The Story of DAVID WOOLF 9 page

I walked around and looked at the registration on the steering column: Rosa Strassmer, M.D., 1104 Coast Highway, Malibu, Cal. I turned and walked into the cabin. There was a young woman seated on the couch, smoking a cigarette. She had dark hair, gray eyes and a determined jaw.

When she stood up, I saw she was wearing a faded pair of Levis that somehow accentuated the slim, feminine curve of her hips. "Mr. Cord?" she asked, holding her hand out to me, a curious, faint accent in her voice. "I’m Rosa Strassmer, Otto Strassmer's daughter."

I took her hand, staring at her for a moment. Her grip was firm. I tried to keep the faint tinge of annoyance from showing in my voice. "How did you know where to find me?"

She took out an envelope and gave it to me. "Mr. McAllister asked me to drop this off when he heard I was driving through here on my vacation."

I opened the envelope and looked at the paper inside. It was nothing that couldn't have waited until his next visit. I dropped it on the table. Robair came into the room just then. He looked at me curiously as he took the brace of quail and my gun and went back into the kitchen.

"I hope I haven't disturbed you, Mr. Cord," she said quickly.

I looked at her. Whatever it was I felt, it wasn't her fault. It was Mac's not too subtle reminder that I couldn't stay on the mountain forever. "No," I answered. "You must forgive my surprise. We don't get many visitors up here."

She smiled suddenly. When she smiled, her face took on a strange bright beauty. "And I can understand why you don't ask people to come, Mr. Cord," she said. "More than two people would crowd a paradise like this."

I didn't answer.

She hesitated a moment, then started for the door. "I must be going now," she said awkwardly. "I'm glad to have met you. I've heard so much about you from my father."

"Dr. Strassmer!"

She turned toward me in surprise. "Yes, Mr. Cord?"

"I’ll have to ask you to forgive me again," I said quickly. "Living up here as I have, I seem to have forgotten my manners. How is your father?"

"He's well and happy, Mr. Cord, thanks to you. He never gets tired of telling me how you blackmailed Göring into letting him out of Germany. He thinks you're a very brave man."

I smiled. "It's your father who is brave, doctor. What I did was very little."

"To Mother and me, it was a great deal," she said. She hesitated again. "Now I really must be going."

"Stay for dinner," I said. "Robair has a way of stuffing quail with wild rice that I think you'd enjoy."

Her eyes searched mine for a moment. "I will," she answered. "Under one condition — that you call me Rosa, not doctor."

"Agreed. Now sit down again and I’ll get Robair to bring you something to drink."

But Robair was already in the doorway with a pitcher of Martinis. It was too late for her to leave when we were through with dinner, so Robair fixed up the tiny guest room for her. She went to bed and I sat in the living room for a while and then went to my room.

For the first time in a long while, I could not fall asleep. I stared up at the shadows dancing on the ceiling. There was a sound at the door and I sat up in the bed.

She stood there silently in the doorway for a moment, then came into the room. She stopped at the side of my bed and looked down at me. "Don't be frightened, lonely man," she whispered in a soft voice. "I want nothing more from you than this night."

"But, Rosa— "

She pressed a silencing finger to my lips and came down into the bed, all warmth and all woman, all compassion and all understanding. She cradled my head against her breast almost as a mother would a child. "Now I understand why McAllister sent me here."

I cupped my hands beneath her firm young breasts. "Rosa, you're beautiful," I whispered.

I heard her laugh softly. "I know I’m not beautiful, but I am happy that you should say so."

She lay her head back against the pillow and looked up at me, her eyes soft and warm. "Kommen sie, liebchen," she said gently, reaching for me with her arms. "You brought my father back to his world, let me try to bring you back to yours."

In me morning, after breakfast, when she had gone, I walked back into the living room thoughtfully. Robair looked at me from the table, where he was clearing away the dishes. We didn't speak. We didn't have to. In that moment, we both understood that it was only a matter of time before we would leave the mountain.

The world was not that far away any more.

McAllister was asleep on the couch when I entered the living room. I walked over to him and touched his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked up at me. "Hello, Jonas," he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He took a cigarette and lit it. A moment later, the sleep was gone from his eyes. "I waited for you because Sheffield is pressing for a meeting," he said.

I dropped into the chair opposite him. "Did David pick up the stock?"

"Yes."

"Does Sheffield know it yet?"

"I don't think so," he said. "From the way he's talking, my guess is he still thinks he's got it in the bag." He ground the cigarette out in the ash tray. "Sheffield said that if you'd meet with him before the meeting, he'd be inclined to give you some consideration for your stock."

I laughed. "That's very kind of him, isn't it?" I kicked off my shoes. "Tell him to go to hell."

"Just a minute, Jonas," Mac said quickly. "I think you'd better meet with him, anyway. He can make a lot of trouble. After all, he'll be voting about thirty per cent of the stock."

"Let him," I snapped. "If he wants a fight, I'll curl his hair."

"Meet him, anyway," Mac urged. "You've got too many things coming up to get involved in a fight right now."

He was right, as usual. I couldn't be in six places at one time. Besides, if I wanted to make The Sinner, I didn't want a stupid minority-stockholder's suit holding up production.

"O.K. Call him and tell him to come over right now."

"Right now?" Mac asked. "My God! It's four o'clock in the morning."

"So what? He's the one who wanted a meeting."

Mac went over to the telephone.

"And when you get through talking to him," I said, "call Moroni on the Coast and find out if the bank will let me have the money to buy in Sheffield's stock if I give them a first mortgage on the theaters."

There was no sense in using any more of my own money than I had to.

I watched Sheffield lift the coffee cup to his lips. His hair was a little grayer, a little thinner, but the rimless eyeglasses still shone rapaciously over his long, thin nose. Still, he accepted defeat much more graciously than I would have, if the shoe had been on the other foot.

"Where did I go wrong, Jonas?" he asked casually, his voice as detached as that of a doctor with a clinic patient. "I certainly was willing to pay enough."

I slumped down in my chair. '"You had the right idea. The thing was that you were using the wrong currency."

"I don't understand."

"Movie people are different. Sure, they like money just like everybody else. But there's something they want even more."

"Power?"

I shook my head. "Only partly. What they want more than anything else is to make pictures. Not just movies but pictures that will gain them recognition. They want to regard themselves as artists. Well insulated by money, of course, but artists, just the same."

"Then because you've made motion pictures, they accepted your promises rather than mine?"

"I guess that's about it." I smiled. "When I produce a picture, they feel I'm sharing the same risks they are. I'm not risking money. Everything I am goes on the line. My reputation, my ability, my creative conceit."

"Creative conceit?"

"It's a term I got from David Woolf. He used it to rate certain producers. Those who had it made great pictures. Those who didn't, made pictures. In short, they preferred me because I was willing to be judged on their own terms."

"I see," Sheffield said thoughtfully. "I won't make the same mistake again."

"I'm sure you won't." I felt a suspicion growing in me. This was too easy. He was being too nice about it. He was a fighter. And fighters die hard.

Besides, his whole approach had been inconsistent with his usual way of doing business. Sheffield was a financial man. He dealt with business people about finances. Yet, in this case, he'd gone directly to the picture people. Ordinarily, he'd have contacted me right off the bat and we'd have battled it out. We'd each have compromised a little and been satisfied.

There could be only one answer. Something that had happened in England when I was there began suddenly to make sense. I'd come out of the projection room of our office in London, where I had gone to see the Jennie Denton test, with our British sales manager.

The telephone had rung when we walked into his office. He picked it up and spoke into it a few minutes, then put it down. He looked up at me.

"That was the circuit-buyer for the Engel theater chain," he said. "They are frantic for product now. Their studios were lost completely in the first raid and they had never made a deal for American product, as have the other companies."

"What are they going to do?" I asked, still thinking about the test. For the first time since Rina had died, I began to feel the excitement that came only from making a motion picture again. I only half listened to his answer.

"I don't know," he replied. "They have four hundred theaters and if they can't get additional product in six months, they'll have to close half of them."

"Too bad," I said. I couldn't care less. Engel, like Korda, had come to England from Middle Europe and gone into the picture business. But while Korda had concentrated on production, Engel had gone in for theaters. He came into production only as an answer to his problem of supply. Rank, British Lion, Gaumont and Associated among them managed to control all the product, both British and American. Still, there was no reason to mourn for him. I had heard that his investments in the States were worth in excess of twenty million dollars.

I'd forgotten about the conversation until now. It all fitted together neatly. It would have been a very neat trick if Engel could have stolen the company right out from under my nose. And it was just the kind of deal his Middle-European mind would have dreamed up.

I looked at Sheffield. "What does Engel plan to do with the stock now?" I asked casually.

"I don't know." Then he looked at me. "No wonder," he said softly. "Now I know why we couldn't get anywhere. You knew all along."

I didn't answer. I could see the look of surprise on Mac's face behind him but I pretended I hadn't.

"And I was beginning to believe that stuff you were handing me about picture people standing together," Sheffield said.

I smiled. "Now that the deal fell through, I suppose Engel has no choice but to close those theaters. He can't get product anywhere else."

Sheffield was silent, his eyes wary. "All right, Jonas," he said. "What's on your mind?"

"How would Mr. Engel like to buy the Norman Film Distributors of England. Ltd.? That would assure him access to our product and he might not have to close those theaters."

"How much would it cost him?" Sheffield asked.

"How many shares of stock does he own?"

"About six hundred thousand."

"That's what it would cost him," I said.

"That's five million dollars! British Norman only nets about three hundred thousand a year. At that rate, it would take him almost twenty years to get his money back."

"It all depends on your point of view. Closing two hundred theaters would mean a loss to him of over a million pounds a year."

He stared at me for a moment and then got to his feet. "May I use your phone for a call to London? In spite of the time difference, I just might still catch Mr. Engel before he leaves the office."

"Help yourself," I said. As he walked to the telephone, I looked down at my watch. It was nine o'clock and I knew I had him. Because no one, not even Georges Engel, left his office at two o'clock in the afternoon. Not in merry old England, where the offices were open until six o'clock and the clerks still sat at their old-fashioned desks on their high stools. Engel was probably waiting at the telephone right now for Sheffield's call.

By noon it was all arranged. Mr. Engel and his attorneys would be in New York the next week to sign the agreement. There was only one thing wrong with it: I would have to remain in New York. I reached for the telephone.

"Who're you calling?" Mac asked.

"David Woolf. He's the executive officer of the company. He might as well be here to sign the papers."

"Put down the telephone," Mac said wearily. "He's in New York. I brought him along with me."

"Oh," I said. I walked over to the window and looked down. New York in midmorning. I could sense the tension in the traffic coming up Park Avenue. I was beginning to feel restless already.

I turned back to McAllister. "Well, get him up here. I'm starting a big picture in two months. I'd like to know what's being done about it."

"David brought Bonner along to go over the production details with you."

I stared at him. They'd thought of everything. I threw myself into a chair. The doorbell rang and Robair went to open it. Forrester and Morrissey came in. I looked up at them as they crossed the room.

"I thought you were supposed to leave for California this morning, Morrissey," I said coldly. "How the hell are we ever going to get that new production line started?"

"I don't know if we can, Jonas," he said quickly.

"What the hell do you mean?" I shouted. "You said we could do it. You were there when we signed that contract."

"Take it easy, Jonas," Forrester said quietly. "We have a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"The U.S. Army just ordered five CA-200's. They want the first delivery by June and we're in a bind. We can't make them B-17's on the same production line. You're going to have to decide which comes first."

I stared at him. "You make the decision. You're president of the company."

"You own the goddamn company," he shouted back. "Which contract do you want to honor?"

"Both of them. We're not in the business of turning away money."

"Then we'll have to get the Canadian plant in operation right away. We could handle prefabrication if the B-17's were put together up there."

"Then do it," I said.

"O.K. Get me Amos Winthrop to run it."

"I told you before — no Winthrop."

"No Winthrop, no Canadian plant. I'm not going to send a lot of men to their death in planes put together by amateurs just because you're too damn stubborn to listen to reason."

"Still the fly-boy hero?" I sneered. "What's it to you who puts the planes together? You're not flying them."

He crossed the room and stood over my chair, looking down at me. I could see his fists clench. "While you were out whoring around London, trying to screw everything in sight, I was out at the airfields watching those poor bastards come in weary and beat from trying to keep the Jerry bombs off your fucking back. Right then and there, I made up my mind that if we were lucky enough to get that contract, I'd personally see to it that every plane we shipped over was the kind of plane I wouldn't be afraid to take up myself."

"Hear, hear!" I said sarcastically.

"When did you decide you'd be satisfied to put your name on a plane that was second best? When the money got big enough?"

I stared at him for a moment. He was right. My father said the same thing in another way once. We'd been walking through the plant back in Nevada and Jake Platt, the plant supervisor, came up to him with a report on a poor batch of powder. He suggested blending it in with a large order so the loss would be absorbed.

My father towered over him in rage. "And who would absorb the loss of my reputation?" he shouted. "It's my name that's on every can of that powder. Burn it!"

"All right, Roger," I said slowly. "You get Winthrop."

He looked into my eyes for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was quieter. "You'll have to find him for us. I'm sending Morrissey up to Canada to get the new plant started. I’ll go out to the Coast and start production."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Last I heard, he was in New York, but when I checked around this morning, nobody seemed to know where he is. He seems to have dropped out of sight."

I slumped back into a corner of the big limousine as we came off the Queensboro Bridge. Already, I regretted my decision to come out here. There was something about Queens that depressed me. I looked out the window while Robair expertly threaded the big car through the traffic. Suddenly, I was annoyed with Monica for living out here.

I recognized the group of houses as the car rolled to a stop. They hadn't changed, except that the lawn was dull and brown with winter now, where it had been bright summer-green the last time.

"Wait here," I said to Robair. I went up the three steps and pressed the doorbell. A chill wind whistled between the buildings and I pulled my light topcoat around me. I shifted the package uncomfortably under my arm.

The door opened and a small girl stood there, looking up at me. Her eyes were dark violet and serious. "Jo-Ann?" I asked tentatively.

She nodded silently.

I stared at her for a moment. Leave it to children to remind you of the passing of time. They have a way of growing that ticks off your years more accurately than a clock. The last time I had seen her, she was little more than a baby. "I'm Jonas Cord," I said. "Is your mother home?"

"Come in," she said in a small, clear voice. I followed her into the living room. She turned to face me. "Sit down. Mummy's dressing. She said she wouldn't be long."

I sat down and she sat in a chair opposite me. She stared at me with wide, serious eyes but didn't speak. I began to feel uncomfortable under her candid scrutiny and lit a cigarette. Her eyes followed my hand as I searched for an ash tray for my match. "It's over there," she said, pointing to a table on my right.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," she said politely. Then she was silent again, her eyes watching my face. I dragged on the cigarette and after a moment's silence, spoke to her. "Do you remember me, Jo-Ann?"

Her eyes dropped and she was suddenly shy, her hands smoothing the hem of her dress across her knees in a typically feminine gesture. "Yes."

I smiled. "The last time I saw you, you were just so big," I said, holding my hand out just about level with my knee.

"I know," she whispered, not looking at me. "You were standing on the steps waiting for us to come home."

I took the package out from under my arm. "I brought you a present," I said. "A doll."

She took the package from me and sat down on the floor to open it. Her eyes were smiling now. She lifted out the doll and looked at me. "It's very pretty."

"I hoped you'd like it," I said.

"I do. Very much." Her eyes grew solemn again. "Thank you," she said.

A moment later, Monica came into the room. Jo-Ann leaped to her feet and ran to her. "Mummy! Look what Mr. Cord brought me!"

"It was very thoughtful of you, Jonas," Monica said.

I struggled to my feet. We stood looking at each other. There was an almost regal quality of self-possession about her. Her dark hair fell almost to her bare shoulders over a black cocktail dress.

Then the doorbell rang. It was the baby sitter and Jo-Ann was so busy showing her the new doll, she didn't even have time to say good-by when we left.

Robair was standing at the car door when we came out. "Robair!" Monica put out her hand. "It's nice to see you again."

"It's nice to see you again, Miss Monica," he said as he bowed over her hand.

I looked out at the cruddy Queens scenery as the car rolled back to Manhattan. "What do you want to live out here for?" I asked.

She reached for a cigarette and waited while I held the match for her. "Jo-Ann can play outside when the weather is good and I don't have to worry about her being hurt in the city streets. And I can afford it. It's much more reasonable than the city."

"From what I hear, you're doing all right. If you want to live in the suburbs, why don't you move up to Westchester? It's nicer up there."

"It's still too expensive," she said. "I don't make that kind of money. I'm only the office manager at the magazine. I'm not an editor yet."

"You look like an editor."

She smiled. "I don't know whether you mean that as a compliment or not. But at Style, we try to look the way our readers think we should."

I stared at her for a moment. Style was one of the most successful new fashion magazines aimed at the young matron. "How come you're not an editor yet?"

She laughed. "I'm one step away. Mr. Hardin's an old-fashioned businessman. He believes that every editor should put in some time on the practical side. That way, they learn something about the business problems involved in getting out a magazine. He's already hinted that the next editorial opening is mine."

I knew old Hardin. He was a magazine publisher from way back. He paid off in promises, not in dollars. "How long has he been promising?"

"Three years," she said. "But I think it will happen soon. He's planning a new movie magazine. A slick. Something on the order of the old Photoplay. We'd have been on the presses, only the finances are holding it up."

"What would you do on it?"

"Feature editor," she said. "You know, arrange stories about the stars, that sort of thing."

I glanced at her. "Wouldn't you have to be out in Hollywood for that?"

She nodded. "I suppose so. But Hardin hasn't got the money yet so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

Monica put her coffee cup down and smiled at me. "It's been a perfectly lovely dinner, Jonas, and you've been a charming host. Now tell me why."

"Does there have to be a reason?"

She shook her head. "There doesn't have to be," she said. "But I know you. When you're charming, you want something."

I waited until the waiter finished holding a match for her cigarette. "I just got back from England," I said quietly. "I ran into your mother over there."

A kind of veil dropped over her eyes. "You did?"

I nodded. "She seems very nice."

"I imagine she would be, from what I can remember of her," Monica said, a slight edge of bitterness in her voice.

"You must have a very good memory. Weren't you about Jo-Ann's age?"

The violet eyes were hard. "Some things you don't forget," she said. "Like your mother telling you how much she loves you, then disappearing one day and never coming back."

"Maybe she couldn't help it. Maybe she had a good reason."

"What reason?" she asked scornfully. "I couldn't leave Jo-Ann like that."

"Perhaps if you wrote to your mother, she could tell you."

"What could she tell me?" she said coldly. "That she fell in love with another man and ran away with him? I can understand that. What I can't understand is why she didn't take me with her. The only reason I can see is that I didn't matter."

"You may not know your mother, but you do know your father. You know how he can hate when he feels someone has crossed him."

Her eyes looked into mine. "Someone like you?"

I nodded. "Someone like me," I said. "That night, when you both came up to the hotel in Los Angeles — was he thinking about you or was he thinking about how much he wanted to get even with me?"

She was silent for a moment, then her eyes softened. "Was it like that with my mother, too?"

I nodded again. "Something like that," I said quietly.

She looked down at the tablecloth silently. When she looked up at me, her eyes were clear once more. "Thank you for telling me, Jonas. Somehow, I feel better now."

"Good." The waiter came by and refilled our coffee cups. "By the way," I said, "seen anything of your father lately?"

She shook her head with a wry smile. "About two years ago, he came out to dinner and borrowed a thousand dollars. That's the last I saw of him."

"Do you have any idea where he might be?"

"Why?"

"I’ve got a good job for him up in Canada, but he seems to have dropped out of sight."

A strange look came into her eyes. "You mean you'd give him a job after what he did to you?"

"I haven't much choice," I said reluctantly. "I don't especially like the idea but there's a war on. I need a man like him."

"I had a letter from him about a year ago. He said something about taking over as manager of the Teterboro Airport."

"Thanks," I said. "I’ll look out there."

Her hand suddenly came across the table and pressed mine. I looked at her in surprise. She smiled. "You know, Jonas, I have the strangest feeling you're going to make a much better friend than husband."

McAllister was waiting for me in the hotel when I got back the next afternoon. "You find him?" he asked.

I shook my head. "He only stayed out there long enough to pass a bum check for five hundred bucks on some poor jerk."

"That's pretty far down the ladder for him. Any idea where he went next?"

"No," I said. I threw my topcoat across a chair and sat down. "For all I know, he's in jail in some hick town we never heard of. Bum check — Jesus!"

"What do you want me to do?" Mac asked.

"Nothing," I said. "But I promised Roger I’d try to find him. We better put an agency on the job. If they can't turn him up, at least Roger will know I tried. You call Hardin?"

Mac looked at me curiously. "Yes. He'll be here any minute now. Why do you want to see him?"

"We might go into the publishing business."

"What for?" Mac asked. "You don't even read the papers."

I laughed. "I hear he's thinking of putting out a movie magazine. I'm making a picture. The best way I know to grab space is to own a magazine. I figure if I help him out with the movie magazine, he'll give us a plug in his others. That adds up to twelve million copies a month."

Mac didn't say anything. The doorbell rang and Robair went to open it. It was S. J. Hardin, right on time. He came into the room, his hand outstretched. "Jonas, my boy," he wheezed in his perennially hoarse voice. "It's good to see you."

We shook hands. "You know my attorney, Mr. McAllister?" I said.

S. J. gave him the glad eye. "It's a real pleasure, sir," he said, pumping Mac's hand enthusiastically. He turned back to me. "I was surprised to get your message. What's on your mind, boy?"

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 553