Tycoon (50 page)

“You could have done five or six. Don't forget the scripts you've turned down.”

“Harry, I want the role of Jason Maxwell's Norma.”

“My God, Joni! That's penciled in for Ingrid Bergman!”

“She's too old.”

“Audrey Hepburn's interested.”

“She's not earthy enough. No audience is ever going to believe Liza Dolittle is Norma.”

“Joni, I don't see how we can give you Norma.”

“I
need
it, Harry. It will make a hell of a big difference.”

“You put me in a hell of a position.”

Joni smiled lazily. “Suppose I get into a hell of a position? Let's go back to square one, Harry. I'm asking you to do something for me, the same as I did seven years ago; and I'm willing to do what I did seven years ago, to persuade you.”

“How can I say no to that?”

“Just remember, I'm good enough for the Norma part. You're not making any big-deal sacrifice. You're just going to do me a favor. And I'll do one for you.”

“One?”

“Now and again. Whenever. Deal?”

He reached for her hand as though to shake it, but when he had his grip on her he jerked her into his arms and kissed her fervently. Neither of them undressed. On her knees, she pulled out his parts. She slavered over his cock and over as much of his balls as she could reach through his underpants. It was not the way it had been before. He came in a minute.

J
ACK AND
A
NNE FLEW TO
C
OLUMBUS,
O
HIO, TO SEE
L
ITTLE
Jack play football for Ohio State. Liz refused to go.

She missed a spectacle of grand dimensions. Their host, the manager of the local Lear television station, drove Jack and Anne from the airport to the stadium, detouring through some residential neighborhoods to show them a display of glorious gold and red maples and oaks. The stadium was an immense horseshoe, filled with some eighty thousand rabid fans who generated pandemonium. The university band—all men, no women—marched with military precision and played the same way. Its trademark formation was to spell out “Ohio” in script. The band marched through the letters until the word was complete. Then a bandsman capered dramatically into place and dotted the
i
with a big white sousaphone.

Coach Woody Hayes had decided Little Jack was not the big, heavy boy he thought he was—not big or heavy enough to play guard or tackle, as he had supposed he would. Instead, he played as a linebacker. He was heavy enough for that, and he was fast. For good work, Coach Hayes awarded players buckeyes—outlines of buckeye leaves painted on their helmets. In this, his second season, Little Jack had six buckeyes on his. He earned a seventh that afternoon by sacking the Wisconsin quarterback so hard he knocked the ball loose, which Ohio State recovered.

The kind of play that had been decried by his prep school was extolled in big-time college football. Little Jack loved to hit. There was nothing personal about it; he just loved to hit a ball carrier and knock him sprawling. College football players were in such superb physical condition that getting hit didn't hurt them. Little Jack was in such superb physical condition that he could take return hits, too.

His nickname, Little Jack, was known at the university, but
it didn't seem quite appropriate, and the undergraduates gave him a new nickname: LJ. Twice during the game, when he'd made a spectacular hit, the crowd chanted, “LJ, LJ, LJ!”

Because Coach Hayes did a postgame show on the Lear television station, he made himself available to Jack and Anne for a short private visit. They met in a Spanish-style restaurant not far from the stadium. A little later they would join the crowd of supporters and parents in the main room, but the coach took his first drink with Jack, Anne, and Little Jack.

“I like your boy's spirit,” said Coach Hayes. He was a big, square, expansive man with a wide and ready grin. “He's got the right kind of stuff to be successful on the football field or wherever he decides to go.”

“Well, thank you,” said Jack. “I don't know if he's told you, but he had a half brother who had the right kind of spirit, too. He was killed in a night carrier landing in the Pacific.”

“LJ, you never mentioned that.”

Little Jack grinned. “I didn't know if I should.”

“You should have. Now, tell us, LJ,” said the coach with sincere enthusiasm, “just what did we learn from today's game?” He turned to Jack and Anne. “The boys are expected to learn something from every game. We play to win, yes; but we play for the learning experience, too. What did we learn today, LJ?”

“I suppose it was the importance of practice, Coach.”

“That's right, that's
exactly
right. Let me speak with your parents alone for just a minute.” When LJ had stepped away, Coach Hayes said, “He's a
brainy
player. That boy reads the football field about as well as any boy I ever coached. When he got that quarterback this afternoon
. . . I
didn't guess where that kid was going, but LJ did and went right after him. You can be proud of him.”

1968

T
HE COURT GRANTED THE PETITION OF
K
ATHLEEN
H
ORAN TO
change her name to Sara Lehrer.

Even so, she did not pursue her studies with the rabbi far enough to make her bat mitzvah. She went to the temple sporadically, then stopped going.

In June she would graduate from Columbia, which she had entered with advanced standing and with Linda's help. She told Jack she didn't know what she wanted to do. She confided in Anne more than in Jack and told Anne she would give anything in the world do be able to do what Joni did, yet she had to be realistic. She knew she had neither the talent nor the looks to become a movie star. Anne suggested she go to Los Angeles and spend a few days with Joni, where she might learn something that would surprise her.

Joni gladly agreed to receive her, and shortly after graduation, Sara flew to Los Angeles.

D
OUGLAS
H
UMPHREY WAS EIGHTY-TWO YEARS OLD AND DE
cided to retire from active participation in business. He notified Jack that he meant to resign from the LCI board of directors and asked Jack to come to Houston to meet with him and discuss the question of who would succeed him.

Jack took the company jet from Westchester Airport and flew to Texas on a Monday in July. Humphrey liked to meet
beside his pool. Jack unpacked in the guest room and went out wearing a pair of swim trunks. Humphrey sat under his big umbrella, as usual; and, as usual, Mary Carson was swimming.

Humphrey was cracking crab claws. He shoved the platter toward Jack.

“I've written a will,” he said. “I leave as much as I can to Mary. She'll own most of my interest in everything. She's helped me a lot the last few years. She knows as much about things as I do, just about.”

“She impresses me very positively,” said Jack. “Always has.”

“My son was killed in Normandy in 1944.1 had supposed he would inherit from me and run the businesses, but— Mary is the child of my middle age. I was forty years old when she was born. She is divorced. She has given her recent years to me.

“You are fortunate to have her,” said Jack.

“How would you react to Mary's replacing me on the LCI board of directors?”

Surprised by the question, Jack glanced at the husky, deeply tanned, bikini-clad woman who was swimming laps in the pool. “Doug, I can't think of a reason why not.”

Humphrey smiled. “You'd give me a reason if you could think of one, right?”

“I suppose so, but I can't think of one.”

“If I vote my stock and you vote yours, for Mary, it's settled.”

“Okay. It's a deal.”

“Mary! He agrees.”

She climbed out of the pool and came to the table. She poured gin on the rocks for herself and raised her glass.

W
HILE
J
ACK WAS IN
T
EXAS,
A
NNE WENT TO THE HOSPITAL
and received her first X-ray therapy. It made her nauseous. She thought she'd throw up, but she didn't.

Dr. Manning gave her a shot to relieve the nausea. “Have you told your family yet?” he asked her.

“My stepdaughter knows,” she said quietly.

“You're not going to be able to keep it a secret much longer,” he said.

“I haven't got much time left.”

“I wish I could tell you how much. Sometimes X-ray therapy arrests the disease for months, even years. But—”

“You said maybe five years. I've only had three and a half.”

“Your children are grown, aren't they?”

“My son is a loutish hunk of a football player for Ohio State. My daughter graduated from high school this year and will go to Princeton in the fall. I've been spared long enough to see them out of the nest. It's my husband who is going to need emotional support.”

“Who's supporting
you
, Mrs. Lear? Emotionally.”

“It will be bad enough for Jack when it happens. I don't want him to have to suffer through it for months ahead of time.”

H
ARRISON
W
OLCOTT DIED IN
J
UNE, AGED EIGHTY-SEVEN.
J
ACK
and Anne flew to Boston for the funeral. The Horans, who had appeared for the funeral of Edith Wolcott, did not show up.

In July, Linda brought Nelly for a swim in the pool and told Anne that her marriage to Guy Webster was not working out. She was taking the Pill to prevent getting pregnant by him, but he wanted to begin a family.

“I don't want to have a child by that man. I've never done anything so stupid!” she wailed.

“Don't have a child you don't want,” Anne said softly.

Linda stared at Anne for a moment. She drew her lower lip in between her teeth for a moment, then said, “Anne, you're losing weight. Are you dieting?”

“No, I'm anemic. It's causing me to lose weight, and it saps my energy.”

Linda frowned hard. “Anne . . . ?”

“Joni knows,” Anne whispered. “Now I guess you do, too. It's our secret. It will come out soon enough. But not yet.”

“Anne, I married bad. I came here today to ask how you and Jack would react if I walked away from Guy and came here to live for a while. That's what I want to do. You're going to need somebody here.”

Anne covered her face with her hands and began to sob. “Only if you're sure you want to leave your husband for other reasons.” she wept.

A
NNE AND
J
ACK WERE SITTING AT THE DINNER TABLE WITH
Linda and Nelly. “I think we— I think we—” Anne couldn't finish her sentence. Suddenly she pitched forward, and her face struck her plate.

“Anne! Anne!
No!”

Jack hovered over her, patting her shoulders and back, trying to revive her.

Linda called the emergency squad.

On Wednesday, September 18, 1968, Anne's secret was revealed.

Jack spent the next ten days at the hospital, twenty-four hours a day, getting a little sleep in the chair in Anne's room. He watched her weaken. He watched the desperate efforts taken in the hope of effecting a remission. She turned more and more lethargic. Her hair fell out, leaving her completely bald. She did not seem to know it. Certainly she did not care.

She was weak and slept most of the time, but during her waking hours she was alert; she knew and understood everything.

“I kept it from you as long as I could,” she told Jack. “You're suffering enough. There would have been no point in making you suffer all of the last three years.”

“I would have shared your suffering with you, at whatever cost,” he whispered.

“We've had twenty-two years together,” she said. “I would have paid this price for those years even if I had
known
what was going to happen.”

When she was asleep again, Jack sat in the vinyl-covered reclining chair and sobbed as quietly as he could.

After Anne's tenth day at the hospital, Dr. Manning asked Jack to sit down with him in the day room on the hospital floor. “She can go home now, Mr. Lear,” he said.

“To die,” Jack said numbly.

The young doctor ran his hands over his eyes and cheeks. “We've done all we can,” he whispered.

Anne came home in an ambulance and was put to bed by two nurses. She would have round-the-clock nurses from then on.

Anne sat up in bed as much as she could. She asked Jack to play Scrabble with her, and as long as she remained alert she played well and seemed to enjoy it.

Jack called the children home. Liz came immediately. LJ said he had an important game Saturday but would try to get away and come home Sunday. Jack called Woody Hayes, who personally drove LJ to the university airport and put him aboard a Lear jet offered by an Ohio business corporation to fly the boy to Westchester Airport. He missed the game. The LCI jet brought Joni from Los Angeles. Sara came with her.

The family knew they were assembling to say good-bye to Anne.

She insisted on being brought down to the living room to see the family, even though she had to be carried. She sat in a wing chair to one side of the fireplace, wearing gray wool slacks that hid her emaciated legs and a dark green sweater that hid her emaciated arms. She did not cover her head. After drinking a Scotch and eating a bowl of soup, she urged the family to go in to dinner. She would not let them see Jack and the nurse support her on the stairs.

When she was asleep and Jack came back downstairs, he was weeping. He had not left the house except to go to the hospital since the day Anne had collapsed.
He
had collapsed as well. He could not function. Others were running the business. Mary Carson had flown up from Houston and assumed the chairmanship of an executive committee of the board of directors, to run the company until Jack returned. No one even tried to call him.