The Inheritors (3 page)

I shrugged. “Seems only fair. I did the same on you. Only I did it in
The New York Times
files.”

“Stephen Gaunt, age twenty-eight, born New Bedford, Mass. Father, John Gaunt, bank president. Mother, former Anne Raleigh, both deceased. Attended good New England schools. Employment, Kenyon and Eckhardt, advertising one year, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, films, administration and advertising two years, Greater World Broadcasting, radio and television, assistant to the president, Harry Moscowitz, for the past three years. Bachelor. Active socially.”

He put down the paper and looked at me. “There’s only one thing I don’t understand.”

“What’s that?” I asked. “Maybe I can help you.”

“What’s a nice Gentile boy like you doing in a place like that?”

I knew just what he meant. “It’s really quite simple,” I said, “I’m their
Shabbos goy
.”

I could see from his face he didn’t know what I was talking about. I made the explanation simple and to the point. “Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. They won’t work. So they turned Saturday over to me. And, according to the Nielsens, so did you, and CBS and NBC and ABC.”

“You’re pretty cocky, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said flatly.

“What makes you think we can’t stop you if we want to?”

I grinned. “Mr. Sinclair, all of you have been trying for almost a year and a half now and got nowhere. You’re just lucky we’re in only eleven of the hundred markets or you would have been completely wiped out.”

He stared at me. “I don’t know whether I like you or not.”

I got to my feet. “You’re a busy man, Mr. Sinclair, so I won’t take any more of your time than I have to. Do I get the job or not?”

“What job?” he asked. “I wasn’t aware—”

“Mr. Sinclair, if you brought me over here just to see who was kissing your daughter good night, you’re wasting your time and mine. I’ve got a network to run and I’ve been away from my desk long enough.”

“Sit down, Mr. Gaunt,” he said sharply.

I remained standing.

“I was thinking of offering you the position of vice-president in charge of programming, but now I’m not sure that I will.”

I grinned at him. “Don’t bother. I’m not interested. I’ve been there for three years now.”

He stared up at me. “Exactly what job are you interested in? Mine?”

“Not quite,” I smiled. “President, Sinclair Television.”

“You must be joking!” He was shocked.

“I never joke about business.”

“Dan Ritchie has been president of STV for ten years now and before that Sinclair Radio for fifteen years. He’s one of the best executives in the industry. Do you think you can fill the shoes of a man like that?”

“I don’t want to,” I replied. “They’re old shoes and ready to be thrown out. They’re radio, not television. You haven’t got a single major executive under fifty-two, but the bulk of your audience is under thirty and growing younger every year. How do you expect to reach them when they stopped listening to their parents a long time ago?

“And I don’t intend to beat my brains out trying to convince a bunch of ancients that the things I want to do are right. I want to be the word, the authority. Nothing else interests me.”

He was silent for a moment. “How do I know you will listen to me?”

“You don’t,” I smiled. “But you can be sure I’ll be listening to someone.”

“Who?”

“The Nielsens,” I said. “Right now, STV is number four behind the other three networks. In two years we’ll be number one or damn close to it.”

“And if we’re not?”

“You can tie a can to me. At least you won’t be any worse off. You can’t go below four.”

He looked down at the papers on his desk for a long while. When he spoke again, it was in another voice. He was Barbara’s father. “Are you going to marry my daughter?”

“Is that one of the conditions of the job?”

He hesitated. “No.”

I didn’t hesitate. “Then I’m not going to marry her.”

His next words were forced and painful. “But what about the baby?”

I looked at him. He just went up ten points in my book. “We’re taking care of that this afternoon.”

“Is he a good doctor?”

“The best,” I said. “It’s being done in a private clinic in Scarsdale.”

“You’ll call me as soon as it’s over?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I will.”

“Poor Barbara,” he said. “She’s really a good girl.”

How do you tell a father that his daughter is a ding-dong and stoned out of her mind on pot half the time?

“Is it—the baby—yours?”

I looked into his eyes. “We don’t know.”

His eyes fell. “If the doctor thinks there will be any problem, you won’t let him do it?”

“I won’t,” I said. “It may sound strange to you, sir, but in my own way I care for Barbara and I don’t want to see her hurt.”

He took a deep breath and got to his feet. He held out his hand. “You’ve got the job. When can you start?”

“Tomorrow, if it’s okay with you. I quit there last week and just finished cleaning out my desk this morning.”

He smiled for the first time. “Tomorrow’s okay.”

We shook hands and I started for the door. I stopped with it half open. “By the way, what floor is this?”

“Fifty-one.”

“Where’s Ritchie’s office?”

“On forty-nine.”

“I want mine on fifty,” I said and closed the door behind me.

CHAPTER TWO

I pressed the doorbell again. I could hear the sound of the record player blaring away. She still did not answer.

I tried the door. It opened. The heavy sweetly acrid fumes hit me as soon as I stepped inside. All you needed for a high was to cross the room. I threw open the windows leading to the terrace and turned off the stereo. My ears tingled with the sudden silence.

“Barbara!” I called out.

There was no answer. Then I could hear her giggling. I walked toward the bedroom and stopped in the open doorway.

She was sitting, naked, in the middle of the floor, the reefer hanging between her lips. Standing over her, balancing a toy pail filled with water on his erect penis, was a tall young Negro boy.

He saw me before she did. He grabbed frantically at the pail as he lost his erection. He caught it, but not before some of the water spilled over her. His face began to pale.

She turned toward me. “Steve!” There was reproach in her voice. “You frightened him.”

“I’m sorry.” I stepped into the room.

The boy shrank back. His voice trembled. “You her husband?”

I shook my head.

“Her boyfriend?”

“Don’t be silly, Raoul,” she said sharply. “He’s just a friend.” She turned back to me and began to giggle again. “You just saved me fifty dollars. Raoul said that if he lost his hard before an hour I wouldn’t have to give him anything.”

I took two bills out of my pocket and gave them to the boy. “Beat it.”

I don’t think it took him more than a minute to dress and get out of the apartment. I closed the door behind him and went back to the bedroom.

She was stretched out on her bed. “Fuck me, Steve,” she said in a husky voice. “He got me all excited. He had such a beautiful big prick.”

“Get dressed,” I said harshly. “We’ve got a date.”

Suddenly she was crying. She turned her face into the pillow, smothering her sobs.

I sat down on the bed and lifted her head against my shoulder. She was trembling.

“I’m frightened, Steve,” she whispered. “I’m so scared I’m going out of my skull. If they hurt me, I’ll die. I know it. I can’t take pain.”

“Nobody’s going to hurt you, baby.” I soothed her gently.

“I sat here all morning thinking about it and if Raoul hadn’t come I would have gone out the window.” She caught her breath. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

I pulled her off the bed into the bathroom and held her head while she threw up into the toilet bowl. After a moment there was nothing left in her. She began to shiver. I threw a robe around her and held her until she stopped.

“I’ll be all right now,” she said.

I looked at her. She was pale but her eyes were clear. “You shower and get dressed. I’ll have some hot coffee ready for you by the time you come out.”

She stopped me in the bathroom door before I could leave. “Did you get the job, Steve?”

I nodded.

“I’m glad,” she said.

I stood outside the bathroom until I heard the water running in the shower. Then I went into the kitchen, found the coffeepot and plugged it in.

***

Hospital waiting rooms are the same all over the world. By the time the doctor came down I had the sign on the wall memorized.

He came into the room, still in his surgical greens. He glanced around, noting the other people waiting, and nodded to me. “Come on down to my office, Steve.”

I followed him into the small oak-paneled room. He closed the door carefully and turned to me. “You can lose the worried look, Steve. She’s fine.”

I felt the weight lift from my shoulders. “No problems?”

“None at all,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “We even put it on the books. A simple D and C for fibroids. We’ll keep her overnight. She can go home in the morning.”

“Can I use your phone?” He nodded and I made the call I promised.

He looked at me when I put down the phone. “Her father?”

I nodded.

“She’s afraid of him,” he said. “But then, she’s a very frightened girl. You seem to be the only one she has any confidence in at all.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You hear a lot of things up there,” he said. “The Pentothal loosens them up. She said at first it made her a little high like marijuana, then she said she wasn’t afraid anymore and that the only other times she wasn’t afraid was when she was high or with you.

I said nothing.

“I know a good psychiatrist in town. If you can persuade her to see him, he might be able to help her.”

I stared at him. I knew Bill ever since I was a kid. But this was the first time I thought of him as a doctor. I wondered what there was about doctors that made all of them think they could play God.

“The one reason she probably trusts me,” I said, “is because I mind my own business. I never try to tell her what she should do.”

He shrugged. “I’m sorry. I thought you were her friend.”

“I am. And my idea of being a friend is to be there. No matter what. Not to carp, not criticize, not to direct. Just be there.”

“But she’s just a child.”

“She’s twenty-two,” I said. “And her mind was made up long before I knew her. And like everyone else, she has the right to choose her own road.”

“Even if it’s the road to self-destruction?”

“Even that.” I hesitated a moment. “Don’t you see, Bill, that the only way I can help her is if she asked me? Otherwise I’ll be just like everyone else she’s known in her life.”

He was silent while he thought that one over. Then he nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Can I see her?”

“Of course. She’s in room twenty on the second floor. But don’t stay too long, she needs rest.”

“I won’t.”

“By the way,” he added. “Now that we’re legitimate, does she have Blue Cross?”

I laughed. “I don’t know, but I doubt it. Just send the bill to me. I’ll see that you get paid.”

He laughed too.

“Thank you, Bill,” I said and went upstairs.

She seemed to be sleeping when I entered the semi-darkened room. Her jet-black hair framed her pale thin face. I could see the childlike shadows under her closed eyes. I stood there looking down at her.

Her eyes opened and the blue of them was startling in the white face. She moved her hand gently toward me. “Hello, Steve. You waited. I’m glad.”

I took her hand. It was cool and fragile. “I said I would.” I sat down in the chair next to the bed. “How do you feel?”

“I hurt a little bit,” she said. “But it’s not too bad. They gave me something and I’m just beginning to come down.” She turned her lips to my hand. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to fuck again—after this?”

“Do you want an appointment?” I laughed. “I think I’ll be able to fit you in next week.”

“I’m not joking, Steve,” she said intensely.

“Neither am I,” I said.

Suddenly I felt the hot tears against my hand. “I want a baby the next time, Steve. This is such a terrible waste. I don’t want to go through it again, ever.”

I was silent.

Her voice was almost muffled by the pillow. “Will you marry me, Steve? I’ll be a good wife to you, I promise.”

I put both hands on her face and turned it to me. Her eyes were wide and a little bit frightened. “This is no time to talk about it,” I said gently. “You’ve just been through a bad scene. Let’s talk about it when you’re better.”

Her eyes searched mine. “I won’t change my mind.”

I smiled at her. “I hope not,” I said. Then I bent and kissed her lips. “Now try to get some rest.”

CHAPTER THREE

I went down the steps between the jockeys and into Twenty-One. Chuck was waiting at the door for me. He put an arm around my shoulder. “I got your table set up in the back corner of the bar,” he said. “Jack Savitt’s there waiting. He’s two martinis up on you.”

“Thanks, Chuck,” I said.

“Anytime, buddy,” he smiled, his eyes already going over my shoulder to the new people coming in behind me.

I walked through the bar, which was packed three deep. The captain came rushing up to pull out the table.

Jack looked up, his gray crew cut somehow matching his tweed jacket. His voice was edgy. “Well?”

I sat down. “Relax,” I said. “We did it.”

“The whole thing?” His voice was soft and had a kind of wonder. “The way we talked about it?”

I nodded. “President, Sinclair TV.”

“My God!” he said. “Just like that?”

The waiter put two martinis down on the table in front of us. Jack held up his hand. “Double it,” he said. He grinned at me. “Was I right about how to handle him?”

I held the martini toward him. “You were right.” Let him feel good about it. He didn’t have to know I had an extra ace up my sleeve. But I was under no illusions. Barbara got me that job as much as anything else. I swallowed the drink. It felt good going down.