“Shouldn’t wonder, after the raw deal he got,” said the young man, throwing open all the windows. “Have a slug of Scotch, Queen. Do you good.”
“Brandy,” said Mr. Queen faintly.
“Brandy!” The Boy Wonder looked pleased. “Now there’s a man with discriminating boozing habits. It gets your ticker after a while, but look at all the fun you have waiting for coronary thrombosis. Tell you what I’ll do with you, Queen. I’ll crack open a couple of bottles of 125-year-old Napoleon I’ve been saving for my wedding. Just between friends?”
Mr. Queen wavered between the demon of prejudice and the Boy Wonder’s grin. While he wavered, the tempter tilted a sun-scorched bottle and poured golden liquid.
It was too, too much. The would-be avenger accepted the fat glass and buried his nose in the seductive vapors of the aged cognac.
“Here... here’s to you,” said Mr. Queen one bottle later.
“No, no, here’s to you,” said Mr. Butcher.
The friendly sun was beaming on the Magna lot outside, the friendly room was cloistered and cool, the friendly brandy was pure bliss, and they were old, old friends.
Mr. Queen said fervently: “My m’stake, Butchie-boy.”
“No, no,” said Butchie-boy, beating his breast. “My m’stake, El ole cock.”
Clark had gone, dismissed by the Boy Wonder. He had departed with anxiety, for the magic of Butchie-boy’s executive methods was legend in Hollywood and as a good and conscientious agent Clark had misgivings about leaving his client alone with the magician.
Not without cause. Already his client was prepared to do or die for dear old Magna. “Don’t see how I could’ve mis-misjudged you, Butch,” said Mr. Queen, half in tears. “Thought you were a complete an’ absolute louse. You my word.”
“I yam a louse,” said Butch. “No won’er people get the wrong impression ’bout Hollywood. A yarn like that! I’ll be a laughing — a laughing-stock.”
Mr. Queen grasped his glass and glared. “Show me the firsht man who laughsh — laughs an’ I’ll kick his teeth in!”
“My pal.”
“But nob’dy’ll spread the story, Butch. It’s jus’ b’tween us an’ Alan Clark.” Mr. Queen snapped his fingers. “Curse it, he’ll talk.”
“Cer’nly he’ll talk. Di’n’t you know all agents are rats? Down with agents!”
“The dirty shkunk,” said Mr. Queen ferociously, rising. “Id’ll be all over Variety t’ morrow morning.”
Mr. Butcher leered. “Siddown, ole frien’. I fixed his wagon.”
“No! How?”
“Gave the shtory to Variety m’self jus’ before you came!”
Mr. Queen howled with admiration and pounded the Boy Wonder’s back. The Boy Wonder pounded his back. They fell into each other’s arms.
The First Secretary discovered them on the floor half a bottle later among sheets and sheets of yellow paper, planning with intense sobriety a mystery picture in which Ellery Van Christie, the world-famous detective, murders Jacques Boucherre, the world-famous movie producer, and pins the crime with fiendish ingenuity on one Alan Clarkwell, a scurvy fellow who skulked about making authors’ lives miserable.
Chapter 2
Story Conference
The First Secretary conferred with the Second Secretary and while the Second Secretary ran for raw eggs, Worcestershire, and tomato juice the First Secretary hauled the debaters into old Sigmund’s pre-Butcher lavatory, wheedled them into undressing, pushed them respectfully under the needle-shower, turned on the cold water, and retired under a barrage of yelps to telephone the trainer in the studio gymnasium.
They emerged from the lavatory an hour later full of tomato juice and the piety of newly converted teetotalers, looking like a pair of corpses washed up on shore. Ellery groped for the nearest chair and wound his arms about his head as if he were afraid it was going to fly away.
“What happened?” he moaned.
“I think the house fell in,” said the producer. “Howard, locate Lew Bascom. You’ll probably find him shooting craps with the grips on Stage 12.” The First Secretary vanished. “Ow, my head.”
“Alan Clark will massacre me,” said Ellery nervously. “You fiend, did you make me sign anything?”
“How should I know?” growled the Boy Wonder. Then they looked at each other and grinned.
For a time there was the silence of common suffering. Then Butcher began to stride up and down. Ellery closed his eyes, pained at this superhuman vitality. He opened them at the crackle of Butcher’s voice to find that remarkable gentleman studying him with a sharp green look. “Ellery, I want you back on the payroll.”
“Go away,” said Ellery.
“This time, I promise, you’ll work like a horse.”
“On a script?” Ellery made a face. “I don’t know a lap dissolve from a fade-in. Look, Butch, you’re a nice guy and all that, but this isn’t my racket. Let me crawl back to New York.”
The Boy Wonder grinned. “I could really care for a mugg like you; you’re an honest man. Hell, I’ve got a dozen writers on this lot who’ve forgotten more about scripts than you’ll know in a million years.”
“Then what the devil do you want me for?”
“I’ve read your books and followed your investigations for a long time. You’ve got a remarkable gift. You combine death-on-rats analysis with a creative imagination. And you’ve got a freshness of viewpoint the old-timers here, saturated in the movie tradition and technique, lost years ago. In a word, it’s my job to dig up talent, and I think you’re a natural-born plot man. Shall I keep talking?”
“When you say such pretty things?” Ellery sighed. “More.”
“Know Lew Bascom?”
“I’ve heard of him. A writer, isn’t he?”
“He thinks he is. He’s really an idea man. Picture ideas. Gets ’em in hot flushes. Got his greatest notion — Warner’s bought it for twenty-five thousand and grossed two million on it — over a poker table when he was so plastered he couldn’t tell an ace from a king. The magnificent slugnut sold the idea to another writer in the game in payment of a hundred-dollar debt... Well, you’re going to work with Lew. You’ll do the treatment together.”
“What treatment?” groaned Ellery.
“Of an original he’s just sold me. It’s the business. If I turned Lew loose on it solo, he’d come up with the most fantastic yarn you ever saw — if he came up with anything at all, which is doubtful. So I want you to work out the plot with him.”
“Does he know you’re wishing a collaborator on him?” asked Ellery dryly.
“He’s probably heard it by this time; you can’t keep anything secret in a studio. But don’t worry about Lew; he’s all right. Unstable, one of Nature’s screwiest noblemen, brilliant picture mind, absolutely undependable, gambler, chippy-chaser, dipsomaniac — a swell guy.”
“Hmm,” said Ellery.
“Only don’t let him throw you. You’ll be looking for him to buckle down to work and he’ll probably be over in Las Vegas playing craps with silver dollars. When he does show up he’ll be boiled on both sides. Nobody in town remembers the last time Lew was even relatively sober... Excuse me.” Butcher snapped into his communicator: “Yes, Madge?”
The Second Secretary said wearily: “Mr. Bascom just whooshed through, Mr. Butcher, and on the way he grabbed my letter-knife again. I thought you’d like to know.”
“Did she say knife?” asked Ellery, alarmed.
A chunky man whizzed in like a fat thunderbolt. He wore shapeless clothes, and he had blown cheeks, nose like a boiled onion, frizzled mustache, irritated hair, eyelids too tired to sit up straight, and a gaudy complexion not caused by exposure to the great outdoors.