Youngblood hawke, p.15
Youngblood Hawke, page 15
"That's right."
"And they're going to publish it in New York? Really?"
"Yes. Scotty, is that what you're doing, building supermarkets?"
"That and other things."
The reporter pestered Hawke for facts, any facts at all, about the book, but the author had an instinctive wariness about uncovering anything to the press. To shut him up Hawke at last told him the title and the publisher. The reporter thanked him sarcastically, said he hoped the book would sell a million copies, and walked off to the bar. Scott said, "Us binness men have to stay friendly with these small-time sumbitches, but what do you care? You just got to worry about the New York Times and Time magazine and like that. Here's to you, Art, and to your career. I know it's going to be great. You, the only distinguished man I've ever known, or maybe ever will."
They drank. The bourbon glowed exquisitely in Hawke's beer-cooled stomach, as Scott's praise did in his brain. "Scott, I always thought you were going to be the distinguished one. I saw you going step by step in that easy way of yours—law office, county judge, state senator, maybe governor, maybe even U. S. Senator."
"So did I, Art, so did I, but a man's got to be realistic about himself or he'll fall on his sumbitchin' face. I haven't got it. My first year law school I knew I didn't, that's why I got married and quit. I'm no student, I never was. I can't hardly concentrate on a book any more at all, dunno now how I made it through college. I got into this building binness, Art, and builders are an ignorant lot. But I love it. So I guess I've found my niche. See, this lousy road up to the Frenchman's Ridge mine that we had to keep repairing, I couldn't get any contractor to do it right. Finally I studied up on the sumbitch and rebuilt the road myself. I did a good job, but by then the mine was a bust. Then, one thing and another, I got into contracting and building, and Ellie and I moved to Lexington—the schools are better there, Art, let's face it—and I've done pretty good. Say, Art, I feel bad about your mother. That's a hell of a note, you know?"
"Scott, I hope you're not paying that thousand out of your pocket. That's ridiculous."
"Hell, that's Glenn's talk, Art. The other directors will go for it. Ole Urb Webber sure made me laugh with that Santa Claus stuff. It's damn bad public relations, a widow suing a company for trespass, Art, especially in a place like Hovey, it's a black eye for us whether we win or lose. I'm glad your mom took the thousand. Art, how about another little soup's on here?"
"Well, one more Scott. I pay for this one."
"You pay for nothing, you pay when I come to New York and I visit the famous novelist, you old sumbitch . . . Goddamn, you really getting a book published! Alms for Oblivion! Prince House! What's it about?"
Hawke was feeling most pleasantly disposed to Scott Hoag. "Well, if it goes no further than you, Scotty—I don't want the whole town talking about it—" Hawke told him about Alms for Oblivion, and then, enjoying Scott's wide-eyed attention—also two more rounds of boiler-makers having come along while he talked—he described the new navy book he was writing.
Hoag stared at him and shook his head in admiration. "Art, I'm no authority on literature, Christ knows. But that first book is going to sell. Because it's the truth. That's how things happen in these hills. And boy, I think that navy sumbitch is going to be a barn-burner. That one sounds like a million dollars. In hand."
Hawke laughed. "I wish it were in hand. I've got three hundred pages written, out of two thousand, first draft."
"Art, you want to know something?" Hoag's speech was becoming decidedly furry, and his head was drooping, but he stared at Hawke through the reddish gloom with alert eyes. "You make me feel ashamed that I never went to the war. Ashamed and stupid. See, I married Ellie, and she had the twins right off the bat and I was goddamned if I was gonna volunteer to tote a goddamn gun. And I got a big head start in binness in wartime, don't think I didn't, but that story you were telling me just there gave me the chills, and I realized how much I missed. That's the power you have, to make a man see things." He sipped at his beer. "Art, you gonna make money on those books. Especially on that navy one. What you figuring on doing, blowing it in on high living like all artists?"
With some pride and not a little furriness of tongue on his own part, Hawke described to Hoag his plan for hoarding a million and then living on the income while he wrote great books. He told about the works on investment he had read, and about his careful following of the Wall Street magazines. He spoke of blue chips, convertible bonds, commodity futures, soft goods, dollar-cost averaging, and so forth; he had absorbed the jargon well. Hoag listened, resting his chin on a fist on the table, keeping his eyes on Hawke. "Well, what do you think, Scotty? You're the business man here."
Hoag said slowly, "You want the truth?"
"Sure I do."
"Art, you still thinking like a scholar. Goddamn it, boy, you think those sumbitches up there study magazines and books, the professionals that make the money? I've read a lot more than you. All I'm interested in is making money. Those books and charts and magazines are nothing but a lot of second-guessing on what happened yesterday and last year and ten years ago. You listen to me, Art. You put your goddamn money in guvment bonds. Nothing else."
"Scotty, bonds pay two, three percent."
"But they pay. You put 'em away and forget about 'em. I tell you, Art, you get into the stock market, and instead of writing the great books that are in you, you'll end up doing nothing but reading those sumbitchin' financial magazines and stock services that I wouldn't use to wipe my behind."
"Scotty, stocks have been going up ever since 1880, on the long pull. Whereas bonds—"
"The long pull! Sure, and in the short pull the unprofessional sumbitches like you and me get shook out every five or ten years, and the big boys pick up our marbles. That's what's been happening since 1880. You want to know what really appreciates? Land, boy. Good land appreciates. Buildings appreciate. You want to give up writing and go in the real estate binness, you let me know, I can tell you plenty. But stay away from Wall Street, boy. And stay away from real estate, too, unless you want to do nothing else. That's no binness for sissies. Look here!" Scotty seized the loose roll of blueprints and spread them out on the table with a crackle. The details were hard to discern in the dim light, but Hawke could see that this was an ambitious project, a center for a dozen shops, on the highway at the bottom of MacDougall Hill on the other side of the filling stations, just before Main Street began. Scotty described how he was planning to finance the center—he was actually in Hovey with Urban Webber to negotiate with the two local banks—and then he launched into a mock-modest account of how he worked as a builder. He was obviously proud of his early success and eager to impress his literary friend. He described his dealings with banks, he outlined the ways of getting a project started with the least possible cash, and talked about limited partnerships, general partnerships, syndicates, and corporations; about the inside position and the outside position, the fee position and the lease position; about the importance of leases in hand before construction began. Hawke was indeed impressed by Hoag, and interested in the glimpse into the interior world of money-making. "Scotty, will a town of five thousand support a big thing like that?"
"Art, we got four times as many stores in Hovey as the town can support right now, don't you know that? This is the shopping hub of Letchworth County. With the new U.S. highway that's coming through here—and I know that's for real, boy—this sumbitch looks real good. We got a ten-year lease in hand from A & P, and with that we can get a good seventy-five percent of our construction money from an insurance company if these banks here won't talk sense. They a little slow understanding the possibilities in their own town. They afraid the stores on Main Street will get hurt. Christ, Main Street's going to be busting out of its britches and choking to death with traffic in five years if somebody don't build a thing like this. These fellas don't look beyond the next quarter."
"Scotty, a center like this one you're building—what does that pay you as an investment?"
"That's a speculation, boy. On paper we get our money out in four years and from then on we getting twenty-five percent a year—or we sell out when it's looking good, and we should double our money at least."
Mental arithmetic was a little hard after all the beer and bourbon, but Hawke foggily calculated that twenty-five percent of twenty-five thousand dollars was better than six thousand dollars a year. Six thousand! He could live royally on just that much, in a nice little apartment, say on Bank Street in the village. He could be independent at a stroke. Of course he didn't have twenty-five thousand dollars. But Lax's offer for his movie rights had at least held out the lure of that sum. Was it too wild to hope that Alms for Oblivion would finally sell to Hollywood for that much?
He said, "Would you be interested in a partner, Scott—say for fifteen or twenty thousand?"
"Who, Art—you?"
"Why not?"
Scott laughed. "I'll tell you why not. Come on, let's walk uptown, I've got to meet ole Urban again, we having dinner with these bank fellas." He slid out of the booth and rolled up the blue prints. "I'm gonna give you a little lecture, Art, maybe make a contribution to a great career."
Snow was falling in enormous flakes outside, but the air was warm. "Now listen, Art." Scott took Hawke's arm as they walked up Main Street, "I been giving you the rosy picture. Let me tell you what can go wrong. I been burned plenty, but that's my trade, it's not yours." He described the hazards of construction, the difficulty of controlling costs, the escape clauses that big firms like A & P insisted on, the sudden drying up of bank credit when a man needed it most. "I tell you, Art, it's a sickening thing to see your venture capital wiped out in a refinancing. It's happened to me more than once. You just got to take it on the chin, cut your losses, and get on with the next deal. When it's your trade, you do it, that's all. A fella like you can't take such risks." He glanced up at Hawke in the light of a street-lamp. "Anyway, you got that kind of cash, Art? Just lying around?"
"I think I may end up with a movie sale for that much. I've had nibbles."
"Well, that's great. You buy guvment bonds. You pile yourself up a good couple of hundred thousand dollars in guvment bonds, you gonna make that kind of money, mark my word, Art. Get yourself a base. After that you want to talk to ole Scott Hoag back in the hills about real estate, fine. Just stay out of Wall Street, Art. You a brilliant fella but brilliance isn't enough, you gotta know."
They halted under the viaduct to part company, both slipping a little in the slush and feeling very good indeed. Scott still held Hawke's arm. Hawke said, "Well, meantime, Scott, maybe I'll write a book about a real estate plunger and you'll give me all the dope."
"That I'll be glad to do. I'm goddamn proud of knowing you, Art. All I can say is I spotted you way back in school, didn't I?"
"I guess you did."
"Next time you in Lexington you give me a call, hear?" Scott released him and reached up to slap his shoulder. "Guvment bonds, y'ole sumbitch. That's tonight's sermon in two words. Guvment bonds."
"Guvment bonds, Scotty."
Somehow the phrase struck them both as funny and they burst out laughing. When Hawke was half a block away he heard Scotty call, "Guvment bonds, hear?"
Hawke turned and roared down the hill. "Guvment bonds, y'ole sumbitch!"
4
Mrs. Hawke wrinkled her nose at him fiercely, just as she had done at his father for years, and muttered about spoiled food, and people who brought the smell of a brewery into a decent house. Then she said, "There's been two calls waiting for you from New York this past hour. Don't be too long about them, dinner's all dried up as it is."
Hawke hurried to the telephone pad on the hallway table. Jeanne Green had called, and Roberto Luzzatto; the golden world was not forgetting him! He rang the operator and asked her to try to get Jeanne. He sat and waited for the clumsy mountain operators to clear a circuit to New York, meantime picturing Jeanne Green with a certain sexual excitement, undoubtedly augmented by the large amount of alcohol he had just drunk. How pretty and bright that hoarse little redhead was! There was a girl for him; he would be a fool to carry things any further with that strange and immoral Mrs. Winter, when a girl like Jeanne was within reach. He knew she liked him. He was hungering all at once to hear her odd grainy voice, and it was a real disappointment when the operator got through to New York and her number did not answer. He told the operator to keep trying Jeanne every hour; then he put the call in for Luzzatto, and reached him at once at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The producer's voice, deep and harsh, sounded quite foreign on the telephone. "Hollo, Youngblood? What the hell are you doing in Kentucky? Why aren't you up here working?" A bass laugh, and he went right on. "Youngblood, I talked to Ferdie Lax before he left. So you turned down my offer."
"I'm afraid I did."
"That's quite all right. Now listen, I am excited about your book. To me, just from that outline, it's a work of art and it has a great chance as a movie. Now, I've got a problem, and let me tell you what it is. I've got a commitment with Anne Karen, you know who she is, I hope—Hollo, Youngblood, you still there?"
"I'm here, Mr. Luzzatto. I know who Anne Karen is," Hawke said, with what he hoped was quiet irony. Anne Karen!
"Okay. She's the greatest, as you know. She hasn't made a picture for years because she doesn't have to, she's one of the richest women in Hollywood and tremendously independent, but she's never stopped looking for a script. Now I think Alms for Oblivion would be fabulous for her, a complete change of pace. I think that part of the aunt is a sure Academy Award for Anne. I've told her so. She's here in New York, in fact she's right here in this hotel. The trouble is she suddenly doesn't like the New York weather. She wants to go to Hawaii for a month, she owns a house there and she's booked to sail next week. Youngblood, if I don't wrap this up with her before she goes, the whole thing will fall through. She's leaving New York in a couple of days. Now she read the outline of your book and I have to tell you she hates it, she doesn't see anything in it."
"Mr. Luzzatto, that outline is disgusting, I never authorized it."
"Look, Youngblood, you don't have to sell me on your book. I can see values in an outline that an actress can't. Youngblood, I need the script. Anne has got to read your manuscript. At least enough of it to see the possibilities like I do. Now I spent all today at Prince House almost, trying to get that script. There's a girl there named Green. She won't let it out of her hands. She's some kind of a nut. Why, I got Jay Prince to tell her to give it to me, and she still wouldn't! She says you put it in her custody and she won't release it until you tell her to. Youngblood, can you hear me? What's all this noise on the line?"
"I hear you."
The producer said, "I'm trying to say I'm prepared to improve my offer. I can improve it substantially, but first I must get Anne Karen interested in your book. Do you understand?"
Hawke tried to keep his voice calm. Turning down the offer had been the right move, after all! He could see Nancy in the parlor, peeping at him over the Gazette. "What do you mean by improving the offer?"
"Youngblood, there's no sense talking money until we interest Karen. I want you to call that crazy Green girl and tell her to let me have the script tomorrow. What am I going to do, burn it, eat it? I want to show it to Anne Karen, I just want it for forty-eight hours! I think we can make a real deal, a fast deal."
Hawke's natural suspiciousness warned him that this might be a farrago of lies, that this man might be using the dazzling name of Anne Karen just to get ahead of other Hollywood people in reading his novel. "Well, now, Mr. Luzzatto, Jeanne Green's worried about that manuscript because I am. There's no carbon copy. How would it be if I call Jeanne and tell her to deliver it personally to Anne Karen at the Waldorf tomorrow, and then pick it up from Miss Karen forty-eight hours later? That way I don't see how we could lose track of it."
Luzzatto bellowed, "That's great! That's perfect! Will you do that Youngblood? Can I count on it? Can I tell Anne? Youngblood, I think we'll have a deal here, and I think we're going to make a fine film."
"I'll do it, Mr. Luzzatto." Hawke was convinced, and he began to envision the possibilities of having Anne Karen as the star in the movie of Alms for Oblivion.
"Youngblood, we're going to do business. I feel it. I am excited. I am calling Anne the minute I hang up. You're all right, Youngblood. Goodbye."
After that, dinner was a strained affair.
The Hawke household was one where deep enormous reticences could be carried along for years, so long as a subject was not broached. After that the floodgates were down and his mother could unloose deluges of words. There had been a time years earlier when Nancy, by all the signs, was having an affair or was at least passionately involved with a married cashier at the bank; there had been plenty of talk about it in Hovey; but Nancy had sat white and haggard and silent at the dinner table night after night for half a year, and the topic had never been opened once. So tonight, though the name of Anne Karen had burst like a huge firework in this drab little home in the back hills of Kentucky—for of course there was no privacy in telephoning—though nobody could think of much else, the conversation was as inane and desultory as if Arthur had never mentioned the star on the telephone. Mrs. Hawke told Nancy about the settlement with Hawke Brothers, trying with half a heart to present it as a victory. Then she dropped into her old lines of talk: the inconsiderateness of the neighbors and their lack of good breeding, and the various machinations and villainies of her rivals in the Elizabeth Kilburn Circle of the Methodist church. Mrs. Hawke had held various posts in the Circle over the years but had never been elected president, and besides the treachery of Hawke Brothers this was the main grievance of her days. She clacked on and on, while Nancy threw inquisitive glances at her brother. Hawke had learned long ago that listening to his mother was not necessary; a smile and a nod now and then kept her going happily. He did not want to talk of the movie offer unless something came of it, so he let his mother fill the time with her usual noise while he devoured vast platefuls of beef and noodles, one of her best dishes. Then he went upstairs, thoroughly sobered by the food, and put himself to work in the tiny bedroom. It was hard to force thoughts of Anne Karen out of his mind, and also calculations of what various sums would fetch at twenty-five percent—fifty thousand dollars, eighty thousand dollars—but once he drove himself to write half a dozen lines the story seized his imagination and next thing he knew it was past eleven o'clock and Nancy was yelling at him from downstairs.
