“How long do you have to wait?”
“Nobody knows,” said Noyes wearily. “I suppose they’re waiting for the sudden metamorphosis from story man to stool-pigeon. I don’t feel the wings sprouting yet.”
“Queer,” murmured Homer. “The Piper democracy is built upon a strange Bill of Rights. Why not turn stool-pigeon in a harmless sort of way?”
Noyes stiffened. “Here’s Cianchini’s room, gentlemen. I hope you enjoy your first story conference.”
CHAPTER 4
Don’t Make Me Laugh
Cianchini was waiting for us. So were ten other men, including Sugarfoot, Mose Kent, Jimmy Boomer and Ephraim De Cluny. It was a square room. The far wall was completely covered with small sketches of Benny the Bear, tacked closely together.
“That’s the new Benny story,” said Cianchini. “Benny Goes to Bat, we call it. Baseball stuff. You know how a story unit works, men?”
“We know from nothing,” I said.
Jimmy Boomer fell to his knees in a mock plea, wringing his hands. “Don’t stay, boys! Don’t stay! It isn’t too late to leave! Walk through that door to freedom, before you become mad, like me!”
Nobody laughed. Cianchini said, “He’s nuts. But you got to be nuts to be a story man, Homer.”
The door opened and a pretty girl walked in. It was Daisy, with a stenotype machine.
Boomer jumped to his feet. “A dame! Daisy—sweet Daisy! Say you’ll be mine, honey—say you love me!” He put his arms around her.
“Don’t marry him, marry me,” said Mose. “He eats crackers in bed.”
“Be gone, both of you,” she said. “I love another.”
Mose sobbed a mock sob. “It is as I thought. Mark Richmond has won again.”
A great surge of laughter rose after that one. But it stopped suddenly. Everybody stared at the door. There was a man in the doorway.
“Hello, Mark,” said Cianchini, trying for a smile.
Mark Richmond surveyed the room coolly. He was a medium-sized man, no bigger than Cianchini. But you never noticed his size. You looked at his face, at his straight sharp features. His eyes would hold you. They were deep set and black. They looked at you through half closed lids, bright as a snake’s.
He walked to a chair and sat down. “How far along are you with this story, Louie?”
“We’re ready for animation, Mark. We got all of Dick’s suggestions put in this version. I think we’re ready to shoot, Mark.”
Cianchini showed a hesitant sort of awe. He was groveling. I didn’t like the way he kept repeating Richmond’s first name.
“I came early on purpose,” said Mark. “Dick will be along in a minute. I suppose you men know what I’m going to talk about?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. “A studio of this size can’t get along very well without cooperation from all of its staff.” He shifted his stare from one man to the next, allowing each a small part of a sentence. “I’ve just left Dick up in a conference with Threadgill and Griffin. Dick is upset, very much upset.”
Nobody moved. Mose Kent leaned on an elbow and examined his fingernails. Cianchini did funny things to his lip. Jimmy Boomer stared at the ceiling, his eyes half closed.
Mark fingered a sheaf of papers on his lap. “I have here a list of news stories, clipped from Eastern papers since the first of the year. These items come from all sorts of media—newspapers, trade journals, gossip columns and fan magazines.” He shook the papers slowly. “These news stories are all bad publicity for the Piper Studios. They make public our innermost production problems. Where do you suppose they’re coming from?”
“From the story department, of course,” said Mose Kent to his fingernails. “Where else?”
“This isn’t funny, Mose!”
“Am I laughing?” Mose Kent raised his eyes and stared coldly at Mark.
“The studio has ways of discovering the source,” Mark went on. “As a matter of fact, we have a good idea about these leaks right now. We know, for instance, that story men would be familiar with such information. We know—”
He was interrupted by the entrance of Dick Piper. I knew him in a minute—he looked exactly like his press photos. Piper was tall and thin—the tallest and the thinnest man I’ve ever seen outside a sideshow. He moved jerkily, in the sort of stride a cowboy takes. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. He had the type of face that seemed to smile forever. A set grin curved, the corners of his lips. There seemed something almost adolescent about his expression, about the way he moved.
“Hello, fellows,” he said, and swept the room with his glance. He looked embarrassed, childish. When he saw Homer and me, he crossed to shake our hands. “You two are the new men. Hello, Homer. Hello, Hank. I’ve heard about you two. You met them, Mark?”
Mark said, “I’m sorry. You were sitting behind me. Glad to meet you, men.”
Dick sat down suddenly, and rubbed his nose. “How are we coming? Did you ask them, Mark?”
“I had just started when—”
“Never mind then, Mark. Never mind then, fellows. I think maybe we shouldn’t talk about stuff like that in a story conference. I have a better idea. How about us fellows getting together tonight, say about eight-thirty? We could have a meeting in sweatbox seven, over in the other building. Then maybe we can iron this thing out. Don’t you think, Mark?” Mark nodded.
Dick Piper’s face never lost its smile, but his eyes were clouded with worry. You couldn’t help but admire the sincerity in his voice. He was a kid baseball manager, pleading for cooperation. He changed the spirit of the men from silent surliness to smiling accord. “Now, all right, fellows. Let’s get on with the Benny picture, Louie. Suppose you tell me the story, eh, Louie?”
Cianchini began to tell the story, acting out the little pantomime pictures on the wall. In a twinkling he was transformed to Benny the Bear.
When Louie finished, he pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. Acting out Benny the Bear was a physical task. He turned to Dick anxiously.
Dick Piper played with his right ear. Finally he turned to Mark. “I don’t know, fellows. I don’t know. What do you think, Mark?”
“We did better with the same story in nineteen thirty-six,” said Mark. “I think this piece of business stinks. You swiped it from the old stuff, didn’t you, Louie?”
There was a long silence. “It’s not my story, Mark. I’m only the director. You’ll have to ask the boys that one.” Cianchini studied the floor. “Far as I know it’s all original, Mark.”
“Who did the gags?” Dick asked. “You fellows hadn’t ought to re-do old gags.”
The shock showed as a triple play of side-glances, De Cluny to Sugarfoot to Kent. Mose didn’t look up from his fingernails. “Whoever says those gags are swiped is a damn liar!” he said.
Mark Richmond jumped to his feet, but Dick held him away from Mose. “Now, fellows, let’s just take it easy. This isn’t the way we do things here. Sit down, Mark.”
“Let him come, Dick,” said Mose, rising, “I’ve got a little present for him.”
“Now, boys—now, boys,” said Dick, “there’s been a misunderstanding. Tell you what. Let’s show that old Benny picture tonight at the meeting. Then we’ll be able to tell who’s right. No sense getting riled, either of you. Trouble is, fellows, the shorts are slipping, slipping bad. You got to excuse Mark. He’s been worried as much as me. Bad enough the shorts slipping on us without the people outside hearing about it. We’ve got to stop the man who’s sending information out.” He mopped his brow. “We shouldn’t fuss like this with petty squabbles, fellows.”
“Never mind about the leak, Dick,” said Mark Richmond. “I’ve got a pretty good idea who’s sending out that stuff. He’ll be there tonight, unless he’s as yellow as I think he is!”
“You mean that, Mark?” Dick was suddenly excited. “Why don�
��t you tell me now?”
“Not now, Dick. I won’t be sure until tonight.”
“You’re right. Fine.” He got up. “Suppose some of you fellows take these story boards into sweatshop seven. Then we can really have a bang-up meeting. We’ll cover this Benny picture, too.” He paused before Homer and me on the way to the door. “I guess this session must have given you fellows a terrible picture of studio life. But it isn’t a true picture. Not at all. You’ll see a real meeting tonight, you two. I want you to be there.”
“We’ll be there, all right,” said Homer.
“Good. Fine. C’mon, Mark; you coming with me? No? Well, so long, fellows; I’ll see you later.”
All eyes followed Dick Piper through the door, then watched Mark Richmond rise slowly and follow. In the doorway he turned. “Sugarfoot, perhaps you’d better come with me for a while.”
Sugarfoot scampered out into the hall.
“Now what in the name of all that’s good does Mark want with Sugarfoot?” asked Jimmy Boomer. “Do you suppose old Sugarfoot knows—?”
“Sugarfoot knows nothing,” said Mose. “And Mark Richmond knows less than that. Didn’t you see how he stalled when Dick asked him the name of the culprit? Bet you anything he’s going out to frame some poor slob right now!”
Cianchini shook his head jerkily. “That ain’t the way I saw it, Mose. I think the guy knows something—something hot!”
“Don’t be a sucker, Louie! If anybody in the story department sent those dispatches East, we’d know it long before Mark would.”
“That is not likely to be true,” said De Cluny. “You forget that Mark has methods of obtaining this information. He has personnel, for instance.”
“Nuts to personnel!” shouted Boomer. “Mose is right. Do you think any one of us, dopes though we are, would squeal to a stoolie from personnel?”
“Not so fast, Jimmy,” Cianchini said. “You talk like you knew all the personnel pigeons. Matter of fact, how many do you know? Barton Noyes? Sure, we know him, and we know he’d rather cut off an arm than rat on any of his pals in the story department. But who else do you know?”
De Cluny said, “That is exactly the point which I am trying to make. So many of us—yes, we ourselves, have been in the coils of personnel.” He looked around the room with a small smile. “I have, have I not? Has not Sugarfoot? Indeed, yes. Sugarfoot served his third year as a clerk under Lloyd Griffin. What went on in that year, no one of us knows. Certainly there were new allegiances developed, no? And not so long ago even Louie here served his time.”
“That was two years ago,” said Louie, and squirmed in his chair. “You tryin’ to insinuate—”
“But no, Louie. It is only that I am explaining—”
Boomer smacked his fist into his palm. “Maybe De Cluny’s right, after all. Everybody in this unit but Mose and myself did time in the Gestapo. I’m not worried about Louie and De Cluny, chums. But Sugarfoot now, he’s another matter entirely. I wouldn’t trust that eel any further than I could throw Kate Hinds.”
Daisy rattled her stenotype. “All of you talk like little boys. Chatter, chatter, chatter. You make this studio sound like a den of thieves to these two new men.”
Jimmy Boomer bowed low to Homer and me. “I apologize. I prostrate myself. Never for a moment did I intend to give you the impression that Piperland was a den of thieves. Thieves do not exist here. Daisy is right. The Piper Studio is free of thieves. But all the other types of heels run rampant here.”
CHAPTER 5
Three Strikes on Lloyd
Barton Noyes guided us to our room.
“You are among the great brains,” he said. “This is the solitary ward, the lane of the lonely.”
Homer surveyed the oversized closet assigned us. “It lacks nothing but padding on the walls.”
“That can be arranged,” said Noyes. “Later.”
I said, “Are all the other holes this size?”
“Smaller. You men are fortunate. This is a large office. In this corner of Piperland the high voltage thinkers reside. In this wing you will discover that your neighbors are the master minds who plot the master plots, gag the master gags and sing the master tunes. Here you may relax, far from the nervous noises of the shorts department.”
“It smells dank,” I said, straining at a window.
“It should,” said Noyes. “This room has been empty for a long time. For five years our good friend P.D.Q. sweated over that drawing table in the corner, grinding out the animated antics of little Benny. But P.D.Q. left this den almost a year ago, to this day. For some mysterious reason his room has remained empty.”
Homer said, “Isn’t that rather odd, what with the general overcrowding in this place?”
“Odd is the word. Nobody has been able to understand it. It’s known, of course, that P.D.Q. still uses the room, usually after hours. Many’s the dark night I’ve passed this window to find a light lit and the little man bent over his drawing board. Perhaps it’s a whim of Dick’s. He can be awfully sentimental, you know.”
“I don’t know,” said Homer. “Can he?”
Noyes eyed us with a sly smile and moved toward the door. “Gentlemen, I leave you to your chores.”
Homer began a thorough examination of P.D.Q.’s desk.
I sank into a chair and felt the walls close in upon us. Small rooms play hob with my libido. I squirmed on my chair. I sighed a long sigh.
“The powder room,” said Homer, “is just down the hall.”
I said, “That’s an idea, chum; we might try working in there. Bet it’s bigger than this mouse nest!”
Homer had reached the bottom drawer on the left side of the desk. I watched him thumb through the mass of van-colored papers, memorandums and discarded animation sketches. He held up an aged yellow sheet. “Here’s an interesting bit of studio history, Hank. This looks like one of the original Benny the Bear formula drawings. It’s dated nineteen thirty-six.”
It was an interesting sketch. Benny the Bear, in nineteen thirty-six, was another breed of bruin. P.D.Q. had started his formula drawing on the foundation of a double circle. The upper circle formed the little bear’s torso. The lower and wider circle was the pattern for the fanny on one side, the belly on the other. And, of course, atop these two was the third circle for Benny’s head.
Before these simple formulae, Benny had been a makeshift bear, built from nothing solid, nothing permanent. That was why the little cub had jerked, in the beginning of his film career. P.D.Q., by a simple rationalization of the basic forms in the animal, had made him movable and endowed him with the character that was to capture the hearts of the great American movie audience.
Since nineteen thirty-six, Benny had changed often. Other animators, working from the P.D.Q. pattern, had added improvements to the formula. Benny became cuter, more human; more expressive. But underneath all this change I still saw the basic pattern that P.D.Q. had so skillfully designed.
“Damned shame,” I clucked, “dumping a genius like P.D.Q. into the stockroom. This sketch proves that he was the inspiration for Benny’s career. There must be something rotten among the higher-ups when a man like Quillan is thrown overboard.”
Homer chuckled. “It would seem so.” He picked up a walking stick that had leaned against P.D.Q.’s desk. “Poor Quillan, he must have been quite a man in this place at one time. Can you picture the little fellow strolling smartly along the studio walks, sporting a walking stick? He has a face full of boyish charm even now. I can’t imagine a chap like Quillan ever falling down on his job, can you?”
“I don’t know, Homer. From what the boys tell me about this business, a man has to keep on his toes all the time. Maybe P.D.Q. wasn’t really geared for progress.”
Homer was bent over the desk, fumbling beneath a mess of disordered papers in the lower left-hand drawer. He whistled and pulled out a
small pearl-handled automatic. “A dainty little arsenal, eh, Hank?”
I leaned over his shoulder. “So what? You know the guy is nuts about guns. He collects guns.”
“Loaded guns?”
I felt suddenly sorry for P.D.Q. “Why not?”
“Gun collectors don’t usually keep their collections loaded with shells, Hank. This little gat was filled with slugs for a reason. I’m pretty sure, too, that devotees of the rifle range don’t usually go in for pearl-handled revolvers.”
“So what?” I objected. “Maybe P.D.Q. is gun-nutty. He throws knives, too, doesn’t he?”
“Tsk!” said Homer, grinning and restoring the gun to its nest among the papers. “Let’s get out of here.”
In the hall, a few small bulbs fought a losing battle with the gloom. We turned sharp left and started down the narrow corridor which led to fresh air and, sunshine. A million maggots were gnawing at my brain and my claustrophobia was running the gamut from door to door. Halfway down the hall, the sound of hoarse laughter slowed us to a standstill. There was a black card on a glass door, and on the black card in white letters was the simple word: “Kate.” Homer entered without knocking.
Kate Hind’s office was large. There was a good-sized desk at the far end, set against a casement window. Katie herself made a gray silhouette against the light. She leaned back in her swivel chair and rested both legs on the desk top. Her chubby hand clutched a long glass aloft in a friendly salute.
“It’s the little fat man!” she laughed, raising the glass even higher. “Just in time, Homer! I’ve been beating my head against the wall. Don’t look so damnably smug, you little ape! What do you drink; Scotch, Scotch, or just plain Scotch?”
“Scotch,” said Homer. “Although Hank here prefers Scotch.”
“Ou-ooooo!” laughed Kate, and leaned her head against the window. “Ou-ooooo! You’re killing me!”
Then she laughed that way again. It was the weirdest expression of merriment I’ve ever heard. A coyote’s howl, combined with the crescendo yippee of a cowboy riding the range. She jerked her legs off the desk and swayed to her feet. There was a bottle of Scotch in her hand.
He Died Laughing Page 3
