Dreams Die First (23 page)

Lonergan pushed a mug of steaming black coffee toward me. “You look like a drowned rat.”

I swallowed half the cup of coffee and put it down on the desk. “But a sober drowned rat. Now what is it you want to talk about?”

“How are you doing with the magazine?”

“You know. Why ask me?”

“I want you to tell me.”

“I’m folding. Tapped out. Busted. Anything more you want to know?”

“Yes. Why?”

I finished the mug of coffee before I answered. I had been giving that a lot of thought. “You want an excuse or the truth?”

“The truth.”

“Because I was stupid. I finally figured it out. I tried to publish
Playboy
and
Penthouse
. But that’s not my game.”

“What is your game?”

“I’m a street publisher. That’s why the
Hollywood Express
worked. I can hit the guy on the street with the things I do. I can’t hit the middle-crust white-collar guy with social pretensions the way Hefner and Guccione can. My best shot is to the gut, not the head.”

He was silent for a moment. “Do you think you can still make a magazine pay off?”

“Yes.”

“What does it take?”

“To start with, money. After that, distribution. That wouldn’t be easy because of my track record. I’d have to try to find one who was willing to take a chance on me.”

“If you had the money and the magazine, would you go back to Ronzi?”

“I don’t like the prick. Besides, he’s local. I need a national distributor for the magazine.”

“What if he comes up with a national distributor?”

I was sober now. Lonergan never did anything without a reason. “You’re not leveling with me, Uncle John. What’s with Ronzi?”

“Persky took the
Express
down the tube and Ronzi went for a bundle. Now he wants to come up with something good so he can prove himself with his associates in the East.”

“He tell you to contact me?”

“Not in so many words. But he managed to give me the feeling he wouldn’t be averse to a deal.”

“I’m not going back to publishing the
Express
.”

“That’s not what I asked. I’m talking about the magazine. Your magazine.
Macho
. That’s something the Italians would understand.”

“I won’t go with the mustaches. No pieces. No partners.”

“The magazine is yours. They would just be the distributors.”

I thought for a moment. “I would still have to come up with enough money to get the magazine out. I owe fifty grand now and my creditors won’t carry me.”

“I might be able to talk them into a hundred big ones as an advance for exclusive distribution for two years.”

“One year. And no personal liability if the magazine drops dead. They lose their money. Period.”

“You’re taking a hard line for a man who’s on his ass.”

“Why not?” I smiled. “What more have I got to lose?”

“I should have let you stay drunk. You would have been easier to deal with.”

“Why?” I had a thought. “Do you have a piece of Ronzi’s action?”

“No. But he still thinks I have a piece of yours. He doesn’t believe anyone but the Italians think that blood is thicker than water.”

I had a sudden burst of understanding. All Lonergan had ever taken from me was what had been his. He had never taken anything of mine. He had used me. But I had used him in return. And in the end, if he hadn’t kept his arm around me, I would have been dead. I met his eyes. “Uncle John, I’ve just changed my mind.”

“About what?”

“I do want a partner. You.”

I saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed a deep gulp of air. He blinked his eyes, polished his gold-rimmed glasses, then put them back on his nose. “I’m flattered,” he said huskily. “How much will it cost me?”

“I owe fifty. Even after I pay it off, I will still need a hundred to get the magazine the way I want it. Ronzi’s advance leaves me short. Fifty gets you ten percent.”

“Ten percent is nothing,” he said. “A finder’s fee is that much without any investment.”

“That’s my deal.”

He looked at me for a moment. “I’ll make you a better offer. I’ll give you a hundred for twenty percent. You run the whole show. That will give you a real shot.”

“What if it goes into the sewer?”

“Then I’ll cry a lot. But you won’t owe me anything.”

I stared at him. It was something I thought I would never do. Not after what had happened to my father. They had been partners and my father had blown his brains out because Uncle John wouldn’t help him.

He responded as if he’d been reading my mind. “Your father was a weak man. He did something he shouldn’t have done. When he was caught, he compounded it by involving other people, people who were innocent of any wrongdoing. By the time he came to me there was nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do. I advised him to tell the truth and take his fall. I told him that when he got out, I would help him start all over again. But he couldn’t face the truth. He thought more of his image than he did about your mother or you. So he wrote the note blaming everything on me. It made newspaper headlines and there were enough people who didn’t like me to give it credence. But didn’t you ever wonder why, if the charges that he made were true, no one ever brought me into court?”

I let him talk.

“They were all investigated. By every authority, local and federal. And not one of them was true. Because if they had found one, they would have cheerfully hanged me from the nearest tree.” He took off his glasses and wiped them again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what brought that on. I never meant to talk to you about your father like that. But it was always there between us. You were a child when it happened and you grew up with it. It even affected your attitude toward your mother because you did not understand why our relationship continued as if nothing had happened.”

I looked at him without speaking. I had nothing to say. It was all in the past and nothing could change that. Again he seemed to pick up my thoughts.

“It’s over. And it has nothing to do with what we were talking about.”

I nodded.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked somewhat hesitantly as if fearing rejection.

I held out my hand to him. “Yes, partner.”

He took my hand in both of his and held on tightly. His eyes blinked behind his glasses. “We’ll do all right. You’ll see.”

Even I had to blink. “I know we will. And I’ll do my damnedest not to let you down.”

“Now that we’re partners, son, the first thing I’m going to do is tell that guinea bastard he’s got to come up with at least two hundred if he wants a national exclusive.”

“Uncle John, remember our deal? You said that I run the show.”

“I’m not interfering,” he said quickly. “But you’ll have enough to do getting out the magazine. And besides, I can handle that bastard better than anybody. He knows damn well that I can fix it so he won’t have a truck left on the streets of Los Angeles.”

There was no arguing with that. He could speak the only language the mustaches understood. “Okay, Uncle John. You started with Ronzi, you finish with him.” Suddenly I was hungry. I got to my feet.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m starved. It’s past two in the morning and I haven’t eaten since lunch.”

He put his hand in his pocket. “You haven’t any money?”

I laughed. “I have money. I just haven’t had the time. I’ve been too busy.”

“Where are you going?”

“The Bagel Delicatessen on Fairfax. They’re open late.”

“Have Bill drive you over and wait for you. Then he can take you home. I don’t want you walking around the streets at night.”

“I’m a big boy, Uncle John, you’ve never worried about me before.”

“We weren’t partners then,” he said. “Now I have more than blood invested in you.”

CHAPTER 33

MACHO
. Giant block letters on royal blue velvet background.

In smaller white letters on the left: “For the Masculine Mystique.” Same type on the right: Volume 2, Number 1.

Completely nude girl, white cowboy hat on head, standing in classic aggressive gunfighter’s pose, holding gun in each hand, pointing at reader. Cellophane lay-over on which has been imprinted white lace bikini, covering breasts and genitalia of girl. Through the lace can be seen the faint coloring of girl’s breasts and pubic hair. Lettering running down left side of photograph: “Are you man enough?” On the right side running parallel: “To tear off my bikini?”

Absolutely no other copy. Except the price in the upper right-hand corner: $1.25.

Inside front cover in black letters: “Our new symbol—” Giant Red Letters: THE FIGHTING COCK! Artwork. A pop drawing of a phallus, erect and angry, over which is imposed a fighting cock, complete with red comb, thrusting beak and sharp, angry claws fitted with knives below swollen testicles which constitute the body. The fighting cock seems to be hanging in the air about to pounce on the nude body of a girl lying supine beneath him. Copy: “For the Masculine Mystique. The man who is willing to fight for what he wants is the man who gets what he wants.”

Facing page. The publisher’s statement:

It was three months after Lonergan and I had made our deal that we stood looking at the mock-up of the magazine. It was spread out, page by page, on the wall and we watched as the production estimator from the printer went down the line, making his notes. At last he finished and came back to us.

“Can you do it?” I asked.

“We can do anything. It’ll just cost.”

“How much?”

“How many copies you thinkin’ of?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. What’s the base price?”

“You have two special jobs: cellophane wrapper and the centerfold. We’ll need special machinery to handle that.” He turned and looked at the wall. “That’s thirty thousand for openers whether you print a hundred copies or a million. I figure color press time and paper for two hundred thousand will bring you up to about eighty thousand.”

“The production cost comes to forty cents a copy,” Verita said. “Ronzi gets twelve and a half cents per copy distribution commission and withholds fifteen cents per copy for returns. Out of the sixty-two and a half cents dealer’s price, that leaves us with thirty-five cents and a deficit for openers of a nickel a copy.”

I glanced at Lonergan. He was silent.

“That doesn’t take into account our costs and overhead, which amount to about twenty thousand to date. That brings our loss to fifteen cents a copy.”

I went back to the production man. “What if we run a million copies?”

He made some pencil calculations on his scratch pad. “We could bring it in for about one hundred and forty thousand, give or take a few dollars.”

Verita didn’t need a scratch pad. “Even with a forty percent return, we make a profit of ninety thousand dollars.”

“And if we sell out one hundred percent?”

“Then we’re in gravy. We pick up an additional quarter of a million dollars, making our net three hundred and forty thousand.”

I turned to Ronzi, who up to now hadn’t said a word. “What do you think? Can we sell a million copies?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll ask you another question then. Can you get a million copies on the stands for me?”

“I can do that, but I won’t guarantee that they’ll stick.”

“Would you lay fifty grand on top of my one-fifty in a cooperative advertising campaign to introduce the magazine to the market?”

“What’s in it for me if I do?”

“First, you pick up an extra hundred grand for selling the eight hundred thousand copies, plus which I’ll give you a five percent override, and that’ll net you another thirty.”

“I wouldn’t do it for less than a ten percent override.”

“You got it.”

“Wait a minute. Not so fast. I didn’t say I’d do it. Nobody ever advertised a magazine like this before.”

I smiled. “That doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”

“Where you gonna advertise?”

“The usual places. Newspapers, radio, TV.”

“They won’t take your ads.”

“What if I told you I already have the campaign placed?”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Come upstairs then.”

They followed me up to the apartment. There on an easel was the newspaper ad. The illustration was a simple line drawing. A woman in a discreet sexy negligee, a bored expression on her face, standing next to a chair in which her husband was sitting, his eyes glued on the television set. The copy was simple. “MACHO. A new magazine. For the Masculine Mystique. Attention: Ladies! Get your husband a copy today. It will do more for him than vitamins. At your news dealer now.”