Hot Properties

by Rafael Yglesias

  I’ve been a fool, she told herself, bringing her relentless replay of the scenes in Gelb’s office to a close. She got herself out of the bathroom and found the pot of coffee David Bergman had made for her. He’s sweet, she decided. And he wants sex, she reminded herself. Like every man, young and old—he wants it.

  Fred had huddled under the covers when Marion woke him for a good-bye kiss. She was off to her job, but Fred, still waiting for Bart’s reaction to his book proposals, had nothing to do. He burrowed into the bed, remembered his kissing Patty and his pleasant experience before steep, and then, his insight into Marion’s feelings. There’s a novel in that, he told himself in a determined tone.

  He had trouble falling back to sleep. He wanted to talk. Fred glanced at the clock—9:03. Too early to phone anyone. Tony Winters never got up before eleven. David wouldn’t reach his office until ten, and Karl had let it be known among his friends that he wrote all morning until one o’clock and preferred not to be disturbed. Fred would have to wait alone for Bart to call.

  It would be an important conversation, Fred thought. Bart had just taken him on as a client and the five book proposals were the first test of their relationship. Each outline was roughly thirty pages in length, and they varied tremendously in subject. There was an outline for a novel about a visiting Russian hockey team (held hostage by an insane American fan), and another called Showcase, about the owner of a Madison Square Garden-type organization, with a plot chock-full of corrupt boxing promoters, virile athletes, and beautiful women rock stars. Fred had one scenario that turned the kidnapped-Russian-hockey-team idea into a subplot of Showcase. Shifting to more somber material. Our Baby told the story of a couple whose response to being forbidden by court order from treating their dying three-year-old child with laetrile was to kidnap their baby from the hospital and flee to Mexico, where their son eventually dies. Back in the States they face two trials, one on criminal charges and their own divorce. In the end, they were found not guilty and fall in love with new people, providing Fred with what he believed was a compulsory happy ending. Fred’s next two ideas were satirical. Nothing But the Truth was based on the premise that if someone existed who was incapable of any kind of deception, even the most mild white lie, that this trait would cause havoc with his friends and lovers, cost him his job, and finally leave him ruined and alone. Kickoff, the last of Fred’s proposals, was the closest to Fred’s area of expertise. Kickoff told the story of a middle-aged national sports columnist, divorced, with three children and heavy alimony payments, the sort of man who drinks too much and dreams of writing a novel, but instead plays poker, flirts with waitresses, and gets into fights with drunks. Kickoff lacked the formal plotting of Fred’s other proposals. Instead, it meandered about, exploring the columnist’s frustrated and blocked relationships with his ex-wife and kids, with the mounting pressure from younger sportswriters angling for his job, his own bouts with alcoholism, and his need for love. Ultimately, he finds it, but in a surprising and (Fred hoped) commercial way: he gradually falls in love with the quarterback of the Super Bowl team. Fred’s proposal described his hero’s gradual discovery of his homosexual longings, and his agony before he declares himself to the quarterback. Kickoff’s happy ending occurs when the hero finally screws up his courage, announces his feelings, and it turns out that the quarterback is also gay. The book finishes with the columnist straightening out (so to speak) all his messed-up relationships and starting work on his novel.

  The five ideas were merely ideas, but having worked out the proposals almost made Fred feel he had realized them, that they were books already written. In fact, if he were to get a contract, he worried whether he would feel enough enthusiasm to write them.

  Fred got out of bed and, while allowing his plots to run through his mind, followed a morning routine. He showered, shaved while coffee percolated on the stove, and sipped the coffee while he dressed. The five stories had been constantly in his mind for the last four months. Thus obsessed, Fred forced anything he did to relate to the five stories. When reading novels, he noticed any similarities of theme or character development to those he planned. At movies, he checked to see what was popular, making mental notes to himself to change this twist or that turn. He churned relentlessly, worrying whether gay themes were too shocking for the general public, whether any book that has a character die of cancer could be bought for the movies, and so on, gears of anxiety meshing uneasily with creativity, both uniting to turn Fred’s great engine of commercial success.

  But a new gear was in place, the story he wanted to tell to illustrate his marriage lesson of last night. Even his mashing of Patty faded as a sensual memory and became a plot point. He could tell the story of all men, basically polygamous creatures struggling to restrain themselves to achieve the more honorable state of monogamy. Women don’t want to fuck around, he said to himself, and men want, intellectually, to be the same, but they naturally desire more. This, Fred thought, was a great theme, a serious and provocative idea that could trigger a great novel. But did he have the clout to sell it, never having written a novel before?

  Only Bart Cullen could answer that question and Fred now began to jiggle his leg, smoke cigarettes, and distractedly leaf through the Times, waiting for his phone to ring.

  For a senior writer at Newstime. Monday morning was a light day. The senior editors would meet upstairs with the editor in chief, the managing editor, the executive editor, and the assistant managing editors, a group referred to by everyone as the Marx Brothers. Potential stories were discussed, and later the senior editors would come down from Animal Crackers (an umbrella term for the main conference room and the offices of the Marx Brothers) and inform the senior writers (such as David) what they probably would write about that week. It was one of the many elaborate conventions that could easily be eliminated, but it made the corporation feel it was working a full week, rather than just the mad rush from Wednesday through Saturday, when almost all the writing and artwork were done. Only the back of the book (reviews, lifestyle and the like) was prepared in advance. In the Nation section, David’s department, everything depended on the latest events, and, indeed, what had catapulted David to his early grasp of a senior-writer position was his cool ability to write cover stories in a matter of hours when a major event broke late in the week.

  On Monday, David would usually arrive late with a yogurt and coffee. He’d read the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Daily News, the New York Post, and the current issue of Newstime, as well as its equally famous competitor, Weekly. He would take a long lunch after his boss, Senior Editor John Syms, informed him of his assignment for the week. After lunch, David would look into his office in case (by some miracle) there was something to do, and when inevitably there wasn’t, he’d head home. Monday was his favorite day.

  David had finished comparing the Weekly’s story on the Haig news conference with his own story on it (David concluded he’d done a better job) when Syms appeared at his door.

  “Are you free for lunch?”

  David was a bit surprised. Syms rarely wasted a lunch on a writer; he usually angled for a Marx Brother. “Sure.”

  “Now?”

  David followed Syms outside to a deli nearby—for some reason, Syms was cheap with his expense account, much to the Nation section’s aggravation—and they chatted about how badly they had beaten the Weekly on Haig.

  “They missed the point,” Syms said. “This is an unusual breaking of the ranks for Reagan, as we noted.”

  As I noted, David thought to himself. Syms, among many other irritating qualities, always referred to a writer’s work as “we” and “us” when it was good, and as “you” and “yours” when it was bad.

  “Reagan has so far had his people maintain a solid front,” Syms went on.

  “Yeah,” David answered, relieved that this lunch was not going to be a session of criticism of his work. “I didn’t expect the Reagan administration to have the sort of administrative flap that Carte
r was always having.”

  Syms went on in this vein until their sandwiches arrived. Then he looked gravely at the stainless-steel bowl of pickles and said, “Have you been hearing rumors about Steinberg?”

  Jeff Steinberg was the editor in chief of Newstime. There were always rumors, but Syms obviously meant a particular and exciting one. “No,” David said, and continued eating without any show of curiosity. To evince interest would only make Syms more reluctant to part with his information: above all, he hated eagerness.

  “I’m surprised. Maybe you were so busy with the cover, no one wanted to bother you with gossip.” Syms hissed disapproval on the word “gossip.”

  David continued eating.

  “Well,” Syms said with a sigh. “There’s talk Steinberg is in trouble.”

  David looked up briefly to raise his eyebrows, and returned to his plate.

  Syms frowned. “Roitman” (the managing editor) “has been spreading it—of course. But there seems to be something to it. Mrs. Thorn” (the owner of Newstime) “has scheduled a general meeting with the senior editors tomorrow and she’s in right now with Steinberg.”

  David knew that Mrs. Thom only scheduled meetings with senior editors for major announcements of change. Nevertheless, he showed no alarm or fascination. “What’s Roitman saying is going to happen?” he asked coolly.

  “That Steinberg is going to be fired.” Syms now picked up his sandwich, bit into it, and chewed angrily.

  David tried to figure out what effect that might have on him, but he couldn’t. So he waited and chewed.

  “I’m sorry to say,” Syms finally said. “I think he’s right. There’s been a lot of criticism of Steinberg’s soft covers— Jerry Brown, disco, and so on. After all, Steinberg is abrasive. He has alienated a lot of the old guard.”

  Syms meant by this that Steinberg had been slowly pushing editors hired by his predecessor out of important positions by putting people over them in newly created titles. Thus Newstime was now chock-full of deputies, associates, and executive editors as well as an abnormally high overhead in the midst of a recession.

  “I thought Mrs. Thorn was unhappy with the old guard. Isn’t that why she promoted Steinberg?”

  Syms looked wise and cynical. “That was a long time ago. Nearly a year. She’s probably forgotten.”

  David nodded. He knew enough not to agree or disagree. Syms was equally changeable. If Mrs. Thorn promoted him to Marx Brother status, Syms would think better of her, and anything David said against her now might be remembered, without Syms also recalling that he began the attack.

  “Steinberg promoted me,” Syms went on, “and I don’t think his departure would do me much good. If she does dismiss him tomorrow, Nation might be in turmoil for a while. I felt you deserved some warning.”

  “I appreciate it,” David said, but actually he was confused. Technically, he had been promoted by Syms and Steinberg, but David’s impression was that the old guard also liked him. In any case, although senior writers were affected by changes in top management, they were rarely— if ever—fired or even demoted because of them. Besides, he didn’t care: he was sure his work would be approved of by any editor in chief. His covers—he had done four in the last three months—had won two awards and general approval in the company besides. David concluded that Syms was merely trying to develop an ally, and the fact that Syms would bother with a mere senior writer was a symptom of his self-doubt. “If Mrs. Thorn is upset by all the soft covers, why would there be concern about Nation? We can’t be held responsible for that.”

  “No,” Syms said, as if that were exactly his line of defense. “But when an editor in chief is fired, everything is called into question.”

  After that, all of Syms’s remarks were general. Only when back in his office could David tap into the grapevine. David dropped in on Bill Cane, deputy senior editor of the Business section, one of the old guard, and his first boss. Cane was jubilant:

  “So you’ve heard! Tell me exactly.”

  “Only that Steinberg is leaving tomorrow. Mrs. Thorn is going to announce it at the meeting.”

  “Who told you?”

  David hesitated, but it was only a pause of nerves; he had made up his mind to give away that fact before he approached Cane. “Syms.”

  Cane smiled. “He’s scared, isn’t he?”

  David smiled back. “Should he be?”

  Cane frowned and swiveled in his chair. He hit his carriage return and watched it glide back before answering. “I don’t think so. You see, the story is that Steinberg really blew it with Mrs. Thorn at a dinner party in Washington last week.”

  “What?” David laughed.

  “Kissinger was there, and Steinberg, I don’t know, drank too much, something. Apparently he made an ass of himself and Kissinger took him apart, mostly over the Jerry Brown cover.”

  David felt himself go weak. He had written the Jerry Brown cover.

  Cane noticed. “Don’t worry. Kissinger made fun of putting the story on the cover, not the piece itself. You’re in no danger.”

  David smiled. “I wasn’t worried,” he said, but he had already begun to reconstruct his lunch with Syms. Maybe it had been a warning.

  Tony was drunk. Gloria had reordered drinks for them while he went to the bathroom—more to relieve the relentless pressure of her promises than to ease his bladder. Tony continued to drink on his return, his hands restlessly grabbing anything on the table while he earnestly nodded at Gloria’s comments. He emptied four glasses of water, half of his pack of cigarettes, and three Scotches and soda. Eventually he wished he could repeat his journey to the john for a practical visit, but embarrassed to do so, Tony ended up squeezing his legs together while he ate his scallops. Gloria Fowler, one of the most important packagers in the movie business, was sitting opposite, convincing him to write for the movies, and all he wanted was to pee. He began to enjoy the contrast of an infantile sensation against the adult nature of the lunch’s purpose. Irony appealed to Tony: he relished having so important and wonderful a job as writing Bill Garth’s next movie put before him as if he were not only competent for the job, but had to be persuaded to take it. Wasn’t this an excellent revenge on his childhood?

  He had lived in terror of the moguls who forced his father to talk and barred his mother from work because she did not. Tony trembled in bed at night, warm piss spreading beneath him, not for fear of a ghostly bogeyman, but of Senator McCarthy’s huge face—a face Tony knew only in black and white—with his dulled, contemptuous killer eyes. McCarthy was dead, his mother’s television series was in the top ten week after week, and now Gloria Fowler was offering him a script for one of America’s box-office stars.

  “If you’re interested in proceeding,” Gloria was saying while Tony squirmed, “we’ll fly you out. You’ll meet with Bill and Jim Foxx, and then with the studio people.”

  “But there’s no guarantee at this point, right? I mean, if I don’t wow them with my ideas—”

  Gloria leaned forward, her elegant, bony hand gently touching his arm. Her eyes blinked slowly with knowledge. “They’ll hire you,” she said in a low voice. “They’ve all read your work. And, more important, they’ve read your reviews. Everybody knows, no matter what else is said, that good movies can only be made if the scripts are good. They’ve gone the hack Hollywood route. Nobody out there knows about the real world anymore, and this script needs a writer who has ideas, convictions, and cares more about the work than the money and glamour.” She leaned back and smiled. “They need a human being to write this one.”

  Tony was thoroughly drunk when he got home. His mouth tasted of metal, his food felt undigested, and his mind went over Gloria’s promises and statements slowly, like a straight line he couldn’t keep his wobbly feet on. He splashed cold water on his face and stared at his bloodshot eyes. Gloria had told him she wanted to represent him. That alone would have been a break for a writer his age. Gloria said she believed she could help get his plays to Broadway
if he worked in the movie business. She cited many examples of productions that were backed by movie money, and said, with a broad look, “They protect their own, you know. Write Bill Garth’s script. It will get made, the studio will love you, and buy your next play, and put it on Broadway.” Gloria laughed. “A year and a half from now you’ll have a Tony and an Oscar. You can use them for andirons.”

  Tony had laughed at her. She had laughed back. They had traded looks of superiority. “You don’t care about awards and money,” she went on to say. “I know that. But I know you care about mounting a real production of your next play—and Tinseltown can do it for you.”

  The last year Tony lived in California he was five years old. He had no ambitions other than wishing he were Superman or an airplane pilot. He liked movies, but they were commonplace. Everyone he knew had a screening room in the den: they were adult work, and they caused adults to have boring conversations at dinner. But the bogeyman had been in town, his mother had had a breakdown and disappeared from his life. When she returned, the boring conversations became shrill with rage and terror. His parents would begin their rumbling after he went to bed. Their voices, dark and terrible, would wake him. He’d creep out, carefully placing his feet to avoid floorboards that might give his presence away, and eavesdrop on their fights.