Pan Satyrus

CHAPTER EIGHT

Flying up to New York, I was not easy in my mind. That Iggie Napoli, my assistant, was too smart. So now he had my mobile unit and my mike, and if any kind of story broke in Florida while I was away, he would go on the air. And who could fail to remember a man named Ignatz Napoli? I had spent more than ten years teaching them to remember Bill Dunham, but Iggie could do it in two interviews, if they were good ones.

So here I went, back to the front office to report, and not at all happy.

My story on the chimponaut was a beat, all right, an old-fashioned scoop, but I hadn't dominated the interview — Pan Satyrus had. And in this business, you limp once, and somebody bites both legs off and sends you a bunch of roses because they're so sorry you're not feeling well.

I took a cab at the airport. I wasn't in any mood to ride with the schnooks in the regular bus. New York, when we came out of the tunnel, looked just the same, everybody hurrying, everybody wrapped up in himself. The elevator starter at the network building remembered me, and I began to feel a little better.

Those guys are the first ones to get the word when the sling has been rigged.

"Take Mr. Dunham right up," he told the operator, and my spirits went up without mechanical help. Thirty-second, Mr. Dunham?"

"Thirty-second," I said, and slipped him a five, He said he was glad to see me back.

No sling today.

Yep. Little pretty-thighs on the reception table had a big row of teeth ready for me and a look down her cleavage. You can always tell how high you are in the network by how deep you can see. She must practice all night; I don't know when she sleeps, though I know with whom, usually…

And whooo-whoppie — here I am, with two vice presidents and an exec, and the bottle coming out, and welcome home to our Billy-boy, safe back from the wars.

No sling today. Slings tomorrow, or the day after, but none today.

Riker, the exec, was running the conference. "Bill, I suppose you know why we hauled you back here," he said.

Whatever he made out of my smile, he could keep. I hoisted my drink and let the ice clink against my teeth.

"That chimp — what did you call him, a chimponaut — of yours is the biggest thing since Jackie Gleason."

"Fat prospects, huh?" Very bad, but a standard move of mine. When they laugh at your bad jokes, you can ask for a raise. When they laugh at the good ones, it's not so sure, though I think those guys never do anything by accident…

They laughed at that one, so I knew that I was really high.

"Drink up, Billy-boy," Riker said.

I drank up, Out in the field I drink Scotch, but that close to Madison Avenue you are not a real fellow unless you drink bourbon-and-branch. I can re member when, it was scotch-on-the-rocks, but to ask for that now would date you. Never get dated, my friend; dates are for tombstones.

"Boys," I asked, "what can I do for you?"

Well, it seemed I couldn't do anything. They had just called me back to New York to find out if I liked Florida. But there's an end to that sort of thing; and finally Riker gives the nod to McLemore, and McLemore gives the nod to Hirts, and Hirts gives me the word, "Billy, you ever think of quitting the news end?"

"Nope." They were getting no change from me.

"You ever dream of being a producer?"

"Nope."

Of a dramatic show," McLemore asks, beginning to pass it up the line again. "Casting beautiful young dolls, kicking actors, bossing writers?"

"Nope. I am an old newsman; guess I'll die one."

"An executive producer," Riker says. "With a director under you, and an assistant producer."

"Listen, Rike, if I woke up in the same bed, or even in the same town three mornings in a row I wouldn't know where I was. I've been at it, newspaper, radio and TV since interviewing Dolley Madison was the hot thing to do."

"We all have to settle down," Riker said, who settled down when he was about eleven and his father left him three million bucks. "You've been an asset to this network, Bill. It's time you reaped some of the good things of life."

No sling was in sight, but it sounded like one was rigged. And yet, there was the bottle, there was the elevator starter, there was Little Miss Lowneck on the reception desk. I said, "Rike, what's the pitch? Let's quit horsing around. You know me: I'm an organization man. What does the organization want?"

"That's right, Bill," Riker said. "Leave us not fight City Hall, eh? It's this ape, Bill, this chimpanzee. Pan Satyrus. The chimponaut."

"What about him?"

Now we had all forgotten the bottle, and what good friends we were, and how we all love the network, our jobs and the U.S.A. Now we were working.

"An hour show," Riker said. "One of our best sponsors: North-South Family Group Insurance. Practically any budget we care to name. But, the chimp has to star. Period. Paragraph."

"So buy the chimp."

They all three looked at me like I had spat on their family Bibles. Which was fine; I had a reputation as a professional roughneck to maintain.

"Billy-boy," Hirts said.

"Always joking," McLemore contributed.

But Riker, the exec, was a boss. "You don't buy personalities," he said. "And he is the greatest personality in months. Since John Glenn, or Carolyn Kennedy."

"We could tell on the air you two hit it off," Hirts said. "You were talking like you'd known each other all your lives."

"He's only seven and a half," I said.

"He's born show business," McLemore said.

"He is what our sponsor wants," Riker finished the cycle.

So now I had the word; and in this business, when you get it, you listen. "In the words of the poet," I said, "I am only talking out loud. But A — he is government property. B — he is damned emotional. C— there were security men around him like he was the Russian ambassador. That ape knows something, and the government isn't going to let him out to tell it."

Riker nodded at McLemore and McLemore nodded at Hirts, and Hirts said, "You can handle it, Bill."

"There's a spot for me at NBC, and one at CBS," I said. "And Mutual or ABC, they know me of old."

"Don't talk like that," Riker said. "You're an organization man."

So I reached for the phone on his desk and said, "Get me Legal, whoever's the head of it now."

"Let me see, Mr. Dunham," the girl said. They all know your voice at the Network — till the sling is rigged. "That's Mr. Rossini." "Give him the baton, darling."

Mr. Rossini I didn't know. But he had a very musical voice to go with the name. He wanted to know what he could do for his dear Mr. Dunham.

"What's the legal definition of a human being?" I asked him.

Long pause. Then: "There isn't any." "What do you do when that happens?" Mr. Rossini said, cautiously, "Well, I don't know that it ever happened before. I mean, the courts have had time to cover almost everything since Magna Carta… I suppose a court hearing, a court order?" "How about the dictionary definition?" Mr. Rossini said he would look it up. I said I would hold the phone. Hirts said he knew that Billy-boy could handle it. Riker said nothing.

Finally Rossini said, "It isn't at all clear. Like — a man is a man is a man. It says human means of the race, of or related to man."

"Check, Rossini. Good enough. Now, get your hat, and start down for Judge Manton's chambers. I'll call him. We want a court order asking for the release of one Pan Satyrus, illegally held by the U.S. Government." "Oh," Rossini said. 'I heard we were interested." "I'm in Riker's office right now. Get on it, pal." "Mr. Dunham, you can't sue the U.S. Government without its permission."

"You and Manton fix it. I'll call him." Manton was home when I tried his chambers. I called him there. "Judge, you once said any time to me. This is it. I got a lawyer named Rossini on his way to your chambers. I want an order establishing that chimponaut, Pan Satyrus, as a human being."

"Wait a minute, Mr. Dunham—"

"You said any time, judge."

"I know, but—"

"Judge, on the other hand, you're going to owe me two any times. This will make you the most famous jurist in the country."

"Yes. Yes. But the dignity of the bench—"

"The dignity of the bench rests on its protection of human rights. If you could talk to this Pan Satyrus, Judge — believe me, this is an oppressed person."

"But I am a judge of New York State. You have to get him into my jurisdiction."

"That I'll handle."

And that was all for the legal end. From then on it was easy, on the skids all the way. I called a guy I knew in City Hall. "Mac, I just flew in from Florida to cover the reception of Pan Satyrus, the chimponaut. I know you can't give me an exclusive, but could you just hint what the city is preparing for him? Ticker-tape parade, of course. Key to the city? Bronze plaque, maybe?"

"Why, Bill, I dunno, exactly…"

My voice went up like the old Front Page. Lee Tracy, wasn't it? "No bronze plaque? I mean, I should think the city and the Zoological Society would be fighting to see who paid for it. The most distinguished son of the Bronx, born right in a cage in the Zoo? Whatya mean, no bronze plaque?"

"Yep," Mac said. "Yep, I got it. Thanks for the tip, Bill. I didn't know what zoo he was born in."

I hung up the phone. Riker was looking at me with a strange expression.

"Rike, unwind. I don't want a job in Network. I like it out in the field."

"But you'll produce the show. Or host it, anyway?"

"For a start. This is a very friendly chimp, Rike. He takes to people. We'll find him a producer and a host he likes. Maybe pretty girls."

"I didn't know he was a New Yorker. I didn't know he was born in the Bronx Zoo," Hirts said.

"Neither did I. I forgot to ask him. What's it to me? My show is national."