Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [248]
Humboldt, bless him, had done things right this time.
“This is thoroughly legitimate,” said Barbash. “Authentic beyond dispute. I take it you people are insured against such claims?”
“What do we care about that!” said Cantabile.
There was, of course, an insurance policy.
“I don’t think our writers ever said anything, one way or another, about an original story,” one of the young men remarked.
Only Cantabile carried on. His idea was that everybody should be in a fever. But to business people it was just one of those things. I hadn’t expected such coolness and decorum. Messrs. Furet, Barbash, and the Harvard Business graduates agreed that long costly lawsuits ought to be avoided.
“And what of Mr. Citrine’s co-author?”
So that was all that the name Von Humboldt Fleisher meant to these MBAs from one of our great universities!
“Dead!” I said. This word reverberated with feeling only for me.
“Any heirs?”
“One, that I know of.”
“We’ll take this matter to our principals. What sort of figure have you gentlemen in mind?”
“A big one,” said Cantabile. “A percentage of your gross.”
“I think we’re in a position to ask for a statement of earnings,” Barbash argued.
“Let’s be more realistic. This will be viewed mainly as a minor nuisance claim.”
“What do you mean minor nuisance? It’s the whole picture,” Cantabile shouted. “We can kill your group!”
“A little calmer, Mr. Cantabile, please. We have a serious claim here,” said Barbash. “We’d like to hear what you say after serious consideration.”
“Would there be any interest,” I said, “in another idea for a screenplay from the same source?”
“Is there one?” said one of the Harvard businessmen. He answered me smoothly, unsurprised. I couldn’t help admiring his admirable schooling. You couldn’t catch a man like this out.
“Is there? You just heard it. We’re telling you so,” said Cantabile.
“I have here a second sealed envelope,” I said. “It contains another original proposal for a picture. Mr. Cantabile, by the way, has nothing to do with this. He’s never even heard of the existence of this. His participation is limited to Caldofreddo only.”
“Let’s hope you know what you’re doing,” said Ronald, angry.
This time I knew perfectly well. “I’m going to ask Mr. Barbash and Maître Furet to represent me also in this matter.”
“Us!” Cantabile said.
“Me,” I repeated.
“You, of course,” Barbash quickly said.
I hadn’t lost tons of money for nothing. I had mastered the commercial lingo at least. And as Julius had observed I was a Citrine by birth. “This sealed envelope contains a plot from the same brain that conceived Caldofreddo. Why don’t you gentlemen ask the people you represent whether they’d like to have a look at it. My price for looking—for looking only, mind you—is five thousand dollars.”
“That is what we want,” said Cantabile.
But he was ignored. And I felt very much in command. So this was business. Julius, as I’ve mentioned before, was forever urging me to recognize what he liked to call the Romance of Business. And was this the famous Romance of Business? Why it was nothing but pushiness, rapidity, effrontery. The sense it gave of getting your way was shallow. Compared with the satisfaction of contemplating flowers or of something really serious—trying to get in touch with the dead, for instance—it was nothing, nothing at all.
Paris was not at its most attractive as Cantabile and I walked by the Seine. The bankside was now a superhighway. The water looked like old medicine.
“Well, I got ‘em for you, didn’t I? I promised I’d make you money. What’s your Mercedes now? Peanuts. I want twenty percent.”
“We agreed on ten.”
“Ten if you cut me into that other script. Thought you’d hold out on me, didn’t you?”
“I’m going to write to Barbash