Sweet Smell of Success by Ernest Lehman

Author:Ernest Lehman [Lehman, Ernest]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000, FIC029000
ISBN: 9781468302448
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2012-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

II

Outside, the late afternoon air was sharp with the tang of approaching winter. I whistled for a cab. But Sammy said, “Let’s walk.”

I threw him a glance. “It’s after five.”

“I don’t care if it’s after fifty. I said, ‘Let’s walk.’ I need the oxygen. I don’t feel so good. I’m all tensed up.”

“But I thought you said before—”

“After all these years don’t you know when Sammy is whistling in the cemetery?” We walked east on Forty-eighth, Sammy taking the big-striding steps and me scurrying to keep up with him. He was inhaling noisily, trying to suck the confidence into his body through his lungs. “Okay, the script is good, rehearsals went great. But I’m scared. It’s too big, too important. It means too much to me. Jesus, Al, just think—to be able to look Gleason and Silvers and those other fakirs in the face and see the jealousy … to be able to spit.” He expectorated into the street. “If only I could stop caring. If only I could say: ‘So what, Sammy, it’s only another show.’ But it’s more. It’s everything. It’s—”

“It’s only another show, Sammy.”

He looked at me. “Y’mean it, Al?”

“Sure,” I lied. “It’s only another show.”

We strode in silence for a while. The sidewalks were jammed. Everybody was knocking off, going home. But not us. We never stopped working. Not even when we closed Lindy’s at four in the morning and climbed into bed with the little red capsule. In show business, you can’t do too much sleeping if you want to wind up with the longest obituary in Variety.

“Al?” We were nearing the office. “Do we have to go up now?”

“You told the fellows to be there,” I said. “All day long at the studio, and now they’ve got to be there. The least you can do is show up. Besides, we’ve got to cut twelve minutes … unless you want us to do it without you.”

“In the pig’s ass.”

“All right then. If you don’t do it now, when are you going to do it?”

“Tomorrow?” he ventured.

“The dress is tonight.”

Suddenly he began to pound his stomach.

I’m getting sick!” he groaned. “My God, Al, suppose I get sick? Suppose—” He belched loudly.

“That does it,” I said.

“You think so?”

“Of course. You’re all better now.”

I wondered if there was any other nursemaid in New York who wore a camel’s hair coat.

We went through the lobby and pushed our way into the crowded elevator. Some jerk called out, “Attaboy, Sammy. Knock ’em dead tomorrow.”

I turned and withered the guy with a look.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Sammy snapped his fingers at the elevator man. “Get this goddam thing off the ground.”

We didn’t move.

He grabbed my arm. “We’ll walk.”

He headed for the stairs and started up two at a time. I panted after him, and didn’t catch him until the fourth floor. There was nothing wrong with Sammy, at least not with that enormous, supercharged body. He was merely doing all his failing in fantasy today, so that he wouldn’t be doing it in reality tomorrow.

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