The Inheritors

by Harold Robbins

  “Drove from New York.”

  “In this storm?” she asked.

  “The snow stopped a long time ago. The turnpike’s all cleared.”

  She turned to Barbara and held out her hand. “I’m Prudence Gaunt,” she said. “And my nephew hasn’t changed a bit since he was a boy. He still forgets his manners.”

  Barbara took her hand. “Barbara Sinclair. And I’m very pleased to meet you. Steve’s been talking about you all the way up.”

  “Lies probably.” But I could see that she was pleased. “You must be frozen. Let me fix some tea for you.”

  “With rum, Aunt Prue,” I said. “If you haven’t forgotten your own recipe.”

  In the morning we went walking in the snow on the beach. The sun was bright and danced like diamonds on the snow. We got back to the house, our faces red and shining, in time for lunch.

  Aunt Prue was at the door. “There’ve been five calls from New York for you.”

  I looked at her. “What did you tell them?”

  “You weren’t here,” she said.

  “Good. If they call again, tell them you haven’t seen or heard from me.”

  “Is there anything wrong, Stephen?” she asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I wanted to get away for a while. I needed a vacation.”

  “What about your job?”

  “It will keep.”

  After three days we had enough of the snow, so we went up to Boston and caught a plane for Bermuda. We spent a long weekend in the sun and the water. For the first time in three months I was able to fall asleep without wheels in my head. I went back to the office on a Monday morning.

  Fogarty followed me into the office, almost staggering under the pile of papers. She put them down on my desk. “You’ve got great color, Mr. Gaunt.”

  “Thank you. I’ve been in the sun. How’s everything going?”

  She made a face. “Panicsville. Nobody knew where you were and everybody believed that I knew and wasn’t talking.”

  “Sorry if it made it rough on you.”

  “That’s my job. I told them I was your secretary, not your keeper.”

  “Good girl.”

  She gestured toward the papers. “Where do you want to begin?”

  I looked at the small mountain, then I picked them up and dropped them into the wastebasket. I looked at her. “How’s that for a beginning?”

  “Fine,” she said, unflustered. She glanced at her notebook. “Now, about the telephone calls. Mr. Savitt wants you to call him as soon as you arrive; Mr. Gilligan—”

  “Never mind the phone calls.” I got to my feet and went to the door.

  In spite of myself, the question popped to her lips. “Where are you going?”

  “Upstairs,” I said.

  There was a look of surprise on his face as I came into his office. I had walked right past his secretaries. “I was just about to call you,” he said. He held a sheet of paper toward me. “Congratulations.”

  I didn’t look at the paper in my hand.

  “Saturday night held up,” he continued. “We averaged a better than thirty-eight percent audience share the second week. I think you’ve made your point.”

  I put the paper back on his desk without looking at it. “No, Mr. Sinclair,” I said. “You’ve made your point.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “I didn’t either at first, but now I do,” I said. “And I don’t like any of it. I quit.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  He stared at me for a long silent moment. Then he nodded slowly. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” I replied.

  “Am I entitled to ask why?”

  “You are,” I said. “But I don’t think you’ll understand.”

  “Try me,” he said.

  “I don’t like being used,” I said. “I came here to do a job. Not to be dropped in a ring and aimed at someone’s throat so that you could turn on.”

  He was silent.

  “That business with Dan Ritchie need never have happened,” I went on. “You could have let him out with his dignity. There was no reason to destroy him.”

  His voice was soft. “You believe that?”

  I nodded.

  “Dan Ritchie had to be destroyed,” he said in the same tone. “I thought you, more than anyone else, could see that. You said he was too old when you came here.”

  “I didn’t advocate euthanasia,” I said.

  He turned cold. “There’s only one way to deal with a cancer. Cut it out. If you don’t, you die. It’s as simple as that. Dan Ritchie was a cancer. He had been with this company twenty-five years and he went sour. You knew that. I knew that. But the board of directors did not. They thought he was the same as he had always been. And more than one of them were quite willing to believe him when he said that you were wasting the company’s money and assets.

  “Sure, I could have let him go. But that wouldn’t have convinced them that he was wrong. There was only one way to do it and only one person who could. You.”

  “And if I had lost?” I asked. “What would have happened then?”

  “You couldn’t lose. I stacked the deck when I let you spend the money.”

  He hit the buttons on his desk and all the television screens leaped into life on the wall behind me. “Look at that,” he said.

  I turned and he pressed the buttons again and the channels began flipping like a kaleidoscope. “There it is,” he said. “The greatest medium of influence the world will ever know. And we’re just beginning to learn about it.

  “Five years from now it will determine who the next President of the United States will be, ten years from now it will put the world in our backyard, fifteen years from now it may take us to the moon.” He jammed all the buttons angrily and the screens went to black.

  “And that’s what you want to walk away from,” he said. “All because the game is too rough. And you’re too sensitive, you don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.

  “The rating game you play is a children’s game. When you run a network, you’re helping to shape and make the lives of people the world over. It can be for good, it can be for evil. But it has to be your choice. Only you can be the judge. You’re alone at the top. And the more viewers you have, the more effective you can be. I thought you saw that, maybe I was wrong.”

  He was still for a moment. “I hadn’t intended to make a speech,” he said. “A long time ago in Phrygia there was something called the Gordian knot, and legend held that the man who untied it would be king. Alexander came and cut it with his sword. It was as simple as that.

  “I made the fiftieth floor our Gordian knot. It remained empty four years. I intended it for the man who would succeed me. And all you did to get it was to ask. For only one reason. No one had ever thought of asking before. I thought you would be Alexander. He, too, was very young.”

  He went from his desk to the window. He didn’t look at me. “I’ll accept our resignation,” he said over his shoulder. “But first I want you to read that memo I gave you when you came in.”

  Silently I picked up the sheet of paper from the desk. It was a rough draft of a press release.

  SPENCER SINCLAIR III ANNOUNCED TODAY THAT HE IS ASSUMING THE POSITION OF CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF SINCLAIR BROADCASTING COMPANY. HE ALSO ANNOUNCED THE APPOINTMENT OF STEPHEN GAUNT AS PRESIDENT OF SINCLAIR BROADCASTING COMPANY AND ITS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER. MR. GAUNT WILL ALSO RETAIN THE PRESIDENCY OF SINCLAIR TELEVISION. MR. SINCLAIR STATED THAT…

  I didn’t bother reading the rest of it. “You could have told me.”

  He turned to look at me. His lips twisted in a wry smile. “You didn’t give me much of a chance.”

  “Are you still willing to do this after the way I spoke?”

  “I gave you the memo, didn’t I?”

  I looked down at it again. President of Sinclair Broadcasting Company. Like being on top of the world. I put the memo back on his desk. “N
o,” I said. “Thank you, but no.”

  Surprise edged into his voice. “Why?”

  “I’m too young to die,” I said and went back downstairs to my office.

  ***

  It was eight o’clock and we still hadn’t gone out to dinner. We were in bed. I ran my finger down the curve of her spine and cupped my hand over her buttock. I squeezed it. Solid.

  “Like that?” she asked.

  “What’s not to like? I’m an ass man. I thought you knew that.”

  “You’re a lot of things,” she said. She dragged on the stick.

  I took it from her mouth and rolled over on my back. I dragged on the reefer and let the smoke stay deep in my lungs. “Is there any more champagne left in that bottle?” I asked.

  “I’ll see.” She sat up and reached for the champagne in the bucket. She refilled my glass, gave it to me, then refilled her own. “Clear sailing,” she said.

  I could feel the tiny bubbles doing their thing all the way down to my toes. Everything was working fine. Champagne and pot. Dom Perignon and Acapulco Gold. Unbeatable.

  I put the glass and the reefer on the end table and reached for her. She came into my arms as if she had been born there. I drained her mouth. “You’re warm,” I said. “Inside and out.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  I fed on her breasts. The telephone began to ring and I moved down to her belly.

  “The telephone’s ringing,” she said.

  “To hell with it,” I said, moving down to her fur. But she had already picked it up. “Tell them I’m out to dinner.”

  A strange expression came over her face. “My father’s downstairs. He wants to come up.”

  I took the telephone from her hand. “Yes.”

  “A Mr. Sinclair for you, sir,” the doorman said. “Shall I send him up?”

  I looked at her. “Yes.” I put down the phone and got out of bed. I went into the bathroom and rinsed my mouth. I splashed some water on my face and brushed at my hair. I slipped into a robe and went back into the bedroom.

  She had pulled a negligee around her shoulders and was sitting up in bed. I bent over and kissed her. “Don’t go away,” I said. “I’ll get rid of him quick and be right back.”

  He had style and good instincts and both were working for him. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “Not at all,” I said. I led the way to the bar. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Whiskey and water, no ice.”

  “Scotch whiskey?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  I fixed his drink and poured myself a brandy. We drank. He came right to the point.

  “What went wrong this morning? I thought I made everything very clear.”

  “You did,” I said. “Nothing went wrong. I just realized that it was too much, too soon. Especially after listening to you. There’s still a great deal I have to learn.”

  “You’ll do all right,” he said. “You learn fast.”

  “Sure. But no matter how fast I learn, it will be at least two years before I can take on the things you want to throw at me.”

  “Do you still want to leave?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “Not now.”

  He smiled suddenly. “Thank you,” he said. “The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to drive you out.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “Then what do we do?” he asked. “Ritchie left a hole in the company structure.”

  “I’ll fill that hole,” I said. “With one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You stay on as president and chief executive officer of Sinclair Broadcasting. I’ll need you to keep me from going off the deep end. And if your offer is still good two years from now and you haven’t changed your mind, I’ll take you up on it.”

  He looked at me. “Okay. You’re exec VP of the broadcasting company and president of the TV, is that it?”

  I nodded. “That’s it.”

  “Done.” He held out his hand. “Tell me something, I’m curious.”

  “About what?”

  “What would you have done if we hadn’t worked out a deal?”

  “I wasn’t worried,” I said casually. “I really don’t have to work for a living.” Behind him Barbara had come into the room. I couldn’t resist it. “I forgot to mention I was married last week. To a very wealthy girl whose father wants to take me into the family business.”

  He looked at me as if I had suddenly gone mad.

  “Hello, Father,” Barbara said.

  He didn’t have just style, he had great style. The shock was gone in a fraction of a second and he held his arms open to her. She went into them and he turned to me with a big smile on his face. “Congratulations, son. You’re a very lucky man.”

  “I know that, sir.”

  His smile broadened. “You don’t have to be so formal now that you’re in the family. Call me Dad.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Damn it!” she exploded. “Now I can’t even fasten this brassiere!” She flung it angrily across the room and turned back to the mirror. “Look at me. Christ!”

  I came up behind her and putting my arms around her waist, I cupped a breast in each hand. “Let me be your brassiere.”

  She stared at my face in the mirror. “You like it,” she accused. “You’d be proud if they asked me to do Elsie the cow commercials.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with liking big tits. It’s the most popular American fixation.”

  She twisted out of my arms and pulled a dresser drawer open violently. The drawer came out in her hands and spilled its contents over the floor. She sat down in the middle of the pile of underthings and began to cry.

  I knelt beside her and pulled her head down to my chest. “I feel such a slug,” she sobbed. “I can’t do anything right.”

  “Relax,” I said. “The worst is over. It’s only another few months now.”

  “It’s like forever,” she said. “Why didn’t you talk me out of it?”

  I did. The first year we were married. But by the second year, her mind was made up and there was no stopping her. “Every woman is entitled to her child,” she had said. “That’s where it’s at.”

  I knew better than to remind her of that just now. Instead I pulled her to her feet. I sat her down in a chair. “I’ll fix you a drink.”

  I made it a good one. She took one taste of it, made a face and put it down. “It tastes awful,” she said. “Give me a cigarette.”

  I lit one and handed it to her. “I’m down,” she said. “I’ve never been so down in my life.”

  “Drink your drink. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “You wouldn’t have a reefer around, would you?”

  “You know better than that. Bill said it might not be good for the baby. You wouldn’t want the baby born stoned, would you?”

  “Just because he’s a doctor he thinks he knows everything,” she snapped. “I suppose it’s better if the baby’s born bombed? Whiskey’s okay?”

  I didn’t answer.

  She picked up the drink. “You finish dressing and go ahead. I’m not going out.”

  “But they’re expecting both of us.”

  “Make excuses then, for Christ’s sake. Tell them I’m nauseous or something. God knows you’re good enough at making excuses for not coming home to dinner. Think one up for them.” She swallowed some of her drink. “Besides I can’t stand that fat little Jew anyway. He reminds me of a pig.”

  I stared at her. “Your stinger is showing.”

  “I wouldn’t like him if he stood in the pulpit of St. Thomas’s Episcopal every Sunday,” she said. “He only wants to use you.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” I turned back to the mirror and finished knotting my tie. “But that’s my job. To be used by people.”

  “Christ, aren’t you noble?” she sneered. “You’re beginning to believe that crap my father hands out that the president of a network is a servant of the
people.”

  “It could be worse,” I said, slipping into my jacket. “Are you getting dressed or are you going to sit there all night with your tits hanging out?”

  There were eight of us at the round table at Twenty-One. Sam Benjamin and his wife, Denise; Jack Savitt and an actress client he was showing off, Jennifer Brace; Sam’s brother-in-law, Roger Cohen and his wife, whose name I didn’t catch until three weeks later; and Barbara and myself.

  I looked across the table. Sam was enjoying himself. He was doing one of his tricks. Making a hundred dollar bill disappear, then finding it, first in the actress’s décolletage, then in Barbara’s cigarette case. Barbara seemed to be enjoying herself. At least she laughed more than anyone else at the table. But then, maybe she hadn’t seen his tricks before.

  I smiled to myself. Sam loved table magic. Sometimes I wondered whether he was a frustrated performer, actor, or publicity man, or maybe a combination of all three. In a kind of way, that was how I came to meet him.

  ***

  Jack and I had just finished lunch at the Norse Room in the Waldorf and were walking back to the Park Avenue entrance when we saw the crowd in front of the Empire Room. Then I saw the four Brinks men with drawn revolvers. Behind them were two more guards, carrying a big aluminum trunk that was fastened with two giant gold padlocks. Four more guards brought up the rear.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “I’ll find out,” Jack said quickly. He charged up the steps to the Empire Room and stopped to talk to a man at the door. A moment later he was back.

  “It’s a publicity stunt,” he said. “Some new producer invited the press and every important exhibitor in the country to show how a picture should be sold.”

  I looked at the crowd and recognized some of them. They were among the toughest and most cynical men in the business. “It’s got to be a pretty good stunt to get them out.”

  “It is,” Jack said. “My friend told me there’s a million dollars in cash in that trunk.”

  “This I gotta see.” No one at the door stopped us. Everyone had his eyes on the trunk, now standing on a table.

  I looked around the room. It was plastered with signs and buntings. They all said the same thing.