The Dream Merchants Part 59

He stepped into the foyer and kissed her. Her eyes were wide and looked up at him. "Did you have a chance to talk to Peter yet?" he asked.

She took his hat and led him into the living room. She shook her head hopelessly. "No." She turned and looked up at him. "He won't let anyone talk to him about you. He won't listen. I told Mamma, but it didn't help. He won't let her talk either. He says he doesn't want to hear any more about either you or Mark."

He sank into a chair and lit a cigarette. "The stubborn old fool! This is a h.e.l.l of a time for him to get his Dutch up." He looked up at her. "What about us?" he asked.

She looked down at him. "What about us, Johnny?"

"Are we getting married or aren't we?" His voice was savage.

She put a hand on his cheek. "We'll have to wait, Johnny," she said softly. "It would only make him feel worse."

He caught her hand and held it. "I'm getting tired of waiting."

She looked down at him without answering. Her eyes pleaded for his patience.

"What are you doing here?" Peter's voice came roaring at him from the doorway.

Johnny looked at him startled. Peter's eyes were wild in his face. "I came to see if I could knock some sense into your thick Dutch head!"

Peter came toward him. His voice was shrill and shaking. "Get out of my house, you Judas, you!"

Johnny got to his feet. He held his hands placatingly in front of him. "Peter, why don't you listen to reason? You ought to know I would-"

Peter interrupted him. "Don't give me no lying explanations! I know what you done!" He turned to Doris. "Did you ask him to come here?" he asked accusingly.

"She didn't," Johnny answered before she could speak. "It was my idea. We had some things to settle."

Peter turned back to him. "Some things to settle," he sneered. "You trying to turn her against me too? Ain't it enough what you done? Ain't you satisfied?"

"We want to get married," Johnny insisted stubbornly.

Peter looked up at him. "Marry you?" His voice was sharp with amazement. "Doris marry you? You anti-Semite? Sooner I would be she was dead! Gedt oudt before I throw you oudt!"

"Papa"-Doris put her arm on Peter's-"you got to listen to Johnny! He didn't sell you out. He pledged the stock for-"

"Shut up!" Peter shouted at her. "If you go with him, I'm through with you. If you go with him, you turn against your own people, your own flesh and blood! Don't you think I knew that all these years he was jealous of me? Scheming behind my back to steal the company away from me? When I look back and think what a fool I was to trust him, I could cry. He was no better than the others! They hate the Jews! All of them! And he's no better than the rest! Now he's trying to turn you against me too!"

She stared at her father helplessly. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned to Johnny.

His face was a blank stony mask. Slowly, woodenly, he turned from her to her father. "You won't listen," he said bitterly. "And if you did, you wouldn't believe. You're an old man, bitter inside and eaten with your own poisons. But you're not too old to learn some day that you could be wrong!" He picked up his hat and walked slowly to the door. He turned and looked back at Doris.

Esther brushed past him into the room. He didn't even notice her. There were tears in his eyes, burning at his eyelids. His voice shook as he spoke, "Doris, are you coming with me?" There was a note of pleading in it that had never been there before.

She shook her head and moved closer to her father and mother. Her mother reached up and took her hand.

He stood there for a long while, looking at her. At last Peter's voice came savagely to his ears.

"Go!" it was saying savagely. "Go! What are you waiting for? You can see she's not coming. Go back to your friends, your sneaking, underhanded partners! You think you can trust them? Depend on them? You'll find out otherwise. Some day they will get you and throw you out too. When they don't need you any more. Like you did when you decided you didn't need me!"

The tears filled Johnny's eyes, blinding him, but the voice still tore savagely at his ears.

"You were laughing, hah? This simple little hardware man from Rochester you would turn into a picture man? You would make him over and do what you want with him, and when you didn't need him any more, you would get rid of him? I should have known better. I trusted you, but all the time you were laughing at me. Because all the time you made me think it was my business when it was really yours! So you had your fun with the little Jew from Rochester and now it's over. You can be very proud of yourself. You had me fooled all the time. But now it's over and you can go. There's nothing more you can get from me!" Peter's voice broke and he began to cry.

Johnny took several steps toward him. Peter's face looked at him, his voice was suddenly old and broken.

"Why did you do it, Johnny?" he asked quietly. "Why? Why did you wait and do it like this when all the time all you had to do was come to me and say: 'Peter, I don't need you any more. The business has outgrown you.' Don't you think I didn't know it?" He closed his eyes wearily. "If you had come to me yourself, I would have turned the whole business over to you. I didn't need the money or the struggle any more. I had enough of it in my life!"

His voice seemed to grow stronger. It was cold and bitter. "But no! You had to do it your way! With a knife in my back!"

For a long moment they looked into each other's eyes. It seemed almost that they were alone in the room. Johnny searched Peter's eyes for a glimmer of warmth. They were hard and implacable.

He looked at Doris, then at Esther. Their faces were filled with pity for him. "Give him time," they seemed to be saying, "give him time!"

At last he turned and silently walked out the door. He closed it behind him. His heart seemed to turn to lead within him as he walked down the hall to the elevator. He looked back at their door and he could feel the tears flaming behind his eyelids.

The sound of the elevator coming up reached his ears. Grimly his face settled into thin masklike lines. His lips tightened as he put his hat on his head.

The elevator door opened and he stepped into it. Thirty years. Thirty long years. Half a lifetime to reach something like this.

AFTERMATH.

1938.

SUNDAY AND MONDAY.

We left at six thirty in the morning and had breakfast and lunch on the road. It was two o'clock and the bright shining sun was hanging in the sky over our heads as we turned up the narrow dirt road that led to the ranch house. Some men in the fields straightened up to look at us. Their faces brown and curious under the broad-brimmed straw hats they wore to keep the sun from their heads. A few minutes later we pulled to a stop in front of the house.

A man came out on the porch to look at us and see who we were. He was a big man with a round face and dark hair. I knew him. Vic Guido.

I got out of the car and walked to the porch. "h.e.l.lo, Vic," I called to him.

He took a heavy-rimmed pair of gla.s.ses from his shirt pocket and put them on and peered at me. "Johnny Edge!" he exclaimed without enthusiasm. "What are you doing out here?"

I walked back to the car and held the door open for Doris to get out as I answered him. "I thought I'd take a run out here and see your boss," I said casually. "Where is he?"

He looked down at us for a moment before he answered. "He's out in the back near the old carnival wagon watching a bocca game," he replied. "Do you want me to show you the way?" he added surlily.

"No, thanks." I smiled up at him. "I know where to find it."

He didn't answer, just turned around and went back into the house silently.

"That man always gives me the creeps." Doris shuddered.

I looked down at her and smiled. "Vic's all right," I said, taking her hand as we started to walk around the house. "He always acts like that when I'm around. I think it's because he's a little jealous of his boss's liking for me."

We were at the back of the house now and I could hear the sound of excited voices in the air. I looked toward them.

The wagon was about two hundred yards behind the house and stood there incongruously on the flat ranchland. It was painted a bright red, and the yellow words on its side spelled out: Santos' Carnival and Shows. There were about twenty men standing in front of it along the sides of the bocca alley.

Bocca was an old Italian game played with hard wooden bowling b.a.l.l.s about the size of those used for duckpins. One man would roll a slightly smaller ball toward the other end of the alley and the other men would then try to roll the larger bowling b.a.l.l.s as close to it as possible. I couldn't see what there was about the game that made them so excited, but then I never could understand the game anyway.

Al was sitting on the wagon steps, an unlit familiar-looking black stogie sticking out of the corner of his mouth, watching the game as we approached him. His brown wrinkled face broke into a smile as he saw us. He stood up and took the cigar out of his mouth and held his arms out to me. "Johnny," he said. His voice sounded pleased.

Embarra.s.sed by this openly expressed pleasure of his welcome and feeling guilty over my reasons for coming out here, I could only stand there and smile at him, holding out my hand. "h.e.l.lo, Al," I said.

He brushed my hand aside and put his arms around me and hugged me. Then he drew back and looked up into my face. "I'm glad you came out," he said simply. "I was just a sitting here thinking about you."

I could feel my face flush as I answered. I looked quickly around me to see if any of the men were watching us, but they weren't. They were too engrossed in the game. "It was a nice day for a ride," I said lamely.

He turned to Doris and smiled at her. "It's good to see you too, my dear," he said, warmly taking her hand.

She kissed his cheek. "You're looking very well, Uncle Al," she said, returning his smile.

"How is your father?" he asked.

Her smile seemed to grow brighter. "Much better, thanks," she replied. "I think the worst of it is over. All that he needs how is time and rest."

He nodded his head. "That's right. In a little while he'll be his old self again." He turned back to me. "And you?" he asked, "you're all right?"

I took out a handkerchief and mopped my face. It was hot out here in the field. "I feel good," I a.s.sured him.

He looked up at me anxiously. "We'd better go into the wagon," he said solicitously. "This sun is pretty strong to take. Especially if you're not used to it."

He turned and led the way up the steps and opened the door. The sun shone on the faded blue denim of his work shirt and the seat of his dark-blue overalls was shining and gleaming on his narrow shanks. The inside of the wagon was cool and dark and he took a match from his pocket and struck it. He picked up an old oil lamp and held the flame to the wick. It sputtered and caught the flame and then began to glow with a shiny golden color, lighting up the wagon.

I looked around me curiously. It was pretty much as I remembered it. The big roll-top desk was still against the wall. The bunks at the back were all made up. Even the old chair that Al used to sit in reading the paper was there. I smiled at him.

He smiled back at me proudly. "I'm glad I bought it," he said. "Sometimes a man has to have something of his youth around him to remind him of what he really is."

I looked at him curiously. It was a funny thing that he had said, but it was true. He never thought of himself as a banker, only as a carny operator, despite his tremendous success. I looked around me, and the room brought back many memories, but I couldn't feel the way he did. I was not a carny guy; maybe I had never been one. I was of the picture business. His next words surprised me.

He walked past us and closed the door carefully. Then he turned back to me, his face serious and questioning. "What's wrong, Johnny?" he asked suddenly. "Are you in trouble?"

I looked at him, then at Doris. Her eyes were wide and dark, but her lips were smiling gently. "You might as well tell him, Johnny," she said softly. "Anyone who loves you can read you like a book."

I took a deep breath, turned back to Al, and began my story. His eyes were alert, his face attentive, his lips silent as he listened. As we sat there opposite each other in the little wagon I was taken back many years to the times when we used to sit like this and talk to each other after the show had closed down for the night. And I marveled to myself as I kept on talking. He hadn't changed very much in the years that had pa.s.sed; I couldn't believe that he must be at least seventy-seven years old.

When I had finished, he struck a match on the heel of his shoe and held it to the cigar that still dangled from his lips. The flame of the match rose and fell with his breath as he drew on the cigar. At last it was going satisfactorily and he carefully shook the match until the flame went out and then threw it on the floor of the wagon. He didn't speak. Just sat there and looked at me with bright searching eyes.

We sat there so long that the atmosphere seemed to charge with tension. I felt a movement against my hand. I looked down. Doris's hand had found a way to mine. I looked up at her and smiled slowly.

Al saw it too; his sharp, bright eyes missed nothing that went on in front of them. At last he spoke, his voice very quiet. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.

I thought a moment before I spoke. "I don't know," I said doubtfully. "Nothing you can do, I guess. You were my last hope and I had to talk to you."

He looked at me closely. "You want that company, don't you?" His voice was very soft.

I looked at him. I remembered what Peter had said yesterday. He had been right. "Yes," I answered simply. "I put thirty years of my life into that company and it's not just a business any more. It's a part of me that I don't want to lose." I hesitated a second, then laughed, a little bitterly, I guess. "It's like the leg I lost in France. I can probably live without it. Maybe in time I will find something just as good, but it will always seem like this." I tapped my artificial leg. "You get along with it. It serves the purpose and gets you around. But you always know, deep inside you, that you're never the same. And you aren't."

His voice was still soft. "You could be wrong, Johnny. When I was your age I left the only business I ever liked. And I became a very rich man as a result. Maybe it's time for you to quit."

I took a deep breath and looked slowly around the wagon and then back at him. The words seemed to come out of me by themselves, my gaze was pointed. "If I did that," I said slowly, "I couldn't buy a studio and put it in my back yard."

He sat very still, only the glow on the tip of his cigar kept him from looking like a graven image. After a while he took his cigar from his lips and looked at it carefully; then he let out a long, deep breath. He stood up and opened the door of the wagon. He looked back at us. "Come into the house with me," he said.

The sun outside was still hot and bright. The men were still intent upon their game as we walked past them following Al to the ranch house. We went in through a back door into the kitchen.

A fat dark woman was rolling dough on a large wooden table. She looked at us as we came into the room. She spoke a few words in Italian to Al. He answered her in the same tongue and led us through the kitchen into the front of the house.

We stopped in the large old-fashioned parlor. Al told us to sit down and walked on into the hall and out of view. Doris and I looked at each other. We both were wondering what he was going to do.

"Vittorio!" I heard his voice calling in the hall. "Vittorio!" A m.u.f.fled answer came from somewhere upstairs, followed by a short remark in Italian from Al, and then he came back into the room. He looked down at us. "Vittorio will be here in a minute," he said, and sat down in a chair opposite us and looked at us.

I wondered what good Vittorio could do. Al's voice cut into my thoughts.

"When are you two getting married?" he asked suddenly. "I'm tired of waiting for you to make up your minds."

We blushed like a pair of kids and looked at each other, smiling. Doris answered for me. "We've been so upset since Papa got sick," she explained, "we haven't had time to talk about it."

"Talk? What's there to talk about?" Al exploded, his cigar throwing off heavy gray fumes of smoke. "Don't you know your own minds yet?"

I started to answer, when I saw the grin on his face and realized he had been teasing us. I shut my mouth, stopping the reply just as Vic came into the room.

He ignored us. "What do you want, Al?" he asked him.

Al looked up at him. "Get Constantin Konstantinov on the phone in Boston."

Vic looked quickly at me, then turned back to his boss. A flood of protesting words in Italian poured out of him.

Al held up his hand and Vic shut up like a clam, for all his size. "I said get him on the phone," he told Vic. "I want to talk to him. And after this remember your manners. When there are people around who don't understand our language, speak in English. Don't be rude." His voice was very soft, but there was a thread of steel that ran through it. "I brought Johnny up when he was a kid. And I know I can trust him not to reveal anything he might learn here."

Vic's face looked balefully at me, but he went to the phone and sat down.