MANNY WHISTLED admiringly under his breath. Enthralled, he and Bonnie stood on the sidewalk at 74th Street and Lexington Avenue and gazed up at the towering skyscraper. Their eyes dwelled on an outsized marquee which proclaimed:
SHMEER BUILDING THE HOME OF BEST-SELLERS
“Crotchnick sure knew what he was talkin’ about,” Manny said approvingly. “This guy’s got some setup.”
“I’ll say!” Bonnie agreed. “It’s another Radio City Music Hall.”
In a rush of expectancy, they approached the glassy entrance and spun through the revolving doors. The interior lived up to the promise of the façade: vast, ultramodern, pretentious, gaudy, and garish. “Gorgeous,” Bonnie murmured as her eye swept over the splashing fountain, set like a jewel in a mounting of plastic shrubbery and metallic futurist sculpture.
In the plush anteroom to Shmeer’s private office they were greeted by the receptionist, a curvaceous blonde in an upper-thigh-length dress, who offered them seats and said throatily, “Mr. Shmeer will be with you in a minute.”
They waited, flipping through magazines and lost in private speculation. Bonnie’s mind was filled with wild conjectures about publishing requirements, and Manny’s about whether the receptionist wore anything under her dress.
A voice cut into their thoughts. “Mr. Shmeer will see you now,” the receptionist throbbed.
They jumped up and followed her—Manny as closely as possible—down a long corridor to a room identified as the “Executive Office.” The receptionist opened the door, and out flew the tail end of Mr. Shmeer’s telephone conversation:
“… full of crap as far as I’m concerned, and you can tell the goddam bastard to go screw himself!”
Manny winked at Bonnie. “How do you like that?” he whispered. “This guy speaks our language.”
Shmeer banged the phone into its cradle. He looked up as the receptionist drew the Ehrlichs into the room, announced them, and quickly retreated. Smiling affably at Bonnie and Manny, Shmeer pushed back his chair and came out from behind his desk. Short, chunky, and balding, with a brisk manner and a pair of dangerously shrewd eyes, he looked like a fat, hairless fox.
“How d’ya do,” he said, extending his hand to each of them. “I’m Dave Shmeer.” He motioned them into chairs and retreated behind his mammoth desk once more. Clasping his hands in front of himself judiciously, he asked, “Now what can I do for you?”
Manny glanced at Bonnie, then spoke up. “It’s like this, Mr. Shmeer. My wife wants to write a book, a best-seller. But she … uh, well … she ain’t exactly a writer.” He smiled awkwardly. “So we need someone that maybe we could work a deal with.”
“I see,” Shmeer said, nodding. He studied Bonnie’s chinchilla coat and hat, her Dior suit, her alligator bag and shoes, her Elizabeth Arden glamour, and her arsenal of jewelry. “Something tells me you came to the right place.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Bonnie exclaimed happily. There was a look of inordinate relief on her face. “I was so afraid, Mr. Shmeer,” she confided shyly in a voice soft with respect, “that you only took people who could write.”
Shmeer laughed. “Why would I want to do that?” he said. “Those literary types are murder—prima donnas who fight with you over every comma.” He shook his head. “No. In my firm, we only take people who can’t write. That way, they do what we tell them and they never give us a hard time.”
Bonnie smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that with me, Mr. Shmeer. I’m very cooperative.” Her smile broadened. “You might even say I’m a pushover.”
“That’s what I thought,” Shmeer said agreeably. He cleared his throat. “Well, now that we have your qualifications, tell me, what is it you want to write about?”
“Hollywood,” Bonnie answered quickly. “I’d like to do an inside story on some of the people I knew out there in the forties.” She averted her eyes modestly. “I used to be an actress, you know. And my husband was a studio executive.”
“Hmmmm,” Shmeer said, thinking. “A show biz story. I guess you want to do an exposé type thing on their private lives—tell all about their sex habits, alcoholism, drug addiction—stuff like that?”
“That’s the idea!” Bonnie cried excitedly. “How did you know?”
Shmeer smiled indulgently. “I have a sixth sense in these things.” Sobering, he said, “There’s one big trouble with this kind of book that we have to-watch out for. I take it these people you want to write about are still living. Are any of them famous personalities today, easily recognizable to everyone?”
Bonnie’s face fell. She hadn’t even thought about libel laws.
“Well?” Shmeer persisted. “Are they famous?”
“Y-yes,” Bonnie stammered. “I’m afraid they all are.”
“Wonderful!” shouted Shmeer. “We only want dirt about Big Names. We can’t sell scandal unless it’s about a public figure. Who wants to read about the yenta next door? Besides,” he added slyly, “using real celebrities saves us the trouble of making the characters up.”
“But won’t they sue?” Manny asked.
“You must be kidding,” Shmeer said. “They’re grateful as hell. Where else could they get publicity like that for nothing?” He gave a reassuring smile. “Anyway, to be on the safe side we always change the names and issue a disclaimer.”
Bonnie was surprised. “Is that all you have to do?”
“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that,” Shmeer said, “but we’ll get to that part later.” He smiled knowingly. “First things first.”
With the deftness and dramatic flair of a surgeon making the first incision, Shmeer opened his desk drawer and took out a notebook. “Right now the question is,” he said gravely, “if we have room for you on our list.”
“It must be a helluva long one,” Manny ventured.
“No, that’s just the point,” Shmeer said. “We only put out five books a year. But we give each one the big build-up. Our motto is ‘Every Book a Blockbuster.’ You see,” he explained, “we have it down to a science. We avoid anything highbrow, no matter how good it is; and we stick to the surefire stuff like religion and sex. This year,” he added, “we’re dropping religion.”
While Bonnie and Manny waited breathlessly, Shmeer consulted his notebook. “Let’s see. First we have In Bed With the Boston Strangler—An Intimate Autobiography by his exwife. Then we have Oui, Oui, the memoirs of a bisexual French courtesan. Then we have The Life and Times of Marilyn Monroe as told by her gynecologist. Then we have A Comprehensive Guide to Successful Adultery by a team of anonymous contributors. And then we have …” He stopped. “No, that seems to be it. Well,” he said with the air of a lifeboat captain addressing a shipwreck survivor, “it looks like we have room for you.”
Bonnie was ecstatic. “Oh, that’s marvelous!” she cried. “What do we do now?”
“Now,” said Shmeer, “we discuss terms.” He took a brochure from his notebook and slid it across the desk to Bonnie and Manny. “As you can see,” he said, pointing to the brochure, “we have three classes of blockbusters: first class, known as ‘runaway’; second class, or ‘sensational’; and third class, called ‘hit.’ With the first class, or ‘runaway,’ you get a guaranteed minimum of forty-eight weeks on the Best-Seller List with at least 50 per cent of that time as Number One. You get the full-scale …”
“Wait a minute,” Manny cut in sharply. “You mean the Best-Seller List is fixed?”
Shmeer looked up, faintly annoyed at the interruption. He picked his words carefully. “No, I wouldn’t say it’s ‘fixed,’ exactly. We just manipulate it a little, that’s all.” There was a crafty look in his eye. “We’re very friendly with some of the bookstore personnel who do the reporting. Then, too, our advertising program is pretty persuasive in some quarters.” He lowered his voice. “As a last resort,” he confided, “we get the book on the list by hiring people to buy it.”
Shmeer turned back to his brochure and picked up without skipping a syllable … “publicity and promotion treatment with interviews on every TV and radio talk show in the country having over twenty-five listeners. You get ads, reviews, or write-ups in every major newspaper in the nation and a hundred and two magazines including Life, Time, True Detective, Feed Age, Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, Soybean Digest, Soil and Water Magazine, Look, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Lawn Equipment Journal, Saturday Review, Saturday Evening Post, The Medical Missionary, The …”
“Okay, okay,” Manny said with a wave of his hand. “You convinced me. We always like to go first class anyway.” An apprehensive look crossed his face. “But give it to me straight, Shmeer. How much is all this gonna cost me?”
Shmeer stared at him, a look of indignant surprise on his face. “Why, it won’t cost you a penny,” he declared huffily. “We’re not a vanity house. We’re a reputable publisher.”
Manny was incredulous. “Are you sayin’ you’ll pay for everything—all that advertising and stuff—all by yourself? You don’t expect me to contribute?”
Shmeer smiled disarmingly. “Not one red cent. We take care of the whole works. We pay the printing costs. We pay for the book’s campaign, usually around $70,000. And we pay the author,” he nodded magnanimously toward Bonnie, “a $20,000 advance.”
Manny gaped at him open-mouthed. His voice squeaked with disbelief. “You mean to tell me you’re gonna pay us $20,000, and we don’t have to give you nothin’?”
“That’s right,” Shmeer laughed. “Nothing except the book, of course.” He paused for a moment and added, “And one other thing.”
“Aha!” Manny cried triumphantly. “I knew there was a catch.” He eyed Shmeer warily. “Okay, what is it?”
The words were an ultimatum. “A guarantee of a movie sale for one million dollars. We split it fifty-fifty.”
Manny slapped his forehead. “You’re outta your head!” he exclaimed. “What movie studio in their right mind would shell out a million bucks just for screen rights?”
Shmeer’s gaze was penetrating. “Yours,” he said levelly. His fox eyes narrowed. “I understand from our mutual friend, Sydney Crotchnick, that you own fifty-one per cent of the stock in United Misalliance. That means the board of directors is virtually under your thumb.” He smiled cagily. “If you want to buy a property, who’s to say no?”
“Yeah, but they’ll get suspicious,” Manny protested. “I haven’t been active in the company for years.”
“So this year you’ll be active.”
“But a deal like this could hurt the studio,” Manny insisted.
“So you’ll take a tax loss.” Shmeer grinned. “With me you’ll make money coming and going.”
“Well, it sounds good,” Manny admitted, “but…”
“Good?” Shmeer thundered. “It’s fabulous! There’s nothing to think about.” He leaned forward and adopted a tone of pure reasonableness. “Look, let me explain how we operate here. We don’t want to make a few dollars on a book—we want the author and publisher to get rich. So we go after the big dough, the sale of the subsidiary rights. And we split the income down the middle.” He turned a few pages of the brochure in front of them and pointed to a chart. “Now with your wife’s book, there’ll be enough notoriety in it to bring close to $500,000 for paperback rights, $250,000 a piece. Unfortunately, it’ll be too dirty to sell to the book clubs because they cater to the family trade.” Shmeer shrugged indifferently. “But who cares about that,” he asked, a slow smile spreading across his face, “when we’ve got a guaranteed movie sale of a million each?”
Manny smiled back. “I think you got a winner here, Shmeer.”
“You know I do,” Shmeer said. He rubbed his hands together vigorously. “Now let’s see,” he murmured, jotting down figures on a note pad. “We’ll put out a first printing of 300,000. Then we’ll …”
“A first printing of three hundred thousand?” Manny was amazed. “How will you get that many books into the stores?”
“It’s easy when you have an aggressive sales force like ours,” Shmeer said proudly. “Our men are highly trained in all the latest marketing techniques. We even have a couple of karate experts on the team.” He grinned. “You may not believe this, but one of our district managers is a Black Belt man.”
“Jesus,” Manny said.
Shmeer turned to Bonnie. There was an expression of self-reproach on his face. “You know, we haven’t even touched on what you’ll get out of this proposition,” he said, “and that’s the most important thing of all. For you this book will be only a means to an end. It’s the vehicle we’ll use to shove you on the public as an exciting new personality.” He pointed at her dramatically. “By the time we finish, you’ll be a topflight star in your own right. You’ll be in demand all over the country for paid personal appearances and speaking engagements. You’ll be asked to cut records, write beauty columns, endorse …” he gave her a swift appraisal … “brassieres and other commercial products.”
Bonnie was staring at him, her lips slightly parted, a look of unendurable yearning in her eyes. “Oh, God, Mr. Shmeer,” she blurted. “That’s what I’ve been dreaming of all my life. You don’t know what it would mean if you could do that for me.”
Shmeer reached over and patted her hand encouragingly. “Of course we’ll do it for you. That’s all part of the package.” He flashed a confident smile. “And we’ll groom you for the part perfectly. The minute you sign our contract, you’ll be enrolled in TRAP, our Television, Radio, and Personal Appearance course. You’ll be coached and drilled on every phase of appearing in public by a staff of experts. And you can take my word for it,” he said convincingly, “we know our stuff around here. Look what we did for the Swinging Nun.”
Bonnie’s eyes popped. “You mean you helped her?”
“Whaddya mean ‘helped’ her,” he laughed. “We made her.” He leaned back in his chair, remembering. “When she came to me she was still Sister Mary Margaret Vermicelli, a little nothing nun, a complete nobody. She was teaching in a convent school, and I don’t think she had two rosary beads to click together. But the funny thing was,” Shmeer recalled with amusement, “she loved to dance. I mean redly dance. One day she confiscated a kid’s transistor radio and taught herself the twist, the frug, the jerk, the monkey, and the Watusi in six minutes flat.”
“Not bad,” Bonnie allowed.
“When the Church got wind of it,” Shmeer continued, “they sent her down to Greenwich Village to dance in the coffee houses. They figured she’d bring religion to the Beats and the Hippies. But instead,” Shmeer chuckled, “she got turned on. She couldn’t stop dancing to save her soul. It got so bad, the other sisters at the convent began calling her ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Motion.’ ”
“That’s a good one,” Manny guffawed.
“Anyway,” Shmeer said, “somebody told me about her, and I smelled a good thing so I took her out to lunch at Twenty-One. She embarrassed the hell out of me by getting up and frugging between courses, but I got her to agree to write her story for us—our way.”
“Wasn’t that God Is My Hang Up?” Bonnie asked.
“That’s right,” Shmeer replied, flattered by her recognition. “I don’t have to tell you what a big one that was. But it was nothing short of a miracle how we took that pale, skinny Vermicelli dame and turned her into one of the hottest properties in show business today.” He removed a Variety clipping from his notebook and handed it to them. “Look at the rave reviews she got when she played the Copa. They called her the ‘slickest act since J.C. Walked on Water.’
“And look at this shot of her when she played the Palace,” Shmeer said, sliding a glossy photograph toward them. “Her two-week run broke all attendance records. And her finale—God, you never saw anything like it. It brought the house down every night.” He closed his eyes and dropped his voice to a husky, theatrical whisper, recreating the scene for them:
“A drum rolls, the lights go down, and a single spotlight beams on the center of the stage. She stands there, all alone, her pale skin gleaming whitely around her sequined Cross-shaped pasties. The house is hushed, waiting. Then the orchestra leads into a folk-rock version of ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ She begins to belt the lyrics. Her voice is pure and clear as a trumpet, and the words pour out of her, reaching down into the audience. ‘Though like the wanderer … hey, hey, hey … The sun gone down …’
“Then the chorus slowly files onto the stage—twelve former Mister Universes in black tights, their St. Christopher medals shining on their bare chests. A huge wooden cross sways in their arms as they chant a low, rhythmic accompaniment. Solemnly, they lift the Swinging Nun onto the cross and nail her to it. But her voice keeps throbbing out the words, strong and clear as ever—‘Darkness be over me … My rest a stone.’
“They start to carry her off the stage in a somber processional. The orchestra swells to a crescendo. But her voice reaches out over it, leaping, climbing, soaring to a big finish—‘Yet in my dreams I’d be … Nearer, my God, to Thee … Nearer to Thee.’
“The stage is bare. It’s very still for a moment. Then the house explodes with cheers, louder than peals of thunder. The crowd keeps calling ‘Sister! Sister!’ But the spotlight is off. The house lights come up. The show is over.”
Shmeer opened his eyes and slowly shook his head, a visionary clearing his mind. “Lord, she was beautiful,” he said.
“Never mind the raves and the pictures,” Manny said, his eye fastened on the Variety article. “Look what it says about her income: ‘From her TV series, record royalties, club dates, and movie lucre, the Swinging Nun earned over $6,000,000 last annum.’ ” Manny returned the clipping to Shmeer and said, “Give me your contract. I wanta sign it right away. I’ll call the studio in the morning and tell ’em we just acquired the rights to a great new book.”
“Now you’re talking,” Shmeer said. He produced the papers, and Bonnie and Manny signed them while Shmeer beamed. “Smartest move you people ever made,” he said. “You’ll never regret it.”
As they shook hands all around, Bonnie’s smile congealed on her face, and her eyes rolled in panic. “Oh, my God,” she gasped in the throes of a sudden realization. “How will I ever write this frigging thing?”
“Now, now,” Shmeer clucked reprovingly. “You’re such a worrywort.” He pulled a pamphlet out of his notebook and handed it to her. The title of the pamphlet was Basic Formulas of Blockbuster Writing.
“To be honest with you,” Shmeer said, “it really doesn’t matter what’s inside the book or even whether the people read it or not. As long as we get enough of them talking about it, we’ll be okay.” He smiled at Bonnie and pointed to the pamphlet. “Anyway, if you follow the instructions under ‘Runaway: Nonfiction-disguised-as-fiction,’ you’ll have no trouble. After you get started, just mail us in the required amount every two weeks.”
“Will it be all right,” Bonnie asked, “if I get someone to help me?”
“By all means,” Shmeer replied. “It makes it a lot easier for us if the sentences are grammatical.” He raised a warning finger. “But stay away from established writers—they’ll charge you an arm and a leg. What you need is one of those ‘literary specialists’ who advertise in the newspaper. Those poor schnooks are so hard up for money, they’ll write anything.”
“That sounds like a good bet,” Manny said.
“But in any case,” Shmeer informed Bonnie, “you have nothing to worry about. No matter how miserable your material is, we can always whip it into salable shape. Our editorial staff is the finest in the country—absolutely crackerjack.” He snapped his fingers. “Tell you what,” he said. “We’re all through here, so how about coming down with me and meeting our editorial department before you go?”
“Oh, I’d love to,” Bonnie said with honest enthusiasm. She was growing tired of Shmeer’s showmanship and wheeler-dealerism, so reminiscent of all the Hollywood sharpies and slick businessmen she had known in her lifetime, and she was anxious to meet a more cultivated prototype of the publishing world.
Shmeer sprinted from behind his desk and ushered the two of them out of his office, down the long corridor, and into a waiting elevator. They got off at floor “E,” the firm’s designation for Editorial.
“Follow me,” Shmeer said as he led the way down another long corridor to a door marked “Private—Personnel Only.” With an exaggerated flourish he opened the door, and they all stepped inside.
The room was awesomely white, sterile, and devoid of any sign of humanity.
“For God’s sake!” Bonnie exclaimed. “There’s nothing in here but machines!”
“That’s right,” Shmeer said proudly. Like a field marshal inspecting the troops, he surveyed the monolithic row of machinery, whirring and clicking with computerized precision. “We’re the only publisher in the world with a fully IBM editorial system,” he announced. “You won’t find another one like it anywhere.”
Shmeer walked up to one of his gigantic machines and stroked it lovingly. “This one handles all our ‘historicals.’ ” He pointed to its next-door neighbor. “That one does all our ‘contemporaries.’ ” For a moment it looked as if he might put his arms around the machines and hug them. “You have no idea the headaches and aggravation these babies save me,” he said gratefully. “No hair splitting, no indecision, no margin for error. All you have to do is tell them what you want, feed them your material, and out comes a blockbuster every time.”
Shmeer reached for a phone on the wall and said, “Send Reynolds down here right away. I want him to meet some new clients.” Turning to Bonnie and Manny, he explained, “Reynolds is our chief programmer in charge of data processing. He’s the one who’ll be handling your book.”
Within minutes a tall, owlish looking young man, slightly stoop-shouldered, walked into the room. He wore thick, horn-rimmed glasses and carried a clipboard.
“Hello, Mr. Shmeer,” he said deferentially.
“Reynolds,” Shmeer said, “meet Bonnie and Manny Ehrlich. Mrs. Ehrlich is going to do a ‘contemporary’ for us on the Hollywood scene. She’ll have her first assignment ready by the end of next month.”
“That’s fine,” Reynolds said with a bob of his head and a smile that was so quick it was almost a grimace.
“Now that you’re here, Reynolds,” Shmeer said, “how’s In Bed With the Boston Strangler going?”
“Moving along well, sir.” Reynolds referred to his clipboard. “Chapter Seven is just about finished. We have only another 1,653 words to go, approximately 431 of which will be four-letter Anglo-Saxon.”
“Good, good,” Shmeer said. “All right, Reynolds. That’ll be it for now. You can go.”
“Thank you, sir.” Reynolds turned to Bonnie and Manny and gave them another fractional smile. “Nice meeting you. ’Bye now,” he said, already backing out of the room.
After Reynolds had left, Shmeer encircled Bonnie and Manny in his arms and beamed at them with paternal benevolence. “Well, folks, how do you like ‘the house that Shmeer built’? Not bad, eh?”
Manny’s voice brimmed with respect. “I gotta hand it to ya, pal. You sure run a tight ship.”
“Thanks,” Shmeer said. He dropped his arms and began walking them to the door. “Now you two run along and enjoy yourselves. It’s been a big day.” He took Bonnie’s hand and pressed it warmly. “After all, my dear,” he said, his face spreading into a creasy grin, “you just became an author.”