Indecent Proposal Read online

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Praise received for Indecent Proposal

  Sneak Preview of Jack Engelhard’s latest novel Compulsive

  Links to purchase e-book edition of the novel Compulsive

  Books by Jack Engelhard

  Praised received for Jack Engelhard’s other books

  Foreword

  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

  Back cover

  INDECENT

  PROPOSAL

  by

  Jack Engelhard

  “powerful...brilliant...stunningly good book”

  25th Anniversary Edition of a great novel that led to the blockbuster movie starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore

  DayRay Literary Press

  British Columbia, Canada

  Indecent Proposal

  Copyright ©1988, 1992, 2001, 2010, 2012, 2013 by Jack Engelhard

  ISBN-13 978-1-77143-088-3

  Sixth Edition

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Engelhard, Jack, 1940-, author

  Indecent proposal / by Jack Engelhard. – Sixth edition.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77143-087-6 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-77143-088-3 (pdf)

  Additional cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

  Jack Engelhard may be contacted through: www.jackengelhard.com

  Cover artwork: Big gold cinema neon with film strip.

  Picture © oxygen64 | CanStockPhoto.com

  This is the classic novel that stirred the world’s conscience and launched the Robert Redford/Demi Moore mega-hit movie from Paramount Pictures. The Paramount motion picture, released April 1993, was based exclusively on this book, a novel that was translated around the world into more than 22 languages. “What would you do for a million dollars?”

  Publication sequence: 1988, Donald I. Fine Publishing;

  1992, Pocket Books movie tie-in; 2001, ComteQ Publishing;

  2010, Penguin/iUniverse; 2012, Amazon Kindle.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, entirely. The characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief and accurately credited quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  DayRay Literary Press is a literary imprint

  of CCB Publishing: www.ccbpublishing.com

  DayRay Literary Press

  British Columbia, Canada

  www.dayraypress.com

  Praise received for

  International Bestselling Novelist

  Jack Engelhard’s

  Indecent Proposal

  Translated into more than 22 languages and made into a blockbuster movie starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore

  “Precise, almost clinical language…is this book fun to read? You betcha.”

  - The New York Times

  “The prose is vivid, cool and muscular, the story is great. In all, the fine tension between desire and high moral principal make Indecent Proposal a well-crafted book...well-wrought characters, exhilarating pace...it's beautifully written.”

  - The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “A gut-wrenching study on love, money and trust.”

  - National Public Radio (NPR)

  “Written with the sparseness of Hemingway but the moral intensity of I. B. Singer.”

  - Michael Foster, author of Three in Love (HarperCollins)

  Included in this 25th Anniversary Edition is a Sneak Preview of Jack Engelhard’s latest work:

  Compulsive: A Novel

  In his usual hard-edged prose, for which he is internationally famous, bestselling novelist Jack Engelhard draws us into the mind of a compulsive gambler in a work stunningly brilliant and original, and seductively readable. Compulsive is a journey through today, with issues as current as the morning paper, brought to the fore by characters as timeless as the Bible. All this processed through a mind addicted to gambling as surely as others are addicted to heroin. A brisk read by one of America’s most accomplished authors… not to be missed. Jack Engelhard, the last of the Hemingways, is a writer without peer and the conscience of us all.

  Laurels from author of J.D. Salinger: A Life

  for Engelhard’s novel Compulsive:

  “Compulsive is enormously enjoyable, and so easy to get into. That Jack Engelhard is a talented novelist is self-evident. His story plots are engrossing, his writing is fluid, and his characters are easily recognizable. They are as flawed and complex as flesh and blood people. And like actual people, they are often confronted by moral choices. This is where Jack Engelhard becomes an important novelist. By presenting his characters with moral roadblocks, the author asks us, as readers, to examine our own ethics. That’s rare in today’s literature. In an age where moral ambiguity has become a staple of fashionable writing, Jack Engelhard pulls us back to remind us that our lives are a consequence of the ethical decisions we make.”

  - Kenneth Slawenski, (Random House) bestselling author of

  J.D. Salinger: A Life - www.deadcaulfields.com

  Sneak Preview

  Compulsive: A Novel

  A tap on the shoulder is never a good sign.

  “Mr. G,” said the man.

  I was overextended on my credit, so it figured, but I was having a good run, finally. I had the boys around the table hollering at each toss of the dice.

  “We got us a shooter!” said the stickman, accompanied by backslapping hoots and cheers.

  So I was making the points. Good action. Bad timing.

  “I’m in the middle of a shoot,” I said, “and you can call me Gil. You know who I am.”

  Yes he did, and I knew who he was. I’d had this before from Zack Charles. He was part of Credit Security and maybe part of the Casino Control Commission as well here in Atlantic City. Every casino had one like him, only Zack was more zealous at his job than most, and he seldom approached on tiptoes. He pounced on his quarry. He was an intelligent man. There was no fooling him.

  But I wasn’t in the mood for this and neither were the boys who kept shouting at him to leave me alone.

  “Let the guy shoot!”

  “Mr. Gilels,” said Zack, “please.”

  I’d ignore him as long as I could. I needed to make my point, which was the number six. I had developed a bad habit of depending on particular numbers. I had those same numbers even for the horses, occasionally, when the handicapping itself wasn’t doing me much good. I had started to depend on pure luck, and more than that, on mysticism. That was never smart, to depend wholly on luck, when it was skil
l that separated the winners from the losers.

  But the power of numerology also had to be believed. I knew people who spoke in numbers.

  Crazy, but it was the mathematicians who reached out to meaning and infinity much more than the philosophers.

  “Let’s go,” said Zack.

  “You are interrupting my game,” I said.

  I was tipsy from the vodka. I seldom drank. But it had been a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, a bad year and there was sure to be more trouble ahead.

  Dear God. There is trouble ahead...

  * * * * *

  “I can show you some scenes,” I told Adolf.

  We were at the Blue Fin on Times Square.

  He wasn’t listening. He kept eating. Hell, I could do the silent treatment, too.

  “Scenes,” he finally said.

  “Right.”

  “After all this time, a few scenes?”

  “I need more money.”

  “I expected this. For what?’

  “Location scouting.”

  “Where were you these past two weeks?” he said.

  “I thought you knew.”

  “How should I know?”

  “I know you know.”

  “I need you to tell me,” he said.

  I said nothing.

  “You got a bad habit,” he said.

  “Don’t we all.”

  “There are no secrets,” he said. “Everybody knows everything about everybody. Run, can’t hide.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  “How much?”

  I named the figure -- $250,000.

  “I already gave you that,” he said.

  Some people walked by, stopped, ignored him, and asked for my autograph.

  “See that?” he said. “You’re famous.”

  “I got spies, too.”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  There was no one home. His wife and daughter were out shopping or something.

  I showed him some scenes. I started it off with the UN resolution equating Zionism with racism. I did not show what came later, that it was all taken back and made clean. I showed Desmond Tutu declaring himself an anti-Semite, and being satisfied. I showed trains going to Auschwitz but instead of Jews packed inside I showed them as poor bedraggled Palestinians.

  Adolf liked that touch.

  I showed Yasser Arafat telling American TV that he wanted peace. I did not show what he said in Arabic, that he wanted to drive the Jews into the sea.

  I showed Israeli soldiers bulldozing a home and an Arab woman weeping. I did not mention that from this home came a man who had murdered a family of six Israelis, that, in fact, this man had entered the home of these Israelis, murdered the family point blank sleeping in their beds, except for the six-year-old girl who ran from room to room and thought she’d be safe hiding under a bed, but was caught, shot and slain.

  I showed Palestinians rushing for food in Ramallah after being starved for days by the Israelis. I did not show that they’d been fasting on their own for a holy day.

  I showed Palestinians marching peacefully for peace and did not show the rock throwing and the signs declaring “Death to Israel.”

  I showed the famous Muhammad al-Dura Incident where the Arab father tried to tuck in his son to protect him against crossfire between Israelis and Palestinians and where immediately the world blamed the Israelis, until it was proven to be false, and even staged. But the incident triggered worldwide outrage even after Israel was exonerated. I did not show that it was all a sham.

  “Good,” said Adolf.

  I showed Jimmy Carter on C-Span, in praise of the Palestinian Arabs and in damnation of the Jews.

  “Very good,” said Adolf.

  I let Jimmy Carter speak of apartheid. I did not show Palestinians sharing shops, jobs, businesses, restaurants, beaches – with Jews. Nor did I show Palestinian Arabs serving as mayors, judges and as members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. I did not mention that an Arab judge had sent a former president of Israel to jail. That would not fit.

  I did not show Palestinian Arabs mocking and molesting a religious Jewish couple in broad daylight in Jerusalem.

  I did not show Palestinian mothers proudly adorning their six-year-olds with suicide belts.

  I showed multitudes of Palestinians hailing their conquering heroes; cheering the return of 1,200 Palestinian prisoners who’d been held in Israeli jails.

  I did not mention that they had been exchanged for one Israeli prisoner, who was dead.

  I showed Israelis building illegal outposts on the West Bank, but did not show Arabs building illegal outposts on the West Bank.

  I showed Arab and world leaders decrying Israel’s lack of initiative for peace.

  “This is good,” said Adolf.

  I did not show Israel’s disengagements from Sinai, Hebron and Gaza as concessions for the sake of peace.

  I did not show what happened after 10,000 Israelis living in Gaza were moved out in favor of the Palestinians. Everything was burned to the ground. I did not show that, since the takeover, the Palestinians in Gaza, under the rule of Hamas, had showered Israel with 10,000 rockets a month. A million Israelis had to live in bomb shelters and keep running for their lives.

  I showed Arab prisoners in Israeli jails on a hunger strike, drawing support and sympathies from around the world.

  I did not show that these prisoners had bombed buses, pizza parlors and universities at a cost of 149 Israeli lives.

  I showed the king of Jordan demanding more concessions from Israel, saying this was “the last chance for peace.”

  I did not mention that his father, King Hussein, had killed 10,000 members of the PLO in what is still known as Black September.

  “Not bad,” said Adolf. “Not bad.”

  I showed the Incident at the Ramallah Police Station. Two young Israeli IDF reservists lost their way and accidentally wandered into Palestinian territory. They were taken in by police, members of the Palestinian Authority. The kids thought they’d be safe and escorted back home. A mob gathered outside police headquarters demanding blood. The doors were flung open and the mob grabbed the two kids and hacked them to death, and, with the help of the police, mutilated them and lynched them and then tossed their remains out the window. The mob wanted more. One of the attackers approached the window to display his arm dripping blood.

  “What’s this?”

  “Right, I don’t know how that got in there,” I said.

  “Get it out!”

  “Sure.”

  The two victims were Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami.

  I did not show the decapitation of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl – his throat slit for being Jewish.

  I did not show Palestinians dancing in the streets immediately after our Twin Towers went down in Manhattan at a price of 3,000 lives.

  I showed Jimmy Carter again listing his grievances against the Jewish State.

  I had every intention of burning all this…when the time came.

  “You did more than I thought,” Adolf said.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself for doubting me.”

  I wasn’t totally stupid. I knew the day would come when I’d have to give him something for his money – and now, after what happened, I needed more.

  He wrote out a check.

  “How soon do you think you’ll have it done?”

  “Another two to three months, depending.”

  “On what?”

  “Give me a break here,” I said.

  He said he wanted it presented at film festivals around the globe. He had connections. He could get it to Sundance and Cannes. It was sure to go over big in Europe. France, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, England, Ireland – they all had appetites for this. They were gluttons for this, especially in those countries where Muslims were coming in and Jews were going out, running for their lives, in droves.

  “Can’t you quit the gambling?”

  “I q
uit every day.”

  I got up to leave. I felt filthy.

  “Why don’t you stay? The ladies should be back any minute.”

  “I really have to go.”

  “How are you getting along with Barbara?”

  “That’s personal.”

  He reminded me again and again that his daughter Helen had lost a lot of weight.

  “She has a crush on you, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t know why.”

  “Neither would I. But you know women.”

  “There’s no accounting for taste, right?”

  “Right.”

  As for Adolf, Margaret was his second wife, and a trophy. She’d been a model. Now she was Society.

  “Do you think,” he said, “that this could win an Oscar?”

  This wasn’t as outrageous as it sounded. Today’s Hollywood was likely to side with “the plight of the Palestinians.”

  “Imagine that,” Adolf said. “The Academy Awards.”

  I left him dreaming.

  * * * * *

  Purchase your e-book copy of Compulsive today to continue reading this novel you won’t be able to put down and will want to read again and again.

  The e-book edition of Compulsive is also available from Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple’s iBookstore/iTunes, Google Play, Kobo, Sony’s eReader Store, as well as many other fine retailers worldwide.

  Books by Jack Engelhard

  Indecent Proposal: Fiction.

  Translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture of the same name starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore.