Juice (13 page)

Rhein broke the silence. “I am an admirer of yours,” he said.

“And I of you,” Davis offered gravely, visualizing bullion.

“You've heard of me before?”

“Good heavens, man,” Davis told him. “The Emerald Press?”

Rhein grinned slowly in great delight. “You're a devilish man, but I like that.”

“All right, then.” Davis laughed. “P.A.N. And if my lawyer's memory serves, you wriggled out of an antitrust suit in 1947.”

Rhein nodded. “If I could be remembered for that, I wouldn't mind being forgotten for everything else.” He sat back; the swivel chair creaked. Rhein wore a gray suit; his shirt was white and his collar was starched; his tie was knotted tightly and primly. He looked every column inch an entry in
Who's Who,
but Davis saw more; Davis saw the slow men in shirt sleeves pitching horseshoes in the park at dusk, a nickel a game.

“Can I offer you refreshment?” Rhein asked.

It was not a question to be taken lightly, ever; Davis considered, recalling tastes and pleasures. He yielded cheerfully. “Beer, thank you.”

“Good,” Rhein said, and smiled again. “Robert!”

“I'm right here, Mr. Rhein,” Robert said from the doorway.

“Oh, sorry. I thought you'd slipped away. Bring the Danish, Robert. Four bottles.” Robert nodded and went away. “Cigar, Mr. Davis?”

“With pleasure.” Davis accepted a light; Rhein peered at him across the flame, and Davis wondered what the man was seeking: phrenological revelations? Perhaps it was an old negotiator's habit, to know every line of the opponent's face, to watch for emotion in the features, and to strike when the lower lip betrayed greed. A nineteenth-century negotiator's habit, Davis reflected; and now he will be beaten and useless because the new American businessman has no face at all. Customer's poker with a robot.

“Do you know Harrison?” Rhein asked.

Davis shook his head. “I met him this morning. I'd heard of him.”

“Of course. How is he?”

“All right. Bearing up. Stunned but healthy.”

Rhein nodded and examined his cigar. “Very healthy. A good man. Tough, in his way.”

“So I gathered,” Davis said.

“Did you meet his wife?”

“Yes.”

“Impressive. They're quite a couple. I feel sad when I think of her.”

Davis showed surprise.

“Extraordinarily beautiful,” Rhein explained, “and very much alive. Of course to her, and probably to him, I'm simply an old fool with lots of money—”

“I doubt that,” Davis interrupted. “Anyone as alive as you say she is wouldn't think in those categories to begin with.”

“Possibly,” Rhein went on. “But it's depressing to sit at table with her, in full command of my judgment and emotions, and think that two generations separate us.”

Davis smiled sympathetically, but he was wary; why should Rhein tell him that?

“I'm not bidding for sympathy,” Rhein said. “Being old has its advantages; it's a little like wearing sunglasses. I can ogle discreetly and no one notices.” He smiled. “I've admired the lady for some time, but we'll change the subject.”

“Let's talk about Harrison,” Davis said.

“Yes. What do you want to know?”

“How important is he?”

“To me?”

“To you, or to P.A.N.”

Rhein hesitated. “Very important, I'd say.” And then, in mild tones but with a momentary ferocity in his eyes: “But not indispensable. No man is.”

Davis waited.

“I mean that we could do without him if we had to,” Rhein went on. “But we wouldn't want to. He's our managing director, which means that he runs the show. And he runs it his own way, which is a very personal way. He's a bad executive, in that sense; he wants to know what's what at any given moment. So that aside from his administrative function he's built up a personal function. People like to deal with him, and not so much with P.A.N. He steps in and forces compromises. He makes peace among the directors and the other executives. You know we have a newspaper and television and radio and a few magazines, and they all compete, and he's there in the middle getting the best out of all of them and playing no favorites. Agents trust him, and actors, and even businessmen. And God knows how much of the business he's carrying around in his head. Presumably there's a written record of every smallest agreement we make, down to buying office supplies, but there's always that little margin, a flexibility, a promise here and a possibility there, where you'd be foolish to put it into a contract but Joe figures he'll find a way to do it, so he makes the agreement verbally.” Rhein's face expressed disgust. “But he always comes out on top. He gets it all done, he pleases everybody, and P.A.N. makes money. I can't complain.”

Davis looked up when Robert entered. Robert set a tray on the desk, opened two of the four bottles, filled glasses, left the opener, and went away.

“Then you'd be in a spot if Harrison were out of things for a while,” Davis said.

“Your health.” Rhein raised his glass. Davis murmured. “Yes and no,” Rhein said. “It would be troublesome. It would take a few weeks to find out what was on the fire and how he was going about it. Others could take over from there.”

“I see,” Davis said. “And you have a competent legal department, as I recall it.”

“Yes. The best. They'd see that P.A.N. didn't lose time or money.”

“I see,” Davis said again. “Then why did you send for me?”

Rhein sagged visibly, but recovered. “I suppose because our people aren't accustomed to criminal work. I thought Joe should have the best. He's been a loyal employee.”

“A loyal employee,” Davis repeated.

“Yes.” Rhein had the grace to fidget.

“Fair enough,” Davis said, and swallowed beer. “We'll get him off.” His tone was sharp, as though he had made a decision.

Rhein was startled. “Of course we'll get him off,” he said. “The man's not a criminal. I don't want to see him taken away from us, and from his wife and children, on a technicality in the law. In fact—” Rhein smiled now—“I've already taken steps.”

Davis waited distrustfully. “What steps?”

“It occurred to me,” Rhein said, beaming, “that we are a communications network—a rather large and effective network, I may add. I knew that the story would become public property as soon as Joe stepped into a courtroom, so I ordered all departments to cover it. Quietly, no sensationalism, of course, but generously to Joe. I've also composed a couple of statements of the board's confidence in him.”

Davis answered slowly. “Good. Or at least I suppose so. I'd hold on to those statements until they're really needed. For that matter I wouldn't make much of the accident either. No need to call attention to it.”

“All right,” Rhein said equably. “I'm glad you approve, by the way.” Davis was silent, so he went on: “Of course, that's the least we can do for him. If need be, we'll shift into high gear.”

Davis was suddenly and uncomfortably conscious of his own presence on earth. He felt too tall, too commanding, too independent, too obvious altogether. The discomfort touched him and vanished; he was staring out the window at a hillside on which there was only the merest trace of green, and he looked at the rows of white, pink, yellow, and blue houses and wished he were in North Africa. He recognized that as a coward's wish, composed himself, and said evenly, “How do you mean?”

Rhein spread his hands; his struggle to keep pride from his face was apparent to Davis. “P.A.N. is a big outfit. A thing like this touches the whole organization. A lot depends on it—jobs, paychecks, schedules, the information and entertainment of millions of people. I really don't see why we should take chances. You know how a courtroom can be: one crackpot, one old lady with a bee in her bonnet, and the case could blow up, and all the reasonable legal arguments wouldn't mean a thing.”

“So?” Davis said. “I'm not sure you ought to be talking to me about this.”

“I'll believe practically anything of you, if you want, but not that you're naïve,” Rhein said.

Davis stirred in his leather chair; he reached for the ash tray, missed, and deposited a long white ash on Rhein's seedy, purplish carpet. Rhein had not noticed; he was momentarily blinded by an inner vision. “All right,” Davis said. “I'm not naïve. I know what you're talking about. I assume the room isn't bugged so I'll even say that I think it's wise. Even Harrison doesn't know how serious it might be.”

Rhein frowned. “Bugged?”

“Wired,” Davis said impatiently. “Tape recorders, dictaphones, whatever.”

“Oh.” Rhein was still puzzled.

“I think you'll be taking great chances,” Davis said. “I suppose it's worth it.”

“No risk.” Rhein smiled. “It will all be done quietly, through the right people, and in a very gentlemanly manner.”

“I'm sure it will,” Davis said. “But I'm not sure that juice is necessary.”

“Ah, that's professional pride.” Rhein wagged a pencil at him. “I don't blame you. And it's obviously not that we lack confidence in you or we wouldn't have called for you in the first place. I simply think it would be best to cover all contingencies. By the way—” his face became serious and sorrowful—“the woman will be taken care of. Joe was thoroughly covered by Pacific American.”

“That's reassuring,” Davis said with no real anger.

“Here, open another beer.” Rhein tossed him the tool. “All in all I think we can do a good job for Joe.”

“Have you talked to him about it?”

“No,” Rhein said. “He's a little stuffy. I think we'd do better to handle this without his knowledge.”

“Fair enough,” Davis said.

“You'd better give me the names.”

Davis gave him the names. “Lieber,” Rhein said. “Never heard of him. Frank will know him.”

“Who's Frank?”

“Never mind.” Rhein grinned. “I shouldn't even be talking to you about this.”

Davis smiled.

“Now, what do you expect will happen?” Rhein was once more brisk.

“We go to court tomorrow, hear the evidence, and wait for the judge's finding,” Davis said. “That's all. Finished. Over. You'll have my bill next week.”

Rhein released patrician laughter. Davis too felt amusement reviving within him. This man across the table, old, fussy, not-to-be-contraried; and Harrison, dynamic, snobbish, impatient; and he himself, detached, amoral, infinitely clever: this was the new triumvirate, lineally descended from Barnum and Caesar, Hildebrand and Casanova, Rhodes and Schikaneder, who could fool all of the people all of the time because it was everyman's dream now to become some day Rhein or Harrison or Davis. And because it was wrong to take morality for the norm and anything else for perversion; the world was neither moral nor immoral, but there for the taking. Morality was a sheepfold built by wolves. And I won't be a sheep, Davis thought, and there's the answer. If that's my choice, I made it long ago. One Landauer makes up for a lot of Rheins.

“Horsefeathers,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” Rhein was bewildered.

“Nothing,” he said, “nothing. We're all straightened out, then?”

“Yes, indeed,” Rhein said. “Finish your beer. Don't rush off.”

I know what it is, Davis thought: it's anticlimax. It's too easy. You become bored with sheep in wolves' clothing. They throw the fight to me and sit back flattering themselves. I wonder about Harrison, though. Harrison has possibilities. Almost as many as Mrs. Harrison. Helen. Ah. Helen and Mrs. Newbery, my indescribable, unfathomable, delectable, sleek soft round bewitching and unfortunately at this moment absent, gone from me, Aphrodite, my Mother Goddam, my Elvira, my Pamina, my paradoxical doxy, whom I shall see at six pee em and not relinquish until Jove drives me from her. Would she like Helen? Yes, of course, and they would league against me and whisper about me. Delightful; what more could a man ask? That it be legal? Nonsense. We have just demonstrated the value of law.

That's the trouble with being an anarchist, he thought. It's lonely.

6

“He'll need an anesthetic,” Harrison said to his children. He was in gray corduroy pants, a khaki shirt, and work shoes. Dave and Sally were uniformed in dungarees and T shirts and sneakers.

“What's the matter with him?” They were in the clearing behind the house; the low sun shone powerfully through the trees and threw a spiny pattern of shadow upon them. They were grouped about a large, exhausted black tomcat.

“It's called an abscess,” Joe said. “He got a claw through his cheek in a fight, and it infected under the hide. Now there's a big pocket of pus. See how swollen it is?” They nodded. “It has to be slit open and drained, that's all. We'll take him to the vet.”

“You can't drive,” Sally said.

“Who told you that?”

“Mom.”

“Then she can drive.”

They left the cat and walked to the kitchen. Joe entered last and closed the screen door carefully. He ruffled Helen's hair and peered over her shoulder. “Meat pie?”

“Meat pie. What's happening outside?”

“The big black torn has an abscess. We'll take him to Haviland.”

“You can't drive,” she said.

“So I have been informed. You want to do it?”

“No. Why don't you walk down?”

“Half a mile?”

“All right,” she said. “Do you good.”

“You want to walk?” Sally nodded; Dave shrugged. “We'll walk. Will he let himself be carried?”

“He'll let me carry him,” Dave said.

“Then go get him. You can watch the operation.”

Sally and Dave went out.