Youngblood hawke, p.87
Youngblood Hawke, page 87
"I'm half through."
"Good?"
"This is the first good one, Fain. I've got this one under control."
"Long?"
"The longest. Union warfare in the coal country where I was born. Families, money, shooting."
"Oh, Jesus. That sounds like it. That sounds like big casino. All right. That's what I wanted to know. Now, shall I tell you what to do about Judd?"
"God, yes."
Fain drained his drink, set the glass down with a thump, and said, "NOTHING. Not a god damned thing. That's what you're going to do about Quentin Judd's review and all the others, do you hear, Hawke? Nothing!" He glared up at Hawke, with both fists planted on the desk.
His vehemence took everyone unawares. It was a few seconds before Givney said, "Well, that's pretty easy to say, and a little negative. Youngblood Hawke has been unfairly attacked and—"
"OF COURSE he's been unfairly attacked," Fain roared at Givney, his face taking on scarlet tones. "Are you telling me anything new? This is his ordeal. He must do two things: keep absolute silence, and finish his next book. What d'you want him to do? Write letters, write articles, start lawsuits, go on TV and radio and lecture platforms to defend himself? I did all those things, I did every one of them. If I have a single regret in my whole life it's about the way I chickened out after my second book. Why, damn your soul, Hawke, you've written Evelyn Biggers! There it stands. Nothing can change it. Suppose you did fake a publishing house and pad up the book? Since when is an artist supposed to be St. Francis of Assisi? You were out for a fast buck, like everybody else in this screwy country, including Judd with his Rambler, and why should you be different? That's just the holier-than-thou horsemanure of a critic out to murder you. But he can't touch you, Hawke. You've written four serious efforts in seven years. You've won an audience. You had the wonderful luck to come down out of the hills. All the competition are big city boys like me, we have no nerves, no ground to stand on, no sense of the country. I've been through analysis, Marxism, Trotskyism, existentialism, I had the Buddhist phase, for Christ's sake, all those nets of words, nets of words to catch some self-esteem, some sense of dignity, some sense of fitting in to a scheme of things, a scene, a scene! You, you lucky bastard, you belong square in the United States scene, Christ, you belong like an old Mack truck bowling along Highway 66. You're vulnerable, you have terrible defects as a writer. I've said nastier things about you from time to time in public and in private than anything Judd wrote, for the simple reason that you sell too god damned many books. Judd's attack on you filled me with fierce pleasure when I read it. I write good movies, it's a difficult craft and I've accepted my enjoyable life. I'm not looking for any new fancy word games, I live well with myself at last, but all the same, you bastard, I'm writing pictures and you're making it, and would you deny me the delight of enjoying Judd's review? But even while I gloated I felt what you must be feeling, the horror all came back, and I had to see you. I'm returning to exile tomorrow. I've come here to tell you just one thing. Do NOTHING about Judd, absolutely nothing, do you hear? Finish your book. It sounds to me like the one that will put you in place." He held out his hand to Hawke. "I'm an intruder, and I'm plastered, and I get mean and snotty when I start arguing, so I'm now going to walk out. I think I've been surpassingly noble here. I've given you the single best piece of advice you'll have in your whole life. In fact I've given you a transfusion of my own heart's blood. No charge. Good day, gentlemen. Mrs. Fry, if you allow this big talented rube to acknowledge the Judd attack in any way, I'll believe you wrote Evelyn Biggers. Goodbye."
He went as he had come, with a plunge at the doorway, and a slam of the door.
Jeanne was the first to speak after a moment of general astonishment. "I withdraw my vote for legal action."
Givney said, "Well, that was a melodramatic presentation, but as a matter of cold business—"
Jeanne rode over him. "I was personally hurt and I wanted to strike back. It's a natural reaction, but the wrong one for Arthur. Fain said it all, and I'm for ignoring Judd."
Adam said, "Are you prepared to take the embarrassment of the charges if Arthur doesn't answer them?"
"The charge that I write his books is too stupid to be taken notice of. If I could write Evelyn Biggers I'd leave Hodge Hathaway and Arthur and set up shop as a novelist. That's so obvious that people must eventually say it themselves, or our saying it won't help. Keep silence and finish the next book. That's my vote, and it won't change."
Ross Hodge said, "Then you're giving up the fight on Evelyn Biggers, Jeanne."
Jeanne said, "You can't increase sales by answering critics. I think the dead stop in the advance is a coincidence. Book sellers have read it by now and realized that it isn't the usual Hawke merchandise. Arthur overprinted. It happens all too often, even at Hodge Hathaway."
Hawke sat back in the swivel chair, puffing on a long cigar, still in his shirtsleeves, glancing at each person who spoke. He looked unworried, but very haggard.
Adam was smoking another cigarette. It effected an odd change in his whole personality; the sedate air had given way to a tense foxy wariness. He said, "Well, Fain carried me. Mostly because he was making an extraordinary personal gesture. Such truth comes hard. I think he gave us the truth."
Givney said, "Well, before this meeting stampedes may I just have a word here? I don't bring the emotional charge of Mr. Fain nor the excitement of alcohol, but from a pure business standpoint he was talking like a boy, and this immaturity is probably what has sapped his work. We need quick dramatic action before the reading public. The Times page is the answer, it can absolutely turn the tide. Youngblood has to rise to the occasion and write a magnificent credo, a statement of the artist's integrity, yes, a Gettysburg address of literature. I know he can do it, the situation cries for it—"
Hawke said without rancor, "Rollo, you mean that we can stall Ben Manson for a while if I write the damned thing."
"That's discussing the matter on its lowest level, but all right, I should think that ought to concern you too, since I gather from your attorney that you can't meet the bill."
Adam interposed, "I didn't say that."
Givney said, "It seems very strange to me that of all the people in this room I'm the only one who hasn't lost faith in Evelyn Biggers." He turned on Gus Adam. "I think we should act on the facts here. Can Youngblood pay a seventy-three-thousand-dollar printing bill if it comes in today?"
Adam hesitated and Hawke struck in. "I've got a better idea, Rollo. You've always talked of the paperback rights in terms of a hundred twenty-five thousand dollars or more. You pay that printing bill and you've got the paperback rights. Okay?"
Givney laughed, and threw up his hands. "There, you see what the atmosphere is in this room? Panic and fire sales. Why should you cheat yourself like that?"
"To clean up a problem, that's all, since I've got several. I'll be glad to make the deal, Rollo, honestly. This is a firm formal offer of the paperback rights to Evelyn Biggers for seventy-three thousand dollars. Will you take it?"
All eyes were on Givney now. He said, "I'll grab that, Youngblood, subject of course to the approval of my board of directors. I don't have the authority to buy any one book on my own for more than fifteen thousand. They don't meet until the tenth of next month, so that's not much help in this crisis."
Adam said, "I'm sure a special meeting could be easily arranged."
"Not so easily," Givney said.
Hawke said, "As a matter of fact, Rollo, you round up this board of yours and make this deal and I'll write the piece for the Times, how's that?"
"You mean you won't do it to affirm your artistic integrity but you'll do it for money? That's not very admirable."
Hawke said cheerfully, "No, not very, but I'm in sort of a jam. Is it a deal, Rollo?"
Givney did not answer for a moment. He endured everybody's stare, twirling a sharp pencil round and round in one fist on the desk. The usual jollity of his face faded away, leaving stiff lines at the ends of his thin mouth, an outthrust jaw, and drooping eyes. He said, "I can't arrange a special meeting of my board. I can buy the paperback rights to Evelyn Biggers for fifteen thousand dollars, I assume you're not interested."
Hawke said, "No, I'm not, Rollo, but thanks."
Ross Hodge cut into the heavy stillness. "Well, then, if the idea is to do nothing about Judd I'm for that, and can I run along? It's seldom a mistake to ignore a critic."
Hawke said, "That's the decision. I just have to wipe the pie off my face and carry on. Meeting's over." They were talking as though Givney were not there. He sat smiling primly and smoking.
Ross stood. "Arthur, I'm sorry you're in a jam. I don't want to know details, but Hodge Hathaway will give you a fifty-thousand-dollar advance any time, sight unseen, on your next book, if that will be a help."
Hawke looked abashed. He said in a low tired tone, "Ross, it isn't half done and it might turn out another Evelyn or worse."
Hodge nodded. "That's the risk. My job is taking risks, Arthur. My objection to Haworth House always was your involvement in risk. I can't write books. Nobody can write Hawke novels but you. I hope you don't mind my saying one more thing. I'd have published this book in two hundred pages and sold it for three dollars. If you decide you want the advance, just tell Jeanne." He put out his hand in his curious stiff way, shook hands, and left.
Adam rasped his briefcase shut. "If that's it, Arthur, you and I have to go to the St. Regis to see Scotty, in a hell of a hurry. We're half an hour late."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1
JEANNE, Hawke and Adam piled into a taxi. It stopped first in front of the tall office building on Park Avenue, all glass and bronze facing, where Hodge Hathaway had its new offices. When Hawke stepped out and offered his hand, Jeanne hesitated. "If only people would skip the condolences," she said shakily, "and if only there hadn't been this Judd mess! I'm going to be a two-headed calf around here, for God knows how long. Well—I can't retire to a convent." She took his hand, slid to the door, and with a prim quick move she was on the sidewalk. "So long. The decision about Judd was right. I think Roland Givney is a beautiful human being—if that's what he is." She looked up at Hawke as though she wanted to kiss him, then she laughed. "Ye gods, let's not be seen together like this in public, eh? The female Svengali giving Youngblood Hawke his next plot in a sidewalk conference." She turned and strode into the building, her youthful black-clad figure disappearing at once into a waiting elevator.
Meanwhile Adam emerged from the cab, saying, "We may as well walk to the St. Regis." As he stepped out, Jeanne's black kid gloves fell from the cab to the gutter. He picked them up and brushed them off, grinning. "Wouldn't Karl have growled about this! It was his favorite joke, the way she loses gloves."
Hawke nodded. "I once heard him say if she'd give up wearing gloves for a year they'd be able to buy their country home."
"Well," Adam said, holding the gloves rather gingerly, "who's going to be seeing her first?"
"I don't know," Hawke said. After an awkward moment, the lawyer offered Hawke the gloves. Hawke took them and put them in his pocket. The two men started to walk up the avenue.
Hawke said, "What do I have to know for this meeting?"
"Well, this is the showdown with Newton Leffer, Arthur. Scotty got one more day of grace by saying that he was signing the Mehlman lease this morning. Scotty's become very hard to locate in the past few days. You have to telephone a dozen times to catch him once. That kind of thing. Newton's had the same trouble. I finally nailed him yesterday."
Hawke said anxiously, "Can't you dig up any reliable information on the department store lease?"
"I've tried. It's hard to get solid answers out of the law firm that represents the Mehlman family. They're very stuffy high-button-shoes Philadelphians. And you can't pin down Scotty. He'd better have the answer today, that's all."
Newton Leffer sat alone on a couch in the hotel lobby, stiff and wrathful, umbrella between his knees, black Homburg on his lap. He said he had been waiting for forty-five minutes. No sign of Hoag, no telephone message; and he had begun to think that Adam and Hawke were avoiding him too.
Leffer had unearthed an extremely discouraging fact that morning, he said, by telephoning three of the firms which had signed leases in the Plaza. None of these were really firm commitments! Scott had signed separate letters of agreement with these three shops, stipulating that if he failed to get the Mehlman department store lease, these other leases were cancelled. Leffer sternly asked Hawke and Adam whether they had known of these letters. He appeared convinced by their dismayed denials, but his anger did not decrease.
"I think your Mr. Hoag is a little free with facts," Leffer said, looking up at Hawke with formidable iciness. "His behavior in avoiding my telephone calls, and his failure to show up today, are pretty well explained. He may have no leases at all! I don't know whether or not the Mehlman lease has been signed. I can't find out, and I'm rapidly losing interest. Here's how matters stand. If before five o'clock today you, or Mr. Hoag, or Gus, appears at my office with the Mehlman lease, and a representative of the department store who will confirm that there are no hidden wrinkles or escape agreements, I'll accept seventy-five thousand dollars as the first payment of this mortgage, now seventeen days overdue. Otherwise I'm going to invoke the acceleration clause, tomorrow at nine in the morning, and hold you personally liable, Mr. Hawke, to pay me three hundred thousand dollars at once."
Adam exclaimed, "Newton, for Pete's sake! You have every right to be annoyed and distressed, but good lord! Arthur can and will meet the first payment, but three hundred thousand dollars in cash at a crack is rough for anybody."
"I know that, Gus. I presume Mr. Hawke knew it when he signed a note promising to pay that amount if there was a default. We have his signature, I recommended the loan on his signature, and he must make it good."
Adam started to speak of appraisals he could show Leffer, which proved that the shopping center would be worth close to three million dollars when completed and occupied. The little man waved this aside with a short jerk of the umbrella handle. "I have my own appraisals in the file. Unless my terms are met today, my clients are getting out of this situation. In effect Mr. Hawke will be buying the second mortgage from us. He's welcome to it, with all the eventual gains." He stood. "You know quite well, Gus, that if you were in my place this is the action you'd take. It's just what Abe Tulking did on the second mortgage of the West End housing project. There's only one way with people like Mr. Hoag. I'm not going to pursue him by telephone or wait for him any more. I'm very glad I got Mr. Hawke's guarantee, but that was the basis on which we proceeded, as you know." He turned to Hawke, putting on his hat and giving the umbrella a little flourish. "You have the most remarkable knowledge of human nature, Mr. Hawke, judging from your books, but I think it deserted you in the choice of this business partner. Money does cloud the best judgments sometimes. Heaven knows I've made my mistakes. There's nothing personal in this.—Gus, I'll be in my office till five."
"All right, Newton."
The little man squared his almost non-existent shoulders, somewhat lessening the angle of their slope, and stalked out through the revolving door.
Hawke said ruefully, "Well done."
Adam said, "Oh, Newt's a competent lawyer. He's quite right, he's doing exactly what I'd do." He got out of his chair, and it struck Hawke that his movement was a tired, sagging one. "Let me make a couple of phone calls. The best thing for you is to sit right there and watch the door for Scotty."
"Okay," Hawke said. He sat and watched the door while a variety of people went in and out: ugly men, handsome men, beautiful women in extreme clothes trailing clouds of perfume, stately old women, men in groups arguing and laughing, foreigners chattering in their languages. They all bore themselves as though they had a lot of money. But he wondered how many of them could meet two simultaneous calls for seventy-three thousand dollars and three hundred thousand dollars in cash.
Adam returned after fifteen minutes, stripping cellophane off a package of cigarettes. Hawke said, "Gus, since when have you taken to nails?"
Adam said, "I'm having a lapse. I'll quit again. No sign of our wandering boy, eh? Let's give him till three o'clock. He's not punctual at best." He dropped on the sofa beside Hawke, and regarded him with a melancholy grin, head cocked sidewise. "My bill is going to be a big one, some day. I never knew what I was letting myself in for when I took on Youngblood Hawke. I thought literary legal problems would be a refreshing change. Now I'm beginning to feel like one of those fifth-act messengers in Shakespeare, who keep galloping onstage with more bad news."
"What now?" Hawke said, with a twinge of dread, and yet with a certain awakening in him of nervous exultation, as when a sailor learns he is in for a hurricane and braces himself to do what he can to come out of it alive.
Adam lit a cigarette and drew on it so that the end glowed down for a quarter of an inch. "Well, one of those conversations was with Internal Revenue down town. Let's skip that for the moment because I then called Washington and some wheels are still turning. I thought I'd better call Scotty's Lexington lawyer, that Urban Webber fellow, because he really knows Scott's affairs. I had quite a talk with him. I can't tell how much of what he said is true, but it's certainly the position Scotty's going to take. He puts it that Scotty's worse off than you for meeting a cash call, in fact he has no cash whatever and his credit is stretched as far as it can go. It's all on ventures like the Plaza. Scotty has about five of these things coming along in various stages, though the Plaza's the biggest. He's a plunger, he's been in tighter spots than this, Webber says, and he's always come out richer than before. Webber asserts—and indeed I think it may be true—that in the end the Plaza's going to be a money maker for both of you. The trouble is that before one gets to the end of a thing like this somebody can be very badly burned, if there's a cash squeeze."
