Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  Abel had had quite a struggle on his arrival in New York. He had occupied a room that contained only two beds, which he was obliged to share with George and two of his cousins. As a result, Abel slept only when one of the beds was free. George’s uncle had been unable to offer Abel a job, and after a few anxious weeks during which most of his savings had to be spent on staying alive while he searched from Brooklyn to Queens, he finally found work in a butcher’s shop. It paid nine dollars for a six-and-a-half-day week and allowed him to sleep above the premises. The shop was in the heart of an almost self-sufficient little Polish community on the Lower East Side, and Abel rapidly became impatient with the insularity of his fellow countrymen, many of whom made no effort even to learn to speak English.

  Abel still saw George and his constant succession of girlfriends regularly on weekends, but he spent most of his free evenings during the week at night school improving his ability to read and write English. He was not ashamed of his slow progress, for he had had little opportunity to write English at all since the age of eight, but within two years he had made himself fluent in his new tongue, showing only the slightest trace of an accent. He now felt ready to move out of the butcher’s shop—but to what, and how? Then while dressing a leg of lamb one morning he overheard one of the shop’s biggest customers, the catering manager of the Plaza Hotel, grumbling to the butcher that he had had to fire a junior waiter for petty theft. “How can I find a replacement at such short notice,” the manager complained. The butcher had no solution to offer. Abel did. He put on his only suit, walked forty-seven blocks uptown and five across and got the job.

  Once he had settled in at the Plaza, he enrolled in a night course in advanced English at Columbia University. He worked steadily every night, dictionary open in one hand, pen scratching away in the other. During the mornings, between serving breakfast and setting up for lunch, he would copy out the editorials from The New York Times, looking up in his secondhand Webster’s any word he was uncertain of.

  For the next three years, Abel worked his way through the ranks of the Plaza until he was promoted and became a waiter in the Oak Room, making about twenty-five dollars a week with tips. In his own world, he lacked for nothing.

  Abel’s instructor was so impressed by his diligent progress that he advised Abel to enroll in a further night course, which was to be his first step toward a Bachelor of Arts degree. He switched his spare-time reading from linguistics to economics and started copying out the editorials in The Wall Street Journal instead of those in The Times. His new world totally absorbed him and, with the exception of George, he lost touch with his Polish friends of the early days.

  When Abel served at table in the Plaza he would always study the famous among the guests carefully—the Bakers, Loebs, Whitneys, Morgans and Phelps—and try to work out why the rich were different. He read H. L. Mencken, The American Mercury, Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser in an endless quest for knowledge. He studied The New York Times while the other waiters flipped through the Mirror, and he read The Wall Street Journal in his hour’s break while they dozed. He was not sure where his newly acquired knowledge would lead him, but he never doubted the Baron’s maxim that there was no true substitute for a good education.

  One Thursday in August 1926—he remembered the occasion well because it was the day that Rudolph Valentino died and many of the ladies shopping on Fifth Avenue wore black—Abel was serving as usual at one of the corner tables. The corner tables were always reserved for top businessmen who wished to lunch in privacy without worrying about prying ears. He enjoyed serving at this particular table, for this was the era of expanding business and he often picked up some inside information from the tidbits of conversation. After the meal was over, if the host had been from a bank or large holding company, Abel would check the stock prices of the companies of the luncheon guests, and if the tone of the conversation had been optimistic and a small and a large company had been involved, he would invest one hundred dollars in the small company, in the hope that it would be a line for a takeover or expansion with the help of the larger company. If the host had ordered cigars at the end of the meal, Abel would increase his investment to two hundred dollars. Seven times out of ten, the value of the stock he had selected in this way doubled within six months, the period Abel would allow himself to hold onto the stock. Using this system, he lost money only three times during the four years he worked at the Plaza.

  What made waiting on the corner table unusual on this particular day was that the guests had ordered cigars even before the meal had started. Later they were joined by more guests, who ordered more cigars. Abel looked up the name of the host in the maître d’s reservation book. Woolworth. Abel had seen the name in the financial columns quite recently, but he could not immediately place it. The other guest was Charles Lester, a regular patron of the Plaza, one Abel knew to be a distinguished New York banker. He listened to as much of the conversation as he could while serving the meal. The guests showed absolutely no interest in the attentive waiter. Abel could not discover any specific details of importance, but he gathered that some sort of deal had been closed that morning and would be announced to an unsuspecting public later in the day. Then he remembered. He had seen the name in The Wall Street Journal. Woolworth was the man whose father had started the first five-and-ten-cents store; now the son was trying to raise money to expand. While the guests were enjoying their dessert course—most of them had chosen the strawberry cheese cake (Abel’s recommendation) —he took the opportunity to leave the dining room for a few moments to call his broker on Wall Street.

  “What is Woolworth trading at?” he asked.

  There was a pause from the other end of the line. “Two and one-eighth. Quite a lot of movement lately; don’t know why, though” came the reply.

  “Buy up to the limit of my account until you hear an announcement from the company later today.”

  “What will the announcement say?” asked the puzzled broker.

  “I am not at liberty to reveal that,” replied Abel.

  The broker was suitably impressed: Abel’s record in the past had led him not to inquire too closely into the source of his client’s information. Abel hurried back to the Oak Room in time to serve the guests’ coffee. They lingered over it for some time and Abel returned to the table only as they were preparing to leave. The man who picked up the check thanked Abel for his attentive service and, turning so that his friends could hear him, said, “Do you want a tip, young man?”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Abel.

  “Buy Woolworth stock.”

  The guests all laughed. Abel laughed as well, took the $5 the man held out and thanked him. He took a further $2,412 profit on Woolworth stock during the next six weeks.

  When Abel was granted full citizenship in the United States, a few days after his twenty-first birthday, he decided the occasion ought to be celebrated. He invited George and Monika, George’s latest love, and a girl called Clara, an exlove of George’s, to the movies to see John Barrymore in Don Juan and then on to Bigo’s for dinner. George was still an apprentice in his uncle’s bakery at eight dollars a week, and although Abel still looked upon him as his closest friend, he was aware of the growing difference between the penniless George and himself, who now had over eight thousand dollars in the bank and was now in his last year at Columbia University studying for his B.A. in economics. Abel knew exactly where he was going, whereas George had stopped telling everyone he would be the mayor of New York.

  The four of them had a memorable evening, mainly because Abel knew exactly what to expect from a good restaurant. His three guests all had a great deal too much to eat, and when the check was presented, George was aghast to see that it came to more than he earned in a month. Abel paid the bill without a second glance. If you have to pay a check, make it look as if the amount is of no consequence. If it is, don’t go to the restaurant again, but whatever you do, don’t comment or look surprised—something else the ri
ch had taught him.

  When the party broke up at about two in the morning, George and Monika returned to the Lower East Side, while Abel felt he had earned Clara. He smuggled her through the service entrance of the Plaza to a laundry elevator and then up to his room. She did not require much enticement into bed and Abel set about her with haste, mindful that he had some serious sleeping to do before reporting for breakfast duty. To his satisfaction, he had completed his task by two-thirty and he sank into an uninterrupted sleep until his alarm rang at 6 A.M. This left him just time enough to have Clara once again before he had to get dressed.

  Clara sat up in his bed and regarded Abel sullenly as he tied his white bow tie, then kissed her a perfunctory good-bye.

  “Be sure you leave the way you came or you’ll get me into a load of trouble,” said Abel. “When will I see you again?”

  “You won’t,” said Clara stonily.

  “Why not?” asked Abel, surprised. “Something I did?”

  “No, something you didn’t do.” She jumped out of bed and started to dress hastily.

  “What didn’t I do?” asked Abel, aggrieved. “You wanted to go to bed with me, didn’t you?”

  She turned around and faced him. “I thought I did until I realized you have only one thing in common with Valentino—you’re both dead. You may be the greatest thing the Plaza has seen in a bad year, but in bed, I can tell you, you are nothing.” Fully dressed now, she paused with her hand on the doorknob, composing her parting thrust. “Tell me, have you ever persuaded any girl to go to bed with you more than once?”

  Stunned, Abel stared at the slammed door and spent the rest of the day worrying about Clara’s accusation. He could think of no one with whom he could discuss the problem. George would only have laughed at him, and the staff at the Plaza all thought he knew everything. He decided that this problem, like all the others he had encountered in his life, must be one he could surmount with knowledge or experience.

  After lunch, on his half-day, he went to Scribner’s bookshop on Fifth Avenue. The store had in the past solved all his economics and linguistic problems, but he couldn’t find anything there that looked as if it might even begin to help his sexual ones. Their special book on etiquette was useless and The Moral Dilemma turned out to be utterly inappropriate.

  Abel left the book shop without making a purchase and spent the rest of the afternoon in a dingy Broadway movie theater, not watching the movie but thinking only about what Clara had said. The film, a love story with Greta Garbo that did not reach the kissing stage until the last reel, provided no more assistance than Scribner’s had.

  When Abel left the movie house the sky was already dark and there was a cool breeze blowing down Broadway. It still surprised Abel that any city could be almost as noisy and light by night as it was by day. He started walking uptown toward Fifty-ninth Street, hoping the fresh air would clear his mind. He stopped on the corner of Fifty-second Street to buy an evening paper.

  “Looking for a girl?” said a voice from the corner by the newsstand.

  Abel stared at the voice. She was about thirty-five and heavily made up, wearing the new, fashionable shade of lipstick. Her white silk blouse had a button undone and she wore a long black skirt with black stockings and black shoes.

  “Only five dollars, worth every penny,” she said, pushing her hip out at an angle, allowing the slit in her skirt to part and reveal the top of her stockings.

  “Where?” said Abel.

  “I have a little place of my own in the next block.”

  She turned her head, indicating to Abel which direction she meant, and he could, for the first time, see her face clearly under the streetlight. She was not unattractive. Abel nodded his agreement and she took his arm and they started walking.

  “If the police stop us,” she said, “you’re an old friend and my name’s Joyce.”

  They walked to the next block and into a squalid little apartment building. Abel was horrified by the dingy room she lived in, with its single bare lightbulb, one chair, a wash basin and a crumpled double bed, which had obviously already been used several times that day.

  “You live here?” he said incredulously.

  “Good God, no. I only use this place for my work.”

  “Why do you do this?” asked Abel, wondering if he now wanted to go through with his plan.

  “I have two children to bring up and no husband. Can you think of a better reason? Now, do you want me or not?”

  “Yes, but not the way you think,” said Abel.

  She eyed him warily. “Not another of those wacky ones, a follower of the Marquis de Sade, are you?”

  “Certainly not,” said Abel.

  “You’re not gonna burn me with cigarettes?”

  “No, nothing like that,” said Abel, startled. “I want to be taught properly. I want lessons.”

  “Lessons? Are you joking? What do you think this is, darling, a fucking night school?”

  “Something like that,” said Abel, and he sat down on the corner of the bed and explained to her how Clara had reacted the night before. “Do you think you can help?”

  The lady of the night studied Abel carefully, wondering if it were April the First.

  “Sure,” she said finally, “but it’s going to cost you five dollars a time for a thirty-minute session.”

  “More expensive than a B.A. from Columbia,” said Abel. “How many lessons will I need?”

  “Depends how quick a learner you are, doesn’t it?” she said.

  “Well, let’s start right now,” said Abel, taking five dollars out of his inside pocket. He handed the money over to her. She put the bill in the top of her stocking, a sure sign she never took them off.

  “Clothes off, darling,” she said. “You won’t learn much fully dressed.”

  When he was stripped, she looked at him critically. “You’re not exactly Douglas Fairbanks, are you? Don’t worry about it—it doesn’t matter what you look like once the lights are out; it only matters what you can do.”

  Abel sat on the edge of the bed while she started telling him about how to treat a lady. She was surprised that Abel really did not want her and was even more surprised when he continued to turn up every day for the next two weeks.

  “When will I know I’ve made it?” Abel inquired.

  “You’ll know, baby,” replied Joyce. “If you can make me come, you can make an Egyptian mummy come.”

  She taught him first what the sensitive parts of a woman’s body were and then to be patient in his lovemaking—and the signs by which he might know that what he was doing was pleasing. How to use his tongue and lips on every place other than a woman’s mouth.

  Abel listened carefully to all she said and followed her instructions scrupulously and, to begin with, a little bit too mechanically. Despite her assurance that he was improving out of all recognition, he had no real idea if she was telling him the truth, until about three weeks and $110 later, when to his surprise and delight, Joyce suddenly came alive in his arms for the first time. She held his head close to her as he gently licked her nipples. As he stroked her gently between the legs, he found she was wet—for the first time—and after he had entered her she moaned, a sound Abel had never heard before and found intensely pleasing. She clawed at his back, commanding him not to stop. The moaning continued, sometimes loud, sometimes soft. Finally she cried out sharply and the hands that had clutched him to her so fiercely relaxed.

  When she had caught her breath, she said, “Baby, you just graduated top of the class.”

  Abel hadn’t even come.

  Abel celebrated the awarding of both his degrees by paying scalper’s prices for ringside seats and taking George, Monika and a reluctant Clara to watch Gene Tunney fight Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight championship of the world. That night after the fight, Clara felt it was nothing less than her duty to go to bed with Abel—he had spent so much money on her. By the morning she was begging him not to leave her.

  Abel never a
sked her out again.

  After he had graduated from Columbia, Abel became dissatisfied with his life at the Plaza Hotel but could not figure out how to advance himself further. Although he served some of the wealthiest and most successful men in America, he was unable to approach any of them directly, knowing that to do so might well cost him his job. And in any case, the customers would not take seriously the aspirations of a waiter. Abel decided that he wanted to be a headwaiter.

  One day Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth Statler came to lunch at the Plaza’s Edwardian Room, where Abel had been on relief duty for a week. He thought his chance had come. He did everything he could think of to impress the famous hotelier, and the meal went splendidly. As he left, Statler thanked Abel warmly and gave him ten dollars, but that was the end of their association. Abel watched him disappear through the revolving doors of the Plaza, wondering if he was ever going to get a break.

  Sammy, the headwaiter, tapped him on the shoulder. “What did you get from Mr. Statler?”

  “Nothing,” said Abel.

  “He didn’t tip you?” queried Sammy in a disbelieving tone.

  “Oh, yes, sure,” said Abel. “Ten dollars.” He handed the money over to Sammy.

  “That’s more like it,” said Sammy. “I was beginning to think you was double-dealing me, Abel. Ten dollars, that’s good even for Mr. Statler. You must have impressed him.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Sammy.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Abel as he started walking away.

  “Wait a moment, Abel, I have a note here for you. The gentleman at table seventeen, a Mr. Leroy, wants to speak to you personally.”

  “What’s it about, Sammy?”

  “How should I know? Probably likes your blue eyes.”

  Abel glanced over to number 17, strictly for the meek and the unknown, because the table was so badly placed near a swinging door into the kitchen. Abel usually tried to avoid serving any of the tables at that end of the room.