Tycoon by Harold Robbins Page B

Dorothy.”
    â€œWhat? A couple who just inherited a million dollars is unhappy?”
    â€œIt’s a matter of backbone. You had the backbone to walk out on your old man. Bob doesn’t. In spite of the fact that Bob’s got a business of his own, Erich sticks his nib in everything. Carlton House was set up with Erich’s money, of course. Every time Bob signs a promising starlet, Erich wants to bang her—and after he does, he pushes Bob to give her a part she’s not ready for. He even reads scripts and hounds Bob to turn them into pictures. Erich makes Bob’s every day hell on earth.”
    â€œWhat does he make your every day?”
    â€œYou know how it goes.”
    â€œWhat’s he paying you?”
    â€œEighteen thou.”
    Jack pinched his chin between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. “Would you take twenty-four to move to Boston and come into the radio business?”
    â€œChrist, yes!”
    â€œHow much time you need?”
    â€œWell, I ought to give Erich thirty days’ notice.”
    â€œFuck him. You don’t owe him any more than I do. Get us a roomette on Thursday. You can send him a wire from Chicago.”
T WO
    J OHANN L EHRER WOULD BE BURIED IN A WOODEN COFFIN with rope handles. It was his express wish. In accordance with another of his wishes, the coffin sat on a simple wooden trestle. But when it came to flowers his wishes were disregarded. After all, he was the grandfather of the head of Carlton House Productions, and Hollywood had sent vans loaded with floral tributes.
    The chapel seated only two hundred, so loudspeakers had been set up outside so the eulogy and the Kaddish could be heard by hundreds more who had gathered on the lawn.
    â€œSo . . .” said Erich Lear. “My son the proper Bostonian, dressed to the nines. Look at the suit,” he said to Bob. “He makes us look cheap.”
    â€œOut of respect for”—Jack said. He paused and nodded toward the coffin—“I won’t tell you what I think of your judgment of my clothes or anything else.”
    Erich glanced at the coffin. “Okay. Out of respect.” He extended his hand. “Our feelings today ought to be about him.”
    â€œYes. Professor of rational and revealed religion. Ragpicker.Then, to use his own term, ‘junkman.’ And finally so great a success that he could fund you in your business and me in mine. I’m proud to be his grandson.”
    Bob scowled. “We hear you have a fine home in Boston. I don’t believe you ever invited our grandfather to see it. Or your father or brother, for that matter.”
    Bob Lear was as bitter as Mickey Sullivan had said he was. He had a pronounced capacity for petty nastiness, unlike his father, whose nastiness was never petty. Looking nothing like the other Lears, he was blond, plump, and bowlegged. His light-gray, double-breasted suit with white buttons emphasized his ungainliness.
    â€œKimberly and I will make you welcome . . . if you should choose to come,” Jack said frigidly.
    A chapel attendant approached. “Yarmulke, sir?” he asked Jack, offering a black satin skullcap.
    â€œYes. Of course.”
    The service was brief. When it was over, four men carried the coffin to the open grave a hundred yards away and lowered it into the earth.
    As they walked back toward the chapel and the cars, Erich asked Jack how long he would stay in Los Angeles.
    â€œI have to take tomorrow’s train. Business. I don’t have to tell you it demands a man’s time and attention.”
    â€œMr. Lear!” A photographer lugging a big Graflex camera trotted across the lawn toward them. “A picture of the son and two grandsons?” he asked.
    â€œSure,” said Erich. “Why not?”
    They posed: Erich in the middle, a son on either side.
    â€œWell, then,” Erich said to Jack. “I take it you’re not planning to come