The Carpetbaggers

17

"Sorry, David," Pierce said, getting to his feet. He was smiling but his eyes were cold. "I can't help you out."

"Why not?"

"Because I sold the stock a year ago."

"To Sheffield?" David asked.

The agent nodded.

"Why didn't you get in touch with Jonas?"

"Because I didn't want to," Pierce snapped. "He's used me enough. I was good enough for him during the rough years. To do the dirty work and keep the factory going. But the minute things were good enough to make the big ones, he brings in Bonner."

"You used him, too. He went into the hole for millions because you wanted a studio to play with. You're a rich man because of him. And you knew by the time Bonner came that you were an agent, not a producer. The whole industry knew it."

"Only because he never gave me a chance." Dan grinned mirthlessly. "Now it's his turn to sweat a little. I'm waiting to see how he likes it." He walked angrily to the door but by the time he turned back to David, his anger seemed to have disappeared. "Keep in touch, David. There's an outside chance I could spring Tracy and Gable from Metro on loan if you came up with the right property."

David nodded as the agent walked out. He looked down at his desk. Business as usual, he thought bitterly. Pierce would think nothing of setting up a deal like that and handing the company a million-dollar profit. That was his business. It had nothing to do with Jonas Cord personally. But the sale of his stock in the company was another matter.

He picked up the telephone on his desk wearily. "Yes, Mr. Woolf."

"Call Bonner's office and find out if I can see him right away."

"In your office or his?" his secretary asked.

He smiled at himself. Ordinarily, protocol dictated that Bonner come to him. But it was amazing how sensitive the studio grapevine was. By now, everyone was aware that something was up, and even his secretary wasn't completely sure of his position. This was her way of probing.

"My office, of course," he said testily, putting down the telephone.

Bonner came into his office about three-quarters of an hour later. It wasn't too bad, considering their relative importance. Not too long to appear rude, not too quickly to appear subservient. He crossed the room to David's desk and sat down. "Sorry to disturb you, Maurice," David said politely.

"That's quite all right, David," Bonner answered, equally polite. "I managed to finish the morning production meeting."

"Good. Then you have a little time?"

Bonner looked at his watch. "I do have a story conference due about now."

David smiled. "Writers are used to waiting."

Bonner looked at David curiously. Unconsciously, his hand crept inside his jacket and he scratched his shirt. David noticed and grinned. "Got a rash?"

"You heard the story?" Bonner asked.

David nodded.

Bonner grinned, scratching himself overtly now. "It's driving me nuts. It was worth it, though. You got to try Jennie sometime. That girl can make your old fiddle twang like a Stradivarius."

"I'll bet. I saw the test."

Bonner looked at him. "I meant to ask you. Why did you pull all the prints?"

"I had to," David said. "The Sinner isn't our property. It belongs to Cord personally. And you know how he is. I wasn't looking for any trouble."

Bonner stared at him silently. There wasn't any point in beating around the bush, David decided. "Sheffield showed me your commitment to sell him your stock."

Bonner nodded. He wasn't scratching now. "I figured he would."

"Why?" David asked. "If you wanted to sell, why didn't you talk to Cord?"

Bonner was silent for a moment. "What would be the point? I never even met the man. If he wasn't polite enough to look me up just once in the three years I've been working for him, I see no reason to start running after him now. Besides, my contract is up next month and nobody has come around to talk about renewing it. I didn't even hear from McAllister." He began scratching again.

David lit a cigarette. "Why didn't you come to me?" he asked softly. "I brought you over here."

Bonner didn't meet his gaze. "Sure, David, I should have. But everybody knows you can't do anything without Cord's O.K. By the time you could have got to him, my contract would have run out. I'd have looked like a damn fool to the whole industry."

David dragged the smoke deep into his lungs. They were all alike – so shrewd, so ruthless, so capable in many ways, and still, so like children with all their foolish pride.

Bonner took his silence as resignation. "Sheffield told me he'd take care of us," he said quickly. "He wants us both, David. You know that. He said he'll set up a new deal the minute he takes over. He'll finance the pictures, give us a new profit-sharing plan and some real stock options."

"Do you have that in writing?"

Bonner shook his head. "Of course not," he said. "He can't sign me to a contract before he's taken over. But his word is good. He's a big man. He's not a goof ball like Cord who runs hot and cold."

"Did Cord ever break his word to you?"

Bonner shook his head. "No. He never had a chance to. I had a contract. And now that it's almost over, I'm not going to give him a chance."

"You're like my uncle." David sighed. "He listened to men like Sheffield and ended up in stocks and bonds instead of pictures. So he lost his company. Now you're doing the same thing. He can't give you a contract because he doesn't control the company, yet you give him a signed agreement making it possible for him to take over." David got to his feet, his voice angry. "Well, what are you going to do, you damn fool, when he tells you, after he's got control, that he can't keep his promise?"

"But he needs us to run the business. Who's going to make the pictures for him if I don't?"

"That's what my Uncle Bernie thought, too," David said sarcastically. "But the business ran without him. And it will run without us. Sheffield can always get someone to run the studio for him. Schary at MGM is waiting for a job like this to open up. Matty Fox at Universal would take to it like a duck takes to water. It wouldn't be half as tough for him here as it is over there."

David sat down abruptly. "Do you still think he can't run the company without us?"

Bonner stared at him, his face white. "But what can I do, David? I signed the agreement. Sheffield can sue the ass off me if I renege."

David put out his cigarette slowly. "If I remember your agreement," he said, "you agreed to sell him all the stock you owned on December fifteenth?"

"That's right."

"What if you only happened to own one share of stock on that day?" David asked softly. "If you sell him that one share, you've kept your word."

"But that's next week. Who could you get to buy the stock before then?"

"Jonas Cord."

"But what if you can't reach him in time? Then I’m out four million dollars. If I sell that stock on the open market, it'll knock the price way down."

"I’ll see to it you get your money." David leaned across his desk. "And, Maurice," he added softly. "You can start writing your own contract, right now."

"Four million bucks!" Irving screamed. "Where the hell do you think I can lay my hands on that kind of money?"

David stared at his friend. "Come on, Needlenose. This is tuchlas."

"And what if Cord says he don't want the stock?" Irving asked in a quieter voice. "What do I do with it then? Use it for toilet paper?" He chewed on his cigar. "You're supposed to be my friend. I go wrong on a deal like this, I'm nobody's friend. The late Yitzchak Schwartz, they’ll call me."

"It isn't as bad as that."

"Don't tell me how bad it is," Irving said angrily. "From jobs like mine you don't get fired."

David looked at him for a moment. "I'm sorry, Irving. I have no right to ask you to take a chance like this." He turned and started for the door.

His friend's voice stopped him. "Hey, wait a minute! Where d'you think you're going?"

David stared at him.

"Did I say I definitely wouldn't do it for you?" Irving said.

Aunt May's ample bosom quivered indignantly. "Like a father your Uncle Bernie was to you," she said in her shrill, rasping voice. "Were you like a son to him? Did you appreciate what he done for you? No. Not once did you say to your Uncle Bernie, while he was alive, even a thank you." She took a handkerchief from the front of her dress and began to dab at her eyes, the twelve-carat diamond on her pinkie ring flashing iridescently like a spotlight. "It's by the grace of God your poor tante isn't spending the rest of her days in the poorhouse."

David leaned back in the stiff chair uncomfortably. He felt the chill of the night in the big, barren room of the large house. He shivered slightly. But he didn't know whether it was the cold or the way this house always affected him. "Do you want me to start a fire for you, Tante?"

"You're cold, Duvidele?" his Aunt May asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I thought you might be chilly."

"Chilly?" she repeated. "Your poor old tante is used to being chilly. It's only by watching my pennies I can afford to live in this house."

He looked at his watch. "It's getting late, Tante. And I have to get going. Are you going to give me the proxies?"

The old woman looked at him. "Why should I?" she asked. "I should give proxies to help that momser, that no-good, who stole his company from your uncle?"

"Nobody stole the company. Uncle Bernie would have lost it anyway. He was lucky to find a man like Cord to let him off so easy."

"Lucky he was?" Her voice was shrill again. "Out of all the shares he had, only twenty-five thousand I got left. What happened to the rest of them? Tell me. What happened, hah?"

"Uncle Bernie got three and a half million dollars for them."

"So what?" she demanded. "They were worth three times that."

"They were worth bupkas," he said, losing his temper. "Uncle Bernie was stealing the company blind and you know it. The stock wasn't worth the paper it was printed on."

"Now you're calling your uncle a thief." She rose to her feet majestically. "Out!" she screamed, pointing at the door. "Out from my house!"

He stared at her for a moment, then started for the door. Suddenly he stopped, remembering. Once his uncle had chased him out of his office, using almost the same words. But he'd got what he wanted. And his aunt was greedier than Bernie had ever been. He turned around.

"True, it's only twenty-five thousand shares," he said. "Only a lousy one per cent of the stock. But now it's worth something. At least, you got somebody in the family looking out for your interests. But give your proxies to Sheffield and see what happens. He's the kind that got Uncle Bernie into Wall Street in the first place. If you do, I won't be there to watch your interests. Your stock won't be worth bupkas again."

She stared at him for a moment. "Is that true?"

He could see the calculating machine in her head spinning. "Every last word of it."

She took a deep breath. "So come," she said. "I'll sign for you the proxies." She turned and waddled to a cabinet. "Your uncle, olev a'sholem, always said I should listen to you when I wanted advice. That David, he said, has a good head on his shoulders."

He watched her take some papers from the cabinet. She walked over to a desk, picked up a pen and signed them. He took them and put them in his jacket pocket. "Thanks, Aunt May."

She smiled up at him. He was surprised when she reached out her hand and patted his arm almost timidly. "Your uncle and me, we were never blessed with children," she said in a tremulous voice. "He really thought of you like his own son." She blinked her eyes rapidly. "You don't know how proud he was, even after he retired from the company, when he read about you in the trade papers."

He felt a knot of pity for the lonely old woman gather in his throat. "I know, Aunt May."

She tried to smile. "And such a pretty wife you got," she said. "Don't be a stranger. Why don't you sometime bring her here to have tea with me?"

He put his arms around the old woman suddenly and kissed her cheek. "I will, Aunt May," he said. "Soon."

Rosa was waiting in his office when he got back to the studio. "When Miss Wilson called and told me you'd be late, I thought it would be nice if I came down and we had dinner out."

"Good," he said, kissing her cheek.

"Well?"

He sat down heavily behind his desk. "Aunt May gave me her proxies."

"That means you've got nineteen per cent to vote."

He looked at her. "It won't do much good if Jonas doesn't back me up. Irving told me he'd have to sell the stock to Sheffield if Cord wouldn't pick it up."

She got to her feet. "Well, you've done all you could," she said in a practical voice. "Now let's go to dinner."

His secretary came in just as David got to his feet. "There's a cablegram from London, Mr. Woolf."

He took the envelope and opened it.