“What stuff, Mr. Whyte?”
“That white dustlike substance. You remember how when some was spilled on the rug everybody got down on all fours and sniffed the rug. It was so pleasant. You referred to it as snow, I believe.”
“Certainly will bring some, Mr. Whyte. Which hotel are you going to be staying in during the inaugural?”
“The Hilton.”
“I’ll contact you there, Mr. Whyte. And again, don’t worry about Reverend Jones. After our exposé he’ll be back in Texas selling chili on the porch in his bare feet.” Krantz puts down the phone. Opens a bottle and gulps down some pills. The room is full of teddy bears. Everywhere you look there are teddy bears. Teddy bears of all colors and sizes. Teddy bears from all over the world, but mostly from Formosa. Krantz unscrews the small navy-blue velvet teddy bear on his desk, and dips in a tiny golden spoon. He sniffs the spoon and immediately assumes an expression of exuberance. Momentarily, he feels like a genius. He is a genius. He presses a button which sets off an electric train. The train begins to circle his desk on its tiny tracks. He picks up the phone. “Jane, tell everybody I’ve gone down to the health club to play some racquetball.”
“He’s here. He’s been sitting in that chair for an hour now. Ever since you got on the phone with Mr. Whyte.”
“Does he seem mad?”
“He’s pretty mad, and won’t go away.”
A robust, muscular, and well-tanned looking Rex Stuart wearing dark glasses strides vigorously into Bob Krantz’s office. He has a head of silver hair and with a mustache he would look like Caesar Romero. Bob Krantz rises to extend his hand. It is doing a St. Vitus. The man angrily slams a copy of TV Guide onto Krantz’s desk.
“Look fella, don’t get nervous,” Krantz says.
“I had to read about it in the TV Guide!” He is furious.
“I don’t know what you’re driving at,” Krantz says, weakly.
“Don’t play innocent with me.”
“Hey, calm down. It wasn’t my decision, it was Mr. Whyte’s, he decided to cut your part.”
“Cut my part. Look, you little turd, I made ‘Sorrows and Trials.’ Millions of people wouldn’t even watch it if it weren’t for my part.”
“You’re wrong about that.” Bob Krantz removes some papers from a folder on his desk. “Remember when you were out for two weeks a few months ago?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“The ratings for ‘Sorrows and Trials’ went up eight percent. And O, yeah, where did you say you went during those two weeks?”
“My aunt died in Philadelphia. I had to settle the estate.”
“O, yeah, then what are these?” He shoved the Xeroxes of the man’s bills from Pleasant Grove Manor, an alcoholic rehabilitation hospital about thirty miles from L.A.
“Where did you get those?”
“I don’t have to tell you where I got nothin’, you fuck. Let’s face it, fella, you’re a has-been. You’re slipping. You’re rusty with your cue cards. I’ve seen it happen to old guys like you. They lose their reflexes. All of those takes we do of your scenes cost us money. We overlooked that, but then Mr. Whyte was driving through the gates and he passed that picket line you and your buddies set up.”
“So that’s it. You slime. You’re still mad about the settlement. Ninety-five percent of the people in this industry make less than five thousand dollars per year and you’d begrudge them a share of the royalties from cable television. Five thousand dollars; why, you spend more than that on these goddamned trains.” The man kicks a few tiny boxcars across the room.
“Hey, what the hell’s wrong with you?” Krantz says, diving for the trains. “You’ll pay for this. You’ll pay,” Krantz says, gathering up the boxcars, one of which had been broken in half.
“Like a fucking two-year-old, playing with trains and teddy bears.”
“Get out. Get out.” The man walks over to where Krantz is bent down on the floor, gives him a hard kick in the rear, and leaves the room. Krantz screams in the background. The man walks toward the elevator through the curious who have left their offices to see what has happened. Outside the building, he looks up and down for his limousine; it is nowhere in sight. He buttons his sports jacket and turns to the black doorman who stands in front of the building. The doorman was examining Stuart’s white slacks and white shoes. “Your driver went to the airport,” the man says, stroking his chin.
“He what?” Krantz’s attacker says.
“He had to pick up the guy they flew in from New York to take your place. Your driver said you wouldn’t be needing him anymore,” the doorman says, smirking.
“Well, call me a cab.”
“Call one yourself. There’s a pay phone in the lobby.” The former star of “Sorrows and Trials” turns around. He looks up. The curious are staring at him from their windows. He reaches into his pockets for a dime and goes into the lobby.
4
Only children and Mr. Dean Clift could get by on their good looks. You watched as in the distance, sirens screaming, Dean Clift, the model, who stopped the parade, was whisked away but not even this took your attention away from the little black man with rough-looking red hair and his dummy. Your two-year-old was watching the man with intense fascination. The little black devil even stared at your little Freddie Jr. The little man wore black glasses, flawless white suit and white shoes. He had set up an elegant little stand covered with cloth upon which had been sewn a portrait of the late Emperor Haile Selassie. He was telling the crowd that he could do an imitation of any famous world leader they knew. While he was working the crowd, drawing attention away from the parade, his little dummy was also making a pitch. The little dummy was black, owned red lips, and wore a sinister fixed smile. The ventriloquist kept referring to the dummy as baldhead. He even called the crowd baldheads though most of them possessed hair. There was quite a bit of cash atop the ventriloquist’s stand. The little dummy was waging some card bets in a game of three-card monte. It held three cards, two red and one black. Every time you hit black the dummy paid you, but when you hit red, you paid the dummy. The dummy kept saying red you win, black you lose, and as he slapped the cards on the table, he’d say red, black, red, black, and then in reverse, black, red, black, red, black, red. Then, as if this scene weren’t outrageous enough, the little dummy’s goat was up on its hind legs dancing to a Reggae version of “Santa Claus is coming tonight,” but the lyrics had been changed, and instead of saying “Santa,” they sang what sounded like “Santy.” Santy Claus. In a minor, mournful key. Your child doesn’t want to leave but the tinny, shrill music, coming from the little man’s primitive sound system aided by two egg crates, was becoming annoying.
The two-year-old was screaming, and some of the adults in the parade crowd cast suspicious glances your way. He was screaming so loud it seems that he drowns out the trombones. You decide to slip into a restaurant on the parade route to buy him some ice cream. This usually shuts him up. He throws tantrums until he gets what he wants. You’d like to whack him good across his bottom but your wife is reading childrearing books which advise against
