“Give me a ring when it’s settled.” Ira Winderspear hung up and passed a hand over his bald brown head. Clouds hung below his window in the Chrysler Building, but they didn’t make him look any more like Zeus on Mount Olympus.
He smiled at Jacob. “Reason you haven’t seen a penny of that twenty g’s is the production shut down after shooting the street stuff. It doesn’t kick in till one of the actors shows up in costume and makeup. That’s what ‘principal photography’ means according to Edvard Kaspar.”
“How’d you reach him? I can’t get past his secretary.”
“I sent her chocolates for her birthday. Keep a calendar, kid, that’s my advice.”
“What did that cost me?”
“Not a cent. My brother-in-law has a confectionery in Jersey. I get ’em by the case.”
“They said they’d wrap by spring. It’s spring, and you’re telling me they haven’t even started yet?”
“You’re not alone in the boat. Kaspar says the whole industry’s shut down till they settle a union argument. It all has to do with Eve Arden’s tits.”
“Come again?”
“The actress? She was shooting a scene at RKO when the director said cut: She’s too flat-chested, it’s a distraction. Do I need to add he dated Jane Russell?”
“I think you just did.”
“So he called Wardrobe and ordered a pair of falsies. Well, somebody in the makeup department got wind of it and said falsies aren’t Wardrobe, they’re Makeup. So the director switched the order. Then Wardrobe complained to the union: Sewing a pair of Brillo pads in a brassiere is Wardrobe. The Makeup union filed a counter-complaint, and that’s where it’s stood for weeks. Everything’s stalled till the parties get together and work it out.”
“A strike?”
“Same as. Variety wanted to run a headline: ‘Eve’s Apples,’ but the Breen Office threatened to pull all the studio advertising, so they killed it. Meanwhile nothing’s getting done.”
“Jesus, Ira. I just put down six thousand on a house on Long Island. Ellen’s due next week. I’m going to bounce checks all over town because Eve Arden’s breasts don’t?”
“Don’t panic. The Academy’s appointed a mediator, and both sides agree to abide with his decision. How much you need to tide you over? The new edition of The Fence starts paying royalties next month. You won’t owe me long.”
“I hate to be a mooch. I was better off broke.”
“It’s expensive being rich.” He got out an industrial-size checkbook, scribbled in it, tore off a check, and slid it across the desk.
Jacob looked at it. “Ira, this is too generous. It’s a paperback thriller, not Gone with the Wind.”
“You got movie money coming, don’t forget. The Battle of the Boobs can’t go on forever. Name the kid after your Uncle Ira if it bothers you.”
“What if it’s a girl?”
“Irene’s swell with me.”
“I’ll have to take it up with Ellen. You may wind up settling for a box of Havanas.”
“How is the little woman?”
“Not so little. Everyone thinks it’s twins. She’s got a progressive doctor; he made her quit smoking. That hasn’t improved her temperament.”
“So how come you’re grinning?”
“Am I? I thought I’d sprained my face.”
“Well, why not? You got a family to go home to. Think of me rattling around my empty house.”
“Which one, the one on Park Avenue or the one in Miami?”
“So what’re you, a pinko?”
“Thanks, Ira.” He put away the check. “Coming to the housewarming Saturday?”
“Wouldn’t miss it, even if I do have to change trains twice. You artistic types get me: Make your killing in Manhattan, you can’t wait to move out to Possum Holler.”
“I feel like someone built a house on my bladder,” Ellen said. “Thanks for asking.”
Jacob, setting out glasses and bottles on their makeshift bar, watched her filling table lighters with fluid. “Sure you’re up to a party?”
“Anything to take my mind off my hemorrhoids.”
Phil Scarpetti was first to arrive, with a bottle of champagne. The artist had put on a tie for the occasion, with a plaid flannel shirt and his least paint-spotted pair of jeans. Ellen smiled brightly. “If it’s okay, I’ll put it in the fridge for when I can join you.”
“My mother drank a six-pack a week all the time she was carrying me,” Scarpetti said. “I turned out okay, if you overlook the armed-robbery thing.”
Robin Elk had sent his regards from London, where he was visiting his father. Ira came with a stuffed panda bigger than he was. Cliff Cutter and his wife, Nayoka, brought a quilt she’d sewn, with good-luck tribal signs, and Alice and Howard from the office contributed a toaster. Jacob asked when they were tying the knot.
“September,” said Alice. “My parents were married in September, and they’re still together.”
Nayoka asked Alice her favorite color. Cliff said, “She’s already making that quilt in her head.”
The house was in Freeport: One of a row shaped like Velveeta boxes, divided by unpaved streets named Sycamore, Weeping Willow, Elm, Oak, and Maple.
“I haven’t seen a tree since I got off the train,” Scarpetti said.
Jacob said, “They cut them all down to build houses.”
“You should’ve saved the wood to make furniture.”
The chairs, sofa, and table they’d brought from the apartment looked sparse in the larger setting.
“No dice.” Jacob handed him a whiskey sour. “I’ll need it when we start paying for the stuff we ordered from the catalogue.”
The women were in the kitchen, putting cold cuts on a tray. Johnnie Ray sang on the radio.
Scarpetti asked who else was coming.
“This is it,” Jacob said. “I thought of inviting Hank Stratton, but Ellen was sure he’d bring one of his tramps.”
“Why in hell would you ask that blowhard?”
“I felt sorry for him. His show got canceled. Sponsors bailed. The Catholic Legion of Decency made too much noise about TV violence. Robin’s thinking of letting him go. He doesn’t need Lash Logan anymore.”
“Good news, speaking of Hollywood.” Ira stirred his rum-and-Coke with a plastic swizzle. “Unions signed an armistice.”
“How?” Jacob asked.
“When the falsies are made of cotton, it’s Wardrobe. When they’re rubber it’s Makeup.”
Howard Belknap laughed, his face reddening. He was drinking straight Coca-Cola; the bachelor party had cured him of anything stronger.
Jacob asked Ira when The Fence was shooting.
“Right away. They got to work fast. Victor Mature has an appointment for a toga-fitting at MGM in June: He’s playing the entire Roman Army. You can tell Ellen to make the bedroom suite mahogany and pay for it in cash.”
Scarpetti raised his glass. “Here’s to crime.”
The telephone rang. “Our first call.” Jacob got up to answer it. “Figures,” he said, holding it out to Ira.
“I left this number. Maybe Stalin blew up the Chrysler Building.” He turned his back on the others to take the call.
Howard said, “Alice loves your place. I’ll have to ask Mr. Elk for a raise.”
“You’ll get it.” Jacob drank Scotch. “I heard Paramount signed Joel McCrea for Pistols West. Congratulations, Cliff.”
Cutter sipped rye. “They’re shooting in the Arizona desert. My story takes place in Denver.”
Scarpetti asked if he was going to watch the filming.
“Nayoka pestered me into it. She’s got relatives on the reservation. I’ll be in the saloon when they need me.”
Ira hung up and sat down. He took a long drink from his glass.
“Why so glum, chum?” Scarpetti said. “Ma Bell lose a point?”
“I wish. Bad news comes after good. That was Elk’s lawyer. He just talked to Elk in England, and Elk told him to call all the writers’ agents in his stable.”
“He better not have used that word,” Cutter said. “I shovel horseshit. I don’t live in it.”
“What is it, Ira?” Jacob said.
“The Honorable Margery St. John got her wish. Congress is appointing a committee to investigate the paperback book industry.”
“I thought you said she was sunk.”
“Those kneelers getting Lash Logan off the air put them on the prod. Washington doesn’t like being upstaged by a bunch of prissy old ladies in picture hats. Hearings begin this October. We can all expect to be subpoenaed before they’re finished.”
Howard blinked. “Even me?”
“I hope so, kid. One look at that freckled face and they’ll drop the whole thing. You don’t get votes pushing around Henry Aldrich on TV coast-to-coast.”
“Gosh.”
“Not to worry. Everybody gets his time on the rack: Joyce, Lawrence, Miller. It’s our turn. In the end, a congressman gets to be a senator, or a Supreme Court justice, and everything goes back the way it was. Meanwhile it’s just a pain in the neck.”
“So’s lynching.” Scarpetti drained his glass.