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Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Earle Levenstein
ISBN-10: B007QOS78U
Type: Fiction
Pages: 321
Copyright: March 31, 2012
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Ad Biz & he’s big cheez; spins gld frm straw. Cool? Nah. Dream? Run baby run. Life’s lurching out of control. Plus now …what’s that? Murder? Gotta be a dream.
He’s Creative Director and Sr. VP of the biggest privately owned advertising agency in The Business. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Not if you’re the ambivalent Adam Leff and
the snake who owns the agency is Louis Kingman II. Plus,Adam “finds himself”(One does not find oneself, Adam; one makes choices, his saintly therapist, Doctor Gruber, reminds him again and again) becoming resident playmate for Eleanor Kingman, Lou’s beautiful, willful young British wife; while at the same time fending off agency account management and their predictions of disaster if Adam insists upon going ahead with the TV campaign he’s created for the Pizza Perfect competitive presentation; plus, in the same few days, co-hosting Christmas dinner at the lavishly swagged, befirred and festooned Meerbach’s Rathskeller for a major client; in addition to his dutiful participation in the Agency’s extravagant Christmas party; and then Adam’s horror when he suddenly realizes that Lou has been recording his assignations with Eleanor and is determined to renege on his promise to pay her $5 million for marrying him, culminating in Adam’s desperate race to prevent Eleanor’s murder at Lou’s triplex apartment overlooking all of New York.
Excerpt
ONE
Louis Kingman II hops out from behind Benjamin Disraeli’s gleaming mahogany desk (Had to have it, Adam. My God! Me, Lou Kingman. Sitting at his desk. Makes you think, eh?), speed walks across acres of priceless Oriental rugs (Desert sheiks walked on these very rugs, Adam! If rugs could talk, eh?), grinning hugely, arms stretched wide to--hug? mug? smother?--Adam Leff, who has just entered his office.
Adam, of course, is not disarmed by Lou’s grin.
Not disarmed by any grin, for that matter.
Having spent his formative years in the really great training program at the Harry and Helen Leff School of Hard Knocks for children of all ages, Adam knows that covering your nuts is the best preparation for any meeting. Alert, wired, ready for anything, always. Can read moods, motives, blood pressure. Defuse bombs.
Plus, sing, dance, play dead.
Lou Kingman?
Never, never to be trusted.
If you didn’t know better, you might even think he was Harry Leff’s doppelganger.
(The long-suffering Dr. Gruber is not happy with that observation. I must remind you, Mr. Leff. We deal with one father and one mother. Yours. We do not extrapolate. Not everyone is your father. Not everyone is your mother. These displacements contribute nothing to your therapy, Mr. Leff. Adam smiles to himself; Dr. Gruber needs to loosen up. Take a break. On the other hand, Adam knows when he’s joking he’s not fooling around.)
Whatever.
Louis Meyer Kingman II, Chairman, President, CEO of Louis Meyer Kingman Advertising, Inc. (what else?). Sixty-four years old, five-feet-seven inches tall, one hundred fifty-five compact, hard-muscled pounds. Desperately tanned, skin taut. Radiating perfect health or an imminent coronary, depending upon not infrequent, unpredictable eruptions of rage. Relentless, indiscriminate in pursuit of accounts on the loose. Any account, at any agency. Size is no inhibition to the mighty mosquito. Smells blood, tracks rumors, ferrets out key people, saying, doing, promising anything to score an invitation into the speculative competition.
His dream: knocking off one of the big guys.
Becoming one of the big guys. (You never know, Adam. One day, out of the blue we could land one.) And so Lou is always on the prowl.
Today, he’s positively beatific. Beside himself with joy.
“Adam, my man, this is a big day for you,” he begins, grinning and talking at the same time. Amazing display. “I can’t tell you just how happy it makes me to be able to reward you for what you’ve done over the past two years for all of us here at Louis Meyer Kingman II Advertising.” Lou is grinning happily. Rewarding people is his greatest joy in life. Of course, people being as worthless as they are, you can’t always do what you want to do. Can’t always satisfy your need to give. But this time, he can.
“Adam--son--what we’ve got for you today is a chance to pick up a really nice little piece of the pie.” The grin is wider now, enormous, threatening to split his face, occupy the whole office, push back the walls, crowd out the furniture, pop the windows.
And then Adam notices the “we.” Sam Blitz grinning weakly, guiltily (Sam is always guilty), from deep within the vast crushed velvet sofa under the ornately framed, dramatically illuminated portrait of Kingman the robber baron. A towering figure, pen poised--Tiny Tim on a pedestal--looming over what appears to be an ancient document awaiting his signature. Magna Carta? Treaty of Versailles? The Book of Genesis?
Poor Sam Blitz. Lou’s personal accountant and punching bag for years, now his CFO, is a decent man who yearns to be good. Unfortunately afflicted with a bottomless need to please his master. Lou’s kind of man: a puppy yearning for love. Easily manipulated, ready to do anything for a smile, a kind word. Regularly laying imaginative financial evasions, subterfuges, marginal usuries at Lou Kingman’s feet. Rolling over, hoping to have his belly scratched. Maybe, just maybe, even get a pat, pat, pat on his head.
Good boy, Sam. Good boy.
So while pitifully unable to control his compulsion to serve Kingman, he’s eternally torn by regrets. And then driven to transgress again, the very next day.
Kingman returns to his desk, picks up his cute little reading glasses, puts them on the tip of his nose, refers to a single sheet of paper, nods, smiles at what he sees, then hand to his chin, peers at Adam. The sweet, crinkly-eyed old shoemaker looking up from a pair of shoes he’s magically restored to life. Kind, gentle, honest. In love with the world.
You bet.
And without taking his eyes off Adam, he waves to Blitz.
“Explain it to him, Sam,” and he pushes his chair back, drops one hand to his crotch, the other one slipping off his glasses, tossing them onto his desk. Freeing that hand to aid in the support of what Lou Kingman believes to be the largest set of testicles in the business.
Sam clears his throat and his shoulder begins to twitch, jerking up and down as he coughs again and again, trying to remove some obstruction that seems to be making it difficult for him to speak.
“Adam--ahem--Adam…what Lou is offering you--ahem--and a couple of the other key agency people, is an--ahem--opportunity to purchase…a nice chunk of the agency--ahem--at very attractive terms.” His shoulder is leaping up and down now--shrug, shrug, shrug--as if something inside is trying to get out.
Kingman is listening, rapt, to Blitz, as if he’s never heard any of this before. Looking back and forth from his chief financial officer to Adam. So proud of Blitz, of this plan of his. A mother, eyes moist, watching her little boobala hopping about on the stage, being one of the Seven Dwarfs in his class play. Isn’t he something, my little boy? Tch, tch. And then a quick glance at Adam and the eyes are measuring him very carefully. Measuring him for what? And Adam smiles back.
“You see,” Blitz continues, “the book value--ahem, ahem--of the stock you’re being offered, will be slightly higher on the day you--ahem--buy it, than the price you’ll pay. Which means that the bank--I’ve already talked to them, worked out the details--will lend you the money you’ll need at their best rate.” He’s looking at the paper in his hand; the hand is shaking. “In your case, for twenty-five hundred shares”--
“The biggest block by far, I might add,” Kingman interrupts, reminding Blitz of an important detail he almost left out. Blitz nods in agreement, his shoulder in business for itself. About to separate from the rest of his body.
“Yes--ahem--the biggest block.” He pauses, looks at Adam. “In your case, for twenty-five hundred shares, that’ll be--ahem, ahem--seventy-one thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.” Blitz pauses again.
Lou frowns. He’s not pleased.
“You know, Sam, the way you describe it, it sounds like you’re just asking Adam for a lot of money. Like a contribution to a charity, or something.” His eyes are twinkling--a couple of shooting stars--and he turns to Adam, shakes his head, points a thumb over his shoulder at Blitz.
“I think he’s getting old…forgetful.” Lou is smiling at Blitz. The indulgent father, joking lovingly about his elderly son’s onrushing senility.
Sam Blitz pouts, his voice rising an octave as he responds.
“If you would stop interrupting me, Lou, I’d be able to cover everything.” He hands Adam a sheet of paper. “It’s all explained right there,” and he sits looking at the copy in his hand, then up at Adam, waiting for some response.
“Mister Kingman.”
It’s Helen Sweeney, speaking through the intercom, her voice booming around the room. Lou always keeps his remote speaker on and at full volume, reluctant to free his hands in order to pick up the phone.
“Yes?”
“It’s Mrs. Kingman on three.”
For his wife, Louis Kingman drops his balls, stands, shakes his trousers loose from his crotch and walks bandy-legged to a distant corner of his vast kingdom, where he can speak without being overheard.
As Lou murmurs, Adam considers the second Mrs. Louis Meyer Kingman II. Slender, young, black-haired, blue-eyed British beauty who, a few years ago separated Kingman from his wits and then milliseconds later, from his wife number one, a kindly, plump little woman getting contentedly older, plumper, as Lou was feverishly getting slimmer, younger. This at about the same time that Adam Leff left his agency job number one to join the Louis Kingman big band as lead trumpet, chief arranger, allegedly to be second only to the maestro, himself (I’m not getting any younger, Adam).
Followed not long thereafter by a celebratory dinner in the Great Hall of the baronial Kingman triplex overlooking Central Park and the entire known world south to Antarctica. The apartment, dazzling. Smoked glass, chrome, crystal, muted beige, black and cream. Chrome-railed Berber-carpeted spiral staircase soaring from the Italian marble foyer to the skylighted roof and the solarium far above. The taste exhibited, the antithesis of the preferred More-Is-Better Kingman style. Lou having the good judgment to let the Kingman Agency stylists handle the whole thing.
Eleanor Kingman, Lou’s freshly minted bride, seated to Adam’s left at that dinner. Adam Leff’s soon-to-be former wife seated at the far end of the enormous table, to Lou’s right, berating--her forte--the unfortunate man to her right. The dozens of remaining chairs filled by various luminaries of business, politics and, for titillation, a collection of television soap stars.
Adam delighted to be seated next to Eleanor, having met her on two other occasions, both client dinners--command performances demanding glibness, charm, amusing chatter from Adam--glancing at Eleanor not infrequently between monologues, each time catching her astonishing blue eyes measuring, appraising him, displaying not the slightest girlish flutter at being caught.
Adam’s interest in anyone else this evening, evaporating instantly when he feels a hand on his upper thigh shortly after his final spoon of a delicate young spring pea soup.
The hand, attached to a creamy white arm that extends up to a bare shoulder, there joining the rest of the incandescent Eleanor Kingman, just below her innocently smiling face. Adam’s reflexes, fortunately not unduly dulled by the drinks before dinner, the wines now being served, he makes a remarkable mid-air recovery of the piece of roll he was just raising to his mouth and turns his complete attention to this surprising--and continuing--event.
“I sense,” Eleanor is saying, pitching her throaty whisper at just the right level so that he alone can hear beneath the laughter, the clinking of silver, the voices engrossed in conversation, “that you and I have a great deal in common.” Her smile is blinding; he has never seen so many gleaming white teeth. Her hand is trailing upward as she speaks. Nothing in her casual demeanor, her gestures with one hand, related to the independently unfolding drama involving her other hand beneath the table.
“Such as?” Adam is calmly smiling in return, not a single crack in his voice. Yes sir, just one cool customer that Adam Leff. Take a lot more than a beautiful young woman’s hand on his thigh to throw him off course.
Man of steel. In complete control.
Sure.
And then, without any apparent movement, Eleanor releases his thigh, snatches his left hand, moves it to her lap, guides it under her dress directly up her bare leg to an increasingly humid--
“Quenelle, sir?” A plate has appeared at his left shoulder, supported by a hand, the black-tied gentleman behind the hand trying to pry open a space wide enough to reach through, serve Adam his next course.
Adam opens his mouth to respond and nothing comes out and so he just nods and the black-tied man smiles pleasantly in return and Adam (only Adam, of course) can read the man’s thoughts in a balloon over his head:
“Haha, my dear boy. You don’t think I’ve been around long enough to know what’s going on under Lou Kingman’s fourteen-thousand-dollar banquet-sized damask tablecloth from the Duke of Kent’s country house? I know hanky-panky when I see it, young man and that is hanky-panky,” and he continues along the table, smirking, offering his quenelles.
Eleanor Kingman is vastly amused, her startling eyes partially shaded by her black eyelashes, reflecting pinpoints of candlelight from the enormous antique chandelier.
“I guess we’ll just have to continue our--conversation--another time.” She narrows her eyes, her lips turn up at the corners, her voice is teasing. “That is, if you’re planning on remaining with Lou. I understand you creative people in advertising tend to hop about a good deal.” She raises her head, gives him a thousand watt blast from each pupil, reveals a long ivory neck draped in a string of sapphires supporting a sapphire and diamond pendant as big as an Easter egg.
“I don’t hop,” Adam says. Then he grins. “Bunnies hop.”
Eleanor smiles back, shows him her perfect teeth again. He’s sorry he isn’t wearing his shades.
“Good.” Her voice is that throaty whisper again as she leans toward him. “It is rather difficult, you know, to fuck a moving target.”
This time his reflexes don’t have a chance. His mouth--already open, anticipating the beautiful quenelle approaching on his fork--suddenly loses its capacity to close and for an instant he is frozen in mid-gesture, empty fork raised to his open mouth and the quenelle enters, exits, drops moistly onto the Duke’s damask cloth.
“Oh, dear,” she murmurs as he returns to life, retrieves the mouthful, returns it to his plate. And she smiles broadly and turns to talk to the man on her left and Adam remembers suddenly those dreams where he’s at a party, or in school, or just walking down the street and he looks down and realizes that he’s not wearing any clothes; uses scraps of paper, his wallet, books, in a futile attempt to conceal his nakedness. Certain everyone is staring at him.
But nobody in the room is displaying even the slightest interest in his part of the table. His wife now regaling Lou Kingman with God knows what. More than likely the heart-rending story of her life, Lou being the only individual in the city yet to hear that mournful tale. The other guests delivering monologues to each other.
Children in a sandbox; a lot of chattering; words flying on parallel tracks; very little listening.
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