“About the card I picked up,” said Allbee. “The business card: is that man a moving-picture agent of some kind? I want to explain why I picked it up. I suppose you know him.”
“A little.”
“What does he do? What’s his line?”
“I think he looks for talent.”
“Is he influential? I mean, is he…” But Allbee canceled this question as if it were a mark of his persistent innocence or unworldliness.
“Is he what?”
“Oh… on the inside.” His lip began to curl; his eyes were distended and humorlessly direct. “I’ve come to the conclusion that if you want to get along nowadays you have to go along with the powers. It’s no use trying to buck them.”
“Who told you Shifcart was a power?”
Allbee declined to answer. He lifted his shoulders and looked away disdainfully.
“Who?” Leventhal repeated.
“Let’s say he can help me, then, and leave out other considerations.”
“Do you want to become an actor?”
“Wouldn’t I make a good one?”
“You?”
“Is that so funny?”
A faint smile crossed Leventhal’s shadowed face. “I understand your mother thought she was a singer,” he said. “And you think you are an actor.”
“Oh, you’ve heard about my mother. Who told you about her, Phoebe?”
“Yes. She sang at your wedding, didn’t she?”
“Sensationally,” said Allbee in an indeterminate tone; and, after a pause, “No, of course I don’t want to act. But I thought with all my experience on magazines that I might be able to get into movie work. I once heard about somebody — an acquaintance of an acquaintance — who was doing some preliminary scenario job, looking up stories, and making digests of them, and if I could get into that.. Well, maybe your friend can tell me how to do it.”
“He’s no special friend of mine. How long ago did you hear about this?”
“I don’t remember, now. A few years ago.”
“Then how do you know you can still get such a job? Why don’t you find out from this acquaintance of yours? What have you got to go on? Ask him about it.”
Allbee answered quickly, “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know where to find him or how to start looking. Besides, he doesn’t owe me anything, Leventhal. Why should I go to him?”
“Why? Well, why to me? It makes just as much sense.”
His reply tremendously aroused Allbee.
“Why? For good reasons; the best in the world!” He shocked Leventhal by clenching his fists before his breast as if passionately threatening to tear loose from all restraint. “I’m giving you a chance to be fair, Leventhal, and to do what’s right. And I want what’s right from you. Don’t drag anybody else in. This is just between the two of us.”
“Don’t be crazy.”
“Just you and I. Just the two of us.”
“I never… I never….” Leventhal stammered.
“I can’t afford to fool around. The fooling has been kicked out of me. I’ve been put straight the hard way, the way you pay for with years of your life.” He lowered his head and stared at him before continuing. There was a noticeable pulsation in the sides of his face beside his eyes, and in his eyes there was a glint that astounded Leventhal; it resembled nothing in his experience. “ Look,” said Allbee firmly in a lower voice. “You know that when I say I want an introduction to this man Shifcart it means I am ready to play ball. I’m offering a settlement. I’m offering to haul down my flag. If he helps me. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t understand,” Leventhal said. “I don’t even begin to get it. And as long as you keep on talking about settling, I won’t lift a finger for you.”
“Listen,” said Allbee. “I know you want to settle. And so do I. And I know what I’m talking about when I say I’ll play ball. The world’s changed hands. I’m like the Indian who sees a train running over the prairie where the buffalo used to roam. Well, now that the buffalo have disappeared, I want to get off the pony and be a conductor on that train. I’m not asking to be a stockholder in the company. I know that’s impossible. Lots of things are impossible that didn’t use to be. When I was younger I had my whole life laid out in my mind. I planned what it was going to be like on the assumption that I came out of the lords of the earth. I had all kinds of expectations. But God disposes. There’s no use kidding.”
Leventhal, his eyes raised to the ceiling, seemed to ask, “You follow? I don’t.”
There was a knock at the door.
20
IT was Max. He stood before Leventhal with a rolled newspaper under his arm, his shirt open at the throat, the black hair of his chest coming out, and his soft collar pulled over the collar of his coat, the same way Philip’s had been on the day of the outing. The suit was the double-breasted one he had worn at the funeral. When the door opened, he seemed to hesitate on the landing, and Leventhal cried out in a cracked voice, “Max! Come in, for heaven’s sake.”
“You folks in?” Max asked huskily, still hesitant.
It struck Leventhal that his brother was behaving as if he were about to enter a stranger’s house. He had never been here before.
“Well, I am, that’s sure. I didn’t get a chance to tell you the other day. Mary’s out of town. But come on in.” And he led him over the threshold and turned to the front room, filled with anxiety at his new difficulty. He did not know what to expect from Allbee, what he would say when he learned who Max was. He was already leaning forward inquisitively. Leventhal stood arrested for an instant, incapable of speaking or moving forward. Glancing into the room and seeing Allbee, Max said, apologetically, “Say, you’re busy. I’ll come back later.”
“I’m not,” Leventhal whispered. “Come on.”
“I should have called up first.”
But Leventhal held him by the arm and forced him in.
“This is my brother Max. This is Kirby Allbee.”
“Your brother? I didn’t know you had one.”
“Only one.”
Reticent and somber, Max looked down, perhaps partly to acknowledge his share in their estrangement.
“I don’t know what made me think you were an only child, like me.” Allbee was conversational and bright, and Leventhal wondered what he was preparing and hid his dread in impassivity. He brought up a chair and Max sat down. The points of his dusty shoes were turned inward. The side of his lowered face and his large neck formed one surface, from the curve of his nose to the padded thickness of his shoulder.
“I often used to wish there were two of us,” said Allbee.
“How are things at home, Max?” asked Leventhal.
“Oh,” Max said. “You know…” Leventhal expected him to finish the sentence, but it tailed off.
Allbee seemed to be commenting to himself smilingly on something in the appearance of the two brothers. Leventhal covertly indicated the door with his head. Allbee’s brows curved up questioningly. His whole air said, “Why should I?” Leventhal bent close to him and muttered, “I want to talk to my brother.”
“What’s the matter?” Allbee spoke out loudly.
Sternly Leventhal made the same sign with his head.
But Max had heard. “Did you ask me what was the matter?” he said.
Allbee looked at Leventhal and shrugged, to confess his slip. He did not reply.
“I guess it must show on me,” said Max.
“We had a death in the family recently,” Leventhal said.