…Simon Templar (“The Saint,” of course) will be in town today, and the glamor girls have a new feud on. But his first date is April Quest, whom he will squire to Giro’s tonight. They met in Yellowstone last summer…
“It’s wonderful,” said the Saint admiringly. “A whole new past opens behind me.”
“You’ll be crazy about her,” said Mr Ufferlitz. “Face like a dream. Chassis like those girls in Esquire. And intelligent! She’s been all through college and she reads books.”
“Does she remember Yellowstone too?”
For the first time, a slight cloud passed over Mr Ufferlitz’s open features.
“She’ll cooperate. She’s a real trouper. You gotta cooperate too. Hell, I’m paying you six G a week, ain’t I?”
“Are you?” said the Saint interestedly. “I don’t remember that we fixed it definitely. It might help if you told me what you wanted me to do.”
“All I want you to do,” said Ufferlitz expansively, “is be yourself.”
“There’s a catch in it,” said the Saint. “I do that most of the time for free.”
“Well, there’s a difference…”
The revelation of the difference had to wait while they gave their lunch order. Then Mr Ufferlitz put his elbows on the table and leaned forward.
“This is the greatest idea there’s ever been in pictures,” he stated modestly. “They’ve done plenty of movies about modern heroes—Edison—Rockne—Sergeant York—all the rest of ’em. But there’s always something phony about it to me. I can’t look at Spencer Tracy and think he’s Edison, because I know he’s Spencer Tracy. I can’t see Tyrone Power building the Panama Canal or the Pyramids or whatever it was. Now when the Duke of Windsor walked out of Buckingham Palace I had a great idea. Let him play himself in his own story. It was a natural. I wrote to Sam Goldwyn about it—I was in business in Chicago then—but he was too dumb to see it. Would ya believe that?”
“Amazing,” said the Saint.
“But this is even better,” said Mr Ufferlitz, cheering up. “You’re plenty hot yourself, right now, and some ways you got more on the ball. Everything you’ve done was on your own. And you can still do it. Sergeant York couldn’t play himself because he’s an old man now, but you’re just right. And are you photogenious? Hell, the fans’ll go nuts about you!”
Simon Templar took a long mouthful of Cleopatra.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Do I get the idea that this earth-shaking idea of yours is a scheme to make a movie star out of me?”
“Make a star?” echoed Mr Ufferlitz indignantly. “You are a star! All I want you to do is help me out with one picture. We’ll make it a sort of composite of your life, ending up with that Pellman business in Palm Springs. I got a coupla writers working on it already—they’ll have a first draft for me tomorrow. You’ll play yourself in your own biography. I had the idea all worked out for a fiction character—Orlando Flane was going to do it for me—but this is ten times hotter. We can easily fix up the story.”
His face was bright with the autogenous energy of its own enthusiasm. And then, as if a switch had been flipped over, the theatrical lighting was gone. The professional illumination which he had picked up somewhere in his career went away from him, and there was only the heavy-boned face that had kicked an independent union together and made it stick.
“Of course,” he said, “there are plenty of people who’d hate to see me make a hit with this idea. One or two of ’em would go a long ways to wreck it. That’s why I couldn’t try it with anyone but you. I guess you can take care of yourself. But if you’re scared, we can call it off and you won’t get hurt.”
2
She was everything that her voice had promised. Beyond that, she had golden-brown hair and gray eyes with a sense of humor. She looked as if she could take care of herself without hurting anyone else. She had a slim figure in a navy blue sweater that brought her out in the right places. She was taller than he had expected, incidentally. Long legs and neat ankles.
Simon said, “By the way, what’s your name?”
“Peggy Warden,” she told him. “What now?”
“While the attorneys haggle over my epoch-making contract, you’re supposed to introduce me to the writing talent.”
“The third door on the left down the passage,” she said. “Don’t let them get your goat.”
“My goat is in cold storage for the duration,” said the Saint. “See you later.”
He went to the third door down the passage and knocked on it. A voice like that of a hungry wolf bawled “Yeow?” The Saint accepted that as an invitation, and went in.
Two men sat around the single battered desk. Both of them had their feet on it. The desk looked as if it had learned to think nothing of that sort of treatment. The men had an air of proposing that the desk should like it, or else.
One of them was broad and stubby, with a down-turned mouth and hair turning gray. The other was taller and thinner, with gold-rimmed glasses and a face that looked freshly scrubbed, like the greeting of a Fuller Brush Man. They inspected the Saint critically while he closed the door behind him, and looked at each other as if their heads pivoted off the same master gear.
“I thought he’d have a machine-gun stuck down his pants leg,” said the gray-haired one.
“They didn’t put the chandelier back in time,” countered the Fuller Brush Man, “or he could swing on it. Or am I thinking of somebody else?”
“Excuse me,” said the Saint gravely. “I’m supposed to be taking an inventory of this circus. Are you the performing seals?”
They looked at each other again, grinned, and stood up to shake hands.
“I’m Vic Lazaroff,” said the gray-haired man. “This is Bob Kendricks. Consider yourself one of us. Sit down and make yourself unhappy.”
“How are you getting on with the epic?” Simon inquired.
“Your life story? Fine. Of course, we’ve had a lot of practice with it. It started off to be a costume piece about Dick Turpin. Then we had to make it fit a soldier of fortune in the International Brigade in Spain. That was when Orlando Flane was getting interested. Then we took it to South America when everyone was on the goodwill rampage. We worked in a lot of stuff that they threw out of one of the Thin Man pictures, too.”
“Were you ever befriended by a Chinese laundryman when you were a starving orphan in Limehouse?” Kendricks asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Simon confessed. “You see—”
“That’s too bad; because it ties in with a terrific routine where you’re flying for the Chinese Government and the Japs have captured one of the guerrilla chieftains and they’re going to have a ceremonial execution, and you find out that this chieftain is the guy who once saved your life with chop suey, and you set out for practically certain death to try and save him. Flane thought it was swell.”
“I think it’s swell too,” said the Saint soothingly. “I was only mentioning that it didn’t happen.”
“Look here,” said Lazaroff suspiciously, “are you trying to set us right about your life?”
“We’ve got to have some dramatic license,” explained Kendricks. “But we’ll do right by you. You’ll see. We’ll give you the best life story any guy ever had.”
“As Byron is always saying,” insisted Lazaroff, “you gotta cooperate. Aren’t you going to cooperate?”
Simon added his feet to the collection on the desk, and lighted a cigarette.
“Tell me more about the great Byron,” he said.
Lazaroff ruffled his untidy gray locks.
“What, his life story? He changes it every time he tells it. Actually he’s a retired racketeer. Well, not retired, but he’s changed his racket. Now his strong-arm men don’t walk in and say ‘How about buyin’ some protection, bud?’ They say, ‘How about lendin’ us your yacht for a coupla days for some location shots?’—in the same tone of voice.”
“Byron Ufferlitz is his real name, too,” supplied Kendricks
. “It’s on his police record.”
“It’s on our checks every Saturday,” said Lazaroff, “and the bank honors it. That’s all we have to worry about.”
“How do you get on with him?”
“I get on fine with anyone who gives me a check every Saturday. In this town, you have to, if you want to eat. He isn’t any more ignorant than a lot of other producers we’ve worked for who didn’t have police records. We rib him plenty, and he doesn’t get too sore. Just now and again he gets a look in his eye as if he’s just ready to say ‘Okay, wise guy, howja like to get taken for a ride?’ Then we lay off him for a bit. But we don’t have to steal anything more illegal than ideas, so what the hell? At that, I’d rather work with him than Jack Groom.”
“The trouble is,” said Kendricks, “we don’t have the choice. We have to work with both of ’em.”
“Who’s Jack Groom?” Simon asked.
“The genius who’s going to condescend to direct this epic. Art with a capital ‘F.’ You’ll meet him.”
Simon did, a little later.
Mr Groom was tall and thin and stoop-shouldered. He had pale hollow cheeks and lank black hair that fell forward to meet his thick black brows. He had a rich deep voice that never seemed as if it could be produced by such a sepulchral creature.
He inspected Simon with complete detachment, and said, “Could you grow a moustache in ten days?”
“I should think so,” said the Saint. “But what would I do with it? Is there a market for them?”
“You should have a moustache in this picture. And your hair should be slicked down more. It’ll give you a smoother appearance.”
“I used to slick it down once,” said the Saint, “but I got tired of it. And I never have worn a moustache, except in character.”
Mr Groom shook his head, and swept his forelock back with long tired fingers. It promptly fell down again.
“The Saint would wear a moustache,” he stated impregnably. “I’ve got a feeling about it.”
“You remember me?” said the Saint, with a slight floating sensation. “I’m the Saint.”
“Yes,” said Mr Groom patiently. “I visualise you with a moustache. Get one started right away, won’t you? Thanks.”
He waved a limp hand and drifted away, preoccupied with many responsibilities.
Eventually Simon found his way back to Byron Ufferlitz’s outer office, where Peggy Warden looked up from a clatter of typewriting with her fresh friendly smile.
“Well,” she said cheerfully, “did you meet everybody?”
“I don’t know,” said the Saint. “But if there are any more of them, I’ll wait till tomorrow. I don’t want to spoil the flavor by being gluttonous. The Wardrobe Department will probably want to check the cut of my jockstrap, and I expect the Prop Department will tell me what sort of gun I prefer.”
“We’ll find out about that as soon as we make the breakdowns.”
“That’s a cheering thought,” Simon murmured. “I’ll be the easiest breakdown you ever saw.”
“Is there anything I could do to make you happy?”
“Yes. Tell me what you’re doing tonight?”
“You’re forgetting. You’ve got a date.”
“Have I?”
“Miss Quest. You pick her up at her house at seven o’clock. Here’s the address.”
“What would Byron and I do without you?” Simon pocketed the typewritten slip. “Let’s go out and get a drink now, anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, laughing. “I punch a time clock. And Mr Ufferlitz mightn’t like it if I just walked out…You’ll come back, won’t you? Mr Ufferlitz wanted to see you again before you left. I think he wants to tell you how to act with Miss Quest. In case you can’t find out for yourself.”
“You know,” said the Saint, “I like you.”
“Don’t commit yourself until after tonight,” she said.
Byron Ufferlitz, of course, as he had carefully explained to the Saint, was too smart to have fallen for a salaried producer’s job at one of the major studios. What he had negotiated for himself was a major release—he did his own financing, and saved the terrific standard mark-up for “overhead” of ordinary studio production. He had his offices and rented facilities at Liberty Studios, a new outfit on Beverly Boulevard which catered to independent producers. Opposite the entrance there was a cocktail lounge whimsically named The Front Office, which would unmistakably have suffered a major depression if a hole had opened across the street and Liberty Studios had dropped in. But ephemeral as its position may have been in the economic system, it fulfilled the Saint’s immediate requisites of supply and demand, and he settled himself appreciatively on a chrome-legged stool and relaxed into the glass-panelled décor without any active revulsion.
He had a little difficulty in getting service, because the lone bartender, who looked like a retired stunt man and was actually exactly that, was having a little dialogue trouble with the only other customer at that intermediate hour, who had obviously been a customer with more enthusiasm than discretion.
“He can’t do that to me,” declared the customer, propping his head in his hands and staring glassy-eyed between his fingers.
“Of course not,” said the bartender. “Take it easy.”
“You know what he said to me, Charlie?”
“No. What did he say to you?”
“He said, ‘You stink!’ ”
“He did?”
“Yeah.”
“Take it easy.”
“You know what I’m gonna do, Charlie?”
“What you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna tell that son of a bitch where he gets off.”
“Take it easy, now.”
“He can’t do that to me.”
“Of course not.”
“I’m gonna tell him right now.”
“Now take it easy. It’s not that bad.”
“I’ll kill the son of a bitch before he can get away with that.”
“Why don’t you go out and get something to eat first? You’ll feel better.”
“I’ll show him where he gets off.”
“Take it easy.”
“I’m gonna show him right now.” The customer lurched up, staggered, found his balance, and said, “Goo’bye.”
“Goodbye,” said the bartender. “Take it easy.”
The customer navigated with careful determination to the door, and vanished—an almost ridiculously good-looking young man, with features so superficially perfect that he could easily have stepped straight out of a collar advertisement if he had been a little less dishevelled.
“Yes, sir?” said the bartender, facing the Saint with the combination of complete aplomb, extravagant apology, comradely amusement, genial discretion, and sophisticated deprecation which is the heritage of all good bartenders.
“A double Peter Dawson and plain water,” said the Saint. “Is there something about the air around here which drives people to drink?”
“It’s too bad about him,” said the bartender tolerantly, pouring meanwhile. “When he’s sober, he’s as nice a fellow as you could meet. Just like you’d think he would be from his pictures.”
A vague identification in the Saint’s mind suddenly came into surprising focus.
“I get it,” he said. “Of course. Orlando Flane—the heartthrob of the Hemisphere.”
“Yeah. He really is a nice guy. Only when he’s had a few drinks you gotta humor him.”
“Next time,” said the Saint, “you should ask him about the Chinese laundryman.”
It took no little ingenuity to frustrate the bartender’s professional curiosity about that unguarded remark, but it was as entertaining a way of passing the time as any other, and the Saint felt almost human again when he turned back to the white walls of Liberty Studios.
He had no lasting interest in Orlando Flane as a person at all, and might have forgotten him again altogether if they had not been literally thrown together so very sho
rtly afterwards.
That is, to be excruciatingly specific, Orlando Flane was thrown. Or appeared to be. At any rate, he seemed to be nearing the end of a definite trajectory when Simon opened the outer door of Mr Ufferlitz’s office and almost tripped over him. Only because he was prepared by a lifetime of lightning reactions, Simon adapted himself resiliently to the shock and scooped the actor up with one sinewy arm.
“Is there a lot of fun like this around here?” he inquired pleasantly, looking at Peggy Warden, who was getting up rather suddenly from her typewriter.
Then he saw that Mr Ufferlitz himself was standing in the communicating doorway to his private office, and realised exactly what certain remarks of the cynical Lazaroff were intended to convey, and why out of his own experienced judgement he had sensed long ago that Mr Ufferlitz was not merely a farcical stock character.
“Get out of here,” Byron Ufferlitz was saying coldly. “And stay out, you drunken bum.”
Orlando Flane might have gone back to the floor a second time, if the Saint had not been interestedly holding him up. He reeled inside the supporting semicircle of the Saint’s arm, and wiped the back of his hand across his bruised lips. But he had sobered surprisingly, and there was no more alcoholic slur in his syllables than there was in the savage set of his dark long-lashed eyes as he looked back across the room.
“All right, you bastard,” he said distinctly. “You can throw me out now because I’m drunk. But I can remember just as far back as you can. I’ve got plenty of things to settle with you, and when I fix you up you’re going to stay fixed!”
3
The colored butler showed Simon into April Quest’s living-room, and brought him a Martini. It was a comfortable room, modern in style, but it had the untouched impersonal feeling of an interior decorator’s exhibit. Everything in it looked very new and overwhelmingly harmonious. But the chairs were large and relaxing, the sort of chairs that a man likes, and at least there were no sham-period gewgaws or laboriously exotic touches.
Simon lighted a cigarette and amused himself with some magazines which he found on a shelf under the table by the couch. Some of them were fan magazines, and one of them had her picture on the cover. He remembered now that it had caught his eye on a newsstand not long ago. Naturally it was a beautiful face, since that was part of her profession, framed in softly waved auburn hair, with a small nose and high cheekbones and large expressive eyes. But he had noticed her mouth, which was generous and yet sultry, laughing and yet wilful, as if she could be passionate in her selfishness but never cold or unkind…Then he looked up, and she was standing in front of him.
The Saint Goes West (The Saint Series) Page 17
