But the rigidity in his pants was unimpressed. Last night was, if not the best sex of his life, certainly the most carefree and explosive. The last of the senior editors had casually wandered in to whisper in hushed tones about the rumor. David kept his own counsel and pretended no interest in any possible promotion that might come his way. While he listened to the senior editor’s anxieties over his own job, he kept seeing Patty’s head move up and down with relentless mastery of his organ.
David was so unresponsive that the senior editor left him after a few minutes. David kept his eye on the door — he didn’t dare close it on a Monday with rumors turning sedentary writers into talky nomads; that would be suspicious — and squeezed his right hand underneath the belt of his gray pants, stretched the elastic band of his Jockey shorts, and got his cool fingertips to the head of his hard and frustrated penis. The constricted circumstances made any manipulation difficult, but he tried, his eyes watering from the effort of staring at the door and attempting to anticipate someone entering. He began to succeed in his fingering and the pleasure made his surveillance more difficult.
The phone rang.
Startled, David sat up abruptly, his swivel chair sliding toward the desk, banging his trapped wrist against the edge. He pulled his hand out of his pants and picked up the phone.
It was Chico, the managing editor. “David. I need to speak to you. Can you come up?”
“Sure.”
“Come up without mentioning it. Okay?”
Dutifully David took the stairs, assuming this would make his trip to Animal Crackers less obvious. You never knew who was in the elevators. David even went so far as to peer down the hallway from the stairway entrance toward the reception area of Animal Crackers to check whether it was clear before making his appearance. Chico’s secretary told him to go right in, and Chico, standing nervously at the window, told him to close the door. All this secrecy might mean nothing: Chico loved melodrama.
“You’ve heard, of course.”
Pretending would be dumb. “Yeah.” But on the other hand, maybe David hadn’t heard the right rumor. “If what I’ve heard is what you’re talking about.”
“Steinberg is gone tomorrow. Syms will also be asked to leave. The last is a big secret. Everybody knows about Steinberg. With Syms out, we’ll have problems in Nation. We’re thin, especially in writing. And a number of our writers couldn’t possibly take over as senior editors. Bill Kahn couldn’t handle Nation.”
David, for the first time that day, began to realize that this shift in power might be wonderful for him. What if they made him Nation senior editor? Was that possible? Nation was the most prestigious senior-editing position on the magazine, the traditional stepping-stone to Marx Brother status and presumably the ideal background for editor in chief. David had always assumed that if Syms left, Bill Kahn would succeed him. Besides, David was very young to be made a senior editor. This notion so dominated his mind that he had trouble appearing at ease, and the trouble made him more nervous, as if his being caught thinking such an ambitious thought might make Chico change his mind. What was he thinking? Such a change wouldn’t be up to Chico alone; all the Brothers and Mrs. Thorn would have to agree on a promotion to senior-edit Nation.
“You agree, don’t you? About Kahn?”
Now this question from Chico seemed loaded, and with deadly bullets. David tried a traditional escape maneuver: “You mean Kahn is more interested in writing?”
“No. Kahn would love to be made senior editor. I mean, he couldn’t handle it. Isn’t that obvious?”
Bang, it was back in David’s court. Can I agree? he nervously questioned himself. I shouldn’t be hesitating. Senior-editing Nation wouldn’t allow hesitation. “I only know Bill as a writer. I mean, as a writer knows another writer. I read his stuff, that’s all. I have no idea how he might edit or develop ideas. He doesn’t seem interested in other people’s work, so perhaps he wouldn’t be a sympathetic editor. He would establish a tone.” Was any of that true? David wondered. Probably, he decided.
“Oh, Bill’s a superb writer,” Chico agreed. “But I don’t think he can handle people. That’s at least as important as editorial skills. That was Syms’s problem. He was arrogant.”
Chico citing Syms for arrogance? Chico was the most arrogant man in the world. Everything that came out of his mouth was a pronouncement, an absolute judgment, calmly delivered, with the self-assurance of a monarch. Chico could be chilling. David thought all this and noticed Chico’s use of the past tense when discussing Syms.
“You liked working for him, though,” Chico added, and sat down, his eyes — beady little things that seemed too small for his large body — peering at David.
“Yes.” David stared back. To lie about that would be thoroughly pointless. David had flourished under Syms, drawing more and more cover assignments in Nation (and away from Kahn) because of Syms’s support.
“But I get the feeling you can work with anyone,” Chico said.
Was that a compliment? Or was Chico accusing David of having no taste?
“That’s an important quality,” Chico continued. “To put out this magazine, we need as little tension and scraping of egos as possible. Good senior editors can work with anyone.”
Bingo. Something David had not expected for years was about to happen: senior editorship. And of Nation at that!
“I wanted to give you Nation to senior-edit,” Chico said, “but others feel you’re too young to be moved immediately, as a senior editor, into the most important and pressured position. They want to ease you into senior editing. As a compromise, you’ll be offered Business.”
David had had only a second to relish the hope that he might senior-edit Nation, but that moment was sufficiently captivating to make getting Business instead a disappointment. He knew that was an absurd feeling — to be a senior editor at his age, no matter what the department, was extraordinary. Besides, Business was the second-most-important position in the rank of senior editor, in fact the job that five years ago, when he first came to Newstime, he hoped he would someday hold. Meanwhile, he had to respond to this surreptitious and unofficial job offer, if that’s what it was.
“What happens to Jim?” David asked, referring to the current senior editor of Business.
“Well …” Chico grabbed a paper clip and began to unravel it, almost angrily. “You understand none of this is definite.”
“Of course.” So he couldn’t celebrate — yet.
“Presumably Jim would move to Nation.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I agree. He’s not right for it. I don’t think he’ll be there for long.”
There was a loud buzz from the red intercom resting next to Chico’s phone. A disembodied voice boomed from its open speaker — in Newstime this intercom system, which provided the Marx Brothers and all the senior editors with direct lines to each other, had been nicknamed the Power Phone — and to David’s surprise, the harassed and irritable voice belonged to the owner, Mrs. Thorn. “Bill, can you come by now? I think we’re ready for a decision.”
“Be right there.”
David got to his feet immediately, noting the tension and expectation in Chico’s face. What was Chico waiting to hear? That he had been chosen to succeed Steinberg?
“I’ll speak to you tomorrow,” Chico said.