Charlie Boston stepped up beside Oliver Quade and hissed: “Scram, Ollie! A cop.”
A man in a blue uniform pushed through the crowd. “Hey, you,” he said, “Mr. Slocum wants to talk to you about that voice of your’n.”
Oliver Quade drew himself up to his lean height and fixed the policeman with an icy stare. “Since when is a citizen of this glorious country denied the right of free speech? Are you not a servant of the people? So by what right do you dare order one of your employers not to speak!”
The cop grinned sickishly. “I’m not complaining about your talk. It’s Mr. Slocum. He wants to see you in his office, right away.”
Quade waved his hands to the audience. “You see, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what happens to a humble citizen when one of our millionaire movie moguls turns his thumb down. My voice raised in honest speech, in a humble endeavor to earn a livelihood, annoys Mr. Slocum, yonder in his plush-lined office and so I am arrested.”
“Who said anythin’ about arresting anyone?” the policeman demanded. “I only said Mr. Slocum wants to talk to you. He heard your voice and sent me out to bring you in. Hey, you didn’t think I was a regular cop, did you?”
Quade brightened. “Of course not, my good man! I see it all now. Mr. Slocum is a motion picture producer; he heard my resonant voice and — yes, of course. He wishes to talk contract with me. Lead on, officer! I’ll talk to your Mr. Slocum.”
The crowd was already dispersing. The policeman pushed his way through and Quade followed. Behind him came Charlie Boston, still protesting at walking into a lion’s den.
The main studio building was a maze of corridors and private offices. The uniformed man led Quade and Boston down the row of offices and finally opened the door of an office that only a Hollywood mogul or a blue-sky promoter could afford.
There were two or three girls in the office and a couple of sleek-haired young men.
“Miss Hendricks will announce you to Mr. Slocum,” said the policeman to Quade. “Miss Hendricks, this is the man from outside, the man whose voice Mr. Slocum heard.”
A woman who looked like a middle-aged schoolteacher said, “Mr. Slocum will see you.”
“Wait here, Charles,” Quade said, and passed through the portals of Mr. Tommy Slocum’s inner sanctum.
He went into a room that looked like a newspaper morgue. A short slight young man, who wore baggy trousers and a soiled shirt, got up from behind a littered desk and snapped at Quade:
“Can you bark?”
Quade had seen and heard many things in his life. He was almost never surprised. But his mouth fell open, now. “Can I bark?” he repeated, inanely.
“Yeah, sure. Like a dog. Let’s hear you.”
Quade’s eyes hardened. “You mean like this?” He barked “Arf! Arf!”
Tommy Slocum sawed the air impatiently. “No, no, no! Bark like the biggest, maddest dog you ever heard in your life. Put feeling into it!”
Quade fixed the little man with a deadly stare, took a deep breath... and barked. He barked like a St. Bernard dog whose tail had been stepped on by a fat man.
Tommy Slocum cried, “Splendid! I thought you had the stuff when I heard you bellowing out there on the street. You’ll do, fella, you’ll do!”
Deliberately Quade looked about the room. “Where’s the keeper?” he asked. “This is the crazy house, isn’t it?”
Tommy Slocum guffawed. “Don’t you know? This is the Slocum Studios. We make the Desmond Dogg animated cartoons.”
Quade looked sick. “Desmond Dogg! And I... I barked like Desmond Dogg?”
“Sure, that’s why I wanted you. Pete Rice, who usually dubs in the voice for Desmond, has laryngitis and won’t be able to bark for three-four days. We need the voice tomorrow. Come in here at nine o’clock. It’ll only be a couple of hours work and you’ll get fifty dollars. Oke?”
“Mr. Slocum,” said Quade. “You sent a policeman outside to drag me in. You interfered with my legitimate business. Your cop scared away my customers. I didn’t complain. I came in here because I thought a motion picture producer had recognized my talents. And what do you do? You insult—”
“All right, what the hell’s money?” snapped Slocum. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks.”
Quade’s mouth twisted suddenly. “I’ll be here at nine in the morning.”
He turned abruptly and rushed out of Slocum’s private office. He burst out of the room and almost knocked the wind out of one of the tallest men that ever walked a street. He was as thin as he was tall.
“What the hell!” the man gasped. “Look, where you’re going!” Then his eyes popped. “Oliver Quade!”
“Christopher Buck!” Quade exclaimed. “The world’s greatest detective!”
The long, lean man winced and darted a look around him. “Nix!”
Quade looked innocently around the office. “Are you in disguise? Shadowing someone?”
“Still the clowner!” Christopher Buck spat venomously.
Quade chuckled. “What’re you doing here in movieland, Buck? Didn’t think you’d ever get across the plains.”
“I came in an airplane,” said Buck, coldly. “How did you come — riding the rods?”
“Ha-ha,” Quade laughed mirthlessly. “We do have great times together, don’t we? Say, Charlie, remember this beanpole? Our old friend, Christopher Buck.”
“I saw him when he came in.” Charlie Boston retorted. “I was hoping he wouldn’t recognize me.”
Christopher Buck reddened. Then his eyes suddenly narrowed. “What’re you fellows doing here?”
Quade shrugged. “Well, you know how it is, Buck, old boy. When Hollywood calls... I just signed a long-term picture contract.”
Buck looked suspiciously at Quade. “Quit clowning, Quade. You just came out of Tommy Slocum’s office. So he did hire you?”
“I just said so.”
“Sure you said so, but you didn’t say what he hired you for. Look, Quade, we worked together on a case once before. You helped me quite a bit—”
“I helped you, Buck?”
Buck smiled ingratiatingly. “Well, you were lucky, eh? Now, look, we’re both working on the same case. Maybe for different bosses. But what’s the difference? We can still work together. Pool our information, you know, and maybe split fees, huh?”
“If you did the splitting, Buck,” growled Charlie Boston, “we wouldn’t get a hamburger out of it.”
Quade brightened. He caught Boston’s eye and winked. “On the other hand, Buck, maybe there’s something in what you say. You in a hurry to see Slocum? If not, why not let’s go talk about this over a cup of coffee.”
Buck sighed. “Why not? Maybe I’ve got some things you can use and maybe you’ve stumbled across a bit or two that might clear something for me. Come on.”
The trio walked out of the studio, through the street gate. Boston turned toward their old jallopy across the street but Quade caught his eye in a warning look. He fell behind Christopher Buck.
Buck led the way to a Packard coupe. “Might as well use my car,” he offered. “Or shall we walk over to that restaurant on the corner?”
“Oh, the Brown Derby’s just up the street,” Quade said. “I like the atmosphere there.” He had never seen the Brown Derby in his life.
The three of them climbed into the coupe and Christopher Buck tooled it into the traffic. “How long’ve you been here, Quade?” he asked.
“Not so long. But long enough to pick up a few things.”
“What?”
“Now, now, Buck, you wouldn’t want me to tell what I know, before I know what the score is, would you?”
Christopher Buck scowled. “Cagy, as always, huh? Well, who’s your client — Tommy Slocum?”