Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [240]
What the hell, Clint thought, Stonebraker’s staff will think of these things. Goddam, they’d all be there ... Perry Sindlinger, Matt Beck, Sid Swing, Pancho, Lou Edmonds ... what a wild-assed bunch of reprobates.... The bubble burst with a merciful final curtain.
The narrow, dirty street was swarmed with a sudden outpour of humanity from other drafty, uncomfortable theaters. They wrestled with the usual indecision of how to round out the evening. Judy suggested a chanteuse and combo at one of those East Side cabarets, also constructed for human torture with postage-stamp-sized tables.
Laura Schuster thought maybe that clever, clever little review at the Side Alley. She knew Milt would like it because it ripped the hell out of the Truman family. Laura also suggested a screamingly funny singer down in the village who was on the brink of being closed because of obscene lyrics. “He’s so witty,” Laura explained.
Milt Schuster suggested they go to Sardi’s because Milt didn’t have much imagination and Sardi’s was the traditional place to go.
Clint envisioned further discomfort and mob scenes and preposterous tabs.
They joined the new flock of sheep converging on Sardi’s, waited for forty minutes, and after proper apologies from a profusely perspiring headwaiter they were seated against the wall.
“The play was utterly divine,” Laura Schuster said.
Milt thought it had its moments.
Judy said there was still a lot of magic in the team of Hunt and Martin.
“The play was unadultered crap,” Clint said. They tittered because Clint was in one of his cleverly candid moods. “This evening cost us a bill ... one hundred dollars to eat garbage and sit on planks to hear a crusty old fart mumble lines completely without conviction. Clara Martin has a grandson in Princeton. I resent a talentless playwright telling me she is a desirable mistress. And I am about ready to throw up listening to you three literate people justifying this crap.”
They grinned at him sickly.
“Tomorrow night we may debase ourselves by going to a comfortable neighborhood theater and for two bucks watch a great movie, but God almighty, we have to rip it apart because it was made in Hollywood. You know what we are. We’re not only phonies ... we’re suckers.”
Judy quickly patted Laura Schuster’s hand. “Clint will call you sweet people tomorrow and tell you how sorry he is. Good night, darlings.”
On the way home the cab driver said, “Why in hell should I be loyal to the goddam Dodgers, I ask you? In 1928 I had a good business, I had a house paid for, I had dough in the bank. Comes the crash, I’m wiped out. Lemme ask you somethin’ pal, did the Dodgers care about me? Hell no. So, why should I care about the Dodgers?”
Clint gave an exorbitant tip for his friendly philosophy; then resented the doorman because he always felt capable of opening his own door.
Judy knew there was a choice of two ways to handle him, either have a counterexplosion of her own, or give him overwhelming sex for a week to smother his discontent.
He loaded a glass with scotch and stared morosely out at the perpendicular cement prisons of Manhattan, again not watching Judy undress and this worried her. She scented herself, slipped beside him.
“Lover ... momma wants.”
“Who are we? My kids don’t even know what sunshine looks like. It’s rationed out here in cheap, grotesque snatches when their Nana parades them over to that hood-filled excuse for a park.”
“Clint, honey, I told you Pudge Whitcomb talked vice presidency at the last cocktail party. He means it, and when it comes through we can move to a wonderful penthouse with our own roof garden ...”
“Filled with false hedges because no self-respecting plant would grow here. Do you suppose we’ll ever see the moonlight again? Does it ever shine over this place or are we too damned busy elbowing our way into Sutton Place to look for it.”
She pressed her bosom close to him. Clint got up and left the chair. “We’re antiseptic. We don’t even get dirty on vacations any more. The white