Max (53 page)

‘Just like that?'

‘Just like that.'

‘For Christ's sake, Max, you could at least ask me decently.'

‘Why? You're so fucken decent, I got to ask you decently?'

Ruby faced Max for a moment; then he sighed and called out, ‘OK, girls. Pack it up and go home. I got business to talk with my brother.'

‘Well, who drives us? You want us to walk home?'

Ruby handed one of them a twenty-dollar bill. ‘Call a cab. Use the phone inside. Now, blow.'

Each of them made certain to pass Max slowly, and each of them said, ‘Good-bye, Mr Britsky' to Max, not to Ruby.

‘Tootsies, sweet little tootsies,' Ruby said, looking after them.

Max's response to this was to deliver a stinging slap across Ruby's face.

‘What the hell's the matter with you!' Ruby cried. ‘Are you crazy?'

‘Don't raise a hand to me, you shithead!' Max yelled as Ruby's hand came up. ‘Just try it, and I'll beat the shit out of you!'

Ruby's arms dropped to his sides. ‘Max,' he whispered, ‘what in hell is going on?'

‘I'll tell you what's going on. Jake Stein died and we ran an audit.'

Ruby's jaw dropped. Speechless now, he stared at Max.

‘Tell me what we found, little brother.'

‘All right! All right!' bravado beginning to return after the initial shock. ‘So we skimmed a little here and there. Everyone does it. It's in the nature of the industry.'

‘You lousy little creep. I pay you eight hundred a week and expenses, and I pay that for a schmuck who couldn't pull down fifty a week on the open market, and you tell me you skim a little here and there. A little? How many millions add up to a little? I took care of you from the time you were pissing in your diapers. I fed you. I put clothes on your back, and this is the way you pay me back? What did you do, work it out with Benny, the two of you making a fancy little syndicate of crime?'

‘Come on, Max. We didn't wreck the company. So we took a little cream off the milk. There's plenty left.'

‘You're right. You're absolutely right.'

‘So why all the –' Max had turned on his heel to walk away, and Ruby said, ‘Wait a minute.'

‘For what?'

‘A minute ago, you were ready to take my head off.'

‘Yeah.'

‘So?'

‘Well, it's done. No use of my getting so excited about it. The way I figure, maybe you and Benny, you'll be lucky and you'll pull down the same cell. Then you'll have all those years to think about it and decide whether or not it's a crime to take a little cream from the milk.'

‘Jesus, what are you talking about?'

‘Jail, brother – j-a-i-l. That's what happens when you become a crook and you get caught, and sure as hell, that's going to happen to you.'

‘Max, you're kidding!' ‘Oh? We'll see.'

‘Max, you're crazy. You can't put Benny and me in jail. We're your brothers.'

‘That's right. You're both my brothers.'

Max's board of directors, like many other boards, reflected not only his company but a number of other institutions closely allied with it. Max was chairman of the board and also president of Britsky Productions. Sam Snyder was vice president of Britsky and also a member of the board. Fred Feldman, the third member of the board, was secretary of Britsky Productions, and Bert Bellamy and Clifford Abel were both members. Abel was the art director at the lot and Bellamy was vice president in charge of distribution. Sally, chiefly as a part of her settlement with Max and her very substantial stock holdings, was also a member of the board, but since her divorce from Max, she had not attended any of the meetings. Outside the company, there were three more members of the board, to add up to a total of nine: Kurt Avanti, a vice president of the Bank of America, Julius Holms, a vice president of the Chase Bank, and Royce Byron, one of the many vice presidents of the telephone company.

The years had brought an air and appearance of distinguished prosperity to Bert Bellamy. He had thickened without becoming fat; his abundant hair had gone from corn silk to white, and he wore a pince-nez with quiet authority. Clifford Abel had changed least of all; he had retained his youthful delight and excitement in every new aspect of Britsky Productions. Avanti, half Italian, half German, was properly aloof and suspicious, as befitting a banker who represented one of the largest banks in the world, and while Julius Holms had known Max since the old New York days, he too was highly conscious of the forces he represented. Tall, skinny, dour, Royce Byron always gave the impression of the Greek in the camp of the barbarians. In the old days, the telephone company had backed the trust and had been soundly drubbed by Britsky, but time had brought both new patents and new cooperation.

Max had suggested to Feldman that as secretary of the corporation, he was best suited to present the facts, aware at the same time that Feldman was more charming and amiable than he could pretend to be. No one in his right mind could think of Freddy Feldman in terms of malfeasance, and Feldman's rather transparent treatment of everything in legal terms even helped a bit. When he had finished, Avanti stated, ‘For the moment, I am simply expressing normal shock and surprise. I would like to address a few questions to our president and chairman.'

The others nodded their agreement. Each of them had something to say, but each deferred to Avanti. The people working in the company had some indication of what Feldman would say. To the three outsiders it was a total and shocking surprise.

Max rose and nodded. ‘I'll answer any questions. Our decision is complete disclosure.'

‘Whose decision would that be?'

‘Mr Feldman and myself. We discussed the first findings.'

‘When did you or Mr Feldman discover these shortages?'

‘It was not a matter of discovering shortages,' Max said. ‘After Jacob Stein's death, Mr Snyder and I paid a condolence call on his family at Mr Stein's home, which is located in a very fine section of Los Angeles called Bel Air. As a matter of fact, neither I nor any other officers of the company had social relations with Mr Stein, so it was our first visit to his home. Prior to that, I had been informed that Mr Stein had not asked for a raise in wages for the past twelve years. He was being paid three hundred dollars a week, a very low wage for a man of his caliber and intelligence.'

This drew bitter laughs from around the table where the board members sat.

‘A crook, but a smart one,' Max went on. ‘He was not liked in the firm, and we feel that he must have felt that if he asked for more money, it would give us an excuse to let him go. He did not want that, and since he supervised the payroll, no one commented.'

‘Still, you must have known. How could it escape you?'

‘We're a very large organisation, Mr Avanti. A lot escapes me. But when we saw the Stein home, we realised there had to be a discrepancy between what he was paid and what he spent.'

‘You and Mr Snyder?'

‘Yes.'

‘And your next step was to take it up with Mr Feldman?'

‘He's our attorney.'

‘Of course.'

Then Holms, of the Chase Bank, asked, ‘Can you make any estimate of what the final figure will be?'

‘At this point, no. I wouldn't dare to.'

Royce Byron asked Bert, ‘Mr Bellamy, how would you assess the financial condition of Britsky Productions?'

‘We're in no danger, absolutely not. In a rough way, I can assure you that our cash flow is sufficient to service our credit line, pay our current expenses, and provide for continuing operations. Our profit for the year nineteen twenty-seven will probably be the largest in our history.'

‘I'm relieved to hear that, quite relieved. I think I speak for most of us when I say that these revelations have been shocking almost beyond belief. The magnitude of the sums embezzled is almost without equal in the annals of modern business –'

Max leaped to his feet and said, ‘Now hold on, Mr Byron. I don't want to make little of this; it's just too damn big. But I lived through the days of Gould and Vanderbilt. At least here the stockholders were robbed, not the public, and since I'm the largest stockholder, I took most of that beating.'

‘You can't complain. You took it from your family.'

‘That's below the belt!' Sam Snyder roared.

‘This gets us nowhere,' Avanti said, ‘nowhere at all. And until we know the facts, we have no course of action. If the board so wishes, I will be responsible for bringing in our own accountants. I think we should give them at least a full month to do the audit. Can I make this as a motion?'

‘So move,' Feldman said. ‘Are there any demurs?'

There was none, and the motion was carried. They agreed to meet again in thirty days. ‘And I think,' Holms said, ‘that we should make every effort to have Mrs Upper-man present. I think that for the record we should have a meeting of the entire board.'

‘I will try,' Feldman agreed.

‘You understand, Max,' Avanti said to him before he left, ‘that none of this is directed against you personally. Some of the finest people I know have some colorful families, perhaps myself included. It takes a few generations to sort ourselves out, and there the Yankees have the jump on us. For myself, I feel that your management of this company has been nothing short of brilliant.'

‘It's a nothing fuss in a teapot,' Clifford Abel said. ‘I'd let them steal the whole bloody lot if we could come out of it with one great film. Who gives a damn?'

Julius Holms shook hands warmly with Max before he and Avanti left. Clifford Abel followed them. Bert Bellamy mumbled a few words and walked out with Royce Byron.

‘He didn't have to leave with Byron,' Max said to Snyder and Feldman. ‘That was deliberate as hell.'

‘Sure it was deliberate,' Feldman agreed. ‘Don't be a muttonhead, Max. Bellamy and Byron had been waiting for an opening for years, and I'm not a damn bit sure that our two banking boys are going to be either with us or neutral.'

‘Bert Bellamy – My God, Bert Bellamy, he was like a brother to me.'

‘So was Ruby.'

‘Come on, we're still alive and kicking,' Sam Snyder said. He looked stiff and uncomfortable in his blue serge suit. He was natural and himself only in a workingman's jeans, his cotton shirt rolled up over his muscular arms, his belly slopping over his tool belt. This way, he couldn't breathe with his vest buttoned, and now he pulled off his jacket and vest. ‘Nine of us on the board. With Holms and Avanti, we got our majority if worse comes to worse. And maybe Sally will turn up. You can't tell me a woman lives with a man all those years and doesn't feel something for him.'

Max grinned for the first time since the meeting had begun. ‘Sammy, you know what you know about women? Alice. That's what you know about women.'

‘What's the matter? Alice ain't a woman?'

‘A jewel. The way God screwed me most was arranging for you to marry her instead of me.'

‘Max, you never even met her until after we were married for years.'

‘I know, I know. The point is what Sally feels for me. I'll tell you what Sally feels for me. She'd cut my throat, but she wouldn't stand there and watch me bleed, because she don't like the sight of blood.'

‘Come on.'

‘Look,' Feldman told them, ‘to speculate on this is a waste of time. What matters is that Max owns fifty-one percent of the stock. I don't know what kind of a ploy Bert and Byron think they're hatching. You got the votes. They maybe can push you right to the edge, but right there on the edge, you stand up and tell them to go to hell.'

‘Come on, Freddy, this is Max you're talking to.'

‘What do you want me to say?' Feldman demanded almost belligerently. ‘There are times when you're so goddamn smart you don't need a lawyer.'

‘Freddy, Freddy,' Max said, going over and putting an arm around the lawyer. ‘Is this a time for you to get testy about me? You know what I'm talking about as well as I do. You know damn well what kind of a ploy Bert and Byron are hatching.'

‘Tell me.'

‘Will Ruby and Benny go to jail?'

Feldman did not reply.

‘Now, you tell me.'

‘Only if the board votes to indict, to bring criminal charges.'

‘Ah-hah! And for that, we don't need even a majority. One member of the board could do it. Am I right?'

‘Yes.'

‘And then I can take my fifty-one percent and shove it. Yes?'

‘If the board decided to move against your wishes.'

‘Who were you telling not to be a muttonhead?'

‘Max, do you know what you just did?' Feldman said angrily. ‘You put forward a series of suppositions with which I could not disagree; then you leaped to a conclusion which has no validity at all. The truth is, we don't know what's going to happen. We haven't even raised the question of Ruby making some sort of restitution –'

‘And Benny. Why leave out Benny? You know, Freddy, Ruby couldn't even make restitution for today's breakfast. He borrows from my mother for his poker games. You'd have to run down every floozie in Hollywood to begin to put together restitution, and then if you got two cents on the dollar, it would be a miracle. A crook don't buy bonds or stock or put money in the bank. He blows it. Ah, what the hell! Let's go have dinner.'

Max heard that Benny was in Los Angeles, but as far as Max could determine he did not come near the studio. Unlike Ruby, who had gone through two wives and two divorces, Benny had remained married to a wife who had given him three children and great leeway. Benny was the tallest of the three Britsky boys, six feet and two inches and red-headed and very much in demand with the ladies. He had explained to Max in great detail once that when it came to the art of screwing, Ruby was a schmuck. ‘You stay married,' Benny had said, ‘so no matter what happens, you don't get involved. And what does it cost – a mink every other year, a convertible every other year? Cheap at the price. My Stella, I could screw every girl in the Vanities and send her picture postcards of me doing it, and as long as she has her mink and her house in Great Neck and her personal pool and tennis court, she don't complain.' Max's defense against Benny was to turn him off; he saw Benny when he had to without hearing him or actually seeing him, and it never occurred to Max to tabulate the cost of the minks, and convertibles and the showgirls that Benny used to support the speak-easies and the fancy hotels.