The Inheritors Read online

  “This kid comes in from the next room. You know, with the long stringy hair an’ white face an’ large eyes. If she’s more’n fifteen I’ll go off my diet an’ she’s got a belly way out to here. ‘Yes, Samuel?’ she asks.

  “‘Getting any action today?’ he asks her.

  “‘Wild.’ She’s smiling happily. ‘The baby’s kicking field goals.’

  “‘That’s the oldest trap in the world,’ I said. ‘I thought you were smarter than that. It’s not yours, you ain’t been out here long enough.’

  “He stares at me for a minute, then shakes his head sadlike. ‘You still don’t get it.’

  “‘Get what?’

  “‘What difference does it make whose baby it is? It’s a baby, isn’t it? It’s like every other baby in this world when it’s born, it’s whoever’s baby it is who loves it. And this one’s our baby. All of us here. Because we all love it already.’

  “I look at him and I know it’s another world and I can’t make it. I take a couple of hundred out of my pocket and lay the two bills on the floor in front of him.

  “A couple of kids go over and look. Pretty soon they’re all standin’ around in a circle, starin’ down at the money. They haven’t spoken a word.

  “Junior picks it up finally and gets to his feet. He holds it out to me. ‘Can you change this for two fives?’

  “I shake my head. ‘You know I never carry anything less than hundreds.’

  “‘Keep it then,’ he says. ‘We don’t need that kind of bread.’

  “Suddenly it was like all of them found their voices. In a minute there was a racket goin’ on like you ain’t never heard. Some wanted him to keep it, others wanted it returned.

  “‘Shut up!’ Junior finally roared. They all fell silent, looking at him, then one by one went to wherever they had been in the room and it was quiet again.

  “He came over and pushed the bills into my hand. I could feel the tightness and trembling in him. ‘Get off my back, don’t ever come here again. See what one little touch of your poison does. It’s tough enough for us to make out without having to fight that too.’

  “For a second I thought of belting him. Then I looked into his eyes and saw the tears. I took the money. ‘Okay. I’ll send the chauffeur back upstairs with two fives.’

  “I left without lookin’ back and sat outside in the car while the chauffeur went up with the money. All the way to the hotel, I was wonderin’ what to tell Denise.”

  I looked at him. “What did you tell her?”

  “The only thing I could. I told her I didn’t find him.”

  He stuck another piece of gum in his mouth. “Denise wants me to get out. She says we got enough time left to put things back together. That somehow being Mrs. Big Shot don’t have the kicks for her no more.”

  He looked me right in the eyes. “Don’t make me tell her I couldn’t find you neither.”

  I turned away from him and stared out at the blue water for a long time. I wish I knew what I was thinking or what went through my head but like everything was a blank and there was nothing but the blue water.

  “No,” I heard myself saying. “It’s too big.”

  “What’s too big?” he asked.

  I gestured to the ocean. “It’s too big to filter, too expensive to heat and I’d never be able to get it all into my swimming pool. And even if I did it all and could, somehow the water would never taste as if it came out of a well. No. Sam. This time I pass.”

  We walked back to the car. Twice I started to speak to him, but when I looked over, I saw that he was crying.

  By the time we got to the hotel, he was in charge again. He got out of the car. “Thanks for the fresh air. We’ll talk some more.”

  “Sure.”

  I watched him start into the lobby, his short arms and legs pumping him along in that peculiarly aggressive walk little fat men always have. Then I put the car in gear and went home.

  The Volks was gone and the telephone began to ring almost as soon as I walked into the kitchen. There was a note taped to the wall next to the phone when I went to pick it up. I let it ring while I read the note.

  Dear Steve Gaunt,

  Go fuck yourself.

  Very truly yours,

  Mary Applegate.

  It was written in a small, neat, respectful hand. I read it again and suddenly began to laugh as I picked up the telephone. I glanced out the window.

  The drapes in the blonde’s room were open. “Hello,” I said.

  It was a girl. “Steve?”

  “Yes,” I didn’t recognize the voice.

  The blonde came to the window. She was wearing a telephone in her hand and very little else. “I happened to be looking out when I got up and saw the Volks driving off.”

  “So?”

  “So how about coming over to your friendly neighbor for a little coffee and consolation?”

  “I’ll be right there,” I said, putting down the phone.

  And that was the morning.

  New York, 1955–1960

  BOOK ONE

  STEPHEN GAUNT

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was only sixty-five cents on the meter from Central Park West to Madison Avenue but it was like a thousand light-years from one end of town to the other. I felt it as soon as I walked into the building.

  The cool, high, white marble foyer, the semicircular onyx reception desk with two girls and two uniformed guards behind it, and the words in bold block gold lettering on the wall behind them.

  Sinclair Broadcasting Company

  I stepped up to the first girl. “Spencer Sinclair, please.”

  The girl looked up. “Your name, please?”

  “Stephen Gaunt.”

  She flipped a page in her book and ran her eyes down a list of names. “Mr. Gaunt, that’s right. You’re down for ten thirty.”

  Involuntarily my eyes went to the clock on the wall behind her. Ten twenty-five.

  She turned to one of the guards. “Mr. Johnson, will you escort Mr. Gaunt to Mr. Sinclair’s office, please?”

  The guard nodded, smiling pleasantly, but all the while his eyes were coolly appraising me. Without waiting I turned toward the main bank of elevators.

  “Mr. Gaunt.”

  I stopped, turning toward him.

  He was still smiling. “This way, please.”

  I followed him across the corridor to a small group of elevators almost hidden in the rear of the foyer. He took a key from his pocket and placed it in a lock and turned it. The elevator doors opened.

  He let me walk into the elevator in front of him, then pulling the key, followed me. As soon as the doors closed, a bell began to ring.

  His voice was still pleasant. “Do you have anything metal in your pockets?”

  “Only some change.”

  He made no move to start the elevator. “Anything else?” He saw the bewildered look on my face. “The bell you hear is an electronic metals warning system. Pocket change is not enough to set it off. You must have something else you’ve forgotten.”

  Then I remembered. “Only this. A silver cigarette case a girlfriend gave me.” I took it out.

  He looked at it for a moment, then took it from me. He opened a small door in the panel in front of him and placed it inside. The bell stopped ringing immediately.

  He took it out and returned it with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gaunt, to have to disillusion you, but it’s only silverplate over metal with a nickel base.”

  I put it back in my pocket with a grin. “It doesn’t surprise me.”

  He turned back to the panel and punched a button. The elevator rose swiftly. I looked up over the door at the blinking lights. There were no numbers, only X’s.

  “How does Mr. Sinclair know what floor he is on?”

  The guard’s expression was serious. “He has a key.”

  The elevator slowed and stopped, the doors opened. I stepped out into an all-white reception room. The doors closed as a young woman came
toward me.

  She was cool and blonde and dressed in basic black. “Mr. Gaunt, this way, please.”

  I followed her to a small waiting room. “Mr. Sinclair will be with you in a few moments. There are papers and magazines here. Would you like me to bring you a cup of coffee?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Black, with one sugar.”

  She left and I sat down, picking up the Wall Street Journal. I flipped to yesterday’s closings. Greater World Broadcasting was at 18 off an eighth, Sinclair Broadcasting, SBC, was 142 up a quarter. It wasn’t only a thousand light-years from Central Park West, it was seventy-two TV stations, a hundred markets, and five hundred million dollars.

  She came back with the coffee. It was not only hot and black but it was also cool, served in Coalport china that Aunt Prue would have been proud to keep in her cabinet. “Only a few minutes more,” she smiled.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got time.”

  I watched her walk away again. She had good movement, it was all there, but like everything else in this office, very contained. I wondered what she would do if I grabbed her ass.

  She was back just as I finished my coffee. “Mr. Sinclair will see you now.”

  I followed her out of the waiting room, through the reception hall to a door. There was nothing on it, not even PRIVATE. She opened it and I walked through.

  Spencer Sinclair III looked exactly like the pictures I had seen of him. Tall, slim, beautifully turned-out, thin nose, thin mouth, square chin, cold, intelligent, gray eyes. Altogether he didn’t much show his years.

  “Mr. Gaunt.” He rose from behind his desk and we shook hands. His grip was firm and polite. Nothing more, nothing less. “Please sit down.”

  I took a chair in front of his desk. He pressed a button down on his intercom. “Please hold all calls, Miss Cassidy.”

  He returned to his seat and we looked at each other for a few moments. Then he spoke. “We finally meet. I’ve been hearing so many things about you. It seems you have a talent for making people talk about you.”

  I waited.

  “Are you curious about what they’re saying?”

  “Not really,” I answered. “It’s enough that they talk.”

  “You’re supposed to be a comer,” he said.

  I smiled at that. If he only knew just how right he was. I had a date to take his daughter Barbara to an abortionist right after lunch.

  He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and glanced at it. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I’ve had personnel do a little rundown on you.”

  I shrugged. “Seems only fair. I did the same on you. Only I did it in The New York Times files.”

  “Stephen Gaunt, age twenty-eight, born New Bedford, Mass. Father, John Gaunt, bank president. Mother, former Anne Raleigh, both deceased. Attended good New England schools. Employment, Kenyon and Eckhardt, advertising one year, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, films, administration and advertising two years, Greater World Broadcasting, radio and television, assistant to the president, Harry Moscowitz, for the past three years. Bachelor. Active socially.”

  He put down the paper and looked at me. “There’s only one thing I don’t understand.”

  “What’s that?” I asked. “Maybe I can help you.”

  “What’s a nice Gentile boy like you doing in a place like that?”

  I knew just what he meant. “It’s really quite simple,” I said, “I’m their Shabbos goy.”

  I could see from his face he didn’t know what I was talking about. I made the explanation simple and to the point. “Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. They won’t work. So they turned Saturday over to me. And, according to the Nielsens, so did you, and CBS and NBC and ABC.”

  “You’re pretty cocky, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said flatly.

  “What makes you think we can’t stop you if we want to?”

  I grinned. “Mr. Sinclair, all of you have been trying for almost a year and a half now and got nowhere. You’re just lucky we’re in only eleven of the hundred markets or you would have been completely wiped out.”

  He stared at me. “I don’t know whether I like you or not.”

  I got to my feet. “You’re a busy man, Mr. Sinclair, so I won’t take any more of your time than I have to. Do I get the job or not?”

  “What job?” he asked. “I wasn’t aware—”

  “Mr. Sinclair, if you brought me over here just to see who was kissing your daughter good night, you’re wasting your time and mine. I’ve got a network to run and I’ve been away from my desk long enough.”

  “Sit down, Mr. Gaunt,” he said sharply.

  I remained standing.

  “I was thinking of offering you the position of vice-president in charge of programming, but now I’m not sure that I will.”

  I grinned at him. “Don’t bother. I’m not interested. I’ve been there for three years now.”

  He stared up at me. “Exactly what job are you interested in? Mine?”

  “Not quite,” I smiled. “President, Sinclair Television.”

  “You must be joking!” He was shocked.

  “I never joke about business.”

  “Dan Ritchie has been president of STV for ten years now and before that Sinclair Radio for fifteen years. He’s one of the best executives in the industry. Do you think you can fill the shoes of a man like that?”

  “I don’t want to,” I replied. “They’re old shoes and ready to be thrown out. They’re radio, not television. You haven’t got a single major executive under fifty-two, but the bulk of your audience is under thirty and growing younger every year. How do you expect to reach them when they stopped listening to their parents a long time ago?

  “And I don’t intend to beat my brains out trying to convince a bunch of ancients that the things I want to do are right. I want to be the word, the authority. Nothing else interests me.”

  He was silent for a moment. “How do I know you will listen to me?”

  “You don’t,” I smiled. “But you can be sure I’ll be listening to someone.”

  “Who?”

  “The Nielsens,” I said. “Right now, STV is number four behind the other three networks. In two years we’ll be number one or damn close to it.”

  “And if we’re not?”

  “You can tie a can to me. At least you won’t be any worse off. You can’t go below four.”

  He looked down at the papers on his desk for a long while. When he spoke again, it was in another voice. He was Barbara’s father. “Are you going to marry my daughter?”

  “Is that one of the conditions of the job?”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Then I’m not going to marry her.”

  His next words were forced and painful. “But what about the baby?”

  I looked at him. He just went up ten points in my book. “We’re taking care of that this afternoon.”

  “Is he a good doctor?”

  “The best,” I said. “It’s being done in a private clinic in Scarsdale.”

  “You’ll call me as soon as it’s over?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I will.”

  “Poor Barbara,” he said. “She’s really a good girl.”

  How do you tell a father that his daughter is a ding-dong and stoned out of her mind on pot half the time?

  “Is it—the baby—yours?”

  I looked into his eyes. “We don’t know.”

  His eyes fell. “If the doctor thinks there will be any problem, you won’t let him do it?”

  “I won’t,” I said. “It may sound strange to you, sir, but in my own way I care for Barbara and I don’t want to see her hurt.”

  He took a deep breath and got to his feet. He held out his hand. “You’ve got the job. When can you start?”

  “Tomorrow, if it’s okay with you. I quit there last week and just finished cleaning out my desk this morning.”

  He smiled for the first time. “Tomorrow’
s okay.”

  We shook hands and I started for the door. I stopped with it half open. “By the way, what floor is this?”

  “Fifty-one.”

  “Where’s Ritchie’s office?”

  “On forty-nine.”

  “I want mine on fifty,” I said and closed the door behind me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I pressed the doorbell again. I could hear the sound of the record player blaring away. She still did not answer.

  I tried the door. It opened. The heavy sweetly acrid fumes hit me as soon as I stepped inside. All you needed for a high was to cross the room. I threw open the windows leading to the terrace and turned off the stereo. My ears tingled with the sudden silence.

  “Barbara!” I called out.

  There was no answer. Then I could hear her giggling. I walked toward the bedroom and stopped in the open doorway.

  She was sitting, naked, in the middle of the floor, the reefer hanging between her lips. Standing over her, balancing a toy pail filled with water on his erect penis, was a tall young Negro boy.

  He saw me before she did. He grabbed frantically at the pail as he lost his erection. He caught it, but not before some of the water spilled over her. His face began to pale.

  She turned toward me. “Steve!” There was reproach in her voice. “You frightened him.”

  “I’m sorry.” I stepped into the room.

  The boy shrank back. His voice trembled. “You her husband?”

  I shook my head.

  “Her boyfriend?”

  “Don’t be silly, Raoul,” she said sharply. “He’s just a friend.” She turned back to me and began to giggle again. “You just saved me fifty dollars. Raoul said that if he lost his hard before an hour I wouldn’t have to give him anything.”

  I took two bills out of my pocket and gave them to the boy. “Beat it.”

  I don’t think it took him more than a minute to dress and get out of the apartment. I closed the door behind him and went back to the bedroom.

  She was stretched out on her bed. “Fuck me, Steve,” she said in a husky voice. “He got me all excited. He had such a beautiful big prick.”

  “Get dressed,” I said harshly. “We’ve got a date.”