Part 12 (2/2)
Dave: ”Good, huh? Well, pa.s.s her along when you've had your fill.”
Happy: ”Don't I always? How's it been going with Sylvia?”
Dave: ”Ah, she's alright but, you know how it is, once they've had you it takes a lot to keep them happy. I'm not as young as I used to be. Those broads you pa.s.s on to me are wearing me out. I don't know how you keep up the pace.”
Happy: ”Clean living. Well, we'll get together soon, Dave.”
Dave: ”Yeah. Well, keep it away from the fan.a Happy: ”You bet. So long, lover.”
Dave: ”Be seeing you.”
I turned off the switchboard after their call. It was time to go home.
It was a beautiful night so I walked home. Maybe I was afraid to take the subway. It would have been embarra.s.sing to upchuck in front of all those people.
It seemed as if every time I thought that I had found the lowest point of Happy's depravity, he came up with something new. Full of surprises, that boy. Sure, I was sick to my stomach over what I had heard but did I have any right to complain? It went beyond guilt by a.s.sociation. I knew what was going on in that office so, if I continued to work there, I was an accomplice in Happy's dirt.
So, as I walked the thirty-odd blocks to my apartment, I reviewed my day in Happy's den of duplicity. Taking it from the top, there was the bit with Marv Banner. I didn't worry about that one too long. As far as I was concerned, he could steal him blind. After what he did to Allison, I couldn't care less if Marv were drawn and quartered by his agents. He deserved everything he got.
Playing up to Amy by blasting her husband was crummy. For one thing, I just couldn't help feeling that the whole thing was in deplorable taste. It really bothered me that Amy went for it. Like I've said, I thought a lot of her as a person.
Of course, Amy didn't know how rotten the whole thing was. She didn't know about Happy's real relations.h.i.+p with her husband. Laughing Boy deliberately kept the two of them at each other's throat. It suited his purposes. That way, Amy needed an understanding man to turn to. And there was Papa Broadman, ready and all too willing to remind Amy how much she needed him to confide in.
Then, there was the issue of the investments in the pilot. Not only had Happy made sure that Amy wouldn't get any dividends on her Broadson, Inc. stock for several years to come by using all their capital to back the pilot, but he had also gone behind Amy's back in getting money from her personal funds. If anything went wrong, Dave Ferguson would bear the brunt of the responsibility.
Dave Ferguson and whoever else he had told might believe that story about Happy's investing his own money but I wasn't buying it. It would be too much like expecting a thief to rob a bank where he kept his own savings.
Golden Boy Broadman was going pretty far in swindling the network. The slightest questionable item and the network's legal department would murder him. It didn't bother me much that he might get away with swindling the network out of a few thousand dollars. They could afford it. Guess I'm some sort of latter day Robin Hooda although you could hardly call lining Happy's pockets helping the poor. What did get me was the utter audacity of the guy. All by his sweet little lonesome he was going to try to dupe some of the best legal experts in the industry.
The height of sophistication: Happy telling Dave Ferguson to ignore the fact that his wife's personal secretary was a lesbian. Neither of those two b.u.ms appeared to realize that the relations.h.i.+p went, not only beyond a business one into a friends.h.i.+p, but beyond that. Happy neglected to mention that Dave would find himself without his main means of support if Chris were to stop acting as a buffer between him and Amy.
And when did Amy tell Happy that she was so in love with her husband? Must have been when drunk... when Happy was drunk, not Amy.
Happy had no business telling Amy that her husband was unfaithful but neither should he encourage and partic.i.p.ate in Ferguson's perfidies.
A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell. More so, he doesn't make gifts of his past girl friends, complete with references. There's a word for that. What difference would it make? I could call Harold Broadman a pimp to his face and it wouldn't faze him. My opinion wouldn't matter to him. What good could I do for him? Happy only cared about being liked by the upper echelon of show business. He didn't even give a plugged option what opinion they had of his personality. Just so long as he was considered a man to be respected in business matters he was satisfied.
Altogether a most unpretty picture. Someone else might have smelled the mult.i.tudinous rats around that place sooner but the great brain, Sloane Britain, had taken six months to get the scoop. There was undoubtedly even more that I hadn't yet learned. I knew enough, however. The time had come to make a decision. The job had lots of advantages but, after that afternoon's revelations, I shared responsibility for what went on there every minute longer that I continued to work in that office.
I climbed the steps to my apartment grimly aware of the necessity for an immediate clear-headed appraisal of my plans for the future... and a stronger conviction that I was going to devote great effort to drinking myself stoned that night.
CHAPTER 11.
Allison was a big help. She thought my idea about getting zonked a splendid one. We bought enough booze to float the Saratoga, set it up with ice, gla.s.ses, etc. on the sideboard and proceeded to goof it up. I was half-drunk already from not sleeping and the firewater finished the job. Allison got loaded for the first time since I had met her. She was even more adorable that way. Maybe I thought so because in the condition I was in the view from left field made almost everything look good. Like I was digging her the most. It matters why?
While I could still articulate, I told her about what had happened. Not only that day, I filled her in on all the s.m.u.t I had learned about during the preceding six months.
When I finished, Allison said, ”Now I know who killed c.o.c.k Robin.”
”Who?”
”Happy Broadman. He didn't do it himself, of course. He made Cinderella do it by hitting him with her gla.s.s slipper. Then, when she married the Prince, Happy was the caterer for the reception. The Prince and Cinderella had a baby boy named Twinkletoes. Happy had a contract with them so they had to let him perform the circ.u.mcision. He used a serpent's tooth instead of a knife so the child was traumatized and grew up to be Rumplestilskin.”
”Brother, you're gone, my love. Like way out. Before you lose contact altogether, what about helping me decide what to do?”
”That's simple, come to California with me.”
”Whether or not I go to California with you will be decided independent of my employment status. The question is, for the sake of argument presuming that I'm going to keep living and working in New York, should I quit my present job?”
”I refuse to accept the basic premise. Therefore, I can't help you decide. I will not even think of your staying in New York. You're corning to California.”
”Dictating to me again?”
”No, using Pavlovian conditioning. I figure that if I repeat it often enough Iall brainwash you till you can't do anything else but come with me.”
”There's another word for it,” I said.
”Nagging?”
”Precisely. I had enough of it at home. My mother could have won prizes if they held contests in nagging.”
”So now I'm like your mother?” Allison said teasingly.
”Yes, and I don't like it. Cut it out.”
”What's the matter with you? You're supposed to go for it.”
”I don't want you to be a mother to me,” I protested.
”Nonsense. You're gay and therefore you're seeking mother subst.i.tutes with whom to re-enact the primal situation. I read that somewhere once.”
”You read books?!!! Thank G.o.d that I found out before it was too late. I've heard about people like you. Your kind is trying to undermine the very foundations of this country. I heard that once at a Klu Klux Klan meeting. Fellow who had the local tar and feather concession was talking. Very interesting talk, very timely. I learned all about you all city folks that night. You people with book larnin' is a menace to decent folks.”
Allison crossed over to in front of the television set. ”May I take this occasion to announce that one member of the Literate Society to Stamp Out Mom and Apple Pie is in her cups? In fact, you might say I'm inebriated. No, I like four sheets to the wind better. All my sheets unfurled and spread out to catch the vagrant winds.” She spread her arms out wide to ill.u.s.trate. The gesture knocked her off balance and she swayed back against the TV set. It knocked the rabbit ears antenna down and it fell around her, one limb on each side of her shoulders. Allison pondered this for a moment and then looked up with a profound expression. ”That's me... symmetry always.”
I roared. When I recovered myself, I said, ”I have just discovered that I'm in love with the kookiest woman in New York.”
”You just find that out?”
”No, I've known it right along but that last bit finished me. Allison my love, you win the prize for irresistible insanity. You're marvelous, my love, simply marvelous.”
”You really mean that?”
”As James Joyce would put it, 'Yes'.”
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