Chapter 4
Paul got home around three-thirty, and had to let himself in with his key. There was no one in the house. The Humboldts lived frugally with their two girls away at college; they had fired the maid, and the cleaning woman came only on Tuesdays and Fridays. Vickie Humboldt would be off playing bridge somewhere, with a dark brown drink by her side, and Frank would be knocking his brains out down on Wall Street, or wherever it was he knocked his brains out. They were sure knocked out by the time he got home at night.
Home, to Paul, since his mother had gone to California two years before, had been the spare bedroom upstairs at the Humboldt's where he kept his books and his records and his out-of-season clothes. For rune months of the year he was away at school-or had been-and for the other three months she usually managed to be somewhere else. Frank Humboldt, about ten years older than his mother, was her second cousin. "Dear Cousin Frank," his mother would say, talking about him, and laugh in that odd, lewdly amused way she had-and Paul had had to call him "Uncle Frank" till he was about six, when he'd kicked the habit. His mother had something on Cousin Frank; so he had a mailing address and a place to keep his books and records and a place to stay, when there was absolutely no other place to go.
He liked Frank all right, but Vickie was a pure pain in the ass. She hated his mother, for one thing-maybe she knew what it was his mother had on dear Cousin Frank and she let it show in the way she behaved toward Paul. He couldn't have cared less. He spent as little time as possible in the house in Scarsdale. Squaresdale, he'd called it, when he first moved his gear to the Humboldt house, but he'd soon learned to call it Screwsdale, as the rest of the natives did. With reason.
After he'd gotten his luggage out of the trunk of the Packard and brought it up to his room, he found a Manhattan telephone book on a shelf under the telephone table in the hallway downstairs. He found the Norman, Wade and Gelder number without any trouble, and Sam Wycliffe was in, but he had some trouble with his secretary, had to give his name three times before Sam Wycliffe got on the phone.
"Paul Beck," he said. "Dianne Beck's boy?"
That's me."
"Hell. I remember you. I met you at your house when you were about thirteen or fourteen. You were on crutches. Broke your leg playing football or something. Sure, I've met you."
"I remember," Paul said. He didn't, but it didn't matter. And he hadn't broken his leg playing football, he'd broken it jumping out a bedroom window when a neighborhood mother had come upstairs unexpectedly, but that didn't matter either. "How's your mother?"
"She's fine. She's out in California, you know."
"I know," Wycliffe said. "She up and married some bastard of a screen writer."
"He's a pretty nice guy," Paul said.
"I didn't mean anything by that" Wycliffe said. "It's just the idea of your mother marrying anybody makes him a bastard to me."
"I see," Paul said. Another one, he thought.
"I hope not," Wycliffe said. "Anyway, what can I do for you?"
"I talked to Mom on the phone a while ago and she told me to call you. I'm looking for a job."
"Aren't you still in school?"
"I was," Paul said. "Until today."
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you about it when I talk to you."
"Fair enough," Wycliffe said. "How about tomorrow morning, around nine-thirty?"
"I'll be there."
"Got the address?"
"It's in the phone book."
"Eleventh floor," Wycliffe said. "See you in the morning." He hung up.
Maybe I'm going to like that business, Paul thought, putting the phone in its cradle. For a guy in the bullshit business, there didn't seem to be much bullshit about Wycliffe. But then, he was a friend of Mom's. It figured. She wouldn't spend two minutes of her time on a phony.
He caught the 8:36 out of Scarsdale in the morning, and didn't like one minute of the ride to Grand Central. When ol' Charlie and ol' Steve said hello or good morning it sounded more like congratulations, and the well-fed, well-dressed atmosphere of the smoking car reeked of self-satisfaction. He'd be moving out of Screwsdale, he decided. Quick.
The train was ten minutes late getting into Grand Central, but it was only a few minutes after nine-thirty when he walked into the Norman, Wade and Gelder reception room. The walls were lined with framed full-color ads, for what products he didn't stop to find out. The receptionist was a young Katherine Hepburn with tits. She put on large horn-rimmed glasses to look at him when he stopped in front of her desk. She had a smile that came wrapped in cellophane.
"Mr. Wycliffe?" she asked. "Have you an appointment?"
Top," he said, and she frowned. She didn't like that. Fuck her, he thought. In time. He walked over to one wall to look at the framed advertisements. They were mostly for cosmetics of one kind or another. Peachy as a son of a bitch.
"His secretary will be right out," the receptionist said to his back, and he nodded without answering. He could feel her eyes on him.
The secretary came out. She was a little redhead with a real smile, not wrapped in anything.
"Mr. Beck?" she said, cocking her head to one side. He was the only one in the reception room, for Christ's sake. He looked around.
"I must be," he said, and the redhead laughed. "All right," she said. "If you'll follow me?"
"Glad to," he said.
She had a determined, jaunty little strut, and her firm rounded ass bobbed a little with every step. Jesus, he thought, I'd love to work in this place. Just for the fringe benefits.
At a comer office she stopped and indicated an open door.
"He's in there," she said.
Sam Wycliffe was a big man, gray at the temples, and he stood up and came around the desk when Paul came through the door. He looked to be in pretty good shape, like a man who'd rowed stroke on somebody's crew once around World War II. A lot of gin had gone under the bridge since.
"Any son of Dianne Beck's is a friend of mine," he said, and put out his hand. Paid shook it. Corny old son of a bitch, he thought.
"Now," Wycliffe said, indicating a chair for Paul and going around his desk to sit down, "exactly what happened that you're all of a sudden out of college?"
"I'm a dropout," Paul said. "By request."
"As simple as that?"
"Not exactly," Paul said, and told him what had happened. All of it. Right up and through Mrs. Halsted.
Sam Wycliffe looked at him steadily for a long time after he'd finished. Paul recrossed his legs, his discomfort mounting. He'd figured candor would go a long way, but maybe he'd let it go too far.
Then Wycliffe laughed. He laughed for a long time, and there was nothing phony about the laugh.
"Dianne Beck's own son," he said. "I'll be a son of a bitch."
Paul didn't say anything. Talk about heritage and family tradition, he thought It looked as if he had it where it counted.
"Lots of imagination and lots of balls," Wycliffe said. "That's what we need around here."
"I've only got two of them," Paul said.
"You're at least one up on most of these guys," Wycliffe said. "How old are you, Paul?"
"You probably know how old I am so I won't He to you," Paul said. "I'm twenty."
"You could be twenty-four or five, easy," Wycliffe said, musing. He seemed almost to be talking to himself. "It's probably the dark complexion that does it"
Paul was still deeply tanned from the summer, but he didn't say anything.
"Black hair, black eyes," Wycliffe said, still talking to himself. "Good shoulders. Hell of a good-looking boy." Paul squirmed in his seat and started searching his pockets for his cigarettes.
"How tall are you?" Wycliffe asked suddenly. "Six feet?"
"About. Or a shade under." Paul was suddenly sore. "What the hell has that got to do with the high price of oats?" he said. It was an expression his mother used to use.
Wycliffe laughed.
"Nothing," he said. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking. We could use you around here."
Paul felt a sudden surge of elation. Fuck Mrs. Halsted, he thought, and his stomach turned over at the flash picture in his mind.
"We could use you," Wycliffe said. "And I don't mean in the mail room or as some kind of trainee or any of that half-assed crap. We could use you in client contact."
"What's that?" Paul asked.
"Never mind," Wycliffe said. "You can learn all you have to learn to begin with in about three days."
"Well, thanks," Paul said. "I'm glad you think so."
"You got a good voice. Talent's nice to have, and brains, but they don't mean a damn unless you have a good voice. A good voice wins out over brains and talent, any time. Sit in on a few meetings and you'll find out what I mean."
"I'll keep singing," Paul said. "I'll sing like a son of a bitch."
"Never mind the jokes, son." Paul shut up.
"Now, about this goddamn honesty of yours," Wycliffe said. "Honesty's a good thing, in its place, but there's no point in pushing it too far. Tell the truth, by all means, whenever it appears necessary. Make sure everything you say is the truth, under certain circumstances. But just tell the part of the truth that'll do you the most good."
"I think I understand," Paul said. I'm sure you do. Now, I can't hire you myself."
Paul felt himself starting to sink in the chair, and pulled himself erect.
"I can, but I won't," Wycliffe said.
"Why not?" Paul asked. He was glad to hear that his voice still sounded strong.
"Because in this business you never make a decision by yourself if you can avoid it. You get somebody else to say yes or no along with you, and that way there's always somebody else to share the blame if anything goes wrong. Like, if I hired you and you turned out to be a mainliner or something everybody'd say, You see what that silly son of a bitch Wycliffe did? Hired a hop-head."
I'm not," Paul said.
"I know," Wycliffe said, and grinned. "You never would've had the time."
"Thanks," Paul said. "There's nothing like knowing that people have confidence in you."
"So you'll have to see Bob Gelder. Hell do the actual hiring."
"Who's he?"
"He's the president of this agency. I'm what's called the executive vice-president."
"What happened to Norman and Wade?"
"Beats me," Wycliffe said. "When should I see Mr. Gelder?"
"Can you come after lunch? At quarter to three?"
"Sure," Paul said.
"I know he has no appointment then because he called a meeting for three o'clock. He'll be loaded when you meet him, right after lunch like that, but hell remember that he hired you afterwards. I'll go in and talk to him now, right after you leave."
"Anything else?"
"Yes," Wycliffe said. "You're twenty-four years old, not twenty. You just got out of school last June-you missed a couple of years on account of serving in Vietnam-and you're just starting to look for work because you had a bad attack of, let's see, pleurisy after graduaation. He doesn't know what the hell pleurisy is and neither do I but it's good enough. All that stuff will confuse the shit out of him but he'll like it You got it all?"
"Yep," Paul said. It was pretty simple.
"You'll have to work as an assistant account executive under Harold Dingman and share an office with him. He's a total jackass but you won't be working for him long, I have a feeling."
Paul got up and started for the door.
"You'll meet Bob Gelder this afternoon and you may not see him again for weeks, but whenever you're with him, keep one thing in mind."
"What's that?" Paul asked.
"He's a fuckin' idiot" Wycliffe said.
"I'll stop in and see you after I've talked to him," Paul said.
"Do that"
At the door, Paul stopped and turned. "See you later," he said. "And thank you, Mr. Wycliffe. "Call me Sam," Wycliffe said.