Tycoon (29 page)

Jack shook hands with Dugan. “I don't know what to do about it,” he said quietly.

“He wants to fly a bigger plane so you can come along and see him fly. Don't do it. We've been working on stalls. Mr. Lear, he stalls a plane and sends it over into a spinning dive that almost makes
me
upchuck—then recovers and comes out level like nothing had happened.”

D
URING THE SECOND WEEK IN
J
ULY,
J
ACK AND
A
NNE TRAV
eled to Philadelphia to attend the Democratic National Convention. They were in the hall when Harry S. Truman was nominated and at 2:00
A.M.
when he made his acceptance speech.

Jack's new associates at Broadcasters Alliance were happy with Curt Frederick's live coverage of the convention. Curt sat in a glassed-in booth overlooking the convention floor while three men with microphones wandered through the crowd interviewing delegates.

Curt himself went out on the floor occasionally. He scored a broadcasting coup when he thrust a microphone at a group of Dixiecrats angrily abandoning the convention and picked up the voice of a South Carolina delegate growling, “Truman! Truman! That nigga-lovin' cocksuckah!” Since the feed was live, the words went out on sixteen Lear Network stations and seven of the nine Broadcasters Alliance stations and were heard by millions.

Shrieks of protest went up from the Dixiecrats, especially the South Carolinians. Some of them charged that a hidden microphone had been used to pick up private conversation. The South Carolinian whose voice was heard on the air charged that Curt Frederick had spoken the words himself in a fake southern accent.

Asked about the incident, President Truman laughed and said, “My! Such language!”

LNI received thousands of letters saying it should not have let the words go out on the air. Jack himself read a network editorial, which was broadcast three times on all the stations. He said LNI had no wish to air such words, but since the broadcast was live there had been no way to stop it. He apologized to those who were offended.

The incident was a highlight of LNI's exhaustive convention coverage, which was on the whole an acknowledged triumph of broadcast journalism.

F
RIDAY WAS
P
RISCILLA'S DAY OFF.
S
HE TOOK THE TRAIN INTO
New York early in the morning and would not return to Greenwich before midmorning on Saturday. In the afternoon Mrs. Gimbel took Little Jack to the beach. Big Jack and Anne would not be home from Philadelphia until tomorrow. This left John and Joan alone in the house.

They swam in the pool, but the water was still a little cold, so they felt clammy when they came out. They decided to go upstairs and take a warm shower—together.

Both nude, they went in Joan's room and stretched out on the bed. John began to fondle her.

“Hey, Joni,” he whispered in her ear. “Let's . . .”

She grunted. “Well . . . I'm still scared about that, John. If we ever got caught—”

“We aren't gonna get caught. If Gimbel comes home, we'll hear the crunch of the gravel in the driveway. If
anybody
comes, we'll hear them, and we'll have plenty of time to get dressed. Hey, you
do
like it, don't you?”

“You know I do. I just figure we're taking chances. The more times we do it, the more likely somebody will figure it out.”

“Not if we're careful. And we've been very careful.”

“You're sure I can't get pregnant?”

“Right. You can't. A guy can't get his sister pregnant. I don't know exactly why. It's . . . something in the way it works. It's something in the genes.”

“We're not supposed to.”

“Yeah, but who could you trust more? Who could I trust more. C'mon, Joni. You like it as much as I do.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“O
NE OF THE REASONS
S
ALLY
A
LLEN IS NO TREMENDOUS
success on radio,” Cap said to Jack, “is that radio's not
visual.
She's a comedienne chiefly, and she's damned funny, but in every picture she does she has a role that lets her show off her legs. In her radio show she's a housewife. We give her funny lines, but . . .”

Jack frowned. “Let me ask you something. Has she ever smoked a cigarette on-screen?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Well, she smokes on the radio show. Every goddamned episode has some line like ‘Hey, Harry, I need to relax. Light my Amber for me. Ah . . . thanks. That's better.'”

“Hell, I know,” said Cap. “And Harry probably says something like ‘Yeah. Relaxing. Sure tastes great.' The sponsor demands it. Which makes our comedienne sound like a vacant-headed idiot.”

“Why do we let sponsors—or sponsors' advertising agencies, actually—dictate to us?” Jack asked angrily. “Why the hell should Sally Allen's show start with a breathless idiot yelling into a microphone,
‘The Amber Cigarettes Hour, Featuring Sally Allen!'?
Why? Why not
The Sally Allen Show,
sponsored by Amber Cigarettes!?”

“Because the bastards will desert us,” said Cap.

“No they won't. They need us as bad as we need them.”

J
ACK DECIDED TO FLY TO
L
OS
A
NGELES TO SEE
S
ALLY
A
LLEN.
They met for lunch at the Brown Derby.

Sally Allen was distinctive. In a Hollywood that still insisted on bland conformity in leading ladies, she was different. Her eyes were too big. Her teeth were too prominent. Her voice was high-pitched and nasal, except when she held it in tight control. On the other hand, her figure was one that any leading lady would envy. She was twenty-eight years old.

They chatted about nothing much for a while, but when she was halfway through her third martini she told him she was sorry she had signed a five-year contract. “Cap Durenberger's a sharp, persuasive guy,” she said.

“You want out of the contract?” Jack asked.

“Well . . .”

“I'll let you out. I don't want anyone working for me who's unhappy with the deal.”

She tipped her head to one side and regarded him with skeptical curiosity. “You're not the kind of guy your brother says you are.”

“You know my brother?”

Sally grinned and opened her big eyes wide. “Everybody knows the Lears, father and son. I understand you refused to release me from my radio contract to make a picture for Carlton House.”

“We've released you to do four other pictures. I was trying to protect you from my father, who inisists on doing you-know-what with every actress Bob hires.”

“This kid can protect herself.”

“Don't kid yourself. Erich doesn't play fair.”

“I don't have to either.”

Jack put his hand on hers and stared hard into her eyes. “Sally, you can't compete with him. Don't even try.”

Sally blew a loud sigh. She stared at her drink, as though considering ordering another, then visibly decided not to.

“Listen,” said Jack. “I've got a couple of ideas. Let me explain them. Don't say no until you've heard me out.”

She shrugged. “I wasn't doing anything else this afternoon.”

“All right. The fall season has started, and it's the same old shit. Sally Allen, batty housewife, star of
The Amber Cigarettes Hour.
What have we got in the can? Enough to last till January?”

“I suppose.”

“Okay. Suppose we announce shortly that
The Amber Cigarettes Hour
is cancelled for the balance of the season. We—”

“The sponsors may cancel themselves. They can jump the gun on us.”

“Not if we announce tomorrow.”

“What are we gonna announce tomorrow, Mr. Lear?”

“Call me Jack. Suppose you and I call a press conference tomorrow. We announce that we are unhappy with
The Amber Cigarettes Hour, Featuring Sally Allen
and that we are going into production immediately with a new mid-season program called
The Sally Allen Show!”

“Which will be different how?”

He snapped his fingers and ordered another round of drinks. “Sally Allen is no situation-comedy housewife, prattling about how much she loves her Amber cigarettes and her Flo laundry soap. She's a showbiz girl! The comedy is built around her adventures putting together a vaudeville act, a nightclub show, a . . . whatever. Some of the lines are jokes about how brief her costumes are. The audience has an image of this hardworking, sharp-talking gal struggling to make a career on the stage and frustrated by every prosaic, cliché-ridden—”

“Who's gonna write this?” asked Sally.

“We can find a writer. Got somebody in mind?”

“I might.”

“Well, if you want a release, you got it. You want to try something different, you got that.”

“Who's gonna sponsor?”

“I am. For a while. But I'll bet that Southern Tobacco will be back, offering money for commercial spots, before the opening half-season ends. That's the way my network is going to oper
ate from now on. Sponsors can buy commercial time, but they'll buy it on shows
we
create and produce. Nobody is going to own us.”

“You'll go broke,” Sally said flatly.

“Even if I do, you won't. I can fund my obligations under your contract until it expires. Something else, Sally. In the bitter end, you know, you're not really a radio performer. You're too
visual.
Suppose we get into this thing called video—”

“Television,” she interrupted.

“Okay. Whatever. Suppose Sally Allen appears on the face of a tube—singing, dancing, showing her legs. Hey, all we have to do is not lose too much capital in the spring of '49.”

Sally Allen turned down the corners of her mouth and shook her head. “You and Durenberger,” she said. “Okay, boss. Let's give it a try.”

I
N
O
CTOBER
J
ACK RETURNED TO
L
OS
A
NGELES UNEXPECT
edly.

“Siddown, kid.” Erich Lear pointed to the couch that faced his desk. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Jack let himself down heavily on the big leather-covered couch. “I've got a big problem,” he said.

“What are you saying?” Erich's Marsh Wheeling stogie had gone out, and he snapped a Zippo and touched flame to it. “What kind of problem could you have that you'd want to talk to me about it?”

“This is goddamned serious.”

“I figure. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't.”

“All right. You can screw me to a fare-thee-well on this. I've come to you for help. You can shit me or not shit me.”

“Runnin' out of money?”

“I wouldn't call that serious. I could handle that. I have something a hell of a lot more serious than that.”

Erich clasped his hands behind his head and leaned his chair back, letting the stogie hang from a corner of his mouth. He was wearing a madras jacket over a golf shirt. “Jesus . . . to think of it. My son coming to me for—What's the deal, Jack?”

“Confidential. You and I have never been the best of friends, but I always figured your word's good.”

“They figure that in this town. I screw broads, not business guys.
They
watch their chances and screw you back.”

“All right. When you need something out of the ordinary, you go to the guy who knows how to do it. Dad, I need the services of a damned good, damned secret doctor.”

Erich's face lit up. He grinned. He brought down his arms and pulled the stogie from his mouth.
“An abortion!
Christ the Lord, who have you got knocked up? Don't tell me it's Sally Allen!”

Jack choked on his words. He wiped his eyes and shook his head. “That'd be a joke. This isn't. This is
serious!”

Erich put his stogie aside in an ashtray. “A kid . . . ?”

“Not by me! I don't know who the guy is. She absolutely refuses to say.”

Erich frowned. “Who?” he asked darkly.

“Joan. My daughter.”

Erich gaped. “What's she . . . ?
Fourteen fuckin' years old?”

“Yes.”

Erich reached for a button on his desk, then pulled back his hand. “You gotta get somebody killed, son.”

“Yeah . . . when I find out who. Right now what I need is a one hundred percent trustworthy doctor.”

Erich nodded. “Okay. I know one who can do it. When?”

“The kids are coming to me for Thanksgiving. They'll arrive in New York on Wednesday, but they have to be back in Boston Sunday night.”

“You tellin' me her mother doesn't know?”

“I'm telling you her mother doesn't know.”

“But you do.”

“My son called me.”

Erich blew a loud sigh between the fingers that covered his mouth. “Chartered plane,” he said. “Fly her out here on Thanksgiving Day. Operation that evening, Friday morning at the latest. How far along is she?”

“Maybe two months, ten weeks.”

“It's not a serious operation, but it'd be better if we could get it done sooner.”

“Dad, I'm not responsible for this. Not in any way.”

“Well. Something that makes you call me Dad is pretty important. I'll set it up. You get her out here. Does the Countess know?”

“Anne knows.”

“Why don't you tell Kimberly you're celebrating Thanksgiving with the California grandparents?”

J
OAN MANAGED TO HOLD BACK HER TEARS UNTIL THE CHAR
tered twin took off from Teterboro Airport. Then, in the air, she broke down.