrateful sister who pays me back with heartache for all I’ve done for her, do I, Sidney?” His pudgy face was quivering. “Why shouldn’t I sleep well when I know that I have Sidney Falco to take care of everything for me? He can do anything! He can even come to me with brilliant stories!”
“I’ve done everything I—”
“Sleep is for fools, not famous men!” he shouted. “Stop snoring, Sidney!”
I sat there and allowed him to go on, the way a man does not bother to turn off the northeast wind, and when the waiter brought my dinner, and I borrowed my eyes back to look at the plate, J. J.’s voice broke.
“Sidney—look at me—” There were tears in his eyes now. “I don’t ask much of you, do I? Hunsecker gives, he doesn’t take. Isn’t that so?”
“Of course, J. J.”
“When Hunsecker asks for a favor there must be a very good reason.”
“Of course, J. J.,” I said.
He held his hands to his chest humbly. “Would I ask you to put an end to this terrible mistake between Susan and what’s-his-name, the boy, if it wasn’t important? I don’t have to tell you, do I, how much it means to me that she doesn’t do anything foolish with her life, that she doesn’t throw it away on someone common and ordinary?”
“No, J. J.”
“I don’t have to tell you, do I, how personally embarrassing it would be for me to become openly involved in such distasteful business? A man of Hunsecker’s importance cannot place himself in a position where he is open to attack and ridicule from all who would humiliate him, can he, Sidney?”
I shook my head.
“I’m a tired man,” he said, with the violins playing suddenly in his voice. “With one hand I seek the truth, and with the other I fight off the hungry wolf pack. Hunsecker is only human. He can take just so much punishment.”
I glanced at him sharply. Such an admission was always an alert.
“I need a rest.” He was taking out his wallet and extracting an envelope from it. “Peace and relaxation,” he sighed softly.
He showed me the tickets. They were for the next sailing of the Queen Mary.
“You?”
“Let this country learn what it’s like to be without Hunsecker for a while. A month without Hunsecker is better than a sick Hunsecker, isn’t it?” The tears came back.
I had to look away.
“Hunsecker on the high seas,” he breathed. “It will be good for everybody. But it will not be good for me unless I have peace of mind while I’m gone.”
I couldn’t wait any longer. I knew what the answer was, but I had to ask, to believe it with my own ears.
“J. J.”—I swallowed—“who is the other ticket for?”
He looked at me, dabbing at his eyes with a hand kerchief. “She has never been to London or Paris. It will thrill her.”
“J. J.—
“I will surprise her with the tickets, and she will forget all the trivial unpleasantness that has come between us lately.” His eyes brightened. “She will thank me for having opened her eyes to this foolish infatuation. She won’t even remember the boy after two days at sea. I will introduce her to every great personage in Europe. She will know what it means to be the sister of Hunsecker. I am all she has in the world, and I want to do everything I can for her, Sidney.”
I tried the iced coffee, but it choked me.
“She will like that, won’t she?”
I shouldn’t have allowed myself to look at his tense, white face.
“Won’t she?”
I shouldn’t have allowed myself to see written there how very much all this meant to him—and therefore to me. Because above the whooshing sound of the revolving door and the clatter of dishes and the babble of voices, I heard my own voice, speaking for some part of me that had always wanted far too much for me, and it was saying weakly, “All right, J. J. All right. I’ll try.”
“Perhaps if you speak to the boy,” J. J. said in a soft voice.
“I’ll try.”
“He may not be as headstrong as Susan.”
“I’ll try, J. J.,” I said, feeling the sickness creeping into my stomach.
And then I felt a hand on my shoulder and a familiar voice saying, “Stop following me, Sidney,” and I looked up to see Al Evans’ face, no longer coldly suspicious but grinning now with approval.
“Al,” I tried to warn him off with my eyes, but he stood there glancing at Hunsecker and then back to me the very stupid, very suspicious Al Evans, standing there checking up, wanting to see things with his own eyes. Then he slid into the chair beside me.
“How are you, Mr. Hunsecker?”
J. J. lifted a glass of water to his mouth and said, “Sidney, who’s your friend?”
I licked my dry lips. “J. J., this is Al Evans, the agent.”
Evans smiled expectantly.
“I’m very hard of hearing tonight,” said J. J., examining the glass of water. “I did not hear anyone invite your friend, Mr. Al Evans, the agent, to sit down at this table.”
Evans’ smile froze. “I only—”
“Maybe my eyesight is failing,” J. J. said, “and I did not see the sign over the door saying that this is a cafeteria.”
Evans scrambled to his feet. “I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Hunsecker. I just wanted to say hello to Falco here.”
J. J. turned his pale eyes on him. “Why—Mr. Evans?”
“Well, you see—”
“Al,” I said quickly, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay, baby?”
“Sure,” Evans said. “Sure.” He started backing away.
“Well, good night, Mr. Hunsecker.” He bumped into a waiter and then turned and fled.
“What about tomorrow?” J. J. asked me flatly. “What are you seeing him for tomorrow?”
“Business,” I said. “You feel like dessert?”
“What kind of business?”
“He has clients who sometimes need publicity. That’s all. How about some of that Dutch apple cake? I think I could go for that. How about you?”
“Which client, Sidney?”
“What’s the difference? It’s just dull business.”
“I’m interested in dull business. Particularly if it’s other people’s business. For that they pay me money. What do they pay you, Sidney, for not answering questions?”
I looked at him for a long moment, and finally I said, “Herbie Temple.”
J. J. stared back at me, the wheels going round and round. “Your client?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
I gave up. “Tomorrow.”
He smiled—a slow, humorless smile. “That’s nice Sidney, I like to hear that you’re doing well. It gives me pleasure.” He extended his upturned palm to me. “Give me a dime.”
“What for?”
“Give me a dime, Sidney.”
I dug into my pocket and handed him the coin.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, sliding out from his seat. “I want to make a phone call—to the paper.” He smiled at me, and I watched him walk away, past the gauntlet of staring faces that greeted him wherever he went.
Do me something, I was muttering to myself in silent prayer. Please do me something that will allow me to wrench myself away from you in the white heat of anger while there is still time. I sat there muttering to myself and tearing at the bread crumbs and waiting for him. Finally I saw him coming back to the table, and I knew by the irritated look on his face that it had been too la
te for him to kill the item—too late for him, in this one instance, to make certain there would never be any payment before delivery as far as he and I were concerned.
He sat down at the table, slipping the smile back on. “Don’t ever say that Hunsecker is ungrateful.”
Oh, Lord, no, please. “Why not?”
“You said Herbie Temple will be your new client, didn’t you? You want him to get off to a good start, don’t you?”
I nodded dumbly.
“Hunsecker doesn’t say thanks with the lips. Anyone can do that. Hunsecker likes to say thanks in a way that has meaning.” He paused dramatically. “I have just phoned the paper and added something to tomorrow’s column. Tomorrow Hunsecker will tell fifteen million people what a great performer Herbie Temple is. I am saying thanks, Sidney, for all you are about to do for me. Let me hear you say, ‘you’re welcome.’”
I stared down at my napkin. It was white and square, like a marriage license, like a ticket on the Queen Mary. I tore at the napkin but it would not give. I looked up at him. “I’ve got to be going now,” I said.
“I’ll meet you later at the Panamanian, then.”
“No, J. J. Stay away from the Panamanian tonight. I need elbow room. I want to be free. I want to be able to do whatever I have to do, whatever comes up.”
He eyed me sharply. “You are concealing something from me, Sidney. Hunsecker likes to play open poker, no cards up the sleeve.”
“You said you didn’t want to be mixed up in any unpleasantness, didn’t you?”
“I don’t believe in unpleasantness. Unpleasantness is the last resort of the weak and helpless.”
“All right, then,” I said. “Relax. Don’t ask questions. Go to Twenty-One, like you always do. Sit at your table and be happy and let people come to you and amuse you. If I need you for anything I’ll call you. But I won’t need you for anything.”
If the act had to be done, it had to be done. He would never forgive me if I made him a party to my deeds by telling him of them beforehand.
“You’re beginning to sound like a man who knows what he is doing, Sidney. Wonders will never cease.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “That’s all I can do, is try.”
His face darkened briefly. “You can do even better than that.” He picked up the menu. “On your way out, see if you can find one of the Marx brothers for me.”
I got up and walked away. The pains were stabbing at my insides, and I no longer could tell myself it was the heat. Because I knew now what I had somehow known all day … what must have been at the back of my mind from the moment of awakening: I was not going to be able to avoid using Harry Kello. I had gone through all the motions but that’s all they had been—motions. Sometime that night, I would be calling Harry Kello, the unsmiling lieutenant of the Twenty-first Precinct.
IV
The papier-mâché palm trees and air-conditioned breezes were beginning to draw people in off the streets. Slowly the Panamanian was coming alive. I sat there at the table with the smoke in my nostrils and the music pounding at my ears, and watched Joe Robard sucking on the damp cigar while the wheels moved slowly in his brain. I watched the dark, heavy-set features peering at the dance team out on the floor through dull, expressionless eyes, and I waited for the face to reveal the inner decision.
Finally he took the cigar from his mouth and turned to me.
“One thing keeps bothering me,” he said thickly. “You supposed to be working for me, and here I am being hung up to do favors for you. That I don’t have to pay no hundred and fifty dollars a week for, Sidney. I don’t need no press agent around here for Joe Robard doing his own spade work.”
I shook my head impatiently. “Not for me, Joe—for Hunsecker. Is that bad, to be doing a favor for Hunsecker? Is that any different than doing a favor for yourself?”
He examined me carefully through the smoke screen of his cigar. “You sure the only reason you want me to see this boy Dallas tonight is because Hunsecker gonna like me for showing interest in the guy his sister gonna marry?”
“Not just interest, Joe. It’s much more than that. It’s interest in the boy at a time when others are turning their backs on him just because of idle rumors in the papers. That takes real courage, the kind of courage that Hunsecker can appreciate. To step forward with a vote of confidence, someone as important as you are, Joe.”
He nodded, grunting with pleasure. “But how do I know these things about the boy I hear all day”—he waved his hand vaguely— “how do I know they ain’t true?”
“A man is always innocent until proved guilty,” I said. “And remember, all I want you to do is have a talk with him here tonight. Just sit down and discuss things with him and then, at a later date, we’ll talk further about the advisability of booking him into the club. You complain to me all the time that I don’t get you the kind of publicity that fills tables. All right. Here’s a golden opportunity to help me get Hunsecker to love you up in his column for months to come. That’s a real pay-off, Joe. That’s money in the bank.”
“Minus a hundred and fifty dollars a week for—how many months is it?”
He was slipping away. “I’ll tell you what,” I said quickly, “if it doesn’t work out right, if you’re dissatisfied with the results, I’m off the payroll as of today.”
That did it.
“The price is right,” he said. “What do I do?”
“Right now, nothing.” I jumped up. “Just sit tight here while I try to locate the boy.”
My office at the Panamanian was a windowless closet, but it had a telephone, and it had a door that could be shut without completely banishing the music that some how always made my night work seem like play. Tonight I could hear the music, but I knew I wasn’t playing.
I gave the switchboard operator the number and lighted a cigarette. Soon I heard the dull worn-out voice of Irving Spahn saying “What is it?”
“Irv, baby, listen to me.” I spoke rapidly. “Be as angry at me as you want. It doesn’t hurt me. I know you don’t really mean it. Be as—”
“What is it? I’m tired.”
“I’ve been speaking to Joe Robard here. I want to do whatever I can for you, Irv. I’m going to show you how wrong you are. It seems Robard is definitely interested in Dallas. He feels there is a strong possibility he can showcase the boy at the Panamanian the way he did with Sinatra and Como, and you know what that did. It only made them what they are today. I want you to stop being stubborn, Irv, and get in touch with the boy and have him come over here tonight to speak to Robard as quickly as possible. I’ve worked for this, and I don’t want Robard to change his mind about it.”
“Sidney,” he said without feeling, “I don’t believe you.”
“Some day a car is going to come at you, and you won’t believe it’s a car, and you’ll be killed; that’s where your stubbornness and suspicion will get you.”
“I don’t believe a word of it. How do you like that?”
“You want me to have Robard call you personally—right now? Would that possibly knock some sense into your head?”
His voice sat up in bed a little. “What?”
“I said, will it convince your highness if I have Robard call you in person?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Sidney, I’m a tired man. I’ve had all I can take. If you’re pulling another—”
“Don’t say another word, baby. Just keep the phone clear for a few minutes.”
I hung up quickly and went back to the table, to Joe Robard.
“You’ve got to call his agent,” I said.
“Agents? What do I want with agents?”
I took him by the arm and gently pressured him to a standing position. “Please, Joe,” I said, “just call Irving Spahn at this number”—I gave it to him—“and tell him to have the boy here to see you as soon as possible tonight. Don’t let him pump you. Just tell him to deliver his client.”
Robard grunted acknowledgment.
“And re
member, Joe, you don’t want the agent to come along. You’re not talking dough with the boy. You just want to have a chat with him. Have the boy come alone.”
“A pleasure,” Robard said. “If I never see another agent again, I’ll live through it.”
He walked to his office, mouthing his cigar, a lumbering bear of a man doing his little bit to keep his night club from losing more money than its competitors.
I waited at the table, listening to the dark-haired Latin on the floor fighting the microphone with his tenor voice, and in a few minutes Joe Robard came back and sat down.
“Your friend, the agent, is an excitable man. He should go to a head doctor.”
“Well? Well?”
Robard turned his heavy lids on me. “The Romeo with the voice will be here by ten o’clock. Joe Robard will charm him up to the eyeballs.”
I squeezed his arm. “Thanks, Joe.”
He regarded me shrewdly. “What you thanking me for? I ain’t doing it for you, I’m doing it for myself. Remember?”
“That’s the spirit,” I said, getting up. “Now I’ve got to get back to work. Let me have a chat with him first when he arrives. Then I’ll introduce you. Okay?”
“You’re the boss, Sidney. Me, I’m only the press agent tonight. I only wish I was making the hundred and fifty a week that goes with it.” A laugh rumbled in his throat. “But I guess I ain’t got your talent. Lots of times I say to myself, ‘Now Sidney—there’s a man of talent. What wonders he could of accomplished if he used all this talent to do something worthwhile!”
It wasn’t often that Joe Robard was funny enough to get two laughs in a row from himself. This was a memorable night in all kinds of ways.
I went out to the hat-check room in search of Selena Green. The prices you paid for her cigarettes and favors seemed exorbitant only until she got close to you and spoke to you with her body. After her, I’d have to get on the phone and locate Harry Kello.
Steve Dallas stood in the archway for a moment, searching the room. Then he spotted me at the table and came down the stairs. He looked a little pale beneath his suntan.
I reached out a hand. “Glad to see you, kid. Glad you could make it.”
He thought about the hand for a moment, decided not to take it.
Sweet Smell of Success Page 4