The Troubled Air (25 page)

Ironically, Pokorny’s score had been one of his best, very clever and useful, bridging gaps in the script with nimble arrangements, making flat scenes seem dramatic and tense. Pokorny wasn’t in the studio. Archer had called to invite him to the rehearsal, but Mrs. Pokorny, who had answered the phone, had said, coldly, “He can’t come. He’s sick. He can’t get out of bed.”

Archer had hired a new composer, a man called Shapiro, who sat uneasily at Archer’s shoulder, tapping nervously with his fingers on a stiff notebook all day. Shapiro was a pale young man with lank hair and he did not look promising. As Shapiro listened, Archer could sense the man’s spirits almost visibly sinking. Shapiro, it was obvious, knew his talents well enough to realize that he could never do as well as Pokorny. Without saying a word to each other, both Archer and Shapiro knew that there were going to be bad moments ahead in the musical department.

O’Neill came in late, red-faced, moving with elaborate solidity, and smelling of liquor. It was the first time Archer had ever caught O’Neill drinking on the day of a program, so he knew that O’Neill was feeling the strain, too. O’Neill was not wearing his mink-lined coat. He only wore it when he was feeling humorous and satisfied with himself. There’s nothing humorous about him today, Archer thought, watching O’Neill sit very straight, bulky in a small chair, keeping his eyes exaggeratedly wide open and making an obvious business of listening to everything that was going on and reacting too often and too energetically. Maybe it has nothing to do with the program, Archer thought, looking for comfort. Maybe he’s having trouble with his wife. That’ll keep a mink coat in the closet and make three Martinis before five o’clock seemed like a necessity for survival.

Hutt had not appeared all day and there was no sign of the sponsor.

Uptown and downtown, it had been a bad week. Thursday, Archer thought, is a day that one should occasionally be allowed to drop from the calendar. All his life, he remembered, Thursday had been a special day. Somehow, his mother always seemed to take him to the dentist on Thursday. And for the two years that she had forced him to take lessons on the piano, the teacher, a sharp, unpleasant woman with pockmarks, had come on Thursday. And examinations in high school in geometry and algebra, subjects which had baffled him, seemed inevitably to come on Thursday. And the worst fight he had ever been in, which had cost him two teeth, had been on a Thursday afternoon, after a piano lesson. Probably, Archer thought, the day I am killed will turn out to be a Thursday.

Archer gave the cast a break a half hour before the program was scheduled to go on. Most of them left the studio. O’Neill stood up and went out heavily, without talking to Archer. Shapiro left, saying almost apologetically, as though he were not quite sure that he deserved it, “I think I’ll get a cup of coffee. Can I bring you anything?”

“No, thanks,” Archer said. He sat at the control desk, feeling inelastic and slow, staring through the window at Herres, who was talking desultorily to the sound man.

“Mother,” said Brewer, the engineer, who was sitting next to Archer, “we are carrying a full load of gremlins tonight. Look for headwinds and foreign matter in the air. What’s the matter with everybody?”

“The approach of spring,” Archer said shortly, worried that the engineer had noticed it too and wishing that the program was already behind him.

“Something’s approaching. That’s a cinch.” Brewer got up and stretched enormously. “I’m going to go into the hall and get a smoke for my aching nerves. Call me if the wires begin to smoulder.” He grinned and patted Archer comfortingly on the back. He started to go, then stopped. “Say, Clement,” he said, in a low voice, “what’s with this fellow, Shapiro?”

“What about him?” Archer asked defensively.

“You going to use him from now on?”

“Yes.” Archer pretended he was busy looking at the script, hoping that Brewer would leave.

“What’s the matter with Pokorny?”

“We’re trying a change,” Archer said. He made a busy, meaningless mark on the page in front of him.

“I’m just the big stupid engineer,” Brewer said, “and all my brains are in my fists, but I think Pokorny’s job tonight is one of the nicest little things I’ve heard.”

“It’s not bad,” said Archer. He turned a page ostentatiously.

Brewer looked at him puzzledly. He shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He went out, rolling his sleeves down over his huge arms.

Left alone, Archer took off his glasses, closed his eyes and rubbed them gently with his fingertips. I’ll have to explain to Brewer, too, he thought wearily. He’s too decent a man to be lied to. A vista of explanations loomed before him. To Brewer, to Barbante, to Herres, to friends, to enemies, to people who would approve and to others who would disapprove, all of them curious, all of them with a right to know why he was doing what he did. All my life, Archer thought gloomily, I will probably find myself explaining away these two weeks.

He heard the door click and opened his eyes resentfully.

“Amigo …” It was Barbante. Archer swung slowly in his chair and nodded to the writer. The control room filled with the scent of his toilet water as he sat down in an armchair, his legs sprawled luxuriously in front of him. “I saw you sitting here lonely and deserted,” Barbante said, yawning, “and I came in to cheer you up.”

“Consider me cheered,” Archer said.

“God,” Barbante said, yawning again, “I’m sleepy.”

“I know,” said Archer grimly. “That’s been plain enough.”

Barbante grinned. “I wasn’t my usual glittering self today, was I, amigo?”

“You certainly weren’t.”

“Clement Archer,” Barbante said, still smiling comfortably, “the master of the soft answer. Candid Clem, with the cast-iron conscience.”

“This script is dead on its feet tonight. And you might just as well have stayed home in bed for all the good you did today.”

“You can’t win them all, amigo,” Barbante said carelessly. “Don’t give it another thought. Next Thursday’s another week.”

“Would it be ungentlemanly on my part,” Archer said, “to suggest that you get to bed before three o’clock in the morning next week?”

“OK, Coach,” Barbante said, “I’ll eat at the training table, too, and I’ll do pushups every morning. Say—what’re you doing Saturday night?”

“Why?” Archer asked suspiciously.

“I’m giving a little party. Vic’s coming. O’Neill. A few other people.”

“Thanks,” Archer said, a little surprised at the invitation. Barbante had never invited him before. “I’ll check with Kitty and see if we’re free.”

“Oh …” Barbante said offhandedly. “Jane’s coming, too.” He took out his cigarette case and offered it to Archer. Archer looked down at the heavy gold box. There was an inscription on the inside cover. He couldn’t read the words, but he saw a signature engraved there, in a woman’s flowing handwriting. Probably, he thought, he has a whole collection of gold objects at home, suitably inscribed from satisfied ladies. He must have to search his memory carefully before he goes out each night, to make sure he matches the correct trophy for the particular date.

“No, thanks,” Archer said. He watched Barbante put a cigarette into his mouth and flick a gold lighter, no doubt also inscribed.

“When did you talk to Jane?” Archer asked, carefully keeping his voice flat.

“Last night.” Barbante put the lighter away. “On the phone.”

Why did he say that? Archer thought. Am I supposed to believe him? Is he making fun of me?

“I told her to bring that nice boy, too …” Barbante wrinkled his forehead. “What’s his name? Bruce. I remember when I was a kid, I’d have given anything to get invited to a party like this. Actresses, figures in the literary world …” His voice was mocking, making little of his guests two nights in advance. “Debutantes with the bloom rubbed off. Divorcees in Dior dresses, equipped with fashionable alimony. Give him something to think about in the physics laboratory.”

“Dom,” Archer said slowly, “why don’t you leave Jane alone?”

“What?” Barbante sounded incredulous, but the look of secret amusement on his face was still there.

“She’s only eighteen years old.”

“Some of my best friends,” Barbante said, “are only eighteen years old.”

“She’s only a child.”

“Why can’t we use that line in the script, amigo?” Barbante’s tone was not playful and he was staring coldly at Archer, his eyes half-closed, the thick black lashes almost hiding the pupils. “That’s a dandy little old line and the script tonight could use something interesting and original like that. All poppas always think their daughters’re only children. I once went out with a woman of forty whose father had bedcheck at eleven-thirty every night. And the lady was a nymphomaniac. She’d worked her way through the entire list of the Dramatists’ Guild and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra by the time I caught up with her.”

“I think it would be more friendly if you left Jane alone, Dom,” Archer said stubbornly, feeling that he was in the wrong, sorry that he had begun this conversation, and hoping that Jane would never hear of it.

“I’m beginning to worry about you, Clem,” Barbante said. “The last week or so you’ve been acting very un-Clem-like. I find you slipping in my estimation, amigo, and I hate to see it happen. You’re beginning to behave like all the rest of the frightened little people I know—and I’m surprised and disappointed. I’m not kidding now. Anyway—what’re you worried about? You and Kitty’re going to be there Saturday night and I told Jane to have Bruce escort her to the party. How much harm do you think I could possibly be planning?”

“OK,” Archer said. He stood up. “Forget it.” He went out of the control room and into the nearly empty studio. The sound man was crushing cellophane in his hands, making a noise that might be ice breaking or ladies opening candy-boxes at a matinee. Herres had drifted over to the piano and was desultorily picking out “We’re Off to See the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” with two fingers, hitting the white keys only.

“Hi,” Herres said as Archer approached him. “I saw you conversing with that talented literary chap, Barbante. Did you give him the word on tonight’s little gem of wit and poetry?”

“It isn’t one of the best, is it?” Archer leaned wearily against the piano.

“You could bottle it and sell it to cure insomnia.” Herres used a third finger in a triumphant arrangement. “Put the pheno-barbital people on the rocks in two months.”

“I was acting like a father,” Archer said. “He’s been taking Jane out and I filed a protest. I’ve never felt sillier.” Herres pursed his mouth. He concentrated on the left hand for a moment. “Barbante,” he said, “not only vicious himself, but the cause of vice in others.”

“I wish Jane was thirty-five years old,” Archer said.

“Soon enough. Soon enough,” Herres said. “I really wouldn’t worry, Clement. She’s a solid girl.”

“I suppose so.” Archer sighed. “The trouble is, Barbante got insulted when I told him to quit, and I couldn’t help feeling he was right.”

Herres chuckled. “The dilemma of the modern man,” he said. “He sees all sides of every question.” He stopped playing. He sat and stared for a moment at the keyboard, his head bent, his thick, slightly disarranged blond hair very bright against the mahogany.

“What’re you doing tonight,” Archer asked, “after the show?”

“Going home,” said Herres, “and sleeping for twelve hours. I haven’t seen Nancy or the kids yet. And I’ve had a rugged week, and there was an old lady who puked all the way home from Detroit sitting right next to me in the plane. I’m a tired man.”

Archer nodded. “How about tomorrow?” he asked. “I’d like to talk to you for an hour or so.”

“I’ve got an hour show tomorrow night,” Vic said. “We start rehearsal at ten in the morning and that maniac Lewis is directing it. By the time I get through I won’t be fit to talk to anybody.” He glanced curiously at Archer. “Can’t it wait?”

“Not too long,” said Archer.

“There’s something funny going on,” Vic said. “Nobody around here seems happy with nobody. What’s been happening?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re alone,” said Archer.

“How about Saturday? Why don’t you come up to my place around one in the afternoon? I’ll give you a drink and we’ll launch the week-end.”

Archer nodded. “Saturday. At one,” he said.

Vic hit two notes on the piano. “You look bushed, kid,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you Saturday,” Archer said.

The door to the studio opened and Levy, the musical director, came in. He nodded to Vic and said, “Clem, I wonder if I could have a word with you.”

“Go ahead,” Vic said, beginning to play again. “I have to practice. I only have twelve more years before my debut at Carnegie Hall.”

Archer followed Levy over to a corner of the studio. Levy was a tall, intense-looking young man, with a nervous, handsome face. Archer had worked with him ever since his first days in radio and they had hit it off well from the beginning. There was no nonsense about Levy. He was intelligent and without vanity and there never was any need to pamper him or waste your energies being tactful when you were working with him.

“Listen, Clem,” Levy said in a low voice, standing close to Archer in the corner, “I’d like to know what’s going on with Pokorny.”

Archer sighed. Another man who deserved an explanation. “He’s out, Jack,” Archer said. “For the time being.”

Levy shook his head gravely. “I guess you know what you’re doing,” he said, “but you can’t get anyone better. He’s a pest and I’m in one of my periods with him, I’ve forbidden him to talk to me. But I’ve got to admit—week in and week out, he does an awfully fine job.”

Archer smiled wanly. It was a recurring drama between Pokorny and the musical director. Each year there would be a period of three or four weeks when Pokorny was reduced to sending notes into the music room by emissaries. Nobody but Pokorny ever took the situation seriously and each time there would be an emotional reconciliation, with Pokorny throwing his arms around Levy, and shouting, “I forgive you, my son. I forgive everything you have done to me.”

“I know,” Archer said. “He was prostrated by the trumpets last week.”