Dreams Die First (35 page)

“You’re lookin’ good,” I said.

“Thank you.” She came right to the point. “I thought you might like to see the first-quarter results before the meeting. There’s a summary on the first page if you don’t want to go through the whole report.”

The heading of the report was simple. Net profits before taxes. I read down the column.

“We’re selling out too cheap,” I said.

She smiled. “
Macho
’s circulation for the three months averaged out at four million one hundred and fifty thousand copies.
Girls of the World Quarterly
made another big profit contribution. Even at the six-dollar new price, we sold almost seven million copies.”

“I’m not complaining.” I smiled.

“Our net after taxes should be about seven million,” she added.

“Leave this with me. I think the underwriters might be interested in knowing about it.”

“I’ve already prepared copies for them.”

She was way ahead of me. There was really nothing I had to do anymore. Everything had already been thought of. “Good,” I said.

“Two more things if you have the time,” she said quickly.

There was that phrase again—“If you have the time.” It was beginning to seem to me that this was the opening line in almost every conversation I’d had for the last year. I managed to contain my annoyance. “I have the time.”

“The auditors reported that the personnel in the supply divisions of the clubs has increased between seventeen and twenty men per club during the last two years.”

“So?”

“It doesn’t make sense. At most they only need two men.”

“With profits like that what difference does it make?”

“That’s no way to run a business,” she said disapprovingly. “If you let that happen in other areas of the company, there won’t be any profits to talk about.”

“Okay. Look into it.”

“I already am.”

Again she was ahead of me. I couldn’t keep the annoyance from creeping into my voice this time. “Then why bother me if you’re already doing something about it?”

“I think you should be kept informed,” she said evenly.

“You said there were two things. What’s the other?”

“The second is personal. I’m getting married next month.”

I stared at her in surprise. “The judge?”

She smiled, blushing slightly. “Yes.”

I came out from behind the desk and kissed her. “Congratulations. He’s a hell of a guy. I know you’ll both be very happy.”

“He’s planning to run for Congress next year,” she said. “And this is the right time to do it.”

“Hey, anytime is the right time if you love the guy.”

“I love him,” she said. “He’s a fine man.”

I kissed her again and looked down into her face. She was radiant. “That’s beautiful,” I said.

CHAPTER 48

The underwriters were jubilant. The sweet smell of success hung heavy in the air. I looked around the table. They all were there. The big brokers. Merrill Lynch, Kuhn Loeb, Citibank, Bank of America.

Martin Courtland, chairman of the underwriters’ group, smiled at me. “This is the most successful offering to hit the street since the Ford Motor Company. We could have doubled our per-share asking price and it still would have been oversubscribed.”

“I’m not complaining,” I said. “One hundred million dollars is still a lot of money.”

“I have word that the day after it comes out it will open on the Exchange at fifty percent above the asking price.”

The price was fifty dollars a share. That meant it should appear on the board the very first day at seventy-five. “You guys are going to get rich just on trading alone,” I said.

“Maybe you’d like to place some of your private shares with us.” He laughed.

“No, thanks. I’m not greedy.”

They all laughed. Two million shares went out to the public. One million remained in the treasury. I retained three million shares for myself. “I have some interesting figures,” I said, referring them to the first-quarter report.

They had already seen it. “At this rate, even at fifteen or twenty times earnings, the shareholders are getting the biggest bargain of their lives,” Courtland said.

I didn’t say anything.

He looked around the table. “I trust, gentlemen, that you all realize this is the first time a major financing has been undertaken to build a hotel and casino in Las Vegas without a mortgage commitment by any of the usual sources.”

I knew what he meant. It had all started when Lonergan had come to me with the land in Vegas, along with seventy million dollars’ worth of financing commitments from various unions and insurance companies. I liked the idea, but I didn’t like having partners. Their terms reminded me too much of the mustaches back East. It was then I decided to go public.
Playboy
had done it with even less. I added the ten million dollars that I needed to exercise my option on Mazatlán Lifestyle and took it to the Street. There was skepticism at first, but that changed when they saw the profit figures. This underwriting was the net result.

“Let’s not get carried away prematurely, gentlemen,” I said. “We still have two more weeks before the stock is issued.”

“A mere technicality,” Courtland said. “There’s nothing that could go wrong now.”

“It’d better not. I’ve signed the contracts and I’m already on the line for the money. If this doesn’t go through, I’m in big trouble.”

“That will never happen,” Courtland said. “Right now you can put the money in the bank. The day the market opens your stock will be worth two hundred and twenty-five million dollars.”

A small round of applause greeted his statement. At first I thought it was a put-on. But when I looked around the table, I saw that it wasn’t. They were deadly serious. I had forgotten that money was a living thing for them. Too bad it couldn’t get up and take a bow. I remained silent.

“Since this will be our last meeting before the underwriting, I have been asked by the board of governors of the Stock Exchange to extend an invitation for lunch on the day the stock is placed on the board.”

“It will be my pleasure.”

“Good,” he said, obviously pleased. “That will be on Monday. I would also like to confirm your speech before the Security Analysts Club on the preceding Friday.”

“I have that scheduled. Now I’ll plan to remain in New York over that weekend.”

“Marvelous.” He looked around the table. “Any further questions before we close the meeting?”

“Just one.” One of the bankers got to his feet. “When are we going to get an invitation to one of those fabulous parties at your mansion that we’ve heard so much about?”

I smiled at him. “I’m afraid you’ve got me confused with Hefner. I don’t give parties and I don’t have a mansion. I live in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

He flushed with embarrassment.

“But I thank you for asking,” I added quickly. “It’s a good idea and maybe now I’ll be able to afford to do things like that.”

They all laughed and the meeting ended on a note of mutual respect, even love. I went back to my office wondering if an equation could be developed to reflect the ratio of money to love. Obviously the more money you had, the more love you received.

***

It was a few minutes after twelve when I got back to my office. The messages were piled neatly on my desk. I glanced through them. There was nothing important, no one I had to call back. I stared out the window. It really was a beautiful day.

I picked up the phone and dialed Eileen. “How did the meeting go?” she asked.

“All sweetness and light.”

“I’m glad.”

“I got an idea. What do you say we take the afternoon off and go out to the beach?”

“I’m sorry. But I can’t. I have two editorial meetings and four writers scheduled this afternoon.”

“Tell them to fuck off.”

“I can’t do that.” She laughed. “These meetings were set up in advance. If I don’t settle some of these things, we’ll have a lot of blank pages in the magazine three months from now.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Don’t feel bad. After all, we are having dinner at your mother’s tonight.”

I tried Bobby next, but he was socked in. Production was on his back to approve some layouts. Three photographers were there for thematic assignments and nine models were waiting in his outer office for his okay.

Marissa, who was now running the tour and travel division, was also tied up. Dieter was on his way up to her office and they were scheduled to meet with representatives of the Los Angeles Dental Association regarding a convention of six hundred people at the Mazatlán Lifestyle.

Finally, I called Denise. “It’s your anniversary,” I said. “Get a replacement from the pool to cover your desk and we’ll spend the afternoon at the beach.”

There was genuine regret in her voice. “Oh, Gareth, I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“A bunch of girls are giving me a cocktail party at La Cantina when the office closes.”

That was the last straw. I slammed down the telephone. Everybody in the fucking place had something to do except me. Now I knew what being boss meant. It meant having nothing to do.

I pressed down the intercom. “Get me a car right away.”

“Yes, Mr. Brendan. Do you want Tony to drive you?”

“I don’t want anybody to drive me! I’ll drive myself.”

There was astonishment in her voice. “You’ll drive yourself?”

“You heard me,” I snapped, flicking the switch.

***

They got me an Eldo convertible. I put the top down and twenty minutes later I was tooling out Sunset Boulevard toward the beach. I picked up a basket of the Colonel’s chicken and a six-pack of beer and continued up the Pacific Coast Highway past Paradise Cove to a little beach that I remembered as being fairly deserted.

It was about one thirty when I got there and the sun was high in the sky. I parked on the bluff, took the basket of chicken and the six-pack and trudged down to the sand. I found a partially shaded spot where it would not be too hot, then stripped off my shirt and spread it on the sand.

Except for one surfer who was trying to catch the big wave, I was alone on the beach. I slipped off my slacks and sat down in my black Jockey briefs. I leaned my head back against the bluff and snapped open a beer can. It was nice and cold and felt good going down. Idly I watched the surfer.

He was riding a crest. There wasn’t enough force in the wave to carry him and he sank into the water. A moment later he reappeared on his surfboard, paddling out to sea to catch the next wave.

The wheeling gulls were chasing fish, the sandpipers chasing their shadows. I took my shades out of my shirt pocket and put them on to shield my eyes against the sun’s glare. The surfer was riding a good one. I watched him come almost to the edge of the sand, then step off. I wondered if I could still do it. When I was a kid, I used to spend a lot of time looking for the big wave.

***

“Just one more wave, Uncle John,” I pleaded. “Please.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Just one more. Then we go home. The beach is empty and your mother will begin to worry about you.”

I ran into the water, carrying my junior-sized surfboard. I swam out as far as I dared, waited for what I thought was the big one, then got on the board with a pounding heart and stood up. It was a beautiful curler and I screamed at the top of my seven-year-old lungs all the way in.

Uncle John was waiting with a big towel as I came out of the water. “Now get out of your trunks and let me dry you off,” he said.

He knelt in front of me, rubbing me with the towel. My father’s voice came from behind me. “Can’t you even manage to keep your hands off your own nephew, you perverted bastard?”

I saw my uncle’s eyes turn to ice behind his rimless glasses. Slowly he rose to his feet. Then he moved so quickly I didn’t see what happened. By the time I turned around my father was sprawled on the sand, blood streaming from his mouth and nose. My uncle was standing over him with fists clenched.

I ran and knelt at my father’s side. He moved his head weakly, trying to speak. I could see the broken tooth hanging below his lip and the look of terror on his face.

I screamed at my uncle in pure anger. “Don’t you dare hit my father no more, you mean, terrible man!”

My uncle stood looking down at us silently with an expression of sorrow on his face.

I tried to lift my father’s head. “Get up, Daddy, get up.”

My father struggled to a sitting position. When I looked up, Uncle John was walking down the beach toward his car.

For a long time after that Uncle John didn’t come to our house. And when he finally did, the closeness that had existed between us was gone.

***

Maybe it was the surfer that aroused the memory. I couldn’t recall ever having thought about it before. I pulled the tab on another can of beer and dipped into the Colonel’s basket. The chicken was still hot and moist.

The surfer had come out of the water and was walking up the beach with his board under his arm when he saw me watching him. He tightened his ass and thrust his pelvis forward so that the bulge in his bikini stood out more prominently.

I grinned at the obvious hustle. He saw my smile and took it as an invitation. He turned up the beach and stopped in front of me. Jamming the surfboard nose first into the sand, he leaned over it with one arm. With legs spread and hips thrust forward, he was practically shoving his cock in my face.

“Hi,” he said.

At close range, he was older than he looked from a distance. I had figured him for fifteen, sixteen. Nineteen or twenty was more like it. “Hi.”

“Nice day,” he said. “But the surf ain’t worth a damn.”

“Yeah.”

“Alone?”

He hooked a thumb into the front of his bikini and pushed it down so that half his cock and the top of his balls were showing. He smiled at me. “How about that?”