The doorman looked confused.
Sidney quickly glanced around the lobby and said, “Come over here with me for a minute,” and took the doorman around the corner. He turned his back and pulled out ten brand-new hundred-dollar bills, as if they were dirty postcards. “Here, take it. You found him in the bedroom, so what? What the hell difference does it make now? The guy’s dead, for Christ sakes, he don’t care.”
The doorman looked at the money. Then he said, “But he was a nice man. And he was in the living room.”
Sidney was getting frustrated. “Look, my boss might even go up to twelve hundred.”
Then Sidney saw what he had been looking for, working for: little beads of perspiration began to pop out on the doorman’s forehead.
“Oh, hell … as a matter of fact, I know he’ll go as high as fifteen hundred. You’re in the catbird seat, man, the only eyewitness, you have him by the balls. That’s a lot of money; you can’t afford not to take it. Come on, don’t be a chump. Can’t you use the money?”
“It’s not that I can’t use the money.” The doorman took his handkerchief out, took his hat off, and wiped his brow. “It’s just, I don’t think I can lie like that.”
“Hell, it’s not really lying. For all you know, it probably did happen that way, you just don’t remember. Besides, you’re not hurting anybody. Who’s to hurt?”
“No, I don’t think I could. I couldn’t take the money for something—”
“Well, that’s a damn shame. I bust my balls trying to do you a favor and you’re too dumb to appreciate it. Don’t say I didn’t try.”
Sidney put the money back in his pocket, slowly, and walked away from the doorman. Then he stopped for a moment and came back. “Look, I don’t know why I’m doing this, goddamn it, but I’m going to tell you something that could cost me my job, you understand?”
He glanced around and spoke as if in confidence. “Listen, the truth is, my boss don’t even need you. He’s gonna write it the way he wants it and what you say or don’t say don’t make a shitload of difference one way or the other. See, it ain’t no skin off my teeth if he wants to give away his money, I just hate to see you turn down a chance of a lifetime … if not for you, for your kids. Don’t be a chump. He’s got plenty, he won’t even miss it. Come on … take it …”
The doorman swallowed hard. “What would I have to do?”
“Nothing, that’s the beauty part—nothing. Just sign a simple paper saying you are giving us the exclusive rights to your story—there’s no record of the money, and it’s tax-free. This way none of the other newspapers … will be bothering you. This is for your protection as well as ours.”
Sidney reached in his pocket and brought the money back out. “Oh, hell, make it two thousand. I’ll tell him I had to bid. What he don’t know won’t hurt, right?”
The doorman looked as if he was about to take the money but again he hesitated. He backed away, shaking his head.
“No, I just can’t. I’d never be able to face Mrs. Lathrope again; she’s a lovely person.”
Sidney did not miss a beat. “I can understand that. And why should you? Face her, I mean. My boss can set you up in any building in town; hell, he owns about twenty of them himself. I’ll explain the situation. He’ll put you on at the same salary, a little higher, even. He’s a compassionate man; like I said, he’s a generous guy. He don’t have to pay you a dime, remember that.”
Sweat was now pouring off the doorman’s face.
“I’ll make it easier for you. We won’t even use your name. I’ll just say ‘an unidentified witness,’ OK? Will that make it easier for you?”
“You won’t use my name?”
“Give you my word on it.”
Sidney looked at his watch. “Look, pal, I’m not trying to rush you but I’m on deadline. I gotta run. Yes or no?”
The doorman made no move.
He pushed the money at him. “Here, take it! I’m not gonna let you blow this chance.” He slammed the money into the doorman’s hand. “Put it in your pocket, sign right here, I’m gone, you’re rich, nobody’s hurt.”
The doorman took the pen in a daze. “If you’re not gonna use my name, why do I have to sign?”
“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it, just an in-house deal. It’s filed for legal reasons. Nobody ever sees it. You don’t have a thing to worry about. Trust me—I wouldn’t steer you wrong.”
As the doorman was signing, Sidney kept talking. “You’re gonna thank me for this. Believe me, working guys got to stick together, right? Right?”
As soon as the last l in O’Connell was written, Sidney grabbed the paper and ran. He called over his shoulder, “Thanks, pal, you won’t regret this.”
The doorman called, “Are you sure you won’t—”
But Sidney was out the door. When he reached the editor’s office, he handed over the signed paper.
“Here it is. But it wasn’t easy. That greedy mick held us up for twenty-five.”
The editor opened a drawer, and pulled out the cash. “If I find out there isn’t a doorman named O’Connell, you are dead meat, Sidney.”
Sidney looked indignant. “What, don’t you trust me? I could have held you up for three with a story like this. You think I would try and skim off you? You’re like a father to me.”
The editor waved him away. “Yeah, yeah, get out of here, you creep.”
Sidney laughed and walked out the door. He was too high to go to bed so he hit a bar or two and the sun was coming up just as he reached the hotel. The world looked swell to him today. He even noticed the flowers in the window boxes. Were they always there? By the time he reached his room he was tired and could finally get some real sleep.
Not more than three minutes after Capello had drifted off, fat stacks of newspapers were being tossed off the backs of trucks all over town. You could almost hear the front page shout up from the sidewalk. To a few readers, the families and friends of the two parties involved, the headline and photographs would seem as brutal and heartless as a man exposing himself to children on a playground. To others, strangers hurrying by on their way to work, it was just another of the morning’s entertainments, a slight jolt, an eye-opener, a sudden rush like a cup of good, strong coffee to help get the day started.
ROSEMOND DIES IN LOVE NEST!
Nobel peace prize–winner and United States ambassador Arthur Rosemond died suddenly last evening in the bed of his longtime mistress, Mrs. Pamela Lathrope, socialite ex-wife of Governor Stanley Lathrope.
Michael J. O’Connell, doorman at the swank East Side Beekman Towers hotel, told this reporter in an exclusive interview that last evening at about 10:40 he received an urgent call from Mrs. Lathrope’s apartment. When he reached the apartment, the door was open and he ran into the bedroom, where he found the scantily clad Mrs. Lathrope, hysterical with grief, leaning over the stricken Rosemond, O’Connell said.
O’Connell confirmed that Rosemond had been a frequent visitor to the Lathrope suite. O’Connell, still visibly upset from witnessing the night’s tragedy, shook his head in sorrow. “He was a nice man but I guess he went out the way most men would want to.”
Mrs. Arthur Rosemond was reached at the couple’s home in Pound Ridge, New York, and informed of her husband’s death.
Moving Up
New York City
1973
After Dena took the job at the local station in New York, she worked for three long years, smiling and nodding at the male cohost of the morning show with the bad wig, and interviewing authors of books about child rearing, interior decorating, and cooking, three subjects in which she had absolutely no interest. Finally, she landed what she wanted, and became cohostess of the network’s morning show. It had been an easy transition. Still, although it was network, she found herself sitting, smiling and nodding at another male cohost with another bad hairpiece and doing more or less the same sort of interviews as before.