RANN OPENED HIS EYES IN the morning, roused by the sunlight streaming through the window opened earlier by Sung. It was the man’s way of waking Rann.
“One must never wake one quickly,” he had explained. “The soul wanders over the Earth while body sleeps and if one is waked too quickly soul has no time to find its way home.”
Sung now stood beside Rann’s bed waiting for him to wake, a pot of hot coffee on a silver tray held in his hands.
“So sorry to wake you, young sir,” he said. “But there is a man call three times in hour, say he must talk to you. Sounds important. His name Pearce. Say he publisher.”
“That’s all right, Sung.” Rann accepted the coffee the man poured for him. “What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock, young sir.”
Rann was mildly surprised at himself for sleeping so late. The telephone rang again as he was putting on his robe. He took his coffee to the library.
“Yes, sir. One moment, sir. He come now.” Sung handed Rann the instrument. It was his publisher, George Pearce.
“Quite some article in the paper, Colfax. Now we must keep your name before the public. Where did you meet Rita Benson?”
Rann explained the meeting.
“Damn good stroke of luck, if you ask me. Otherwise you might have slipped into New York with no notice. You should have let me know your flight, then I could have arranged a reception for you and had full coverage.”
“I didn’t think of it,” Rann said truthfully.
“Well, we have to think of it from now on. You’re a bestselling author but the public is fickle. Can’t let you slip out of sight. No harm done, though. Rita to the rescue. Can you have luncheon with us today?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. We will meet at the Pierre at noon. My public relations people will be with me and afterward we may invite the press for a few drinks and see if we can drum up a headline or two. I think we had better play up the playboy angle now that they’ve started it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about such things, sir.”
“You will… right after luncheon. Just leave everything to us. I’ve got the best PR in the business.”
Rann ate the hearty breakfast Sung prepared for him and bathed and dressed leisurely and took a taxi into Manhattan to the Pierre.
“Well, well, well,” George Pearce greeted him in the lobby of the hotel.
He was a tall man, stylishly dressed, a shock of blond hair falling across his forehead. Rann judged him to be in his forties, though he appeared ageless.
“So, this is Rann Colfax. And you are a handsome one too. Your photographs don’t do you justice. Must get some new ones. Margie, make a note of that, new publicity photos right away.”
The woman with him scribbled frantically in her notebook while he talked. They were seated in the comfortable dining room.
“I’ve ordered my favorite meal and I hope you will like it.”
The man’s assurance impressed Rann. He had never met anyone like him and found himself liking him.
“The PR people will join us in a while, but there are some things we should settle first,” he went on. “Margie, he will need new clothes. These are nice but too traditional for the image. Got a tailor, Rann?”
Rann shook his head.
“Mine will take good care of you. Not cheap, but worth it. The best. Margie, make an appointment and tell that Italian to put a rush on everything. Sports clothes, suits, dinner jackets, the works, all the latest styles. And get an appointment with that barber on Fifth Avenue. You know the one. Rann’s haircut looks too much like leftover GI. Oh well, we can change that.”
“Mr. Pearce—,” Rann began.
“Call me George,” the publisher interrupted. “We are going to be working closely together. No time for formalities.”
Rann continued. “All right, George, but I think I should be perfectly honest with you. I have always been just myself. I come from a university town in Ohio. I know nothing about styles and haircuts and press conferences and playboys and all of that, and I don’t know that I really want to learn.”
The older man studied his face carefully. “Rann, suppose I give it to you straight. You are a very young man, too young, in fact, to have written as good a book as you have. Nevertheless, you did it. We took a big chance on you when we published your book and now we have to make it pay off. Nothing personal, understand. I like you fine. I had thought of building you up as boy genius, intellectual and all of that, but that takes time. Your book will establish your brain—if people read it. That’s where we come in. If people want to read the kind of drivel that was in the papers about you last night and will buy your book as a result of it, then it’s up to us to give ’em lots to read in the papers. It’s as simple as that. You are a property first and a person second so far as I’m concerned. Your sales have risen steadily and you are now number five on the list. Let’s grab the number-one spot and see how long we can hold it. We have to sell you to the smart set in New York. They set the trend, and the smart sets of Wichita and El Paso and hundreds of other places will follow. It’s a matter of promotion.”
As the luncheon progressed, Rann found himself reluctantly agreeing with what the publisher had to say. The press conference had been set for five o’clock and Margie arranged a barber’s appointment for him beforehand. They were joined for the dessert course by three people from the public relations department. When George Pearce explained his plan, the senior of the three spoke.
“Well, George, at least this one is going to be a lot easier than the last one you gave us. That was a dog if I ever saw one. When are you seeing Rita Benson again?” The question was directed to Rann.
“As a matter of fact, I’m having dinner with Mrs. Benson—”
The public relations man interrupted him. “Call her Rita, especially to the press. She will love it and the press will eat it up. Where do you go afterward?”
“We had planned the theatre.”
“Good, then where?”
“Well, home I guess. I hadn’t planned anything.”
“That’s good. You don’t plan. We plan. Go to Sardi’s. We will have a columnist there. That should keep us going for a couple of days. Now, there is a movie premier, an important one, on Thursday night. I’ve got some extra celebrity tickets. Do you think Rita will go with you?”
“I don’t know, I’ll ask her.”
“Well, if she won’t, we will get someone else important. Now…”
The conversation continued for an hour and Rann found his evening time taken up with social events at least every other evening for the rest of the month.
“Gentlemen, I hate to break this up, but we have an appointment with a barber.” It was Margie who spoke. “We will see you at five.”
George Pearce rose. “I’ll go along with you,” he said. “And we will all meet back here at five.”
They arrived back at the Pierre at ten minutes before five. Rann’s hair was trimmed into one of the new styles and a new black suit of a stylish cut had replaced his more conservative one. George Pearce had used his influence with a fashionable haberdasher to get the suit altered for him, as well as a dinner jacket for him to wear that evening. He had even had time for a short visit to the tailor for his measurements to be taken and George Pearce assured Rann he should leave everything else to the tailor, and Rann had agreed to do so.
Now that his first press conference was so near taking place, Rann expressed some shyness. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” he repeated.
George Pearce seemed prepared for anything. “Margie, you take Rann in for a drink and settle him down. Wait about thirty minutes, then come on up. I’ll go on and be sure everything is ready.”
“You must trust him, Rann,” Margie said to him when they were settled into a comfortable booth in the rear of the cocktail lounge. “You are very lucky, George Pearce is the best in the business. No one in the world knows publishing as well as he does, and with the start you’ve already got, you are off and running. What are you working on now?”
