The Best Revenge Read Online Free PDF

day, fashioning metal into jewelry. To escape Louie’s fate, I accepted proffered roles—stage manager and finally producer—instead of pursuing my own. Had Nick Manucci followed his father out of respect? Or did he have no choice?
    “This is a little different than your father’s business,” I said.
    “A little. Your father was a jewelry maker, right? Little rings, things like that.”
    I nodded.
    “Your father used to say what a creative kid I got. I’d have guessed you’d end up a writer, something like that.”
    “Oh,” I said, “play producing can be fairly creative.”
    The word fairly hung in the air.
    Ezra said, “Mr. Riller once called producing secondhand fucking, remember, Ben?”
    What the hell’s gotten into Ezra?
    He had Manucci laughing.
    “Mr. Manucci,” Ezra went on, “a producer is a rat just to the people he works with. If Ben had become a writer, he’d have to rat on everybody.”
    Manucci guffawed. “Hey, this lawyer friend of yours is okay.”
    As soon as Manucci lowered his eyes to look at the memorandum in front of him, Ezra gave me his Cheshire Cat smile.
    Manucci, looking up, said, “Understand, you didn’t give me too much time. My father caught me at home yesterday evening. Lucky I was able to get my accountant at his house. He got in pretty early this morning to make some calls. According to this,” he tapped the memo, “your record is exemplary.” He let the word lie there for a moment. “Fourteen hits out of seventeen times at bat. Anybody else come close besides DiMaggio?”
    Ezra and I laughed, as the circumstances required. I noticed how the creases in Manucci’s trousers were more sharp-edged than good taste would have permitted. Ben, I could hear Louie saying, you are a snob like your mother. The important creases are in the brain, not in the pants.
    I must make Nick comfortable with me, the way Louie would have made his father comfortable. I must bring him into my world because that is where he would be putting his money. Lightly, lightly, I said, “DiMaggio wouldn’t have made it in the theater. In our business, if you bat three hundred, you’re dead.”
    Manucci nodded. Did that mean he was buying in? My heart was a bird flapping its wings, too big for its cage.
    “Merrick,” I said, “is the Babe Ruth of Broadway. Actually, I was involved in eighteen productions. In my first, I was one of three co-producers.”
    I watched Manucci’s laugh subdue into a genial smile. Louie had always said, If a man’s face improves when he smiles, it might be possible to trust him.
    “Was it a flop?” Manucci asked. “The first one.”
    That first production had me bounding out of bed in the morning, my happiness manic as I helped put director, cast, costumes, and set in place. And all the time Louie’s voice was like a megaphone in my head. Don’t get so excited about a business deal. A business deal is not a woman. I wanted Louie to shut up. Theater wasn’t business.
    Manucci was studying me over the top of his porcelain cup. “You were going to tell me if your first one was a flop.”
    Pay attention, Louie was shouting, as if your life depended on it.
    Shut up, Pop, life doesn’t depend on any one deal.
    If this doesn’t work out, what will you do, sell suits? Stop daydreaming, the man is waiting for your answer.
    “That first play ran five months, Mr. Manucci. It sold out only on Saturdays. We didn’t advertise much. Word-of-mouth kept it going. The ticket brokers didn’t send us people. People who saw it sent us people. We made a small profit.”
    “How small?”
    “Maybe fifteen percent on the investment. I’m guessing. It was a long time ago.”
    “If you made a profit on your first one, you’ve got a right to be proud.”
    He’s not asking me the name of the play.
    You’re not looking for a cultural companion, pisher. Talk to him in the language he understands. Money.
    “If a play’s a smash, you can make four, five hundred percent,” I