The Inheritors (18 page)

“I see,” she said.

They fell silent and he looked at her. He liked the suit she was wearing. She was smart without being loud. Absently he reached for the cigar in the ashtray on his desk. He put it in his mouth and chewed on it. Then he put it back in the tray, took out a fresh cigar and lit it. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“No,” she said.

“Would you like a cigarette?” he asked.

“Thank you,” she said.

He began to search the top of his desk for a package he knew to be there somewhere.

“That’s all right,” she said. “I have some.” She took a pack from her purse and put the cigarette between her lips. He struck a match and leaned across the desk to light it.

The cigarette lit, he leaned back in his chair. They were silent for a moment, then both started to speak at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“That’s all right,” he said. “What were you going to say?”

She hesitated. “It sounds like the kind of work I could be interested in. Is there anything you want to know about me that might help you make up your mind?”

“I suppose so,” he said. He looked down at the desk. “You worked in an office before?”

“Yes,” she said. “After I graduated Hunter College, I worked for a real estate company until I got married. My shorthand and typing are a little rusty, but I’m sure they’ll come back quickly with a little practice.”

“How long were you married?”

“Two years,” she said. She hesitated. “That is, two years until my husband was killed. We were actually married less than a month when he went overseas.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

There was a long pause. “You know I have a daughter?”

He nodded.

“She’s three years old now. She’s no problem if I go to work. I have a good nurse for her.”

“The job doesn’t pay that much,” he said. “I’m only just starting the business.”

“The salary isn’t important,” she said. “Is there anything else you would like to know?”

“Yes,” he said, looking at her.

“What’s that?”

“Your name.”

She looked into his eyes. “Denise,” she said.

***

Within two weeks after she came to work for him, Sam knew it would be all right. She had everything under control, the books, the mail, the accounts.

The Naked Fugitives
, as Sam titled the picture for the United States, continued to do capacity business. It looked like a solid run for a year if he wanted to keep it there. And he was in no hurry to pull it. There was nothing else that seemed likely to take its place.

He began to turn his attention to distribution. Several majors approached him to handle the picture, but their terms were always too high to allow him to make more than the small guarantee they offered. They kept telling him that the Broadway run was a fluke, that it was a New York picture and that outside New York it would fall flat. He began to hold meetings with various states rights distributors.

These were small companies, one- or two-man operations in most cases, but they were able to market films that would otherwise be sloughed by the majors. But again, in most cases, there wasn’t much money to be made. He studied various formulas and in the end came back to the one that had been successful for him.

What he needed was distributors or partners to finance the advertising and publicity campaigns. To attract attention to the picture that would not ordinarily accrue because of the lack of well-known stars and box-office names. He spent two weeks traveling around the country visiting key cities. These were the cities that offered the greatest grossing potential, generally contributing almost eighty percent of a film’s take. When he returned to New York, he had a plan all worked out. What he did not have was the financing to implement it.

Once again, he began to feel tight and frustrated. This was the same thing he had felt before, the feeling that drove him from job to job. The feeling that he kept running into stonewalls.

He approached the banks, but they were not willing to lend him the money. According to them, there was not sufficient security in the distribution rights to a film, no matter how good it looked. They had been burned before on similar propositions.

The factors and high-interest people were willing to take a limited flyer. Enough to get him by but not enough to really accomplish what he wanted. For a brief moment, he was tempted to take their offers, but the combined effect of the high interest he had to pay, and the fifty percent of his profit they wanted after that stopped him.

In reality, his plan was a simple one. He had ten theaters lined up around the country. Each theater was willing to make a four-wall deal with him. In effect, they were leasing the theater to him to show the picture. He would guarantee them a minimum profit and they would share fifty-fifty with him on the overages. The guarantees plus the advertising that he would have to pay came to three thousand dollars a week per theater. Thirty thousand a week for the five-week period, which was the minimum he could contract for, one hundred and fifty thousand in all.

He could come up with thirty thousand himself, another twenty thousand he felt sure his parents would give him, especially after the quick repayment he had made on the original loan. Solveg promised to contribute fifty thousand dollars again on the part of the Swedish film industry. That still left him short by fifty thousand dollars.

He pushed back the papers on his desk and looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock. He rubbed his face thoughtfully. He had better shave and get ready. He had arranged to meet Denise at the Brass Rail for dinner. They had a nice dining room upstairs and she had gone home to change. The telephone rang and he picked it up.

It was Denise. “Sam?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he answered. “Just a little tired, I guess.”

“Look, I have an idea,” she said. “It’s miserable out and raining. Why go out to dinner? Come on up here and relax. I have a couple of huge steaks I can throw on the fire.”

“Sounds great to me,” he said. “When do you want me up there?”

“Come now,” she said. “I have everything ready.”

***

He sat in the living room of her West End Avenue apartment, a drink in one hand and an illustrated children’s book of
Snow White
in the other.

“Is that Snoopy, Uncle Sam?” Myriam asked in her little voice, pointing to an illustration.

“No, that’s Grumpy,” he said.

“I don’t like him,” the child said.

He laughed, putting down his drink and rumpled the child’s head. “Nobody likes him. He’s got bad manners.”

“I have good manners,” Myriam said. “Everybody likes me.”

“I’m sure they do,” Sam said.

The child crawled off his lap. “Don’t go away. I’m going to get another book.”

“I’ll be here,” Sam promised. He picked up his drink again and looked around the apartment. His parents were right about one thing. Apparently she didn’t need the job. The rent on this apartment was more than he paid her each week. The doorbell rang.

“Will you get it, Sam?” Denise called from the kitchen.

He opened the door. Her brother, Roger, stood there. He came in and they shook hands. “I can only stay a few minutes,” Roger said. “Denise told me you were coming up for dinner and I thought I’d drop by and say hello.”

Denise came in from the kitchen. “Why don’t you stay for dinner? There’s plenty of food.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Roger said, looking at Sam.

“You won’t be intruding,” Sam said.

“Fix yourself a drink,” Denise said. “Dinner will be ready in a minute. I’ll set another place.”

“How’s it going?” Roger asked, over the drink.

“Good,” Sam replied. “We’re still playing to capacity.”

“It’s a good picture,” Roger said. “I especially like that scene where the Germans can’t find the American soldiers because naked everybody looks alike and they want everybody to put clothes on.”

Sam smiled. “It’s a good scene.”

“How’s your distribution plans coming along?”

“Slowly,” Sam answered. “It takes time.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The usual. Money,” Sam replied.

“How much do you need?”

Suddenly it all made sense to Sam. He wasn’t here just for dinner. Denise had arranged it all.

Later when Roger had left and they were having a second cup of coffee in the living room, he turned to her. “You didn’t have to do it.”

“I wanted to,” she said. “I believe in you.”

It happened quite naturally. They leaned toward each other, then she was in his arms. They kissed. Suddenly his size didn’t matter anymore. He felt tall.

“Why me?” he asked. “I’m fifteen years older than you, short and fat.” He gestured toward a photograph of her late husband. “Not a bit like him.”

Her eyes were steadier than her voice. “You’re a man. Compared to you all the others, everyone else, is a boy.”

A small sound came from the open doorway. They turned. The child was standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. “I had a bad dream.”

Sam picked her up and brought her back to the couch between them. “It will go away,” he said soothingly.

She looked up at them, first at her mother, then at him. “Are you going to be my daddy?”

“Why don’t you ask your mother? She seems to have it all worked out.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I’d like you to get some new clothes,” she said one evening as they sat down to dinner.

“What for?” he asked. “I got all new clothes just before we got married. They’re perfectly good.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “For a racetrack tout. Not for a successful businessman.”

“I’m in the picture business,” he said. “They don’t dress like everybody else.”

“Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you want. If you like looking short and fat.”

“I am short and fat,” he said. And that was the end of it. He thought. Until he went to his closet the next morning.

He turned back into the room. “Where the hell are all my suits?” he yelled.

“You’re shouting,” she said. “It’s not healthy.”

“It’s healthy to walk around naked?” he yelled. “What did you do with my suits?”

“I gave them to the Salvation Army,” she said.

He was speechless.

“I made an appointment for you at the tailor,” she said. “Ten o’clock this morning. I’m going with you.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “But what do I wear in the meantime?”

“The suit you wore yesterday,” she said.

They bought a half dozen suits. All the same cut, three in black, three in dark blue. Even he had to admit afterward that he looked better. The new shoes with the built-up heel didn’t hurt either.

A few days later she turned from her desk in the small office they shared and waited until he finished screaming over the telephone at the theater manager in Oklahoma City.

“You don’t have to shout,” she said quietly. “The way you’re carrying on you can save yourself the cost of the phone call.”

“What do you expect me to do?” he yelled. “When the son of a bitch is trying to screw me out of two grand?”

“You’re shouting now,” she said. “And I’m only three feet away from you.”

“Of course I’m shouting. I’m angry.”

“You can be just as angry in a quiet voice,” she said. “And people will have more respect for you.” She got to her feet. “You don’t have to yell anymore to make people listen to you. You’re successful. You’re a big man. They’ll listen if you whisper.”

She walked out of the office and his eyes followed her to the door. He turned back to his desk. That was always the trouble with women. They were never happy until they changed you. All the same, maybe she had something. Just like with the suits. It wouldn’t hurt to try it. He could always go back to shouting if it didn’t work.

That night when they were in bed, he turned toward her. “You know you were right,” he said.

“About what?” she asked.

“About shouting,” he said. “I don’t really have to. It was just a habit, I guess. Maybe it was just my way of showing I was boss.” He pulled her toward him.

She held him away. “There was something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Can’t it keep until later?” he asked like a little boy. “I want to get laid.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” she said. “Later you’ll be asleep.”

He reached over and turned on the lamp, sitting up in bed. “What is it?” he asked, looking at her.

Her face began to turn pink. “I can’t talk about it with the light on and you staring at me like that.”

“You want I should go in the next room and pick up the telephone?”

“Don’t make jokes,” she said. “This is serious.”

“I’m not joking,” he said. “Tell me already.”

Her face was completely red now. Her eyes fell. “That’s just it. You’re so impatient, you’re always in a hurry.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She looked up at him. “We’re married almost six weeks,” she said in a low voice. “And I’ve only had maybe two orgasms.”

A note of concern came into his voice. “Why didn’t you say something before? Maybe you ought to see a doctor, there might be something wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” she said. “It’s just that—you see—you’re always in such a hurry. Bing, bang, boom. You’re on, you’re off, you’re out, you’re asleep. Then I lie there awake half the night trying to figure out what happened.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” he said. “All you have to do is get it off sooner.”

“I can’t,” she said in an unhappy voice. “You’ll just have to give me more time.”

“How can I do that?” he asked. “You know me. Once I get started, there’s no stopping.”

“Maybe it would help if you thought of other things when you find yourself getting too excited.”

“If I think of other things I’d lose my hard,” he said.

“I read somewhere that if you counted to yourself, it helps,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “Did you have the same trouble with him?”

She knew who he meant. “I never had an orgasm with him at all,” she said honestly. “Before I had a chance to think about it, he went overseas.”