What Makes Sammy Run? (15 page)

When we reached the street Sammy was standing with half a dozen men bunched on the curb in front of the theater. They all seemed to be talking at once, though Sammy was doing his best to drown them out. Kit pointed out the others besides Sammy and Fineman, the director, the cutter, several other executives and the cameraman. A couple of others were hovering around the edge, mostly listening and reacting. Fineman and the director seemed to be having an argument. The director was yelling that if they yanked his favorite scene they could take his name off the picture. Sammy was supporting Fineman.

We watched a boy bring out a ladder and climb up efficiently to change the lettering on the marquee, and then Kit said, “These sidewalk conferences are liable to last all night. Let’s go and have a drink. He can meet us there.”

My mind kept remembering the way she had made herself at home at Sammy’s as we left that night. It was crazy to let it annoy me because I hadn’t even made up my mind yet whether I liked her or not. I liked the way her mind drove at things but there was something disconcerting about the way she kept you from getting too close to her.

As we started for the parking station, she turned around and called to Sammy briskly, “The Cellar.”

An anemic young man in a shabby overcoat was waiting at the car. I knew him, but I couldn’t place him until he began to talk. Of course it was Julian Blumberg.

He was unable to hide the terrible effort it was for him to approach me. You could see it was an act of desperation.

“Mr. Manheim, I don’t think you remember me …”

His eyes seemed to be forever crying. He kept cracking his knuckles, shifting his balance and looking everywhere but at me. The Jewish language has the best word I have ever heard for people like Julian:
nebbish
. A
nebbish
person is not exactly an incompetent, a dope or a weakling. He is simply the one in the crowd that you always forget to introduce.

“Of course I do,” I said. “Glad to see you.”

I tried to make it sound hearty. He extended his hand as if he expected me to crack it with a ruler. I could feel the perspiration in his palm.

When I introduced him to Kit he gave her a preoccupied nod and then, as if he had been sucking in his breath for it a long time, he blurted out what he wanted to say to me. As with so many timorous people when it finally came out it sounded brusque and overbold.

“Mr. Manheim, I’ve got to see you right away.”

“Sure, Julian,” I said, “can you tell me what it’s about?”

He looked at Kit suspiciously. “Alone,” he said. “I want to talk to you alone.”

His voice begged and demanded at the same time. I suppose I should have been sore, but it was hard to miss the undertones in Julian’s rudeness.

“All right,” I said, “will it take very long?”

The determination valve suddenly seemed to loosen and the bluster leaked out of him. “Gosh, Mr. Manheim, I know I’m being a nuisance but I wouldn’t think of bothering you like this unless …”

“How long would you say it would take?” I interrupted impatiently.

“It’s—there’s quite a lot to tell. I’d say a couple of hours.”

I looked at Kit. “Why don’t you two go ahead?” she said. “I don’t mind being alone.”

That was the trouble, I knew she didn’t mind being alone.

“I’ll tell you what you do, Julian. It’ll keep until lunch tomorrow, won’t it? How about dropping around at the studio? Twelve-thirty okay?”

He was so grateful it was painful. He backed away like an awkward courtier, hoping he wasn’t being too much trouble and thanking me again.

“Who is that damp little fellow?” Kit asked as she pressed her foot on the starter.

I still didn’t feel I knew her well enough to tell her the story of
Girl Steals Boy
. So I just said he was a writer Sammy and I knew in New York who was out here looking for a job.

“No wonder he looked worried,” she said. “There were exactly two hundred and fifty of us working today. The Guild keeps a daily check-up. And do you know how many screen writers there are? Nearly a thousand. With carloads of bright-eyed college kids arriving every week—willing to do or die for dear old World-Wide at thirty-five a week.”

I don’t really believe that liquor will cure all the ills in our society. But two or three healthy slugs often cure our curious inability to know each other. Unless we know people well, we sit around with our words and our minds starched, afraid of being ourselves for fear of wrinkling them.

Down in the Cellar, after the first couple of drinks, I could feel us loosening up with each other. It wasn’t in anything we said, it was just that we seemed to like each other better and we both knew it.

We entertained ourselves for the first few minutes watching
how different people came down the stairway and posed on the final landing before entering the room.

When we had had enough of that game we found ourselves playing a new one called How I Met Sammy. She asked me first. I amused her for ten or fifteen minutes with a quick enumeration of the highlights of Sammy Glick’s
Mein Kampf
, but doing a Will Hays on the more extravagant of his achievements.

“I met him during the revolution we almost had last year,” she said. “When Upton Sinclair was running for Governor.”

I said I had heard about it but had never paid much attention to it.

“Then you really missed something,” she said. “The panic was on when Upton Sinclair won the Democratic nomination by announcing that he was going to End Poverty in California.”

“I always thought Sinclair was just another of your California crackpots,” I said.

“Oh, his script had plenty of holes all right,” she said, “but I think it would have given the people a better run for their money than Merriam’s—which hadn’t changed a line since
Birth of a Nation.
”

“Well, where does Sammy Glick come in?”

“He’s practically banging on the door now,” she said. “At the height of the campaign World-Wide had a sudden loss of memory. It’s funny how a little thing like the Bill of Rights can slip your mind once in a while. They demanded that every employee contribute a day’s pay to the Merriam fund. That was something I thought even honest Republicans should resent, so I told them where to go, in my prettiest profanity.

“A couple of days later I was sitting there in my office minding my own script, when a total stranger burst into my office as if his pants were on fire.”

“I’m Sammy Glick,” he said
.

And waited as if that were all the introduction he needed
.

“Whatever you’re selling,” she said, “I’m not in the market for anything. I’m very busy.”

“You’ve got me wrong,” he laughed. “I’m the new writer just moved in across the hall.”

“How chummy,” she said. “If you’re ever short drop over and borrow a cup of dialogue.”

Because she had never heard of Sammy Glick she tried to discourage him by turning back to her typewriter
.

“That’s a honey,” he laughed, moving in. “I’ll hafta remember that one.”

As she turned around she found herself looking into his face
.

“Mr. Glick,” she began sweetly, “I suppose I ought to be hospitable and welcome you to Writers’ Building C. And now that I have will you get the hell out of my office and let me work? ”

She had chased her share of brassy guys out of the office, ad-space salesmen and small-time agents and the usual studio lounge lice. When sarcasm didn’t get them, a little pungent cussing would. But this one was different. He settled down on the edge of her desk and looked over her shoulder
.

“I hear you’re working on
Dancing Debs,”
he said. “That oughta be a swell credit.”

She rose, covered her typewriter, stuffed some of the papers on her desk into a big envelope and slung her coat over her shoulder
.

“Where you goin’?” he said
.

“Where I can work,” she said
.

“Hey,” he said, “don’t let me chase you out. I just dropped in for a friendly chat. Thought I’d give you a tip that the front office knows you’re the only writer on the lot who hasn’t come across for Merriam.”

That was the way the pressure went. Nobody was ever called into an executive office and told to shell out or get out. That job was taken over by the stooges. The yes-men had a field day with their “all-for-your-own-good-old-fellow” stuff, coercion by innuendo in the best Hollywood style, pouring it in the victim’s ear as if he were being told the latest studio gossip
.

Next morning Kit reached the lot a few minutes before nine-thirty and had coffee at the studio diner before going to work
.

Sammy was there, having breakfast and making verbal passes at
the waitress. When he saw Kit he slid over to greet her as if their first meeting had been love at first sight
.

“Which way do you come in the morning?” he asked. “Maybe you could pick me up.”

“I come by way of Boulder Dam,” she said. “I’m sure it’s a little out of your way.”

He took this as a joke and started reading the
Megaphone
with her. Of course the lead edit was about Merriam and Sinclair. Sammy began to read it out loud. She picked up the paper and paid her check. He followed her out. She walked faster, ignoring him. He trotted along beside her desperately
.

“Look, you’re a smart girl, you read the papers, you know how the cards are stacked against this nut Sinclair …”

She managed to lose him by turning into a convenient ladies’ room
.

As she came down the hall he appeared at his doorway. She tried to shut the door in his face but he slithered through like a cat
.

“No kidding, Katie—is that what they call you, Katie? I’m worried about you,” he said. “Now why don’t you let me get on the phone and tell Dan Young …” Dan Young was the studio manager who had sent out the notices about the day’s pay. Sammy reached for the phone
.

Kit looked at him curiously
.

“How long have you been in California?” she said
.

“Four days.”

“So you’ve learned enough about the issues of the campaign in four days to become a political adviser,” she said
.

“How long does it take you to find out that the sun rises in the east?” Sammy said. “One good look.”

“What do you know about Merriam?”

Sammy’s answer came prompt and glib. “He’s for law and order. He’s a friend of the industry. He’s a right guy.”

“If the people push over the Merriam machine,” she stated quietly, “it’s my guess they’ll find enough corruption crawling around under there to keep all the starving lawyers in California busy the rest of their lives—digging it out.”

“So what?” Sammy said. “Everybody knows about Jimmy Walker. And he’s the best mayor New York ever had.”

“I’m afraid you flunk in citizenship,” she said. “Didn’t you ever have to take Civics?”

“Sure,” he said. “What a laugh. The teacher giving us all that crap out of a book when all we had to do to learn about politics was watch the Tammany guy on the corner.”

She looked at him. She had a temper and she knew she was going to have to lose it, but she didn’t want to lose it for a moment or two. Anything on a large enough scale, even a pest, can be arresting
.

“And how about Upton Sindair?” she said. “What do you know about him?”

“He’s a Bolshevik,” Sammy recited. “He’s out to cut up all the big dough in the State so everybody has the same. He wants to shut down the studios and start a revolution.”

“Do you know he’s the regular Democratic candidate?” she said
.

“What are you trying to give me?” Sammy said. “Merriam’s running for the Democrats and Republicans both. Sinclair’s running for the Communists.”

“This time,” she said, “you’ve been learning your politics on the wrong corner. Sinclair got the heaviest vote in the history of the Democratic primaries. The regular party machine is behind him. And the Communists are running their own candidate.”

Sammy looked at her as if she were crazy. “Okay, okay,” he said. “All I know is either you plunk for Merriam around here or you’re a dead pigeon.”

That was where the smooth pavement on Kit’s patience ended. “Goddam it,” she yelled, “comes the revolution I only want one favor of Comrade Sinclair—to line you up against a wall and shoot you myself—and if you don’t get out of my office by the time I count up to one, I won’t even wait for the revolution!”

She told it vividly and I could see it happening: Kid Get-Ahead being dropped right down in the middle of Hollywood’s most violent controversy, taking a couple of turns in the air and landing
on his feet, with all the instinct for self-preservation of a scrappy kitten.