Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  “Damn it, Joan,” Jimmy said, “your father still owns half of Kansas and your mother has a racing stable.”

  “I am a waif in spirit,” the woman said with dignity. “It is why the audiences respond with such emotion when I sing. I sing to the loneliness of the American soul.” She came over to Strand and gracefully swooped over him and kissed his forehead. “Good night, dear father,” she said and flowed out of the room.

  Strand struggled to get up from the couch and Jimmy came over and gave him his hand and pulled him up.

  “What was all that about?” Strand asked.

  “It was one of her nights,” Jimmy said. “You never know which one you’re going to get The waif, the grande dame, the anarchist, the little girl with a bow around her waist and a lisp, the femme fatale, Mother Earth…You name it,” he said, grinning, “and it’s in her repertoire. And don’t take the carrot juice too seriously. She asked me if you drank and I said no, so she became a health nut for an evening. The next time you see her she’s as likely to be roaring drunk as not. If that’s what it takes to make her sing like an angel, which she does, the only thing is to sit back and enjoy the act. Come on, Pops, let’s go to dinner. I’m starving.”

  The restaurant was nearby and they walked to it. As they walked, Strand asked Jimmy what was wrong with Solomon, but Jimmy had shrugged and said it was a long story, he’d tell him over dinner.

  Seated at the table to which the headwaiter had led them, Jimmy ordered a martini. In some places, Strand knew, Jimmy would have had to produce his I.D. card to get a drink. Not here. Strand shook his head when Jimmy asked him if he wanted a drink. The second whiskey he had had the night of the three letters had left him with a headache and he hadn’t had a drink since.

  “Now,” he said, after they had ordered and Jimmy was sipping at his martini, “what was all that about with Mr. Solomon?”

  Jimmy drummed his fingers impatiently on the tablecloth. “It’s nothing,” he said. “His nose is out of joint because we’re leaving him. He’ll get over it.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Joan and me. Her contract’s run out and she’s had a better offer. On the Coast. Her second husband has a music company out there and they’re friends again. It means a lot of bread. For both of us. Twice what old man Solomon was paying me and a piece of the action and that can mean millions with a dame like Joanie girl. And she won’t make a move without me. She was ready to leave Herbie anyway before I came…”

  “He told me he was about to fire her. Until you came along.”

  “Did he?” Jimmy said carelessly. “Somehow, she fixed on me. We have the same vibes. She won’t even sing do re me unless I approve. The good old second husband is young and he knows what the kids’re doing and that’s ninety-nine percent of the business these days. Not like old Herbie. The tide has passed old Herbie by. He’s washed up on the beach, only he hates to admit it.”

  “He was very good to you.”

  “It was money in the bank for him. I don’t owe him anything. Gratitude in the trade is like putting a knife in a guy’s hand and giving him lessons in how to slit your throat. I like the old fart, but business is business.” Jimmy ordered a second martini. “Joan and I are going to have our own imprint. So we get the credit and the name without putting up any of the dough. And I’m my own boss. No running around like a messenger boy if old Herbie decides he wants a report on a new country singer down in Nashville or out in Peoria. You and Mom can come out to Beverly Hills and swim in my pool.”

  Strand looked soberly at his son. “Jimmy,” he said, “I find all this thoroughly distasteful. I never thought I’d say these words, but I’m ashamed of you.”

  “Pops,” Jimmy said, without anger, “not everybody can be a Knight of the Round Table like you. Camelot is kaput, even if the news hasn’t reached Dunberry yet. Now, on the phone you said you had something you wanted to talk to me about. What is it?”

  “Nothing,” Strand said shortly. “I’ve changed my mind. I wanted you to do something for me. For the family. Now I believe I made the wrong choice.” He stood up.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Your dinner’s going to be here in a minute. Sit down.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Don’t you even want my address in California?” There was a wailing tone in Jimmy’s voice that reminded Strand of when Jimmy was small and had fallen and skinned his knees and come running home to be comforted.

  “No, Jimmy, I don’t want your address. Good night.” Strand walked across the restaurant toward the checkroom. He got his coat and while he was putting it on, he looked back and saw that Jimmy was ordering a third martini. He went out and walked a few blocks along the cold streets to the Westbury and took the elevator to his room and lay down in the darkness. The telephone rang twice before he fell asleep, but he didn’t answer it. Among the things he regretted about the evening was that he would have to allow Jimmy to pay for the room because he didn’t have enough cash with him to pay for it himself.

  7

  DR. PRINZ DIDN’T LOOK any graver than usual as he sat behind the desk after the cardiogram, the blood pressure examination, the stress test, the X rays. Strand took that as a good sign. “Well, Doc?” he said.

  “Everything is pretty good,” Prinz said, “as far as we can tell. The blood pressure’s still a little high, but not scary. But…” He stopped.

  “But what?”

  “I don’t like the way you look. Your complexion, something about your eyes. If I hadn’t seen you, if I was one of those great specialists who never see a patient and just have X rays and the results of the tests to go by, I’d say that for a man your age who has had a bad heart attack, you’re in surprisingly good shape. But I’m not a great specialist. I’m a poor old G.P. and you’re my friend and I’ve seen you in better days.”

  Strand laughed. “I’ve seen you in better days, too,” he said.

  “You bet you have. But I’m not your job and you’re mine. It doesn’t show in the tests, but I’d guess you’ve been sleeping poorly…”

  “It’s a good guess,” Strand said.

  “And that you’re under some sort of nervous strain…” Dr. Prinz looked at him sharply, as though to surprise him into a confession.

  “A bit,” Strand admitted.

  “I don’t like to sound like one of those quacks who prescribe sedatives every time a society lady goes into a tizzy because she’s not been invited to a party,” Prinz said, “but I think a mild dose of Librium two or three times a day might do you good. A year off on a beach would do you more good, but I don’t suppose you’re likely to have one.”

  “Not likely,” Strand said dryly.

  Prinz scribbled on a prescription pad and pushed the scrap of paper over the desk. “Have it filled and see if it helps. I have the impression of fatigue. It may be mental, it may be something else. Maybe the next time you come in we’ll make some thyroid tests. Between the thyroid gland and the cerebellum there’s sometimes a curious conspiracy. Well…” he sighed. “No miracles this Saturday.”

  “One more thing,” Strand said, feeling embarrassed. “Sex…?”

  Prinz looked at him sidelong, the first real glint of sympathy, mixed perhaps with amusement, behind his glasses. “No prescriptions,” he said. “It might kill you and it might make you feel like a twenty-year-old fullback. Tell Leslie I miss the string trios.”

  “Thanks for everything.” Strand stood up and Prinz stood, too, and walked with him to the door of the office. “By the way,” he said, “how is your friend Hazen?”

  “Friendly.” Dr. Prinz must have had too busy a month to read The New York Times. “Running the country as usual.”

  Prinz nodded. “I’d hate to have him as a regular patient. He’s one of those fellers, if I told him he had a disease, by the next time I saw him he’d have read all the literature on the subject and would lecture me on why he had it or didn’t have it and wh
y my treatment was fifty years behind the times. And he’d have me call in twelve specialists from Johns Hopkins and California and Texas for consultations. Still”—he laughed—“the rich do live longer than we do. Take care of yourself, Allen.” He opened the office door for Strand. “And moderation in all things. The Prinz recipe for a long and moderately happy life.”

  He walked downtown along Central Park West carrying his small overnight bag, because he had checked out of the hotel. It was a mild day, the pale sunlight making the naked trees in the park trace patterns of lacy shadows on the brown grass. He felt an unaccustomed lift of freedom. He had no duties to concern him except that of living until his first class on Monday and he was strolling through his native and beloved city in tolerant weather, amidst children liberated from schoolrooms, aging bicyclists in bright clothes heading for the park, comfortable couples with placid weekend faces advancing unhurriedly toward lunch. He had been presented with a clean bill of health, or at least a conditional one. It might be called a draw between him and death. There would be a rematch later on, but noonday New York beside the great park in the sunlight was too pleasant a time and place to think of that now. A troop of children, very serious on horseback, for whom he had to halt to allow them to cross the avenue to the bridle paths beyond, added to his pleasure.

  He passed the street where Judith Quinlan lived and wondered if she were in her studio at that moment and speculated on what she might be doing. Washing her hair, listening to music, preparing to go to a matinee? He had finally read the letter she had sent him when he had come out of the hospital. “Please get well,” she had written. “And if there’s anything you need, if there’re books you want or gossip of the school or a friend to read to you, please let me know.”

  He had not answered the letter and now he felt a twinge of guilt. For a moment he almost stopped, to turn down her street and ring her bell. But if he was going to walk all the way to Sardi’s and get there by one o’clock to meet Solomon, there would be no time for Judith Quinlan. Thinking of her, he realized that he missed her trotting to keep up with him after school and the cups of coffee they had shared in the shops along their route home and he came as near as he ever could to blushing when he remembered the one time he had gone up to her apartment and she had served him a drink and opened his shirt and put her hand on his chest. The tingling sensation made him smile and a young woman walking in the opposite direction smiled sweetly in return. Gallantly, he tipped his hat. Her smile broadened at the gesture and he continued walking with a fresh lilt to his steps, although as he approached the restaurant where he would meet Solomon he was sorry he had made the date. He did not feel like discussing his son that day.

  During lunch, Solomon did not mention Jimmy. He asked about Leslie and Caroline and Eleanor and her husband and inquired solicitously about Strand’s health and told him about a friend of his, aged sixty, who had had an even worse attack than Strand and now played three sets of tennis daily. In answer to Strand’s question about his tan, he said that he’d just come back from California, where he’d spent a week lying in the sun by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, waiting for a rock singer to make up his mind on a deal. The deal had finally fallen through, but the tan had made the trip worthwhile. When he talked seriously, it was about Hazen. Solomon no doubt was as busy as Dr. Prinz, but he found time to read the papers. He had called Hazen to find out if there was anything he could do—he, too, knew many people in Washington—but Hazen had assured him that it was all blowing over and there was nothing to worry about. “I’m not so sure,” Solomon said to Strand. “A friend of mine works for the UPI Washington bureau and he tells me that something is cooking, but he doesn’t know just what as yet. I’m concerned about Russell. They’re hitting him in his most vulnerable spot and the one thing that he’s proudest of—his reputation. With all that he’s seen and done he’s never had to fight for it in his whole life and he may blunder into a trap. I tried to suggest that he go to a lawyer who’s helped me and some of my friends out of shadowy cases—cases like his—plagiarism suits, doubtful breach of contract, slander and libel, payroll padding, unrealistic income tax returns, imaginative bookkeeping, blackmail, bribing union officials—the necessary underside of the law, as it were, that keeps the wheels of business turning. But when I mentioned the man’s name, he just snorted and said he wouldn’t soil his hands with a shyster like that.” Solomon shook his head sadly. “He may wake up one morning and find that he’s a broken man, if not in court, then on the front page of the New York Post, even if he’s done nothing that’s really against the law.”

  “Do you think he has done something against the law?” Strand asked.

  Solomon smiled at him as he would at a credulous child. “Allen,” he said, “you’re a student of history. In all our history—in all the world’s history—has there ever been a powerful, ambitious man who has not—well—stretched the law here and there, out of pride, righteousness, religion, impatience with a bureaucracy, the desire to be acclaimed, what have you? As a joke, my wife calls my business King Solomon’s mines. Do you think I got where I am by dotting every i and crossing every t?”

  “What you’re telling me is that you think Hazen has put himself into a position where the Justice Department is right to go after him, is that it?”

  “I’m suggesting that it is possible,” Solomon said gravely. “If you could get Russell to listen to my advice about the lawyer I told him about, you would be doing him a great service.”

  “He thinks I’m an absentminded professor with a mind like a spinster librarian’s. Do you think he’d listen to me?”

  Solomon laughed. “No.”

  They were at their coffee now and Strand could see that Solomon’s mood had suddenly changed and that he was looking at him speculatively, as though he was making a decision about him. “Frankly, Allen,” Solomon said, “I didn’t ask you to come to lunch to talk about Russell Hazen. Have you spoken to Jimmy?”

  Here it comes, Strand thought, bracing himself. “Yes,” he said. “Last night.”

  “Did he tell you he’s leaving me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “He did.” He tried to sound neutral. “The gist of it seems to be that he wants to improve his position.” Despite himself, he knew that he was trying to defend his son.

  “Improve his position,” Solomon said thoughtfully. “I guess you could describe it that way. Temporarily.”

  “A quite peculiar woman, to say the least,” Strand said. “I think she’s got him hypnotized.”

  “I’m afraid it’s the other way around, Allen. She’s the one who’s hypnotized. Of course, sex has a lot to do with it. She’s been dropped by every man who’s ever come near her and Jimmy makes a great show of being in love with her.”

  “Show?”

  “Allen,” Solomon said patiently, “you’ve seen the lady. Would you ever fall in love with her?”

  “I’m not nineteen years old,” Strand said, knowing it was the weakest of arguments.

  “The whole idea is Jimmy’s,” Solomon said. “He told me as much. He came to me a month ago and made the proposal to me: their own imprint, a share of the profits, no interference from me in selection of material, playing dates, accompanying bands, the whole shebang. Pretty good for a nineteen-year-old boy whom I took in as an apprentice just a few months ago to please a friend. He said he’d give me a month, up to the date her contract ran out, to consider his proposition. If I said no, he’d take her away from me. She’s the biggest money earner we’ve got, but I said no. I may blackmail a little myself from time to time”—Solomon smiled wanly—“but I do not submit to blackmail. I told him he was fired, but Dyer put up such a hysterical performance—she was in the middle of a recording session that would take at least three more weeks even under normal conditions—that I had to keep Jimmy on for another month. But he’s out now. I just wanted to make sure you knew why.”

  “Thank you,” Strand
said sadly.

  “I hope it won’t affect whatever friendship you feel for me.

  “It won’t,” Strand said, although he knew better.

  “The music business is a rough trade,” Solomon said. “Cutthroat at times. But people, especially young people, think they can go all out, run roughshod over everybody, ignore all codes. They’re mistaken. I’m afraid your Jimmy isn’t strong enough, and never will be, to accumulate enemies so early on. He’ll have his little moment of glory, Allen, but the slide will commence and there’ll be no stopping it. I’m not happy about it. In fact it saddens me that I know my prediction will come true. The lady’s a menace, a bomb waiting to explode. Her voice is going and she knows it. She needs to be protected and Jimmy couldn’t protect his own mother from getting wet in a drizzle. She’s desperate and manic-depressive and some new young genius will come along on a night when they’re booing her off the stage or when the telephone stops ringing and she’s ready for one of her suicide attempts. If you can persuade Jimmy to come to his senses I’ll take him back. In time I can turn him from a novice into a professional. And it’s not for my sake, it’s for his. You believe that, don’t you, Allen?” Solomon stared hard across the table. “Don’t you?”

  “I believe it,” Strand said. “Last night I told him what he’s done was distasteful—I’m not in the habit of using strong language, as you know, and that was pretty strong for me. I told him I was ashamed of him and I got up from the table and left him there. But I know there’s nothing I can do with him. Either the last few months have changed him or he was always like this but I didn’t recognize it. Whatever it is, he’s going to go his own way.” He remembered what Jimmy had said about gratitude. Like putting a knife in a guy’s hand, he had said, and giving him lessons in how to slit your throat “My son has moved out of my life,” he said gently to the tanned, reasonable, forgiving man across the table from him. “All I can do is wave good-bye. I’m sorry.”