Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [241]
“In a minute I’ll ask what the devil you’re talking about. But tell me first about Stronson. What happened to him?”
“Never mind Stronson now. Forget Stronson.” Cantabile then shouted, “Fuck Stronson!” This must have been heard all over the pensión. After that his head shook a few times as if with vibration or recoil. But he collected himself, fetched his shirt-cuffs from under the coat sleeves, and said in quite a different tone, “Oh, Stronson. Well, there was a riot in his office by people who got screwed. But he wasn’t even there. His big worry should be obvious to you. He lost a lot of Mafia money. They owned him. He had to do anything they said. So about a month ago they called the obligation in. Did you read about the Fraxo burglary in Chicago? No? Well, it was a sensational heist. And who should be flying afterward to Costa Rica with a bag, a big valise full of dollars to stash away?”
“Stronson was caught?”
“The Costa Rican officials put him in jail. He’s in jail now. Charlie, can you actually prove that you and Von Humboldt Fleisher actually wrote this thing about Caldofreddo? That’s what I asked Kathleen. Have you got any proof?”
“I think so.”
“But you want to know why. The why is kind of strange, Charlie, and you’ll hardly believe it. However, you and I have to have an understanding before I explain things. It’s complicated. I’ve taken a hand in this. I’ve laid out a plan. I’ve got people standing by. And I’ve really done it mostly out of friendship. Now take a look at this. I’ve prepared a paper that I want you to sign.” He laid a document before me. “Take your time,” he said.
“This is a regular contract. I can’t bear to read these things. What do you want, Cantabile? I’ve never read a contract through in all my life.”
“But you’ve signed them, haven’t you? By the hundreds, I bet. So sign this one too.”
“Oh God! Cantabile, you’re back again to hassle me. I was beginning to feel so well here in Madrid. And calmer. And stronger. Suddenly you’re here.”
“When you get into a tizzy, Charlie, you’re hopeless. Try to check yourself. I’m here to do you a major favor, for Christ’s sake. Don’t you trust me?”
“Von Humboldt Fleisher once asked me that and I said, ‘Do I trust the Gulf Stream or the South Magnetic Pole or the orbit of the moon?’ “
“Charles” (to calm me he addressed me formally) “what’s to get so excited? To begin with this is a one-shot deal. For me it provides like a regular agent’s fee—ten percent of your gross up to fifty thousand dollars, fifteen percent of the next twenty-five, and twenty percent on the balance, with a ceiling of one hundred and fifty thousand. So I can’t get more than twenty grand out of this any way you look at it. Is that a colossal fortune? And I’m doing it more for you, and for a few kicks, you poor dimwit. A lot you got to lose. You’re a fucking baby-sitter in a Spanish boardinghouse.”
These last weeks I had been far from the world, beholding it from a considerable altitude and rather strangely. This white-nosed, ultranervous, overreaching, gale-force Cantabile had brought me back, one hundred percent. I said, “For just an instant I was almost glad to see you, Rinaldo. I always like people who seem to know what they want and behave boldly. But I am very happy to tell you now that I will not sign any paper.”
“You won’t even read it?”
“Definitely not.”
“If I were really a bad guy I’d go away and let you miss out on a fortune of money, you creep. Well, let’s have a verbal agreement. I put you on to one hundred thousand dollars. I manage the whole deal and you promise me ten percent.”
“But of what?”
“You never read Time or Newsweek, I suppose, unless you’re waiting to have a tooth drilled. But there is a sensational movie out, the biggest hit of the year. On Third Avenue the ticket line is about three blocks long and in London and Paris the same. Do you know the name