Tycoon (34 page)

Jack laughed. “We couldn't do it on television.”

“More's the pity,” she said. “In those old routines the situation almost always managed to get my boobs out. I used to think it was sexier being bare-titted on the stage and doing a sketch under full lights than it was to strip down to a G-string.”

“I agree.”

“The reason I bring it up is, I got a letter. It's from . . . well, I guess it's from my husband, ‘cause I never divorced him, really, just left him. He saw me on TV and realized for the first time that Sally Allen was the girl he remembered as Flo.”

“Does he want money?” Jack asked.

“Just a little. A couple hundred. He says times are tough. The old burlesque houses are closing all over. He was a straight man, and his top banana died. He's been working as a candy butcher. He's also got a girl, a stripper named Marilyn, who works a comedy routine with him. She broke her leg and went on stripping and doing the routine with her leg in a cast. Can you believe humanity? The guys in the audiences liked her
better!
I mean, they liked seeing her strip with a cast on her leg.”

“Makes her seem more human,” said Jack.

“Anyway, his name is Len Leonard, and he's asking for two hundred dollars. What do I do?”

“How'd you break up, if you don't mind my asking?”

“I didn't want to be a stripper my whole life, that's all. I wanted to leave the theaters, and he didn't; he didn't know what else he could do. So one day I just packed my little suitcase and left.”

“And went on to fame and fortune,” Jack said with a smile.

Sally tossed back her Scotch. “I'll tell ya what I never did. I never turned tricks. I had a lot of chances, from guys who offered a lot of money. Let some of your Hollywood queens make that statement.”

“You want me to take care of the problem for you?”

“By doing what?”

“By getting you a secret divorce. You send the two hundred to keep him quiet for a few weeks, and I'll take care of the rest of it, if you want me to.”

She sighed. “I'd appreciate it, Jack.”

O
N A
N
OVEMBER EVENING
J
ACK SAT DOWN IN WHAT HAD TO
be the shabbiest theater he'd ever been in, a burlesque house in Toledo. The house was probably best characterized by the chicken-wire cage that enclosed the trio of musicians to protect
them from whatever members of the audience might throw at them.

The performers were limp and devoid of talent. One of the strippers was a teenage girl who managed to look embarrassed. The others were women in their late twenties or their thirties, all long past being embarrassed by anything.

The top banana was a man of at least sixty who had left his dentures in the dressing room. His signature line, delivered with a smirk at the audience, was “Gotta
eat!”
His second banana was Len Leonard, who fed him his lines woodenly and waited for his responses, knowing the men who filled the seats in the front rows of the theater could not have cared less about what the two comics said.

The only comedy sketch that generated any reaction was the one done by Leonard and a woman Jack guessed was Marilyn, Leonard's girlfriend who had performed with her leg in a cast. She played a female suspect being interrogated and searched by a detective played by Leonard.

“I understand you carry a forty-four,” Leonard said.

“No way! No way. Thirty-nine, maybe.”

“Thirty-nine?”

“Well, mebbe forty.”

“Show me.”

The woman pulled off her blouse and bared her breasts. “See? Thirty—”

“—two. Huh-uh. Where's your
big
one?”

The woman did a bump and grind. “Where's
yours,
baby?”

And so on.

The star of the show was a woman whose name Jack had heard before: a huge redhead with immense breasts. She stayed onstage longer than any of the other strippers. She had a better costume and showed a minor talent for dancing.

At intermission Leonard worked the crowd, trying to sell them boxes of candy for a dollar, making impossible claims. “A pound of this candy ordinarily sells for five or six dollars. Well, this box is not a pound, just enough good candy to eat and enjoy during the show. But this week, to introduce this special candy to Toledo, we have put a special gift in each box. In . . . two, three, four . . . boxes there is a Hamilton wristwatch! In others—”

The job was actually a little perilous. From time to time Leonard would yell breathlessly that one of the wristwatches had just gone. A shill would scream that he'd won a watch. By the time the lights went down for the second half of the show, a few drunks were ready to rush Leonard and demand their money back, having paid a dollar for three or four pieces of cheap taffy and realizing there were no watches or other gifts in the boxes. Leonard dashed backstage, and one or two menacing toughs kept the drunks at bay.

About midnight, Leonard and Marilyn sat down wearily in a booth in a bar next to the theater. They'd done three shows. He'd done three candy scams. They looked tired and depressed.

“Mr. Leonard?”

The man looked up at Jack. “My name is Jack Lear. I'm the president of Lear Communications. May I join you for a moment?”

Leonard pointed at a seat. He was an overweight man with oily hair slicked down against his head. He wore a shabby gray suit. Marilyn's pupils were dilated. The needle tracks on her arms told the story.

“I have something for you, Mr. Leonard,” Jack said. He pulled out of his raincoat pocket and placed on the table a neat package wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string. “What's in there is yours if you sign a paper I'm going to hand you.”

“What's in there?” Leonard asked dully.

“One hundred one-hundred-dollar bills,” said Jack. “Ten thousand dollars.”

Leonard was not stupid. “From Flo,” he muttered.

“No. From me.”

“This paper I sign. Divorce?”

“That's right.”

“Okay. I never asked her for anything like ten thousand.”

“I know. Just sign the paper. There are three copies. Sign three times.”

“Sure. Lend me your pen.”

Jack handed Leonard a Parker 51 fountain pen, and Leonard signed the documents without reading them. He pulled the package across the table toward him.

“Want to open it up and count it?” Jack asked.

Leonard shook his head. “You're a gentleman, Mr. Lear—what I could never afford to be.”

Marilyn had stared dully throughout the conversation. Jack doubted she understood what had happened.

“One final thing, Mr. Leonard. Do you know the meaning of a major headache?”

Leonard nodded. “It's what I get if Flo ever hears from me or about me again.”

O
N A
S
ATURDAY MORNING
S
ALLY
A
LLEN APPEARED IN A
courtroom in a county in northern Alabama. Her head was covered by a scarf, and she wore dark sunglasses. A local lawyer stood up beside her.

In her papers Florence Stanwich Leonard swore she was a new resident of Alabama but intended to be a permanent resident. (She had been a resident for twelve hours, since she'd checked into a motel the evening before. She would remain a resident until almost noon, when she would drive out of the state forever.) Leonard's sworn affidavit said he knew his wife was a bona fide resident of Alabama and that he consented to her obtaining a decree of divorce from him. The lawyer handed the papers to the judge, who signed the decree without reading it or any of the other papers in the file. The process took less than a whole minute and was one of fifty decrees entered in that court that morning.

1951

E
RICH
L
EAR PUT HIS STOGIE ASIDE IN THE ASHTRAY ON HIS
desk. He lifted his glass and took a sip of gin. It was not his favorite drink, but it was what he had at the moment, and he didn't want to interrupt this moment by sending out for anything else.

“Well?” the nude blond asked.

Erich grinned. “Yeah. You're everything anybody ever said you were. And more.”

The blond tossed her chin high and thrust her breasts forward. “I'm a first-class actress, Mr. Lear,” she said. “Hey! I'm playing a role
right now.
But I can play others. I'm not just—”

“A plaything.”

“No, I'm not. I can play around as well as any girl, but I have more to me than that. Help me get the right part. I can make you proud you know me. I really can.”

“I have a strong feeling you can at that,” said Erich.

“Hey, it's not that I don't have credits, you know. I got real good notices for
Savage City.”

She was called Monica Dale, though her name was Phyllis Dugan or Phyllis Frederickson, depending on whom you asked. She had appeared briefly in one or two films, then got a lot of
attention for her role as the kept girl in
Savage City
, and now was waiting around for another contract.

“What I'm not is a lady,” she said. She sat down in the chair opposite his, hooked her heels in the rungs of the chair, and spread her legs as wide as possible, displaying her shiny pink parts. “I'm willing to play the game.”

“I've actually heard you glory in the game.”

“Mr. Lear,” she said with a faintly mordant smile, “one of these days I'm going to be so big a star that I'll never have to suck another cock.” She tipped her head. “Except yours.”

“Okay. Let's see what you can do, kid.”

She knelt before his chair, unbuckled his belt and opened his pants, and pulled his underpants down so she could lift his penis and scrotum over the waistband. Then she set to work on him. She licked. She didn't take him into her mouth yet; she just licked, stroking, then flicking, with her tongue.

Erich groaned.

Monica looked up and grinned.

“One hell of a girl,” he said. It was the famous line used about her in
Savage City.

She began to nibble with her lips.

He grunted as if in surprise. She looked up. His eyes bulged wide. His mouth hung open. He gasped and then slumped.

As quickly as she could, she tucked his parts back into his underpants and pulled them up. She zipped his fly, buttoned him up, and buckled his belt. She grabbed her panties and pulled them on, then pulled her simple white dress over her head.

She left the office. As she passed the secretary's desk, she said, “You better get a doctor quick. There's something wrong with him.”

The doctor arrived in ten minutes. Erich Lear was dead.

“I
CAN'T IMAGINE WHY, BUT HE LEFT YOU HALF OF
C
ARLTON
House Productions. I get everything else, including the salvage company. But you get half the movie company. You and I are partners,
brother.”

“I didn't even know the old man
owned
Carlton House,” Jack said. “I was dumb enough to think it was yours. So tell me something. Who was the broad who ducked out of the office when he died?”

Bob Lear grinned. “You ever hear the name Monica Dale?”

“Jesus Christ!”

Bob glanced around. They stood a little apart in the mausoleum where Erich's body was being entombed and spoke in subdued voices. For this funeral neither of them wore a yarmulke. Almost no man did. Anne was there, looking like a reigning queen. Joni was there, looking like a princess. Mickey Sullivan had come. The stars present had drawn an army of reporters and cameramen.

“The word is that Monica gives the best blow job in the business. We hired a little blond gal to say
she
was with the old man when he had the seizure. A script consultant. Looks about right The town has bought the story. The secretary knows better, but I paid her off. She was loyal to the old man anyway. She'd played his skin flute herself at least a hundred times. Except for morbid curiosity, there's no big concern about what happened. He died of a heart attack, and that's that. I have to feel sorry for the poor old bastard. There he was, with the sexiest broad in Hollywood going down on him, and he ups and dies before she finishes him.”

“How do you know that's what she was doing?”

“He had lipstick on his cock.”

“What a way to go!” Jack put a hand on Bob's shoulder. “Brother, we have a great opportunity looking at us. With my
television deal and your—our—motion-picture deal, we can build an
empire.”

“Fuck you. You just want to take the business away from me. I mean, all the business, including the ship-breaking company.”

“If I'd wanted to take it away from you, I'd have taken it twenty years ago. You could be working for me as an office boy, right now. The old man wanted me to have it. But I'd have had to pay for it by being his flunky since 1931. Well, I didn't do that. You did. I'm not without gratitude for that. But you're going to work
with
me, Bob, not against me. Or I'll put your ass out on the street.”