"Or maybe it's because he ain't yet figured out a way to beat us out of that!" He stamped back to his desk angrily. "I don't know what it is, but every time I come to New York, I got to find tsoris!" He threw the cigar into the wastebasket and took a new one from the humidor. He put it between his lips and began to chew it. "A year and a half ago, I come to New York and what do I find?
He's working by the warehouse a little over a year and already he's making more on it than we do. A thousand a year he's making selling junked heralds, two thousand selling dirty pictures he's printing by the hundreds on our photo paper in our own still laboratory.
A concession he's developed in all our offices around the country selling condoms wholesale.
It's a lucky thing I stopped him, or we all would have wound up in jail."
"But you got to admit, Bernie, the warehouse never ran more smoothly," Hawley said. "That rotating perpetual inventory saved us a fortune in reorders."
"Hah," Norman exclaimed. "You think he thought about us when he did it?
Don't be a fool!
Seventeen dollars a week his salary was and every day he drives to work in a twenty-three-hundred-dollar Buick." Bernie struck a match and held it to his cigar, puffing rapidly until it was lit.
Then he blew out a gust of smoke and threw the match into the ash tray. "So I put him into the Norman as an assistant manager.
Everything will be quiet now, I think. I can sleep in peace, I think. What trouble can he make for me in a big house like that? "Trouble, hah!" He laughed bitterly. "Six months later, when I come back, I find he's turned the theater into a whorehouse and bookie joint! All the vaudeville acts in the country suddenly want to play the Norman. And why shouldn't they? Does Loew's State or the Palace have the prettiest usherettes on Broadway, ready to hump from ten o'clock in the morning until one o'clock at night? Does Loew's or the Palace have an assistant manager who'll take your bet on any track in the country, you shouldn't ever have to leave your dressing room?" "But Gallagher and Shean, Weber and Fields, and all the other big acts played the house, didn't they?" Hawley asked. "And they're still playing it. It made the theater for us." "It's a lucky thing I got him out of there and sent him to the Hopkins in Brooklyn before the vice squad got wise," Norman said. "Now I don't have a worry, I think. He can stay there as assistant manager the rest of his life. What can he do to us in Brooklyn, I think. I go back to the Coast, my mind at ease. I can forget about him." Suddenly, he got to his feet again. "So six months later, I come back and what do I find?
He's making a monkey out of the whole company. He's taking home more money than a vice-president."
Hawley looked at him. "Maybe that's what you ought to do."
"What?"
"Make him a vice-president," Hawley said.
"But- but he's only a kid," Norman said.
"He was twenty-one last month. He's the type boy I’d like on our side."
"No," Norman said, sinking back into his chair. He looked at the treasurer thoughtfully. "How much is he getting now?"
"Thirty-five a week," Hawley answered quickly.
Norman nodded.
"Take him out of there, transfer him to the publicity department at the studio," he said. "He won't get into any trouble out there. I’ll keep an eye on him myself."
Hawley nodded and got to his feet. "I'll take care of it right away, Bernie."
Bernie watched the treasurer leave the office, then reached for the telephone.
He would call his sister and tell her not to worry. He would pay their moving expenses to California.
Then he remembered. She had no telephone and they'd have to call her from the candy store downstairs.
He put the telephone back on the desk.
He'd take a run up to see her after he got through with his blintzes and sour cream at lunch. She never went anywhere. She was always home.
He felt a strange pride.
That nephew of his was a bright boy, even if he had crazy ideas.
With a little guidance from himself, something the boy never got from his own father, who could know what might happen?
The boy might go far.
He smiled to himself as he picked up the report.
His sister had been right.
Blood was thicker than water.
8.
Harry Richards, chief of the studio police, was in the booth when Nevada drove into the main gate of the studio.
He came out of the booth, his hand outstretched.
"Mr. Smith.
It's great to see you again."
Nevada returned his smile, pleased by the man's obvious warmth.
He shook his hand.
"Good to see you again, Harry."
"It's been a long time," Richards said.
"Yeah." Nevada smiled. "Seven years." The last time he'd been at the studio was just after The Renegade had been released, in 1930.
"I’ve got an appointment with Dan Pierce."
"He's expecting you," Richards said. "He's in Norman's old office." Nevada nodded. He shifted into gear and Richards stepped back from the car. "I hope everything works out, Mr. Smith. It would be like old times having you back."
Nevada smiled and turned the car down the road to the executive building.
One thing, at least, hadn't changed around the studio. There were no secrets.
Everybody knew what was going on. They obviously knew more than he did. All he knew was what he'd read in Dan's telegram. He'd come in from the range and found it lying on the table in the entranceway.
He picked it up and ripped it open quickly. HAVE IMPORTANT PICTURE DEAL FOR YOU.
WOULD APPRECIATE YOU CONTACT ME RIGHT AWAY.