ersatz?”

“There’s no business, like show business,’ that’s news.…”

“How much of Litwack’s income comes from his face, Walter?”

“His face and his voice? Thirty percent.”

“Ninety percent, Oscar. Ninety percent.”

“He looks like everybody’s father. As last seen. Laid out in the coffin.”

“Whose deal?”

“Something all you guys are too jealous to recognize,” said Oscar Perlman, “is that Hy Litwack is a good journalist.”

“A good journalist?”

“Don’t bother. I’m folding right now. Your dealing has driven me to drink.”

“Shit.”

“Oscar, I thought I saw you sitting downstairs listening to Hy Litwack’s speech. In fact, I thought I saw you sitting next to me?”

“I was there.”

“You heard that speech and still tell us you think Hy Litwack is a good, honest, no-bullshit journalist?”

Someone else said, “That speech was written for some afternoon ladies’ society out in Ohio. Not for his colleagues, Oscar.”

“That’s true. Hit me once, and hit me twice, and hit me once again, it’s been a long, long time.”

“Fuckin’ superior bastard.”

“So?” Oscar Perlman said. “He’s not the first speaker who misjudged his audience. What are you going to do, wrap a coaxial cable around his neck and turn on the juice?”

“At least he might have asked one of his three thousand staff members to write a new speech for us.”

“Another reason you’re all jealous of him,” said Oscar Perlman, “is because Hy Litwack has a big, six-figure income.”

There was a momentary silence.

Someone said, quietly, “So have you, Oscar.”

“Yeah. But you bastards have figured out a way of taking it away from me—over the poker table.”

There was a laugh.

“Oscar’s defending Hy because they’re both establishment. The two richest men in journalism.”

“That’s right,” said Oscar. “Only Litwack’s smarter than I am. He doesn’t play poker.”

“You going to do a column on Walter March’s death, Oscar?”

“I don’t see anything funny about getting a pair of scissors up the ass. Even I can’t make anything funny out of that.”

“You can’t?”

“Pair of deuces. Pair of rockets.”

“And the devils are up and away, Five-Card Charlie.”

“No,” said Oscar Perlman. “I can’t.”

“How much money has Walter March cost you, Oscar?”

“It’s not the money. It’s the grief.”

“Sizable bill. First, when you were working for him in Washington, for years March refused to syndicate you. He wouldn’t even let your column run in other March newspapers.”

“He said what was funny in Washington no one would think funny in Dallas. He was wrong about Dallas.”

“Then when the syndicate picked you up, he sued you, saying you had developed the column while working on his newspaper, and he had the original copyright.”

“No one ever got rich working for Walter March.”

“How much did all that cost you, Oscar?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“You can’t sue talent.”

“You didn’t buy him off?”

“Of course not.”

“Legal fees?”

“There were some.”

“Grief?”

“A lot. I’ll never forgive him. Frankly, I’ll never forgive him. Never.”

“Then immediately he started nudging, saying if your column was going to run, it had to run in his newspapers. Right?”

“The bastard threatened about every contract I’ve had with every newspaper in this country.”

“This has been going on for years and years. Right, Oscar?”

“What are you doing, playing cards or working on a story?”

“I don’t get it,” another voice said. “So Walter March has been biting your tail all these years. Why all the grief? Lawyers are for grief. You can’t afford lawyers, Oscar?”

“You don’t know how Walter March operated?”

“Look at that. Nine, ten, Queen.”

“Tell me.”

“If you don’t know how Walter March operated, you never worked for him.”

“Yeah, I only need one.”

“A little blackmail. Always a little blackmail.”

Someone else said, “That son of a bitch had more private eyes on his payroll than he had reporters. Paid ’em better, too.”

“And they didn’t have to write.”

“A cute man. Real cute.”

“Shit. Son of a bitch. I’m out.”

“You mean Walter March has been blackmailing you, Oscar?”

“No. Just trying to find a way to. Pair of eyes behind every bush. I’m flying first class—there’s always the same son of a bitch flying coach. No matter what city I’m in, there’s always someone waiting for me in the hotel lobby to see if I go up in the elevator alone. Nuisance value, you know?”

“Dear old saintly Walter March operated like that?”

“Dear old saintly Walter March. The president of your American Journalism Alliance. You voted for him? Give me one card, so long as it’s the King of Clubs.”

“I’m very grateful to him,” said Oscar Perlman. “Kept me straight all these years. I’ve never had the opportunity to lie to my wife.”

“Oscar, you don’t think dear old saintly Walter March getting a scissors up the ass is funny?”

Oscar Perlman said, “Not worth a column.”

“I take