ROBBINS Harold - The Carpetbaggers

Nevada nodded. He'd heard my father say the same words often enough. And he'd been the one who taught me always to reach for the deal when the stakes were high.

"But what do you know about making pictures?" Pierce asked.

"Nothing," I said. "But how many people do you know who have made a talking picture?"

That stopped him. I could see the comprehension come into his eyes. What I had said was true. It was a new business. There were no veterans any more. I turned back to Nevada. "Well?"

"I don't know," he said slowly. "I'm lettin' you take the whole risk. I can't lose anything."

"You're wrong!" Pierce said quickly. "If it's a stinker, your career is shot!"

Nevada smiled at him. "I got along pretty good before," he said. "I'm a little old to worry about anything I fell into by accident."

"Well, Nevada?"

He stuck out his hand and the worry lines around his eyes lifted suddenly and he was young again. "It's a deal, Junior."

I took his hand and then went over to the telephone. I called Moroni at the bank. "Make arrangements to transfer the loan to Cord Explosives," I said.

"Good luck, Jonas," he said with a chuckle. "I had the feeling you were going to do it."

"Then you knew more than I did."

"That's what makes a good banker," he said.

I hung up and turned back to the others. "Now, the first thing I do is fire Von Elster."

Nevada's face was shocked. "But Von is one of the best in the business," he protested. "He's directed every picture I ever made. He discovered me."

"He's a lousy little shit," I said. "The minute he thought you were in trouble, he tried to sell you out. He had Bernie Norman up here at seven o'clock this morning. They wanted to give me some free advice. I didn't talk to them."

"Now maybe you'll believe me when I say Bernie was behind the squeeze," Pierce said.

"Like it or not, Nevada," I said, "we made a deal. It's my picture and what I say goes."

He nodded silently.

"The next thing I want is for Pierce to arrange for me to see as many of the talkies as possible in the next three days. Then, next weekend, I'll fly you all to New York. We're goin' to spend three or four days goin' to the theater. We might even pick up a stage director while we're there. We'll see." I paused to light a cigarette and saw a sudden look come over Nevada's face. "What are you smiling at?"

"Like I said, you're gettin' more like your pappy every day."

I grinned back at him. Just then, the waiter came in with breakfast. Nevada and Pierce went into the bathroom to wash up and Rina and I were left alone.

There was a gentle look on her face. "If you'd only let yourself go, Jonas," she said softly, "I think you might become a human being."

I looked into her eyes. "Don't try to con me," I said. "We both know why I did it. You and I made our deal last night."

The gentle look faded from her face. "Do you want me to blow you right now?" she asked.

I knew I had hit her from the way she spoke. I smiled. "I can wait."

"So can I," she replied. "Forever, if I have to."

Just then the telephone rang. "Get it," I said.

Rina picked it up and I heard a voice crackle for a moment, then she handed the phone to me. "Your wife."

"Hello, Monica."

Her voice was filled with anger. "Business!" she shrieked. "And when I call you up, some cheap whore answers. I suppose you're going to tell me it's your stepmother!"

"That's right!"

There was an angry click and the phone went dead in my hands. I looked down at it for a moment, then began to laugh. Everything was so right.

And so wrong.

I LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW AT THE FIELD. There were several planes warming up on the line, the red, white and blue ICA gleaming in the circle along their sides and under their wings. I looked down at the planning board, then up at the designer.

Morrissey was young, even younger than I. He had graduated from M.I.T., where he'd majored in aeronautical engineering and design. He wasn't a flier; he was of a new generation that walked on the sky. What he proposed was radical. A single-wing, two-motor plane that would outlift anything in the air.

He set his glasses lower on his nose. "The way I see it, Mr. Cord," he said in his precise manner, "is that by deepening the wings, we get all the lift we need and also increase our fuel capacity. Plus which, we have the added advantage of keeping our pilot in direct visual control."

"What I'm interested in is the payload and speed," I said.

"If my calculations are correct," Morrissey said, "we should be able to carry twenty passengers in addition to the pilot and copilot at a cruising speed of about two fifty. It should fly for about six hours before refueling."

"You mean we could fly from here to New York with only one stopover in Chicago?" Buzz asked skeptically. "I don't believe it!"

"That's what my calculations show, Mr. Dalton," Morrissey said politely.

Buzz looked at me. "You can throw away your money on fool schemes like this," he said, "but not me. I've been through too many of these pipe dreams."

"About how much would it take to build the first one?" I asked Morrissey.

"Four hundred, maybe five hundred thousand. After we get rid of the bugs, we can produce them for about a quarter of a million."

Dalton laughed raucously. "A half million bucks for one airplane? That's crazy. We'll never get our money out."

First-class passage coast to coast by train was over four hundred dollars. It took almost four full days. Plus meals, it came to more than five hundred bucks per passenger. A plane like this would have a payload of seven grand a trip, plus the mail franchise, which would bring it up to about eighty-five hundred dollars. Flying five trips a week, in less than twenty weeks we could get all our costs back, plus operating expenses. From there on in, it would be gravy. Why, we could even afford to throw in free meals on the flight.

I looked down at my watch. It was almost nine o'clock. I got to my feet. "I have to get down to the studio. They're shooting the first scene today."

Dalton's face turned red with anger. "Come off it, Jonas. Get down to business. For the past month and a half, all you been doin' is spending time at that goddam studio. While you're jerkin' off with that lousy picture, we got to find ourselves a plane to build. If we don't, the whole industry will get ahead of us."

I stared at him, unsmiling. "As far as I'm concerned," I said, "we have one."

"You're not- " he said incredulously, "you don't mean you're goin' to take a chance with this?"

I nodded, then turned to Morrissey. "You can start building the plane right away."

"Wait a minute," Dalton snapped. "If you think ICA is going to foot the bill, you're crazy. Don't forget I own half of the stock."

"And Cord Explosives owns the other half," I said. "Cord Explosives also holds over half a million dollars of mortgages on ICA planes, most of which are past due right now. If I foreclosed on them, I'd wind up owning all of Inter-Continental Airlines."

He stared at me angrily for a moment, then his face relaxed into a grin. "I shoulda known better, Jonas. I shoulda learned my lesson when I lost that Waco to you in the poker game."

I smiled back. "You're a great flier, Buzz. You stick to flying and leave the business end to me. I’ll make a rich man out of you yet."

He reached for a cigarette. "O.K.," he said easily. "But I still think you're nuts to build this plane. We could lose our shirt on it."

I didn't answer as we walked out to my car. There was no use explaining to Buzz the simple rules of credit. ICA would order twenty of these planes from Cord Aircraft. The two companies would then give chattel mortgages on them to Cord Explosives. And Cord Explosives would discount those mortgages at the banks, even before the planes were built. The worst that could happen, if the plane was no good, was that Cord Explosives would end up with a whopping tax deduction.