by Howard Fast
“I raised a hundred and sixty thousand dollars of San Francisco money that says so.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s a smart boy from the streets. I like him. Tell you something, Gino, when he comes out to San Francisco, I’m going to bring him here. That’s a promise.”
When Gino left, Barbara said, “Why do you let him call you Danny?”
“Because he’s an old friend.”
“Does mother know you’re backing Al Smith?”
“I suppose so. Why?”
“Because she despises him. So does grandpa.”
“Well, that’s their right, isn’t it? I don’t think we should talk politics. There are too many other things to talk about, and I don’t think you know enough about this election anyway.”
“You don’t think I know much about anything, do you?”
“Now why do you say that?”
“Well, why did you bring me here? You think I don’t know about this place? Well, I do. This is where you go with your Chinese mistress.”
“What! What in hell are you talking about?”
“Just what I said.”
“How do you know that?” he whispered.
“Mother told me.”
He closed his eyes and fought to control himself. Then he said, very slowly, “I don’t intend to discuss that with you. We will eat our dinner here, because Gino is an old friend and he would be deeply hurt if we left. There are some things you don’t understand.”
“I’m sure there are,” she said tightly.
“There are no virgins,” Timothy Kelly said to Spizer. “I know. I been there. The whole notion is a con invented by some crazed white Protestant-god-merchant. This is me speaking, Marty. I must have humped three hundred broads in my time, and I tell you there is no such thing.”
“You been there? Baby, I been there. It was as bloody as the Battle of Verdun. This tomato is twenty-three years old and she’s a virgin. Jesus God, I don’t want to go through that again. I had to feed her a pint of rotgut in ginger ale–you and your stinking smart ideas. Then when it’s over she throws up all over me, blood and vomit and the tears, all mixed up. That’s beyond the call of duty. I shoulda given her a shot in the head. No, sir. Not Marty–the last of the good guys.”
“You’re all heart,” Kelly said.
“You’re goddamn right. Then she says to me, with the tears, ‘I don’t know if I can marry you, Marty, I don’t know if I’m in love with you–’”
“That is not a bad idea, Marty.”
“You bite your tongue, you little sonofabitch. It just happens that I am married, which is the only protection a guy has in this world. And if you weren’t such a miserable little motherfucker, you’d be in the front line instead of me. I don’t like that little bitch.”
“Don’t blow this, Marty. It’s the one chance we got to get out from under that lousy acting school.”
“There are easier ways to earn a buck.”
“You didn’t walk out on her?”
“You’re talking to a gentleman. I cleaned her up. We took showers. That’s one hell of an apartment her old man pays for. I turned on all the Spizer charm. I convinced her that she’s going to be a star. Look, just let me play it my own way–give it another few days.”
It was the day after this conversation, six o’clock in the evening, that Martha opened the door of her apartment and saw Stephan Cassala standing there. He was the last person on earth she would have expected, and since Marty Spizer had indicated that he might or might not drop by, she had thought that he would be ringing her doorbell. Instead, it was Stephan, saying, “May I come in, Martha?”
“Steve! This is crazy. What are you doing in Los Angeles?”
“Business.”
“I don’t believe you. Sure. Come in.”
“I lied. I wanted to see you.”
“Oh, you crazy guy,” she said, closing the door behind him. He was looking around. “Do you like it? It came furnished, but I think it’s nice. Don’t you?”
“Yes, it is nice–if you like Hollywood.”
“Well, who does? But that’s where the movies are. I was so lonely. I’m glad you came. What a nice surprise!”
“When were you last home?”
“Sit down–there. Three weeks ago. Can I get you a drink? Real honest-to-God imported Scotch. Marty gets it from the best bootlegger in town.”
“Who’s Marty?” he asked sharply.
“Steve! Steve, I’m not a nun. I do have gentlemen friends. Marty’s our coach. He’s a director–and a good one. I’ve learned so much from him. He runs the school with another director, Timothy Kelly. And he’s doing a film now for Great Western. That’s a small studio in the valley. I mean the San Fernando Valley. It’s not far from here. Let me get you a drink.” She went to a small ornamental bar and began to mix the drinks.
Stephan looked around. The bright wallpaper, the overornate cheap furniture, the pile of movie magazines in one corner–he had not known what to expect nor did he understand why all this depressed him so. Martha was different. Well, he had not seen her for months, and it was only to be expected that she would change. It was plain to him that she was glad to see him, yet not overexcited, and what good would it do to tell her how he had longed for her? Yet wasn’t it only to be expected that she would be immersed in her own career?
“Steve, stop being so glum,” she said, handing him his drink. “I really think I’m going to make it. Last week, Marty introduced me to Jack Donaldson. He’s the studio head at Great Western. He’s going to give me a screen test.”
“That’s great,” Stephan agreed.
“Oh, Steve, you don’t know how great it is. This town is the toughest place in the world. What do they say–many are called but few are chosen? Well this is it, and very few.”
“I’m glad for you. I truly am, Martha.”
“How long will you be here, Steve?”
“Just this evening. I’m taking the sleeper back.”
“Not one of Dan’s airplanes?”
“The last one leaves at four, and I can’t stay overnight. I have a ten o’clock appointment in town. I thought we might have dinner together.”
The doorbell rang, and Martha opened the door for Marty Spizer. She resisted the hug and kiss he gave her, and then he saw Stephan. “I told you about Steve Cassala,” Martha said quickly. “Steve, this is Marty Spizer.”
Stephan saw a surly, good-looking, dark-haired man in his thirties who stared at him coldly. Then Spizer’s face changed and he grinned. “Of course. The Bank of Sonoma. Well, by golly, I’m always inspired by meeting a banker. That’s the nature of this business. No financing, no movie.”
“Marty’s the director I was telling you about,” she said to Stephan. “He’s a dear old friend,” she said to Spizer. “We’ve known each other since we were kids.”
“Childhood sweethearts?” Spizer said generously.
“No, just dear friends.”
“I did have a dinner date with Marty,” Martha said. “If you had only called.”
“Not a word more,” Spizer said. “I’m taking both of you to dinner. How many real friends do we have in this world? And you don’t know,” he said to Stephan, “how lucky you are. I mean to have any kind of a relationship to this kid. She’s going to be another Joan Crawford, and you can take that from the horse’s mouth. I know. She’s got talent, and she’s got a voice. No more silent pictures, Steve. That day is done. This is the day of the actor, and this kid can act.”
They ate at Lucy’s, with the great sprawling mass of the Paramount lot as a backdrop. “Good food and good friends, right, Steve?” Spizer said. “Now let me bring you into the picture. That’s a good note, the picture. I’ll level with you. Great Western is not Metro and it’s not Paramount. It’s a small studio, and until now their specialty has been horse operas–Westerns in plain English. But sound changes all that. You can’t do Westerns on a soundstage. So they got to break with the past and
go into something different, and that’s where Martha and I come into the picture. Now I don’t know what goes between you and this talented kid here, and it’s none of my business. Maybe you got a torch for her, maybe not. But we both got her interests at heart. We’re both pitching for her, and she’s on the way up. So I introduced her to Jack Donaldson, who runs Great Western, and he’s impressed, believe me. We arranged for a screen test.”
“Which just may not be the greatest thing ever,” Martha interrupted, sensing Spizer’s direction. “They could decide that I’m a very cold turkey.”
“Never! I should just have a million bucks to lay on that screen test. It would be the easiest money that ever came my way. No, sir,” he said to Stephan. “I have no doubts about that test. We got the star and we got the story. Let me tell you something about this story.”
“I don’t think Steve’s interested in the story,” Martha said. “He’s not in the film business, Marty.”
Marty Spizer glanced at her, a cold flash, and Stephan said, “But I am. I’m interested in anything that concerns Martha.”
“All right. It’s a simple story, but effective. Here’s a kid, a hoofer. Dancer in English. Sings too. Comes to New York from a small town to make it. Like a thousand kids. She’s got talent–but New York’s a tough town. Wears out the shoe leather and gets nowhere. Then she meets this guy. Nice guy who knows his way around. He’s a hood, mixed up with the booze, bootleggers, you know, the mob. He gets her a job singing and hoofing in this club, a speak, but classy. He’s got all the hots for her a guy can have. She knows what he is. Of course, she wants him out of the rackets, but there’s no way out for him. Then the rival mob snatches the girl. Kidnaps her. Our guy tracks them down and moves in on them, two guns blazing. He’s wounded, but he rescues her and puts half a dozen of the other mob to sleep. She nurses him back to health and he quits the mob. It’s got everything, love, excitement, gunplay, action. Everything, and it’s soundstage work. When I laid it out for Donaldson, he hit the ceiling with joy–and when I told him Martha’s the kid for it, he agreed. He agreed. Sure he wants to see a piece of film on her. But that’s just a part of the industry.”
“It sounds very exciting,” Steve admitted.
“It is, it is, believe me. And I got Chester Morris interested, which makes it one hell of a package.”
“You didn’t tell me about Chester Morris,” Martha said.
“Just happened today. So you can see what we got going, Steve. We got the stars and we got a studio hot as hell, and we got the story and we got the director. One more little thing, and we’re off to the races.”
“Marty,” Martha said, a note of pleading in her voice.
“Listen, kid, Steve’s a businessman, a banker. I’m not conning him. I tell him what the situation is, and if he’s interested, he’s interested. If not–not. Now look, Steve, when they made a silent picture, they’d have some kind of two-bit scenario and go in front of the cameras and shoot. It didn’t matter much what the subtitles were, because they could always change them. Today, it’s different. Making a picture is like producing a play, only harder, but there’s got to be a screenplay and it’s got to be good. For that you need a writer. That’s the one thing we don’t have, a writer who can take my story and turn it into a screenplay. But once we get a writer, we’re home, screenplay, director, star. The truth is, we may just tell Great Western to stuff it and take our little package to Metro or Paramount, because then we’re king of the hill.”
“Steve,” Martha said, ignoring Spizer’s glance, “we need a lot of money to get a good screenplay–and this isn’t your kind of thing. I’m trying to get up enough nerve to go to my father, and I will.”
“How much money?” Stephan asked. “There’s no harm talking about it.”
“Twenty thousand,” Spizer said quickly. “It’s an investment. We call it front money, seed money. When the studio picks up, the money is repaid, and if we make our deal with Great Western, Tim and me are cut in for maybe fifty percent of the profits. One third of it to you. And the picture could make a million dollars–which is by no means a bad deal for an investment of twenty thousand.”
“It sounds interesting,” Stephen admitted. “Would one film make Martha a star? I mean, establish her career?”
“You bet your sweet patooties it would.”
“Steve,” Martha said, “I had no idea we were going to talk about this. It’s not fair to put this burden on you.”
“Maybe it’s not such a burden,” Spizer said.
“Well, there are a lot of questions,” Stephan said. “I want to think about it.”
“You got questions, I got answers,” Spizer told him.
In June of 1928 Dan went to Houston at the personal invitation of Al Smith. By his own choice, he was not a delegate to the convention, which was to begin on the twenty-sixth of June, and he spent less than a day in the city; but during that time, he had an hour alone with Smith, in the course of which the governor said to him, “Danny boy-o, this is one hell of a gamble we’re taking, and maybe it’s not time yet for a Catholic President. I think it is, and I think you and me we got something this country needs. We’re a different breed than these cold Protestant bastards who own this country–not all of them, there are plenty like young Roosevelt who can smell the winds of change–and we can’t sit back and let it happen. No, sir. So why the hell aren’t you in politics?”
“Because all I have is street knowledge,” Dan replied. “I never even finished high school.”
Smith nodded and smiled. “That’s all you have, boy-o. But if I win, I want you in Washington. How about it?”
“To do what?”
“We’ll work that out later. Yes or no?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good enough. Now I’m not apple polishing, Danny, and I’m not working you over for money, but where do we go? The Mellons and the Rockefellers hate my guts. I got to turn to men like you.”
“I understand.”
“I’ll be in touch,” he said.
Traveling back to San Francisco, Dan thought about it a good deal. He was flattered and excited. It was a long way from Fisherman’s Wharf to the White House. Sure he’s using me, he told himself, but what the hell, everybody uses someone else. Strangely, politics left him cold. He was obsessed, as he had been for months, with the thought of airlines–airlines that swept across the country from coast to coast. It was five years away, six, ten years away; that didn’t matter. It was the way of the future and nothing would stop it, and already he had his edge with the coastal line. But airlines meant franchises, and he was not the only one who saw it coming. The fight for franchises would be a very tough one, and it didn’t hurt one bit to have that door to the White House wide open. Whatever he paid now would be money well spent, and he had the money. For the first time, they had all the money they needed, and he admitted to himself that Mark had been right in pressing for the stock issue. He had left a check for twenty-five thousand dollars with Al Smith, and now he braced himself for Mark’s anger.
Strangely enough, Mark agreed with him. The stock ticker in Dan’s office had worked its magic. Coming into his office on his return from Houston, Dan found Mark fondling the tape as it ticked out of the machine.
“Well, Danny my lad, where do you think we are today?”
“We’re up. I know that.”
“That’s a safe guess. The stock of Levy and Lavette closed yesterday at thirty-nine and a half. It just passed forty.”
“We’re sure as hell making a lot of stockholders rich.”
“We are rich. Do you realize that the stock we hold is worth twenty million dollars? Our half. It’s crazy, but by God, it’s a fact.”
“I gave Al Smith twenty-five grand. Are you going to chew my head off?”
“I swear, Danny, if there’s one thing you never understood, it’s money. All right. Tell me why.”
“Because if he makes it, we’re going to have the pick of every damn a
ir franchise we want.”
“He won’t make it.”
“So we gamble. You’re not sore at me, are you?”
“Not while that thing ticks out money. We can afford it.” He stared at the ticker thoughtfully. “You know, Danny,” he said, “you were always the gambler and I always sat on you, but this market fascinates me. There’s no top to it–and with reason. This country’s bursting at the seams. I don’t think Herbert Hoover’s any great brain, but when he talks about a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage he makes a practical case. We never bought any stock on our own, and I think we ought to have a shot at it. You can go into this market with ninety percent margin, ten dollars on the hundred. What do you think?”
“I’m not exactly broke. Pick out a few, and I’ll play along with you.”
Thomas Seldon died in August of that year. He was seventy-four years old, and had suffered from angina for the past three years. On the morning he died, he had complained of severe pains in the chest. Old Hemmings, the butler, almost eighty and none too well himself, went downstairs to call the doctor. When Hemmings returned to the bedroom, Seldon was dead.
Jean was in Europe when this occurred. On her instructions, at the end of the school term Wendy Jones had taken Barbara to New York, where they were joined by young Thomas; and then the three of them sailed for England on the President Jackson, the L&L ship that was in the Atlantic crossing trade. From England, the four of them, Jean, the two children, and Wendy Jones, traveled in France and then settled down in a villa at Nice for the month of August. They were there when the news of her father’s death reached Jean.
Dan was still at home on Russian Hill when Hemmings telephoned him with the news, and he went immediately to the Seldon home. He found himself deeply disturbed. Not since the death of his own parents had anything of this sort touched him so sharply. Through the years, he had moved closer and closer to Seldon, the original mistrust turning into a grudging and then open admiration on the older man’s part. As for Dan, he had, without realizing it, come to count on Seldon as a sort of father figure, a feeling buttressed by their enormous bank line at the Seldon institution. Indeed, Seldon had been a sort of mythology in his life, the great mansion on Nob Hill being the first focus of all his dreams and aspirations. Now it was among the last of the big, ornate mansions still standing–anchoring him in some way he did not wholly comprehend.
