The Franchiser Read Online Free PDF

that way, I suppose. Magicians have special requirements. They have to be there to tell the tailor everything. Well, wouldn’t they?”
    “I guess so. I never thought about it.”
    “Wake up , for God’s sake!”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “So, well, anyway, there was this magician and one time I, you know, he was hanging around waiting for his costume to be ready and I, I asked him to teach me to palm a deuce.”
    “I don’t understand,” I said.
    “Do I have to draw a picture for you? When we cut, your father and I, to see who’d buy out who and low man had to pay the other guy the three thousand bucks—You see, I wanted the business. If your old man had cut a queen or a jack or even a ten I wouldn’t feel so bad, because probably I could have beat him without the palm. But he cut a four. A fair four . I had to cheat. Son of a bitch. It’s been on my conscience for years. Then, your father, he had to go and make me your godfather because he felt he’d stuck me with the business. What a sap. Well, who was the sap? Because I didn’t have any kids of my own then, see? I wasn’t even married. So it meant a lot to me, being your godfather. But I couldn’t face you. What I’d done to you, you know? It was as if I’d taken the bread out of your mouth, my own godson and I’d taken the bread out of his mouth. You’ve got a sister. You don’t see her here, do you?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Because she was never my goddaughter and I don’t give a shit what happens to her. You follow?”
    “I think.”
    “Because I was a sport in those days. What the hell, I wasn’t married, I had no responsibilities.” He lowered his voice. “I used to go backstage with some of our customers. You follow?”
    “I think—”
    “So naturally I fell in with this show-biz crowd. Hoofers, singers. And spent less and less time in the shop. I’d tell your dad I was making contacts for us, for our business, and in a way I was. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
    “Well, I—”
    “That’s when they took me to Tin Pan Alley.”
    “Tin Pan Alley?”
    “And there was this kid in Tin Pan Alley. He was always hanging around.”
    “I see.”
    “And whistling. You follow?”
    “I don’t—”
    “And everywhere I’d go in Tin Pan Alley there’d be this whistling kid, whistling tunes, Ben, the most beautiful tunes you ever heard. My God , what a whistler he was!”
    “I follow.”
    “What?”
    “I see.”
    “That whistler’s name was Jerome Kern!”
    “My God!”
    “He had a friend. A hummer. And, Ben, if it was possible, the hummer hummed even more beautiful than the whistler whistled.”
    “He was—?”
    “Richard Rodgers.”
    “Wow!”
    “And through Kern and Rodgers I got to know another character in Tin Pan Alley. A piano player. I’d listen to him play these incredible songs on his piano and I swear to you I had to catch my breath. It was like I was a sailor boy listening to the sirens.”
    “Cole Porter,” Ben said.
    “You better believe it.”
    “Jesus.”
    “So you see? I knew. I had my ear to the ground of Tin Pan Alley and I knew there was going to be a—what do you call it?—a renaissance in the American musical theater. And I saw new beautiful costumes in my sleep and I knew that the theatrical costume business was going to be the talk of the town. That’s when I asked the magician to teach me to palm the deuce. That’s it, that’s the story.”
    “Gee.”
    “Your father never knew.”
    “I’m glad. He would have eaten his heart out.”
    “He would have eaten his heart out.”
    Ben nodded.
    “So,” his godfather said after a while, “we’ve got business. I’m dying and I want to put things right.”
    “You don’t owe me—”
    “Never mind. This is something I’m doing for myself. You ain’t got nothing to do with it. Never mind what I don’t owe you.”
    I sat in my dining-room chair with my feet by the spittoon of pee and waited for him to go on.
    “I’m a very wealthy