THE CARPETBAGGERS - 09

THE CARPETBAGGERS

HAROLD ROBBINS

(  INSTALMENT 9  )

TWO


THE COWBELLS SUSPENDED ACROSS THE WAGON behind him clanged lazily as the weary horse inched along through the pushcarts that lined both sides of Rivington Street. The oppressive summer heat beat down on his head. He let the reins lay idle in his fingers. There wasn't much you could do to guide the horse. It would pick its own way through the crowded street, moving automatically each time a space opened up.

"Aiyee caash clothes!" His father's singsong call penetrated the sounds of the market street, lifting its message high to the windows of the tenements, naked, blind eyes staring out unseeing into the hungry world.

"Aiyee caash clothes!"

He looked down from the wagon to where his father was striding along the crowded sidewalk, his beard waving wildly as his eyes searched the windows for signs of business. There was a certain dignity about the old man—the broad-brimmed black beaver hat that had come from the old country; the long black coat that flapped around his ankles; the shirt with its heavily starched but slightly wilted wing collar; and the tie with the big knot resting just below his prominent Adam's apple. The face was pale and cool, not even a faint sign of perspiration dampened the brow, while David's was dripping with sweat. It seemed almost as if the heavy black clothing provided insulation against the heat.

"Hey, Mister Junkman!"

His father moved out into the gutter to get a better look. But it was David who saw her first—an old woman waving from the fifth-floor window. "It's Mrs. Saperstein, Pop."

"You think I can't see?" his father asked, grumbling. "Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Saperstein!"

"Is that you, Mr. Woolf?" the woman called down.

"Yes," the old man shouted. "What you got?"

"Come up, I’ll show to you."

"I don't want winter clothes," the old man shouted. "Who's to buy?"

"Who said about winter clothes? Come up, you'll see!"

"Tie the horse over there," his father said, pointing to an open space between two pushcarts. "Then come to carry down the stuff."

David nodded as his father crossed the street and disappeared into the entrance of a house. He nudged the horse over and tied it to a fire hydrant. Then he slipped a feed bag over its weary muzzle and started after his father.

He felt his way up through the dark, unlit hallway and staircase and stopped outside the door. He knocked. The door opened immediately. Mrs. Saperstein stood there, her long gray hair folded in coils on top of her head. "Come in, come in."

David came into the kitchen and saw his father sitting at the table. In front of him was a plate filled with cookies. "A gluz tay, David?" the old woman asked, going to the stove.

"No, thanks, Mrs. Saperstein," he answered politely.

She took a small red can from the shelf over the stove, then carefully measured two teaspoonfuls of tea into the boiling water. The tea leaves immediately burst open and spun around madly on the surface. When she finally poured the tea into a glass through a strainer and set it in front of his father, it was almost as black as coffee.

His father picked up a lump of sugar from the bowl and placed it between his lips, then sipped the tea. After he swallowed the first scalding mouthful, he opened his mouth and said, "Ah!"

"Good, isn't it?" Mrs. Saperstein was smiling. "That's real tea. Swee-Touch-Nee. Like in the old country. Not like the chazerai they try to sell you here."

His father nodded and lifted the glass again. When he put it back on the table, it was empty and the polite formalities were over. Now it was time to attend to business. "Nu, Mrs. Saperstein?"

But Mrs. Saperstein wasn't quite ready to talk business yet. She looked over at David. "Such a nice boy, your David," she said conversationally. "He reminds me of my Howard at his age." She picked up the plate of cookies and held it toward him. "Take one," she urged. "I baked myself."

David took a cooky and put it in his mouth. It was hard and dry and crumbled into little pieces. "Take another," she urged. "You look thin, you should eat."

David shook his head.

"Mrs. Saperstein," his father said. "I’m a busy man, it's late. You got something for me?"

The old woman nodded. "Kim shayn."

They followed her through the narrow railroad flat. Inside one room, on the bed, were a number of men's suits, some dresses, shirts, one overcoat and, in paper bags, several pairs of shoes.

David's father walked over and picked up some of the clothing. "Winter clothing," he said accusingly. "For this I came up four flights of stairs?"

"Like new, Mr. Woolf," the old woman said. "My son Howard and his wife. Only one season. They were going to give to the Salvation Army but I made them send to me."

David's father didn't answer. He was sorting out the clothing rapidly.

"My son Howard lives in the Bronx," she said proudly. "In a new house on Grand Concourse. A doctor."

"Two dollars for the ganse gesheft," his father announced.

"Mr. Woolf," she exclaimed. "At least twenty dollars this is worth."

He shrugged. "The only reason I’m buying is to give to HIAS. Better the Salvation Army don't get."

David listened to their bargaining with only half a mind. HIAS was the abbreviation that stood for Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. His father's statement didn't impress him one bit. He knew the clothing would never find its way there. Instead, after it was carefully brushed and cleaned by his mother, it would turn up in the windows of the secondhand clothing stores along the lower Bowery and East Broadway.

"Ten dollars," Mrs. Saperstein was saying. The pretense was gone now; she was bargaining in earnest. "Less I wouldn't take. Otherwise, it wouldn't pay my son Howard to bring it down. It costs him gas from the Bronx."

"Five dollars. Not one penny more."

"Six," the old woman said, looking at him shrewdly. "At least, the gasoline money he should get."

"The subways are still running," David's father said. "I should pay because your son is a big shot with an automobile?"

"Five fifty," the old woman said.

David's father looked at her. Then he shrugged his shoulders and reached under his long black coat. He took out a purse, tied to his belt by a long black shoestring, and opened it. "Five fifty," he sighed. "But as heaven is watching, I'm losing money."

He gestured to David and began counting the money out into the old woman's hand. David rolled all the clothing into the overcoat and tied it by the sleeves. He hefted the clothing onto his shoulder and started down the stairs. He tossed the bundle of clothing up into the cart and moved around to the front of the wagon. He lifted the feed bag from the horse, and untying the reins from the hydrant, climbed on the wagon.

"Hey, Davy!"

He looked down at the sidewalk. A tall boy stood there looking up at him and smiling. "I been lookin' for yuh all day."

"We been in Brooklyn," David answered. "My father will be here in a minute."

"I’ll make it quick, then. Shocky'll cut yuh in for ten bucks if yuh bring the horse an' wagon tonight. We got to move a load uptown."

"But it's Friday night."

"That's why. The streets down here will be empty. There won't be nobody to wonder what we're doin' out at night. An' the cops won't bother us when they see the junky's license on the wagon."

"I'll try," David said. "What time, Needlenose?"

"Nine o'clock back of Shocky's garage. Here comes your ol' man. See yuh later."

"Who were you talking to?" his father asked.

"One of the fellers, Pop."

"Isidore Schwartz?"

"Yeah, it was Needlenose."

"Keep away from him, David," his father said harshly. "Him we don't need. A bum. A nogoodnik. Like all those other bums that hang around Shocky's garage. They steal everything they can get their hands on."

David nodded.

Take the horse to the stable. I’m going to the shul. Tell Mama by seven o'clock she should have supper ready."

******

Esther Woolf stood in front of the Shabbas nacht lichten, the prayer shawl covering her head. The candles flickered into yellow flame as she held the long wooden match to them. Carefully she blew out the match and put it down in a plate on the small buffet table. She waited until the flame ripened into a bright white glow, then began to pray.

First, she prayed for her son, her shaine Duvidele, who came so late in life, almost when she and her husband, Chaim, had given up hope of being blessed. Then she prayed that Jehovah would give her husband, Chaim, a greater will to succeed, at the same time begging the Lord's forgiveness because it was the Lord's work at the shul that kept her husband from his own. Then, as always, she took upon herself the sin for having turned Chaim away from his chosen work.

He had been a Talmudical student when they'd first met in the old country. She remembered him as he was then, young and thin and pale, with the first soft curl of his dark beard shining with a red-gold glint. His eyes had been dark and luminous as he sat at the table in her father's house, dipping the small piece of cake into the wine, more than holding his own with the old rabbi and the elders.

But when they'd been married, Chaim had gone to work in her father's business. Then the pogroms began and the faces of Jews became thin and haunted. They left their homes only under the cover of night, hurrying about like little animals of the forest. Or they sat huddled in the cellars of their houses, the doors and windows barred and locked, like chickens trying to hide to the pen when they sense the approach of the shochet.

Until that night when she could stand it no longer. She rose screaming from the pallet at her husband's side, the letter from her brother Bernard, in America, still fresh in her mind. "Are we to live like rabbits in a trap, waiting for the Cossacks to come?" she cried. "Is it into this dark world that my husband expects I should bring forth a child? Even Jehovah could not plant his seed in a cellar."

"Hush!" Chaim's voice was a harsh whisper. "The name of the Lord shall not be taken in vain. Pray that He does not turn His face from us."

She laughed bitterly. "Already He has forsaken us. He, too, is fleeing before the Cossacks."

"Quiet, woman!" Chaim's voice was an outraged roar.

She looked at the other pallets in the damp cellar. In the dim light, she could barely see the pale, frightened faces of her parents. Just then there was a thunder of horse's hoofs outside the house and the sound of a gun butt against the locked door.

Quickly, her father was on his feet. "Quick, kinder," he whispered. "The storm cellar door at the back of the house. Through the fields, they won't see you leaving that way."

Chaim reached for Esther's hand and pulled her to the storm door. Suddenly, he stopped, aware that her parents were not following them. "Come," he whispered. "Hurry! There is no time."

Her father stood quietly in the dark, his arm around his wife's shoulder. "We are not going," he said. "Better someone be here for them to find or they will begin searching the fields."

The din over their heads grew louder as the gun butts began to break through the door. Chaim walked back to her father. "Then we all stay and face them," he said calmly, picking a heavy stave up from the floor. "They will learn a Jew does not die so easily."

"Go," her father said quietly. "We gave our daughter in marriage. It is her safety that should be your first concern, not ours. Your bravery is nothing but stupidity. How else have Jews survived these thousand years except by running?"

"But—" Chaim protested.

"Go," the old man hissed. "Go quickly. We are old, our lives are finished. You are young, your children should have their chance."

A few months later, they were in America. But it was to be almost twenty years before the Lord God Jehovah relented and let her have a child.

******

Last, she prayed for her brother Bernard, who was a macher now and had a business in a faraway place called California, where it was summer all year round. She prayed that he was safe and well and that he wasn't troubled by the Indians, like she saw in the movies when she used the pass he'd sent her.

Her prayers finished, she went back into the kitchen. The soup was bubbling on the stove, its rich, heavy chicken aroma almost visible in the air. She picked up a spoon and bent over the pot. Carefully she skimmed the heavy fat globules from the surface and put them in a jar. Later, when the fat was cold and had congealed, it could be spread on bread or mixed with chopped dry meats to give them flavor. While she was bent like this over the stove, she heard the front door open.

From the footsteps, she knew who it was. "That you, Duvidele?"

"Yes, Mama."

Her task finished, she put down the spoon and turned around slowly. As always, her heart leaped with pride as she saw her son, so straight and tall, standing there.

"Papa went to shul," David said. "He'll be home at seven o'clock."

She smiled at him. "Good," she said. "So wash your hands and clean up. Supper is ready."


THREE 


WHEN DAVID TURNED THE HORSE INTO THE LITTLE ALLEY THAT LED TO THE BACK OF SHOCKY'S GARAGE, Needlenose came hurrying up. "Is that you, David?"

"Who did yuh think it would be?" David retorted sarcastically.

"Geez, we didn't know whether you'd show up or not. It's almost ten o'clock."

"I couldn't sneak out until my old man went to sleep," David said, stopping the wagon at the side of the garage.

A moment later, Shocky came out, his bald head shining in the dim light. He was of medium height, with a heavy barrel chest and long tapering arms that reached almost to his knees. "You took long enough gettin' here," he grumbled.

"I’m here, ain't I?"

Shocky didn't answer. He turned to Needlenose. "Start loading the cans," he said. "He can help you."

David climbed down from the wagon and followed Shocky into the garage. The long row of metal cans gleamed dully in the light from the single electric bulb hanging high in the ceiling. David stopped and whistled. "There must be forty cans there."

"So he can count," Shocky said.

"That's four hundred pounds. I don't think Old Bessie can haul that much."

Shocky looked at him. "You hauled that much last time."

"No, I didn't," David said. "It was only thirty cans. And even then, there were times I thought Old Bessie was goin' to croak on me. Suppose she did? There I’d be with a dead horse and two hundred gallons of alky in the wagon. It's bad enough if my old man ever finds out."

"Just this once," Shocky said. "I promised Gennuario."

"Why don't you use one of your trucks?"

"I can't do that," Shocky replied. "That's just what the Feds are lookin' for. They won't be lookin' for a junk wagon."

"The most I’ll take is twenty-five cans."

Shocky stared at him. "I’ll make it twenty bucks this one time,'' he said. "You got me in a bind."

David was silent. Twenty dollars was more than his father netted in a whole week, sometimes. And that was going out with the wagon six days a week. Rain or shine, summer heat or bitter winter cold, every day except Saturday, which his father spent in shul.

"Twenty-five bucks," Shocky said.

"O.K. I'll take a chance."

"Start loadin', then." Shocky picked up a can with each of his long arms.

David sat alone on the wagon seat as Old Bessie slowly plodded her way uptown. He pulled up at a corner to let a truck go by. A policeman slowly sauntered over. "What're ye doin' out tonight, Davy?"

Furtively David cast a look at the back of the wagon. The cans of alcohol lay hidden under the tarpaulin, covered with rags. "I heard they're payin' a good price for rag over at the mill," he answered. "I thought I'd clean out the wagon."

"Where's your father?"

"It's Friday night."

"Oh," the policeman answered. He looked up at David shrewdly. "Does he know ye're out?"

David shook his head silently.

The policeman laughed. "You kids are all alike."

"I better get goin' before the old man misses me," David said. He clucked to the horse and Old Bessie began to move. The policeman called after him and David stopped and looked back.

"Tell your father to keep an eye peeled for some clothes for a nine-year-old boy," he called. "My Michael is outgrowin' the last already."

"I will, Mr. Doyle," David said and flicked the reins lightly. Shocky and Needlenose were already there when David pulled up against the loading platform. Gennuario stood on the platform watching as they began to unload.

The detectives appeared suddenly out of the darkness with drawn guns. "O.K., hold it!"

David froze, a can of alcohol still in his arms. For a moment, he thought of dropping the can and running but Old Bessie and the wagon were still there. How would he explain that to his father?

"Put the can down, boy," one of the detectives said.

Slowly David put down the can and turned to face them. "O.K., against the wall."

"Yuh shouldn't 'a' tried it, Joe," a detective said to Gennuario when he arrived.

Gennuario smiled. David looked at him. He didn't seem in the least disturbed by what had happened. "Come inside, Lieutenant," he said easily. "We can straighten this out, I'm sure."

The lieutenant followed Gennuario into the building and it seemed to David that they were gone forever. But ten minutes later, they came out, both smiling.

"All right, you guys," the lieutenant said. "It seems we made a big mistake. Mr. Gennuario explained everything. Let's go." As quickly as they had come, the detectives disappeared. David stood staring after them with an open mouth.

Needlenose sat silently on the wagon beside David as they turned into the stable. "I tol' yuh everything was fixed," he said when they came out in the street.

David looked at him. Fixed or not, this was as close as he wanted. Even the twenty-five dollars in his pocket wasn't worth it. "I'm through," he said to Needlenose. "No more."

Needlenose laughed. "Yuh scared?"

"Damn right I’m scared. There must be an easier way to make a living."

"If yuh find one," Needlenose said, "let me know". He laughed. "Shocky's got a couple or Chinee girls over at his flat. He says we can screw 'em tonight if we want."

David didn't answer.

"Sing Loo will be there," Needlenose said. "You know, the pretty little one, the dancer who shaves her pussy."

David hesitated, feeling the quick surge of excitement leap through him.

******

It was one o'clock by the big clock in the window of Goldfarb's Delicatessen when he turned the corner of his street. A police car was parked in front of the door. There was a group of people surging around, peering curiously into the hallway.

A sudden fear ran through David. Something had gone wrong. The police had come to arrest him. For a moment, he felt like running in the opposite direction. But a compulsion drew him toward the house. "What happened?" he asked a man standing on the edge of the crowd.

"I dunno," the man answered. He peered at him curiously. "I heard one of the cops say somebody was dying up there."

Suddenly, frantically, David pushed his way through the crowd into the house. As he ran up the staircase toward the apartment on the third floor, he heard the scream.

His mother was standing in the doorway, struggling in the arms of two policemen. "Chaim, Chaim!"

David felt his heart constrict. "Mama," he called. "What happened?"

His mother looked at him with unseeing eyes. "A doctor I call for, policemen I get," she said, then turned her face down the hallway toward the toilets. "Chaim, Chaim!" She screamed again.

David turned and followed her gaze. The door to one of the toilets stood open. His father sat there on the seat, leaning crazily against the wall, his eyes and mouth open, moisture trickling down into his gray beard.

"Chaim!" his mother screamed accusingly. "It was gas you told me you got. You didn't tell me you were coming out here to die."


FOUR 


"SO IT IS MY FAULT HIS FATHER DIES BEFORE HE CAN FINISH SCHOOL?" UNCLE BERNIE SAID ANGRILY. "Let him get a job and go nights if he wants to go so bad."

David sat on the edge of his chair and looked at his mother. He didn't speak. "It's not charity I'm asking, Bernie," she said. "David wants a job. That's all I'm asking you for."

Norman turned and looked down at his nephew suspiciously. "Maybe a job you'd like in my company as a vice-president, hah?"

David got to his feet angrily. "I’m going out, Ma," he said. "Everything they said about him is true."

"Say about me?" his uncle shouted. "What do they say about me?"

David looked at him. "Down at the shul when I went to say Yiskor for Papa, they told me about you. They said you didn't come to the funeral because you were afraid somebody might ask you for a few pennies."

"From California I should come in one day?" Norman shouted. "Wings I ain't got."

He started for the door. "Wait a minute, David," his mother said quietly. She turned to her brother. "When you needed five hundred dollars before the war for your business, who did you get it from?"

She waited a moment before answering herself. "From your poor schnorrer of a brother-in-law, Chaim, the junkman. He gave you the money and you gave him a piece of paper. The piece of paper I still got but did we ever see the money?"

"Paper?" Bernie said. "What paper?"

"I still got it," she said. "In the box Chaim put it in that night, the night he gave you the money."

"Let me see." Bernie's eyes followed her as she left the room. He was beginning to remember now. It was a certificate promising his brother-in-law five per cent of the Norman Company stock when he bought out the old Diamond Film Company. He had forgotten all about it. But a smart lawyer could make it worth a lot of money.

His sister came back into the room and handed him a sheet of paper. It was faded and yellow but the date on it was still bright and clear. September 7, 1912. That was fourteen years ago. How time had flown.

He looked at his sister. "It's against my policy to hire relatives," he said. "It looks bad for the business."

"So who's to know he's your nephew?" Esther said. "Besides, who will do more for you than your own flesh and blood?"

He stared at her for a moment, then got to his feet. "All right. I’ll do it. It's against my better judgment but maybe you're right. Blood is thicker than water. Over on Forty-third Street, near the river, we got a warehouse. They'll put him to work."

"Thank you, Uncle Bernie," David said gratefully.

"Mind you, not one word about being my nephew. One word I hear and you're finished."

"I won't say anything, Uncle Bernie."

Norman started for the door. But before he went out, he turned, the paper in his hand. He folded it and put it into his pocket. "This I'm taking with me," he said to his sister. "When I get back to my office, they'll send you a check for the five hundred dollars with interest for the fourteen years. At three per cent."

A worried look came over his sister's face. "Are you sure you can afford it, Bernie?" she asked quickly. "There is no hurry. We'll manage if David is working."

"Afford it, shmafford it," Norman said magnanimously. "Let nobody say that Bernie Norman doesn't keep his word."

******

It was a dirty gray factory building down near the Hudson River, which had fallen into disuse and been converted into lofts. There were two large freight elevators in the back and three small passenger elevators near the front entrance, scarcely large enough to handle the crowd of workers that surged in at eight o'clock each morning and out at six o'clock each night.

The building was shared by five tenants. The ground floor housed an automobile-parts company; the second, a commercial cosmetic manufacturer; the third, the pressing plant for a small record company; the fourth, the factory of the Henri France Company, the world's largest manufacturer of popular-priced contraceptives and prophylactics. The fifth and sixth floors belonged to Norman Pictures.

David arrived early. He got off the elevator on the sixth floor and walked slowly down the wide aisle between rows of steel and wooden shelves. At the end, near the back windows, were several desks, placed back to back.

"Hello," David called. "Anybody here?" His voice echoed eerily through the cavernous empty floor. There was a clock over one of the desks. It said seven thirty.

The freight-elevator door clanged open and a white-haired man stuck his head out and peered down the aisle at David. "I thought I heard somebody calling," he said.

David walked up to him. "I'm supposed to see the foreman about a job."

"Oh, are you the one?"

David was confused. "What d'yuh mean?"

"The new boy," the elevator operator replied. "Old man Norman's nephew."

David didn't answer. He was too surprised. The elevator operator got ready to swing shut the doors. "Nobody's here yet. They don't get in till eight o'clock."

The steel doors closed and the elevator moved creakingly down out of sight. David turned from the elevator thoughtfully. Uncle Bernie had told him not to say anything. He hadn't. But they already knew. He wondered if his uncle knew that they knew. He started back toward the desks.

He stopped suddenly in front of a large poster. The lettering was in bright red—Vilma Banky and Rod LaRocque. The picture portrayed Miss Banky lying on a sofa, her dress well up above her knees. Behind her stood Mr. LaRoque, darkly handsome in the current Valentino fashion, staring down at her with a look of smoldering passion.

David studied the poster. A final touch had been added by someone in the warehouse. A milky-white condom hung by a thumbtack from the front of the male star's trousers. Next to it, in neat black lettering, were the words: Compliments of Henri France.

David grinned and began to walk up the aisle. He looked into the steel bins. Posters, lobby cards, displays were stacked there, each representing a different motion picture. David looked them over. It was amazing how much each looked like the next one. Apparently, the only thing the artist did was to change the names of the players and the title of the picture.

He heard the passenger elevator stop, then the sound of footsteps echoed down the aisle. He turned and waited.

A tall, thin man with sandy-red hair and a worried look on his face turned the corner near the packing tables. He stopped and looked at David silently.

"I'm David Woolf. I'm supposed to see the foreman about a job here."

"I'm the foreman," the man said. He turned away and walked over to one of the desks. "My name is Wagner. Jack Wagner."

David held out his hand. "I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Wagner."

The man looked at the outstretched hand. His handshake was soft and indecisive. "You're Norman's nephew," he said accusingly.

Suddenly, David realized the man was nervous, more nervous even than he was himself. He wondered why. It didn't make sense that the man should be upset because of his relationship to Uncle Bernie. But he wasn't going to talk about it, even though it seemed everyone knew.

"Nobody is supposed to know that but me," Wagner said. "Sit down here." He pointed to a chair near the desk, then took out a sheet of paper and pushed it over to David. "Fill out this personnel application. Where it asks for the name of any relatives working for the company, leave that one blank."

"Yes, sir."

Wagner got up from behind the desk and walked away. David began to fill out the form. Behind him, he heard the passenger-elevator doors open and close. Several men walked by. They glanced at him furtively as they walked over to their packing tables and began to get out equipment. David turned back to the form.

At eight o'clock, a bell rang and a faint hum of activity began to permeate the building. The day had begun.

When Wagner came back, David held out the application. Wagner looked it over carelessly. "Good," he said vaguely, and dropping it back on his desk, walked away again.

David watched him as he talked to the man at the first packing table. They turned their backs and David was sure they were discussing him. He began to feel nervous and lit a cigarette. Wagner looked over at him and the worried look on his face deepened.

"You can't smoke in here," he called to David. "Can't you read the signs?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," David answered, looking around for an ash tray. There wasn't any.

Suddenly, he was aware that work had stopped and everyone was looking at him. He felt the nervous perspiration breaking out on his forehead.

"You can smoke in the can," Wagner called, pointing to the back of the warehouse. David walked down the aisle to the back, until he found the men's room. Suddenly he felt a need to relieve himself and stepped up to a urinal.

The door behind him opened and he sensed a man standing beside him. "Khop tsech tu," he said.

David stared at him. The man grinned back, exposing a mouth filled with gold teeth. "You're Chaim Woolf's boy," he said in Yiddish.

David nodded.

"I'm the Sheriff. Yitzchak Margolis. From the Prushnitzer Society, the same as your father."

No wonder the word had got around so quickly. "You work here?" David asked curiously.

"Of course. You think I come this far uptown just to piss?" He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. "I think it's very smart of your uncle to put you in here."

"Smart?"

The Sheriff nodded his bald head. "Smart," he repeated in the same stage whisper. "Now they got something to worry about. Too long they been getting way with murder. All you got to do is look at the tickets."

"Tickets?" David asked.

"Yeah, the shipping tickets. I pack three times in a day what it takes any of them a week. Me, I don't have to worry. But the loafers, let them worry about their jobs."

For the first time, David began to understand. The men were afraid of him, afraid for their jobs. "But they don't have to worry," he burst out. "I'm not going to take their jobs."

"You're not?" Margolis asked, a puzzled look in his eyes.

"No. I'm here because I need the job myself."

A disappointed look came over the Sheriff's face. Suddenly a shrewd look came into his eyes. "Smart," he said. "A smart boy. Of course you won't take away anybody's job. I'll tell 'em."

He started out. At the door, he stopped and looked back at David. "You remind me of your uncle," he said. "The old fart never lets his left hand know what his right hand is doing."

The door closed behind him and David flipped his cigarette into the urinal. He was half way down the aisle when he met Wagner.

"You know how to work a fork lift?"

"The kind they use to lift bales?"

The foreman nodded. "That's the kind I mean."

"Sure," David answered.

The anxious look left Wagner's eyes for a moment. "Good," he said. "There's a shipment of five hundred thousand heralds downstairs on the platform. Bring it up."


FIVE 


THE ELEVATOR JARRED TO A STOP AT THE GROUND FLOOR and the heavy doors opened on the busy loading platform. Several trucks were backed up to the platform and men were scurrying back and forth, loading and unloading. Along the back wall of the platform were stacks of cartons and materials.

David turned to the elevator operator. "Which is the stuff I'm supposed to bring up?"

The man shrugged his shoulders. "Ask the platform boss. I jus' run the elevator."

"Which is the platform boss?"

The elevator operator pointed at a heavy-set man in an undershirt. Thick black hair spilled out from his chest and sprouted furiously from his forearms. His features were coarse and heavy and his skin had the red flush of a heavy drinker. David walked over to him.

"What d'yuh want?" he asked.

"Mr. Wagner sent me to pick up the heralds."

The platform boss squinted at him. "Wagner, huh? Where's Sam?"

David stared at him. "Sam?"

"Sam the receiving clerk, yuh dope."

"How the hell do I know?" David asked. He was beginning to get angry.

The platform boss looked over his head at the elevator operator. "They didn't can Sam to give this jerk a job, did they?" he yelled.

"Naw. I seen him workin' upstairs at one of the packing tables."

The platform boss turned back to David. "Over there." He pointed. "Against the wall."

The heralds were stacked on wooden racks in bundles of a thousand. There were four racks, one hundred and twenty-five bundles on each. David rolled the fork lift over to one and set the two prongs under it. He threw his weight back against the handles, but his one hundred and thirty pounds wasn't enough to raise the rack off the floor.

David turned around. The platform boss was grinning. "Can't you give me a lift with this?"

The man laughed. "I got my own work to do," he said derisively. "Tell ol' man Norman he hired a boy to do a man's job."

David was suddenly aware of the silence that had come over the platform. He looked around. The elevator operator had a peculiar smirk on his face; even the truck drivers were grinning. Angrily he felt the red flush creep up into his face. They were all in on it. They were waiting for the boss's nephew to fall flat on his face. He pulled a cigarette absently from his pocket and started to light it.

"No smoking on the platform," the boss said. "Down in the street if yuh want to smoke."

David looked at him a moment, then silently walked down the ramp to the street. He heard a burst of laughter behind him. The platform boss's voice carried. "I guess we showed the little Jew bastard where to get off!"

He walked around the side of the building and lit his cigarette. He wondered if they were all in on it. Even the foreman upstairs, Wagner, hadn't been exactly happy to see him. He must have given him the job knowing he didn't have the weight to swing a fork lift.

He looked across the street. There was a garage directly opposite and it gave him an idea. Fifty cents to the mechanic and he came back, pushing the big hydraulic jack the garage used for trucks. Silence came over the platform again as he jockeyed the jack under the wooden rack. Quickly he pumped the handle and the rack lifted into the air.

In less than five minutes, David had the four racks loaded on the elevator. "O.K.," he said to the operator. "Let's take her up." He was smiling as the doors clanged shut on the scowling face of the platform boss.

The men looked up from their packing tables as the elevator door swung open. "Wait a minute," he said to the elevator operator. "I’ll go ask Wagner where he wants these."

He walked down the aisle to the foreman's empty desk. He turned and saw the men watching from their tables. "Where's Wagner?"

They looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. Finally, the Sheriff answered him. "He's in the can, sneaking a smoke."

David thanked him and walked down the back aisle to the washroom. The foreman was talking to another man, a cigarette in his hand. David came up behind him. "Mr. Wagner?"

Wagner jumped. He turned around, a strange expression on his face. "What's the matter, David?" he asked angrily. "Can't you get those heralds up?"

David stared at him. The foreman was in on it, all right. They were all in on it. He laughed bitterly to himself. And Uncle Bernie had said it was going to be a secret.

"Well," the foreman said irritably, "if you can't do it, let me know."

"They're up here now. I just want to know where to put them."

"You got them up here already?" Wagner said. His voice lost the faint note of sureness it had contained a moment before.

"Yes, sir."

Wagner threw his cigarette in the urinal. "Good," he said, a faintly puzzled look on his face. "They go over on Aisle Five. I'll show you which bins."

It was almost ten thirty by the time David had the racks empty and the bins filled. He pushed the last package of heralds into place and straightened up. He felt the sweat streaming through his shirt and looked down at himself. The clean white shirt that his mother had made him wear was grimy with dust. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve and walked down to the foreman's desk. "What do you want me to do next?"

"Were there five hundred bundles?" the foreman asked.

David nodded.

The foreman pushed a sheet of paper toward him. "Initial the receipt slip, then."

David looked over the paper as he picked up a pencil. It was the bill for the heralds: "500 M Heralds @ $1.00 per M-$500.00." Expensive paper, he thought, as he scribbled his initials across the bottom.

The telephone on the desk rang and the foreman picked it up. "Warehouse."

David could hear a voice crackling at the other end, though he could not distinguish the words. Wagner was nodding his head. "Yes, Mr. Bond. They just came in."

Wagner looked over at David. "Get me a sample of one of those heralds," he said, shielding the phone with his hand.

David nodded and ran down the aisle. He pulled a herald from one of the bundles and brought it back to the foreman. Wagner snatched it from his hand and looked at it. "No, Mr. Bond. It's only one color."

The voice on the other end of the telephone rose to a shriek. Wagner began to look uncomfortable, and shortly afterward, put the receiver down slowly. "That was Mr. Bond in purchasing."

David nodded. He didn't speak.

Wagner cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Those heralds we just got. It was supposed to be a two-color job."

David looked down at the black-and-white handbill. He couldn't see what they were so excited about. After all, they were only throw-aways. What difference did it make whether it was one color or two?

"Mr. Bond says to junk 'em."

David looked at him in surprise. "Junk 'em?"

Wagner nodded and got to his feet. "Get them out of the bins and downstairs again," he said. "We'll need the space. The new ones will be here this afternoon."

David shrugged. This was a screwy business, when something could be junked even before it was paid for. But it was none of his concern. "I’ll get right on it."

It was twelve thirty when he came out on the loading platform, pushing the first rack of heralds. The platform boss yelled. "Hey, where yuh goin' with that?"

"It's junk."

The platform boss walked over and looked into the elevator. "Junk, eh?" he asked. "All of it?"

David nodded. "Where shall I put it?"

"You ain't puttin' it no place," the boss said. "Beat it right back upstairs an' tell Wagner to shell out five bucks if he expects me to get rid of his junk."

Again David could feel his anger rising slowly.

Wagner was at his desk when David got back upstairs. "The platform boss wants five bucks to get rid of that junk."

"Oh, sure," Wagner said. "I forgot." He took a tin box out of his desk and opened it. He held out a five-dollar bill.

David stared down at it. "You mean you really got to give to him?" he asked in disbelief.

Wagner nodded.

"But that's good newspaper stock," David said. "My father would haul that away all day long. It's worth a dime a hundredweight. That batch would bring fifty bucks at any junk yard."

"We haven't the time to bother with it. Here, give him the five bucks and forget about it."

David stared at him. Nothing in this business made any sense to him. They junked five hundred dollars' worth of paper before they'd paid for it, then didn't even want to salvage fifty bucks out of it. They'd rather pay five bucks more just to get rid of it.

His uncle couldn't be as smart as they said he was if he ran his business like this. He must be lucky. If it wasn't luck, then his father would have been a millionaire. He took a deep breath. "Do I get an hour for lunch, Mr. Wagner?"

The foreman nodded. "Sure. We all do."

"Is it all right if I start my lunch hour now?"

"You can start right after you take care of the heralds."

"If it's all right with you," David said, "I’ll get rid of them on my lunch hour."

"It's O.K. with me, but you don't have to. You get a full hour off for lunch."

David looked at the telephone. "May I make a call?"

Wagner nodded and David called Needlenose at Shocky's garage. "How quick can you get here with a truck?" he asked, quickly explaining the deal.

"Twenty minutes, Davy," Needlenose said. There was a moment's silence, then Needlenose came on again. "Shocky says he'll only blast yuh ten bucks for the truck."

"Tell him it's a deal," David said quickly. "And bring along a pair of dusters. We might have a little trouble."

"Gotcha, Davy," Needlenose said.

"O.K., I’ll be out in front."

Wagner looked at him anxiously as he put down the telephone. "I don't want any trouble," he said nervously.

David stared at him. If they were all so afraid of him they wouldn't let him do his job, he might as well give them something to be afraid of. "You'd know what trouble is, Mr. Wagner, if Uncle Bernie ever finds out you've been spending five dollars to lose fifty."

The foreman's face suddenly went pale. A faint beading of perspiration came out on his forehead. "I don't make the rules," he said quickly. "I just do what purchasing tells me."

"Then you've got nothing to worry about."

Wagner put the five-dollar bill back in the tin box, then put the box back in his desk and locked the drawer. He got to his feet. "I think I'll go to lunch," he said.

David sat down in the foreman's chair and lit a cigarette, ignoring the no-smoking sign. The men at the packing tables were watching him. He stared back at them silently. After a few minutes, they began to leave, one or two at a time, apparently on their way to lunch. Soon the only one left was the Sheriff.

The old man looked up from the package he was tying. "You take my word for it," he said. "It ain't worth you getting killed over. That Tony downstairs, he's a Cossack. You tell your uncle to give you a different job."

"How can I do that, pop?" David asked. "It was tough enough talking him into this one. If I come cryin' to him now, I might as well quit."

The old man walked over toward him. "You know where they went?" he asked in a shrill voice. "All of them? They didn't go to lunch. They're downstairs in the street. They're waiting to see Tony kill you."

David dragged on his cigarette thoughtfully.

"How come five bucks is that important?"

"From every tenant in the building he gets a little payoff. He can't afford to let you off the hook. Then he loses everybody."

"Then he's a shmuck," David said, suddenly angry. "All I wanted to do was my job. Nothing would have happened; he could still have gone on collecting his little graft."

David got to his feet and threw the cigarette on the floor. He ground it out under his heel. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. The whole thing was stupid. And he was no smarter than the rest; he let himself fall right into the trap they'd prepared for him. He couldn't back down now even if he wanted to. Neither could he afford to lose the fight downstairs.

If he did, his uncle sure as hell would hear about it. And that would be the end of the job.

Needlenose was waiting for him downstairs.

"Where's the truck?" David asked.

"Across the street. I brought the dusters. Which ones do you want—plain or spiked?"

"Spiked."

Needlenose's hand came out of his pocket and David took the heavy set of brass knuckles. He looked down at them. The round, pointed spikes shone wickedly in the light. He slipped them into his pocket.

"How do we handle the guy?" Needlenose asked. "Chinee style?"

It was a common trick in Chinatown. A man in front, a man behind. The victim went for the man in front of him and got clipped from the rear. Nine times out of ten, he never knew what hit him. David shook his head. "No," he said. "I gotta take care of this one myself if it's going to do any good."

"The guy'll kill yuh," Needlenose said. "He's got fifty pounds on yuh."

"If I get into trouble, you come and get me out."

"If you get into trouble," Needlenose said dryly, "it'll be too late to do anything except bury yuh."

David looked at him, then grinned. "In that case, send the bill to my Uncle Bernie. It was all his idea. Let's go."


SIX 


THEY WERE WAITING, ALL RIGHT. THE SHERIFF HAD BEEN RIGHT. The whole building knew what was going to happen. Even some girls from the cosmetic company and Henri France.

It was hot and David felt the perspiration coming through his clothing. The platform had been a clatter of sound—people talking, pretending to eat their sandwiches or packed lunches. Now the pretense was gone, conversations and lunches forgotten.

The wave of silence rolled over him and he felt their curious, almost detached stares. Casually he looked over the crowd. He recognized several of the men from the packing tables upstairs. They averted their eyes when he passed by.

Suddenly, he was sick inside. This was madness. He was no hero. What purpose would it serve? What was so big about this lousy job that he had to get himself killed over it? Then he saw the platform boss and he forgot it all. There was no turning back.

It was the jungle all over again—the streets down on the East Side, the junk yards along the river, and now a warehouse on Forty-third Street. Each had its little king who had to be ever ready to fight to keep his little kingdom—because someone was always waiting to take it away from him.

A great realization came to David and with it a surge of strength and power. The world was like this; even his uncle, sitting way up on top there, was a king in his own way. He wondered how many nights Uncle Bernie stayed awake worrying about the threats to his empire.

Kings had to live with fear—more than other people. They had more to lose. And the knowledge was always there, buried deep inside them, that one day it would be over. For kings were human, after all, and their strength would lessen and their minds would not think as quickly. And kings must die and their heirs inherit. It would be that way with the platform boss and it would be that way with his Uncle Bernie. Someday, all this would be his, for he was young.

"Get the truck," he said, out of the corner of his mouth.

Needlenose walked down the ramp and across the street to where the truck was parked. David turned and pushed the big jack over to the nearest wooden rack. He pumped the handle and the rack lifted off the floor. He came to the edge of the loading platform just as Needlenose backed the truck to a stop.

Needlenose came down from behind the wheel. "Want a hand, Davy?"

"I’ll manage," David said. He pushed the loaded jack onto the open platform of the truck and pulled the release. The wooden platform sank to the truck floor. He sneaked a look at the platform boss as he went back for the next rack of heralds. The man hadn't moved.

A faint hope began to stir inside David. Maybe he'd been wrong, maybe they'd all been wrong. He rolled the last rack onto the truck and pulled the release. There wasn't going to be a fight after all.

He heard a faint sigh come from the people on the platform as he turned the jack around to wheel it off the truck. He looked up. The platform boss was standing there, blocking the end of the truck. Stolidly David pushed the jack toward him. As he neared the platform boss, he put his foot on the front of the jack and stared at David silently. David looked down at his foot. The thick-soled, heavy-toed work boot rested squarely on the front of the jack.

David looked up at the man and tried to push the jack up onto the loading platform. The platform boss's foot moved quickly. The handle of the jack was torn from David's grasp and the jack itself skidded to the side, the front half completely off the truck. Its wheels spun in the narrow space between the loading platform and the truck. The nervous sigh came again from the crowd.

The platform boss spoke in a flat voice. "It'll cost yuh five bucks to get off that truck, Jew boy," he said. "If yuh ain't got it, jus' stay there!"

David slipped his hand into his pocket. The metal was icy cold against his fingers as he slipped the brass knuckles over his hand. "I got something for you," he said quietly, as he walked toward the man, his hand still in his pocket.

"Now you're getting smart, Jew boy," the boss said, his eyes turning away from David toward the crowd. It was at that moment David hit him. He felt the shock of pain run up his arm as the duster tore into the man's face. A half scream of pain came from his throat as the metal spikes tore his cheek open like an overripe melon.

He turned, swinging wildly at David, the blow catching him on the side of the head, slamming him back against the side of the truck. David could feel his forehead beginning to swell. It had to be a quick fight or the man would kill him. He shook his head to clear it and looked up to see the platform boss coming at him again. He braced his feet against the side of the truck and using the added leverage this gave him, lashed out at the man's face.

The blow never reached its target. The platform boss caught it on his raised arm but it spun him backward toward the edge of the platform. Again David lashed out at him. He sidestepped the blow but stumbled and fell from the platform to the ground.

David leaned over the big hydraulic jack and looked down at him. He was getting to his hands and knees. He turned his face up to David, the blood running down his cheeks, his lips drawn savagely back across his teeth. "I'll kill yuh for this, yuh Jew bastard!"

David stared down at him. The man was up on one knee. "You wanted it like this, mister," David said as he reached for the handle of the jack.

The platform boss screamed once as the heavy jack came down on him. Then he lay quietly, face on the ground, the jack straddling his back like a primeval monster.

Slowly David straightened up, his chest heaving. He stared at the crowd. Already they were beginning to melt away, their faces white and frightened. Needlenose climbed up on the truck. He looked down at the platform boss. "Yuh think yuh croaked him?"

David shrugged. He slipped the brass knuckles into his friend's pocket. "You better get the truck out of here."

Needlenose nodded and climbed behind the wheel as David stepped across onto the loading platform. The truck pulled out into the street just as Wagner came up with a policeman. The policeman looked at David. "What happened?"

"There's been an accident," David answered.

The policeman looked down at the platform boss. "Call an ambulance," he said quickly. "Somebody help me get this thing off him."

David turned and went up in the freight elevator. He heard the clanging of the ambulance while he was in the bathroom, washing up. The door behind him opened and he turned around.

The Sheriff was standing there, a towel in his hand. "I thought you could use this."

"Thanks." David took the towel and soaked it in hot water, then held it to his face. The heat felt soothing. He closed his eyes. The sound of the ambulance grew fainter. "You all right?" the old man asked.

"I'm O.K.," David answered.

He heard the old man's footsteps. The door closed behind him and David took the towel from his face. He stared at himself in the mirror. Except for a slight lump on his temple, he looked all right. He rinsed his face with cold water and dried it. Leaving the towel hanging over the edge of the sink, he walked out.

A girl was standing near the staircase, wearing the blue smock with Henri France lettered on the pocket. He stopped and looked at her. She looked vaguely familiar. She must have been one of the girls he had seen downstairs.

She smiled at him boldly, revealing not too pretty teeth. "Is it true you're old man Norman's nephew?"

He nodded.

"Freddie Jones, who runs your still lab, says I ought to be in pictures. He had me pose for him."

"Yeah?"

"I got them here," she said. "Want to see 'em?"

"Sure."

She smiled and took some photographs out of her pocket. He took the pictures and looked at them. This Freddie, whoever he was, knew how to take pictures. She looked much better without a smile. And without her clothes.

"Like 'em?"

"Yeah."

"You can keep 'em," she said.

"Thanks."

"If you get a chance, show 'em to your uncle sometime," she said quickly. "Lots of girls get started in pictures that way."

He nodded.

"I seen what happened downstairs. It was sure time that Tony got his lumps."

"You didn't like him?"

"Nobody liked him," she said. "But they were all afraid of him. The cop asked me what happened. I told him it was an accident. The jack fell on him."

He looked into her eyes. They were hard and shining.

"You're nice," she said. "I like you." She took something out of her pocket and gave it to him. It looked like a small tin of aspirin but the lettering read: Henri France De Luxe.

"You don't have to worry about those," she said. "They're the best we make. You can read a newspaper through 'em. I inspected and rolled them myself."

"Thanks."

"Got to get back to work," she said. She walked back to the stairway. "See yuh."

"See yuh." He looked down at the small tin in his hand and opened it. She was right. You could read right through them. There was a slip of paper in the bottom. Written on it in black pencil was the name Betty and a telephone number.

Wagner was sitting at his desk when David walked by. "You were pretty lucky," he said. "The doctor said that all Tony has is a concussion and a couple of broken ribs. He'll need twelve stitches in his cheek, though."

"He was lucky," David said. "It was an accident."

The supervisor's gaze fell before his. "The garage across the street wants ten bucks to fix the jack."

"I'll give it to them tomorrow."

"You don't have to," Wagner said quickly. "I already did."

"Thanks."

The foreman looked up from his desk. His eyes met David's squarely. "I wish we could pretend this morning never happened," he said in a low voice. "I’d like to start all over again."

David stared at him for a moment. Then he smiled and held out his hand. "My name is David Woolf," he said. "I’m supposed to see the foreman about a job."

The foreman looked at David's hand and got to his feet. "I’m Jack Wagner, the foreman," he said, and his grip was firm. "Let me introduce you to the boys."

When David turned toward the packaging tables, all the men were grinning at him. Suddenly, they weren't strangers any more. They were friends.


SEVEN 


BERNARD NORMAN WALKED INTO HIS NEW YORK OFFICE. It was ten o'clock in the morning and his eyes were bright and shining, his cheeks pink from the winter air, after his brisk walk down from the hotel.

"Good morning, Mr. Norman," his secretary said. "Have a nice trip?"

He smiled back at her as he walked on into his private office and opened the window. He stood there breathing in the cold fresh air. Ah, this was geshmach. Not like the day-in, day-out sameness of California.

Norman went over to his desk and took a large cigar from the humidor. He lit it slowly, relishing the heavy aromatic Havana fragrance. Even the cigars tasted better in New York. Maybe, if he had time, he'd run down to Ratner's on Delancey Street and have blintzes for lunch.

He sat down and began to go over the reports lying on his desk. He nodded to himself with satisfaction. The billings from the exchanges were up over last year. He turned to the New Yorker theater reports. The Norman Theater, his première house on Broadway, had picked up since they started having stage shows along with the picture. It was holding its own with Loew's State and the Palace. He leafed through the next few reports, then stopped and studied the report from the Park Theater. An average gross of forty-two hundred dollars a week over the past two months. It must be a mistake. The Park had never grossed more than three thousand tops. It was nothing but a third-run house on the wrong side of Fourteenth Street.

Norman looked further down the report and his eyes came to rest on an item labeled Employee Bonuses. They were averaging three hundred a week. He reached for the telephone. Somebody must be crazy. He'd never O.K.'d bonuses like that. The whole report must be wrong.

"Yes, Mr. Norman?" his secretary's voice came through.

"Tell Ernie to get his ass in here," Norman said. "Right away." He put down the telephone. Ernie Hawley was his treasurer. He'd be able to straighten this out.

Hawley came in, his eyes shadowed by his thick glasses. "How are you, Bernie?" he asked. "Have a good trip?"

Norman tapped the report on his desk. "What's with this on the Park Theater?" he said. "Can't you bastards get anything right?"

Hawley looked confused. "The Park? Let's see it."

Norman gave him the report, then leaned back in his chair, savagely puffing at his cigar. Hawley looked up. "I can't see anything wrong with this."

"You can't?" Norman said sarcastically. "You think I don't know the Park never grossed more than three thousand a week since it was built? I'm not a dope altogether."

"The gross on the report is correct, Bernie. Our auditors check it every week."

Bernie scowled at him. "What about those employee bonuses? Twenty-four hundred dollars in the last two months! You think I'm crazy? I never O.K.'d anything like that."

"Sure you did, Bernie," Hawley replied. "That's the twenty-five-per cent manager's bonus we set up to help us over the slump after Christmas."

"But we set the top gross for the theaters as a quota," Norman snapped. "We figured out it would cost us next to nothing. What figure did we use for the Park?"

"Three thousand."

Bernie looked down at the report. "It's a trick," he said. "Taubman's been stealing us blind. If he wasn't, how come all of a sudden he's grossing forty-two hundred?"

"Taubman isn't managing the theater now. He's been out with appendicitis since right after Christmas."

"His signature's on the report."

"That's just a rubber stamp. All the managers have them."

"So who's managing the theater?" Norman asked. "Who's the wise guy beating us out of three hundred a week?"

Hawley looked uncomfortable. "We were in a spot, Bernie. Taubman caught us at a bad time; we didn't have anybody else to send in."

"So stop beating around the bush and tell me already," Norman snapped.

"Your nephew, David Woolf," the treasurer said reluctantly.

Norman clapped his hand to his head dramatically. "Oy! I might have known."

"There wasn't anything else we could do." Hawley reached for a cigarette nervously. "But the kid did a good job, Bernie. He made tie-ins with all the neighborhood stores, pulled in some give-aways and he swamps the neighborhood with heralds twice a week. He even started what he calls family night, for Monday and Tuesday, the slow nights. A whole family gets in for seventy-five cents. And it's working. His candy and popcorn sales are four times what they were."

"So what's the extra business costing us?"

Again the treasurer looked uncomfortable. "It added a little to operating expenses but we figure it's worth it."

"So?" Norman said. "Exactly how much?"

Hawley picked up the report. He cleared his throat. "Somewhere between eight and eight fifty a week."

"Somewhere between eight and eight fifty a week," Bernie repeated sarcastically. He got to his feet and glared at the treasurer. "A bunch of shmucks I got working for me," he shouted suddenly. "The whole increase does nothing for us. But for him it's fine. Three hundred a week extra he puts in his pocket."

He turned and stormed over to the window and looked out. The cold air came in through the open frame. Angrily he slammed down the window. The weather was miserable here, not warm and sunny like it was in California.

"I wouldn't say that," Hawley said. "When you figure the over-all, including the concession sales, we're netting a hundred and fifty a week more."

Norman turned around. "Nine hundred a week of our money he spends to make himself three hundred. We should maybe give him a vote of thanks that he lets us keep the hundred and fifty?" His voice rose to a shrill shriek. "Or maybe it's because he ain't yet figured out a way to beat us out of that!"

He stamped back to his desk angrily. "I don't know what it is, but every time I come to New York, I got to find tsoris!" He threw the cigar into the wastebasket and took a new one from the humidor. He put it between his lips and began to chew it.

"A year and a half ago, I come to New York and what do I find? He's working by the warehouse a little over a year and already he's making more on it than we do. A thousand a year he's making selling junked heralds, two thousand selling dirty pictures he's printing by the hundreds on our photo paper in our own still laboratory. A concession he's developed in all our offices around the country selling condoms wholesale. It's a lucky thing I stopped him, or we all would have wound up in jail."

"But you got to admit, Bernie, the warehouse never ran more smoothly," Hawley said. "That rotating perpetual inventory saved us a fortune in reorders."

"Hah," Norman exclaimed. "You think he thought about us when he did it? Don't be a fool! Seventeen dollars a week his salary was and every day he drives to work in a twenty-three-hundred-dollar Buick."

Bernie struck a match and held it to his cigar, puffing rapidly until it was lit. Then he blew out a gust of smoke and threw the match into the ash tray. "So I put him into the Norman as an assistant manager. Everything will be quiet now, I think. I can sleep in peace, I think. What trouble can he make for me in a big house like that?

"Trouble, hah!" He laughed bitterly. "Six months later, when I come back, I find he's turned the theater into a whorehouse and bookie joint! All the vaudeville acts in the country suddenly want to play the Norman. And why shouldn't they? Does Loew's State or the Palace have the prettiest usherettes on Broadway, ready to hump from ten o'clock in the morning until one o'clock at night? Does Loew's or the Palace have an assistant manager who'll take your bet on any track in the country, you shouldn't ever have to leave your dressing room?"

"But Gallagher and Shean, Weber and Fields, and all the other big acts played the house, didn't they?" Hawley asked. "And they're still playing it. It made the theater for us."

"It's a lucky thing I got him out of there and sent him to the Hopkins in Brooklyn before the vice squad got wise," Norman said. "Now I don't have a worry, I think. He can stay there as assistant manager the rest of his life. What can he do to us in Brooklyn, I think. I go back to the Coast, my mind at ease. I can forget about him."

Suddenly, he got to his feet again. "So six months later, I come back and what do I find? He's making a monkey out of the whole company. He's taking home more money than a vice-president."

Hawley looked at him. "Maybe that's what you ought to do."

"What?"

"Make him a vice-president," Hawley said.

"But—but he's only a kid," Norman said.

"He was twenty-one last month. He's the type boy I’d like on our side."

"No," Norman said, sinking back into his chair. He looked at the treasurer thoughtfully. "How much is he getting now?"

"Thirty-five a week," Hawley answered quickly.

Norman nodded. "Take him out of there, transfer him to the publicity department at the studio," he said. "He won't get into any trouble out there. I’ll keep an eye on him myself."

Hawley nodded and got to his feet. "I'll take care of it right away, Bernie."

Bernie watched the treasurer leave the office, then reached for the telephone. He would call his sister and tell her not to worry. He would pay their moving expenses to California. Then he remembered. She had no telephone and they'd have to call her from the candy store downstairs. He put the telephone back on the desk. He'd take a run up to see her after he got through with his blintzes and sour cream at lunch. She never went anywhere. She was always home.

He felt a strange pride. That nephew of his was a bright boy, even if he had crazy ideas. With a little guidance from himself, something the boy never got from his own father, who could know what might happen? The boy might go far.

He smiled to himself as he picked up the report. His sister had been right.

Blood was thicker than water.


EIGHT 


HARRY RICHARDS, CHIEF OF THE STUDIO POLICE, was in the booth when Nevada drove into the main gate of the studio. He came out of the booth, his hand outstretched. "Mr.
Smith. It's great to see you again."

Nevada returned his smile, pleased by the man's obvious warmth. He shook his hand. "Good to see you again, Harry."

"It's been a long time," Richards said.

"Yeah." Nevada smiled. "Seven years." The last time he'd been at the studio was just after The Renegade had been released, in 1930. "I’ve got an appointment with Dan Pierce."

"He's expecting you," Richards said. "He's in Norman's old office."

Nevada nodded. He shifted into gear and Richards stepped back from the car. "I hope everything works out, Mr. Smith. It would be like old times having you back."

Nevada smiled and turned the car down the road to the executive building. One thing, at least, hadn't changed around the studio. There were no secrets. Everybody knew what was going on. They obviously knew more than he did. All he knew was what he'd read in Dan's telegram.

He'd come in from the range and found it lying on the table in the entranceway. He picked it up and ripped it open quickly.

HAVE IMPORTANT PICTURE DEAL FOR YOU. WOULD APPRECIATE YOU CONTACT ME RIGHT AWAY.

DAN PIERCE.

Martha came into the hall while he was reading it. She had an apron on over her dress, having just come from the kitchen. "Lunch is about ready," she said.

He handed her the telegram. "Dan Pierce has a picture deal for me."

"They must be in trouble," she said quietly. "Why else would they call you after all these years?"

He shrugged his shoulders, pretending a casualness he didn't feel. "It doesn't have to be that," he said. "Jonas ain't like Bernie Norman. Maybe things have changed since he took over the studio."

"I hope so," she said. Her voice took on a little spirit. "I just don't want them using you again." She turned and went back into the kitchen.

He stared after her for a moment. That was what he liked about her. She was solid and dependable. She was for him and nobody else, not even herself. Somehow, he had known it would be like that when they were married two years ago. Charlie Dobbs's widow was the kind of woman he should have married a long time ago.

He followed her into the kitchen. "I’ve got to go up to Los Angeles, to see the bank about the thousand acres I’m buying from Murchison," he said. "It wouldn't do any harm to drop by and see what Dan has on his mind."

"No, it wouldn't," she said, putting the coffeepot on the table.

He straddled a chair and filled his cup. "Tell yuh what," he said suddenly. "We'll drive up there. We'll stay at the Ambassador an' have ourselves a high old time."

She turned to look at him. There was a sparkling excitement hidden deep in his eyes. It was then she knew he'd go back if there was anything for him. It wasn't that they needed the money. Nevada was a rich man now by any standards. Everything was paying off—the Wild-West show, which still used his name; the dude ranch in Reno in which he and her late husband had been partners; and the cattle ranch here in Texas, where they were living.

No, it wasn't the money. He'd turned down an offer of a million dollars' down payment against royalties for the mineral rights to the north quarter. Oil had been found on the land adjoining it. But he wanted to keep the range the way it was, didn't want oil derricks lousing up his land.

It was the excitement, the recognition that came when he walked down the street. The kids clamoring and shouting after him. But they had other heroes now. That was what he missed. That—and Jonas.

In the end, it was probably Jonas. Jonas was the son he'd never had. Everything else was a substitute—even herself. For a moment, she felt sorry for him.

"How about it?" he asked, looking up at her.

A feeling of tenderness welled up inside her. It had always been like that. Even years ago, when they'd been very young and he'd come up from Texas to the ranch in Reno where she and Charlie had settled. Weary and beaten and hiding from the law, he'd had a haunted, lonely look in his eyes. Even then she'd felt the essential goodness in him.

She smiled. "I think that would be real nice," she said, almost shyly.

******

"It's a rat race," Dan said. "We don't make pictures any more. We're a factory. We have to grind out a quota of film each month."

Nevada slid back in his chair and smiled. "It seems to agree with you, Dan. You don't look none the worse for it."

"The responsibilities are killin' me. But it's a job."

Nevada looked at him shrewdly. Pierce had put on weight. "But it beats the hell out of workin' for a livin', don't it?"

Dan held up his hands. "I knew there'd be no point in looking for sympathy from you, Nevada." They both laughed and Dan looked down at his desk. When he looked up again, his face was serious. "I suppose you're wondering why I sent you that telegram?"

Nevada nodded. "That's why I'm here."

"I appreciate your coming," Pierce said. "When this deal came up, you were the first one I thought about."

"Thanks," Nevada said dryly. "What's the hitch?"

Dan's eyes grew round and large and pretended hurt. "Nevada, baby," he protested. "Is that the way to talk to an old friend? I used to be your agent. Who got you your first job in pictures?"

Nevada smiled. "Who sold my show down the river when he found he could get more money for the Buffalo Bill show?"

Pierce dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "That was a long time ago, Nevada. I’m surprised you even brought it up."

"Only to keep the record straight, Dan," Nevada said. "Now, what's on your mind?"

"You know how pictures are being sold nowadays?" Pierce asked, then went on without waiting for Nevada to answer. "We sell a whole year in advance. So many A pictures, so many B's, so many action-adventures, so many mystery-horrors and so many Westerns. Maybe ten per cent of the program is filmed when the sale's made, the rest as we go along. That's what I meant by rat race. We're lucky if we can keep ahead of our contracts."

"Why don't you accumulate a backlog for release?" Nevada asked. "That ought to solve your problem."

Dan smiled. "It would but we haven't the cash reserve. We're always waiting for the buck to come in from the current release so we can produce the next one. It's a vicious cycle."

"I still haven't heard your proposition," Nevada said.

"I’m going to lay it right on the line. I feel I can speak frankly to you."

Nevada nodded.

"Jonas has us on a short budget," Dan said. "I’m not complaining; maybe Jonas is right. At least, we didn't lose any money last year and it's the first time in almost five years we broke even. Now, this year, the sales department thinks they can sell fourteen Westerns."

"Sounds fine," Nevada said.

"We haven't got the money to make them. But the bank will lend us the money if you'll star in them."

"You know?" Nevada asked.

Fierce nodded. "I spoke to Moroni myself. He thought it was a great idea."

"How much will they advance you?" Nevada asked.

"Forty thousand a picture."

Nevada laughed. "For the entire negative cost?"

Dan nodded.

Nevada got to his feet. "Thanks, pal."

"Hold on a minute, Nevada," Dan said. "Wait until I finish. You didn't think I'd get you up here unless I thought you could make a buck, did you?"

Nevada sank back into his seat silently.

"I know how you feel about quickies," Dan said. "But believe me, these will be different. We still have the sets we used for The Renegade, out on the back lot. Dress them up a little and they'll be good as new. I’ll use my top production staff. You can have your choice of any director and cameraman on the lot. That goes for writers and producers, too. I think too much of you, baby, to louse you up."

"That's fine," Nevada said. "But what am I supposed to work for? Spit and tobacco?"

"I think I've got a good deal for you. I had our accountants look into it and figure out a way you can keep some money instead of paying it all out in these damn taxes Roosevelt is slapping on us."

Nevada stared at him. "This better be good."

"We'll salary you ten grand a picture," Dan said. "That breaks down to five grand a week, because each picture will only take two weeks to shoot. You defer your salary until first profits and we'll give you the picture outright after seven years. You'll own the entire thing—negative and prints—lock, stock and barrel. Then, if you want, we'll buy it back from you. That'll give you a capital gain."

Nevada's face was impassive. "You sound just like Bernie Norman," he said. "It must be the office."

Pierce smiled. "The difference is that Norman was out to screw you. I'm not. I just want to keep this factory running."

"What would we use for stories?"

"I didn't want to look into that until after I’d talked to you," Dan said quickly. "You know I always had a high regard for your story sense."

Nevada smiled. He knew from Pierce's answer that he hadn't even thought about stories yet. "The important thing would be to hang the series on a character people can believe in."

"Exactly how I felt about it," Dan exclaimed. "I was thinking maybe we'd have you playing yourself. Each time, you'd get into another adventure. You know, full of the old stunts, tricks and shoot-outs."

Nevada shook his head. "Uh-uh. I can't buy that. It always seems phony. Gene Autry and Roy Rogers do that at Republic. Besides, I don't think anybody else would believe it. Not with this white hair of mine."

Pierce looked at him. "We could always dye it black."

Nevada smiled. "No, thanks," he said. "I kinda got used to it."

"We'll come up with it," Dan said. "Even if we have to pick up something from Zane Grey or Clarence Mulford. Just you say the word and we're off."

Nevada got to his feet. "Let me think about it a little," he said. "I'll talk it over with Martha and let you know."

"I heard you got married again," Dan said. "My belated congratulations."

Nevada started for the door. Halfway there, he paused and looked back. "By the way," he asked, "how's Jonas?"

For the first time since they had met, Pierce seemed to hesitate. "All right, I guess."

"You guess?" Nevada asked. "Why? Haven't you seen him?"

"Not since New York, about two years ago," Pierce answered. "When we took over the company."

"And you haven't seen him since?" Nevada asked incredulously. "Doesn't he ever come to the studio?"

Dan looked down at his desk. He seemed almost embarrassed. "Nobody sees him much any more. Once in a while, if we're lucky, he'll talk to us on the telephone. Sometimes he comes here. But it's always late at night, when there's nobody around. We know he's been here by the messages he leaves."

"But what if something important comes up?"

"We call McAllister, who lets Jonas know we want to talk to him. Sometimes he calls us back. Most of the time, he just tells Mac how he wants it handled."

Suddenly, Nevada had the feeling that Jonas needed him. He looked across the room at Dan. "Well, I can't make up my mind about this until I talk to Jonas."

"But I just got through telling you, nobody sees him."

"You want me to do the pictures?" Nevada asked.

Pierce stared at him. "He may not even be in this country. We might not hear from him for a month."

Nevada opened the door. "I can wait," he said.


NINE 


"ARE YOU STAYING FOR SUPPER, DUVIDELE?"

"I can't, Mama," David said. "I just came by to see how you were."

"How am I? I’m the way I always am. My arthritis is bothering me. Not too much, not too little. Like always."

"You should get out in the sun more often. For all the sun you get, you might as well be living back in New York."

"A son I got," Mrs. Woolf said, "even if I never see him. Even if he stays in a hotel. Once every three months, maybe, he comes. I suppose I should be glad he comes at all."

"Cut it out, Mama. You know how busy I am."

"Your Uncle Bernie found time to come home every night," his mother said.

"Times were different then, Mama," he said lamely. He couldn't tell her that her brother had been known all over Hollywood as the matinee man. Besides, Aunt May would have killed him if he stayed out. She kept a closer guard on him than the government kept on Fort Knox.

"One week you're here already and this is only the second time you've been to see me. And not even once for supper!"

"I’ll make it for supper soon, Mama. I promise."

She fixed him with a piercing glance. "Thursday night," she said suddenly.

He looked at her in surprise. "Thursday night? Why Thursday night, all of a sudden?"

A mysterious smile came over her face. "I got someone I want you should meet," she said. "Someone very nice."

"Aw, Mama," he groaned. "Not another girl?"

"So what's wrong with meeting a nice girl?" his mother asked in hurt innocence. "She's a very nice girl, David, believe me. Money her family's got. A college girl, too."

"But, Mama, I don't want to meet any girls. I haven't the time."

"Time you haven't got?" his mother demanded. "Already thirty years old. It's time you should get married. To a nice girl. From a nice family. Not to spend your whole life running around in night clubs with those shiksas."

"That's business, Mama. I have to go out with them."

"Everything he wants to do he tells me is business," she said rhetorically. "When he doesn't want to do, that's business, too. So tell me, are you coming to dinner or not?"

He stared at his mother for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders resignedly. "All right, Mama. I’ll come. But don't forget, I'll have to leave early. I've got a lot of work to do."

She smiled in satisfaction. "Good," she said. "So don't be late. By seven o'clock. Sharp."

There was a message to call Dan Pierce waiting for him when he got back to the hotel. "What is it, Dan?" he asked, when he got him on the telephone.

"Do you know where Jonas is?"

David laughed. "That name sounds familiar."

"Quit kidding," Dan said. "This is serious. The only way we'll get Nevada to make those Westerns is if Jonas talks to him."

"You really mean he'll go for the deal?" David asked. He hadn't really believed that Nevada would. He didn't need the money and everybody knew how he felt about quickies.

"He'll go," Dan said, "after he talks to Jonas."

"I'd like to talk to him myself," David said. "The government is starting that antitrust business again."

"I know," Dan said. "I got the unions on my neck. I don't know how long I can keep them in line. You can't cry poverty to them; they saw the last annual reports. They know we're breaking even now and should show a profit next year."

"I think we better talk to Mac. We'll lay it on the line. I think two years without a meeting is long enough."

But McAllister didn't know where Jonas was, either. As David put down the telephone, a faint feeling of frustration ran through him. It was like working in a vacuum. Everywhere you turned, there was nothing. All you did was try and make deals. Deals. Piled one on top of the other like a pyramid that had no end. You traded with Fox, Loew's, RKO, Paramount, Warner. You played their theaters, they played yours. All you could do was stand on one foot, then on the other.

He wondered why Jonas took that attitude toward them. He wasn't like that with his other interests. Cord Aircraft was rapidly becoming one of the giants of the industry. Intercontinental Airlines was already the largest commercial line in the country. And Cord Explosives and Cord Plastics were successfully competing against Du Pont.

But when it came to the picture company, they were just keeping alive. Sooner or later, Jonas would have to face up to it. Either he wanted to stay in this business or he'd have to get out. You had to keep pushing forward. That was the dynamics of action in the picture business. If you stopped pushing, you were dead.

And David had done all the pushing he could on his own. He'd proved that the company could be kept alive. But if they were ever going to make it for real, they'd have to come up with something really big. Deals or pictures—he didn't care which.

Actually, he preferred deals. They were safer and much less risky than big-budget pictures. Disney, Goldwyn and Bonner were all looking for new distribution outlets. And they all came up with big pictures, which grossed big and, best of all, were completely financed by themselves. He was still waiting for replies to the feelers he'd put out to Goldwyn and Disney. He'd already had one meeting with Maurice Bonner. But the approval for any such deal had to come from Jonas. It could come from no one else.

Bonner wanted the same kind of setup that Hal Wallis had at Warner's, or Zanuck had over at Twentieth Century-Fox — over-all executive supervision of the program, personal production of his own four major projects each year, stock and options in the company.

It was a stiff price to pay but that was what you paid if you wanted the best. Skouras hadn't hesitated when he wanted Zanuck. One man like that could add twenty million to your gross. It was the difference between existing and reaching for the brass ring.

But meanwhile, where was Jonas? Jonas held the one key that could unlock the golden door.

******

"There's a Mr. Irving Schwartz calling," his secretary said on the intercom.

David frowned. "What does he want? I don't know any Irving Schwartz."

"He says he knows you, Mr. Woolf. He told me to say Needlenose."

"Needlenose!" David exclaimed. He laughed. "Why didn't he say so the first time? Put him on."

The switch clicked as the girl transferred the call. "Needlenose!" David said. "How the hell are you?"

Needlenose laughed softly. "O.K. And you, Davy?"

"Fine. I've been working like a dog, though."

"I know," Needlenose said. "I been hearin' lots of good things about you. Makes a guy feel good when he sees one of his friends from the old neighborhood make it big."

"Not so big. It's still nothing but a job." This was beginning to sound like a touch. He figured rapidly how much old friends were worth. Fifty or a hundred?

"It's an important job, though."

"Enough about me," David said, eager to change the subject. "What about you? What are you doing out here?"

"I'm doin' O.K. I'm livin' out here now. I got a house up in Coldwater Canyon."

David almost whistled. His old friend was doing all right. Houses up there started at seventy-five grand. At least it wasn't a touch. "That's great," he said. "But it's a hell of a long way from Rivington Street."

"It sure is. I’d like to see you, Davy boy."

"I’d like to see you, too," David said. "But I’m so god-damned tied up here."

Needlenose's voice was still quiet, but insistent. "I know you are, Davy," he said. "If I didn't think it was important, I wouldn't bother you."

David thought for a moment. Now that it wasn't a touch, what could it be that was so important? "Tell you what," he said. "Why don't you come out to the studio? We can have lunch here, then I'll show you around."

"That's no good, Davy. We got to meet someplace where nobody'd see us."

"What about your house, then?"

"No good," Needlenose replied. "I don't trust the servants. No restaurants, either. Someone might snoop us out."

"Can't we talk on the telephone?"

Needlenose laughed. "I don't trust telephones much, either."

"Wait a minute," David said, remembering suddenly. "I'm having dinner at my mother's tonight. Come and eat with us. She's at the Park Apartments in Westwood."

"That sounds O.K. She still make those knaidlach in soup swimming with chicken fat?"

David laughed. "Sure. The matzo balls hit your stomach like a ton of bricks. You'll think you never left home."

"O.K.," Needlenose said, "What time?"

"Seven o'clock."

"I’ll be there."

David put down the telephone, still curious about what Needlenose wanted. He didn't have long to wonder, for Dan came into his office, his face flushed and excited, his heavy jowls glistening with sweat. "You just get a call from a guy named Schwartz?"

"Yeah," David said, surprised.

"You going to see him?"

"Tonight."

"Thank God!" Dan said, sinking into a chair in front of the desk. He took out a handkerchief and mopped at his face.

David looked at him curiously. "What's so important about my seeing a guy I grew up with?"

Dan stared at him. "Don't you know who he is?"

"Sure," David said. "He lived in the house next to me on Rivington Street. We went to school together."

Dan laughed shortly. "Your friend from the East Side has come a long way. They sent him out here six months ago when Bioff and Brown got into trouble. He's union officially, but he's also top man for the Syndicate on the West Coast."

David stared at him, speechless.

"I hope you can get to him," Dan added. "Because, God knows, I tried and I couldn't. If you don't, we'll be out of business in a week. We're going to have the biggest, god-damnedest strike you ever saw. They'll close down everything. Studio, theaters, the whole works."

CONTINUED IN
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