“Look, Val, I don’t think you can be fit,” he said. “This stuff you sent me is no use to Look Now. They could have hired any small time photographer if they wanted the prints you have come up with.”
Cade felt a surge of weak rage rush through him.
“What the hell do they expect for six hundred lousy dollars?” he shouted. “Those photographs...”
“Skip it, Val! They’ve paid, but they are using Lucas’s prints. It’s costing them, but they have a reputation to think of. So have I. I’m sending you six hundred dollars. I’m not taking any commission. That should hold you for a couple of months if you’re careful. You take it easy and rest. When you’re really fit, I’ll look around for something for you, but right now...”
“Oh, get stuffed!” Cade shouted, his voice high-pitched and he slammed down the receiver.
The noise of the fast moving traffic coming through the open window, the monotonous whine of Maria’s vacuum cleaner, the sudden roar of a passing jet tore at his nerves.
What was he going to do? He couldn’t believe, after all these years, Wand was dropping him. The fat slug! Who did he think he was anyway? Cade reached for the glass and drained it. He got unsteadily to his feet.
Well, Wand wasn’t the only agent! He would show him! From now on, he would never get another Cade picture!
Then something came adrift inside Cade. He began to shake. Dropping on his knees, he hid his face in his hands. Racking, gasping sobs came from him as sounds of hopeless despair.
Five
Ed Burdick, special correspondent to the New York Sun, walked into the News Editor’s office, pushed the door shut and straddled the only other chair in the room.
Henry Mathison laid down his blue pencil and regarded Burdick suspiciously. By rights, Burdick should have been down in Mexico. Mathison had sent him down there to write a series of articles aimed at the tourist trade: an assignment that Burdick had been reluctant to accept.
“Who told you to come back, Ed? I didn’t.”
Burdick grinned. He was a tall, thin blond man in his late thirties. He was probably one of the best writers the Sun had ever had, and he knew it. He took certain liberties but he had never failed to deliver.
“If you’re worrying about that tourist crap, relax. I’ve got it all wrapped up and Burley’s handling it. Henry, something’s come up. I have an idea that if it’s handled right, it could do the Sun a lot of good. It could do you good and me good.”
Mathison fetched out a pack of cigarettes. He looked even more suspicious, but he waited.
“Guess who I ran across in Mexico City ten days ago?” Burdick said, helping himself to one of Mathison’s cigarettes although Mathison hadn’t offered him the pack.
“Tell me. This isn’t a TV quiz.”
“Val Cade, the photographer,” Burdick said and leaned back to watch the effect of his words.
He was disappointed. Mathison lit his cigarette and blew smoke across his soiled blotter.
“Well?” he asked as Burdick waited.
“You remember Cade?”
“Yes, I remember him. He got mixed up with some woman, took to the bottle, loused up the de Gaulle assignment and cost his agent a heap of money. Why should I get interested in a lush like him?”
“Because he happens to be the greatest photographer in the world,” Burdick said crisply.
“If you’ve come all the way back from Mexico to tell me that, I’m still not interested. Just why did you come back, Ed?”
“Because I want to work with Cade.”
Mathison stared, screwed up his eyes and leaned forward.
“Come again.”
“I want to team up with Cade. He and I could give the Sun a new look, and strictly between friends, the Sun could do with a new look.”
“Have you been helping Cade empty his bottle?”
“Henry, I’m serious. If you don’t cotton to this idea, then I’m going to talk to the Times, and if they don’t cotton, I’ll talk to the Tribune. Cade and I as a team could be sensational.”
“The guy’s a lush. He’s hooked. You’re wasting your time. What’s got into you? What makes you think Cade could ever be fit to work again?”
“What makes you think he can’t?”
“I know lushes. Once on the hook, they’re on for keeps.”
“Do you have to be so goddamn pessimistic? What have we to lose? This could be a once in a lifetime idea.”
“Have you talked to Cade about it?” Mathison leaned back in his chair and flicked ash on the floor.
“Of course I have. He’s as keen about it as I am.”
“I understood he was holed up in some Indian’s shack. Then I heard he was living on a pesos a day and a bottle of Tequila. Right?”
“That’s all old hat. He was holed up in a shack. Then he got ill. Wand’s agent, a guy named Adolfo Creel, found him and got him into hospital. They worked on him. He was in hospital for three weeks without a drink. Creel came to me. He begged me to do something. So I saw Cade. I liked him and he liked me. Remember those bull fighting pictures he took? Remember the documentary he did on the Indians? Tremendous stuff, Henry! This guy is as low as a man can get, but he’s ready to rise up again. He’s ready now. Do you realise he has never worked for a newspaper? He has always been so good and so talented no newspaper could ever hook him and you know nearly all of them, including the Sun, have tried some time or other. He’s not yet ready to stand on his own feet, but with me with him and you directing, he’ll come back as good as he ever was and that, as you know, is very, very good indeed.”
Mathison stubbed out his cigarette.
“Just because he hasn’t had a drink for three weeks, doesn’t mean he won’t start drinking as soon as he is out of hospital. I know these lushes.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Burdick said impatiently. “He’s been out of hospital now for a week. He’s right here, and he hasn’t touched anything stronger than a Coke since he’s been out.”
“You mean he’s here?” Mathison said, looking startled.
“That’s what I mean. What’s it to be, Henry? Do I work with Cade or shall we go over to the Times?”
Mathison lit another cigarette. His frown showed he was thinking.
“You’re pretty serious about this, aren’t you, Ed?”
“I am. I want to work with Cade. We’ll make a sensational combination.”
“What had you in mind?”
“I would like to have six pages of the Weekend supplement to fill. We could work out the subjects: the three of us. We would have Cade in colour.”
“Got any ideas?”
“Comparison stuff. Cade’s brilliant at that. The young and the old. The rich and the poor. The weak and the strong. The crooks and the suckers.”
Mathison thought about this, nodded, trying not to show his growing excitement.
“What’s it going to cost?”
“For Cade... as he is? You’ve got a bargain. You can get him for three hundred dollars, a week. And that is a bargain. A year ago he was making four or five times that amount.”
“Hm. Well... might be interesting. Think we could get him on a six year contract?”
“I wouldn’t let him sign a contract for that long. Two years: no more, and five hundred dollars for the second year.”
“Have you appointed yourself his agent?” Mathison asked, looking suddenly sour.
Burdick grinned cheerfully. “I’m making sure he gets a square deal. I know you. Well, what is it to be?”
“I’ll talk to him,” Mathison said. “I don’t promise anything, but at least I will talk to him.”