But juvenile obstinacy was juvenile obstinacy. So the director wouldn't talk to her, and the writer didn't talk to anybody unless his own agent said so.
So when Wanda Reidel had told Summit Pictures that she had the writer and the director and the actor, she was not quite accurate. She had the actor. Biff Ballon.
She needed something. She needed the big deal. That crustacean bastard was joking and not joking when he said she was through. She needed that deal, and she needed it by cocktail hour, or supper at the latest, or she would be washed up and tomorrow's breakfast would see her retired.
"Danish," she screamed. "I want a Danish."
The secretary scurried in.
"Strawberry Danish," yelled Wanda Reidel.
"But loved one, you know how angry you'll be after you've eaten."
"Strawberry Danish. I won't be angry. Give it to me."
"But you know after you've eaten it, you'll hate the world."
"I already hate the world. I'll love the world with a Danish."
"But loved one, your diet."
"I want the Strawberry Danish." The voice of the Octopussy was heard in the office like the atmosphere of a cold, haunting, unused dark room that one not only did not enter but pretended did not exist. To this voice, secretaries did not argue.
"Six Strawberry Danish," corrected Wanda Reidel and six arrived soon after, carried by a white-coated counterboy with a nameplate.
"Heublein," said the secretary to the boy, reading his nameplate. "Just leave the Danish here."
"This is for the great Wanda Reidel, correct?" the boy asked.
"Yes, yes, and she doesn't want to be disturbed," said the secretary.
"I just wanted to see her. I have difficulty telling people from their pictures. People look different from their pictures."
"Just leave the Danish,'' said the secretary, but the delivery boy was already through the next door in Wanda Reidel's office.
"Ms. Reidel," said the delivery boy, "I can do wonders for you. You have access to more creativity than anyone else. I have read that in many places. You would be surprised at what I can do for you."
"That's great," said Wanda. "This is such Hollywood. Del Stacey of Summit who has the money I need won't spring it, and I get the backing of a luncheonette employee."
"Leave, please," said the secretary, bustling into the room. "Ms. Reidel hates the little people."
"I don't hate. I don't hate. Give me the Danish."
"Take only one," said the secretary.
But the delivery boy somehow moved the package so quickly that it was on Wanda's desk, and away from the secretary's grabbing hands like a fast ball with a hop.
Ms. Reidel went through the first one in two bites and was into the second before the secretary could get to the white bag spotted with grease and sugar. But Wanda slapped her hand away and was gulping and biting and fending off intrusions. When five Danish were in her stomach and the sixth was big chunks struggling toward her epiglottis, Wanda yelled at her secretary.
"Why did you let me eat these? What the hell is the matter with you?"
The secretary blinked through the hail of semi-chewed Danish that now came at her face along with Ms. Reidel's anger.
"Cunt. Get out of here," yelled Wanda. She futilely threw the white paper bag at her secretary's head. It landed just on the other side of the mother of pearl desk on the turquoise shag rug.
The secretary backed out.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to solve your problem if you solve mine," said the delivery boy.
"A delivery boy solving my problems."
"I'm not just a delivery boy."
"I know. You're going to be a big producer."
"No. All I want is to survive."
"That's what we all want. Why should you survive? What makes you special? Who the hell are you?"
The delivery boy gave a little bow similar to the one he had seen the secretary make when she left the room. Ms. Reidel did not see his hand come down like a pendulum on a pivot. But she did see a corner of her mother of pearl desk crack off evenly, as though sheared.
"You break things, so what? How does that make you any different from furniture movers?"
The delivery boy bowed again, and then, reaching down, picked up the sheared corner of the desk. She saw the orange glow, smelled something like plastic burning, and could have sworn later that those weren't hands on his wrists.
It probably took less than a minute, although at the time it seemed longer. But when the delivery boy backed away from the desktop, she saw a whole, clear, unshattered desk, as flawless as if it had never been cracked.
"How did you do that?"
"The main problem is determining what substance you are dealing with and its comparative fusion rations at variable temperatures, below the combustion level."
"Sure," said Wanda, running her hand over the corner of the desk. It was smooth.
"Sit down, kid," she said. Maybe this delivery boy could help her. After all, wasn't it a busboy who had got her into the men's room at the Brown Derby where she cornered Biff Ballon and wouldn't let him get up or have the toilet paper until he signed. She had stood with her heel on Biff's underwear down by his ankles. Some lesser lights, some jealous ones, might call that crude. But success was never crude.
"Kid," she said, "my problem is this. I've got a beautiful package I'm trying to sell. Perfect. And some studio head is too stupid to see it. What's your solution?"
"While there is some leeway to improve the working of the human mind, basic intelligence does not improve, not even with chemical drugs which affect the species, usually negatively."
"Which means he's not going to change his mind," said Wanda.
"You did not say it was a matter of altering an opinion. That is very possible."
"How?"
"Pain."
"How come you're only a delivery boy, kid?"
"I only appear to be a delivery boy. This I used to enter your office without alarming you."
"Do you love me, kid?"
"Of course not."
"Kid, if you're going to work for me, there's one basic rule you've got to understand. There are times when honesty is definitely not called for."
"Please let me know those times."
"Figure them out for yourself, kid. Now tell me, what kind of pain?"
"Wrenching limbs from sockets creates an enormous pain level in a human. They will do anything to stop that pain."
Wanda Reidel imagined Del Stacey getting his arms torn out of his sockets. She thought of his legs snapping off also. She thought of Del Stacey a writhing trunk on the floor, and she thought of dropping him into a pail of boiling water and seeing if the crustacean really did turn red.
"Did I say something amusing? You are smiling," said Heublein, the delivery boy.
"No, no, just thinking. Uh, do you have something that doesn't kill? You know, sort of just terrorizes."
"Yes, I can create terror."
"Hmmm. And if you get caught, no one would believe a delivery boy's word against mine. Well, no court at least. Let me explain the package I'm trying to sell. An Academy Award director combined with an Academy Award writer along with an actor I know would be super. I just need a little stiffening on the package and then a sell to Stacey."
"What stiffening?"
"The Academy Award director won't talk to me because I don't have Marlon Brando. The Academy Award writer won't talk to anybody. I need them. I already have Biff Ballon."
With an admonition that she wanted to know nothing about how Heublein did it, she gave him the addresses of the writer and the director and told him to take off that silly white jacket.