“I wonder if they would agree to that.”

“They won’t like it, but they’ll do it, because they can’t afford to lose you.”

“I guess.”

Dave found himself drawn to this shrewd old man, despite his criminal reputation.

Lev had not finished. “What about publishing? You write the songs, don’t you?”

“Walli and I do it together, usually.” Walli was the one who actually put the songs down on paper, for Dave’s handwriting and spelling were so bad that no one could ever read what he wrote; but the creative act was a collaboration. “We make a little extra from songwriting royalties.”

“A little? You should make a lot. I bet your publisher employs a foreign agent who takes a cut.”

“True.”

“If you look into it, you’ll find the foreign agent also employs a subagent who takes another cut, and so on. And all the people taking cuts are part of the same corporation. By the time they’ve taken twenty-five percent three or four times you got zip.” Lev shook his head in disgust. “Set up your own publishing company. You’ll never make money until you’re in control.”

Marga said: “How old are you, Dave?”

“Seventeen.”

“So young. But at least you’re smart enough to pay attention to business.”

“I wish I was smarter.”

After lunch they went into the lounge. “Your uncle Greg is going to join us for coffee,” Lev said. “He’s your mother’s half brother.”

Dave recalled that Daisy spoke fondly of Greg. He had done some foolish things in his youth, she said, but so had she. Greg was a Republican senator, but she even forgave him that.

Marga said: “My son, Greg, never married, but he has a son of his own, called George.”

Lev said: “It’s kind of an open secret. Nobody mentions it, but everyone in Washington knows. Greg ain’t the only congressman with a bastard kid.”

Dave knew about George. His mother had told him, and Jasper Murray had actually met George. Dave felt it was cool to have a colored cousin.

Dave said: “So George and I are your two grandsons.”

“Yeah.”

Marga said: “Here come Greg and George now.”

Dave looked up. Walking across the lounge was a middle-aged man wearing a stylish gray flannel suit that needed a good brush and press. Beside him was a handsome Negro of about thirty, immaculately dressed in a dark-gray mohair suit and a narrow tie.

They came up to the table. Both men kissed Marga. Lev said: “Greg, this is your nephew, Dave Williams. George, meet your English cousin.”

They sat down. Dave noticed that George was poised and confident, despite being the only dark-skinned person in the room. Negro pop stars were growing their hair longer, like everyone else in show business, but George still had a short crop, probably because he was in politics.

Greg said: “Well, Daddy, did you ever imagine a family like this?”

Lev said: “Listen to me, I’ll tell you something. If you could go back in time, to when I was the age Dave is now, and you could meet the young Lev Peshkov, and tell him how his life was going to turn out, do you know what he’d do? He’d say you were out of your goddamn mind.”