Who He? - (8)

"Tooky? Jake Lennox. I've got a promotion in mind for your property that I'd like to discuss."
    "Which property?" Ween rumbled in a hostile voice.
    "Far as I'm concerned you've only got one hot property. The great man. Mig."
    "What's the promotion, Lennox?" Ween asked, a little more affably.
    "Sam Cooper's got a hit tune just breaking. That duet he wrote for Mig and the dummy."
    "What duet?"
    "'We're The Most.'"
    "That's a hit?"
    "On the way. Here's my idea. Mason & Dixon brought the tune out. How about using their picture on the sheet music? Might be a nice promotion."
    "That ain't bad, Jake. Ain't a sour note in the whole notion." Ween was back to first names again and definitely friendly.
    "It's only a suggestion. I've got nothing to do with it, but I can ask Sam for you."
    "Thanks, Jake. It could do Cooper a lot of good. My boy could double his sales. So 'We're The Most' is socko, huh? Who's handling Cooper?"
    "Nobody."
    "A boy like that needs handling, Jake."
    Lennox laughed. "That's between you and Cooper. They're giving him a promotion party at Rox Studios Thursday. Come on over. There'll be names and photographers, so bring your properties too. You can talk it up with Sam between flashes."
    *       *       *       *       *
    Kay Hill received him in her east side Early American apartment, conducted him through a Colonial hall to a Federal parlor where she seated him on a Duncan Phyfe couch. Her dark green dressing gown clashed with the background, but set off her acid eyes and acid red hair.
    "Men," she spat in her strange clipped accent. "Bloody lice! They only come when they're hungry. What are you after, Lennox?"
    "Trouble," Lennox said.
    "We'll pickle it first. What's your brew?" Before he could answer she made a couple of drinks, handed him one and finished hers.
    "When was the last time you were here, Lennox?"
    "This is the first."
    "They keep passing through. I lose count." She opened a window, then closed the drapes with a savage flick. She blew dust off pewter tankards and opened and slammed drawers. "I've been asked for plenty in my life but they never called it trouble." She shuffled a deck of cards once. "They've had it but never asked for it."
    "I'm not asking, Kay."
    "No? You're here, aren't you?" She cupped his chin in her hand, smiled contemptuously, then slapped him. "We'll pickle it."
    She went to the bar. "Christ, it's bloody hot. D'you want ice?"
    "No thanks."
    "There isn't any anyway." She pulled irritably at the dressing gown until it opened, displaying a black bra and black panties. She fretted around the room, the green gown trailing behind her.
    "Are you English?" Lennox asked.
    "Are you starting something?"
    "I want to know."
    "I'm English. Now you know."
    "The dialect bothers me."
    "Not dialect, Lennox." Her speech became more clipped and more English. "It's called an accent, darling. I have most unfortunately acquired a dreadful American accent. Mummy and Daddy will be terribly amused when I come home from the States." She dropped the English. "We'll pickle it."
    She made another pair of drinks.
    "Jesus, Kay!" Lennox protested. She finished both, came to him and sat on his lap. Lennox was startled when he noticed her eyes were terrified. She was desperate.
    "Make a pass, Lennox," she said.
    "Are you putting me on?"
    "No. You're putting me off."
    She got up. Lennox caught her wrist and pulled her down alongside him.
    "Do you know why I'm here?" he asked.
    "I don't give a bloody bug why you're here."
    "What's eating you out?"
    "You don't give a bloody bug what's eating me out. We'll pickle it."
    "Not now, we won't. There's something else first."
    "I've changed my mind."
    "I haven't." Lennox drew out the photostats and handed them to her. "Read these."
    "What?"
    "Read them."
    She began to shriek with laughter. "Read these, he says." She rocked around the room, neighing hysterically. Lennox went after her, took her by the shoulders and slammed her into a chair.
    "You're petrified," he growled, "and I think I know why. Read those letters, damn you, and we'll find out."
    She wiped her eyes with the hem of the dressing gown and read the photostats. Lennox watched her closely. Her face reflected every word she was reading. Her body reflected her face. She was savage, sick, vicious, threatening. For the length of all six letters she was the writer of those letters. She was completely identified. When she came to the end she looked at Lennox.
    "Who's writing them, Kay?"
    "How should I know?"
    "They're to you, aren't they?"
    "No."
    "Don't lie, damn you. You're halfway into a strait jacket and this is what's doing it to you."
    She smiled wearily. "Clever Jordan Lennox. Mummy's favorite bright boy." She got up and kissed his brow chastely. "We'll pickle it."
    Lennox followed her to the bar. "They're written to you, Kay. I came up here to help you out, but you've got to level with me. Who's writing them? Who's threatening you?"
    "I told you. I don't know."
    "This isn't anything to fool with, Kay. It's loaded with dynamite and it's set to go off Sunday."
    "What the hell do I care what happens Sunday," she blazed. "The whole damned show can bloody off Sunday. Give me the damned letters." She snatched the photostats from him. "They're not to me. Look at this line in Number four. 'You black-headed lying etcetera.' Is that me?" She jabbed at her red hair angrily. "That's red. It's always been red. If you don't believe me I can show you the convincer. Go look for somebody else, Lennox."
    Lennox examined the line silently, then put the photostats away. When he looked at Kay again, she was smiling crookedly, her eyes still terrified.
    "What d'you say, Lennox?"
    "On my way."
    "I've changed my mind again."
    "No you haven't."
    "One for the road?"
    "No thanks."
    "Christ, you're a bloody Square, Lennox."
    "I guess everybody is, one way or another."
    "Mummy's favorite model boy. That's the way out." She waved her arm indifferently. "My love to your model roommate, Sam Stacy."
    "Stacy! Is that it, Kay? Oliver Stacy?" Lennox stepped to her and took her shoulders. "Is he what's eating you out?"
    "It was a slip. I meant Cooper. Sam Cooper, of course. I always get his name mixed up with Oliver's. Let go of me, Lennox. Damn you, let go of me."
    "Is it Stacy?"
    "To hell with Stacy. It was a slip, I tell you. Slip of the tongue...." She began to shake and clung to him. "My God, Lennox. My God! I haven't seen him in two weeks, outside rehearsal. 'Good morning. Good night. Take it from the top. Cue, please. Take your cross after I say the line. Oh Jesus, Lennox, what's he doing to me?"
    "Running up a score, Kay. Face it."
    "You son of a bitch!" Kay wrenched herself out of his arms. "You're gloating too, aren't you? All of you. Counting up your scores. Get lost, Lennox. Get lost fast!"
    Lennox got lost fast. Down on the street he murmured: "But she's the one who's lost. Lost in the tunnels. At least I gave her a half hour's entertainment. Balance! Two down and four to go."
    *       *       *       *       *
    It so happened that my wife was in Raeburn Sachs' office when Lennox dropped in. She had been called down unexpectedly. Sachs' wife, a discouraged creature with a sagging figure, led Robin down a twisting corridor in Grabinett's offices to the brain room where Sachs operated. He directed all Grabinett's shows.
    Sachs was thin, dry-blond, with bulging blue eyes and a mid-western twang. He liked to be overworked and fatigued, and the first impression he gave was of a bone-weary man calling on genius to surmount exhaustion. Later, you imagined you had received the wrong impression, but you really hadn't. It was Sachs who changed. His thyroid began popping and everything else in addition to his eyes bulged.
    He was slumped in a chair wearing a crushed pin-stripe suit and drinking chicken soup out of a carton when Robin entered. He lifted his head wearily, smiled, then called to his wife.
    "The song is out. I've just remembered it isn't in the P.D."
    "The legal department said it is," Mrs. Sachs answered in a discouraged voice.
    "They're wrong. Oh yes. Make a note. We'll need three extra costumes and a magician. No Mind Acts. They're not televisionwise. I want a different Sawing A Woman In Half. Something fresh."
    Mrs. Sachs made notes.
    "Also a dog act. Call the music department and see if we can get a small band arrangement of Piston's 'Incredible Flautist.'"
    "Why?" Mrs. Sachs asked.
    "Because it's scored for dog barks," Sachs answered as though that explained everything. Apparently it did. His wife moused out and closed the door. Sachs smiled at Robin.
    "Always rushed," he said wearily. "This is last night's dinner." He finished the soup, got up and slouched around Robin, examining her sleepily. "Yes. Yes, I see. The Hedda Gabler type." Suddenly he crouched at the desk, yanked out a bottom drawer and threw his handkerchief in. "'Now I'm burning your child, Thea! Burning it, curly-locks!' Manuscript into the stove business." He threw in his small change and a pack of cigarettes. "'Your child and Eilet Lövborg's. I am burning--I am burning your child!' Slow curtain."
    Robin gaped at him.
    Sachs smiled and stood up. "Or Marguerite," he said, stroking her blonde hair. "'Ich gäb was drum, wenn ich nur wüsst'. Wer heut' der Herr gewesen ist!' Comb business at the mirror. Which show are you here for?"
    "You called me down," Robin said. "Don't you know?"
    "I'm directing four shows." Sachs smiled patiently. "Which are you?"
    "Who He?"
    "Oh yes. Yes. I see. You're ... Robin. Lennox gave you the call. It's about the costumes." Sachs hitched a hip onto the corner of the desk, smiled cheerfully, and began flicking the hem of Robin's skirt with his toe. "They were smaller in the early nineteenth century. Much smaller. Have you seen the models in the Dress Museum? We're having trouble with those Philip Nolan costumes. I think we're going to have trouble with you."
    "With me? How?"
    Sachs reached back and picked up a printed card. It was the conventional file card actresses send to all offices with pictures, measurements and credits printed on it. This one happened to be Robin's.
    "I checked your card," Sachs said. "It's the bust that worries me. Thirty-six. I see you weren't exaggerating. Are you married?"
    "Yes."
    "Any children?"
    "No."
    "Too bad."
    "Why too bad? What's it have to do with--"
    "Children make the bust sag. You're probably too firm to get into our costumes. Take 'em out."
    "What!"
    "Take 'em out. Let me see them. If they're not too high we won't have any problems."
    "Are you kidding?"
    "Come on, come on, Robin. Take 'em out."
    "You're crazy."
    "This is a pictorial medium," Sachs explained patiently. "You've got to audition three-dimensionally. Now don't waste my time, Robin. We've pulled the Nolan costumes already and I've got to find the women to fit them."
    The phone rang. Sachs picked it up, meanwhile snapping his fingers impatiently at Robin's bust. "Yes? Not now. I'm busy." He flipped the phone and caught it neatly on the cradle. "Took three lessons from W. C. Fields," he smiled, then brayed: "'Master Copperfield, under the impression that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon....' Come on, Robin. Come on. Get 'em out."
    There was a knock on the door.
    "Go away," Sachs called.
    The knocking was repeated.
    "'Here's a knocking indeed!'" Sachs intoned in Shakespearean diapason. He snatched up the desk lamp and began to hobble. "Lantern business. 'If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key. Knock, knock, knock! Who's there i'th' name of Belzebub?'"
    "Jake Lennox. I've got to see you. Won't take a minute."
    "Wait," Sachs told Robin. He put down the lamp and called: "Come in. I'm starting the clock."
    Lennox entered the brain room and was surprised to see Robin. He greeted her and Sachs, then said: "This won't take long, but I'm afraid it'll have to be in private. Do you mind, Robin?"
    "No. It's a pleasure," Robin said through her teeth. She stalked out of the office and slammed the door.
    "Something?" Lennox asked Sachs.
    "Temperament," Sachs answered wearily. He picked up the phone. "Tell the actress to wait in the reception room." He hung up.
    Lennox took out the photostats and thrust them at Sachs. "Read these," he said sharply.
    Sachs glanced at the photostats casually, five seconds to each letter, then slouched to his desk chair and slumped into it, regarding Lennox with tired eyes.
    "I said read them," Lennox snapped.
    "I've read them," Sachs answered. "I have a photographic memory." He quoted random lines from the letters, then smiled patiently. "Satisfied?"
    It occurred to Lennox that Sachs must have examined the letters in Blinky's safe at another time. That killed the shock value and there was no point in calling his bluff.
    "They're written to you, aren't they?"
    "I don't like your Sunday drama spot, Jake. The Philip Nolan. It's weak."
    "Stay with the threats, will you? They're no drama spots."
    "'Damn the United States. I wish that I would never hear the name again.' Dolly in to close-up. Yes. Your scene's out of focus. There's a value missing."
    "Focus on the letters. Who's threatening you?"
    "What?" Recalled from his visions, Sachs gazed at Lennox with faraway eyes.
    "You're faking," Lennox said savagely. "And you're not kidding me with the act. These letters were written to you. You're the one who's putting the show on a spot."
    "They're not written to me."
    "I don't believe you."
    "Isn't it obvious?" Sachs said wearily. "What's that line from Number Two? Yes. 'You fancy college cess-pool....' And so on. I'm no college man. That's why I've still got my talent. 'A set o' dull conceited hashes confuse their brains in college classes!' What are we going to do about Sunday?"
    "I don't know," Lennox said in disgust, returning the photostats to his pocket. "I'm doing the best I can with what I've got. Amateur. I should have stayed out of the act. Maybe the police can do better."
    "If I could whip you into coming up with something fresh, I'd throw out the Nolan. A different 'Monkey's Paw' or--That's an idea! Instead of three wishes, make it three New Year's resolutions."
    "Lay off, will you. There's nothing wrong with the Philip Nolan."
    "It isn't televisionwise, Jake."
    "It's as televisionwise as any book can be when you compress it into five minutes."
    "Don't argue with me, Jake." Sachs spoke in deadly earnest. "I have one talent in this business, and that's all. It terrifies me because it's subconscious and I can't control it. It's a quality that nobody else has.... I'm never wrong."
    Lennox was speechless. He opened his mouth, closed it and fled from the brain room. Robin was waiting for him in the outer reception office where she told him her experience with Sachs in an indignant whisper. Lennox took Robin out of the office.
    "Don't go back," he told her. "And don't worry. You've got the job. If Sachs gives you a hard time just call me. I'll take care of it." Suddenly he grinned and pinched her bottom. "This is a new role for me, Robin. I've been thinking of chasing you into bed for a year and here I am protecting you. Turns me into a pimp for virtue, doesn't it?"
    "Why don't you chase me a little," Robin said wickedly. "I'm curious about you."
    "I'll take a rain check."
    "I've got a rival?"
    Lennox nodded.
    "Who she?"
    He shook his head.
    "How're your chances?"
    "It's all reversed," Lennox said in a confused voice. "We started where most chases end and now we're working our way to the beginning."
    "Like running a movie backwards?"
    "Exactly. I used to wonder what happened to those people who had to marry each other before they met. Now I know. It's exciting, Robin. It's wonderful, but it scares hell out of you. Christ, love is mixed up on The Rock."
    "You got that from Kit. His favorite theme: Life and Death on The Rock."
    "Death," Lennox repeated. He took a breath. "No. Three down. Three to go."
    He departed.
    *       *       *       *       *
    He talked treason with Ned Bacon and made peace.
    "I'll back you for director, of course," Lennox said. "And I think I've got the lever you can use to pry Sachs loose." He told him about Robin's adventure. "All she has to do is report that to her union and Sachs is through. It's your ace in the hole. My contribution to the conspiracy, but don't expect anything more. I've got these letters and threats hanging over me."
    "You're not alone," Bacon said. "Why didn't you holler down the rainbarrel? I know the gimpster score. Let's hear all about it."
    He heard about it, then drawled with a cynical expression: "Yep. Yep. We did it last year on 'The People Against--' I know every angle. This is how we broke the case." He instructed Lennox and Jake listened patiently to little known facts about blood sugar that could turn a normal man into a sex maniac, or perhaps it was the other way around.
    "I got that from a police toxicologist," Bacon confided. "We went to the theater together and he sat there and diagnosed everybody on the stage. Just called the shots. Diabetic. Cancer prone. Tubercular. Multiple Sclerotic...."
    "Just by looking at them from his seat? I don't believe it."
    "Jake," Bacon said kindly. "Come back from the Reichenbach Falls. There's a new thing they invented called medicine. Dr. Watson'll tell you all about it."
    Again Lennox submitted patiently. He permitted Bacon to instruct him on the iniquities of The Marketplace and to educate him from the bonded warehouse of Bacon's profound experience. At the end of an hour, little Bacon felt two inches taller than Lennox and their cordial relationship was once more restored.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Between twelve and twenty, most boys have a fantasy of the kind of life they would like to lead when they become independent. It's composed of equal parts of Alexander Dumas, Richard Harding Davis and Mickey Spillane. Some of us outgrow this romantic vision. The ones that don't come roving to The Rock to turn the fantasy into reality. That's why life here is half crystallized adolescence.
    Oliver Stacy had a penthouse in a converted brownstone in the east sixties. He was waiting for Lennox at the top of the stairs, dark, hollow-cheeked, romantic in black slacks, black silk shirt and black cummerbund. He looked like an illustration from a historical novel. He gave Lennox the strong, silent hand-clasp and took him into his apartment.
    Lennox looked around wistfully. He was transported back to the daydreams of his own boyhood. The floor was polished oak, the walls creamy, the ceiling beamed and lost in shadows. There was a half finished canvas on an easel before the bay window, a self-portrait of Stacy as an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Alongside it was a lay figure on which was draped a uniform cape and a kepi. Stacy thrust a finger through a hole in the shoulder of the cape.
    "Nine millimeter Mauser," he murmured. "The toughest thing we had to buck in the desert."
    Two Italian epees were crossed over a blood-stained plastron with masks and gloves under them. A Luger and a Colt revolver lay on the mantlepiece. There was a cannel coal fire burning in the grate. A coffee table before the fire bore a bucket of ice in which reclined a bottle of champagne. On a couch behind the table reclined an exquisite little ingénue wearing a blue velvet dinner gown trimmed with miniver. The fire and candles were the only illumination. A phonograph was playing the "Rosenkavalier" waltzes.
    "Drink?" Stacy inquired lazily. He uncorked the champagne bottle deftly and filled glasses.
    "No thanks."
    Stacy and the girl drank, gazing into each other's eyes over the glasses.
    Lennox said: "If you'll just give me a minute, Oliver. Alone?"
    Stacy brushed the girl's palm with his lips, then took Lennox into a fitted dressing room hung with a dozen framed water-colors. They were nudes; all signed O.S. One of them bore a faint resemblance to Kay Hill. It was convincingly red-headed.
    "It's about blackmail, Oliver."
    "Pay with a gun."
    "What?"
    "The barrel of a gun across the bridge of a nose," Stacy spread his shoulders lazily. "I learned that lesson in Morocco."
    "You've had experience before?"
    "I've had every experience."
    "Then read these." Lennox whipped out the photostats and handed them to Stacy who read them carefully, a lazy smile curling his mouth. His expression never changed.
    "Threats," he said at last. "The ones that mean business never write."
    "They don't scare you?"
    "Nothing scares me."
    "Who's writing them, Oliver?"
    "Don't you know?"
    "No."
    "I thought you came to borrow a gun."
    "Were they written to you?"
    "To me?" Stacy shook his head slightly. "I've got enemies. A man's enemies. We know each other. We don't have to be anonymous." Stacy spread his shoulders. "I'll pack a gun to the theater Sunday. I'll back your play, Jake. I can break a nose."
    "I think they're to you, Oliver."
    "What difference does it make? I'm making it my fight."
    "I don't want a fight. We've got enough trouble as it is. I want to avoid a fight."
    "You never can, Jake. As soon as you realize that you'll grow up." Stacy smiled lazily. "You go around the world and you learn one thing. It's all a fight, and the only way to keep from losing is to win."
    "Oliver, if you're so hot for breaking noses, will you for God's sake find him and break it before Sunday."
    "No trouble at all, Jake. Tell me where he is."
    "I don't know. You do."
    "Not me."
    "These letters are to you. You fit the description.... Dark man. Elegant. Live on the east side. Went to college...."
    "But not a vestal virgin."
    "What?"
    "I thought it was obvious. Didn't you notice it in the letter? Right here. He's written: 'You vomit virgin with your Judas morals....' Is that me, Jake?" Stacy pointed to the nudes on the wall. "Would anybody who knows me call me virginal ... moralistic?"
    "Jesus Christ!" Lennox exclaimed furiously. "If it's not you, then who? Who the hell is getting these letters?"
    "Look for a coward."
    "Why a coward?"
    "Because a coward's writing them. You go around the world, Jake, and you learn another thing. There's class distinction in everything. You love your own kind and you hate your own kind. The jackals hate the jackals. They don't dare hate a lion."
    Lennox waved the photostats impatiently.
    "Why worry?" Stacy smiled. "Let him come to the show Sunday. We'll be waiting. It might be interesting."
    "Interesting!" Lennox snorted. "God knows what's going to happen to who. It could be anything from a gun to a bomb. Is that your idea of interesting?"
    "It's the only idea, unless you play poker for matchsticks."
    "I don't play poker," Lennox said, and left.
    Going down the brownstone stairs, he growled: "Four down. Two to go. It's either Plummer or Hansel. The advantage of statistics. Poker for matchsticks! Are they all crazy?"
    *       *       *       *       *
    I met Lennox in a network studio where he took advantage of an unexpected opportunity to make peace with Roy Audibon. The veep had gathered the leading script writers for one of his annual exhortations on the aims, needs and ideals of the network and the position of television in the Expanding Universe. Audibon's theme that afternoon was the fact that we writers were the bottle-neck in the flow of progress because we refused to think galactically.