The Dream Merchants Part 4

Peter looked at him. "In Yiddish we have a saying: 'What is to be must be.'"

Johnny looked around the store before he answered: "I still can hardly believe it." He thought back to the time when he got Peter's telegram. He had shown it to Al Santos.

"I don't know why this guy wants me back after I skipped out on three months' rent," he had said.

"Two months," Al Santos corrected him. "You sent him one month's rent last payday."

"I know," Johnny answered, "but I still don't get it."

"Maybe the guy likes yuh," Al said. "What yuh goin' tuh do?"

Johnny looked at him in surprise. "Go back. What do you think I'm gonna do?"

Johnny took his hand off the fortune-telling machine. "How many shows a day do you give here?" he asked.

"One," Peter answered.

"From now on we're giving three," Johnny said. "One matinee and two evenings."

"Where we get the customers?" Peter asked.

Johnny looked at Peter to see if he was joking. Satisfied that Peter was entirely serious, he answered: "Peter, you got a lot to learn about show business. I'll tell yuh how we're goin' to get the business. We'll advertise. We'll plaster billboards all across the countryside, we'll advertise in the newspapers. We're the only picture show in the whole section. People will travel to see it, if we let them know about it. Besides, it doesn't cost us any more to run the film three times a day instead of once. We only pay one rental for it."

Peter looked at Johnny with a new respect. "The kid's got common sense. Right away he figures out how we could do three times more business," he thought, feeling a sense of relief flow over him. Now that Johnny was back, he began to realize that he didn't have to worry about the nickelodeon any more.

"That's a good idea, Johnny," Peter said aloud, "a very good idea."

Late that night when Peter fell asleep he was still thinking about it. Three times more business.

4.

George Pappas stood across the street from Kessler's nickelodeon at seven thirty in the evening and watched the crowds going in to see the show. He took out his watch and checked the time. He heaved a sigh and shook his head. These moving pictures were changing the time habits of the town. Before the nickelodeon had opened, you could find only a few persons on the street after seven o'clock. And here it was nearly eight o'clock and people were going into the nickelodeon.

It wasn't only the townspeople that were there. Farmers and other people from out of town were coming to see the moving pictures, too. This fellow Edge that Kessler had with him was a live wire all right. He had covered the entire territory with signs telling about the new nickelodeon.

George Pappas sighed again. It was very strange, but he had a feeling the change was here to stay. He had been in to see the show before and he felt an important thing had come into his life. Just how it was going to affect him he did not know. He only knew that it would.

He owned a small ice-cream parlor about five blocks away. At seven o'clock he and his brother would close up the store and go home to eat. There wasn't any business in the evening, except on Sat.u.r.day nights. But here it was Tuesday and there were more people coming in to see Kessler's show than George had seen on the streets of Rochester even on a Sat.u.r.day night. He sighed again and wondered how it would be possible to attract some of these people to his ice-cream parlor.

He started to walk toward home pondering this problem, when suddenly he stopped short. A thought had come to him. It had flashed into his mind in Greek. It came so quickly and naturally that he didn't fully understand it until his mind had translated it into English. Then it was so right, so perfectly the answer to his question, that he turned back and walked across the street to the nickelodeon.

At the door he stopped. Esther was there taking change from the people as they entered. "Hallo, Missus Kessler," he said.

Esther was busy, so she answered briefly: "h.e.l.lo, George."

"Is Mr. Kessler around?" he asked in his funny stilted manner.

"He's inside," Esther told him.

"I would like for to see him, plizz."

She looked at him curiously; his earnest intentness had caught her attention. "He'll be out in a few minutes, the show is about ready to go on. Is there anything I can do?"

George shook his head. "I will wait. I got some business to make with him."

Esther watched him walk over to the door and lean against the wall. Vaguely she wondered what business George had with Peter, but she was busy making change and in a few seconds had forgotten he was there.

George was busy too. As he stood by the door he counted about forty people going in. He looked in the door of the nickelodeon. The place was filled with people. Row after row, people sat close together chatting expectantly with one another, waiting for the show to start. Some of them had brought fruit with them and were eating it. George figured there were more than two hundred people in the place when Peter came out and shut the door. And there were still people in the street, and more were coming.

He watched Peter shut the door and hold up his hand. "There will be another show in an hour," he heard Peter say to those waiting. "We're all filled up, but if you'll wait you all will get in."

He heard a good-natured murmur of disappointment come from the crowd, but very few left; most of them settled down for a wait. And those that left were more than made up for by new arrivals. Gradually a line began to form that went down the street.

Peter stuck his head inside the door, "All right, Johnny," he shouted. "Start the show."

The audience started to applaud as the lights in the store went off; then suddenly there was silence as the first picture began to flash on the screen.

Peter had lit a cigar as George walked up to him.

"Hallo, Mr. Kessler."

"h.e.l.lo, George, how are you?" Peter replied expansively, puffing at his cigar.

"Prooty good, Mr. Kessler," George said politely. He looked around him. "Lots of p.o.o.puls you got come here."

Peter smiled. "We certainly have, George. Everybody wants to see the moving pictures. Did you see them yet?"

George nodded his head.

"It's the coming thing," Peter said.

"Mr. Kessler, I think so, too," George a.s.sured him. "You got good mind for what p.o.o.puls want."

Peter beamed at the compliment. "Thanks, George." He reached into his vest pocket. "Here, George, have a cigar."

George took it gravely. Although he didn't like cigars and couldn't stand smoking at all, he held it expertly to his nose and smelled it. "Good cigar," he said.

"I have 'em sent special from New York," Peter told him. "They're six cents apiece."

"If it's all right with you, Mr. Kessler," George said, putting the cigar carefully in his pocket, "I will smoke him after dinner to enjoy him better."

Peter nodded, his attention already wandering, his eyes on the crowd.

George sensed his inattentiveness, but he didn't know just how to broach what he wanted to say. At last he blurted it out. "Mr. Kessler, I would like for to open a ice-cream parlor here."

Peter's attention came back to George with a snap. "An ice-cream parlor here?" he queried. "What for?"

George was embarra.s.sed. His face turned red. His inadequate English became even more unintelligible. "These p.o.o.puls," he stammered, "good for business. Ice cream, candies, fruits, nuts."

Peter stopped smiling; he suddenly understood what George meant. His voice became serious. "It's a good idea, George, but where can we put it? There isn't enough room."

Magically George found the words for what he wanted to say. He spoke quickly, easily. He explained to Peter how little room they would need for it. But what clinched the argument was his offer to pay rent plus a share of the profits.

While business at the nickelodeon was good, it was not without its problems. Under Peter's agreement with Graphic he was given a new show every three weeks. This was all right until they had begun giving three shows a day. Then it seemed that the first week of the show everybody in the section would see it and business would fall off greatly in the following two weeks. He had spoken to Johnny about it and they had agreed to ask Joe Turner on his next trip up if there was anything that could be done about it.

About two weeks after George had opened his little stand, Joe came up on his regular monthly visit. He stood in the small lobby watching George and his brother move busily behind the counter. After a while he went into the nickelodeon and spoke to Johnny.

The afternoon show had just finished and Johnny was rewinding the film for the next show.

"Whose idea was that?" Joe asked him.

"Peter's," Johnny answered. "What do you think of it?"

Joe nodded his head approvingly. "It's a good 'un," he said. "Makes me feel the idea will catch on in town when I tell 'em about it."

Johnny finished rewinding and set the reel in place so that it would be ready to run off for the next show. He clambered down from the little platform on which the projector stood. "C'mon out and have a Moxie," he invited Joe.

They walked out to the stand and ordered their drinks. Johnny introduced him to George and his brother. For a moment they sipped their drink reflectively, then Johnny spoke. "Haven't you got any other films? People are getting tired of the same show for three weeks straight."

Joe shook his head. "There isn't much to be had, but we just got a new one-reeler that we can send you."

"What the h.e.l.l good is one reel when we need a whole show?" Johnny asked.

Joe looked at him for a moment before he answered. "I got something that might help you out, but it's gotta be kept quiet."

"You know me, Joe. I'm like a clam when I gotta be."

Joe smiled at Johnny's expression. "I guess yuh heard about the big companies gettin' together to form a combine and control the picture business."

"Yeah."

"Well, I guess yuh know one of the reasons for that is because a lot of small producers are makin' pictures an' cuttin' into their time. They want you exhibitors to play their kind of show, which is a short one, and they want to make sure that you get your pictures from them, so they combine. That way they control all the picture patents between 'em and n.o.body can make pictures but them."

"So what?" Johnny asked. "I still don't see how we're gonna get more pictures."

"I'm gettin' tuh that," Joe said. "Graphic's joinin' the combine an' I'm leaving them to go with one of the independents who plans to make enough pictures for a new show every week."

"Sounds good," Johnny said, "but where do we come in?" He sipped some Moxie up through his straw. "According to our agreement we can only show Graphic pictures."

"A lot of exhibitors figure what the combine won't know won't hurt 'em." Joe replied. "Look-you got to take their pictures for three weeks, but you don't have to play them for three weeks if you can't do business with them."

"I see," Johnny said, finishing his drink. "Let's go in and see Peter about it."

On their way into the hardware store Joe told Johnny all he had to do to get the film was to go down to New York and sign a rental agreement.

"Who's this guy you're goin' to work for?" Johnny asked.

"Bill Borden," Joe answered. "He's the biggest independent in the field."

"What you gonna do?" Johnny lit a cigarette. "Sell pictures for him?"

Joe shook his head. "Nope. I'm through with that. I'm gonna make the pictures. I tole Borden that what he needed was a man who knew what the exhibitors wanted, and since I knew what the exhibitors wanted, I was the man he needed."

Johnny laughed. "You haven't changed a bit since we worked carny. You could still shoot the bull with the best of them."

Joe joined in Johnny's laugh. "But seriously, kid, it's gonna be a great racket some day. I'd like to see you get in it."

5.

Johnny stopped with his hand on the doork.n.o.b. He could hear Esther's voice through it. She was talking to Peter.

"Nu?" she was saying. "Aren't you getting dressed yet? Doris and Mark you were going to take to the park today."

Johnny grinned to himself in the hall. He heard Peter's voice indistinctly as he replied to his wife, but he couldn't understand the words. Its tone was lazy and grumbling. Johnny grinned again. It was Sunday and he knew that Peter liked to spend the morning with his feet on a ha.s.sock reading the papers. He turned the k.n.o.b and walked into the kitchen.

Esther looked at him in surprise and then at the clock. "You're up early, Johnny," she said. There was a big pot bubbling on the stove behind her.

He smiled at her. "I'll only be a minute, I just wanted to ask Peter if he wanted me to pick up anything for him in New York."

"You're going to New York today?" she asked.

He nodded. She seemed a little peeved. He wondered what it was.

Peter came to the door of the kitchen and looked in on them. "You're going to New York?" he echoed Esther's words.

"Yeah," Johnny answered laconically. He looked at Peter. Peter was in his shirtsleeves, the belt on his trousers loosened comfortably. Peter had put on a little weight lately, he thought. Well, why shouldn't he? Things were going pretty good.

"What for?" Peter asked.

"I promised Joe I'd be down to see him and look over some of the new pictures," he replied. "I'll be back tomorrow in time for the evening show."