The Dream Merchants Part 5

Peter shrugged his shoulders. "If you want to travel eight hours just to look at a couple of pictures, it's all right with me, but I wouldn't do it."

Johnny smiled. "If you did," he thought silently, "maybe you'd understand what I've been trying to tell you the past few months-that this is growing into a big business." Aloud he said: "I like to do it. You get an idea of what's goin' on that way."

Peter looked at him. A peculiarly fanatical light had come into Johnny's eyes as he spoke. Moving pictures had captured Johnny's mind. He ate, slept, and dreamed moving pictures. Since he had started to go into New York to buy them for the nickelodeon, he couldn't stop talking about them. He remembered what Johnny had said one day when he had come back from the city: "This guy Borden's got the right idea. He's making two-reel films with a story in them. And there's those other guys, Fox and Laemmle, them too. They say it's gonna be a big business. They say some day there will be theaters that will show nothing but moving pictures, like they have now for plays."

Peter had sniffed at the idea, but secretly he had been impressed. All these men, maybe they had something. He had seen their pictures. They were certainly better than the combine's; maybe they knew what they were talking about.

He had wondered what it would be like to own a theater that showed nothing but moving pictures, but resolutely he pushed the thought from his mind. No, it was foolish to waste time even thinking about it. It would never pay off. He was better off the way he was.

Doris came running into the kitchen followed by Mark. She looked up at Johnny, her face radiant. She had heard his voice in the other room. "Going to the park, Uncle Johnny?" she asked excitedly.

He looked down at her, smiling. "Not today, sweetheart," he said, "Uncle Johnny's gotta go to New York on business."

Her face fell and a look of disappointment came over it. "Oh," she said in a very small voice.

Esther turned and looked meaningly at her husband. Peter caught the glance. He stepped forward and took Doris's hand. "Papa'll take you, liebchen," he said. He turned to Johnny. "Wait for us, we'll walk you down to the station." He left the room to get his jacket.

"Some coffee, Johnny?" Esther asked.

"No, thanks," he replied, smiling, "I had breakfast already."

Peter came back into the kitchen, b.u.t.toning his jacket. "All right, kinder," he said, "let's go."

In the street Mark tugged at Johnny's hand.

Johnny looked down at him.

"Piggy-back!" Mark said in his little treble.

Johnny grinned and swung the child onto his shoulders.

"Whee!" shouted Mark as they walked along.

It wasn't until they had walked halfway down the block that Peter realized Doris had gone over to the other side of Johnny and was holding Johnny's free hand. He smiled to himself. It was a good sign if children liked you.

"How is Joe getting along?" he asked Johnny. He hadn't seen Joe since he had quit the combine and gone to work for Borden.

"Good," Johnny answered. "He's turning out some swell pictures. Borden says he's the best man he's got."

"That's fine," Peter said. "Is Joe satisfied?"

"Joe likes it, but there's one thing more he wants to do." Johnny was trying to untangle Mark's grip on his hair. Mark was laughing.

Peter looked up at him. "Let go Uncle Johnny's hair," he said sternly, "or I'll tell him to put you down."

Mark loosened his grip and Peter spoke to Johnny. "What is it he wants?"

Johnny's voice was elaborately casual. "He wants to go into business himself. He says there is a lot of money in it."

"What do you think?" Peter was interested, though he pretended not to be.

Johnny stole a quick glance at him out of the corner of his eyes. Peter's face was calm but his eyes gave him away. "I think he's got something," Johnny said slowly. "We figured it out.

"A one-reeler costs about three hundred dollars, plus the prints. You make a hundred prints from each negative. You lease each print at least twice for ten dollars each time. That gives you two thousand for each picture. I don't see how you can miss."

"Then what's stopping him?"

"Money," Johnny answered. "He needs at least six thousand for cameras and equipment and he hasn't got it."

They were at the station now and Johnny lifted Mark down from his shoulders. "You know, Peter," he said, looking at him speculatively, "it wouldn't be a bad business for us to go into."

Peter laughed. "Not me. I'm no schlemiel. I know when I'm well off. What happens if you can't get rid of the film?" He answered his own question. "You go broke."

"I don't think so," Johnny said quickly. "Look at us. We buy film from every place we can get it and never have enough. I don't see how it can miss." He fished out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. "And all the other exhibitors I met in New York are in the same boat we are. Their tongues are hanging out for more pictures."

Peter laughed again. This time his laugh wasn't as a.s.sured as before. Johnny could tell that he was intrigued by the idea. "I'm not greedy," Peter said. "Let the other guy have the headaches. We're doing all right."

A few minutes later the train pulled in and Johnny climbed aboard. He stood on the platform and waved to them as the train pulled out. They waved back to him and he smiled.

He knew Peter well enough by now to realize he had planted the germ of an idea in his mind. Leave it alone for a while and every now and then say a few words more about it. In time the idea would catch on and begin to grow. The station was lost to his sight as the train turned round a bend and he went inside and found a seat. He took a newspaper from his pocket and opened it, still smiling. Maybe by the time Joe was ready, Peter would be too.

Back at the station, Doris began to cry as the train pulled out. Peter looked down at her in surprise. "Why are you crying, liebchen?" he asked.

She sniffled. "I don't like to see anybody go away on a train."

Peter was puzzled; he scratched at his ear. As far as he knew, she had never seen anyone off on a train before. "Why?" he asked.

She looked up at him, her soft blue eyes swimming in tears. "I-I don't know, Papa," she said in a small voice. "I just feel like crying. Maybe Uncle Johnny isn't coming back."

Peter looked down at her. For a moment he stood there silently, then he took her hand. "Such nonsense!" he said gruffly. "Come on. Let's go to the park."

6.

It was dark when Johnny awoke. He was in a strange room. His head felt logy, heavy. He groaned and stretched his arms.

There was a stir in the bed beside him. He started in sudden surprise as his outstretched hand encountered warm, soft flesh. He turned his head.

In the darkness he could barely see the face of the girl sleeping beside him. She was lying on her side, one arm under the pillow. He sat up slowly, trying to remember what had happened last night. He remembered Joe ordering more wine. They were all getting drunk. Painfully it began to come back to him.

It had started when he came into the studio about five o'clock. Joe had told him they would be working because it was the only day some of the girls they had hired would be free. These girls worked in a burlesque show during the week and this was a chance for them to pick up a few bucks extra.

When he got there, Joe was in the midst of a hot argument with one of the girls. She was screaming at him. At first Johnny couldn't make out what it was all about, but then he gathered it had something to do with the clothes she was wearing.

Bill Borden was standing near by, wearing a worried look that Johnny had come to recognize as customary for all picture men. Joe stood there calmly waiting for the girl to stop screaming. Johnny stopped near the door. No one even noticed his entering.

At last the girl stopped yelling. Joe looked at her for a moment, then turned to Borden. "Give her her time, Bill," he said calmly, ignoring the girl. "We can't afford temperament in this business."

Borden didn't answer. The worried look on his face grew deeper.

The girl started to shout again. "You can't do it!" she screamed at Joe. "I'm supposed to have the lead in this picture. My agent'll sue you!" Her voice grew shrill.

Joe looked at her calmly for a moment; then he suddenly exploded. "Who the h.e.l.l do you think you're gonna sue and for what?" he shouted back at her. "Why, for Christ's sake, we pay you more here for one day's work than you make all week hustling your a.s.s on a burley line! Sue us an' you get no work from any of the picture people!" He stepped close to her and shook an angry finger in her face. "Now, if you want to play the lead in this picture, take off your G.o.d-d.a.m.n dress and show your chemise! And don't give me any bull about being modest. I seen you on the stage of the Bijou without nothin' on! Tha.s.s the reason I hired you!"

The girl fell silent in the face of this sudden tirade. After a few seconds of looking at him thoughtfully, she said: "All right, I'll do it. But there's one thing!" With a sudden motion she stepped back from him, drew her dress off over her head, and threw it at Joe's feet.

A gasp rose in Johnny's throat. The girl didn't have a st.i.tch of clothing on under the dress.

Quickly Joe picked up the dress and rushed to cover her. Borden threw his hands over his face and groaned.

The girl smiled as Joe reached her. "You'll have to lend me a chemise," she said sweetly. "It was too d.a.m.n hot to wear one."

Joe began to laugh. "Yuh shoulda said so in the first place, baby," he managed to say. "We would've saved ourselves a pack uh trouble."

A few minutes later the girl was dressed in a chemise, and the camera began to roll. Joe looked up and saw Johnny. He went toward him, a smile on his face. "See what I gotta go through?" he asked.

Johnny grinned back at him. "Yeah. Pretty tough, isn't it?"

Joe laughed at Johnny's answer. "No foolin', though," he said seriously. "These kids are crazy, you never know what to expect from them."

Johnny grinned again. "I didn't see nuthin' to complain about."

Joe shoved him gently by the shoulder. "Go on into the projection room an' look at those pictures, you unsympathetic b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said in a friendly voice. "I should be through by the time you are. Then we'll go to eat."

"Okay," Johnny said, starting to turn away.

Joe called him back. "I was just thinkin'," he said with a smile on his face. "It might be a good idea if we took a couple of the babes along with us. The kinda life you been leadin' up in Rochester ain't too good for yuh."

"Decent of you to worry about me," Johnny told him with a derisive smile on his face. "I suppose you can get along without dames."

Joe smiled comfortably. "I kin take 'em or leave 'em. But I remember the time when you were about sixteen an' yuh got so randy over that contortionist, Santos had to take yuh over an' get yuh fixed up."

Johnny's face grew red; he started to reply to Joe's statement, but just then Borden came up and hurried him off to the projection room. When he came out, Joe was waiting with two girls.

Joe introduced them. One of them was the girl who had been arguing with Joe; her name was May Daniels and from the way she took Joe's arm Johnny knew they were old friends. The other girl was a cute little blonde name Flo Daley.

She smiled at Johnny. "Yuh better be nice to him, Flo," Joe said laughing. "He's one of our biggest customers."

They had dinner at Churchill's. Joe was in a good mood. He had completed a whole picture that afternoon. After they had finished eating, he lit up a cigar and leaned back in his chair. "Did you talk to Peter yet?" he asked Johnny.

"Un-hunh," Johnny grunted. "Just this morning. I think he'll bite."

"I hope so." Joe leaned forward earnestly. "Borden's workin' on that new studio out in Brooklyn an' it'll be good if Peter comes in in time to take this one off his hands. It'll save us a lot of trouble."

"He will," Johnny said confidently. "I'm sure he will."

"Good." Joe leaned back in his chair again and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.

May leaned toward him. "Do you men always have to talk business?" she asked. "Can't you forget it just once and have a good time?"

Joe squeezed her knee under the table. He had drunk just enough to make him feel good. "That's right, baby," he said. "Let's have a real good time." He hailed the waiter. "More wine!"

It was late and they were arguing over how many theaters Johnny owned by the time they reached Joe's apartment. Joe had insisted it was twenty-one while Johnny insisted it was only twenty.

Flo had wondered how a man so young could be so successful. Joe drunkenly a.s.sured her that Johnny was an organizing genius and was so busy he didn't have time to remember how many theaters he had himself.

They staggered into the apartment. Johnny looked at Joe. "You're loaded," he said to him. "You better go to shleep."

Against Joe's protests they hustled him into the bedroom. He fell across the bed and pa.s.sed out. They were trying to undress him when suddenly May had said she was too tired to bother and stretched out on the bed beside Joe and went to sleep.

He and Flo had looked at each other and giggled. "Can't hold their likker," he had a.s.sured her solemnly. Together they stumbled out of the room into the other bedroom.

She turned to him as the door closed behind them. There was a smile on her face; she held her arms toward him. "Like me, Johnny?" she asked.

He looked down at her. Strange, she didn't sound as drunk as she had a moment before. He pulled her toward him. "Of coursh I like you," he said.

Her eyes were on his face, the smile still on her lips. "Then what are you waiting for?" she asked in a low, excited voice.

For a second he stood very still, then he kissed her. He could feel her body clinging closely to him. His hand found the open bodice of her dress and slipped inside it. Her breast was warm and exciting in his fingers. He moved her toward the bed.

He heard her laugh. "Wait a minute, Johnny," she told him. "You don't have to tear the clothes off me."

He let her twist out of his grasp and watched her as she undressed. "Joe was right," he thought wildly, "the life I been leading ain't normal." But another part of his mind insisted stubbornly that he didn't have enough time for this and everything else he wanted to do.

Her clothes lay on the floor around her as she stepped toward him. "See," she smiled, "it's much better this way, isn't it?"

He didn't answer as his hands pulled her to him and their lips met. Her body was as fire to his touch as he thrust all thoughts from his mind and gave himself up to the moment.

His head was pounding fiercely now. He got out of bed and, picking up his union suit from a chair, laboriously got into it. After a few unsteady steps toward the bathroom, he turned back toward the bed. He looked down at the girl for a few seconds, then he leaned forward and picked up the end of the blanket.

The girl stirred and turned toward him. "Johnny," she murmured softly, still asleep. She had nothing on.

Memories of her body, warm against him, flooded through his mind. He let the blanket fall and staggered to the bathroom.

He shut the door and turned on the light. It hurt his eyes. He went over to the washbowl and turned on the cold water. The basin filled rapidly. He leaned over it, hesitated a second, then plunged his head into the cold water.

At last he began to feel better. He picked up a towel and dried himself. He looked in the mirror over the washbowl and ran his hand over his face. He needed a shave, but there wasn't time for it.

He went back to the bedroom and dressed, then silently left the house without waking anyone. The morning air was clean and invigorating. He took out his watch and looked at it. It was six thirty. He'd have to hurry if he wanted to make the early train to Rochester.