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sometimes lose track of what’s real.” He sighed and turned to me. “I hear the Times man has more clout than the rest put together. Ever try buying him?”
    What do you do with the type of mind that imagines that what you can do on the docks you can do with the Times ?
    “I don’t think that would work.”
    “It works in every business I know. A hundred buys a traffic ticket from a cop. If Lockheed wants an okay from the Jap government, it costs a lot of millions. Everything else is in between. You think a critic who makes sixty thousand a year won’t take thirty for one review?”
    “It’s not done.”
    Manucci stood up. “How the fuck do you know it’s not done? Maybe you don’t do it. Maybe it’s done with presents, not cash. Maybe it’s done by giving a paid annuity to somebody’s mother. Maybe it’s done by not doing something.”
    I didn’t understand.
    “Not breaking legs. Mr. Riller, if I put money with you I got to know you’re a realist.”
    The intercom buzzed. Manucci went over to his desk, held the phone to his ear. What am I doing here? I looked at Ezra.
    He gestured, palms down. Take it easy.
    Louie in heaven, I thought, it wasn’t like this when you went to see Aldo, was it?
    Manucci was saying into the intercom, “No. No is no.” He disconnected whoever was on the line, then said, “Did you tape that, honey? Terrific. Now hold the calls for a while.” He was still seated at the desk across the room when he said in a voice that seemed to boom, “How come a guy with your track record is having such trouble raising money for your new play?”
    Ezra interjected, “When Mr. Riller organized this partnership—”
    Manucci, on his way back to the sofa, cut Ezra off. “Mr. Hochman,” he said, “if I advise your client to do anything illegal, you speak up. Otherwise you keep quiet because this is a meeting between him and me and you are an observer, understand?” He turned to me. “Please,” he said, “continue.”
    I tried to speak casually. Nothing was to be gained by telling Manucci how desperate I was. Why else would I come to his father or to him?
    “Most of the people who invest in the theater,” I said, “figure the downside gamble is a tax write-off against ordinary income, costing them thirty to fifty cents on the dollar net. That’s if you lose everything, which is rare. This year most of my steadies have taken a bath in the market, short term and long term. They can’t use losses.”
    I couldn’t tell whether he believed me. He sighed. “What’s in it for you?”
    “In a loss situation? The production usually contributes some part of the budget to my office overhead.”
    Manucci laughed. “You spend a year of your time for some office overhead? I hear guys who produce movies can make three hundred big ones as their fee on a flop.”
    “If a play’s a success, as general partner I get fifty percent of the profits once the investors have their money back.” Why did my voice sound as if a mechanical monkey were talking?
    “I’m like the movie producers,” Manucci said. “I like to see mine, win or lose.”
    “I understand.”
    “What I understand,” Manucci said carefully, lowering his voice so that I had to lean forward to hear him, “is that sometimes an investor is entitled to a piece of your piece, is that right?”
    “That’s a matter of contention,” Ezra said. “I’ve never permitted Mr. Riller to do that.”
    “Please, Mr. Hochman, don’t use words like contention. There’s always a first time for everything.”
    Ezra coughed.
    “If you offered better terms than usual to some of your old-time investors,” Manucci said, “maybe they’d have come up with the money.”
    “I couldn’t have Mr. Riller do that. Word would get around to the others.”
    Manucci tapped his forehead. “Mr. Hochman, you think you’re doing your client a favor by butting in? I tell you, any lawyer did me favors like that I’d put in a tube and mail back to