The Celebrity (11 page)

When at last he had phoned about his missed appointments, he had not stooped to over-apology. He had only to explain about B.S.B. to be forgiven, congratulated, and urged to consider nothing but his own convenience about naming a better date.

Jobbers, buyers, bookstore owners, they really were craven little men. How profound and immediate was the change in them the minute they sniffed big business ahead! When he casually explained that he was canceling everything and devoting the day to certain hot possibilities in Hollywood, they redoubled their amiable assurances—a bit sickening to a man of perception, and yet pleasant, too. The only irritating thing all morning was the wire from Thornton Johns, and he did not propose to let that get him down.

What did this unknown brother mean, anyway, sending him orders? Nobody was going to dictate what he, Luther Digby, was to do or not do until this evening or any other evening. The firm’s fifteen per cent would not be jeopardized no matter who pulled off the movie sale, but in the long run, it would be better all around if it were he and not the brother. Everybody knew about the greed of authors, once they’d had their first taste of real money. Never again would Gregory Johns listen to reason about extra rights unless the firm brought off a movie sale of
The Good World.
Then only might gluttony be beaten back by a decent sense of obligation to Digby and Brown.

Brother or no brother, it thus behooved the President of D. and B. to drive right ahead. It might not be too extreme to switch his plans and hop the next train to Hollywood!

Outside his window, an airplane roared by.

He looked out at it appraisingly. It was headed west and he felt a kinship with it and with everything that sprang from undaunted imagination and unswerving will. A successful man, always, had both.

Within Luther Digby, invisible motors revved up, ailerons shifted, and something soared. Behind him there was a loud knock on the door and he banked steeply and curved around. It was the chambermaid to do up the room. This was her second appearance and her bony old face showed disgust at finding him still there.

“It’s all right,” he said, putting on his jacket and surveying himself once more in the mirror. “I’m just leaving.” He beckoned authoritatively, and she began to wheel in her cart of fresh linens, soaps, and shoe flannels. “I suppose most of the rooms are empty by now.”

“Yeah,” she said.

It sounded like “Yare,” and Luther Digby’s humanitarianism was aroused. This poor illiterate drudge who knew nothing of Big Business! “I suppose you get traveling salesmen mostly, who have to get going by nine.”

“Yare.”

“Like clerks in a store,” he said. “Poor devils.”

“Ain’t you a salesman?”

“No. I’m a publisher, a book publisher.” He stood taller and sucked in his stomach hard, wishing briefly that she were less ugly, less old.

“Books? What kinda books?”

She’s lonely, Luther Digby thought, lonely for companionship, for communication. “All kinds,” he said genially, “if they’re
good
enough. Do you like books?”

“I seen a movie, came from a book.”

“Lots of movies come from books,” he said. “Many of the books publish are made into movies.”

“You don’t say.” She abandoned her cart and stared at him. “What movies? Maybe I seen one.”

How eager she was to make contact with something less drab than the life she led. Luther Digby smiled in understanding and compassion.

“I’m on my way to Hollywood right now,” he said, “to arrange about a movie from one of my new books.”

“Hollywood? You don’t say!”

“I’m flying out. With so many people to see out there, I can’t spare the time for trains.”

“You goin’ to see any of the stars?”

“Of course. Publishers always talk to the stars about their best sellers.”

She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and sighed hugely. “Which stars?” she asked, but before he could reply, she added, “Imagine! Me talkin’ to somebody knows Bette Davis an’ Judy Garland an’ Jimmy Stewart an’ them all.”

Her bony face took on the softness of worship and Luther Digby, with a splendid shock, realized that this worship was not directed at Bette Davis and Judy Garland and Jimmy Stewart but at him who knew them and would be seeing them soon.

He put two dollars on the dresser, picked up his suitcase and suddenly thought, What’s to keep me from calling Zanuck myself?

I
N THE CHROMIUM GLARE
of the bar where he was to meet the lawyer Hathaway, Thornton Johns sat over a martini, nervously rehearsing what he would say. He had sent up to Ed Barnard for a set of bound galleys of
The Good World
and had brought it along with him, but he had checked it with his hat and coat; this seemed cowardly, but he could not bring himself to have it right out on the table. It had arrived at his office only at three and in the next two hours he had scrambled through half of it, as if he were cramming for an exam. He could put up a bluff of having read it; he could talk about Owen Barlowe, the girl who loved him, and the funny scenes between Barlowe and the other candidates. During the afternoon he had called Roy Tribble and asked to be filled in on Jim Hathaway, but he scarcely knew whether Roy’s remarks had made him more hopeful or less. “Jim’s still carrying a torch for Roosevelt, so don’t get on politics.” How could anybody talk about this book and not? Well, what the hell. Roy was a relentless Republican; his advice could be partly discounted.

Thorn drank off half his martini and watched the door. Could Hathaway have misunderstood where and when they were to meet? Should he telephone and check up? Not yet; it would sound unsure and tense. He
was
unsure and tense.

Hathaway arrived then, apologetic, eager to make up for his seeming rudeness, but Thorn was unable at first to press this advantage, and constraint grew between them. Then he decided to plunge: “My brother not only has no real agent; he has no lawyer.” Hathaway smiled. He liked authors, he told Thorn, as people, as friends, as clients. Successful authors had dozens of interlocking problems that unsuccessful authors never faced, and since each subsequent success compounded those problems, the relationship between good author and good lawyer was usually one which went on for life. “On the phone this morning,” Hathaway then remarked, “you mentioned a possible movie deal.”

Thorn nodded, and deliberately fell silent, studying Hathaway’s face. He had forgotten how strong and intelligent it was; he saw too that there was something vain in the set of the mouth and the direct gaze of the dark eyes. Hathaway was a small, wiry man, about his own age, with quick gestures and a biting enunciation. Selling insurance taught one to estimate mood and character and Thornton Johns decided Hathaway would not be averse to feeling himself indispensable.

“Let me give you some background,” Thorn said, almost diffidently, “about my impractical brother and about me—and you’ll see why I screwed up the nerve to ask for your help again. Waiter, another round, please.”

Suddenly Hathaway slapped the table. “You’re the guy who insisted on paying my fee yourself, even though my work was for your brother. It’s just come back, that part.”

The whole atmosphere changed; warmth took the place of constraint; Hathaway abandoned his noncommittal air as Thornton, still using the voice of diffidence, confided in him about his fascination with publishing and writing and his desire to help the one author he really knew. He let himself sound eager, and not too sure about things, and eventually got to Gregory’s book.

“It’s got a political theme,” he said uneasily, “but there’s a love story and humor and so much else—”

“What kind of political theme?”

Thornton Johns hesitated. “World government,” he said, and let the words lie there between them.

Hathaway smiled broadly. “It hasn’t!” he said.

“Let me tell you his plot—no wonder B.S.B. grabbed it.”

But after a moment or two of it, Hathaway began to expound his own notions of world government and the cold war and the peril to the planet itself. Thorn remembered Roy Tribble’s warning and did not contradict him; by the time they got around to his, ideas of how Hathaway might help, the lawyer was obviously convincing himself to go ahead.

Thorn said, “Look, I’ve brought a copy with me. How about reading it yourself?”

In the week that followed, Thornton Johns was to tell himself often that this quick forward pass to
The Good World
was a brilliant stroke, a bit of perfect timing that had helped assure victory. The pass was completed overnight and Thorn saw Hathaway three more times in the next few days.

Then, excited, as he had not been, in twenty years, he went out to Martin Heights, unheralded, and in the middle of an afternoon. Cindy insisted on going with him; only that morning had he told her what he was up to, and nothing would have dissuaded her from tagging, along.

“Why, Thorn,” Abby cried when she saw them. “Cindy.”

“What’s wrong?” Gregory said.

Behind them in the living room, a voice, could be heard, and Thorn was annoyed at the need of delay until they were alone. Once inside he saw that it was no visitor, but an installation man from the telephone company, checking the new phone, but his relief was mild. “I’ve taken a certain step on my own initiative,” Thorn began, speaking in the low tone of conspiracy, “but a conference is now called for.”

“A step about what?” Gregory asked.

Thorn indicated the telephone with a jerk of his head and made a gesture indicating the need for discretion. The workman dialed a number and they all strained to hear what he said to his distant colleague as if they were eavesdropping on weighty matters. “Testing a new connection from Hanover—” The voice was deliberate and Thorn was annoyed. Couldn’t the oaf hurry? Hadn’t he seen people arrive? Each time the testing bell rang, Gregory winced and Thorn felt vaguely guilty, but could find no reason why he should. At last the intruder replaced the base of the instrument, gathered his tools, slung his kit over his arm, and departed.

Without ado, Thorn began his story about Hathaway. As he neared the climax, he found himself avoiding Gregory’s and Abby’s eyes, and speaking too loudly. “So all I did alone was have myself some fun and engage a hundred dollars’ worth of an expert’s ideas and instructions and contacts in Hollywood. That’s over, as of now. We can forget the whole thing.” But before anybody spoke, he went on.

“Only yesterday, Hathaway made some calls to the Coast, getting a line on things from another big lawyer who’s in with everybody at the studios. And what do you think?”

“What?”

“There’s interest starting up out there already on
The Good World
! A reader for Goldwyn got the galleys air-mail, and he’s talking it up, and a story editor at Twentieth has sent in a good report to Zanuck.”

“Galleys?” Gregory asked. “Where? From whom?”

“Oh, that,” Thornton answered knowingly. “It’s a sort of black market operation—happens all the time on big books. Maybe some hard-up linotyper at the printer did it, or a secretary at Digby and Brown. Anyway, Hathaway started right in, shaping up our plans. We wouldn’t waste time on minor story editors and readers, of course. His connections would get us right through to the guys at the head. But we can’t do one thing more without your permission. It’s
your
book.”

Abby and Gregory looked awed. Even Cindy watched Thorn with a kind of proud astonishment, never interrupting once. Then in a funny, halting way, Gregory spoke of gratitude. Thorn’s desire to help him on so bold and creative a scale moved him deeply, he said, but could he accept all the work and nervous tension and risk of failure and disappointment? This wasn’t something that could be tossed off with the left hand, like royalty statements and general business detail, and even that was too much year after year. “What’s more”—here Gregory sounded disturbed for the first time—“if anybody did buy it, they’d leave out everything important unless I was there every minute to watch them.” It was not until this moment that Thornton Johns, who was rarely uncertain of his ability to persuade others into what was good for them or their dependents and heirs, realized he had been in a considerable panic that Gregory would stop him in his tracks. At Gregory’s last statement, panic fled and Thornton Johns had a vision of green lights from Martin Heights to Beverly Hills.

“It took the whole of my first meeting with Hathaway,” he said, “to get him interested enough to read the manuscript, but then he sat up most of the night over it. That turned the trick.”

“Really?” asked Gregory and Abby together.

“Absolutely. I never could have persuaded him, for all my talk. The book did.”

“
Why?
”

The phone rang and everybody jumped. Thorn said, “Damn that thing,” and Gregory looked at him while Abby answered it. She said, “Yes, just a while ago,” and listened. “That’s fine, thank you.” She turned back and said, “The switchboard girl at Digby and Brown, wanting to know if it’s in yet.”

“Oh, God,” Gregory whispered.

Thorn went back to Hathaway. “With his other big authors, he charges about three thousand a year, and we’re going to need a lawyer like Hathaway from now on anyway. Lawyers are deductible, you know.”

“I didn’t,” Gregory said.

“If Hathaway puts over a big movie sale, his fee goes up to five thousand for the first year, because of all his extra time and work. Of course if there’s no sale, you’re not committed in any way.”

“You mean he’d be willing to gamble on this for nothing?” Gregory asked, grasping at the one thing he had understood completely.

Thorn nodded emphatically. Cindy was nodding with him, but he ignored her. “Now that he’s read
The Good World,
yes. Suppose it sold for fifty thousand dollars. A regular agent’s commission would be five thousand dollars just for selling it. But if Hathaway and I sold it, you would pay him that same five thousand and get a whole year’s legal work and tax counsel thrown in. If we sold it for a lot more, like a hundred thousand, you’d still be paying him only that same five thousand, instead of ten to a regular agent, so you would save a lot of money too.”