The Loving Couple Page 6

  The electrically operated rear door flew open and out flew Manfred Popescu himself, followed by Mrs. Popescu. Before John could speak he had been embraced, kissed on both cheeks, and felt for broken bones. Then he and Toby had been thrust into the rear of the Popescus' town car while Mr. Popescu began to berate his chauffeur in the unintelligible melange of languages he had learned in the many years between his birth in a Balkan goatherd's hovel and his contemporary eminence as a Swiss watch manufacturer.

  "Porca madonn!" Popescu began temperately in his Neapolitan Italian. "Of all the bloody, stupid, mucking asses," he continued in what was almost Oxonian English. "Psiakrew cholera!" he added quietly in heavily accented Polish. "Almost you are killing my how-you say direktor für die reklamen . . ."

  "Advertising manager, honey," Mrs. Popescu translated.

  "Ja, exactement! Advertising manager! Ruin my car! Ruin my business! Ruin my directeur de publicité—advertising! Stupido! Idiot! Idz do djabla!”

  "Yass, Excellency," the chauffeur said. He was a Harlem boy upon whom any languages other than basic English and advanced Bebop were wasted.

  "Oi veh!" Popescu moaned, slapping his brow. He took a deep breath and launched into Hungarian. "A büdös anyád avval kérkedett hogy kuplerájosné pedig valójában orgazda volt! Lófassz a segedbe, te szarházi! Lazy black fool! Merde de merde! Va donc te faire foutre vieux con!"

  "Really, Manfred," John said, "it wasn't the driver's fault. I just didn't look where I was going."

  "Don't interrupt," Popescu said quietly.

  "Manny, honey, we're holding up traffic! You boys jus’ come along with Manfred and I," Mrs. Popescu said in her motherly fashion. "Tell 'im to drive us back to the apottment, Manny."

  "A la maison!" Mr. Popescu screamed through the window that separated him from his luckless chauffeur.

  "Home, Fabian," Mrs. Popescu translated.

  "Yass, Excellency," the chauffeur said.

  Then Mrs. Popescu pushed a button. The electric door closed and the town car rolled majestically toward Central Park South.

  By the time John had been deposited on the white velvet sofa in the Popescus' duplex penthouse, he had more or less recovered from the many shocks of the afternoon. Mr. Popescu had exhausted most of his dozen languages and Mrs. Popescu was becoming excessively cosy with Toby.

  Looking around this hideous room, which Mary had done her level best to un-decorate, it was impossible to believe that he had been admitted to the room and to the august presence of Manfred Popescu only a year ago. Yet it was just twelve months ago that his wife, under the banner of Mrs. Manley Updike, Inc., Interiors, had been called in to tone down Lillian Popescu's flamboyant taste. Just a year ago that Manfred Popescu had come roaring home in a polylingual rage after having fired his advertising manager, his advertising agency and having cleaned house, down to the last pitch pipe, of the all-girl orchestra that had for years brought schmalz, corn and semi-classical airs to an ecstatic, if undemanding, radio audience on the Popescu Pulse-Beat Eternal Non-Magnetic Swiss Watch Hour of Refinement. Just a year ago that his wife had put in a whispered call on the gold telephone in the adjoining room urging him to hustle right over to the Popescu penthouse and sell the old brigand on a big new television show.

  It had worked. After five straight hours of being understanding, after five straight days and five straight nights at his typewriter he had brought forth five of the best television scripts ever written. A week later he had been appointed the advertising manager of the Popescu Pulse-Beat Eternal Non-Magnetic Swiss Watch Company of Geneva, London, Paris and New York, Ltd., at fifteen thousand dollars a year with all the comforts of home. He had had no experience, no references, no pull. Only charm, talent and luck—and the fact that Manfred Popescu was of a mercurial nature—had got him the job.

  Until that day he had been a struggling writer, albeit a good one. He and she had lived in decorative but genuine uncertainty in one handsome room in the East Sixties. They had lived on charm and hope, on her salary from an interior decorating firm and on his all-too-occasional sales of stories and revue sketches and television scripts, on the proceeds of his play that had been produced on a shoestring off Broadway and succeeded and advance royalties paid on this same play that had later been produced rather lavishly on Broadway and failed. Lillian and Manfred Popescu had changed all of that overnight and put him not only on Easy Street, but in Riveredge.

  He supposed that he should be eternally grateful to the Popescus. Instead he detested them.

  A year ago he had been moderately awed and extravagantly amused by Mr. and Mrs. Popescu and the opéra bouffe grandeur of their way of life. He had accorded them the good natured forbearance usually reserved for the antics of the Indian who strikes oil on the reservation, the factory girl who becomes Mrs. Manville, the colored laundress who invents a successful hair-straightener. He had been pleasantly tolerant of their childish squandering—this penthouse, the Palm Beach villa, the castle on the Thames, the chateau on the Loire, the schloss on the Rhine, the Popescu suites and flats and houses and lodges and numerous pied à terre that peppered the globe like buckshot. He had been hugely entertained by the Popescu fleet of outlandish cars, by the diesel-powered Lilliman bobbing serenely out in the yacht basin, by the dizzying profusion of furs and jewels and clothes and parties and restaurants and servants. The fabulous expenditures of the Popescus had given him a witty glimpse of life a la Bemelmans.

  In the Popescus he had seen that never-never land of Newport in the Nineties, Hollywood in the Twenties, Houston in the Fifties rolled into one year. The Popescus had been just a couple of babes in Toyland and he had loved and admired them for their uninhibited enjoyment of all the bad taste they could afford.

  A year ago Manfred Popescu had seemed to him a lovable old gypsy—a jolly European soldier of fortune, gay and relaxed with a zest for living his rags-to-riches life to the hilt. He had idealized Manfred into a kind of real-life Laughing Cavalier, as passionately interested in a good meal, a good wine, a beautiful picture or a beautiful woman as he was in winning a battle, besting a rival or ruling his peasantry.

  And he had romanticized Lillian Schneider Bessamer Popescu into a fun-loving grande cocotte of nineteenth-century Paris, In his mind's eye she had become a Nana, a Zaza, a Sapho—a plump, fortyish widow, frivolous, frolicsome and fey, with no thought in her hennaed head other than pleasing her rich, new catch, his fine friends from the Jockey Club and his business associates from the Bourse with succulent suppers, cheerful chitchat and womanly wiles.

  Together, the Popescus had inundated him and his wife with warmth, with love, with food, with liquor, with money, with gifts and with their endless invitations. There had been invitations to lunch, to cocktails, to dinner; invitations for a dozen weekends; invitations to cruise down to the Villa Manfrillian aboard the Lilliman; a standing invitation to pass all of next summer with the Popescus in the various Popescu properties abroad. The prodigal generosity of the Popescus had prompted him and his wife to refer to Manfred and Lillian as Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.

  It had taken him just shy of a month to realize that if Santa Claus, with his constant, obese, ho-ho-ho-ing high spirits actually existed on earth at any place except a toy department at any time except the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he would most certainly be shot, his passing as little mourned as that of Adolf Hitler.

  It had taken him just as long, too, to realize that Mr. Popescu was Santa Claus only to those associates whose society or whose talent Popescu desired and/or envied. To all others, Manfred Popescu was the spawn of some Central European bogeyman like Dracula thrust upon this country with the knowledge of only such archaic American business pleasantries as "The Public be damned" and "I won't sue you, I'll ruin you." As Popescu's Favorite, a position held in considerable scorn by the Popescu men who had once been or who never would be Popescu's Favorite, he had been both shocked and wounded to discover that his mentor—his Santa Claus—was something less than mortal.
But it was true.

  He had seen Popescu break executives of twenty years' standing on whim and whim alone. He had watched Popescu, the watch manufacturer, remove his greatest holdings for "tax reasons" from the three governments that had been the most responsible for keeping Popescu, the man, out of the gas chamber. He had heard Popescu urge the employment of the blind, not to give a boost to the disabled, but because the men and their dogs would work better and longer and quieter and cheaper in dark windowless rooms, hermetically sealed, as it were, from the distractions of light, air and labor unions.

  And by the time he had worked for Popescu just a little too long to turn back—when his wife was pregnant, when the house in Riveredge had been financed, furnished and warmed, when he and she had become accustomed to smart, expensive clothes in smart, expensive settings—then he discovered that he had not created Pulse Beat, America's prestige television show, but that Manfred Popescu had. And around that time he also learned the lowly arts of blandishment.

  As advertising manager of the Popescu Eternal Non-Magnetic Swiss Watch Company, Ltd., he had been forced to use blandishment not only on the ignorant megalomaniac above him by telling ingratiating lies ("Listen, Manfred, you know much more about advertising than I do") when it came to producing his own television program, but also to use blandishment on the capable specialists beneath him by telling the honest truth ("Listen, you guys, you know much more about advertising than I do") when it came to preparing the millions of dollars worth of magazine pages, bill boards, display pieces and car cards essential to promoting Popescu watches. He suspected that he was despised from both above and below and he couldn't honestly blame either faction for hating him. He thoroughly hated himself.

  So the job that was to have given him financial security and creative freedom wasn't really a job at all. It was a position. And an ulcerous, uneasy, overpaid position it was, too, his time and effort devoted mainly to smoothing rumpled feathers while he played courtier and while his unfinished play and his unfinished novel grew dated and stale in the center drawer of his olive wood desk.

  Nor had Mrs. Santa Claus turned out to be an unqualified delight. Lillian Schneider Bessamer Popescu was vain, vulgar, and vituperative, constantly demanding to be danced with, flattered, courted. If Lillian wore a new dress, a new hat, a new jewel—which was almost always—it had to be noticed and raved about. But if he made the mistake of raving about anything a second time, she would sulk, complain about the obsolescence of the article, accuse him of being unobservant, or, worse, indifferent. And Lillian was not as wrapped up in Manfred Popescu as she originally seemed to have been. Lillian was wrapped up in Lillian. Lillian didn't give a damn about Manfred except for the garish pleasures Manfred's money could buy for Lillian.

  This would have been perfectly understandable had Lillian been half as old and twice as attractive. But Lillian had made a career of being a legalized courtesan and she knew the pitfalls. As a plump, young typist in Milwaukee, Lillian had been sufficiently seductive and cagey to become the adored second bride of a rich brewer, the mother of his only child and the complete mistress of all she surveyed—in Milwaukee in 1930. But Lillian's first victim, Mr. Bessamer, had been small beer, so to speak, as compared to Popescu. Today, Mrs. Santa Claus had good reason to believe that Mr. Santa Claus had good reason to be tempted by younger, tenderer cuts of beef.

  The sight of Lillian's colorless, slightly bloodshot eyes darting beneath their stubby, mascaraed lashes as they fastened upon Manfred's beady black eyes fastening upon trim ankles and slim waists was a disquieting one. It made good sense—dollars and cents to be quite crass about it—for Lillian to see that Manfred was surrounded by attractive entertaining young people who would be too well bred to try any of the tricks Lillian herself would have tried in the days she hooked Mr. Bessamer and Mr. Popescu.

  And so the invitations continued to parties and dinners and dances and luncheons and nightclubs and races and weekends. The wine flowed, the waiters bowed, the Lilliman tooted up and down the coast and Lillian continued watching Manfred watching. But the invitations were commands when issued to those employed by the Popescu enterprises. Whatever moments Manfred did not claim in the realm of industry, Lillian claimed in the half-world of pleasure. And there was no time-and-a-half for overtime. Manfred's chaste popularity and Lillian's peace of mind were bought and paid for by Popescu Pulse-Beat Eternal Non-Magnetic Swiss Watches, Ltd.—all tax-deductible.

  Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus may have been as roly-poly and as jolly as all get-out, but they were a despotic pair of patron saints—as likely to leave you at Christmas with a lump of coal and a stout stick as an electric train. There it was. And here he was, on what was to have been his day off, sitting on a white velvet sofa in his own semi-private North Pole.

  He was startled from his unhappy introspection by the voice of Mr. Popescu. "But Sonny-boy," Manfred said, crossing the room to the fireplace wall, "you must let me give you something for killing you God-forbid on the street today, hein? A little—how you say—cadeau . . ."

  "Present, honey," Lillian translated.

  "Exactly, present." Mr. Popescu swung a large Matisse painting, chosen more because of its price than the Popescus' taste, back on its hinged frame and started twiddling the dial of a wall safe.

  "Please, Manfred," he said. "No." Endearments such as Sonny-boy from Manfred were the order as long as one remained Popescu's Favorite. After a certain subtle change took place, former Favorites called him Mister Popescu and he called them Smith or Jones.

  "Nonsense, Sonny-boy!" Popescu said jovially, closing the safe with a thump. "Here it should pay for your suit." He airily prof erred a one thousand dollar bill.

  "Manfred! Don't be silly. My suit isn't torn. It isn't even wrinkled." He heard Toby give a long, long whistle. "Your car didn't hit me and even if it had, I was to blame for being so . . ."

  "G'wan, dearie, take it!" Lillian cried. "Why, you could of sued Manny for . . . ."

  "Take it, for Christ's sake," Toby muttered.

  Suddenly, for the first time in a year, something inside him rebelled. He realized now that if the Popescu town car had struck him, mangled him, left him a basket case and public ward, he could not touch that money. He needed a thousand dollars just as badly as anyone else, but not this thousand. "No, Manfred," he said quietly. "I won't take it."

  There was a long, fetid silence.

  Then Popescu chuckled. "So! So, you don't want it? You're a good boy!" With that Popescu stepped forward and tousled his hair affectionately. He could feel the very walls of the room breathe a sigh of relief. Like many people who are prepared to buy their way through life, Manfred Popescu was not prepared to have his largesse refused, for denying the tyrant's grace was denying the tyrant's power. But today Popescu had accepted graciously what had been intended and delivered as a slap in the face.

  "Ha ha ha!" Popescu chuckled in his bearlike fashion, "He's a good boy, Tony . . ."

  "Toby," Toby said.

  "Yes, exactly, Toby. He's a good boy. He's a smart advertising manager. Best I ever had. You ever look at my program, Pulse Beat?”

  "Never," Toby said.

  Good old Toby, John thought gratefully. You can still spot a gent and this is one who would just as soon spit in Caesar's eye as not.

  "You should, Toby-boy," Popescu continued blandly. "Sonny-boy here produces it. He's one man who's a good listener. He comes to me. I give him my ideas. Next week there it is in the television set—black and white and the color. We win all the awards, don't we, Sonny-boy. Ha ha ha ha ha! Ring for some drinks, Lillian. These boys must be, uh, how-you-say avoir sois?"

  "Thirsty, honey," Lillian said, pressing the button at her side.

  John went scarlet with discomfort and embarrassment. If there is anything more unsettling than offering one's gift and having it refused, it is offering one's enmity and having it ignored. Popescu was now sitting between him and Toby, shaking with jolly chuckles and slapping his knee rather too often an
d too hard for comfort. "Yes, he's a good one, my Sonny-boy. Beautiful production on the television last night, Tony, beautiful. Lillian's little girl was in it. Lovely show. One of our best," Popescu went on with his maddening habit of repeating and repeating and repeating everything he said when he was in a good humor.

  Thoroughly defeated by the man, he made a half-hearted attempt at good humor and good manners. "It had a lot of faults, Manfred. For example . . ."

  "Nonsense, Sonny-boy. Beautiful show. You must come around some day, Tony, I'll show you the—how you say cinematograph?"

  "Kinescope, honey."

  "Exactly. And, Tony?"

  "Toby."

  "Just so, Toby. Here you take this thousand dollars. Buy Sonny-boy something nice for old Popescu."

  Toby paused. "Well, gee, Mr. Grotescu . . ."

  "Popescu."

  "Roger! Popescu. Well, gee, Mr. Popescu . . ."

  "Here! Take it! It's nothing. You save my Sonny-boy's life. You get the, um, uh, Lillian, how you say . . ."

  "Reward, Manny?"

  "Exactly! Reward."

  "Well, gee . . ." Toby faltered.

  "Pleeeess!" Popescu urged.

  "Well, as long as you feel that way about it," Toby said, folding the bill.

  "Toby!" John couldn't have been more shocked if Toby had accepted the Stalin Prize. Yet there Toby sat, confident and boyish, tucking Popescu's bribery into his wallet.

  "You're cute, that's what you are, Toby," Lillian said, giving Tobv's cheek a little pat.

  "Toby," John breathed. "You can't . . ."

  "So now we all happy friends!" Popescu boomed. "And here come the drink, so we all celebrate together! Non, non, nony non, non, non, non! lei, ici, ici!” He boomed at the butler, tapping the porphyry slab of a coffee table in front of him.