The Dream Merchants

by Harold Robbins

  “No,” I said to him. “Saw no reason for it. I always got along with Kessler all right.”

  For a moment Stanley was silent. When he spoke again, he had taken another tack. “From what I heard,” he said, his voice lower now, “you were the brains behind Kessler all the time. Everything he did was because of you. You were responsible for his success.”

  I didn’t like the way the talk was going, but I kept my temper. I wanted to find out what was coming. “I wouldn’t say that, Stan,” I said easily. “We all worked at it.”

  He laughed confidently now. “Don’t be falsely modest, Johnny. You’re among friends. You did all the brainwork and Peter got all the money and glory.”

  “I didn’t do so bad,” I protested mildly.

  “What did you get out of it?” Stanley waved his hand airily. “Peanuts. Do you know he’s a millionaire out of this? And when you met him he was a hardware-store keeper in a small town.”

  I tried to look interested. I leaned forward across the table. I didn’t speak.

  He looked at his brother-in-law again and then turned to me. “Don’t you think it’s about time you got a fair deal out of the old man?” he asked.

  I spread my hands out on the table in a gesture of helplessness. “How?”

  “Everybody knows Kessler listens to you. It’s very simple really. His note at the Bank of Independence is coming due this year and it’s common knowledge he will ask for a renewal. Why don’t you suggest that he sell an interest in the business and retire the note?”

  I played dumb. “Who’s got that much money to buy in?”

  “My brother-in-law could be interested for a fifty-percent partnership.”

  I looked at Mr. Roth. He hadn’t said a word throughout our discussion. “And where do I come in?” I asked gently.

  “With us,” Stanley said. “If we can buy our way into equal partnership in the picture company, I can buy out Pappas’s half of the theaters. That will give us control of the theater company. From there it’s a short step to control the whole works.”

  I leaned back in my chair and looked at him.

  Stanley was suddenly eager. He leaned toward me excitedly. “I’m tellin’ you, Johnny, we’ll clean up. With what you know about the picture company and what I know about the theaters, we’ll make a fortune between us. We got the whole business by the balls!” He held a match to the cigarette I had placed between my lips. “It won’t be no time at all before we can crowd Kessler out!”

  I drew deeply on my cigarette and looked at him, then I looked at his brother-in-law. The older man looked back at me steadily. His eyes were right on mine. “Mr. Roth, what business are you in?” I asked suddenly.

  His voice was calm as he answered me. “The junk business.”

  My voice was as calm as his when I spoke. “Business must be pretty good if you can throw four million bucks into this.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not bad,” he said noncommittally.

  “It must be pretty good,” I persisted.

  “There was a lot of money in it during the war,” he answered easily. “It’s not quite that good now, but it’s all right.”

  I was silent for a moment while I looked at both of them. Then I spoke again. “What do you think of a deal like this, Mr. Roth?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, elaborately casual. “It sounds like a good one, Mr. Edge.”

  I waved my hand. “I’m not talking about the dollar-and-cents outlook, Mr. Roth. I’m talking about the moral aspect.”

  He smiled at me slowly. I could see a look of real warmth leap into his eyes. “The moral aspect is your concern, not mine, Mr. Edge.” He put his hands on the table before him and looked at them. “What do you think about it?”

  I was still leaning back in my chair, still casual in my movements, but I was surprised at the sudden savagery in my own voice. “I think it stinks to high heaven, Mr. Roth.” I leaned forward and spoke to him. “And if you don’t get that slimy rat away from my table I’ll kill the little bastard with my bare hands!”

  Stanley jumped to his feet. His face had gone white. His voice was hoarse. “You mean to say you’re not interested?” he shouted. “After letting me think you were?”

  I could see faces in the restaurant turn toward him. Mr. Roth kept looking at me. I turned and looked up at Stanley. My voice was cold. “When I get back to the office I expect to find your resignation on my desk.”

  Stanley stood there, looking at me with a furious expression on his face. I turned and looked at Mr. Roth.

  There was a look of quiet understanding on his face. Stanley started to speak again, but Mr. Roth stopped him with an upraised hand. “Go into the other room, Stanley,” he said quietly, “and wait for me. I want to speak to Mr. Edge alone.”

  Stanley looked at both of us for a moment and then turned and walked away.

  We sat there quietly for a long while, not speaking. We just looked at each other. At last Mr. Roth spoke. “I apologize for my brother-in-law, Mr. Edge,” he said in that soft, quiet voice of his. “I suspected for a long time he was a schlemiel, but now I know he is.”

  I didn’t answer. We were quiet for a few moments, then he spoke again. “I also want to apologize for myself, Mr. Edge. I’m ashamed to feel I’ve been a part of this thing.”

  I still didn’t answer.

  He got to his feet and looked down at me. I looked up at him. His face was grave, stolid. “There is nothing a man would not do for his only sister, Mr. Edge. I am a good twenty years older than her, and when my mother died I promised I would look out for her. I thought I was helping my sister’s husband and so helping her. I realize I’ve been wrong.” He held out his hand.

  I looked at it and then at him. Slowly I rose to my feet. I took his hand. His face was somehow sad, but his eyes met mine. He inclined his head slightly in a kind of bow and turned and left the room.

  Stanley’s resignation was on my desk when I got back to the office and I forgot about him for a while. I heard he went back to Chicago with his brother-in-law and that he opened some theaters back there, but I didn’t pay much attention to him. I was too busy learning how to walk.

  ***

  I looked around the table. Larry was talking now, but I didn’t know what he was saying. Suddenly I was curious about this man I had seen but once fifteen years ago. I looked at Dave. For the first time I realized that he was the son of the man I had met.

  I spoke across the table to him, cutting into Larry’s talk as if he didn’t exist. “How’s your father, Dave?” I asked.

  Dave was surprised at my question. His face grew flustered. “Who, me?” he stammered.

  I smiled at him. Larry fell silent in surprise that I had interrupted his talk. He wasn’t used to it. I ignored him. “Yes,” I said to Dave, “your father. I met him once many years ago. A very fine gentleman.”

  Dave’s face looked pleased at what I had said. When he relaxed he looked very much like his father. But his face didn’t have the strength his father’s had. “My father is dead,” he answered simply. “He died two years ago.”

  For a moment I was genuinely sorry and I said I was. “Too bad we didn’t get to know each other better,” I said. “I feel he would have made a good friend.”

  I looked at Dave and then at Stanley. A crazy thought was running through my mind. Can relatives through marriage grow to look like one another? They both had the same selfish, sensual expression on their faces. Their mouths were round and thin and spoiled.

  I began to smile slowly. I turned and looked at Stanley again. He looked uncomfortable. That business he was giving us about hard work was so much crap. He didn’t make his dough. It was his wife’s. She inherited it from her brother. She and Dave. That’s why Stanley kept pushing him forward.

  I laughed aloud. They looked at me as if I had gone off the nut. I laughed again. This wasn’t going to be as tough as I thought.

  THIRTY YEARS

  1923

  1
/>
  Johnny held his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and spoke to Rocco. “Get the car around and I’ll meet you outside as soon as I finish talking to Peter.”

  Rocco nodded and left the office, closing the door behind him.

  Johnny took his hand from the phone and spoke into it. His voice was patient. He had been listening to Peter complaining about this man, Will Hays, whom the industry had hired to head its association. According to Peter, Hays was going to ruin the industry. “Look, Peter,” he said, “stop worrying about Hays. He’s only trying to do the job you and the others hired him for. The picture business isn’t a peanut stand any more. It’s a big business and the eye of the public is on it. That’s why you formed the M.P.P.D.A. To protect yourselves—”

  Peter interrupted him. “But you know what he wants to do? He wants us all to give him information on how much business we’re doing in each territory. Can you imagine what Borden, Laemmle, Fox, or Mayer would do if they knew that Magnum was doing two million a year in New York and in their theaters into the bargain? They’d tighten up on us. We wouldn’t get half that time in their theaters and if we got the time we wouldn’t get the prices. I know those guys, I tell you, and I don’t trust ’em!”

  Johnny’s voice was soothing. “So what? Their pictures are playing our theaters upstate and down South. One hand washes the other. Besides, Hays said all the information given would be held confidential and that only total industry figures would be used. No company would know anything about any other company, so stop worrying.”

  Peter grumbled. “All right, all right, but I don’t like it. I still think we should have let Hays stay in Washington delivering letters or whatever he was doing before we took him.”

  Johnny smiled at that. He could just imagine the Postmaster General of the United States delivering letters. He changed the subject. “What about the pictures, how are they coming?” he asked. “You know we got some pretty tough competition out here with Paramount plugging The Covered Wagon, Universal’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Pathe’s Safety Last, with Harold Lloyd. We better get something hot soon or we won’t have a good date left in New York.”

  Peter sounded genuinely depressed now. “I got troubles there too,” he said. “I come back from Europe ready to go to work and instead nothing’s ready to shoot, everything’s in a mess. Pictures that should be ready ain’t. I can’t leave here for a minute, Johnny, and I tell you I can’t be in fifteen places at once. What I need is a man like Louey Mayer got over at Metro, a guy like Thalberg, who wouldn’t let the studio fall asleep when I turn my back.”

  “So get one,” Johnny said. “We need pictures.”

  “So get one!” Peter mimicked his tone of voice. “Like you can pick Thalbergs from the orange trees out here.” His voice grew excited. “The trouble with you, Johnny, is that you stay in New York all the time. You just don’t realize what problems we got out here now. We got to make forty pictures a year.”

  “I know,” said Johnny calmly. “But if we can sell ’em, you ought to be able to make ’em.”

  Peter’s voice rose to a shrill screech. “If you know so much, why don’t you come out here and help? It’s easy to sit on your behind in New York and say we need pictures, but it’s a different story when you come out here!”

  Johnny grew a little angry. His voice was challenging. “I’ll come out there if you want me to!”

  Peter’s voice was emphatic. “So come out! I want you should see for yourself what I’m up against, then maybe you’ll have some appreciation for what you do get. When can you get away?”

  Johnny thought quickly. He needed a few weeks to clean up his desk. He tacked a few weeks on that for good measure. “Supposing I come out for New Year’s?” he asked.

  “That’s about four weeks,” Peter said. “Good.”

  For a moment there was an embarrassed silence at both ends of the wire, then Peter cleared his throat and added: “I’m glad you’re coming, Johnny. It will be like old times. We always do better together when things are tough.”

  Johnny’s voice was suddenly warm. “I hope I can help.”

  “You can help,” Peter said sincerely. “I know you will. I’ll tell Esther you’re coming and she’ll get your room ready.”

  Johnny smiled. “Tell her I’ll be looking for some chicken soup and knedloch.”

  “You’ll have it,” Peter promised.

  They spoke a few more words and Johnny hung up the phone thoughtfully. He turned in his chair and looked out of the window. A light snow had begun to fall and already the street was white. He got up and walked over to the closet and put on his hat and coat.

  He walked out the door and toward the street, his mind occupied. Peter had sounded tired ever since he had come back from Europe. He had accomplished a tremendous amount of work over there. Magnum Pictures now stretched all over the globe. It had offices in England, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and in every little country that he could think of. They had set up companies and offices in Asia, in the Near East, in South America. Magnum could boast of the biggest foreign distribution setup in the industry, and one man had done almost all of it himself, Peter.

  No wonder he was tired. He had worked eighteen hours a day. He hadn’t spared himself for a moment, and now he came back to a studio that had fallen terribly behind. It was just too much to ask one man to do, and yet Peter had done it. And still found time to think of Johnny.

  Johnny looked down at his legs. If you didn’t know which was the artificial one and which the real one, you couldn’t tell them apart. Peter had found time to send that funny little man to Johnny even if he had been busy. Thinking about it, Johnny shook his head. You just didn’t work for a guy like that, you loved him.

  The street wasn’t as cold as Johnny had thought it would be. Rock had the motor of the car running while he was waiting for him. Johnny opened the front door and climbed in next to Rock. He looked in the back seat. Jane was sitting there. “Are you warm, Janey?” he asked.

  She nodded her head.

  Rocco had started the car by the time Johnny had turned around. “What did the old boy want?” he asked Johnny.

  “He wants me to come out there and give him a lift,” Johnny said.

  Rocco didn’t answer.

  Johnny looked at him. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothin’,” Rocco growled.

  “A trip to the coast would be nice at this time of the year,” Johnny said.

  Rocco kept his eyes on the road, steering carefully.

  Johnny watched him for a few seconds. “What’s the matter, Rock?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you like to go?”

  Rocco growled something that Johnny didn’t understand.

  Johnny took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and took out two. He placed one between Rock’s lips and one between his own. He struck a match and held it carefully while Rocco lighted up and then lit his own. He leaned back smoking for a few seconds and not saying anything. Everyone was so jumpy lately, even Rock, who was usually so calm. He wondered why. He watched Rocco driving the car for a few minutes and then decided to say nothing. A few weeks in California would make a new man out of him. He leaned back against the car cushions comfortably.

  The car swung into the curb in front of the theater. Rocco turned toward him. “You and Jane get out here and I’ll park the car an’ meet yuh in a few minutes.”

  They got out of the car and watched him drive off. Johnny looked at Jane with a puzzled look on his face. “I wonder what’s eatin’ him?” he asked.

  She looked at him strangely. “Don’t you know?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “He’s been like this for a while now,” she said. “Haven’t you noticed?”

  “I been noticin’ some things,” Johnny answered, “but I figured he was off his feed or something.”

  She started to speak again, but just then Rocco came up and they walked into the theater. For a moment there was
an almost awkward silence, then she laughed. “It seems funny to be going to see a show with Warren Craig in it after everything that’s happened.”

  Johnny laughed with her. “It would be funnier still if he knew we were out here.” He stopped for a moment and then continued: “I wonder what he would say if we want backstage to see him.”

  “From what I heard,” Rocco said, “he’d probably throw you out on your ear.”

  2

  The applause grew louder as the curtain lifted slowly. Johnny watched Warren Craig stand there on the stage. In spite of himself he applauded with the rest of the audience. He looked over at Jane. She, too, was applauding.

  She caught his look and made a face at him. “I don’t like him any more than I did before,” she said, “but—”

  Johnny interrupted her. “I know just how you feel. The son of a bitch is an actor.”

  He looked back at the stage. The years had dealt well with Warren Craig. He had matured subtly without losing any of the natural charm of his youth. He was more poised, his voice richer and more expressive.

  Slowly the curtain came down, hiding him from view. The applause faded away and the audience began leaving the theater. Johnny sat there lost in thought.

  “Ready to go?” Janey asked.

  He looked up at her, startled.

  She caught the expression on his face. “What were you thinking about, Johnny?” she asked suspiciously.

  His face broke into a guilty smile. He looked like a small boy caught in the cookie jar. “You guessed it,” he confessed.

  “Oh, Johnny!” she exclaimed. “Not again!”

  He nodded his head. “Again. He’s too good to pass up. We need a guy like that.”

  “Johnny, he won’t even talk to you!” she protested.

  He stood up. He had made up his mind. “I can’t lose anything by asking,” he said. “Want to come with me?”

  She shook her head. “Uh-uh, not me,” she answered. “You may have forgotten what Sam and I did to him, but I’ll bet he hasn’t.”