Seven
As a new husband, Artie Wolfowitz spent his time and money indulging his pregnant wife. He went into debt to rent a place on Central Park West large enough for a nursery and a study for Louise, took her to expensive restaurants and Broadway openings, watered and fed her supercilious artistic friends. She responded with an offhanded affection that more than satisfied him. Louise Frank was a prize, greater than any he had dreamed of attaining, and he never awoke in the morning without a feeling of intense love and amazement at his good fortune.
The birth of Josh, seven months after the wedding, brought changes. Louise, who had passionately wanted a child, now insisted that an English nanny move in to care for him, and she paid the infant what Wolfowitz considered scant attention. She also limited their sex life to an occasional, grudging quickie. And, for the first time in their marriage, Louise began to go out at night on her own.
“I’m a writer, Arthur, not a hausfrau,” she told him. “I need stimulation.”
“Why can’t we be stimulated together?” he asked plaintively.
“You’re such a dominant personality, I don’t feel like myself with you around,” she explained in an appeasing tone. “I need to have my own experiences.”
Even in his love-besotted state, Wolfowitz understood that these experiences might include other men. He reminded himself that he had agreed to allow her an independent life, told himself that he was a bigtime New York editor now, and should be sufficiently sophisticated to accept his wife’s liberated lifestyle. And then he went out and hired a private investigator named Edgar Conlon to find out what Louise was doing in her spare time.
Conlon’s report took six weeks to compile and it was worse than anything Wolfowitz had imagined. It included dates, times and the names of five men. Four of those names meant nothing to Wolfowitz. The fifth was Mack Green.
“Are you absolutely sure?” Wolfowitz asked the detective.
Conlon, a retired New York detective with a large nose and bad dentures, nodded. “I got pictures,” he said, with the impersonal cheer of a man selling hot dogs at a ballpark.
“I don’t want to see any pictures,” said Wolfowitz, feeling numb.
“They don’t cost that much, especially when you consider what they could save you in a divorce settlement,” said Conlon. “And you wouldn’t need the entire gallery. Probably just one or two guys would be plenty.”
“There’s not going to be a divorce,” said Wolfowitz, more to himself than to the detective. His numbness was thawing, replaced by a humiliated rage. At that moment he made two irrevocable decisions. He would forgive Louise because he loved her too much to lose her. And he would take his revenge by ruining Mack Green’s life.
• • •
Wolfowitz’s strategy for keeping his wife was to make himself indispensable to her. As an anniversary gift he published her collection of short stories, Village Idiots, lavishing on it the ingenuity, attention and money he had once given The Oriole Kid. The book sold well despite lukewarm reviews and Louise was astute enough to see that its success was due to her husband’s efforts. That realization altered the balance of power between them.
“You’ve given me a wonderful anniversary present,” she told him one night in bed. “I wonder what you’d like from me.”
“I’d like for you to stop going out alone so much,” he said. “I worry about you. Besides, I don’t think so much socializing is good for your career.”
“I wouldn’t want you to worry,” said Louise, aware that a transaction was taking place. She snuggled against him and kissed his neck. “I’ll stay home more at night if you want me to.”
Wolfowitz noted the “at night” but decided to let it pass; he didn’t want to make life intolerable for Louise. He knew that there was something perverse about the overpowering passion he felt for her, but he didn’t care. In a way he even took pride in it, the pride of a square man in his secret kinkiness.
Wolfowitz’s campaign against Mack Green was more surreptitious. Since his marriage, the two men no longer spent their evenings together but they still met for lunch at least once a week. Wolfowitz was careful not to display any outward signs of hostility, and Mack’s obliviousness to impending disaster sharpened the pleasure of anticipation; Artie knew it was only a matter of time before he got his chance to get even.
Opportunity arrived in the rotund form of Tommy Russo. “I wanna talk to you about Mack’s new book,” he said. “See if we can come to some arrangement.”
“I don’t see why not,” said Wolfowitz genially. He was aware that Mack had recently picked Russo up the same way he had once been chosen and for the same purpose, as a combination servant-sidekick. He also knew that the little ex-priest didn’t know a thing about the book business.
“Mack told me what you want to pay. It’s not enough,” Russo said.
“How much did you have in mind?”
“A hundred,” said Tommy, as if he dealt with six figures every day.
“I’m not going to give you a hundred,” said Wolfowitz. “I’m going to write my offer on this piece of paper and let you read it.” He scribbled a number, handed it to Russo and watched his face melt into greedy amazement.
The number Russo saw was $250,000.
“It’s a two-book deal. A quarter of a million dollars for each of the next two Mack Green novels. Fair enough?”
“Jeez,” Russo said, fingering his shirt where his clerical collar had been. Wolfowitz could see his dark eyes calculating his $25,000 commission. “Jeez, I dunno.”
“I know you don’t,” said Wolfowitz. “You’re probably thinking that if I’m willing to pay this much, I might pay more, that maybe you asked for too little.” He raised his eyebrows in a gesture that invited confirmation, peered at Tommy and saw that he had guessed right. “It’s not too little, it’s too much, but offering too much this time is smart business, for two reasons. Since you’re just starting out, and because we’re both friends of Mack’s, I’m going to explain why. Don’t worry, I won’t bullshit you, you can believe me. All right?”
Russo nodded, watching Wolfowitz’s face closely. His years in the priesthood had taught him to be wary of people who said “believe me.”
“First, I’ve got a huge investment in Mack and I want to keep him here at Gothic. The book business is changing, authors are starting to get big money. If I sign Mack for too little this time, he’ll feel like he can do better someplace else. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
“Makes sense,” said Tommy. “What’s the second reason?”
“The second reason is you,” said Wolfowitz. “I want to do you a favor.”
“What for? If you don’t mind my asking?”
“Because I want you to owe me,” said Wolfowitz. “When word of this deal gets around town, you’re going to be a hot agent. I want to see your best books first, to negotiate with you in the spirit of mutual understanding.”
“Mutual understanding meaning?” The phrase reminded Russo of the oily euphemisms of the Bensonhurst wise guys.
“Just that,” Wolfowitz said smoothly. “I’m sure as you get to know the business, you’ll see the value of a good relationship with a publisher like Gothic.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand,” said Tommy, his eyes drawn back to the number on the paper.
Wolfowitz arranged his face in a friendly smile. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll get my money’s worth.”
Despite Wolfowitz’s assurance that the recession was to blame, Mack was taken aback by the poor showing of Light Years. Outwardly he maintained his usual self-confidence, but he had never experienced failure before and he didn’t quite know what to make of it. For months he did little but hang around the Tiger, drinking too much and trying to get up the energy to write.
A year or so after the Light Years debacle, Mack met Wolfowitz for lunch at Antonelli’s. “I’ve got some great news,” he said. “I started work on the new book, Three to Get Ready. It’s about three buddies who go off to Vietnam, come back to their hometown and kill the members of the draft board one by one. What do you think?”
“A murder mystery?”
“Come on, Stealth, since when do I write mysteries?” Mack demanded. “It’s a Mack Green novel. I’ve got ten thousand words already and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. You’re going to make back what you lost on the last one and then some. I’ll send over what I’ve got, let you take a look at it. Maybe you can come up with some brilliant marketing ideas.”
“I can’t wait to get my hands on it,” said Wolfowitz.
When the uncompleted manuscript arrived, Wolfowitz saw that Mack was right—it was terrific, funny and scary at the same time, full of improbable characters and vividly written scenes. He put it in his desk drawer and waited three days for Green to call.
“You read it?” he demanded in an exuberant tone.
“Yes,” said Wolfowitz flatly. “I did.”
“Well?”
Wolfowitz let the question hang in the air for a long moment and then cleared his throat. “I, ah, think we might have a problem. I’m no literary expert, you know that better than anybody, but the thing just doesn’t seem to flow. It’s kind of ponderous.”
“Ponderous? That’s not one of your words. Did you show it to somebody by any chance?”
“To tell you the truth,” lied Wolfowitz, “I did show it to a couple of people and they thought—”
“That it’s ponderous?”
“Fuck it, Mack, they don’t have to be right, you know—”
“Who’d you show it to?”
“I’d rather not say. They’re at other houses and I don’t want to embarrass anybody.”
“You showed my manuscript to editors from other houses? What are you, looking for someone to take it off your hands?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Wolfowitz in a tone of transparent insincerity.
“Ponderous,” repeated Green, tasting the ugly word in his mouth and feeling a frozen sliver of self-doubt in his stomach.
“You want my advice, forget it,” said Wolfowitz. “Hell, you were writing bestsellers when these guys were screwing coeds.”
“Yeah, maybe. Let me take another look, see if I can lighten it up a little.”
“It might not be a bad idea,” said Wolfowitz. He hung up and rubbed his hands together with genuine satisfaction. The old Mack Green wouldn’t have worried about the opinion of a hundred editors.
It took six years, fourteen drafts and a hundred and ten cases of Jack Daniels for Mack to finish Three to Get Ready, and by that time both his manuscript and his personal life were a mess. He married—and quickly divorced—a bulemic fashion model named Sippy Downes who fleeced him in the settlement. To pay his bills he took on magazine assignments which he often failed to complete. At a small college in New Jersey he was laughed off the podium when he showed up drunk.
Wolfowitz followed the breakdown of Mack’s private life with pleasure, but his real satisfaction came with the savage reception accorded Three to Get Ready. The Times review, written by Walter T. Horton, now a Gothic author himself, called it “an oddly tentative and flat work, full of uninteresting characters in dull situations.… A bitter disappointment for those of us who have been waiting anxiously for Green to return to form. If Three to Get Ready is any indication, it may be a long wait indeed.”
With reviews like this, Wolfowitz didn’t need to do much to ensure the commercial failure of Three to Get Ready. When the bookstores began returning copies, he summoned Tommy Russo.
“We’ve got a total fiasco on our hands,” he said.
“I know it,” said Tommy. “The good news is, Mack’s working on something really special. He’ll rebuild his career, I guarantee you.”
“Not at Gothic, he won’t,” said Wolfowitz. “Floutie told me not to spend another cent on him. I’m sorry, Tommy, but he’s finished here.”
By this time Tommy Russo had learned a good deal about his profession. He knew, for example, that Wolfowitz, recently promoted to editor in chief, had a special relationship with Harlan Fassbinder and didn’t take orders from Floutie. He knew that Gothic’s decision to drop Mack would make it hard to find him another major publisher for decent money. And he knew it would be stupid to damage his own relationship with Stealth Wolfowitz by finding out too much about what really happened to Mack’s last two novels.
“Jeez, I’m sorry about this,” Tommy said to Mack over drinks at the Flying Tiger. “I don’t care what the critics say, I still think it was a hell of a book.”
“Yeah, well,” said Mack, draining a bourbon. For once he seemed discouraged.
“You’re having a bad run,” said Tommy. “Your luck will change. Just keep writing, and when you’ve got something, let me know.”
“I will,” Mack promised, but he didn’t. Instead he went to Ireland for ten months, spent most of his time in the taverns of Dublin, came back to New York and resumed his routine. From time to time he roused himself sufficiently to start on a new novel, but he never got past the first chapter. Once in a while he freelanced a piece for Sports Illustrated. Mostly, though, he spent his time drinking and socializing and pretending, to himself and the rest of the world, that he was only resting until his next big project. When the literary ladies of the Midwest asked him why he wasn’t working, he smiled his charming smile and said, “I’m just waiting for a great idea.”
Wolfowitz followed the demise of Mack’s career with a satisfaction tinged with sorrow. His campaign had been too easy and ended too soon; like many a successful general, he missed his vanquished enemy. Sometimes at night, lying next to a lightly snoring Louise, he put himself to sleep thinking of new ways to destroy Mack Green novels.
And then Tommy Russo had come along with the proposal for Mack’s suicide book. Wolfowitz wasn’t a religious man but he believed in fate, and he saw its hand in Mack’s rejuvenation. He was being given one more shot, one last chance to even the score with the friend who had betrayed and humiliated him. He thought of old man Stanislaw and smiled. It was the time Wolfowitz had been waiting for—final payback time.