Cocksure
BOOKS BY MORDECAI RICHLER
FICTION
The Acrobats
(1954)
Son of a Smaller Hero
(1955)
A Choice of Enemies
(1957)
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
(1959)
The Incomparable Atuk
(1963)
Cocksure
(1968)
The Stree
(1969)
St. Urbain’s Horseman
(1971)
Joshua Then and Now
(1980)
Solomon Gursky Was Here
(1989)
Barney’s Version
(1997)
FICTION FOR YOUNG ADULTS
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang
(1975)
Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur
(1987)
Jacob Two-Two’s First Spy Case
(1995)
HISTORY
Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!:
Requiem for a Divided Country
(1992)
This Year in Jerusalem
(1994)
TRAVEL
Images of Spain
(1977)
ESSAYS
Hunting Tigers Under Glass: Essays and Reports
(1968)
Shovelling Trouble
(1972)
Notes on an Endangered Species and Others
(1974)
The Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays
(1978)
Home Sweet Home: My Canadian Album
(1984)
Broadsides: Reviews and Opinions
(1990)
Belling the Cat: Essays, Reports, and Opinions
(1998)
On Snooker: The Game and the Characters Who Play It
(2001)
Dispatches from the Sporting Life
(2002)
ANTHOLOGIES
The Best of Modern Humour
(1983)
Writers on World War II
(1991)
BOOKS BY MORDECAI RICHLER
FICTION
The Acrobats
(1954)
Son of a Smaller Hero
(1955)
A Choice of Enemies
(1957)
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
(1959)
The Incomparable Atuk
(1963)
Cocksure
(1968)
The Stree
(1969)
St. Urbain’s Horseman
(1971)
Joshua Then and Now
(1980)
Solomon Gursky Was Here
(1989)
Barney’s Version
(1997)
FICTION FOR YOUNG ADULTS
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang
(1975)
Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur
(1987)
Jacob Two-Two’s First Spy Case
(1995)
HISTORY
Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!:
Requiem for a Divided Country
(1992)
This Year in Jerusalem
(1994)
TRAVEL
Images of Spain
(1977)
ESSAYS
Hunting Tigers Under Glass: Essays and Reports
(1968)
Shovelling Trouble
(1972)
Notes on an Endangered Species and Others
(1974)
The Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays
(1978)
Home Sweet Home: My Canadian Album
(1984)
Broadsides: Reviews and Opinions
(1990)
Belling the Cat: Essays, Reports, and Opinions
(1998)
On Snooker: The Game and the Characters Who Play It
(2001)
Dispatches from the Sporting Life
(2002)
ANTHOLOGIES
The Best of Modern Humour
(1983)
Writers on World War II
(1991)
Copyright © 2002 by Mordecai Richler Productions, Inc.
First published in Canada by McClelland & Stewart, 1968
First Emblem Editions publication 2002
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Richler, Mordecai, 1931-2001
Cocksure: a novel
Originally published: Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1968.
eISBN: 978-1-55199-559-5
I. Title.
PS8535.138C6 2002 C813′.54 C2002-900283-4
PR9199.3.R43C6 2002
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
The lines quoted on
this page
–
this page
are from
The Adventurers
by Harold Robbins, copyright © 1966 by Harold Robbins, reprinted by permission of Trident Press.
SERIES EDITOR: ELLEN SELIGMAN
Series logo design: Brian Bean
EMBLEM EDITIONS
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
75 Sherbourne Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 2P9
www.mcclelland.com/emblem
v3.1
For Jack and Haya
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
1
D
INO TOMASSO BRAKED BEFORE THE HIGH, FAMILIAR
gates with the coupling snakes woven into the wrought iron. It was not necessary for him to show a pass, but he had to wait, drumming his three-fingered left hand against the steering wheel, while the armed, black-uniformed guard threw the lever that opened the gates and waved Tomasso’s AC Cobra 427 through. Tomasso turned into the winding, cypress-lined driveway, whistling happily until he spotted Laughton sitting by the poolside.
Laughton, one of several doctors attached to the Star Maker’s medical unit, was drinking with Gail, a pretty nurse in a bikini. “Time for a quick snort?” he asked.
“No. Sorry,” Tomasso said, his voice wobbly.
“How you keeping?”
“Lousy.
Honestly
.”
“Hold on a minute.” With a wink for Gail, Laughton whipped out an eye chart from under his towel and pointed a swizzle stick at the fifth line: U F J Z B H Q A. “Let’s go,” he said.
Tomasso reached for a tissue and wiped his forehead and the back of his thick, pleated neck. He squinted. “I’ll try my best. J,” he said, “T Y Z B … um … S … N … How am I doing?”
“You’re faking, you bastard.”
“You mean,” Tomasso said, radiating innocence, “I may need glasses?”
Gail shrieked with laughter.
“You’re a card, Dino,” Laughton said, “you really are.”
Tomasso laughed too, but ingratiatingly, without smiling. “How’s tricks?” he asked.
Laughton indicated the blinking red light and locked doors of the mobile operating theater. The Star Maker’s defrocked priest stood alongside, commiserating with one of the spare-parts men.
“Oh, no,” Tomasso said.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s all because of the new nurse.”
“Miss McInnes?”
“Bitch hadn’t been told about the deep-freeze.”
“She defrosted,”
Gail squealed.
“Holy shit!”
With trembling hand, Tomasso flicked the AC Cobra 427 into gear and sped toward the big house, pursued by their laughter. My God, my God, he thought, sliding out of the car, favoring his right leg, which was artificial.
The ageless, undying Star Maker reclined in his customary wheelchair. Behind, sending a shiver through Tomasso yet again, there loomed the familiar portrait of the pernicious Chevalier d’Éon, at once the Star Maker’s hero and heroine.
“Do you know why I sent for you, Dino?”
When Tomasso was summoned from Hollywood to the Star Maker’s mansion in Las Vegas, he calculated, not unreasonably, that he was at last to be designated crown prince of the empire. After all these years of sacrifice, he thought, unstinting labor and operations, he would be officially recognized heir apparent.
“No,” Tomasso lied hopefully.
“We hope to acquire a publishing house and a film studio in
England. I want you to go to London and look after my interests there.”
Oh, no, this wasn’t making him crown prince. This was even worse than a demotion. It was banishment.
Tomasso, who had been raised in the motion picture business, knew that London was not where you sent an heir apparent to be tested – it was the place whereto you shipped schlemiels to make son-in-law movies.
Son-in-law movies were produced by a studio chief’s cousins, uncles, and sons-in-law, who had to be given something more than their fingers to twiddle: otherwise it wouldn’t look nice for the family. Once, Tomasso remembered, these retarded relations were put in charge of the popcorn concession or distribution to ozoners, but that became too big; then they were allowed to sell rerun rights to TV, but then that became too big too; and so finally they were sent to England with blessings. A new breed of remittance men. In London, making zero pictures with zero actors, they still cost the family money, but the losses were negligible.
“I’m not going,” Tomasso said defiantly.
“In twenty-five years, Dino, you have never said no to me before.”
Tomasso looked at the floor, steadying himself.
“I have no heir. You are my son, Dino.”
How many times had he heard that before? Raising his head, astonished at his own courage, Tomasso said, “Go fuck yourself.”
Slowly, slowly, the Star Maker raised hands to face, shielding the bad eye. In the pause that ensued Tomasso dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands, making them bleed.
“Go … Why, you’re committing suicide, Dino.”
Tomasso fell to his knees. “Forgive me, Star Maker.”
The Star Maker’s face creased. It was, Tomasso supposed, a smile. “But why, Dino?”
“Oh, Star Maker, please, it’s just that I dared to dream of bigger things when you sent for me. The words leaped out. I didn’t mean it.”
The Star Maker pressed a button, summoning his private secretary, Miss Mott. The Star Maker pressed another button and they were joined by two black-uniformed motorcycle riders.
“Say it again, Dino.”
“I’d cut my tongue out first, Star Maker.”
“No, no. Miss Mott, get this down. I’ll want eight copies, witnessed and signed by Mr. Tomasso.”
“But it was a slip of the tongue, so help me. We don’t need witnesses.”
“It’s for your own protection, Dino.”
“Is it?”
“You said it to me first.”
“I’ve given you the best years of my life, Star Maker. Anything you asked, I did.”
“We’ll take it from the top. I said, quote, I want you to go to London and look after my interests there, unquote. You said, quote, I’m not going, unquote. I said, quote, I have no heir. You are my son, Dino, unquote. Then you said, quote …?”