The Dream Merchants Read online

  “So you finally came down?” Joe smiled.

  Peter was cautious. “Things were quiet. I had nothing better to do,” he explained.

  “Well, what do you think of it?” Joe asked, waving his hand at the studio around him.

  Peter was still cautious. “It’s all right. Very interesting.”

  Joe turned to Johnny. “I think I saw the boss come in while I was working. Why don’t you take Peter over to meet him? I got another scene to shoot before I can call it a day.”

  “All right,” Johnny answered.

  Peter followed him back to the office. The office was a large room with a few men and girls sitting at desks and working. At the back of the office there was a little railing. Just inside the railing was the desk of William Borden. It was a big roll-top desk that completely hid the little man who sat behind it. Only the top of his bald head could be seen over it as he occasionally moved or spoke into the telephone perched on the side of it.

  Johnny led Peter through the railing up to the desk. The little man looked up.

  “Mr. Borden,” Johnny said, “I’d like you to meet my boss, Peter Kessler.”

  The little man sprang to his feet. Peter and he looked at each other for a few startled moments. Then Borden smiled and thrust out his hand. “Peter Kessler,” he said in a thin high-pitched voice. “Of course. Don’t you remember me?”

  Peter took his hand and shook it. He looked puzzled. Suddenly a light of recognition came into his eyes. “Willie—Willie Bordanov.” He nodded his head excitedly, his face smiling. “Sure, your father had—”

  “That’s right”—Borden was grinning—“the pushcart on Rivington Street in front of Greenberg’s hardware store. You married his daughter, Esther, I remember. How is she?”

  The two men were talking excitedly when Johnny left them and went back to see Joe. He had a hunch that something would come of it. Something had to come of it. Bill Borden was the best salesman the picture business had ever had. He felt more sure of it than ever when Peter told him they were going to have dinner with Borden at his home that night.

  ***

  It was after dinner, while they were sitting in the kitchen of the Borden apartment, that the talk got around to the picture business. The evening had gone by and, much to Johnny’s disgust, the two men had done nothing but talk of their friends and their youth. It was Johnny who brought the talk around to the subject. He had started Borden talking about the combine, which was Borden’s pet anathema. Then gradually he led him around to making the statement that if there were more independent producers in the field, the combine would have to fold.

  Johnny nodded his head in agreement. “I been telling Peter that, but Peter thinks the hardware business is safer.”

  Borden looked at Peter, then at Johnny. “Maybe Peter is right, the hardware business is safer. But the picture business has more opportunity. It offers greater rewards for those who are willing to pioneer. Look at me. I started in three years ago with fifteen hundred dollars capital. In another few weeks I will have finished building a studio in Brooklyn that cost me fifteen thousand dollars, with equipment extra. My pictures are selling all over the country and I’m doing eight-thousand-a-week business. Next year this time, with my new plant, I’ll be doing twice that.”

  The figures impressed Peter. “How much would it cost to start in the business today?” he asked.

  Borden looked closely at him. “Are you serious?”

  Peter nodded his head and pointed to Johnny. “My young friend here has been plaguing me for the last six months I should be going in with him to the picture business. So I’m serious. If there’s money in it, why should I make jokes?”

  Borden looked at Johnny with a new respect. “So that’s why you didn’t take the job I wanted to give you,” he said to him. “You had plans of your own.” He turned back to Peter. “A dozen times I wanted Johnny to come to work for me and each time he said no. Now I know why.”

  For some reason Peter was touched. To think that Johnny had turned down jobs offered him and never even mentioned it. “Johnny’s a good boy,” he said. “He’s like one of the family.”

  Johnny was embarrassed. “How much would it take, Mr. Borden?”

  The two older men smiled understandingly at each other. Borden leaned back in his chair. “You should be able to go into business with ten thousand dollars.”

  “Then it’s out of the question for me,” Peter said. He lit a cigar. “I ain’t got that much.”

  “But—” Borden leaned forward, his voice grew a little excited. “I got an idea.” He got out of his chair and walked over to Peter. “If you really would like it, I got a proposition to make you.”

  “Nu?” asked Peter.

  “Like I said,” Borden answered, his voice once more calm, “I’m opening up in Brooklyn, a studio, in a few weeks. I had planned to sell my equipment at this studio because I got for my new place all new equipment.” He leaned over Peter’s chair and dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. “For six thousand dollars I can let you have my equipment at the old studio and it’s a bargain.”

  “Willie,” Peter said, getting to his feet and looking down at Borden, “you haven’t changed a bit since the days you tried to sell me two-cent shoelaces for a nickel off your father’s pushcart. I might be green in the picture business, but I’m not so dumb as you think. You think I don’t know the condition of your old equipment? It’s not for nothing I spent all these years in the hardware business not to know merchandise. If you had said to me three thousand dollars, I might have listened, but six, I laugh.”

  Johnny caught his breath. Was Peter crazy? Didn’t he know that you couldn’t get equipment in this business—that the combine controlled everything and that there were men who would jump at the opportunity of getting that equipment for six thousand dollars?

  Borden’s reply was even more amazing to Johnny. “Peter,” he said, “the only reason I made you an offer so sensational like that is because I want you in this business. I got anyway a feeling that you’re going into the picture business, so I’ll make you another proposition. From you and only you I’ll take three thousand dollars in cash down and three thousand dollars I’ll take in chattel mortgage. Such confidence I got in you as a person, you can pay me when you make the money.”

  The spirit of bargaining had caught Peter. “Make it five thousand, two down and the rest mortgage, and I’ll consider it. I’ll even talk to Esther about it.”

  Again Johnny was surprised. He didn’t understand why Peter said he would talk to Esther about it. He didn’t see why it was necessary. After all, what did she know about the picture business?

  But Borden didn’t seem surprised. He looked up shrewdly into Peter’s face. What he saw there must have pleased him, for suddenly he gave Peter a playful punch in the arm. “Good enough, Landsman!” he said. “If Esther approves it, we got a deal!”

  9

  Peter was very quiet on the train going home. Johnny didn’t talk much to him when he saw that Peter wanted to be left alone. Peter stared out of the window most of the time.

  The snow was still packed tightly on the ground when at last they got off the train and trudged toward home. As they drew near the house, Peter began to talk.

  “It’s not so easy like you think, Johnny,” he said. “There’s lots of things I got to do before I can even take a chance like that.”

  Johnny got the impression that Peter was talking more for his own benefit than Johnny’s, so he didn’t reply.

  “I got responsibilities here,” Peter went on. Johnny was right, Peter didn’t expect an answer. “I got the two businesses and the house, which I have to sell so we can have some cash to operate. The hardware business is not so good right now and I got a big inventory, which I expected to clear out in the spring.”

  “But we can’t wait,” Johnny protested. “You can’t ask Borden to wait until then. He will have to sell his equipment.”

  “I know,” Peter agreed, �
�but what can I do? You heard he wants at least two thousand in cash and right now I ain’t got it. I don’t know either whether it’s such a good thing to jump into anyhow. It’s a risky business. What if the pictures don’t sell? I don’t know nothing about making ’em.”

  “Joe’ll come in with us,” Johnny said, “and he knows how to make ’em. His pictures are the best that Borden’s got. We can’t lose.”

  “Maybe,” Peter said doubtfully as they came to the door. “But there’s no guarantees.”

  Peter went upstairs to his apartment and Johnny went into the nickelodeon.

  “Hallo, Johnny,” George called from behind his counter.

  “Hello, George.” Johnny walked over to the counter and sat down on a stool.

  George put a cup of coffee in front of him. “Have a good trip?”

  Johnny sipped at the coffee gratefully and started to unbutton his coat. “Yeanh”—he nodded—“pretty good.” “At least it would be if Peter wasn’t so damn cautious,” he thought.

  “I didn’t think you’d be down today,” he said aloud. “It’s so cold nobody’ll be out.”

  “Poopuls come out,” George said. “You should been here last night. Poopuls come minute she stops snowing and wait in entrance for you to open op.”

  Johnny was surprised. “You mean people were actually here last night in all that snow?”

  “Sure,” George said.

  “Did you tell ’em we’ll be open tonight?” Johnny asked.

  “Nope,” George said proudly, “did better. I go upstairs to Missus Kessler and tell her. She sticks head outside windows and sees poopuls. She comes downstairs and we put on show. Did good business too.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Johnny muttered under his breath. “But who ran the projector?”

  “Me,” George said beaming. “Missus Kessler took the tickets and my brother Nick, he work the store. I run him putty good too. Only broke film twice.”

  Twice in one show was nothing. “How did you learn to work the machine?” Johnny asked incredulously.

  “Watched you,” George answered. “Not so hard to do.” He looked at Johnny and smiled. “Sure is one good business. Make money easy. Put in film one end machine, money comes out other end.”

  Johnny never heard it put better. He finished his coffee and started for his room at the back of the store.

  “Johnny,” George called him back.

  “What?”

  “Missus Kessler, she say Peter go to New York. Maybe go into picture business there.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then what he do with this?” George asked. “Sell it?”

  “Maybe.”

  George walked over to him excitedly. He put his hand on Johnny’s arm. “If he does sell, you think maybe he’ll sell it to me?”

  Johnny looked at him a moment before he answered. “If he decides to sell and if you got money to buy, I don’t see why he won’t.”

  George looked at the floor. His face, as always when he was excited, turned a little red. “You know when I come to this country fifteen yirrs, I’m Grik, and poor boy, but my brother Nick and me, we live cheap and save few bucks maybe for to go back to old country with some day. I think now maybe we don’t go back to old country so quick. We use money to open up picture show.”

  “What made you think of that?” Johnny asked curiously.

  “I read in papers all over the country they open. In New York they got theaters now show only moving pictures.” George spoke slowly, he didn’t want to get mixed up in his choice of words. “If Peter sell me the building, I take out hardware store and make regular theater like New York.”

  “The whole building?” Johnny didn’t believe his ears.

  “The whole building,” George said, then added cautiously: “That is, if Peter don’t ask too much money!”

  Peter had just finished explaining to Esther why he thought they would not be able to take Borden’s proposition when Johnny came running up the stairs. He burst into the room.

  “Peter, we got it! We got it!”

  Peter looked at him as if he were crazy. “Got what?”

  Johnny couldn’t stand still. He picked up Esther and swung her around. Peter’s mouth hung open as he watched them. “Our worries are over,” Johnny sang out, “George will buy it. The whole building!”

  His excitement was contagious. Peter went over to him and shouted: “Stand still a minute, you crazy fool! What do you mean George will buy it? Where’ll he get the money?”

  Johnny looked at him grinning. “He’s got the money. He says so and he wants to buy the place.”

  “You’re crazy,” Peter said with finality. “It’s impossible.”

  “Impossible?” Johnny yelled. He walked over to the door and opened it. “Hey, George,” he shouted down the hall, “come on up!” He stood there holding the door open.

  They could hear the footsteps on the stairs. They were slow and hesitating at first and then grew firmer as they came closer. At last George came into the room. His face was red and he looked at the floor as he stumbled across the room toward them.

  “What’s this Johnny tells us?” Peter asked him.

  George tried to speak but couldn’t. The English words just wouldn’t come to his tongue. He gulped twice and then looked at Peter helplessly.

  It was Esther who came to his rescue. Sensing the poor man’s distress and divining the reasons that lay behind it, she went up to him and took his hand. “Come and sit down, George,” she said quietly, “and while you men talk it over, I’ll make some coffee.”

  ***

  And so it was settled. A week later George had bought the building and the nickelodeon for twelve thousand dollars, half cash and half notes secured by mortgage. Peter arranged for the sale of the merchandise in the hardware store to the only other hardware merchant in the neighborhood, who was only too glad to buy it because it left him with a clear field.

  The very next day Peter signed his agreement with Borden and an hour later rented the building in which the equipment stood, thus taking care of his studio space.

  When the papers were all signed, Borden turned to Peter and grinned. “Now you need some help to make pictures. I got a few relatives who know the business and they could be of real use to you. Maybe I should send them over to talk to you?”

  Peter smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll need them.”

  “But you got to have help to make pictures,” Borden protested. “I’m thinking only of your good. You don’t know nothing about how to make them.”

  “That’s true,” Peter admitted, “but I got some ideas I’d like to try out first.”

  “It’s all right with me,” Borden said, “it’s your funeral.”

  They were seated around a big table at Luchow’s on Fourteenth Street. Borden and his wife, Peter, Esther, Johnny, and Joe made up the party. Borden got up to make a toast. “To Peter Kessler and his good wife, Esther,” he said, holding a glass of champagne in his hand. “All the luck in the world in producing—” He stopped in the middle of the toast.

  “I just thought of something,” he said. “You ain’t got no name for your pictures. What are you going to call them, Peter?”

  Peter looked puzzled. “I never thought of that. I didn’t know I had to have a name for them.”

  “It’s very important,” Borden assured him solemnly. “How else are the customers going to know they’re your pictures?”

  “I have an idea,” Esther said.

  They looked at her.

  Her face flushed a little. “Peter,” she said, turning to her husband, “what did the waiter call that big bottle of champagne you ordered?”

  “A magnum,” Peter answered.

  “That’s it.” She smiled. “Why not call it Magnum Pictures?”

  A chorus of approval rose from the table.

  “Then it’s settled,” Borden said, holding up his glass again. “To Magnum Pictures! They should be seen on every screen in
the country just like Borden Pictures!”

  They all drank and then Peter got up. He looked around the table and picked up his glass. “To Willie Borden, who I will never forget his kindness.”

  Again they drank. When they put their glasses down, Peter still stood there. He cleared his throat. “This is a big day in my life. Today I went into the business of producing pictures. Tonight my dear wife gave them a name. Now I would like to make an announcement.” He looked around dramatically. “I announce the appointment of Mr. Joe Turner as studio and production manager of Magnum Pictures.”

  Borden didn’t act surprised. He smiled and reached over the table and shook hands with Joe. “No wonder Peter didn’t want any of my relatives,” he said ruefully. “You must have tipped him off.”

  There was a relieved burst of laughter at that. Peter had been worried about how Borden would take it. He didn’t know that Johnny and Joe had spoken to Borden some time ago about it.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, “I got another announcement.”

  They looked at him.

  He held up his glass. “To my partners, Johnny Edge and Joe Turner.”

  Joe just sat there with his mouth open; he gulped but couldn’t speak.

  It was Johnny who jumped to his feet and faced Peter. His heart was beating wildly and his eyes glistened moistly. “Peter,” he said, “Peter—”

  Peter grinned at him. “Don’t get so excited, Johnny. After all, you only got ten percent apiece!”

  AFTERMATH

  1938

  TUESDAY

  You sit back in your seat and try to look relaxed. The pressure in your ears grows heavier and heavier and you get a tight knotty feeling in the pit of your stomach. The lights in the cabin are low and you strain your eyes to see how the other people in the plane are acting when suddenly the wheels touch the ground. Without realizing it you have been chewing the gum faster and faster and now suddenly it tastes bad in your mouth.