The Dream Merchants

by Harold Robbins

  Johnny smiled to himself. Peter said nothing about his own desire to visit the home office and see for himself just what was going on. “Do that,” he urged. “You’ll both enjoy it.”

  “I think I will,” Peter said.

  “Let me know when you’ve decided on the date and I’ll make arrangements for you,” Johnny told him.

  “I’ll do that,” Peter said. He was silent for a second; when he spoke again, his voice was hesitant. “How do they feel about the war in New York?”

  Johnny was reserved. He remembered Peter came from Germany. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Joe wants to make a picture showing how the Germans are overrunning and oppressing the people in Belgium and France and I was wondering whether it would be a good thing to do.” Peter’s voice was slightly embarrassed. “I didn’t know if a picture like that would do business.”

  “The sentiment here favors the Allies,” Johnny answered carefully. He knew about the picture. Joe had called him to talk about it. Joe had also told him that Peter had objected to the idea. While Peter had no illusions about the land of his birth, he could not bring himself to the point of making a picture that would actually point a finger of scorn at it. But, on the other hand, word had leaked out to the trade and the newspapers that Magnum was planning to make a film about the German atrocities, and if Peter announced that the picture would not be made, he would be labeled pro-German. He pointed this out to Peter.

  He could almost see Peter nodding his head as he made his points. Peter’s voice was doubtful as he replied: “I guess we’ll have to go ahead with it, then.”

  “That’s about the situation,” Johnny said. “It’s a case of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

  Peter heaved a sigh. He knew when he was licked. “I’ll tell Joe to put the script in work,” he said heavily.

  Johnny felt a twinge of sympathy for him. He could understand how Peter felt. He had heard him talk many times about his family and relatives in Germany. Some day he planned to go back there and visit them. “Tell Joe to take his time with it,” he said quietly. “Maybe things will be settled before you’re ready to start shooting.”

  Peter understood Johnny’s consideration of his feelings. “No,” he said, “there’s no use stalling. We might as well get it over with.” He was silent for a second, then he laughed half-ashamedly. “After all, why should I worry so much about it? I’m not a German any more. I’ve been an American citizen for over twenty years. I haven’t seen the country since I left there more than twenty-six years ago. The people could have changed a lot since then.”

  “That’s right,” Johnny said kindly. “They must have changed since you were there.”

  “Sure,” Peter agreed with him. But he knew better. He could still remember the Prussian officers riding disdainfully down the streets of Munich and their big black horses. The way everybody bowed to them and was afraid of them. He could still remember the conscription forays that dragged his cousins from their families when they were only seventeen years old. That was why his father had sent him to America. He was sure they hadn’t changed.

  “All right Johnny,” he said with a funny sort of finality. “We’ll make the picture.” With that statement his doubts seemed to ebb away and he felt better. “Tell Doris to call us at home tonight.”

  “I will,” Johnny answered.

  “I’ll be talking to you tomorrow, then,” Peter said.

  “Yes,” Johnny said half-absentmindedly. He was still thinking of how Peter must feel about that picture. Suddenly he remembered. George—he had to have his answer today. “Peter!”

  “Yes?”

  “About those theaters of George’s. He has to have an answer today.”

  “Oh, those.” Peter’s voice didn’t sound interested and Johnny’s heart went down into his boots. He couldn’t argue with Peter after what they had just spoken about. “I talked to Joe and Esther about it and they all agree with me that it’s a good idea. Tell him to go ahead with the deal.”

  Johnny picked up the statistics on his desk after he had hung up the phone and gave them to Jane. “File these,” he said to her, “I won’t need them after all.” He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slowly. You just couldn’t figure the guy out. He never did what you expected.

  3

  Doris stood in front of the mirror, an odd sense of excitement running through her. She nodded her head, pleased with what she saw. This dress was much better for her than the other she had put on first. It made her appear older, somehow more mature, than the other. She was glad it had stopped raining so she could wear it. All her other dresses made her look like a kid.

  She looked at the clock on the dresser. He should be here any minute now, she thought as she put on her hat. She had been disappointed when she hadn’t seen him at the train, but Jane had explained that he was tied up with getting out the Wilson newsreel and she had accepted it. She had long since become used to the continuous pressures and self-induced deadlines that motion-picture people lived by. She felt better when she was told that he would take her to lunch and would pick her up at the hotel.

  There was a knock on the door. “He’s here,” she thought, and started to run across the large room to the door. Halfway across the room she stopped suddenly. She turned and took a last look into the mirror and then finished her walk to the door slowly. “You’re acting like a child,” she told herself reprovingly as she put her hand on the knob and turned it slowly. But her heart was pounding away inside her.

  It was almost as if someone else were opening the door, not her. She could see herself standing there, waiting. She could see him, the look on his face. The smile that was there when he first saw her. She could see the smile fade away as he looked at her, the look of wonder as it crossed his face, and then the smile reappearing again. Warm and admiring.

  He held a bouquet of flowers in his hand. He had been prepared to see her as she had been; he had told himself that she had grown up, but inside him he hadn’t believed it. He had been prepared to pick her up and swing her to him and say: “Hello, sweetheart,” as he had so many times before, but now he couldn’t. He saw her standing in the doorway, then stepping back a little into the room, a tinge of color in her cheeks, her eyes warm and lively with an inner excitement, her lips trembling slightly.

  He stepped into the room and gave her the flowers.

  She took them silently and their hands touched. It was as if a current had flowed between them, and his fingers tingled with a sense of shock. Their hands clasped and held.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” he said, his voice quiet and filled with the wonder he felt.

  “Hello, Johnny,” she answered. It was the first time she had ever called him by his name without the word “Uncle” before it. She suddenly was aware that their hands were still clasped. She drew her hand back self-consciously, more color flooding into her cheeks. “I better put these in water.” Her voice was low.

  He watched her intently as she arranged the flowers in a vase. She was partly turned away from him, so that her profile was visible to his gaze. The burnished coppery brunette of her hair shimmering against her fair, faintly flushed face, the eyes deep set and blue, set over high cheekbones, the mouth curved with corners soft, and the thin line of her cheek falling away to a firmly rounded chin.

  She turned and saw him watching her. She gave a finishing pat to the flowers. “There, isn’t that better?” she asked.

  He nodded his head affirmatively. He was confused. He didn’t know just how to talk to this suddenly assured young woman he had just met. His voice was puzzled. “I can’t believe it. You’ve—”

  She interrupted him with a laugh. “Don’t tell me you were going to say how much I’ve grown. If I hear that once more, I’ll scream.”

  He laughed with her, a little embarrassed at himself. “That’s just what I was going to say,” he confessed.

  “I knew it,” she said, walking over to him and standing in f
ront of him looking up at his face. “But I can’t understand why people always say it. Time won’t stand still for me any more than it will for them. Of course I’ve grown up. You wouldn’t want me to remain a child forever, would you?”

  He began to feel better, more comfortable, more at ease. He looked down at her teasingly. “I don’t know,” he said. “When you were a kid I used to be able to pick you up and swing you in the air and kiss you and call you sweetheart, and you would laugh and we’d both think it a lot of fun. I couldn’t do that now.”

  Her eyes were quickly grave. It was strange how quickly they could change color and grow dark. Her voice was even, though very quiet. “You could still kiss an old friend when you haven’t seen her for almost four years.”

  He looked down at her for a moment, then bent his head toward her. She turned her face toward him. His lips met hers.

  For a split second a sense of shock ran through him. Involuntarily his arms went around her waist and drew her to him. Her arms went around his neck, holding his face close to her. He could taste the wine of her warmth flowing through her body to her lips and coming to him. He could smell the faint exciting young perfume of her hair in his nostrils. He looked at her face; her eyes had closed.

  The thoughts ran through his mind like lightning: “This is crazy. Wait a minute, Johnny, she may look like a woman, but she’s only a kid going to school away from home for the first time. A romantic kid. Don’t be a fool, Johnny!”

  He drew back suddenly. She buried her face against his shoulder. For a moment he let his hand run along the side of her face and then across her hair. They stood there silently for a moment; then he spoke. His voice was as grave as hers had been. “You have grown up, sweetheart. You’re too big to play games with.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly dancing, her voice so young. A smile curved her lips. “Have I, Johnny?”

  He nodded, his face still grave. He didn’t speak; his mind was still trying to answer his own shocked question: “What’s happened to me?”

  She walked across the room to pick up her coat. When she turned back to him, there was something inside her that was singing. “He loves me, he loves me, even if he doesn’t know it yet!” Aloud she said: “Where are we going for lunch, Johnny? I’m starved.”

  ***

  He sat there idling over his coffee, strangely reluctant to finish it and bring this luncheon to an end. They had been there almost two hours and yet it seemed to him only a few minutes. For the first time he had been able to talk about pictures to a girl who had felt the same about them as he did. He finished telling her about how the Wilson reel had worked out.

  She had listened quietly and attentively as he spoke. She could feel the urgency and intensity in him as he spoke about motion pictures. What they had done up to now, what they were capable of doing in the future. This would have been shop talk to many, but it was home talk to her. It was everyday language and living because she had heard so much of it in her own home.

  But she had thought her own thoughts too. Of how he looked, the color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his face, the wide generous mouth and determined chin. The length of his body and the power of his stride. The strength in his arms as they had held her.

  She was glad she had not been wrong. She had always loved him, and now she knew he loved her. It would take time for him to become aware of it. He had to accept her as grown up first, but she was willing to wait. An unknown warm contentment seeped through her as she listened to his voice. It would even be fun to watch him become aware of it. A shadow of a smile crossed her lips as she thought about it. He was so good to love.

  He finished his coffee and put down the cup. A rueful smile crossed his face as he took out his watch and looked at it. “I’ve got to be getting back to the office,” he said. “I haven’t spent so much time at lunch since we opened it.”

  She smiled back at him. “You should do it more often. It isn’t good to always work so hard.”

  He began to get up. “It isn’t often I find I can stay away from it so long. But today I didn’t even feel like going back.” He lit a cigarette. “I don’t know why,” he added reflectively.

  She smiled at him. “I know why,” she thought happily. She rose from her chair. “There are days like that. Days that you don’t feel like doing anything,” she said.

  He put her coat across her shoulders. “I’ll walk you back to the hotel,” he said.

  They passed the news-stand on the corner. The papers bore headlines: “Wilson Inaugurated! Pledges Peace!”

  She turned to him, her voice serious. “Do you think he will keep his word, Johnny?”

  He looked at her, surprised at the gravity in her tone. “I think he’ll try his darnedest, sweetheart. Why?”

  “Papa is very unhappy about it. He still has relatives in Germany, you know. And there is that picture that Joe wants him to make.”

  “I know about it,” he answered. “We spoke this morning. He’s going to do it.”

  They walked a few more steps before she answered. He could see she was thinking. At last she sighed. “Then he’s made up his mind.”

  Johnny nodded.

  “I’m glad,” she said simply. “At least he won’t be tortured by all these doubts any more.”

  “That’s right,” Johnny said.

  They had walked another few steps before another thought struck her. She stopped and faced him. “But if there is a war, Johnny, will you have to go?”

  He looked at her, startled. He hadn’t thought about it. “I suppose so,” he said as first reaction; then: “That is, I don’t know.” He laughed quickly. “But there’s no use in thinking about it now. When the time comes we’ll know soon enough.”

  She didn’t answer. She took his arm and silently they walked the rest of the way back to the hotel.

  4

  Johnny looked up from his desk. “You sure that Doris said she’d be here before we went to the train?” he asked Jane for the fourth time.

  She nodded her head wearily. “I’m sure,” she replied. She wondered why he was so anxious about it. If the girl didn’t come here, she knew what time the train was due in and she could get there herself to meet her mother and father. It wasn’t like Johnny to be so nervous.

  He busied himself signing a few more memos, then he looked up at her again. “What’s the name of the man that George wants to manage those three theaters uptown?”

  “Stanley Farber,” she answered.

  He looked down at the letter on his desk again. It was a note thanking him for confirming his appointment to the position. He was surprised by it. He hadn’t confirmed that job yet; he generally didn’t confirm anyone’s appointment to a job until after he had talked with the person involved. And he hadn’t even spoken to Farber. He tossed the letter to Jane. “Check this with George,” he told her, “and let me know what he says.”

  He pulled his watch out of his pocket and looked at it impatiently. It was only two hours before the train pulled in. He wondered what was keeping her.

  The door opened before he could put the watch away. It was Doris. She came into the office.

  He got up from his seat and walked around the desk to her. “I was beginning to wonder where you were,” he said, taking her hand.

  She smiled at him. “I missed the fast train down from school and had to take the local,” she explained.

  Jane looked over at them in surprise. For a moment she sat very still, a sort of numbness in her. It wasn’t that she was in love with Johnny, but that she felt she could be if he wanted her. She had long felt that he was capable of great emotional depths and some day they would rise within him. But nothing he had ever said or done had led her to think that he would turn to her. Now she knew he never would, and with it came an inexplicable feeling of relief.

  Doris turned to her and said hello.

  Automatically Jane asked how she was.

  Doris replied and Johnny led her to a seat.

  “
Now if you’ll be patient and wait just a minute for me to clean a few things up,” he said, smiling down at her, “we can grab a bite before we meet them.”

  “I don’t mind waiting,” she answered softly.

  Jane looked at Johnny as he went behind his desk and sat down. It was the first time she had ever seen him excited in just that manner. He was like a boy with his first love, she thought, he didn’t even know what he felt yet.

  She looked at Doris sitting demurely in the chair Johnny had placed for her. She was taking off her hat, and her hair shimmered in the office lights. She looked happy and pleased and her heart was in her eyes as she looked at Johnny. She didn’t notice that Jane was watching her.

  Impulsively Jane got up and walked over to her. She bent over Doris and took her hand and smiled. Her voice was low, so low that Johnny couldn’t hear what she was saying. “It’s like a dream, Doris, isn’t it?”

  Startled, Doris looked up at her. She saw the warm kindliness in Jane’s eyes. She nodded her head without speaking.

  Jane took her coat and hung it up on the rack. She smiled again at Doris and went back to her chair and sat down.

  The door opened again and Irving Bannon came in. His face was ruddy and excited. “Something big is coming over the ticker, Johnny. You better take a look at it!”

  “What is it?” Johnny asked.

  “I don’t know,” Irving answered. “The tape just said: ‘Important announcement to follow.’ AP says it’s a big story, I checked with them before I came in here.”

  Johnny got up and walked round his desk to Doris. “Do you want to look at it?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  They followed Irving to the newsreel office. On the way there, Johnny introduced them. The newsreel office was a small room at the end of the hall. Inside it was a desk at which Irving sat when writing up his title cards and a work-bench where he edited the reel. In a corner next to the desk was a news ticker-tape machine. Bannon had persuaded Johnny to install it so that if there were any special items of news the reel could give it coverage.